Death in Her Eyes (A Mac Everett Mystery Book 1) (11 page)

“You stop any place on the way, make any calls?”

“It was early. I went straight to the airport and parked in the A Concourse garage. I got a coffee and boarded with first class.”

The garage and the airline would have records his attorney could use. The parking garage and the airport entrance had surveillance video too. There were records we could subpoena to beat this. I wondered what the cops had that questioned when Cary had left home.

He tried calling his wife while waiting for a connecting flight around eleven, but she didn’t answer. He tried again about four thirty from Salt Lake City with the same result. I’d have to ask Ward Barger about getting Cary’s phone records.

All of what Cary told me appeared true. I didn’t get any body language to the contrary or any sense he was lying. His eye contact was right, he’s relaxed in the shoulders and neck, and he wasn’t rubbing his eyes the way a liar does.

“Did you think it strange you couldn’t reach your wife?” I remarked.

Cary hesitated, and then said, “Yeah…but I don’t know where she was.”

He looked away from me to the right, and then bingo, his first lie.

“Look if you know something, we need to check it out.”

“I called a couple of her friends, but they didn’t know where she was either. She missed a tennis date that day. She must have been…”

He was right. She must have all ready been dead, but there was more.

“I called the police the next day and they said they would check on her,” he said.

I’d have to see if he made that call and there was a check made.

“Where did you think she was,” I asked.

He looked at me, he face a blank slate.

“When you couldn’t reach your wife,” I said, “where did you think she might be?”

He dropped his head and wrung his hands in his lap. He was struggling with how to answer.

“Come on Cary, everyone answers Perry Mason’s questions,” said. It was a joke, but I was serious.

He just sat there and then I got a vibe. I knew what he was holding back. He knew his wife was sleeping around and he was certain she was with her lover.

“Let’s try something else. Did you notice anything unusual that morning?” I asked.

“I wasn’t paying attention. It had stormed the night before … Oh, wait…there was a car.”

“What car?” I asked.

“It was parked in the alley about three houses down from us. I noticed the license plate was missing. I’d seen it there a couple times before. That condo is empty, a foreclosure I think,” he said. “But I’ve told this to the police and my lawyers. What good does this do?”

“I don’t know yet. Let’s keep going. The police think you were seeing someone besides your wife.”

Cary’s head rose slowly, as his eyes narrowed again. He didn’t say a word, but his lips did. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but it’s surprising how many people reveal secrets subvocally. It seems the harder they try to hide something the more likely they let it slip. There ought to be a government study or something.

I sat back and considered what I’d read on his lips and decided to go for it. My phone vibrated in my pocket, but I ignored it.

“Now about the woman you were seeing…”

“What woman,” he snapped, unconvincingly.

“The one the cops have the hotel bills for, and the cell calls and the texts….”

“OK. I get it.”

“You’re protecting her so she’s married…”

“She’s not married,” he mumbled.

“Or her job would be in jeopardy if…”

He did it again. It wasn’t fair, but his life depended on this information. I read his lips again and I knew why he was protecting her. “She’s a cop,” I said. It was more a statement than a question.

You would have though I hit him in the chest with a taser. He shot out of his chair tossing it aside and shouted, “How do you know about her? You keep her out of this!”

“Sit down,” I said firmly. “We have a lot to do if we’re going to get you out of this mess.” I held his gaze unexpectedly. He calmed down, righted his chair, and slumped into this seat completely defeated. He’d tried to hide the truth from me, but that’s impossible.

“You can’t understand my pain,” he said.

I hate a whiner, but this guy was in deep shit.

“Life is pain,” I replied. “Anyone who says differently is selling something. Look, bad things happen. How you respond defines who you are. Now get it together. Who is she?”

“You can’t drag her into this. She has nothing to do with it,” Cary said.

“It’s not up to you. You need her and if she has feelings for you, she’ll come forward if she didn’t kill your wife.”

“She didn’t kill Stephanie. She would never…”

“What’s her name? I’ll keep her out of it if I can, but right now you need every bit of help you can get,” I said.

Cary dropped his head into his hands again and held very still. When he took his hands away, I could see the tears. Cary was a man on the edge and I could push him over as I had so many others. It was too easy. It was unfair, but it worked. Her name came to his lips before I could ask, and then words and emotions came pouring out.

“Kristin Wagner,” he said softly. “Detective Kristin Wagner?”

He sat quietly, gathering his thoughts, and then the damn broke.

"I never thought anything like this could happen,” he said, looking me square in the eyes. “The blackmail, now murder- I don’t understand.” Then he put his head on the table.

In a small voice, his head still down, he began again. “Stephanie has been sleeping with someone off and on for a couple years, maybe even before we got married. I know she didn’t give up him up. Don’t ask me how, I just know. I think it’s someone she knew in grad school, maybe even college.”

“You don’t know who it was?” I asked.

“No, every time I brought it up she changed the subject or got angry. She’d accuse me of not trusting her.”

I knew from personal experience; whether it’s a friendship or a relationship, trust is the basis for all bonds. Without it, you have nothing. Cary may have been married, but he had nothing.

“Did that change?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

“When she confronted me about Kristin, I accused her, and she finally admitted her own affair, but still wouldn’t tell me who it was.”

Or how many
, I thought to myself.

“So you were the cuckold. You endured the embarrassment for years, and then finally took a lover of your own, Kristin Wagner.” I could hear how the defense would spin it already.

“She’s pretty and intelligent, like Stephanie, but after her own divorce she wanted a little love in her life, even if it was for only a few stolen moments. We started innocently enough and, well the affair just happened. We broke it off months ago,” He bit his lip trying to stem the emotions.

“How did your wife find out about you and Kristin?”

“I don’t know. We were really careful.” He sighed and slowly shook his head. His words were running dry. Then he continued, “When Stephanie found out she was furious. She had pictures! She demanded I give Kristin up. I told her I would, but she had to give her lover up too.”

“So you worked out an agreement?”

“Yeah,” Cary said.

“You gave Kristin up, but…”

“…but Steph lied to me. She was still sleeping with…”

His words trailed off as his eyes closed as his head collapsed into his hands.

Cary and his wife both had taken lovers. If he didn’t kill his wife, a couple of jilted lovers would be good suspects and certainly enough to raise reasonable doubt. I got him to write down the names of his wife’s friends, told him not to give up hope. A little light was starting to show at the end of a very long tunnel.

I got the names of his wife’s friends, but not much more out of Cary Hunt. I promised him I’d find the truth. As I watched the corrections officer take him away, I gathered my thoughts. I was sure Cary hadn’t killed his wife and he didn’t believe his girlfriend, Kristin, had either. I had to find out who Stephanie Hunt’s lover had been. I checked my phone and saw I had a text from Stan, so I dialed his number.

“Stan, you have something for me,” I said when the homicide detective answered.

“What do I have for you? Am I’m some flunky for the PI now? Don’t give me that crap.” Stan was pissed about something. I hoped it didn’t involve me.

“I’m sorry Stan. You texted me,” I said, trying to smooth things over.

“Oh, right. Sorry. Aha – oh…Doc Wilson called. He wants to see me and I asked if you could come along. He can see us this afternoon. He was none too happy about it, but he’ll talk to us this afternoon.”

“OK.” I didn’t understand why the Medical Examiner would want to see Stan, but whatever it took to get the job done. “Thanks Stan. Do you have the victim’s address book and phone in evidence? I’d be interested in her emails and texts too if you have them,” I asked, hoping I wasn’t pushing an already strained friendship too far.

“Would you like a beer with that too? Who do you think you are?”

“I’m on the wagon these days remember,” I said wishing I wasn’t. “Come on Stan, I’m trying to work this thing. What’s wrong?”

“Be at the Medical Examiner’s Office at four. We’ll both get an explanation then,” he said.

“An explanation? I’ll be there,” I replied.

“That’s what he said, an explanation. Oh you wanted the name of the guy that found Mrs. Hunt…”

“Yeah,” I said.

“His name is Randy Cetera. He’s with Ace Pest Control.”

“Thanks Stan,” I said. “I’ll check him out. Can you see if there is a record of Cary Hunt calling for a wellness check on his wife? He says when he couldn’t reach her he called her friends, and then the police.”

“That’s new. I’ll check it out. Remember, Mac four o’clock. Don’t be late,” Stan said as he cut me off.

I called Marco next.

“Hey buddy,” he said. “I was getting ready to call you.”

“What do you have?”

“Word around the county jail is your client’s a straight guy. No beefs with anybody, he’s real quiet.”

“Any word on his wife?” I asked.

“Check out Hunt’s country club bar. I hear Mrs. Hunt was real popular there.”

“Steeple Chase, right?”

“Right.”

“It’s on my list. Anything else?”

“You know a guy named Luck Taylor?” he asked.

“Heard the name, what’s the connection?” I asked.

“I’m still checking, but I hear the dearly departed Mrs. Hunt was a regular Action Jackson.”

“A gambler? What was her game?” I asked.

“What wasn’t, casinos, poker, the ponies, sports- you name it, spread real thin too according to my source. A little birdie tells me she was working as an agent for Taylor to pay down her marker,” he said.

“Anything on Cary Hunt?” I asked.

“He checks out clean.”

“That either means he’s a boy scout or hasn’t been caught yet. What do you hear about my client, Ashton Hunt?” I asked.

“Not much, she lives in New York City, spends some time here staying with her father or using a condo in Vizcaya Heights.”

“Whoa, that’s high rent country. Do you have any idea who owns it?”

The gated community on the southwest side of town was on Lake Sheen, and known for its publicity adverse residents.

“I’m not sure. It could belong to her law firm. I’m still checking.”

“Look for bad habits on these people too. Thanks Marco. Keep on it and I’ve got another name for you,” I said.

I gave him Randy Cetera and Ace Pest Control to check out and told him I’d call him later.

The District Nine Medical Examiner’s Office new facility was on East Michigan off of South Bumby. Surrounded by county offices, a self-storage center and a strip club or two, it was a swell part of town. The building looked more like an office complex than a morgue, and Dr. Abraham “Doc” Wilson ran it with an iron fist.

I’d met Doc Wilson when I was still with the Sheriff’s Office. I’d scored an off duty foot patrol gig around the downtown bars. It was easy money. One night, sometime after two, I heard shouting in the direction of the Orange Avenue parking garage. I jogged toward the garage and found a flabby working girl they called Sweetpea laid out on the pavement. She usually wore hot pants and red and white striped tube top two sizes too small. Tonight, she wore nothing but a smile and bled from her nose and ears. It looked like she’d taken a naked swan dive off the top of the parking garage. The hooker survived the initial fall, but died ten days later. Doc Wilson classified it a suicide, but along with the victim’s clothes, I’d found skin, blood, and hair were on the victim’s dented car door, evidence of a struggle. I told the ME that if the girl was crazy enough to beat her own head against the car door maybe she did decide to jump. The old guy reported me and I got a reprimand for insubordination, but that’s another story.

A week later, a couple Patrol guys arrested a dirt bag for disorderly intoxication. In his drunken confusion, he confessed to throwing a naked hooker off a garage. He claimed he dickered for a good price outside the garage, and then they went up to the top to get it on. When he saw the heavyset woman naked, even potted, he couldn’t do it. He wanted is $5.00 back and they fought. He beat her, bashing her head against a car then threw her off the top of the garage. Doctor Wilson amended his findings and I hadn’t seen him since.

I picked up a phone by the door; I identified myself, and immediately heard the electronic lock buzz. Stan was waiting for me in the lobby.

“On time today, I see,” he said.

“What’s wrong with you, your cat die since we last talked?” I wasn’t going to put up with a pissant.

“Come on. He’s waiting for us,” Stan said as he led the way through a glass door.

Doc Wilson’s office was a mess. There were piles of books, bankers boxes labeled with case numbers and stacks of journals everywhere you turned. Pictures and plaques covered the walls, and most of them were askew. An old wooden desk, covered with files and papers, sat to one side of the room. Visitors could look past the Medical Examiner sitting on his throne, into a pleasant center courtyard. There sat the great man himself, King Wilson. I didn’t know what to expect. The florid faced rotund man rose, came out from behind his desk, and extended a beefy hand as his round face broke into a big grin.

“MacDonald Everett, it’s good to see you,” he said as he pumped my arm. “Haven’t seen you since you set me straight on that jumper a few years back, good to see you. Hello, Sergeant Lee, I regret what I have for you, but we follow the evidence, don’t we.”

Stan didn’t look good. Maybe his cat had died.

“Well, Mr. Everett it seems I’m in your debt again,” Doc Wilson began. “I should offer you a job since the S.O. didn’t seem to appreciate your talents. Sit, sit both of you, and let me tell you a bizarre tale.”

For the first time in years, I was speechless. I just looked at Stan, but he was clueless as well.

“When Sergeant Lee called me about the puncture mark you thought you discovered I wrote it off as a knife wound or a hesitation mark,” Doc Wilson began.

I gave Stan a sour look. He’d jumped on me for saying something about that mark, and then called the ME about it. How do you like that?

“That is until I received the toxicology report this morning. I pulled the photos. Mr. Everett, the injury you identified and that my office missed is indeed a puncture wound. It changes everything about this case and explains the toxicology finding I have just received.”

“What’s in the tox screen?” Stan asked.

“Something so unusual we’ve never seen it here. It’s outside my experience as a medical examiner. Have you heard of tetrodotoxin?” Dr. Wilson asked.

I looked at Stan, who shrugged, and then I said, “It’s either a cough syrup or animal venom.”

“Very good. That liberal arts education wasn’t wasted on you after all Mr. Everett,” Dr. Wilson asserted. “It’s a virulent toxin found in the puffer fish, the blue ringed octopus, and some other aquatic animals. It’s a hundred times more lethal than potassium cyanide.”

“What does tetrodotoxin have to do with this case? I thought the woman was stabbed to death,” Stan asked.

“Our victim was injected with enough tetrodotoxin to incapacitate her,” Doctor Wilson said. “The puncture wound on the neck is from an injection,” Dr. Wilson paused to let the gravity of his statement sink in. “From the size of it I’d say it was, oh, an eighteen gauge needle, perhaps smaller. The victim would have been conscious, able to feel pain, and could have lived several hours. We originally listed the cause of death as cardiac arrest due to exsanguination. With this new evidence, we will amend that to cardiac arrest associated with high volume blood loss and tetrodotoxin toxicity. She was drugged, then tortured. This was a particularly gruesome crime.”

Stan sat in stunned silence. My mind was racing, thinking how this could help or hurt Cary Hunt.

“What’s a poisonous fish got to do with this case?” Stan asked.

Doc Wilson laughed and said, “I’m sure I don’t know, but you’re mixing up your terms sergeant. There is a difference between poisonous and venomous. If you bite it and you die, it’s poisonous. If it bites you and you die, it’s venomous.”

Doc threw his head back and gave out a belly laugh. He was pleased with himself.

Stan and I exchanged a glance. Doc was trying to make a joke, but it didn’t work or we just didn’t get it.

“Dr. Wilson, how does this toxin affect the time of death estimate?” I asked.

“You’ve cut to the heart of the matter, Mr. Everett,” Dr. Wilson replied.

“The presence of tetrodotoxin would raise the body’s normal temperature as much as twelve degrees, perhaps more. The literature is unclear on this point. I’ve called some colleagues on the west coast and may be able to narrow that range somewhat but,” Dr. Wilson continued, “if we had discovered the corpse within hours of death we would have made erroneous assumptions, but that’s not the case here. Because the victim was deceased for some days, an exact calculation is impossible.”

“What was the stage of decomp Doc?” Stan inquired. “Was there any insect activity?”

“The body was entering the early stages of purification and there is evidence of both blow fly and…”

Stan interrupted a second time. “Christ!”

“Sergeant Lee, Mr. Everett is correct in his assumption. The time of death estimate in this case will be problematic, if not impossible. We may never get an accurate estimate because the unusually high body temperature caused by the toxin skews all possible calculations. Decomposition, insect activity and the other longer term markers are essentially useless in this case. Based on the information I currently have I can say only that the victim expired between when she was last seen in public and when her body was discovered.”

“Our case assumed the victim died the day her husband left town.”

“That could be the case, but we cannot confirm that from the available evidence.”

“You’ve unraveled my case, Dr. Wilson,” Stan said.

“I know Sergeant. I’m sorry, but the available evidence doesn’t leave me any choice.”

“Dr. Wilson,” I interjected. “You’ll revise the death certificate and the particulars?”

“Yes, right away,” he replied.

“Do you have to release that information right away? You’re still investigating, after all.”

Stan’s look cut right through me.

“What are you suggesting, Mr. Everett, that I withhold information?” Doc Wilson was incredulous.

“No, not withhold the information; just wait until you have gathered all the facts. You still have to hear back from the experts, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes, but…”

Stan joined my play. “Doc, whoever committed this crime thinks they’ve gotten away with it. If they think they’re still in the clear, they may make a mistake.”

We made a good team, Stan and I. He had picked up on where I was going instantly.

“But an innocent man may be in custody,” Dr. Wilson protested.

“And if he’s released in a few days he will be free and we may have his wife’s killer to put in his place,” Stan said.

“I don’t know…” Dr. Wilson said.

“Dr. Wilson, I’ve been hired by Mr. Hunt’s family,” I said. “Holding the information until you have a definitive answer will eliminate any perceived error on the part of your office.”

I knew Doc Wilson was all about doing the right thing, but his reputation was important too. I could see the wheels turning.

“Alright. I’ll wait until I have answers on the tetrodotoxin, but please keep in touch with me on the progress of your investigation.”

Stan agreed to give the ME daily updates and in return Doc Wilson agreed to hold any release of information until we had all discussed it.