Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

24

Whenever a judicial investigation cannot be made without injury, the course should be adopted which is productive of the least unfairness.

—Javolenus (ca. AD 86)

DETECTIVE GARY EDWARDS (TUESDAY AFTERNOON,

JUNE 17)

Between the rain and the tourists, it took Detective Edwards longer than usual to clear downtown traffic and get onto the MLK Parkway, the quickest route out to Wrightsville Beach. Once on it, he had just set the cruise control when the lanes ahead started to back up. Bad wreck or fender bender? He queried the dispatcher, but nothing had been reported yet, so he inched along, playing the usual mind game: get off at the next exit or hope it would soon clear? Happily, the cause was around the very next bend—a shiny new Prius hybrid with warning lights flashing. Its hapless driver and passenger were pushing it onto the shoulder. No smashed fender, no second car involved.

Edwards put on his own flashers and pulled alongside the tall white-haired man who was puffing from exertion, and lowered his window. “Out of gas?”

“Yeah, dammit! It was supposed to get at least another twelve miles.”

“Need help?”

“Not unless you’ve got a gas can,” the man said, wiping rain from his face with his wet shirtsleeve. “It’s okay. I’ve called somebody.”

Edwards notified the dispatcher in case anyone else called in about the delay and waited with his lights flashing till they had the car completely off the highway and well onto the shoulder before he accelerated past. He grinned as he remembered a friend up in Raleigh who had called Triple A when his new hybrid conked out on him several miles from home. Jim was embarrassed as hell when the wrecker showed up and its driver declared that there was nothing mechanically wrong with the car, only that it was out of gas, several miles per gallon short of what his indignant friend expected. The driver gave him a gallon of gas, more than enough to get him to the next station, but Jim was sure it would be enough to get him back to his favorite service station.

It wasn’t.

It should comfort Jim to learn he was not the only one who suffered from a syndrome Edwards was starting to call hybrid overoptimism.

According to the conference schedule Judge Knott had shown him, the judges were due to adjourn for the day at 5:30, so there was no need to speed along Eastwood, which naturally ensured that he would catch green lights all the way. As he pulled into the parking lot at the SandCastle Hotel, his pager went off.

“Hey, Gary,” Andy Wall said. “Just got a call. They’ve located our red Geo with the South Carolina ‘Share the Road’ plate.”

“Yeah. Where?”

“North of town on I-40. The Castle Hayne exit. Sounds like it ran off the westbound ramp and crashed into some trees. They haven’t ID’d the driver yet, but he’s dead.”

Expediting with lights and siren, Gary Edwards got to the Castle Hayne exit only a few minutes after Andy Wall. Whether it was the rain or the inconvenient location, the usual curiosity seekers were missing when he arrived. He parked his car behind one of the cruisers and half-walked, half-slid down the steep incline to the crash site, unimpeded by rubberneckers. The grass was so wet and slippery that he almost lost his balance a couple of times before reaching level ground. Despite his umbrella’s broken rib, it served its purpose with a certain dignity; but the troopers who wore standard rain gear seemed much amused by Andy Wall, who sheltered beneath a dainty floral umbrella with a pink ruffle that lent a rosy glow to his face.

It was so reminiscent of the parasols carried by the Azalea Queen’s court that Edwards couldn’t resist. “Gee, Andy, I thought the Azalea Festival was two months ago.”

“Don’t you start, too,” he groused. “My wife took my umbrella this morning and this is the only one I could find.”

“So what’ve we got?”

“The troopers think he must’ve gone off during last night’s heaviest rain,” Wall told him as they looked down on the twisted and crumpled pile of red metal, all that remained of the little red hatchback.

“Yeah,” said the nearer officer. “Looks like he misjudged the angle of the curve and was accelerating instead of braking. Either that or the brakes didn’t catch and he just hydroplaned over. No skid marks. Not that we’d expect them with all the rain we’ve had.”

They automatically glanced upward. The rain had finally begun to ease off and they could see a patch of blue through an opening in the western clouds. Wall furled his frothy umbrella and used it as a walking stick as they eased themselves down closer to the car, half hidden in a tangle of yaupon and sturdy pines.

A lifeless body was tightly pinned between the steering wheel and the roof. Through the crushed windshield they could make out part of the face, which was cut and torn.

“Not much blood,” Edwards observed.

“Probably washed away by the rain,” said Wall, looking at the headshots Mrs. Rudd had given him, the wannabe actor’s publicity photos. “Is it Armstrong?”

“Looks like him to me,” Edwards said as he tried to reconcile this battered face to the man he had met briefly on Sunday. In the pictures Armstrong’s chin was as weak as he remembered, but thrust forward like this, in three-quarter profile, it managed to convey a certain sensitive strength.

Too bad, thought Edwards, that he had heard nothing today to indicate an ounce of sensitivity for others. To strangle a man, dump his body in a crab-infested river, and then run down another man in front of his wife?

“He hit that tree with one hell of a force,” the trooper said. “It’s gonna take the jaws to get him out in one piece. Wasn’t wearing a seat belt, either.”

“You really think a seat belt would’ve helped?” Edwards asked.

The trooper nodded. “Naw, probably not.”

The bushes were strewn with sodden clothes, CDs, and bits of speakers and players from the waiter’s sound system. It looked as if he had piled all his worldly goods into the back of the car without any rhyme or reason in his haste to leave town.

“Probably planned to stay with his aunt overnight,” said Wall, who had given him a condensed version of his trip out to see Armstrong’s cousin. “Maybe he wanted to hit her up for some cash before clearing out. She told me that she helps him out when he comes up short.”

“Who found him?”

“The traffic helicopter called it in,” answered the trooper. “Saw the wreckage and asked if we knew about it. Detective Wall here says you think this is yesterday’s hit-and-run?”

“Yeah. So pay attention to the front right fender, okay? And copy us on all the pictures and reports.”

The rain had stopped completely by the time they climbed back up the slope, but the ground was so muddy that the pink umbrella was a wreck where Wall had jabbed it in the ground to help haul himself up.

“One good thing,” Wall said. “He’s saved the state the cost of putting him on trial and then keeping him in prison for the next thirty years.”

“Yeah,” Edwards agreed. “Just hope we find out why he killed Jeffreys before they pull us off the case. I can understand running down Fitzhume. He was afraid the judge could place the two of them in the restroom right before the murder, but what was his beef with Jeffreys in the first place?”

“Who knows?” Wall said, and glanced at his watch. “I’ll run by the office and get the paperwork started and then call it a day. What about you?”

“I think I’ll stop by the hospital and tell Mrs. Fitzhume and then maybe ride back out to the beach, see if Judge Knott’s learned of a link between Armstrong and Jeffreys.”

Andy Wall smiled at the younger man. “And maybe ask her friend out to dinner now that the case is practically closed?”

“Maybe.”