Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (22 page)

“Yeah, this is where Fitch lived, this one over here,” Wyatt said.

He pulled to the side of the road in front of a couple of small frame buildings.

“It was there,” Wyatt said, pointing. “The one with the little porch.”

The small house he was pointing at appeared to be a duplex. It had also been empty for a few years, Maggie knew. The yard had become overgrown, and there was a graying picket fence in front, but only half of one.

Wyatt shut off the truck, and they both got out. Wyatt looked around, then led the way onto the porch. Their footsteps seemed unusually loud in the silence of a block that saw little activity after business hours.

“Okay, so he’s standing here on his porch, having his cigarette, and he looks down the street,” Wyatt said, his hands on the porch rail.

“Clear shot,” Maggie said.

“Yeah. Dark though, unless that light over Crawford’s door was on,” Wyatt said.

“Yeah. Still, a decent view.”

“It bothers the crap out of me,” Wyatt said, staring down the street.

“What does?”

“The car. The car bothers the crap out of me.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure,” Wyatt answered. “So, he’s smoking his cigarette, and he sees Crawford and the shorter guy out front, and raised voices, etcetera, he thinks they’re arguing maybe.”

Maggie was staring down the street as well. “Right.”

“Then the other guy maybe punches Crawford, but probably stabs him,” Wyatt said.

“Then the taller guy comes out front,” Maggie said. “He seemed like he was rushing to help Crawford, to break up the fight.”

“And we both figure that’s Luedtke,” Wyatt said.

“Do we know how tall Luedtke was?” Wyatt asked.

Maggie thought about the picture she’d seen, the men working for Bayside that summer. “Not as tall as my dad, so maybe six-feet?” she answered. “Tall, anyway.”

“So Fitch goes back inside, and a couple minutes later, maybe less, he hears a car and looks outside,” Wyatt said.

He put his hands on Maggie’s shoulders and turned her around to face away from Crawford’s. He turned around, too.

“So, he looks out his window,” Wyatt said, and turned back around. So did Maggie. “What did he see?”

“He thought he saw Crawford driving away, but that’s not very likely,” Maggie said. “It was probably all three of them.”

“Right,” Wyatt said, distracted, as he stared down the street. “But it’s wrong.”

Maggie waited, looking down the street, letting Wyatt think.

“What were they doing here?” he asked finally.

“Well, we talked about Luedtke,” Maggie said. “It’s conceivable that he was working late.”

“Yeah, but what was Crawford doing here?” Wyatt asked, finally looking at her.

Maggie looked back down the street, shrugged a little. “He came back to get his car,” she said.

“Yeah, but why leave it here if you’re going pubbing down the street? Then you have to walk all the way back.”

Maggie looked back down the street. “The car is wrong.”

“The car is wrong,” Wyatt repeated, then he held up a finger and jogged down the steps and to the truck.

Maggie followed, as Wyatt opened the door and reached into the back seat to grab the file. He flipped through a couple of pages and then pulled out his cell phone and dialed. Maggie waited by the door.

“Hi, Mrs. Porter?” Wyatt asked. “This is Sheriff Hamilton. I’m fine, thank you. I’m sorry to bother you again, but I just have one more quick question. You said Mrs. Crawford got to the house around eight-thirty. Did somebody drop her off?” Wyatt looked up at Maggie as he listened. “And what kind of car was that? Okay, thank you, you’ve been great. Thanks.”

Wyatt disconnected the call and looked at Maggie. “Crawford’s car. Red Caprice.”

“Mrs. Crawford said her car had died,” Maggie said quietly. “She had Crawford’s car.”

Wyatt pointed down the street with his phone. “Which ended up there.”

“Luedtke was here because she was here,” Maggie said.

“And vice versa,” Wyatt said. “I bet she told Crawford she went to the sister’s a lot. But she was with Luedtke.”

They both stared down the street a minute.

“But that’s stupid to just leave the car right out front where he could see it,” Wyatt said. “It would make sense for him to walk this way to go home. It’s like three blocks. Why bother telling the husband she’s going to her sister’s—why bother going to the sister’s—if you’re just gonna leave the car sitting right out front?”

Maggie turned and looked at Wyatt. “No. She went to her sister’s for the alibi,” Maggie said, then looked back at the street.

“So Crawford comes by on his way home, sees his car. Steps inside, and what? Finds his wife baiting some other guy’s hook—”

Maggie cut him off. “Here? At the plant? Not very romantic.” She held Wyatt’s eyes for a moment, watched him come to the same conclusion she had. “She wanted him to catch them.”

Wyatt looked at her. “You think Luedtke knew that? If this was planned, they could have been a hell of a lot more discreet.” He looked back down the street. “You think she set them both up? Forced a confrontation between the two of them so Luedtke would kill him?”

“Yeah,” Maggie said, but it felt wrong, and she got that sensation at the back of her neck again, the one she’d gotten at dinner, when she’d remembered Boudreaux raising his drink to her.

“No,” she said. “No, that’s wrong, too.”

T
he next morning was cool and dry, and there was a nice breeze over the manicured grounds of the Sunset Bay community.

Mrs. Crawford’s nurse seemed surprised to see them without a call ahead from the main office. Mrs. Crawford seemed surprised, as well, when she opened the door to Maggie and Wyatt and Dwight.

“Well, hello,” she said. She managed a smile for Wyatt, but it faltered a bit when she saw Dwight standing behind him.

“Hello, Mrs. Crawford,” Wyatt said. “May we come in? We just have a few more questions.”

“Well, yes,” she answered, as she opened the door wider and stepped back. “But I do need to leave shortly. I have an appointment at the funeral home.” She closed the door, looked nervously at Dwight, who nervously looked back, and then she brushed at a piece of lint on her black trousers.

“This shouldn’t take too long, ma’am,” Wyatt said. “Why don’t we have a seat?”

“Sure. Of course,” she said, and everyone but Dwight took a seat at the table. Dwight stayed by the door.

Maggie watched Mrs. Crawford, as the older woman glanced over at Dwight. It seemed to make her uncomfortable that Dwight was there, but not as uncomfortable as asking about his purpose might be.

“Mrs. Crawford, you mentioned the other day that your car had stopped running, that you were about to buy another one,” Wyatt said. “Do you remember that?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“How did you get to your sister’s that night?”

Mrs. Crawford blinked at Wyatt a couple of times, but her face remained blank. “Oh, well, I got a ride from a friend,” she answered. She fiddled with her hair a bit. “I can’t remember who.”

“According to your sister’s nurse, you were driving your husband’s car,” Maggie said.

“What?” The old woman tugged at her earlobe. “I—wait, yes, I think I remember now. Holden dropped me off, and then my friend—goodness, what was her name?—she took me back home later on.”

“No, that’s not right, Mrs. Crawford,” Wyatt said. “Mrs. Porter said your husband’s car was still in your sister’s driveway when she left at nine. At nine, your husband was at Papa Joe’s.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” Mrs. Crawford said. “I’m getting confused.”

“You were driving your husband’s car,” Wyatt said patiently. “Which was parked at your husband’s place of business when he was last seen around ten, arguing with two people out front.”

Mrs. Crawford didn’t respond, just stared at Wyatt like he was speaking in tongues.

“You were there with Terry Luedtke, isn’t that right, Mrs. Crawford?” Maggie asked.

The woman looked at her. “What?”

“Terry Luedtke. He didn’t just start having feelings for you sometime after your husband’s disappearance, did he?” Maggie asked.

Now it was Maggie’s turn to get blinked at.

“You were having an affair with Luedtke,” Maggie said. “Did you know they found an engagement ring in his personal effects, Mrs. Crawford?”

The woman’s lips pursed a few times. “I don’t—you don’t understand,” she said.

“What would you like us to understand, ma’am?” Wyatt asked.

“I was—it was terrifying,” she said.

“What was?” Wyatt asked her.

“Yes. Yes, I was seeing Terry. I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice rising. “I didn’t know he would do anything to Holden.”

“So you and Terry were there and your husband showed up and caught you?” Wyatt asked. “Is that what you’re saying? And Terry stabbed your husband.”

“Yes! Mrs. Crawford put a palm to her mouth. “It was awful. It was so fast.”

The apartment door opened, and the nurse stepped in, glanced at Dwight and then at the group at the table.

“Is everything all right in here?”

“Oh, Jeanette!” Mrs. Crawford cried out.

The nurse frowned at Wyatt and Maggie, then hurried to Mrs. Crawford’s side. “What is going on?” she asked Wyatt.

“We’re just clearing some things up with Mrs. Crawford,” Wyatt said.

Maggie pulled the picture of the men from Bayside Construction out of her purse and laid it on the table in front of Mrs. Crawford. The woman glanced at it without seeming to see it, as Maggie pulled a pen out of her purse and set it next to the picture.

“Mrs. Crawford, would you be so kind as to draw a circle around Terry Luedtke?”

“What?” Mrs. Crawford leaned in to take a closer look.

“Could you just draw a circle around his head for us? Which one is he?”

“Oh, yes.”

She picked up the pen and looked at the picture. Maggie could tell when her eyes found Luedtke, smiling shyly and raising his beer. Mrs. Crawford’s eyes flickered just a little. Her hand trembled as she drew a small red circle around his face. Then she looked up at Wyatt.

“I didn’t know he would hurt Holden,” she said. “It all happened so quickly, and I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid he’d hurt me, too, if I didn’t help him.”

“That’s a lot of crap, Mrs. Crawford,” Maggie said. “Luedtke didn’t kill your husband.”

“Hey, now,” the nurse said.

Maggie ignored her. “Luedtke didn’t kill your husband,” she said to Mrs. Crawford. “Your husband was almost six-three. And, yeah, next to a six-foot-three guy in work boots, even a five-foot-nine woman will look like ‘a shorter guy’—which is how Fitch described you.”

“What?” Mrs. Crawford asked, nervously clicking the pen over and over again. “You’re confusing me, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Save the Betty White impression for court, Mrs. Crawford,” Maggie said.

“Mrs. Crawford isn’t well,” the nurse said. “She has Alzheimer’s.”

I’m sure she’s earned it,” Maggie said, then looked back at Mrs. Crawford, who was still holding the red pen in her left hand. Maggie held up the picture. “The person who stabbed your husband was left-handed, Mrs. Crawford. Terry Luedtke—” here she pointed to Luedtke, forever holding that beer aloft “—wasn’t.”

Mrs. Crawford set the pen down on the table, looked over at Wyatt and then up at her nurse. “I’m so confused. I don’t remember,” she said.

“Maybe it’ll come back to you,” Maggie said. “Oh, wait. I hear it usually doesn’t.”

T
he next morning was bright and clear, and Maggie squinted against the sun, even with her sunglasses, as she walked up the steps of Boudreaux’s front porch and knocked on the door.

Amelia opened the door and looked at Maggie blankly. “Mr. Bennett round back foolin’ with his mangos,” she said.

Maggie nodded for no particular reason, since Amelia had already shut the door, albeit quietly.

Maggie walked around the porch, her hiking boots thumping against the wide planks. Once she rounded the corner, she saw Boudreaux, in loose khaki pants and a blue chambray shirt, pulling yellow leaves from a small potted mango tree.

She walked down the back steps, and Boudreaux looked up as she approached. For once, he seemed surprised to see her.