Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Jessica nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I came to work here. I can handle accidents and illnesses and death, but I just couldn’t take all the violence and the drugs and the children and everything else that comes into the ER every night.”

  Evan thought about his meal at the Dockside Grill, about his need to be in a “normal” world. “I get that,” he said.

  “Yeah, I suppose you probably do,” she said. She looked like she was going to leave, but she stopped. “You know that I violated the patient confidentiality laws, right? I could get into serious trouble, lose my license.”

  “You won’t,” Evan answered. “Nobody will know.”

  “Okay. Thank you.” She looked at Hannah. “She looks good.”

  “She does,” he said, and they both were lying.

  He watched Jessica leave, then leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. This was a piece of news he wished didn’t exist. Him bringing to light any suspicions against Hutchins’ character wasn’t going to win him any support in the SO, or anywhere else for that matter.

  If Hutchins did beat his wife, and that was still an “if”, Marlene might have killed him or she might not have. Even if the thing was true, it still might not have anything to do with his murder. On the other hand, the possibility that someone else might have killed him for the abuse presented itself, and that was a whole different mess.

  Evans sat back and sighed, looked at Hannah. He caught himself thinking that at least he never raised a hand to his wife. In fact, he couldn’t remember raising his voice more than a time or two, even when they fought. But that was probably due to inattention rather than restraint.

  If Hutchins did abuse his wife, Evan wanted to get all worked up with righteous indignation, but then he wondered if neglecting his wife was really any better than hitting her.

  Then he wished he had a cigarette.

  THIRTEEN

  EVAN SPENT MOST OF THE next morning getting a warrant to check Marlene Hutchins’ medical records at the hospital, without earning the wrath of Judge Winters for calling him on a Sunday morning. This he had to accomplish by getting Vi to tell him who would be the friendliest judge to harass, without letting Vi know what the warrant was for. All in all, it was an exhausting and stressful proposition, but by early in the afternoon, he had the warrant in his email. He printed it off immediately, grateful that Vi wasn’t in the office breathing down his neck, and hit the road.

  The upside of it being Sunday, when Evan would much rather be out on the water, was that people who might otherwise be doing themselves injury seemed to be staying safe; the ER was downright quiet.

  After talking to the doctor in charge of the ER that day, who continued the chain of weekend interruptus by calling the director of the ER at home. The director felt the need to pass on his pain by calling the hospital administrator, who appreciated being dragged away from a family barbecue, and cheerfully gave the okay for the warrant to be honored. In the interim, Evan enjoyed drinking several cups of horrific coffee while he read two magazines for diabetes patients.

  Once Evan had the records in hand, he shed himself of the hospital atmosphere and went back to his boat, where he found Plutes sitting on the sun deck, surrounded by crumbs. He’d gnawed through the plastic wrap on one blueberry muffin, and apparently napped on the other. The newspaper was unmolested.

  Evan threw the cat into a crab pot and dumped him over the side. After enjoying that satisfying fantasy, Evan made himself a real cup of coffee and sat down in the galley dinette to look over the records that he’d fought for so valiantly.

  Marlene Hutchins had been to the Sacred Heart ER three times in the seven years that Sacred Heart had been in existence. In October of 2011, she’d been treated for a sprained wrist that she said she got by tripping over the dog and trying to break her fall. In May of 2014, she’d gone to the ER with a broken nose from slipping in the shower. The last visit was in January 2015; the dislocated shoulder.

  Her husband had brought her in all three times, and none of the doctors had seemed inclined to check for, or at least note, any other signs of injury, or any suspicions of abuse.

  Evan was a cop, and he’d only been to the ER once in the last seven years. That was when Hannah had been taken to the hospital in Cape Canaveral. There was every possibility that Marlene was an accident-prone woman, but Evan’s gut told him that wasn’t the case.

  He went up to the sun deck for a cigarette and a think. The abuse rang true, but the idea that Marlene had something to do with her husband’s death felt wrong. Evan had misjudged people more than a few times, but he was more often on point. However, the premise that Hutch had been killed for the abuse couldn’t be ruled out at all.

  He snuffed out his cigarette and called the dispatch office that was shared by the SO, Port St. Joe PD and Wewa PD. Within five minutes, he’d learned that Chief of Police Beckett had signed off at midnight on the night Hutch was murdered. Apparently, that was his normal sign-off time, even on his days off. So, he didn’t have the easy alibi of being out on a call at the time of the murder. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Evan wanted it to.

  Beckett was actually on duty that afternoon. Apparently, he worked two Sundays a month so that each of his officers had a Sunday off at least once every other month. Evan tried not to like that much.

  He spent the twenty-minute drive out to Wewa listening to his lungs scream for air that had been filtered by salt water. The further he got from the coast, the more claustrophobic he felt, despite the fact that he had no trouble with small spaces.

  Evan caught up with Beckett outside of a white, one-story building with an unimpressive sign stating it served the best pizza in Wewa. Evan made a mental note to not run out here some Friday night to check it out.

  Evidently, the alarm had gone off in the closed building, and two-thirds of the police department had turned out to see what was amiss. One sixth of the department was leaning against his Monte Carlo, drinking a bottle of orange soda. He watched and waited, a slight smile on his face, as Evan got out of his Pilot and walked over.

  “Looking for me?” Beckett asked.

  “I am,” Evan said.

  “So I heard,” Beckett said with a wink. “How can I help you?”

  “I was wondering where you were between midnight Thursday and three Friday morning.”

  “I heard that, too,” Beckett said.

  “So you’ve had time to rack your brain, then.”

  “It was pretty quick,” Beckett said, adjusting his sunglasses. “I was sleeping. At home. Alone.”

  “No dates with your local fan club?”

  “No, but I’m no Sonny Crockett,” Beckett said. Evan appreciated the 904th reference to Miami Vice since he’d moved there. “I’m not as young as I used to be. All of my dalliances end before the eleven o’ clock news. And I always sleep alone.”

  “That’s not especially helpful, as alibis go.”

  “Why would I need one?”

  “Because you care about Marlene Hutchins,” Evan answered.

  “So does her mother,” Beckett answered, and he’d lost any hint of a playful mood.

  “You think Mom would put a bullet in Hutchins’ head for beating her daughter?”

  Evan could swear he felt a cold draft oozing from Beckett’s body to his own. The other man’s eyes narrowed behind his green lenses, and he’d gone very still.

  “Did you know anything about Hutchins being abusive?” Evan asked after a pregnant silence.

  It took Beckett a moment to answer. First he took off his glasses, folded them, and hung them in his pocket. “About two years after he and Marlene got married, I went over there to pick him up for some sport fishing. Marlene had a bruise on either side of her jaw. He was still in the shower, but I got it out of her that they’d had a fight the day before, and he’d grabbed her jaw and hauled her around the living room by it.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I dragged his naked ass out of the shower, haul
ed him out to the back yard and beat the crap out of him,” Beckett said without pride or apology. “Told him if I ever heard of him layin’ a hand on her again, I’d kill him.”

  “So did you?”

  “Marlene and I didn’t have any contact after that, except to see each other around town. Hutch and I didn’t speak outside of law enforcement business. I never heard a word about any more abuse.”

  “Is that a fact?” Evan asked.

  “How do you know he was hurting her?” Beckett asked. “Did Marlene tell you that?”

  “No. The possibility was presented to me.” Evan pulled out his cigarettes and lit one. “But if you’re telling me there was at least one incident, I’m going to assume the allegations are true.”

  Beckett looked off to the side, staring at the quiet street.

  “I’m going to ask you point blank,” Evan said after a moment. “Did you know Marlene Hutchins was being abused?”

  Beckett’s jaw tightened, the vein on the side of his neck popping. He finally turned back to Evan. “No. But if I had, he’d have been dead long before you got here, Hollywood. And they’d still be looking for his body.”

  Evan didn’t want to believe him, but he had a feeling the man was telling the truth. It was evident that he was thrown by the idea that Marlene Hutchins was the victim of continued abuse. One thing he did believe was that if Beckett had killed Hutch, he probably wouldn’t have just left him there. This area had to be loaded with dynamite places to hide a body.

  “Okay,” Evan said simply. “Talk to you later.” He started back to his car. “By the way, Hollywood’s in Broward County,” he said over his shoulder.

  “I don’t care where the hell it is,” Beckett said without inflection.

  Evan believed that, too.

  FOURTEEN

  EVAN SPENT MOST of Monday going over every notation in the autopsy report and in Trigg’s evidence file, and following up on a bunch of useless leads while he waited for the search warrant for the Nickell estate. Oddly, it took longer for that than it had the warrant for Marlene’s medical records. Evan supposed the judge might be getting back at him for Sunday.

  The sky had taken on a faint orange tint by the time Evan and Goff finished the search of Nickell’s trailer and the grounds around it. They came up with several bits of drug paraphernalia, but not much else. The pipes and syringes would get Ricky some time in County, but probably not enough to leverage him into giving up information on a murder, if he even had such information.

  They did find several hundred spent bullet casings from a variety of weapons scattered throughout the dirt lot. They collected all the .45 shells they could find, about two-dozen. Analysis through the ballistics lab might be able to tell them if these had been fired by the same model of weapon that killed Hutch. It was another long shot, and neither Evan nor Goff expected it to pan out.

  As they packed the evidence bags into the cruiser’s trunk, Goff asked, “You still wanna talk to Tomorrow?”

  Evan looked at him, opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say. After a beat, he said, “I’m sorry, Goff. I don’t know what that means.”

  “That interview you and Peters didn’t do last time you were up this way, kid named Tommy Morrow, A.K.A. Tomorrow.”

  Evan looked at the peach-tinted sky, consulted his watch, then said, “Yeah, I guess we’d better.”

  Tomorrow was just around the bend of a dusty gravel road. His lot bore a strong similarity to the Nickell place. The primary difference was two trailers occupied this lot instead of just one. Several pickups lined one side of the driveway. Most appeared inoperable.

  Evan spotted a pair of legs sticking out from under one of the trucks, next to a tool box and an air compressor. As they parked their cruiser, the man attached to the legs wriggled out from under the truck and stood to watch them. He was thin, but muscular, rather than anorexic as Nickell had appeared, and dressed in thick canvas overalls and matching work gloves. Evan wanted to pass out just thinking about being that covered up.

  “That’s our boy,” Goff said.

  On the drive over, Goff had given Evan the rundown. Tomorrow had been trying to hock stolen power tools at a pawn shop in Panama City. The store owner called the police when he noticed Tomorrow’s ID was a fake. The kid split, and made it back into Gulf County, but did so a little too quickly. Deputy Crenshaw got him on radar doing close to ninety miles an hour. After stopping the vehicle, Crenshaw heard the BOLO from Bay County, recognized Morrow as the suspect and made the arrest. On top of the reckless driving, false ID, and possession of stolen property charges, Morrow also got dinged for several ounces of weed in the glove box.

  It was a good bust for Crenshaw, but nothing out of the ordinary. And not in any way connected to Hutchins. What put Tommy Morrow on their radar was what had happened after. He had pleaded guilty to seven misdemeanor charges and one felony charge for the drugs and was sentenced to eighteen months in county lockup.

  For some reason known only to himself, Hutchins had attended Morrow’s first parole hearing. He’d testified in his favor, and apparently pulled strings behind the scenes. Tommy Morrow had been released from county jail after serving only four of the original eighteen months.

  It was odd behavior for Hutchins, but no one thought much of it at the time. However, Tommy had been released less than two weeks before Sherriff Hutchins had been killed. Now, his special treatment seemed to merit a closer look.

  Tommy approached them as they exited their cruiser. He seemed nervous and perhaps a bit confused.

  “Um, can I help you with something?” he asked.

  “Tommy Morrow?” Evan asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Tommy replied. He wore oily leather work gloves, which he started to remove, as if about to shake Evan’s hand, but then he stopped and shoved his hands in his back pockets instead.

  “I’m Evan Caldwell from the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office, and I think you know Sergeant Goff…”

  “Um, yeah, sure,” Tommy said, then smiled nervously. “My probation officer was just out yesterday. He said I was in compliance. I ain’t done nothing since then to mess it up.”

  “Tommy, we just need to ask you a couple of questions about your relationship with Sheriff Hutchins,” Evan said. “This isn’t directly related to your probation, so relax, all right?”

  “Oh,” Tommy said. “Okay.”

  He didn’t look like it was okay. He shifted from one foot to the other, and gnawed on a lip that couldn’t bear any more gnawing. He was scared, for sure, but there was something there, almost a sweetness, that made Evan not want to scare him any more than he could help.

  “Hutch got you a hell of a deal,” Goff said. “You might not be the crispiest cracker in the box, but I know you’re not stupid enough to go and mess that up, right?”

  “Oh, you got that right,” Tommy said with a chuckle. “Man, he was real good to me.”

  “Yeah, Tommy,” Evan said. “You heard someone killed him, right?”

  Tommy’s eyes darted back and forth between the two, “Well, um, yeah. We all heard it. It’s all anybody’s talking about, man,” he said. “Y’all don’t think I did that, do you?”

  “Well, Tommy, that’s what we’re here to talk to you about,” Evan said. “It doesn’t make much sense that Hutchins would go and do you a good turn only to have you kill him for it…”

  “No, no that don’t make too much sense at all,” Tommy said, shaking his head. Evan wondered what the man’s IQ was. He didn’t seem challenged, just a little behind the curve.

  “We were just wondering why Hutch went to all the trouble to help you out like that in the first place,” Goff said.

  “And then two weeks later, somebody shoots him,” Evan added. “We have this really odd behavior by Hutchins, involving you, two weeks before he was killed. So, you see why we had to come out here and talk to you, right?”

  Tommy shifted his feet again and shrugged. With his hands stuffed in his back pockets, the gesture a
ccentuated his shoulders. “Well, I guess so, but I don’t know what one thing’s got to do with the other.”

  “How about you start by explaining to us exactly why Hutch went to all the trouble to get you out of trouble,” Goff said.

  Tommy shrugged again, as if this was obvious. “I known Hutch all my life, just about. I went to all those football camps he put on, played on his team all through high school. I just figured he liked me or something. You know, he thought I’d do okay with a second chance and all. And also ‘cause of my brother.”

  “Your brother?” Evan asked.

  “He’s a Gator,” Tommy said, beaming. He looked as proud as a new daddy.

  Goff looked at Evan and said, “Tommy’s brother is Gavin Morrow, University of Florida’s third string wide receiver you’ll never hear of again. Caught one pass, sprained an ankle, and rode the bench for the rest of the season.”

  “You know what, Goff ,” Tommy said, “I don’t need to listen to you running down my brother. This is my property. Maybe y’all have the right to come on here to ask me questions or whatever, but I don’t have to listen to—”

  “Whoa,” Evan said, stepping between Tommy and Goff. “Let’s stay on track here, all right? You’re telling us this was just some sort of favor?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess you could call it that,” Tommy said, “More for Gavin than me, though. He was real proud of Gavin playing for the Gators.” This last part he said emphatically to Goff over Evan’s shoulder. “Hutch told me he was gonna try to spring me early ‘cause Gavin might lose his scholarship if he couldn’t play next year. He knew we were all real proud to have one of our brothers going to the university. And he’s got pretty darn good grades. For us, anyway. So, he told me he figured that would motivate me to stay straight, you know. ‘Cause if Gavin loses that scholarship, the only way he can stay there is if we send him money.”

  “You’re saying Hutch got you out of jail early so you could pay for your brother to stay in school?” Evan asked.

  Tommy nodded. “Yeah, me and my other brother,” he said gesturing with his left hand toward one of the trailers. Suddenly, against his will, Evan thought of Larry, Daryl and Daryl from that Bob Newhart show.