What Washes Up (5 page)

She watched Boudreaux now, as he watched her. Then he scratched gently at his left eyebrow, something she’d come to know he did when he was thinking about what to say. She waited.

“I’m going to answer your question in a way that’s meant to protect you more than it is me,” he said. “Hypothetically, if I had killed him, it wouldn’t have been because of some ridiculous attempt to blackmail me with public embarrassment. I manage my public reputation fairly well, given what many people already know about me.”

“What would the reason have been? If you had killed him?”

“It would have been because the pathetic excuse for a man stood by and watched a fifteen year old girl get brutalized.”

Maggie smelled moldy oak leaves and damp soil, heard the disgusting rhythm of Gregory Boudreaux’s breathing, and couldn’t stop her head from twitching just a little toward her shoulder. She swallowed a faint sense of nausea and had to look away for a moment.

“And you think the penalty for rape should be death?” she asked him finally.

“Don’t you?” he asked gently.

She didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t sorry that either man was dead. She folded her arms across her chest. She didn’t want to talk anymore about the subject. She was unused to it, and its foreignness left her feeling cold and unprotected.

“Did you kill Fain?”

“Did I kill Fain?” he asked, surprised. “Am I now under suspicion for every homicide that takes place?”

She didn’t answer him. He sighed and almost smiled.

“To be honest, I asked you to meet me because I thought maybe you had,” he said.

“Me?”

“It crossed my mind, yes.”

“I was with Wyatt and Deputy Dwight Shultz when that boat was set on fire.”

“But it
was
set on fire,” he said.

“What’s your point?” she asked.

“If you want a shoot a drug dealer, you do it and be done with it,” he said. “You don’t bother with symbolism.”

“Well, I didn’t do it.”

“Clearly,” he said. “But it seems to me that someone tried to make it look like you might have, someone who didn’t know you’d have such a good alibi. I could amend that by saying someone tried to make it look like
one
of us might have done it.”

“Why would someone think that you would be a likely suspect?”

“You suspected me.”

“That’s because…” Maggie trailed off, shaking her head.

“Because of what?”

“Because of this…weird relationship we have going on,” she said, not finding the words that felt more accurate.

“Well, but we’re not the only people who know about that, are we?” he asked mildly. “People have seen us at Boss, they saw you dance with me at the festival. They might not know the nature of our relationship, but there are quite a few theories going around.”

Maggie nodded slightly and then shook her head.

“What’s Wyatt’s theory? I’m sure he has one.”

“That you want me on your payroll,” she answered.

“Well, you and I have already cleared that up.”

“What is your interest, Mr. Boudreaux?” Maggie asked tiredly.

“It started because you were wronged, horribly, by someone in my family,” he answered. “Now I just like you.”

He held up a hand, though she hadn’t been ready to say anything. “It’s nothing romantic, I assure you, although that theory’s been bandied about as well.”

It had never actually occurred to Maggie that his interest would be sexual, and if the rest of their conversation wasn’t so upsetting, she would have laughed.

“Did you know Charlie Harper, Mr. Boudreaux?”

“No. I’d never heard of him until I saw his name in the paper.”

“Why would he mention your name?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question, Maggie. But I didn’t send him.”

Maggie didn’t know if she really believed him, or if she just felt like she did because she wanted to.

“I can’t keep all this from Wyatt anymore,” she said. “I can’t keep working the Wilmette case. I never should have handled your nephew’s case. I’m going to have to tell Wyatt about my connection with them.”

“Do you need to do that for professional reasons or personal ones?”

“Both.”

“You care for him. Wyatt.”

Denial was on the tip of her tongue, but who was
he
going to tell? “Yes,” she said simply.

Boudreaux nodded. “Good.”

They looked at each other a moment, then he broke the silence. “Do what you need to do, Maggie. We’ll let the chips fall where they may. I’m a lot more careful than old Sport was.”

For just a moment, Maggie felt a flash of protectiveness for Boudreaux. It confused and upset her, and she needed time and space. Space that he wasn’t in.

“I need to go,” she said shortly. “I’m sorry. Goodnight, Mr. Boudreaux.”

“Goodnight, Maggie.”

Maggie turned and walked back the way they’d come. After a few steps, though, she stopped and turned around. He was still leaning against the rail, watching her.

“For the record, I want it to be true,” she said.

“For what to be true?” he asked.

“That you didn’t try to hurt me.”

Boudreaux smiled, almost sadly. “I like that you want that.”

Maggie didn’t know why she’d felt the urge to tell him that. And she was tired to death of wondering why she felt and did and said too many things concerning Boudreaux. She headed for the park again. Halfway up the pier, fat drops of rain began to fall,
thunking
against the wood in accompaniment to her footsteps.

She didn’t find the rain as comforting as she usually did.

M
aggie turned onto the dirt drive that served her property, stopped the Jeep long enough to get out and grab the mail from the mailbox, then headed for the house.

Maggie’s dirt road was at the end of a road that ran north out of town for a few miles, angling toward the Apalachicola River, then stopped dead for no apparent reason. Her nearest neighbors were half a mile through the woods, and her little stilt house, built by her grandfather of cypress as strong as stone, sat on a promontory at the back of her five acres, which meant she could see the river from both her side and her back decks.

It was a secluded place, with a dozen chickens, a big raised bed garden, and an old dock where she kept her Grandpa’s oyster skiff and a small aluminum bass boat. It was simple, but Maggie’s father had been raised there and now she was raising her kids there and she didn’t want to be anywhere else.

Maggie pulled into the gravel turnaround in front of the house and parked. By the time she climbed out of the Jeep, her Catahoula Parish Leopard hound, Coco, was already coming down the deck stairs at a speed that looked more like suicide than descent. She wasn’t even halfway down when Stoopid appeared from somewhere under the house.

Stoopid was an Ameraucana rooster of diminutive size, but always seemed to have a great weight on his shoulders. He managed not to be trampled by Coco as he ran at Maggie, wings and neck feathers in full deployment, to advise her that it was getting dark, or that he had spotted her, or that it was raining. His messages usually tended to be vague, but urgent.

Coco arrived at Maggie first and commenced disassembling herself at Maggie’s feet, and Stoopid, who had a nervous condition, veered off at the last minute, giving Maggie one of his knock-off crows as he flung himself toward the chicken yard.

“Hey, baby,” Maggie said, as she rubbed Coco’s belly, then she headed up the stairs, Coco jingling and grinning behind her.

Maggie set her purse and the mail down on the old cypress dining table just inside the front door. The dining area and living area were one open room, which the storm clouds had made darker than it usually was at this hour in the summer, but the kids had left one lamp burning on the side table.

Maggie and Coco walked down the short hallway off of the living room, and Maggie quickly peeled off her clothes and climbed into the shower. Her conversation with Boudreaux had made a shower seem even more necessary than it usually did at the end of the day.

Once she’d run the hot water empty, Maggie changed into clean khaki shorts and a white tee shirt, and poured herself a glass of Muscadine wine. She took a decent swallow of it before carrying it through the living room and the sliding glass door out to the deck. Coco, tags clinking, settled down beside Maggie as she sat down at the small round table.

Maggie had begun to calm halfway through her shower, and she’d managed to quiet her mind to the point that she could think.

She’d always been good, sometimes too good, at compartmentalizing her feelings. Though affectionate and warm by nature, it was very easy for her to put away feelings that overwhelmed her, be they fear or anxiety or anger.

It was an aftereffect of the rape that she considered some small recompense for the occasional flashback or nightmare. Some people would consider it a symptom; she considered it a tool.

Maggie couldn’t help believing in her gut that Boudreaux had been honest with her about Charlie Harper. On the ride home, and in the shower, she had replayed Boudreaux’s words and expressions and, even though she was always wary of believing something she wanted to believe, she felt he was telling the truth.

She’d turned Charlie Harper’s words around and around in her head, contrasting them with what she felt in her gut to be true. What she’d finally decided was that Fain had known somehow that Boudreaux had pointed suspicion toward him, and that, in doing so, he had created a “mess.” As far as any prior messes, Maggie didn’t really care.

She was on her second glass of wine, which she was drinking more slowly, when Wyatt pulled into the yard and parked next to Maggie’s Cherokee. Coco’s backside vibrated on the planks of the deck, and she accidentally let out a small squeal, like a kid letting a little bit of helium out of a balloon.

“Go ahead,” Maggie said, and Coco bolted for the stairs.

Maggie walked to the top of the deck stairs and watched as Coco excitedly greeted Wyatt, who bent down and gave her a rub before heading for the stairs. He nearly trod upon Stoopid, who had barreled out to advise him of something important.

“Geez, Stoopid, take a Xanax,” he mumbled as he headed for the stairs. He looked up and saw Maggie. “Hey,” he said, as he started up.

“Hey,” Maggie said.

Wyatt had showered, and his hair was still a bit damp. She noticed his impressively thick mustache looked freshly trimmed. He was wearing faded jeans and a white button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the tails out. She thought he was perhaps the most casually handsome man she’d ever met, and she wished this was their second date. For just a moment, she considered changing her plans for the evening.

Wyatt stopped a couple of steps below her, which put them eye to eye. He put a hand on either stair rail.

“So, I was thinking,” he said. “Whatever it is you want to talk about, I already know it’s not good, so why don’t we go ahead and have a nice kiss and a hug now, in case one or both of us doesn’t feel like it later? Unless, what you want to tell me is that you’ve decided to skip this whole thing with us.”

“No. Of course not,” she said quietly.

“Well, then brace yourself,” he said.

He slipped an arm around her waist and tugged her to him, then kissed her. It was warm and gentle and firm, and becoming very familiar. She’d known him very well for six years, but in recent weeks he had become familiar in completely new ways. The way his wavy brown hair felt between her fingers, the way his lips felt, how he tasted faintly of brown sugar.

For her entire life, Maggie had loved a man who was slightly built and only stood five nine. The first time Wyatt had held her, it had felt like visiting a foreign country. Now, he was beginning to feel a little bit like home. She would have liked to have enjoyed the moment more, but there was a weight of dread in her chest that kept her from it.

Wyatt took his mouth from hers, gave her a quick kiss on the neck, then straightened up and bounced on the step, which trembled and creaked beneath him. “You need to fix this thing,” he said, frowning.

“Yeah,” Maggie said. “I know.” David had been planning to do it. “Do you want a glass of wine?” she asked Wyatt.

“Sure,” he said, and followed her inside, Coco on his heels.

They walked into the kitchen, and Maggie poured Wyatt a glass of wine at the small butcher block island, then led him back into the living room. She slowed by the couch, then passed it and sat down on the window seat that David had built when Sky was a toddler. Coco sat at her feet and watched Wyatt, who stopped and stood near the couch.

“Well. I see this is going to be bad,” he said.

“Why?”

“We’re not going to sit on the couch,” he said. He took a good swallow of his wine. “How much wine do we have?

“Probably not enough,” she said quietly.

Wyatt walked over to the coffee table across from her and sat down on it. He watched her take a big drink of her own.

“Tell me,” he said.

Maggie looked up at him and swallowed hard. It took a moment for her to say it, and Wyatt watched her, frowning.

“I never should have been on the Gregory Boudreaux case,” she finally said. “And I should have told you that at the scene when you asked me if I knew him.”