Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Upon recovering from her injuries, Paula had adopted her retired partner, who got around just fine on the three legs he had left. She had accepted a lateral transfer to Gulf County, which was closer to her parents and far enough away from Miami. When Evan had asked Trigg about a small notch he noticed in her left ear, she’d said that one of the bullets had grazed her. He’d asked her why she hadn’t let the doctors take care of it.

  “The department didn’t want to pay for a matching notch in my other ear,” she’d said with a straight face, and Evan had decided then that he could work with her.

  Evan called to the two newcomers, “Camera?”

  Trigg already carried an oversized duffle. Crenshaw wheeled around and jogged back to his cruiser, retrieved a large black case from the trunk and sprinted to catch up with Trigg. The two reached Evan and Goff together.

  “Is it really Hutch?” Crenshaw asked, eyes wide.

  Evan nodded and began to speak, but Goff beat him to it, speaking matter-of-fact and smooth. “Somebody shot Hutch, killed him. But you are on the job and this is a crime scene, just like any other you ever worked. So for now, that’s not Hutch, that’s a body to be processed. Keep that straight in your heads. Understand?”

  Crenshaw nodded.

  Trigg looked over Evan’s shoulder at Hutchins’s truck. “Has anybody been in there?”

  “No, we just came in. Prior to it being taped off, I guess one of the witnesses vomited, but they said neither of them touched anything,” Evan said.

  “I’m going to want to get DNA, shoe prints and fingerprints from them,” Trigg said.

  “Yeah, I’ll have them come see you when I’m done interviewing them,” Evan said, “But before you move inside the perimeter, I need you to work with Goff on these tire tracks. There’s not much left to go on, but get me wheel track, tread description if you can find any clear bit, tire width...anything at all.”

  “Tire tracks?” she said, doubtfully.

  “I’ll show you.” Goff said.

  To Crenshaw Evan said, “You’re my doorman, Jimmy. Move those cruisers when the M.E. arrives so he can roll his van up here, but don’t let anybody else in without clearing it with me first. And do not tell anyone what is going on back here. I don’t want his next of kin reading about this on Facebook”

  “Right,” Crenshaw said.

  Evan, Trigg and Goff handed him their keys. The young deputy passed the camera case over to Trigg, then sprinted back to the road block.

  Evan approached Mooney and Grant. The two men looked up at him from the ground. A canvas bag sat next to the white man with the pale orange hair. Evan introduced himself.

  “Man,” Mooney said, “this is not what I was planning on doin’ with my morning.”

  “I imagine Sheriff Hutchins would be saying the same thing,” Evan said. “You two were our here all night?”

  “Well, not all night. Got into the woods around midnight. Grant got a ‘coon right off and we figured with luck like that we’d be back before the engine cooled,” Mooney said. “Turned out we didn’t see another one for over an hour. Finally filled our bag just before three.”

  “Filled your bag?” Evan asked, distracted by the large lump of canvas on the grass. “What exactly do you have planned for those raccoons?”

  “You ain’t never eat coon?” Mooney asked. He was polite about it, but clearly didn’t understand.

  “I can’t say I have,” Evan answered.

  “My wife cooks ‘em up in a meat pie with some celery an’ onions,” Grant said.

  “They go real good with sweet potatoes, too,” Mooney said. “It’s like dark meat from a turkey, only a bit greasier.”

  “And more tender,” Grant added.

  “Young folks these days won’t touch it if you tell ‘em what it is,” Mooney said. “They think fairies drop food off to the grocery store.”

  “That’s what’s wrong with these kids, man,” said Grant. “They’ll kill each other all day long, but you bleed a chicken and they look at you like you’re the devil.”

  “Huh,” Evan said, pulling his eyes away from the bag. After a moment to refocus, he said, “So, sometime between midnight and three o’clock you heard a gunshot? Can you be any more specific?”

  Mooney said, “I reckon it was closer to two o’clock...”

  “Maybe two-thirty,” Grant said, “Or thereabouts.”

  “Did you hear anything else? Truck door slamming? Raised voices?”

  “Nah, man,” Mooney said, “We were a ways back in there. The shot sounded far off. Didn’t pick up nothing else.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Grant said.

  “Do you think you’d know the difference at that distance between a pistol, rifle, or shotgun?”

  Grant shook his head.

  Mooney said, “Bigger than a .22, smaller than a 12 gauge. Can’t be too much more specific than that.”

  “Was the sheriff’s truck here when you arrived? Or any other vehicle?”

  “Nah. We’d have seen ’em,” Grant said.

  “We’re parked about fifty yards further down the road,” Mooney put in. “But if someone was backed into one of them little nooks over there with their lights out, we might not have noticed, I suppose.”

  Grant nodded his agreement. “Yeah, we only noticed the sheriff’s truck because we saw his lights dimming. Otherwise we’d have just passed on by, minding our own.”

  Evan nodded and pursed his lips. He surveyed the scene, then looked back to the two men. “Anything else you can remember? Anything stand out to you as unusual?”

  “You mean other than finding a dead guy in his truck?” Grant asked, starting to sound exasperated.

  “Skynrd was playing,” Mooney said, “When we walked up the battery was dying, but it had enough juice for the radio, and Skynrd was playing.”

  “Skynrd, huh?” Evan said, making a note of this. It might help him nail down the exact time the body was discovered, if the radio station kept a record of when they played what.

  “Man,” Grant said, shaking his head, “Who would do this? Everybody loved Hutch.”

  Evan thought that odd, considering that Beckett had said something fairly opposite.

  “Yeah,” Mooney said, “He was a good guy. Did a good job. Whoever gets his job’s got some shoes to fill.”

  “I would imagine,” Evan said, looking down at his own shoes. The toes were scuffed from when he had knelt to examine the tire tracks. Maybe he’d just give them to Plutes to piss in.

  When he looked up, Mooney was eyeing him skeptically. “How long you gonna have to keep our guns?” the older man asked.

  “Just a couple of days, I would think,” Evan answered politely.

  “Y’all don’t think we did that, do you?” the redhead asked.

  “It’s just procedure,” Evan answered. “We’ve got a man dead from gunshot, a law enforcement officer no less, and you’re at the scene with a gun. I’ll have Paula run a couple rounds through them, then we’ll give you a call when you can pick up your weapons. Okay?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Whatever we can do to help,” Grant sighed, then shook his head and added, “This sure is some kind of messed up.”

  Evan looked over his note pad for a moment. “Officer Wilcox took down your contact information for me, so I can get hold of you if I have any more questions later. Here’s my card. You call me right away if you think of anything else.”

  “Will do,” Mooney said.

  Grant nodded, “Mm-hm.”

  “I’d appreciate your patience just a little bit longer,” Evan said. “Deputy Trigg needs to collect some prints from you guys, then you’ll be on your way ,” Evan said. “Thank you for cooperating with us this morning, I know this isn’t easy for anyone.”

  “I just hope you find whoever did this, man,” Mooney said, standing and stretching his back. Grant just nodded, looking miserable.

  “That’s my plan,” Evan said quietly.

  Goff met up with Evan as he was
on his way back to the truck.

  “We got a couple measurements off those tracks. The wheel track is between seventy and eighty inches. Could be just about any Ford or Chevy pick-up. Looks like the tires are probably after-market, some fat off-road jobs. Probably an open tread.”

  “So that eliminates about a third of the vehicles in Gulf County?” Evan asked.

  “Thereabouts,” Goff said. “The one saving grace of old Gulf County Fords and Chevys, at least as far as we’re concerned, they all leak oil.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Our shooter left a softball size puddle. I’ve got it marked for Paula to sample once she’s done over there.” Goff scratched at the side of his moustache. “Not sure if it’ll amount to much, but it’s better than a poke in the stick with a sharp eye.”

  Evan was looking at the black stain in the sand, about to comment on the value of spilled oil, but lost his thought trying to process Goff’s last phrase. He glanced up at the older man, but Goff had turned slightly and was scribbling in his note pad, apparently done with the conversation.

  Evan figured “Right,” was the best response, so that’s what he said, then continued on his way to see Trigg. The oil wouldn’t get them any closer to finding the killer’s truck than the generic tire track measurements would. But if they did find the truck, a matching chemical analysis of the dripped oil and the oil in the truck’s crank case would provide fairly convincing evidence that the truck they found was indeed the truck used in the murder.

  When he arrived at the truck, Paula Trigg was kneeling behind Hutchins’ body, taking photographs of the door and window.

  The largest blood splatter on the door was similar in shape to an inverted teardrop; a large bulbous top, with several drips at the bottom that stretched for a few inches before they’d begun to get tacky enough to be halted.

  Evan stood behind Trigg. “That primary blood splatter there, looks like the shot came from a pretty steep angle.”

  She looked over her shoulder for just a moment. “Yeah, looks like.”

  “I’m guessing the Sheriff was on his knees and the shooter stood behind him,” Evan said. “That sound probable to you?”

  She took another shot of the door, then looked back at Evan again. He thought maybe he saw a little bit of surprise on her face, like she’d just remembered that he was new to Gulf County, but not new to the job. “I’d say that’ll turn out to be the case, yeah,” she said.

  She stood up and checked a silver-toned watch on her wrist. Evan noted that it was an analog, and a smaller, man’s watch rather than a woman’s timepiece.

  “I wish the M.E. would get here already,” she said, looking around like he might appear from thin air. “I need to get on with it.”

  “I’m a little surprised he’s not here already,” Evan said. “Seem weird to you, what with this being a murdered law enforcement officer?”

  She hesitated a moment, then shrugged. “He doesn’t even attend half the scenes we call him on. Sends one of his interns usually.”

  “What does he do?”

  “He does most of the actual autopsies,” she answered. “But crime scene work seems too inconvenient for him most of the time.”

  “I don’t think we want an intern on this one,” Evan said, feeling a bias against the M.E. coming on. “Do you?”

  She shrugged again, then started taking pictures of the ground in Hutchins’ immediate vicinity. “Some of them seem sharper, you want the truth.”

  Evan sighed, looked around, and then walked over to the crime scene tape. Jimmy Crenshaw was standing just outside it, talking to one of the Wewa PD officers.

  “Hey, Crenshaw?” Evan called over. “Can you check on the progress of the M.E. for me?”

  “Just hung up with them,” Crenshaw answered. “They said fifteen, twenty minutes.”

  “Call them back and mention to them that the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the county is missing most of the front of his head,” Evan said evenly. “See if they can divide that ETA by the factor of my foot in their ass.”

  “Will do,” Crenshaw answered, and Evan thought he might have grinned if the circumstances were different.

  Evan turned away and walked around the truck to the passenger side, keeping to the edge of the crime scene tape. The ground on that side was almost entirely gravel and rock. He doubted they would find any footprints, should they have had reason to exist. He stepped closer to the truck, then stood on tiptoe so that he could see the front seat.

  “Hey, Trigg?” he called out. “You see the Sheriff’s service weapon—or any weapon—over there?”

  “No,” she called back.

  Evan supposed it might be on the floorboard, in the console, inside the glove compartment. Hutchins was wearing his holster, so clearly, he’d been armed. They might find it in the truck, or somewhere nearby, possibly knocked out of Hutchins’ hand. If they didn’t find it, then it was likely kept or disposed of by the killer.

  But why would he willingly get down on his knees and allow himself to be shot? That bothered Evan somewhat. Actually, it bothered him quite a bit. Every cop he knew would rather take a bullet fighting than die on his knees. “Kneel to be shot or I’ll shoot you,” wasn’t a very compelling command.

  Evan needed somebody to tell him why the man was out here in the middle of the night, and what could have motivated him to allow himself to be executed. Perhaps there was more than one assailant – the person the Sheriff was meeting, and someone else who took the man by surprise. Or maybe there’d been someone there to threaten, someone Hutch was willing to die for. Evan had met Hutch’s wife once, and he knew they had a grown daughter, though whether she lived locally or not, he couldn’t remember.

  He didn’t want to give the crime scene short shrift, but he needed to get to the Sheriff’s house soon. Not only to notify his next of kin, but to make sure she wasn’t a victim as well. He considered having one of the deputies go to the house, but there really wasn’t any way to accomplish that without telling her what they weren’t saying yet. He would have to hurry up and get over there.

  “Caldwell,” Trigg said, “I’ve got all the photos I need from the truck and surrounding area. You can go ahead and send someone in to run the metal detector and collect trash. The slug is going to be a few inches past that hole,” she pointed to a small divot two feet in front of the open truck door. “Probably not going to find the shell, but there’s a couple bottle tops, a wad of chewing gum and a few cigarette butts scattered around. Most are old, but the gum looks pretty fresh.”

  “Goff?” Evan asked, turning to find him.

  “On it,” Goff replied, stooping to retrieve evidence bags and the collapsed metal detector from Trigg’s duffle.

  Evan’s shirt was already thinking about clinging to his back. Once the sun had fully risen, it promised to be a heartbreakingly humid morning. The smell of drying blood thickened the air around the people working the scene. A large black fly droned past Evan’s head and lighted on the puddle between the dead sheriff’s knees. As he watched, two more joined it. Soon, there would be a swarm. Evan loathed flies. If one landed on his food, he’d throw it away. He’d seen too many of them covering corpses and buzzing out of their eye sockets.

  They watched Trigg slip plastic bags over each of the sheriff’s hands, securing them with rubber bands. She then swabbed his hair around the entry wound for smoke or powder residue. “Not much else I can do before the M.E. arrives. The passenger door is locked, and I can’t access the cab from this side until we move the body.”

  At that moment, out on the highway, brakes shrieked. Evan cringed internally, expecting to hear the crunching, grinding impact of vehicles colliding. Instead, the shrieking was followed by the rattle of sprayed gravel. Evan saw Crenshaw slap his phone closed, mutter something inappropriate, and sprint toward the parked patrol cars.

  A plume of dust billowed up at the turnoff to the scene, then a white van appeared, skewing sideways just a bit to make the t
urn. Again, Evan expected to hear crumpling metal and shattering glass, but the driver managed to keep all four tires under the van, though two of them left the road for several seconds. As soon as it righted itself, the driver gunned the engine, barreling towards the crime scene.

  Jimmy Crenshaw stood in the van’s path, holding up his hand, which became just a middle finger as the van slid to a stop only a few feet from hitting him. Evan admired his conviction, but wanted to slap him for the risk.

  Dust billowed up around the van and drifted forward, encroaching on the taped off area. As it threatened to cross the tape, the light breeze pulled it to the side and it floated off toward the water.

  The van’s engine cut off. Evan and Paula stared at the windshield, trying to see through the glare of the early morning sun. The driver’s door opened, and a young man pretty much flung himself out. He looked like an underfed kid, though he was fairly tall. He had thick black hair and thick black glasses. Without the green scrubs, he’d look more at home developing something for Apple or playing in a hipster band.

  He closed the door and stood beside the van for a second, as if trying to get his bearings, then straightened his scrubs and stepped forward.

  “I’m looking for the sheriff,” the young man said. When no one answered, he added, “The dead one.”

  “I assume you’re the medical examiner’s intern?” Evan asked, noting crumbles of sleep in the corner of the young man’s eyes, and a substantial cowlick on the side of his head. “I hope we didn’t wake you.”

  “Well, I’m not on duty. I mean, I wasn’t. I am now,” the young man said in a single burst of words. “It’s Kim’s turn on midnights this week but she got called to a twofer out at Sunset Bay – those old folks like to drop off in their sleep and the staff finds them on morning rounds.”

  Evan’s gut clenched. He worked at neither cringing nor yanking out his phone. He’d call Sunset Bay from the car as soon as he got done here.

  “Usually they go in threes, not twos,” the kid was saying, “but number three turned out to be all the way out here and it would have taken Kim an extra couple of hours to finish up there before she could get out here. Also, somewhat incidentally, that drill sergeant you got working the phones for you didn’t sound like he wanted to wait that long, so Kim called me and here I am.”