A year after the spill, he was transporting pot for a cousin of his that grew it in Tate’s Hell Forest and Maggie had asked him to leave. It was now five years since their divorce, but they’d been together since they were ten years old, and he would always be the best friend she’d ever had.
Maggie swallowed hard at the memory of all the years she had watched him get ready to head out to the bay, then cleared her throat.
“Hey,” she said.
He looked up and smiled, his green eyes startling in between his black bangs and close-cut beard.
“Hey, baby! What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. They’d both always had a thing for the older boats.
David hitched up his jeans and stuffed his hands into his front pockets. “Well, I had to replace the nets and chains and doors, and it needs paint and a lot of topside work, but I think it’s gonna be a fine boat eventually,” he said.
“When did you get it?”
“Just got back from Mobile this morning. That guy I rebuilt the motor for, he gave me a good deal. Cash.”
“This is great, David. I’m really happy for you.”
“Me, too, babe.” He shrugged self-consciously. “I’m gonna get my life back. Not all of it, maybe, but the ‘me’ part.”
Maggie nodded. “What about the other thing?”
“I’m out, Maggie. Done.”
“The kids are going to be really proud of you, David,” Maggie said, blinking away tears. “I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks. I’ve gotta get a crew, but Axel’s gonna go out with me tonight and I talked to Mike last week. Things are tight and he said he’ll crew for me again. He says he knows a couple of good guys who might come out a few nights.”
Maggie nodded again and smiled. “You’ll get there.”
“Yeah.” They looked at each other a moment, both with different memories of a different time. “So, what are you doing over here?”
Maggie shook her head and looked around the docks. “I was hoping to catch some more people down here. Did Axel tell you what happened this morning?”
“No, I figured he was asleep when I got back, so I haven’t called him today. Is he okay?”
“Yeah, but he got a human foot in his net. A leg, really.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, and no, it wasn’t a shark.”
David ran a hand through his hair, which had grown out quite a bit and was damp where it touched the base of his neck. “Geez, I leave town for a week and all of a sudden we’re living in Twin Peaks.”
“Yeah, well. I guess it’ll keep me employed.”
David wiped at his forehead, then hopped up on the gangway and to the dock.
“I’ve gotta walk over to the soda machine. Want to walk with me?”
“Sure.”
“How are the kids?” David asked as they walked toward the Sea-Fair office.
“They’re good. You should call them.”
“I will. I’ll call them before I go out. So what do you think is up with this leg or foot or whatever?”
“No clue.”
“Well, if I drag any parts up tonight, I’m chucking ’em back,” he said.
Maggie smiled at him. “Just weight them down first and mark them with a buoy for me, okay?”
“Will do.” They walked in silence for a moment, just the crunching of oyster shells below and the rasping of palm fronds above to break the quiet. “So, how’s Wyatt?”
David had known Maggie was getting involved with Wyatt before she’d known it for sure herself. He’d taken it well, though she knew he’d been hurt.
“He’s okay,” she said, uncomfortable. “We haven’t…we haven’t gone on a date or anything yet.”
David nodded without looking at her.
They reached the main building, and stopped at the old RC Cola machine. David dug into his pocket for change. He looked at her and smiled. “How about an RC, baby?”
“Sure,” Maggie said with half a smile.
He started loading change into the machine. “You remember when we used to sneak down here, grab some RCs and go make out on your Dad’s skiff?”
Maggie smiled. “Yeah. I also remember the night those Donnelly boys tried to steal Vern Burwell’s trawler, and we ended up surrounded by PD.”
David grinned. “Aw, man, that sucked. I thought Gray was gonna kill me. I spent an hour listening to him tell me about your virtue. It took me another hour to convince him I hadn’t taken it.”
He got two sodas, popped hers open and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she said, and took a sip. She watched him open his soda and dip his head back for a long swallow, saw the spot near his Adam’s apple that she had always loved to kiss, and her chest hurt, but it was a mild ache.
“You should find someone, David,” she said softly.
He took another drink, then looked at her for a moment. “I will one of these days, Maggie. I’m still letting go of us.”
Maggie looked down at her brown hiking boots, the frayed bottoms of her jeans.
“Hey,” David said, and she looked up at him. “It’s okay. I know it’s too little too late.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. “ He took a deep breath and let it out with a smile. “But things are looking up.”
“Yes.” Maggie nodded and smiled. “I’ve got to go. I’m glad you’re home.”
David opened his arms, and Maggie leaned in and wrapped her arms around his waist, her head coming to rest where it always had, just beneath his neck.
“I love you, David.”
“I love you too, babe.”
Maggie stepped back and gave him a half wave.
“Take care,” he said to her.
“You too,” she answered, then turned and headed for her car. When she got into the Jeep and looked, David was walking back to his new boat. She almost jumped back out of the Jeep to yell, “Break the nets,” like she used to back when they were married and she would see him off with his dinner and his Thermos.
It was her version of “break a leg” and he’d always laughed about it. But somehow, it just seemed like it would almost be unkind to say it now.
Maggie lived about five miles northwest of town, in a cypress stilt house built by her father’s father back in the 1950s. The house was half a mile down a gravel road, and sat on a spit of land that curved out into the river, so that there was river on two sides of the house. She had no near neighbors. The house was surrounded by woods and her gravel road was at the dead end of the road that led out of town.
She stopped at the mailbox on Bluff Road, then turned onto the gravel, thankful for the instant shade from the trees on either side. Eventually, she pulled into the wide front yard area, more gravel and dirt than grass, and parked. Maggie’s Catahoula Parish Leopard Hound, Coco, was halfway down the stairs from the wraparound deck by the time Maggie turned off the Jeep.
Coco came at Maggie from the stairs and Maggie’s one Americana Rooster, Stoopid, flailed across the parking area from the other side. Dog and bird converged a few feet in front of Maggie as she shut the door, then Stoopid veered off and did one of his figure-eight maneuvers before running back toward the chicken yard. Coco commenced a full-on emotional arrest and threw herself at Maggie’s legs.
“Hey, baby,” Maggie said, and knelt down to kiss Coco’s face and rub her neck. “How’s my girl?”
Coco was too overjoyed to answer, but danced alongside Maggie as she made her way to the house. Coco’s tags jingled behind Maggie as she climbed the stairs, pulled her boots off with her feet, and walked into the house.
The front door opened immediately onto their dining area, and Maggie dropped her purse and keys on the old table just a few feet from the door. Her ten-year old son, Kyle, the spitting image of his father, was on the couch playing Minecraft.
“Hey, Buddy,” Maggie said.
Kyle looked up at her and smiled wide, looked at her with David’s green eyes and thick, dark
lashes. “Hey, Mom! You gotta see this new mod I got.”
Maggie leaned down to kiss his forehead. “Show me in a little bit, okay? I’ve got to start dinner. Did your sister take the chicken out?”
“I don’t know,” he answered, already focusing back on the TV. “We just got back a little while ago.”
Maggie walked into the kitchen, an ell open to the dining area and living room. She walked to the old cast iron farm sink, rescued from the house where her grandma had grown up, and looked in. There were a few cups, but no chicken. Maggie sighed and walked to the hallway off of the living room.
“Sky!” she called, then walked back to the kitchen and opened the fridge. She heard Sky’s bedroom door open, and Sky appeared beside her a moment later, earbuds in and phone in hand.
“Hey,” she said.
Maggie looked up and pointed at her own ear. Sky took one of the earbuds out. Maggie could hear music she hated, tinny and small.
“You forgot to take the chicken out to thaw.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
Sky was beautiful when she wasn’t sullen. She looked more like her mom than her dad. Although her green eyes could have belonged to either parent, she had Maggie’s long, dark brown hair, full lips and strong chin.
Maggie sighed. “Sky, I just asked you to do one thing, hon.”
“I’m sorry,” Sky said defensively. “We were running late for Kyle’s friend’s dumb birthday party and I forgot.”
Maggie threw a hand on her hip as she looked back into the fridge. She needed to go shopping, on someone else’s schedule.
“Well, I guess it’s grilled cheese and tomato soup,” she said, and grabbed the cheese before closing the fridge.
“Sounds okay to me,” Sky said. “I’ve lost my appetite after spending the whole day eating cupcakes and listening to ten year old nerds talk about Minecraft and Mario.”
Maggie got a skillet out of the drawer beneath the oven and set it on the stove. “I just need you to help me out a little more while you guys are out of school, okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.” She put her earbud in and headed out of the kitchen. “Call me when it’s ready.”
Maggie sliced some butter and dropped it into the pan, then turned on the gas burner. Then she walked out toward the living area.
“Has she been like this all day?” Maggie asked.
“I guess so,” Kyle said to the TV.
“What’s up with her?”
“Her-mones,” he answered with a shrug.
“Awesome.” Maggie walked back into the kitchen, thanking God she had some wine in the house.
Bennett Boudreaux drank the last few sips of his first cup of chicory coffee, then poured another cup before starting to unwrap the newspaper. Amelia, the tall, rangy, middle-aged Creole woman who cooked and cleaned for him, was cooking some bacon and eggs on the cooktop in the kitchen island, and the smell was getting to him.
After years of oystering before he built his businesses, the only solid food he could stomach first thing in the morning was raw oysters. But Miss Evangeline, Amelia’s ninety-something year old mother, would be along shortly and require one over-medium egg, one slice of dark toast, one slice of crisp bacon, and a cup of tea.
Miss Evangeline had been his father’s housekeeper/nanny back in Houma, LA, but he’d left her behind when they’d moved to Apalachicola. When Bennett had graduated college and gone back to Houma to expand his father’s shrimp business and build his own, he’d hired her back, and Amelia with her. When his father had died and Bennett had moved back to Apalach, he’d brought them both along, much to his wife’s displeasure, which had been part of the appeal. Now they lived out back in the guesthouse, and Amelia took care of the house while Miss Evangeline slung voodoo around and ate the mangoes Bennett grew just for her.
He opened the paper and the headline smacked him in the face. Apparently, a piece of Brandon “Sport” Wilmette had found its way into a shrimper’s net.
He skimmed the article quickly. They didn’t know yet who the owner of the foot was, how it had come to be in the ocean, or when, but Bennett doubted that anyone other than him had recently cut anyone’s throat, chopped him up and chucked him out into the water.
Sport had come to him after his nephew Gregory’s funeral last week. He’d thought he would surprise Bennett with the news that, twenty-two years ago, Gregory had raped Maggie Redmond, but Gregory had already told Bennett, the night before his body was found on the beach, declared dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the mealy mouth.
What did surprise Bennett was Sport’s admission that he had been a witness to the rape, albeit an inactive one, and his suspicion that Maggie had actually killed Gregory and made it look like a suicide.
Less surprising was Sport’s foolhardy attempt to blackmail Bennett over the rape, to protect the family’s tenuous grip on good public relations. Bennett had cut his throat for being a blackmailer, and a sorry excuse for a gentleman besides.
He saw, as he concluded his reading of the article, that Maggie was investigating Sport’s foot. That was a bit troublesome, but nothing to get too concerned about; he could handle Maggie.
The back door opened, and Miss Evangeline’s walker banged into each door jamb with an aluminum tap before preceding her into the room.
“Mornin’, Mama,” Amelia said from the stove as she plated her mother’s breakfast.
“So it seem,” Miss Evangeline said in her raspy voice.
Bennett stood and walked to Miss Evangeline’s chair, pulled it out for her, and waited.
Miss Evangeline was not quite five feet tall and weighed less than a healthy tomcat. She’d once smacked Bennett with a wooden spoon when he was about twelve, for saying the red bandana on her head made her look like a paintbrush. She seemed to get smaller every year, and her little flowered housedresses got looser and longer.
“Good morning, Miss Evangeline,” Bennett said, kissing both of her papery brown cheeks as she reached the table. “How are you this morning?”
“One my tenny ball go flat. Now my walky-talky all crooked, gon’ dump me in the floor.”
“I’ll get you some more tennis balls,” Bennett said and scooted her chair in for her easily once she’d sat. Then he walked back to his chair and sat down, as Amelia placed her mother’s plate and tea in front of her.
“I got another can in the laundry room,” Amelia said, and walked out of the kitchen toward the back of the house.
Bennett went back to his paper, as Miss Evangeline began her protracted morning ritual of buttering very square inch of her toast.
“This toast not hot,” she said. She twisted her birdlike neck to look toward the stove, then peered across the table at Bennett.
“Where Amelia at?”
Bennett picked his paper back up and went back to the article.
“I sent her to out back to bury Lily,” he said, speaking of his beloved wife. “She was done polishing the silver.”
Miss Evangeline stared blankly at the back of Bennett’s paper, then flipped her upper plate out with her tongue and got it resituated before she spoke.
“You gon’ sass me some today, then.”
“No, I was just responding to your query,” Bennett said to the paper. “She went to get your tenny ball. I think you’re starting to go senile on me.”
“Go ’head mouth off to me some mo’. I buzz you with my buzzer.”
Bennett lowered the paper to the table. “For the last time, it’s not a ‘buzzer.’ It’s not like one of those party tricks that gives somebody a little zap. It’s a Taser. It’s for self-defense, not for smacking someone you can’t reach, and not for frying the brains out of the neighbor’s dog.”
Miss Evangeline sat up to her full three feet and made a little irritated sound in her throat. “Puppy don’t need to be runnin’ round Mr. Benny yard, poopin’ his poop all ’round. Then nobody wanna go out there get my mango.”
Bennett sighed and went back to his paper. Miss Evangeline occupi
ed herself with the complicated maneuver of fork and knife for a moment, then looked back across the table.
“What in the paper?” she asked, nibbling a microscopic bit of egg.
Bennett spoke through the paper, while he finished reading the article. “Well, fortunately for you, something interesting for a change. Axel Blackwell found a foot in his net yesterday morning.”
“Who Axel Blackwell?”
“A shrimper.”
“Who foot?”
“They don’t know yet,” Bennett said.
Bennett continued reading while Miss Evangeline undertook the task of raising her teacup to her mouth and putting it back down.
“Juju got somebody,” she said.
“Clearly,” Bennett answered.
He was tempted to tell her that he had been the only agent of juju where Sport Wilmette was concerned, but he refrained.
She was awfully attached to her voodoo, and it would be embarrassing for the town gangster to get buzzed to hell and back by his two hundred year old nanny.
Maggie spent most of that day fielding calls from locals who saw the foot in the paper and had questions, complaints or vaguely-related suspicions or reports. Nothing came of any of it. Some of the calls came from vacationers out on the island, though not as many as locals seemed to fear. Most of them just wanted to know what to do with any miscellaneous parts that might wash up on the beach while they were grilling their hamburgers.
By the end of the day, Maggie was entirely weary of assuring people that there was no shark involved, and it took some effort not to mention that if they did find a shark who could use an ax or a knife, Apalach would have a whole different niche in the tourist industry.
She rolled her head to loosen up her neck, and was just about to go rummage through the break room fridge for a soda when her desk phone rang again. She sighed and picked it up.
“Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, this is Lt. Redmond.”
“Maggie?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Yes, this is Maggie Redmond.”
“It’s Claire West from the Bayview.”
The Bayview Inn was a hotel and restaurant on Water Street overlooking the marina. Maggie knew Claire only slightly; her son played on Kyle’s softball team.
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