“So, got off the phone with Trigg a few minutes ago,” Evan said. “She got DNA from under his nails, mostly his own and someone who’s a familial match. She’s going to swab the wife and kids later today, just in case he has a cousin who hates him, but it’ll probably turn out to be one of theirs. There was one other sample, but it’s not in the system, so no help until we have a suspect. Ditto the fiber she pulled from his zipper pull. Nothing to match it to.”
“What about the shoe prints?” Goff asked, sipping a chunk of coffee.
“A lot of his, and several partials of another athletic shoe. Size men’s eleven, and the tread is an Adidas model, I forget which one. One of the moderate shoes, nothing fancy. Again, something that’ll be handier later than it is now, if we get lucky.” He took a last swallow of his coffee and pulled a legal pad toward him. “Okay, let’s nail down the rest of this team.”
“Well, Jimmy Crenshaw’d be an obvious choice, I figure, seeing as he and I have been with it from the beginning,” Goff said.
“He’s a good deputy,” Evan considered. “A little too intense at times. Do you think he’s up for it?”
“Well, sure. If you pair him with the right partner.”
“Okay, I’ll put him with you.”
Goff sputtered into his drink, then coughed and said, “I wasn’t referring to me. Hook him up with Peters or Holland. Those guys’ll keep him in line.”
“I can’t put both senior sergeants on the same case. If you’re in, Peters is out,” Evan said. “And Holland is out because he’s Holland.”
Goff snorted. “Not your biggest fan, is he?”
“He’s a much better deputy when he doesn’t remember I’m in charge,” Evan said. “He’s just fine when he’s reporting to you or Peters, but I have a feeling he wouldn’t be much good working in a small unit that reports directly to me.”
Goff was nodding and grinning. He looked up at Evan as if about to say something, but then took a long slurp of his coffee instead.
After he had swallowed and still did not have anything to say, Evan tried again. “You, Crenshaw, myself, and one other deputy. Who would you recommend?”
Goff looked over Evan’s shoulder at the BOLO board, his eyes roving across the various photos. Evan thought his expression held more of an eenie-meenie-miny-moe vibe than thoughtful consideration. He also figured it might not be easy to take him too seriously while staring at the BOLO board.
Eventually, Goff said, “Go with Meyers. He’s lived in this town his whole life. Only time he’s ever been gone is when he was at FSU. Comes from a family that’s been around long as I can remember. He’s about the same age as our victim. In fact, his kids probably go to school with the Bellamy kids.”
Evan liked Colin Meyers well enough, as much as he knew him. The deputy was about thirty-five, of average height and build, with light brown hair he kept cut close. He tended to blend into the woodwork in a group situation, but once he opened his mouth his intelligence was clear.
“Meyers it is,” Evan agreed, hoping they could get through the rest of the day’s business a bit more expeditiously. “Give him and Jimmy a shout on the radio. Call them in and we’ll start building a strategy.”
Evan, Goff, Meyers, and Crenshaw met half an hour later in a room that was sometimes the conference room, sometimes the break room, and sometimes the storage room, depending on the needs of the moment. It had once also served as the college football room, but the small flat-screen TV that had given it that name had belonged to Hutchens. His family’s representative had collected it along with the rest of Hutch’s belongings.
Evan handed identical files to each member of his team, which had been given the grandiose title of the Bellamy Task Force. After allowing several minutes for the team to familiarize themselves with the contents of the files, Evan made assignments. He and Goff would go through the files Vi had put together on the contacts list, then they had an appointment to chat with Mr. Bellamy’s boss.
Meyers and Crenshaw, much to their dismay, would start shoveling through the phone records. Evan had acquired call lists from Jake’s personal and business cell phones, Jake’s home and office phones, and Karen Bellamy’s cell phone. He wanted a name attached to every incoming and outgoing call on each line, and he wanted biographical information attached to each of those names, if they hadn’t already been pulled by Vi from the contact list Karen had given them.
“When you say, ‘biographical information,’” Crenshaw asked, “just how much of their life story do you want?”
“Where they live, what they do for work, what is their connection to our victim, what were they calling about – if you can find out from the widow or someone at the insurance agency without contacting the individual. I don’t want you guys making contact with any of these people yet. If you can’t find anything in public records or a quick internet search, just note that and move on. This is a lot of ground to cover,” Evan said, nodding to the phone records. “We want to sketch the picture as quick as we can, then fill in the details as time allows.”
“This is a lot of ground to cover,” Meyers said. “Why’d I get stuck with phone records again?”
“’Cause you did such a fine job last time,” Goff said. “And Crenshaw, in case you were wondering the same thing, it’s ’cause you need the experience.” The bristly ends of Goff’s mustache popped up in an imitation smile.
“Not complaining,” Meyers said, “just wondering.”
“Well, now you know,” Goff said.
“Now I know,” Meyers agreed, and made an exaggerated show of lifting the heavy stack of phone records. “How ’bout you follow me back to my cubicle, Jimmy, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
“Can’t wait,” Crenshaw said. His tone was sarcastic, but Evan could tell the young deputy was excited to be assigned to the task force.
Evan and Goff pulled into Seminole Insurance just after noon. Bellamy’s boss, Carl Nelson, was waiting for them in the lobby. He was a large man, wearing a tan suit that had gone out of style twenty years ago but had been manufactured much more recently. Evan wondered where you could even buy a suit like that, or why you would want to.
Nelson shook their hands and welcomed them to his place of business. He had a red face and wispy blond hair that had been combed into a graceful swoop to conceal his shiny scalp.
He led them to his desk at the back of the office. It was dark wood polished to a high gloss, but its surface was almost completely covered by files and stacks of paperwork. An impressive blue swordfish hung on the wall behind his desk, with a plaque below it that said, “The Big One.”
“I just don’t know what to tell you,” Nelson said as he settled into his high-backed leather chair. “Jake was such a nice guy, I can’t imagine why anyone would want to hurt him.”
Evan and Goff sat across from him. Their chairs were also heavily cushioned black leather, but not quite as impressive as Nelson’s. From where they sat, the “Big One” plaque hung just above Nelson’s gleaming scalp. It appeared to be a comment on the man rather than his trophy.
Nelson asked, “Do you think it could have been a random thing? I mean, maybe one of these kids on LSD or something? Or one of those crazy psycho killers, like on TV?” His eyes grew wider with his speculations.
“Mr. Nelson,” Evan said, “we’re in the very early stages of this investigation. I’m afraid we have more questions than answers right now.”
“I just can’t believe…I mean, it seems like if anybody was going to get killed, Jake would have been the last guy I’d have thought it would be.”
“So, he never had any arguments with any of his coworkers?” Evan asked.
Nelson guffawed, “No! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. There’d have to be something really wrong with you to not like Jake. I don’t mean he was a limp-wrist, Casper Milktoast type. He seemed like a solid guy, just, he didn’t get upset too easy, and he never really upset anybody else.”
“His wife said that h
e went out to dinner and drinks with some guys from the office recently. Were you with him that night?” Evan asked.
“Oh, yes. We try to do that with all the new guys, you know, once they’ve settled in here. You know, just to let them know that they’re part of the team. It helps them get to know who we are as a business, and who we are as a community.”
“Where did you go that night?” Evan asked.
“Krazyfish,” Nelson said, a hint of a contented smile lighting his face as if he were reliving the experience. “Jordan was our waitress. She’ll probably remember us.”
Evan sighed. If Jordan had information they needed, he’d assign that interview to Goff. He asked, “Did anything happen that night? Any altercations at all, maybe with someone not associated with your company?”
Nelson shook his head. “No. It was a quiet night. We had some fish. We had some drinks. Nothing out of the ordinary. Ginger, she’s the receptionist you just met, Ginger’s pregnant, so she wasn’t drinking. That’s who drove us all home, Sheriff, I swear.” He smiled to indicate he was joshing just a little.
Evan wasn’t sure that making the pregnant lady drive all the drunk men home was something to brag about, but he guessed it was better than the drunks driving themselves.
“Can you tell us what he had been working on over the last couple weeks?” he asked.
“Well, he was just coming up to speed, trying to straighten out Babcock’s old files,” Nelson said. “Babcock had been with us for several years, but we had to let him go a few months back. Turns out he was playing a little fast and loose with the old rules of conduct…if you know what I mean.”
“I guess I don’t know what you mean,” Evan said. “What exactly did he do?”
“Oh, nothing illegal, per se. He just kinda slipped a few extra riders onto policies here and there. Sold folks insurance they didn’t need, and couldn’t have actually used even if they knew they had it,” Nelson said. “He had all sorts of ways of maximizing his production numbers, and none of his little tricks were in the best interest of his clients. Or Seminole Insurance. So, we kindly asked him to leave, then contacted the insurance commissioner and got his license yanked.”
“And then you brought in Bellamy to replace him?” Evan asked.
Nelson’s eyes widened. He started shaking his head and moving his lips a second or two before he actually spoke. “Now,” he said, raising his hands off the desk a bit, “now, don’t get any half-cocked ideas. Babcock was gone long before we brought Jake in. He never met Jake. It wasn’t like Jake took his spot or anything.”
“Mr. Nelson,” Evan asked, “do you know where we can contact Mr. Babcock?”
“Sure. But, I’m telling you, I don’t see how Babcock could have thought it was Jake’s fault. I mean, if he was gonna kill somebody, wouldn’t he have come after me? I’m the one that fired him, not Jake.”
“Like I said, we are in the very early stages. We need to look at everything,” Evan said. “Often it’s the things people disregard that end up breaking a case. We’ll find Mr. Babcock and have a word with him. What was his first name?”
“Phil,” Nelson said.
“Phil Babcock,” Evan said as he scribbled the name in his notepad. “As far as Babcock’s files that Bellamy was trying to straighten out, has there been any unusual activity with any of those accounts?”
“What do you mean by unusual?” Nelson asked.
“Any large insurance buys? Any unusual claims? Any recent claims denied? Angry customers? Anything like that?”
Nelson was shaking his head again, but slowly. “I guess I’ll have to look through them. Babcock did a pretty good job of hiding some of that stuff, so the files were a mess when he left. I sicced Jake on them, but I don’t know how much he managed to straighten out. I guess that’s going to be my work for today…and tomorrow,” he said, nodding glumly toward the piles of paperwork on his desk. “I’d offer to let you see them, but those files are confidential. You’d either need a warrant or client consent for me to show them to you.”
Evan pulled his card from his jacket pocket and slid it across the crowded desk. “Just keep your eyes out for anything unusual as you go through those. Give me a call if something catches your eye, or if you remember anything else.”
“Certainly,” Nelson said, and stood up. He reached his hand across to shake Evan’s.
Evan interpreted the gesture to mean Nelson was ready for them to leave. Evan wasn’t. “I do need you to give me your last known address and phone number for Phil Babcock.”
Nelson straightened and held up a finger. “Babcock, right.” He punched a button on his phone, activating the intercom. A female voice answered. Nelson said, “Ginger, get Babcock’s personnel file. I need all his contact info.”
A moment later a petite redhead popped into the office holding a file card. She looked like she had a beach ball stuffed under her shirt. Her name tag said Llewellyn. Evan realized that Ginger was a nickname, and not a particularly inventive one. He decided not to comment on this just then.
Nelson accepted the card, thanked and dismissed her. Then he gave the card to Evan. “I really don’t think he’s got anything to do with this. I doubt you’re going to find him at this address either. I’ve heard he left town as soon as I fired him, but I don’t know that for sure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Nelson,” Evan said. “We’ll find him and have a word.”
“You think maybe one of this Babcock character’s customers held a grudge?” Goff asked as they drove back to the office.
“How do you mean?” Evan asked.
“He got the ax for ripping off his customers. Maybe one of them decided to balance the books, but carved their pound of flesh off the wrong insurance man?”
Evan looked sideways at Goff.
“It’s a reach,” Goff admitted, “but it wouldn’t be the craziest thing I ever saw. Say you found out your insurance man was skimming money out of your grandbaby’s college fund. Say your dad died and you find out that the life insurance he’s been paying for his whole life isn’t enough to cover his widow’s property tax and the state takes her house all because your insurance man, who you’ve never met, had sold him an empty policy.” Goff popped a stick of Big Red into his mouth and chewed a moment. “That might be reason enough to get your dander up. A guy in that place might go looking for the pile of poo that sold his parents a bill of goods. How is he to know that the account has changed hands?”
“You’re right, it is a big reach,” Evan said. “But, it’s as good as anything else we have.”
“I think Fish Man was right about Babcock,” Goff said. “He isn’t much of a suspect.”
“What are you thinking?”
“I’ve been doing this a long time. Seen more than enough killings to know that whoever killed that man, he was just about as mad as a person is likely to get,” Goff said.
“I think you’re right about that,” Evan agreed. “The problem is, we can’t find anyone who had any reason to be mad at Bellamy.”
Goff nodded. “That’s what I’m saying. Seems like Babcock would go for Nelson before he would Bellamy.”
“Yeah, but right now we have to look under even the littlest rocks,” Evan said as he stopped for a red light.
After grabbing a quick lunch at the Indian Pass Raw Bar Uptown (no comparison to the original, more atmospherically-friendly place out on 30, according to Goff), Evan dropped Goff back off at the office and switched him out for Meyers.
They pulled out and headed for Hwy 98, which ran along the bay. The Babcocks lived in a neighborhood at the northern end of Port St. Joe.
According to the file they’d pulled on Babcock, toying with people’s insurance policies wasn’t his first toe-dip into trouble. Back in the 90s, he’d been charged with assault with a deadly weapon. It had been downgraded to simple assault, but it still made Babcock more interesting than anyone else so far.
“You think we should call first?” Colin Meyers asked. “Middle of
a Monday, he might not be home.”
“That could be to our advantage. We might get a chance to talk to his wife before either of them knows why we’re there. Maybe she’ll let something slip,” Evan said. “Besides, it’s a short drive. If nobody’s home, we’ll just come back.”
Meyers nodded and took a drink of the soda he’d brought with him. They drove in silence for a few minutes and then turned right on 98. Evan’s attention was caught by the Cape San Blas Lighthouse ahead, and to their left. The original brick tower had been destroyed twice by hurricanes. It had been replaced with a skeletal steel structure and rebuilt or moved half a dozen times since the war between the states, as erosion swallowed more and more of the peninsula. Now, it sat safely inland, no longer guiding lost ships, but providing a small glimpse of the area’s past and, for those spry enough to climb the hundred feet to its watch room, an impressive view of its present.
The lighthouse eventually left Evan’s rearview, and they continued through a fairly barren section of Hwy 98, dotted with the odd boat repair shop or warehouse until they hit the George G Tapper Bridge. Once on the other side of the water, Hwy 98 became FL-30, and they entered a more residential area. They took the first turn after the bridge onto Dolphin Street, which took them into a quiet neighborhood of small, older homes.
“I never even knew this neighborhood was out here,” Evan said.
“My aunt and her kids live out this way, about a mile further north,” Meyers said.
As they continued along Dolphin, past a church, a small park, and several yards housing modest boats on trailers, the road narrowed, and the houses became newer and larger, though not fancy by anyone’s definition.
“Expensive out here?” Evan asked.
“Like everything else, it depends on when you bought it,” Meyers answered with a shrug. “Nowhere near as bad as in town, or down to Cape San Blas, though.”
Dead Center (The Still Waters Suspense Series Book 2) Page 8