Deadly Catch (10 page)

Sheriff Pickron was convinced Brett Barfield was responsible, but I had my doubts about that. By all accounts he and Maddie were crazy in love. According to Sara, when Maddie told Brett she was pregnant he’d agreed they should get married right away. If he somehow
was
involved with her death, what was his motive? And just where the hell was he?

If I was a betting man, I’d give odds he was dead.

That evening I’d just fired up my propane fish cooker for a Cajun shrimp boil when Kate drove up in her Honda CR-V. She parked behind my pickup and slammed the door as she got out. She looked pissed; pissed but sexy in a Gillman’s polo and khaki shorts.

“She
lied
, Mac!” Kate’s face was flushed and her fists clenched tight. “Ooooh!”

I saw now how Kate was able to set Bo Pickron straight. No way would I want to tangle with the hellcat stomping toward me. She’d been raised with three brothers and could rough and tumble with the best of them. “Who lied?” I said, taking a step back and tightening the grip on my bottle of Bud.

Kate pointed to the beer. “You have another one of those?”

“Yeah, be right back.” I hustled inside the trailer and grabbed two Buds from the fridge. Kate was sitting atop the picnic table when I came out, her feet planted on the bench. I twisted off the cap and handed her a beer.

“Now, who lied about what?” I said, taking a seat beside her.

Kate took a long swig and squinted as she swallowed. “Sara! I can’t believe she’d lie to me like that. I am so dang ticked at her I could spit nails.”

“Okay, what’s this about?”

Kate sighed and leaned forward, resting her arms on her bare thighs. “Maddie. Turns out she and Brett weren’t going to the mountains after all. They intended to drive up to Donalsonville, Georgia, get married, and then head south to Disney World and the Keys for their honeymoon. Sara knew all about it from the get-go. She lied to cover for them.”

“Christ, she must feel like hell.” I took a swig and gathered my thoughts. Heading for south Florida and the Keys would explain why the young lovers had taken Brett’s boat with them. “Then the notes they left for the Harpers and Barfields were decoys to throw the families off the trail.”

Kate nodded. She looked close to tears.

“What about phone calls? Did Maddie ever check in with Sara?”

Kate slugged down a couple of more swallows. “No, and that’s why Sara’s so upset. She said Maddie planned to call every few days to let her know where they were and what they were up to. But when Maddie never called, Sara got worried. She wanted to tell somebody, but Maddie had made her swear not to tell a soul.”

My mind was still churning when Kate drained the last of her beer. I’d never seen her drink so fast. I twisted off the cap and handed her the other. She took a sip and sighed, staring through the pines at nothing in particular.

“Poor Maddie,” she said after a minute. “Why on earth are kids so stupid sometimes, Mac? I swear, I could wring Sara’s neck.”

“For what, being loyal and keeping her word to her best friend?” I finished my beer and set the bottle on the table. “It was probably too late for Maddie before Sara ever expected that first call.”

Kate looked at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “I know,” she choked out. “I’m just so sorry any of this happened, for Maddie and Sara.”

After another beer Kate calmed down enough that I was able to talk her into staying for supper. I spread several layers of newspaper on the picnic table and dumped the basket of Cajun boil on it. We drank beer and feasted on spicy shrimp, potatoes, corn on the cob, and smoked sausage until we were stuffed to the gills. It was dark by the time we finished cleaning up. I grabbed a couple of tumblers and broke out a bottle of single-malt scotch I’d been saving. Kate’s company certainly qualified as a special occasion.

We sat outside under a star-filled canopy, sipping scotch and talking long into the night. The full moon finally peeked above the pines and began its slow arc across the sky. Kate got up from her chair and curled up on my lap.

“I’m too dang drunk to drive home tonight, Mac,” she said, and kissed me for the first time. “Guess you’ll have to let me spend the night.”

We kissed again, and then I picked her up and carried her into the trailer.

I eased Kate onto the bed, but she was asleep before her head touched the pillow. I slipped off her shoes and covered her with half the bedspread. For a moment I debated whether to crawl into the bed next to her. I was hungry to hold Kate, but damned if I’d take advantage of her. I cursed my chivalrous Southern upbringing and switched off the lights except for a nightlight beside the refrigerator. Then I grabbed a blanket from a closet to bunk on the pullout sofa for the night. I tossed and turned for an hour or so, listening to Kate’s soft breathing. After a while I finally drifted off to sleep.

The next morning I was up before sunrise, but Kate was already gone. I knew she was scheduled to work the weekend. As much as I wanted to see her, I decided to back off for a couple of days. It might’ve been the booze talking when she wound up in my arms and bed, and I wanted to give her the time and space to sort things out. There was something I needed to check out at the courthouse in Parkersville, but it wouldn’t be open until Monday. So, I piddled away the weekend doing some maintenance on my trailer, catching up on some reading, and watching TV.

Monday morning I drove to the courthouse. It was already blazing hot, so I chose a shady spot in the lot across the street to park. Inside the courthouse, I emptied my pockets into a basket and walked through the metal detector manned by a smiling volunteer deputy with silver hair. I grabbed my keys and change and hoofed it down a long hallway that intersected with another. I took a right to the Clerk of the Circuit Court’s office. An attractive young woman named Patrice helped me check through the past three months’ marriage license applicants. I found what I’d already suspected: Brett Barfield and Madison Lynn Harper hadn’t applied for a marriage license in Palmetto County.

According to Sara Gillman, Maddie and Brett planned to drive to Donalsonville, Georgia, to get married. I drove back to St. George, turned on my laptop, and connected to the Internet. I checked my road atlas, then Googled “Seminole County, GA marriage records” and spent a frustrating hour being bounced from one pay site to another. Finally, I gave up on the web search. I picked up the phone and dialed the Clerk of Court’s office in Donalsonville. I wasn’t sure if I could access their records over the phone, but to save myself a two-hundred-mile round trip I’d give it a try. It took some sweet talking, but I finally persuaded the lady who took my call to spill the info I was after: no marriage license issued or recorded in Seminole County for Brett and Maddie.

It was beginning to look as if Maddie and Brett never made it to the altar; no license issued or recorded in Florida or Georgia; Maddie Harper found in the bay just a few miles from home; no trace of Brett Barfield in over a month. Nothing added up.

I picked up my phone again, intending to call Kate. It rang before I could punch in Gillman’s. I didn’t recognize the calling number, but I sure as hell recognized the voice when I answered.

“McClellan, Sheriff Pickron here. You thought any more about our little discussion last week?”

“Yeah, I’m still thinking on it.”

There was a short pause. “Well, here’s something else you might find interesting. I just got off the phone with the sheriff of White County, up in north Georgia.”

There was another pause as I tried to unscramble my thoughts.

“You still there, McClellan?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” North Georgia? Sara had just spilled the beans to Kate that Maddie and Brett had planned to head for south Florida, not the mountains of north Georgia. “What’s this about, Sheriff?”

“They found Brett Barfield’s truck outside a little town name of Helen.”

I needed to talk to Kate ASAP. I phoned her at work, and we agreed to meet at The Green Parrot that evening at six-thirty. I didn’t mention my conversation with Bo Pickron, or that the burned-out hulk of Brett Barfield’s Toyota Tundra had been discovered by hikers in a ravine not far from an access point of the Appalachian Trail—the same Appalachian Trail Maddie and Brett planned to backpack, according to Sara’s original version of their elopement/honeymoon story. Somebody had some explaining to do.

That evening I arrived at The Green Parrot fifteen minutes early. I found a table next to the rail overlooking the beach and ordered a pitcher of draft Michelob. A young guitarist was singing a Jimmy Buffet tune from the small stage at the deck’s far corner when Kate came strolling in. She saw me and walked right over.

“Listen, Mac, about the other night, I—”

“This isn’t about that,” I said, as she took a seat opposite me. “Besides, nothing happened.”

Kate smiled. “I know; always the perfect gentleman. What was your ex-wife thinking?”

If she’d been there, Jill might’ve made a good argument that I was far from perfect, but I let it drop. “I talked to Bo Pickron again today. Brett Barfield’s truck was found in north Georgia, near the Appalachian Trail.”

Kate’s mouth dropped open, but she didn’t speak.

“It should be on the news by late tonight or tomorrow morning. The truck was burned down to the frame.”

“Brett?” she managed to squeak out.

“There was no sign of a body in the truck.” I grabbed the pitcher and filled her mug. “They’re searching the area.”

Kate took a sip of beer and frowned. “What’s going on between you and Bo?”

I hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but given her connection with both Sara and Maddie, I didn’t see how I could get far without Kate’s help. I glanced around to make sure no one was within earshot. “You can’t breathe a word about this to anybody, okay?”

She nodded.

I took a deep breath and let it out. “Pickron wants me to help him look into Maddie’s death and Brett’s disappearance. He thinks somebody’s trying to set me up, probably because I found the body, and that pot was planted on my boat.” I didn’t tell her that Maddie had most likely died elsewhere and her body dumped in the bay. That fact hadn’t been released to the public. And besides, the less Kate was involved, the better.