Riptide

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “I know who de chile is,” Miss Evangeline said, craning her neck to look up at Maggie.

  “Yes, well…Maggie, our Carrie mangoes have just ripened. You need to taste this one,” he said.

  Before Maggie could respond, Boudreaux held out a wickedly-sharp looking knife with a perfectly orange slice of mango atop it.

  “You do like mangoes, Maggie?”

  “I love them, actually,” she said and gingerly lifted the fruit from the blade.

  “Ever’ body love the mango,” Miss Evangeline said.

  Maggie put the fruit into her mouth and was instantly infatuated. It was completely fiberless, and the sweetest mango she could remember tasting. Her eyes shut against her will. Boudreaux saw this and smiled.

  “It’s really something, isn’t it?”

  Maggie swallowed and opened her eyes. “What’s it called?”

  “Carrie. It’s an original Florida cultivar. Believe it or not, it’s from one of the little potted trees.”

  He turned and pointed at one of a dozen small, potted mangoes that stood in two neat rows in front of a group of maybe twelve, full-sized trees. Boudreaux was known for cultivating mangoes in a part of Florida that was generally believed to be too far north. He had the fans, heaters, blankets and tarps to do it.

  “It’s amazing.”

  Boudreaux smiled and slid several slices onto an acrylic plate and set it in front of Miss Evangeline, who peered at it intently before turning her thick eyeglasses up to Boudreaux.

  “I want some of the big one, too, me.”

  “The San Felipe,” Boudreaux said, slicing another fruit.

  “I don’ need to know his name,” Miss Evangeline said as she watched him cut it.

  Maggie watched as Boudreaux cut the fruit from the seed in a few quick motions, then slid it onto Miss Evangeline’s plate. Then Boudreaux wiped his hands on a wet towel and looked up at Maggie.

  “I was just about to have a mojito. Care to join me?”

  Maggie started to say she couldn’t, but said “Yes” instead.

  Boudreaux stepped behind a small, butcher block bar and pulled some mint leaves from a small potted plant. Miss Evangeline was eating her mango with her fingers, and had turned her attention to an open magazine, her face just a few inches from the page.

  “So, Maggie,” Boudreaux said, as he crushed the mint with a marble mortar and pestle. “What brings you by?”

  Maggie glanced over at the old woman again before answering. “Brandon Wilmette.” Boudreaux glanced up from his mint, then looked back down. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes,” Boudreaux said. “He’s a friend of Gregory’s.” He pulled out two rocks glasses and divided the mint between them, then started slicing a lime. “Why are you asking about Brandon?”

  “Do you know him very well?”

  Boudreaux looked up and frowned at her just slightly. “Maggie, it’s not like you to answer a question with a question.” It felt to Maggie almost like a chastisement. “I know him well enough not to like him, but he and Gregory have been friends since college. Why do you ask?”

  “That was his foot Axel Blackwell caught the other day,” Maggie said.

  Boudreaux stopped slicing and looked up at Maggie. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. There was a DNA sample in the system.”

  Boudreaux flicked the paring knife back and forth like a pencil as he frowned at her. “Is he dead, then?”

  “So it would appear,” Maggie answered.

  “Have you found his body?”

  “There might not be one.”

  Boudreaux glanced over at Miss Evangeline, but she seemed oblivious to them.

  “Let’s make our cocktails, then we’ll go sit over there,” Boudreaux said, pointing the knife at the other end of the porch.

  He used a wooden muddler to crush the lime slices in their glasses, then grabbed some cracked ice from an ice bucket and added some to each glass. Then he poured in some simple syrup from a small decanter, added some white rum, and a little club soda. He didn’t look at Maggie until he held out her glass.

  “Thank you,” Maggie said.

  Boudreaux nodded and led her over to two white wicker chairs with blue and white striped cushions. They both sat, and each of them took a drink.

  Maggie felt the need to skirt the issue for a bit. She didn’t know if that was because she had questions she didn’t want to ask, or questions she didn’t want him to answer.

  “Miss Evangeline was your housekeeper back in Louisiana?” she asked instead.

  “Yes. And my nanny.”

  “She was the boys’ nanny?” Maggie asked, meaning his two grown sons.

  “Nah, she couldn’t be bothered with them,” Boudreaux answered. “She was just mine.”

  “So why is she here?”

  Boudreaux looked at her. “Because I love her,” he said, and took a sip of his drink.

  Maggie had seen Boudreaux with his sons when they were younger, had seen him many times with his wife. But she found herself surprised to think about him loving someone, and pleased that it happened to be this tiny, raisin-like woman.

  “Don’t let her hatchling appearance fool you, though,” Boudreaux said. “She’s a voodoo-slinging velociraptor.”

  Maggie raised an eyebrow at him. “She practices voodoo?”

  “No, not really,” Boudreaux said. “But she’s an advocate.”

  Maggie took another sip of her mojito and Bennett sighed and looked at her a moment.

  “So what would you like to know about Brandon Wilmette? We called him “Sport,” by the way.”

  “Was he at the funeral?”

  “Yes. I spoke to him briefly.”

  “Was that the last time you saw him?”

  “No. He came by my office Tuesday.” Maggie waited, so he continued. “He wanted me to invest in some gourmet restaurant thing. I offered him a job instead.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Around seven. I usually work in the evening these days.”

  “You didn’t like him, but you offered him a job?”

  “Gregory’s old job. There wasn’t much to it.”

  “Why?”

  Boudreaux took another drink. “I don’t like handing people money. And he’d never had an idea that he didn’t screw up entirely. I didn’t want to invest in his latest one.”

  “That sounds a lot like your description of Gregory,” Maggie said, and the name was bitter on her tongue.

  “They weren’t all that different.” He looked at her with that piercing stare he sometimes got. “Did you ever meet him?”

  “No.”

  Hey, you want some? Maggie took another drink.

  “I thought maybe you had. He spent quite a bit of time down here with Gregory.”

  Maggie didn’t answer. “So, did he take the job?”

  “He said he’d think about it. But he never got back to me.”

  They sat there silently for a moment, drinking their mojitos and not really looking at each other.

  “It’s odd, him being killed just after Gregory’s funeral,” Maggie said finally.

  “Isn’t it.” he answered flatly. “So I assume you feel he’s been murdered.”

  “Well, it’s unlikely he became so despondent over Gregory that he chopped off his leg and threw himself into the sea.”

  Boudreaux smiled just a little. “That would be unlikely, yes.”

  “Although, I’ve been told that maybe he was gay.”

  Boudreaux laughed softly, obviously surprised. “Really? I wouldn’t have thought that, the way he talked. But I’m not especially observant of those things.”

  Maggie stared at him a moment, and he met her stare. “I think you’re probably very observant of everything,” she said.

  Boudreaux looked at her a moment and then winked.

  “Unexpected ’splosive diarrhea!” cawed Miss Evangeline.

  They both looked over at the old woman, who was looking in their direction tri
umphantly.

  “Now what?” Boudreaux asked her.

  “I told you them cholest’rol pill weren’t no good for you, no.” She poked at her magazine with one bent finger.

  “Well, maybe I’ll just drink your dandelion tea and choke to death instead,” Boudreaux said.

  Miss Evangeline stared at him blankly for a moment, running a tongue over the teeth in her upper plate.

  “Go on gimme sass front o’ other folk,” she said quietly. “I come there an’ yank you up.”

  Boudreaux sighed as Miss Evangeline went back to her magazine.

  “If you don’t need her anymore, I’ll take her,” Maggie said.

  “She comes with her own Taser,” Boudreaux said. “It was a mistake, but I can’t get it back because she doesn’t actually sleep.”

  He took a long pull of his drink and then regarded her a moment. “Is there anything else you want to know about Brandon Wilmette, Maggie?” he asked quietly.

  Maggie wondered if Boudreaux knew whether Wilmette had been the other man in the woods. She wanted very much to ask, for her own sake.

  “You don’t seem too upset about him,” she said instead.

  “I’m really not.” He scratched softly at an eyebrow as he looked at her “You shouldn’t be, either.”

  Maggie was almost certain he’d just answered the question she hadn’t asked. Which brought other, new questions to mind. She finished off her mojito, uncomfortable underneath his gaze.

  She stood up, and Boudreaux stood with her. “Well, it’s my job to figure out what happened to him,” she said.

  “She leavin’?” Miss Evangeline piped up.

  “Yes,” Maggie answered.

  Miss Evangeline looked at Boudreaux and held up a plastic bag from the Piggly-Wiggly. “Put some mango in the Pilly-Willy bag for take home.”

  “Oh, that’s all right,” Maggie said, but Boudreaux was already halfway over there.

  “No, you should take some,” he said, as he started placing a few in the bag. “You can’t get these anywhere else.”

  Maggie walked over to him and he held out the bag.

  “Take them home to your kids,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said, as she took them. She looked at Miss Evangeline. “It was nice to meet you.”

  “You a pretty thing,” Miss Evangeline said.

  Maggie smiled. “Thank you. So are you.”

  The old woman’s face scrunched up in something that might have been a smile, but could just as easily have been a heart attack.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Boudreaux,” Maggie said.

  “It’s always good to see you, Maggie,” he said softly.

  Maggie nodded at him, smiled again at Miss Evangeline, and headed back around to the front. Boudreaux leaned against the porch rail as he and Miss Evangeline watched her go.

  “Beau’ful girl,” Miss Evangeline said.

  “Yes,” Boudreaux said.

  “Foot belong the stupid one.”

  “Yes.”

  “Juju,” she said.

  “Damn right,” Boudreaux said quietly.

  Maggie checked her watch as she waited for the AC to assert itself in the Jeep. Then she picked up her cell and dialed Wyatt’s personal phone.

  “Hey,” Wyatt said, cheerfully. There was a good deal of noise in the background and someone laughed loudly.

  “Hey,” Maggie said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at Boss Oyster,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “Boudreaux’s driveway.”

  “Coming or going?”

  “I’m getting ready to go home.”

  “How’d it go with Boudreaux?”

  “It wasn’t spectacularly enlightening, except that Boudreaux said he saw Wilmette on Tuesday,” Maggie said, rolling down her window in an attempt to stay alive until the air kicked in. “And that he offered him a job.”

  “Huh. Did he take it?”

  “Boudreaux says he never got back to him,” Maggie said. She heard a burst of cheering in the background. “Are you watching a game?”

  “Actually, I’m having a beer with your ex-husband,” Wyatt said, like it was hysterical.

  “You’re having a beer with David?” Maggie asked. She felt a twinge of panic in her stomach, but wasn’t sure why.

  “Yes. In fact, we were just talking about you.”

  “Maybe I should come join you,” Maggie said.

  “That’s a great idea,” Wyatt said enthusiastically. “Then we can do a scene from Seinfeld for all the people who are already looking sideways at us.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they think it’s odd, because it’s odd.”

  “Did David ask you to come for a beer?”

  “No, it was just happenstance.” She heard him take a pull on his beer. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Are you sure I shouldn’t come over there?”

  “I’m certain of it,” Wyatt said. “You have a nice night, now.”

  Wyatt disconnected the call, and the car suddenly seemed inordinately quiet, except for the AC. Maggie rolled up her window and backed out of the driveway.

  It took a great deal of effort for her not to turn toward Boss Oyster as she headed home.

  Wyatt closed his phone and set it back down on the bar.

  “She must love this,” David said, grinning.

  “She seemed pretty excited about it,” Wyatt said, deadpan. He drained the last of his beer and looked at David. “You want another one? On me this time.”

  “Sure, why not?’ David answered. “I’ve been working on my cabin all day.”

  Wyatt raised his hand at the bartender and pointed at their beers. “How’s that going?”

  “Pretty well. It needs a lot of cosmetics, but it’s a solid boat.”

  “I’m happy for you. I think it’s great,” Wyatt said. “She’s proud of you.”

  David smiled and shrugged a bit, then looked at his empty beer bottle. “Yeah, well. The way I got the money together might not be so cool, but I’m happy, too.”

  Wyatt leaned a little closer to David. “How does a cop’s husband manage to get into that line of work, anyway?”

  David looked a little uncomfortable with the question. “She didn’t tell you?”

  “No. We never got into much detail on that topic.”

  “My cousin. He has a…uh… garden out in Tate’s Hell Forest.” David blinked and swallowed. “Hey, leave him alone, okay? He’s small time. And he’s a nice guy.”

  “Don’t stress yourself, David,” Wyatt said. “By the time I found it, it would be legal anyway.”

  “Well, anyway, I did some short runs for him, over to Tampa, then he vouched for me with some larger guys.”

  David stopped as the bartender brought them two more bottles and Wyatt handed him some cash.

  Once the bartender was gone, David leaned in and spoke quietly. “I suspect it took a while for them to stop expecting Maggie to come flying in, but they were okay after a while.”

  Wyatt nodded. “Well, I’m glad you’re out.”

  “Me, too,” David said, nodding. He sat back and took a long swallow of his beer, then looked at Wyatt for a minute.

  “What?” Wyatt finally asked him.

  David shrugged and smiled. “I’m trying to come up with some way to ask your intentions without asking ‘What are your intentions?’”

  “Maggie,” Wyatt said.

  “Yeah.”

  Wyatt fiddled with his cork coaster a bit before answering. “They’re honorable,” he finally said.

  David gave him a half-smile. “I was afraid of that.”

  “You’re still in love with her.”

  David smiled and shook his head. “No. Sure. Of course I am.” He laughed a little. “She may have thrown me out, but she never gave me a reason to not love her, man.”

  Wyatt nodded. David leaned his elbows on the bar.

  “Listen, Wyatt. We might not hang out or play ball togethe
r anymore, but we know each other pretty well. I’ve always liked you. She’s gonna be with somebody someday. It might as well be you.”

  “That’s a pretty generous attitude, considering,” Wyatt said.

  “What else am I gonna do? She’s not coming back,” David said. “But she’s still my best friend.”

  Wyatt nodded and held up his beer. David tapped it with his own and they both took a drink. Then Wyatt saw a somber look come into his eyes.

  “Just don’t be fooled by that tough exterior she likes to put on, man,” David said. “She’s more vulnerable than she lets on.”

  “Okay.”

  David picked at the label on his bottle for a bit. “She gets these nightmares, always has. Some old lady chasing her down a beach. She won’t talk about them, so don’t ask. But it helps if you’re just there.”

  “I’m not sleeping with your ex-wife, David,” Wyatt said gently.

  David looked over at him and smiled. “I’m all kinds of happy to hear that,” he said. “But you will be.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because your intentions are honorable,” David said with a shrug. He took a swallow of his beer before speaking again. “I don’t know if she’s ever told you, but she’s never been with anyone but me.”

  “She’s told me.”

  “She’s not the sleeping around type. She’s been married pretty much her whole life and that’s what type she is.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, that’s part of her appeal,” Wyatt said.

  “Good.” David smiled and shook his head. “Like I said, it might as well be you.”

  He and Wyatt each took another drink, and David sat back and looked at Wyatt more seriously. “But, man, I’ll tell you what. You hurt her, and I swear I’ll beat your ass.”

  Wyatt remembered Gray Redmond saying almost that very thing to him the night Maggie had taken him over for dinner. He nodded. “I get that a lot lately.”

  When Maggie pulled up in front of her house, Kyle was feeding the chickens, and Sky was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, earbuds in, texting someone on her phone.

  Stoopid made a wings-akimbo beeline for the car from some mysterious location, but was run over by Coco halfway there. Once he righted himself, he proceeded onward and gave Maggie one of his odd, broken crows before heading over to see what Kyle was dispensing.