Dark and Bloody Ground (6 page)

Back at the county jail in Orlando, Lester confronted Epperson with the evidence and suggested that buying all those cars immediately following the robbery had not been the brightest idea. There were other cars, too, Roger admitted, six in all. The Toyota MR2 that Carol was driving was one of them.

Yet Roger remained adamant against paying Lester the four hundred thousand. Lester dropped it to three. Roger went up to a hundred and twenty-five thousand and said he would throw in a Corvette, not the 1985 one that was impounded, but a 1963 classic that was not part of the Acker spoils. In a sense, you could call it a legitimate car. He had paid eleven thousand down for it and still owed about six; Lester could pay it off and it was his. Lester accepted, but they remained far apart overall.

Leaving the jail again that afternoon, Lester encountered a pair of Kentucky state troopers who were down gathering evidence. Lester knew them both and struck up a friendly chat. He told them that he was representing Epperson but that there were questions about his fee. He would probably end up with nothing but automobiles and jewelry, and he had no use for either.

One of the troopers, Detective Lon Maggard, said that he had been one of the first people to arrive at the Acker house on the night of the robbery and murder. The scene was horrendous. The house had been ransacked, and Maggard said he had never seen so much blood. Tammy Acker had been stabbed eleven times. The photographs were enough to make you throw up.

“I’ll be interested to see them,” Lester said. He would take a look at them soon and would probably run into the troopers later in the week.

“We’ll be taking those boys back to Kentucky,” Maggard said.

“Maybe so, maybe not,” Lester said.

But Lester knew that all three of the suspects would be going back to Kentucky to stand trial. It was not only a question of the evidence found in the cars and at the Ormond Beach condominium where they had been staying with Sherry, Carol, and apparently a third woman or girl. According to the
Orlando Sentinel
and what Lester had heard was being reported in papers at home and broadcast over the news, the boys were in deeper water than they had thought. In addition to the Acker case and the Georgia robbery, they were also suspects in another Letcher County robbery, in the murders of an elderly couple up in Jackson County, and in the murder of someone described only as “a prominent Florida businessman.” Roger denied a connection to any of these other crimes. It was just a typical case of the police and the FBI putting out a lot of bullshit to try people in the press and to clean up a bunch of crimes they couldn’t solve. The next thing you knew, he’d be charged with robbing Fort Knox and killing his grandmother. Once they had you locked up, they’d stop at nothing to keep you there. Cops were nothing but crooks and liars.

“That’s why you need a good lawyer,” Lester reminded him.

By Tuesday, August 20, Lester had reached an agreement with Roger. Lester accepted one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, inclusive of the retainer, plus the 1963 Corvette, as his fee. He had guessed all along that negotiations would end up at around that figure; by holding out as long as he had, he made himself look generous and made Roger and Carol believe that they were getting the great Lester Burns at bargain-basement prices. He also had already formulated in his mind a plan for getting his hands on more of the money—but that would take some time, maybe a couple of weeks. Then, he was willing
to bet, more cash would fall into his lap like apples off the tree.

Carol said that she would get the remaining one hundred and fifty of his fee to him as soon as Sherry produced it. Roger had told Sherry in no uncertain terms to turn over his full share to Carol.

On Tuesday, over at the jail, Lester ran into Detective Maggard again, who this time was in the company of Detective Frank Fleming, whom Lester knew well from the Hazard KSP post. The troopers had obtained court orders for the impoundment of two more cars traced to Epperson, another Dodge van and some kind of English sports car; that brought the number of vehicles in evidence up to five. Lester told the detectives that he had decided to waive extradition on Epperson, which meant that they could take at least one prisoner back to Kentucky by the end of the week.

Where were the troopers staying? Lester asked. Were they going to catch some sunshine while they were down in Florida? They weren’t going to waste the whole trip working, he hoped. Fighting crime all day long could get kind of depressing, didn’t they agree? Maybe they’d even have time for a cocktail or two.

Fleming, a square-jawed, humorous fellow who Lester knew was not one to pass up a chance to party, admitted somewhat sheepishly that he wasn’t about to go home without trying out the beach in front of their hotel. They were staying at the Inn on the Beach at Daytona, just a few miles down the road from Ormond Beach, where they’d been doing most of their snooping around. It was a beautiful spot, and the girls were enough to lead a grown man into temptation.

“Tell you what,” Lester said. “I could use some company. What do you say we have dinner Thursday night at your place?”

Having built a bridge to the troopers, Lester got another idea, with future questions about his fee in mind. From Carol’s room at the Catalina Inn, he telephoned Lieutenant Danny Webb at the KSP post in Hazard. He had just run into a pair of Webb’s crack detectives, Lester told the lieutenant. He wanted Webb to know that his men were working their butts off.

And, by the way, in the next couple of days he would be bringing a large cash fee back with him to Somerset. He wanted Webb to know that, just in case some trooper stopped him and accused him of robbing a bank. Webb thanked Lester for the information.

Why would I be telling the police about the money, Lester calculated, if I thought it was stolen?

5

L
ESTER WAS NO STRANGER TO FLORIDA
. He owned considerable property there, residential and commercial, including a vacation house at Okeechobee, on the shore of the lake. About a hundred and seventy-five miles south of Orlando, Lake Okeechobee (which means “plenty big water” in the Seminole language) is the largest lake in the South. Its southern end marks the upper limits of the Everglades; at its northern tip the town of Okeechobee (pop. 4,225) sits in a marshy area of tall sawgrass and cypress swamps. Just as the Gold Coast—from Miami north roughly to Delray Beach—attracts visitors and retirees from New York and New Jersey, Okeechobee is the favored spot of those Eastern Kentuckians who can afford a second house or a condo—far enough away and different, tropical, but not too far, and full of homefolks. On either side of Lester’s street of ranch-style houses, most of the neighbors were people he knew from Kentucky. A number of them were former or present clients.

Normally Lester confined his Okeechobee visits to the winter months, but he decided to make the three-hour drive through the soggy heat in order to deposit at least some of the money he was already carrying around. He put eight thousand dollars into his account at an Okeechobee bank. He planned to draw on that for the six thousand still owed on the 1963 Corvette. He needed to keep the total of any single deposit well under ten thousand, because federal law requires banks to report all transactions and to record the serial
numbers of all cash at or above that amount. In Florida, moreover, because of the drug traffic and the active enforcement of drug laws, anyone depositing a large amount of cash could expect to be interviewed about it immediately by the Drug Enforcement Agency or the FBI.

As for the seventeen thousand remaining from his retainer, Lester went to his house as unobtrusively as he could and hid it in the garage. He also retrieved from his house a .41 caliber Magnum pistol, an Uzi machine gun, and plenty of ammunition, for protection after he received the rest of his money The more he thought about actually receiving such a large amount of cash, of such dubious origin, the more frightened he became. Not that he seriously considered backing out. By then he may as well have been dreaming, unable to conceive of controlling a scenario written by some unseen hand. Before leaving his house that evening, he fixed himself a couple of stiff whiskies and popped a few aspirin. His hip hurt. He had not been sleeping much that week.

Carol continued to fail to come up with Lester’s money. Sherry had supposedly gone for it and hadn’t returned. The next morning, Lester delivered an ultimatum. He told Carol that he was moving over to Daytona, where the Kentucky police were staying; he gave her that number and one in Okeechobee where he said he could be reached on Saturday, if it came to that. He would give them through the weekend. After that, if they had still not produced his money, they could forget the whole business. He was beginning to wonder whether they really had as much cash as Roger had claimed.

Lester phoned a friend in Okeechobee, saying he was down in Florida to receive a fee and would visit with her over the weekend. Would it be possible for her to drive him back to Kentucky? For certain reasons, he didn’t want to fly. Lillian Davis said that she would be glad to help out. She needed to drive back to Kentucky anyway.

By the time Lester sat down to dinner that evening with the detectives, after an hour or so at the bar, everyone was on very friendly terms. Lester had them falling out of their chairs with laughter at his stories about Happy Chandler and giving out speeding tickets before the days of radar and the mountain judge who used to fine himself for being drunk on the bench. He made sure that glasses stayed full and everyone ordered plenty of food and the waitress knew that these were the finest law enforcement officers in the
United States. Lester himself ate prodigiously, as always; he was worried about his weight but expressed disappointment that there wasn’t a buffet, so he could sample something of everything. When he started talking about the Acker case, it was as if he and the police were on the same side, colleagues in a world that criminals had made. He wondered aloud how much money had actually been taken from the Acker house.

As far as they knew, the detectives said, it was half a million, just as had been reported in the press. That was what Dr. Acker had estimated. They also recalled some firearms and pieces of jewelry, including a lady’s Rolex watch.

Saying nothing about it, Lester thought he remembered that Sharon Wilson, Donnie Bartley’s sister, had been wearing a gold and stainless-steel Rolex; but he could not be sure, and besides, it needn’t have been stolen and it might have been a fake.

They had gotten a big break only that afternoon, one of the detectives volunteered. The FBI had found a 1978 Oldsmobile sedan that had been sitting for days in a motel parking lot in Fort Lauderdale. The Olds matched the description of the car several witnesses claimed to have seen Epperson, Hodge, and Bartley driving in Kentucky just before the Acker murder. It had Kentucky plates and was registered to Carol Malone, which was an alias of Epperson’s girlfriend, Carol Ellis. They were going to issue a warrant for her arrest.

Lester changed the subject to give himself time to think. It certainly would make things difficult if Carol were taken into custody before she was able to give Lester his money. He had to think of some way of gaining time.

He told them that he was also representing Carol Epperson or whatever her name was. They would be taking Roger Epperson up to Kentucky tomorrow. It would be a great help to Lester if Roger could be housed in the Pulaski County jail, in Somerset, so that Lester could have easy access to him rather than having to drive all the way over to Letcher County to see his client. If the KSP could fix that up, Lester would promise to have Carol there within a matter of days to make a statement. He would personally guarantee her appearance.

They did not have the authority, the detectives said, as Lester knew, but they would see what they could do about his requests. It would make life easier for them, too, if Lester could get Carol to appear in Kentucky voluntarily.

When Fleming and Maggard reached for their wallets, the waitress told them that Mr. Burns had already picked up the check.

On Saturday morning Frank Fleming watched from a balcony as Lester was getting into his car. Fleming shouted a farewell; Lester waved to him with a paper sack he was carrying. Fleming assumed the sack contained a bottle.

Lester took possession of the 1963 red-and-cream Corvette that morning at a Daytona garage, paid a mechanic to return his rental car, and took off for Okeechobee, managing to hit a hundred and fifteen on the Florida Turnpike with the radio blasting Conway Twitty and the Statler Brothers. At his house he re-hid what was left of his retainer in the trunk of the Corvette and locked the car away in his garage. Then he walked over to Lillian Davis’s duplex, just behind the Treasure Island Motel.

Lester had once owned the Treasure Island. But in 1982 he sold the motel for three hundred and fifty thousand dollars to Dr. Billy Davis, Lillian’s husband, a Somerset physician. Dr. Davis had hired Lester, whom he had read about in the newspaper, to defend him on a charge of involuntary homicide. Because he could not afford Lester’s fee, Dr. Davis paid twenty-two thousand down for the motel and also gave Lester a 1982 Corvette, a motorcycle, a bass boat, furniture out of a condominium, and ten thousand in cash to defend him.

The case went before a jury in Elliott County, Lester gave a memorable performance, and the judge directed a verdict of acquittal. Lester then set Dr. Davis up in medical practice in Somerset, financing the opening of a clinic and becoming the doctor’s landlord. Dr. Davis owed his freedom to Lester—and so much else that Lester had had little doubt when he had asked Mrs. Davis to drive him to Kentucky that she would not hesitate to do him the favor. She was down in Okeechobee that week to see about putting a new roof on the motel, which was in need of several repairs.

As it turned out, Lillian Davis was required to do more for Lester than drive him home. He arrived at her door dripping with sweat. Breathing hard, he locked the door behind him and announced that he was being watched. He showed her the pistol he was carrying in a paper sack and the Uzi in a shopping bag. He needed a drink.