Dead Center (The Still Waters Suspense Series Book 2)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

“Oh, sure. Based on the angles of trajectory, bruising around the wounds, and depth, I’d say you’re definitely looking at a man, right-handed, and Bellamy’s height or just a bit taller. And not a nice person by anyone’s definition.”

  “Any idea how long this struggle took?”

  Danny looked down at Bellamy’s chest and sighed. “No more than a minute, maybe two. His heart had already stopped beating by the time the guy rolled him down the embankment.”

  Evan thought this might explain why no one heard any cries for help. Bellamy’s focus would have been on fighting off the rapid-fire attacks of the knife, and he’d have been dead before he had a moment to think.

  Danny started bouncing on the balls of his feet, his head bobbing along just a bit. “Love the Buggles, right?”

  Evan shook his head. “What year were you born?”

  “Oh, ninety-one, right? But the eighties were it for music.”

  “You’re older than you look,” Evan said.

  “Yeah, said every bartender I ever met,” Danny said, still once more. He looked down at Bellamy, somewhat wistfully. “The music helps, right?” He looked back up at Evan. “I mean, you do what you need to do. You make a few jokes, you avoid looking at the faces, and you keep your music on.” He pulled the sheet back up over Bellamy’s body. “Otherwise, the world gets really scary and you develop phobias about all the ways you don’t want to die, right?”

  If Evan had been the hugging type, he might have hugged Danny then. “I use music a lot, too, Danny. And running. You might try running. It works for me.”

  The kid perked up again. “Oh, no, because you know those lizards that run on water? Yeah, that’s me, so no.” He blinked at Evan, his long, dark lashes almost making a thumping noise against his cheeks. “When it gets really bad, I go home and watch Charlie Brown’s Christmas, and think about a time when a kid’s world was that quiet and gentle, you know?”

  Evan wasn’t unkind enough to tell Danny it had never been like that, at least not in any world he’d inhabited. “Okay, listen, email me the full report, okay?”

  “I’ll make sure Grundy gets it to you,” Danny said, snapping off his gloves. “I don’t have access to email those reports. Just an intern, remember.”

  Evan watched him, unsure how to take his answer.

  “Hey, I promise. You’ll have it by end of day,” Danny assured him.

  “Okay, Danny, I believe you,” Evan said. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Danny held up a hand in farewell and started back over to the old lady. Evan headed for the door. He was opening the door when he heard Danny.

  “Oh, right! Billy Idol.”

  Evan turned around. The kid had his back to him and was bopping and jerking and singing along to “Dancing with Myself.” Evan let the door swing shut behind him and wondered if it was too early for a cocktail.

  The day was so bright outside that Evan felt like he’d just entered another universe. It was jarring to go from staring at a violently dead body to looking at people window shopping and laughing on their phones. When Evan stopped for a red light in front of a big pet supply store, that seemed like as good a buffer as any, and he waited until his way was clear, changed lanes, and pulled into the parking lot.

  He’d never had occasion to visit such a store, and he was amazed that a building about the size of a Home Depot could sell nothing but pet-related merchandise. How much stuff could a dog, cat, or guinea pig need?

  He wandered down the center of the store, his head swerving left then right and back again as he read the signs over the aisles. One entire aisle was devoted to cat food, and he guessed that figured. The next aisle looked promisingly feline-oriented, and he slowly made his way along the shelves, squinting at objects that he didn’t know existed or didn’t recognize at all.

  About halfway down the aisle, he picked up an object with a suction cup at one end, something that might be a furry shrimp at the other, and a springy stick in between. He was puzzling out its purpose when a young guy with shaggy blond hair and an optimistic sprinkling of mustache appeared beside him.

  “Hi, welcome to Pet Warehouse,” the kid said. “Can I help you with anything?”

  Evan held up the stick with the furry shrimp, which bounced in front of the guy’s face, “Yeah, what’s this?”

  “Oh, it’s a toy. Very popular,” the guy said with a huge, white smile. “Helps deter your cat from scratching the furniture, too.”

  That was one violation that Plutes hadn’t visited upon Evan. “I see.” He looked down toward the end of the aisle. “Do you have any, uh, what would you call them…harnesses? You know, a harness for a cat?”

  “For a cat?” The guy frowned. “Well, not per se. We have several that will fit a small dog, but cats aren’t usually too enthusiastic about going out for walks.”

  “No, this is for something else,” Evan said.

  “Okay, well, they’re over here by the leashes,” the guy said.

  Evan followed him out of the aisle, bringing the furry shrimp thing with him. Two aisles down, the guy veered into an aisle with more leashes and collars and other apparatus than Evan thought was necessary.

  “Here you go,” the guy said, gesturing at a section of harnesses that varied in appearance from thongs to straightjackets. “How big is your kitty?”

  Evan frowned, then spread his hands. “About so. He weighed twenty pounds at the vet.”

  “That’s a big-un,” the guy said, then pointed at a row near the floor. “These should be a good fit,” he said.

  Evan bent down and pulled one from its hook. His last foster father had worn something like it for his hernia.

  “That’s a nice one,” the sales guy said. “Nice padding, for comfort. Do you need a leash?”

  Evan nodded, and the guy grabbed one obviously designed to go with that halter.

  Evan turned the halter over in his hand. “Do you have anything…I was thinking it would have a little more hardware.”

  “What kind of hardware?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe I could add some. Maybe sew in some D-rings or something.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m thinking maybe bungee cords,” Evan said, frowning at the harness. The guy didn’t answer, and kind of a long moment went by, so Evan looked up to see if the guy was still there. He was.

  “Uh, for what, exactly?” he asked.

  Evan realized he was thinking out loud too much, perhaps. “Well, to secure to my boat.” He said quietly.

  The guy blinked at him a few times.

  “Hey, you’re the sheriff, aren’t you?” he asked finally.

  There was no best answer to this question, in this particular instance.

  “I’ll take this one. The leash and the furry shrimp thing, too.”

  TEN

  TUESDAY AFTERNOON WAS somewhat cloudy, but pleasantly mild, with a nice bit of wind to it. Evan had been cooped up in the office since just after sunrise, and he’d been relieved to get outside, where there always seemed to be more oxygen.

  He and Goff had spent all morning talking to people with minor connections to or relationships with Bellamy and poring over his laptop and his financial records one more time. The laptop yielded very little. Downloaded copies of digital credit card statements, the last two years’ tax returns, a lot of family photos, but no weird or threatening emails. Bellamy was barely active on Facebook and Instagram—his wife posted most of the statuses and just tagged him.

  The pictures from their holiday vacation at Disney pissed Evan off. He was having a hard time finding some way that Bellamy had brought his demise upon himself, and the more he learned about him, the less optimistic he was that they’d find some reason that Bellamy had, if not deserved his murder, at least participated in the reason behind it. The idea that this had been some random, unprovoked thing would not only be depressing, it would also make the murderer harder to find.

  Evan sat at the red light at Cecil B. Costen and Hwy 98, which would
eventually become the main drag of Monument Avenue. Across the street, the bay sparkled at him, looking much more inviting than the lunch appointment to which he was dragging his feet. Along the bay was a park that Evan sometimes visited for free concerts in the salty humidity of summer evenings.

  Evan turned right onto Hwy 98 and made his way to the very hip and beachy downtown area. It was comprised of several side streets housing small buildings from the thirties and upward, many of them with sharp new awnings, lots of potted flowers, and outdoor tables. The downtown area was a nice mix of restaurants, bars, antique places, and boutiques, and it reminded Evan a bit of downtown Cocoa. He liked it but often forgot to spend any time there.

  He made a right on Second, then another on Reid, and pulled into a spot fairly close to the door of Provisions, a popular spot for happy hour, seafood and burgers. Evan had never been, but when James Quillen had suggested lunch at Dockside, Evan had countered with the first place that came to mind. He didn’t like the idea of eating with the head of the county commissioners, his de facto boss, just yards from his own home. It might have been different if he liked Quillen, but he didn’t.

  Even with the brightness of the day muted somewhat by clouds, the interior of Provisions was an adjustment. It was full of dark wood and dim lighting. The place was crowded and a bit noisy, and it took a moment for him to see Quillen holding a hand up just to the right of the door. There were three booths there, and Quillen had commandeered the back one.

  The man was all hale and hearty smiles, but he didn’t bother to stand to greet Evan, just poked out a hand. Quillen was somewhere in his fifties, with dark hair barbered even more neatly than Evan’s, and a salt and pepper beard that was so short it looked like makeup. His bright green eyes were the color of algae and no doubt enhanced by contacts.

  Evan shook the man’s hand and took a seat across from him. He noticed that Quillen already had a tall glass of iced tea in front of him.

  “How are you, Evan?” Quillen asked.

  “I’m fine, sir, thank you,” Evan asked as he caught a server’s eye. “And you?”

  “Well, I’ll be a whole lot happier when we’ve caught whoever’s responsible for this…uh, incident.”

  “Won’t we all?” Evan asked.

  The server, a young guy with a bleached blond streak in his hair, approached the table, and Evan asked for his own sweet tea. Quillen advised he was on a tight schedule, so they went ahead and ordered. Evan got a small portion of the St. Joe Bouillabaisse. Quillen ordered a French Dip. Once Evan had his tea, Quillen leaned in for serious business.

  “We need to be very proactive about this thing,” he said, his voice lowered.

  Evan felt that directing most of the SO’s resources at investigating the case was pretty proactive. “How so?” he asked anyway.

  “We can’t let the press go off willy-nilly, making it sound worse than it is,” Quillen answered.

  “It would be a little difficult to make it sound better than it is,” Evan said, trying not to sound irritated.

  Quillen had foisted the sheriff’s position onto Evan, no doubt because he thought this would make Evan his gofer. It was true, as Quillen had pointed out, that Evan needed the health insurance and the paycheck, but Evan had no desire to be the sheriff, now or in a year and a half when elections rolled around.

  “You know what I’m saying,” Quillen said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “We can’t have the public thinking that someone’s just going around stabbing people. No doubt, this guy, God rest him, probably got into something he shouldn’t have or did something he shouldn’t have to the wrong person.”

  “If he did, it’s not immediately evident,” Evan said. “So far, he’s looking like an upstanding guy.”

  Quillen waved that thought away. “After the public debacle that Hutch put us through, we need the voters to know that we are on top of this, and every other crime in Gulf County.”

  “We are.”

  “But we need to look like it,” Quillen said, which made little sense to Evan.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll make sure we look busier than we already are whenever the cameras are around.”

  He saw Quillen’s nostrils flare just a bit. They were in an interesting position. Quillen was already figuring out that Evan wasn’t going to be the lackey he was hoping for, but he’d look bad if he canned the guy that he himself had pushed for to take on the role of interim sheriff.

  Evan had no doubt that Quillen had selfish reasons for putting him where he did, and he was also sure that Quillen had been trying to come up with some fresh ideas for making Evan more agreeable since a lack of ambition on Evan’s part wasn’t very useful. Evan wished him well, but he was never going to be Quillen’s girlfriend.

  The server came back with their food, and both men sat back and waited for him to leave.

  “Where are we at with this situation, anyway?” Quillen asked after they were alone again.

  “It’s very early on,” Evan answered. “But we have an entire team dedicated to the case, and it’s our first priority.”

  “When do you think you’ll make an arrest?”

  Evan winced. Not only did it sound like a line from some TV cop show, but it was a stupid question. “I have no way of knowing that, Mr. Quillen.”

  Quillen tucked a corner of his sandwich into the dish of au jus, then let it drip a moment before taking a bite. He got a couple drops of beef juice on his lapel anyway, which made Evan curiously happy.

  “Well, I need you to keep me abreast of everything that’s going on,” Quillen said, just before he was actually finished chewing. “I—we—want daily updates until this situation is resolved.”

  “I’ll have Vi Hartigan send you daily reports,” Evan said.

  Quillen ate another hunk of his sandwich before setting it down and wiping his hands. “How’s your poor wife doing?” he asked.

  Quillen couldn’t care less about Hannah, and Evan wondered if he was just trying to remind Evan of how much he needed his job.

  “Her condition hasn’t changed,” Evan said to his soup. He didn’t trust his ability to hide his distaste.

  “She’s been in that coma a long time, hasn’t she?”

  Evan took a spoonful of his soup. It was good, but he wasn’t able to appreciate it, really, given the company. “Almost a year.”

  “That’s got to be a hardship,” Quillen said.

  Evan didn’t know if he meant financially, emotionally, or both, so he just nodded.

  “Do they think there’s a chance she’ll recover?” Quillen said.

  Evan bit back the first response that came to mind. The question was unkind, and why would they be keeping Hannah on the machines if there was no chance she’d awaken? Granted, the doctors had been pretty blunt about the odds.

  “That’s the hope,” Evan said.

  Quillen chewed for a moment, frowning thoughtfully into the space above Evan’s head. “I hope the understandable stress of your situation doesn’t interfere with your focus on the job,” he said finally.

  Evan took a sip of his tea before answering. “Actually, I think the opposite is true.”

  Evan was made to endure another thirty minutes of Quillen’s company. Once he was back outside, watching Quillen’s Lincoln pull out onto Reid, Evan lit up and took a long, grateful drag of his cigarette. He was distrustful of politicians in general, but he doubted Quillen’s integrity more than most. At the very least, he disliked the man’s attempts to put him in his place.

  Evan had just slid into the Pilot when his cell phone rang. According to the screen, it was Vi.

  “Hey, Vi,” he answered.

  There was just a moment’s pause.

  “This is Vi,” she said, as he knew she would. “Mr. Nelson from Seminole Insurance called. He thinks he might have come across someone who had a serious issue with Jake Bellamy.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He didn’t say. I was at lunch when he called, otherwise I wo
uld have gotten the name.”

  “Okay, I’m just a few blocks away,” Evan answered. “I’ll stop by there. Anything else?”

  “Nothing that won’t wait until you get back,” Vi answered.

  “Oh, James Quillen would like you to send him daily reports. So that he knows we look like we’re on top of things,” he added dryly.

  Evan waited fifteen minutes in the lobby of Seminole Insurance, while Nelson finished up with a client. He checked his messages, checked in with Goff, pretended to read a magazine on diabetes. The pregnant secretary offered him coffee, soda or bottled water, which he refused, politely, being careful to call her Llewellyn rather than Ginger. He was relieved when Nelson finally appeared, patting a large, sunburned man on the back and saying his goodbyes. He greeted Evan and led him back to his office. They both remained standing.

  “So, I was going through Jake’s client files like you asked, and I thought this might be relevant,” he said, opening a manila folder. “Curt Wilkins. I remember Jake mentioning him, but it slipped my mind when you were here the other day.”

  “What about him?”

  “Normally, he made the monthly premium payments on their life and auto insurance, but for whatever reason, his wife took over about a year ago. They were Phil’s clients.” He handed the file to Evan. “Anyway, she missed two payments, and their policies were canceled in December. Apparently, the wife didn’t tell Wilkins. So, anyhow, his car was parked on the street downtown a few weeks ago, and some drunk hit it. Twice. The car was totaled.”

  “And he found out he didn’t have insurance.”

  “Right,” Nelson confirmed.

  “But that’s the wife’s fault, not Bellamy’s.”

  “I know, but when the guy called, he found out Jake was his new agent, and apparently he was really pissed and abusive on the phone. He called three times, actually. Jake came to me, and I told him there was nothing we could do, and he shouldn’t worry about it, and to tell the guy to call me. He did, but I never heard from the man.”

  Evan looked at the copy of the man’s driver’s license in the auto insurance file. Slim, short of stature, with a hairline that started somewhere at the back of his head, apparently.