Along Came Bill: Another Murder in Warrensburg

By Wayne Hancock

"The year is 1939 and the Great Depression still plagues the
small, Midwestern, college town of Warrensburg. A young coeds
body is found in a lake, on the edge of town, by two young
lads fi shing for perch. Buck Pettit, Police Chief, is notifi ed, and
a search to fi nd the killer is launched. He gathers the same group
of friends together who had helped him find the killer of a school
teacher just three years before.
They are; Harry Foster - Johnson County Sheriff. Ann
Pettit - Bucks beautiful, charming and intelligent wife.
Rudolph Eisenstein - an elderly, but brilliant, lawyer. Elizabeth
Breckenridge -a widow, Beth, as she is known to her friends, is
the principal stockholder and president of he Breckenridge State
Bank. Like Ann Pettit, Beth, as she is known by her friends, is
a very beautiful, intelligent and charming woman. She is also a
crack shot with the small .25 caliber hand-gun she carries in her
purse, as Buck fi nds out at a critical moment in the investigation.
The last two members of the investigation team are Irv Hodges
and Will Cox, two precocious 13 year old lads who became friends
when Will, or Bill as Irv was want to call him, moved to town
with his parents in the summer of 1938. Buck had picked Irv to
help because he had been instrumental in catching and convicting
the murderer of Margaret Wilson, just three years prior, and at the
insistence of Irv had allowed Will (Bill) to come along.
Along Came Bill, is a fast moving thriller that will keep you
wanting more. It is a sequel to Gotcha! and most of the same
characters help out in solving the murder of Shirley McBride."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453598030

Wayne Hancock

A Navy veteran of WWII Hancock currently lives in Arkansas with his wife of 60 years. He spent 40 years with J.C. Penny Co. managing stores in Missouri and Arkansas, then spent the next 20 years operating a commercial real estate consulting firm out of his home. All his life he wanted to write novels so in January of 2005 he sat down at his computer and wrote Gotcha!, his first mystery story. He published it at age 80. It was a success, so it was quickly followed by The Unlikely Predator and 30 Days In May. Up On Crowley’s Ridge is his fourth exciting murder mystery.

Book preview

Chapter 1

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November, 1937

THE HODGES FAMILY HAD MOVED to the country. Not far, just two miles from the city limits. The farm was on the rock road that led southwest from Warrensburg, Missouri to the small, bucolic town of Holden, just 15 miles away. The reason for the move? . . . To get some breathing room, according to Katie, the matriarch of the clan.

Katie hated to move in the middle of a school year, but when Nathan came home that evening in October and told her that the old Johnson place was for rent, she jumped at it. They had lived in that little four room house on Lobban St. for seven years and Katie wanted out. Besides, the entire previous year had been a nightmare in that neighborhood what with the Klan cruising through at odd hours, spying on Aunt Belle while her grandson was on trial for the murder of Miss Wilson.

Of her five children, Katie was most concerned about her youngest son Irvin, whom she had named after her brother Irvin A. Nichols, a first sergeant in the U.S. Army and now serving in China. Irv, as everyone except his family called him, was just eleven and in the middle of the sixth grade at Reese School. He would now have to walk over three miles to school instead of the three blocks from their old address on Lobban Street.

The good part was that Irvin wouldn’t have to deal with the curiosity seekers now. They had been constantly walking or driving by the house looking for the kid who had helped bring the notorious killer of Margaret Wilson to justice. Ever since the trial last year, Irv Hodges had been sort of a celebrity around town.

However, Katie underestimated her youngest son. Irv liked his new farm environment. He loved to hunt rabbits and squirrels and they were abundant on the forty acres that went with the house and barn. His oldest brother Charles had given him an old 410 shotgun when Charles and another brother Louis (the two eldest of Katie’s children, now aged 23 and 26) had gone to Indiana to work for their Uncle in his trucking company.

Irv had saved a little money from caddying golf and carrying papers during the summer to buy shotgun shells so he considered himself fortunate. His only regret was that he missed seeing the friends that he used to run with every day. He would still see Johnny and Robert and Elsie Jean every day at school, but he got lonesome for them on the week-ends.

—

Things changed the following August when Irv enrolled in the seventh grade and started attending school in the Warrensburg High School building where grades seven through twelve were housed.

He had supposed that he would not only get to see all of his old friends from Reese School, but that he would have a chance to make new ones from the three other elementary schools in town. On the first day of school, when the final bell rang at 3:30 that afternoon, Irv walked out the front door of the high school building and looked up and down Maguire Street. He was surprised at how quickly the students had scattered to their own part of town. The atmosphere was entirely different from what he had expected. He stood there feeling like a stranger.

Suddenly, he was startled by a voice from behind. Hi, my name’s Will, what’s yours? the voice asked. Irv turned and was confronted by another twelve-year-old with an impish grin on his face. He was a gregarious lad, perhaps an inch shorter than Irv, with brown wavy hair and friendly eyes.

Irvin Hodges, Irv replied. And although he was sure they had never met before, he felt strangely at ease with the boy. You got a last name? he asked.

Cox was the reply, I’m Will Cox. He offered his hand.

Irv grinned as he grasped Will’s hand Good to meet you Mr. Wilcox, what’s your first name?

It’s Will, you dummy, I just told you. Will was one of those people with the happy faculty of being able to insult people with a grin and not offend them.

Irv took no offense. Instead, he gave as good as he got. Well, I’m glad to meet you Mr. Will Wilcox, he said.

Me too, Mr. Dummy, Will said, completely unabashed, mind if I just call you Irv?

Not at all, was the reply. Thus began a friendship and adventure that would last the rest of their lives.

Let’s go sit under the bridge and talk, Irv suggested, motioning toward the structure on Maguire Street that carried traffic over the Missouri Pacific Railroad tracks. The High School building sat on a small hill. To accommodate that fact and to provide for traffic on Maguire Street, which was also State Highway 13, the railroad company had made a cut through the hill and built a bridge over it. They also built a six foot wooden fence along the north side of the school property to keep rambunctious children from tumbling down onto the tracks.

It was cooler under the bridge and the two adventurers sat on the shoulder that supported the south end of the span and got acquainted.

Where do you live? Will asked.

Out south of town, where do you live? Irv replied.

Just about three blocks from here on east Market Street. How come you live in the country?

—

They talked until almost five o’clock. Irv told his new friend all about what had happened when he had lived on Lobban Street. How he had helped convict a murderer who had killed a teacher in the very school where he had gone for six years. One of the suspects was a colored boy whose grandmother had lived right behind them on Warren Street. He told how the Ku Klux Klan had threatened to kill the colored boy and how they used to prowl his neighborhood at night. He told about how, even after the murderer had been brought to justice, his mother had been so afraid the Klan would come back, that they had moved to a small farm southwest of town.

That’s nothing, Will bragged, let me tell you where I’ve lived before coming to this little burg. There was no question about it, Will was a braggart, but Irv was impressed by his tale. It seems that he had lived in Michigan, then moved to Sedalia and Kansas City, Missouri, and finally to Warrensburg. His father was a cable splicer for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company and his job had brought them to Warrensburg. He had a sister, Jean, who was two years younger than him.

The courthouse clock struck 5:00 and Irv jumped up, I’ve got to go now, he said, starting down the embankment to the tracks.

Why are you going that way? Will asked.

I have to go by the butcher shop on Pine Street and pick up a box of bones. They close at 5:30.

Bones? Will asked, What are you going to do with bones?

Feed them to my dog, Irv said over his shoulder as he headed down the tracks toward the central business district.

He walked to the butcher shop on Pine Street and picked up the box of bones and meat scraps that the butcher had saved for him. The Hodges family had inherited a three year old German Shepherd dog from the previous tenants when they moved to the farm, and Irv had adopted him as his own.

He had named him Buck, after the town’s Police Chief, whom he admired, and he promised himself that Buck would never go hungry, even though the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. There was no money for dog food and few table scraps, so Irv had asked the butcher at the little shop on Pine Street to save the bones and meat scraps left over from breaking down sides of beef for him. Every afternoon after school, he would go by and pick up a box of bones and scraps, and every afternoon when he got home, Buck would be waiting by the mailbox for him, tail wagging.

Chapter 2

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AS THE FALL OF 1938 progressed, so did the friendship of Will and Irv. Will was a bit flighty and half the time he couldn’t remember Irv’s name. Sometimes he was called Irv, sometimes he was called Irvin and sometimes he was just Hodges. To get even, and at Will’s displeasure, Irv would sometimes call him William, Bill or Wilcox.

On weekends, Irv would take Will fishing at Pertle Springs. It was a group of small, spring—fed lakes near the farm where he lived. The lakes were privately owned, but the owners didn’t seem to mind people fishing for the numerous blue gill perch that populated them. At the turn of the century, Pertle Springs had been a well known spa. It had once boasted a large hotel with a band stand and a private swimming pool, but by 1938 the hotel was gone and the lakes were used mainly to supply water for the town of Warrensburg. It was also a hangout for the students at Central Missouri State College, which was also near the lakes.

Christmas of 1938 brought a small rift in the friendship of Will and Irv. Will’s dad had a good paying job (for that era) with Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. The pay was steady and dependable and his Christmas bonus had been used to buy nice presents for Will and his sister, Jean.

Will’s Christmas present was a brand new, top of the line, Schwinn bicycle. It had a streamlined tank that held batteries for the light and horn. It had mud flaps on the fenders, rear view mirrors, one on each handlebar, a chain guard and a kick stand. It was navy blue with red trim, a beautiful sight for a twelve-year-old to behold.

In contrast, the Hodges family was struggling to get by on the meager pay that Nate got as a paint foreman for the WPA, a Federal Government make-work program. The job was a joint project between the Federal Government and the State of Missouri to build a new state park at the small town of Knobnoster, 10 miles east of Warrensburg. There was not much money for Christmas that year.

Irv’s Christmas presents were three pairs of socks from his mom and dad and a pocket knife sent to him by his oldest brother, Charlie, from Indiana. His 15 year old brother, LeRoy, fared about the same. Irv wasn’t disappointed or bitter. He knew that times were tough, but he also knew that his parents loved him dearly and would do more if they could. There would be better times down the road, Irv was convinced of that.

The rift occurred when school started again after the Christmas Holiday. On the first day of school in January of the new year, 1939, Irv and Will had just walked out the front door of the school building. It was a beautiful winter day, with the sun shining and the temperature in the 50s.

Wait here, Will said. He didn’t say, Come home with me, I want to show you something. After all, he just lived four blocks away. It was just wait here.

Irv stood in front of the school and watched Will run off in the direction of his house. He soon saw what the mystery was about. In just a few minutes, as Irv looked up Maguire Street toward Market, Will came around the corner of Market riding a brand new bicycle. Not just any bicycle, but a top-of-the-line Schwinn. He rode up on the sidewalk and slid to a stop right in front of Irv.

What do you think of this? Will said, running his hand along the shiny tank. Irv jumped when he pushed the horn button.

It wasn’t so much the fact that Will had a brand new Schwinn bike, what boy wouldn’t have been proud of that, but it was the condescending way he said What do you think of this.

Why didn’t you ride it to school this morning? Irv asked, pointing to the bicycle rack next to the side walk. You could have parked it right there.

Because I didn’t want you guys getting your grimy fingerprints all over, I just washed it.

That did it for Irv. He had started to ask Will if could ride it around the block, or if Will could ride him down to the butcher shop on the sturdy package rack attached to the rear fender, but instead he said, It’s a very nice bike. He turned and headed for the bridge and the path that led to the tracks below.

Come back here, I want to show you what I can do on it, Will shouted after him, but Irv ignored him and disappeared under the bridge. That’s gratitude for you: I went out of my way to show him my new bike and he gets mad, Will said to himself.

—

Irv pouted all the way to the butcher shop, and when the butcher noticed that he was down, he threw a bone into the box that still had quite a bit of meat on it. See what Buck thinks of that, he said."

Irv smiled and picked up the box, Thanks, he said with a grin. By the time he got home with the box of bones, Irv was in a better mood, and he had decided two things.

First, he would salvage the bone with the meat on it from the box and give it to his mother to make soup. She would add some potatoes, onions, and carrots from the garden and make a big delicious pot of soup that would feed her family for two days.

Second, he would buy himself a bicycle, and he had already figured out how. A young man, in his early twenties, who lived with his family in a house situated where South Street dead—ended at Main, had been after Irv to carry papers for him. He was the local carrier for two St. Louis morning papers, the Post Dispatch and the Globe Democrat. He had paid his own way through CMSC with this arrangement and had made such good grades that he had been awarded a scholarship by the college to get his Masters Degree. He no longer needed the income from the paper route to pay his tuition, but he wasn’t quite ready to give it up.

Two days after Irv’s little rift with Will over the bicycle, he picked Irv up as he was trudging up Washington Street with his box of bones and took him as far as his house, which had saved Irv a lot of steps. Once again, he offered Irv a job carrying papers for him and said they would split the money. It meant getting up at 5:00 every morning and meeting the 5:30 train from St. Louis. It would take him about an hour on a bicycle to deliver the papers and he would be home in time to change clothes, eat a bite and be at school by 8:15 when the final bell rang. Irv accepted his offer.

For the first two weeks, the young man took Irv around the paper route in his car to get him acquainted with his customers and paid him $1.00 a week for his training. After that he was on his own and would get $2.00 a week.

This arrangement worked so well that when a young man from Irv’s church, who had just graduated from CMSC in December, offered Irv his used Western Flyer bicycle for $12.00, he bought it. The young man had just enlisted in the Army Air Corps and couldn’t take it with him. The arrangement was $2.00 down and $1.00 a week for the next ten weeks.

It was a plain bicycle, pale blue with white stripes. All the extras it had were fenders and a chain guard. Irv would fold the papers at the train depot, put them in his bag and drape it over the front handle bars. That way, he could throw the papers from the bicycle and finish in an hour.

Later, he bought a chrome plated basket that fastened to the front axle and anchored to the handle bars. This allowed him to fold papers and throw them on the run. It helped him finish the route in 45 minutes, a big boost for Irv’s busy schedule.

Chapter 3

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IRV’S LITTLE SNIT WITH WILL over the bicycle lasted until February. By then, Irv was riding his own bicycle and Will’s shiny new Schwinn didn’t raise as many eyebrows as he thought it would. He was even riding it to school. He did chide Irv some about his cheap old bike from the Western Auto Store.

When Kenneth Richards, eldest son of the Richards Furniture Store owner, started riding his new Schwinn to school, Irv got even. It was exactly like Will’s and when they would pass Richard on the street riding his bike, Irv would say, Look, Bill, there’s another bike just like yours. They must be pretty common; I see them all over town. At that remark, Will would speed up and try to outrun Irv, but he never could.

By the end of the 1939 school year, they were back fishing together at Pertle Springs.

Monday, May 29, dawned clear and cool. Irv had completed his paper route and had just finished off a big bowl of oatmeal and toasted home-baked bread slathered with some of Katie’s home canned raspberry jam.

The Hodges house was two stories with the kitchen on the ground floor. Irv walked out of the kitchen door onto the big concrete patio that ran the width of the house. The temperature was a delightful 68 degrees and Irv was feeling good. Buck came up from the hog lot where he had been chasing the small flock of domestic geese that belonged to Hodges.

They had been acquired by Nate Hodges to use as watch geese. He claimed they were better than dogs to alert the family when anyone came near the house and, indeed, they were. When anyone turned in their lane from the road, the geese would run down the hill honking and hissing at the top of their lungs. Katie liked them because they gave her a sense of security that the dog didn’t.

The geese had usurped Buck’s natural authority as official watch dog so he hated them. There were only five of them, four geese and one gander, and Buck was constantly chasing them away from the house.

Buck jumped the fence from the hog lot and ran over to Irv. He started to lick Irv’s hand when the geese started their clamor again. Buck growled and started down the lane that led to the road. Irv walked over to the lane and peered after him. Will was coming up the lane, which at this point was a steep hill leading up from the creek that ran along the foot of it. He was pushing his bike.

Call your dog off, Hodges, he yelled, he’s gonna bite me.

Here, Buck, Irv yelled. Buck turned abruptly and came back to him, his tail between his legs, thinking he was being scolded. Irv patted his head, That’s okay, old boy, I’ll let you bite him the next time, he said.

Whatcha gonna do today? Bill asked. He pushed his bike up next to Irv and stood there panting from the climb up the hill.

I don’t know, I thought I might go fishing, Irv said.

Good! I’ll go with you, Will said as he pushed his bike up on the patio and put his kick stand down.

I’ll go get my fishing stuff, Irv said as he disappeared through the kitchen door.

Will followed Irv to the barn where he got a spade and an empty coffee can that he kept for just such a purpose. They went into the garden, where the ground was soft, to dig for worms. They had to go in through a gate because the garden was fenced in to keep the rabbits, groundhogs, and other varmints out. In a short time they had all the worms they needed. Irv threw some of the moist dirt in on top of them and put the perforated lid back on the can.

Where is your rod? Will asked.

Us Hillbillies out here in the country don’t use rods, we use poles, Irv said, a note of sarcasm in his voice.

Okay, smarty, where’s your pole? Will asked.

Right here, Irv said. He took his pocket knife and showed it to Will.

—

Will left his bike at the Hodges house and the boys cut through the back way to Pertle Springs. When they got to their fishing spot, Irv slid the lid off of the wooden box he carried. It was about 2 ½ inches square, 8 inches long and had once contained Kraft Velveeta cheese. He took out some fishing line, two hooks, two cork bobbers, and two lead sinkers. With Will’s help, he selected two willow limbs, cut them off and trimmed them with his pocket knife.

They each rigged a line, tied it to one of the limbs, and baited their hooks with worms. In no time, they were fishing for blue gill perch. They had walked up on one of the levees, which separated two lakes, to fish. The levee was about six feet wide and lined on both sides with cat tails and willow trees. It was a great place to fish.

I got one, Will shouted, as he raised his pole up to tighten the line. It must be a big one! he yelled.

Irv looked over at Will. His limber pole was almost bent double. Don’t pull so hard or you’ll break the line, he yelled. It must be a turtle, they get pretty big.

If it’s a turtle, it’s wearing a plaid skirt! Will said, gritting his teeth.

Irv quickly pulled his line in and laid it on the bank. He ran over to Will and stared at the water. Will’s hook was caught in the hem of a blue and red plaid skirt. Irv’s legs started getting weak. His mind flashed back almost three years to the day when he had seen a woman’s leg sticking out from among some empty tin cans at the city dump. Let’s see if we can pull it closer to the bank, he finally managed to say.

The boys tugged on the line, being careful not to break it, until they got the skirt almost to the shore. Then it hit them. There was a body inside the skirt. They could see her legs just under the murky water. Irv turned pale as a ghost, Good Lord, he murmured, it’s another dead body.

"What do you mean another dead body? Where’s the other one?" Will asked. He had forgotten what Irv had told him about the body in the city dump when they first met

Irv shook his head, Never mind, that was three years ago, he said. He was beginning to get some of his composure back. He took out his pocket knife, cut the line from the pole and tied it around a willow tree. That’ll hold it until we can get some help, he said.

Yeah, you stay here and I’ll go get some help, Will said. He got up and started down the levee toward the road.

Wait, Irv yelled after him, I’d better go for help and you stay with the body. I know Chief Pettit and he trusts me. They may not believe you, and it could take longer. I’d better go.

No way am I gonna stay here with a dead body while you go wandering off, Will shouted, as he kept going.

Irv sat back down and resigned himself to at least a twenty minute wait.

Chapter 4

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WILL RAN BACK TO IRV’S house and retrieved his bike. Katie ran out of the kitchen door when she heard him raise the kick stand, but he was halfway down the hill by the time she got to the edge of the patio. She liked Will. He was always so polite to her. I hope they didn’t get into a fight, she said under her breath.

Will pedaled his bike to town as fast as he could and rode straight to the police station on the court house square. He stood his bike against the front of the building, not bothering to put the kick stand down, and went in through the screen door. Darlene looked up when she heard the door slam. Darlene was the receptionist, secretary and daytime dispatcher. Every small town police station had a Darlene, except Warrensburg’s Darlene was a full fledged police officer and could carry a gun and badge if she so desired.

Will stood there in front of her panting and out of breath. What can I do for you young man, she asked.

I went fishing and caught a skirt, I mean a body," Will blurted.

Irv was right. Darlene didn’t believe Will at first. When she finally deciphered what he was trying to tell her, she went back to Chief Pettit’s office and told him.

At 44, Buck Pettit’s appearance belied his age. There were no grey strands in his black curly hair and very few wrinkles in his face. Although only 5'11" he had an athletic build and had been a star basketball player in