Brodricksburg Pt. 02

"I would like to be able to talk to you," I said.

"I was thinking that maybe we could get together once a week and talk."

"I'd like that. How about this evening?"

"I can't do it tonight. I have to work. I'm sorry."

"It's Sunday. What work do you have to do tonight?"

"I have to meet with a client."

I felt the anger coming back. I wanted to believe her but what possible reason would a legal aid have for meeting a client on a Sunday night and since when did she have clients? I didn't ask the questions that I had in my head because I didn't want to start an argument.

"Can we meet tomorrow after work?" Carrie asked.

"Dinner?"

"I'd like that."

"How about seven o'clock at Donohue's?" I asked.

"That sounds great," she said and then after a short hesitation, "I miss you."

"I miss you too."

After the call I was feeling better but I was uneasy about her meeting with a client that night. I tried to push that concern out of my mind and headed back to the volleyball court.

Around three o'clock that afternoon the volleyball games broke up. My mind was drifting back to Carrie's phone call as I walked up the stairs to my apartment. Her call had lifted my spirits a little but I would have been much happier if it weren't for the meeting she was going to that night. Was it really a business meeting? If it weren't, why would she even mention it to me?

I grabbed a bottle of cold water and held it against my forehead as I walked to the bathroom. I peeled off my sweat soaked tee shirt and shorts and climbed into the shower.

I was shampooing my hair when I heard the phone ringing in the living room. I was going to let the answering machine pick up the call but then thought it might be Carrie calling so I jumped out of the shower and left a trail of water all the way to the phone.

'Lt. Hobbs," the familiar female voice said.

"What do you want now?"

"I just thought you would like to know who your wife has been seeing."

"Why are you doing this? Why do you care what my wife does?"

"I don't like her and I don't like what she is doing to you," she said.

"And just what is she doing to me?"

"She is making a fool out of you."

I didn't respond to that comment. I just waited to see what she would say next as I looked at the display on my phone for the caller ID information. "Unknown Caller."

"Your wife is meeting her friend tonight. Would you like to know where?"

I wanted to tell this woman to go to hell. "Where?"

"They are meeting at 207 Munt Street at nine o'clock. I really think you should be there to confront them," she said.

"How do you know this?"

"I keep my ears opened."

"Carrie and I are already separated so why should I care what she does now?" I cared but I didn't want the caller to know that.

"Don't you want to catch her in the act? Put an end to all her lies."

Again I didn't respond.

"Well, it's up to you. Go or don't go. I think you will go because you want to know the truth, don't you? Bye, bye."

The line went dead but I couldn't put the phone down. Who was this woman and how did she always seem to know where Carrie was going to be. I had begun to convince myself that Carrie hadn't done anything wrong and that one phone call brought all of my doubts back to me. I was going to have to go to 207 Munt Street to find the truth.

*****

The Munt Street House

*****

After putting the phone down I decided to take a drive by the house on Munt Street to get the lay of the land. I was familiar with Munt Street because I grew up near there but I wasn't sure enough of the numbering to know which house was number 207. Munt Street was about three miles long running from Fifth Street on the west and ending at River Road on the east. I knew that the houses were numbered from east to west so that 207 would be close to the River Road end of the street.

I cut through town and headed south on River Road, which climbed a steep hill up away from the river just before intersecting Munt Street at the top of that hill. I hadn't been on Munt Street in years but as soon as I turned off River Road it all looked familiar to me. As a kid growing up on Fifth Street south of Munt, I used to walk down Munt Street to River Road and then climb down the steep riverbank to go fishing in the Delaware River. Munt Street is kind of the dividing line between the more urban parts of Brodricksburg to the north and the more rural part of the city to the south. The houses on Munt Street are spread far apart on very large lots. Most of the homes dated back to the thirties or early forties and had been small farms at one time.

On the southwest corner of Munt and River Road there is an abandoned house, the yard overgrown with weeds and bushes. Nobody had lived in the house in at least five years and maybe more. I remembered that when I used to walk by the house to go fishing there was always an old man sitting on the porch and he would wave to me and yell, "Catch a big one."

On the right side of the road was a very large wooded area. I always wondered why no one did anything with that land. Munt Street goes down hill for the first quarter mile and then flattens out as it crosses what used to be the J&J Railroad. J&J went out of business and the trains stopped running in the late fifties. The tracks were still there when I was a kid in the seventies. They tore the tracks up in 1987. That was when Hanratty and I and two of our friends carried off the old railroad ties and built our cabin in the woods behind the Boland property. The cabin stood for about two years before someone tore it down.

When I got to the bottom of the hill I looked to the south down the old rail bed. Although covered with tall weeds and small trees it was still easy to see where the J&J Railroad had been. It was a wide flat trail going straight south. The J&J Railroad used to run from Brodricksburg south thirty miles and connected to the main line going into Philadelphia. As kids, Hanratty and I had walked at least ten miles south along the old rail bed. How much of the rail bed was left, I had no idea.

On the north side of the street a small portion of the old rail bed had been paved over. The pavement went about fifteen yards north along the rail bed and stopped and beyond that was a wooden fence. It looked as though the city had planned to put a road in there but then changed their minds.

After crossing the old rail bed the street climbed up hill for about 100 yards. At the top of the hill on the left side of the street was the first house with a Munt Street address.

It was 207. I drove by the house slowly. It was typical of the houses built in the area in the forties. It was a two-story white clapboard house. The house was about thirty feet wide and forty feet deep and sat about thirty feet back from the road.. The door was on the left side of the front of the house.

I had been in enough of these houses to know what they looked like. Inside the front door you would find a small foyer. Straight ahead would be the stairs to the second floor and to the right would be the living room. Behind the living room was the dining room and behind that was the kitchen. Off the back of the kitchen would be a bathroom. When these houses were built they didn't have a bathroom in the house. When indoor bathrooms were added they were build off the back of the kitchen because that is where the water pipes and drains were located. Upstairs there would be three small bedrooms, one behind the other.

As I passed the house I saw that the driveway was on the west side of the house and ran from the street all the way back to a dilapidated old garage. There was a two or three year old Ford Ranger parked in front of the garage. Off to the left of the garage, standing by itself, I could see the old outhouse. It's surprising how many of these old outhouses are still standing.

The next house on Munt Street was 100 yards past 207 and was also on the left side of the street. I continued down Munt until I reached the first cross street and then I turned around. On my second pass I noticed something I had missed the first time. There was a "For Sale by Owner" sign in the yard. Judging by how tall the weeds growing around the sign were, I figured the house must have been on the market for a couple of months at least.

If I were going to spy on Carrie during her visit to the house I would have to find a way to get close enough that I would be able to peek in the windows. I had to stop and think about my options and come up with a plan. I drove down to the bottom of the hill and turned left into the paved portion of the rail bed on the north side of the street and swung the car around so I was facing south.

Approaching the house from the west was out. There was no cover on that side of the house and I would be exposed. The neighbor in the next house down the road would be able to see me. Another problem with the west side of the house was that there were no windows close enough to the ground that I would be able see in. I would need a ladder to see anything on that side of the house.

The east side of the house would be easy to approach. There was plenty of cover on the hillside and then, about twenty feet from the house, there was a hedgerow that was about four feet tall and ran the length of the house. I could easily hide behind the hedgerow and then get closer to the house if necessary.

The next problem was, where would I leave my car? I thought about parking right were I was, on the paved portion of the rail bed. I quickly ruled that out. The car would be completely exposed and I couldn't chance Carrie spotting my car or having a patrol car drive by and see it. There was no safe place for me to park on River Road or Munt Street.

I was staring straight ahead when the idea hit me. Grayson road was about three miles south. I could park down there and walk back along the old rail bed. That might work if I could get the car far enough off Grayson Road so that it would not be noticed. I put the car in gear and turned left onto Munt Street and then turned right on River Road.

A few minutes later I spotted the street sign for Grayson Road and as I approached the turn I looked to my right and felt a knot in my stomach as I looked at the Boland house. I still couldn't get the feeling that I hadn't done enough to get justice for Mr. Boland. In my heart I still didn't believe that he had killed himself. It still bothered me as I made the right turn onto Grayson.

There were deep woods on both sides of Grayson Road and the canopy created by the trees made it nearly impossible to see anything except what was straight ahead of you when you drove down the road on a summer night. All I would need was a place to get my car off the road far enough so that it wouldn't be picked up by the headlights of a passing car. I found what I needed just before reaching the rail bed. It was a break in the trees on the right side of the road. It looked like a farm road, probably leading into the fields behind the Boland house. I turned in and drove about fifty feet and found that the little dirt trail opened into a large field. It was just what I needed. I could pull in there and hide the car from sight even during daylight hours.

I turned around and drove back out onto Grayson and found the rail bed just another twenty-five yards down the road. My plan was set so I drove back to my apartment to get ready.

*****

The Mission

*****

Back in my apartment I fixed myself a sandwich and made my final plans for the evening. I remembered from my experiences in the woods as a teenager that I was going to have to deal with mosquitoes. This meant that I would have to wear long pants and a long sleeve shirt and use mosquito repellent. I needed to wear something dark so I chose my navy blue warm-ups. They were lightweight but would still be uncomfortable in the heat of an August night. I got a pair of dark socks and black running shoes out of my closet. To the pile of clothes I had gathered I added a black ball cap, a flashlight, a fanny pack, a pair of field glasses and my digital camera.

I figured the distance from Grayson Road to Munt Street to be no more than three miles. Normally I could easily walk three miles in forty-five minutes but I didn't know how difficult the walk would be. The rail bed was straight and flat but I was sure that a lot of it would be overgrown with weeds and brush. I decided to allow myself an hour and a half to walk from Grayson Road to Munt Street.

I left the apartment at 7:10 PM dressed in black jogging shorts and a black tee shirt. The rest of my things, including three bottles of water, I put in my backpack. To anyone watching me leave my apartment, it would look like I was on my way to the gym.

Fifteen minutes later I pulled off of Grayson onto the tractor trail I had found earlier and parked my car out of sight of the road. I left the car running with the air conditioner on while I put on my warm-up suit and pulled on the black socks and laced up my black running shoes. The last thing I did before getting out of the car was to apply the Avon skin cream Carrie had given me for golf. She told me it was better than mosquito repellent and I found that she was right. The stuff really kept the bugs away. I rubbed it on my face, neck and hands. Then I shut off the car and got out. I strapped on my fanny pack which held my camera, field glasses, flash light and three bottles of water and headed back out to Grayson Road.

As I came out of the woods I was careful to make sure there were no cars coming and then I jogged down to the rail bed and turned north. I was pleasantly surprised that the path wasn't more overgrown than it was. Being daylight helped but the weeds weren't difficult to walk through and there weren't that many trees on the bed itself. I guessed that whatever J&J Railroad had used to keep weeds down along the rail line nearly 50 years earlier was still helping to keep the weeds down.

It was only 8:30 and just starting to get dark when I was close enough to see the house on Munt Street. I was still nearly a quarter of a mile away but I stopped there to wait until it got a little darker. I sat and watched the house while I drank a bottle of water.

By 8:45 I felt that is was safe for me to move closer so I continued down the rail bed until I was below the house and about twenty yards from Munt Street. The lights on the first floor of the house were on and the light over the front door was on. I used the field glasses to check to make sure no one was walking around outside the house before I started to climb up the steep hill toward the house.

There was a ditch about four feet deep near to the rail bed that I had to cross before I could start my way up the hill. The ditch was wide so I had to climb part way down into it and then jump across to the other side. When I came up out of the ditch I was about 85 yards from the house. I was far enough away from the house and it was dark enough by then that I was able to move freely up the hill. There was a large growth of Sumac about ten yards short of the hedgerow. I sat down behind the clump of trees to wait. I had a better view of the front door from where I was than I would have if I moved forward to the hedgerow. I planned to wait there until I was sure that Carrie was in the house and then I would move in closer.

I had been close enough to watch the street and the house for almost thirty-five minutes and I had not seen even one car pass on Munt Street. It was 9:05 when I finally heard a car approaching from the west. When the car turned into the driveway I could see that it was Carrie's car. Up until that moment I had been holding out hope that the caller had lied to me. My stomach was full of butterflies and I felt a cold chill in spite of the warm evening.

My emotional condition worsened with each passing moment as I waited to see Carrie enter the house. From my position behind the Sumac trees I could only see Carrie's head and shoulders as she approached the front door. Carrie knocked on the door and it was opened just seconds later. I could hear voices but I couldn't make out what they were saying. A moment later Carrie was in the house and the door was closed.

I told myself it was time to move closer to the house to see what was going on inside but I couldn't make myself move. A sudden, very strong foreboding feeling came over me. I came there to find out the truth but something was telling me to leave. I sat frozen for a minute, unable to make a decision about what to do. Finally I told myself that I had come there to get some answers and it was time to do that, but just as I started to get up I heard a car turning off River Road on to Munt. I stayed low and turned to look at the car. It was a Brodricksburg black and white.

My whole body suddenly felt cold as I watched the patrol car slow down as it crossed the rail bed and start up the hill. The black and white was halfway up the hill when I saw a flash of light swing over my head. I looked back toward the house just in time to see another black and white turning into the driveway. As the second patrol car pulled to a stop he turned on his light bar and the first car did the same a moment later.

The first car had stopped just short of the top of the hill and started playing his searchlight along the side of the house. At that point I got control of my body again and started sliding backward down the hill staying as low as possible. I watched as two officers got out of the car in the driveway. One of them went to the front door and the other headed around to the back of the house.

None of the officers seemed to be looking in my direction yet so I keep moving as fast as I could down the hill. Suddenly I saw the search sweep across the tops of the weeds I was crawling through. I stopped moving and hoped that they hadn't seen the weeds moving. The light made several passes over the area where I was hiding. All I could think about was the disaster that was about to befall me. If I got caught I would be charged with trespassing, prowling, peeping, and violating Carrie's restraining order. My marriage and my career would be toast. I just had to get away.

When the light beam finally moved away, I started moving down hill again. I must have been halfway down the hill when I stopped and dared to lift my head to look up toward the house. Both patrol cars were now in the driveway. I could see that one of the officers was talking to someone at the front door of the house and two others were walking around to the west side of the house with flashlights and guns drawn. The forth officer was still in the car now sweeping the searchlight along the hedgerow and toward the back yard.

No one seemed to be looking in my direction so I stood partway up and began running down the hill. I kept waiting to hear one of the officers shouting at me to stop but it didn't happen. I could see the flat rail bed just fifteen yards away. I stood up straight and ran as fast as I could. It wasn't until I saw the drainage ditch that I remembered that it was there. I was moving too fast to try to stop so I jumped..

I don't know if I jumped too soon or the ditch was just too wide, but I landed half way down the far side of the ditch. When I hit the ground I felt my right ankle twist and the pain was instant. I almost shouted. I had to put my hand over my mouth and lay still against the side of the ditch until the pain subsided a little. One benefit of my position was that I could see the activity around the house but they could not see me.

I managed to get my breathing under control and I started to crawl up the side of the ditch. Every time I moved my right leg it felt like someone was stabbing my ankle with a red hot poker. When I reached the flat surface of the rail bed I lay there on my back for a while.