Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Yeah, that’s the other good news. The killer wiped the gun with bleach before tossing it, so nothing on the outside survived. But the slide grabbed some blood and a bit of skin, which were protected inside the gun. The techs are working on DNA as we speak. Fast-tracking it for us.”

  Evan let the smile take over. Slide bite, or tattooing, was an injury caused by an improper grip on a semi-auto pistol. It was a mistake few people made more than once. When the gun is fired, the slide slams backward several inches before falling into place again, loading a new round. If the shooter’s grip is too high, the slide rips through the webbing between the thumb and forefinger, leaving two parallel slices. Not only does this trap DNA inside the weapon, it leaves the shooter with an easily recognizable, and difficult to conceal, injury.

  Evan pulled into the Sheriff’s office parking lot and saw Goff, in his rearview, doing the same. “Hey, Paula, we just pulled in. Why don’t you go grab your dog and meet us back here? I want to get this oil off to Tallahassee tonight if it looks good.”

  “I don’t mind spending the rest of the night working on the oil samples as long as I don’t have to sort through anymore cell tower data today.”

  “I think that’s a trade I can accept,” Evan said. “Goff and I can handle the cell data.”

  “I have a feeling you’ll be working it alone,” Trigg said. “Just saying.”

  Evan parked, and suddenly everything fell quiet. He got out of the car and turned around, watched as a gray wall of rain made its way over the field behind the SO. Typical Florida rain, fickle as a cheerleader.

  He looked across the lot to where Goff was getting out of his cruiser. “Not Goff’s sort of detective work?” he asked.

  “He had to wear his glasses when he was helping me earlier,” she said. “I think it embarrassed him. Or gave him a headache.”

  “Probably both,” Evan said. “Anyway, I appreciate you staying late. I think we’re closing in on some answers.”

  “Yeah. No worries. We’re just getting to the fun part.”

  TWENTY

  TRIGG HAD BEEN RIGHT about Goff. He claimed he needed a break from close work after putting at least a dozen hours in reading bank statements and cell records. He was filing his report on the meeting with MacMac and going home, where Mrs. Skinny Old Man was preparing their regular Tuesday night chili burgers, and she wouldn’t be excited about them overcooking. Evan probably could have pushed the issue, but he let it slide. He needed allies more than he needed help with the cell data.

  Paula returned to the office with Ernie a little before five. She also brought coffees and grouper sandwiches from a place on Monument. Evan was so hungry he wanted to crawl into the bag with them, and he wondered what the procedure was for giving her a raise.

  It took Evan until eight o’clock to wrangle the twenty-three pages of numbers from the cell phone provider into a cohesive picture. A total of eleven individual phone numbers pinged the Dead Lakes tower between the hours in question. Evan quickly identified Hutchens’s personal cell and his work cell. He crossed those off the list, but did make a note of the time they went dead, 2:36 a.m.

  A few hours later, through a slow and meticulous process, he had eliminated all but two cell numbers. One ending in 8930 and the other in 7345. This is what he had been looking for. One burner had been Hutch’s. The other had been the killer’s.

  Evan leafed back through the pages, shuffled them into a different configuration, and cross-referenced these two numbers with the data he had compiled showing the movement of Hutchens’s phones. The 8930 number pinged all the same towers, at matching times, as had Hutchens’s other two phones. That left the 7345 number, the killer’s number.

  Just after 1:00 a.m. Friday, Hutchens’s burner called the killer’s burner. By tracking which towers each phone pinged, Evan saw that moments after this call, the killer had left white City and travelled to the Dead Lakes area. At this same time, Hutch travelled from Wewahitchka to Dead Lakes. Both phones showed up in the area within minutes of each other, about half past one. And both burners died at 2:36 a.m. – along with Hutch’s home and work phones – when the killer tossed them into the lake.

  He would need to request more pages from the cell provider. Now that he had the number of the killer’s burner phone, there was a chance he could find out where it had been purchased, but he doubted that would lead to anything. It was beyond a long shot, but a necessary stone to flip for the sake of due diligence.

  Evan rocked back in his chair, running his left hand through his hair and looking up at the ceiling. He had just begun wondering if he could get away with smoking in the sheriff’s office – since it was after hours, and he was the sheriff – when something soft and wet dragged itself across his right hand. Evan froze, except for his eyes, which slid sideways, until they found the three-legged German shepherd that was licking his palm. Evan rocked back in his chair, running his left hand through his hair and looking up at the ceiling. He had just begun wondering if he could get away with smoking in the sheriff’s office – since it was after hours, and he was the sheriff – when something soft and wet dragged itself across his right hand. Evan froze, except for his eyes, which slid sideways, until they found the three-legged German shepherd that was licking his palm. “Just stay away from the shoes,” Evan muttered.

  “Usually doesn’t chew shoes,” Paula said, leaning against his door frame. “Hats are more his thing. Hats and water bottles.”

  “My wife’s cat’s got a thing for shoes,” Evan said, ruffling the hair between Ernie’s ears. “Hannah got him about two weeks before her accident. I think he pisses in my shoes because he’s mad she’s not around.”

  “If that was true, he’d piss in her shoes, not yours,” Paula said. “Maybe he’s trying to mark you, you know? He lost her, so he’s trying to make sure he doesn’t lose you, too.”

  Evan considered her for a moment, then said, “I think he just likes pissing in shoes. You come up with anything on the oil?”

  “It’s close. I’d call it a match, but that’s just me,” she said. “The microscopic particulate is very similar in both samples. We’ll need to get a sample straight out of the truck to be sure, send it up to Tallahassee, but I think what I have so far is a close enough match to get us a warrant.”

  “We’ve got the oil, and the tire track. I think it’s reasonable to believe it was McMillian’s truck there beside Hutchins’s on the night of the murder. We’ve also got the questions about his status as a C.I, his affiliation with the Tens…his missing file. I think we need to bring him in, see what he has to say for himself.”

  “You want to do that tonight?”

  “No, we know where he is. I need to wrap this up,” Evan said, gesturing to the mess of papers on his desk, “and get search warrant requests typed up for Mac’s truck. Are your samples ready to go to the lab?”

  “It’ll just take a minute or two, but there’s no sense sending them until we have a clean sample from his truck. Might as well wait until you pick him up tomorrow. I can get a cast of that tire to send up with the photos of the track, as well.”

  “Good point.” Evan nodded. “Go ahead and call it a night. I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be interesting.”

  Evan sat on the sun deck, lights out, under a dark and heavy sky. The water and the occasional fish tapped lazily at his hull, sending gentle vibrations through the teak floor. The night air was fragrant, full of salt, and creosote from the dock’s pilings. Evan inhaled deeply, and vowing to take the boat out soon, even if he just went out to the bay. An unlit cigarette rested in a clean ashtray on his rattan table. His mug sat beside it, empty except for a thin silt of turmeric and honey. He toyed with his zippo, absently walking it up his knuckles, then back down again.

  Plutes lazed on a cooler by the door. Occasionally he would open an eye to a half slit, notice that Evan still existed, then close it again in intense disappointment.

  One of the things Evan liked about the marina was that
, as popular a hangout as it was, the Grill closed at nine on weekdays and eleven on the weekends. The place was quiet, save for occasional muffled voices from nearby boats and the creaking of fenders against the docks. High up on an aluminum mast, a pully clinked out a slow and monotonous metronome. But all these sounds seemed distant and thin, like the radio transmissions from a car in another lane.

  The excitement of the day’s discoveries had ebbed, overshadowed by a growing disquiet. Mac McMillian had not returned to his boat since Evan and Goff spoke with him that afternoon. His truck was not at the gym or the Thirsty Goat, where Mac tended to be whenever he wasn’t in the marina.

  Evan didn’t think worry was appropriate. Not yet, anyway, but he had a little bit of worry on standby, just in case. It was unlikely that the Tallahassee Tens would make a move against the kid now. If they had intended to kill him, they would have done it already. Evan guessed there was a good possibility that MacMac would try to skip town, if he had, indeed, been involved in Hutchins’s murder, but he felt almost certain that when the kid ran, he’d take his new boat, not his old truck. However, the truck had not returned. Nor had the kid. And the boat was still here.

  Evan had a warrant to take oil samples from the truck, and plaster casts of the tire treads. This would essentially give him legal access to search the entire truck. He had enough probable cause to bring McMillian in for questioning, whether the kid wanted to cooperate or not. But neither the warrant nor the PC were of any use if the kid and the truck were gone. He would get a warrant for the boat if McMillian had not shown up by morning, but Evan figured if the scenario played out that way, it would be like strapping a life jacket on someone who drowned yesterday.

  The Zippo missed a turn around Evan’s bottom knuckle and dropped to the wood sole with a sharp tack. Plutes lifted his head, favoring Evan with a cat smirk. Evan scowled back. It was then that he heard an engine running and tires crunching on gritty pavement. He looked at his watch, nearly 1a.m. He turned to the side parking lot, which ran along the far dock, and saw a pair of headlights sweep across the water, then wink out. The sound of the engine died. Evan waited.

  Hushed voices carried across the water, just above the other night noises. Evan slid open a drawer in the side table and pulled out a pair of compact binoculars. As he raised them to his eyes, someone appeared at the top of the gangplank. Not McMillian, Evan could see that right away. It was a young woman, one he didn’t recognize, carrying a small purse in one hand and dragging a rolling carry-on bag in the other. Halfway down the ramp, she stopped and called back up to the parking lot, trying to yell and whisper at the same time.

  Evan felt his pulse quicken. He stood and slipped his bare feet into his deck shoes. A second figure appeared at the top of the ramp, heavily burdened with baggage. It was MacMac. The young man had two large suitcases and a rolling trunk, in addition to his backpack. The tide was in, so the ramp’s incline was not severe, and MacMac was strong, but still he struggled, trying to hurry under the load.

  “He’s making a break for it, Plutes,” Evan said.

  Plutes looked at Evan for a moment, considered whether Evan’s statement carried any relevance whatsoever, then closed his eyes and laid his head back down.

  “Right,” Evan said, then slipped his cell out of his pocket and hit speed dial. When dispatch answered, he gave a quick explanation of the situation and requested any available units to the marina. As he stepped off his boat onto the dock, the dispatcher let him know three units were in route, the closest about four minutes out.

  MacMac would be out of the marina by then. Evan wasn’t going to let it get that far. MacMac and the girl were arguing about something – she was moving too slow, he had left something in the truck, she didn’t need whatever it was, yes she did, he’d buy her a new one – in their whisper-shouting. Both were still on the ramp and neither were looking his way. He eased along the dock, keeping the tops of the pilings between himself and MacMac, until he stood about ten feet from the foot of the gangplank. From here, he picked up the girl’s name – Melly, or Molly, or Melee – something like that, and the source of their current conflict – a shopping bag containing something from Chanel that he had left in the truck.

  They resolved the crisis, MacMac agreeing to run back to the truck as soon as she was aboard the boat, as long as she would get the engines fired up and the lines untied. Evan grinned at this. He had taken the liberty of reworking some of MacMac’s knots. Melly would need a large knife to untie those lines anytime in the next hour.

  Her heels continued down the ramp, accompanied by the thumping, rolling clatter of heavy luggage. She stepped off the ramp, turned right, and clicked down the dock toward Mac’s boat, her carry-on rolling along behind with a tack-tack-tack as the wheels bumped onto each new plank.

  Mac blundered off the ramp with even more clatter, nearly dropping one of the suitcases, muttering angrily under his breath. He set everything down, except the backpack, and began rearranging his load, trying to stack the cases on top of the rolling trunk.

  “Give you a hand?” Evan asked, slipping out from behind the piling, just across the trunk from MacMac. His heart had settled into a quick steady hum, easy but ready, what Paula Trigg would call ‘the fun part.’

  Mac’s head popped up, eyes wide. For an instant Evan was sure the kid was going to lunge at him, bounding right over the trunk. A simple off-lining maneuver on Evan’s part would send the kid into the water before he knew what had happened to him, but it probably would have been smarter than what MacMac did instead.

  Mac spun on his heal and fled, sprinting for his boat, still lugging one suitcase. “Run, Mallie!” he shouted.

  Evan cocked his head. The blatant lack of insight on the part of some people never failed to amaze him. He moved around the abandoned luggage and jogged after MacMac. Four slips down, the engine coughed, bubbled, then growled to life.

  MacMac was shouting “Go! Go! Go!” He leapt onto the boat and flew up the ladder to the bridge. “Get those lines loosed!”

  The girl looked like she was trying to run in three directions at once, realizing he had left all her luggage on the dock and at a complete loss as to what to do with the mess Evan had made of the knots. The line was in her hands, her eyes were on her trunk, and her feet seemed to be running in place.

  Just about the time Evan reached the boat, MacMac gunned the engine. The lines made a whip-crack pop, but held fast. The boat lurched backward about a yard and pitched hard to starboard. A shriek and a splash told Evan that Melly had just gone for an unscheduled swim.

  “Gulf County Sheriff,” Evan yelled as he approached, “Shut it down!”

  The engine revved even higher, straining the lines. The rear cleat on the dock began twisting out of the treated timbers, threatening to let go at any minute. The boat rocked violently, sloshing and spraying foam. Evan feared Melly might be crushed between boat and dock, or shredded by the boat’s propeller blades.

  “Gulf County Sheriff! Shut it down!” he yelled again, but got the same result. The girl had disappeared. Evan hoped she had swum under the dock, but in the dark and churning water, there was no way to know. Evan’s jog had accelerated to a full sprint by the time he reached the boat. He sprang across the three-foot gap between boat and dock without breaking stride.

  Up on the bridge, MacMac felt Evan’s impact. He looked back over his shoulder, saw Evan about to gain the ladder, and cranked the wheel in the opposite direction. Evan recognized his intent, set his feet in anticipation of the maneuver, but still fell to the deck as the boat canted to port and then slammed back into the dock.

  Evan slid a foot or two, then hooked the bottom of the ladder with one hand. A second later, he was shuttling up the rungs.

  MacMac grasped the wheel for dear life, almost as undone by the boat’s lurching as Evan had been. The boat settled against its lines and MacMac gained his footing. As Evan’s head cleared the top rung of the ladder, Mac launched a kick that would have impressed Pele�
�� if it had connected.

  Evan had expected the kick. It was MacMac’s only obvious move and, frankly, Evan would have been disappointed if he hadn’t tried it. He popped his head into view, then ducked again as Mac started his wind-up. As soon as the foot whistled through the spot where Evan’s face had been, he sprang straight up and wrapped both arms around MacMac’s leg. Evan dropped like a stone, his dead weight entirely dependent on MacMac’s leg, jerking him off his perch. MacMac flailed for a handhold, found nothing, and fell with Evan. Half of MacMac – the lucky half – landed on Evan. The other half slammed into the deck, breaking things, like his nose and left wrist. A small handgun bounced out of his waistband and went skittering across the boards.

  The bulk of the falling kid knocked Evan to the floor, as well, but he landed a bit more gracefully. He managed to regain his feet before MacMac understood what had happened. A second later Evan had the kid rolled onto his stomach and had a cuff on the right wrist. When he saw the state of the left wrist, he opted to latch the other bracelet to the bottom rung of the ladder. MacMac’s rolling eyes made it clear that any fight he might have had left had just been knocked out of him.

  Evan hurried up the ladder and killed the engines, then scanned the green water for any signs of the girl. Down below, MacMac was groaning and cursing, but not in a way that suggested he would make any more trouble tonight. Evan spotted the girl he guessed was now MacMac’s ex-girlfriend. She had managed to avoid dissection-by-propeller by swimming under the dock and popping up on the other side. She looked pretty excited by the night’s events. “You alright?” he called down to her.

  He couldn’t quite make out her response, but it didn’t sound like something he was likely to repeat in mixed company. Evan took that as a good sign.

  He realized he had been hearing sirens for the past couple minutes, and now the first of the three cruisers pulled into the lot, scattering gravel. He pulled his cell and redialed dispatch, filling them in on his situation. By the time his breathing had slowed, the marina parking lot had filled with emergency vehicles. Paramedics stabilized MacMac’s nose and wrist, then transported him, under guard, to Sacred Heart for any aid someone felt like giving him.