Practice to Deceive

Lewis of the Punta Gorda Police Department, who went with them to Jim and Jean Huden’s home on Yucca Street.
    There was a stillness in the air, an odd heaviness as Floridians waited for the storm to swoop in. Every once in a while, a ripple of wind caused the tropical vegetation to tremble and the jalousie windows to rattle. Still, the TV weathermen were assuring Punta Gordians that the storm was likely days away from landfall in Florida.
    As the Whidbey Island detectives neared the front door of what was reputed to be Jim Huden’s home, Plumberg could see a man sitting on a sofa and a woman standing nearby. He knocked on the door and Jean Huden opened it.
    “I identified myself, telling her in a loud enough voice for the man inside to hear me that I was from Whidbey Island, Washington. I asked if Jim Huden was home and if I could speak to him. She let us in.”
    The man stood up and held out his hand to Plumberg, saying: “I’m Jim Huden.”
    He didn’t seem at all surprised to see the detectives who had flown across America to speak with him.
    Mike Beech interviewed Jean Huden in one of the bedrooms, while Plumberg talked to Jim in the living room.
    “I assume you know why we’re here,” Plumberg said.
    “No—not yet,” Jim said.
    Twice more, the detective told Jim Huden that he and Beech were from Island County, Washington, but Huden still didn’t seem startled or ask why they had come to his door in Florida.
    “We’re here to investigate a crime that occurred in Island County.”
    Huden’s expression remained unreadable.
    Read his rights under Miranda, Huden said he understood and waived his rights verbally.
    Jim Huden didn’t ask what crime the investigators were asking about, but he didn’t seem shocked when Mark Plumberg started asking him about the murder of Russel Douglas almost eight months earlier.
    Only moments into the interview, Plumberg wanted to shake Jim Huden up. He told him that they were in Punta Gorda because they suspected him of taking part in the unsolved murder of Russel Douglas.
    “You’ve been implicated in his death,” Plumberg said bluntly. “I know that you’re the man who pulled the trigger.”
    “I don’t know why someone would say that,” Huden said softly. “I’ve never even owned a gun.”
    As Plumberg questioned Jim Huden in Punta Gorda, Florida, in the summer of 2004, he made sure that Huden knew he could leave at any time. He was not under arrest.
    Jim agreed readily that he and Peggy Sue Thomas had traveled from Las Vegas to Whidbey Island during the past Christmas holidays.
    “I drove Peggy’s Lexus up, and Peggy flew up with her two daughters.”
    Mark Plumberg reminded Huden once again that he was not under arrest, that he was free to go at any time. Huden nodded, but made no move to leave. The detective continued the interview by asking for more details about the trip Jim and Peggy had made just before Christmas 2003. Jim repeated that he had driven Peggy’s car, and she and her daughters had boarded a plane.
    “Can you describe Peggy Sue Thomas’s car?” Plumberg asked.
    “It’s a dark green 1992 four-door Lexus sedan, and the license plate says FIRYRED . That’s kind of Peggy’s image.”
    “So when did you get up to the Seattle area?”
    “A day later than I planned. But a day before Peggy was going to fly. I stayed that night at my friend Ron Young’s house.”
    “Do you recall which day that was?”
    “I’m not sure—I’d have to look at a calendar. I drove down to Sea-Tac to pick up Peggy and the girls the next day. We stayed together in a hotel north of Seattle in the Alder-wood/Mill Creek area. Then Peggy and I drove to Whidbey alone the next day.”
    “What about her daughters?”
    “I’m not sure how they got to their dad’s—Kelvin’s place—but I know they were with him.”
    Jim Huden said that he and Peggy Sue had stayed at his good friend Dick Deposit’s home from the Friday before Christmas, December 19, to Monday or Tuesday of the next week, either December 22 or 23.
    “Peggy was cutting hair at Just B’s from that Friday until the next week, and then we left the island. We stayed at a hotel by the airport next.”
    Suddenly, Jim Huden interrupted the interview, saying, “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Go ahead,” Plumberg said.
    “Is Peggy angry enough at me that she would implicate me in this crime?”
    At this point, Mark Plumberg hadn’t indicated that Peggy Sue Thomas was in any way connected