Awash (The Forgotten Coast Florida Suspense Series Book 6) (5 page)

She turned her attention back to Paulette. The woman was occupying her hands by tapping her cigarette pack end over end on the table. Maggie didn’t know if she was nervous, or just needed to smoke already.

“How long has Zoe been living with you?” she asked her.

“Since February,” the woman answered without looking up. “About a month after her mama died.”

“Where was she before then?” Maggie asked.

Paulette tapped the cigarette pack on the table a few times before answering. “She stayed for a while with the lady that took care of her mama,” she answered finally. “The nurse they had come in.”

Maggie looked up from her pad. “Why wasn’t she staying with family?” she asked politely.

“Her mom’s family won’t have nothing to do with her, ‘cause she married a black man,” Paulette answered. “I’m the only one anywhere close on our side of the family.”

“So she stayed with the nurse for a while, and then she came to stay with you.”

“The lady couldn’t keep her anymore,” Paulette answered. “One of her kids moved back home, something like that.”

“How did Zoe feel about moving back here?” Maggie asked.

The other woman shrugged a little. “She didn’t seem to care either way,” she answered. “Long as she had her books.” She looked up at Maggie quickly. “That’s all legal and everything. She started homeschooling once her mama got real sick. I tried to get her to go back to school when she came here, but she wouldn’t have it. I knew there was no point in trying to make her go.”

“How are her grades?” Maggie asked. “Does she do well in school?”

“Girl gets straight A’s,” the woman answered. “She’s always got her nose in those books.”

Maggie tapped the end of her pen against her pad for a moment. “Do you teach her?”

“Girl, no,” the woman said without humor. “I gotta work. Besides, I didn’t do so well in school.”

“So she studies all day while you’re at work?”

“Yeah. Mostly she studies at home, sometimes she walks over to the library. She gets a lot of library books, for other stuff she wants to study.”

“What about friends? Does she have many friends?”

The other woman looked up at her for a moment and look back down at her cigarette pack. “Naw, not really. She doesn’t seem to care about that.” The woman flipped her cigarette pack open and closed a few times before continuing. “She went to church for little while, over there at Holiness. But she stopped after a little while.”

“Okay.” Maggie tapped her pen against her notepad as she thought a moment. “Have you noticed anyone that you don’t know hanging around the neighborhood lately? Anyone that seems kind of out of place?”

The woman shook her head slowly. “No, not that I noticed.”

“What about new service people or companies?” Maggie asked. “Maybe a new lawn guy, somebody from the cable company going door to door?”

Paulette seem to think a moment, staring at the cigarette pack in her hand. Then she shook her head.

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “But I’m gone during the daytime, you know?”

Maggie nodded at her. “Okay, what about people that you’ve had over to the house? Friends of friends, anybody like that. Anyone seem to pay special attention to Zoe?”

“You mean people I know?” Paulette asked, her voice raised slightly. She sat up a little bit straighter. “Look, I might not be the best guardian,” she said. “There’s a reason I never had any kids. I’m not the mother type. I’m just trying to do what I’m supposed to do. But I don’t have friends over to the house much, and when I do it’s my girlfriends and so on. Men don’t come to the house.” She slapped at her chest for emphasis. “This ain’t somebody I brought to my house.”

Maggie held up a hand. “Ms. Boatwright, we have to look at anybody that could’ve come into contact with Zoe, no matter how they came into contact with her,” she said. “It’s not a judgment against you, or the people you know.”

At this, the woman seem to rest back into her chair little bit, placated. Maggie chewed at the corner of her lip for a moment as she thought.

“Somebody noticed Zoe,” Maggie said finally. “Somebody took notice of her, whenever, wherever, for whatever reason. It doesn’t matter why. It doesn’t matter what it is about her. All that matters is that he hurt her, and it’s my job to stick him in jail for it.”

The women stared at each other for a moment, each assessing the other. Then Paulette nodded at Maggie.

“Yeah, it is. And you do it.” She flipped her cigarette pack end over end for a moment. “I might not be the nurturing type,” she said. “But she’s still my family, and she didn’t do nothing wrong. You make sure you nail his ass.”

W
hen Zoe finally came out of the shower, she was wearing baggy sweats that looked comforting, although a little too warm for the weather. Maggie took the two of them to Papa Joe’s for an early lunch, avoiding much discussion and watching as Zoe quietly ate a bowl of seafood bisque. Then she took them across the John Gorrie Bridge, which crossed the bay from Apalachicola to Eastpoint, where the Sheriff’s Office was located.

Maggie filed her initial report while, down the hall, Zoe worked with Jake, who used the police sketch software to come up with an image of the masked attacker that might be accurate, but would be of little help. Then she took the two Boatwright women back across the bridge, got them settled back into their room at the Best Western, and drove downtown.

She parked her Jeep in one of the diagonal parking spaces in front of the Apalachicola Coffee Company on Market Street. It was almost one, and the compact historic downtown was in full flux. The Florida Seafood Festival was the next Friday and Saturday, and people were already starting to arrive in town.

By Thursday, pretty much every hotel room and vacation rental would be full, as thousands of people descended on Apalach to attend the state’s oldest maritime festival. Old couples, teenagers, and families with children would spend that two days eating as much local seafood as possible, watching or participating in the oyster eating and oyster shucking contests, enjoying the carnival rides, and crowding around the stage for live concerts.

Maggie turned off the engine and sat in the Cherokee for a moment. She watched a middle-aged couple in khaki shorts and bright polo shirts pause a few doors down in front of the Old-Time Soda Fountain, waiting patiently as their pug got a long drink from the stone dog fountain on the brick sidewalk. It was just one of several such accommodations that local shop owners made for the dogs.

The bell over the door tingled as a couple in their mid-20s came out of the Apalachicola Coffee Company, each of them cradling a to-go cup in their hands. A few parking spaces down, two women in their 30s pulled their golf cart in, shut it off, and walked into a tiny boutique. Traffic downtown was rarely a nuisance. Because it was so compact, covering only three or four blocks in any direction, most people, locals and visitors alike, preferred to walk, ride old-fashioned pastel-colored bicycles, or tool around on golf carts provided by local rental companies.

Maggie heard the bell over the front door of the Apalachicola Coffee Company jangle once more, and she looked over to see the proprietor, George, standing in the open doorway.

“You just gonna sit out there or what?” he asked her gruffly.

Maggie got out of the Jeep and tossed him a look. “I’m coming,” she said.

George turned around and walked back into the shop, leaving the door open for Maggie. She walked in and practically sucked on the air, filled with the aroma of freshly roasted coffee beans.

The Apalachicola Coffee Company was one of Maggie’s favorite downtown businesses, coffee notwithstanding. With soaring ceilings and dozens of burlap coffee sacks hanging from the exposed brick walls, it was industrial chic without pretense.

The left side of the shop boasted glass ice cream freezers filled with homemade gelato, and long glass cases displaying expensive, but worthwhile, handmade chocolates. But it was the back of the shop that interested Maggie, and she walked toward the back counter, where George waited next to his elaborate espresso machine. Maggie threaded her way through a grouping of small round tables and approached the empty counter. There were just a few people sitting and enjoying their coffee or their ice cream, and Maggie was relieved that she wouldn’t have to wait. Her head throbbed from a lack of caffeine, and she could feel her humanity diminishing with each un-caffeinated moment.

George, a solid, stocky man with a full head of gray hair and a consistently hangdog expression, waited for her with his palms resting on the counter.

“What’ll it be, my dear?” he asked her almost wearily.

“What did you roast this morning?” she asked him.

“I got some nice Kenya, and I got Oysterman’s Choice,” he answered. “I’m guessing you want the Oysterman’s.”

“Yes, please,” she answered, then her eyes narrowed slightly. “Three shots.”

George sighed softly at her before answering. “You don’t need three shots,” he said without much enthusiasm. They’d had this conversation many times before. “This isn’t Sissybucks, and the latte already comes with two shots,” he said. “As you know.”

“George, I’m the owner of several large-caliber weapons,” Maggie said mildly.

“That’s impressive,” he said, in a tone that said it wasn’t. “I’m the owner of this fine machine.”

They stared at each other a moment, neither one of them blinking. George let out a slight sigh.

“I suppose you want it not too hot,” he said.

“Yes, please.”

“Because you need it now,” he said.

“Yes, I do.”

George stepped over to the espresso machine. “Anything else?” he asked, like he expected the answer to be negative.

“I need a latte for Sheriff Hamilton, too,” she said.

He paused, a scoop of coffee beans in his hand, and looked up at her. “I suppose he wants three shots.”

“Picture a giraffe on meth,” Maggie said.

“Regular it is.”

When Maggie stepped back out onto the sidewalk, a latte in each hand, she found Wyatt waiting for her.

He had parked his truck next to her Jeep, and was leaning back against his grill, arms folded across his chest. When he saw her, he pushed off and joined her on the sidewalk, his eyes focused greedily on the cups in her hand. She held his out to him and he took it from her eagerly.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” she said back. “What time are you meeting Daddy?”

“I told him I’d be over there in a few minutes,” Wyatt answered. “Want to sit a minute?”

“Sure.”

They both dropped onto the bench in front of the shop, though Wyatt had to drop a significantly greater distance.

“What are you guys going out for?” Maggie asked.

Wyatt took a long swallow of his coffee and sighed appreciatively. “Gray wants to go out to St. Vincent Island for some speckled trout.”

“I’m making lasagna just in case.”

“Are you saying I’m not gonna catch enough for dinner?”

Maggie gave him a generic shrug.

“I’m sort of offended,” he said mildly.

“Okay.”

“So are we still on for dinner, then?” Wyatt asked her.

“Yeah, why not?” she answered.

It was Wyatt’s turn to shrug.

“Wyatt, it’s just a case,” Maggie said.

“It’s a rape. And you know the girl.”

“I did.”

“Nonetheless, I’m sure it sucks,” he said.

“Every case sucks, Wyatt,” Maggie said. “Maybe I should have been the one to quit the job.”

“I’m not quitting,” Wyatt said.

“You know what I mean.”

“And what would you do? Start cashiering at the Piggly-Wiggly?”

Maggie sighed. “I don’t know. But there are plenty of working women in this town who aren’t cops.”

“I’m happy with my decision,” Wyatt said, and took a long drink of his coffee.

Maggie looked over at him. “Yeah?”

“Yes. I’m not too excited about this whole appointment thing, though.”

Once Wyatt had convinced the county commissioners to allow him to make the job change, it was assumed that someone in the department would be promoted to the position of Sheriff for the two years remaining in Wyatt’s tenure. However, it appeared that the governor was going to exercise his option to appoint someone.