Squall Line

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Did he just do something really good?”

  “Yeah,” said Wyatt, who disliked him a little more than everyone else did, except perhaps for Maggie. “We can hate him for that later.”

  Bennett Boudreaux opened the glass door that led to the reception area for the ER. His hand-tailored, blue silk shirt was sodden, his expensive loafers and the hems of his tan trousers darkened by the rain.

  The middle-aged woman at the reception desk looked up sharply as the door slammed shut. She watched as Boudreaux stalked up to her.

  “Maggie Redmond, where is she?” he asked quickly.

  “I don’t know—”

  “The sheriff’s officer that was shot, where is the officer?” he asked more loudly. An old man with a portable oxygen tank and a bloody bandage on his knee looked over at him.

  “In surgery,” she answered, flustered at his tone. “But you’ll have to wait—”

  Boudreaux started for the swinging door that led to the belly of the ER.

  “Mr. Boudreaux! You can’t go back there!” she said, starting to rise. He stopped and turned, held up a finger.

  “Don’t,” he said. His voice was soft, but his aquamarine eyes were not. “Don’t get up from your desk.”

  She stared at the door as it swung shut behind him.

  Wyatt had gone down the hall to the men’s room. When Maggie heard hurried footsteps, she looked up, expecting him back, but it wasn’t Wyatt, it was Bennett Boudreaux.

  Maggie could count on one hand the number of times she had seen Boudreaux look less than perfect, and they had all been during a hurricane. As she pushed herself away from the wall, he saw her there and stopped for a moment, still several yards away.

  He blinked a couple of times, then sighed. His clothes were wet, his hair wet as well, and he had obviously run his hands through it to push it back, like he tended to do. It made him look an older James Dean. An older James Dean who had left himself out in the rain.

  Maggie stood there and waited for him as he came toward her. Every time she saw him, she was glad and every time she saw him, she was conflicted. First he was her friend, however inadvisable that might have been. Then she found out he was her biological father. Sometimes she liked that and sometimes she just missed her friend.

  Their friendship hadn’t lost its intimacy or its fascination, but of course it couldn’t be exactly the same, either. At least, now that everyone, especially Wyatt, knew that he was her father, some of the tension over their relationship had eased.

  “Maggie,” he said when he reached her.

  “Mr. Boudreaux.” She brushed a bang out of her eye. “Why are you here?”

  “I heard that an officer was shot, and was told you were on your way here,” he answered quietly.

  He blinked again, and Maggie thought his eyes had watered just a bit.

  “It’s Dwight Shultz,” she said. She knew Boudreaux knew Dwight—knew his whole family. Every fisherman, oysterman and shrimper sold his catch to Boudreaux’s wholesale seafood business. He wasn’t the only game in town, but he was the biggest and, having come from poor oystering stock in Louisiana, he made a point of paying more than anyone else.

  “I see. Is he alive?”

  Maggie swallowed, and made herself lift her chin. “So far. Yes.”

  He stepped back, let out a slow breath, and leaned against the vending machine.

  “What happened?”

  Maggie shook her head. “I don’t really know. We were having lunch at Lynn’s. He went to get his little girl from the school bus, and apparently he tried to break up a fight. Kids. It was a kid—a teenager—that shot him.”

  “Do your parents know?” he asked. “It’s on the radio. If they hear about it…”

  “They’re in the Keys with my aunt and uncle. I left Daddy a voice mail, though.”

  He nodded, and they were silent for a few moments. His blue eyes, as always, seemed to pin her to thin air. He stepped over to the water dispenser, pulled a folded, white handkerchief from his pants pocket, and wet it slightly. Then he came back to her and gently wiped at her neck. When he pulled the cloth away, it was smeared with red.

  He folded it over, then wiped at the side of her face, near her ear.

  “I was afraid,” he said quietly.

  “Me, too.”

  “Hey,” Maggie heard from a few feet away. She and Boudreaux both looked up to see Wyatt standing there, his hands on his hips. He was frowning at them.

  As Sheriff, Wyatt had been professionally disdainful of Bennett Boudreaux. As Maggie’s best friend and eventual fiancé, the dislike had been much more personal. Aside from the fact that a friendship between a cop and a known criminal was never a good idea, Wyatt had been convinced that Boudreaux was actually in love with Maggie.

  Learning that Boudreaux was Maggie’s biological father alleviated that concern, but it didn’t do much to change Wyatt’s view of the man. As for Boudreaux, he actually liked Wyatt, if somewhat grudgingly.

  “Amy just texted me,” Wyatt said. “The surgeon’s coming out to talk to them in just a minute. She says to come on back there.”

  Maggie’s heartbeat quickened. “Okay.”

  She looked at Boudreaux, who was folding the handkerchief again.

  “I’ll be praying for Dwight,” he said quietly. “I’ve known the Shultz men a long time; they do what they have to do. Dwight needs to take care of his family.”

  Maggie nodded. “Thank you for coming over here.”

  Boudreaux nodded. “I’ll just go rinse this out.”

  “Wait.” Maggie stared at the bloody cloth. “Don’t. I’ll wash it.”

  Boudreaux stared at her a moment, and she could see in his eyes that he understood.

  “Thank you.” He handed her the handkerchief. “No hurry. It was good to see you, Maggie.”

  “It was good to see you, too.”

  He nodded at Wyatt as he started away. “Wyatt.”

  “Dad.”

  There was a twitch of a smile at the edge of Boudreaux’s mouth as he walked away.

  Dwight had been made as stable as the surgeon had time to make him; he’d been given blood and was still receiving it. The damage to the artery had been hastily repaired. Dwight’s blood pressure was higher, but not as high as it needed to be. Nonetheless, there was nothing further that could be done for him at Weems Memorial, and the helicopter from Sacred Heart was on its way. It would pick up Dwight, and Amy, in the back parking lot.

  When asked repeatedly by Amy, Dr. Ridgeway relented enough to say that the best things that could have been for Dwight at Weems, had been. No one asked for any percentages or predictions, and while no one’s heart was broken, no one’s heart was lightened, either.

  Maggie and Wyatt left by the front entrance in order to stay out of the way of the Medi-Vac. When they did, they found that the rain had slowed to a drizzle, but the wind had pickup a bit.

  Just across the parking lot was a circle of about twenty people, heads bowed and hands joined. There were a couple of off-duty deputies and Apalach PD officers among them. Everyone on duty was out looking for Ryan Warner.

  Maggie stopped just outside the entrance and stared at the gathering, about twenty yards away beneath a live oak.

  Wyatt grabbed her hand and tugged her along beside him. When they reached the circle, a lady that worked at the Marathon station and James Francis from Apalach PD created an opening for them.

  Maggie bowed her head, and listened as a nearby Sabal palm swished in the breeze and a helicopter lifted its cargo into the sky.

  The kids took the news about Dwight very hard. Maggie had forgotten that school had let out early, and she’d been unprepared for telling them so soon. Wyatt had texted both of them as soon as he and Maggie had gotten to the hospital, but he’d shared no details, only telling them that he and Maggie w
ere okay.

  After both she and Wyatt had done what they could to reassure and comfort the kids, Maggie left them each to their own individual means of dealing with the shooting, while she went to take a much-needed shower.

  It was only when she watched small rivers of blood run down her legs, and the pink-tinted lather rushing toward the drain, that she finally started feeling the physical and emotional effects of the day. She was suddenly terribly weary, and her eyes stung, then loosed warm tears, as she leaned against the tiled shower wall.

  She stayed there for some time, letting the hot water soothe her. Outside the bathroom, Stoopid tapped repeatedly at the door.

  Several hours later, Dwight’s father called to give them an update. As most .22 bullets do, this one had banged around inside Dwight before deciding to lodge between the L4 and L5 vertebrae. Before they could address the bullet, repairs had to be made to Dwight’s large intestine and pancreas, and the hasty surgery on the iliac artery improved upon. According to the surgeon who had operated on Dwight, the major concerns at this point were infection caused by the breach of the large intestine, and damage to the spinal cord.

  It was possible that removing the large hematoma near the spine would relieve pressure on the spinal cord and Dwight would be fine. It was equally possible that the bullet itself had done enough damage to render Dwight paralyzed.

  First, Dwight’s system needed to strengthen enough to undergo what would be a risky and probably lengthy surgery. He would remain in the ICU at Sacred Heart through the next forty-eight hours, and if all went well, they were hoping to be able to take him back into surgery on Monday.

  No one offered the Shultz family any predictions. Until the team of a neurosurgeon and an orthopedic surgeon were able to open him back up, it was really anybody’s guess.

  Wyatt had been getting calls throughout the rest of the day and the evening, updates from those who were working on the case. Who had been interviewed, who had not. Tips and suggestions regarding the location of Ryan Warner, none of which had panned out thus far.

  At first, Maggie had bristled at the fact that everybody was calling Wyatt and not her, though people had reported to Wyatt for over ten years, and some still called him “Boss,” Dwight included. Also, Wyatt quietly pointed out that they would have given Dwight the same break if it had been Maggie who had been shot. She immediately knew the truth of that and mentally backhanded herself for thinking about her own feelings or need for control.

  Later that night, after the kids had retired to their rooms, Maggie walked out the back door and headed for the dock. Stoopid and Coco tapped and jangled behind her, past the firepit, the garden, and the chicken run. Maggie could hear the girls gossiping inside the coop.

  She was surrounded by the sounds that soothed her. The rustling of the palm fronds in the last of the storm-birthed breeze. The soft thumps of her bare feet on the worn planks of the dock. The gentle lap of the water against the pilings.

  She sat down at the end of the dock, letting her legs hang over the edge. Stoopid fidgeted on one side of her commenting on the weather. Coco leaned against her shoulder on the other side, the way she did when she knew someone needed a hug.

  After a while, Maggie heard footsteps behind her on the dock. She knew they were Wyatt’s; no one else was big enough to make that much noise without shoes. He sat down behind her, one leg on either side of her, and his arms wrapped gently around her. She put her hands on his and held them there.

  “Amy called,” he said after a moment. “No real change, but he’s still with us. She wanted you to know. She also said to tell you ‘Thank you’.”

  Maggie let out a soft snort without meaning to. “’Thank you’,” she repeated softly.

  “Ah, I see,” Wyatt said quietly. “It’s your fault.”

  “I know it’s not my fault. I just wish…” She shrugged. “I don’t know. I wish something.”

  Wyatt sighed, and kissed the top of her head. “We don’t wish. We deal with what we’ve got.”

  It took Maggie a moment to answer. “Yeah.”

  Maggie laid awake long into the night, Wyatt snoring softly beside her, his arm draped over her chest. At the foot of the bed, Coco was draped across her feet, snoring a little more loudly. Coco had been sleeping with her since she was a puppy. Since the wedding, tit had become her habit o sneak onto the bed once Wyatt was asleep. It had become Wyatt’s habit to wake up in the morning and pretend he was surprised.

  Maggie had tried deep breathing, and counting oyster skiffs or chickens, but she’d been unable to shut her brain down long enough to fall asleep. She couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that Sky had been at school that morning, that an armed and angry boy had walked down the same halls, maybe even passed Sky at some point during the day.

  Several times, Maggie’s mind threw up a picture of Sky studying at the library, wearing her earbuds as she always did, hunching over her books, ripe for surprise. When that picture wasn’t terrorizing her, the names were. Columbine. Sandy Hook. More recently, and much closer to home, Stoneman-Douglas. These and other names she could remember repeated over and over in her head until she knew she needed to get up in order to quiet them.

  She pulled her feet out from under Coco, and the dog raised her head to see what Maggie needed.

  “Stay, baby,” Maggie whispered, and rubbed at her silky ear before she swung her legs over the side of the bed and got up.

  She quietly shut the door behind her, and walked down the dark hallway to the living room. Stoopid, who could hear anything unless someone was speaking to him, woke from his perch on the ceiling fan and stretched out his neck.

  “Don’t,” Maggie said sharply.

  He coughed back the crow he was working on, made a few preparatory flaps, then flew down to the floor and followed her into the kitchen.

  The only light was from the moon that hung brightly over the bay and. It seeped across the yard and through the blinds over the sliding glass door. Maggie opened the fridge and grabbed a water bottle. Stoopid mentioned the opportunity before her, and she grabbed a few leaves of lettuce and dropped them into his dish.

  She leaned against the sink as she drank her water. It was sweet, and almost too cold. She stared past her reflection in the window to the dark beyond. After a moment, she could make out some dark shapes in the garden, and a few glints of moonlight on the water near the dock.

  She finished her water, tripped over Stoopid, and went back down the hall. Not wanting to wake Wyatt by using their bathroom, she used the one in the hallway. As she washed her hands afterwards, she caught sight of her face in the mirror. Looking at herself had never been one of her favorite things, but now she looked weary and red-eyed and at least five years older than she had the morning before.

  She looked away, dried her hands, and turned off the light on her way out. She was about to pass the door to Sky’s room, but stopped, deliberated, and then eased the door open. Sky was on her side, facing the door, and Maggie stood there for a moment watching her, though she couldn’t see her face. She was about to pull the door closed again when Sky spoke.

  “What is it?’ she asked quietly.

  “Nothing,” Maggie answered. “Just checking on you. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Sky sat up, her bedlinens rustling. Now Maggie could just make out her face, silver in the moonlight. “Are you okay?”

  Maggie nodded. “Yeah. It’s just been a rough day.”

  “Have you heard anything else about Dwight?”

  “No. Go back to sleep.”

  Maggie started, again, to go back out.

  “Mom?”

  “What?”

  It took Sky a moment to answer, and when she did her voice was uncharacteristically gentle.

  “It didn’t happen.”

  “What didn’t?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m okay.”

 
; Maggie blinked a few times, her chest warming at her daughter’s attempt to comfort her. Just a couple of years ago, two out of three conversations between them had ended with one or both of them sighing and walking away. That she could now hug Sky without her pulling away, that they could laugh together, or say “I love you,” was a miracle freshly acknowledged at least once a week.

  And now she was leaving. And if things had been different today, she wouldn’t be here at all.

  Maggie mentally shook herself, tired of her own morbidity and self-indulgence. She walked over to the bed, leaned over, and kissed Sky’s temple. She drank in the familiar aromas of Herbal Essence, coconut lotion and sun-warmed skin, as Sky accepted her kiss.

  Maggie straightened up. “You’re still my Boo,” she said. “I love you, Sky.”

  “I love you too, dude.” She flopped onto her back, and her face disappeared into the shadows. “Now go away so I can get some sleep. My frontal lobe is still developing.”

  Maggie sat at the long, oval table in the conference room and stared out the picture window over the far end of the table. Wyatt sat beside her, nursing his first mountainous Mountain Dew of the day. They had been at the hospital in Port St. Joe by six-thirty this morning. There had been no real change in Dwight’s condition.

  Amy’s parents had been watching the kids at their home, as Amy stayed with Dwight. His parents were taking shifts accompanying her, and several other family members had taken vigils as well. Amy’s sister and best friend were with her when Maggie and Wyatt arrived. They weren’t allowed to see Dwight. There really was no purpose in them being there, except to show support.

  Maggie had felt inadequate and insufficient and had apologized to Amy for not being able to stay with her.

  Amy had brushed her tangled bangs from her eyes and propped a hand on her slim hip. “You’re doing what I need you to do,” she’d said.

  It was now seven-thirty, and they were awaiting Sheriff Bledsoe’s arrival. Around the table, there were several deputies who had been assigned to the team investigating Dwight’s shooting.