The Second Rape of Dr. Emily Pershing - C11

Chapter 11

January 25, 1972

WMH

James Targen was admitted at 7:57 p.m., shot, severely beaten, and naked as the day he was born. He was brought in by ambulance after being found by some kids playing out by the railroad where Targen had been beaten. They’d come across a rifle and were playing with it up until they found a man beaten half to death nearby. It was well into the next morning before Targen was able to tell anyone his name and what happened. He said the BLA had attacked him and dumped him on the side of the road south of town. Said he was free loading freight trains on his way from Corpus Christi on his way up to Chicago when he was shot and beaten and left for dead. Four of them he said. They jumped into the car where Targen was sleeping that night and beat him so badly his own mama wouldn’t have recognized him. Eyes swollen shut, cuts and bruises everywhere, genitals swollen and bruised. They took everything he owned, even his dignity, shot him, and threw him off the train. Just left him there to die. The shot just grazed his abdomen. The bullet cauterized most of the wound and we’ve seen enough accidental gunshot wounds to recognize that when we see one. Given the caliber of the bullet, he was lucky to be alive. Looking at the rest of this young man, it was hard to describe him as lucky at all.

Me and Nurse Stephens were the only ones there when he said what he said. By the time the Deputies got back to the hospital, he was out again. The poor man’s head was half bandages and half bruises. That afternoon, they couldn’t even wake him up anymore.

Things got real weird around Leesville after that. Targen fell into a coma before the FBI got there to question him, so they questioned me and the rest of the staff instead. We had folks from the FBI poking around and looking for those men who done this terrible thing. Those G-men asked us about what he said and how he said it. Made us feel like two plug nickels for not getting any more information than we did while he was talking. They posted an agent right there in the room from then on in case he woke up. We done the right thing though I think. We’d called the sheriff straight away when he woke up before and I think he did all the talking he could do while he could talk at all. Nurse Stephens didn’t take too well to being belittled like that. How were we to know he would fall into a coma? She let those men into a giant helping of what for. They all eased back off us after that. Never seen Nurse Stephens quite like that before.

They found the rifle out where those kids showed them. After a day of looking, they found the bullet that went through him. Didn’t take long to see that the bullet matched up with the gun. They got a bunch of fingerprints and such off of the rifle, most of them belonged to the kids who found it.

January 29

But the FBI’s hunt for BLA members didn’t last long. On the 28th, Deputy Warren had come in and tried to talk to Targen. She even tried whispering in his ear as if he would suddenly wake up and start yapping. People try all kinds of things to wake people up out of comas. Next day, she and the sheriff met a handful of G-men here at the hospital.

Deputy Warren asked me and Nurse Stephens to join them and answer any questions about what Targen had said. She told them about the man hunt already underway in Vernon Parish. Told them about Big Buddy and what he done to his little cousin, Gabby. She had looked into the Martaugh case the day before on what she called “a hunch.” Said they’d taken fingerprints from a cup they’d found when Gabby was beaten up a couple weeks ago and compared them with ones the sheriff took off one of Buddy’s rifles over in Newton County. She’d given those prints to the FBI the day before and it turns out they matched some of the ones found on the rifle that shot James Targen.

Deputy Warren told those men about how Gabby said her cousins used to paint their faces and pretend like they were fighting in Vietnam. She suggested that Targen had been beaten by Buddy and stripped of his clothes. They were roughly the same stature and if his face was painted when he attacked him at night, Targen could have easily thought he was colored. The severity of the beating would explain why he thought there were four men, or he could have been embarrassed to admit that one man beat him up so badly. *At any rate, Big Buddy Martaugh had a new identity, new clothes, and he was long gone on that

train.

The FBI took it from there. They thought Buddy’s brothers might have been involved and they would immediately set out to locate them, starting at their daddy’s place in Newton County. They said if a man calling hisself James Targen showed up in some town north of Louisiana, they’d have their man. They asked me if he’d said what kind of clothes he’d been wearing or if he’d mentioned any personal belongings that might be of value. Maybe Buddy would try and pawn a watch or a ring or something. He hadn’t mentioned anything specific. Just said they took everything he owned. There wouldn’t be any more information unless Targen told it to them hisself.

There would be no more information from him. James Targen died on January 29th at 12:12 p.m. The FBI spent countless hours forgetting about the murder of James Targen. If it wasn’t the BLA that done it, well they just didn’t much care. They took a photo from Reb and Marion Martaugh and made copies to send to local law enforcement in towns along the Kansas City Southern Railway. Beyond that, it’s hard to imagine they put much effort into finding the killer of a wandering hobo on a freight train. They made a good show of it though. Gotta give them that. The sheriff figured it was out of his hands. It certainly made sense to him that Big Buddy Martaugh wouldn’t be showing his face around here anymore.

Boy was he right. After the big meeting at the hospital, Deputy Warren pulled me aside and asked me if there was anything unusual about Targen’s urine. Told her I didn’t know for sure but I could find out it if she’d like. Every little disease and affliction I could learn about was great on account of I was studying to be a doctor anyway. She told me she thought she had a way of knowing more about Targen and that a test for a disease that caused frequent urination might help clue them in. I did some research right away and had blood drawn for a test that night. It would take a few days, but, well when Targen died, I made it a personal issue of mine to get that test result as soon as I could to help the deputy find the man’s kin.

After a few days, the results came back and I phoned Deputy Warren.

February 4, 1972

Leesville City Park

Deputy Warren asked me to meet her to talk. She asked that I meet her at the little pavilion at the city park for lunch. It was a Friday. I recollect she drove her personal car and wore normal clothes. Had her hair down and I hardly recognized her.

I knew I was meeting her to talk about the test results and how they might help us find the family of the late Mr. Targen. Deputy Warren already knew. She told me about a conversation she had a week ago and was asking for my help. Her conversation was with Miss Gabby.

Back on January 28th

Deputy Warren got a phone call from Gabby in the morning and she was terribly scared. They met right there at the pavilion right away. Gabby said she was in terrible trouble and didn’t know what to do. Said she was real sorry for not calling but she talked to her daddy and he thought maybe Buddy might be holed up over by Anacoco Lake. *The deputy was right mad to hear that because Bill Martaugh told her he didn’t have no idea where Buddy might have been, but he told Gabby she should go after him to get a reward, and probably get herself killed in the process.

Well Gabby did go after him. Found him sleeping in a thicket by the east shore. I guess she snuck up on him and grabbed his hunting rifle before he even knew she was there. She walked him at gunpoint from there straight east all the way to Main Street just south of Leesville. It’s prolly at least four miles to hike. Once they got close to town, Buddy took off across the street towards the railroad. Gabby fired a shot to stop him but he kept going and ducked behind some stacked ties. She went after him and when she come around the ties Buddy jumped at her and grabbed the barrel of the rifle and tried to pull it away from her. She flew off to the side and the gun fired. She dropped the rifle as she fell. Buddy was more mad than hurt. He came at her cursing and saying he was gonna kill her with his bare hands. She tried to get up but couldn’t get her balance by the time he was to her. She got him with a heel to his goodies and another to his knee which set him down. He reached over and grabbed the rifle and by the time he turned it toward her, she was on her feet and gave him such a kick to his head it nearly come clean off. She kept kicking him over and over and over. Said it was like she couldn’t stop. Only reason she did stop is she was too tired to stand any more.

I just sat there staring at the deputy dumb founded as I put it all together. Gabby hid out for a couple days but when those FBI men were looking all over town, she got scared and called the deputy. *“So you’re saying that James Targen was actually Buddy?” I asked the deputy. One and the same.

I’d made up a couple of my famous chicken salad sandwiches which we opened up at that point and began eating without saying a word.

*“She took his clothes!” I said and we laughed like school girls. Told her I didn’t understand why she didn’t just take Gabby in. She was bringing him and the gunshot was an accident. The rest was self defense. The deputy asked me if I thought the gunshot was really an accident or if maybe she just said that out of being scared. With those FBI guys around, the truth would come out for sure. She got to thinking and came up with a way to make Buddy’s story about Targen, the train, and the BLA work to help Gabby.

She went to the hospital to see Targen and I thought she was just whispering in his ear. Turns out she was whispering that she knew exactly who he was and that he would be going straight to jail as soon as he came to. Who knows if he could hear her or not. I hope he did. With the agent posted there in his room, she couldn’t get fingerprints from him without the FBI following suit, then they’d figure it out just the same, so she had me ask the staff about any unusual urination to make sure that was really Big Buddy Martaugh and not James Targen. She got Buddy’s prints from the file at the sheriff’s station and gave them to the G-men to check against their prints from the rifle. She knew if any of Buddy’s prints were on the gun, she’d have him. The best thing to happen was those kids finding the gun and playing around with it so there were multiple fingerprints on it along with Buddy’s and Gabby’s. Plus their little shoes around where Buddy was lying would disguise Gabby’s smaller footprints and the absence of any larger footprints would follow Buddy’s story about being thrown off the train.

The whole thing was just wild. Buddy didn’t want to get caught so he made up the whole story and hid behind his bandages. Probably figured on healing up and escaping sometime later. Poor SOB fell into a coma and died before he knew it. Aint that something.

I asked the deputy how she knew to ask about his urine of all things to identify Buddy. She told me about the interview she’d had with Gabby. It seemed strange to me that Gabby had asked me to take blood tests from her and the baby too. A young girl in her first pregnancy isn’t usually so aware of such things. It only made sense that she was probably aware of the possibility of the baby having the disease. Her and I both learned a fair amount about Polycystic Kidney disease since the last few days. I shared my thoughts with the deputy regarding Gabby’s interest in blood tests and the rest went kind of like this:

If the boys’ father had it, then there would have been a chance Gabby’s father would have it. They would have tested her right away when she was born. If Gabby didn’t know if she had it or not, then she obviously was never tested, which means her father didn’t have it. *So the only reason she would have been concerned about the baby having the disease is if…

We both put two and two together right there. Suddenly everything made sense about why Gabby beat that SOB so brutally, stripped him naked, and left him there to die. We both felt the same although neither of us would say it. That young man, as far as we were concerned, deserved every bit of what happened to him. Told her I thought it was real noble that Gabby was so adamant about protecting him just because she was worried about what her Aunt Marion would think. It just didn’t set well with me because I specifically asked her if Buddy had been the one. That didn’t set right with Deputy Warren either, then she got to thinking.

The deputy leaned forward with a real peculiar look on her face. She thought back on when she talked to Gabby about who done it. She’d asked her if maybe she wasn’t saying nothing about who done it because he was a married man. The deputy told me she thought it was strange that Gabby had said she was right about that. We both froze. Deputy Warren vomited right there at the table.

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