Apparent Wind (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 7)

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  “Why were you her idea?”

  “Maggie,” Boudreaux said. “Let’s not dance around.”

  Maggie couldn’t help the hint of a smile that appeared on her face. “But I love to dance.”

  Boudreaux glanced over at Dwight, whose fingers slowed their drumming on the arm of his chair, then he looked back at Maggie.

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “It’s genetic, apparently,” Maggie said.

  “I’m sure it is,” he said quietly, and even though she could see the irritation in his eyes, looking into them reminded her of how safe she’d felt slow dancing with him that night. How sad she’d been that she probably wouldn’t have that chance again.

  She swallowed, and glanced down at his hands. She wasn’t in the mood to regret anything, or to miss anything, either.

  “How were things left?” she asked.

  “They were left at ‘no’,” he answered. “I have no interest in drugs, and I don’t do business with strangers, especially those that send their girlfriends to introduce them.”

  “Did you have anything to do with her ending up in Scipio Creek?” she asked him, then regretted it. Even she knew it was a revenge question.

  He levelled those bright blue eyes at her. “Don’t ask me questions you know the answers to,” he said quietly.

  She refused to blink or to look away. “Which questions do you mean?” she asked simply.

  Boudreaux glanced at Dwight, but just barely. “I’m referring to the conversation at hand,” he said.

  “Are you upset with me, Mr. Boudreaux?”

  “Of course not,” he said, and he just managed not to snap at her. “That would be unreasonable, don’t you think?”

  “What else did Ms. Corzo say during your meeting?” Maggie asked.

  He stared at her a moment before answering. “She was here fewer than ten minutes,” he said. “She introduced herself as Axel Blackwell’s ex-wife, said she knew of me from her brief time here, and thought I might be interested in doing business. People think I’m a lot more diversified than I actually am.”

  “You are a complex guy,” Maggie said.

  “Not that complex,” he replied shortly.

  “Did you refer her to anyone else, since you weren’t interested?”

  “I don’t associate with the type of people she needed to pitch, Maggie,” he said calmly. “And I’m not interested in being a matchmaker for people who want to bring more drug trade to the Panhandle. If her boyfriend wants to establish himself here, he’ll have to do his own homework.”

  Maggie knew he was telling her the truth. She knew his position on drugs. She didn’t want to be glad for it but she was anyway.

  “Do you have any other questions for me, Maggie?”

  “Quite a few,” she answered. “But they can wait.”

  She grabbed her purse and stood up, and Dwight seemed slightly startled that the interview was over. He quickly stood as well. Boudreaux was slower about it.

  “I don’t think they should,” he said. He glanced over at Dwight. “Perhaps we could speak privately for a moment?”

  Dwight glanced over at Maggie.

  “That’s not necessary,” she said with a polite smile. “We can catch up some other time.”

  Boudreaux let out a slow breath. “I’ll be available when you’re ready,” he said.

  Maggie started for the door, and Dwight beat her to it and opened it for them. Maggie thought he looked like an egret eager to escape a beach full of gulls. She felt badly for making him nervous.

  Boudreaux followed them to the door and held it open for Maggie as Dwight walked into the hall.

  “It was good to see you, Maggie,” he said quietly.

  Maggie swallowed and looked away. When she looked directly into those startling blue eyes, it made her angrier, and yet made her want to be less angry. He had hurt her, and yet she felt the temptation to ask him to repair that hurt. The conflict between the two exhausted and incensed her by turns.

  Dwight fell in step beside her as they walked back down the carpeted hallway. His Adam’s apple bobbed a few times before he spoke.

  “It’s none of my business, but that was kinda chillier than I was expecting,” Dwight said. “You know, on account of y’all are friendly.”

  “Not today,” Maggie said quietly.

  “He’s pretty scary when he’s not.”

  Maggie just nodded. She needed to calm down. She needed to not talk anymore.

  “Tell you what,” Dwight said. “Every time the guy looked at me, I felt like someone stuck a Popsicle down the front of my shorts.” He glanced over at Maggie. “’Scuse the expression.”

  They were silent again until they’d stepped out into the November sun. It was noon, and Maggie was momentarily blinded. When she stopped to fish for her sunglasses, Dwight put his hands on his hips.

  “Hey, uh, Maggie?” he started, looking somewhere around her throat. “You can tell me it’s none of my business, but I know how much Wyatt loves you and all—“

  Maggie jerked her glasses out and looked up at Dwight. “I would never do that, Dwight. This wasn’t some lover’s quarrel,” she said quickly. She swallowed hard. “He’s my father. And if you ever repeat that, I’ll punch you in the throat.”

  She stalked away toward the Jeep. Dwight stood there a moment, looking after her. “Bless my bony ass,” he said under his breath.

  THE DRIVE BACK TO EASTPOINT was primarily a silent one. Dwight cut his eyes over to Maggie a few times, but he left her alone for the ten minutes it took them to get back to the Sheriff’s Office. It wasn’t until she’d parked and shut off the Cherokee that Dwight spoke up.

  “I would never say anything, Maggie,” he said quietly.

  Maggie sighed. “I know. I didn’t mean to insult you,” she said quietly.

  “But, geez, Maggie,” he said. “How the hell’d you keep that a secret for so long?”

  “By not knowing,” she said. “I’m sorry, but can we not talk about this anymore?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, sure,” he said, and opened his door.

  Maggie got out and they headed for the glass front doors of the low-slung tan building.

  “Wyatt knows, though, right?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Wyatt knows everything.”

  “Well, that’s what we’ve always said,” he mumbled.

  Maggie and Dwight parted ways once they were inside, he to the deputies’ office to check with Larry about the autopsy he’d started just after Marisol’s family had left, and Maggie to check on the numbers from Marisol’s phone.

  She walked into the small IT department down the hall from Wyatt’s office. Jake Manning was typing on his keyboard, fingers flying, while he watched a video on his iPad.

  “Hey, Jake?”

  “Hey, Maggie,” he answered, looking over his shoulder. “You here for your phone numbers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One sec,” he said. He kept typing, his eyes back on his video. Maggie couldn’t tell what it was, but she heard laughter, and Jake smiled to himself. He was one of the younger deputies in the department, somewhere around his late twenties, with a boyish face and a physique that could use a few bowls of stew.

  Maggie wandered over to his cluttered desk while she waited. After a moment, he stopped typing, tapped at the iPad screen, and the room went quiet.

  “Yeah, so most of this stuff looks pretty uninteresting,” he said as he rummaged through a short pile of folders. “Probably girlfriends, that kind of thing. A few stylists, some chick that does bikini waxing, and some other lady that apparently does some kind of detox thing. It scared me to ponder.”

  He pulled out a brown file folder and opened it up.

  “Did you get a chance to pull the file on Toby Mann?” Maggie asked.

  “Yeah, he’s a sweetheart,” Jake answered as he read. “Couple of convictions for possession with intent, coke and meth. Did six months and nine months respectively. Last one was almost four
years ago. Apparently, he has several small businesses, and a real nice condo on Bayshore Blvd.”

  “Okay,” Maggie said. “What about this guy Gavin Betancourt? Did you run him down?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s kind of a mucky muck over there,” Jake said. “Connected, you know? Owns like five houses up and down the Gulf Coast—“

  “Does he have one here?” Maggie interrupted.

  “No, but give him a minute,” Jake said. He looked back down at the file. “One on Cedar Key, two in Tampa, one in Sanibel and a condo down in Key West.”

  “Wow,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah. He has a crap-ton of legitimate businesses,” Jake said. “Bunch of commercial real estate, some restaurants, a yacht club down in Bimini. Most of his traceable money is from those, but Tampa and the DEA say he’s one of the key distributors for coke and heroin down there.”

  “That’s nice,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah, we like him a lot,” Jake said.

  “Was his number in her phone?”

  “In a roundabout way,” Mike answered. “Listed under Bayside Realty Management. Three calls. One on Tuesday, looks long enough to maybe go to voice mail, but not long enough for a conversation. Two more on Wednesday, but they weren’t answered.” He closed the file. “Anyway, those are the highlights on the contacts. As far as the rest of the numbers from her phone, I made you a list, but it’s pretty bare. Like I said, mostly other women and a few businesses.”

  Maggie took the file from him. “Thanks, Jake,” she said.

  “At your service, Mags,” he said, and was already back to his keyboard and iPad by the time she turned to leave.

  She stopped short after just a few steps, and turned back to Jake.

  “Hey. Wasn’t Toby Mann’s number in there?”

  Jake looked up from his monitor, but kept typing. “Nope. Why?”

  “Well, he’s supposed to be her boyfriend. No recent calls, no entry in her contacts list?”

  “Neither one,” he answered. “But, hey, I don’t have my wife in my contacts.”

  “I bet she’s in your recent calls, though,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah, she’s pretty much all of my recent calls.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie said, mainly to herself. “Thanks, Jake.”

  She walked out into the hall, and headed to her side of the building, slapping the brown file against her thigh. She slowed as she approached Wyatt’s office. His door was open, and she spotted him at his desk. He looked up as she leaned on his door jamb.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” she said tiredly.

  “Shut the door and come sit,” he said.

  “I can’t,” she answered. “I just ran Dwight back. I’ve got to get back to town for Axel’s bail hearing.”

  “Anybody in the hall?” he asked.

  Maggie looked over her shoulder, then shook her head. “No.”

  He lowered his voice. “That arrest was crap,” he said. “Just because we don’t have anybody else to arrest yet doesn’t mean we have enough to arrest Axel.”

  “Well, we do if it looks good on the news,” Maggie said.

  He looked at her for a moment. “How did it go over at Sea-Fair?”

  She sighed. “I wasn’t as smooth as I hoped I would be,” she said.

  “This is a bad time to tell you you’re rarely smooth,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah. Tell me next time.” She held up a hand. “I’ll see you later.”

  “See you later,” he said.

  A few minutes later, she stepped back out into the brightness of the day. When she was halfway across the parking lot, she pulled out her phone and tapped a number from her recent calls list. Wyatt answered on the first ring.

  “I love you, though,” Maggie said.

  “Yeah? Well, that makes up for several of your personality flaws,” he said.

  Maggie looked over at one of the tall, narrow windows as the blinds opened. Wyatt raised a hand at her.

  “Oh, and I love you, too, as it happens,” he said. She could hear his smile more clearly than she could see it from that distance.

  “Well, then I’m not a total loss,” she said.

  She hung up, climbed into the Jeep, and headed back to Apalach.

  Maggie sat behind Axel and his attorney, Howard Fairchild, as Fairchild and the State’s Attorney, Bryan Drummond, presented their cases to His Honor Vernon Greer.

  Maggie stared at the back of Howard’s head. He was a black man in his fifties or early sixties, thin and a couple of inches shorter than Axel’s six feet, but when he spoke he reminded Maggie of James Earl Jones. She’d known him for ten years, but she was surprised every time he opened his mouth.

  She shook her head a bit and tried to focus on what Drummond was saying.

  “Your Honor, it’s the state’s position that Mr. Blackwell is a flight risk,” he was saying. “He has a boat at his disposal, and he could flee across the Gulf to Mexico pretty much at any time.”

  Howard Fairchild leaned forward over the table and looked at Drummond. “Where the hell are you from, Drummond?”

  “Mr. Fairchild,” Judge Greer said quietly.

  “Apologies, Your Honor,” Fairchild said politely. “Where the hell are you from, Mr. Drummond?”

  The judge sighed, and Drummond puffed his chest out a bit, what there was of it behind his hundred-dollar shirt. “Gainesville,” he answered, as though this was something to be proud of.

  “Oh, well that explains it,” Fairchild answered. “Not a lot of boats in Gainesville.”

  “What bearing does that have?” Drummond asked.

  “Mr. Blackwell is a shrimper, Mr. Drummond,” Fairchild answered. “He owns a trawler. You could ride your bicycle to Mexico and be there in time to catch his stern line for him.” He looked at the judge. “Your Honor, Mr. Blackwell was born and raised in this community. Aside from a high school trip to DC, he’s never even been out of the state. He has two children here in Franklin County. He’s committed to his life here, and to clearing his name. Ms. Corzo may have been his ex-wife, but she was still a friend. He’s committed to assisting law enforcement in any way possible to find and prosecute whoever is responsible for taking her life in this terrible manner.”

  The judge wet the dentures beneath his white moustache before speaking. “I see no reason to expect Mr. Blackwell to abscond, Mr. Drummond. I also see very little evidence thus far in the case against him. I feel your charges are preemptive at best. Bail is set at $25,000. “

  “Thank you, Your Honor,” Fairchild answered.

  “Mr. Blackwell, the bailiff will escort you to pay your bond and then you’re free to go,” the judge said. Axel nodded. “Mr. Fairchild, please advise your client of his responsibilities.”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Fairchild said politely.

  The judge turned to the bailiff, a slim woman in her fifties with dyed red hair and cat-eye glasses. “Edith, be a dear and get me some sweet tea before you call the next case.”

  He tapped his gavel against the desk. “Five minute recess, everyone.”

  Maggie stood when Fairchild and Axel did. Drummond started stuffing paperwork into an expensive attaché case. He looked over at Fairchild with a smirk.

  “I certainly hope this won’t be a trend, divorce lawyers in criminal court,” he said.

  Fairchild snapped his own weathered case shut and picked it up. “It likely will be if divorce lawyers keep kicking your ass,” he said.

  Drummond stalked up the aisle toward the door as a young, male bailiff came and stood beside the defense table.

  “Go pay up, Axel,” Fairchild said.

  “I’ll meet you out front,” Maggie said. “Then I’ll run you back to your truck.”

  “Okay,” Axel said. “Thanks, Howard.”

  The men shook hands. “My pleasure, mostly,” Fairchild said.

  They watched Axel walk out the side door, then Fairchild looked at Maggie. “I hope you come up with a better suspect, because a
bail hearing is one thing, but he doesn’t need to depend on me in a murder trial. Not even against that dumbass.”

  MAGGIE AND AXEL STOPPED at the Apalachicola Coffee Company on Market Street. While Maggie went inside to get the coffees, leaving Axel to Axel plug his cell into her charger and call his kids.

  Apalachicola Coffee was cool without trying hard. Exposed brick walls, high ceilings, burlap coffee sacks hanging on the walls. Maggie’s favorite thing, aside from the coffee, was the smell of the coffee. Every time she walked in, she felt a peace seep into her soul. She was an addict, but like most addicts, she was unapologetic about it.

  She walked up to the espresso counter at the back, bracing herself for the usual hard time from the owner, George, but it was a young guy with a short ponytail who stepped out from the kitchen. Maggie didn’t know him.

  “What can I get ya?” he asked.

  Maggie was a little taken aback. George hadn’t hired anyone new in years. “Where’s George?” she asked.

  “Sold the place,” the guy answered, looking fairly unenthusiastic about conversation that didn’t include an order. “I’m Kirk, the new owner.”

  Maggie swallowed and tried to regroup. She hadn’t been in the shop in almost a month. Money had been tight. But it was only a month. “Sold it? Why?” She tried not to sound stricken. She didn’t like change all that much. Or at all.

  “Job stress,” Kirk answered flatly. “You know, customers. Don’t worry; same beans, better coffee.” He placed a hand on a gleaming, antique-looking espresso machine that was bigger than Maggie. “New machine. Very sexy.”

  “Well,” Maggie said. “Crap.”

  He glanced at the emblem on her polo shirt. “So, you must be the one from the Sheriff’s Office.”

  “Yeah,” Maggie answered. “What do you mean?”

  “George left me nine pages of barely legible notes. You were on four of them,” he said.

  “What kind of notes?”

  “Barely legible ones,” he answered, his eyelids at half-mast. “For instance, he said to tell you you don’t need an extra shot in your coffee, since we already put two shots in and they’re not thimble-sized shots of that crap from Starbucks. He also said you wouldn’t actually shoot me, but I would have figured that out on my own.”