Sullied Sally

Chapter 3 - Horace Bailey

Chapter 3 - Horace Bailey

Late Thursday morning, November 12th

Muskingum County Sheriff’s Department

Zanesville, Ohio

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MEL MET ANDREA ANDERSON outside of the interview room.

Anderson got right to the point. “What did you come up with yesterday?”

“Not much,” Mel admitted. “A little background from the victim’s wife, is all.”

“The appointments? The murder weapon? What about those?”

“No dice on information about the appointments. He lawyered up...wouldn’t talk to me. His lawyer is in there with him now. I’m sure he’s thinking about cutting some sort of deal.”

Anderson tossed her head sideways. “We’ll just see about that.”

Horace sat at the interview table in his orange jail jumpsuit. He rested his handcuffed hands on the table top and hung his head.

Mel and the DDA walked into the room, one right after the other.

Horace’s attorney Calvin Holmes, rose and nodded at Mel. “Sheriff.” He pointed at the cuffs the still seated prisoner wore. “Can those come off?”

“Sure. Sure,” Mel said as stepped around the table then dug in her pocket for her keys. While the DDA introduced herself to Holmes, Mel took the restraints off and laced them through her gun belt. Horace rubbed his wrists but said nothing.

Mel’s heart melted a little. She’d known the man all her life. She found it hard to believe he’d killed Tanner Mathis all those years ago but, despite the conventional wisdom, she knew people changed. Sometimes for the worst but occasionally for the better. Maybe that had been the wakeup call he needed in the seventies to get his life together but now it was all coming back to bite him.

Holmes didn’t want to waste any time. Looking at Anderson, he said, “We want a deal. We’ll plead guilty to manslaughter for the death of Tanner Mathis. My client is 79, nearly 80. The docket is packed. Waiting for a sentencing hearing is just going to waste the taxpayer’s money and it will end up landing him in the penitentiary where he most assuredly does not belong at his advanced age and state of health.”

“No deal,” Andrea said, as soon as he stopped for a breath. “We’ve got probable cause to believe your client is responsible for the death of Owen Lafferty.”

Horace’s head shot up and he glared at Mel. “I told you before, I wasn’t there where he...where he was found. I had appointments all that day; medical appointments!”

“Then give me the details so I can follow up, Mr. Bailey,” Mel said.

He looked at his attorney.

Andrea cleared her throat. “You should know that a search warrant will be executed on your client’s home today.”

Before Holmes could respond, Bailey slapped his hands down on the table and shouted, “What for?”

The tremor in her voice belied her calm exterior as the DDA told him and his counsel, “We’re looking for the murder weapon, which we believe to be Mr. Bailey’s walking cane. When we find it, it will be tested.”

“I. Told. You. I. Wasn’t. There.” Horace looked back and forth between Andrea and Mel. Turning to his attorney he asked, “Can’t you do something?”

His counsel gave him a long look but said nothing.

“The appointments, Mr. Bailey?” Mel pressed.

“I was with my...what the hell do they call it these days? My primary care doc in Zanesville, Doc Sipes, in the morning, first thing.”

Mel scribbled the name down. “About what time would that be?”

“Say around 8:00. Always try to make my appointments early, before he gets backed up and I end up sitting there past my appointment time...well past it. I hate that.”

Mel caught herself nodding along.

“Fat lot of good it did me this time though!”

“Why’s that?” Mel asked.

“Oh, he felt like my blood pressure was too high and he wasn’t liking some labs he got back, or so he says, anyway. He wanted me to have some more tests done. It’s all a racket to get more money out of Medicare is all, if you ask me.”

“So he sent you over to Genesis?” Andrea asked.

“Hell no! That’s the thing of it. Made me go see some specialist in Newark who said he could work me in that morning. I went straight up there and ended up cooling my heels for a couple of hours before they took me back, then I waited some more.”

“What was that doctor’s name?” Mel asked.

Horace spread his hands. “Some Indian fellow. Praheet, maybe? That sounds right. Hell, I can’t rightly recall! You’d have to ask Doc Sipes.”

Mel stepped out of the interview room and called down to the squad bay for one of her detectives to come upstairs. Janet Mason appeared a couple of minutes later.

“Me and the new Deputy DA have Horace Bailey in interview over Lafferty’s death,” Mel told her. “He’s claiming he has an alibi.” She handed Janet her piece of notepaper and pointed at it. “Says he saw this doctor at 8:00 AM on Monday in Zanesville and that guy sent him to a specialist in Newark. He’s fuzzy on the name. This is his best guess.” Mel pointed at the second name on the paper. “Get on the phone to the doctors, see what you can find out without a warrant, but to start working on that too. They probably won’t give you much.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

“Yeah. Before you go chasing appointments down, get a warrant over to the justice center ASAP for a search of his residence. He uses a walking cane most of the time, but he came in without it. That’s probably our murder weapon.”

“On it, Sheriff.”

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“IT DIDN’T GO TOO BAD, Sheriff,” Janet told her boss a couple of hours later. “I’ve gone ahead and sent both warrants over to justice for signature, but I was able to confirm Bailey’s appointments without one and that he showed up for both.”

Mel raised her eyebrows. “I’m surprised.”

“Actually, the guy here in Zanesville was my mother’s family doctor for several years...before the cancer diagnosis.” She paused and sucked in a breath, steadying herself. “I took a quick ride over there. He remembered me. He wouldn’t tell me anything in a medical sense, but he did tell me that Bailey was there for his appointment, that he sent him to Newark to see a specialist and that it’s evident Bailey did go up there because they do have test results back from that day.”

“Any idea of the time line?”

Janet nodded. “His first appointment was at eight AM. They sent him on his way around 8:30 AM. The time stamp on the labs is 11:03 AM. I didn’t get to see the labs, but I trust what they told me.”

Mel shook her head. “Plenty of time.”

“Pardon, Sheriff?”

“He had plenty of time, even as slow as he drives, to leave Zanesville and get back to Morelville for whatever meeting was going on there before Dana happened along around 2:30 or so that afternoon and found Lafferty barely clinging to life.”

We’ve got him, Mel thought.