Evidence of Murder (15 page)

Parkinson, looking smug, stopped to light a cigarette, then went on. “A little while later, John took me aside again and talked about spending time together at Cocoa Beach.”

Detective Weir, surprised by Nancy Parkinson’s frankness, bluntly asked, “Didn’t you have any compunction about that with your sister’s husband?”

Parkinson stared at the detective, puffed her cigarette and made no reply.

“Did you meet with John Huggins in Cocoa Beach?” Detective Linnert asked.

Parkinson overlooked that question as well and stated, “On Saturday, June twenty-first, Melanie and I planned to go to Walt Disney World. That was the big thing in Melanie’s mind and I didn’t want to disappoint her and the kids, who were also looking forward to it.”

Nancy explained that it all just fell into place. “John also arranged to meet us at Disney.” She laughed. “He was supposed to meet us at one
P.M
. I waited around for him, constantly looking at my watch, wondering if he was going to make it or not. He made it. But it was three o’clock when he showed up.”

“Were you upset with that?” Weir asked.

“I wasn’t exactly upset, but I wasn’t happy, either. John walked up with his two kids and it just was not the time for me to show any displeasure. I just thought that he must have had a bit of a problem getting away, but here he was, kids and all.”

There was an indication of something in the tone of Parkinson’s voice, and Weir asked, “Did you have a problem with John Huggins’s arrival with the kids?”

“No, it wasn’t anything about the kids. I was a bit startled when he told me that he came in Angel’s car.” She hesitated. “I couldn’t understand that he was cozying up to me and giving me indications that things with him and my sister were not going so well. I wondered, if that’s the case, why is he driving Angel’s car?”

“Are you sure that she gave him permission to take it?” Linnert asked.

“You’ve got something there.” Parkinson brushed her hair back, puffing quietly on her cigarette. “Much as I know about John Steven Huggins, I can tell you that the unexpected goes hand in hand with him. In other words, I wouldn’t bet my last buck that Angel gave John the go-ahead to use her car.” She laughed.

“What else went on between you and John Huggins?” Linnert asked, wanting to get a firsthand report.

Nancy evaded. “There is really so much about John and there were so many things, that it takes a little doing to get it all into order.” She paused, took a last drag on her cigarette, stubbed it out, then said thoughtfully, “One thing that stands out in my mind is his talking about a ring.”

That statement instantly caught the attention of the detectives. Any mention of jewelry set their minds spinning.

“What about a ring?” Linnert asked eagerly.

Nancy Parkinson continued. “While we were together at Disney World, John admired my engagement ring.” She lifted her hand so the officers could get a look at it. “I didn’t understand his interest, but then he told me that he had a ring similar to mine, but bigger. He was kind of like bragging, like a little kid saying, ‘My dad can whip your dad.’ ”

The detectives smiled. They sat impassively, but their hearts were racing.

“Then he said something that puzzled me,” Nancy continued. “He told me that the ring was at my mother’s. That just bewildered me. He said that my sister was sitting right on top of it, and she didn’t even know it. Then he burst into laughter. He just thought that was so funny.”

Weir asked, “Did you pursue the subject?”

“Yes, of course. I wanted to know what he was talking about and I asked him point-blank to tell me about the ring and where he got it.

“He looked at me with those big green eyes and told me confidentially, ‘I bought the jewelry as protection. Someone could steal your cash, but having jewelry hidden in a safe place is not that easy for someone to rip off.’ ”

“That’s a good story,” Detective Weir acknowledged. “Did he say specifically what pieces of jewelry he had locked away somewhere?”

“No, Detective. John Huggins is never specific about anything. He did indicate that the jewelry was at my mother’s, but he didn’t say where at my mother’s.”

“What else can you tell us about him?” Weir asked.

“Stories about John Huggins never end. But you might like to hear about his kindness.”

“Yes, we would like to hear that,” Linnert said.

“I was having some serious car trouble.” Her head dropped as she explained. “I just didn’t know where I was going to get the money to have the car repaired. Somehow John found out about my car trouble, and he also learned that I was short of money.”

Parkinson waited for the detectives’ reaction as she lit up another cigarette.

“He gave you the money to have your car repaired,” John Linnert suggested.

“Not exactly.”

“Okay, don’t keep us in suspense,” Weir urged.

“When I saw John, he asked me a peculiar question. ‘Have you looked under your floor mat lately?’ I would have laughed, but the way he said it, there was nothing funny about it.”

Parkinson leaned back in her chair and said, “I thought, no, I never looked under my floor mat. He didn’t explain anything further, but I got into my car and I looked under the floor mat. And guess what?”

“You found a round-trip ticket to Hawaii,” Linnert joked.

“No, but in this case it was something better. I found a hundred-dollar bill with a note that said, ‘Fix your car.’ I was overwhelmed.”

“I would think so,” Linnert commented.

Softly Nancy Parkinson told the detectives, “That’s not the first time he gave me a hundred bucks.” She did not elaborate, but the detectives freely imagined the occasions of this kind of generosity.

Weir and Linnert listened attentively as Parkinson confirmed what they already heard from her friend Melanie Cramden about their stays in the different motels in Orlando, Titusville, Cocoa Beach and Melbourne.

Nancy said that she told her mother they were going to St. Augustine to sightsee, but she said she really met with John Huggins. They followed Huggins to the Econo Lodge, where they left Angel’s car, then stayed at the Royal Mansions in Cape Canaveral. She said they checked in under her name, because John Huggins was wanted, and they got one room for the eight of them. However, during their stay they changed rooms.

The detectives’ interest was piqued when Parkinson recalled a trip she made with Huggins on Tuesday, June 24.

“We drove my van to this kind of isolated spot in Cocoa Beach and pulled up to a peculiar house. It looked like a trailer that had been added onto with wood from discarded crates. There were high bushes surrounding the place, apparently to provide some privacy for whatever activities took place there.

“After parking, John got out of the car and went into the house while I waited in my van. I looked around the area and counted twelve motorcycles parked on the open land near the house.

“In about fifteen or twenty minutes, John reappeared, accompanied by a tall, bearded guy who looked like he might be on a wanted poster.”

According to Nancy, he and John seemed to have a special rapport. In short order they parted and Huggins got back into the van. She said she asked him how it went and he answered, “Fine. I got some good stuff that we can enjoy later.”

Parkinson said Huggins told her that money was tight and that he worked out a deal with his friend to set up another pot dealer for him to heist. He laughed and said, “I’ll walk away with about ten thousand dollars for my efforts.”

“That certainly was an interesting trip,” Weir remarked.

“That’s right, but there’s more.” Parkinson nodded, waving her cigarette. “As we rolled along, I was just thinking that I’d be glad to be finished with this junket. Then John said, ‘I’ve been thinking about our talk about the ring. I’d like to get my ring and the rest of my stuff from the house and from the shed.’ He asked me if I would help him retrieve all of his personal belongings. I agreed, but we never actually got into that. Nor was John ever able to pick up his things.”

“What happened?” Weir asked.

“We were getting ready to leave for Maryland and Delaware, and I had to drive over to Mother’s house to pick up Angel’s son, to take him back to his father in Maryland. Well, when I got to the house, I met Angel and all hell broke loose. She found out that John and I spent the past week together and she was fit to be tied. We had a real battle royal. There wasn’t much I could do but get out of there, which I did. I picked up Austin and made a beeline to collect the others and then we headed for the nearest route to Maryland.”

“Probably a wise thing to do,” Cam Weir commented dryly.

John Linnert hummed “Maryland, My Maryland” as he and Cameron Weir drove to the Salisbury Police Department.

“You feel pretty cheerful, John?” Weir asked.

“Yeah. I think the net is getting tighter and tighter around Huggins. More and more, he’s looking like our prime suspect. I’m really looking forward to catching up with that bastard.”

Weir shook his finger at Linnert and censured, “Now, now, we mustn’t speak that way about our arrested subjects.”

They both laughed heartily.

At the Salisbury Police Department, the Florida detectives met Sergeant Mark Tyler.

“We certainly appreciate your cooperation,” Detective Weir said.

“Glad to help. This guy is something else,” Tyler stated.

“I have these records and things that I’m sure you’ll want.” He handed Weir the hotel registration for the Salisbury Inn, where Huggins was a guest at the time of his apprehension. The records showed that room 234 was registered to Melanie Cramden.

Linnert said, “Guess that was to conceal his ID, since he was wanted.”

“I’m sure that this will interest you, too,” Tyler told them. “The next guest who checked into the room that Huggins occupied at the inn found a toy gun and turned it in to the front desk.”

“Well, that is strange. I’d be interested in seeing that,” Weir stated.

“I was sure you would, so I arranged a meeting for you with the manager of the inn.”

“Oh, that’s great. We sure appreciate that,” Linnert said.

The sergeant also gave Weir a copy of the phone calls that John Huggins made while staying at the motel in Salisbury.

At the conclusion of the briefing with Sergeant Tyler, while John Huggins was being transferred to an interview room, Detectives Weir and Linnert drove to the Salisbury Inn and met with Marjorie Bush, general manager.

The attractive, well-dressed woman welcomed the detectives. “How may I help you gentlemen?”

Cordially Detective Linnert explained that they were in Salisbury on a case in Florida, and asked to see the toy gun from room 234 that was turned in to the desk.

“Of course,” she agreed. “Let me get it for you.”

As Weir accepted the plastic gun, he noted that it bore a serial number 96656230. Turning to Linnert, he said, “This looks exactly like a large-frame semiautomatic handgun.” Weir passed it to him.

“This thing shoots BBs or pellets,” Linnert remarked. “I wonder what Mr. Huggins was doing with it.”

“Let your imagination run wild,” Weir answered.

Returning the plastic piece to Ms. Bush, Weir thanked her for her cooperation and told her that she would be hearing from Sergeant Tyler of the Salisbury Police Department. Weir intended to make an official request for the plastic weapon.

Back at police headquarters, Detective Weir gave the sergeant an account of their visit with Ms. Bush. The sergeant assured the detectives that he would arrange for the plastic gun to be collected and sent to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

When the detectives had interviewed Nancy Parkinson, they noticed that she was a heavy smoker. They asked her if John Huggins also smoked. She assured them that he did and his favorite brand was Marlboro. On the way back to the jail for their interview, the two detectives stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes. Their purpose was to get DNA samples from the ones Huggins smoked.

Since neither of the detectives smoked, they tossed a coin and Linnert lost, so he had to smoke with Huggins during the interview. “There’s no limit to what I’ll do to solve a crime,” Linnert joked.

The two detectives waited in the private conference room for John Huggins to be brought into the room for the interrogation.

The detectives placed disposable ashtrays on either end of the table so Huggins’s butts would be totally separate from Linnert’s.

The door opened and John Steven Huggins, shackled at the wrists and ankles, was escorted into the room. He sat at a table opposite the Florida detectives, who came many hundreds of miles for this special moment.

Introductions were made by Sergeant Tyler, with little acknowledgment by the men, only curt nods. The 6’ John Huggins casually gazed around the large room with his hazel green eyes, basically ignoring the detectives. He seemed totally disinterested in the surroundings and the men. It was clearly evident that he was not happy to be in this meeting.

The detectives studied John Huggins’s appearance. They were somewhat shocked at the sight of him. He was an unsightly man, excessively overweight, with long, unkempt brown hair swept into an ugly ponytail cascading down the back of his shoulders. He had a bearded face, cold, hard eyes, and was dressed in a discolored T-shirt and pants. But what struck both of the investigators forcibly was that there was little if any resemblance to the composite drawings made of the suspect from the eyewitness accounts.

Linnert pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and started to light one. Immediately Huggins asked, “Could I have one?”

“Have all you like,” Linnert invited.

Bringing the purpose of the meeting into focus, Detective Weir began. “Mr. Huggins, our purpose in making the trip from Florida to be here was already explained to you. We would like to ask you some questions. But first I want to advise you that you have certain constitutional rights that I am about to read to you.”

Weir also explained to Huggins that they set up a tape recorder to make a record of this session. (There was also a hidden camera filming the meeting.)

Detective Weir then read John Huggins his constitutional rights from an official form.

“Do you have any questions, Mr. Huggins?” Weir formally asked.

“No. No questions. I am waiving my rights and am willing to answer your questions,” he responded quietly.

“Fine,” Weir answered. “For the record, Detective Linnert and I are investigating a crime that occurred in Orlando, Florida, on June tenth of this year.”

Huggins nodded his head and said, “I know that.”

Weir stated, “It concerns the disappearance and death of Carla Larson.”

The detective paused, letting the name Carla Larson sink into Huggins’s mind. The homicide detective continued. “We know that at the time of Carla Larson’s disappearance, you were in the area where she was shopping at the grocery.”

Calmly Weir told Huggins, “In a video surveillance from the Publix supermarket parking lot, you, Mr. Huggins, were seen.” He stopped again, his deep brown eyes focused on the hostile eyes of John Huggins. “You were in that parking lot at the time of Carla Larson’s abduction.”

In an unexpected reaction Huggins rose. “I was in Kissimmee during that time. I was with my wife, Angel.”

Detective Linnert said, “Please sit down, Mr. Huggins. Now explain to us where you were, exactly, on the afternoon of June tenth.”

Huggins panned from one detective to the other before answering. “I did leave the hotel room that day. I went to a strip mall shopping center to meet a guy. I met him and completed a drug deal with him. As part of that transaction, I had to drive a vehicle back to Melbourne.”

“Who was the man you met?” Linnert asked.

“Detective, you know better. If I were to give up this guy’s identity, I’d be killed in quick order.”

Detective Weir followed up, asking, “What kind of a car were you to drive to Melbourne?”

“It was just a brown Jeep.” He glared at Weir.

Detective Linnert questioned him next. “Mr. Huggins, your wife, Angel, and others told us that they saw you driving a white Ford Explorer. The kind of car that Carla Ann Larson was driving. How do you explain that?”

“That’s easy to explain,” Huggins retorted. “You wouldn’t know this, but my wife is a bitch.” Huggins lit up another cigarette and took a few puffs before continuing. “My wife was just being vindictive toward me for being with her sister. That’s all there is to that.”

Detective Weir turned to a new subject. “How about drugs? How deep are you into them?”

Huggins pulled on his wrist cuffs. “I don’t have any problems like that, even with the medications that I take.”

“We would like to have a saliva sample from you, Mr. Huggins,” Detective Weir explained. “The purpose of the saliva is for its use in DNA evidence comparison with what was found on Carla Larson.”

“You’ll get no damn saliva sample from me. I don’t have to comply with that and I sure as hell am not going to,” Huggins answered in a firm, unshakable voice.

Detective Linnert leaned closer to Huggins and asked, “Do you know that a radar detector was found at your friend Kevin Smith’s place, and it was determined that it was from the white Ford Explorer that you reportedly were seen driving? Tell us about that, Mr. Huggins.”

“I don’t know anything about any radar detector.” He stiffened and said, “I never had no Ford Explorer at Kevin’s home or anyplace else.”

Losing some of his cool facade, Huggins went on. “Kevin was just telling those stories. He wanted to get me out of the way.” He rubbed his head, hampered by the handcuffs laced on his wrists, and added, “He had his eye on Angel. He wanted her.”

Linnert looked at Huggins and asked, “Tell us about you going to Kevin’s home with Nancy Parkinson, you know, when you went to buy some marijuana.”

John Huggins did not acknowledge the question. He sat and stared at the detectives defiantly.

Weir tried another approach. “Mr. Huggins, we have it on good authority that you left the Ford Explorer at Kevin’s home.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I did not leave a vehicle behind Kevin’s house.”

The interview went on, and for every question the investigators asked, John Huggins gave a fanciful or vague answer.

Reversing the procedure, John Huggins pushed his head forward, with his green eyes blazing, and demanded to know it if was true that “you two detectives questioned my son, Jonathon?” As he delivered his question to the detectives, his face reddened with anger.

“Yes,” Weir answered positively. “We talked at length with Jonathon.” He smiled, further annoying Huggins. “He’s a nice boy.”

“You had no damn business talking to him, a ten-year-old boy.”

“Mr. Huggins, let me point out to you,” Detective Weir corrected. “No one can tell us who we can or cannot talk to, and that goes especially for you.”

Huggins sat sullen. Detective Weir continued. “Your boy, Jonathon, said that you were driving a sport utility vehicle with a radar detector and other features similar to that of the Larson vehicle.”

The experienced detective pressed the upset father. “Would you say that your son, Jonathon, was a liar?”

Shaking in fury, with the handcuffs clinking, John Huggins stated flatly, “Jonathon would not lie.”

Weir, not surprised with the reaction from Huggins, turned to Linnert, “I don’t see any purpose of wasting any more time with this man, do you?”

“Not at all.”

The detectives summoned Sergeant Tyler and returned Huggins to Maryland custody.

The interrogation was over. It ran approximately two hours and ten minutes.

The gleeful detectives gathered the separate disposable ashtray they provided for Huggins. There were three cigarette butts that the suspect smoked during the interview. They were collected as evidence, and later used as a comparison source of DNA testing.

Both Orange County detectives thanked Mark Tyler and extended a warm wish for a Florida visit. “We’ll be glad to see you in the Sunshine State.”