Grayton Winds by Michael Lindley

Author:Michael Lindley [Lindley, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage River Press
Published: 2017-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Desmond Raye was nowhere to be found.

When we returned to Grayton Beach later that day from Panama City, Maggie had called home to Atlanta and spoken with our father. Apparently, her husband had been warned his treachery had been uncovered. No one had been able to find him through the night and he hadn’t come in to the office that morning.

To get her mind away from all of that I convinced Maggie to come with me over to Point Washington to pick up some more paint supplies for the Headley house. I was almost done with the project, but had underestimated the last amount of paint needed to finish. The old picket fence across the front of the house also needed a fresh coat and I was finding the work excellent therapy and diversion.

We took my car and made our way slowly over the rough sandy road up through the tall pines and scrub toward the Back Bay and the small logging town. We dodged herds of pigs from the Howard’s ranch rooting along the road and left the windows down to keep air flowing through against the heat of the day. It was mid-afternoon before we pulled in under the cover of the huge live oaks that twisted up into the sky in a massive canopy around the Bidwell’s little store. A long pier was built out into the channel that led to the Choctawhatchee Bay, allowing the boats from Destin and the Gulf of Mexico to come in with supplies and passengers and to load the milled lumber and other commodities like turpentine and contraband moonshine for transportation to markets across the South. Rebecca Bidwell sat alone at the end of the pier. We walked out on the old worn planking, the wind blowing down the channel from the west. Pelicans sat precariously atop some of the tall pilings, trying to hold their position against the breeze and looking down for a fishy meal to swim by.

Rebecca didn’t look around until we had come up behind her. I introduced my sister and we sat down on each side of her. On the way over from Grayton I had told Maggie about the death of her fiancé, Seth Howard and the illicit affair he had been having with Louise Palumbo. Now that Maggie had spent some time with Palumbo she was as suspicious as I about his involvement in Seth’s murder, alibi or not.

I reached over and took Rebecca’s hand and asked how she was doing; which I had come to think of as such a stupid question myself when I had been asked the same thing after my brother had died. I was surprised at the gaunt and pale appearance of her face. Her long beautiful hair was tied up raggedly in back. Her feet were bare, dangling out beneath an old pair of torn jeans, but not able to reach the water below. She looked at me in response and tried to smile, gripping my hand more firmly.

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