Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (18 page)

“I got a call this morning saying I could go ahead with funeral arrangements for Holden,” Mrs. Crawford said as they got settled. She looked at Maggie. “It’s funny. I never actually thought I would.”

“Would what, Mrs. Crawford?” Maggie asked.

“Have a service for him,” the woman answered. “We had a small ceremony when Holden was declared legally dead, you know, just a few friends at the house.”

“I’m sure this must be difficult, Mrs. Crawford,” Wyatt said.

“Yes. He finally gets a funeral.” She dabbed at one corner of her eye with her pinky finger, then smiled weakly. “Only, most of our friends and family are dead.” She shook her shoulders a bit, as though she were shaking away her mood. “Well, what can I do for you?”

“We wanted to ask you about a couple of things that have come up since we started investigating your husband’s case,” Wyatt said. “First, we spoke to Vincent Jeffries the other day. He said your husband had seemed to be under a lot of stress the week or so before he disappeared.”

Wyatt paused. Mrs. Crawford was staring at him as though she was still waiting for him to speak.

“Do you remember Mr. Jeffries, Mrs. Crawford?” Wyatt asked.

“Well, of course I do,” she answered, sounding slightly irritated. “I’m not
that
far gone.”

“I’m sorry,” Wyatt said. “Do you remember what your husband was worried or upset about?”

Mrs. Crawford dabbed at the corners of her mouth as though she were tidying up her mauve lipstick.

“I don’t think he was under any special stress,” she said. “They asked me things like that when he first went missing, you know. Was he upset about anything, was there any reason he would just leave, that kind of thing.”

“But nothing in particular comes to mind?” Maggie asked.

The older woman sat and looked out the sliding glass doors at the sunshine and the flowering bushes, and became noticeably bothered. Her fingers brushed idly at hair that wasn’t out of place, and her eyes darted around what parts of the outside, or inside, world she could see.

“You know, sometimes it seems like it was someone else’s life, and sometimes it’s my life and it was just the day before yesterday,” she said finally, still staring out at the yard.

Maggie and Wyatt waited for her to go on, ready to remind her of the question that had been asked.

She finally looked back at them. “Holden had a lot going on that week,” she said. “He was worried about money, and spending a lot of time on getting the new building ready.”

She smiled and flipped her hair back, or would have, if it hadn’t been shellacked into place. “He was doing that for me, you know,” she said. “He knew I loved all those old buildings, and he was trying to diversify a little. He wanted to put a café in there next to my new shop, you see.”

She smiled at Wyatt as he nodded, then turned her gaze on Maggie. “He loved me very much.”

“I’m sure he did,” Maggie said.

“Are you married, Georgia?”

That stunned Maggie for just a second. “Georgia’s my mother,” she said. “I’m
Maggie
Redmond.”

“Oh, I know,” Mrs. Crawford said with a dismissive wave. “You know what I mean.”

“So nothing special comes to mind, anything that he might have been particularly stressed about?” Wyatt asked.

“Not really, no,” Mrs. Crawford answered. “I mean, it was a crazy week. My sister was very ill at that time; she had breast cancer.”

Maggie cut her eyes over to Wyatt, who was looking at the table. His wife Lily had died of breast cancer just over ten years before. It was the main reason he’d moved from Cocoa Beach to Apalach.

“So, the business was very busy, and we had cheerleading championships,” Mrs. Crawford was saying. “My car had finally died for good and we were trying to figure out how to pay for a new one. Our roof was leaking because of a storm the weekend before. One of those stupid pines.”

She sighed, her amethyst pendant sliding off of her lapel. “So, yes, it was a rough week, but we’d had rougher ones.”

Wyatt looked over at Maggie and raised an eyebrow at her.

“Mrs. Crawford, we also wanted to ask you about Terry Luedtke,” she said.

She watched as the woman pursed her lips a few times, the way someone does when they’re starting to say something. But she didn’t.

“Do you remember him?” Maggie asked.

“Well, yes, of course I do,” the woman said, frustration in her voice. “Of course. What about him?”

“He worked for you and your husband?”

“Well, he worked for Holden, yes,” Mrs. Crawford said. “Then of course I asked him to run the business for me when we—well, when we didn’t know what else to do. Holden didn’t come back.”

“What was he like?” Wyatt asked.

“Oh. Well, he wasn’t very bright, but he was a very hard worker,” Mrs. Crawford said. “And he knew the oyster business.”

“Why did he leave after Boudreaux bought you out?” Wyatt asked.

Mrs. Crawford stared at him for a moment, then nervously twisted a strand of hair that hung against her neck. “Well, he…I think it was partly that he didn’t want a new boss. But he also…well, he had started having feelings for me, you know. He said he had feelings for me.”

“And you didn’t return those feelings?” Maggie asked.

“No.”

“Was this something new, or had he been interested in you before your husband’s disappearance?” Wyatt asked gently.

“Oh, I see what you’re—but, no, I don’t think he did.” She let go of her hair and fiddled with her necklace instead. “But you have to understand, he was a very sweet guy. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly, I don’t think.”

“Did you stay in touch with him after he moved away?” Maggie asked.

“No,” Mrs. Crawford answered. “It would have been uncomfortable.”

Wyatt leaned forward, folded his hands on the table. “Mrs. Crawford, did you know that he committed suicide just a few months after he left Apalach?”

Mrs. Crawford stared at him a moment, then put a finger to her lips. “No. I don’t think I knew that,” she said.

She shook her head as though to clear her thoughts, then looked over at Maggie.

“Oh, honey,” she said. “Georgia, I taught you better than that.”

“I’m sorry?” Maggie said.

Mrs. Crawford reached over and grabbed the clip from the back of Maggie’s head. “You have such beautiful hair, too beautiful to walk around like that.”

Maggie’s dark hair fell down around her shoulders, and Mrs. Crawford fluffed at the ends a little. Her fingertips were cold and dry against Maggie’s neck, and Maggie barely suppressed a shiver.

“That’s much better,” Mrs. Crawford said. “Although I still say if you get a few layers put in, you’ll look so much better. You know, something like Jaclyn Smith.”

Mrs. Crawford stood up and pulled a few bobby pins out of her pants pocket. Maggie tried to cringe without cringing as the woman stood behind her and started gathering her hair up.

“Just remember, no matter where you go, or what kind of day you’re having, it’s still important to look your very best,” the woman said.

Maggie looked at Wyatt. He was trying to keep his face neutral, but she could see the sadness there, though she wasn’t sure which of them he felt worse for.

Mrs. Crawford finished fashioning Maggie’s hair into a proper bun, and her fingertips brushed the sides of Maggie’s face as she pulled out a few select tendrils.

“Oh, yes, so much better,” she said as she sat back down. “It always pays for a girl to make just a little extra effort.”

She patted Maggie gently on the cheek, and Maggie felt an odd mix of sympathy and revulsion.

“Just ask Gray,” the old woman said, and gave Maggie a wink.

M
aggie took a deep breath of dementia-free air the moment she and Wyatt stepped back out onto the brick pathway.

“That was uncomfortable,” Wyatt said.

“If you ever again just sit there and let somebody do my hair, I’ll kick you in the head,” Maggie said.

“I don’t see how it could come up again,” Wyatt said. “It does look nice, though.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, but Wyatt pretended not to notice as he looked over at the main building.

“I want to see who’s on Mrs. Crawford’s visitors list,” he said.

“What are you looking for?” Maggie asked.

“Anybody,” Wyatt answered. “She says there’s no one to come to the funeral, but she was a popular woman. Everybody can’t be dead.”

“I don’t know. She seems like she’s very hung up on appearances,” Maggie said. “Maybe she didn’t tell anyone she was coming here.”

“It’s not that easy to just drop off the face of the earth,” Wyatt said.

“It is if you’re not on Facebook.”

Wyatt gave her a look that said she’d scored that point. “Let’s go check.”

“You go,” Maggie said. “I want fresh air. That woman made me feel like a ghost.”

“OK, I’ll meet you back at the car,” Wyatt said.

Maggie watched him head down the path that led to the main building, then she started on the one that led through a pleasant, parklike area and ended up at the parking lot.

She was halfway to the parking area when something caught her eye to the left, and she saw a man sitting on a bench, facing a small, manmade pond with a fountain in the center. It was Evan Caldwell.

Maggie stopped for a moment, unsure if she should disturb him, then headed across the grass.

“Mr. Caldwell,” she said when she arrived at the bench.

He looked up, a cigarette in one hand and a Coke can in the other. The lip of the can was edged with ashes. There were dark shadows beneath Evan’s eyes, but he gave her something of a smile.

“Maggie. How are you?” He scooted over a bit, though it wasn’t necessary, and waved his cigarette at the bench. She hesitated a moment, then sat beside him.

“I’m fine, thank you,” she said. “How’s your wife?”

“The same,” he said quietly, then took the last drag of his cigarette. “She’s always the same.”

“Is she here for rehab?” Maggie asked.

Evan looked at her, his black hair riffling a little in the breeze. It needed a trim. He pulled another cigarette out of his shirt pocket and held it up. When Maggie shook her head, he lit it. He blew out some smoke before he answered, looking out at the pond.

“She’s in a coma,” he said.

Maggie felt a weight of sympathy settle into her chest. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He looked at her and smiled half-heartedly. “I never know what to say when people say that,” he said. “Me, too?”

He took another drag of his cigarette and shrugged one shoulder.

“I usually end up just saying ‘thank you,’ but I feel like I should apologize for making people uncomfortable.”

“I’m not uncomfortable,” Maggie said. “Just sorry.”

“Thank you,” he said, then smiled. “Are you here about your case?”

“Yes,” Maggie answered.

“How’s that going?”

“It’s hard, trying to unroll a ball of string someone rolled up thirty-eight years ago,” she said.

“I’ll bet,” he said. “Especially if you have a murder that was investigated as a missing persons case.”

“Is that all you do? Missing persons?”

“No. But I seem to have a knack for finding people that everyone else has stopped looking for,” he answered.

“What’s your secret?”

“Hell if I know,” he said. He looked over at her, then turned his head a bit so he wouldn’t blow smoke in her face. “I’ll tell you this, though. We tend to look for complicated scenarios. I blame the cop shows on television. We bypass the simple solutions, and look for something more clever, more interesting.” He tapped the end of his cigarette over the grass. “Then after all the tail-chasing, we usually end up finding out that the simple answer was the right one all along. They didn’t call Einstein Einstein for nothing.”

Maggie nodded. “I think I’d have to agree with you,” she said. “Only I’m not sure what the simple answer is in this case.”

“Take away everything you think, and everything everyone else thinks—or thought back then—and pare it all down to only the naked, known facts. The absolute solids. Throw out half the eyewitness testimony if you have any. Then look at what you have left and you’ll usually have the bare bones solution.”

Maggie nodded again, and picked at a thread on the knee of her jeans.

“Any of your primaries still around? Besides the widow?” Evan asked.

“A few. The former Sheriff. The guy’s best friend. A local who’s a professional suspect.” Maggie stopped there, leaving her father off the list.

“Well, watch your perception of those people,” Evan said. “They may look frail and sweet with their Bingo markers and their funny hats, but don’t make the mistake of discounting them because they’re elderly. They weren’t elderly then.”

“Good point,” Maggie said, and pictured her father at eighteen, Boudreaux at twenty-two. Mrs. Crawford at Maggie’s own age.

Evan dropped his cigarette butt into the Coke can and stood up.

“I’ve got to get back inside,” he said, holding out his free hand. Maggie shook it.

“Thank you for the advice,” she said.

“Take it for what it’s worth,” he said, then gave her half a wave and started across the grass toward the main building.