Riptide (8 page)

Maggie looked at him, as a heavy weight settled in her chest.
 

“Ta da,” Wyatt said weakly. “You’re not as excited by all this timesaving news as I wanted you to be.”

“Yeah, well.” Maggie flicked her pen a few times. “It would seem that Brandon Wilmette wasn’t some tourist. He was here for Gregory Boudreaux’s funeral.”

“How’d you find that out?”

“I stopped by the flower shop.”

“Huh.” Wyatt folded himself into the metal chair in front of her desk and took a drink of his Mountain Dew.
 
“Huh,” he said again.
 

He looked at Maggie, but she didn’t want to look him in the eye at the moment, so she stared at her pen.
 

“So what’s your plan?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, finally looking up. “I guess I’m going to go talk to Bennett Boudreaux.”

Wyatt smiled. “Ah, yes, Uncle Bennett. Your new buddy and Cajun jitterbug partner.”

“He’s not my buddy,” Maggie said half-heartedly. “But he can probably tell us something about Wilmette.”

Wyatt regarded her for a moment and Maggie stared back at him until she became uncomfortable with it.

“What?” she asked.

“You and Boudreaux. It’s problematic.”

Maggie knew that, but she asked anyway. “In what way?”

“Well, first you’re seen sucking down oysters with him at Boss Oyster—”

“That was work.”

“I know that. Then you’re dancing with him at the Cajun festival—”

“That was relief from work.”

“I know that, too.”

“He danced with a lot of respectable women.”

“Nevertheless, all this has raised a few eyebrows,” Wyatt said mildly. “Some people think Boudreaux has his heart set on having you in his pocket, since Bellows is now playing shuffleboard down in the Keys.”

Gordon Bellows had been Maggie’s predecessor, and was generally known to have been on Boudreaux’s payroll, though nothing was ever proven.

“He’s not trying to get me in his pocket.”

“How do you know?”

“I asked him.”

“Well. That’s a nice, frank relationship you guys have going so far.”

“It’s really not a relationship, Wyatt.” Maggie didn’t care to mention that she’d also gone to Boudreaux to try to get help for Grace Carpenter, or that Boudreaux had actually tried to give it.

“Well, let’s be clear,” Wyatt said. He leaned over to peek out into the hallway before he spoke again, more softly. “I’m not worried about competition from a sixty-something year old man, but I am worried that he’s after something.”

“He seems to like me for some reason,” Maggie said.

“Oh, that I don’t doubt,” Wyatt said. “But I don’t think Boudreaux does anything simply because he likes, or even dislikes, someone. No disrespect to your charms, but he wants something.”

Maggie looked back down at her desk. Wyatt was right, of course, but she wasn’t able to tell Wyatt any of the reasons that he might be correct. She hadn’t told him about her connection to Gregory, although she should have done so the minute they found hm on the beach. But she’d never told anyone, not even her parents. Not even David. Now it seemed too late to do that.
 

So, she couldn’t tell Wyatt that she thought Boudreaux suspected her of killing Gregory, or that maybe he intended to repay her for it, or to use it against her as leverage in some way. She’d just have to leave Wyatt in the dark, and she was feeling increasingly bad, and increasingly worried, about that.

It also bothered her that she was starting to like Boudreaux enough to hope that he just liked her, despite what he knew and what he might suspect. It bothered her that she liked him at all.

Maggie looked back up at Wyatt, who was still watching her. “Well, I’m going to go talk to him.”

“Maybe I should go, too.”

“No. I think he’ll speak more freely if it’s just me,” Maggie said. “We do have some kind of weird honesty thing going on.”

Wyatt looked at her for a minute, then took a swig of his soda. “Okay. But if we pull one single case this year that
doesn’t
have something to do with Boudreaux, I think you should start distancing yourself.”

Maggie nodded, but she wondered if she meant it, exactly.

B
ennett Boudreaux lived in a large but unassuming white frame house in the Historic District. Although the property took up almost an entire city lot and was owned by the richest man in town, it was curiously lacking in pomp and arrogance.
 

A wide porch wrapped around the entire house, with hanging baskets of flowers spaced periodically between the white wicker chairs and rockers, and the yard was filled with bougainvillea, hibiscus, and hydrangea in every conceivable color.

Maggie pulled into the oyster shell driveway behind Bennett’s gray Mercedes S-class and turned off the engine. She saw Amelia look up from where she was sweeping the porch, then go back to her work. Maggie walked up to the porch and climbed the three wide, brick steps.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “It’s Amelia, isn’t it?”
 

Amelia gave her just a glance, not sullen, exactly, but clearly disinterested. “Yes,” she said, then went back to sweeping.

“Is Mr. Boudreaux at home? His office said he wasn’t in today.”

Amelia didn’t stop sweeping, but she slowed up a bit. “Mr. Boudreaux on the back porch.”

Maggie pointed beyond Amelia to the corner of the porch. “That way?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Maggie said, then walked past the tall, cocoa-colored woman in the plumeria-covered housedress.
 

Her hiking boots clumped along the gray-painted wood planks of the porch as she made her way past more white furniture, more hanging flowers. Huge, twelve-pane windows revealed glimpses of ship’s lathe walls and overstuffed, floral furniture. Much more feminine than Maggie would have assumed for Boudreaux, but then she remembered he had a fancy wife.

As she closed in on the back of the house, Maggie could hear Boudreaux speaking. When she rounded the corner, she saw him standing at a small white wrought-iron table. Seated at the table was the smallest, oldest woman Maggie had ever seen, and she realized that this must be Amelia’s mother, the one few people had seen in the last couple of decades.
 

The little woman looked up as Maggie approached, her eyes enormous behind Coke bottle glasses. She wore a yellow bandana on her head and a faded, flowered housedress much like her daughter’s.
 

Boudreaux looked over his shoulder at Maggie and smiled. She was struck again by how handsome he was. He wasn’t over five foot seven or eight, but he was trim in his khaki trousers and lilac cotton shirt, and there was just a touch of silver in his full head of thick, golden-brown hair. But mostly, it was the eyes. They were the bluest eyes Maggie had ever seen, and he had a way of looking so intently at someone that it was like being pinned to a corkboard and examined.

“Well, hello, Maggie,” Boudreaux said as she approached.

“Hello, Mr. Boudreaux,” Maggie answered. Boudreaux was peeling one of several different types of mango on a cutting board. “I’m sorry, are you eating?”

“No, we’re just having some mangoes. Come on over.” He stood up straight as Maggie stopped at the table, then indicated Miss Evangeline with a hand.

“Maggie, this is Miss Evangeline,” he said, then looked at the birdlike little woman. “And this is Maggie Redmond. She’s with the Sheriff’s Office.”

“I know who de chile is,” Miss Evangeline said, craning her neck to look up at Maggie.
 

“Yes, well…Maggie, our Carrie mangoes have just ripened. You need to taste this one,” he said.
 

Before Maggie could respond, Boudreaux held out a wickedly-sharp looking knife with a perfectly orange slice of mango atop it.

“You do like mangoes, Maggie?”

“I love them, actually,” she said and gingerly lifted the fruit from the blade.

“Ever’ body love the mango,” Miss Evangeline said.

Maggie put the fruit into her mouth and was instantly infatuated. It was completely fiberless, and the sweetest mango she could remember tasting. Her eyes shut against her will. Boudreaux saw this and smiled.
 

“It’s really something, isn’t it?”

Maggie swallowed and opened her eyes. “What’s it called?”

“Carrie. It’s an original Florida cultivar. Believe it or not, it’s from one of the little potted trees.”

He turned and pointed at one of a dozen small, potted mangoes that stood in two neat rows in front of a group of maybe twelve, full-sized trees. Boudreaux was known for cultivating mangoes in a part of Florida that was generally believed to be too far north. He had the fans, heaters, blankets and tarps to do it.

“It’s amazing.”

Boudreaux smiled and slid several slices onto an acrylic plate and set it in front of Miss Evangeline, who peered at it intently before turning her thick eyeglasses up to Boudreaux.

“I want some of the big one, too, me.”

“The San Felipe,” Boudreaux said, slicing another fruit.

“I don’ need to know his name,” Miss Evangeline said as she watched him cut it.

Maggie watched as Boudreaux cut the fruit from the seed in a few quick motions, then slid it onto Miss Evangeline’s plate. Then Boudreaux wiped his hands on a wet towel and looked up at Maggie.

“I was just about to have a mojito. Care to join me?”

Maggie started to say she couldn’t, but said “Yes” instead.

Boudreaux stepped behind a small, butcher block bar and pulled some mint leaves from a small potted plant. Miss Evangeline was eating her mango with her fingers, and had turned her attention to an open magazine, her face just a few inches from the page.

“So, Maggie,” Boudreaux said, as he crushed the mint with a marble mortar and pestle. “What brings you by?”

Maggie glanced over at the old woman again before answering. “Brandon Wilmette.” Boudreaux glanced up from his mint, then looked back down. “Do you know him?”

“Yes,” Boudreaux said. “He’s a friend of Gregory’s.” He pulled out two rocks glasses and divided the mint between them, then started slicing a lime. “Why are you asking about Brandon?”

“Do you know him very well?”

Boudreaux looked up and frowned at her just slightly. “Maggie, it’s not like you to answer a question with a question.” It felt to Maggie almost like a chastisement. “I know him well enough not to like him, but he and Gregory have been friends since college. Why do you ask?”

“That was his foot Axel Blackwell caught the other day,” Maggie said.

Boudreaux stopped slicing and looked up at Maggie. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. There was a DNA sample in the system.”

Boudreaux flicked the paring knife back and forth like a pencil as he frowned at her. “Is he dead, then?”

“So it would appear,” Maggie answered.

“Have you found his body?”

“There might not be one.”

Boudreaux glanced over at Miss Evangeline, but she seemed oblivious to them.

“Let’s make our cocktails, then we’ll go sit over there,” Boudreaux said, pointing the knife at the other end of the porch.

He used a wooden muddler to crush the lime slices in their glasses, then grabbed some cracked ice from an ice bucket and added some to each glass. Then he poured in some simple syrup from a small decanter, added some white rum, and a little club soda. He didn’t look at Maggie until he held out her glass.

“Thank you,” Maggie said.

Boudreaux nodded and led her over to two white wicker chairs with blue and white striped cushions. They both sat, and each of them took a drink.
 

Maggie felt the need to skirt the issue for a bit. She didn’t know if that was because she had questions she didn’t want to ask, or questions she didn’t want him to answer.

“Miss Evangeline was your housekeeper back in Louisiana?” she asked instead.

“Yes. And my nanny.”

“She was the boys’ nanny?” Maggie asked, meaning his two grown sons.

“Nah, she couldn’t be bothered with them,” Boudreaux answered. “She was just mine.”

“So why is she here?”

Boudreaux looked at her. “Because I love her,” he said, and took a sip of his drink.

Maggie had seen Boudreaux with his sons when they were younger, had seen him many times with his wife. But she found herself surprised to think about him loving someone, and pleased that it happened to be this tiny, raisin-like woman.

“Don’t let her hatchling appearance fool you, though,” Boudreaux said. “She’s a voodoo-slinging velociraptor.”

Maggie raised an eyebrow at him. “She practices voodoo?”

“No, not really,” Boudreaux said. “But she’s an advocate.”

Maggie took another sip of her mojito and Bennett sighed and looked at her a moment.

“So what would you like to know about Brandon Wilmette? We called him “Sport,” by the way.”

“Was he at the funeral?”

“Yes. I spoke to him briefly.”

“Was that the last time you saw him?”

“No. He came by my office Tuesday.” Maggie waited, so he continued. “He wanted me to invest in some gourmet restaurant thing. I offered him a job instead.”