The Last Jeskey - Chapter 44

 

The Last Jeskey

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 44

 

(Day 10 – Saturday)

 

Sheriff Cobb

 

It seemed like I was never going to get a day off.  It was Saturday and I was home for once, and I had big plans to sit and vegetate in front of the TV all afternoon.  Then later I was heading next door to watch the game on TV with my neighbor.  A perfect Saturday!  Nat was off doing more freaky stuff for Freaky, and that was fine…as long as it didn’t involve me.  But when she called and said they had found another hiding spot on that farm, that threw my big afternoon plans right out the window.

A few phone calls later, I was rushing to get my uniform on and head out to the station.  Fifteen minutes after that, I led a squad of deputies out to the Jeskey farm.  When we got there, we found all the women inside eating lunch.

How was your visit with the relatives?” I asked after walking in the door to see them eating.

“Fine,” Nat told me.  “Just a bit shorter than I figured.  We didn’t get to go out for lunch like we planned.”

I didn’t really care about that.  I wanted to get down to business.  “Where’s this hiding place you told me about?”

“There’s an old pump out by one of the sheds,” Nat told me.  “Evidently it’s under that.”

I knew the place.  I had walked by it a number of times.  I just never knew there was any kind of hiding place there.  But then I guess that was the point to a hiding place.

While the ladies finished the last of their lunch, I led my deputies out to the old pump.  Yup, it sure looked broken.  There was a long-handled shovel lying on the platform.  I stepped up on that platform and played with what was left of the pump handle.  It moved, but with  difficulty.  Especially since there was only about three inches of handle left.  But Nat had said the hiding place was underneath.  I noticed all the ladies trooping out to muck up my crime scene.  I nodded toward one of my deputies.  “Don’t let them get too close.”

I turned to Russ.  “According to Nat, the hiding place is underneath.  I guess that’s why they left the shovel for us.”

Russ grabbed the shovel and the two of us started walking all around that old wooden platform.  “I don’t see any place where the ground’s been dug up for…about a century,” he noted.

“No.  Me neither,” I agreed.

“Okay then, here goes,” Rus said as he stuck the shovel in the dirt at the very bottom of the platform.  He stomped down on the shovel with his foot, trying to get under the thing and pry it up.

“No!” Freaky said.  “You’re doing it wrong.”

We all looked at her.  She pushed her way though.  “Use the shovel the other way.”

She had me confused.  “What other way?”

“Backwards.”

Russ turned the spade of the shovel backwards.  “Like this?” he asked, not believing she could mean it.

“No!” Freaky exclaimed.  She grabbed the shovel from him.  “Use this part.”

“The handle?” Russ asked.  “How?”

Freaky looked like she was completely exasperated with the questions.  “Right there!” she said as she walked around to another side of the square platform.  “See that hole?  Put the shovel in there.”

I watched as Russ walked around to the other side of the platform.  He knelt down and looked under the rim of the wood.  “Huh!  There’s a hole here.  He looked at the shovel handle.  “And it’s just about the right size.”  With that, he tried pushing the handle of the shovel into the hole.  It went in about two feet then stopped.  He pushed a bit harder and the handle went in another six inches, then it pushed back out again.  “It’s spring loaded,” Russ said.

I turned to Freaky.  “Now what?”

“Lift,” she told me.  “But I think it’s going to be heavy.  The only times I ever saw them open it, they had to work to get it up.”

Russ pushed the shovel in hard again, then put his back to the shovel and tried to lift.  The platform began to swing up.  Another of the deputies rushed in to give him a hand, and before long, the entire platform had swung up on some big hinges.  That pump on top wasn’t attached to anything but the top of the wooden platform!  With the top pried up, we saw a set of cement stairs leading down a good eight or ten feet.  One of the deputies pulled on a board attached to the platform and it swung down.  Another board on the other side swung down too.

“Let the thing down,” I told them.  A moment later, the entire heavy platform rested safely on those wooden legs.  At the bottom of the steps, I saw a door.  It looked like it was built to be waterproof, which only made sense.  The entire doorframe appeared to be cement like the steps.  The other thing I noticed about the door was the padlock.  “Somebody go find us some bolt cutters.”

A couple of deputies ran off, but that just gave the women a chance to move in, closer than I wanted.  Too close!

“Sheriff!” Lisa said.  “While you’re waiting, we’ve got some questions.”

“What?” I asked.

“The trucks,” she said.  “Can we use one so Natalie doesn’t always have to drive us everywhere?”

It sounded like a good idea to me.  But….  “You got a license?” I asked.

“Yes,” she told me.

“I got one too,” Shantel added.

I nodded.  “The trucks have all been searched and cleared,” I told them.  “Pick just one though and leave the rest for now.”

“How about the keys?” Lisa asked.

That was a bigger problem.  “Until I can get back to the station on Monday and check through the belongings for Bo and his boys, I guess you’re going to have to wait.”

“What if we find some in the house.  Like spare keys?” Shantel asked.

“That’s fine then,” I told her.  “Go for it.  But like I said, just one truck for now.”

That seemed to excite both women.  I could see my deputies hurrying back now.  One of them was carrying some bolt cutters.

“And how about all the clothes and stuff that belonged to Freaky’s uncle and his sons.”

“What about it?” I asked.

“When can we get rid of any of it?”

“It’s in our way,” Shantel added.

Considering that, I guessed it would be.  “Bag it up,” I told them.  “Then put it somewhere.  Maybe the barn if you want it out of the way.  Don’t throw it out yet.”

“Does that include Gary’s stuff too?” Shantel asked.  “He ain’t exactly dead yet.  So I hear.”

She had a good point.  Gary was still out there.  He was going to prison just as soon as I could find him though, but still.  “No,” I decided.  “For now, leave all of Gary’s things alone.”

Shantel didn’t exactly look happy.  “But I can still use that room?” she asked.  “There’s two beds in there and only one of them was Gary’s.”

“Yeah,” I told her.  “Go ahead and clear out anything that’s not Gary’s.  We’ll have to deal with his stuff later.”  She seemed a bit happier.

My deputy rushed in with the bolt cutter and carefully made is way down the steps.  A bit of labor later and the padlock was history.  Russ moved in and opened the heavy door.  All I saw from up above was darkness.

“Here!” one of the deputies said.  He tossed a flashlight down to Russ.

I watched as Russ shined that flashlight into the open space.  “Sheriff!  You better get down here,” he said.

Fearing dead bodies, I descended the steps and went in through the door.  A minute later I poked my head out again.  “We’re going to need more flashlights.  I left mine in my car if you need one.  I didn’t think I’d be needing it.”

Two minutes later, we had two more deputies in that underground room, and all four of us had flashlights.  I looked all around first, then shined my light over all the rifles, handguns, and ammunition that was stored in there.  As I did, I knew I was the only one looking at those things.

“Wow!” one of the deputies said.

I turned to look again at what they were all looking at.  Shelves.  A whole wall of shelves.  A whole wall of shelves stacked with money from floor to ceiling.

“How much do you think is here?” one of the deputies asked.

“A lot more than I make,” Russ replied.

“What do we do Sheriff?” one of the deputies asked.

I shook my head.  My first instinct was to close and lock the underground room and come back on Monday to deal with it all.  Unfortunately, I knew I couldn’t do that.  “Russ,” I said.  “Start organizing some way to get it all out of here.  Like it or not, we’ve got it get it all back to the station…tonight!  And when we get it there, we’ll put it in one of the cells.”

I climbed the steps up into the daylight and heat above.  As I climbed, I wondered if all that money was from that missing safe.  It certainly could be.  I had no way of knowing though.  The Jeskey’s had been running both drugs and guns  A lot of drugs and guns.  And that kind of business could generate a lot of cash.  Cash like what was down in that cement bunker.

“What’s down there?” Natalie asked.

“Money,” I told her.  “A lot of money.”

While the deputies were pulling everything out of the underground bunker and loading it into our cars under the scrutiny of more deputies, I noticed all the women had disappeared.  Long before we were done I noticed them all running excitedly around all the pickup trucks.  It looked like they had found a set of keys…more than one set of keys.

Natalie finally came back to see how we were doing.  “They decided to pick the green truck,” she said.  According to Freaky, it’s Ben’s and the newest of the bunch.  It certainly looks nice.”

“Good choice then,” I said as I continued to watch over the job being done.

“They decided that if I wanted, they would try to find that church by themselves tomorrow, so I don’t have to go.  You either.”

“Me?”

“I told you about it.  I was going to have to take them.”

I didn’t remember any such thing!  “Sounds like giving them that truck is going to work out just fine then.”

“If you don’t need me, I’m going to take off and go home,” she told me.

Lucky her.  “Okay.  Wait!  I need you to hang around a bit.  I’m using your protection detail right now and I still don’t want you going anywhere without him.”

“Still?  Will, it’s been days!”

“Yeah, that’s right.  Days.  Not weeks or months.  I don’t trust Gary Jeskey.  I don’t even trust the ones who are dead.”

She looked at me like she was perturbed with something, then said, “Me either.  How much money do you think is there?”

“A lot!”

Once the money and guns were all loaded and I had phoned the D.A. to give him the heads up on our find, Natalie got back into her car and the deputy I had assigned to her for the day followed her out of there.  It was a good thing he had been there.  As it turned out, we had needed the manpower.  Now we just had to get it all out of the cars and into the station.  Despite what the D.A. wanted, I was determined that nobody was going to touch that money to count it until Monday.  That money had waited where it was for a long time.  It could now wait long enough for me to enjoy what was left of the weekend.

I checked in with the three women just before I left.  I was surprised to see Freaky and Lisa sitting down at the table.  From what they told me, it was Freaky’s very first writing lesson.  I figured that was a good thing.  I’m not sure how Freaky felt about it though.  “We’re going now,” I told them.  “As usual, there’ll be a deputy driving by once in a while and they’ll leave another car here tonight…as usual too.”

“Bye Sheriff!” Shantel called happily as she was carrying an armload of things out of one of the bedrooms.  “And thanks.”

I tipped my hat to her and walked out.  How long before the three of them would be in that truck and driving all around?  Not long at all, I was certain.  But then I remembered that they didn’t have any money.  None.

Unless Nat gave them some.  Not my business!

As I was following the line of money-filled vehicles off the farm, I noticed a bear crossing the field not far away.  It looked like it was coming from the dirt road we were about to follow.  Those women better watch their step anytime they went outdoors.

We had just started unloading the money from the cars into one of the jail cells when my cellphone rang.  Since I was only supervising, I took the time to look at the caller ID.  My next-door neighbor.  I remembered we had talked about watching the game together on TV tonight.  I looked at all that money that needed to be moved.  I was going to have to  tell him that I was going to be a bit late.  I answered the call.  “Hey.  I’m still coming.”

“Will!” his urgent voice came back.  “Natalie and one of your deputies have just been shot!  The deputy I think is dead.  Natalie’s alive but she’s unconscious and bleeding like crazy.  I called the ambulance just before I called you.”

Natalie had been shot?  Oh hell!