Authors: Harry N. MacLean
If McElroy stayed in the tavern for hours, the women in the back-up trucks sat in position for hours. When he left, they followed him out of town single file. McElroy explained to others in the bar that the women stayed out there so he could relax and enjoy his beer and play pool.
His mere presence in town became intimidating. The fear spread to people who had never met him and to those who barely recognized him. Cheryl Brown's sister-in-law, a young farm wife, was getting gas at Sumy's station one afternoon in August when McElroy's green Chevy pulled in and stopped a few feet from her. When she saw who it was, she turned away and went about her business, doing her best to look at the ground, across the street, or inside her own truck-anywhere but at him. She felt terrified that he would catch her eye or say something to her, and she would somehow become entangled in his web.
Larry Rowlett's wife, Karen, taught school and occasionally worked in their liquor store during the evenings and on weekends. McElroy liked Jack Daniel's and, whenever he came in, he would ask for a pint or fifth of Jack. Each time, she would explain that they couldn't afford to stock it because they would have to buy a case of it and Jack Daniel's was so expensive that very few of their other customers ever bought it. She understood how things got started with Ken McElroy, and turning him down time and time again made her nervous, although he usually just bought a pint of Seagram's V.O. and left without a fuss.
When McElroy wasn't harassing Tim Warren or the Bowenkamps, he headed south to St. Joe. He didn't want Corporal Richard Dean Stratton to forget about him.
Stratton knew that setting up a patrolman would be easy. Anyone with a scanner could learn the police codes and a patrolman's car number, which was the same as his badge number, and tell where and when he was on duty, what routes he took home, and when he would arrive. So Stratton was not surprised that the phone calls to his house always came while he was out on the highway working. The St. Joe cops, well acquainted with McElroy, kept a close watch on the house at night, but during the day they came only when called.
The voice on the phone was always the same. Sometimes, the man would simply tell Margaret that her husband wouldn't live to testify, or that he wouldn't last until morning. Other times, he told her where her two daughters lived, described their houses, listed the number and ages of their children, mentioned which children went to school, and recited the addresses of their babysitters.
"If your husband testifies at the trial," the low voice would say, "several members of your family are going to die."
Sometimes the caller would say, "Your house is going to burn," and then hang up.
At first, the calls frightened Margaret. Then they made her mad. "Why are you bothering me?" she would demand. "I'm not the cop. If you hadn't shot Bowenkamp, Richard wouldn't have had to arrest you, and you wouldn't be in all this trouble!"
The phone calls bothered Stratton, but he wasn't afraid, at least not initially, either for himself or his family. He figured that McElroy was too smart to do any actual harm, that he was bluffing, just trying to get at a cop through his wife and two girls. He figured he could best handle McElroy by not reacting to the calls, by ignoring them.
One afternoon, when Stratton was in the shower, Margaret received a phone call from the patrol. Trooper Kincaid explained that someone from Skidmore had called and reported that McElroy had a machine gun in his pickup and was telling people that he was coming to St. Joe to kill Stratton. Stratton remained fairly composed, but he had a hard time calming Margaret down and getting rid of the trooper who came over after the call. McElroy never showed up.
Stratton's daughter Pam worked in Maryville as a checker at Pamida, a discount store named after the owner's three sons, Paul, Mike, and Dave. Not long after the shooting, McElroy began standing in her line with a basket jammed full of items. After she had rung up about half of them, he would turn and walk away, empty-handed. She had to cancel each item, one by one, on her register. After McElroy's fourth or fifth visit, her irritation turned to anger.
Stratton's other daughter, Vicki, worked as a nurse at St. Francis Hospital in Maryville. On two or three occasions, she noticed Ken McElroy standing around in the halls on the floor where she worked. She checked and could never find anyone he might have been visiting or any business he might have had there. He never said anything to her or even acknowledged her; he would be there one minute and gone the next. Once, he followed her to the grocery store and the shopping mall and home again. Stratton assured Pam and Vicki that although McElroy would hassle them and try to intimidate them, he was unlikely to actually harm them.
News that McElroy was harassing Stratton began filtering back to Skidmore. People had mixed reactions. Stratton was obviously absorbing some of the heat, and there was always the possibility that he would take McElroy out, once and for all. But picking a fight with Stratton was a crazy thing to do, so either McElroy was completely out of control, or he had never really feared Stratton in the first place. Either interpretation was disconcerting.
Not long after the shooting, Marshal David Dunbar was sitting in the tavern in the late afternoon drinking beer, when Ken McElroy came in and sat down on a stool next to him. The two guys playing pool put up their sticks and left, and one or two others at the far end of the bar departed after a respectable five minutes. Red Smith served McElroy a beer and moved away.
After three or four beers, McElroy turned to Dunbar and began talking about Stratton. McElroy's eyes hardened as he looked at Dunbar and described how he was going to drive by Stratton's house at night and nail him while he was sitting out in his yard. Or else he would wait for him in the bushes by his drive and blow him away with a shotgun as he got out of his patrol car. While McElroy talked, he massaged his wrists. The hate spilled out of him as he talked, his icy eyes glittering, his mind searching for the best way of avenging himself.
He hates Stratton because he's afraid of him, Dunbar realized. He knows he doesn't have the guts to do anything about him.
Rain could be hard to come by in August. Days of 100-degree heat and cloudless skies rolled by without interruption. By midmorning, the fenders of the pickups in front of the cafe were blistering hot and the cabs were throat-searing ovens. Only the dumbest creatures ventured out of the shade. In the fields, the crops had reached the last phase of their growth. The beans were blossoming, and the kernels were filling in on the corn cobs. At the cafe, the farmers studied the northwest horizon for signs of rain and debated the various forecasts. Without moisture, the grains would be tiny and shriveled.
In early August, before the ground had hardened too much, the farmers began plowing under the stubble from the wheat harvest to prepare the soil for resowing in early October. Their minds turned to the big harvest six or eight weeks away, and they wondered if, in the end, all their work would leave them with anything other than more debts. They listed chores and purchases to be made-new tires and a new license for the grain truck, a new clutch for the combine, more fuel.
Preparations for the Punkin' Show began the previous fall with a smorgasbord to raise operating cash. Another smorgasbord on Mother's Day had raised more money, and in June and July the committees met and planned and organized and built and bought and promoted, all leading to the four-day celebration in August, when Skidmore became an open town with parades, dances, frog-jumping contests, beauty contests, tractor-pulling competitions, huge barbecues, and a midway with rides behind the schoolhouse.
On Saturday night, August 10, 1980, the third night of the Punkin' Show, people milled around outside the tavern, drinking beer and sitting on the hoods of the pickups. Inside, many of the seats at the bar were taken and most of the tables were full. Ken McElroy sat at the northeast corner of the bar with his daughter Tammy. He was apparently not the center of attention in the midst of all the partying.
Kriss Goslee, the youngest of the Goslee boys at twenty-eight, came into the tavern looking for the Clement brothers. Somebody had told him that three of the Clement boys had dragged one of his older brothers outside and roughed him up: two supposedly held him while the other hit him.
Kriss had a loud boisterous manner, and a reputation as a vicious fighter who wouldn't let up until he had broken his opponent's face. Tonight he was slightly drunk and exuding a reckless, macho bravado. He was looking forward to getting a shot at two or three Clements at one time.
The only empty stool was next to Ken McElroy, so Kriss joined him. He got to talking with McElroy about things. McElroy bought him a beer, and Kriss soon forgot about the Clement brothers. He relaxed too much. As he stood up to go to the restroom, he put his hand on McElroy's shoulder and, in a display of alcoholic camaraderie, said loudly: "Ken, if you're such a great coon hunter, such a good shot, how come you missed those two old boys?" In other words, how come Romaine Henry and Bo Bowenkamp were still alive?
McElroy didn't respond.
When Kriss came back from the restroom, the bar talk continued, but he noticed some whispering between McElroy and Tammy. She went to the phone, then came back and leaned over and whispered something to her father. A few minutes later, McElroy stood up, took a huge wad of money from his front pocket, and asked Kriss, "How would you like to have some of this?"
"What have you got in mind?" asked Kriss.
"Why don't you come outside?" McElroy said genially. "I want to show you something."
The two men walked outside and turned left up the hill, then left again into the drive behind the bank and the grocery store. As McElroy walked toward his truck, which was parked next to the loading dock, Kriss noticed Trena and two other people standing by the corner of the bank, where the drive crossed the sidewalk. He realized uneasily that they were watching him and he sensed that McElroy was pulling him into the darkness.
By the time Kriss reached the truck, he was shaking, and his insides were queasy. Only a month ago, McElroy had shot Bo from this very spot. McElroy reached over into the bed of the pickup behind the driver's seat and grabbed a rifle. As he raised the gun, Kriss grabbed the barrel and got a good, firm hold before Ken could swing the weapon all the way around.
"Let go of the rifle and move back a few steps," McElroy commanded in a hard, flat voice.
Every muscle and fiber in Kriss's body, every ounce of physical and mental energy, concentrated on gripping the barrel. The knowledge that he was dead if McElroy freed the gun gave him tremendous strength.
"No," he replied, shakily. "What's wrong, Ken? What the hell is going on?"
Kriss felt McElroy's grip tightening on the gun, then he felt a slight tremble in the barrel. Kriss began moving his right leg back slowly, intending to knee McElroy in the balls, grab the rifle, and run. Another slight shiver ran through the gun-barrel. McElroy took his eyes off Kriss, leaned slightly to look over his shoulder, and jerked his head upward. Kriss, still with a death grip on the rifle, turned and saw Trena move from the corner of the bank to the driver's side of a pickup a few feet away. She opened the door and pulled out a shotgun, turned toward them, and bumped into three or four Punkin' Show celebrants on the sidewalk.
"Get back in between those trucks!" Ken hissed at her.
Wide-eyed, Trena stopped immediately and moved back in between the two trucks.
In the streetlight, Kriss saw the revelers' faces-gray, foreign, unrecognizable. Whoever they were, he would realize later, they saved his life.
"If I hit the ground," Ken said forcefully but more calmly, "shoot him."
Noticing that the witnesses had moved on, Kriss began babbling. "I've always liked you, man. Tell me what happened, what I've done. I'm sorry, man, whatever I did, I'm sorry. Tell me what the hell is wrong, I'm sorry, man." Kriss was shaking, and he wished for tears to come into his eyes, but none did.
McElroy looked at him silently for a moment with cold penetrating eyes and said, "You think you're such hot shit because your mother works in the courthouse."
The absurdity of the statement and the reference to his mother jolted Kriss out of his obsequiousness. "What's my mother got to do with it? She's not involved at all!"
McElroy said nothing.
Kriss slipped back into his rap. "Hey, man, I'm sorry. Tell me what I did, and I won't do it again."
McElroy stared at him for a few seconds, and then slowly moved the gun to the bed of the pickup. Kriss moved with him, and when McElroy let go of the rifle, Kriss let go of it, too.
McElroy fixed his dark, glittering eyes on Kriss and said, "Now just get off the streets!"
"I'm sorry, man," said Kriss. "I wish I knew what I did."
"Get to going!"
Kriss backed up in the direction of the sidewalk. McElroy kept his eyes on him, and Trena tracked him with her shotgun, aiming it at his chest until he was inside the tavern door.