Dead Center (The Still Waters Suspense Series Book 2)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  He answered as he picked up his basket. “Caldwell,” he said.

  “This is Vi,” Vi said, as she always did. Her voice reminded him of Bette Davis. Old Bette, without the fake accent.

  “Hello, Vi.”

  “There’s a body in the park over off of 16th Street,” she intoned, sounding like she was reprimanding him for leaving his dead people lying around.

  “What park?” he asked her, getting into the express line. He’d only been there a few months, and as small as Port St. Joe was, he wasn’t quite an expert on local geography yet.

  “It’s just south of the office,” Vi answered. “I’ll text you the address for your GPS.”

  “Okay. Who’s on scene?”

  “Sgt. Goff and Deputy Crenshaw. Crime Scene is on the way and there are more officers en route.”

  “So, it’s a homicide then?” Evan smiled at the teenaged girl who was the cashier. She looked disconcerted.

  “That would appear to be the case,” Vi said.

  “Okay, do me a favor; tell Goff I’ll be there in five.”

  “Thank you,” Vi said, and hung up.

  Evan paid for his purchases and carried both bags in one hand as he exited the store. He stopped just a few yards outside the door, pulled his cigarettes from his other pants pocket and lit one.

  He sucked in a lungful, then exhaled slowly into the chilly, damp air. He’d intended to try to take the day off, but he had to admit that he was relieved he had something more definite to do. He caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of his vehicle and really wished he could justify going home to put on one of his suits. Instead, he tossed his bags in the back seat, then tucked his blue chambray shirt into his tan cargo pants. That would have to do.

  TWO

  EVAN PULLED OUT of the Pig’s lot, heading east on Marina Drive, then hooked a right onto Monument Avenue. Out the passenger side window, the Gulf sparkled in the dazzling morning sun, reflecting back, in deeper hues, the blue of the cloudless sky.

  The salt water called to him, as it always did, but he wouldn’t be able to take that call today. He had not, in fact, been out on the Gulf in almost a month. He’d been telling himself he was too busy to take the boat out. His life had been turned inside out in recent months. He’d moved across the state from bustling Brevard County, his wife was in a long-term nursing facility, his new, or former new, boss was dead, and he’d been shoved into the role of acting Sheriff.

  The pressures of the new job, the care of his wife, his sense of displacement in his new home, and the fallout from his former boss’s suicide all colluded to fill every waking moment with tasks and calls and visits and a sense of perpetual incompletion.

  The demanding workload of his personal life and his professional responsibilities provided a reasonable excuse for his absence from the water, the one place he always felt at home. Evan knew if he kept telling himself he hadn’t taken the boat out because he just didn’t have time, eventually he would accept that answer. He also knew he’d never really believe it. The true reason was deeper, a profound sense of failure, a sense that he didn’t deserve the peace that a day, or even a few hours, on the water would grant him.

  Sheriff Randy Hutchens had been loved and well respected by all residents of Gulf County, with a few notable exceptions. He had been heavily involved in the schools, especially the high school football program. His sudden death had devastated the community and had thrust Evan into the unenviable position of replacing him. All that had been bad enough, but as the circumstances of Hutch’s death surfaced, things took a turn for the terrible.

  Hutch had been the type of man that some local author would probably write a book about. Not that anyone outside Gulf County would actually read that book, but his constituents thought of him as a significant part of their history. At least, they had before it came to light that he had been a long-time wife beater. Before it came to light that he had coerced a slow, but inherently sweet, petty criminal to shoot him in the back of the head so that he could portray his suicide as a death in the line of duty.

  Now, that petty criminal, Tommy Morrow, was facing a choice between life in prison or life in prison awaiting the electric chair. Hutch’s widow, Marlene, who vehemently denied that her husband ever raised a hand to her, had at first gone on the offensive against the Sheriff’s Office, and Evan in particular, telling anyone who would listen that the wife-beater/suicide story was a cover-up concocted to hide … something. She never quite stated what it was she believed was being covered up. Eventually, she realized what everybody else had known from her first statements, that her angry rants were part of her grieving process and that nobody believed her conspiracy theory.

  A few days after Hutch was laid to rest, Marlene disappeared without a word to anyone. Evan learned that she had moved to Pensacola to stay with her daughter and son-in-law. The Sheriff’s Office was unable to pay the line of duty death benefit, and she had been left with the moderate life insurance payout. Evan had wanted to do something for her, a community benefit or even just passing the hat among Sheriff’s Department Employees, but Vi had advised against it.

  She left town because she was angry and embarrassed. You send her anything other than prayers and she’s going to be even more angry and even more embarrassed, Vi had told him. Evan was not responsible for any of the drama or tragedy that these people had experienced, but he had been the one to discover it. To some of the people in the Gulf County Sheriff’s Office, and to some of Gulf County’s residents, Evan was now the face of their sorrow and confusion.

  He wondered, as he navigated the light traffic on Monument, as he had been wondering for the past two months, whether he had done the right thing. He wondered if there was anything else he could have done. In difficult situations, the easy choice and the right choice never seem to be the same choice.

  An idea had come to Evan in the wake of his wife’s accident, one he now considered a truth, the idea that pain and fear are not the enemy. Pain and fear define the human condition, and to live a life without at least a passing acquaintance with either is to be less than human. Flinch forward, some grizzled veteran officer had told him once, years ago when Evan was a rookie. These macho guys try to train themselves not to flinch, that’s stupid. God gave you that reflex to keep you alive. Something scares you, lean into it, not away. Flinch forward. As soon as you retreat from fear or hurt, they gotcha. Might as well pull up your traps and call it a day.

  Evan looked right again, toward the gleam of the sun on the water. He’d spent all of his forty years on the Atlantic, but if it was salt water, he was drawn to it. Overhead, a squadron of pelicans patrolled the coastline in close formation.

  The image Hutch had constructed for himself and his personal beliefs were at odds with his own truth. The picture he had painted of his life was a lie, but it was a lie far too valuable to destroy. If Hutch had ever decided to become the man he wanted to believe he was, he would have had to admit to himself how far out of sync with that ideal his life had drifted. And that admission was either too painful, or too frightening. A bullet in the head, and whatever waited for him after, had seemed easier.

  Evan felt that familiar hollow wanting to open up in the pit of his gut, that sensation telling him he was treading too close to his own terrifying truths. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with salt air and smoke.

  Lean into it, he thought.

  A horn blared behind him. He shot a glance at his rearview. A large, white vehicle loomed there, briefly, before shooting into the oncoming lane of traffic. Tires squealed on asphalt. As it blew past him, Evan recognized the Medical Examiner’s van. Dr. Mitch Grundy, the M.E. himself, liked to drink. More often than not, he sent interns out to do his job.

  Evan pulled the cigarette out of his mouth. It was almost down to a nub, anyway. Just as he decided to snub it in his ashtray, but before he actually did, the M.E.’s van swerved back over into his lane, narrowly avoiding a head-on with an oncoming minivan. Evan grabbed the w
heel with both hands and stomped on the brake pedal. The cigarette vanished. The van missed Evan’s front bumper by inches, then rocketed down the road, hooking a left on 16th.

  Evan followed the van. Five blocks up the road, he arrived at Forest Park South, also known as Buck Griffin Lake. An acrid smell tickled his nostrils. He scanned the floorboards but didn’t see the cigarette. Then, a thin tendril of smoke caught his eye. He followed it to its source to find the cigarette, now finally extinguished, resting on the toe of his left shoe. His favorite deck shoes. It had burned a tear-shaped black blister in the brown leather. He cursed softly as he rolled through the lot to where Grundy had parked.

  The Medical Examiner’s van slanted across three spaces, slightly lopsided because its right front tire was up on the curb. Evan expected to see Mitch Grundy stumble out the door and pretend to be sober. It would be nice to finally have a face to put with the name. He thought about calling Trigg to ask her to grab a cup of black coffee on her way in but decided against it. He figured he was more likely to throw it in the doctor’s face than let him drink it.

  He needed to remain calm. Grundy was a poor excuse for an M.E. – a poor excuse for a man, as far as Evan was concerned – but if you need to pound nails and all you have is a rock, well, you use a rock. Evan didn’t guess he’d do his job any better with a broken nose.

  He pulled into a parking space, just one, next to the van and got out. The van’s door swung open, and Evan was surprised to see not Dr. Grundy, but one of his interns, Danny Coyle, hop out. He was a tall, lanky kid in his mid-twenties, and Evan thought him an odd blend of geek and hipster, with his slightly shaggy black hair and his black-rimmed glasses.

  Danny had the metabolism of a nervous squirrel, though perhaps not the attention span. But his enthusiasm for his work and his surprising competence had earned him more respect than a kid his age typically acquired. Evan was still chapped that Grundy had sent an intern to do his work for him, but he was also relieved.

  “You nearly put me in the ditch back there, Coyle,” Evan said. He couldn’t quite muster the anger he had just been trying to suppress.

  “Oh, sorry Sheriff, I didn’t realize that was you, right?” Danny said, so quickly that it almost sounded like a single syllable. “I just didn’t want to be the last one on scene again. You guys gave me hell about it last time.”

  Evan pursed his lips and nodded. “I assume Dr. Grundy had pressing business elsewhere?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s otherwise occupied,” Coyle said earnestly. “Besides, it’s Saturday. Bosses don’t show up on Saturdays.”

  “I’m here,” Evan said, lighting a new cigarette.

  “Well, yeah, but you’re always here. Or there, as the case may be, right?” Coyle said, pulling a black plastic case and a large duffle from the van.

  Evan cocked his head as he waited for his hearing to catch up with Danny’s speaking.

  “You know, I’ve heard some people around here think you work too much.”

  “And these people,” Evan asked, “they have all of their affairs in order to the point that they have time to worry about mine?”

  He started walking briskly toward the gathering crowd of deputies. The kid grabbed a huge vat of a travel mug from his console before slamming the door and running to catch up.

  Evan eyed the dark purple liquid sloshing around in Danny’s hand. He pointed at the tumbler. “So, what is it this morning?

  “Oh, this is probably my most mind-blowing combo to date,” Danny said at the speed of light. “Beets, celery, cucumber, kale, lemon, and ginger.” He held it out to Evan. “Try a sip. It’ll jerk you right out of your shoes, right?”

  Evan smiled but shook his head. He considered himself a nutrition snob, despite his smoking, but he preferred to chew his food. “I don’t doubt your claim, but maybe some other time.”

  “I really encourage you to start juicing, Sheriff,” Danny said as they approached the crime scene. “It’s like freebasing all those vitamins and phytonutrients. You’ll never drink coffee again.”

  That thought made Evan want to weep. “I’m sure it’s great,” he said anyway. “But I live on a boat. I don’t even have room for an electric can opener.”

  “Ah,” Danny said, nodding and frowning like Evan was being oppressed. “Bothersome.”

  THREE

  GOFF AND CRENSHAW HAD hung yellow tape from the bridge, around the trees, and down to the embankment. Several bright yellow plastic triangles, numbered in black, perched in the grass around the trees, and closer to the bridge. These marked where evidence was or had been. It looked to Evan like these were marking several areas of blood spatter and pooling.

  Crenshaw stood with several other deputies in a loose huddle. Evan slipped under the crime scene tape and went to stand near the group of officers.

  “Hey, boss,” Crenshaw said.

  “Crenshaw,” Evan said, nodding to include everyone. “Gentlemen.”

  From where he now stood, he could see Goff down on the embankment, talking to Paula Trigg, Gulf County’s crime scene investigator. Trigg had put up a white plastic screen that surrounded the body on three sides, but that wasn’t deterring the looky-loos much. Across the lake, in the street that ran along the other length of the park, several people pointed their phones at the scene. He looked over at a thick-necked, blond deputy named Holland. “Let’s see if we can keep this from turning into a sideshow,” he said, nodding at the crowd.

  At one time, the media was Evan’s only concern when it came to information or images being made public that shouldn’t have been. Now, anyone with a cell phone was a potential problem. Evan had no time or taste for social media; he only had a Facebook page because his more social, event-planner wife had created one. The only posts on it were the ones she had shared, and those had stopped over a year ago.

  Holland eyed him coolly. He was one of a handful of deputies who hadn’t yet warmed up to Evan. He opened his mouth, closed it, then turned to the two guys next to him. “You heard the man. Crenshaw, you got more of that tape?”

  Crenshaw did. He and the other officers left to send the onlookers back to their homes and expand the perimeter to include the streets that bordered the park.

  “Can I go on down?” Danny asked. Evan had forgotten he was standing next to him.

  “No, it looks like Trigg is still taking pictures,” Evan answered. “Give me a minute. Why don’t you go keep warm in the van? I’ll call you when we’re ready.”

  The kid looked like he’d just been told he couldn’t go out to play. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and turned to head back the way they’d come.

  Evan made his way down the embankment, stepping wide of any evidence markers. Goff and Trigg turned to him and waited. Paula Trigg was a local who’d gone to Miami for college and stayed for another fifteen years to work with Miami-Dade PD. She didn’t talk about her time in Miami too much, but Evan knew that she and her K-9 partner had been ambushed by three Columbians who did dirty work for a local dealer. Trigg and her partner, Eddie, had both been shot, the dog losing a leg. The Columbians didn’t make it. Ernie had gotten one, and Paula had shot the other two. Once they’d both recovered, Trigg had been allowed to adopt the dog, and they’d both moved back to Gulf County.

  Trigg was striking more than she was pretty, with dark hair cut in a severe bob and sharp, high cheekbones that hinted at a Native American branch to the family tree. Their shared love of Cuban food and café con leche was as personal as they got, but she was whip-smart and occasionally funny and Evan liked her.

  “Got a call about a gator attack,” Goff said as Evan approached.

  “It was a gator?” Evan asked.

  “Not unless it was a gator with thumbs,” Paula said.

  “The gal that called it in just saw a bunch of blood and a body by the water and assumed gator,” Goff said. “She’s from New York City.”

  “What do we know so far?” Evan asked, looking down at the body.

  “Not a heap,” Goff
answered. “No ID in his back pocket and we haven’t moved him yet. Trigg just finished her first pictures of him. We were getting ready to turn him over. But looks like white male, late thirties to early forties. Tracksuit, watch, and a wedding ring.”

  “Judging by the blood pool underneath the body, we can assume our COD is in the front,” Trigg said.

  “Lot of blood up there,” Evan said. “So, I’m guessing whatever happened to this guy happened up near the path.”

  “Right. Also, given the flattened grass coming down this way, and the fairly even, intermittent bloodstains, I’m guessing he rolled down here,” Trigg stated. “Whether he was pushed down or just fell and rolled on his own, I don’t know.”

  “You ready to turn him over?” Evan asked.

  “Yeah,” Trigg answered, handing him her camera. “Goff, can you give me a hand?”

  Goff and Trigg squatted on either side of the body and slowly rolled him onto his back. The victim’s limbs flopped loosely as they turned him. The guy hadn’t been dead long.

  “Hellfire,” Goff said quietly. “Somebody did a number on him.”

  Someone had. The entire front of the man’s jacket was a chaos of blood and fissure. The holes and tears seemed to be concentrated on his right side, just under his breast.

  Trigg held her hand out for her camera, and after handing it to her, Evan reached into his pocket for the blue disposable gloves he’d grabbed from his glove compartment. Trigg and Goff were already gloved up. Evan’s pack of Marlboros fell out of his pocket, and Trigg glanced over as he bent to retrieve it.

  “I beg of you, don’t light up anywhere around me today,” Trigg said. “I quit smoking.”

  “When?” Evan asked, pulling on his gloves.

  “Eleven hours ago, if you count eight hours of sleeping.” Trigg started taking pictures of the body.

  “I quit for six years. The first five days are like crawling through Hell on your hands and knees, but it gets easier after that,” Evan said.