If Montgomery County Sheriff's Office investigator Dennis Rakes had his way, this is how it would all go down:

Michael Wayne "Doogie" Hughes, a 31-year-old man wanted for eight burglaries in the New River Valley, would show up in the lobby of the sheriff's office and give himself up.

No chase. No adrenaline. No guns drawn, on either side of the law.

But Rakes doesn't expect Hughes to turn himself in. Police have been searching for Hughes since November.

They fear he may have a gun and be willing to use it.

Hughes is charged in Montgomery County with grand larceny, five counts of breaking and entering and conspiracy to commit a felony. The charges stem from burglaries at a beauty shop, four restaurants, a grocery store, a used-car lot and a home.

In addition, Hughes faces an armed robbery and two breaking and entering charges in Christiansburg and is wanted for not showing up for court in Pulaski County on other burglary charges.

If Hughes is convicted on all counts, he could be facing another long prison sentence.

Fear of returning to prison, where Hughes has already spent nine years, is what's keeping Hughes on the run, say police and a relative.

"He's in so deep right now, he's probably just scared to death," said his grandmother, Thelma Long.

The sheriff's office and the Blacksburg and Christiansburg police departments have posted a $1,000 reward for any tip that leads to his arrest and conviction. It is the only reward that police from the three localities currently have posted for a suspect in the New River Valley.

'Hell of a worker'

This is not the first time Hughes, who attended Blacksburg High School in the early 1990s, has been in trouble. At 19, Hughes went to prison on a 33-year sentence for multiple counts of grand larceny and breaking and entering in Radford, Pulaski County and Montgomery County. He was released from the Bland Correctional Center in 2001 and moved back in with his mother in Blacksburg, his grandmother said.

Hughes told his grandmother he "wasn't ever going to be penned up again." And his grandmother says she believed he had gone straight. But three years after his release, Hughes was once again arrested.

On Jan. 12, 2004, he was charged with the attempted burglary of a Wendy's restaurant in Pulaski and possession of burglary tools. His grandmother posted his bond.

Hughes then found a job working as a demolition man for Crockett Home Improvement in Christiansburg. During the summer of 2004, he operated a jackhammer as the crew tore out concrete floors in a building at Virginia Military Institute. It was hot, dusty work, but his boss, Jay Swain, said Hughes was one of his best employees.

"He was a hell of a worker for me. Never laid out. Was there every day, and it was tough work," Swain said.

But when the VMI job was finished at the end of the summer, Swain said he had to lay Hughes off.

'Give me the money'

In the year since his arrest in Pulaski, warrants for Hughes' arrest have multiplied.

The most serious charge stems from a robbery of two Christiansburg McDonald's employees at a night bank drop Nov. 11.

This is how Amanda Linkous, a 20-year-old shift manager, described what happened:

At about 12:30 a.m., Kimberly Crook, another McDonald's employee, drove Linkous to the BB&T Bank in Cambria to make a night deposit.

Typically morning, afternoon and evening shift managers each make bank drops at the end of their shifts. But on the 10th, the two other managers didn't make deposits. So Linkous was carrying all the day's money, about $4,000.

When she stepped out of Crook's Geo Tracker into the cold night, a man dressed in a hooded sweatshirt and a mask appeared from behind a row of tall bushes.

"Give me the money, bitch!" the man yelled. "Give me the money, bitch!"

She dropped the bags. The man picked up the bags and ran.

Then two other men wearing masks jumped out from behind the bushes. One went for Crook in her Geo. The other, carrying a stun gun, pinned Linkous on the ground with one hand around her neck.

Crook pounded the horn, kicking up a din that scared away the man. She opened the door, got out, picked up a chunk of concrete from the ground and brought it down on the head of Linkous' attacker.

The stun gun skidded across the concrete and the man fell off Linkous. The women scrambled to the Geo and squealed away.

Linkous and Crook never saw the faces of their attackers. But Linkous recently claimed the three men were Hughes, Clarence Hale and Chad James.

On the run

Hale and James are now in custody. Police say Hale named Hughes and James as his accomplices. Hughes remains on the run. All three have been charged in connection with the robbery of the McDonald's employees.

Hale and James wound up behind bars after a pair of burglaries that followed.

On Nov. 15, Hughes and Hale walked into Imperial Motors in Christiansburg, looking for a car. They bought a $3,000 dark blue 1990 Cadillac Eldorado on credit, says Imperial Motors owner Greg Nagy.

On Nov. 27, someone pried open a door at Imperial Motors and made off with a locked cash drawer where Nagy kept about $400 and license tags.

The next day, Ben Geren was hunting on his father's property in Pilot when two men pulled up to the home. Geren, standing within eyeshot of the house, watched one of them kick in the door and go inside.

When Geren came out of the woods with his rifle and confronted the two men, they drove away. Geren called the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. He told police he recognized one of the men as Clarence Hale because he had grown up with him

Deputies found Hale, together with Hughes and James, at the Adams Marktrailer park in Montgomery County and arrested him, said Rakes, the Montgomery County investigator who works property crimes at the sheriff's office.

Back at the sheriff's office, Hale quickly fingered James as the other man at the house burglary, Rakes said.

And Rakes said Hale told investigators more; that he, James and Hughes committed the robbery of the McDonald's employees, the heist at Imperial Motors and several other break-ins earlier in November.

Before Hale's arrest, deputies had been investigating burglaries at Aly's Italian Restaurant, Carol's Beauty Salon, Ciro's Pizza and a Food Time in Montgomery County and Western Sizzlin steakhouse in Christiansburg.

Nagy said Christiansburg police told him that Hale led them to the dealership's broken cash drawer, stashed near some train tracks near Switchback Road in Montgomery County.

By the time deputies returned to the Adams Mark trailer park, James and Hughes were gone. Warrants were issued for their arrest. James turned himself into the sheriff's office Jan. 7.

Hughes, so far, has eluded police.

'Use caution'

Despite the $1,000 reward, Rakes said tips so far have led only to cold trails.

He said police know the "geographic area" where Hughes is hiding. The area includes most of Montgomery County where they know Hughes' friends own houses and trailers.

Rakes said he thinks Hughes has not fled the New River Valley because his family and friends are here and he has never been anywhere else.

Hughes' grandmother thinks someone is hiding him.

"He can't just starve and freeze to death on these cold nights. Somebody is looking out for him," she said.

A poster with Hughes' mug shot hangs on the wall inside the sheriff's office. "USE CAUTION," it reads. "He is reported to be armed."

Each shift, before deputies go out on the streets, they are warned to be on the lookout for Hughes.

If Rakes has his way, Hughes will get cold, tired and hungry and give himself up.

"All he has to do in come in here and say 'here I am' and it'd be done. I'd prefer it happened that way."

Anyone with information about Hughes' whereabouts should call the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office at 382-6900.