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

without a trace. No money had been taken from his bank account, and his Cadillac was still in the three-car garage. His extensive tailored wardrobe was still intact.
    One Saturday morning a photograph of Donald Hutton and Marie Weller appeared in both newspapers. Considering the possibility that Virgil might be suffering from amnesia, Marie and Donald had gone downtown and checked the skid row breadline at Camillus House, believing that Virgil, if he were having an amnesia attack, might be sleeping under an overpass at night and getting mission handouts. They had notified the newspapers of their impending trip downtown, and photographers and reporters had been there to check the breadline with them. Virgil had not been among the homeless men, of course, but some excellent human-interest photos of other bums in the line were published in both papers.
    Negative PR like this put additional pressure on Hoke Moseley and the Homicide Division.
    Because of their partnership agreement, Donald Hutton, in essence, now owned one hundred percent of the business. Marie Weller, naturally, continued to live with her brother-in-law in the big Bayside mansion. Donald Hutton--although he didn't have to--paid Marie Weller a fair share of the profits from the business, but until Virgil was declared officially dead--not just missing--the business was all his, not Marie Weller's. If the body was found, Marie Weller would inherit her husband's half of the firm.
    Hoke discovered the body.
    Before he found the corpse, Hoke had learned, during routine checks of Donald's movements in the weeks preceding Virgil's disappearance, that Donald had purchased three pounds of strychnine at the Falco-Benson Pharmaceutical Company, in Hialeah, ostensibly to get rid of rats at his house. Inasmuch as the Huttons had a live-in cook, a daytime maid, and a gardener who spent two days a week taking care of their yard, why would a busy executive like Donald Hutton decide to kill the rats himself? Wouldn't he hire an exterminator, or else tell the regular exterminator who visited the house every month, to take care of the rats? It wasn't much to go on, but the third judge Hoke talked to signed a second search warrant. Hoke discovered the body buried under the garage floor beneath Virgil's parked 1974 El Dorado. The house had been searched briefly earlier, when a two-man detective team looked about for evidence in the disappearance, but they hadn't moved the Cadillac during this first, and rather perfunctory, search. Donald Hutton was arrested when the autopsy revealed traces of strychnine in his body. Marie Weller had been in North Carolina attending a furniture convention when Virgil disappeared, so she was not a suspect.
    The evidence was largely circumstantial, and perhaps a good criminal lawyer could have obtained a not guilty verdict for Donald Hutton, but Donald had retained Randy Mendoza, and Mendoza, a corporation lawyer without criminal law experience, made the mistake of putting his client on the stand. The prosecutor had managed to make Hutton lie, after accusing him of sleeping with Marie Weller, his brother's wife, during a long weekend in Key West. After Hutton had denied the allegation, the prosecutor produced a photocopy of the hotel registration card (obtained by Hoke during his investigation). He also put another witness on the stand, a hotel maid, who claimed that the two of them were in bed together on the morning she entered their room (at their request) to clear away their breakfast dishes. Marie Weller was then put on the stand. She admitted sharing the bed in Key West with her brother-in-law but said that she did so only because all the other rooms were booked up. They had slept together, she said, but they "hadn't done anything."
    The jury found Donald Hutton guilty of first-degree murder but recommended life imprisonment. The magistrate accepted the jury's recommendation. Life, on a murder one conviction, meant twenty-five mandatory years in