Squall Line

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Quit twitching,” Wyatt muttered. “It encourages him.”

  “I’m not twitching,” Maggie snapped back, flicking her thumbnails with her fingers.

  “Oh look, baby!” the young woman squeaked.

  Her friend looked up from his phone. He was probably already posting his Yelp review. “What?”

  “Look at these handmade coffee mugs,” she said, and Maggie didn’t pick one up and beat her with it.

  “Yeah, those are made locally, right down the street,” Kirk said, the ambassador of the Shop Small movement in Apalach.

  “I guess I am going to go ahead and get the vanilla chai latte, decaf, with soy if you have it,” the man said. He looked at his wife or girlfriend. “Honey?”

  She put the coffee mug down and smiled cheerfully. “I’ll keep it simple,” she said, and turned to Kirk. “May I please have the café au lait, half skim and half soy, with four raw sugars?”

  “Sure thing,” Kirk said helpfully.

  He turned his attention to the immense, complicated-looking, ten-million-dollar metal sculpture that he called The Big Sexy Machine. “Oh, look,” he said almost brightly. “Here’s Spaz.”

  Spaz wasn’t actually there, but he was approaching at a flat-out meander, truffle in hand.

  Four and a half minutes later, the young couple finally turned away from the espresso counter, dragging their smelly coffees under Maggie’s nose, and Maggie stepped up to the counter. Kirk waited, hip kipped out with one fist propped on it, chilling.

  Maggie opened her mouth, but Wyatt put a finger to her lips and leaned around her. “Let me just order my coffee before you piss him off.”

  “Have you thought about coming in ten minutes ahead of her?” Kirk asked.

  “I have,” Wyatt said. “I’d like a latte, no fancy stuff, any way you want to make it.”

  “Wyatt—” Maggie started indignantly.

  “Hush. Just let me get my latte and then you can violate his civil rights.”

  “I see you busted her out of the methadone clinic again,” Kirk said.

  “Any kind,” Wyatt said. “Any way that you would like to prepare that coffee, because I don’t really care what time it is, but for her, it’s 2:45.”

  “It’s 2:51,” Kirk said drily, pulling two tall paper cups from beside the cash register. “I made your coffees ten minutes ago. And yes, you will get it any way I like, because I made it already.”

  Maggie stared at Kirk.

  “Pretty soon, we’ll have you getting all the way to three o’clock without pieces of you falling off your body,” he said pleasantly.

  Maggie picked up her coffee and drew it close. “Your timing sucks. It’s been a really crappy couple of days.”

  “Hey,” he said. “I know it has. I’m really sorry that happened. The skinny guy, right?”

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said.

  Maggie rarely brought Dwight into Kirk’s. Dwight didn’t understand why Folger’s wasn’t okay.

  “Well, I hope he pulls though,” Kirk went on. “But I’ve been through enough really crappy stuff to know that sometimes a little bit of your normal is what gets you through the really bad days. And the lattes are on the house. Go with God.”

  Maggie suddenly felt a little contrite.

  “Geez, don’t give me that human being to human being look,” Kirk said. “It gives me the creeps.”

  He turned away and headed out from behind the counter.

  “Hey, Spaz!” he yelled. “Who falls asleep in a coffee shop?”

  By the time Maggie and Wyatt got back outside, she’d already had several swallows of her latte, just warmer than lukewarm, exactly how she liked it. Meanwhile, Wyatt tried really hard to get a sip of his, but had to settle for licking the foam since, even after ten minutes, the rest of his coffee was Kirk’s usual lava-degrees.

  They had just walked over to Maggie’s Jeep when her phone buzzed. She set her cup down on the hood, pulled out her phone and answered without looking.

  “Maggie Hamilton,” she said.

  “Maggie, it’s Arthur Shultz,” Dwight’s father replied.

  Maggie’s heart started beating a little faster. “Is he out of surgery?” she asked.

  “Yes. They finished about forty-five minutes ago, and he’s back in ICU.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “No, they just want to keep him there for now,” Arthur said. “They’ve gotta watch him really good for blood clots and his blood pressure.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said, trying not to feel too safe. “How did the surgery go? Did they say anything about his spinal injury?”

  “They don’t know for sure, yet. They got the bullet, and they repaired one of his vertebra, but it’s the nerve they’re worried about. They don’t know if he’s gonna walk, Maggie. They gotta wait till the swelling goes down inside.”

  Maggie heard Arthur’s voice break, and her heart hurt for him. Arthur Shultz was one of the nicest men she knew. Dwight had three sisters and a brother, all of them just as hyper and nervous as he was, and Maggie had never heard his father raise his voice to any of them. Dwight’s mother Phyllis was a tiny little wrecking ball that terrified anyone who was in trouble, but Arthur got mad about twice a year.

  “When? Do they know when they’ll have some idea?” she asked.

  “They said we need to give it about forty-eight hours and they might know something more solid,” Arthur answered. He sounded so weary. “Till then, we lift him up, you hear me, girl?”

  “Yes, sir.” She blinked back tears for someone else’s pain and goodness. “We will. How’s Amy?”

  “That little girl’s the toughest thing on two feet. She’s doing all right. They’re letting her sleep in the empty room next to his for a few hours.”

  “Okay.” Maggie looked up at Wyatt, who had been looming over her shoulder, listening in. “Thank you, Arthur.”

  “You find the boy yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, you go take care of all that,” Arthur said. “We’ll take care of Dwight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Arthur hung up and Maggie leaned against the Jeep and let out a breath she felt like she’d been holding for hours. Wyatt set his coffee down on a nearby bench and vigorously rubbed at his face with both hands. Then he stood there for a moment, staring down at the sidewalk, before picking up his coffee and walking back to her.

  “I’m going to this press conference,” he said. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to go back to driving around, looking for a needle.”

  Wyatt put a hand to the back of her head, pulled her toward him, and kissed her forehead, his mouth lingering there for a moment. “It’s good. He’ll be good,” he said into her skin.

  Maggie nodded, and watched Wyatt as he got into his truck and headed toward the bridge at the end of Market. Then she grabbed her coffee and climbed into the Jeep.

  Once she got her windows down, she pulled out, made a left, and drove the two blocks down Avenue D to Water Street, which ran along Scipio Creek. Ahead of her was her favorite place in Apalach, Riverfront Park. It was just a small patch of grass with some benches, a fountain, and a few shrimp boats tied up at the day dock, but Maggie had always liked being there.

  For a long time, she had lost the park. She’d watched her ex-husband die right out there on the creek, which opened up into the bay and the Gulf beyond. It had been months before she could come back. Now it was hers again, and she took a deep breath, drinking in the damp, salty air.

  She looked down Water Street as a car pulled up behind her and waited. She decided to make a left, toward Boudreaux’s Sea-Fair, Scipio Creek Marina, and the Water Street Hotel at the far end.

  Next to Boudreaux’s two large buildings was an old brick building that had been a cotton warehouse at one time, when shipping cot
ton had been a huge industry in Apalach. Now it was derelict and boarded up, a waste of history and a waterfront lot. Maggie pulled the Jeep over, parked it in the patch of oyster shells and weeds that passed for a parking area, and got out of the Jeep.

  Boudreaux had owned this place at one time but sold it without developing it. She didn’t know who bought it, or how many times it had changed hands, but no one had ever done anything with it.

  It was big and dark and no one ever went in there. It was as good a place as any for two people to go unnoticed, although Maggie didn’t see Adrian Nichols’ 1996 Honda anywhere. Who knew if they even had it anymore.

  The last time Maggie had been over here, a half-door in back near the old loading dock had been falling off of its hinges. She walked through the weeds and tall grass, watching out for the broken bottles that sometimes ended up over there, tossed by underage kids sneaking beers or customers of the small pub across the street.

  The door was still unrepaired, and Maggie pulled it out as far as she could, hunched down, and slid inside. She stood, turned on the flashlight app on her phone, and pointed it around the cavernous room. The dust on the floor was thick and undisturbed, the wooden staircase half-crumbled and ruling out anyone upstairs. They weren’t there. It had been a long shot.

  She ducked back outside, squinting and blinking against the bright, late afternoon sun, then pulled the door shut the best she could. She stood up, wiped a few cobwebs from her jeans, and walked back around to the front.

  She stood by the Jeep, looking down the street toward the marina, and decided it wouldn’t hurt to look at a few of the closed-up shopfronts that faced the water. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Water Street had been a very lively thoroughfare, facing the creek as it did, with all of the boats bringing in cotton and sponges and other goods, and larger boats loading them up to take them north. Now, many of the waterfront shops were closed up, slowly being bought, remodeled, and added to Apalach’s charming and trendy downtown. For now, they were empty and could possibly be a good place to lay low.

  She was about to get into the Jeep when she heard someone raise his voice.

  “Hey!” he called from across the street.

  Maggie turned to see Adrian Nichols’ father standing outside the pub, smoking. He tossed the cigarette butt down on the sidewalk and started crossing the road. She didn’t know him well enough to be sure he was drunk, but he wasn’t sober. She reflexively touched her holster, felt the uneven texture of her grip, then walked to the edge of the grass.

  “You’re the lady cop,” he said loudly. “The one from this morning.”

  “Can I help you?”

  Maggie glanced past him when she saw movement in the corner of her eye. A burly man wearing well-worn white rubber boots, official footwear of the seafood industry, had come to stand in the doorway, and was squinting against the sun.

  “Yeah, you can help me,” Nichols said with a touch of a slur. “Why don’t you get out there and look for my kid instead of looking at real estate?”

  “I am looking for your son, Mr. Nichols.”

  Two more men stepped to the doorway of the pub, and the first man made room by stepping out onto the sidewalk.

  “I don’t see you people doin’ anything but waiting for the TV people and feeling sorry for the poor little bullied boy who can’t take care of himself.”

  Nichols had made his way to her and stood just a couple of feet away in the road. Close enough to be confrontational, not close enough to be illegal. Reflexively, Maggie loosened her limbs, balanced her weight between both feet.

  “Mr. Nichols, the Sheriff’s Office and the Apalach PD are spending all of their time and manpower on finding both boys,” she said. She spoke firmly and without fear. With many of these guys, that was enough, their particular aggressiveness preferring the path of least resistance. With others, it wasn’t that easy. She didn’t know which one he was.

  But she did know a couple of the guys that were standing in front of the pub, and they knew her. Nichols might be a shrimper, but he wasn’t yet a local. She wasn’t very worried about having to deal with the man in broad daylight.

  “All I’m hearing about is how in this little podunk town, can’t any cops find either one of these high school kids,” the man said. She could smell the beer on his breath, most likely not any of the artisanal micro-brews the tourists were drinking two blocks away.

  Maggie cut her eyes quickly to the left, as she saw two cars turn onto Water Street back down by Boudreaux’s, then looked quickly back at Nichols.

  “Sir, I think it’s time for you to go home.”

  Bennett Boudreaux saw Maggie’s Jeep first, parked out in front of the old Crawford building. He registered the few men in front of the pub, and that Maggie was speaking with someone before he was in his parking lot and his view was blocked.

  He shut off his Mercedes, got out of the car, and decided to walk down and see what was going on. Most likely, a couple of the shrimpers had had a few before work, or a couple of the oystermen had had a few after. It wasn’t common for fights to break out in the local places, but it wasn’t shocking when they did, either.

  He walked back out to Water Street and headed up the block, sliding his keys into his right pants pocket. He felt as much as heard the quiet metallic clicking as they landed against the switchblade he’d carried since he was a boy.

  He could see now that the man Maggie was talking to was Victor Nichols, the father of the missing boy. He knew Nichols; he bought his loads of shrimp from him, when he actually went out and caught some. The man worked erratically and often smelled of alcohol when bringing his trawler in first thing in the morning.

  Boudreaux was a short block away when he saw the man reach out and jab a finger into Maggie’s shoulder. Before the flash of anger had even announced itself to Boudreaux’s system, Maggie had grabbed the man’s hand with one of hers, twisted him down and around, put her other hand behind his shoulder, and pressed him down to a crouch.

  Boudreaux sighed, flicking his thumbnail against the shaft of the switchblade as he continued walking.

  “I said ‘Okay’!” Nichols yelled, kneeling in the gravel beside the road.

  Maggie twisted his thumb back just a little bit further as she pressed against his shoulder with her other hand. “I’d like you to lie down on your stomach, Mr. Nichols,” she said.

  “Take it easy!”

  “I am taking it easy, sir,” she said quietly. “I need you to lie down on your stomach.”

  She assisted him in that regard, and once he was on his stomach, she let go of his shoulder and pressed her knee into the small of his back. “Both hands behind your back, please.”

  “Y’all want some help, there, Maggie?” one of the fishermen called from the middle of the road.

  “That’s okay,” she called back. “Thank you though. Your hand, sir.”

  “You’ve got my thumb!”

  “Your other hand,” she said with a sigh.

  He brought his other arm around back. She put one of the cuffs on it, then cuffed the other as she released his thumb. She stood up, noticing as she did, that Boudreaux was approaching. She sighed again and looked down at Mr. Nichols as she pulled out her phone.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Nichols snapped, managing to whine at the same time.

  “Sir, it’s against the law for you to put your hands on a law enforcement officer,” she said as she thumbed through her contacts and tapped the non-emergency line for Apalach PD. “I believe you’re also intoxicated.”

  “My son is missing!” he barked indignantly.

  “Well, he’s not in the bar,” she answered.

  A male voice answered the phone. “Apalachicola Police Department. This is Sgt. Bryce. May I help you?”

  “Hey, Alan. It’s Maggie Hamilton.”

  “Hey, Maggie, what’s up?” />
  “I have somebody who needs to be taken in. Public intoxication and we’ll see how we feel about assaulting an officer. I can’t do it. Can you send somebody over to the old Crawford building on Water Street?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Bryce answered. “Lon’s over at Hole in the Wall grabbing our lunch.”

  “Thanks,” Maggie said.

  “No problem.”

  Maggie disconnected. The Hole in the Wall Raw Bar was just around the corner on Avenue D.

  She looked up at Boudreaux. “Hello, Mr. Boudreaux.”

  “Hello, Maggie,” he said pleasantly. “What’s taking place here in the road on such a nice afternoon?”

  “It’s nothing,” Maggie said. “Timewasting.”

  She reached down and grabbed Nichols by her cuffs. “Let’s get up on our feet, Mr. Nichols.”

  She helped him to stand and looked down the street as she saw an Apalach PD cruiser round the corner at a leisurely pace. She wiped some dirt from her hands as Sgt. Lon Woodman pulled abreast of her and stopped in the road.

  “Hey, Maggie, what’s shaking?” Lon asked with a smile, chewing on a grouper finger.

  Lon was a handsome, African-American man who had touches of white at the temples, despite being the same age as Maggie. He’d played on the baseball team with David all through junior high and high school.

  “Hey, Lon.”

  “Hey, Lon!” two of the oystermen called, smiling and waving.

  “Hey, y’all, what’s up?” he answered, waving out his window.

  He shut the cruiser down and unfolded from the driver’s seat. He was almost as tall as Wyatt, but lanky, and while Wyatt loped like a happy giraffe, Lon oozed gracefully.

  He came around the front of his cruiser. “Dwight came outa surgery a little while ago. You hear?”

  “Yeah.” Maggie nodded. “Arthur called.”

  “So what’s this guy’s deal?”

  “He’s Adrian Nichols’ dad,” Maggie said. “Got a little worked up.”

  “Assault?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Not much of one. Public intoxication? I just don’t have time and I need him out of my hair.”