The Way We Die Now by Charles Willeford Read Free Book Online

defender's office, requested a thirty-day delay so she could prepare a defense. Hoke almost felt sorry for her. This was her first homicide case, and she would certainly lose it. The defendant, an insurance salesman and Little League baseball coach, had killed his wife with a bat because she had berated him for not letting their son pitch. His son could neither pitch nor hit, he told the desk sergeant when he turned himself in and handed the bloody bat over and confessed at the station. Hoke had prepared the supplementary reports on the simple case. If the man's signed confession was allowed as evidence, the guy would go to prison, no matter what kind of defense the attorney attempted.
    Hoke called Ellita from the courthouse.
    "I've been waiting for your call, Hoke--"
    "Go ahead and have lunch without me. I've got too many things to do today to come home for lunch."
    "I found out who that man is, Hoke. And I don't think it's a coincidence. It's Donald Hutton!"
    Hoke laughed. "Hutton's a common name, Ellita. My Donald Hutton's still doing twenty-five years in Raiford. A mandatory twenty-five before he's eligible for parole."
    "You're wrong, Hoke. This is -your- Donald Hutton. I went over and introduced myself. He told me he was waiting outside for the water man and the FPL to turn on his utilities. He said he just moved down here from Starke, that's where Raiford Prison is, and he's had his furniture and little Henry J in storage for the last ten years. Then he told me his name was Donald Hutton. I didn't tell him you lived in the house with me, but I've got a hunch he already knows that. That's why he bought the house--"
    "Did you ask him if he was in prison?"
    "That isn't something you ask a person you're meeting for the first time, Hoke. I couldn't very well say, 'Did you just get out of prison?,' could I?"
    "I guess not. I'll check it out while I'm here at the courthouse."
    "Call me back. I'm not going out."
    "I'll call you."
    Hoke recalled the Donald Hutton murder case well. This had been Hoke's second homicide investigation, and he had worked hard on it, trying to prove himself as a new detective.
    Donald Hutton, and his older brother, Virgil (Virgil was five years older than Donald), had moved to Miami from Valdosta, Georgia, in the sixties. They had started a knotty pine paneling business. They already owned hundreds of acres of pinelands in Georgia, and they specialized in paneling offices and dens in new homes. During the building boom of the early seventies they had prospered in Miami. Eventually they had twenty-two employees. They lived together in an old mansion in the Bayside section of Miami, overlooking Biscayne Bay.
    Virgil had married a modestly successful interior designer, a young woman named Marie Weller. She had kept her maiden name when they married, because of her established business. Her new clients were often advised to panel one or two rooms in knotty pine (she could get them a substantial discount). Then Virgil Hutton disappeared.
    Donald Hutton had made a nuisance of himself at the police station, demanding that they find his big brother. Virgil had no known enemies, and according to everything Hoke could find out, he had been a "good old boy." Virgil did the selling for the two-man firm. Donald took care of the paperwork and also supervised the actual paneling that was put in by their hired craftsmen.
    Donald also complained to the media, claiming that the police were not looking hard enough for his brother. How could a two-hundred-and-forty-pound man, six feet tall, disappear into the hot, moist air of Miami?
    Marie Weller couldn't understand it either. She and Virgil had been married only for a year and were happy together, she claimed. In fact, they had even talked to the attorney, Randy Mendoza, about the possibility of adopting a child. At thirty-two Marie Weller was capable of bearing a child, but Virgil, forty-three and fifty pounds overweight, had a low sperm count. Virgil had disappeared