Dead Wake (The Forgotten Coast Florida #5) Read Free

have is from the freaks and the corpse whisperers, and we’ll be eating ramen in the dark because we can’t afford groceries and electric.”
    Wyatt took a digital camera out of Maggie’s tool kit as she pulled on a pair of gloves.
    “It’s not that bad, guys,” Wyatt said. “Remember last year, when they found that dead clown in the walk-in cooler at The Driftwood? No big deal. A few weeks later everything was back to normal.”
    “That was different. Everybody hates clowns,” William said. “This is a regular person.”
    Maggie yanked her long, dark brown hair into a bun, then slipped a pair of light blue plastic booties over her shoes. As Wyatt grabbed some booties of his own, she walked around the counter to get a better look at the regular person in question.
    Clearly it was a man and, equally clearly, he’d been dead for some time. Only a few thin tufts of hair remained, longish strands that started out some kind of strawberry-blond color, then went gray for several inches at the roots. The eyes were gone, for all intents and purposes, and the skin was dry and papery, like that of perfectly roasted chicken.
    Maggie studied the body as she heard Wyatt shuffle around the counter. She stepped a little to the side as he started clicking away.
    “What do you think, Lt. Redmond?” she heard Robert ask quietly behind her.
    After a moment, Maggie answered over her shoulder. “Well, you’re right. He’s definitely dead.”
    “This we parsed out on our own,” William said snippily. “We’ve watched every single episode of Bones .” He looked to Robert for confirmation. “Have we not?”
    “Well, until Season Six. Then there was the thing.”
    “Oh, yes. The Mr. Nigel Murray thing. We cut our ties.”
    Robert snapped his fingers. “Like that.”
    Maggie looked over at Wyatt to see if he had a straight face. Admirably, he did. He was focused on taking pictures of the body. She took a step closer to the wall and peered at the face. Up close, the smell was enough to elicit a gentle cough, but at this point in the body’s tenure, the odor could easily be mistaken for black mold. This was aided by the fact that there was black mold in the wall from the recent flooding.
    She turned to look at William and Robert. “The wall was here when you bought the place?”
    “Yes,” Robert answered.
    “When was that?”
    “1993,” William said.
    “Ninety-two,” Robert countered. “Remember? Hurricane Andrew hit like three weeks after we moved up here.”
    “1992,” William said to Maggie.
    Maggie looked over at Wyatt. “So, this man has been here for at least twenty-three years.”
    “We’ve had wine and cheese parties in here for crying out loud,” William said.
    Maggie looked back at the body as Wyatt snapped some more pictures. This type of body was way beyond her expertise. As one of two full-time investigators for the Sheriff’s Office, she’d been extensively trained in crime scene investigation and gotten a good deal of training and experience in examining remains, but she’d never had to examine a body that had been dead for more than a year.
    She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Larry Davenport, the county medical examiner.
    “Who are you calling?” she heard William ask.
    She looked over her shoulder at him. “The medical examiner.”
    “We’re doomed,” he said.
    “Done for,” Robert added.
    “You’re not doomed,” Maggie said. “And I don’t have any choice. This is the procedure.”
    “Can’t you guys take him wherever he needs to go?”
    “What, in the back of my Jeep?” Maggie turned back around as Larry answered the phone. “Larry, it’s Maggie Redmond.”
    “Good evening, Maggie,” Larry replied. “How may I help you?”
    “We have a dead body at The Blooming Idiot,” Maggie answered.
    “Goodness. It’s neither William nor Robert, I hope.”
    “No, this has been here for a while. They found it in one of the walls.”
    Larry was quiet for a moment. “Well,