Dark and Bloody Ground (31 page)

Dr. Acker described being tied up and hearing the men ransacking the house for about thirty minutes. He told of giving them the combination to the safe and seeing one of them write it down.

“They could not open it and came and untied me and took me to the safe and made me open it. After this, they took me back to the kitchen and tied me and gagged me again. They put the rope around my neck and tightened it up and I passed out.

“I think it was about eleven o’clock when I came to. After a while I got loose and I couldn’t find my glasses. I yelled for Tammy and started looking for her. I found her in the other room.”

Here Dr. Acker had to pause to compose himself. He continued:

“She had a sheet over her head and was tied up with her hands behind her lying on the floor. I went to her and bent down and removed the sheet and started to talk to her. I started to roll her over and untie her and I saw the kitchen knife in her back. I felt for a pulse and she had none. I called the sheriff’s office.”

Dr. Acker’s account squared with the condition of the house and the body. What he referred to as rope was obviously the cord from the Windmere curling iron Officer Phillips had noticed hanging from the doctor’s neck; he had been bound with neckties and gagged with a T-shirt, wet with his own blood and other fluids that had come from his nose and mouth, that he had dropped on the kitchen floor after regaining consciousness.

When Lt. Webb heard that the killers had posed as FBI agents, he connected the crimes with another that had occurred earlier that summer at a house on the Letcher-Harlan county line. The previous victims, who as Webb recalled had not been physically harmed, had also said that the thieves had identified themselves as government agents of some kind.

It was now nearing two
A.M.
Webb telephoned the supervisor of the FBI office in London, Special Agent Rod Kincaid, who was at
home asleep in Somerset, to the west in Pulaski County. Kincaid remembered the earlier case, and not only that one. The FBI had been searching for months, Kincaid said, for suspects who had been posing as FBI or IRS agents. The Bureau already had warrants on file for at least two men, as Kincaid recalled, charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution in a case involving Georgia or possibly Tennessee. He would get back to Webb with the details.

At four-thirty that morning the laboratory crew from Frankfort arrived and began to process the house. Dr. Acker identified firearms and other objects left by the door as his but said that at least two or three pistols, including a pearl-handled .45 automatic, as well as Tammy’s Rolex, bracelet, and a black pearl necklace, were missing. As for the stolen cash, he estimated it as between four and five hundred thousand dollars, some of it in old bills, in mixed denominations of twenties, fifties, and hundreds. He was a frugal man, he said, and had saved back a few thousand each year from his practice. Although he did have bank accounts and had once been part-owner of a Whitesburg bank, he had been through the Great Depression and knew enough not to believe that his money was absolutely safe in anyone else’s hands. He had purchased the safe recently; before that he had kept his money in a trunk on the back porch.

Among all the clothes and other items piled and scattered throughout the house, Dr. Acker said that only one object did not belong to him or his daughter. This was a black attaché case. He believed that he had seen one of the men, possibly the short one, carrying it into the house.

When a Frankfort investigator opened the briefcase, he found that it contained only two items, an empty plastic baggie of the type with a resealable top and a plastic card with the call letters and radio frequency numbers “WSKZ-106, Chattanooga” embossed on it that might indicate a Tennessee link to the crimes. These were carefully wrapped along with the briefcase to be taken to the lab for processing.

In continuing to talk to Dr. Acker and to try to comfort him, impossible as that seemed, Lt. Webb learned that Tammy had been home that night only by chance. She had stopped by to see her father and to pick up a few of her possessions before returning to classes at the University of Kentucky, where she was a junior and a member of a sorority. She was such a wonderful girl, the doctor said, and had
been so devoted to him. When her mother had died, Tammy had left the university in the middle of the semester and had taken the rest of the year off to care for him and nurse him through his grief. If only she had come to see him a day earlier or a day later ...

With children of his own, Danny Webb could scarcely bear to hear the doctor talk and weep. When, later that morning, the lieutenant walked over to the clinic to check for possible signs of a break-in there, he found that Dr. Acker’s office was decorated with memorabilia of Tammy, including photographs of her playing nurse for her father as a child and a childlike drawing of a man wearing a surgical gown and a stethoscope. The picture was inscribed “M.D. Stands for My Dad. Tammy.”

By mid-morning Special Agent Kincaid had brought the resources of the FBI into the case and had relayed the identities of two suspects, Benny Lee Hodge and Donald Terry Bartley, to Lt. Webb. Physical descriptions of them matched those given by Dr. Acker of the large and the small man. Dr. Acker now said that he believed he may have seen a third, large man standing near the safe in the bedroom but had not gotten a look at his face. Unlike the others, the third man had not been wearing a suit. When composite drawings, made by Detective Fleming based on Dr. Acker’s descriptions, matched photographs of Hodge and Bartley supplied by the FBI, Agent Kincaid instructed the FBI office in Louisville to issue the following teletype:

015 KYFBILSOO 080985

ALL KENTUCKY, WEST VIRGINIA, OHIO, INDIANA, TENNESSEE, AND NORTH CAROLINA STATIONS.

B O L O 1983 GREY DATSUN 200SX TN LIC 13772W AND 1978 BLACK THUNDERBIRD WITH HALF VINYL, SILVER ROOF, TN LIC 3L4X78 POSSIBLY DRIVEN BY DONALD TERRY BARTLEY, W/M, DOB 081858, 5’8”, 160 LBS, DARK BROWN HAIR AND EYES, AND/OR SECOND SUBJECT BENNY LEE HODGE, W/M DOB 080951, 6’, 210 LBS, BROWN HAIR BLUE EYES POSSIBLY WEARING FULL FACE BEARD AND MUSTACHE. SUBJECTS MAY BE TRAVELING WITH CAROL ELLIS, W/F, DOB 102357, 5’2”, 126 LBS, BROWN HAIR, GREEN EYES AND REBECCA HANNAH, W/F, DOB 052468, 5’3”, 135 LBS, BLONDE HAIR, BLUE-GREEN EYES. SUBJECTS DONALD TERRY
BARTLEY AND BENNY HODGE CURRENTLY WANTED BY FBI. WARRANTS ON FILE FOR UNLAWFUL FLIGHT TO AVOID PROSECUTION FOR ARMED ROBBERY. SUBJECTS ARE ALSO SUSPECTS IN RESIDENTIAL ARMED ROBBERY AND HOMICIDE WHICH OCCURRED 22:30 HRS 8/8/85 AT WHITESBURG, KY PERPETRATORS OF HOMICIDE GAINED ENTRANCE RESIDENCE BY FALSELY IDENTIFYING THEMSELVES AS FBI AGENTS. IF LOCATED HOLD CAR AND OCCUPANTS FOR FBI LOUISVILLE. ALL SUBIECTS ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AS THEY ARE KNOWN TO HAVE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS, ARE ESCAPE RISKS, AND ARE SUICIDAL.

Subsequent bulletins issued shortly by the FBI and the KSP corrected Carol’s race designation from “W” to “O” and added her maiden name and the Malone alias. Soon Roger Epperson’s name and description, which had been left off the original bulletin only because he was technically not a fugitive but out on bail, were added when a victim of the Harlan–Letcher robbery of May 13 identified him from a photograph. The KSP and the FBI considered it significant that both Bartley and Epperson were natives of counties bordering Letcher. One of the first questions Danny Webb had asked himself when he learned that the killers were strangers to Dr. Acker, who knew everyone in Fleming-Neon and had treated most of the local population, was why and how on earth outsiders would have known enough to pick out a victim in such an obscure, godforsaken place? If they were natives after all, it made more sense.

As for the Datsun 200SX mentioned in the bulletins, this was Rebecca Hannah’s car, as observed by Agent Cloninger in Tennessee and in July by the agents who had interviewed her, Carol, and “SHERRY L. WONG, nee SHEETS, also known as SHERRY L. HODGE,” as she was identified on records of that interview. A description of Sherry and her various names was added to the bulletins when the FBI confirmed that she had fled the Harriman area.

As inclusive as the teletypes soon became, they were not sent to Florida, as that state was neither adjacent to Kentucky nor known to be associated in any way with any of the suspects. By one o’clock on Friday afternoon, Donnie, Roger, and Benny had already reached the Ormond Beach condominium.

Somewhere between Knoxville and Chattanooga, they had realized
that they had left the briefcase behind. Having discovered that the case was too small to hold all that money, they had stuffed the cash into three pillowcases and fled when the telephone had begun to ring, not even bothering with the heap of valuables by the door, except for a few pistols and pieces of jewelry. Speeding away, monitoring police calls on their scanner, they had every reason to assume that both Tammy and her father were dead—the girl obviously, the old man because he had stopped breathing and lost control of himself. Safe in the traffic flow on I-75, they panicked and stopped to check the trunk when Donnie admitted that he was afraid he had forgotten the briefcase.

But they concluded that they had nothing to worry about. The briefcase was empty, they were sure, and Donnie had touched only the handle. His gloves would have wiped off any prints there.

Except for stops for gas and snacks, they continued on straight through, switching to I-16 east at Macon, hitting I-95 south at Savannah, passing through Jacksonville, past St. Augustine and into Ormond Beach. In the shelter of the condo’s garage, they removed the pillowcases and weapons from the trunk and carried everything inside—home from the hunt, swaggering and triumphant.

The women were waiting. They began jumping up and down as first Roger, then Benny, then Donnie let the money whoosh from the pillowcases onto the living room carpet. Like a victorious team, they embraced. “We did it! We did it!” they shouted, hugging and kissing and falling down to toss the cash into the air and roll in it. Sherry was in ecstacy—until, lying on the floor with her cheek resting on bills that were scattered like so much Monopoly money, opening and closing her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming, she noticed Donnie Bartley’s dirty shoes. They looked as if they were crusted with dried blood.

The sight gave her pause. But this was hardly the time to ask impudent questions.

Delirious, yahooing, gone loco with joy, they played like children on the floor, bathing in cold cash—until Sherry heard the doorbell and told everyone to shut the fuck up. She peeked out a window. It was the condominium manager! Carol had called him to come fix the refrigerator. Sherry ran to her bedroom for a blanket and rushed back to throw it over the money.

She opened the door and ushered the manager into the kitchen. If
he was curious about that lumpy blanket on the living room floor, he gave no indication.

“Sounds like party time,” the man said as he fiddled with the icemaker.

“My husband’s birthday,” Sherry said, nattering on about how she was going to put up streamers and balloons and how much fun everyone was having in Florida with the sun and the water and some of the best pizza you could find anywhere and the whole life-style was so neat. On his way out the manager wished Benny a happy birthday and asked everyone to try to keep the noise under control.

When Sherry finished decorating, Carol served the chocolate cake she had baked for Benny. The taxi man arrived with a delivery of cocaine. It was the best birthday he had ever had, Benny said, the best of all time.

Late that afternoon they lugged the loot up to Roger and Carol’s bedroom—just in case the manager or somebody else came to call—and began to count it. The money was in denominations of twenties, fifties, and hundreds. With the cash in a great heap and in growing piles on the carpet, the room was a hothouse of greenbacks. They could smell the stuff, a dank, sour stink like loose mulch. The wrapped stacks labeled “Bank of Whitesburg” that contained an even five thousand each in crisp new bills were easy to calculate, but it took forever to sort random denominations and total them up. Some of the currency was faded, so old that some of the bills did not even have “In God We Trust” on them. Some stuck together and, speckled with mildew, gave off an especially pungent whang.

Sherry played bookkeeper. Around nine o’clock, she told everyone to stop sorting. She had an announcement to make.

“I want you all to know,” she said, “that we have reached one million dollars.”

“Holy fucking shit!” Roger said. “We ain’t even halfway there!”

It was like halftime at the Orange Bowl. They cheered and hugged each other. They threw bills around. Donnie popped champagne and sprayed everyone. Roger drove Carol into a corner and yanked at her pants.

“Don’t stop now,” Sherry said. “Let’s see what we really got.”

After another hour the men lay on the floor and watched as the women kept counting. Close to midnight, staggered, deranged by the booty, they quit as Sherry announced one million six hundred thousand.
Big piles remained. Sherry said that she wasn’t sure that they hadn’t counted some twice, but she could swear there was close to two million, all told.

“My daddy would shit in his pants,” Roger said.

“Why don’t you call him up and tell him the good news?” Sherry said.

They divided what was left into what seemed like three equal parts. Of the grand total, somewhere between a million-nine and two million, the men awarded the women three thousand dollars apiece to do with as they wished.

“I guess that’s my counter’s fee,” Sherry said. “Let’s head down, Biggin.”

In bed with their take, Benny and Sherry held one another and whispered love pledges. Sherry asked about what she had seen on Donnie’s shoes. Benny confided that, unfortunately, someone had had to die during the job. There was nothing to worry about. They had left no witnesses.

Blood, death, her mistrust of everyone, most of all the mound of cash made Sherry’s heart run wild with desire and hate.

“We ought to kill them all,” she said into Benny’s ear. “We ought to kill every one of them, right now. Do it quiet.”