Death Among the Mangroves

by Stephen Morrill

  “Oh my, no. I don’t need those things. The Judge handles our finances.”

  Some double doors to a dining room opened and Mark Stider came in and stood by the doors. In person, Mark’s hair was as unkempt as it had been in the photos Troy had seen. He looked sleepy, though given his wild hairstyle, Troy couldn’t be sure. Behind Mark, Troy could see one end of a dining table that could probably seat twelve.

  “Who the hell are you people?” Mark Stider said. He looked so scornful and petulant that Troy wondered if he practiced the look in a mirror.

  Troy looked around, then back at Mark. “Were you addressing the two uniformed law enforcement officers seated with your mother?”

  “I was addressing the two assholes who came in here and talked to my mother without my permission.”

  “Mark, no one on Planet Earth needs your permission to talk to Martha. But we actually came to talk to you. We’re looking for a missing girl. Barbara Gilcrist.” He held up a hand when Angel started to speak. “What can you tell us to help?”

  Mark Stider stared at Troy stone-faced. “How would I know? I don’t know any Barbara…whatever.”

  “Gilcrist.”

  “Yeah. Whatever,” Mark said. Martha Stider looked back and forth as if watching a tennis match, hands folded in her lap and a fixed smile on her face.

  “So you never met her?”

  Mark Stider crossed his arms and leaned a shoulder against the dining room door frame. He pushed his lower lip forward and managed to look even more scornful. “Nope.”

  “Strange,” Troy said. “Seeing as you were photographed on the beach, in the background, several times, almost as if you were stalking Barbara.”

  “So? I like to hang out at the beach. So I’m in someone’s picture? So were all the other people on the beach Friday.”

  “I didn’t say this was Friday. Why would you think that?”

  “Surely, Chief Adam, there were other boys on the beach too,” Martha Stider said. “My son happens to like the outdoors. I’m sure he can explain all this.”

  Mark Stider unfolded his arms, straightened up and took a step into the room. “Shut up, Mother. Stay out of it.”

  Martha shrank back, eyes wide. “I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry.”

  Troy ignored her and kept his eyes on Mark Stider, ready to stop him if he got more aggressive. “Why did you assume I meant Friday?”

  “Ah, man.” Mark did a push-away gesture with one hand. “You’re here today, probably about that girl who ran off last Friday and nobody can find her. I’m almost a lawyer, for God’s sake. You think some bumpkin yahoo cop can outsmart me?” He backed up to the door frame, leaned against it and folded his arms again.

  “Mark is in law school,” Martha said. She looked at Mark. “Up in St. Petersburg.”

  “Really? That would be Stetson,” Troy said. “In Gulfport, actually.” He looked back at Mark. “You home on Christmas vacation? Is it semester break there?”

  “I’m taking a semester off,” Mark said. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

  Troy looked at Martha. “Must be nice to have your boy home for a while.” He had no idea where he was going but his gut feeling was that Martha was the weak link here.

  “Oh, it is, it is.” She unfolded her hands and got in some fluttering. “The Judge works so hard and long hours, many times all night.” She glanced at Mark, then back to Troy. “Mark moved back from his apartment up there and he’s doing so much around the house now. I really appreciate it. I think…”

  “Shut up, Mother,” Mark said from the doorway. “He’s pumping you.” Martha sat back a little and ducked her head and looked at the tabletop in front of her. “Sorry.”

  Mark looked at Troy. “What else do you even dream you have in the way of supposed evidence?”

  “Hadn’t said there was even a crime,” Troy said. “So your use of the word ‘evidence’ seems odd. But you and Barbara were together in your room at the Gulf View Motel. Earlier, you had bought her drinks at a local bar. Then you drove off with her in a Porsche. And now she’s missing. Where did you go, anyway?”

  “I don’t understand,” Martha said to Troy. “Why would he have a room at a motel? He lives right here. You must be mistaken.”

  “I don’t, Mother. He’s making this all up. I don’t know why. And I don’t know any Barbara Gillispie.”

  “Ah. That’s right, Mark. I’d gotten the name wrong. Thanks for correcting me. Gillispie, not Gilcrist. Odd that you would know the last name of someone you have never met.”

  Martha Stider’s smile remained fixed. She looked at Angel. Maybe another woman would be more understanding. “Why would you think my son would know anything about this girl?”

  Mark straightened suddenly and took two steps into the room. Troy stood and put himself between Mark and Martha. Martha tried to scoot sideways on the sofa, and when she couldn’t, put out her hands. “Damn it, Mother. I told you to shut the fuck up! They’re just lying. I’m innocent.”

  “Innocent of what? Not knowing this girl? Not having bought her drinks at a bar? Not driving your car with her in the passenger seat? I have witnesses for all that. And even your mom, here, could walk over to the motel and look at the register.”

  “Ah. I’m not talking to them any more,” Mark Stider told his mother. He waved a final, dismissive hand, turned and walked out of sight.

  “I think my husband needs to be here,” Martha Stider said, trying and failing to smile at Troy and Angel. She was still trembling. “I’m sure Mark has done nothing wrong. My husband can explain everything.”

  “I never said Mark did anything wrong,” Troy said, standing to leave. “But I’m going to find out.”

  Angel drove them back to the station. “Well, that went really well, Chief,” she said as she turned into the town hall parking lot.

  “Thinking about what Mark said,” Troy answered.

  “He said a lot of shit. Smart-ass kid. I wanted to slap him silly.”

  Troy smiled. “Restraint is a good thing at times. Tell me, when did Barbara Gillispie go missing?”

  Angel parked the Suburban and looked at Troy. “Last Saturday night. You know that.”

  “I do. And we called out the town to search for her all day Sunday. So, as far as any of them are concerned, she’s been missing since Sunday morning.”

  “Well, sort of, Chief. What’s your point?”

  “My point is that Mark Stider referred to Barbara Gillispie as having been missing since Friday.”

  Angel considered that. “Well, technically, he’s right. She was last seen by her friends on Friday. We turned two witnesses who saw Barbara and Mark together on Friday.”

  “Yes we did. But how could Mark Stider know all that?”

  “That’s thin, Chief.”

  “Doesn’t make it wrong. Mark Stider lied about the motel room. He lied about being with Barbara Gillispie for at least some time on Friday. Now he refers to her as having been missing since Friday, even though we didn’t know about it until twenty-four hours later.”

  “Gee, Chief. Do you think Mark Stider is worth a second look?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I want to slap him silly.”

  Troy nodded. “You may yet get the chance.”

  Chapter 14

  Monday, December 23

  Gerry Whyte, the dog assassin, talked to Angel Watson in their interrogation room, his hands cuffed behind his back. Troy stood in the station locker room on the other side of a one-way window, watching and listening to a speaker while he had Angel do the questioning. She seemed less threatening than the men on the staff. Jeremiah Brown could threaten the United States Marine Corps and Bubba Johns was not far behind. And it was unlikely that Troy, with his skin tone, would ever be buddies with Whyte, who seemed to hate people of the darker persuasion, even those only slightly darker.

  Angel put Whyte back into his cell. Once he was in and the door locked, she had to explain to Whyte, patiently,
that he had to back up to the cell door to put his hands out the handcuff port so she could take the cuffs off. Troy watched all this—they never moved a prisoner without two officers doing it—with amusement. “One would think,” he said to Angel, “that he would know the routine by now. He’s spent half his life in prison.”

  Troy and Angel walked back to his office and she sat in one of the visitor chairs, shaking her head. “This is pointless,” she said. “He’s too stupid to talk to. Or too smart. He just repeats that he was only protecting that jogger. His story is so short and so simple I can’t get a wedge into it anywhere.”

  “I liked the part about how we searched his house and found the bolt cutter and we can match it to the cut-off lock.”

  “Oh yeah.” Angel laughed. “You and I both know that’s nonsense, the matching part at least. He probably doesn’t, but it just sailed over him without any response.”

  “Sure. But he did have a bolt cutter. How many people do you know who own one of those? It looked new. We could probably track that one down at the hardware store here in town.”

  “True. I’ll do that. But that’s not good enough to convict,” Angel said. “We went through all his trash and searched the house and didn’t find a receipt.”

  “Probably in the landfill by now, north side of Alligator Alley, thanks to the County’s efficient trash collection.”

  Angel nodded. “Likely so. Leaving us with him, and he’s not much. He’s an ignorant, irresponsible young man with an ingrained hatred.”

  “It’s partly hatred,” Troy said. “Mostly it’s fear. He knows he’s slow and uneducated. He looks for someone to feel superior to. In our culture he thinks he can feel superior to blacks just because he’s white and they’re black. It’s not much but it’s easy to do and doesn’t require a lot of brainpower.”

  “Speaking personally, are we? And isn’t the correct term now ‘African-American’.”

  Troy nodded. “I suppose so. But look at me. I’m also part Asian. So am I supposed to go around calling myself an African-Asian-American. I don’t call you a European-American. ‘Black’ is convenient, if not terribly accurate.

  “Problem with all this is that, in order to keep on feeling superior, Gerry Whyte sometimes has to escalate. Suddenly he has a black woman living just down the street. And she’s not like him. She’s an educated professional. Even a moron like him can see that he’s not superior to her just because he’s from the Caucasian race.”

  “Maybe we all need to stop thinking of one human being as ‘superior’ to another,” Angel said. “Any one person is ‘superior’ in some regard.”

  Troy stared at her. “I stand corrected. Of course you are right. I like that you think that way. I’m embarrassed that I didn’t. It’s a weakness I have.”

  “Chief, you’re in Mensa. You’re certainly superior in brainpower.”

  “Debatable. I’m superior at marking in little circles on tests with my trusty Number Two pencil. I guess Gerry Whyte is superior at shooting dogs. But back to Sasha Thompson, she’s smart, educated and she makes more money than him. Her very presence, her entire lifestyle, threatens him. What to do? He has to put her down somehow. But there is one thing I don’t understand, at least not yet.”

  “Which is?”

  “A trigger. Even granting that he’s a walking mass of inchoate hatreds, hatred of himself mostly, something triggered him to formulate a plan and carry it out.”

  “Not much of a plan. Shoot dogs and claim he was a hero.”

  “Au contraire. He bought a bolt cutter, which means he knew he would need it, which means he planned this in advance and even scoped out Sasha Thompson’s fence and gate. Then he cut off the lock to the gate. He probably chased the dogs out of the yard. He then followed them around until he saw an opportunity to shoot them and claim he was saving someone from attack. He acted on that opportunity swiftly and effectively. It’s a fairly elaborate plan for a guy with the IQ of a grapefruit.”

  “Maybe someone put him up to it.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Well, whatever. Want me to drive him up to the Naples jail before I go off shift?”

  “Do that. He can have his arraignment tomorrow morning and we don’t have to look at him any more.”

  Angel looked at the corner of Troy’s desk. “You got a photo of Barbara Gillispie there?”

  “Yep.” Troy turned the wood frame around to show Angel. “Bought the frame yesterday. Photo’s printed out from the ones you got from the two girls.”

  “How long you plan to keep that on your desk?”

  “How long until we find her?”

  “See why you went for the expensive frame, since it’s gonna be there a while.”

  Angel left. June Dundee, the dispatcher, was off on Mondays and Troy usually just did her job and his too. Sometimes Norris Compton came in and volunteered to sit at June’s desk. Compton, a retired Atlanta accountant, had been in legal trouble a few months earlier and Troy had gotten him loose on the promise that Compton go to AA, that he learn to fish, and that he come in once a week or so to do bookkeeping chores for free. Compton also now helped run the town taxi service, two old vans he and June Dundee’s husband Bob drove to keep themselves busy.

  Mondays were the slowest day of their week. Troy sat at June’s desk in the lobby and had a good view of the television vans parked across the street. There weren’t too many reporters around them; Troy assumed they were all out looking for any remotely related story to use about Mangrove Bayou. He hoped Lester Groud would appreciate the national publicity.

  He got on the phone and called Detective Ramon Bustello Prado at the Tampa Police Department.

  “What the fuck do you want,” Prado said.

  “Bust, is that how you answer the phone now?”

  “It is when it’s my private cell phone and the caller I.D. says the Mangrove Bayou P.D. is calling. I heard they had hired you. Are they out of their minds?”

  “So far, yes. In fact, they made me chief, so it’s a promotion. You ever going to be chief, Bust?”

  “Shit! They can keep the stars. I want to retire to Florida and play golf.”

  “You already live in Florida and play golf.”

  “What can I say? Inadequate career goals. Why are you infesting my cell phone on what had been, to now, a fine day?”

  “I need a favor.”

  “You need a favor. Let me quickly recap your career. Your insubordination so pissed off the people here at Tampa P.D. that they fired you. Not to mention that you were so trigger-happy that you killed a teenager armed with a water pistol.”

  “It looked real to me.”

  “So you got hired on by some town that is so small it hasn’t got a traffic light or a parking meter, and yet they have you handing out traffic tickets.”

  “It’s a tough job, but som…”

  “Yeah. Right. How’s the pay scale?”

  “Lower than what I made before. But I get to be the chief.”

  “Do they give you a chief’s car to drive? Maybe with one of the old ‘bubble-gum machines’ on top?”

  “Not yet. But I’m still on probation for a few more days.”

  “You get a car when they make you permanent?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But at least you can’t be insubordinate any more, being as you’re in charge.”

  “Not so. Now I am insubordinate to a mayor and town council. I’m moving up in the world.”

  “Christ. Good to know you haven’t changed. What’s this favor you need from your old pal in Major Crimes, and which I shall have to keep secret for fear someone will learn I still talk to you?”

  “Need to find out if one Mark Stider,” Troy spelled out the names, “is still a student at Stetson Law. If he’s not, why not? And it’s a homicide case so I’m in kind of a hurry on this.”

  “Those schools don’t like to hand out that information.”

  “Why I called you. You’ll scare them into it.”


  “Tampa or Gulfport campus?”

  “Gulfport, I think. If not, then check Tampa. And, while you’re at it, call the University of Florida law school and ask about Stider. He did his undergrad work there, so why didn’t he go on to their own law school?”

  “I know how to do my job, Troy. Get back to you.”

  Troy started to ask when, but he was talking to a dead connection. Whatever happened to the days when you could hear the phone being hung up, he thought.

  The phone rang as he was still staring at it, making him jump. The town counsel was on the phone.

  “What’s going on over there?” Frank Lawton said. “Just got a call from a friend of a friend in the legal beagle business. I won’t say who but he’s got mojo in the courthouse. He chewed my ass. Says you applied this morning for a search warrant for a motel room rented to one Mark Stider. You also applied for a warrant to search the home of said Mark Stider here in Mangrove Bayou.”

  “I did. And I did that too.”

  “Jesus! Did you know the kid is the son of Judge Hans Stider, of our very own Twentieth Circuit Court?”

  “I knew that.”

  “Well, know this too. The shit hit the fan up in Naples. The day clerk took your request and ran down the hall to Judge Stider’s office so fast he set his shoes on fire. The upshot of all that was that your requests have been denied. Fastest I ever saw Judge Stider move on anything. I mean, we call him ‘Stider the Slider’ because he hates work and likes to kick cases down the road forever. He’s a defense attorney’s dream come true. Anyway, I got chewed out for not keeping you under a tighter rein.”

  “I didn’t know you had reins on me at all.”

  “I didn’t either. Look here, whatever you’re doing, do it more carefully. My job, as volunteer part-time town counsel, for which I am paid some pittance so low I can’t recall what it is offhand, is to keep the town out of trouble. And getting our asses kicked around by a circuit judge isn’t likely to be helpful.”

  Chapter 15

  Monday, December 23

  That afternoon, Troy drove to the high school on the back side of Barron Key. He had an appointment to talk to the high school kids in the auditorium there. Inside he took several deep breaths to get it over with. He hated the school smell, kids who did not yet know how to bathe and deodorize properly, who used too much aftershave or perfume, the testosterone and estrogen practically dripping down the walls.