Dead Reckoning

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  She nodded and looked down at the tissue she was slowly shredding.

  “What did your husband have with him when he left? Did you notice?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he have his weapon, his cell phone?”

  “Oh, I’m sure he did,” she said, staring past Evan like she could see her husband leave again, make note of what he’d taken with him. “He never went anywhere without his gun, or his cell phones. He had one for work and one for…well, for us. Not for work.”

  Evan nodded, then jotted down a few things, primarily to postpone for just a moment his next line of questioning.

  “Mrs. Hutchins, I apologize for having to ask this, but I do,” he said finally.

  She looked over at him, and he saw the dread in her eyes. That could be for any number of reasons.

  “Is there any chance that his meeting last night wasn’t work-related?” He didn’t have to explain his meaning, and he had to respect her for not looking or acting like she’d been slapped.

  “You mean a woman,” she said simply.

  “I’m sorry, but that is what I’m asking.”

  She sighed, and it almost struck him as a sigh of relief. “No. I’m not going to pretend we have a perfect marriage or that Randy is—was—perfect, either. But he wasn’t messing around.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “When we were younger, just married a little while, we had some issues,” she said. “We were kids, really. But not for years and years. That’s not something I ever worried about.”

  “Thank you,” Evan said. “What was the number for his personal phone?” She recited it for him, and he wrote it down. “Did you try calling him when he didn’t come home?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head, her eyes widening. “I wouldn’t do that, not when I knew he was working.”

  “Were you worried?”

  She swallowed and then lifted one shoulder, almost in apology. “I always worry a little, but it’s always okay.”

  Her eyes filled then, and Evan pulled a clean tissue from a box on the table and handed it to her. She took it without looking at him, and he waited for her to dry her eyes. When she had, she looked up at him and sat a little bit taller and straighter.

  “It’s always been all right,” she said quietly.

  She seemed a bit fragile, but Evan saw grit there, too. Whether it was the kind of grit that could empower her to kill her husband, or have someone else do it, was an unknown. The general rule was that it was almost always the spouse, the significant other, or the ex. Unless the victim was a cop. Then it could be anybody.

  “I’m sure it’s very stressful to be married to a police officer,” Evan said automatically. He felt a tightening in his stomach. He wondered if or when Hannah had stopped worrying about him. Then he suddenly had the thought that maybe she still did, and the idea made him feel almost panicky. He squashed the idea almost instantly. “You’re a strong woman.”

  She nodded and looked down at her untouched coffee.

  “Mrs. Hutchins, have there been any incidents lately that concerned you? A prowler, someone strange in the neighborhood, people who call and hang up, anything like that?”

  She answered quickly. “No, nothing like that, not lately.”

  “When?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, every few years someone eggs the house or dumps our trash in the yard, or makes a nasty phone call,” she answered. “It happens.”

  “Has your husband mentioned anything? Been disturbed about something?”

  Mrs. Hutchins thought for a moment. “Not really. Budget cuts. Getting antsy about retiring. He was tired.” She balled up her most recent tissue and put it aside with the others. “But nothing like what you’re asking. Nothing worrying, you know.”

  She looked back at the window, which was framed by blue and yellow checkered curtains. Flashes of early morning sun winked off the river just beyond the trees in the back yard. He watched Mrs. Hutchins for a moment, until she spoke so quietly he almost didn’t hear her.

  “Four years,” she said. “It seemed like a long time.”

  Evan had nothing to say to that.

  Forty-five minutes later, the frightened but also excited Girl Scouts had been questioned and dispersed. All of them verified that Sheriff Hutchins had left after midnight and that his wife had been in the same room with them until they’d gone to bed around 4am. Evan wasn’t especially surprised; she might have had something to do with her husband’s murder, but Evan didn’t think she was the type to do it herself.

  A friend of Mrs. Hutchins had come to sit with her while she called her son-in-law, and Evan had gotten permission to take a look at her husband’s study. When he opened the door to the small room next to the front door, he’d found pretty much what he’d expected: a slightly outdated, masculine study, furnished with an inexpensive desk, a worn leather office chair with brown duct tape on the headrest, and an older desktop computer.

  The paneled walls were decorated with various family pictures, a few law enforcement related photo-ops and certificates, and a good many pictures of Hutchins and other men on an older sport-fishing boat. It looked like it might be a late 80s, early 90s model, about a 25-footer. Evan wasn’t sure of the make, but it looked like it got good use.

  Evan sat down in the desk chair, which was permanently indented in the seat and emitted a good number of squeaks and groans. Once he was sure it wasn’t going to fall apart, Evan relaxed and surveyed the Sheriff’s desk.

  One of those two-picture picture frames, with a shot of his wife from maybe ten years ago, and one of his daughter in what looked like a prom dress. A beaten-up Florida Gators travel mug full of pens and pencils. A small stack of mail that turned out to be current bills. Nothing attention-grabbing, just a few utility bills and one credit card statement in Hutchins’ name.

  Evan looked it over. It looked like Hutchins mainly used the card for gas and eating out. No large expenditures, nothing that looked hinky, like a hotel room or a stop at Victoria’s Secret. That exhausted the desktop’s supply of information, and Evan moved on to the drawers. The shallow drawers turned up more pens and pencils, an assortment of rubber bands, paper clips and business cards, and a broken pocket knife. The one deep drawer contained several hanging file folders.

  A quick look showed that they were a fairly well-organized collection of paid bills, car titles, past income tax returns and various insurance policies. That folder caught Evan’s interest, but only for a moment. The life insurance was a modest policy, not nearly enough to be considered motive. There was also auto insurance on Hutchins’ truck and an ’02 Caravan that was parked out in the carport. Whatever else the Hutchinses did, they didn’t seem to blow money. A file full of neatly folded bank statements from that year and the prior one might shed more light on their financial picture. Evan pulled it and set it on the desk before turning on the computer.

  There was no password requested, and Evan took a look around Hutchins’ computer files. There wasn’t a whole lot there that he found interesting. Mainly more family and fishing pictures, as well as a few Sheriff’s Office gatherings. A pass through the Sheriff’s browser history turned up several days’ history with no gaps that would indicate that anything had been trashed. The history showed that Hutchins had checked his personal email almost daily, that he piddled around Facebook now and then, and that he liked to check the weather, the fishing forecasts, and the news. No porn, no chat rooms, no quickie divorce sites. Hutchins’ email wasn’t any more interesting, consisting mainly of ads, various newsletters, and a few law enforcement groups.

  Evan was frustrated by the fact that no smoking gun presented itself, although he hadn’t really counted on one. He shut off the computer, grabbed the folder full of bank statements, and walked out to the den, where Mrs. Hutchins sat on a plaid loveseat, blankly watching her friend carry a small trash bag around, tossing in candy wrappers and empty soda cans.

  “Mrs. Hutchins?” Evan asked quietly f
rom the doorway. It took her a moment to look up, then another moment for some expression of recognition. Her friend stopped picking up the trash for a moment, then went back to it, as though to show she wasn’t paying too much attention to anything she shouldn’t pay attention to.

  Evan held up the file folder. “I’d like to take these bank statements back to the office to have a closer look at them. I’ll make sure they’re returned to you in a day or so.”

  Evan watched her work that out in her head for a moment, her eyes squinting just a bit. “You think my husband was taking money from someone?” she asked, a hint of anger in her voice.

  “No, ma’am, that’s not my reasoning,” Evan answered gently. “I’d just like to make sure I’ve covered as many bases as possible, that I have a full picture of the last few months.”

  Mrs. Hutchins swallowed and her shoulders relaxed after a moment. “I guess,” she said noncommittally.

  “Thank you,” Evan said. “I’ll leave you alone now, unless you have any questions or you need anything from me.”

  “No,” she answered, and went back to watching her friend, who had moved on to wiping off the coffee table.

  “I’ll let myself out then,” Evan said. “If I can do anything for you, please call. I left my card on the kitchen table.”

  She didn’t answer. Evan walked down the dim hall and stepped outside. A cruiser sat on the street in front of the house. A young deputy Evan knew only by sight was sitting in the driver’s seat. The cruiser was just a precaution, and perhaps a small sign of support.

  Evan started toward his Pilot, then cut diagonally across the front yard and walked over to the short dock. He saw that the creek was a decent-sized one. Several other docks floated behind several other yards.

  The cuddy Evan had seen in the pictures wasn’t there, but since it appeared to be used mainly for inshore fishing, it made sense to keep it at a marina in Port St. Joe. There was a small aluminum bass boat tied up. It looked like it got a lot of use, too. It was definitely better suited to the creeks and rivers. Evan wondered if Hutchins had fished the Dead Lakes much, and the thought made him feel a little morbid.

  He lit a cigarette on his way back to his car, sucking gratefully on his first smoke since he’d gotten there. Then he tossed the file folder onto his front seat, and waved to the deputy as he pulled out of the driveway and headed back to town.

  His cell rang a couple of minutes later. He glanced at the screen and saw that it was his friend and former boss at the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Wyatt Hamilton. Wyatt had moved to Apalachicola, just down the road, a decade ago, to become the Franklin County Sheriff. He had recently resigned that position because he was in love with one of his investigators. Evan picked up the phone and connected the call.

  “Hey, Wyatt,” he said.

  “Hey,” Wyatt replied. “What the hell’s going on over there?”

  “It’s a situation to be sure.”

  “Are you running the investigation?”

  “Yeah,” Evan answered. “A month on the job and now I’m working my boss’s murder.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Not much.” Evan slowed for a coon that was apparently getting home late from a party. “One shot to the back of the head. No weapon, not even the Sheriff’s service weapon. No idea of a motive yet. But he was a cop, so…”

  “What the hell was he doing out in the Dead Lakes in the middle of the night?”

  “I don’t know that, either.”

  “Hinky,” Wyatt said simply.

  “Hinky,” Evan agreed. “How well did you know Hutchins?”

  Wyatt sighed. Evan could hear gulls in the background, and he wished he was wherever Wyatt was. Closer to the water at the least.

  “I didn’t really know him that well,” Wyatt answered. “We had contact here and there, on cases that crossed the county lines, but we weren’t friends.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Seemed like a nice enough guy,” Wyatt answered. “He’s been re-elected about a hundred times.”

  “Yeah,” Evan said distractedly. He lit another cigarette and took a long drag.

  “This is some kinda crap for an outsider to have thrown on him,” Wyatt said.

  Wyatt had been an outsider in Franklin County, too, but Wyatt was much more likable than he was, Evan thought. They’d loved him almost instantly over there. And his former boss wasn’t murdered.

  “Yeah,” Evan said again.

  “Let me know if there’s something I can do,” Wyatt said. “Even if you just need to run over here and have a few beers.”

  “I will,” Evan said. He would.

  Wyatt waited a few beats before speaking again. “How’s Hannah?”

  Evan let a lungful of smoke out slowly. “The same.” He spoke again before Wyatt could ask questions he didn’t want to answer. “How are things with you?”

  “Good. Maggie and I are getting married.”

  “I figured. I think that’s great, man.”

  “Thanks.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was quieter. “We want you to come, but…I don’t want it to be painful.”

  “It won’t be,” Evan said. “It’s fine. Really. I wouldn’t miss it.”

  He could hear Wyatt thinking, but when his friend spoke again, he changed the subject. “Okay, well, I’ve got to talk to some reporter about the state of the seafood industry or some crap. Unless they stand me up. You’re much bigger news.”

  Evan winced at the thought of having to deal with the press. “Unfortunately. Listen, thanks for calling, Wyatt. I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “All right. Keep me posted, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  Evan disconnected the call and stared out at the narrow road, hemmed in on both sides by the meticulously uniform pines.

  He was glad his friend had called, but that momentary reminder of his former life left Evan feeling acutely isolated. Wyatt was thirty miles or so down Hwy 98, but he, and everything else Evan used to call normal, could have been on the other side of the world.

  He also felt a heaviness in his chest when he thought about how Wyatt had given up his twenty-plus year career for his lady, Maggie. Evan hadn’t even used any of his vacation time for Hannah. A four day weekend to cruise over to the Bahamas was all he could spare. When he’d left Brevard County Sheriffs, he’d still had twenty-three days of unused vacation. He’d taken the money.

  SIX

  THE GULF COUNTY Sheriff’s Office was located on FL 71 or Cecil G. Costen, Sr. Blvd, just east of the small downtown section of Port St. Joe.

  People generally referred to Port St. Joe as quaint, but there was nothing quaint about the Sheriff’s Office. It was sandwiched between and behind the public library and the courthouse, and both of those buildings were significantly larger, though they all shared the same tan stucco blandness that plagued many Florida government buildings.

  Evan pulled into an open parking space in the small lot designated as belonging to the SO, and headed inside. The sky had started to cloud up just a bit, but the air was still hot and thick. The atmosphere inside the office wasn’t much different. A fog of grief and confusion seemed to hover just under the fluorescent lights, and the place was quieter, the people more subdued than usual. Janie Pruitt, the young female deputy who manned the front desk, just blinked at him as he nodded in passing, and Evan could see that her eyes were rimmed in red.

  A couple of other deputies either nodded or lifted a hand as he made his way down the east hall to the Sheriff’s office, his shoes soundless on the utilitarian brown carpet. The office of his former supervisor was at the end of the hall, a few doors beyond his own, smaller quarters.

  Vi Hartigan’s desk was in the outer portion of the two-room office, and Vi herself was seated in her usual station. Vi was somewhere in her sixties, Evan guessed, with short reddish hair that had the substance of down, and a pair of rhinestone glasses that were always either perched at the
end of her beaklike nose or hanging from a matching chain.

  Vi looked up as Evan walked through the open door. Her eyes were not red, though they looked weary.

  “Lt. Caldwell,” she said in that deep, scratchy voice that always seemed to drop downward in tone, like a frown. “You’ve arrived.”

  “Yes,” he said, though he didn’t see any need to confirm her statement of the obvious. He stopped just in front of her desk, which was neat, but adorned with several framed photos of dogs, a single-cup electric teapot, and a tissue box covered in various shells.

  “Did you get my voice mail?” she asked him, her blue eyes gazing at him over her bifocals.

  “Yes,” he answered. “Who is it that wants to see me?”

  “James Quillen,” she answered.

  “Who is James Quillen?” he asked. “And who am I supposed to report to on this? I’m afraid I’m unsure about the procedure at this point.”

  “James Quillen is the head of the County Commissioners,” Vi answered gravely. “And he can probably answer that question for you better than I.”

  “Okay,” Evan answered. “When will he be here?”

  “He’s here now, in Sheriff Hutchins’ office,” she said. Her voice went dry and hoarse as she said their boss’s name.

  “Vi, I’m very sorry about Sheriff Hutchins,” Evan said quietly.

  “As are we all,” she answered, sitting up taller, as though a straight spine would ease her obvious pain. “The Sheriff hired you because he admired your reputation, Lieutenant. Please see to it that you repay him by bringing him justice.”

  “I’ll do my best,” he said.

  “Is your best very good?”

  “Yes,” he answered quietly. “So it seems.”

  She nodded curtly, the chain of her glasses rattling against large green dreamcatcher earrings. “Then I expect you to do it.”

  Evan nodded back at her, then stood there, unsure of his next move. “What’s this guy like?”

  “Lt. Caldwell,” she sighed, like a patient kindergarten teacher. “I am merely the assistant to the Sheriff and his liaison with his staff and constituents. It is not my purview to tell you that James Quillen is a pointless sycophant. You will need to divine that on your own. Now, he’s waiting for you, so please go speak with him.”