Death Among the Mangroves by Stephen Morrill

she said as she turned into the town hall parking lot.
    “Thinking about what Mark said,” Troy answered.
    “He said a lot of shit. Smart-ass kid. I wanted to slap him silly.”
    Troy smiled. “Restraint is a good thing at times. Tell me, when did Barbara Gillispie go missing?”
    Angel parked the Suburban and looked at Troy. “Last Saturday night. You know that.”
    “I do. And we called out the town to search for her all day Sunday. So, as far as any of them are concerned, she’s been missing since Sunday morning.”
    “Well, sort of, Chief. What’s your point?”
    “My point is that Mark Stider referred to Barbara Gillispie as having been missing since Friday.”
    Angel considered that. “Well, technically, he’s right. She was last seen by her friends on Friday. We turned two witnesses who saw Barbara and Mark together on Friday.”
    “Yes we did. But how could Mark Stider know all that?”
    “That’s thin, Chief.”
    “Doesn’t make it wrong. Mark Stider lied about the motel room. He lied about being with Barbara Gillispie for at least some time on Friday. Now he refers to her as having been missing since Friday, even though we didn’t know about it until twenty-four hours later.”
    “Gee, Chief. Do you think Mark Stider is worth a second look?”
    “What do you think?”
    “I think I want to slap him silly.”
    Troy nodded. “You may yet get the chance.”

Chapter 14
    Monday, December 23
    Gerry Whyte, the dog assassin, talked to Angel Watson in their interrogation room, his hands cuffed behind his back. Troy stood in the station locker room on the other side of a one-way window, watching and listening to a speaker while he had Angel do the questioning. She seemed less threatening than the men on the staff. Jeremiah Brown could threaten the United States Marine Corps and Bubba Johns was not far behind. And it was unlikely that Troy, with his skin tone, would ever be buddies with Whyte, who seemed to hate people of the darker persuasion, even those only slightly darker.
    Angel put Whyte back into his cell. Once he was in and the door locked, she had to explain to Whyte, patiently, that he had to back up to the cell door to put his hands out the handcuff port so she could take the cuffs off. Troy watched all this—they never moved a prisoner without two officers doing it—with amusement. “One would think,” he said to Angel, “that he would know the routine by now. He’s spent half his life in prison.”
    Troy and Angel walked back to his office and she sat in one of the visitor chairs, shaking her head. “This is pointless,” she said. “He’s too stupid to talk to. Or too smart. He just repeats that he was only protecting that jogger. His story is so short and so simple I can’t get a wedge into it anywhere.”
    “I liked the part about how we searched his house and found the bolt cutter and we can match it to the cut-off lock.”
    “Oh yeah.” Angel laughed. “You and I both know that’s nonsense, the matching part at least. He probably doesn’t, but it just sailed over him without any response.”
    “Sure. But he did have a bolt cutter. How many people do you know who own one of those? It looked new. We could probably track that one down at the hardware store here in town.”
    “True. I’ll do that. But that’s not good enough to convict,” Angel said. “We went through all his trash and searched the house and didn’t find a receipt.”
    “Probably in the landfill by now, north side of Alligator Alley, thanks to the County’s efficient trash collection.”
    Angel nodded. “Likely so. Leaving us with him, and he’s not much. He’s an ignorant, irresponsible young man with an ingrained hatred.”
    “It’s partly hatred,” Troy said. “Mostly it’s fear. He knows he’s slow and uneducated. He looks for someone to feel superior to. In our culture he thinks he can feel superior to blacks just because he’s white and they’re black. It’s not much but it’s easy