It was only a few blocks from the traffic light to the Apalachicola City Cemetery.
Maggie drove in, parked her Jeep, and walked between the graves and the palms and the live oaks. The sun was already blistering and its light was so harsh and so white that it faded what color there was in the old cemetery. Green became gray, gray became white and white just disappeared.
Although rare for the end of June, there was no rain in the forecast other than the usual summer shower, which arrived somewhere around three in the afternoon every day and evaporated by three-thirty. Maggie sucked a hot lungful of the morning air and wished for a tropical depression.
Maggie looked at the small, simple headstone, which said only Grace Carpenter, and below that 1996-2015. Maggie and her parents had paid for the headstone, and Maggie had wanted it to say something more. Maybe to say that she was a good mother. But Grace had had her newborn taken away, as well as the two little children belonging to her now dead boyfriend, meth dealer Richard Alessi, because she’d been foolish and lonely and plain enough to fall in with a man like Ricky.
It hadn’t mattered that Grace, bony and small and brave, had, of her own volition, put herself in danger by trying to help Maggie to arrest Alessi. It hadn’t mattered that she’d done it to give her child, and his children, a better life.
Grace had known she wouldn’t get her kids back, even though Maggie had promised to find help. Grace had known the workings of Children’s Services better than Maggie did, and she’d driven to the bridge. It just didn’t seem right to Maggie to mention on the headstone that she’d loved her children.
But the guys from the Sheriff’s office and the Apalachicola PD had known, and they’d all chipped in to pay for the plot. It had been a small service, just Maggie and Wyatt and a few of the officers who had worked the Alessi case. Maggie had gotten her ex-husband, David, to come, and they’d stood under a tin-colored sky while he played Wayfaring Stranger on his guitar. Then they’d all walked away and left her as alone as she’d been most of her short life.
Oddly, the casket had been paid for by Bennett Boudreaux.
Boudreaux was Apalachicola’s version of a crime boss or head of a Mafia family, though he’d never been convicted of a crime and was Cajun by birth rather than Italian. He owned several seafood-related businesses in town and several in his home state of Louisiana. He sponsored community events, had his picture taken with local politicians, and his son Patrick was the Assistant State’s Attorney for Franklin County. It was all very cozy and polite, but a lot of people were afraid of Boudreaux and most of them had a reason to be.
But Boudreaux had actually tried to use his influence to help Grace, at Maggie’s request. It just hadn’t come through in time.
Maggie squinted up at the sun and sighed. Then she kissed a finger, touched it to the headstone, and turned and walked away.
Wyatt walked into the old brick warehouse downtown that now housed Apalach’s weekly newspaper, The Apalachicola Press, and smiled back at Maureen Dailey, the elderly lady who had been the receptionist/secretary/everything at the paper since the headlines had been about Vietnam.
“Why, how are you, Sheriff Hamilton?” she said over her computer monitor.
Wyatt walked up to her desk and took off his sunglasses. “I’m fine, Mrs. Dailey, how are you?”
“Fair to middlin’,” she answered. “It’s press day, you know. Busy, busy.”
“Is Woody in?”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Well, that is, he’s in, but no, don’t talk to him today.”
“Well, I have to, sorry.”
“Can it not wait until tomorrow?”
“No, I need him to put something in the paper for me.”
“Oh, no, that won’t do.” Mrs. Daily started fiddling with the chain on her bifocals. “The paper’s almost set to go.”
“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Daily.” Wyatt started heading toward the hallway that led to the press room and Woody’s office.
“Oh, it won’t,” she said. “Mercy, I’ll have to listen to him all day.”
Wyatt walked back to the small office belonging to Woody Dumont, the paper’s editor. The office was the only enclosed area in the back of the building. Beyond it was an open area with several desks, where reporters and other employees tapped away on their keyboards or squinted at ads and graphics on their monitors. Beyond the staff area was the actual press.
Woody, a slightly-built, balding, and chronically agitated man in his early fifties, was standing at a table against a windowed wall, inspecting a physical mock-up of the paper, with various articles cut and taped onto newsprint. Wyatt rapped on the door jamb and Woody looked over his shoulder.
“Oh, hey, Sheriff,” he said cheerfully.
“Hey, Woody. I need you to do something for me,” Wyatt said, walking into the office.
Woody turned around and craned his neck to look at Wyatt. “What do you need?”
“I need to you to put something in the paper for me.”
“Tomorrow’s paper?” Woody asked.
“Yes, please.”
“Nope.” Woody started shaking his head emphatically. “No, can’t do that. I’m sorry.”
“I need you to do it anyway,” Wyatt said, trying to soften it with a smile.
“I can’t,” Woody said, waving a hand at the mock-up behind him. “Paper’s all set.”
“It can’t wait for next week, Woody, and the Press could be instrumental in helping us solve a case.”
“What case?”
“A shrimper found a foot in his net this morning. We’re hoping maybe someone saw something that can help.”
“A foot? What kind of foot?”
Wyatt looked down at his sizable shoes. “Just like the ones you and I still have.”
“A human foot?”
“Yes. And we need to find out who it belongs to and whether anyone saw anything recently that might be important.”
“Oh, this is awful! This is—oh, for crying out loud! A shark? Was it one of those ridiculous Bull sharks you think? It’s those people shore fishing, you know.”
“No, it wasn’t a shark. This foot was cut. Chopped off.”
Woody stared at Wyatt for a moment. “You mean deliberately?”
“That’s the assumption, yes,” Wyatt said patiently.
“Oh, well, dandy! That’s even better. Half the people who read it will think we have sharks and the other half will think we have serial killers.” Woody patted at his chest with his hands as though he were checking for something in his pocket, although he didn’t have one. “This is not good for the tourists, Sheriff.”
“Well, I realize that, Woody, but—“
“I mean, we’re online and everything, now! The people out on St. George are gonna pack up and the ones getting ready to book their vacation rentals, why, they’ll go to Destin or, heaven help us, Daytona, if they think we have sharks or serial killers.”
“We don’t have sharks and serial killers, Woody. Everybody knows serial killers don’t hang out in Apalach.”
“It could be a passing-through serial killer.”
“Well, then he’s gone,” Wyatt countered.
“Where’s the rest of the body?”
“Hell if I know.”
“Oh, this is not good.” Woody shook his head. “The rest of it’s gonna wash up on the island and everybody’s gonna be running up and down the beach with their arms in the air. It’s gonna be like Amity Island all over again.”
“That’s not gonna happen, Woody.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, in all likelihood, pieces would wash up on the beach, not a body missing one foot.”
Woody gave Wyatt a stricken look and Wyatt held up a hand.
“I’m kidding, Woody.” He pulled a piece of note paper out of his shirt pocket and held it out to the other man. “I wrote some notes down for you. Just keep it short and simple. I appreciate it.”
Woody stared at the paper for a mo
ment, as if not taking the paper might make the foot go away.
“Woody,” Wyatt said firmly.
Woody reached out and took the note with two fingers. He shook his head slowly. “Between BP and storms and the feet, we just can’t get a break down here.”
Wyatt headed for the door. “Cheer up, Woody. The weather’s looking good.”
He waved goodbye to Mrs. Dailey, as he hotfooted it to the door before she could tell him how upset she was with him. The mid-morning heat blasted him as he stepped outside to the sidewalk. The air was humid enough to make him feel like he was wading to his cruiser rather than walking.
His door handle was scorching and he put a finger in his mouth to soothe it, then flipped at the handle a few times in an effort to open the door without actually touching it again. Once he got it open, he stood there with the door open to let the interior cool off a minute.
He looked down the street, lined on either side with cafes, gift shops, seafood restaurants and local art galleries. He didn’t blame Woody for being upset. Apalach needed the tourists that flocked to it every summer.
Hopefully, most of the tourists would assume it was a gruesome murder, and God knew, they probably came from places where that kind of stuff happened all the time. But some people probably would assume it was a shark, and that probably would be bad for business. He sighed and slid into the car as he had a vision of Richard Dreyfus following him around Piggly-Wiggly, gesturing spasmodically and telling him he needed a bigger boat.
Maggie had spent two hours looking through missing persons and accident reports to no avail, when Deputy Myles Godfrey stepped into the doorway of the office she and Terry Coyle shared on alternating days.
“Hey, Maggie,” Myles said.
“Hey, Myles,” she answered, glad for the interruption.
“I just got back from running that parole violation over to Liberty County,” he said, his eyes bright behind black-framed glasses. Myles always made her think of some young news anchor from the sixties. “What’s this I hear about somebody finding a foot in a shrimp net?”
“Yeah. Axel Blackwell was the one that found it.”
“Well, he would be, wouldn’t he? Guy’s got the weirdest luck.” Myles licked his lower lip and shook his head. “This isn’t going to be good for business.”
“Well, we can’t put it back.”
“Yeah, I gotcha, but man.”
Maggie felt for Myles. His wife was expecting their fourth baby and her gift shop was a good third of their income.
“Sorry, Myles.”
“So it was cut?”
“Looks that way,” Maggie answered. “Larry’s working on it.”
Maggie looked back at her monitor, and Myles knit his brows and stared into the air for a second. “Where do you suppose the rest of him is?”
“Pensacola, hopefully,” Maggie answered.
“That would be nice.”
Wyatt appeared in the doorway behind Myles, taking off his cap and wiping at his forehead with his arm. In his other hand, he held a gigantic bottle of Mountain Dew.
“Hey, Myles,” he said.
“Hey boss, how are ya?”
“Evaporating.”
“Yeah, man. July’s a day early, huh?” Myles headed for the door, and Wyatt stepped in and aside to let him out.
“See ya, Maggie,” Myles said, waving. Maggie smiled back and Myles headed down the hallway.
Maggie watched Wyatt head for the metal folding chair in front of her desk.
“Okay, so I’ve been all over marine accident reports and missing persons reports and there’s just nothing.”
Wyatt sat and stretched his impossibly long legs out in front of him. “Nothing?”
Maggie shook her head. “I’ve just started spreading the search a little, but nothing in Franklin, Gulf or even Wakulla Counties.”
“Okay, so no one is missing this guy, at least, not yet.” Wyatt took a long pull on his Mountain Dew. “We don’t have even an approximate time of death yet, though Larry said—what—max ten days, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s early yet. Maybe nobody knows he’s missing.”
“Maybe. I’ve just started to look in Bay County, but I’m waiting on Jeff to get me the data on tides and currents for the last ten days or so. Maybe we can get some idea of where he went in.”
“Long shot until we have an idea of when he went in.”
“Yes.”
“Larry’s DNA samples are on the way to Tallahassee. I called a friend of mine over there and called in a favor. He’s going to try to get us in on a rush, so we may have something with CODIS sooner rather than later.”
“That would be miraculous.”
“It would.” Wyatt screwed the cap back on his soda. “Meanwhile, I have a parole hearing.” He stood up and stretched, and Maggie made a point of not noticing how attractive that was. “What’s your next step?”
“I’m going to finish up with Bay County, then wait on Jeff before I waste any more time here,” Maggie said. “Then I think I’ll run over to Scipio Creek Marina and see if I can catch any oystermen coming in or shrimpers going out that may have seen something. Is Woody putting it in tomorrow’s paper?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s in an advanced state of agitation about it, but it’s going in.”
“Good. Another long shot.”
“Yeah. They suck.” Wyatt took his hat off, ran a hand through his wavy brown hair and plopped the cap back on his head. He gave her a wink as he headed out the door. “See ya.”
“See ya,” she answered, and watched him walk out into the hall. Then she went back to her screen.
A few hours later, Maggie parked her Jeep in the oyster shell parking lot at Scipio Creek Marina, used by pleasure boaters, shrimpers and oystermen alike.
Maggie got out of the Jeep, swam up through the humidity, and surfaced gasping for air. June had been typically stormy until the last week or so, and she longed for one of the coastal Panhandle’s tremendous downfalls. One look at the almost white sky told her she didn’t have one coming. It was almost four in the afternoon and there wasn’t a breeze to be had.
She saw Mel Roland hosing down his oyster skiff, and walked down the dock to meet him.
“Hey, Mel,” she called.
Mel looked up at her, a ring of pure white hair surrounding his skull, which was capped by a bald scalp riddled with sunburn scars, sun spots and probably a few precursors to melanoma.
“Hey there, Maggie!”
“You doing all right, Mel?”
“Right as I can be,” he said.” He turned off the hose, picked up a deck brush, and started scrubbing.
“Hey, Mel. You didn’t happen to see anything odd out on the bay lately, or maybe a boat you didn’t know?”
Mel stopped scrubbing and leaned on the handle, scratching at his cheek. “How lately?”
“Last week or so?”
“Naw, not that I can recollect,” he answered. “Some dimwits from down ’round Ft. Walton was out there chasin’ a pair of dolphins the other mornin.’ I shot ’em for ya.”
“I appreciate that, my friend. Nothing else, though?”
“No, can’t say there has been,” he said, staring at her curiously. “Whatcha lookin’ for?”
“Well, Axel found a man’s leg in his one of his nets this morning.”
“Hellfire, you don’t say,” the old man said, shaking his head again. “Shark?”
“Nope.”
“Propeller?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“Wait’ll Rae gets a load of this. They got Murder, She Wrote over on the Netflix now, you know. She’s been watchin’ the daylights out of it. She’ll be tickled to death.”
“Yeah, well, I’m glad she’ll be happy,” Maggie said, trying to smile.
Mel looked a bit more subdued and nodded his head. “Yeah, it’s not exactly good for the tourist trade, I suppose.”
“Not the tourists we want,” Maggie said. �
�Well, listen, I’m gonna go down the dock, see if anybody’s aboard.”
“Well, you just missed your daddy, and Fred Carlton and his crew was here til about twenty minutes ago, but I don’t think anyone else is around. Oystermen came in early today. Wicked hot. Shrimpers aren’t here yet. Oh, wait! ‘Cept David, he’s down there with his new trawler.”
“David got a new shrimp boat?” Maggie asked. She hadn’t seen him since Grace’s funeral, but he had her told a few weeks back that he almost had the money for a new boat.
“Yeah, he’s right down there,” Mel said, waving his arm down toward the other docks, closer to Boudreaux’s business and the dock where the Sheriff’s Office boat was moored. “Got himself a nice old Jefferson.”
“Okay, Mel, thanks.” Maggie gave him a half-hearted wave, then went back to her Jeep. She drove the city block to a small public parking area next to Sea-Fair, and headed down toward the last docks, where most of the shrimp boats moored.
Halfway there, she spotted David’s new boat, and David on the deck winding a new rope onto the winch. He was wearing old jeans and a stained white tee shirt, and his onyx-black hair shone in the sunlight as he bent over the winch.
Maggie stopped on the dock, on his starboard side, and took a look at the boat. The royal blue paint on the hull was chipped and peeling, but the nets looked new, and so did the doors, the rectangular pieces of wood attached to the nets to keep them just above, but not dragging on, the bottom of the sea floor.
Maggie watched him winding the stiff, white rope onto the winch and felt a moment of pride and gratitude. Just before the BP spill, David had taken a loan on a new shrimp boat. He’d lost it a few months after the spill and had spent the next several month doing odd jobs, crewing for the few shrimpers who could still afford a paid crew, and beginning a new drinking career.
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