Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “So you’re not going to tell me anything?’ she asked.

  “No.”

  Maggie forced herself to ride in silence for a few minutes, until Wyatt turned left onto Market Street, made a wide U-turn, and parked in front of Up the Stairs, one of the few ‘nice’ restaurants in town.

  She had her mouth open to ask him what they were doing, but he was already out of the truck. She started to get a sinking feeling in her stomach, and clutched her purse in her lap as he came around the truck and opened her door. If it weren’t for the skirt, and for the shirt that was not Hawaiian, Maggie could have believed they were going across the street across the street for an ice cream cone at The Old Time Soda Fountain, which happened to be a favorite spot for Wyatt.

  “Out you go,” he said.

  “Wyatt, what are you doing?”

  “Waiting for you,” he answered.

  “What do you want to show me?”

  “Well, right now I want to show you what it’s like to disembark from a truck, Maggie,” he said.

  “First tell me what we’re doing here,” she said.

  “You know you weigh less than a bag of squirrels, right?” he asked. “I can pick you up.”

  Maggie looked at Wyatt’s face. It looked a lot more serious than his words. “You’re scaring me,” she said quietly.

  “I’m not trying to scare you,” he said gently. He held out a hand. “It’ll be okay, Maggie. I promise.”

  Maggie took his hand and stepped down from the truck. He closed the door and pulled her to the sidewalk.

  “Wyatt, we can’t do this,” she said as she tried to keep up with his much longer legs.

  “Well, it’s what we’re doing.”

  “Wyatt, you’ll lose your job.”

  “Maggie, half the people in this town already think we’re sleeping together,” he said as he opened the door for them.

  “But we’re not!”

  “Really beside the point,” he said.

  Once they got upstairs, Maggie was too flustered to think of anything else she could say, particularly in front of other people who were waiting to be seated. Wyatt, apparently, had a reservation for two out on the balcony overlooking Market Street.

  He held her hand the entire way as the hostess led them out there, and as she glanced around at a couple of familiar faces, Maggie couldn’t help feeling like she had a scarlet “A” tattooed across her face, even though adultery wasn’t any of the things she and Wyatt were doing.

  Once they were seated, a waiter scurried over and Wyatt ordered a bottle of wine. Maggie sat silently, her purse in her lap, feeling the heat in her face. Two other tables on the balcony were occupied, and Maggie felt like she’d walked in naked.

  Once the waiter was gone, Wyatt looked at Maggie and sighed. “I’m sorry this is traumatizing you,” he said quite seriously. “But you really are adorable when you blush like that.”

  “Wyatt, this isn’t funny,” Maggie said quietly.

  “It’s not meant to be,” he said.

  “We’ve talked about this,” she said. “Two years until early retirement. They’re gonna fire you.”

  “Maggie—” he started.

  “When they find out—”

  “Half of them already knew, Maggie,” he said.

  “What do you mean, ‘knew’?”

  “My meeting with the honchos. Most of them already knew about us,” he said. “So much for hard and fast policy. Obviously they were okay with it as long as we weren’t blatant about it.”

  “This is blatant, Wyatt!” Maggie said sharply, her voice just above a whisper. “They’re going to be forced to fire you!”

  “No, they’re going to be forced to give me the transfer I asked for,” he said.

  Maggie felt like she’d been punched in the chest, but the waiter arrived with their wine, so she had no choice but to sit there silently while he decanted the wine and spouted off a number of appetizers and specials.

  Maggie didn’t even hear what Wyatt ordered, and missed out on taking his to task for ordering for her, which she would have done under different circumstances. When the waiter finally left, Maggie swallowed hard and managed to speak in a normal tone.

  “Transfer to where?’ she asked.

  “Not to where, to what,” Wyatt said. He picked up her wineglass and held it out to her. “Take a big drink of this.”

  Maggie took the glass and drained a good third of the wine.

  “I’ve asked them to give me Karl’s job,” Wyatt said. “I asked them back in July, when I got shot. They turned me down.”

  Karl was the Sheriff’s Office’s public information officer. He was retiring in just two weeks.

  Maggie leaned forward. “July? Why didn’t you tell me that?” she whispered angrily at him.

  “Because I wanted their answer first,” he whispered back.

  “Well, they said ‘no,’ Wyatt!”

  “And now they’ll reconsider,” Wyatt said. “They’re going to have to.”

  “You’re not a public relations person!”

  “Who cares, Maggie? It’s a lateral move. I won’t be your boss, and I’ll still get my pension.” He leaned even closer. “Meanwhile, if we keep hissing at each other like a couple of garter snakes, people are gonna say we’re not only lovers, but we’re having lovers’ quarrels in public, and tomorrow morning everybody from the Mayor to your gynecologist will be talking about it. So I would appreciate it if you’d calm down or, I swear on my borked hip, I will lean over and lick your neck. That’ll give ’em a heads-up.”

  Maggie sat back in her chair, glancing around her for a moment. A few people were looking, but not all, and while some looked interested, no one looked exactly condemning.

  “Now,” Wyatt said. “I’ve ordered us food that I don’t understand and that will probably cost an arm and a leg. Let’s try to enjoy it.”

  Maggie stared at him. He stared back.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Wyatt, what are you doing?” she asked quietly.

  “I’m taking action, Maggie,” he said. “That’s what men do.”

  “Why now? I mean, we’re okay the way we are.”

  “No, we’re not. I told you when we started this that I wasn’t just pissing around,” Wyatt said. “I’m forty-eight, not sixteen. I’m tired of skulking around and I’m tired of waiting. And no, I’m not talking about sex.”

  “Wyatt!”

  He leaned over and whispered. “Sex!”

  “What do you mean, you’re tired of waiting?” Maggie asked. “It’s only been a few months.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Maggie,” he said gently. “I’ve been waiting almost six years for you to figure out we’re not just buddies.”

  Maggie sat and stared at him, then took a drink of her wine, trying not to notice that her hand was shaking. It was almost six years ago that her divorce had become final.

  “I realize that you’ve had some catching up to do,” Wyatt said quietly. “But judging by some of the things that you’ve said to me, I’m guessing that you’re almost there.”

  “Almost where?’ Maggie asked, wishing she had the steady hands to pour more wine.

  Wyatt got just a little agitated again, and leaned toward her. “Do you want me to say it? I’d rather do it privately, and I’d rather you say it first, but if you need me to lay it out for you I will, but then you’ll probably piss yourself and we’ll have a whole different gossip problem.”

  Maggie was trying to sort out seven possible responses when she saw the waiter approaching, and her eyes widened. Wyatt looked over his shoulder, then back at her.

  “Try not to look like a gigged frog; the appetizers are here,” he whispered.

  “What is it?’ she asked automatically.

  “I don’t remember,” he said.

  The waiter arrived at the table and put two plates down between them.

  “I thought you might like to share these, so we’ll just put them in the center,” the
waiter said cheerfully. “Can I get you anything else? More water?”

  “No, thank you. This is great,” Wyatt said distractedly.

  When the waiter had gone, Wyatt reached over and poured them both some more wine. He handed Maggie her glass, then raised his own.

  “Here’s to the County Commissioners,” he said.

  Maggie looked at him, with his glass in the air, and got a sudden flash of Boudreaux earlier that day, raising his beer bottle to her. She got a sensation, like a small animal chewing at the back of her neck, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. She felt that there was something else, something that refused to come out from around the edges of her mind.

  She raised her glass, though she didn’t raise it very high, for fear that everyone was looking.

  Wyatt and Maggie, by some unspoken agreement, passed the rest of their meal engaged in little more than their usual chit-chat and banter. They both stayed away from talk of work, and they both stayed away from any more emotionally taxing topics.

  They enjoyed their meal, but they didn’t order more wine and they didn’t linger. They were grown-ups, eating in public like grown-up couples do, but that didn’t mean they had to dawdle over it.

  Once they got outside, Wyatt unlocked the truck and opened Maggie’s door. “As much as I would like us to go back to the house and do some kissing and maybe even break out that playlist, I think you need some time to toss things around in your head. So I’m just going to run you back to your car, okay?”

  “Okay,” Maggie said.

  Wyatt ducked his head and gave her a quick kiss, and Maggie slid into the truck. She waited for Wyatt to close her door, but he didn’t. He just stood there with his arm on it, jingling his keys.

  “What?’ she asked after a moment.

  Wyatt frowned at her. “Something’s wonky,” he said.

  “What’s wonky?” she asked.

  He shook his head, then looked over his shoulder down the street. “I don’t know. The something-something isn’t right.”

  They’d worked together long enough for Maggie to know he meant something with the case. “What?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said again, and shut her door.

  She watched him walk around the front, and he got in and shut his door, still frowning. He put the key in the ignition, and stared at his steering wheel for a moment, then started up the truck.

  “Let’s just make a quick stop over on Water Street,” he said as he backed out.

  They got to the middle of the block, about half a block before Sea-Fair and, just beyond it, the building where Crawford’s Seafood had been. Wyatt stopped in the middle of the empty street, and reached behind him to the small back seat.

  He brought his copy of the case file to his lap, flipped through a couple of pages, then shut the file again and tossed it back on the seat.

  “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 h
ad. “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.”

  The 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.”