The Judas Murders Read online
Praise for Ken Oder
“Secrets, passion, love and violence; they’re not for the weak of heart or body…I couldn’t put it down, and I can’t wait for the next one.”
- Pamela Fagan Hutchins, USA Best Book Award winner and author of the What Doesn’t Kill You romantic mystery series
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“…a work of art, or poetry, or beauty and all of the above. Oder takes you back in time to a place in a rural Virginia town and gently reveals parts and pieces of its topography and people. The story is not a gentle one…but it is simply beautiful.”
- Rebecca Nolen, author of Deadly Thyme and The Dry
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“…masterfully crafted, brimming with the sort of spellbinding wisdom that takes your breath away. Cast from characters who could easily be our friends and family, this story confronts the darker side of human nature with unflinching precision. It reveals that the line dividing right from wrong isn’t always clearly defined, that an undeniable symbiosis exists between joy and heartache.”
- Daniel Wimberley, author of The Pedestal and The Wandering Tree
The Judas Murders
Ken Oder
SkipJack Publishing
Copyright ©2018 by Ken Oder. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Oder, Ken.
The Judas Murders / by Ken Oder.
First edition.
ISBN (first edition : paperback) 978-1-939889-95-9
ISBN (e-book) 978-1-939889-94-2
1.Appalachians (People)--Fiction. 2. Appalachian
Region, Southern--Fiction. I. Title. II. Series:
Oder, Ken. Whippoorwill Hollow novels ; 3.
First Edition: November 2018
Editor: Meghan Pinson
Cover design: Bobbye Marrs
To Cindy
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Fiction by SkipJack Publishing
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Fiction by SkipJack Publishing
Chapter One
The Murder of Betty Lou Mundy
February 19, 1967, Sunday morning
A shaft of early morning sunlight broke through pine branches and fell across the gate of a picket fence that fronted Leland Mundy’s property. Sitting in a patrol car parked on the side of the road with the engine idling and the heater whirring full blast, Sheriff Coleman Grundy stared at a crimson stain on the gate post. He broke open his service revolver to find two bullets in the chamber. He loaded four more rounds from his belt loop, holstered his gun, and cut off the engine.
When he opened the door to climb out, a wall of cold air hit him and a spear of pain stabbed him in the lower back. He winced and stood up straight, pressing his fist against the base of his spine. When the pain eased off, he looked at Leland’s house, a little yellow clapboard box with a screened porch that barely accommodated two rocking chairs. Through the dark screen, Cole could make out Leland, a middle-aged bear of a man, sitting in one of the chairs, staring off into the distance. He didn’t look at Cole or acknowledge his presence in any way.
Cole limped over to the gate. As he’d suspected, the stain was blood. He passed through the gate and stopped. Betty Lou Mundy lay on her back ten feet away. He walked over to her. Her robin’s-egg-blue eyes looked up at him, glassed over and lifeless. A heart-shaped bloodstain crusted the front of her blouse.
Cole looked over at Leland again. He was still staring straight ahead.
Pressing his hand to his back, Cole eased down to one knee and put his fingers to Betty Lou’s throat, knowing he would feel no pulse. Her flesh was cold, damp, and rigid, like soft plastic. He wiped the moisture off on his pants and looked her over. A sheen of frost covered her hair and clothing. Her clothes and makeup corroborated the gossip he’d heard, that she’d been stepping out on Leland. All the gray was died out of her chestnut hair. She’d blacked her eyes with too much eyeliner and painted her lips cherry red. She wore a black leather jacket over a red blouse that was too tight and cut too low, and a black tube miniskirt, too short. An attractive woman pushing fifty, trying hard to look twenty-five.
He peered at the bloodstain that soaked her blouse from her left breast down to her black leather belt. The entry wound was a small hole about two inches above the nipple. A small-caliber bullet, he guessed. He saw streaks of blood on her thighs and drops of it on the toes of her black spike high heels, one of which rested on its side in the frost-covered brown grass by her bare foot.
He took off his hat and swiped his hand over his bald head, thinking. Someone shot her while she stood by the gate. She leaned on it for support. Then she staggered into the yard. Her chest wound dripped blood on her thighs and the tops of her shoes, and she fell
where her corpse now lay.
Her dead eyes gazed at him, as though pleading for help. Her mother had had those same blue eyes. Hazel Emley died of natural causes a couple months ago on Christmas Day, which now seemed like a blessing.
Cole put on his hat and stood up with some difficulty. He glanced at Leland, then went back to his car, sat down behind the wheel, and radioed dispatch to send the medical examiner, a forensic technician, and two deputies. When he climbed out of the car again, another stabbing back pain weakened his knees. He grabbed the door and pulled himself up to stand straight. He grimaced and pressed his fist against the small of his back. The pain lasted longer this time, and when it eased off it left him weak and dizzy. He leaned against the car, breathing hard.
He was worried about Leland. He wasn’t sure he could manage any trouble Leland might cause, but he knew he needed to approach him. The now familiar thought flitted across his mind that filing for retirement might be best for the county. He squinted at the slants of amber light that sifted through pine branches to streak Leland’s tin roof and screen porch, and kneaded his back while letting out a long, slow breath. Best for the county, perhaps, but not for him. Thirty years as sheriff. No hobbies. No outside interests. Now that Carrie was gone, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.
He pushed his hat back from his face and ran his hand over his brow, which was damp with sweat despite the cold, and looked at Leland. It would take an hour for his men to drive out from Jeetersburg. If Leland took a mind to run off into the Shenandoah National Park, he’d be long gone before the first patrol car arrived.
Cole pulled his hat down low over his eyes and walked through the gate and over the concrete stepping stones to the porch, carrying himself as tall and straight as he could manage. He stopped just shy of the screen door.
Leland sat motionless in a rocking chair to the right of the front door, seemingly unaware of Cole’s presence. Cole looked him over. Nothing in his hands. No bulges in his clothing. No weapon on the porch.
Cole put his hand on the butt of his service revolver. “I’m fixing to join you on the porch, Leland.”
Leland looked at Cole with a blank expression. “Suit yourself.”
Cole opened the screen door and stepped up on the porch. The door slapped shut behind him. Sweat glistened on Leland’s brow and his thinning blond hair was damp. His big, rough hands clenched the arms of the rocking chair. He wore a dark gray work shirt and pants, like he had just come home from a plumbing job. There was an auburn smear on the chest of his shirt. Betty Lou’s blood, Cole guessed. A sweet odor came off him, a distinctive flowery smell, not the kind of scent you’d expect a burly man like Leland to wear.
An empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s sat on the concrete beside Leland’s chair.
“You been drinking, Leland?”
“All night long.”
“You shoot Betty Lou?”
“No.”
“Who did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long’s she been laying out there?”
“She was there when I come home.” Leland delivered his answers in a flat tone, like he was discussing the weather or laying pipe for a sewer line.
“What time did you come home?”
“Bout seven.”
“Where you been all night?”
Leland hesitated and then said, “Drove the back roads. Parked at the dam and drank my whiskey. Came home when it ran out.”
A cold wind whispered in the pines and pushed through the screen mesh. Cole pulled the fur collar of his jacket tightly around his throat and snapped the top button. Leland wore no coat or hat or gloves. “Ain’t you cold, Leland?”
He shook his head.
Cole studied him. His face was the color of oatmeal, his eyes clouded, his mouth pulled down at the corners.
“You have any guns in the house?”
“Winchester 64. Twelve-gauge shotgun.”
“Any handguns?”
“Not in the house.” Leland swiped his hand over his mouth. A tear beaded in his eye and ran down his cheek. “They say . . .” He faltered and then cleared his throat. “They say she’s been seein a man in Jeetersburg.” He took in a deep breath and let it out through his mouth. He looked up at Cole, his eyes full. “You hear anything about that, Cole?”
“No, sir,” Cole lied.
Leland’s chest heaved and tears slid down his face. He reached for something behind him. He’d placed a small pistol to his temple before Cole realized he’d withdrawn a gun from his back pocket. Cole threw himself on Leland and grabbed his gun hand. The rocking chair tilted backwards, struck the wall, and fell over on its side, spilling Leland and Cole on the concrete floor in a tangle.
They rolled over, grappling for the gun, and Leland ended up on top, astride Cole. He was bigger, stronger, and younger than Cole and a knife of pain stabbed Cole’s lower back and twisted inside his spinal column as they wrestled, but somehow Cole managed to pull the gun away from Leland’s head. It fired into a window and shards of glass fell behind them. They kept fighting for control and the gun fired again, splintering a plank in the wall.
Cole’s back pain sharpened and Leland’s gun hand slipped out of his grasp. He clawed at Leland’s hand, but Leland managed to place the barrel of the pistol against his temple. The gun fired, and he collapsed on top of Cole.
Cole pushed Leland’s heavy body off of him. Leland fell over on his back, his mouth open, his eyes closed, a trickle of blood draining from a small bullet wound just above his ear.
Cole tried to sit up but couldn’t. He rolled over on his side by Leland, withdrew a kerchief from his pocket, and pressed it against Leland’s wound with one hand while he put the fingers of the other to Leland’s throat. He felt the faint beat of a pulse.
Blood soaked the kerchief and slid down Cole’s wrist and forearm in a slick warm line. He wrapped the kerchief around Leland’s head and tied it tightly over the wound, but blood still seeped through and pooled on the concrete.
He knew his men were still forty-five minutes away. After they arrived and called for an ambulance, it would take a good while for the rescue squad to reach the place. Cole stared at the steady drip of blood from the soaked kerchief. He had to make the call for medical assistance now or Leland would have no chance.
He rolled over on his stomach and fought his way up to his hands and knees with his lower back on fire. His head lolled down between his shoulder blades, a string of drool sliding from his mouth to the floor. He took a deep breath and brought one foot underneath him to create the leverage to stand, but a bolt of pain shot from his back into his leg and he couldn’t do it. He went back down on all fours, breathing hard, trying to muster the strength for another try.
“Hello?” An old voice, tentative and fearful.
Through the porch screen, Cole saw Bessie Tilden, the tall elderly widow who owned the house next door, standing in the yard clad in a skunk-fur coat, her gray hair in curlers and rabbit-faced house slippers on her big feet.
“Cole, is that you?”
“Yes, ma’am. I need your help.”
Bessie put a hand to her chest. “I saw Betty Lou over there. She’s . . . I think she’s dead.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m afraid so. I need you to call my office, ma’am.”
“I called your office a while back when I heard a gunshot. Then I heard more gunfire a few minutes ago. Are you all right, Cole?”
“No, ma’am,” Cole said, still down on all fours. “Fact is I’m doing right poorly. I can’t seem to get up from here. I need you to call my office right now, ma’am. Tell em we need an ambulance. Leland’s been shot.”
Bessie’s eyes widened. “Leland’s hurt?”
“Yes, ma’am. He’s in a bad way. Call my office right now. If we don’t get an ambulance out here lickety-split, he won’t make it.”
She sucked in her breath. “All right, Cole. Fast as I can.” She hurried over the stepping stones, paused near Betty Lou’s co
rpse, then hobbled on through the gate and along the road toward her house.
Cole lay down beside Leland and tightened the cinch on the bloody kerchief.
Chapter Two
The Watchers
Just after dawn that morning, an hour before Sheriff Grundy discovered Betty Lou’s corpse, a man using the alias Ray Middleditch sat down beside Thurman Bowie on a fallen white pine at the summit of Bobcat Mountain and looked down over the Mundy property.
Bowie peered at the front yard through his rifle’s high-powered scope. “Who you figure killed the woman?”
The Judas Murders