After Midnight

by Merline Lovelace

  Steve smiled at the local’s less than flattering acronym for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Although he made it a point to maintain solid relations with the various state agencies his department interfaced with, the complicated jurisdictional lines could and often did blur.

  Like in the matter of Ron Clark’s death.

  As Steve had relayed to Jessica Blackwell only a few hours ago, the state was ready to close the case. None of the probes into the realtor’s business and personal financial holdings had turned up anything irregular or suspicious. But neither had investigators uncovered a clue as to what might have driven him to suicide. Or why Clark had muttered Lieutenant Colonel Blackwell’s name just before he died.

  The state boys could close the case if they wanted to. Steve intended to dig a little deeper.

  “Go ahead and notify FDLE,” he instructed Wilena. “I’ll swing by, too, and see what we have.”

  Steve had been fishing Choctawhatchee Bay for more than seven years now, but still didn’t know all the inlets and coves branching off the vast body of water. There were hundreds of them, maybe thousands. After ascertaining the approximate location of Harry’s Bayou from Wilena, he signed off and scrutinized the oversized map of Walton County pegged to the wall behind a thin, protective sheet of Plexiglass.

  “It empties into Indian Bayou,” the shift officer volunteered, peering at a section of the map. “Should be ‘bout…here.”

  The inlet appeared to be little more than a shallow cove, probably clogged with weeds and inaccessible by anything other than a shallow-bottomed boat. Great for gigging bullfrogs, Steve thought. And for hiding dead bodies.

  “If I remember right,” the shift officer volunteered, scratching a patch of chest covered by dark green uniform shirt, “there’s a dirt road leads off highway 20 that runs down almost to the bayou. Kind of hard to find the road now. Used to be a dive right where it turns off. The Crab Shack, or something like that. Pretty lively place until it burned down twelve, fifteen years ago. If you look close you can still see the ruins under the kudzu.”

  “Martin will mark the turn,” Steve replied, thinking of the stream of official vehicles that would find its way down to the bayou in the next few hours.

  The drive to Harry’s Bayou took Steve north across the Mid-Bay Bridge and then east along Highway 20. For some miles, signs posted on either side of the road indicated the land was part of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation, with no trespassing allowed. Another, larger sign indicated the turn-off for Site C-6, which housed the 20th Space Surveillance Squadron.

  Steve had visited the isolated complex several times, originally on a familiarization tour when he’d first joined the Walton County Sheriff’s Department, again some months later to pick up poachers detained by the security forces who patrolled the site. He still marveled that a phased-array radar some five stories high, which tracked over nine thousand near-earth and deep-space objects, was tucked right here amid the tall, spindly pines of the Florida panhandle.

  Once past C-6, he drove through several villages clinging to water’s edge. Backed by the vast Eglin reservation and fronted by the bay, they consisted of little more than a handful of structures.

  Three miles beyond the scatter of buildings with the fanciful name of Villa Tasso, the cruiser’s headlights picked up a small white sign informing Steve that he was entering Choctaw Beach, population 306. He slowed to the posted 45 mph, squinting through the darkness at the weathered bayside cottages, the occasional trailer, the convenience store still open for customers.

  Odd that Jessica Blackwell had lived in this tiny hamlet as a girl. Odder still that she hadn’t mentioned that fact during Steve’s visit the night of Ron Clark’s death. He’d driven away from her condo with the definite impression she was new to the area. To be fair, though, he hadn’t asked about her past, only her connection to the dead realtor.

  There had to be a connection, something more than a lease. Or was his cop’s sixth sense working overtime? Could he be speculating about a link that might or might not exist because the woman intrigued him?

  Okay, she more than intrigued him. She turned him on, in a way no woman had in a long time. Too long. Not that Steve had remained celibate since his marriage to Christy went bust. An all-too-willing co-worker on the Atlanta PD had helped him work through his anger and frustration after the divorce. Since moving to Florida, he’d enjoyed several mutually satisfying “friendships” which he was careful to keep casual.

  Yet no woman since Christy had hit him with the same punch as the self-contained and completely disinterested Lieutenant Colonel Jessica Blackwell. Shaking his head at his own contrariness, Steve checked the odometer and slowed again. The turn-off for Harry’s Bayou should be around the next bend or two.

  Sure enough, he spotted a glowing red light just moments later. Officer Martin had efficiently marked the turn. Steering the cruiser onto a rutted dirt track, Steve searched the dark, humped shapes on either side for the ruins the shift officer had mentioned. If a roadside dive had once existed at this location, it’s remains now lay buried under a thick blanket of kudzu.

  Grimacing, Steve guided the cruiser down the bumpy track. The kudzu had denuded the tall cypresses on either side of the road of leaves and the feathery Spanish moss that had once draped their branches. Dark stumps now, they thrust into the night sky, making a last, painful stand against the vine that devoured them.

  Steve hated the damned kudzu, felt claustrophobic every time he had to tramp or drive through stripped, silent woods like these. The stuff had been introduced into this country by some well-meaning agriculturist back at the turn of the century, supposedly to curb erosion on bare banks and fallow fields. Almost indestructible, it propagated a foot or more a day, climbing trees and telephone poles, covering fields, killing all life beneath. Long tradition had it that mothers in the South needed to keep a close watch on sleeping babies during the summer to make sure a kudzu vine hadn’t snaked through a window and strangled them.

  Steve’s jaw had locked by the time he spotted lights at the end of the dark, silent tunnel. Blowing out a breath of relief, he pulled up behind Martin’s black-and-white. The moment he opened the door and stepped out into the night, he caught a whiff of a putrid stench. Wilena’s initial report had been right on the mark. The floater had been in the water for a while.

  Gratefully, he accepted the small jar of Vicks Vapor Rub Martin offered him. Most of the cops carried a jar in their squad cars for situations like this. A thick smear of the powerful mentholatum under each nostril blocked even the stench of death.

  “What have we got here, Martin?”

  “Well, I thought at first it might be that possible drowning victim, the one whose sailboat turned over in the storm last month.”

  “The Reverend McConnell?”

  Keeping a wary eye out for snakes, Steve approached the bayou’s edge. The body – what was left of it – drifted face down in the weeds.

  “The build’s about right,” Martin continued, aiming his flashlight’s powerful beam at the corpse. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “If this is McConnell, I’m not sure he drowned. He’s sporting a nice sized crease in his skull.”

  A wavelet lapped at the body, dislodging the small flap of scalp still clinging to the cranium. The bone beneath the floating hair glistened white and clean in the flashlight’s beam. Even from where he stood, Steve could see the jagged edges where something or someone had smashed in the frontal lobe.

  “I suppose he could’ve hit the rail when he went over the side of his boat,” Martin observed.

  “It’s possible.”

  “Be interesting to see what the ME and the crime lab over to Tallahassee come up with.”

  “Yes,” Steve agreed. “Very interesting.”

  Chapter Four

  Detective Jim Hazlett arrived at Harry’s Bayou some fifteen minutes after the boys from the county medical examiner’s office had fished the body
out of the bay.

  A good thirty pounds overweight and as overworked as everyone else in the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s investigations division, Hazlett had some twenty years of experience walking the jurisdictional tightrope between federal, state, and local agencies. He was a good man, one of only a handful of detectives in the Panama City office. He was also the FDLE officer who’d investigated Ron Clark’s death.

  “Evenin’, Sheriff.”

  “Hello, Jim.”

  Hazlett hooked a thumb at the corpse waiting to be hauled up to the meat wagon. “Is that one of your constituents?”

  “Looks like. The fish have had at him, but there’s enough left to pretty well confirm that he’s the man who went missing after the storm that blew in a few weeks ago.”

  “’Bout time he turned up.”

  “Dragging a handkerchief out of his pocket, Hazlett ambled over to take a closer look at the corpse. The ME’s assistants obligingly unzipped the body bag and held flashlights stead while the detective took in the condition of the bloated torso.

  Well, well. Wonder how he got that dent in his skull?”

  “We’ve been wondering about that, too,” Steve put in. “And about his shoe.”

  Hazlett’s gaze slid down. One foot had provided a feast for the fish. The other was still shod in a black leather wing-tip.

  “Hmmm.”

  The detective waved a hand, granting permission for the ambulance crew to zip up the corpse and transport it to the ME’s office.

  “You took Mrs. McConnell’s initial report when her husband’s boat was found drifting in the bay, sheriff. Did she happen to mention what he was wearing?”

  “The last time she saw him he was dressed for work, but she indicated he kept a change of clothes aboard his boat. You’d think he’d keep some rubber-soled deck shoes, too.”

  “You’d think.”

  “I’ll ask her again when I do the next-of-kin notification. Unless you want the honors,” Steve asked, knowing the answer already.

  “Nope, they all yours. Until we confirm his identity and the specific cause of death, I’m only here to assist you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Next-of-kin notifications were never easy, even when the deceased’s sailboat had been found adrift almost a month ago.

  The Reverend McConnell’s wife had had time to prepare herself for the worst. Still, Steve had dispatch contact her husband’s assistant pastor and request that he meet the sheriff at the McConnell residence at nine the next morning. The media were sure to pick up the story, if they hadn’t already. He wanted to give the widow time to grieve in private before reporters showed up at her door.

  He wore full uniform. The gleaming Sam Browne belt, knife-creased forest green shirt with his badge and rank insignia, and tailored gray pants with the green stripe down the sides were a mark of respect as well as a reminder that he’d put the force of his office behind the investigation into the reverend’s death.

  Mabel McConnell was a small, twittery woman. Her eyes filled with tears the moment she opened her door and saw the sheriff and her husband’s assistant pastor on her front porch.

  “You’ve…? You’ve found him?”

  “We think so,” Steve said gently.

  “Her throat worked. “Is he dead?”

  “Yes.”

  Her hand came up to cover her mouth. Moaning, she took a step back. Steve caught one elbow, the young pastor the second. Sobbing, she allowed them to lead her into the living room.

  “I knew it,” she got out through her tears. “In my heart, I knew it. But I still hoped. All these weeks, I hoped and prayed…”

  Steve passed her a clean, folded handkerchief. Her shoulders shaking, she sank into a recliner upholstered in nubby, brown and blue plaid. The pastor pulled in a chair from the dining room and angled it close to hers while Steve took the matching recliner.

  The close placement of the plaid recliners was as telling as the homey clutter scattered around the living room. A sewing basket spilled a rainbow of embroidery threads. Books lay stacked on the maple coffee table. Framed pictures crowded the top of an upright piano. Steve caught a glimpse of a wedding shot. Clusters of school pictures. A very young, lantern-jawed Delbert McConnell in the slick-sleeved uniform of a Marine recruit.

  “That was before I met him,” his widow said with a hitch in her voice, catching the direction of Steve’s gaze. Her lips curved in a faint, trembling smile. “From what he’s told me, he was pretty wild back then. I’m so thankful I met him after he found the Lord.”

  The faith that had formed the core of her husband’s life sustained his widow now. Her fingers shaking, she reached out to grasp the young pastor’s hand.

  “Delbert’s in the arms of his Savior now. I can’t grieve over that. Will you say the service for him?”

  “Of course. When do you want it?”

  “I don’t know.” Confused, she looked to Steve. “Where’s my husband’s body? When can we bury him?”

  “The Medical Examiner will have to conduct an autopsy. It’s required in every unexplained death.”

  Steve didn’t go into details. He saw no need to bring up the gash in McConnell’s skull until they were reasonably certain what caused it. The shoe bothered him, though. Big time.

  “When you first reported your husband missing, you indicated that he hadn’t mentioned taking his boat out that day.”

  “No, he didn’t. But he would sneak in a sail whenever he could. It was his release, his way of communing with the Almighty. He always said he saw things clearer out there on the bay, with just the wind and the sun and the boat cutting through the water.”

  Steve could relate to that. He’d spent a good number of solitary hours out on the Choctawhatchee, too.

  “I used to go with him when he first bought the boat, but…” The widow swallowed, fighting tears again. “But I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did and I always had so many things to do around the house.”

  She bit her lip, no doubt thinking she’d have time now for every small task she might have put aside to go sailing with her husband.

  “You also indicated the reverend kept a change of clothing on the boat.”

  “Yes. Some shorts and an old, sleeveless sweatshirt. A windbreaker, too, I think.”

  “What about boat shoes?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Apparently he was wearing black leather wing-tips when he went overboard, Mrs. McConnell.”

  She looked surprised, but could offer no explanation of why a man who sailed as much as her husband would attempt to negotiate a wet, slippery deck wearing leather-soled street shoes.

  Tugging off his tie, Steve popped the top button on his uniform shirt and cranked up the air conditioning for the drive to his office. From the McConnell’s house in South Walton, he retraced his route of the night before. Across the Bay Bridge. Though Villa Tasso and Choctaw Bay. Past the intersection of Highway 20 and the dirt road that led to Harry’s Bayou.

  It the bright light of noon, the vine-covered clumps that had once been the roadhouse were more easily discernible. Steve gave them a once-over as he drove past, wondering idly what caused the place to burn down. Just out of curiosity, he’d pull the old reports.

  Twenty minutes later he cruised under the I-10 overpass and hit the city limits of DeFuniak Springs. Steve always felt as though he entered a time warp each time passed under the interstate. He hadn’t exaggerated when he’d described Walton County’s schizophrenic nature to Jessica Blackwell. The beaches and touristy bustle to the south were another universe. Here, in the town constructed around a small, perfect, spring-fed lake, the Victoria era still thrived in all its gingerbread glory. Gabled and turreted houses circled the lake. The massive Chatauqua “Hall of Brotherhood”, which had brought a flourish of educational, cultural, and religious enlightenment to the area around the turn of the last century, still stood in all its white, columned majesty. The hall was only one of the forty or so struct
ures in DeFuniak Springs listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

  The county courthouse dominated the sleepy downtown. A jarringly modern addition to the granite courthouse housed the county jail and the offices of the sheriff. When Steve wheeled into his reserved parking spot behind the jail, a handful of prisoners in the black and white striped shirts he’d insisted on were clipping the hedges around the building. The rest, he knew, were chowing down.

  Which he intended to do, as well. As he let himself in through the private entrance to his office, he thought about taking lunch in the jail cafeteria. He made it a point to do so at varying times so he could answer the prisoners’ inevitable complaints about the food. Today, however, he had a reprieve. The scent of fried chicken had him making a beeline for the outer office.

  Steven had inherited both his predecessor’s beat-up roll top desk and his gum-snapping, brassy-haired secretary when he let himself be talked into running for sheriff and surprised everyone, including himself, by winning. He could live without the roll top desk. He didn’t want to think about managing without Pat Sampson.

  “Is that for me?” he asked hopefully, eyeing the napkin-covered plate on her desk.

  “It is.” Her gum popped. “The prisoners are having liver and onions today, which I know ranks right down there at the bottom of your list, so I brought brought you back lunch from the café.”

  He lifted the napkin and immediately started to salivate. Fried chicken, fried okra, and red beans and rice. He’d died and gone to heaven.

  “Remind me to put you in for a raise come next budget cycle.”

  “No problem. I’ve already included it in the initial submissions.”

  Grinning, he carried the plate back to his desk, crunched into a chicken leg, and skimmed through the telephone messages stacked in a neat pile. One from the lieutenant governor’s office requesting information on a recent drug bust. One from Dub Calhoun, son of former U.S. Representative Calhoun and now a candidate for his father’s old office, inviting Steve for cocktails prior to the upcoming black-tie affair that culminated the annual 4th of July Chautauqua Summer Arts Festival. And one from Jim Hazlett, advising that his superiors had signed off on a determination of suicide in the Ron Clark case and requesting a call back if the visit to McConnell’s widow had turned up anything new.