Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) (8 page)

Bradford Wilson, former Sheriff of Franklin County, was now the proud owner of one of the three-thousand T-shirt shops on the strip in Panama City Beach.

The town was fairly quiet at that time of the year, and Maggie had no trouble finding a place to park in the small lot beside the shop. They walked through the open door, made their way through racks of shirts, hats and flip-flops, and ended up at a wooden counter in back.

The man standing behind the counter reading a fishing magazine was almost as tall as Wyatt, but quite a bit heavier and many years older. His hair and beard were mostly gray, and he didn’t seem anxious to keep up with the maintenance of either one.

He looked up as Maggie and Wyatt approached, noting their navy blue polo shirts with the Sheriff’s Office insignia. “Well, hello there,” he said in a deep voice. “What’s Franklin’s finest doing in PCB?”

“Mr. Wilson?” Wyatt asked.

The man held out a huge hand. “That’s me. And you would be Sheriff Hamilton, correct? Seen you in the paper a few times.”

“Yes, I am,” Wyatt answered, shaking the man’s hand. “This is Lt. Redmond.”

“Lieutenant.” He started to look away, then smiled at Maggie. “Wait a minute. Maggie Redmond?”

“Yes,” she answered.

He smiled broadly. “I see you followed in your grandfather’s footsteps.

“Yes, I guess so.” Maggie’s maternal grandfather had been with the Apalach PD for thirty years.

“He was like a mentor to me,’ Wilson said.

“Me, too,” Maggie said.

“I was sorry to read about your Grandma passing. She was a great lady.”

“Thank you. She was.”

“How’s your mother?”

“She’s doing well, thank you. My dad’s semi-retired now, so she’s happily busy making him remodel their house.”

His eyes flickered for a second, as though he was trying to recall her father’s name. “Gray,” he said finally.

“Yes.”

He smiled again, but it was more polite than warm. “We’re all getting old.” He looked over at Wyatt. “So what brings you here?”

“Holden Crawford. He disappeared in ‘77,” Wyatt answered. “Do you remember the case?”

Wilson looked from Wyatt to Maggie and back again. “Now that was a long time ago. But, yes, I remember.”

“We found his remains yesterday.”

It took a minute for Wilson to respond, though his face was blank. “Where?”

“He was bricked up in a wall. A building down on Commerce Street,” Wyatt answered.

The man nodded slowly, then looked around him. “Let’s grab some chairs, huh?”

He indicated they should come behind the counter, then pulled out a couple of metal folding chairs. He sat down on a torn leather bar stool and waited while Wyatt and Maggie got seated.

“Do you remember the case?” Maggie asked.

He frowned at her. “Sure. Somewhat.”

“When you guys checked those buildings he was remodeling, do you remember if there was a brick wall in the flower shop?” Wyatt asked.

“I don’t know of a flower shop over there.”

“It’s in the unit right on the corner.”

“Okay,” Wilson said. “After my time, I guess. But there was a lot of exposed brick all through those buildings. They’re old cotton warehouses, you know.”

“So you wouldn’t remember if there was a wall in there, separating the back from the front?” Wyatt asked.

“No.” Wilson shook his head slowly. “They were all under one kind of construction or another. He was gonna put a restaurant in one of them, I think.”

“There was a witness that said he saw Crawford and two other men in front of his oyster business the night he went missing,” Maggie said. “Fitch. He said they seemed to be arguing. We haven’t been able to locate Fitch.”

“Rollie Fitch,” Wilson said. “Died of cancer…oh, back in the early eighties.”

“So much for that,” Wyatt said. “We’re wondering about this thing with Boudreaux.”

“Which one?”

“Bennett.”

“Which thing?”

“The alibi. Apparently, he got into a problem with Crawford at Papa Joe’s that night.”

“Yeah. I don’t remember what it was about, though. Just words; it didn’t get physical.”

“But after Fitch came forward, you went to talk to Boudreaux?”

“Sure,” Wilson said. He seemed a bit more wary, a bit less warm than he had when they’d walked in.

“We see in the case file that you did, and that Boudreaux supposedly had an alibi for the time Fitch thought he saw Crawford and the other guys,” Wyatt said. “But there’s no statement.”

“Sure there is. Check the file again.”

“We did,” Maggie said.

Wyatt coughed into his hand. “We’ll look around. Maybe it was mis-filed. What was his alibi?”

Wilson looked over at Maggie, then back to Wyatt. “I’m sorry. I honestly can’t remember.”

Wyatt nodded at his feet for a few seconds before looking back up at Wilson. “No offense, but there’s a faint taste of crap to that.”

The man stared back at Wyatt. “No offense, but I don’t care what it tastes like. That was almost forty years ago.”

There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment. Finally Maggie spoke up. “Did you know Bennett Boudreaux at all?”

“Not much. He’d been to town a few times, but he didn’t live there then.”

“What about after he moved to town? You know him much then?” Wyatt asked.

“Everybody did.” Wilson seemed to put some effort into sounding less defensive or hostile. “But not back then.”

“What was he like back then?” Maggie asked, and then wondered why she’d asked it.

Wilson looked at her for a moment. “About what he’s like now.”

“He was only twenty-two then.”

The man shrugged. “He didn’t have the money, the connections, the rep back then, but people were leery of him.”

“Why’s that?” Wyatt asked him.

“He just had that way about him. The old man was a loudmouth and a hothead, always getting into fights and so on. Bennett Boudreaux was quiet, but you knew he meant business.”

“But you don’t remember what his alibi was,” Maggie said.

Wilson rubbed at his jaw and sighed. “Look. I’m too old and jaded for BS. One law enforcement officer to another, don’t waste your time on Boudreaux. I didn’t like the man, then or later. I know a lot of things he
has
done, none of which he ever got indicted for, but he didn’t have anything to do with this thing.”

Wyatt and Maggie looked at each other, then Wyatt sighed at Wilson. “But you won’t tell us where he said he was at the time.”

“And you can subpoena me if you ever come up with some wild evidence against Boudreaux, but I’ll probably just forget again.” He looked at his watch. “If he was a viable suspect, I’d tell you. Holden Crawford was a decent guy.”

Wyatt stood, and Maggie reluctantly followed suit. “What about Mrs. Crawford?” she asked. “What was she like?”

“Beth Crawford. I haven’t thought about her in years,” he smiled. “Franklin County’s very own Farrah Fawcett-Majors.”

For some reason, that made Maggie sad. It also made her want to go back to the nursing home for a second look, because the description didn’t jibe with her memory.

“Does she know yet?” Wilson asked.

“We just left her,” Wyatt said. “She’s in an assisted living facility now.”

“You don’t say. That’s a shame. She was always busy, always running. He was more laid back.”

“Still is,” Wyatt said as he headed for the door.

“That really rusts my bucket,” Wyatt said. “Let’s all be really open about the fact that we’re not gonna tell any truth here today.”

Maggie pulled onto Hwy 98, then looked over at Wyatt. “You think he was taking money?”

“How the hell would I know. Let’s go ask Boudreaux.”

“Now?”

“Yeah, now.”

Maggie chewed the edge of her lip. “Why don’t you let me go?”

“No.”

“I think he’ll speak more freely with just me.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Wyatt said. He took a drink of his Dew. “Nonetheless, we’ll go together.”

That Wyatt might not trust her to be forthcoming was actually pretty well justified. It bothered her anyway. It also bothered her that she preferred to talk to Boudreaux alone. She stared out the road for a moment.

“Say it,” Wyatt said.

Maggie looked back at Wyatt. “Say what?”

“Whatever you’re trying not to say.”

She shrugged. “You’ve got every right to insist.”

“So I did.”

“It still bugs me.”

Wyatt fiddled with the air conditioning vent for a minute before he replied. “Let’s get some perspective. I’m not only your boss—the sheriff, no less—I’m also your best friend. Of course I’m going to get in between you and your pet serial killer—”

“There’s nothing serial about his killings—”

“Excuse me. His run of the mill killings. In any event, the man has killed two people in the last few months, on
your
behalf I will add.”

“Alessi was choking me to death!”

“And all Sport Wilmette did was stand by while Gregory Boudreaux absconded with your honor.”

Wyatt stopped as he saw the look on her face. “I didn’t mean that as flippantly as I said it.” She nodded. “All I’m saying is that he was already a known criminal, and now we know him to be somebody who has taken enough of an interest in you to kill people.”

“It’s not that kind of interest.”

“I didn’t qualify it.”

“You didn’t have to. I’m telling you, he doesn’t have the hots for me or whatever incorrect way you’ve put it before.”

“He has something.”

“It’s platonic.”

“It’s weird! That’s all. He’s a crook and a killer. You’re a cop. That makes it weirdness.”

“You didn’t seem especially eager to press charges against him for Alessi.”

“Oh, I agreed with the sentiment, if not the method or the extreme. He cut his throat from one side to the other, Maggie.”

“I know that. The freaking body washed right past me.”

“Did you ever ask him how he killed Sport? I mean, before he chopped him up and threw him into the Gulf?”

“He never straight up said he did it. It was a hypothetical conversation.”

“My ass.”

“I never asked.”

“Well, I will go with you to speak with Boudreaux, and I’ll be there to make sure we don’t forget to ask any important questions, okay?” Wyatt picked up a French fry.

“Fine,” she said, sounding like it wasn’t.

“Okee-doke,” Wyatt said back, sounding like he didn’t care.

B
oudreaux’s seafood business, Sea-Fair, was located on Water Street, right on Scipio Creek, which opened into Apalachicola Bay. Maggie’s tires crunched through the oyster shell parking lot, and she parked the Jeep near the front door.

As she and Wyatt climbed out of the car, a moist breeze from the water brushed past them. Maggie looked up at the sky. There was just enough low-hanging gray to let her know they’d get their customary 3:15 shower. When she breathed in, she tasted a hint of wet metal.

They were greeted by Boudreaux’s slightly-mousy blond receptionist, who seemed reluctant to call Boudreaux, but did so anyway. When she hung up, she let them know that Boudreaux was in the fish processing room and that she’d take them back. Maggie advised her back that she knew where it was and they’d find their own way. The receptionist was displeased, in an inconsequential sort of way.

Maggie and Wyatt made their way through several hallways, finally coming to the metal door where Boudreaux’s crew dressed and packed grouper, snapper, and other high-demand fish for the restaurant and supermarket trade.

Wyatt knocked on the door, and it was opened a moment later by Boudreaux himself.

He was dressed in his usual manner; casual but expensively. Light-colored trousers and a blue chambray shirt hung perfectly on his still-trim frame, and his boat shoes were practical, but cost more than all of Maggie’s shoes combined. As always, his thick, sandy brown hair was impeccable. He didn’t look all that surprised to see them.

“Hello, Sheriff Hamilton,” he said smoothly.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Boudreaux,” Wyatt said politely.

Boudreaux’s eyes rested a moment longer on Maggie, and he nodded at her. “Maggie.”

“Mr. Boudreaux.”

He opened the door wider, and stepped back to let them in.