A Dark and Bloody Ground: A True Story of Lust, Greed, and Murder in the Bluegrass State by Darcy O'Brien

Author:Darcy O'Brien [O'Brien, Darcy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: True Crime, Murder, General, Biography & Autobiography, Criminals & Outlaws, history, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9781497658530
Google: epK4AwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-07-01T23:49:26.842812+00:00

18

THEY DROVE THE OLDS STRAIGHT THROUGH from Ormond Beach to Hazard, where Donnie and Benny registered at the Mountain View Motel as Snapper and Shane Hall. They timed the journey at nearly fourteen hours.

On Monday they made a quick run to Fleming-Neon, checking on the route and the doctor’s house. Returning through Whitesburg, Roger stopped at Maloney’s department store, which specialized in automotive and sporting supplies, to buy a box of Remington .45 automatic shells. That evening they drove to Viper, a village hidden in a hollow about eight miles south of Hazard, to pay a call on Sonny Spencer, whom Roger had known since they had been kids together. Sonny, Roger said, was blessed with a special talent, of which they could make very good use.

Sonny Spencer had not seen Roger for more than a year and a half. A wiry, taciturn fellow, Sonny had been in jail during that time; he greeted his old pal with something short of effusiveness. He led the men into his kitchen and offered them beer. He did not have any dope, he said; he was trying to stay clean on probation. He had managed to get hold of a bulldozer to do some stripping on the land he had inherited and was planning to rely on that and on the odd jobs he could pick up as a carpenter. He was just thanking his stars to be out of prison. Actually he had Lester Burns to thank. He would have been inside for twice as long, and convicted on other charges, if it hadn’t been for Lester.

Roger agreed that Lester indeed was a wizard, a friend to the needy if there ever was one, and recalled a couple of Lester’s more spectacular performances. Donnie said that he had heard his mother talk about Lester Burns, who was supposed to be the smartest lawyer in Kentucky and the richest.

They had in mind a job, Roger said, that would set the mouths of even the likes of Lester Burns to watering. What was more, they were prepared to let Sonny Spencer in on it. All he would have to do was open a certain safe.

He was not interested, Spencer said. He could not take the risk. The cops were watching him. Lieutenant Danny Webb from the KSP post over in Hazard knew his every move. It was like living in a goldfish bowl.

Donnie removed some cocaine from his jacket and began cutting it on the kitchen table. When he had three neat lines, he offered one to Spencer, who declined. Donnie sniffed up two through a rolled-up dollar bill and Roger did the other one.

It was nothing that complicated, Roger said. He had absolutely reliable information that a certain person over in Letcher County, way at God’s end of nowhere, had recently purchased one of those home safes. And Roger himself knew for a fact and had known for years that this man kept a truckload of money at home. If anyone could open that safe lickety-split, it was Sonny Spencer.

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