"You two were pretty close, right?"
Wade nodded. "Yeah. Ray was my boy. Good guy, man. Always there when you needed him.” He frowned, and his eyes misted. He wiped the tears away before they spilled over.
"I know this is difficult,” I said. “I appreciate you speaking with us.”
"Anything I can do to help," Wade assured.
"What about gambling, drugs, etc.?”
"No. We’d go to the Salty Dawg. I'd put back a few beers, and Ray would drink nonalcoholic beer. I never once saw him touch the real thing.”
“You’ve been on the boat all evening?”
“Yeah. I grabbed dinner at TJ’s Crab Shack around 7:00 PM, then came back here. My ex has the kids.”
“When was the last time you saw Ray?”
Wade thought for a moment. “I guess it was a couple of days ago.” His face tightened. “We were supposed to go fishing this weekend.”
“Was there ever any animosity between you two?”
Wade laughed. “No. Like I said, we were thick as thieves.“
I gave him a card, and we left the boat.
JD and I strolled back down the dock to the parking lot, discussing the case. I didn’t think Wade had any involvement, but I wasn’t ruling anybody out at this point.
We hopped into the van and headed back to Diver Down. We grabbed a seat at the bar and chatted with Teagan. By that time, she'd heard the news that an AC repairman had been shot, but the name hadn’t been released yet.
"So, did you see this one coming?" JD asked.
She sneered at him. "No. I try not to focus on negative things. Do you have any idea who killed him?”
I shook my head.
Teagan poured a couple of glasses of whiskey, and we shot the breeze for a bit before returning to theAvventura. I took Buddy out for a walk, then settled in for bed.
Teagan buzzed my phone. "Was the victim's name Ray?"
I usually didn’t discuss ongoing investigations, but this was Teagan. "Yeah. Where did you hear that?"
She sighed. "I didn't hear it anywhere. It just popped into my head. I lied earlier. I did have a vision, but it didn't make sense. Did he get killed near an air conditioning unit?”
It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that an AC repairman might get killed near a unit. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt. "Yeah.”
"He was shot with a small-caliber pistol. Probably a .22 with a suppressor threaded to the barrel,” she said.
"Okay, this is getting a little freaky," I said. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were on the scene.”
"No. I've been here all night,” she said in a cutesy voice.
"I think we need to recruit you into the department," I teased.
"No. Absolutely not. You need me behind the bar anyway.”
That much was certain.
"Listen, I gotta get back to it. We'll talk later," she said before ending the call.
