June 11, 1977
1:47 a.m.
The headlights
of Sheriff Maddox’s patrol car shined down on broken, uneven pavement. He drummed his fingers nervously on the
steering wheel as he drove deeper into the woods. As he approached a bend in the road, he knew
he had arrived at his destination by the flashing blue lights reflecting
against the trees. He parked behind a state trooper's vehicle and then sat for a moment, watching.
Three sets of flood lights had been set up to
allow his people to do their work in the darkness, and from his vantage point the
lights flickered with the moving shadows of men and women going about their business.
He left his keys in the ignition and his door hanging open as he
moved toward the disabled vehicle at the center of the ongoing
investigation. He walked right through
the police tape like it wasn’t there and carried it with him around his stomach
like a slipping sash on a beauty pageant contestant. His deputies scrounged to redraw the perimeter.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Ford said, coming to meet to meet him. He read the expression on his boss’s
face. “I know. A damn tragedy is what it is.”
Maddox noticed the yellow tape, lifted it away from his body, and
let it drop to the ground. He skirted
the back end of a 1974 Ford Torino, raking his hand across the tail light. One of the illumination rigs—rows of lamp shells
stacked on top of each other—had been set up about five feet away, and shined
light down on the passenger side door of the Torino.
“Jesus Christ,” the sheriff muttered.
“I know, Sheriff. I couldn’t
believe it myself. I mean, I could
believe it—look at who we’re dealing with—but dang, I mean, are you kidding
me?”
Maddox crouched beside the victim, adjusting his stance to prevent
his shadow from obscuring any clues. A
pair of legs and a torso protruded from underneath the vehicle, posed like a
mechanic checking the undercarriage. The
front passenger side tire had been removed and had fallen, or been thrown, into the grass a few feet
away. A jack lay on its side beside the dead
girl.
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” said the sheriff.
“Yep,” Ford said. “I ain’t
never seen anyone change a tire like that before.”
Judging by the victim’s clothes—white short pants, orange striped
halter top, plain white tennis shoes and bobby socks—she couldn’t have been
older than 15 or 16 years old. Maddox
couldn’t get a good look her face beneath the car, separated as it was from
view by the rotor pinning her neck to the road.
Sheriff Maddox reached into his shirt pocket and removed a
handkerchief. Even in the middle of the
night it was 85 degrees and muggy. The mosquitos
would feast on their damp skin. Maddox
dabbed his forehead with the handkerchief and then held it over his nose and
mouth as he bent close to the body for a more thorough examination. “The poor girl,” he said.
“If you ask me,” Ford began, “I don’t believe she was changing a
tire. You’d have to be pretty stupid to
go up under a car like that, especially when you ain’t got no jack base. I believe she was placed there.”
Maddox took a few deep breaths into his handkerchief and then
looked up at his chief deputy. “Of
course she was placed here,” he said quietly. “Clearly, the girl was murdered.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Ford said. He smiled in his usual way. “It’s a set-up, plain and simple.”
“Make sure no one comes up here,” Maddox said as he folded up his handkerchief and restored it to his breast pocket.
He surveyed the perimeter, checking the placement of his
staff. Satisfied, he turned his attention to the flat tire lying in the
grass by the side of the road. He pulled
a flashlight out of his utility belt and shined the light in a circle around
the tread until he found the puncture wound.
“Probably a knife,” he said.
The radio squawked in a nearby cruiser. “Hold that thought, Sheriff,” Ford said. “I’m getting a transmission.” He ducked into his car and pulled the hand
set to his mouth. A few seconds later he
called out to the sheriff, who was shining his flashlight on the tracks in the
dirt beside the road.
“That was Tommy. He said he’s
got the girl’s parents down the street.
They want to see the girl.”
“How in the hell are they here already? I just got here, for Christ’s sake!”
“They told Tommy they’ve been out searching for the girl all night. Apparently, they stopped by the station, and
Sheila told them we had her here.”
“Do they know she’s dead?”
“I don’t know. I don’t
think so. Tommy wants to know if he
should let them come down the road.”
“Is it the Reverend? Is he
here?”
“I believe so. What do you
want me to do?” Ford asked.
“I told you I don’t want anyone up here!”
“That’s what I told Tommy.
He said they won’t take no for an answer.”
Maddox paced back and forth in the road. “If that son of a bitch thinks he can contaminate
his own crime scene, he’s got another thing coming.”
Ford held the hand set to his chest as he waited for a definitive
answer.
Maddox stopped and put his hand on his hips. He looked at the ground. “She can come,” he said finally. “He can stay in the car. I don’t want him anywhere near this place.”
“You got it, Sheriff. You
want I should radio Tommy to bring her up?”
Maddox marched down the road.
“I’ll go get her myself. You and
Jimbo and Charlotte get the girl out from under the car. Cover her up with something. I don’t want her mama to see her like
this.”
“You got it, Sheriff.”
It was a perfect location to dump a body—a little-used access road
connecting two highways and surrounded by forest. Only one person lived in the area. The killer likely would have killed the girl
at another location and then brought her here, knowing the odds of anyone
driving by were slim, and giving him time to arrange the scene.
Milton Hendricks, the one person who lived in the area, had discovered
the body on his way home from a fishing trip around 11:45 p.m. He immediately called the police, who
notified the sheriff’s office and the state trooper’s office. Maddox received the call around 12:10. Stirred from his bed and half asleep, he
barked the necessary orders into the phone.
By now, the routine was familiar both to him and his crew. Everyone knew what to do. He told his wife to go back to sleep—she
needed her rest—and then made himself a cup of coffee, showered and pressed his
uniform. He had taken his time, knowing
he was in for a long night. Now, as he
came to the end of the road, he cursed himself for wasting so much time.
He found Tommy sitting on the hood of his car cleaning his fingernails
with a pocket knife. Another vehicle was
angled toward his, and Tommy appeared to be using the other car’s head lamps to
aid him in his task.
Sheriff Maddox trotted into the cross beams. Tommy hopped down from the hood of his patrol
car and folded up his knife. Maddox
looked from his deputy to the darkened windshield of a black Crown
Victoria. He could just make out the face
of the Reverend sitting in the driver’s seat.
The girl’s foster mother, Cassandra Baxter, sat beside him.
Maddox focused on the driver.
“She can come with me,” he said. “You
stay in the car.”
The Reverend leaned out of his window. “That is my wife. I should be with her.”
“This doesn’t concern you,” Maddox said.
Mrs. Baxter scrambled out of the passenger’s seat and hurried over
to the sheriff.
“There is no cause to treat
me this way,” the Reverend said. “If any
harm has come to that girl, then I am a victim also.”
“If you’re a victim, then I’m the king of the ocean,” Maddox said. He took Cassandra’s arm in his, patted her on
the hand, and escorted her up the road.
The Reverend clenched the steering wheel.
Jim Easton’s van wheeled in behind the deputy’s car, blaring “Take
the Money and Run” by the Steve Miller Band.
Jim jumped out of the van and jogged up to the deputy.
“Hey, Tommy,” he said. “Thanks
for the tip. Who is it this time?”
Tommy tilted his head in the direction of the Reverend.
“Holy shit,” Jim said. “Is
that who I think it is?”
“The one and only.”
Jim moved between Tommy and the man parked a few feet away. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What the hell is he doing here?”
“Waiting for his wife to identify the body of her little girl.”
“Holy shit,” Jim said. “He
killed his own daughter?”
Tommy nodded.
“I wonder if he’d give me an interview.”
“Well, he did just kill his daughter. He’d probably love to discuss that with a
member of the press.”
“Actually, I think she’s a step daughter,” Jim said. “You remember Clarence Woods? He played football at Benjamin Russell, but
then died a few years ago? That’s his
girl.”
“That makes sense,” Tommy said.
“The Reverend won’t have to worry about her daddy coming after him.”
“I’m gonna go see if he’ll talk to me.”
“It’s your funeral.”
* * *
They walked through the darkness, following the beam shining down
from Maddox’s flashlight. Cassandra
clung to his arm like a life raft. Every
step she took was a stagger. They walked
in silence, Maddox wondering how to approach the delicate inevitable topic, and
Cassandra staring into the woods with eyes as wide and round as a wounded
animal’s.
“I’ve had that girl since she was three years old,” she said after
a while.
“This isn’t going to be easy, Mrs. Baxter.”
“I took her in after her father died. Her mother wasn’t fit to raise her. Everyone knew that. Even her mother knew that.”
“I have to warn you. What
you are about to see is a gruesome spectacle.
You’ll need to prepare yourself.”
“She’s grown up so much.
She acts like she’s ready to go out into the world.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to harm her?” Maddox asked.
“That girl acted like nothing in the world could harm her. She could stand up to anyone. I halfway believed it myself.”
“Did your husband want to harm her?”
Cassandra stopped and turned to him. Maddox looked into her eyes. Even from the dim afterglow of his flashlight
he could see they were wet around the edges.
She opened her mouth to say something, then turned her head away and they
resumed walking. Her grip around his arm
loosened.
“Why would Will want to hurt her?” she asked. “She was his daughter too.”
“Ma’am, when was the last time you saw your daughter?”
“We drove out to my sister’s house this morning. We spent the day there. We came back around seven, but then Lucy said
she wanted to go out again. I said,
‘Forget it. It’s too late.’ I went to
the den to watch television. I heard the
car start up. When I went to look for
her, she was gone.”
“And where was Reverend Baxter during all this?”
“Today? I don’t know. He said he had business. I made a report. I called the police. Will came home while I was making a report to
one of your officers. Will drove me
around afterwards looking for her. We
drove back out to my sister’s place, but Lucy wasn’t there. We stopped by the police station on the way
home. They said you had her here.”
They rounded the bend to the crime scene. Cassandra released the sheriff’s arm and went
forward alone.
“Mrs. Baxter,” Maddox called
after her, but she wouldn’t turn around.
For some reason, he let her go on.
He watched her round the back end of the vehicle. He could see her face move back and forth as
her mind tried to process what she was seeing.
Then he saw her face contort in pain.
She dropped to the ground, and a low cry emanated from the spot where
she fell.
Go to Chapter 20
