Old Church (A Johnny & Maggie O’Brien Mystery)

By Lee Capp

Thirty years ago, three eight-year-old boys entered a summer woods, never to emerge again—alive that is. Their naked, butchered and lifeless bodies were discovered the next day, and three young area men were soon arrested and convicted for the sensational triple homicide. Finally released from prison after serving nearly two decades, a famous Hollywood movie producer and director engages the professional services of private detective Johnny O’Brien to reinvestigate the old crime and prove the innocence of the three men. What’s more, he means business—BIG business, offering Johnny the retainer of a cool one-million dollars, and a no limit platinum credit card. Intrigued by the old cold case, Johnny and his wife, Maggie, embark on what will soon become a personal crusade to uncover the truth and reveal the real reason for the riveting and shockingly ugly crime that had gripped the nation so long ago. Based on a real-life crime.

Lee Capp is the author of three previous Johnny O’Brien mystery novels (with a twist of fantasy) in The Watchmaker series: Time Enough to Die: Book One, Elliott Bay: Book Two, and The Reckoning: Book Three.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lee Capp
• Release date: Apr 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215076620

Lee Capp

Lee Capp (Larry Lee Caplin) was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1949, back when the Motor City was the crown jewel of the Midwest, and the center of the manufacturing might of America. Raised on motors and Motown and brought up in a tiny suburb called Walled Lake, he had a very misspent youth focused on rock and roll music, amusement parks, good friends (some of which were even girls) movies, golden age television shows and fortunately lots of really good books. Personal favorites among them were the popular anthologies of Alfred Hitchcock and Dorothy Sayers and the crime novels of Ellery Queen and Mickey Spillane. In addition to being a life-long writer of what he calls "Unsold and unsellable dumb stupid stuff" Capp has worked in many fields during his long career, including a short but very interesting stint as an apprentice embalmer in a Tucson, Arizona funeral home and a fish monger in Seattle, Washington. The fish selling he has said was equivalent to an advanced college degree in the study of human nature. Johnny O'Brien is a compilation of Capp himself, who descends from Irish, Scottish and English farmers, fishermen and lumberjack immigrants, and he says, a number of other (verbally at least) bad-assed friends of his youth. Capp says that "if we all were even a tenth as tough as we thought we were, we could have ruled the world." Lee Capp and his wife Bea, retired at last from the workaday world, now reside among the pines, ponds and streams outside Seattle, Washington, where he continues to see just how much trouble he can get Johnny O'Brien and Matt McCabe into the next time around. Contact the author at [e-mail], On Facebook as Larry Lee Caplin (Lee Capp) and [e-mail]

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A Johnny and Maggie O’Brien Mystery

Smashwords Edition

Old Church

Copyright © 2023 by Lee Capp

All rights reserved

Author photography: Nadene Berryhill Caplin

Cover Design & Layout: Laura Shinn Designs

http://laurashinn.yolasite.com

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be copied or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher.

Old Church is a work of fiction. Though some of the cities and towns actually exist, they are used in a fictitious manner solely for purposes of this work. All characters herein are works of fiction and any names or characteristics similar to any person past, present or future are purely coincidental and unintentional.

Dedication

In memory of my parents, Edward Therman Caplin and Ruby Emaline Cory Caplin. You are where it all began, back there in the mists of time. I Loved you then. I love you still.

Until we meet again . . .

And, in memory of the children who died.

And shouldn’t have.

Acknowledgements

The extent to which this novella may be good is due almost entirely to the contributions of my incredible sounding board/wife, photographer, and young adult author, Nadene Berryhill Caplin.

As always, artist/cover designer/formatter, Laura Shinn made it look nice, and be readable.

My late friend, William Zarowsky Jr., encouraged me to pick this story back up after I had laid it down for a long time. Thank you, Bill. And all the best to you in those fields of gold you now inhabit.

Private-eye Johnny O’Brien, always in my head, made meaningful suggestion throughout. Maggie O’Brien has had a lot to say as well.

Thank you all. It really does helps to have good people in your life.

CONTENTS

Author’s Notes

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Coming Soon

About the Author

Author’s Notes

A writer that contemplates inserting notes at the beginning of a work of fiction is often admonished by experts to limit the length to one, or at the most, one-and-a-half pages. This I promise to do, although of course, I make no promissory guarantees.

Johnny O’Brien moved into my head way back in 2013, a simple story suggestion made to a grandson, then in a high school writing class, for a (short) detective story. A detective story with a twist though, of science fiction and fantasy. The grandboy wasn’t that thrilled with my pitch, or the twist, so I took my own advice, picked it up, and ran with it. Short it did not stay, however, with well over three-hundred thousand words and three long novels devoted to the escapades of this gentleman.

Here, in Old Church, Johnny’s getting a mite bit older. The old bones are aching a lot more than they used to, he’s beginning to feel the frost on the pumpkin so to speak, and his career winding down. Maybe it’s time to hang ‘em up. Maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s time to give it one last final hurrah. Only for a noble cause though. And what better cause than proving the innocence of three men wrongly convicted of murder? And a big payday for a worthy charity to boot. You can’t much go wrong with that one. Or can you?

Johnny doesn’t have a lot to prove anymore. In the Watchmaker trilogy, he fought to find and save a life of a young victim of a serial killer. Next up, a really weird journey, teamed up with a most unlikely ally to bring a shadowy criminal to justice. And last, there was that little bitty thing about saving the whole world. You’d think a man could rest on his laurels after all of that. A regular guy, sure. But maybe not Johnny O’Brien.

All those years ago, sitting in a diner with the grandkid, I thought it might just end up like this. And I’m happy to say, here we are, and he we go, and here it is. And I’ve kept my promise to not exceed (by much) the one-and-a-half-page rule. And I hope to keep my promise to you as well. One more Johnny O’Brien yarn.

One more for the road.

Very truly yours,

Lee Capp

PROLOGUE

Pleasant Ridge, Louisiana, May 1982

The battered and rusted old pickup truck turned off the pavement and made its way slowly toward an equally battered automobile, parked just next to a wide marsh. The tall reeds hid both vehicles from the main road. The gravel crunched under the truck tires as it pulled alongside the car. The last light of day long faded, shadows engulfed the scene, and the sounds of the night creatures began to increase in volume.

Dangerous to meet like this, said the truck.

Better than the usual place, replied the car.

This better be good.

We better cool it.

What part, Pat?

Both parts, dammit!

The truck laughed. You sound a little skittish for a lawman.

The car was peeved. Just what the hell do you think a town Constable’s badge gets me? Besides an extra five to ten years.

My kid won’t talk.

He already is. Or maybe trying to.

He’ll be okay. The ole lady just wants to take him to that Catholic church here in town because she thinks it’ll be good for him. He’s pretty damned messed up.

Yeah, I don’t doubt it. And what happens when some black robe gets him into a confessional?

Won’t matter, Pat. He’s just a kid. Got a wild imagination. What eight-year-old kid doesn’t. Matter of fact, I kind of like the idea. As soon as the brat starts claiming sexual abuse, all the suspicion will fall on the church anyhow. It’s what they’re kind of known for.

Still though, said the car, It’d be lots better if there were no accusations at all. Some of the people in our little group—well, let’s just say you might not want to get on the wrong side of some of them.

What they gonna do, Pat? Stick some pins in a voodoo doll of you and me?

Don’t make fun. That stuff ain’t nothing to make fun of.

You mean you really believe in that crap, Pat? Hell, I thought you was just in it for the sex stuff, like me.

I like the sex stuff. I won’t deny it. Some of the women are not bad looking.

Ha! Who do you think you’re talking to, Pat? Women! I won’t say you never dip your wick in a woman, but from what I’ve seen, you spend a hell of a lot more time on my kid than any of them.

Shut up that talk! You don’t back up from the boys much either, friend.

Oh, I admit it, Pat. Sure, I hit from both sides of the plate. Only I know what I am. That’s the difference. You don’t know what you are. You think you’re better than me. You think you’re better than all the folks around her. But that tin badge don’t mean nothin’ when our group meets out there in that woods, and there you are, bulge in your pants just like every other stiff dick in line.

All right! You win. I admit I’m a pervert. But I don’t care to go to prison for it if you don’t mind.

Well, you got that right anyhow, Pat.

So, what are we gonna do?

It’s not what we’re going to do, Pat. It’s what we’re going to stop doing. If we stop taking him to our meetings, it’ll blow over. It’s like I said before—nobody gonna believe a messed up eight-year-old brat. But if we keep it up, when he gets a little older, well then, they just might start believing.

Yeah, you’re right. I hope we’re not too late.

It’ll be fine, Pat.

Do you ever stop and think about the sins we’ve done?

No, not much. I don’t much believe in God and all that church stuff.

You believe in Satan though, don’t you?

"Yeah, Pat. I believe in Satan. Him, I believe in."

All this stuff. All the things we did to him, out there in the woods. All the sick stuff we did to him and showed him. I just don’t know.

What are you trying to say anyway, Pat?

I’ll tell you exactly what I’m saying. I’m saying that maybe, just maybe, this is how you get monsters.

CHAPTER ONE

The Nightmare

Present Day

Crows.

In the days, months, and years that would follow that strange hot summer, and for all the rest of my long life, they would always be the thing that I remembered the most—the crows. Black as night they were, and numerous as stars in the darkening sky.

Odd though, when I stopped and thought about it.

. . . I should have remembered the dead children.

I walked toward the creek. Even though I had never been to this place, I knew it would be there. I felt somehow directed to the spot. As I neared, I could hear the swift current of the water, as it worked its way between the weed and tree choked banks.

Drawing closer, I could see a break in the overgrowth on the opposite bank, and a well-worn foot trail leading into it. Beyond were thick woods of mixed pine, maple and scrub oak trees. Another smaller creek worked its way at right angles to the larger one I was facing at the moment. It emptied into the larger body of water through a short but large diameter drainpipe. A narrow wooden foot bridge arched over the larger stream and led directly to the path. It beckoned to me, as surely as if there had been a person standing at the entrance to the woods pointing. I knew I was supposed to cross and go that way. I knew I had to. I didn’t want to go. I was aware in the center of my heart that path would only lead to heartbreak and sorrow, but I was powerless to resist.

So, I moved forward, and out onto the bridge, listening to the ever-increasing murmuring of the black birds along with the soft babble of the swift creek. A few small frogs, huddled on the bank, dived in, making a distinctive plopping sound. Looking over the side of the bridge and into the clear fast running water, I was surprised to see the shape of a small boy’s bicycle just under the surface. I wondered if it had been tossed in on purpose, or if one of two riders had lost a wager as they played chicken on the old wooden structure. The bike looked new. I imagined that the boy’s parents would not be happy as they came to fish it out.

Kids, I thought, shaking my head slightly.

The last light of late afternoon was quickly fading as twilight gathered through the trees. The sky to the east purpled toward night. The heat of the day was giving up the ghost, and a slight chill was already on the evening breeze. I knew I shouldn’t go into those sinister woods. I knew it would be dark and close in there. I knew that they contained nothing but horror, sadness and grief, although what the source of the sadness was, I did not know.

So, I moved forward, powerless to hold back, and crossed the short bridge.

I had just entered the thicket when I heard the soft, but distinct sound of movement directly ahead, twigs breaking, and branches being pushed aside as a large creature moved slowly through the heavy brush. Labored breathing—like something heavy were being carried. A loud splash. And then more sound of brush breaking. This time it was faster, as though the creature were running. Gradually, it grew softer, as whatever it was retreated quickly into the distance. I strained my eyes, attempting to find the fleeing figure in my field of vision, but I couldn’t. For just a briefest split-second, I thought I saw the shape of a smallish person standing just beyond the tree-line. But if it was a person, they were not running, but merely standing, and looking toward me.

The hundreds of crows perched in the surrounding trees, momentarily quiet for the drama being played out below them, erupted into a cacophony of discordant sound. The many small frogs and crickets still along the banks of the creek joined them.

Shaken out of my momentary hesitation, I pressed forward and into the overgrowth. Almost at once the light faded as the thicket closed around me like impending doom. A rancid odor rafted from the still water pooled just to the left of the creek. It was trapped there, at the base of a steeper part of the bank. It smelled of swamp water—dark, musky, and fetid. The enclosed water was deep. I could see an ancient tree stump poking from the top. I could also plainly see the circle pattern of the recently disturbed surface.

Something large had been thrown in.

Again, I advanced toward the pool through the ever-increasing darkness. As the angle of the bank sharpened, I struggled to keep my balance. My smooth soled dress shoes slipped sideways in the loose dirt, pebbles, twigs, and debris of the forest, threatening at any moment to pitch me into the ominous water. Instinctively, my left hand flailed in the air, seeking a tree branch or other object to keep myself upright.

There was none.

Now, closer to the edge of the water, I lowered my gaze to my feet, trying to keep from slipping in. For the first time, I noticed the footprints of many shoes in the soft soil. Some large, but most a much smaller size. Straight ahead, I could just make out a shoe in the darkness. It was a small one—black nylon. An outdoor shoe. It was turned on its side. I stooped to pick it up. Placing two of my fingers inside, I could feel the still warm interior. It hadn’t been there for long.

I carried it with me as I moved forward along the bank and closer to the pool. It was only a couple more paces before I saw another discarded piece of clothing, a small pair of boy’s boxer shorts. Dark blue. The tee-shirt I discovered a few yards beyond that was white. Except for the blood stains, that was. Blotches and smears. Not a lot, but enough for me to know that the youngster who had been wearing it was probably in big trouble.

Quickening my pace to the pool, my heartbeat grew faster as I neared. There, in the last light of day, I could see the fresh tracks of larger shoes. One, a few inches from the water’s edge. The other, partly into it. Toe forward, deeper than the heel, as the person wearing it leaned out over the edge. Someone that carried a heavy burden. The toe of the shoe looked as though it had pressed deeply into the mud. Even as I stared at it, I could see it still filling with water.

And then I understood exactly what I was looking at. And, more importantly, I knew why I was here. Perhaps there was still time. Perhaps the small body in