The Motel Murder

In the Woods, and an Old Car

With New Holes

My name’s Denise Sumpter, deputy sheriff, Wassahatchka County, Florida. The county seat is Seminole Pines, population—God knows. A few thousand?

Sheriff Pee-Wee Marion calls me Midge for midget because he’s about the size of Mt. Rushmore and I’m all of five foot three and 130 pounds. He makes fun of me for being so small. Okay. First day I was on the force, he called me Midge for about the hundredth time, and I said, Sure, Pee-Wee, whatever you say. You should’a’ seen his jaw drop. But then he laughed, and we’ve been at it ever since.

Pee-Wee’s six foot seven and goes about 320. His real name’s Beaumont. He’s been on the force just over forty years—forty! Sometimes Pee-Wee makes him a little mad, but only a little. I make him laugh, so he puts up with me. White man his size who laughs at my jokes, okay by me. I don’t have any bad words for Pee-Wee Marion. He’s a good sheriff and treats me and all his deputies fairly. The citizens of Wassahatchka he treats the same; black, white, hispanic, Asian—don’t matter. If more lawmen were like him, we’d have a fairer and better country.

Tell you something else: when Pee-Wee retires, I’m gonna run for sheriff and I’m gonna win because I’ll get every black person in Wassahatchka to vote for me, and there’re enough white folks with sense—so I’ve heard—to put me over the top.

There are only two of us deputies who are black, me and Junior Madison. But, then, the whole department ain’t but six people, so 33% of the department is black. I got a B- in English in high school, but I got an A in math.

Just so you know: You’re hearing first hand from somebody born in Seminole Pines, Wassahatchka County, Florida—a little town out in the piney woods of North Florida east of Tallahassee, West of Jacksonville, south of the Georgia line, north of Southern New York—Miami and Coral gables—and underneath the bluest sky you’ve ever seen. And in the middle of about a million acres of pine trees and palmettos.

I grew up in an African-American neighborhood, and proud of it. Where I grew up, we’re a close-knit community, and we take care of each other. Maybe you’ll learn something about me, about language, about yourself, when you hear my story. Cut me some slack and hear what I’m gonna tell you. I hope you don’t got a problem with my accent, my dialect. This is my voice. You want to hear a good story? It’s coming. I dictate into a machine and my friend Pheebee (not Phoebe), who I’ll tell you about some other time, writes it all out. She don’t change nothing without my say-so. My language is a part of me. So, all y’all readers—enjoy the story.

It’s a story about the murder in my grandmama’s motel and it’s pretty spicy. It just happened recently. You’re gonna see the real North Florida—some good people, and some who’d scare Satan into peein’ his pants. We have our share of prejudice, for sure, but also our share of love and respect, decency and kindness. We’ve got violent crime, sorry to say, just like other places. But just like other places, we’ve got cracker-jack detectives to figure it out.

Namely, me.

So I come in 7:30 sharp every morning to do my shift, whatever Pee-Wee asks me to do. Mostly it’s the usual crap: man the speed trap, security at the courthouse or the Friday night football game at the high school, check on a break-in at the Feed and Seed.

Or we’ve got Titus Chancey (he’s white) smacking his girlfriend Emaine (not Elaine; E-maine) around, but she won’t press no charges. She don’t like it, but she puts up with it. Don’t know why. She’ll call the cops (here in Seminole Pines, that’s the Sheriff’s department) to get him to stop, then he’ll get mad and hit her even more when we’re gone. I ask Pee-Wee if I can go ‘round on my own to check on her, make sure he don’t break her neck or kill her, and he says okay by him so long as I do my duty list first. But by the time my duty list is out of the way, I’ve got no time and I’m dead tired most days. Being a sheriff in Wassahatchka County’s no piece of cake, no shit—excuse my French. Tell you what, though: Emaine’s bigger than Titus, and some day she’s gonna whack him back and their relationship will either get real or just fall apart.

You’ll meet Titus later, I guarantee.

If it ain’t Sunshine Chancey beating on his girlfriend, then it’s I got to go five miles down some unimproved forest service road—half sand, half clay, and all ruts, cut right out of the pine woods—to check on another local ray of sunshine who’s got a meth lab and a still hidden ‘mongst the trees and palmettos. We grow a lot of corn in Wassahatchka, and it don’t all go to cookouts, popcorn, and grits. You’d call it moonshine. Some of it’s crap, but some of it would make Jesus pray for more.

Last time I was out in the woods trying to bust somebody for cooking up ephedrine into meth, it was scary shit. The guy’s name is Clayton Angier—believe it or not, an old high-up white family in Wassahatchka, but come down in the world considerably. I went up and down them crappy roads a month looking before I finally rousted that rattlesnake outta his hiding place. Clayton ought’a’ been a big success in life because he’s smart and went to the university down in Gainesville, but he’s so cracked up on meth himself—or booze, or dope, or coke—that he done fell apart a year after high school.

So he’s out in the woods making his deadly shit—got battery acid and drain cleaner, for Godsakes—and he’s turned mean. He’s got long hair and a long beard and a military-grade assault rifle, and I showed up next to his shed to check it out on a Friday a couple weeks back, got out of my car, and he fired a burst over my head and told me to beat it and he wouldn’t consider me trespassing.

I stood on the driver’s side opposite his meth works and still, crouchin’ down and looking over the hood. I yelled back, I ain’t tresspassin’, Clayton Angier, and you know it. This is National Forest land—public property. I can’t rightly trespass on what I partly own, now can I? I’m just out to pay a friendly visit and check out whether you’ve got a camping permit for out here. You’ve got to get a camping permit from the forest service, now ain’t that right? You got one?

Quick got to mention my patrol car. It’s a hand-me-down from FHP—Florida Highway Patrol—like half the equipment we got. Wassahatchka’s the second poorest county in Florida but the second largest in size, so we’ve got Pee-Wee and five deputies to keep a lid on crime, and I get to tool around in a ex-FHP Crown Victoria that’s ten years old and has already been shot up at least once—and while I was in it. Let me tell you, a ten-year-old patrol car’s like a ninety year old old man—it can’t move without a walker and it don’t rightly know what it doing in this world no more. If I floor that sucker, I’ll still get to sixty myself before it does even though I’m only 26.

Of course, I know Cutie Clayton ain’t camping, and I don’t know whether you’ve got to have a permit to camp way out here or not. Made that shit up on the spur of the moment so I can get him talking and hopefully not shoot at me. He’s got that assault rifle—a real AK-47—and I’ve got a Glock 37 hand-me-down from the FHP. It’s a good pistol and I’m good with it, but I ain’t trying it out against Clayton Angier who can shoot twice as far and more accurately than I can. I ain’t that dumb.

But Clayton’s fixing on trying my patience. "If it ain’t Deputy Denise herself. Too bad it ain’t Sheriff Marion; shootin’ him is like shootin’ a barn door from ten feet. You, I got to have a telescopic sight to find you from the same distance. Ha, ha, heh!" He thinks he’s funny. Have to admit, I was laughing. Problem is, his meth ain’t a joke, his liquor is illegal, and he’s probably got no permit for that AK he’s shooting over my head.

So he keeps on about ten minutes. "You got to twist up rubber bands to make that sorry-ass car go? Ha, ha, ha. You must’a’ come in here when I was gone and sampled my shine. You back for another sip? Cost you twenty dollars a quart jar. Probably improve your disposition, and make you think you’re taller. Ha, ha, ha. Shit, my shine’ll make you think you’re white and sing like an opera star. Hee, hee, hee!"

There was more, but he ain’t told two jokes in his life worth repeating. And I don’t take his racist jibes too seriously. Clayton’s just trying to rile me. I’ve had good whiskey before and I’ve never wanted to be white. You’ll notice he talks more black than I do white.

I’ve got patience, but after a few minutes of the Clayton Angier show, my patience is about the same as a stud-bull in the cow pen, so I say, Hey, Clayton. I’m gonna have to take you in, Sunshine, and you know it. Come along peaceably. You shoot me, Beaumont Marion’ll be coming after you—and the whole Florida Highway Patrol. Don’t nobody like cop killers.

But he fires a burst over my car, and I see reason ain’t no more his virtue than patience is mine, so I yell: Drop that damn pea-shooter and I won’t shoot your damn pecker off, you son’va’bitch. I’m here to take you in, and you’re evading the law! Then bam, bam, bam, he puts three bullets in the passenger side of my patrol car, and believe me, every shot went right through the door and into the seats.

You don’t need to tell me I shouldn’t threaten suspects with that kind of bodily harm, but dealing with Clayton Angier would test the patience of Job and make the angels shuck their halos.

Ain’t no pea-shooter, you nappy-headed little ho. . . cop! he yells back.

I laugh because I’ve met Clayton a time or two before when we weren’t after him, and he knows I’d kick his family jewels right up where the sunshine don’t ever reach if he talked to me that way in public. He don’t really talk that way. He’s just copying some dirtbag radio guy, can’t remember his name, to piss me off and get me to raise up where I’m a better target. He won’t really shoot me, though—I don’t think. He’s just letting off steam because he got caught red-handed’ cooking up his jellybeans.

Pee-Wee’ll be pissed at me. I’m outside my car on the driver’s side opposite where Clayton’s got his shed, so the bullets didn’t come close to me. Clayton’s just shooting because he’s pissed and knows I know what he’s up to. I raise up quick between my door and the front fender to spot him and see if I can get off a shot if I have to, but I can see Clayton’s back end hightailing it through the woods.

Like I said, he’s smart. He’s crazy as shit and hopped up on something half the time, but when he’s working, he’s sober, and when he’s sober, he’s smart enough to know that killing somebody will get him life. Ballistics will easily match his bullets with what hit my car (or hit me, if he was to turn into a cop-killer), and his prints will be all over his equipment. I’ve got him for production and distribution of a controlled substance, an illegal still, and assault with a deadly weapon. Honestly, assault won’t stick because I’ll tell the truth in court, if we ever catch him, and I’ll admit he was no more shooting right at me than he was kissing the angels. So I wait until I can see he’s disappeared down some path in the woods, and I sneak around to his shed to take some pictures and radio Pee-Wee. We’ve got to get up here with a fingerprint kit and make sure we’ve got his equipment all covered before he wipes it all down.

Only, Clayton’s hightailed it into the woods and left his Jeep parked behind a stand of palmettos. I think I’ll stay until Pee-Wee sends somebody with a tow truck in here, and we’ll impound his vehicle.

That Jeep’ll come back in the story later, like Clayton Angier and Titus Chancey, too. I’m setting you up for good stuff down the road.

I radio Pee-Wee what happened, and he says, How the hell many patrol cars you goin’ to get shot up, Midge Sumpter, before I have to send you out on a bicycle? I’ve had a couple of cars shot up before, so I see his point. The Wassahatchka County Sheriff’s Department don’t operate on no shoestring budget. Couldn’t tie no shoe with the thread we’ve got for an operating budget. Hell, a shoestring would bring us up in the world. When I’m sheriff, that’ll change.

If I earned just a thousand dollars more for every bullet I got put in my patrol car by some trigger-happy perp, I’d retire at thirty a rich woman. But you don’t get no combat pay in the Wassahatchka County Sheriff’s Department. You get a base salary and a thousand dollars raise every year except years when we can’t afford no raises—nine years out of ten. I ain’t gonna tell you what I get paid. You’ll say, "What the hell? You get shot at for that?" Yep, I do. Problem is, I like being a sheriff’s deputy. It suits me.

To finish this part of the story: Clayton Angier’s got a lot of family around about Seminole Pines and Wassahatchka County in general, and they’ve been harboring him for a while. But every single relation I checked out over the next week or two smiled so nice like I was their best friend, and they let me in to search their houses, even without a warrant. So I searched about seven houses around Wassahathka owned by Angiers or Burrises, all related, and no Clayton.

Personally, I’d love to haul ‘em all in, lock ‘em up, and let ‘em reflect on the error of their ways, but Pee-Wee would look at me mournful and tell me that’s dumb because we got only three cells, two for the boys and one for the girls, at the Wassahatchka County Sheriff’s Office, and we couldn’t hold a quarter of ‘em. Of course, Pee-Wee’s right. We couldn’t really hold ‘em legally; couldn’t really bring ‘em in for questioning, neither. For what? They all let me in their houses; they all let me search wherever I wanted. They’ve got Clayton stashed somewhere, but I ain’t figured out where just yet. It may not be in Wassahatchka, but I’ll bet it is. No way to tell for sure.

Don’t worry. I’ll get him. You’ll see.

Chapter Two:

Early Morning, Monday, Sept. 23

Grandmama’s Motel: A Room With

a Bloody Good View

So, main story: I get in at 7:30 like every morning, and go to check in with Pee-Wee for my duty list, and he’s standin’ up behind his desk in the main office, and says, Midge; glad you’re here. You’re with me. We got what appears to be a murder down at your grandma’s motel. We’re goin’ now. Just called Junior to cordon it off. Now, that’s somethin’ exciting. Love to investigate murders.

Put them eyebrows back down and close your mouth. I didn’t say I like murders. I said I like investigatin’ murders. I like figurin’ stuff out because I’m good at it, even better than Pee-Wee, and he’s been sheriff of Wassahatchka County most like since dinosaur times. Like I say, he’s big as a tyrannosaurus himself at about six-seven and 320 pounds, give or take, and laugh if you want, but I’d think about who I put my money on between him and the tyrannosaurus. Give Pee-Wee his 30-06 Remington and point him in the right direction, he’ll take down anything man or beast. Even without his Remington, he one bad-ass white man. Only knock on Pee-Wee, he’s about 65 years old and past due to retire, and I can’t run for sheriff ’til he retires.

Another thing. My grandmama, Annalee Sumpter, runs the motel on County Road Two right on the edge of town next to Mel’s gas station and convenience store, where there ain’t no candy in the displays wasn’t made back before Columbus and ain’t yet to be sold to some unsuspecting customer. Put them chews in your mouth, break your teeth.

I don’t know how grandma discovered there’s been a murder in her motel at 7:30 in the morning, but I’m anxious to find out, so I’m right on Pee-Wee’s heels as he’s heading out the door to his new Suburban. Only two cars in our sheriff’s office fleet ain’t a hundred years old and come out of the FHP junkyard. The other one’s Jake Leon’s brand new Dodge Challenger Hellcat—six point two liter supercharged V-8—damn baddest-ass patrol car on the planet. That Challener and Pee-Wee’s Suburban both come back into the story, too. Trust me.

We pull into the Shady Oaks Motel. Ain’t no shade, and the half dozen oaks planted a year or two ago ain’t yet but ten, twelve feet tall. It’s clear right off what’s happening. There’s already a patrol car here and Junior Madison—like I said, only other black deputy in the department. He was probably out on patrol somewhere earlier and Pee-Wee radioed him and he showed up before us. Junior’s already taped off a room in the back wing of the motel, including the sidewalk area in front of the doorway. Tape’s stuck to old traffic cones the department probably inherited from some road construction site Department of Highways was workin’ on.

I see my grandma in the parking lot, and about half a dozen other cars of customers we’re gon’ have to get statements from before they check out. They’ll be pissed, I know. Don’t matter. Junior’s blocked off the exit with his patrol car so they can’t move.

I figure Jake Leon, another deputy and not my favorite person in the world, is probably outside of town where he’s a permanent speed trap. Don’t laugh, a part of our budget comes outta speeding fines. Maybe you don’t like it. All us piss-poor little rural towns here in North Florida got speed traps. County don’t never give us but 75%, most, what we need to run this damn department. I figure we need Jake pronto to block off the entrance to the parking lot, too, since you can go out the entrance as easy as you can the exit, and I’m about to radio him, but I’m tryin’ to be a good girl, so I point out to Pee-Wee we got to block it off. Could use the Suburban, but Pee-Wee don’t want to walk that far across the whole parking lot. Don’t blame him; you try to walk 320 pounds around on 65 year old knees. I needn’t ‘a’ asked him. He just says, You ain’t called Jake in yet? Get his lazy butt over here and tell him to pull his car across the entrance.

When we go up to see grandma, she’s pretty shook up. She’s a tough old lady, for real, but you see somebody dead in your motel, you’d probably be a little shook up, too. Pee-Wee don’t mind me asking questions because I know what I’m doing, but he’s still sheriff, so I always ask him if he minds if I get started. Sure, he says, I’ll start taking some statements from the other guests. See if we turn up anything useful. Ask your grandma why she thinks this was a murder.

I’m about to be a smartass and say, Good thing you reminded me I got to first make sure it ain’t just a person died of natural causes. Wouldn’t never thought of that in ten million years. But I don’t like getting smart-ass with Pee-Wee when we’re on a job. He treats me fair and taught me an awful lot about police work, so I don’t razz him ‘cept when there ain’t no stakes in it and won’t matter if he gets mad at me. He gets a laugh out of it same as I do.

I go up to grandma, standin’ under the drive-through in front of her office, and I have a pad of paper out. I write stuff down or record it, most times. This may be a real simple case and I won’t need to, or it may turn out to be complicated and I better have a record of testimony so I can stitch together the picture.

Hey, grandma.

Mornin’, child. Glad you here. Damn shock of my life just about. Hard enough to get customers in this motel we so damn out of the way to begin with. Don’t need no shit like dead people in the rooms.

Okay. Know you not so happy right now, grandma, but you know I got to do my job. So tell me all about it. Start with how you know they’s somebody dead in there, and why you think it murder. You might notice I talk a little different with my grandma than I do with Pee-Wee or other white folks. If you lived here in Wassahatchka, you’d get the idea. Most Black folks live in two different worlds at the same time, talk two slightly different languages. Long history.

I can see a couple early customers opening the doors of their rooms, coming out to breakfast. One or two I see peepin’ through the curtains. Sheriff Marion stands there and tells the people, "Hey, folks, I got to ask you to