chapter 5
JAKE AND MORGAN had spent several anxious days and sleepless nights since the man had been spotted in their backyard.
The police, along with assistance from the sheriff’s department, finally had determined that the Peeping Tom had not driven himself into the neighborhood or been dropped off. Law enforcement had carefully followed his tracks and determined that the perp had boated Tibbee Creek, which ran near the back of the golf course, and then walked in. This really perplexed everyone. To do this took an enormous amount of effort and a tough thousand-yard hike through dense woods and thick undergrowth. “Not typical of a burglar,” said one deputy. “They’re usually lazy. Opportunistic.”
Security was heightened. All the community’s residents were on edge. Security alarms that had had never been used were suddenly being activated and monitoring contracts signed. The sheriff’s department had an undercover team working, as hunters patrolled the large creek, which in some states would have been considered a river. Law enforcement of both West Point and Clay County were doing their best to protect their citizens.
Jake’s motion-sensitive game camera had several profile images of an unidentifiable man from seven different nights. The photos confirmed Morgan’s account of the man, but they didn’t establish his identity. All that the police knew about the man was that he was white and probably thin, but winter clothing made it difficult to be certain. He was obviously knowledgeable in nighttime navigation of both woods and waters. He also smoked Marlboro Lights.
Morgan’s initial response was that the family should move again, but they couldn’t afford it. “How and to where?” Jake asked.
They’d sunk everything they had into this house after they had taken a bath on the one they had just sold to move quickly. The housing market was now almost another two years in the tank, not to mention that no one would buy a house with a recent history of a stalker in the backyard.
Jake and Morgan owned a small cabin on the Tombigbee River that they could sell if absolutely necessary. It had been in Jake’s family for decades, so he wasn’t too keen on that idea.
A frustrated Jake Crosby had met with law enforcement officials to discuss the possibility of the stalker being connected to what had happened in West Alabama about eighteen months earlier. Departments collaborated and files were studied, but nothing had been decided yet.
During the night of the Dummy Line incident, an Alabama deputy sheriff had encountered a suspicious male at Johnny Lee Grover’s trailer—one Ethan “Moon Pie” Daniels, who had disappeared after evading the deputy’s attempt to follow him. Moon Pie had flown under the radar for most of his adult life, but he had basically dropped off the grid since that awful spring evening in Alabama. Since his involvement in that night’s crimes could not be established, law enforcement from both Alabama and Mississippi were content to let Moon Pie and the matter quietly fade away.
Another Dummy Line suspect was Tommy Tidwell, commonly known as Tiny. He too was thought to have been in the area of the crimes and was a known associate of the gang. He was located several months after the killings, but the police could never get him to talk about that night. Since Jake could not positively identify him in a lineup, the local district attorney had been forced to close the case, knowing that three very bad guys had been killed that night and two more may have been involved.
Tiny had a solid alibi for the recent events in West Point, and he didn’t match the physical appearance of the suspect’s outline that had been captured in the game camera photographs. Tiny weighed 365 pounds without bulky cold-weather clothing. Additionally, for the last year, he had worked the day shift at a fish hatchery in Montgomery, Alabama, and nights as a maintenance man at an Indian casino. He hadn’t missed any work in over a year. The law enforcement officers were left wondering when he had time to sleep. His live-in girlfriend mildly complained of the same, but somebody had to work to pay the bills, and it obviously wasn’t going to be her.