Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (10 page)

At five o’clock, Maggie hitched her purse onto her shoulder and walked to Wyatt’s office. The door was open, and she walked over to his desk, where he sat pecking at his computer.

“Hey,” he said, without looking up.

“I’m done for the day,” she said. “I sent you my report on Mrs. Crawford and Bradford Wilson.”

He looked up at her. “I’m almost done with Boudreaux. I left out the creepy parts.”

“It’s not creepy,” she said.

Wyatt sighed at her.

“Ok, it’s a little creepy,” she said.

“Go shut the door,” Wyatt told her.

Maggie walked over and closed the door quietly, and walked back to the desk. Wyatt took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair before putting it back on.

“One of your most attractive qualities is your loyalty,” Wyatt said. “He kept Alessi from killing you, and maybe killing the kids. I get that.”

“Okay.”

“But you’re a cop. He’s a crook. A dangerous crook. We know that,” Wyatt said. “You know that.”

“He’s not dangerous to me,” Maggie said quietly.

“And that’s the bad part,” Wyatt said.

They looked at each other for a moment. Maggie wasn’t sure what to say. Wyatt was both right and wrong.

“Maggie. He’s killed two men that we know of for sure. One of them watched you get raped. The other one was trying to kill you. This guy, he has some kind of thing for you. Whether or not you acknowledge it exists, it does.”

“It’s not what you think it is.”

“I don’t know what it is,” Wyatt said. “The nature of it is really beside the point. What concerns me is that it’s there. And whether you want to admit it or not, you like the guy.”

Maggie started to protest, but she and Wyatt were better than that. “It’s not a romantic thing, Wyatt.”

“I know that much,” he said. “We wouldn’t be having this conversation if it was.”

He got up and walked around the desk, then leaned back against it, his impossibly long legs stretched out in front of him.

“I’m your boss. The Sheriff,” he said. “More importantly, I’m your best friend and…whatever else I am.”

“Important,” Maggie said.

He looked her in the eye, and there was concern and warmth and something else in his expression that brought a heat to her chest.

“No woman needs a guy like Boudreaux looking out for her, and no cop needs to feel any kind of loyalty to a guy like Boudreaux, either.”

“It doesn’t make him immune,” she said.

“I know that. I think. All the same, it’s not a good thing, Maggie. You need to step back.”

“Are you taking me off the case?” she asked.

“No. I’m saying you need to regain your perspective. Personally and professionally.”

“I know,” Maggie said. “I’m working on it. But I don’t think he killed Crawford.”

“Why not? Personal feelings aside, why not?”

Maggie stared out the window for a moment, trying to nail it down herself. Finally she looked back at Wyatt.

“No need,” she said, echoing Boudreaux’s own words.

Maggie’s parents lived in a modest frame house right on the bay, just outside Apalach on Hwy 98. Maggie drove down the long gravel driveway and parked in front.

Her parents had bought the house back in the early eighties, and turned a ramshackle cottage into the safe, warm home in which she’d grown up. It had been just the three of them, except for a short time after her mother’s father, the former policeman, had passed away. Her grandmother had come to live with them for a few years until she, too, had passed.

The front door opened as Maggie headed for the house, and Gray Redmond stepped out onto the porch.

“Hey there, Sunshine,” he said, smiling.

“Hey, Daddy.”

Maggie loved her mother fiercely, but she adored her father. She’d always been a Daddy’s girl. She’d gone with him out onto the oyster beds from the age of four or five, and they’d spent thousands of hours playing Scrabble, building furniture in the garage, and fishing off the dock in the back yard. Even now, if Maggie needed to talk, she needed to talk to Daddy.

Gray waited on the top step, then gave Maggie a hug. He had finally regained most of his weight after a year-long recovery from lung surgery, but he would always be a lanky man. He was six feet tall and barely more than one hundred and sixty pounds, but he’d worked the oyster beds since he was a teen, and he had the strength to show for it.

He stepped back to look at Maggie, his graying, sandy-colored hair falling over his brow. “How’s my girl?”

“Good, Daddy. Did you and Kyle have fun?”

“Yeah, we’ve almost got that little boat ship-shape,” her father answered. He and Kyle were restoring Gray’s father’s old oyster skiff. It had been sitting in Maggie’s yard, behind the house her grandfather had built, for most of her life. Now it was going to belong to her son.

“Good,” Maggie said. “It’s pretty much the only thing he’s talked about lately.”

“Men have an innate need to build things,” Gray said. “Or to un-build them.”

Gray opened the door for Maggie, then followed her to the kitchen at the back of the house. Kyle was sitting at the pine table her father had built, eating a slice of cheese.

“Hey, Mom,” he said when Maggie walked in.

“Hey, buddy,” Maggie said. “Good day?”

“Sure.” Kyle had become increasingly monosyllabic the last few months, and it bothered Maggie. She missed the enthusiasm and effusiveness of the little boy he’d been before his father had died.

“Hi, sweetie,” Maggie’s mother was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of soup.

“Hey, Mom,” Maggie said.

Sky was the image of her mother, and Maggie was the image of hers. At fifty-eight, Georgia Redmond still had the kind of beauty that didn’t require make-up, and her figure was as trim as it had been when she was Homecoming Queen. Maggie hoped that she would age half as well.

“You want to stay for dinner?” her mother asked. “I made Fisherman’s Stew.”

“It smells great, but I was thinking about taking Kyle for a quick ride in the runabout.” She looked at her son. “Does that sound alright?”

Kyle gave a slight shrug. “Yeah, sure.”

“I can pack some up for you to take home. There’s plenty,” Georgia said.

“Sure, that would be nice,” Maggie replied. “I didn’t thaw anything before I left for work.”

“We read about that body that was found over at the florist,” Gray said as he walked to the kitchen sink.

“That’s just macabre,” Georgia said, a little breathlessly. “You know, those buildings used to be part of the Underground Railroad.”

“Really?” Maggie asked.

Gray started washing his hands at the sink, and spoke over his shoulder. “They have a real history from Prohibition, too.”

“Do you think it was some poor slave, or a gangster?” Georgia asked.

“No, this body’s not quite that historical,” Maggie said. “It’s Holden Crawford.”

Georgia’s face lost all of its excitement. She stared back at Maggie blankly. “Holden Crawford,” she repeated.

“Yes.” Maggie looked from her mother to her father’s back. His hand washing had slowed somewhat. “Did you guys know him?”

“Sure,” her father said quietly. “Somewhat.”

“I’d almost forgotten all about that,” Georgia said. “Are you sure it’s him?”

“Yes. Larry matched his dental records.”

Gray shut off the water and took a dishtowel from the hook by the sink, turned around and started drying his hands. “That’s a shame,” he said to the towel. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“Not yet,” Maggie answered. “But he was seen arguing with some other men, or one other man, the night he went missing. Some blood was found in front of his place.”

“I remember,” Gray said.

Maggie glanced over at her mother, who was watching her husband, the wooden spoon she was holding dripping into the pot. Maggie looked back over at her father, who was focused on folding the dish towel.

“Did you know him, Daddy?” Maggie asked again, quietly.

Gray folded the towel again, then hung it back on the hook, where it immediately unfolded, before he looked at Maggie. “Sure. I sold him oysters when I was first starting out.”

“I always kind of hoped he’d just taken off for some reason,” Georgia said.

“Did you know him much, Mom?”

“Not really.” Georgia laid the spoon down on a white ceramic spoon rest. “I knew Mrs. Crawford better. She was my cheerleading coach in high school.”

“I didn’t know that,” Maggie said. “What was she like?”

“She was nice. A slave driver to us girls. You know, in a good way.” Georgia wiped at a few drops of stew on the counter. “She insisted we work hard, get it right. She always wanted us to win.” Georgia smiled, just a little, and shrugged. “But she was always bringing us cupcakes or making us hair bows for competitions and things. I think she probably thought of us like her daughters. They didn’t have any children.”

Maggie nodded and looked over at her father. He was leaning back against the counter, staring at the floor.

Gray Redmond was entirely self-educated, and he’d educated himself well. If someone mentioned a classic book, he’d not only read it, but probably owned a copy. But he was by choice a simple man.

He liked the jeans he’d broken in decades ago, worn to a flannel-like softness. He liked the music of a hand plane on old wood. He liked his Scrabble and his coffee and the stillness of the oyster beds at sunrise. Maggie’s work, and the secrets of her past, had brought a darkness and a noise to Gray’s life, especially in recent months, which he would have avoided if he’d had a choice.

He looked up at Maggie now. “Have you talked with his wife?”

“Yes. She knows,” Maggie said.

“She’s still living?” Georgia asked.

“Yes, she’s in an assisted living place over in Port St. Joe,” Maggie answered. “She has Alzheimer’s or dementia.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.” Georgia looked at her husband, who nodded. “That’s too bad.”

Maggie looked at her father, too, and couldn’t help feeling that he seemed distracted or uncomfortable. “Did you know that, Daddy?”

He looked at her. “I think I’d heard that, yes.”

Maggie stared at her father a moment. “You okay, Daddy?”

He stared back at her. “Sure. It’s just disturbing. I haven’t thought about Crawford in years.” He frowned at Maggie for a moment. “That was a long time ago. I expect you have your work cut out.”

Maggie nodded. There was no real way to answer without mentioning Boudreaux, and Boudreaux was something of a sore topic between Maggie and her parents. They understandably disapproved of her talking to him much. Her mother just worried it would tarnish her reputation and possibly lead her astray somehow. Her father, on the other hand, knew that Boudreaux had killed Sport Wilmette over Maggie’s rape, a rape her father had known nothing about until the past summer. He had graver concerns than did his wife.

“At the time, Bennett Boudreaux was questioned about Crawford’s disappearance,” she said.

Her father nodded. “I remember,” he said to the floor.

Maggie caught some movement from her mother out of the corner of her eye. Her Mom had started ladling some soup into a plastic container.

“Goodness,” Georgia said without turning around. “All this stuff from the past.”

Maggie did the mental math and shook her head. “It’s hard to imagine you being Sky’s age,” she said. “And I can’t imagine Sky getting married.”

“Well,” Gray said quietly, “fortunately Sky doesn’t have any reason to hurry.”

Maggie knew her parents had gotten married a little ahead of schedule because she was on the way. They would have anyway, and had been madly in love ever since. Even so, the scheduling wasn’t something Kyle was privy to, so she was glad when he interrupted.

“Can we go, Mom?”

Maggie looked over at him. “Yeah, sure.” She wondered if the talk of bodies was bugging him. A few months ago, he would have asked questions about how the body had looked and smelled.

“Let me just pack up this stew,” Georgia said, sounding a little relieved at the change in direction.

“Are we taking Dad’s boat?” Kyle asked.

“Yeah,” Maggie answered. “Is that cool?”

“Yeah.”

Maggie looked at her father. “Thanks for letting Kyle hang out.”

Gray smiled at her. “Best company I know, since you had the audacity to grow up.”

Georgia walked over and held the soup out to Maggie. “Here you go, sweetie.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Maggie said. The container was warm in her hand, and her mouth watered just a little.

“How’s Wyatt doing?” Gray asked.

“He’s doing okay,” Maggie answered. “We’re working together on this Crawford thing.” She couldn’t help shrugging just a bit. “He’s not crazy about me having to deal with Boudreaux much.”

“Yes, well,” Gray said to the floor. “We’re not too wild about it, either, Sunshine.”

Maggie and Kyle hugged her parents goodbye and headed out of the kitchen. On her way out, Maggie glanced over her shoulder. Her parents were staring at each other, and Maggie could only describe the look between them as a worried one.

She sighed as she followed her son to the front door. Boudreaux was an issue in every one of her relationships.