The Long Way

By John Tyner

As November elections near, the incumbent DA is getting pressure from his opponent, Preston Shanks, regarding unsolved murders in this SE Oregon county. Police have no clues but suspect drugs are involved. Shanks is working to restart his political career and hopes to run for governor but the incumbent governor wants to stop him. The ensemble of

• Language: English
• Publisher: John tyner
• Release date: May 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9781944887438

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The Long Way

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John Tyner

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Copyright © 2019 John Tyner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number 2019936737

ISBN 978-1-944887-42-1

eISBN 978-1-944887-43-8

Chapter One

November 1, 1988

The summer sun beat down on Walter Richard’s head and he wished he’d worn a hat. The middle-aged ex-mill worker shifted his backpack to ease the straps’ pressure where they dug into his shoulders. He brought his garden plant shears, plastic garbage bags and gloves. He knew the load would be a little heavier coming back. He was lost but he wasn’t panicking. The topographical map was marked and as long as he had water and could find shade under the Douglas Fir canopy he would be all right.

The morning drive from Grand Junction was uneventful. He had lunch at Milly’s and set out after noon. The familiar hunting trails disappeared but he had worked in the mill in nearby Elk Cove until he lost his job at Christmas and he knew the area.

Walter parked his pickup out on Highway 43 past the traffic cutout five miles outside of town and then started up into the National Forest. By 2:00 pm he had gone only a few miles in the rough country and couldn’t figure out where he strayed from the trail. He was confident he could find his way back. He hunted coastal mule deer in the early fall in southeastern Oregon and wasn’t worried. He liked it cool but it had really warmed up.

The hike looked easier in May when the plants were still small and immature. He wasn’t greedy, he’d take a couple of plants they’d never miss and be gone.

By three he knew he was lost and had that feeling he was being followed. He started to panic a little, then like a mirage he saw the clearing in the forest near the old shack with the rusted old manual water pump. He had found the place. He was removing the cap from his canteen when he heard a buzzing sound nearby, then a serious of metallic clicks which he realized as automatic weapons fire. He ducked and turned suddenly and saw two men armed running towards him across the clearing from the woods. He didn’t feel much pain just a bite as he reached under his pack for his .22 pistol. He blanched as he saw his own blood on his fingers. He fell to his knees and breathed no more.

The two men swore as they loaded his body in the jeep they had hidden next to the camper in the woods. They brought along the shovel and drove cross-country into the forest along the trails they had just recently found. They dug the grave and covered it with rocks in an area where they believed it would never be found. When they returned it was dark and having nothing better to do they lay down in the tent and tried to sleep. They didn’t touch any of the marijuana, they needed to be sharp. They were so bored that they were tempted but they didn’t want to risk it. Just a few more days and they would be gone.

* * *

Friday

The lunch crowd from the mill was about to come in but Vern’s was already crowded. People kept arriving but nobody was leaving. People either ate at Milly’s, the little blue diner on Broadway, or at Vern’s if they wanted a beer with lunch. Vern’s was a great place to talk drug deals.

Vern’s had a long tradition of resistance to lawful authority starting during prohibition, having uninterruptedly served liquor since the early part of the century. The bar was old growth fir, stained, none of that wood veneer stripping on it. It had the knobbed edges around the ends of the bar to prevent glasses from sliding off. It had a huge mirror on the wall behind the bar. The tavern had expanded unevenly, each expansion showing in the badly jointed walls and the varying dips of the floor. Paunchy, egg-spotted old crones played pinball in the plywood game room.

The wall behind the bar with was decorated with plastic beer signs, cartons of beer nuts, corn chips, beef jerky, potato chips—every manner of instant junk food. The microwave oven squatted under the sign advertising tasty home-cooked sandwiches which had been there for as long as he could remember. The bar surface was jammed with glass jars containing sweetened dill pickles, polish sausage, pork knuckles and pickled fish, all floating in cloudy liquids.

Did you guys hear the news? Hodges asked as he hitched up his pants on his way back from the restroom. They haven’t seen Richards for awhile.

Probably tried to ripped some weed off, probably got shot by the Wheeler’s. It happens all the time. Rudy shrugged knowingly. Rudy Sacalla was a local high school football legend who briefly played in college but had returned to live locally. He was now twenty-one but had drank beer at Vern’s since high school, he felt comfortable there.

Probably just poaching a little deer. Ron noted, he fit in because he was Rudy’s friend.

Makes me wonder about loaning you the jeep. Hodges waved for a Bud to the bartender. He was in his fifties and needed money since the layoffs started at the mill. These college kids could pay full value for the Jeep. He had been laid off for a long time and needed the money for utilities this month. He owned the shack he lived in but didn’t see much cash. I didn’t even get to go to school and you guys who did are low balling me again.

Everybody sure gets greedy this time of the year. Ron was getting angry. Hodges was going to raise the rental on his rig. They were up to $200 already. All he wanted was quick pot deal so he could get back up to Portland. Rudy and Ron were in the pot growing business together and costs had risen for everything. It was eating into profit.

You greedy old fart, you’re not going to jump the rent on us again, are you? The jeep was needed to harvest the grow. Ron needed the money to get out of town, the town was getting claustrophobic and it smelled bad.

The mill workers and the old guys at Vern’s like Hodges swore they couldn’t smell the Mill anymore. Only you flat-landers think it smells bad, that’s jobs and money there, they’d sneer.

You keep your side of the deal and you will get your cash.

It has to be cash. Hodges knew Rudy and his dad. Rudy from football and his dad because he lived there all his life. He didn’t know Ron except through Rudy.

OK I’ll keep to the deal. He needed the money because the unemployment had run out and he was starting to get desperate.

Ron and Rudy got up and left. The sun looked like it might poke out from clouds and give them a little sunshine. The only time the town looked good was when the rain calmed the air pollution from the mill. The haze caused all kinds of colors to diffuse above the town. It made for reddish sunsets and spectacular rainbows.

Monday, September 11, 1988

GRAND JUNCTION: Hunters found the body of Grand Junction native Walter Richards Sunday. Police refused to say whether the death is associated with the fall marijuana harvest. The body was found Sunday, in the National Forest.

What a way to start the week, John Zahn mused as he morosely read the Eugene Register Guard, the drug story was front-page news. No one published a paper in Grand Junction so they read the Register at Milly’s Diner, a tattered copy delivered from Eugene. He was pissed that the first he knew of the murder was when he read it in the paper, he was a deputy district attorney after all. On top of that he had been waiting too long for his morning coffee. He believed Anna the morning waitress served him last on purpose. He never tipped for bad service.

Paul Thurlow was scanning the same headline because as a local attorney the news usually related to potential business. Unemployed workers paying their bills by growing marijuana on National Forest Lands apparently. The paunchy middle-aged lawyer had a stock routine that included breakfast at Milly’s Diner and lunch when he could.

Drugs are the big issue in the election. Shanks saying the District Attorney’s Office is too soft on marijuana. His voice rose to the point that he knew Zahn could hear him. That was his sport with his investigator Charlie Hughes with whom was having coffee, as was their custom.

Zahn heard the comment and correctly interpreted as a jab at his office. He gazed at his two tormentors as they sat at the front booth next to the window and noted sourly that their cups were full.

Maybe we’ll have a new DA in November, Charlie Hughes the investigator hooted loudly to his employer as Anna refilled his cup.

Crime sells newspapers. It will be here long after you and I retire, Thurlow offered. They both liked a leisurely coffee break and as aging professionals considered it their due. Thurlow was a fifty-ish balding pudgy barrister and always wore a suit coat to cover his paunch. It had the dual function of providing a measure of dignity to his bearing also.

Despairing of getting any service Zahn abandoned his table to walk out of the diner but as he did he couldn’t resist engaging the two aging men.

If you and your buddy keep getting them out we’ll never get a handle on this violence. Zahn didn’t like private investigators, or defense lawyers either.

It’s the politicians, like your boss, who are responsible, its drug prohibition that leads to the violence, Charlie opined lifting the front page and waving it at Zahn. He got appointed by the Governor and now he has to run on his own. Let’s see if he can.

Zahn was irritated but refused to give them any satisfaction. Screw the news, per capita Lincoln County has a lower crime rate than other county in Oregon. We’re doing a hell of a job down here with crime. Zahn was irked that Thurlow’s hippie investigator was mooning over the waitress again.

Mr. Zahn. I see the news isn’t good, Shanks makes it sound like your man is a little soft on drugs, Thurlow noted between sips of coffee. Charlie just smiled.

Well, we’ll see if we can’t get a little tougher with your clients, counselor, he said with narrowed eyes. That might help.

I guess in a war on drugs you can’t be too tough.

Zahn knew the older lawyer had some problems with the Oregon State Bar and made a note to find out what that was all about. Benson told him the State Bar almost yanked Thurlow’s license once. If Thurlow screwed up again around Lincoln County he vowed to do it himself. He knew Charlie the investigator bunked at the lawyer’s office, maybe he left a stray bag of weed there, maybe the narcs should check that.

* * *

They sat outside Milly’s waiting for Thurlow’s old Volvo 240 to warm up.

Charlie, the fee checks from Temporal Grace Church were late this month. Check with the Rev and see why. The money for his legal fees representing the church came from an eccentric libertarian foundation that supported the Reverend Humankind’s political views. Thurlow didn’t really care who was paying as long as the checks cashed timely. Thurlow also didn’t care who was going to win the race for District Attorney.

I will. So who is going to win?

It won’t matter, Benson is barely competent. Which made their job both easier and harder. The DA’s Office continually overcharged on cases, and then right before trial ended up plea bargaining away most of the charges. The clients paid to protect themselves from the overcharged indictment and then were grateful when most of the charges were inevitably dismissed in the plea agreement. It worked for Thurlow and the DA’s office.

I don’t trust Shanks. The ex-County Bar Association President was running as tough-on-crime. It wouldn’t be as easy with him as DA. No resources to follow through on his promises. He has to know it this is a poor county. Which made him a liar in Thurlow’s view. I can’t figure out how he intends to live on that paltry salary either.

Thurlow never lost his resentment of Shanks and the way the local bar initially treated him when he first came to town. They looked down their noses at him, didn’t like his ethics issues and they didn’t like him. Thurlow still didn’t attend local bar events.

We don’t cause crime. They just made their living on it.

Charlie didn’t care, You wore me out, give me a lift to the office.

Will you be at Reverend Humankind’s tonight? Charlie had a good deal on a trailer home at the church compound. He could park his motorcycle and live there cheaply.

If I’m not with you monkey people I will.

Oh right, the RH negative thing, we’re from the monkeys and you are from the aliens.

The reverend only wants alien astronauts not monkey blood in camp. The Reverend had everyone who wanted to live at the Temporal Grace Compound blood typed. Charlie was RH negative and stayed there occasionally, developing a reliable source of referrals for Thurlow. The church was good for two or three driving without a license or suspended cases a month.

* * *

Sheryl, his secretary, waved to him when he got in through the office back door from the parking lot.

Russ Wheeler is here. Thurlow was surprised because no car was parked in the lot. But his best client was waiting for him so he stepped out into