Chapter Four
Clarke
D EEP brEATH IN through the nose. Hold for four seconds. Exhale through the mouth for eight seconds. Repeat until the urge to wheel this goddamned infernal piece of shit machine into oncoming traffic subsides.
I stood in front of the station house’s only printer, doing my best to keep my cool as the digital display blinked ERR no matter what I tried. It was a half an hour before my meeting with the chamber of commerce and needed five copies of my report, but the printer, like everything else in this godforsaken town, was in rough shape, and decided to print one single set of documents before committing suicide. An idea I was starting to warm up to.
“Betty?” I called out to the station’s elderly desk sergeant.
“Yes, Sheriff?” she replied from her desk.
“Is the printer broken again?”
“Yes, Sheriff,” she replied, plainly.
I growled at the machine one last time before walking to Betty’s desk. Of course, I should be addressing her as Sergeant Wolcott, but Betty insisted I call her what everyone else in town called her.
“Wasn’t the computer guy just in here two days ago fixing this thing?” I asked.
Betty smiled wide. “Jerry Bellefleur. That’s Jim Bellefleur’s boy.”
“What?” I asked, doing my best to hide my irritation.
“The ‘computer guy,’” she said, using air quotes. “His name is Jerry Bellefleur.”
“Why would I need to know the name of the guy who fixes our printer?”
“Seems to me a town’s sheriff should know the names of as many folks as he can. Don’t ya think?”
“Thank you, Betty. I’ll keep that in mind. What I’d also like to know is when it’s broken. Better yet, I’d love to know when it’s going to be either permanently fixed or replaced entirely.”
“Replaced?” Betty gasped. “Oh, Sheriff, we don’t have that kind of money in the budget. Do you know what a new printer costs these days?”
Probably more than my annual salary.
“And we got you a new deputy like you asked, so you can’t have a new printer and a new deputy, I’m afraid.”
This so-called ‘deputy’ was currently sitting in the conference room filling out his intake forms, considering he was fresh out of the academy. At least, that’s what they told me. I don’t know what academy, because I hadn’t met the kid yet. I’m pretty sure he was probably someone’s nephew or brother or cousin. Someone was always related to someone in this shit hole, backwoods town.
“Never mind, Betty. I’ll just take these to Kinko’s,” I said, holding up my documents. “Where’s the nearest one?”
“Nearest what now, Sheriff?”
“Kinko’s,” I replied.
Betty furrowed her heavily wrinkled brow. “I don’t think I’d know anything about that sort of thing, Sheriff.”
“Kinko’s. It’s a copy shop.”
“A coffee shop?” Betty gasped, as if I’d threatened her reason for being. “Oh, no, Sheriff. I just made a fresh pot. Would you like a cup?”
“No, no, don’t get up,” I said, waving her off. “I need a place where I can make copies of these reports.”
“They’ve got a copy machine in the back of the Nickle,” Betty replied.
“Thank you. I’ll be back soon.”
“Tell Larry Walters to put it on the station’s tab and if he gives you any trouble about it, you remind him that I sit next to his momma at church every Sunday. And make sure you get a receipt.”
Betty’s words trailed off as I exited the station house. Crossing over Maple, I headed north towards the town’s largest store, the Wooden Nickle, or the ‘Nickle’ as the locals called it.
The Kentucky Board of Tourism’s website describes Black Sheep Hollow as picturesque and serene. A delightful “postage stamp” of a town, filled with history and mystery. A wonderful place to raise a family or retire. Locals enjoy fishing, hiking, and exploring the myriad of caves and tunnels throughout the area.
Last summer, a local teen tech brainiac named Bryan Hogarth hacked into the website and changed the town’s description to read.
Black Sheep Hollow aka: ‘B.S. Holler’ is a drilled out, dried out, fucked out, hole in the ground. A desolate ‘shit stain’ of a town, filled with a history of violence and racism. It’s a mystery why anyone would choose to live here. A place populated by kids who didn’t have a choice but to be born here, and a bunch of old fuckers waiting for their turn to die. Locals enjoy methamphetamines, huffing paint, and fucking prostitutes in the myriad of abandoned mine shafts throughout the area.
Judge Pickering gave Bryan a year of community service for that stunt. I would have given him a job. Or better yet, a couple hundred bucks and a free ride out of town. Any kid smart enough to hack into a system, virtuous enough not to cause any real harm, and bored enough to do it for the sake of a joke, shouldn’t have to grow up and die in a place like Black Sheep Hollow. It was, however, the perfect place for a disgraced, ex-NYPD detective, to live out his days in exile.
“Mornin’ Sheriff Clarke,” Larry Walters greeted me as I entered the Nickle.
“I appreciate you leaving the ‘good’ part out of that, Larry.”
“Bran muffins are on aisle two if you’re backed up,” he replied.
“You kidding? One cup of Betty’s coffee and I’m cleaned out for next two days.”
Larry let out a hearty chuckle. “Ain’t that the God’s honest truth.”
“I’m looking for a copy machine. Betty said you had one here.”
He pointed to the far corner of the Nickle. “Oh, sure it’s in the back. Over by the ice machine.”
“Thanks, Larry,” I said, walking toward the direction he was pointing.
“But it’s busted.”
I stopped and slowly turned to face Larry. “Lemme guess, Jerry Bellefleur is your IT guy.”
Larry’s face lit up. “Jim Bellefleur’s boy. What a nice young man.”
“Can’t wait to see him again.”
“Anything else I can do for ya Sheriff?”
Anything else? What the fuck did you do for me at all, Larry?
I forced a smile. “No, I think that’ll do it. I’ll just read my copy out loud to the chamber members. It’ll be like story time. I’m sure they’ll love it.”
“Well, Sheriff. They are a bunch of cryin’ babies, so perhaps they will.”
My next smile was genuine. “Thank you, Larry. I needed that more than you know.”
Despite my familiarity and pleasantries with the locals, I’m not exaggerating when I say my relocation to Black Sheep Hollow had led to suicidal thoughts. I loved being an NYPD detective and worked my ass off to become one. Getting kicked off the force was the greatest loss I’d ever felt, and the fact that I was fired for doing my job made that loss almost unbearable. If I had fucked up or been derelict in my duties in any way, I could understand getting canned. But my only ‘offense’ was investigating a man who I believed had pertinent information regarding two murder cases. Cases I believed to be connected.
* * *
N ine months ago...
I knocked on Captain Travers’ office door and waited to be called in.
“Come in and take a seat, Detective,” he said, pointing to the empty chair across from him. The other chair was occupied by my sergeant.
This was only the second time I’d been inside the captain’s office. The other was on my first day on the job, when I was told by my sergeant that I never wanted to find myself inside this office.
“Captain Travers, sir. Sergeant Babich,” I said, taking my seat. “How can I help you today?”
“Sergeant Babich has informed me that you’ve been investigating Judge Faulkner,” the captain said.
“That’s right. I’ve got some very solid leads and think the judge may know something about the murders of George Hanford and Henry Duplass.”
“Henry Duplass was killed in New Jersey. Well outside of our jurisdiction.”
“Yes sir, but the similarities between the two murders. I mean, the two cases have to be connected.”
“Do they?” Travers asked.
“Yes, sir. I believe they are, and that Judge Faulkner knows something about them.”
“Sergeant Babich told me that as well. He also told me that he asked you to drop the Duplass case outright. Ordered you, in fact.”
“Yes, sir, but the George Hanford murder happened in New York and if the cases are linked—”
“ If is the operative word here. And it’s a pretty big ‘if,’ if you ask me,” Sergeant Babich said.
“That’s why I’ve started poking around. To find proof of the connection between the three men. Am I missing something here? I haven’t even launched a formal investigation on the judge yet.”
“And you’re not going too. I’ve known Jim Faulkner for thirty years, and the only way he could ever be connected to the George Hanford murder is if he tried the case of Hanford’s killer himself.”
“With all due respect, Captain—”
“Clearly, your sergeant was right about you. You have a problem following orders. Don’t you, Detective?”
“No sir,” I replied, setting my gaze just to the left of the captain’s eyeline.
“Good. Then it’s understood that you will no longer focus on the Henry Duplass case or on Judge Faulkner?”
“Yes, sir. I understand.”
“Good. Then we have nothing left to discuss. You can get back to work on the department’s substantial backlog of open cases, and Sergeant Babich can reassign the Hanford case to another detective.”
“What?” I challenged.
“I think I’ve made myself clear, Detective. We have nothing left to discuss. You may go now.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, before standing and walking out.
Later that day, the Hanford case was reassigned to Maria Esposita. She was good enough as a detective, but the real reason she was assigned to the case was because she was fucking Babich. A floor full of Detectives and these two are sneaking around like horny teenagers who think they’re smarter than their parents. The whole fucking squad knew what they were up to. Esposita or not, there was no way in hell I was going to stay away from this case, or finding the connection between the two dead men and Criminal Court Judge James L. Faulkner. Captain Travers’ insistence on my avoiding him only raised my suspicions. Not only about the judge, but now about my captain as well.
I needed to be very careful from then on. I would investigate in secret, alone. Finding and processing evidence on my own. Trusting no one. That is, until I did.
As good a detective as I was, processing DNA evidence was not something I could do by myself, so when I needed a cigar butt, I’d collected from Judge Faulkner’s trash can analyzed, I turned to the only lab tech I trusted, Peter Lee. For a pair of Knicks tickets, he ran the sample off hours, and off the books. However, Captain Travers must have suspected that I’d try something like this and had the IT department monitoring all lab activities. Two days after Lee ran the samples for me, I was fired and blacklisted from working in the state of New York.
Lee swore he didn’t rat me out and I believed him. In fact, I think Captain Travers was tracking every move I made after our meeting. He knew damn well I wasn’t gonna drop the case, and I was too determined, or stupid to prove him wrong. I didn’t stop even after they took my shield. Hell, I still haven’t stopped.