“You were in pain. Shock as well, I expect.”
Maggie looked down at him as he looked around the yard. Why did she like this man? More accurately, why did she want so much for it to be okay to like him? And, after thirty-seven years of living in the same small town, passing each other on the sidewalk, or sitting on the same bay, how did he so quickly become a central character in her life? It was not her nature to be drawn to anything that might imperil her.
“Would you like to come up?” she asked anyway.
“Yes. Thank you.”
She and Coco stepped out onto the front deck as Boudreaux ascended the stairs, his deck shoes only making noise when he hit the seventh step. The post beneath it had weakened or settled, and David had been planning to come replace it.
Boudreaux looked down at the tread as it wobbled. “You should get your father to fix that,” he said, as he stepped onto the deck.
Coco, seeing that Maggie was okay with the stranger, wagged her back half from a seated position, and looked up at him with a semi-enthusiastic smile. Maggie could tell that Coco wanted to like him, but wasn’t sure she should. Maggie understood the confusion.
She led him over to the table and chairs on the side deck. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“If you’re having one,” he answered.
“I think so. It’s Muscadine. Is that all right?”
“Really.” He almost smiled. “That would be nice.”
“Coco, stay,” Maggie said, and Coco sat next to the nearest chair as Maggie walked into the house. Through the window, she saw Boudreaux sit down in the opposite chair. If her world had not turned inside out, she would have felt the oddness of his being there more keenly.
She grabbed the bottle from the counter and two glasses from the rack, and headed back out. As she did, she saw Boudreaux with his hand stretched toward Coco, and Coco with her head stretched toward his hand. They lacked four good inches to make contact.
She set the wine and glasses down on the table. “You can say hi, Coco.”
Coco lifted her butt from the deck, just enough to sniff Boudreaux’s hand. He smiled, scratched at the side of her head, and then Coco sat back down as Maggie sat.
Maggie poured the wine and handed Boudreaux a glass. They both took a sip. For the first time, she noticed that almost every time they had a conversation, it was accompanied by a drink. It was an anomaly for her, someone who really didn’t drink that much or that often.
Boudreaux lowered his glass and cradled it in his lap, then looked beyond her somewhere. “I remember, twenty-two, twenty-three years ago, back when Craig played baseball. I loved it when his team played David’s, and when they didn’t, if David’s team followed them or something, I would watch David’s team play. He was so graceful, that kid.”
Maggie took a swallow of her wine to hide a lip that threatened to tremble.
“I remember seeing you there, too,” he said, and Maggie looked up at him. “Cheering him on like he was a gladiator, getting this proud little smile when he slammed one out past center field or slid into home. Getting worked up when there was a bad call.”
He smiled kindly at her. “I thought it was touching.”
Maggie lowered her eyes to her glass.
“I’m truly and deeply sorry, Maggie,” Boudreaux said, and when she looked up, it was as though his smile had never been there. His incredible, almost impossibly blue eyes looked right through her skin and muscle and bone.
“Thank you,” she almost whispered.
They stared at each other, and while it wasn’t specifically uncomfortable, it was unusually intense. There were times like these, when they were alone and he looked right at her, that she was within an inch of asking him some truly honest questions. It was as though his gaze was an invitation and he would actually give her honest answers, but only if and when she asked the questions.
But there were too many, and the answers might not be what she was prepared to hear or, more accurately, act on.
“Have you been apprised of the developments regarding your ex-husband, Maggie?” he asked softly.
It took her a moment to answer. “Do you mean that David’s boat was intentionally blown up?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, that is what I mean.”
“How do you know that?”
He turned his glass around in his hands. “Friends.”
“Law enforcement friends?”
“Some.”
“Do you know who hurt David?”
“No. And you may choose to believe this or not, but I would tell you if I did.”
Maggie thought that might, in fact, be true.
“But I think I know why,” he added.
“Why?”
Boudreaux leaned his elbows on the table, his glass in his hands. “He paid cash for a forty thousand dollar boat.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me,” Boudreaux said. “I was buying his shrimp again, just like old times.”
Maggie and Wyatt had discussed that very thing, but Maggie felt the need to speak up for David. “He’d told me before that he was saving up. He also said he got a good deal from a guy in Mobile, in exchange for helping him rebuild a motor.”
“And he might have,” Boudreaux said. “But David was a small time transporter, running moderate amounts of medium-grade marijuana to Gainesville, a city that pays middle-of-the-pack wholesale prices.”
“I thought you weren’t involved in the drug business.”
“I’m not. But that doesn’t mean I don’t do some business with people who earn some of their money that way, or know people who earn their money doing business with those people.”
“Mr. Boudreaux,” Maggie send, leaning forward. “Do you know who David was working for?”
He drummed a thumb against his glass. “It probably won’t surprise you to learn that most of the middle-sized distributors of pot in Gainesville are stupid almost to the point of needing assisted living. Among the especially stupid is someone who thinks that a few thousand dollars is worth publicly blowing up the ex-husband of a cop.”
Boudreaux took a drink of his wine. “I understand that, statistically, most psychotics have high IQs. However, I know of someone in Gainesville who is both psychotic and stupid. And that someone just lost a middleman.”
“What kind of middleman?”
“The kind that takes delivery of product, pays the freight, then delivers the product to his boss. He, in turn, gets a nice fee for being the moron who’s standing in one place at some point with both a large amount of money and a large amount of pot.”
“What happened to this guy?”
“He got burned to a crisp in a 1973 Plymouth Fury.” Boudreaux took another drink of his wine. “As I hear it, he had neither pot nor money with him. So, either he was killed for stealing, or he was killed so someone else could steal.”
“David wouldn’t kill anyone!’ Maggie said.
“I wouldn’t really think so. But maybe he took something. Maybe both of them did. Either way, both of them are dead.”
Maggie took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. “Who is the other guy? The guy in the car?”
“His name was Myron Graham. He was killed three weeks ago.”
“Do you know who he worked for?”
“Let me ask you something before I decide how to answer that question,” Boudreaux said. “If I give you a name, are you going to give that information to Sheriff Hamilton or run off on your own?”
Maggie held his gaze. Maybe they would touch on some of her questions after all. “Do you think I’m the vengeful type, Mr. Boudreaux?”
“We’re all the vengeful type, Maggie. And you and I have discussed the distinction between law and justice before. One isn’t always more moral than the other.”
Maggie thought that was pretty much another question within an answer, something Boudreaux had turned into an art.
“I have children to take care of, Mr. Boudreaux. I would ha
nd the information over to Wyatt.”
Boudreaux’s eyes got a bit of a sparkle to them, for just a moment, and he leaned his chin on his hand. “Wyatt.”
Maggie declined to respond to that and Boudreaux sat back. “He worked for a few people. Among them a psychotic named Rupert Fain.”
Maggie stared into her wine. “I don’t suppose you happened to see any of these people from Gainesville at Riverfront Park.”
“No. I didn’t. But I don’t know that I would recognize them anyway.”
Maggie looked up at him. “Why were you there? You usually don’t go to 3rd of July.”
“I went because Lily didn’t want to go,” Boudreaux said. “That’s usually reason enough for me to go anywhere.”
“Wyatt’s wife’s name was Lily.”
“Yes, I know. From what I’ve heard, he loved her deeply, so I would say they weren’t grown from the same plant.”
He sat back and sighed. “Maggie, David was a good man. I liked him. I know I told you this before, that day at your son’s game, but he made some bad decisions for some good reasons.”
Maggie’s chest hurt from how much she wanted him to take those decisions back.
He looked Maggie in the eye, and he looked almost wistful. “It’s not hard to get caught up in a riptide, even if you’re a strong swimmer. You just have to pay a little less attention to where you’re going.”
Maggie pulled onto Bluff Road, with Coco on the passenger seat and her bags in the trunk. She picked up her cell and dialed Wyatt’s number.
‘Hey,” he answered.
“I need you to get a pen,” Maggie said.
“Okay,” Wyatt said after a few seconds.
“So, a few weeks ago, a guy named Myron Graham got roasted in his car in Gainesville. He worked for some psycho dealer named Rupert Fain.”
“Why do you know this?”
“Just listen. So, the prevailing theory is that this guy Myron ripped Fain off, or that someone else ripped Myron off and killed him. He was the guy that David was delivering to. I think.”
“Have you been talking to David’s cousin? Because I’m still trying to get hold of the guy and now I’m sorta pissed, because I asked you to stay out of it.”
“I did stay out of it. I haven’t talked to Mark.”
“So where did you get this information?”
“Someone volunteered it.”
“Were you pointing anything at them?”
“Wyatt, I haven’t been out of my house until this moment.”
“Where are you going?”
“My parents’ house. I need you to check this out, okay?”
“I am checking it out,” Wyatt said. “ I’m looking this guy up right—okay, so Graham, Myron, a three-time loser for possession with intent, was found melted down to laundry soap in a junk car in some warehouse district. On…the 14th.”
Maggie heard Wyatt slowly tapping at his keyboard. “Does it say he worked for this guy Fain?”
“It says…known associations include Rupert Fain.” Maggie heard some more tapping. “Fain, Rupert looks like a real winner. Two stretches for distribution, one for slicing up somebody’s face back in 2011. Oh, and here’s an interesting tidbit. Graham, Myron used to live in Eastpoint up until five years ago. In fact, he was charged with a third ‘possession with’ in March, 2009. Our favorite asshat, Patrick Boudreaux, was the prosecutor, but the charges were dropped due to search and seizure issues.”
Maggie thought about that a minute, but there were too many things it could mean. And not mean. Patrick was the Assistant State’s Attorney, and Boudreaux’s older son. The other son, Craig, was a criminal defense attorney. Lots of people thought that was hilarious.
“Where’d you get it, Maggie?”
“I can’t say, Wyatt. I’m sorry.”
“Is it an informant?”
“Sort of.”
Wyatt was quiet for a moment. Maggie honestly didn’t know why she didn’t want to tell him the information had come from Boudreaux.
“I really don’t want this to be a problem for us,” Maggie said.
“Neither do I.”
“Will you let me know what you find out?”
“At this point, I’m thinking I’ll let you know when it’s over.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” Maggie said, but she felt a twinge of fear that she was hurting her relationship with Wyatt before they’d had a chance to have one.
“Of course it is,” he said, but not unkindly.
Maggie wasn’t sure what to say to that, or what to say next at all.
“Go to your parents’,” he said. “Get some damn sleep.”
“They’re taking the kids up to my aunt’s condo in Destin. I’m just going to say goodbye.”
“Maybe you should go, too.”
“No. I’m coming back to work tomorrow. I’ll stay out of your way, just work on Wilmette.”
Wyatt was quiet so long that she was afraid he was going to force her to stay out on leave.
“Wyatt, please. With the kids gone, I’ll need to stay busy until you fix this thing with David.”
After a moment, Wyatt sighed. “Okay. But only if you get some sleep first. You’re in no shape to be working a case.”
“I will.”
“You can call me if you need to,” he said quietly.
“I’ll do that, too,” she said.
She disconnected the call, and took a big swallow of the coffee she’d brought with her.
It had been almost three days since she’d slept, and she could feel her reasoning and her focus slipping. Wyatt was right. She was in no shape for anything. She just didn’t know how to stop.
When Maggie got to her parents’ home, she spent several minutes holding and talking to her kids. Then they all sat down at the kitchen table, and Maggie explained what she knew about what had happened to David. She had thought telling her children she’d asked their Dad to leave was the hardest thing she’d ever done. But telling them that he’d been stolen from them was immeasurably harder.
Georgia was the first one to speak when Maggie finished.
“I’m going to say one thing,” she said. “I don’t believe David hurt anybody.”
“I don’t either, Mom.”
“I don’t think he stole anything, either,” Georgia said.
“Well, I bet you never thought he’d start running drugs for people, either,” Sky said quietly.
Maggie frowned as Georgia’s eyes teared. “Sky!”
Sky looked apologetically at her grandmother. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “It’s just all so freaking crazy.”
She looked down at her oddly silent phone on the table, and Maggie saw her blinking away tears. “I remember when my dad was just a normal guy. He went to work every night and he came back every morning. He was a shrimper.”
“He was a shrimper when he died, too, baby, and don’t you forget it,” Georgia said, placing a hand on Sky’s. “He was a shrimper.”
Gray cleared his throat. “We should get on the road. We’ll take your mother’s car. Sky, Kyle, why don’t you take your bags out to the garage, huh? Then we’ll say our goodbyes.”
After the kids had gone down the hall to the bedrooms, Gray looked at Maggie.
“I understand why you’re not coming, Maggie, but I don’t like it.”
“Do you think the kids understand?”
They do,” Georgia said. “Sky does.”
Maggie felt the weight of guilt press on her as she thought of her little boy, mourning one parent while the other sent him away.
Gray laid a hand on top of his daughter’s. “You take care of this business, and we’ll take care of them. Then we’ll be home.”
A few minutes later, Maggie pressed each child to her in turn, then made them get in the car before she could decide it was okay for them to stay.
Once she couldn’t see the car anymore, or her children’s heads in the back of it, Maggie smacked t
he button for the garage door, and she and Coco watched it go down. The house was painfully empty when Maggie went back inside. She hadn’t been alone there since she was a teenager. Everyone she loved had been there just a moment ago, and the silence they’d left her in was deafening.
She made sure that her dad had locked all the windows and the door out to the deck, then Coco followed her down the hall to the bedrooms. Maggie couldn’t help but slow down along the way.
One entire wall of the hallway was covered with family photos. Maggie in first grade, one front tooth missing. Sky in first grade right next to it, missing both front teeth. Maggie and David at eleven, standing in the back of Daddy’s oyster skiff with their arms around each other’s shoulders. Prom night, David in the gray tux that he’d slowly disassembled throughout the evening. Maggie and David holding newborn Skylar Nicole. Maggie, David and little Sky with newborn Kyle Gray.
Maggie stopped in front of a picture that had always been her favorite, but that she had learned not to see in recent years. David and Daddy sitting on the dock out back, David playing his guitar, and Gray smiling behind his harmonica.
Maggie breathed in through her nose, and slowly out her mouth, then walked into her old bedroom, now the room where the Kyle stayed when the kids slept over. She took her service weapon out of the holster on her back, set it on the nightstand, and then sat down on the edge of the bed. Coco whined, and Maggie patted the bed. Coco jumped up and sat next to her.
The house was completely silent, except for the ticking of the AC as it shut down. But the photos out in the hallway suddenly had their own brand of loudness. If Coco hadn’t been there, Maggie would have sworn she was completely alone in the world.
She picked her weapon up again and walked out of the room.
Maggie sat in the car, her head back on the headrest, eyes closed. Coco sat in the passenger seat, her nose pointed at the small gap in her window, sniffing at the unfamiliar surroundings and the metallic scent of forthcoming rain. Gentle thunder rumbled in the distance, and Maggie could hear the dry rustle of palm fronds along the driveway.
She heard Coco whine just a little, and Maggie reached over and put a hand on one of her paws. Then a gentle tap on her window made her jump.
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