Chapter 6
Reed drove the short distance to the town of Pooler, where he met with Dr. Maren Ito at the state crime lab. She escorted him into the morgue, with its soaring ceilings, bright lights, and high windows, her steps purposeful.
Petite in stature, her black hair pulled severely away from her face in a tight bun, Dr. Ito wore rimless glasses, a pressed white lab coat, and a no-nonsense demeanor as she displayed Billy Huber’s lifeless body, which was lying supine on a metal gurney.
“The body’s already been scanned,” she said, as Reed viewed the corpse.
Tan lines were visible on Huber’s arms and neck, his thin torso white, ribs visible, graying hair swirled across his chest. His brown eyes were open, a silver growth of beard covering sunken cheeks and a defined jaw.
Along with the wounds from his fall off the ladder, there was the usual Y-shaped incision on his torso and the neat slice across the top of his skull that cleaved his thin, stringy hair.
“I’ll work on the preliminary report later today,” Ito said.
“It’ll be a while for the blood work to come back, but here’s the rundown: William Huber was dead at least forty-eight hours before his body was discovered.
Looks like he fell off the ladder. His internal injuries and broken pelvis, tibia, and ribs are consistent with a fall, as is his brain bleed.
Contusions on his upper arm and shoulder. ”
“He landed on an upturned rake,” Reed said. Huber’s shoulder and upper arm had been impaled on the curved tines.
She nodded. “His right wrist is broken. But,” she added, glancing up at Reed, “here’s the interesting thing: It wasn’t the fall that killed him.
His jugular was sliced by a sharp instrument of some kind.
” She pointed to the obvious cut to his throat.
“A knife possibly, something with a very sharp blade, almost like a scalpel.”
“We haven’t found a weapon yet. Still searching.”
“Look for a long, slim blade, something that would cut clean and deep.” She motioned to the back of Billy’s head. “And also, see these injuries?”
“Hard to miss.”
“They’re from where he supposedly fell against the tiller blades, but they’re inconsistent with how he would land naturally.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that I think someone deliberately forced his head onto the blade either very soon after, or right before, his throat was sliced. There are bruises along his jawline where someone held him. Hard enough to break the blood vessels under the skin. Like this.” Standing at the head of the table, she placed her gloved hands on either side of the dead man’s face and lifted his head from the table. “See?”
“I do.”
She was nodding, agreeing with herself, the overhead lights reflecting in her black hair.
“This was no accident. Someone was very determined to see Billy Huber dead and viciously so.” She set Billy’s head down gently, then stripped off her surgical gloves.
“I’m no psychiatrist, but I’d be willing to bet that whoever did it was very, very angry. ”
“You think a crime of passion.”
“Just my guess, but either slamming his head against the blade or slicing his throat would have killed him if the fall didn’t.”
“You’re thinking the murderer enjoyed killing him.”
“Again my medical degree isn’t in psychiatry.” She looked up at Reed. “But this”—she gestured to the table—“was literally overkill.” She stepped back from the table. “Seen enough?”
More than, he thought, as he left the modern building with its glass walls and manicured grounds.
He climbed into his Jeep, where the interior was sticky and hot and a yellow jacket, which had somehow found its way inside, was slamming itself against the windshield in a vain attempt to escape.
He lowered the windows and waved at it until it flew away.
Putting on his sunglasses, he called his partner, Sol Augustin. She’d drawn the short straw and been temporarily assigned as Reed’s partner.
“Hey,” she answered. “You still in Pooler?”
At five-ten and as athletic as she’d been as a basketball player for the Georgia Bulldogs, Sol could be intimidating to some.
She was smart and competitive. And had her secrets.
A bit of a mystery. She kept things close to the vest, though there were rumors about her, police gossip that suggested she was hard to get along with and sometimes “out there, if ya know what I mean.” Reed did.
The talk was that she had some kind of ESP, something deep inside that would cause her to be intense one second, then seemingly almost lost when the wave of foresight or whatever it was washed over her.
“On my way back.” Reed engaged the Jeep’s engine and drove out of the parking lot.
“Find out much?”
“Some.” He filled Sol in on what he’d learned about Billy Huber’s homicide, how brutal and intentional it had been.
“Slicing his throat wasn’t enough.”
“Apparently not.” Reed slid down the visor as sunlight was bouncing off the road. “Did you visit the crime scene?”
“I did. Early this morning.”
“See anything?”
“Just got a feel for the place.”
He nodded, though she couldn’t see him. He knew Sol liked to visit a crime scene on her own, without any distractions.
She continued, “When I got into the office, I spoke with some of the deputies who interviewed Huber’s neighbors and family members.
None of the neighbors saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, and they agreed with his brothers that Huber kept to himself.
When they dealt with him, it wasn’t pleasant.
None of them seemed all that broken up that he was dead.
The neighbor to the west, just beyond a stretch of woods, Otis Childers, was in a legal battle with Huber a while back.
Lawsuit over a fence, but it was dealt with.
Huber moved the fence, and Childers claimed Huber was a—and I quote—‘nutjob,’ who had come onto his property and stolen some farm equipment.
Huber denied it, and when Childers went over in his pickup to confront him, Huber came out with pistol and threatened to kill him.
” She paused. “That didn’t go over so well, but Childers backed off. ”
“And saw nothing on the night he died.”
“Right. The other neighbors were Duke and Frances Wheelan. They, too, claimed Huber wasn’t friendly.
Apparently, they caught him trying to poach deer and boars off their property, despite warning him to stay away.
Wheelan sued him, but the suit went nowhere, as in court Huber insisted Wheelan was the one who had poached on his property.
The judge threw the whole thing out. But despite Wheelan putting up NO TRESPASSING signs, Huber kept ignoring them and crossing onto Wheelan’s property whenever he pleased. ”
“So Billy Huber was the neighbor they all loved.”
“Yep. The kind you’d want to invite to a party,” she answered ironically.
“So what about Huber’s family? You said you talked to them?”
“Didn’t get much more than I told ya. Again, no one seemed all that grief-stricken about his passing.
The daughter, ah … Janelle McGowan lives in Florida now, Jacksonville.
She reluctantly agreed to come and ID the body, but she wasn’t keen on it.
Didn’t say much, but I got the feeling she’d rather spit on his grave than leave any roses on it.
No love lost there. And she’s his only kid.
He had a son who died right after birth, and his wife has been dead for around eight years. ”
“Siblings? Parents?”
“Parents are both dead. Natural causes. First the father, then the mother a few years later. He’s got a couple of brothers, one older, one younger.
I talked to them on the phone. Neither unhappy or surprised that he died or that someone killed him, which was odd.
The older brother, Terence—he lives in Plano, Texas, by the way—he didn’t say much.
Quiet, I guess. But not shocked that someone killed his brother.
His comment was, ‘So Billy finally pissed the wrong guy off, eh?’”
“What about the other brother?”
“A couple of years younger. Billy was the middle child. So, uh—Robert, he goes by Bobby—he really went off when I brought Billy up. Didn’t seem bothered at all that his brother was dead or had been killed for that matter.
From what I got out of it, Bobby loaned Billy ten thousand dollars about the time Billy’s wife, Linda-Sue, died, around eight years ago.
Bobby had to take money out of his retirement account, pay taxes on it, and he swears he’s never seen a dime back.
Resents it. There’s bad blood there, let me tell you.
Bobby claims he’s gonna sue the estate if Billy didn’t, in his words, ‘Have the decency to leave him the value of the loan with interest.’”
“Did Billy have a will?”
“We’re still lookin’.”
“What about life insurance?”
“Unknown,” Augustin said. “But, again, we’re looking into it.”
“Good. We need to know who profits from Billy Huber’s death.”
“On it,” Augustin assured him.
They talked a bit more, and by the time they broke the connection, Reed was within the Savannah city limits and driving past Forsyth Park, busy now with people jogging or walking.
Women were pushing strollers, and young couples walked hand in hand as they strolled on sun-dappled sidewalks beneath live oaks draped with Spanish moss.
He glanced at the majestic fountain, newly restored, its spray glinting in the sunlight.
At the station, he parked in the lot, his thoughts still filled with the homicide.
Who held such a deep-seated grudge against Billy Huber that they wanted his death to be brutal?
Everyone who knew Billy seemed to have a reason to dislike him.
But had someone’s hatred been so deep that it would propel him to murder and to kill with such savagery?
Nikki’s stomach rumbled. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was already after two. She was about to call her sister and check in on Chloe when she received another text from Lily: