March's Luck (Larry Macklin Mysteries Book 5)

by A. E. Howe

  “The murder could have been random,” I said, then threw in, “Not driven by a motive,” trying to imply that she didn’t know what a random murder meant. But she never seemed to notice when I was trying to annoy her.

  “You’re forgetting the holes. Someone probably took that backhoe out there to dig a grave.”

  I hadn’t forgotten the holes. “The holes mean something, but we don’t know what,” I said, even though I thought there was a good possibility that Darlene was right. Why else would the killer steal the machine and go dig holes in the woods?

  “If not graves, what? Did he steal it and plan on meeting a buyer out there? Maybe the holes were to demonstrate what the backhoe was capable of? But that doesn’t make sense. Anyone who wanted to buy it would know what it could do. If it was a used one, you might need to show someone that it worked. But that was a brand new machine,” Darlene said thoughtfully.

  “What if Parrish was going to buy it and the deal went bad?” I was just throwing ideas around, but this one had some merit. Except that I couldn’t imagine Mr. Parrish buying stolen goods.

  Mercifully, Darlene agreed to split up the morning’s interviews with the folks that had known Parrish. But the interviews yielded absolutely zero new information. Everyone we talked to, including his minister, his doctor and lifelong friends said some version of the same thing: “He was the best guy in the world. I just can’t believe someone would kill him.” I’d never had a victim be referred to with that much universal love. Parrish seemed to be the lovechild of Jimmy Carter and Mother Teresa.

  After my last interview, I called Dr. Darzi in Tallahassee. He hadn’t conducted the autopsy yet, but a preliminary examination confirmed the obvious: the victim had died from a crossbow bolt that pierced his eye and went through his brain.

  “I doubt that the autopsy is going to tell us much more,” Darzi said. “Toxicology, maybe. We’ll see. I can tell you that the bolt’s trajectory looks flat, so it was not a long shot. I’ll have to look at data to give you a range. I don’t see any signs that the killer came in contact with the victim, but we’ll be thorough as always. If there are any prints or other trace evidence, we’ll let you know.”

  I called Darlene and shared Darzi’s comments with her. She said she had a lunch appointment in Tallahassee, so I suggested that she check in with Darzi that afternoon if she wanted.

  Pete was sitting at one of the outdoor tables when I pulled up at Deep Pit Bar-b-que. The weather was nice with clear blue skies and a cool breeze.

  I joined him after getting my lunch. “How are the girls?” I asked as he finished sending a text on his phone. Parenting in the twenty-first century.

  “Jenny’s driving and Kim wants to be a cop like her old man.” He shrugged. “Jenny is the one I worry about. I told her no phones on in the car, period. I want her phone off and in the back seat. I’ve seen enough accidents caused by texting.” He shuddered, like a bear shaking off a particularly bad nightmare. I resisted any comments about pots and kettles, knowing how concerned he was about his daughter.

  He took a bite of his sandwich and asked, “How are you and Darl getting along?”

  I groaned. “Honestly, she’s a good investigator. It’s all those little personal quirks that drive me crazy. Not that you didn’t piss me off with your incessant texting,” I joked.

  “Screw you too,” he said with a laugh. “Personally, I’m glad I’m not on the Parrish case with you. There’s going to be some serious pressure if you don’t have a suspect soon.”

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.” I gave him a quick overview of the case, then finished with, “Why would someone dig holes in those woods?” I added the emphasis because I didn’t think that it was a random choice.

  Pete ate the last bite of his sandwich, then leaned back on the bench. “To bury the body,” he said.

  “We’ve been up and down that road,” I sighed. “It’s possible, but the more I look at the case, the less I like that answer. But I do think that the backhoe is the key. Why was it there?”

  “You dig holes either to bury something or to dig something up,” Pete said simply.

  “Dig something up. Maybe.”

  “Have you found a motive?”

  “For someone to kill the Adams County equivalent of Mr. Rogers? No. That’s why I’m focusing on the backhoe.”

  “Guess he wasn’t having an affair.” Pete smiled.

  “No. Nor was he stealing, dealing drugs or growing drugs.”

  “Something in his past?”

  “Maybe. But if you hate someone enough to come back years later to kill him, you’d think you’d do it in a way that’s more personal than a crossbow from twenty yards away.”

  “Good point,” Pete allowed. “Mistaken identity?”

  “I think the shot was too close for that, but Hank Senior and Hank Junior do look a bit alike. And Hank Junior has been on the buying end of a fair share of drugs. But if someone wanted to kill Junior, they’d probably know him well enough to realize he’s not going to be working a hay field at that time of the morning.”

  After a while I told Pete about Marcy breaking into my place.

  “I’m glad that I was chubby and unattractive growing up. Saves me from being haunted by ex-girlfriends.” Pete chuckled.

  “I didn’t have that many. Unfortunately, I got tangled up with the thirty-two-pounder of loose cannons.”

  “Where Mr. Parrish’s body was found… Was it close to the railroad tracks?” Pete shifted back to the murder.

  “Not too far. A couple trains went by while we were there. Good point. I’ll see if I can find out what trains went by before, and possibly during, the murder.”

  “Good luck. I had a dead body near the tracks in town a couple of years ago and contacting the right guy at the right office at the right company took a week. I should be able to give you the contact numbers I got back then, though the chances they’ll work now are iffy at best. Besides, they only have one or two guys on those freight trains.”

  We talked about his cases—a drug deal gone bad that had left an innocent bystander dead and a serial carjacker. “It’s just a matter of time before he jacks the wrong car and somebody ends up shot,” Pete grumbled as he stood up and headed for his car.

  I waved as he left, then called Joe Parrish and asked if he’d mind talking with me again.

  I met Joe Parrish down at the dirt drive that led to the clearing where we found the backhoe.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” I said, shaking his hand. I always appreciated people who didn’t clam up or lawyer up when they found themselves in the middle of an investigation though, sadly, that’s exactly the advice I would have given to anyone who found themselves in such a situation. Too many state attorneys and investigators focus on the information they have and the people they have access to rather than going out and fighting for the information they really need. Arresting someone is not always the same as solving a case.

  “Anything I can do to get the man who murdered Dad.” His voice was quiet and cold.

  “I want to show you something.” I had a hunch that Joe knew something he wasn’t telling me yesterday when we were talking about these woods. I’d looked on the property appraiser’s website and was able to determine that the area between the train tracks, the field and the road was about twenty acres.

  I started walking toward the spot where we found the backhoe. “Do you ever use this land for anything?” I asked as we walked.

  “Not really. It’s low and pretty swampy. Mostly it’s wildlife habitat. We’ve got a tree stand near the tracks. Winter mornings, deer will come out of the woods where they’ve been bedded down, looking for forage. I took my first deer from that stand when I was twelve. A six-point.”

  We came to the spot where the backhoe and trailer had been found. They were gone now, but the ground was all chewed up and muddy.

  “This is where we found the backhoe. Can you think of any reason why someone would have brought it d
own here?” I asked him again, watching his face. His brows furrowed in confusion.

  “No. It was just sitting on the trailer?”

  “More or less.” I didn’t want to give away too many details. I started walking again, following the trail left by the backhoe.

  When we came to the area where the machine had dug the holes, Joe Parrish stopped and stared. His face had an odd look. I couldn’t discern the mix of emotions.

  “Do you know why someone would come out here and dig holes?” I asked, feeling like a broken record.

  Joe didn’t answer. He was staring out beyond the woods now, toward the spot where his father had died. He walked over to the edge of the woods until he was standing close to the spot where we had found the feather. He looked out at the tractor, still parked in the field, and at a spot nearby where the grass was discolored.

  “Is that where it happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m glad he didn’t suffer,” Joe said in a flat tone.

  “If you know something about these woods, your father or the murder, now would be the time to tell me,” I encouraged him. Should I take the gloves off? Put some pressure on him? I wondered.

  He still didn’t say anything. He just kept staring at the spot where his father had been struck down.

  “There is no one else here. Anything you tell me would be your word against mine. If you know something, give me some indication of which way to look,” I prodded.

  Joe turned abruptly. “I’ll get someone to come down in the morning and finish cutting the field,” he said, more to himself than to me, then started walking back toward our cars.

  Standing by his truck, he turned and looked me straight in the eyes. “Dad trusted your father. I know you’re going to do your best to solve this… atrocity. No one wants that more than me. If I have information that will help you, I’ll tell you.”

  He started to get in the truck, but I put my hand on the door and stopped him. “Talk to me. Let me be the judge.”

  “Dad always said there was only one judge, and justice couldn’t be delivered in this world. I guess we’ll find out,” he said, staring over my shoulder.

  What the hell do you say to that? I thought. All I could do was take my hand off of the door and let him get in the truck and drive away.

  Chapter Six

  I was passing the Fast Mart on Jefferson when I saw Marcy’s car. I quickly went over the pros and cons of confronting her about the break-in and decided that the best thing to do would be to let it go. So, of course, I turned around and pulled into the parking lot.

  I could see her through the store window, standing at the counter buying something. But my attention was distracted when I noticed there was someone slumped down in the passenger seat of her car. I pulled in alongside it and got out.

  I tapped on the window. The figure crouched down lower in the seat, as if he was trying to ooze out through the floor of the car. I knocked harder. Finally he looked up and I motioned for him to lower the window.

  “Hi,” he mumbled after lowering the glass.

  “You didn’t bother to let me know you were back in town, and now I find you in Marcy’s car?” I scolded him.

  “I met her down in Miami, that’s all.” Eddie Thompson, my cross-dressing confidential informant, stared down at his lap, looking as guilty as a puppy caught chewing on a slipper.

  I looked back at the store and could see Marcy arguing with the cashier. I could have told the poor man that he’d lose. I turned back to Eddie.

  “You’re my CI. You need to let me know when you come and go.”

  “Marcy told me who your new partner is. I don’t want to work for you anymore.”

  “I don’t know what you have against Deputy Marks—”

  His head jerked up and he interrupted me. “She’s a catty bitch. She arrested me once for drugs. When she found out I was wearing a bra, she started laughing. She even started making jokes about it with another officer with me standing right there. I quit.” He slumped back down in the seat, arms crossed.

  I glanced at the store to make sure Marcy was still inside. She and the cashier were both swinging their arms around and arguing.

  “You can’t quit, and what’s more, you’re going to keep an eye on Marcy for me. I want a report later today on what’s she’s doing, and I want regular follow-ups. This is non-optional.”

  “But she’s a friend,” he whined.

  “You’ve never hesitated to inform on friends and family before. A fact that I would guess you’d still want kept a secret.”

  Pouting, he grumbled, “I could use some money.”

  I took out a twenty and dropped it in his lap. “Report on Marcy tonight,” I told him and got in my car, leaving before Marcy finished her verbal brawl with the poor clerk.

  Before I was a mile down the road I heard dispatch send a deputy to help the Fast Mart clerk remove an unruly female customer from the store.

  Back at the office I wrote up reports from my notes until Darlene came in around three o’clock. She had gone by the morgue and talked to Dr. Darzi after the autopsy. The only new information he’d come up with was a time of death based on Parrish’s stomach contents, and all that did was confirm what we’d already concluded from the timeline provided by the family and employees.

  I hesitated to tell her about my meeting with Joe, but I couldn’t see the point in hiding it from her. I thought she might be irritated that I hadn’t talked to her first, since he had to be considered a suspect. We knew he personally couldn’t have murdered his father, but with an inheritance standing in the balance, it wasn’t unheard of for someone to hire a hitman. But she took it in stride.

  “Probably a good idea to try and get him aside and talk to him man-to-man out in the woods. He’s definitely the Marlboro Man type.”

  I didn’t tell her yet that he’d been acting strangely about those woods. I didn’t have any concrete suspicions… just a gut feeling that Joe knew something.

  I mentioned that I’d spread the BOLO on the truck that was used to steal the backhoe out to two hundred miles and tagged it as wanted in a murder investigation.

  Darlene smiled at me. “I went out to three hundred on it, and I double checked the VIN in the report and online.”

  I was annoyed, but had to admit to myself that it was a smart move. Many a vehicle had slipped through the system because of data that wasn’t entered correctly.

  We went down to the evidence room where Marcus and Shantel were boxing up materials from a year-old arson case to send to the prosecutor. When they were done, we all went over the evidence that had been collected at the Parrish murder site.

  “With the railroad tracks close by, we got a lot of trash. People walk up those tracks and throw their junk everywhere,” Shantel said, looking at a box full of old potato chip bags and plastic bottles. Then she held up an evidence bag with a smaller jewel bag inside. “We got a few of these too.”

  “I don’t think this is drug related,” I said.

  “What about the backhoe?” Darlene asked.

  “We got a whole bunch of fingerprints off it. And I’m sure we got DNA too. But that thing was behind Mill’s for a couple of months. Lord knows how many people touched it,” Shantel said. Marcus, the quiet one of the pair, nodded in agreement.

  “So what we have is a ton of evidence, but nothing that will help us find the killer,” I said.

  “On the bright side, find the killer and some of this will probably help put him in jail,” Shantel said, waving at the boxes of evidence. “That’s not to say we won’t run the prints and DNA and see if they match anyone in the National Crime Information Center, but that’s going to take a while.”

  I nodded, knowing that collecting and scanning all of the evidence was a huge task. One of the problems with an outdoor crime scene was that you had to sort through all of the non-evidence to find anything relevant. With this collection of items including so much drug paraphernalia, even if we got a hit we couldn’
t be sure that the felon had anything to do with our case.

  “We’d better get to work,” Darlene said with more cheer than I thought was warranted, but she was right. We each took a box and sat down, carefully examining the items and their tags. The idea was to give Shantel and Marcus some items of particular interest to focus on.

  “What have you got?” Darlene asked me as I shoved my last box away. In front of me were five bags. She was carrying six of her own.

  “Two fairly fresh cigarette butts found within fifty feet of the backhoe, a Big Thirst cup from the Fast Mart that looks fairly new, a piece of cloth found near the trailer and, last but certainly the most disgusting, a used condom found hanging off a bush within ten feet of the trailer.”

  “I’ve got a crack pipe, a Coke bottle, a rag, two cigarillo butts and a candy wrapper. The first four items were found on the trail between the trailer and the clearing, while one of the butts and the wrapper were close to where the holes were dug.”

  We handed these over to Marcus since Shantel had been called out to collect evidence at an auto burglary.

  The sun was low in the sky by the time I left the office. I touched base with Cara and made plans to see her the next day. Tonight I needed to stop by Dad’s place.

  A cold front was supposed to move through during the night and rain was already beginning to fall by the time I parked in front of the house. The light was on in the barn when I got out of the car, but it went out almost immediately and I could see Dad running through the rain toward the house. He seemed to move a little awkwardly. I met him on the porch.

  “You okay?” I asked him.

  “What?”

  “You were running a little stiff.”

  “That’s called arthritis. If you just came by to remind me I’m getting old, you can leave now.” He said it with a laugh, but there was an edge to his voice.

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “If you’re lucky, you’ll get old too. Come on, let’s get inside.”