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

by Dawn Lee McKenna

  Betancourt frowned at her. “No, but I remember that I didn’t recognize it. I think she got a new phone.” He raised his body to reach into his back pocket, and removed a new Galaxy from it. He thumbed through it for a moment, then held a page of recent calls up for her to see. “That 813 number was her call,” he said. Maggie recognized it as the phone they’d found in her room.

  “But you know another number for her?”

  “Yes.” He tapped on his contacts list, thumbed it a moment, then showed her a listing for Mari.

  Maggie didn’t recognize the number. She jotted it down. “Do you remember the last time she called you from that number?”

  “It was right before she left for your area,” he answered. “The day before, I think. I can look it up.”

  “That’s okay,” she said.

  “I have a lunch appointment at noon,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”

  Maggie stood, and Dwight stood with her, trying not to look enthusiastic about leaving. “No, not at the moment,” Maggie said. “Thank you for your time.”

  Maggie turned on the Jeep and rolled down the front windows, letting in air that felt cleaner than the air had been inside the big, fancy house. After a moment, Dwight looked over at her, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a hungry baby bird.

  “You know, it really kinks my hose that these big-time drug dealers have money they don’t even know about, and honest people have to choose between paying the electric bill and the water,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Maggie said, nodding distractedly. She stared out the windshield at a small waterfall in the middle of Betancourt’s landscaping. “I think he’s telling the truth about why Marisol was in Apalach. She wasn’t there for Toby Mann. And I think Toby knew she was up there, and what she was doing.”

  “You think he just knew about Axel, or that she was trying to take his idea and hand it to this guy.?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “But he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would take the business thing too lightly, especially if he was violent.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t be surprised if Betancourt told him,” Dwight said. “Honor among drug dealers or some kinda thing like that.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, then sighed. “Geez.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just so damn sad.” She looked over at Dwight. “We’ve got two suspects besides Axel, and both of them are saying they just didn’t care enough about Marisol to have killed her.”

  Dwight nodded. “Yeah, that’s pretty crappy,” he said. “Such a beautiful woman, but nobody cared about her.”

  “Axel did,” Maggie said quietly.

  Dwight was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, it’s a shame about that.”

  MAGGIE AND DWIGHT got back to Franklin County around four. Maggie had been slightly lead-footed, and they both breathed better once they hit Sopchoppy, like the air was easier to inhale on home ground. Maggie was frequently conflicted; she’d love a vacation, but she didn’t actually like leaving Apalach.

  Maggie dropped Dwight off to get his car at the Sheriff’s Office, and she headed across the bridge to Apalach. Once she was on the Gorrie, she glanced over at the riverfront, as she always did. She could just make out the Water Street Hotel and Marina at the end, and she amended her plans just a bit.

  Water Street was a nice place, a neat, three-story place that only had thirty units, several of them actually condos. It sat right on the creek, and had several slips for rent at its own docks. It was quiet and clean, each unit had two bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a screened in balcony overlooking the creek. Lucky guests also got a free temporary cat, one of the three that had taken up permanent residence. If Maggie needed a place to stay, she would stay at Water Street.

  She pulled up to the hotel, got out, and gratefully stretched her legs and butt for a minute before heading across the parking lot to the front office.

  When she walked in, the night clerk, Linda, looked up from her computer. Maggie and Linda knew each other from softball and high school functions, and Maggie was rather fond of the other woman. She was black, with hair cut as short as it could be without being gone. She was in her forties, nicely plump, and wore her reading glasses on her nose and her regular glasses on her head. Both of them reflected the light from the ceiling fan when she looked up at Maggie.

  “Hey, girl, how you been?” she asked with a big smile full of beautiful white teeth.

  Maggie walked up to the chest-high wooden counter. “Good, Linda. How are you?”

  “Oh, you know,” Linda answered. “Same old things. I haven’t seen you in ages. We need to meet up at Papa Joe’s one of these days, have some lunch.”

  “That would be great,” Maggie said, and she meant it. Her world was getting smaller and less populated all the time, and the only woman she saw regularly was her mother.

  “Hold up while I finish this real quick.” Linda said as she tapped a couple of keys. “What are you doing over here?”

  “I came over here to talk to one of your guests, but I didn’t see his car, so I thought I’d talk to you instead.”

  “Oh, girl, please,” Linda said. “I don’t have the time or energy for any kinda crime over in here. What’d he do?”

  “Probably nothing,” Maggie lied.

  “Hold on, it’s time for me to smoke,” Linda said, getting up from her chair. She grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from a desk drawer, and came out of the office, opened the glass door to the docks. Maggie followed her out, and waited while she lit her cigarette and blew out her first drag.

  “Is it the old man with the sunspots on his head?” Linda asked, a hand on her hip. “He keeps undressing me with his eyes, not that he doesn’t have good reason.”

  Maggie smiled. “No, a young guy. Toby Mann, from Tampa.”

  “Oh, him,” Linda replied, sounding bored already. “What about him?”

  “Peggy from day shift said he checked in on Saturday?”

  “Yeah, that sounds right,” Linda answered. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Maggie shook her head, though that meant nothing. “What do you think about him?”

  “Honey, I don’t have an opinion on the man, outside the fact he seems to think he’s a whole lot better looking than he actually is,” Linda answered. “He came down one night asking me where’s the closest liquor store. Seemed like he thought I should be all excited he was standing there. I don’t think I’ve seen him three times since then, but we close the office at eleven. He’s probably still out then.”

  “Do you remember seeing anyone here with him?” Maggie asked.

  “Nope, don’t think so.” Linda blew a mouthful of smoke over the aluminum rail. “I don’t think he hangs out here too much, though.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Janie says there’s almost nothing to do when she goes to clean the room,” Linda answered. “She mentioned it yesterday, said she didn’t even need to make the bed. I guess he found somewhere else to sleep, you know what I mean?”

  Maggie thought about that a minute. “When’s the last time you saw him?”

  “Let me think,” Linda said. “Day before yesterday? When I came in to work. He’s not checked out, though. I got a note he’s staying a few more days or so.”

  Maggie nodded. “Okay.” Mann was supposed to be a stranger here. So where was he spending his time?

  “I need to be scared of this guy?” Linda asked her, glaring down her nose at her.

  “No, not at all, Linda,” Maggie said. “His girlfriend is the woman they found over at Riverview Thursday morning.”

  “Huh,” the other woman huffed. She took another drag of her cigarette. “Well, I don’t think he’s mourning much.”

  After a long day of driving outside her comfort zone, Maggie needed some refueling. She came out of Apalachicola Coffee, took a long swallow of freshly-roasted Guatemalan Antigua, and surveyed Market Street. Apalach virtually closed down by 9pm, but it was genera
lly hopping at cocktail and dinner time, and today was no exception.

  At the corner, two doors down, customers sat at the black iron tables outside Tamara’s, laughing and sipping their beer or wine. Diagonally across the street, the Seafood Grill was doing a brisk early dinner business, and a few doors down on her right, customers were streaming out of The Soda Fountain carrying ice creams, shark tooth necklaces, and postcards. Seeing the ice cream made Maggie miss Wyatt. It also made her miss the days when Axel’s biggest problem was whether they—Maggie, David and Axel—had enough money between them to get a banana split.

  She looked away from the family sitting at the picnic table outside the shop, and her gaze jerked to a stop on the sidewalk across the street. There was a blue Elantra parked across the street from Tamara’s, and Toby Mann was leaning against his open door, smoking a cigarette. It occurred to Maggie to wonder if he’d been following her, if he was the reason she kept feeling ants crawling on the back of her neck.

  He was watching the people on the sidewalk, and didn’t notice her until she was halfway across the street. He tossed his cigarette butt on the ground and nodded at her.

  “Hello, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “Hello, Mr. Mann,” she answered. “Going in for dinner?”

  “No, I just stopped in for a beer,” he said, then raised his hands. “Just one.”

  “Relax, Mr. Mann,” she said pleasantly. “I know there’s not much to do here for someone who’s used to the city.”

  “Well, I didn’t come for entertainment,” he said.

  “I stopped by Water Street earlier,” Maggie said.

  “You have some news?” he asked, looking hopeful.

  “No, I wanted to ask you if you knew where Marisol’s iPhone is,” Maggie answered, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “No,” he replied. “I figured you people had it.”

  “No, we haven’t found it.” Maggie pulled out her own phone.

  “Well, I don’t know,” he said, as Maggie tapped through her screens. “Maybe the river?”

  “Maybe,” Maggie answered as she tapped on Marisol’s number, which she’d transferred to her contacts list.

  She was hoping it would ring. In fact, she was hoping she’d hear it ringing through Toby’s pants pocket or the open window of his car, but it went straight to voice mail. She felt Toby waiting, and she hung up and glanced at him. “The battery’s probably dead,” she said. “or it’s turned off.”

  “Probably dead,” he said. “She was bad about charging it.”

  “Since she’s on your plan, you can track her phone, can’t you? she asked. “Can you check it?”

  “It won’t work if the phone’s off,” Toby said, his eyes darting over her shoulder at nothing much.

  Maggie nodded. “That’s too bad,” she said. “Most likely, you’re right though. If Marisol was like me, she kept her phone on her pretty much all the time. It’s most likely in Scipio Creek.”

  “Is it important?” Mann asked her.

  “No, not really,” she said. “Just a loose end.”

  “What about her ex-husband? You still working on him?” Toby’s eyes narrowed as he asked.

  “Right now, that’s pretty much all we do have to work on,” she answered. “But I’ll let you know if there are any developments.” That wasn’t true, but saying it served its purpose.

  “Well, okay,” he said. He turned and slid into his car. “I’ll be waiting.”

  Maggie watched him pull out and drive away, toward 98. She watched him turn right, then she committed the plate to memory, and bent down to pick up his cigarette butt. Then she walked back across the street to her Jeep. She opened the gate of the Cherokee and flipped the lid on the red toolbox she used as a crime scene kit.

  Down the block, in front of the bank, a truck engine started, then pulled into the light traffic.

  Maggie was digging an evidence bag out of her kit when Axel passed by in a borrowed Ford F-150. He glanced at the back of Maggie, then turned right after Toby Mann.

  Maggie climbed into the driver’s seat and shut her door, then glanced at her old Timex. 5:40. The lab closed at 5pm. She went through her contacts and called Mike on his cell.

  “Yo,” he answered.

  “Hey, Mike,” Maggie said. “Listen, first thing in the morning, I need you to compare a cigarette butt I just acquired with the results from the unknown butts on the dock.”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  The Sheriff’s Office didn’t have the facilities to run DNA, but simple blood and saliva tests could tell them if they had a likely match between one sample and another. The blood type and analysis on the first butts would be in the computer file on the case.

  “You didn’t hear anything back yet from Tallahassee, did you?’ Maggie asked, though she knew it was seriously unlikely.

  “Maggie,” Mike said reproachfully.

  “I know. Just thought I’d ask.”

  “But I can find out if we’re on the right track,” he said.

  “Okay, I’ll see you bright and early,” Maggie said, and hung up. She turned on the ignition before dialing Dwight.

  “Hey, Dwight,” she said when he answered. “I got the rest of the plate number on Mann’s rental car.”

  “Shoot,” Dwight said, and she heard him scrambling for something to write with. In the background, she could hear one of his kids laughing. He had three, all under the age of seven.

  “453-BVN” Maggie recited. “Can you call and have somebody run it?”

  “Yeah, but it might be morning before we hear back, so you might as well let me do it,” Dwight said. “Some of those places were giving me the runaround on account of we don’t have a warrant or anything. I been having to go through the manager types, and those guys aren’t around at night.”

  Maggie sighed. “Okay. Morning, then. I’ll see you tomorrow. Go play with your kids.”

  “Angel’s teaching me how to Dab.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Reckon that’s why she’s teaching me.”

  Maggie hung up and stared out her windshield at a Dalmation that nobody owned and everybody fed. He was ambling down the sidewalk toward the dog fountain in front of the ice cream place.

  Dwight was a great father. It was one of the things she liked most about him. He sheltered his kids, but he didn’t lie to them much. Like many law enforcement officers, he told his kids the truth about the world in as few words and as little detail as he could, but he told the truth nonetheless. Daddy had done the same, with the exception of Bennett Boudreaux being her biological father.

  She sighed, put the Jeep in reverse, and started home.

  WHEN MAGGIE GOT to the office just after 7:30, she bypassed her own office and walked straight to the lab. Mike was at his desk, drinking from an enormous travel mug emblazoned with a Crimson Tide logo.

  “Hey, Maggie,” he said, smiling.

  Maggie reached into her purse and yanked out the evidence bag as she hurried over to Mike. “Hey, Mike.”

  “This your butt?’ he asked as she held it out to him.

  “Yeah,” she answered as he read the label to make sure she’d filled it out properly. “How soon can you get it back to me?”

  “Pretty soon,” he answered. “I have to finish something else up, then you’re next in line.”

  “Okay.” Maggie started for the door. “Call me on my cell, okay?”

  “Will do,” he said to her back.

  She walked to her office down the hall, passing Wyatt’s office as she went. He wasn’t in yet. She remembered him saying something about coming in late that morning since he’d worked late earlier in the week.

  She dropped her purse into her desk drawer and sat down to answer messages.

  An hour later, Dwight popped into her doorway, his Adam’s apple bobbing more enthusiastically than usual. “Uh, hey, Maggie? We got the rental car.” He walked over to her desk, a piece of scrap paper in his hand. �
��He rented it from Enterprise in Panama City on Friday.”

  Maggie sat back a second. “Friday.” Mann had said he’d gotten there Saturday. “Panama City. He flew in?”

  “Nope, I checked that already, when we first saw he was driving a rental. More interesting than that,” Dwight answered. “Did you know Enterprise will bring your rental car to you?”

  “Yeah? So where’d they take his car?”

  “Best Western out on 98,” Dwight said, looking happy.

  Maggie frowned up at him. “Why? Call Best Western and asked if he was registered there.”

  “Reckon I done it already,” Dwight said. “He wasn’t staying there.”

  “What the hell,” Maggie said quietly.

  “Kinda my thought, too,” Dwight said. “But they dropped the car off to him at 4:20pm on Friday. He was here a day before he said he was, and he had to be staying somewhere. But he wasn’t at the Best Western.” He plopped his hands onto the place his hips would have been, if he’d had some. “Gets interesting from there, too. He had Enterprise come get the car last night.”

  “At Best Western?”

  “Nope. Water Street. They took it a little after five.”

  That would have been shortly after Maggie had seen him on Market Street. She flicked through some Post-it notes on her desk, found the number she was looking for, picked up her desk phone, and dialed. Peggy answered on the second ring.

  “Water Street Hotel and Marina, this is Peggy speaking. How can I help you?”

  “Hey, Peggy, this is Maggie Redmond,” Maggie said in a rush. “Has Toby Mann checked out?”

  “I don’t think so, but check out time isn’t till eleven,” Peggy answered. “Hold on.”

  Maggie listened for a moment as Peggy tapped at her keyboard.

  “Nope, he hasn’t checked out or anything,” Peggy said. “And I know he was here last night, because there’s a note here that he needed a new room key. His got magnetized.”

  “I need you to do me a favor,” Maggie said. “Can you call his room phone, see if he’s there?”

  “What do I say?”