Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (20 page)

Beatrice scurried over, her left arm lined with baskets of grouper sandwiches.

“Would you like something to drink?” Boudreaux asked.

“Just some tea, thanks,” Maggie said to Beatrice.

“Sure thing. Back in a sec,” the girl answered, and hurried over to two young couples seated a few tables away.

“You’ll share my oysters, then” Boudreaux said.

“I’m really not hungry,” Maggie replied.

“They’re oysters,” Boudreaux said back. “You don’t have to be hungry. And a gentleman never eats in front of a lady.”

Maggie sighed and looked out at the water. Boudreaux took a sip of his beer and sat back in his chair and waited.

Maggie didn’t feel she would be violating anything by being frank with Boudreaux. She wasn’t going to tell him anything he didn’t already know. Even so, she felt just a twinge of guilt, like she was undermining Wyatt in some way.

She looked around to make sure that no one was within easy hearing before she spoke.

“Wyatt’s pretty well convinced that you’re in this somehow. The Crawford murder,” Maggie said when she finally looked back at him.

Boudreaux didn’t look even a little surprised by that. “I see,” was all she got from him.

“This is an issue for me,” Maggie continued, lowering her voice a bit. “Because I don’t think you killed Crawford.”

“Why is that, Maggie?” he asked quietly.

“Well, for one thing, you wouldn’t have needed to stab him more than once.”

Boudreaux smiled at her then. “No, I wouldn’t,” he said smoothly, raising his beer to her. “Thank you for what could be a compliment.”

Maggie watched him as he took a drink of his beer.

“For another thing, you’re right-handed,” she said.

“Is that significant?” he asked after he’d swallowed.

“Significant enough,” she answered.

She watched him watch her, irritated that he seemed to have an endless supply of patience when he was waiting for someone else to lay things out.

Beatrice arrived with Maggie’s iced tea, and Maggie was grateful for something and someone else to focus on for a moment. She really didn’t think the conversation was going to be very fruitful.

“Thank you,” Maggie said, as Beatrice set her glass on a paper napkin.

“You’re welcome,” the girl said. “You having oysters or do you want your grouper chowder?”

“No, nothing, thanks,” Maggie said. “This is fine.”

“Okay, let me know if you change your mind,” Beatrice said. “Your oysters will be out in just a sec, Mr. Boudreaux.”

“Thank you,” he said, still watching Maggie.

Maggie waited until Beatrice had walked away, then sighed at Boudreaux.

“Your alibi,” she said.

“There’s no such animal,” he said.

“Mr. Boudreaux, something just came out of your mouth that I wouldn’t hold in my bare hand,” Maggie said.

Boudreaux didn’t try very hard to hide a bit of a smile.

“Bradford Wilson says you had an alibi,” Maggie said.

“What was it?” Boudreaux asked her smoothly.

“How would I know? It’s not in the case file and he won’t tell me, but Wyatt and I already told you that,” Maggie said, and she was unable to keep the frustration out of her voice.

“Bradford Wilson was a moron,” Boudreaux said.

“That’s probably true, but he’s not a schizophrenic, so I don’t think he imagined it.”

“Here you go,” Beatrice announced cheerfully. Maggie sat back in her seat as Beatrice set down a metal tray with a dozen gorgeous raw oysters and handful of lemons.

“Thank you, Beatrice,” Boudreaux said. “These are beautiful.”

“You need another Red Stripe?” she asked him.

“No, thank you,” he answered. “This is fine.”

“Alrighty. Well, you enjoy those,” Beatrice answered, and headed back inside.

Maggie looked out at the water, watched as a pelican did some hang gliding over the close end of Big Towhead Island.

“Here,” she heard Boudreaux say.

She looked back at him. He was holding up an oyster.

“No, thank you,” she said.

“Straight up, just like you like them,” he said.

Maggie wanted to say something sharp and dismissive, but she’d been bred to be so flipping polite. And the oyster looked good, plump and glistening in its puddle of brine.

She sighed and took the oyster from him, her fingertips brushing against his as she did. “Thank you,” she said.

He smiled at her, picked up another oyster from the tray and lifted it between them. “Bottoms up,” he said, and they both slid their oysters into their mouths.

Maggie swallowed the salty juices, then bit into the sweet, tender flesh and chewed. She closed her eyes as she swallowed, and when she opened them, Boudreaux was working on his next one.

“Do you know why I love these so much?” he asked, as he placed precisely one drop of Tabasco on his oyster.

“Because they’re amazing?”

“That, too,” he answered. “But I started digging for crawfish and helping my father sort shrimp back when I was probably five or six years old. He started me out early. I worked for free, of course.”

He took a slice of lemon and squeezed just a bit onto his oyster.

“I remember when I was about seven, I was in his first plant, learning how to pack oysters. They looked so good, and I was hungry. I’d been working all morning. So I popped one into my mouth, and my father showed up out of nowhere and slapped me in the back of the head, so hard I spit it right back out. He said to me, ‘We don’t ever eat the money, boy,’ and I never did again, not around him.”

He raised his shell to her. “Now I eat them sometimes three times a day.”

He ate his oyster, then smiled at her. “Of course, I’m not whining that my bastard of a father—if you’ll please overlook my language—made me the cold killer that people think I am, but he did contribute to my love of the oyster.”

“Yes, I’ve heard that your father was a real winner,” Maggie said.

“It takes a great deal of character to be a father,” Boudreaux said. “Not all of us are qualified.” He took a drink of his beer. “You’ve seen how well I did with my stepsons.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met Craig,” Maggie said, speaking of the younger of the two.

“He’s seldom here,” Boudreaux said. “Which has probably worked in his favor.”

Maggie didn’t respond, just watched him. Finally, he left the oysters alone and sat back in his chair. He regarded her for a moment.

“There is no alibi, Maggie,” he said softly.

“That’s bull, Mr. Boudreaux. Apparently your alibi came forward when you refused to give one.”

Boudreaux’s left eye twitched, almost imperceptibly, and Maggie regretted that last statement. She hadn’t thought about repercussions to Bradford Wilson before she’d made it.

“There’s a note in the case file,” she lied. “But there’s no name.”

“Someone was less than thorough with the case file, then,” he said.

“If whoever you were with was willing to come forward, why won’t you just tell me?” Maggie asked. “This isn’t a game. You’re the primary suspect.”

“You know that’s not going to hold up, Maggie,” Boudreaux said. “There’s no evidence against me, for the very simple reason that I had nothing to do with this thing. I don’t need an alibi.”

“But why won’t you give it?’ Maggie asked.

Boudreaux set his beer aside and propped his elbows on the table, folded his hands.

“It’s a matter of honor,” he said, staring her in the eye. “And I happen to know that you believe in such a thing.”

Maggie stared at him a moment. “Honor,” she said flatly.

“That’s correct.”

Maggie took a deep breath and looked out at the dock. The little black cat was dragging his fish head toward the restaurant. Maggie gave herself a moment to rein in her anger by wondering how the heck any cat living at Boss could be so skinny.

When she looked back at Boudreaux, he was still sitting there with his chin on his hands, watching her.

“Why were you out on Lafayette Pier with my father?’ she asked, before she knew she would ask it.

That did seem to surprise Boudreaux, but only for a second. He sat back in his chair and scratched at his eyebrow for a moment, but he never took his eyes from hers. She felt, as she often did, that he could see the exact color of her marrow with those eyes.

“Is this a change of subject, or is this somehow related to our current topic?” he asked her quietly.

“It’s a question,” she answered.

“I should think you’d ask him,” Boudreaux said. “You’re so close.”

“Actually, it’s easier to ask you hard questions.”

“And I suppose this would be a hard question to ask,” Boudreaux said. “Are you concerned that I’m trying to taint Gray in some way?”

“Actually, I had a hard time coming up with a reasonable explanation,” Maggie said. “Given the way he feels about you.”

Maggie was suddenly and inexplicably concerned that she’d hurt Boudreaux, and she hastened to add, “He worries about me…about the fact that you and I have something of a friendly relationship.”

Boudreaux looked at her for a moment, almost sympathetically. “Yes, I’m sure he does,” he said. “I offered him a position in my company. That’s why we were talking.”

“What? Why?”

“Why not? I’ve done business with Gray for years. He knows oysters and he’s a man of integrity.”

“Why were you talking on the pier?’ Maggie asked. “That seems like a conversation for the office.”

“Not if the person whose position I was offering still happens to work for me,” Boudreaux said. “In any event, Gray said ‘no.’ He may have retired for health reasons, but it seems to suit him.”

He sat up and handed her another oyster. She took it without thinking.

“He also thanked me for what happened during the hurricane,” Boudreaux said, focused on squeezing some lemon onto his oyster.

Maggie watched him, and when he glanced up at her, she saw those eyes, cold, hard, enraged, over Dewitt Alessi’s shoulder as Boudreaux pulled him off of her. She saw those eyes just inches from hers, as they both clung to a tree on her flooded property, and he confided to her that Miss Evangeline was the only woman he’d ever loved.

They had both been through an ordeal that day. She had almost been killed, and he had killed to prevent that. They were both seriously injured, and they’d taken turns rescuing each other, getting back to the safety of her house.

Their shared experience had created a certain intimacy that Maggie assumed would always be there, but it had only solidified something that had already been forming, something that had started the day she’d stood there underneath his mango trees, and told him his nephew Gregory was dead.

Maggie swallowed, but she didn’t blink under Boudreaux’s gaze.

“I would imagine that your alibi came forward as a matter of honor, too, Mr. Boudreaux,” she said.

“I’m not sure what their reason was, Maggie,” he said. “I’m only concerned with my own.”

He handed her another oyster.

“Thank you,” she said, after she’d swallowed it. “I need to go.”

She stood, but he was standing before she was. He held out a hand and she took it. As refined as he was, his calloused hands reminded her of her father’s.

“Try not to be too upset, Maggie,” he said. “It’ll work out the way it’s supposed to.”

“And how is that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, with an almost sad-looking smile. “Whichever way that is.”

Maggie let go of his hand and turned and walked away. As was usually the case, she’d come away from a conversation with Boudreaux feeling like she had more questions than when she’d walked in.

Boudreaux watched Maggie walk away, watched the screen door slap shut behind her, and then he sat back down and took a long drink of his beer.

One insignificant night out of thousands. One careless, thoughtless act. Such an unimpressive beginning to what would probably be his undoing, one way or another.

W
hen Maggie pulled into the driveway next to Wyatt’s truck, he was standing by his hood, drinking a Mountain Dew. Maggie was surprised but somewhat flattered to see him wearing nice trousers, and a shirt that didn’t have flowers or turtles all over it.

He straightened up and looked at her as she got out of her Jeep. “Well. Don’t you look pretty,” he said.