Rural Murder: Another Illinois Love Story

By Paul Schoaff

Murder on a remote farm in Schuyler Co., IL will challenge the ability of the new Sheriff to solve it. He asks two colleagues, the Sheriff's of neighboring counties, to help him investigate and to bring the murderer to justice. Characters from previous numbers of this series, such as Martha Jo (now a lawyer's investigator) and Eddie Hawkins, Sheriff Thompson from Lewistown, former Judge Lucius Knowles, and some members of the local underworld soon become part of the story. New characters include venerated doctor Dohner, who makes house calls and charges $5 for any office visit and who serves as the County Coroner, help move the story along.

The three sheriffs focus their efforts on a number of possible killers. The victim's husband, her employer (a local Gentleman's Club manager), her neighbor, and even one of the Sheriff's deputies. Odd clues and contradictory stories make trying to exclude suspects nearly impossible. The whole matter is complicated by the fact that one of the suspects is convinced that another one is guilty and he sets out to take personal revenge, an impulse putting many other people in harm's way.

Knowles uses his contacts from the past to enlist help from a Chicago office of a Federal Agency. An undercover agent, ' Dorothy T. from Tennessee', gets a pole and lap dancing job at the Gent's Club and gathers valuable information. Martha Jo button holes dozens of truck drivers in the Club parking lot to try to get leads. Eddie uses his technical skills to help detail the activities of those in the Club who might be running drugs and women from St. Louis.

Finally, the killer is revealed, and taking hostages, the killer fleas back into the Devil's Ridge area of the county, hoping to outrun the packs of lawmen hunting for them.

As usual in my stories, some live, some die, and all play their parts in the continuing drama of Forgottonia, the native's name for Western Illinois.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Schoaff
• Release date: Apr 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463929445

Paul Schoaff

Thank you for the unexpected amount of success my books have attained...I thought people would read them, but the degree of acceptance is gratifying.I write from an island of clay in the sandpine country of North Carolina. I woke from a dream one night with the story of Twin Beeches fighting to get out of my fingers and into the computer screen. Rural Justice, the fight against the deprivations of strip mining, is based on the experience of many people who found their lives uprooted by the monstrous shovels, trucks and loaders needed to fuel our ever expanding electrical appetite. Rural Murder contrasts the traditional values and practices of former days against the inroads of more liberal activities.... Martha jo and her extended family are the consistent protaginal threads.My memories of all those people and institutions of my youth who made up the matrix of rich and poor, young and old, ambitious and idle, pious and hell-raising....all are used to create startlingly true to life characters.Adding my imagination, I created stories worthy of the players, ones I hope will leave you moved and wanting to know if there is still a quiet town named Woodland you can visit, sit in the park and try to beat the world's best checker players, or try your hand at finding the spot where Fay Rawley and his Cadillac are truly hidden.May you, too, be blessed with a background to which you can hearken back when you need to think how far we have come, and whether we've really made progress.Your comments, positive or not, are appreciated.

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RURAL MURDER

Another ILLINOIS LOVE STORY

BY: PAUL SCHOAFF

2020

A Touch of Rural Murder

Fulton County Sheriff Marshall Thompson from Lewistown,back in Fulton County, anxious to get where he was needed, had been lost since he crossed US24 and headed into the headwaters of Sugar Creek. The address given wasn't registering on his GPS, and the hasty instructions from Fred Scripps, the Schuyler Sheriff, didn't seem to match what he was seeing. He eased along a twisty gravel road along a creek, checking his cell phone every minute or two, hoping for a signal. He knew the general area he needed to get to, so he kept on, trusting to luck.

He consoled himself two county lawmen were already on the scene, and no one else was in danger of being killed, yet, so if it took him an extra 10 minutes to figure out which cowpath to take, not much would really change. Scripps had called him after he found the scene and had immediately requested assistance from Thompson, the most experience lawman in Western Illinois, a place many called Forgottonia. Just as he rounded the next blind turn, he almost ran head on into Wayne Pollitt, the McDonough Sheriff who worked out of McComb and who lived in Bushnell. Both Pollitt and Scripps were relative newcomers to their jobs, but both had military backgrounds and at least 10 years as a county cop before winning the election to fill their predecessor's boots and flat brimmed hats.

The men stopped, the spotlights of the cruisers practically touching, and waited for the other to speak. Neither wanted to admit they were lost. Do you know where you are going?, Pollitt finally spoke.

Nope, haven't got a friggin' clue, admitted Thompson.

I think we're in Schuyler, but I could be wrong. My GPS doesn’t know where the address is....., said the younger man.

Maybe....my GPS doesn’t even show some of the roads I’ve been on...but I thought I might still be in McDonough. I know I'm not in Fulton. I know the roads there. I guess we’re in Schuyler, we can’t be too far away..., said Thompson.

Well, I'll call Freddy and ask him if he can figure it out.. Sheriff Fred Scripps, he meant.

Thompson waited a few moments while Pollitt tried to use his phone....Wayne, we are too far from the tower for the phones...we could try the radio, but even if we get through, they can’t give us directions….. Let's both get going the same way, at least, and try to get to the top of one of these hills where we can see a landmark or raise a signal. If nothing else, if we keep heading west, we’ll hit 67.

The two men worked their way down the road, then up a hill, and, a miracle happened. There, across the little valley, was the hired man's house at the end of the farm road where three vehicles with flashing lights were marking the spot where Jean Petty's life had ended. Scripps, Pollitt and Thompson were about to try to figure out when, who did it, and why.

The only thing they thought they knew for sure was Jesse J. Petty, Jean's husband and father of her two children, didn't do it. Jesse J. was in the Rushville jail for the third time on a drug related charge and didn't know, yet, his wife was dead.

The two sheriff's carefully ran their cars up the road, down the hill, across a rickety bridge with one railing, and into the crowded yard, parking away from the rest so as not to block anyone in. Any idea of looking for tire tracks was long made impossible. Thompson hoped the scene inside the house wasn't so disturbed.

Rural Murder, Chapter Two

Scripps, Thompson and Pollitt first met at a workshop and symposium for Illinois country sheriffs held every two years in Springfield. Several experienced men from metropolitan counties were recruited each time to help the guy they hired who went all over the country teaching 'County Mounties' how to do their jobs better, smarter, more efficiently. Marshall had been to 8 such sessions, and had been asked, the last two times, to help with the presentations and to lead discussions about procedures, the ones where everyone says how they do something and you then try to say why your way is better, or learn a few tricks yourself. Pollitt and Scripps, Thompson recalled, were sharp and focused in those informal talks. No wonder, I guess, Thompson said to himself, no wonder Scripps called on me to help. The driveway up to the old house was not heavily used. Thompson looked for anything out of place as he walked. Something discarded, perhaps. The driveway seemed to be used by only one or two small vehicles, cars, of course. The grass grew up in the middle and was tall enough to catch some oil or dirt from under a car. He didn’t notice anything unusual.

Of course, at each session, one of the least useful (for most and most useful for some) topics was Murder Investigation, generally held the last morning of the three day conference. What everyone knew was lawmen with big cities in their counties would not only have more murders, they would also have an urban police department to do most of the work. Rural counties generally saw fewer than one such case every year. Some sheriffs did not even recall the last murder in what had become their jurisdiction.

But, everyone knew, sooner or later, there would be a dead body come your way with no rational answer to the question of natural causes , or self-inflicted gunshot, or …. In other words, a murder.

Thompson’s county was more populous than Pollitt’s, and Pollitt had more people than Scripps. Thompson had six murders in nine years on the job. Pollitt, two in four years, and this was Scripp’s first in his 2 plus years.

Thinking back to the State sponsored sessions, and his own experience, Thompson knew the most likely murderer of a woman in her own home was the woman’s husband. A home invasion murder sometimes happened, and a dispute with a neighbor might overflow, but the husband had to be examined right away. In this case, the husband was locked away.

The least likely person to be the murderer? A sociopath. A random killing of opportunity. Yes, it happened, and if you were on the lookout for someone killing people in your area, a serial killer, then it might be the first thing you suspected. Frankly, though, it was much less likely than the ordinary domestic violence reason for murder. In his 17 years, maintaining an interest in crimes all over the state and, even, in neighboring states, he only knew of one case where it was almost surely the result of a man (probably) walking into someone's home he didn't know, and deliberately, without any apparent reason, killing the man who lived there. The killer left the number 14 on a mirror in the bathroom next to the kitchen where he used an icepick to the heart to end the life of the old man there. A few weeks earlier, 200 miles away, the number 13 was found in similar circumstances and the killer had also used a stiletto-like instrument to kill. A month later, close to Chicago, number 15 showed up. The police in each case had taken pains not to release the method of murder or the signature number information. Yes, an almost certain case of a random serial murderer.

At one of the murder investigation sessions, the leader had said something Thompson wrote down and remembered. Learn everything you can about how the victim lived, and you'll probably figure out pretty quickly why they died and who the killer probably was.

Thompson tried to put his advice to work as he and Pollitt strode up the middle of the farm road to the three structures there – the small house, an open sided roofed shed where a car and a 6x10 open trailer were parked, and the stereotypical outhouse next to the remnants of a large garden, dormant for the winter. The house appeared to have been one story with an attic, but two dormers facing the road hinted at one large, or two small, rooms on the second floor. A porch crossed the front of the house, side to side, with a door opening from each of two main rooms onto it. It was open to the elements. The windows all around the first floor were covered with plastic to seal out the worst of the winter winds and cold, blurring the view over the valley, one probably pretty nice in the Spring, Summer and Fall. A big old tree stood at one side of the house, maybe an oak, the trunk was so large – no, check that, a huge catalpa, biggest Thompson ever saw. The front yard held two aging maples, trimmed irregularly by a wind, or, more likely, an ice storm. Around behind was a row of what looked like peach trees or apricots. The single evergreen sat mostly in the nearest field, a big cedar with a few new small ones arranged haphazardly in all directions around it. A telephone line, carried by poles spaced along the access lane at 60 foot intervals, attached to the front of the house, and the electricity came from off to the side, on poles carried the most direct way across a field and a vale from the next closest house., one just beyond the place where the lane up to the old house ticked off the one the two sheriffs finally located to get there in the first place.

There were a few patches of snow left along the driveway, but a January thaw had exposed most of the ground and left it to freeze again, hard, when another blow came down from Saskatchewan by way of Minnesota, one all wind and cold with no snowfall one could measure. No smoke was coming from the chimney right in the middle of the roof, and Thompson could see a pile of wood near the back door, no propane or oil tank anywhere around. He remembered his Dad telling him about trying to keep a house warm with a wood stove, cooking on it, heating water in it, and baking bread, cakes and cookies in it. Hard work, constant work. No running water? As he approached the rear of the house he saw a little structure where he suspected a well was located. The pump was likely under the house, down where the canned goods and potatoes were kept, a pump kicking on and off every time you turned on a faucet. If the people who lived there were lucky...well, if she had been lucky, she could have had an electric water heater to provide some convenient warm water to wash clothes, dishes, and bathe herself.

An ambulance was still in the driveway, idling. Pollitt peeked through the side window and reported to Thompson, Woman back there with two little kids. She's holding them in her lap. Two police cars and a black county van, probably the coroner, lined up next to the ambulance.

Scripps sat on the back steps, a deputy at his side. As other sheriffs came round the corner, they rose and Scripps extended his hand, and said 'thanks for coming' to each of the others. Protocol demanded the deputy be ignored. He belonged to the Schuyler sheriff and he wasn't to speak or be spoken to except by Scripps, exactly the way it had to be. This damned thing would be ugly enough, delicate enough, painful enough for everyone without stepping on toes. Thompson reminded himself to take the right attitude. This wasn't his crime scene, he was an invited investigator, deserving any reasonable assistance, but not requiring absolute obedience.

Fred. Rough morning?

Yes, the worst. You'd think men in uniform would be used to dead bodies, and, of course, they were. No one died out of the hospital in their county without they looked at the scene and made sure no one was light fingered or ignorant of the possibility an unsecured residence, an announcement of a death in the local paper, was an invitation to every low life varmint around to come to see if some things were not nailed down as should have been. Families so easily forgot to take charge of grandma's stuff when they were grieving over her sudden stroke or heart attack.

You'd think a dead body or two, maybe even three or four in a bad road crash would harden men in uniform, but there is nothing in their work to prepare them for their first murder victim. The mantle of ultimate responsibility for solving such a case falls hard on some men, and the visualization of the way someone was killed gives them many a sleepless night. Until they got used to it. Scripps, a good man who saw his share of dead bodies, was anxious to share the murder burden, and Pollitt and Thompson knew how he felt, the way they, too, had felt at their first 'rodeo'.

Coroner inside?

Just went in. All he said he wanted to do right here was to declare the woman dead. He'd look at her wounds when he got her back to the morgue.

On cue, Dr. Russell Dohner, 87 years young, eased out through the door and remarked, She's dead alright, been so for about 8 or 9 hours. I'll have to consult my charts back at the office since the fire probably was still banked or burning in the stove when she was killed, then it cooled during the night to where it's only about 40F in there now. I lifted her top to use my liver thermometer, otherwise I didn't touch anything or get into the blood trail or puddle.

Thanks, Doc. Thanks for coming out. We'll get her transported as soon as we're done looking at the scene and collecting evidence.

I'll leave the van here, if you want, if you can get your deputy to give me a ride back to my office. People waiting, you know. Then you can get someone to bring the van in to the morgue, I won't have to deal with our old monster again today.

Will do, Doc. Gary, take the Doc back to his office and then pick up some coffees on the way back out here. A quick survey revealed three black, one sugar.

Finally, with everyone else accounted for, Thompson said, Let's go in. If you're ready, Fred? They put on their latex gloves, and slowly eased into the little hallway opening off the back door.

Starting about 8 feet inside the back door, a thick trail of blood splotched across the linoleum floor, turning at the first door jamb, and ending at the foot of the stairs where the woman's body was resting, her right hand extending up to the fourth or fifth tread, her feet in the pooled blood at the bottom. The two lower stair treads were covered in blood, as well. The front of her blouse was soaked with crusting blood, and her lower legs were coated in dried blood. Hair hung over the woman's face, mostly covering sightless, staring eyes.

The three men edged along the wall and next to the wood burning stove to avoid any of the trail, and stood, quietly taking in the scene.

Shit. One of them finally said. You betcha, said another. God Damn, said Thompson.

Rural Murder Chapter Three

Finally, Scripps raised his 35 mm camera and began taking pictures of the body. Pollitt eased back to the back door and began looking carefully for anything, any sort of clue as to what happened. Thompson inspected the bloody footprints going partway toward the body along the blood trail, then all the way back to the rear door. They didn't go up the stairs, or into any other part of the house. With a little imagination, they were even barely visible leaving the house and going down the sidewalk to the driveway. He sprayed luminol along the walk surface and confirmed some traces of prints there. He took his own camera from its case, inserted fresh batteries and took several pictures of the prints, inside and outside, using a small metal ruler from his ditty bag.

Pollitt had seen the large entry wound in the woman's back, cauterized by the heat of the projectile entering her body about half way from her shoulder to the hip, and half way to the left side from the backbone. The hole was surrounded by the stipling of gunpowder and fragments you would expect from a close range shooting. He could see from where blood had spattered just at the end of the short hallway, (he theorized) the victim had spun completely around after being struck, and had fallen to the floor there. He could see she tried to get away by crawling along the floor toward the stairs and the parlor, streaking the blood with her legs as she bled out. Fred, does she have a large exit wound? He called out.

Damned near took her whole left breast off, said Scripps. You find any lead laying around?

I'm about to look.

Thompson came back in, to the dining area in front of the big, flat woodstove. He'd heard the short conversation between the other sheriffs and began helping to look for a shell casing or spent round. Got something, said Pollitt. The round lead ball, somewhat deformed, was partly embedded in the front wall of the room, next to an old picture of a clipper ship by moonlight. Jesus looked on from the wall nearest the driveway, an aura springing from some unknown source behind his head. His eyes were compassionate.

Pollitt gently popped the ball from the plaster and into an evidence bag, but only after taking several pictures and measuring exactly where it was on the wall and how far it was from the rear door and the door jamb where the woman seemed to have been standing when shot, where she spun around, starting bleeding profusely and then crawling toward the stairs.

What have you guys got out there? Scripps asked.

Just a minute, said Thompson, Pollitt and I are measuring.......Okay, its not a .45, just a little too small. It's too big for a .38.....I think...Pollitt, you agree?...I think we have a .410 shotgun slug.

All the men put their equipment on the table in front of the stove and gathered around the body once more. Scripps had rolled the lifeless form a little to expose the gaping wound in the woman's chest. They looked for any sort of sign she had tried to leave a message, and found her hands were relatively clean, no blood, no sign of any defensive wounds on the hands or arms.

About then, Scripps suggested it was time to transport the body to the morgue. One of the Emergency Medical Technicians, EMT’s, still sitting in the driveway with the woman and children in the back, was enlisted to help the Deputy, recently arrived with coffee, cocoa, juice and donuts for one and all. Good. was all Scripps said to him, and the young man started to smile and caught himself. When the deputy and the EMT got into the house with the body bag and gurney, the deputy put his hand over his mouth and headed for the side door and little porch and everyone soon heard him retching. New man, said Scripps quietly to the others, said on the way up he knew the woman who lived here, he went to school with her and his brother was a classmate of her husband. He remembered she had a date to the prom with a guy who is in the Army in Alaska now, he's a lifer, I guess. He knows her husband a little, says he gets to talk a lot to the inmates when he draws night duty. He says the guy talked about his wife and kids a lot, wanted him to check on them every chance he got and to make sure no other guys were nosing around while he served his 3 months.

Did he?

Didn't say. He did say he'd never been out this way, though, so, I guess not.

The body was in the bag and in the coroner's van very shortly. The woman was no heavier than a little over a hundred pounds, and by taking her out the way the deputy had gone to retch, they moved her to the van without disturbing any of the rest of the scene.

The deputy, McAvoy, was instructed to take the van to Dohner's morgue at the hospital, and the one EMT was told to stay in the back with the kids as they were transported to Mrs. Wilson's daycare/nursery until there was time to talk to the husband and get his input what to do with them. Scripps made a phone call to the county judge. By noon, the husband's remaining sentence, a few days, was commuted. Soon, he was in the interview room, and Scripps told him of his wife's murder and asked if he knew who might have done it,