“Hey, baby,” she said, as he gave her neck a quick hug. “I hear you and Granddad are going fishing.”
“Yeah, we’re gonna catch something for lunch,” Kyle said, as he grabbed some toast and bacon from a plate on the counter. “Granddad says I have to do one thing outside before I can play Minecraft.”
“We figured you’d been up all night, Maggie,” Georgia said. “So we thought we’d just keep them here for the day, let you get some rest.”
Maggie nodded and watched Kyle, her safe, privileged child, sit down at the other end of the table.
“That’s really sad about those people,” he said. “Did they have an accident?”
“We don’t know yet,” Maggie answered. “There was a little boy who survived. He’s a little younger than you. He doesn’t have anything, nothing at all. Do you mind if I give him some things of yours, maybe some things you don’t want anymore?”
Kyle thought a moment, staring into the air. “You think he likes Marvel comics?”
“I don’t know. He can’t read English.”
Kyle shrugged. “He can look at the pictures. Take him some.”
“Okay. I’m going to take him some of your old clothes that I keep meaning to take to the church,” she said.
Kyle munched on a piece of bacon. “You should take him some Transformers. Take him Bumblebee, he’s everybody’s favorite.”
“I thought you were keeping them as a collection,” Maggie said.
Kyle shrugged. “They’re just sitting there. Take him Starscream, too, so he has a bad guy.”
“Which one is Starscream?”
“Geez, Mom,” Kyle said. He softened his eye roll with a grin. “Just take him some big silver guys.”
Maggie tried to smile back, but she felt like someone had scraped her soul with sandpaper. She took a drink of her coffee and tried not to look as bad as she felt.
Kyle wrapped his bacon up in his toast and stood. “Ready, Granddad?”
“Keep your shirt on, I’m coming,” Gray answered as he stood and stretched. He kissed the top of Maggie’s head. “Go get some sleep, Sunshine.”
“I will, Daddy.”
Gray and Kyle went out the sliding door onto the back deck, and Maggie watched them grab poles, the tackle box, and a bucket, and head through the back yard to the bay.
“Honey, you want to just stay here and lie down in the guest room?” Georgia asked, frowning.
Maggie looked at her mother and sighed. “I can’t. I need to take care of Coco and the chickens. And take this little boy some stuff.”
“Do you promise you’ll go home and go to bed afterwards?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“You look so sad.”
Maggie gave her mother half a smile, then looked down into her coffee. “Mom, you remember when you told me that you and Daddy almost didn’t get married, but you got a second chance?”
Georgia blinked a couple of times, then took a sip of her coffee. “Sure.”
“I think I might have blown it with Wyatt,” Maggie said softly.
Georgia put her coffee mug down. “With Wyatt? Aw, no, sweetie, I doubt that. Why?”
“I kept something from him. Something important, but please don’t ask me what.”
“And now you’ve told him?”
Maggie nodded, and Georgia ran a finger around the edge of her cup. “Well, I’ve found that it’s a lot easier for a man to recover from the truth than it is for him to feel lied to. Wyatt’s a strong man, Maggie. Whatever it is, just give him some time.”
“I’m afraid that I killed something before it really got started, Mom.”
Georgia looked at Maggie for a moment. “Honey, I just don’t think Wyatt scares that easily. You’re probably still going to have to deal with falling in love with him.”
Maggie gave a nervous laugh. “Mom, I’m not in love with him.”
Georgia put a hand on top of her daughter’s. “You will be,” she said simply.
Maggie got out of the Jeep, and could hear Coco going insane inside. The poor dog had been in all night, and Maggie hoped there weren’t any surprises waiting for her. As she headed for the stairs, Stoopid, delighted that Coco wasn’t available to impede his progress, pell-melled over from behind a hibiscus.
Maggie raised a hand to the rooster. “I already heard,” she said, and he seemed to deflate a little He stumbled to a stop a few feet away, let her have one of his unimpressive crows, then ruffled his neck feathers and headed over to the chicken yard.
Once inside, Maggie rubbed away Coco’s impending cardiac arrest, apologized several times, then let the dog out and headed for Kyle’s room. She stopped by the foot of Kyle’s bed and looked around her, really looking for the first time in a while.
They had never had a lot. David had worked like a dog as a shrimper, and she had worked her way up in the Sheriff’s Office, but they’d never made more than they’d needed. Vacations were cheap and close by, sneakers were serviceable rather than celebrity-endorsed, and the kids worked hard to earn their modest allowances.
But Kyle had so much, when Maggie looked at his situation through the lens of the last several hours. His Xbox had been a Christmas gift from her parents, but he had one. There were three shelves of books, and more action figures, board games, and videos than she could count. She wasn’t sure what was there, but she knew there was food in the fridge. Kyle had gone through tragedy, but he had never been hungry and he had never been alone.
Maggie pulled Kyle’s backpack from last year out of his closet, and put in the Bumblebee action figure and a couple of big silver guys she hoped were villains. She added some comic books from the bottom of Kyle’s stack, then rummaged through his desk drawer and gathered a pack of markers and a pad of paper. On her way out of the room, she grabbed an unopened pack of underwear that she’d bought on sale for the coming school year. She wasn’t sure they’d fit, but they were better than nothing.
After putting together a few changes of clothes that Kyle had outgrown, and feeding the chickens and Coco, Maggie wandered around the house, finding a few other odd things to take to the little boy, then she climbed back into the Jeep, blinked her scratchy eyes a few times against the full morning sun, and headed back into town.
The Homeland Security team had opted to stay at the Bayview hotel rather than run back and forth to Tallahassee. The hotel was a two-story brick building right on Scipio Creek, the channel of the Apalachicola River that eventually opened into the bay. The rooms were accessed by an outdoor hallway right over the marina, and Maggie kept her eyes averted from it as she knocked on the door to room 212. David’s shrimp boat had been blown up just a short way down the creek, and Maggie had yet to be able to look at it without feeling like someone was scooping out her insides with a spoon.
The female agent from earlier opened the door. She was about Maggie’s height, but only in her late twenties, with an efficiently short cut to her blond hair and no sign of makeup.
“Lieutenant Redmond?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“He’s sleeping, but come on in,” the agent said, stepping back.
Maggie stepped inside, Kyle’s Star Wars backpack in one hand, two grocery bags of clothes in the other.
The agent closed the door quietly. “I’m Gerri Winters.”
Maggie nodded at her and looked toward the back of the room. The front of the room held a small sitting area and a kitchenette. Beyond it, separated by a curtain that had been left open, was a sleeping area with two full-sized beds. There was a very small lump in one of them.
“I brought him some clothes and things, a few toys,” Maggie said softly. “I wasn’t sure what you’d have time to grab for him, so there’s a toothbrush and a pack of toothpaste in here, too.”
“Thanks. One of us was going to run out later, but this is helpful.”
“How’s he doing?”
The agent shrugged. “We talked to him for a little bit, then just let him go to bed. He
was asleep before he put his head down.”
Maggie nodded. “Should I just put these things in there?”
Gerri nodded. “Yeah, just put them on top of the dresser.”
Maggie walked back to the sleeping area, gently set the grocery bags on top of a cheap oak dresser next to the bed where Virgilio was sleeping, then propped the backpack on the floor next to it.
She stood there and watched him for a minute, though she couldn’t see anything but a shock of dark hair peeking out from under the covers. He was curled into a comma, his back to her. She could see the steady movement of his back as he breathed.
She reached into the side pocket of the backpack, pulled out a small, stuffed Mickey Mouse, and tucked it near his head on the pillow. Then she turned around and walked away.
The next morning, Maggie was sitting at her desk, filling out her report on the previous night, when Wyatt set a to-go cup from Cafe con Leche on her desk.
“Gertrudis says hi,” he said.
Maggie looked up at Wyatt with pure gratitude. He had his own cup of coffee in hand. “Oh, my gosh, thank you,” she said.
“They miss you over there.”
Maggie took a long swallow of her café con leche and sighed. “I miss them, too.”
“She also said that if you need to, you can call ahead from your car and she’d run your coffee around the corner to you,” Wyatt said.
“I’d feel stupid and melodramatic,” Maggie said. “I can look at a river. I’ll stop in there tomorrow morning.”
Wyatt looked at his watch. “Tomlinson’s on his way over to brief us on what he’s got so far.”
“Okay.”
“What are you working on?”
Maggie shrugged. “I’m doing my prelim on last night. Hopefully, Tomlinson’s got something I can do. Otherwise, I’m going to be waiting around for someone to rob the Piggly Wiggly.”
“Well, I wouldn’t count on getting much from Tomlinson,” Wyatt said. “Nice guy, I like him. But he’s going to include us only as much as he needs to.”
Maggie sighed. “I’m sure that’s true.”
“Don’t worry,” Wyatt said as he headed out of her office. “Somebody’s bound to kill somebody soon.”
“You’re always such a glass-half-full kinda guy,” Maggie said to his back.
Half an hour later, Maggie rapped on the side of Wyatt’s door and walked in. Tomlinson was leaning on Wyatt’s desk drinking a cup of the office coffee. Wyatt was still drinking his, leaning back in his leather chair.
“Morning, Lieutenant,” Tomlinson said.
“Agent Tomlinson,” she answered, and sat down in one of the vinyl chairs in front of Wyatt’s desk.
“Thank you for bringing that stuff by for the boy,” Tomlinson said.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Sleeping, mostly. They were out there for at least three days. The kid’s not real sure of the timeline.”
Tomlinson sat down in the other vinyl chair and pulled out his tablet, tapped at it as he spoke. “His name is Virgilio Munoz. His father was Emilio, his mother Fernandina. His little sister, age four, was Lupe.” He took a sip of his coffee and tapped at the screen again. “They’re from a village about two hours inland from Amatique Bay, called El Paraiso. I’ve been to that area, and I’m here to tell you there’s nothing about it that’ll remind you of paradise.”
He drained his coffee and set the empty cup on the desk.
“He’s not absolutely positive how many people were traveling. Coast Guard hasn’t recovered any more bodies, though. He really only paid attention to his own family and the other kids on board. There were two, besides him and his sister.”
“Did he tell you what the hell happened?” Wyatt asked.
“Yeah, pretty much. From his limited perspective,” Tomlinson said. “From what I can put together, there was an argument between Virgilio’s dad, a couple of other passengers and the guys that were running the boat. Americans, by the way. They were supposed to get the passengers closer to shore, but they decided to put them out sooner.”
“Does Virgilio know why?” Maggie asked.
“No. Could have been the weather, could have been a fuel issue, maybe they saw another vessel that made them nervous. Who knows?” Tomlinson said. “To make matters worse, there were originally two dinghies, but they had a problem with the outboard on the other one, and piled everybody into one. That dinghy wasn’t meant to hold more than five people. According to the Coast Guard, the four-stroke they had mounted on it was way too heavy, too, and too light in horsepower.”
“Do you have any idea yet who these Americans were that were running them here?” Wyatt asked.
“Not yet. The boy says the word ‘wave’ was in the boat name, which is probably going to give us a ton of hits. He has no idea what kind of boat it was. His people were farmers. But, the boat was out of Texas, he could read that,” Tomlinson answered.
“Lot of boats in Texas,” Wyatt said, sighing.
“No kidding,” Tomlinson said. “So, according to what the kid told me, they got into some pretty big swells out there. The storm had already broken when they were put in the dinghy. They were already taking on water because of the weight, but he thinks they got a hole in the stern, because it pretty much went under, and the outboard conked. I’m waiting to hear from the Guard on that. Anyway, everybody ended up in the water.”
“Where were they going?” Wyatt asked.
“Here,” Tomlinson said. “They were coming here.”
“What for?” Maggie asked. “I mean, what were they going to do when they got here?”
“They had work lined up. Picking vegetables on a farm not far from here. According to Virgilio, they were going to work for some rich man with a big farm.”
Maggie’s stomach felt like someone had just reached into it. She put her elbow on the arm of the chair and put her face in her hand.
“What?” Wyatt asked.
Maggie looked up at him. “Boudreaux.”
“Boudreaux what?” Wyatt asked.
Tomlinson looked from Maggie to Wyatt and back again.
“He was at the beach last night. On the deck of one his vacation rentals.”
“Who’s Boudreaux?”
“Local rich guy. Dabbles in a lot of things,” Wyatt said. “Also figures in two other cases I have on my hands.”
“Two?” Tomlinson asked.
“Well, we don’t have a wide selection of criminals in Apalach,” Wyatt said. “We try to make the most of what we’ve got.”
“So what about him?” Tomlinson asked Maggie.
“He has a couple of farms. A melon farm over near Live Oak. I don’t know where the other one is.”
“So what makes you think he has anything to do with this?”
“I’ve never seen Boudreaux look anything less than perfect. He doesn’t dress up much, but even dressed down, he’s immaculate,” Maggie said. “But he was wearing the same clothes I’d seen him in earlier that day. He was all wrinkled. And he was drinking scotch at sunrise.”
Maggie realized that Wyatt might think she’d intentionally withheld this information and she jerked her head his way. “I thought he must have had a fight with his wife or something.”
Tomlinson looked at Wyatt. “What do you think?”
“Nothing would surprise me where Boudreaux’s concerned,” Wyatt said, sounding tired.
“Where do I find him?”
“He’s got a business called Sea-Fair about a block north of the Bayview,” Wyatt said. Maggie wished he would look at her.
“Okay, I’ll look in on him. I really don’t have anything, so I don’t expect him to offer anything, but maybe I can get a feel for the guy.”
“Can I go with you?” Maggie asked. She wanted to see Boudreaux’s face when Tomlinson questioned him, wanted to see for herself whether he seemed to be telling the truth, regardless of what he actually said.
“I’m sorry, but I think I’ll say no,” Tomlinson sa
id, not unkindly. “I will brief you guys once I’ve talked with him, though.”
He sighed and scratched at his closely-cropped hair. “Damn sad shame. The boy’s father pushed him and his sister up on top of the bow of the dinghy, which was still partly above water, and told him to hang on. Then he disappeared. A few other people managed to grab hold, too, but not for very long.”
He rubbed at his face. “The dinghy was mostly underwater. At some point, the boy lost his grip on his little sister and let go of the dinghy to go after her, but he lost her. He woke up on the beach.”
The three of them were silent for a moment. Maggie blinked a few times, then focused on the back of Wyatt’s monitor to get a grip on her feelings. When she looked up at Wyatt, he was staring at his desk, his jaw clenched.
Tomlinson got up from his chair. “I’m gonna head over to this guy Boudreaux’s. I’ll get with you guys later on.”
After he left, Wyatt and Maggie sat without speaking. The tapping of Wyatt’s pencil on the edge of his desk was the only thing that broke the silence.
Maggie got up and walked out.
She walked down the hall to the ladies’ room and opened the door, smiled at Deputy Sue Thornton, who was on her way out. She was relieved that no one else was in the bathroom.
She turned on one of the faucets and splashed cold water on her face. She felt her chest filling up, expanding, like someone was blowing up a balloon inside her. She yanked a couple of coarse brown paper towels out of the dispenser and held them under the water for a moment, then shut it off and walked into the stall furthest from the door.
She slapped the door shut and locked it, then covered her mouth and nose with the bunched up wet towels. Then she cried surprisingly hard, given the silence with which she did it.
Maggie was adrift.
She had no case to actually work. It was only three in the afternoon, and she had nowhere to be. She had thought about picking up the kids and taking them to the pool at the community center, but when she’d called her parents’ house, she’d been advised by Georgia that they’d gone out on the oyster beds with Gray.
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