Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “What is it, exactly, that you do to afford U of F?” Evan asked.

  “My brother and me are mechanics. We both work at Dan’s Tire Shop in town, and we also do side jobs here at the place,” he said, waving an arm in the direction of the lined-up trucks.

  Evan looked down at his notebook, then asked, “These tools you stole, who’d you steal them from?”

  “The who?” Tommy asked.

  “You pled guilty to stealing power tools and trying to pawn them,” Evan prompted.

  “Oh, them,” Tommy said, again seeming relieved. “No, I didn’t actually steal those tools. I pled guilty to possession of stolen tools. Somebody else actually stole them. I got ‘em in payment.”

  “For what?” Evan asked.

  Tommy looked like he was sorry about that last part, but he recovered with a big smile, and swept his arm in the direction of the dead trucks. “For services.”

  Evan nodded, consulting his note pad. “And by ‘services,’ you are referring to providing marijuana to this individual in exchange for stolen tools, correct?”

  “Um, well, yeah, but that all got taken care of already,” Tommy said, fidgeting. “I thought you said you were out here about what happened to Hutch. I want to cooperate with helping you and all, but I’m not saying nothin’ to get myself back in trouble, man. Especially now that Hutch ain’t around to help me out.”

  “I’m just trying to get the facts straight, make sure we’re all on the same page,” Evan said. He was silent for a moment, studying Tommy. He frowned then said, “You were looking at some serious jail time, at the State Pen. Pretty heavy stuff for a guy your age, yeah?”

  Tommy looked down at his feet as he kicked at the dirt, “I guess.”

  “Then Hutch comes along and helps get you out on early parole. How did that make you feel, Tommy?”

  “How’d it…man, I was sure grateful. I was. Hutch did a really good thing for me. For my brother, too.”

  “You feel like you owe him?” Evan asked.

  “Well, sure I do. He didn’t have any reason to help me out like that…except my brother, you know. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

  “Listen Tommy,” Evan said, moving in a bit closer. “Some of the guys you know from your dope dealing days, some of the guys you met when you were locked up, they didn’t like Hutchins too much. Some of those guys might be real happy he’s dead, right?”

  “Well, sure, I guess. But, they shouldn’t.”

  “One of them might even have a guess as to who did it,” Evan said, “and they’re not likely to share that guess with me.”

  Tommy’s shoulders slumped. “You want me to ask around? See if anyone knows who did it?”

  “You don’t have to go asking around, Tommy, just keep your ears open. Let me know what people are saying. You can do that, right?”

  Tommy’s face pinched as he looked at the dirt. “But I ain’t supposed to hang out with them kinda people anymore.”

  “No, you don’t want to jeopardize your parole, Tommy, just keep your ears open, okay?”

  Evan thought he was going to object to being a snitch. But when Tommy finally looked up, he realized the kid was struggling to control his emotions.

  “Yeah,” he finally said, nodding, “I guess I can do that. It should never have happened, not like that.” He looked away, watched a skinny little dog with half an ear gone as it galloped off after something only it could hear. “If I hear anything, I promise I’ll tell you.”

  “Thank you, Tommy.”

  Evan gave Tommy his card, then followed Goff back to the cruiser. When they pulled out, Tommy was where they’d left him, standing beneath a purpling sky. Him, the broken-down truck, and the chewed-on dog.

  Evan hadn’t been this depressed since yesterday.

  FIFTEEN

  IT WAS TUESDAY MORNING, three full days into the investigation, and despite the diligent efforts of his team, Evan didn’t feel any closer to finding the killer than he had felt when he was staring down at Hutchins’ body.

  The sheriff had connections and contacts with such a diverse variety of people that it was difficult to see every angle or to identify all of the possible variables. His job put him in touch with all levels of the state’s political machine, and put him in very close proximity to its worst criminal offenders. As an elected official, his campaigning and community involvement put him in touch with everyone in between.

  Evan and his team had carefully recorded every lead, every tip, every hunch, but Evan couldn’t help but feel that important pieces were slipping through the cracks.

  He hadn’t had enough time to follow up on the tip about the sheriff’s boat, which bothered him. A stack of files and reports waited for him on his desk that he hadn’t had a chance to review. At least half a dozen interviews had not yet been conducted due to the individuals not being readily found. On top of the murder investigation, Quillen had scheduled a press conference to introduce Evan as the interim sheriff. Apparently, it was his idea of being helpful.

  Before he could address any of those concerns, however, Evan had to check in with the dive team out at Dead Lakes. Four of the deputies had been taking turns with the metal detector under the still, black water surrounding the crime scene. They had each intimated that it was a fool’s errand, and that idea had been reinforced by the ten hours of unproductive searching the day before. Evan hoped his presence at the scene might bolster morale. He also wanted to see the progress first hand to determine if it was indeed a useless endeavor.

  He checked his watch as he headed toward Wewa. It was just past 9a.m. He figured it wasn’t too early to call Marlene Hutchins.

  “What can I help you with, Lieutenant?” She asked after he introduced himself. She sounded tired but not sleepy.

  “Ma’am, I apologize for calling this early. I have a few details I need to discuss with you. I’ll be in the area this afternoon. Would it be all right if I came by?”

  “I’ll be here all day,” she said, her voice flat and disinterested. Evan wondered if she had been drinking, or perhaps been given something to dull her pain.

  “I’ll come by around two o’clock, if that works for you,” he said. “It should only take a couple minutes.”

  “That’ll be fine,” she said.

  Evan was about to thank her, but she had already hung up. He had been to dinner once at the Hutchins’s house, when he first came to Port Saint Joe. Marlene had been warm and kind, solicitous of his needs and indulgent of her husband’s blustery manner.

  Evan had also noticed a bit of steel just below her soft surface, not the steel of strength, but more of sharpness, like a barbed hook hidden beneath the soft feathers of a well-tied lure. Her voice now conveyed none of those qualities. It was, instead, empty and detached, like a derelict raft that had come unmoored.

  His own thoughts were adrift now as well. Marlene was alive but somehow empty. Hannah was also alive but empty, though more profoundly empty than the sheriff’s widow. Hannah wasn’t going to wake up, ever. The doctors had told him this months ago, but the enormity of those words could not be absorbed, not all at once. Instead, they wormed their way into his consciousness at odd intervals, sometimes like a hollow opening up in the center of his chest, sometimes like a fever, sometimes like a stomach full of ice. Mostly, however, he felt numb. Mostly, he felt exactly how Marlene had sounded just now.

  Evan cleared his throat and gave his head a little shake. He passed the sign that said the Dead Lakes were just ahead. He’d be there in a few minutes. He put the thoughts of Hannah back in their box, and stuffed the box into its closet, though he didn’t expect it to stay there. The flurry of activity at the dive site would help, for a little while.

  A deputy lifted the barricade out of Evan’s way as he pulled into the recreation area. Evan recognized him, but couldn’t recall his name until he saw his badge.

  The area had remained closed to the public since the shooting to protect any evidence that had not yet been discovered. Evan
hoped to allow it to be reopened within the next day or two, depending on what turned up between now and then.

  A Sheriff’s Office boat seemed to hover silently over the water. Around it, the lake’s black mirror surface was dotted with what looked like bright orange softballs, maybe two-dozen of them set at irregular intervals. As Evan approached, he saw that each ball had a number stenciled on its side. He realized these were marker buoys indicating the location of items found by the divers.

  The actual items had been arranged on a tarp under a white canopy near the lake’s edge. A yellow plastic triangle stood beside each item displaying a number that corresponded to the number on the marking buoy in the lake where that item had been found. All the finds were approximately the same color – black or brownish rust. On first sight, Evan knew nothing found so far had anything to do with Hutchins’s murder. Everything on the tarp had been in the lake several months, at least.

  A second canopy had been set up to facilitate the dive team and other Sheriff Department personnel. It covered a picnic table, and a large cooler. There was also a coffee urn and microwave that could be powered by a gasoline generator, but none of these were running as Evan approached. He saw Paula Trigg and a couple deputies huddled around an array of laptop computers and file folders on the table.

  After exchanging greetings, Evan asked for an update on the status of the search. This was met with bemused grins and murmurs. Paula nodded toward the other canopy and suggested he take a look, then followed him over.

  If the items hadn’t been caked in rust and black mud, Evan might have thought he was at a yard sale. The haul included expected pieces, like two fishing rods and an electric outboard motor, and several less likely finds – a large monkey wrench, a Weed Eater, an old manual typewriter, a cast iron tea kettle, most of a trombone, seven mangled golf clubs, a transistor radio, and other less identifiable bric-a-brac.

  “Took us a while yesterday to calibrate the detector,” Paula told him, hands stuffed into her jeans pockets. “We spent the first couple hours pinging off beer cans and fishing reels.”

  “Did you dive yesterday?” Evan asked. He hadn’t remembered seeing her name on the dive team roster.

  “No, stayed topside to help manage the equipment and catalog the finds,” she said. “So far, they haven’t found anything relevant. Problem is, they can’t tell what they’ve found ‘till they bring it to the surface. That’s why we brought all this junk up. It’s too murky on the bottom to see anything. Except for the typewriter. They brought that up because it’s cool.”

  “What’s that?” Evan asked, pointing to an odd lump labeled “14.”

  “Heck if I know,” Paula said. “It’s not a gun and it’s not a cell phone, and it was down there long before last Friday, so I guess it doesn’t really matter what it is, huh?”

  Evan looked at her for a long moment, noticing her tweaked left ear. That, and her diminutive stature, gave her an almost elfish appearance that belied the woman’s formidable competence. “That was excellent work on the tire tracks,” he said eventually. “I never would have guessed you’d be able to get that much detail.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply, looking out across the lake.

  Evan couldn’t read her expression. “You think this is a waste of time?” he asked.

  “Of course, it is,” she said and shrugged. The movement caused a circle of scar tissue on her neck to fold in delicate wrinkles. She was a pretty woman. He wondered if the scars bothered her. “Unless we find something,” she continued. “Just about everything you do in a murder investigation is a waste of time, if you want to see it that way. When you’re looking for your lost car keys, everywhere you look except the place they are is a waste of time, right?”

  A ploik sound in the lake caught Evan’s attention. He looked that way and saw ripples radiating in perfect rings from a new orange marker that had just popped to the surface. A moment later, a diver appeared beside it, holding up what looked like bicycle handle bars.

  Evan’s waning enthusiasm expressed itself through a slow sinking sensation just below his diaphragm.

  “The gun is out there,” Paula assured him, “I’d bet my sneakers on it. Probably the phones and Hutch’s gun, too. If that’s all that was out there, I’d say we had a fair chance at finding them. But with all this clutter…” She waved a hand at the mess spread across the tarp, then shook her head. She moved on without finishing the thought. “The lake system is extensive. The killer could have ditched the gun in the water here, or a mile from here.” She hesitated, then turned to Evan. “I guess you got to do this, but I don’t think you can put any hope in it.”

  Evan nodded and studied her for a moment, then shook his head. “Thanks, Paula,” he said. He pulled his pack of Camels from his blazer pocket, shook one out, and lit it.

  “You got another one of those?” she asked.

  He tapped one out for her and offered her a flame from his lighter.

  She filled her lungs, then slowly exhaled through her nose. “It’s hard being the new kid in this town. I was born and raised not too far from here, and I’ve been back going on five years now, but most of them still think of me as the big city cop,” she said. “Course, I’m not a man, so maybe they don’t see me as much of a threat.”

  “Well, that’d be a mistake, I figure,” Evan said. He drew a long pull on his cigarette, feeling the smoke warm his throat and fill his lungs.

  She gave him a grin. After another puff, she said, “You might have figured this out already, but if you’ve got anyone to worry about in this town it’s Quillen. Kind of a crappy thing for him to do, sticking you in the middle of this mess. You can expect that sort of thing from him. He wants everyone focused on you so he won’t get any of the pressure or blowback from this case… and so he can get up to whatever it is he gets up to over there in the councilman’s office without too many people watching.”

  “What exactly does he get up to?” Evan asked.

  “Tell me when you find out,” she said, taking a final drag and flicking the butt. “You’re the detective.”

  He was trying to formulate a response when his cell phone rang. It was a Port St. Joe number, but Evan didn’t recognize it.

  “Thanks for the smoke, Caldwell,” Paula Trigg said. “Got to get back to it. I’ll call if we get anything.”

  He nodded to her as he answered the phone. A raspy, crackling voice greeted him.

  “Is this Evan Caldwell?” the man asked.

  “Yes sir,” Evan said, “who am I speaking with?”

  There was a phlegmy cough and Evan knew the answer before the man said it. “This is Scruggs. Willy Scruggs. You and that fool Peters were out at my place couple days back asking about my kid, Eric.”

  “Yes sir,” Evan said. “How’s Eric doing?”

  “Well, he ain’t dead, if that’s what you’re asking,” Willy answered, sounding irritated. “I didn’t call about him.”

  Evan waited a moment, but when Willy said no more he asked, “What did you call about?”

  Willy hesitated a beat, then said, “Look, I might know something you want to know, okay? I still know a couple of guys, you know, and I hear talk sometimes.”

  “I see,” Evan said. “What have you heard, Willy?”

  Evan heard that horrible cough again. This time the old man had the courtesy to hold the phone away from his mouth. Out on the lake, another marker popped to the surface. Evan watched for the diver to emerge.

  When the coughing ceased, Evan heard irritated muttering, but Willy was not talking to him. In the water, the diver surfaced. Evan felt a sudden jolt of adrenalin when he saw the pistol in the diver’s hand. The diver’s eyes popped, as well, when he saw what he held. But the excitement died just as fast. The gun was as rust caked as the old typewriter. It might be a murder weapon, but it wasn’t the murder weapon. And whatever case it had been part of had either already been solved or filed away years ago. Evan felt his disappointment dragging him closer to som
ething like depression. And depression was not something he could deal with right now.

  He could hear Willy’s labored breathing on the other end of the line, but the man still had not replied. Evan prompted, “Mr. Scruggs, is there something you want to tell me?”

  “No, I don’t want to tell you a damned thing. I’m not a snitch, and I’m not real fond of cops in general or you in particular.”

  Evan waited, expecting the cough again, but it didn’t come.

  After a moment, Willy continued, “Look, I’m only calling because I owe Hutch, alright? Because Hutch looked out for Jordan, but now he’s gone. He ain’t here to watch out for her.”

  Evan thought he knew where this was going. “Is she in some kind of immediate trouble, or do you just want me to keep an eye on her? On your daughter and Avery?”

  “Avery’s father is a piece of walking dog—” he broke off in a coughing fit, then was quiet for a long time.

  Evan had begun to walk, going nowhere in particular. The natural beauty, offset by the natural weirdness, of the place drew him in. He walked along the water’s edge, moving into a stand of pines and cypress.

  When Willy came back, his voice was more of a harsh whisper. Evan’s phone crackled and chirped as the signal strength faded in and out. Willy said, “Listen, she’s had some trouble with him. The baby daddy. It’s all in Hutch’s files.” He choked back another cough. “Damn it. Listen, I can’t be there for her anymore, Hutch can’t either. You’re not my first choice but you’re all I got left I guess.”

  Flattery was not his strong suit, Evan surmised.

  Willy continued, “I need you to look after those two, just the job you’re sworn to do anyway, all right? You give me your word on that and I can let you in on what I heard.”

  Evan looked out at the lake. The boat and marker buoys floated on the water far from where he had expected to see them. He noticed the white canopies on the shore, also not where he thought they would be, and realized he ran the risk of getting himself lost if he wandered too far from the lake.