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    The Indiana Caper
    The Indiana Caper
    The Indiana Caper
    Ebook239 pages4 hours

    The Indiana Caper

    By Dallas Releford

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Sheriff Ben Willis of Jackson, Indiana responds to an emergency call on a cold November afternoon and ends up dead when his cruiser hits ice and goes over an embankment. A few days later, people tell stories about seeing Ben Willis in other parts of the county. Everyone asks the same question: Was Sheriff Ben Willis really killed in the accident?
    Lisa Willis, Ben’s wife doesn’t believe her neighbor, Tracy Arnold when she tells Lisa that she saw Ben in her front yard on a snowy night. Tracy offers to stay with Lisa the rest of the night. Her real reason for staying is to search Lisa’s house for evidence that Lisa and Frank Arnold have been messing around. When Tracy accuses Lisa of having an affair with her husband, Lisa denies it.
    Lisa becomes alarmed when Ben, or his ghost visits her on several occasions. It seems to her that his ghost is trying to torment her and drive her to confessing his murder.
    As events unfold, Lisa has an affair with Frank Arnold, Tracy’s husband. Forming a dire coalition with Frank she helps plan and implement several other murders. As Sheriff Randall Petrie (Ben’s successor) becomes suspicious of Frank and Lisa, he also senses that something isn’t quite right about Ben’s accident.
    Lisa ponders her past life and seeks a reason for why things went wrong. After she saw Ben and Tracy making love in her back yard one night, she had a nervous breakdown. After her recovery, she plots with Frank Arnold to kill Ben and benefit from a million-dollar insurance policy she took out on him. She also plans to inherit the estate that is worth millions of dollars. She hires an ex-con, Mary Clayton as her business manager. Frank and Mary kill Tracy Arnold and Ralph Naylor, a man that looks suspiciously like Ben Willis. They leave fingerprints and other clues at the murder scene that leads Sheriff Randall Petrie down their path.
    She isn’t sure if Ben Willis is alive or if the ghost that haunts her is real. In the final days of Lisa’s rein, Ben Willis appears and takes her to the woods where he has Frank and Mary Clayton tied to trees hoping to force a confession from them. Freezing, they sign confessions stating that they committed the murders knowing that the confessions will be thrown out of court because they were obtained under duress. Frank warns Ben that he will contest the confessions in court. A state investigator and two insurance agents have been witnessing the drama and appear after the confessions are obtained.
    The court throws out the confessions. Nonetheless, they convict all of them for murder based on evidence obtained from other legitimate sources. Ben has succeeded in getting them into court and bringing other evidence to the attention of the authorities. Ben inherits the estate and the two kids. Lisa is sent to a prison for women where the prisoners aren’t exactly sane.
    Ben knows she will come for him and that she isn’t as insane as the State believes she is. He visits the site of the accidents and says goodbye to his old friend Rufus Jones who tried to kill him. Lisa and Frank hired Rufus to kill Ben and make it look like he skidded on ice and went over the embankment.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDallas Releford
    Release dateJun 23, 2011
    ISBN9781458081827
    The Indiana Caper

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      Book preview

      The Indiana Caper - Dallas Releford

      The Indiana Caper

      A Mystery

      and

      True Crime Story

      By:

      DALLAS RELEFORD

      Published by

      Smashwords.com

      The Indiana Caper

      Copyright (C) 2011 Dallas Releford

      * * * * *

      This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, places, events, organizations, areas, or locations are intended to provide a feeling of authenticity and are used in a fictitious manner. All other characters, dialogue and incidents are drawn from the author’s imagination and shouldn’t be accepted as real.

      * * * *

      Dedication

      I would like to thank my wife Sharon for her understanding while I was writing this book. She passed away on August 18, 2010. She is dearly missed.

      I would also like to thank my agent and typist, Harriet Smith and Martin Smith, my advisor and typist. Their hard work and dedication has made this book much better than it would have been without them.

      I am also grateful to many other people who kept me going through tough times I have faced in the last seven months.

      * * * * *

      Chapter 1

      Lyndon Mason stared at a pile of bills on the coffee table and then at the dismal, dirty apartment where he lived. Roaches marched across his face at night and a faulty furnace kept him freezing most of the time. Sometimes, he wondered how the roaches managed to live here. Winter would arrive in a short time and he had to find a better place to live. Arising from a dirty, ragged couch, he stood for a second trying to remember how many cans of beer he had consumed last night. Judging from ten or twelve empty cans on the floor, he’d had way too many. Hunger gnawed at his stomach and his head ached. He felt weak and a cold sweat had drenched his clothing during the night. With his back hurting from sleeping on the old dilapidated couch, he wandered to the bathroom where he stared at his raunchy complexion for a second before washing his face and shaving. Dermatitis had left red blotches on his head and face. Without money to see a doctor or buy expensive cream to treat the disease, he did the best he could and scrubbed it with soap. Sometimes it worked and some of the time it didn’t.

      A helpless feeling, a discouraging emotion he lived with, washed over him and he wanted to drink more beer, go back to bed and let the world pass him by. However, things might change today if he played his cards right. If the lawyer still had the job he had offered him yesterday when he met him over at that bar in Castle, his luck might indeed change for the better.

      The construction business hadn’t been good to him. Every time he got a job, it seemed that his drinking—his desire to enjoy life to its fullest—got in his way and he either got fired or tired of the boss breathing down his neck. Now, maybe he would make enough money to finally be able to afford to go somewhere and start his own business. He had gone to school and learned how to weld so he was sure he could start a business in a town where nobody knew him. Then he would be his own boss with nobody to tell him when he had to come to work or how long his hours should be. Yeah, things were picking up. Today was his day.

      Lyndon Mason had to be a different person today. He had to transform from a drunken construction worker into a businessman. Mason was sure that with a new image would come new opportunities he would be able to exploit. That was what the lawyer had said. Perhaps the lawyer had recognized that Mason had hidden talent that he himself hadn’t yet discovered. In a better mood now, he went to the closet and took out the only suit he owned. After a shower, he was dressed in a blue suit with a light blue silk handkerchief carefully folded and tucked into his left pocket. Mason was ready to meet the lawyer and the gateway to a better future.

      Whistling silently, he closed the door to the dingy apartment and walked down the hallway to the stairway that would take him to the parking lot. In the rear of the building, he kicked the front tire on his ancient 1993 Chevrolet Corsica and got in wondering if it would start. The engine turned over and he thanked any God that would listen to him. The first thing he would buy would be a new car, or at least, a better one. A few snowflakes drifted down and settled on the windshield. Half an hour later, he parked the black Corsica on a side street and walked toward a brick office building where the lawyer said to meet him.

      The lawyer, Frank Arnold had given him a plastic card he said was an access card. He was supposed to hold it up to a box on the door and it would allow him to enter. Mason wasn’t much for technology. It was a hindrance to him, except this card could get him a good job and he would do whatever it took. He was tired of starving to death most of the time. At the rear entrance, he stood by the door until he saw the small box Arnold had described. Holding the card up to the box, he heard a loud click and grabbed the door handle as Arnold had told him to do. Inside, he found the stairs. At the top, he entered another lobby where a man sat at a desk looking through stacks of papers.

      I’m Lyndon Mason, Mr. Arnold. Do you remember me from yesterday?

      Arnold stood and motioned for him to take a chair by the desk. My secretary won’t be in until nine. It’s a little after seven now so we have plenty of time to talk. She normally doesn’t come in on Saturday until after eleven so we won’t worry about her. Well, Mr. Mason, are you ready to earn thirty thousand dollars?

      Lyndon smiled. They hadn’t discussed any particular salary yesterday. What do I have to do, kill somebody?

      Exactly. You’re going to kill a sheriff and make it look like somebody else did it. You won’t be in much danger. I have everything planned right down to the last detail. Are you interested?

      Mason grimaced. He hadn’t contemplated killing anyone. He didn’t even know if he could or not. Uh … what happens if I say no? Lyndon crossed his legs and tried to look tough. A heavy force pressed against his chest and he was perspiring again.

      Arnold reached under a stack of papers and pulled out an automatic weapon. Mason recognized it as a Taurus .40 caliber 24/7, a weapon most people would not confront. Mason flinched as he swung the barrel around until it was pointed at him. "Then I’ll have to kill you and say that you broke in here and tried to rob me.

      * * *

      Sitting in his patrol car near the railroad tracks on the southern side of Jackson, Sheriff Ben Willis gazed at a gray sky wishing he were home with his wife and kids. The day had taken on an ominous appearance that kept reminding him that winter was here to stay for a while. Ben contemplated giving up his watch on the lonely street and going home to spend some time with the kids and see if his wife, Lisa was still angry with him. Sometimes, she stayed that way for days. Her swing moods went from dark to bright and then to gray. He never knew how she would respond to anything. Maybe when he went home, he could make her understand that things could be worked out. Things would get better if they could just work together to solve their problems. That was a simple message, wasn’t it?

      His mind occupied with personal problems, Ben was startled when his cell phone rang. Glancing around for the phone, he finally located it under his clipboard on the passenger seat. Flipping it open, he held it to his ear hopeful that Lisa was ready to apologize for her part in the argument they had last night. Hello, Ben here.

      Ben, this is Gracie. I don’t normally call you on your phone, except I didn’t want to put this out over county air. I thought it might be important. Dana Moore just called. Ted, her husband is giving her trouble out there on that farm again. He’s threatening her like he usually does. She asked me if you would come out. I told her I would request your services. Dana sounded extremely anxious and nervous. I’ve never known her to be so upset before.

      Ben felt disappointed knowing he had missed another opportunity to work things out with Lisa. Wondering why he didn’t call her and try to patch things up, he told himself that was just what he would do as soon as he got the chance. Right now, he had another problem with a drunken husband who might explode into a violent killer at any moment. Gracie was the county dispatcher and if she called him on his cell phone, it usually meant that she had a personal problem she wanted to discuss with him, or it was something important. The Sheriff’s Department had been called out to the Moore Farm several times, in fact, about every two or three weeks for the last six months. Ted got drunk and confronted his wife. After he beat her, she usually called the cops and then wouldn’t press charges against him. This was a familiar scenario in a domestic dispute situation and at the same time it was also one of the most dangerous situations cops faced. Again? Gracie, wasn’t Randall just out there the other day? Randall Petrie was his top deputy. If Randall Petrie couldn’t convince Ted Moore to get medical treatment then nobody could.

      Last Wednesday. Do you want me to give it to someone else? I thought you might be able to put an end to this, Ben.

      I’ll take care of it.

      Need a backup?

      I’m a loner. You should know that by now. Ted won’t give me any trouble. He knows I don’t mess around. I’ll call you later, and don’t worry Gracie, I’ll call if I do need help. Maybe this time I’ll bring Ted in and let him cool off in the jail for a few days.

      You be careful, Ben. Remember that you’ve been up all night. Keep your wits.

      Sure thing. Call you later. Ben pushed the END button and closed the lid on the phone. Sometimes, he hated cell phones. Sometimes, he hated almost everything.

      Since his visit to the doctor the other day, he seemed clumsy and everything was in limbo as if he were overwhelmed with too many problems in his life. He wondered if he shouldn’t really give up his job and do what Lisa wanted him to do, make a living from their business interests. Deciding to worry about that later, he made his mind up that he could only handle one problem at a time. Pulling away from the curb, Ben raced down High Street with his lights flashing and the sirens blasting. Maybe this wasn’t an emergency and then again, maybe it was. He was one never to take chances. If it was as it usually was, Dana Moore would just tell him her sad story, he’d warn Ted to keep his hands off his wife and things would be okay for a few weeks until Ted got drunk again.

      Snowflakes had been drifting down out of a gray sky all morning. Ben always knew when a storm was brewing. He felt uneasy about the snowflakes—mostly because the National Weather Service had been talking about a big snowstorm all week—and the fact that Ted Moore was drunk again. What is different about the situation this time? Just routine business, he assured himself.

      Ben looked for the familiar gravel road that led to the Moore place. Finally, he turned off the main road and drove slowly toward the farmhouse sizing up the situation before he arrived. Ted’s car was parked in front of the house where he usually left it. He glanced at the digital clock on his car radio. It was a little after eleven.

      Parking the cruiser behind Ted’s car, he got out and walked to the front porch. Listening intently for any sign of violence, he walked up the steps and stood in front of the door for a few seconds before ringing the doorbell. Satisfied that nothing was out of the ordinary, he rang the doorbell again and stepped to the side of the storm door so if the door should be shoved open, it wouldn’t hit him in the face. Ted Moore, in a drunken stupor, might just come storming out of that house at any moment and he sure didn’t want to be in his way when he did. Sometimes, Ted could be a little crazy. Despite the fact he kept reassuring himself everything was fine, that nothing was awry, he still felt uneasy. Was it just the approaching storm that troubled him?

      When nobody came to the door, Ben rang the doorbell again, and waited. With his heart beating a little faster, he pulled the screen door open and tried the doorknob. It turned and the door opened. It was unlocked. Cracking the door about a foot, he yelled for Ted and when he didn’t answer, he called Dana’s name. Ted. Dana. Is anybody home? This is Sheriff Ben Willis. Is it okay if I come in?

      The house was as silent as a graveyard at midnight. Something wasn’t right and he knew it. Now he knew what it was. Ted was a security guard. He worked weekends and hadn’t missed any days from work because of his drinking. This was Saturday. If Ted hadn’t called off from work, he shouldn’t be home in the first place, so how could there have been a fight. Ted normally worked first shift, so maybe the fight had occurred before he left for work, or even last night. Alarmed, he pulled his weapon and held it out in front of him as he walked across the threshold and into a dark living room. It was vacant.

      Calling their names, he checked the kitchen and the other rooms on the first floor. When he came to a bedroom in the hallway, he stopped and listened. The door was ajar. Pushing the door open, he saw Dana sitting in a chair looking out the window. He relaxed a little. Where was Ted? Maybe she had taken refuge in here from Ted. If so, why did she leave the damn door unlocked? Dana, are you okay? Was Ted in a closet waiting for anyone that walked into the bedroom?

      Dana didn’t answer. To his amazement, she didn’t move either. In the dim light from a lamp by her bed, he soon realized why she didn’t answer. She was tied to the chair with rope and a pool of blood had collected on the hardwood floor below her chair. Ben walked closer and something heavy pressed against his chest. Her eyes were wide open and her throat had been cut. A long, jagged wound extended from one side of her throat to the other. Her lower lip had been slashed and hung down on her chin. Her head rested on the high back chair. Appalled, he wondered what kind of monster could do something like this to anyone. Then, Ben Willis knew the truth, the storm had arrived and it was going to be a bad one.

      Recovering quickly from the horrifying scene, he looked around the room attempting to figure out what had happened here. The bed had been slept in, except it appeared as if she had not slept alone. Had Ted slept in that bed with her, or was it someone else? As Ben’s eyes surveyed the room, he noticed something else that disturbed him and he didn’t know why. The telephone was off the cradle. The handset was on the floor dangling from a twisted, coiled cord. Ben carefully picked it up with his handkerchief. The operator, or a recording was telling the world to please hang the phone up. Ben placed the phone on the cradle promising himself he would check to see who Dana had called, or the killer had called, before her untimely demise. He would also need to note that the phone was found on the floor in his report. Had the killer forced Dana to call someone, maybe the Sheriff’s office? Why would she do that?

      He hesitated when his foot contacted something on the floor. Looking down, he stared at a pair of women’s panties. Blood covered the silken underwear. She had been brutally raped, probably by more than one person. Ben made a mental note to give the bastard that did it a couple of black eyes with the butt of his gun when he caught him.

      The mystery deepened when Ben checked the upstairs rooms. Ted was nowhere to be found. In the kitchen, Ben found drops of blood on the floor. The drops turned into small pools as they led him toward the backdoor. Pushing the door open with his weapon in his hand, Ben stepped out on the deck and stopped stone cold. A body was on the ground by the old smokehouse. Suddenly more cautious than he had been he looked around wondering if the killer was still here. In his world of violence and deceit, anything was possible. Using every sense he had, he didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary except for the trail of blood and the body. His mind searching for possible places where someone might be waiting for him, he surveyed the yard. An old smokehouse, probably not used for its intended purpose for at least twenty years, stood behind the house more than sixty feet from the deck. Its grayed planks concealed its inner darkness. A slight feeling of being watched paraded through his mind and a shiver developed between his shoulder blades. If it had been nighttime, he would have considered calling for help. Nonetheless, it wasn’t night and he wasn’t about to let a brutal killer get away from him, if he could help it. Ben noticed something about the building that gave him reason to relax. A large padlock was on the door and from where he stood; it appeared as if it was locked. Nobody was in that building waiting for him, nobody at all. Ben stepped down from the porch and walked toward the body keeping an eye on the line of trees in the distance, the beginning of a forest where the killer might be lurking watching his every move.

      Ted Moore was face down on the ground with a butcher knife sticking out of his back. Cautious, Ben looked around again wondering if the killer might still be here. Satisfied that nobody was in sight, he walked over to Ted and touched his shoulder and then felt for a pulse in his neck. He was as dead as a statue in a blizzard. Well, Ted, I don’t guess you have a drinking problem anymore, do you?

      Ben didn’t expect an answer and never got one. Bending over the body, he saw that the sharp instrument had been driven deep, almost to the hilt. The blade had entered the body passing through hard bone. It would have taken a strong person to do that. Ben was sure he wasn’t looking for a woman. It had to be a man or a very strong woman.

      The body was located almost halfway between the house and smokehouse where they had once stored cured meat. Ben thought it might have been ironic if someone had stored Ted in that smokehouse. Surmising that the killer had stabbed Ted in the kitchen and that Ted had managed to run out into the backyard before he collapsed, he wondered why the killer hadn’t moved the body. The smokehouse would have been a perfect place to conceal the body. The killer should have been able to break the lock with a crowbar. A tool shed was only a few feet beyond the smokehouse and it was full of every type of tool anyone might need. Ben had taken a peek into the unlocked shed.

      Perhaps the killer didn’t care if anyone saw Ted Moore out there in his backyard dead as a stone. They hadn’t tried to conceal Dana’s corpse, so why worry about Ted? As Ben stood up, a shot rang out and a bullet tore through his wide-brimmed gray hat. His hat flew off his head and sailed through the air before plummeting to the ground.

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