Dead Center (The Still Waters Suspense Series Book 2)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Can you make me a copy of this?” Evan asked.

  “Sure thing,” Nelson answered. “You think it’s anything?”

  Evan shrugged. “It could be. We’ll look into it.”

  Evan hadn’t been optimistic about Curt Wilkins as a suspect, but he had been hopeful. As it turned out, that hope was wasted. Evan and Goff had gone to his marine supply store to talk to him and found that, although he was still pretty indignant about his policies being canceled, he had an excellent alibi. He’d been at a marine expo in Savannah that weekend.

  They’d poke around at the idea that he might have hired someone to kill Bellamy, but Evan knew they were just fulfilling their due diligence; the guy just wasn’t the type, and a hit would cost almost as much as replacing his car.

  Evan had spent the rest of the afternoon continuing to run down acquaintances and going over Meyers’ and Crenshaw’s reports of same. Nothing remotely interesting came of it, and when Evan had gone to visit Hannah that evening, much of their one-sided conversation concerned the long shots of the widow and Phil Babcock. They didn’t look likely, but they were better than nothing at all.

  Evan had gone home, shared some take-out broiled snapper with Plutes, who hadn’t thrown up on anything that day, and gone to bed no closer to figuring out who would have wanted to kill Jake Bellamy than he had been the morning he’d stood over the man’s body.

  It was almost one in the morning when Evan’s cell phone jarred him out of a fitful sleep. It was Goff, calling from his own cell.

  “Goff, what the hell?” Evan said by way of greeting.

  “You’re not kidding,” Goff replied. “We got us another one.”

  “Another what?” Evan asked, though he already felt a sinking sensation in his gut.

  “Another stabbing,” Goff said. “Dispatch called Truman, Truman called me, and I’m out here calling you.”

  Evan sat up and rubbed at his hair to wake himself up. “Where are you?”

  “Out at the Mainstay Suites next to the hospital,” Goff answered. “Back parking lot.”

  “Give me ten minutes.”

  Evan hung up and hurried to his closet. He pulled down one of three identical pairs of navy trousers. Two pairs of the same trouser, in black, hung beside them. On the rod below, two suit blazers, one black, one navy, and four identical white shirts. Hannah used to tease him about his ‘capsule wardrobe’ as she called it, but it made getting dressed for work very easy, and he always knew when he needed to go to the dry cleaners.

  He grabbed his holster from the nightstand and hurried up to the salon, stopping at a teak credenza to pick up his badge, wallet, and keys. Plutes, almost invisible in the dark, watched him from his spot under a portside window.

  “I suppose its too much to ask for you to have some coffee waiting when I get back,” Evan said.

  Plutes agreed, silently, that it was.

  ELEVEN

  THE MAINSTAY WAS LOCATED on a stretch of 98 just outside town and was nestled between the sprawling Sacred Heart Hospital complex and the less sprawling Franklin/Gulf campus of Gulf Coast State College.

  The hotel was set back from the road a good bit and surrounded by heavily-treed lots on either side and to the back. There weren’t an awful lot of cars parked in the front lot, and the only reason there were more vehicles in back was that a whole lot of people were responding to a crime scene. Evan saw an ambulance with its lights off, three SO cruisers, Goff’s small pickup, and one car from St. Joe PD. A small cluster of disheveled and worried-looking civilians stood just outside the back door.

  As Evan was getting out of his vehicle, he saw the ME’s van pulling in from the road. Goff, wearing tan slacks, blue disposable gloves, and a Carhartt jacket, spotted him from where he stood next to an open Honda Civic at the back of the lot, and met Evan halfway there.

  “What do we know?” Evan asked him.

  “Tina Vicaro, twenty-four-year-old female, works as the second shift desk clerk,” Goff said as they headed back the way he’d come. “She got off work at eleven, her relief said she left around ten minutes later. At twelve-thirty or so, feller over there named Marks came out here to his car to find his phone charger and saw her door open, went over there and found her.”

  “Where’s he?”

  Goff pointed about thirty feet away, where Deputy Means was talking to a man in his thirties wearing a red bathrobe and a pair of Crocs. “Means is talking to him. He’s here with his wife, visiting her sister in the hospital.”

  “Okay, who else is here from the SO? I see Gordon,” Evan said, nodding toward a deputy in his forties who was standing at the victim’s car.

  “Pauly’s here,” Goff answered as they reached the car.

  Evan nodded at Deputy Means.

  “Hey, boss,” Means said.

  “Gordon, do me a favor, grab the guy from PD and go get statements from those people staring at us,” Evan said. “With any luck, somebody saw or heard something.”

  “Will do,” Gordon said, stepping back from the car’s open driver side door.

  On the asphalt beyond him, a few feet back from the door was the body of Tina Vicaro.

  She was slim, very pretty, and well-tanned, with long, light brown hair pulled into a ponytail. Her blonde highlights shone under the light of the vehicles parked around her. She was wearing a light blue button-down shirt with a nametag, but there wasn’t a lot of blue left to it. Most of the front of her shirt, from her right breast to the waist of her khaki pants, was blood-soaked.

  Evan squatted down, his nose twitching at the coppery, almost humid air around the girl. He counted at least five cuts in the shirt, most of them in the upper right chest. He looked up as Goff squatted down next to him.

  “She’s just a little tyke,” Goff said, his eyes solemn.

  “Yeah.”

  “Looks like Nick Stapleton’s here for the ME.”

  Evan looked over his shoulder as a slightly round young man with wire-rimmed glasses and wispy blond hair hurried their way with his kit in his hand. Evan had only met the guy once before when he’d come to collect a drowning victim from Cape San Blas. He didn’t know enough to have an opinion of him.

  “Second stabbing death in a week,” Evan said to Goff. “You’d think Grundy would kind of be anxious to show up for that, if for nothing else, then for the press attention.”

  “I keep waiting for you to figure out that the only thing Grundy’s gonna do for you is sign off on other people’s work,” Goff said.

  “I think I’m picking up on it,” Evan said. Stapleton stopped a few feet away, and Evan looked over his shoulder at him. “Thanks for coming, Stapleton, but we’re not ready for you, yet.” He looked at Goff. “Trigg coming?”

  “She’s a few minutes out yet, but she’s en route.”

  “Just hang out for a bit, Nick, okay?” Evan said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Nick said. He headed back to his van at a relaxed lope.

  Evan looked back down at the body of Tina Vicaro. “Is she local?”

  “Local license,” Goff said, “but I don’t know her, or any other Vicaros.”

  “Okay.” Evan stood up and leaned over to look inside the car.

  An Android phone, a pair of white earbuds, and an open Snickers bar sprawled across the passenger seat, but the girl’s purse, one of those paisley fabric things, lay on the ground near the back tire on the driver’s side.

  “Looks like maybe she had started to get in, or was in when he hit. No blood inside, so he either grabbed her right before she got in or he pulled her out before he started stabbing her.”

  “You’d think she’d have a second to scream then,” Goff said.

  “We don’t know that she didn’t,” Evan said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  He stood up, pulled a pair of disposable gloves from his back pocket, and looked over at the group of onlookers. “Do me a favor, get a few more guys out here. I want anyone, guests or staff, who’s not already out here to be spoken to. Maybe someb
ody saw someone hanging around back here earlier, or saw something else we can use. Where’s the night clerk?”

  “She went back inside,” Goff said. “She said she needed to get back to the desk, but I think she was just pretty freaked out. I told her not to contact anyone about this yet.”

  “Okay. Go inside, let her know we can’t let anyone check out until we’ve spoken to all of the guests here. We also can’t have anyone checking in, or anyone else clocking out, janitors, maintenance, whomever.”

  “Gotcha,” Goff said and straightened up. “Here comes Trigg.”

  Goff headed for the hotel, and Evan turned to watch Trigg make her way to him, kit in hand. She was wearing her SO polo, but it was wrinkled like she might have slept in it. Her bobbed hair was pulled up in a clip.

  “Hey,” she said, without much enthusiasm.

  “Hey, Trigg,” Evan said. “We wake you up?”

  “No, I was binge-watching A Full House.” At Evan’s quizzical expression, she rolled her eyes. “Of course, you woke me up. What am I, a vampire?”

  She set down her kit and pulled out a pair of gloves. “I grabbed Pauly and asked him to tape it off,” she said.

  “Okay,” Evan replied. Over her shoulder, he saw Paulsen stretching yellow tape between a non-working light pole and a small bush planted in a median. “Need to find out how long that light’s been out.”

  The next closest one was almost to the front door. If the light had been out when she got here, the girl should have parked closer to the door. He wanted to go back a few hours and tell her that.

  “Look at these scratches on her face,” Trigg was saying.

  Evan squatted down next to her. There were two scratches near her mouth, just barely visible, on the side of her face that had been turned toward the ground. There were a couple of minute drops of blood on one of them.

  The girl’s eyes were open and were already starting to cloud over. They’d been a pretty brown.

  “Go ahead and get your pictures of the interior of the car,” Evan said. “I want to take a look at her phone.”

  Evan stood up and stood aside as Trigg pulled out her camera and started taking shots of the front seat. A couple of minutes later, Goff and Means hurried up to him.

  “Means might have something,” Goff said.

  Means looked down at a small notepad. “The guy over there in the Hurricanes jersey,” he said. “He came out for a smoke maybe eleven-fifteen, eleven-thirty, he’s not sure. He had just lit up and was checking his Facebook when he heard some guy raise his voice, but when he looked up, he didn’t see anything.”

  “Did he hear what the guy said?”

  “Yeah, he said it was ‘You can’t have it, either’ or something really close to that. He’s wigged out now, so he’s not sure, but he said he thinks that’s what it was. He said it sounded angry, but not scary or anything, and he didn’t see anybody or hear anything else, so he figured maybe he was hearing something from over by the pool or one of the rooms.”

  “But it was a male voice?”

  “Yeah, that he’s sure of.”

  “Anybody over there that saw or talked to this girl tonight?”

  “Yeah, lady from Tampa, on her way home from Pensacola,” he said. “She checked in around seven and the girl took care of her. She says she was really sweet, very upbeat, seemed in a good mood.”

  “Okay, go back and help get the rest of their statements, then help with interviewing the guests inside. Goff, we got some people on the way for that?”

  “Yeah, we got another couple guys from PD coming. There’s a cruiser out front blocking the entrance now, too.”

  “Ok, thanks,” Evan said. “Thanks, Means,” he said as the deputy headed back to the cluster of onlookers.

  “Hey, Evan, you can take a look at her phone now,” Trigg said behind him.

  He walked back over to the car, opened it from the passenger side. Goff was right behind him. He picked up the phone and tapped it. The screen lit up, and he pressed the Home button, grateful that it was an Android and not an iPhone. If need be, Androids were easier to break into.

  Fortunately, Tina Vicaro didn’t seem too concerned about her privacy; the phone wasn’t password protected. He thumbed his way to her contacts list.

  “Whatcha hoping for?” Goff said.

  “Jake Bellamy,” Evan answered. “Maybe we just found out why someone hated him enough to kill him.”

  It was close to four in the morning by the time the body had been processed, the scene had been gone over with a fine-toothed comb, and everyone on the property had been interviewed. Evan had kept the evidence bags holding Tina Vicaro’s cell phone, keys, and wallet, and they sat on the passenger seat as he followed Goff to Tina’s address on Garrison Avenue.

  The address turned out to be a small house of CBS construction, that looked like a million other houses built in Florida in the sixties and seventies. It was neatly kept, though, and in the light that shone from a fixture by the front door, Evan could see several pots of flowers and tropical plants. A green Volkswagen, one of the new bugs but not itself new, sat in the driveway. There was no garage.

  He and Goff closed their doors quietly, though Evan couldn’t have said why; they were about to wake up anyone who was inside anyway. He waited a moment for Goff to reach him, then they walked up the path of Chattahoochee rock, their shoes crunching loudly in the quiet night. There was no porch, just a small concrete stoop. Evan went up the two steps and knocked on the door, louder than he normally would have.

  As he waited for someone to answer, he looked around him. Next to the steps, underneath a hibiscus, a pottery rabbit stared at nothing in particular. A black metal mailbox hung by the door, boasting a Ron Jon’s Surf Shop bumper sticker. It was faded and torn and looked like someone had tried to peel it off at some point.

  When there was no sound of anyone coming after thirty seconds, Evan knocked again, a little more loudly. About ten seconds later, a light went on beyond the front door, maybe a hallway. A moment after that, a woman’s voice called through the door.

  “Who is it?”

  “Ma’am, this is the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office. We need to speak with you, please.”

  Evan pulled out his badge and held it up in front of the peephole. After a long moment, the door opened, but with the chain still on. A pale forehead and one green eye peered around the door.

  “You’re not in uniform,” the woman said. Her voice was shaky.

  “No, ma’am, I’m sorry, we’re not. I’m Sheriff Evan Caldwell, and this is Sgt. Ruben Goff.”

  Goff held up his own badge and the eyeball looked past Evan to inspect it, though there was no way she could have read it.

  “Those aren’t Sheriff’s cars.”

  “I understand and respect your caution, ma’am. If you’d feel more comfortable, we’ll wait here while you call the Sheriff’s Office and verify our identities. They know we’re here.”

  The eye bounced between him and Goff for a moment, then Evan heard the chain slide and the door opened. The woman standing there was no more than twenty-five, with white blonde hair and a high forehead. She was wearing yoga pants and a hoodie.

  “What’s going on?” the girl asked.

  “Can I ask your name, miss?” Evan asked gently.

  “Carrie Winters,” she answered, barely above a whisper. Nobody expected good news when a cop knocked on their door at four in the morning.

  “Ms. Winters, may we come in?”

  She thought about it a second. “I’m sorry, but you’re making me really nervous. Maybe I should call.”

  “Carrie, does Tina Vicaro live here?” Evan asked quickly.

  “Tina?” Her eyes darted to the driveway. “Where’s her car? Has she been in an accident?”

  “No, but she has been hurt,” Evan answered. “Why don’t you go call my office? We really should talk inside.”

  She blinked at him a few times, then opened the door wider. “No, come in.”


  She backed up to let them inside, and Goff gently closed the door behind them.

  “Ma’am,” he said with a nod.

  “Is there somewhere we can sit down?” Evan asked.

  She opened her mouth to answer, then seemed to forget what she was about to say. She nodded instead and led them through into a formal dining room to the right. She flicked on the light, then sat down at the head of the table. Evan and Goff took two seats on the near side.

  “What’s happened?” Carrie asked.

  “Is Tina your sister?”

  “My roommate,” she answered, her eyes wide, pupils constricted. “We know each other from high school.”

  “Is there someone else here with you?” Evan asked, though he was sure they’d be standing there if there were.

  “No. My mom…this is my mom’s house, but she got married…she lives in Vero now.”

  “I see.” Evan rubbed at his scar. “And does Tina work at Mainstay Suites?”

  “Yes.” Her eyes flicked from Evan to Goff and back again.

  Evan pulled out his phone. He’d taken a picture of Tina’s driver’s license. “Is this Tina?”

  The girl’s nostrils flared, and her lower lip shook. “Yes.” Evan barely heard her.

  “I’m sorry, Carrie, but Tina was attacked and killed as she was leaving work tonight.”

  Evan waited. Some people erupted immediately, with tears, rage or both. Others had to let it seep into them, like water into carpet. Carrie was the latter. She blinked several times, though her eyes didn’t tear up, but she had gone a shade paler in the last thirty seconds.

  “I don’t understand,” she said finally. “Why?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Evan answered. “Has anyone bothered her lately? Anyone made her worry a little?”

  Carrie shook her head. Her pale hair was coming out of its bun, and a tendril of it fell from her forehead. “No. No, nothing like that.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Carrie answered, nodding. “Michael.”