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

official.”
    “It’s unlikely we’ll have any DNA on file for him,” Maggie said.
    “No, certainly not,” Larry replied. “But before Victor Manning was the only dentist in town, his father Karl was. I imagine there are records somewhere. I’ll request them.”
    “What were the circumstances of his disappearance?” Maggie asked.
    “Oh, goodness, I don’t remember all the details. I wasn’t the medical examiner back then. I was just running my practice. I do recall, though, that the prevailing theory was he’d been killed.”
    Maggie stared at the body. “Since it’s unlikely he bricked himself up in that wall, I’d say the prevailing theory prevails.”
    “We can assume that for the moment,” Larry agreed.
    Maggie focused on the body again for a moment, chewing at the corner of her lip.
    “What bothers me is that he had to have smelled pretty bad back then,” she said finally.
    “Most likely. Most of what we’re smelling right now is black mold.” Larry agreed. “But back then, the wall wouldn’t have done a thorough job of containing the smell. He’s not wrapped especially well, and fluids would have seeped through in any event. That’s if he was interred shortly after death. If someone waited a while and then moved him here, he might not have been quite as…soppy, shall we say.”
    Wyatt finished taking pictures and sighed. “Delightful.”
    He pulled his phone back out and dialed. After a moment, he said, “Hey, Dwight. I need you to dig up an old missing persons case from the seventies. Holden Crawford. Just leave it on my desk and I’ll take a look first thing in the morning.” He hung up and looked at Maggie. “A forty-year old case is going to be an asspain. But at least there’s one nice thing.”
    “What’s that?”
    “Well, since he didn’t move here until the eighties some time, I’d say we finally have one case this year that doesn’t involve Bennett Boudreaux.”
    “You don’t,” Larry said from where he crouched on the floor.
    Maggie and Wyatt both looked over at the birdlike old man. Wyatt sighed and put his hands on his hips. “Why not?”
    “I don’t remember why exactly, but I do remember that most people assumed Bennett Boudreaux did something with Holden.”
    Maggie felt a sinking sensation in her chest as Wyatt looked over at her, his formidable eyebrows knotted together. Maggie’s odd friendship with Boudreaux was the one discord between herself and Wyatt.
    He curled his finger at her, and she followed him into the back hallway. Halfway to the open back door, he stopped and turned on her. “He didn’t even live here yet and he’s a freaking suspect!” he said, managing somehow to yell in a whisper.
    “I haven’t had a decent case in over a month,” she whispered back. “You are not taking it away from me just because Larry says he thinks maybe Boudreaux was involved. He’s got to mean Boudreaux’s father. Boudreaux was still in Louisiana back then.”
    Maggie was only five-three and Wyatt more than a foot taller. He loomed over her, but she jerked her chin up at him defiantly as he poked a finger in her direction.
    “See?” he spat out. “Asspain.”
    “Let’s just see what the case file says before you get all worked up over Boudreaux.”
    “We’re working it together. Regardless of what the case file says.”
    As the Sheriff, Wyatt oversaw all cases, but he and Maggie had the most investigative experience in the department, and they had partnered on cases together many times. It was how they’d become best friends. But Maggie took a modicum of umbrage over the fact that he was insisting on it this time, good reason notwithstanding. True, she had come to kind of like Boudreaux, but that didn’t mean she’d lost all impartiality.
    “Larry’s remembering it wrong. He’s gotta be thinking of Boudreaux’s father.”
    “Well, I’d be delighted if one dead guy killed the other dead guy, but Larry specifically remembers that it was