Page 73 of Dead Men Tell No Shells

The rest of the evidence wasn’t much more cooperative. Harvey’s watch had stopped at 7:43, but that didn’t establish when he’d died. The watch might have stopped when he fell, or it might have been damaged earlier, or could have been keeping incorrect time. Without something to corroborate it, the time on its face was a detail to record, not a timestamp I could build the investigation around, especially as Max thought he saw Harvey just after eight, though unless he’d checked the time specifically, that could also have been a guesstimate. Then there was the threatening message referring to something that had happened twenty years ago. The wording suggested a history between Harvey and the sender, but it didn’t tell me who had sent it or what, exactly, the sender believed Harvey had done. I couldn’t assume the message and Ricky’s overheard remark were connected simply because both hinted at old grievances. Hartwell Cove was full of people who had known Harvey for years. Some of them had reasons to dislike him. That didn’t make any of them his killer.

The argument at the bank was another loose end. An older woman had overheard a man tell Harvey, “You should’ve let sleeping dogs lie! That was twenty years ago!” She hadn’t been able to identify the speaker, and while Owen had also later argued with him, I had no proof the two incidents involved the same person. Even if they did, anger wasn’t evidence of murder.

I leaned back in my chair and studied the notes spread across my desk. The case had plenty of possible motives, several people with complicated histories, and very little that tied any of them to Harvey’s death. I needed to keep following the evidence without allowing one intriguing detail to make every other fact look as though it belonged to the same puzzle.

The bank records seemed like a sensible place to return.

Harvey’s personal effects had included a checkbook from an account he’d used for his ordinary expenses. I’d already examined the accompanying statements, but I pulled everything out again and laid the checkbook beside the records. The book was relatively new, and only three checks had been removed.

The first two were straightforward. One had paid a plumber for work on Harvey’s garbage disposal; the other covered his property taxes. Both had been written a few days before his death and had cleared the bank shortly before he died. Their amounts and recipients matched the corresponding entries in the statements. There was nothing unusual about either transaction.

The third check was different.

Its stub showed the date Harvey died and an amount of fifteen thousand dollars. In the space where he could have recorded a recipient or purpose, he’d written only personal.

I checked the statement again, then went back through the more recent transactions. There were no comparable payments to explain it, and I couldn’t find a corresponding withdrawal or transfer that suggested the money had been moved another way. The check itself was missing from the book, but that didn’t tell me whether Harvey had handed it to someone, mailed it, or left it somewhere to be found after his death.

Fifteen thousand dollars was a substantial amount of money. The vague notation made it impossible to determine what the payment had been for, and the date made it worth pursuing. Harvey might have been settling a debt, repaying someone, paying for something he wanted kept private, or responding to pressure from a person who knew how to exploit his circumstances. Those were possibilities, not conclusions.

I wrote the amount and date in my notes and circled them. Whatever the explanation, I needed to find out whether the check had entered the banking system.

That meant starting with the bank on which it had been drawn. The checkbook and account records gave me the information I needed to identify the institution, but I couldn't simply demand details about every transaction involving Harvey or ask the bank to disclose the identity of anyone who might present a check. I needed the appropriate legal authority, and I needed to be specific about what I was seeking.

I prepared an application for judicial authorization, explaining that a check for fifteen thousand dollars had been written on the day of Harvey’s death, that its stub carried only the notation personal, and that no matching payment appeared in the available account records. I made it clear that I did not yet know the intended recipient or whether the check had been presented for payment. My request was to establish whether this particular check surfaced and, if it did, to obtain the information necessary to pursue the transaction through the proper channels.

The application took time to put together properly. I checked the account details against the records, made sure the check amount and date were accurate, and kept the request limited to the transaction I had grounds to investigate. Once the authorization was granted, I contacted Harvey’s bank.

I explained what we were looking for and arranged for the bank to notify me if the specific check was presented. That would give me a starting point if the check entered processing. Any further inquiry into the recipient or the institution handling it would have to follow the applicable procedures and the scope of the authority I obtained.

When I finished the call, I added the arrangement to the case file and checked the details one last time. There was no guarantee the check would ever be presented. It might have been lost, destroyed, or still sitting in someone’s possession. Even if it turned up, the transaction alone would not prove that the recipient had anything to do with Harvey’s death. Still, it was something concrete I could follow, unlike the possibilities accumulating around the other evidence.

I returned to the notes on my desk. Shelby’s name remained beside the words connection unknown. The threatening message still had no confirmed sender. The watch offered a time but no reliable answer about when Harvey had died. And the missing check raised questions I couldn't yet answer. I had a direction to pursue, but not a solution. The bank would contact me if the check appeared, and until then, I had no way of knowing whether anyone intended to cash it or who might be holding it. For now, all I could do was keep working through the evidence, one unanswered question at a time.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE CHECK COMES BACK

JOSIAH

The previous week had been a blur of investigative work and the ordinary demands of running the sheriff’s office. By the time Monday morning arrived, I felt as though I’d spent the entire week chasing pieces of a puzzle that refused to fit together. Harvey Sinclair was dead, the medical examiner had established that a blow to the head had killed him, and I had several leads worth pursuing, but none had given me a clear picture of what had happened behind the temporary bandstand that Sunday evening. The bank footage had finally arrived, the records relating to the threatening text were still pending, and the checkbook had raised another question I couldn't yet answer. On top of that, I still had the ordinary responsibilities of running a sheriff’s office, which meant I couldn't devote every waking hour to Harvey's murder, no matter how much I wanted to.

The medical examiner’s preliminary findings had confirmed that Harvey died from a blow to the head. The injury was consistent with his striking a hard surface when he fell, but it didn't tell us exactly how that had happened. He could have lost his footing, been knocked off balance, or been involved in a struggle. Until we had more evidence, I couldn't rule out any of those possibilities. We knew how Harvey had died, but we didn't yet know what had caused him to fall or who else had been there.

Then there was the watch. During the inventory of Harvey's possessions, I'd noted that it had stopped at 7:43. I'd recorded the time because it might become relevant, but I hadn't treated it as an indication of when he died. A stopped watch could be a useful clue, but only if we understood why it had stopped in the first place.

The watch was a mechanical windup, and I wanted someone qualified to examine it rather than relying on a quick inspection in the evidence room. The nearest suitable specialist I could arrange to see was in Baltimore, which meant another trip, more paperwork, and time away from the other work waiting on my desk. Before I could take it anywhere, I had to document its condition, record the reason for removing it from secure storage, and arrange a formal transfer. The chain of custody had to remain intact, and the specialist needed to know that the watch was evidence in a homicide investigation rather than an ordinary repair job.

I wasn't looking forward to the drive or the paperwork, but neither was optional. I signed the evidence out according to procedure, transported it myself, and made sure the specialist documented its condition before beginning the examination. By the time I'd finished the trip and completed the return paperwork, I'd lost a substantial part of a day to a small object that might not tell me anything useful.

The specialist found no obvious damage to the mechanism. The watch simply wasn't wound, and without knowing when Harvey had last wound it, there was no way to establish when it had stopped. An impact might have affected it, depending on the movement and the nature of the blow, but the examination couldn't determine whether that had happened. The time on the dial remained a detail, not a reliable record of the murder.

I kept coming back to the area behind the temporary bandstand. The stage had a solid edge, and the ground beyond it was uneven in places. If Harvey had fallen backward and struck his head there, it might explain the fatal injury, but we had no physical evidence yet to establish that was what had happened. I'd arranged for the scene to be examined more closely, including measurements of the stage edge, and the technicians would look for anything that might have been overlooked during the initial investigation. Until we had those findings, I wasn't going to build a theory around a possibility simply because it made sense.

The bank footage had been another source of frustration. I'd requested the relevant security recordings through the proper legal process after learning that someone had overheard an argument between Harvey and an unidentified man at the bank. The witness hadn't been able to identify the man, but the words she'd remembered had been specific enough to make the encounter worth investigating.

“You should've let sleeping dogs lie! That was twenty years ago!”

The bank's legal department had taken its time responding, and I'd spent several days following up before the footage was finally made available. I'd asked for the entire week in which Harvey died, rather than a narrow window around the argument. If the man had visited the bank on other occasions, or if someone had accompanied him, I wanted the opportunity to see that too.