February's Regrets (Larry Macklin Mysteries Book 4)

  February’s Regrets

  A Larry Macklin Mystery–Book 4

  By

  A. E. Howe

  Following his resignation as an investigator with the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, Larry Macklin is working part time as a reserve deputy and trying to decide what to do with his life.

  He’s drawn back into investigating against his will when his friend, Shantel Williams, asks for his help to find her missing niece, Tonya. While Larry initially believes that there’s a reasonable explanation for Tonya’s lack of communication with her aunt, it quickly becomes obvious that her disappearance is part of something more serious. The Swamp Hacker, a serial killer who stalked Adams County fifteen years ago, has returned and is killing again.

  Unable to resist the hunt for a predator that eluded the sheriff so many years ago, Larry agrees to assist with the current investigation. It becomes a race against time as the murders become more brutal and more frequent. Will the killer escape justice a second time?

  Books in the Larry Macklin Mystery Series:

  November’s Past (Book 1)

  December’s Secrets (Book 2)

  January’s Betrayal (Book 3)

  February’s Regrets (Book 4)

  March’s Luck (Book 5)

  More coming soon!

  Join the mailing list to be notified of special offers and new releases by this author.

  Dedication

  For the men and women of law enforcement—especially those of the Tallahassee Police Department and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, many of whom I’ve had the privilege to work with and call friends.

  Copyright © 2016 by A. E. Howe

  All rights reserved.

  www.aehowe.com

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Additional Books in the Series

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  I looked out the window onto my frozen twenty acres and thought, Could there be a worse month to be unemployed than February? All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed. Ivy, my adopted tabby cat, looked at me as though she thought anyone who got out of bed to do anything but eat and do their business was an idiot. She was enjoying my unemployment and thought I should just spend every day scratching her and dispensing treats.

  “Not this morning, girlie. I need to find a real job to keep us in frosted flakes and cat food.” She mewed and rubbed against me. “Enjoy,” I said, pushing my cereal bowl over to her so that she could lick the last bit of milk from the bottom.

  While it had been almost a month since I had handed in my resignation, it had only been a week since my last day working full time for the Adams County Sheriff’s Office. It had taken that long to finish up the paperwork on the murders, rapes and attempted killing of the sheriff that had led me to hand in my notice. It hadn’t helped that we’d been assisted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Agency, adding untold levels of bureaucracy to the reports.

  At the request of the sheriff, who also happened to be my father, I was still a reserve deputy with the department, but I didn’t plan on working any more hours than necessary to maintain that status. All of which begged the question of what I was going to do now.

  At least the sun was out, giving me enough motivation to push back from the kitchen table and get dressed. I’d just managed to put on pants and a shirt when there was a knock at the front door. Since my property was about five miles from town, it was odd that someone would be visiting me out of the blue on a Tuesday morning. Jehovah’s Witnesses or Baptists? I wondered as I went to the door.

  “Hey there, Mr. Brighteyes,” Shantel Williams said when I opened the door. Shantel was one of the best crime scene techs in the department and a friend.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, surprised.

  “Freezing my patootie off. You going to invite me in?” Her smile was forced. Normally she was the type of person who was always on the verge of laughter, but she seemed distracted this morning.

  “Yeah, yeah, come in.”

  She followed me into the living room and I suddenly noticed how filthy the place was.

  “I see you’re settling into unemployment,” she teased, but again the humor seemed more out of habit than part of her normal good spirits.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, concerned.

  “Let me sit down.” She took a seat on the sofa, shifting a pile of books out of her way.

  Shantel had only been out to my place once before, to drop me off when my car was in the garage, so I knew she was there for a reason. I had to resist the urge to bombard her with questions, giving her time to get her thoughts together.

  “I need your help.” Before she could stop it, a tear rolled down her dark brown cheek. She wiped it away in irritation.

  “Anything,” I said and meant it. When I’d gone to work for the sheriff’s office, Shantel had been quick to give me advice and to help me learn how to preserve and search a crime scene. Once I became an investigator, I quickly learned that Shantel and her partner, Marcus Brown, were the best assets I had in the field. Not that Shantel wasn’t quick to let me know if I did something stupid. She did that with everyone and didn’t care who she might piss off. She wouldn’t tolerate fools.

  “My niece, Tonya, is missing.”

  I remembered seeing a couple pictures on her desk. One of them was of a smiling, lanky woman in a graduation gown.

  “From Adams County?”

  “Yeah. She lives over on King Street and people saw her Saturday night. But she’s just gone. She texts me every day. Dumb stuff, but every day. Nothing since Saturday.”

  I’d never seen Shantel this rattled. Usually she was the boss in any room. If I had been the type to give hugs easily I would have gone over to her, but I wasn’t so I just sat across from her, feeling helpless.

  “Have you talked with anyone at the department?”

  I saw a spark of the old Shantel when she gave me a look that was a mix of irritation and frustration. “Of course I talked to Pete. But you know we’re four deputies short. Your father’s going crazy because he can’t afford the overtime.” She threw me an accusing look, then went on. “Pete took all the information, but he’s got a pile of cases on his desk. And… Tonya’s life has been a bit mixed up since she graduated from high school.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Twenty. She got into some trouble when she went to community college in Tallahassee. Partying too much. It got a little scary, but I went and brought her home. She’s been doing well since then. Can’t get a job, but no more drugs or alcohol.”

  “You know I quit.”

  “I know you’re still a reserve deputy. And you’re the best investigator we have… had.”

  I was pretty sure she was just flattering me to get some help.

  �
��I…”

  “Your dad will let you take the case if you ask.”

  That was a conversation I didn’t really want to have. “Before we do anything desperate like talk to my father, let me look into it. Maybe there’s a simple explanation. Did you take the day off?”

  “I couldn’t go to work today. I drove around most of last night looking for her car. I’ve worked for the department for fifteen years… I know that people go missing all the time and show back up. People do weird crap that their families never thought they’d do. I know that. And I pray that’s the case here. But I’m scared.” She dropped her gaze to the floor.

  “Something else is going on. What do you know?”

  Shantel sighed. “I know something I shouldn’t.”

  I just looked at her, puzzled.

  “I was over in Tallahassee last week and stopped by to see a friend at the sheriff’s office there. I’m not saying who ’cause it wasn’t their fault. I was in their office and they left to take care of some business. I was bored and there was a file on the desk. I admit it. I’m a snoop sometimes. I got to looking at it.” She just stopped talking.

  “What was in it?” I prompted.

  “You can’t tell anyone I told you this.”

  “What?”

  “Promise. ’Cause if it got around, my friend could be fired.”

  “I promise,” I said, a bit exasperated. “Now what did you see?”

  Shantel sighed heavily. “I’m probably worrying for no reason. But…” She paused for so long that I thought I’d have to prod her again, but she finally went on. “The file was on a murder case that Leon County is investigating. When I opened it there was a picture of a young black girl, and she looked so much like Tonya that I almost dropped the thing.”

  “But this was before Tonya went missing?” I was a little confused. The fact that I was entertaining a visitor before ten o’clock in the morning wasn’t helping.

  “That’s right. I looked at the file a lot closer then… This is the terrifying part. It’s a Swamp Hacker case.”

  I felt my stomach heave and my breathing grew rapid. “Not possible. It must have been an old file… or someone’s messing with you.”

  “They haven’t made anything public yet. But I know what I saw. There were the cuts on the back. Just like…” Shantel stopped, near tears again. I’d never seen her this close to the edge. We’d worked a hundred accidents and murders together, including a gruesome body found in a hot tub the month before. She was always a rock of emotional stability when others were choked up or throwing up.

  “And then Tonya went missing,” I said for her.

  She nodded. “You’re the only one I’ve told about the Leon County case. Leaking information on an active murder case, even to you, is a crime. That kind of screw up could get me fired at the very least. I never should have been snooping,” she chastised herself.

  “Even if it is a new Hacker case, it can’t have anything to do with Tonya.”

  “All of his victims came from here,” Shantel reminded me.

  “But only one of the bodies was found in Adams County,” I said.

  “Yeah, the rest were left in swamps in Leon or Jefferson County. You were how old back then?”

  “Fifteen. You know, I saw Sierra Randal’s body.” My mind went back to that day in January sixteen years ago.

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “I was in high school and had joined the journalism club, so I was staying after a lot and didn’t always come home on the bus. Dad picked me up that day. He’d just become an investigator in October. When he drove up in the unmarked car, I thought it was so cool… and funny as hell to see him working in a jacket and tie. Halfway home he got a call about a body that was found just inside the county line. Dad being Dad, he told me we were going to the scene. It was only his second murder investigation.”

  “Taking a boy to a murder scene,” Shantel said, shaking her head, but I knew she wasn’t surprised. My father could be incredibly single-minded and a bit clueless.

  “I was thrilled. I thought that this was my chance to be a real reporter. Of course, when we got there, Dad ordered me to stay in the car. We were parked about a quarter mile from the body. They’d already figured that this case was related to the others in Leon County and were determined to preserve any tire prints or other evidence the killer might have left behind.”

  “How long did you wait in the car?” she asked.

  “About five minutes after Dad was out of sight. I followed the road up to where Dad and the other deputies were looking around for tracks and other obvious evidence. They were waiting on forensics and the sheriff. I don’t know what the hell I thought I was doing, but I walked to the side of the dirt road. Everyone was looking at a spot about twenty feet on the other side of the ditch. The ground was wet and mucky. I remember it was warm for a winter’s day.”

  “No one stopped you?”

  “I just walked up like it was the most normal thing in the world for me to do. Most of them were too captivated by the body to notice me. Even from there you could see the horrible slashes across her back. I don’t know what I imagined a dead body would look like, but this was horrible. I wanted to go help her. She looked so alone. I think I even started to move toward her, but then I felt a hand grab the back of my coat.”

  “Don’t have to tell me who that was.” Shantel smiled a little.

  “He pulled me halfway back to the car. I heard words that he normally reserved for lawnmowers that wouldn’t start.”

  Shantel shook her heard. “I didn’t see my first murder victim until I was almost thirty.”

  “It definitely made an impression on me, but I think the weeks and months afterward when Dad was trying to find the killer made an even bigger impression. He was so intent on catching the Hacker that we hardly saw him for months. Of course, he had to spend a lot of time in Leon County with the task force, but it was more than that. I think he personally interviewed every witness in Adams County, and he sat in on most of the interviews in Leon too.”

  “The last body was found in April.”

  “Dad stayed on the case full time through the summer. When the sheriff reassigned him, Dad refused to quit and worked during his off hours for another couple of months before Mom convinced him that he had to let it go.”

  “I remember all us single girls being scared to death to be alone at night. Even if there were a couple of us, we’d get a guy we trusted to go with us if we were going out. And when they found the couple murdered in the swamp, I just refused to go anywhere at night for weeks. Guy or no guy,” Shantel stated.

  “Of course, none of the murders were actually committed in the swamp. I remember how mad Dad was every time a newspaper or TV reporter called the murderer the Swamp Hacker. He didn’t even kill them by hacking them.”

  “That’s right, he hit them on the head. Oh, my God.” Shantel put her hand up to her mouth.

  I realized I’d forgotten the reason Shantel came to me. “I’m sure Tonya is fine.”

  “Help me find her, Larry,” she pleaded.

  “I’ll do what I can.” I didn’t believe that Tonya could be a victim of the Hacker. I didn’t really believe that he could be back. If he was, it was going to be a shock to a lot of people. I had no idea how Dad would react. I wanted to give him a heads-up, but Shantel was right. She could have been fired for what she’d already done. The leak had to stop with us. The LCSO would have to give out the news soon enough. They couldn’t sit on the story forever.

  “What can we do?” Shantel seemed so lost. It was a reminder that even the strongest person can be dealt a body blow.

  “First, let’s forget the Leon County murder. Even if it is the same murderer, there’s no evidence that it has anything to do with Tonya. We’re just going to tackle this like we would any missing person.”

  “I’ve talked to everyone I can think of and I’ve been working on a timeline.” Shantel seemed to get a little of her old determin
ation back, pulling up the timeline on her phone.

  “Great. I want to copy it and we’ll start working on a plan for today,” I said, getting up and digging for a notepad.

  After making notes from the timeline, I asked, “This is Saturday. What did she do Friday?” I knew we’d have to work further and further back if we didn’t hit on anything right away.

  “She spent all day Friday looking for work. She’d had jobs in Tallahassee, several, when she was in college, but just entry-level stuff and, with her partying, she’d either quit or been let go after a couple of months. And, yes, I know how this sounds. But she was just like every other kid who goes to college, gets in over their head and flunks out the first year. She’d taken it to heart. Tonya really wants to make good. She’s applied to just about every business here in the county.”

  “Must have been hard.”

  “She seemed okay. Maybe a little down, but determined.”

  “Does she have a boyfriend?”

  “Nothing steady. She’s only had one serious boyfriend, but he went to work out in North Dakota and she went to college. That’s when they drifted apart. Since high school, she’s just had a few guy friends, but nothing serious. I’d have known. There was nothing she liked better than telling me every detail of her social life. That girl can talk. If she went out on a date, I’d get a couple of pictures before it was even over. She did all that Twitter, Facebook and Snap-whatever stuff… But there’s been nothing for days.”

  “What about her parents?”

  “Tonya was raised by my momma. She’s worried sick too. But, honestly, Momma’s pretty clueless. My sister died of a drug overdose ten years ago. She’d never taken care of Tonya. No idea who the daddy is.”

  I realized how little I knew of Shantel’s life. I knew that most of her family lived in Adams County, though she’d spent part of her childhood in Savannah when her father was in the military. But I’d only recently learned that she’d been married and divorced. How can we work with people, call them our friends, and yet know so little about their real lives? I felt like I hadn’t been much of a friend.