Chapter 8 – MYOB
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Chapter 8 – MYOB
Mel
Early Tuesday, Afternoon, October 14th, 2014
Gatlinburg, Tennessee
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We were cooling our heels in a little visitors waiting area at the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department. I wasn’t happy about how long we’d been waiting. I was being polite but I’d expected a little professional courtesy here and I wasn’t getting it.
Deputies came and went through the area Dana and I were sitting in, laughing and joking. After more than 40 minutes without so much as an acknowledgement that we were still there by the Deputy manning the inquiry window, I went back to it and stood there until he could be bothered to acknowledge my presence.
“Question ma’am?”
“I just wanted to let you know that we’re still out here and we’re still waiting to speak to your Sheriff or the investigating officer on the Patricia Dunkirk shooting.”
“I’m aware of that Deputy..., what did you say your name was?”
“Crane; Sheriff Crane.” I was trying hard to keep my voice even and my temper in check.
“It will be just a few more minutes Sheriff.” His tone was condescending and I didn’t believe him. All I could do though was nod and go back to my chair beside Dana. She just set her jaw and shook her head.
Another 15 minutes passed before we were finally called back only to be put in a sparse interview room.
Dana shuddered, “Bad vibes in here.”
“Yeah, this is probably the last place you want to be after all you’ve been through. I can’t imagine why they felt the need to put us in here.”
“Simple,” Dana said, “there’s a two way and it’s miked. They can listen to and see everything. Maybe they’ll take what we have to say seriously.”
The words were no sooner out of Dana’s mouth than the partially closed door swung open and the portly Sheriff of Sevier County blustered in. “So sorry to keep you little ladies waiting. I hope it wasn’t too long?”
Condescension seems to run through this department... I stood while Dana remained seated. “Sheriff Trainor,” I said, reading his name tag, “I’m Sheriff Crane from Muskingum County, Ohio and this is my associate, Special Agent Rossi.” I only felt a twinge of guilt using Dana’s former title with the self-important man standing before me.
“Sit, sit please. Coffee? Tea perhaps?”
Dana spoke up, “No thank you Sheriff. We’re here officially.”
I sat back down. Trainor took a chair and turned it around to straddle it facing us like a thinner, fitter man might. “How can I ‘officially’ help you ladies?”
Already tired of his attitude, I just dived in and hoped to get the meeting over with quickly. “Agent Rossi and I are in Tennessee on some personal business. We’re staying in the Mountain Hideaway cabin just outside of Gatlinburg where Patricia Dunkirk was shot and killed last month.”
“Ah, yes. The accidental shooting. So unfortunate.”
“Your department did investigate?”
He eyed me warily but answered quickly, “Of course, of course. Wasn’t much to it though. She stepped out on the balcony and caught a stray round from a hunter, poor thing.” He pursed his lips and shook his head to emphasize his sympathy but his eyes held no sorrow and I wasn’t buying his act.
“Did you find the bullet that struck her on the scene Sheriff or did the Coroner find it at autopsy?” His eyes darted right and he licked his lips before he answered me. I knew a lie was coming.
“I believe so, yes.”
“You believe so or you did?”
“I don’t rightly recall but, regardless, it’s not a matter of public record and I shouldn’t have said what I already have.”
“I can hardly believe that you can’t recall something that happened roughly a month ago and that you think I’m here just digging for information without something of value to add to your investigation.”
Trainor stared at me but didn’t respond.
Dana asked him, “Why do you believe a hunter killed Dunkirk?”
“Why, because that’s the only plausible explanation, of course. She wasn’t from around here. No one here had any reason to harm her however, there have been problems with coyotes in that area and the Sportsman’s Club near there had a sort of a bounty on them running that weekend. Their members were out all over those hills. One of them probably took a shot and never even realized what happened. As I said, it’s just so unfortunate.” His look was smug.
“Patricia Dunkirk was supposedly standing on a balcony several feet off the ground. To hit her, a hunter would have had to have been aiming upward or have been out across from her on a hill on the opposite side of the street where he would have had an unobstructed view of her.”
Trainor waved me off, “There are tree stands all over those woods, uh...”
““Sheriff Crane, and no Sheriff, a hunter in a tree stand would be aiming down, not up, besides, there are no tree stands in the thin copse of trees atop the knoll across from the cabin in the line of trajectory to hit Dunkirk.”
Now his face reddened, “How on earth would you know what the line of trajectory was?”
I pulled two baggies out of my pants pocket and laid them on the table in front of me. “One of those is a full metal jacketed bullet that we dug out of the wall behind the Jacuzzi tub in the master bedroom in the cabin this morning. Before we dug it out, I took photos of it and its relative location. The other is a shell casing that would seem to fit that shell that I found on the opposite hillside a reasonable rifle or pistol eject distance from the line of sight. I understand that they may go together and they may not but, certainly, the bullet is damning evidence that someone was gunning for Dunkirk.”
“So you’re a bullet expert huh?”
Half standing and leaning across the table toward him, I was indignant. “I’m a County Sheriff, a 12 year veteran of the department and I’ve been hunting since I was big enough to hold a gun.” Dana grabbed a belt loop and started to haul me backward.
Trainor leaned back away from my advance and, after almost falling off the chair, remembered he had it turned backward.
“Okay, ladies, I admit, the bullet is a mite suspicious but the shell casing is entirely coincidental. It could have been there for years. Frankly, I’m writing all of this off to coincidence. It was a hunter because there is no other plausible explanation.”
Exasperation seeping into her own voice, Dana implored him, “Sheriff Trainor, Why on earth would someone be hunting coyote with a .22, with jacketed rounds and aiming that high? Most hunters would use a shotgun for one thing and, I checked, you can’t use jacketed rounds to hunt in Tennessee. It’s illegal. I’m sure any hunter here would know that.”
When she finished, Trainor leaned slightly forward in as much as leaning into the chair back would let him, “Tell you ladies what; I’ll have one of my men look into it.”
“He’s the laziest, most condescending piece of s**t I’ve come across in my law enforcement career!” I was venting once we were in the car and out of earshot but Dana seemed to be pre-occupied. When she didn’t respond, I tapped her leg to get her attention.
“Sorry; just thinking.”
“Penny for them...”
“I heard you Mel but I don’t think it’s laziness. I think it’s more than that. The Sheriff, maybe his whole department, they’re hiding something.”
“Like what?”
“That, I don’t know but they must have had a reason to dust the cabin for prints.”
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