Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (14 page)

“Why would he do that?” Gray asked.

Maggie tossed a shell into the water and watched it sink. “How would I know?” she asked, irritation creeping into her voice. She looked at her father. “I know you think I’ve gotten too close to Boudreaux, and maybe I have, but that doesn’t mean I understand him.”

“That’s encouraging,” Gray said quietly.

They sat in silence for a few moments, each inside their own heads.

“Margaret Anne, you’ve been raised to have sense. Just see you don’t lose track of it,” Gray said after a bit.

“I won’t,” Maggie said, though it was reassurance more than conviction.

“I sold oysters to Boudreaux for a lot of years,” he said. “Not much choice, once Crawford’s was closed. He was always fair; he paid well and he respects men who work the Gulf. But that doesn’t mean I want him around my daughter.”

“Yet you called
him
to come check on me during the hurricane,” Maggie said.

“I knew he hadn’t evacuated. He never has.”

Maggie studied her father’s face. Gray studied the water.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” she said.

One moment, she’d been staring up at Alessi as he choked the life from her just inches away from her children. The next moment, Boudreaux was there, those blue eyes icy and hard as he pulled Alessi from her and out into the storm in what seemed like one motion. He’d cut Alessi’s throat right there in her yard.

Maggie squeezed some lemon onto her last oyster and ate it. Then she tossed the shell over the side and sighed at her father.

“Maybe he didn’t need to kill Alessi; maybe he did,” she said. “But Wyatt wasn’t especially anxious to charge him for it. He was defending a woman, a law enforcement officer. But he’d be pretty happy to nail him for something that happened almost forty years ago.”

“Maggie, I won’t pretend I’m not glad he did what he did,” Gray said. “But that makes two men he killed on your account, and that’s something that you should keep uppermost in your mind.”

“I’ll admit that Boudreaux has some pretty extreme ideas about dishonor and all that,” Maggie said. “Right and wrong. But what would you have done if you’d known about Sport Wilmette?”

“I’d have killed him, most likely,” Gray said. “And if Gregory Boudreaux hadn’t already blown his head off, I’d have killed
him
twice.” He poked the knife into the wood. It stayed there. “But I’m your dad.”

“The past seems to be a theme this year, Daddy. Mine. Boudreaux’s. It’s a little wearying.”

Gray was scooping up his empty shells from the platform. “That’s the funny thing about the past, Sunshine,” he said. “It’s never very far behind you.”

He tossed the shells overboard, and father and daughter watched them sink to the bottom, where they would soon provide a foundation for a new generation of oysters.

Late that afternoon, Maggie and Wyatt took separate cars to the home of Vincent Jeffries, the former best friend of the late Holden Crawford. Maggie followed Wyatt to the small home on Maple Street, and they pulled into a short drive lined with hibiscus and Florida holly.

Wyatt got out and waited for Maggie to join him, then they walked up to the door and knocked.

The man who answered was about six feet tall, but his hunching posture made him seem smaller. He wore a brown sweater against the barely perceptible autumn air, and was probably the only person in Apalach who had his heat on inside. Maggie walked in and was immediately sorry they weren’t talking outside.

Everyone made their introductions, then Jeffries led them through a living room full of dark furniture, every surface of which was jammed with those collectible dolls that Maggie had never understood. Jeffries saw her eyeing them.

“My wife’s,” he said with a dismissive wave. “I always hated those things, but now I can’t bring myself to get rid of ’em.”

Jeffries took them into a kitchen at the back of the house and invited them to sit at the table. He dumped a mean-looking, fat orange cat from one of the chairs and took its place. “Hers, too,” he said.

Once they were settled, he looked at Wyatt and Maggie in turn. “What can I tell y’all?”

“Well, we’re trying to find out a little bit more about the night Holden Crawford went missing,” Wyatt answered. “You went out with him that night?”

“Yeah, just for a little bit,” Jeffries answered. “Then I came home and watched
Kojak
with Eleanor. She wasn’t much for going out.”

“You remember what you watched?” Maggie asked. “I wouldn’t.”

“Your best buddy didn’t go missing that night,” he said, without being rude about it. Maggie nodded.

“But you were out with Crawford when he had his run-in with Bennett Boudreaux,” Wyatt said. Jeffries’ statement had been in the file.

“Yeah, sure. At Papa Joe’s,” the old man said.

“Can you tell us more about what that was about?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, Holden and Boudreaux—Alban Boudreaux—they’d been going at it for a while. It was getting kind of heated.” Jeffries took a sip from a watered down glass of tea. “Y’all want some tea?”

They both declined, and Jeffries set his glass down on the Formica table. “I’ll be the first to admit that Holden was a little intoxicated that night. Not plastered, but he’d had a few. He’d seemed kind of upset the last few days or so, you know, tense, so he knocked back a few drinks that night.”

“Do you know what he was upset about?” Maggie asked.

“No, he didn’t want to talk about it,” Jeffries said. “I knew he would eventually, so I let it go.”

Maggie watched something like regret pass over the man’s sun-spotted face.

“Anyway, like I said, he was a little tipsy and he’d been having a bad week, so I’ll admit he kind of started what went on with him and Bennett Boudreaux.”

“What happened?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, Boudreaux came in alone, ordered a bottle of beer, and Holden started in talking about Alban, you know, loud enough for Boudreaux to hear.”

“What was he saying?’ Maggie asked.

“Oh, that Alban was a jerk, though maybe not in such nice words,” Jeffries answered. “That he was a crook. Everybody knew that already, but everybody was listening anyway.”

“Then what happened?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, I had to pee, but when I came back, Boudreaux was over there with Holden, and they were having words. Boudreaux basically told him to watch his mouth and Holden was kind of itching for a fight about it, though he wasn’t much of a fighting man.” Jeffries stared at the water ring his glass had made on the yellow Formica, then looked back up at them. “It was the alcohol and whatever stress he was under, you know? Holden was a pretty peaceable guy.”

“Gotcha,” Wyatt said. “So what happened then? Somebody break it up?”

“No…no, Boudreaux warned him to be more polite or have better manners when he was talking about his family, something like that. Then he left.”

“Did you and Mr. Crawford leave there together?” Maggie asked.

“No. No, I’m sorry to say I went home just a little while after that.”

“Wasn’t Holden drinking? You didn’t give him a ride somewhere?” Wyatt asked him.

The old man seemed to get irritated pretty quickly over that. “Well, no, but he was on foot. A lot of people were,” he said. “Everybody was walking up and down Water Street, all around in there. Heck, Holden just lived right over there on 4th Street. It was an easy walk. He wasn’t snockered or anything.”

Wyatt nodded. “Okay, so Boudreaux left and that was it?”

“Yeah, that was pretty much it. And good thing, you know, because it could have been ugly.”

“How do you mean?” Maggie asked.

“Well, Boudreaux was kind of a scary guy, even back then,” Jeffries said. “You guys know about what happened with that Miller kid?”

“Who?” Wyatt asked.

“I can’t think of his first name,” Jeffries said. “He got into a fight with Boudreaux over at Scipio Creek Marina.”

“Right, right,” Wyatt said. “We heard something about that. What was the deal with that?”

“Well, I wasn’t there, but everybody knew about it, everybody talked about it,” the old man said. “Miller was a creep, and he was a big guy, so no sympathy there for him, but people said Boudreaux was a hell of a lot scarier.”

“What happened?” Maggie asked.

“I don’t remember all of the details,” Jeffries said. “But I do know that Miller clocked Boudreaux, really blindsided him, and Boudreaux just took him down. Somebody said after Boudreaux got him down on the ground, he stuck a knife right through the palm of Miller’s hand.”

“Really,” Wyatt said.

“Thing was, he was cool as a cucumber when he did it, you know?” Jeffries took another drink of his watered down tea. “People said he didn’t even seem like he was all that mad, just taking care of business, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, and glanced over at Maggie. She pretended not to notice.

“Mr. Jeffries, do you have any idea at all what was bothering Mr. Crawford around that time?” Maggie asked.

Jeffries shook his head. “Not really. He was having some financial problems, you know, putting a lot of money into that new building. The trouble with Boudreaux’s father, but that was ongoing. So, I don’t really know.”

“What was his marriage like?” Maggie asked.

The man shrugged. “Good. They got married young, not too long after high school. We all went to school together, them and me and my wife.” He shrugged again. “He loved the hell out of Beth. They were a good team.”

“No problems?” Maggie asked.

“Of course they had problems. Everybody has problems. But they did okay.” He pointed a finger at Maggie, like she’d transgressed in some way. “She never did get married again, you know, and she had chances. Plenty of good men would have stepped up.”

Maggie nodded, and he seemed placated somewhat.

Several minutes and a few questions later, Maggie and Wyatt walked back out the front door. Maggie was glad to be outside, and Jeffries seemed equally glad that she was.

She and Wyatt walked to the driveway, and Maggie pulled her keys from her pocket. “What time is your doctor’s appointment?” she asked Wyatt. Wyatt was due for his annual physical for work.

“Ten minutes,” Wyatt said. “Where are you headed?”

“Carrabelle. Lana Burwell lives there now. She and her husband used to own Bayside Construction,” Maggie said. “She finally got my message, and I’m heading over there to talk to her.”

“Well, hopefully that’ll be worthwhile.”

“It only makes sense that somebody from there might have put Crawford in that wall,” Maggie said.

“Yep, makes sense,” Wyatt agreed. “Just remember that Fitch saw
two
guys with Crawford that night.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “That doesn’t mean one of them was Boudreaux.”

“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t,” Wyatt said as he got into his cruiser.

B
ennett Boudreaux locked the door of his black Mercedes and walked from the sandy parking area on 13th Street onto the brick pavers that crisscrossed Lafayette Park.

Located not too many blocks from his home, Lafayette Park was a favorite with the locals. The large, white gazebo in the center of the park was a popular spot for family portraits, weddings and reunions. Neighborhood mothers brought their small children to play in the sandbox while they waited beneath the shade trees with younger children in strollers.

The Lafayette Pier, which jutted out into the bay from the back of the park was also a favorite spot for local fishermen, and it was to the pier that Boudreaux headed.

The last time Boudreaux had been there was a few months back. He’d asked Maggie to meet him there to talk. He found that somewhat ironic today, but he wasn’t really in the mood for irony.

The park was nearly empty, it being the middle of a weekday afternoon and, as Boudreaux stepped onto the six hundred-foot pier, he saw that his appointment was the only other person present.

The hard soles of Boudreaux’s leather shoes thumped against the wood, and sea birds called to each other as they coasted on the decent breeze above the water. That breeze rustled through the tall, feathery grass on either side of the pier, and through Boudreaux’s meticulously combed hair.