Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (17 page)

Maggie nodded and took a breath before speaking. “Do you remember if there was a brick wall splitting up the flower shop, Daddy?”

Gray looked at her a moment. She thought maybe he was going to ask her a question, and she held her breath just a little. But then he shook his head. “I couldn’t say. I didn’t work on that building.”

Maggie hadn’t expected that answer. “You didn’t?”

“No,” he said. “They didn’t need me over there yet. I just did trim work. Carpentry and so on. Cabinets. That kind of thing.”

Maggie looked down the docks, pretending to be distracted by an outgoing shrimp boat.

“I just figured you would have,” she said.

“No.” Gray said. “And it was almost a year before anybody started back on that place. By that time I wasn’t working for Bayside anymore.”

“Why not?” Maggie asked.

“Because you came along,” he said. “I didn’t have time for side jobs anymore.”

Maggie nodded again. “Gotcha,” she said.

She smiled up at her father, squinting against the sun.

“Well, thanks, Daddy,” she said. “I appreciate the help.”

“No problem, Sunshine,” Gray said.

He kissed her on the forehead, and she jumped back onto the dock and headed back to her car.

She would have been more relieved than she could remember being, if it weren’t for the squirming sensation deep in her gut, telling her that Daddy had told her some of the truth, but not all of it.

The following afternoon, Maggie threw her pen down on her desk and rolled her head to get the kinks out of her neck.

The thick folder containing the missing persons file from 1977 lay open on her desk. Next to it was the much thinner file from the murder investigation. They’d had a lot more people to interview thirty-eight years ago.

Maggie stood up and arched her back, then grabbed her empty coffee mug and headed down the hall to the break room. She was trying to make the horrific office coffee into something worth drinking when Deputy Dwight Shultz walked by.

Dwight was thin, prematurely balding, and always seemed to be nervous, even when he was calm. Maggie adored Dwight, and worked hard at not thinking of Don Knotts every time she saw him.

“Oh hey, Maggie, there you are,” Dwight said as he veered into the break room.

“Hey, Dwight,” Maggie said, stirring one more sugar into her coffee.

“That guy William Overton called for you,” he said, holding up a piece of scrap paper. “You know, the florist?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “What did he need?”

“He said to tell you he put five suspicious bricks outside his back door for you,” Dwight said.

Maggie squinted at Dwight. “What does he suspect these bricks of doing?” she asked.

“Well, uh, he suspects them of being tainted,” Dwight said. “He says they have spots. He wants you to take ’em away.”

Maggie sighed. “I’ll stop by there later and throw them in his dumpster.”

“He, uh, he was kindly agitated,” Dwight said seriously.

“I’m sure he was,” Maggie said. She took the paper from his hand. “Thanks, Dwight, I’ll take care of it,” she said.

“No problem.”

They went in opposite directions once they left the break room. Dwight headed back to the main room up front, and Maggie headed for Wyatt’s office. She nearly bumped into him coming out of it.

“Hey, I was just coming to talk to you,” Wyatt said.

“Me, too,” she said.

“Apparently,” Wyatt said, walking back into his office.

Maggie followed him over to his desk. He sat down behind it, and she settled into one of the hideous red vinyl chairs in front of it.

“I’ve been going over the statements from ’77,” Wyatt said. “Interesting thing about Jeffries.”

“Who?”

“Vincent Jeffries, Crawford’s best friend,” Wyatt answered.

“Oh, right,” Maggie said. All of the names from almost four decades ago were starting to run together in her head. “What about him?”

“Well, his alibi may or may not be crap,” Wyatt said.

“Why?”

Wyatt flipped through the pages he’d copied from the original file. “
Kojak
was on that night, I checked,” he said.

“Nice,” Maggie said, taking a regrettable sip of her coffee.

“Wikipedia,” Wyatt told her. “However, according to his wife’s statement, she was asleep when Jeffries came home that night. She worked late the night before—she was a nurse—and she was tired that night, which is why she didn’t go out to this raw bar crawl thingy.” Wyatt pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “She woke up around eleven to find him watching TV out in the living room.”

“Okay. So maybe he doesn’t have that great an alibi,” Maggie said. “Fitch saw Crawford and the other guys around ten.”

“Right,” Wyatt replied. “Conceivable that he could have been one of them.”

“Why?” Maggie asked.

“Who knows? He seemed to think a lot of Mrs. Crawford. Maybe he had a thing for her.”

“Maybe. But have you seen the pictures of her from back then?” Maggie asked.

“Yes, and she was very pretty.”

“Very. And did you see Jeffries’ wedding picture in the china cabinet?”

“No, I did not,” Wyatt answered.

“He wasn’t,” Maggie said. “Pretty.”

“Neither was Crawford,” Wyatt countered.

“He wasn’t bad looking,” Maggie said.

“Are you gonna tell me now that only a good-looking guy could have done it?”

“No, wiseass, I’m saying that if Jeffries killed Crawford because he had a thing for his wife, then he was probably deluded.”

“Whatever,” Wyatt said. “It’s a possibility.”

“A possibility,” Maggi agreed. “But then what about the other guy that was there?”

“I still think Boudreaux.”

Maggie let out something that was half sigh and half grunt. “Boudreaux couldn’t have cared less about some other guy’s unrequited love,” she said. “He sure as heck wouldn’t kill over it.”

“No, but he could have done it for his reasons, and Jeffries could have helped him for his,” Wyatt said. “Boudreaux was the short guy and Jeffries was the taller one.”

Maggie twisted her mug around in her hand for a moment, staring at the Sheriff’s Office insignia as it went by.

“It doesn’t feel right,” Maggie said. “Meanwhile, while you were trying to find some way to fit Boudreaux into your theory, I heard back from Bay County on Terry Luedtke.”

“The manager guy,” Wyatt said.

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “And my thing is more interesting than your interesting thing.”

“And what is your thing?’ Wyatt asked.

“This guy Luedtke took over as manager at Crawford’s not too long after Crawford went missing,” Maggie said. “Possible motivation.”

“Possible,” Wyatt said, but he didn’t look enthusiastic about it.

“Then he moved to Lynn Haven in 1984, pretty much right after Boudreaux bought Crawford’s business.”

“Okay. But you said Gray told you that Boudreaux didn’t fire anybody from Crawford’s, so he moved for some other reason maybe.”

“Maybe,” Maggie said. “But he killed himself three months after he moved.”

“Huh,” Wyatt said, his face blank. He at back in his chair, took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair before he put his hat back on. “Okay, so maybe Boudreaux promised him a better job for helping him off Crawford, and didn’t follow through. Or maybe the guilt was too much for this guy.”

“I think you’re painting yourself into corners trying to fit Boudreaux in,” Maggie said. “You told
me
to keep an open mind.”

“Not so open that everything falls out,” Wyatt said. “And may I remind you that Boudreaux was already the main suspect; I didn’t just squeeze him in.”

“I know that,” Maggie said. “But he doesn’t fit.”

“Like hell,” Wyatt said.

“Anyway,” Maggie said. “I’m going to look into Luedtke some more, and I think we should ask Mrs. Crawford what she can tell us about him.”

“Okay. We shall,” Wyatt said. “But I can’t do it today. I have a meeting with the bigwigs.”

“This late in the day? What’s up?” Maggie asked.

“Sheriffy stuff,” Wyatt answered, shrugging. “Do you want to go talk to her alone or do you want to wait until tomorrow?”

Maggie got up from her chair. “I’ll wait. I’m going to make some more calls and then go home. The kids deserve a real dinner.”

Wyatt watched her as she made her way to the door. “I still think it’s Boudreaux,” he said.

“And I still think that people who lay their lives on the line deserve decent coffee. Why don’t you ask the bigwigs about
that
?” Maggie said as she left.

T
he next morning was clear and cool, cool enough to pass for autumn to those who longed for it. There was a fairly brisk breeze, and the hibiscus and holly bushes that lined the driveway at Sunset Bay were bending with it in an almost celebratory way.

They’d taken Wyatt’s cruiser, and Wyatt had been uncharacteristically quiet as he drove. Maggie was unused to silence with Wyatt. Even on days they’d spent every waking hour together, they always seemed to have something to talk about, even if it was football.

“So how did your meeting with the bosses go?” she asked, mainly for something to say.

“About how you would expect,” Wyatt said.

“What was it about?”

“When you’re the Sheriff, you can know what it’s about,” Wyatt said, but she could hear him forcing the lightness. “Right now, I’m the Sheriff, so I get to keep it to myself.”

Maggie stared at the side of his head for a moment. His mood bugged her, but pushing didn’t seem like a good idea. “Well,” she said, forcing her own light tone. “If it’s a pay cut, I’ll be the first one to punch you in the face.”

“Don’t forget your Barney step stool,” he said as he parked.

“You’re an idiot,” she said.

“Probably,” he said, and got out of the car.

The nurse’s assistant on duty that day was a different one from the week before. Wyatt spoke with her for a moment to explain who they were and to assure her that they just had a few questions, and she allowed them to go to Mrs. Crawford’s room unescorted.

Wyatt knocked on the door, and he and Maggie were both surprised that Mrs. Crawford herself opened it, even though they knew she wasn’t exactly an invalid.

Mrs. Crawford seemed a little taken aback to see them there, but she remembered who they were, or at least what they were.

“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” she said, smiling.

“Hello, Mrs. Crawford,” Wyatt said. “I hope we’re not disturbing you. We’re just hoping you can help us with a few things.”

“Of course not. Come on in,” she said, and opened the door wider.

Wyatt let Maggie go ahead and, as she walked in, Maggie took note of the fact that Mrs. Crawford looked, as she had the first time they’d met, like she was getting ready to go out for the day.

She was wearing tailored gray trousers, a lavender blouse, and gray leather ballet flats. Apparently, they were never going to find
her
wandering around in slippers and a robe. Maggie had to give her credit for that, considering that she herself would have been more than happy to live out her final decades in bare feet and yoga pants.

Mrs. Crawford led them over to the same table where they’d sat the other day.