Death Among the Mangroves (26 page)

Groud grinned. “That was fun, wasn't it? I'll recommend her.” Back in July Troy had conducted unannounced fire drills at the schools for a week before the volunteer fire department learned to be quick enough. “But all this raises another question, Troy. We cannot relieve a town councilman of his duties until there's an actual conviction.”

“Which might be six months from now.”

“Of course, your man Norris Compton is running against Duell, so, barring some miracle, Duell will be out of that job last Friday of this month. Oh, yeah, I know all about it. Mortimer Potem, my town manager and right-hand guy, called me about two minutes after Compton signed the papers.”

“Norris is not ‘my guy' and I didn't put him up to it,” Troy said. “It was a surprise to me too. Didn't even know until after he did it. But with Duell arrested, I'd say Compton is pretty much a shoe-in.”

“So will everyone else. And they'll say you arranged it all. Duell being the main obstacle to you getting this job permanently.”

Troy nodded. “I like to think of this as one more example of the celestial orbs swinging into alignment.”

Chapter 43

Thursday, January 2

Thursday morning Troy sent Bubba Johns up to the Naples jail with Howard Parkland Duell fuming in the back seat behind the cage. Bubba also had the blood samples taken from the boat.

Troy and Juan followed in Troy's car because Troy didn't want to have to listen to Duell shouting at him.

Rita Shaner at the state attorney's office had persuaded a judge to issue a search warrant and Troy and Juan joined a Naples police officer in opening and searching the storage unit. They used a bolt cutter to take off the lock. Troy saw no reason to let the Naples officer see that Troy had a key. Juan took the gun case and the fishing bag full of ammunition and they relocked the unit with another lock Troy had brought along.

Back in Mangrove Bayou, Troy had scarcely sat at his desk when Alicia Sydney, the Collier County medical examiner, called.

“Gotta really thank you for that body bag trick,” Sydney said.

“What trick was that?”

“When we unzipped it, there were a dozen or so little brown crabs waiting to come out. Damn things ran all over the room before somebody had the wit to step on 'em.”

“Oh. Sorry about that. It was not an easy thing, recovering that body. What can you tell me?”

“We're not done. But I know this now. First thing we found when we took off the clothing was a bullet hole in the shirt. The bullet hit her in the heart. Contact wound, big one.”

“It was a her, then?”

“Oh yeah. Young woman, late teens, early twenties.”

“You get the bullet?”

“I did. Big damn thing. I think it's a .45 and it's in decent shape. Missed the ribs.

“I would bet it's a .50,” Troy said.

“How would you know that?”

“I'm chief of police of Mangrove Bayou. I know everything.”

“Yeah. Right. Listen, we're still working on the body. We have some DNA from the father and mother you sent over to us.”

“Sending more up today.” Troy explained about the samples from the boat.

“We'll look for those too,” Sydney said. “So far the girl matches the description as to weight and height and hair color. She's the right blood type. No fingerprints because she had no fingers. She didn't have any tattoos. That would have been too easy. It didn't occur to the parents to bring along a dental chart or medical records when they flew down here but I have the medical records by email and the dental are on the way, by mail. Dentist in Albany, New York is so old-fashioned he didn't have digitized charts. One more thing.” There was a pause.

“What's that?”

“She'd had sex just before being killed. It was pretty violent, be my guess. She'd been beat up some too.”

“Raped, you think?”

“I think. But, of course, some people like their sex that way.”

“Not too many like to be shot to death right after. You get any semen?”

“We did. We'll keep it on file here in case you get someone to match it to.”

“Got someone in mind, as we speak.”

“Good. Let me know. We'll look at the blood samples from that boat and see if they match. Do you want the bullet?”

“I sure do,” Troy said. “In fact I'll send a man by in a little bit to collect it. He'll have the blood samples. Give him the bullet.”

Lee Bell walked into Troy's office at noon. “Lunch time,” she said. Troy was leaned back in his chair, feet up on an open desk drawer, watching some people at the boat ramp across Sunset Bay trying to pull out too much boat with too little pickup truck. The process seemed to require a lot of blue smoke from burning rubber.

“Can't you see how busy I am?” he said.

Lee looked. “That seems dangerous. Do they ever lose a car or truck in the water?”

“Oh yeah. Endless entertainment. Couple months back a car floated a good hundred feet out before it sank. It was still attached to the trailer. The boat sort of floated off, still attached by the bow line to the winch. Had to send Juan Valdez over there with his SCUBA gear to help Rudy Borden's tow truck driver get all the mess out onto dry land again.”

“I hope the driver got out.”

“Yep. No harm, no foul. Just another car for sale on Craig's List as ‘interior recently detailed.' Old days, boat ramps were made like driveways slanted into the water. Smooth. They'd get green algae on them and it was worth your life to try to walk on that stuff. The one over by the Guide Club is that way still. One reason I use an all-wheel-drive car for my own boat. Even if the back wheels spin on algae, the front wheels can pull me up the slope. They're not so steep as before, either, and the concrete has a lot of shell aggregate in it to make it rough, and they also cut drainage slots across the ramps. Still, there's a reason most boat ramps have benches next to them. Those are for the ‘dock committee' to sit on and amuse themselves.”

“I had no idea boat ramps were such fun. Let's go to lunch.”

They walked out the back door and around the boat ramp and trailer parking lot. The men with the pickup and big boat had solved the problem by bringing up an SUV and attaching that to the front of the pickup truck frame with a piece of rope. “Done that too,” Troy commented as they walked past.

At the Sandy Shoes café there was a line but Lester Groud had just sat down at a table. He waved them over. The “Shoes” was open air on three sides, with a good view of a small park where they often had concerts in the evenings, and beyond that, the islands and Gulf of Mexico to the west. To the east, diners could watch the boat ramp, though the view was not as good as at the dock committee bench. The owner had rolled down the clear plastic sides to keep some of the heat in. The outside world was bright, but blurry.

“Oh,” Groud said to Troy as Troy and Lee sat. “Didn't see you. I was waving to the tall redhead.”

“And why not?” Lee said.

They attended to ordering. When that was done Lester said, “So did you tell Lee about the boat?”

Troy brought Lee up to speed. It took some time and their lunch came as he talked.

Lee looked puzzled. “But why would he record the trip they took to get rid of the body? That only condemns the judge and the kid.”

“Chart plotters do many things,” Groud said. “GPS position, compass, drift, displaying the nautical chart. But recording the routes taken happens in the background and even then only for the most recent ones. If you wish, you can access that record and save off a route to follow at a later date. But all those things happen any time you have the chart plotter turned on. Most boaters have them wired into the Instruments circuit with everything else. My guess, Judge Stider didn't even think about it.”

“Lucky for us,” Troy said.

“Lucky for us you knew all that and had the quick wits to chop that thing out of a sinking boat,” Groud said.

“I told him he had his teeth into this,” Lee said to Groud.

“So when are you going to arrest the kid?” Groud asked.

“Who said the kid killed the girl?” Troy said.

“Seems obvious.”

“Well, maybe to you and to me. But all we know is that the girl is about the same shape as Barbara Gillispie and was found at the far end of a route the Stider fishing boat once took. She had a bullet in her that I'm betting is from a same-size gun as one of the Stiders owns. We might be able to get fingerprints and some blood off the gun. And it's an unusual gun.”

“They got rid of the car and the boat.”

“It's not unlawful to sell your car. It's probably unlawful to intentionally sink your boat even if you don't file an insurance claim. Pollution, maybe. Or obstructing navigation. I'd have to check.”

That afternoon Troy had FedEx send to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement the .50-caliber pistol Cord MacIntosh had found, two magazines and a box of the ammunition they had found with the gun, and the bullet recovered from the body. The FDLE would do the ballistics comparisons and fingerprint check. Troy also asked for a DNA result on whatever was smeared on the barrel of the gun.

Chapter 44

Wednesday, January 8

Almost a week later Troy got calls from FDLE and the Collier County medical examiner. There was a match between a sample .50-caliber slug from Mark Stider's Desert Eagle pistol and the one found in Barbara Gillispie's heart. The only fingerprints on the gun and on the magazines were Mark Stider's. The trace on the front sight was blood and the DNA result had been sent to the Collier County Medical Examiner's office. The Collier County M.E. had matched the DNA from the body to that of her parents and had her dental charts as well. The blood samples from the boat were a match to Barbara Gillispie too.

Troy called Frank Lawton, the town's attorney, and Mayor Groud, and asked them to come to the police station.

“It's falling into place,” Troy told Lawton and Groud when they were seated in Troy's office. “Here's what I have.” He laid out the case against Mark Stider.

“Seems solid,” Lawton said. “It's a safe bet that the semen DNA is going to match Mark Stider. Too bad we don't have the car. I would bet it had a lot of blood in it. They would have cleaned it good but you can never clean
that
good.”

Troy nodded. “They knew that. Why they got rid of the car and sank the boat. My guess is that Mark raped her and she threatened him in some way and he just shot her. He's a little tempestuous when he doesn't get his way.”

“One question,” Lawton said. “The chart plotter course recording to that very spot where the body was found.” He looked at Groud, who was a fishing guide when not the mayor. “Could that be a coincidence? The defense will say so.”

Groud shook his head. “Not a chance. All the other recorded trips went to what was obviously a favorite fishing spot. Went there myself and looked. Great spot, there's a three-foot-wide channel through an oyster bar and the tide runs through there fast. You can scoop up fish with a landing net.”

Troy looked at Groud. “Nice of you to tell me. You didn't happen to look around for any evidence of, like, a crime, or anything?”

“Sorry. Guess we need to work on our communications skills,” Groud said. “But you didn't even go look.”

Troy frowned. “I didn't. I sent Bubba. He looked.”

“Oh. So why are you all over my butt about it?”

“You used confidential evidence from a criminal case for your own advantage, without my permission and without notifying me. Don't do that, Les.”

“Oh. I see what you mean. I was just curious. So I went and looked.”

“I have to know I can trust you, Les. Enough said. Let's move on.”

“Okay,” Groud said. “That one track, alone, went far north into an area no one ever visits and then back into a spot almost impossible to reach. Get a jury of fishing guides and they would laugh you out of the courtroom if you claimed it was just coincidence.”

“Well, there won't be a jury of fishing guides,” Lawton said. “There will be the usual jury of morons with no jobs to go to and so oblivious that they never read the newspaper or watch the news on television.”

“It's good that you have managed to retain that youthful idealism in your job,” Troy said.

“Right. But the bullet matches the gun and the gun was apparently used only by Mark Stider. The blood from the boat is strong evidence too.”

“I'm waiting for a call from the M.E.'s office,” Troy said. “About the DNA result off the blood on the gun itself. If it's a match to Barbara, one more bit of evidence.”

Lawton looked from Groud to Troy. “One thing makes no sense. Why the hell did he keep the gun? They got rid of a car that probably had the victim's blood in it and a boat that did have her blood in it.”

“You can't swear in…” Groud started to say. Troy held up a hand to stop him.

“It's a twenty-five-hundred-dollar pistol,” Troy said. “Top of the line. But it's more. It's part of Mark's psyche. Cord MacIntosh called it an ‘iron penis' and he was exactly correct. Mark Stider would no more have tossed that gun into some marsh than he would cut off his dick. He thought he had hidden it pretty well, in a storage unit in Naples. Does ‘dick' count as a swear word?”

“I think it counts as a synonym,” Lawton said.

Groud smiled. “Let the record show the town counsel says ‘dick' is not a swear word.”

“At the gun range in Tampa where I used to shoot, I saw it all the time,” Troy said. “People would rent the biggest gun they could get. They shoot it off on the range and always,
always
, laugh and say something like ‘wow'! Then they take pictures of one another shooting it. The sales clerks and range safety officers just laugh at those people. They know that something like a .50-caliber pistol is extremely hard to use properly. In fact, Bubba Johns makes fun of me for keeping my old-fashioned .45-caliber that I practice with once a week.”