Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (16 page)

M
aggie pulled in behind Wyatt’s truck, and walked to the front door. When Wyatt opened it, he was barefoot, wearing his reading glasses and a worn pair of jeans.

“Hey,” he said, sounding somewhat surprised.

“Hey,” Maggie said. “Can I come in?”

“No, dumbass, of course not,” he said as he opened the door wide.

Maggie went inside and, once Wyatt had closed the door, she distractedly let herself be hugged.

“Okay, what’s up?” he asked.

Maggie sighed. “Do you have any wine?”

Wyatt frowned at her for a moment. “Yeah, come on.”

Maggie followed him through the living room and to the kitchen, where she set her purse on the breakfast bar. The French doors from the dining area to the back patio were open, and the white sheers billowed a little in the breeze. The wind had died down quite a bit after the sun had set, but the air still had a touch of autumn to it.

Wyatt poured two glasses of red wine. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said.

Maggie took a healthy swallow, then put down the glass and pulled the picture from her purse. Mrs. Burwell had taken it out of the frame for her, and drawn little arrows between faces and names that she knew.

“What’s that?” Wyatt asked.

“It’s most of the guys who worked for Bayside Construction the summer of ’77.” Maggie placed the picture on the breakfast bar, upside down so that Wyatt could look at it.

“Okay,” he said, tilting his head up a bit to see through his glasses.

Maggie took a breath and hesitated for a moment, reluctant to point out her father, like it might make him more “there” than he already was. Finally, she put one finger next to her father’s face.

Wyatt bent a bit closer to the photograph, then finally stood back up.

“Maggie, this doesn’t mean anything,” he said quietly.

“But why didn’t he mention it to me?”

“Why should he?”

“We were talking about the case,” she answered. “Why wouldn’t he tell me that he’d worked on the building where Crawford’s body was found?”

“Okay, let’s step back a second,” Wyatt said, putting his hands on the counter. “This was almost forty years ago. He may have forgotten he even worked with Bayside.”

“You don’t think hearing about Crawford’s body would jog his memory? Besides, my father doesn’t forget much.”

“Maggie, what’s your point? Really?” Wyatt asked. “Because we both know your Dad.”

“I’m not sure what my point is,” she answered. “But I’m upset.”

“Why? Almost every oysterman I know works other jobs to make ends meet. This is a small town. It’s not that big of a coincidence that he happened to work for Bayside.”

“No, it isn’t,” Maggie. “And it wouldn’t bother me a bit if he had told me that.”

She took another swallow of wine and willed it to take the edge off her nerves.

“I can see being surprised by this,” Wyatt said as he tapped the picture. “But honestly, I don’t see the big deal. Think about it. Do you really have any reason to think this means anything bad?”

Maggie looked up at him for a moment, then sighed. “Maybe.”

“Like what?”

She chewed at the corner of her lip and stared at the counter. “I saw him talking with Boudreaux today, out on Lafayette Pier.”

Wyatt pursed his lips a moment, his formidable moustache brushing at the bottom of his nose. “Okay. That’s kind of surprising. But Maggie, they could have just run into each other. Gray goes fishing there all the time.”

“Daddy wasn’t fishing,” she said. “And Boudreaux doesn’t run into people.”

Wyatt took off his glasses and sighed. “They did business together for years.”

“At Boudreaux’s place of business,” Maggie said. “And not anymore.”

Wyatt put his glasses down and took a drink of wine, waited.

“The last time I saw Boudreaux on that pier was over the summer. He asked me to meet him there,” she said finally. “We talked about the rape, and Sport Wilmette.”

“So…what?” Wyatt asked. “You think Boudreaux summoned your dad? For what reason?”

Maggie shook her head and shrugged, frustrated and tired of thinking. “I don’t know. It just feels wrong, especially after seeing this picture.”

“Look at me,” Wyatt said, and put his hands on her shoulders. “Just ask him.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t question my dad,” she said. “I don’t interview my father.”

“I’m not saying you should grill him. There’s no reason to,” Wyatt said. “But for your own piece of mind, just ask him about it.”

Maggie sighed and took another drink of her wine. “Maybe. Eventually.”

“Are you investigating this case or not?” Wyatt asked, a little sharply.

“Yeah, I am,” she shot back.

“And we’re trying to ID these guys in the picture so we can maybe find out if one of them bricked up Crawford, are we not?”

“Yeah,” Maggie answered, less forcefully. “We are.”

“None of whom was your father, and my Scrabble nemesis,” Wyatt continued. “But we’re still working the damn picture.”

“Yeah.”

“Now, what are you doing for dinner?”

Maggie took a second to change gears. “Going home to the kids and ordering pizza, because I suck at mothering and copping simultaneously.”

“Why don’t I order the pizza, and you go get the kids and bring them here?” Wyatt asked.

“I guess I could do that,” she said.

“Kids and dogs only,” Wyatt said. “No poultry.”

Late the next morning, Wyatt walked into Maggie’s office, a legal pad in one hand and a Mountain Dew in the other.

“Hey,” he said as he came in.

Maggie looked up from her computer. “Hey.”

She spun around to face him as he threw himself into the metal folding chair and took a swallow of his soda.

“So, found one more,” he said, looking at his pad. “Craig Swift is an engineer in Atlanta now, God bless him. He worked for Bayside that summer, but he went back to college early—Georgia Tech—did a half term to make up some class. He was gone from here in early July.”

“Okay,” Maggie said. “Did he remember anyone from back then?”

“Just Burwell and Harry Fox,” Wyatt answered. “He only worked for them during school breaks, and he wasn’t from here. Sam Richards, the guy that lives in Costa Rica now? He was good friends with Craig’s dad and got him a job with Bayside during school breaks. That summer was his last one, though.”

“Why?”

“He graduated. Summa cum laude.”

“Okay, so probably nothing there.”

“Probably not,” Wyatt agreed. “How are you coming along?”

“Two more IDs. Carol recognized this guy here on the end,” she said, pointing at the picture on her desk. “That’s Danny Grady.”

“Rings a bell,” Wyatt said.

“He’s still local,” Maggie said. “A shrimper. I left a message with his wife.”

“Who else did you get?”

“This guy here,” Maggie said. “This is Dwight’s uncle, Howard Shultz. I remember him. He died about eight years ago.”

“What did Dwight have to say about him?” Dwight Shultz was a deputy, a high-strung but completely upstanding young man that they often referred to as Dudley Do-Right.

“Nothing important, except that Howard wouldn’t have been here mid-August,” Maggie answered. “He got drunk on the Fourth of July and signed up for the Army. He was gone within a couple of weeks.”

“Okay, so nada.”

“Right,” Maggie said.

“At least we’re eliminating some people,” Wyatt said.

He took a swig of his Dew and leaned over to peer at the picture.

“So, how many unknowns do we have left?” he asked.

“Four,” Maggie answered.

Wyatt stared across the desk at her. When she failed to respond, he raised his eyebrows pretty much to his hairline.

“Alright, get off my back,” Maggie said, standing up.

He took a drink and watched Maggie as she snatched up the picture, grabbed her purse from its hook, and started out.

“Tell him I’m gonna kick his elderly ass next Scrabble night.”

“No. He only has one lung,” Maggie said. “I don’t think he can take that big a funny.”

Wyatt frowned at her back as she left the office, then looked back at his legal pad. “Kick your ass, too,” he said, to no one specific.

M
aggie called her parents’ house and learned that her father was cleaning the skiff, so she headed over to Scipio Creek Marina, just a few doors down from Boudreaux’s place and the building where Crawford had last been seen.

When Maggie hit the docks, she saw that Daddy was hosing down the decks. He looked up when she got to his slip.

“Hey, Sunshine,” he said.

“Hey, Daddy,” Maggie said, squinting at him in the brutal sunlight. She’d left her sunglasses in the Jeep.

“What brings you over here?” he asked.

“I thought maybe you could help me with something,” she said.

“Sure. What do you need?”

Maggie nervously pulled the photograph out of her purse. “I was wondering if you could take a look at this.”

Gray shut the hose off, dried his hands on his work pants, and walked over to the rail. “Hop aboard.”

He handed her onto the deck, then took the picture from her. Maggie watched his face, which went from mildly interested, to surprised, to blank within just a few seconds.

“Well,” was all he said.

“I didn’t know you worked for Bayside,” Maggie said, trying for a casual tone.

He looked up at her. “Yes, I did. Not on a regular basis, but whenever things were slow,” he said. “I was trying to save up some money for when your Mama and I got married.”

Maggie had several questions she wanted to ask but, standing right there in front of her father, she couldn’t bring herself to ask them. “Do you remember any of those guys with the question marks by their heads?” she asked instead.

“Let’s see,” Gray said, pulling the picture closer to his face. “This one here is Ray Dougherty,” he said. “Remember him? He used to come over now and then.”

Maggie looked at the face. “No, I don’t remember him.”

“He died in a car wreck…oh, back around ’86 or ’87,” Gray said. “On his way to pick up some family from the airport in Tallahassee.”

“That’s too bad,” Maggie said.

“So what’s your interest in these guys?” Gray asked.

Maggie chewed at her lip. “Well, Bayside was doing the renovations on the building where Crawford was found,” she said.

Gray studied Maggie’s face for a moment. “That’s right,” he said finally. “I’d forgotten about that.”

She didn’t say anything, and Gray looked back down at the picture. “This guy here, holding up his beer, that’s Terry Luedtke.”

Maggie leaned over to look. Luedtke was standing up behind her father, and had raised his bottle to the camera. He looked to be in his early thirties. Maybe he’d still be around.

“Who is he?” Maggie asked. “I don’t recognize the name.”

“He was a nice guy,” Gray said. “Give you the shirt off his back. He moved away after Crawford’s closed.”

“Why?” Maggie asked.

“Well, he worked for Crawford,” Gray answered. “He was a processor. He took over as manager sometime after Crawford disappeared, then he left when Boudreaux closed the place. I’m not sure why. Maybe he just didn’t want to work for Boudreaux.”

Maggie thought about that for a moment. “What happened to the people that worked at Crawford’s back then?”

“Most of them went to work for Boudreaux,” Gray said. “I’ll give him that at least; he didn’t fire anybody.”

Maggie looked at her father’s face as he studied the picture in his hands. His longish hair had dropped over his brow, as it tended to do, and she wanted to brush it out of his eyes, as she tended to want. She also wanted to not ask or think anything that would ever hurt this man who would crawl through fire for her with only half a reason.

“Do you recognize any of these other guys we don’t have names for?” she asked finally.

Gray tapped the picture with one finger. “This man, his name is right on the tip of my tongue, but I just can’t get to it,” he said. “I didn’t know him very well.”

“Can you think of anyone who’s not in the picture that worked for Bayside back then?”

Gray ran a tongue along his lower lip. “I don’t think so. But I was only there off and on, like I said, whenever I had time to make some extra money.” He looked up at Maggie. “Your Grandpa’s old boat was ailing pretty badly back then. This job helped me pay for a rebuilt engine.”