Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said angrily. “He wasn’t that way.”

  “You’ve been to the ER three times in the last few years, for injuries that could be explained a few different ways.”

  “They were explained the way they happened, Lieutenant,” she snapped. “My husband was a good man. He tried very hard to be a good husband.” She seemed to realize that ‘tried’ might not be the best word she could have used. “Do I look like the type of woman that would tolerate that kind of thing? I wasn’t raised to allow myself to be treated that way.”

  “Mrs. Hutchins, I’m not trying to hurt you any further, or to hurt your husband,” Evan said.

  “Then you shouldn’t say such things,” she said, her eyes tearing. “He liked you. And he loved me.”

  “He spoke very kindly of you,” Evan said.

  “You shouldn’t say such things.”

  She blinked away her tears. Evan watched as one fell to the Formica table and the sunlight made it look like a diamond.

  Half an hour later, Evan was paying of the biggest bottle of Smart Water that the convenience store had when Beckett showed up beside him.

  “You looking for me again?” Beckett asked with a grin.

  “Not this time,” Evan said as he swiped his card.

  “Hey there, Nathan,” the old man behind the counter said. “How’s it going today?”

  “Pretty fair, Boyd. How’s things with you?”

  “Can’t complain. Got the air fixed, finally,” the man said.

  “I can see that,” Beckett said. “Anderson and them give you a fair price?”

  “They did.” The old man handed Evan his receipt. “Thank you, come again. Sure thing, Chief. Took good care of us. I was a day away from havin’ a heart attack in here.”

  Evan started for the door, and heard Beckett coming behind him.

  “You take care now,” Beckett said.

  “You do the same.”

  Evan twisted the cap off of his water and took a long drink as he walked back to his car, Beckett’s footsteps right behind him. Evan reached into the car and grabbed his cigarettes, and Beckett waited while he lit one.

  “So what brings you to town?” he asked finally.

  Evan exhaled away from the Chief before answering. “I had an appointment with Marlene Hutchins.”

  Beckett nodded and looked away, over at the soccer mom filling her gas tank. “How’s she faring?”

  “As well as you’d think,” Evan said.

  Beckett turned back to him. “Heard you might have found your murder weapon.”

  “Might have,” Evan said.

  “Well, that oughta clear me good and well.”

  “How’s that?”

  “If I’d done it, you wouldn’t have found the weapon,” Beckett said. “You sure as hell wouldn’t have found it up some tree. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a screw-up.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I already figured that,” Evan said.

  “Well, gee. I sure appreciate that, Captain Miami,” Beckett said without rancor.

  “Have you ever even been to South Florida, Beckett?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have been to the bright lights and big city a time or two, Caldwell. ’92, when Hurricane Andrew stopped by. Took five thousand gallons of Culligan water down to Homestead. Where were you in ’92, Caldwell?”

  Evan didn’t have to think much. Everybody in the US knew where they were when Kennedy was shot. Everyone in South Florida knew where they were when Andrew hit.

  “In a foster home in Miami Gardens,” he said casually. He opened his door, leaned in to turn on the ignition, and cranked up the AC.

  “Foster kid, huh?” Beckett almost sounded like he was impressed. “That must have sucked.”

  Evan took one last drag, then dropped and toed out his cigarette. “Sometimes,” he said, in a dismissive tone. He climbed into the Pilot. “I’ll see you around,” he said.

  “I’m sure it’s our destiny,” Beckett said.

  NINETEEN

  HIS MEETING WITH Beckett had left Evan conflicted. On the one hand, he felt certain that the small-town chief of police had not been involved in Hutchins murder, which was good. He also felt certain that Beckett had not been aware that Hutchins had a tendency to settle domestic disputes with his fists. Which was also good. What was not so good was that Evan was coming to believe, very strongly, that Beckett would have murdered Hutchins if he had known. He’d have done it long ago, in fact. And he’d have left no evidence behind.

  Evan wasn’t sure what to make of his new certainties. But that would have to wait for another day. Beckett was a wildcard, but he was a wildcard that hadn’t been dealt this hand.

  As conflicted as he was about the chief, he was certain about the dead sheriff, and his widow. Her denials were meant to convince him, but they were also meant to convince herself that she hadn’t been the kind of woman to take years of abuse. Someone should tell her that staying in an abusive marriage wasn’t as simple as strong or weak, loved or not loved.

  It also occurred to him that maybe she couldn’t actually accept that Hutchins had hurt her because that opened the possibility that someone had killed him in order to stop the abuse, the very possibility Evan was attempting to investigate. But if that had been the motive for the murder, then Marlene would feel that his death had been her fault.

  Evan’s teeth had started to hurt. He realized that he had been clenching his jaw muscles so hard that they now bulged. His hands, too, ached from clutching the steering wheel. The convoluted rationalizations and justifications – the lies and alibis people created to protect themselves from their fears, fears which seldom had any basis in reality – always led to darker holes than the ones they were conjured to avoid.

  Abuse victims often protect their abuser because they’ve been conditioned to believe that, even though the abuse is bad, it is not wrong. It is not wrong because it is their own fault. And because they deserve the abuse, the abuser is actually the victim, being forced by the bad behavior of their spouse to lash out physically. And because the abuse is the victim’s fault, any consequences that abuse brings is also the victim’s fault. At least, that’s what plenty of social workers and psychologists had explained to him in emergency rooms and living rooms all over South Florida.

  Evan felt a chill despite the afternoon’s intense sunshine. The thick humidity that had congealed under his shirt felt as if it were turning to frost against his skin. Evan feared he was very close to slipping through his own safety net of self-deception. He had been telling himself plenty of lies, one set before Hannah’s accident, a different set since. Lies about who he had been and who he now was, about Hannah, and about their relationship.

  The biggest lie was about time – it can wait, we’ll sort it out when life slows down a bit. But life doesn’t slow down, ever. Life is a chunk of iron hurtling through space at ten times the speed of sound, accelerating as it encounters a gravitational pull and accelerating still more until it hits the atmosphere and burns away to nothing. Or slams into the skin of the planet, erupting in a torrent of dust that clouds the atmosphere and kills off all the damned dinosaurs.

  It was too humid and Evan was too tired to fall down a rabbit hole of doubt and self-recrimination.

  So instead of thinking about that, he called Goff and asked him to help interview MacMac.

  “Nearly missed him,” Goff said, nodding in the direction of the docks. He had arrived at the marina just moments before Evan, but looked as if he had been leaning against that rail all day. Down on the dock, Mac McMillan locked the cabin of his boat and shouldered a pack. His physique and hair suggested he was off to audition for a fragrance commercial. Goff spit over the rail and muttered, “I’ve got dentures older than this kid.”

  Evan grinned and lit a cigarette. “He’s coming to us, which I appreciate. It’s too damn hot to go out there and get him.”

  MacMac didn’t notice them waiting for him until he was most of the way up t
he gang plank that led to the Dockside Grill, the office and the parking lot. When he did see them, his cheeks colored and he set his jaw. “Wow, you guys just don’t get it, do you?” he asked before Evan could introduce himself. “’Confidential’ means nobody else is supposed to know about it.”

  “Know about what?” Evan asked.

  MacMac looked at him, then turned to Goff. “Is this your new boss? I’m guessing that’s it, since you’re in a uniform and he’s in a suit.”

  “If you think he’s the boss, what’re you asking me for?” Goff replied, but with only mild interest.

  “Mac McMillan,” Evan said, “I’m Interim Sheriff Evan Caldwell. This is Sergeant Goff. We need to ask you a couple of questions about your involvement with Sheriff Hutchins and the Tallahassee Ten.”

  MacMac threw his head back and uttered a short burst of mock laughter. “My involvement?” he asked. “My involvement was I tried to do the right thing, but apparently Sheriff Hutchins couldn’t keep a secret to save his life…” He stammered, then said, “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that…but, you know what I meant. He was sloppy and it got him killed and it’s probably gonna get me killed too if you keep coming around in uniform, in broad daylight, asking me questions where anybody can see!”

  “Would you rather come down to the Sheriff’s Office with us?” Goff asked. He had drawn his handcuffs without making a sound, neither Evan nor Mac had noticed, but he made a show of clinking them together now.

  “No, I don’t want to go to the station. Are you nuts?” He raised his right hand, palm out, and solemnly vowed, “I swear, I will never again do the right thing.”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Mr. McMillian,” Evan said. “It sounds like you believe that something you said to Sheriff Hutchins resulted in his death. Do I have that right?”

  MacMac was silent for a moment. He glanced between Evan and Goff, then looked back to Evan. “Can we please not be standing right here in the middle of everything?

  “Sure,” Evan said. “We’ll walk you to your car.”

  The three of them walked through the passageway that ran between the marina office and the laundry and shower rooms, Evan in front, Goff in the rear, and McMillian in the middle. Evan waited until they’d gone down the steps and were in the parking lot.

  “Where’s your vehicle?”

  McMillian raised his free arm and pointed. “The Ford over there,” he said. He seemed pretty happy about making new friends and getting an escort to his truck. It wasn’t lost on Evan that it was a Ford.

  “So, do you have some reason to think The Ten had something to do with the Sheriff’s murder?” Evan repeated. “Because, if that’s the case, either you talk to us willingly or we’ll have to charge you with obstruction, or possibly accessory after the fact.”

  “If it helps,” Goff offered, “we can slap the cuffs on and let you ride in the fancy cop car.” He craned his neck to look over one shoulder, then the other. “Case any bad guys are looking.”

  “You think this situation is funny?” MacMac snapped.

  “It ain’t the situation I’m laughing at,” Goff said.

  MacMac turned to Evan. “Either arrest me or shove off. I have places to be.” He pushed past the two men, intending to sulk to his truck.

  “Maybe it won’t just be accessory we’ll arrest you for,” Evan said to his back. MacMac stopped and turned back around. “Hutchins was keeping secrets. You’re keeping secrets. You’re telling us it was one of those secrets that got him killed.”

  Evan let that hang in the air for a minute. “Your file is missing, Mr. McMillian, from Hutchins’s office. You don’t happen to know where that file is, do you? How it got out of a locked file cabinet in the sheriff’s private office?”

  MacMac took two large steps toward Evan, bringing their faces uncomfortably close. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting you retreat from my face,” Evan said, without a change in tone. When MacMac didn’t immediately move, Evan lifted his cigarette to his lips. Its cherry flared an inch or two from Mac’s eye. The younger man blinked a few times and took a step back.

  “I’m suggesting,” Evan continued, “that you give us a full and detailed account of everything you know or think you know about the sheriff and the Tallahassee Ten. Including everything that was in that file.”

  “No freaking way, man!” Mac said. “Are you crazy? Are you even listening? I talked to Hutch, man. I didn’t have to do that, you know. I was just trying to be a good citizen, or whatever, and now he’s dead. All I talked to him about was smuggling, or, you know, suspected smuggling. What the hell you think’s gonna happen if I start talking to you about murder? Huh?” He threw his hands up and looked around as if hoping some bystander would see his obvious logic and come to his aid.

  Goff was his only audience, and if the logic impressed him, he gave no sign.

  “And I don’t even know who the hell you are,” Mac said. “At least I knew Hutch. How am I supposed to trust some fancy slick from Miami?”

  Goff spit on the pavement, then stepped forward and jammed a long, bony finger into the trench between MacMac’s puffy pecs. “You drifted in with the tide not two seasons ago, and you’ll be gone again before your boat grows barnacles, like as not. Don’t go playing yourself off as a local.”

  Mac took another step back and again raised his arms in exasperation, this time looking to the heavens for support. When he had completed the display, he said, “I ain’t talking. Arrest me if you’re going to, but this conversation is over.” He took two more backward steps, arms still out to his side, palms up. A grin seeped across his face as the distance between himself and Evan grew. “That’s what I thought,” he said, turning his back to them and walking to his truck. “You got nothing. Can’t arrest me because you don’t have a charge that would stick.”

  Goff raised an eyebrow at Evan. Evan gave him a slight shake of his head. He followed MacMac to his truck, but made no move to stop him. MacMac tossed his duffle onto the passenger seat of his Ford Ranger, then climbed in and slammed the door. Evan half expected a middle finger, but the cocky kid only glared at him through the window. Evan folded his arms across his chest and watched the truck back out and pull away.

  It was then that he noticed the tires. The truck was primer red, lifted almost two feet over factory specs and riding on radials that were nearly bald and puffier than MacMac’s muscles. But what really caught his attention was the missing lug on the right front tire.

  “You know,” Goff said, arms crossed, head cocked, “that might just be the truck we’ve been looking for.”

  “Paula, It’s Evan,” he said, consulting his watch. Its hands seemed to be moving much too quickly. “You up for a bit of overtime?”

  “That depends,” she said, “Whatcha got?”

  Evan pulled out of the marina parking lot, heading back toward the office. Goff followed in his cruiser. “I think we have a match on the truck that was parked beside Hutchins’s on the night of the murder,” Evan explained. “It’s missing a lug on the right front. I collected an oil sample from the pavement in the parking lot. Do you think you’d be able to confirm a match with the sample collected at the scene?”

  “I can take a look, run it through a few tests, but I doubt I can give you an absolute yes or no,” she said. “Too many possible contaminates from every other vehicle that ever parked there.”

  “I don’t need anything absolute yet,” Evan said, “just need to know if I’m barking up the right tree.”

  “Yeah, I hear you. I’ll take a look, let you know if it’s at least close. Speaking of barking, though, if you want me to stay past six, I’ll need to run home and pick up Ernie. He gets sulky if I’m late.”

  “Ernie?” Evan asked. “He’s your dog?”

  “Well, he ain’t my boyfriend,” Trigg said. “Ernie hangs out with me at the office when I work late. Hutch never had a problem with it.”

  “I guess I don’t either,” Evan said. �
�How’s it going with the cell records?”

  “Goff didn’t tell you?” she asked.

  “Haven’t had a chance to talk with him much.”

  “Lucky you,” she said. “The records from the cell company are a mess. We spent hours this morning sorting them, but before we could get down to actually seeing what we had, Tallahassee called. I’ve been on the phone with them since before you got back from Wewa.”

  “Tell me they got something good.”

  “Oh, yeah. They got something, alright. The gun you found is a positive match to the slug recovered at the scene. So, we have ourselves a murder weapon,” Paula said. “The bad news is, the gun isn’t traceable. The serial numbers can’t be raised, just too much damage. It doesn’t match the shell casings recovered from Ricky Nickell’s property. And, the slug doesn’t match any others in the data base.”

  “So, it’s a dead end?” Evan asked, pulling out onto Monument.

  “Not at all. That’s the bad news. The good news is, whoever fired that gun left a piece of himself in it. Probably an inexperienced shooter. He held it wrong and the slide took a piece out of his hand when he fired.”

  “Slide bite,” Evan said. His heart kicked it up a notch and he felt an involuntary smile trying to hijack his face. “Nice.”

  “This is several kinds of weird, if you ask me. The killer was very organized, deliberate. He left us almost nothing at the scene. But the gun was up a freaking tree and slide bite is a rookie mistake. Something doesn’t add up.”

  Evan thought about this for a moment, as several huge raindrops fell from nowhere and beat on his car. A moment later, it really opened up. Evan was so grateful he wanted to stop the car and get out and dance in it.

  “You’re thinking two different people were involved?” he finally asked. “Maybe one set up the meet, but the murder was carried out by someone else?”

  “Could be, I guess,” Paula admitted, “or not. Hard to say, really. It’s just that the facts we have aren’t coming together for me yet.”

  “I hear you,” Evan said. “Tell me this, will the techs up in Tallahassee be able to pull DNA?”