Pelican Court (Cedar Cove #3)(79)

Silently they each took a seat at the round oak table in the alcove next to the kitchen, then reached for a mug.

“You have news?” Peggy asked.

Bob admired the fact that she got straight to the point. He assumed the sheriff had learned something. The fact that he was here in uniform told Bob this wasn’t a social call.

“We have the identity of our John Doe,” Sheriff Davis said. He paused as if he expected Bob to provide the name.

Peggy gasped. “You know who it is?”

“Maxwell Russell.” Once again, the sheriff looked at Bob.

“Max?” Bob repeated slowly. Roy had wondered about that possibility. A chill raced down his spine, and he closed his eyes as the face of his old army buddy came to him. The room felt as if it were buckling beneath his chair. In the back of his mind, for whatever reason, he’d known that the man who’d died was somehow connected to his past.

“You remember him?” Davis asked, but it was clear he already knew the answer.

“We were in the army together—that was years ago.”

Davis nodded as if waiting for more.

“Why didn’t he identify himself?” Bob asked. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly forty years. Max hadn’t arrived on his doorstep that night by accident. He’d come for a reason—and died before he could tell Bob what it was.

“I was hoping you could give me the answer to that,” the sheriff murmured.

Bob couldn’t. He’d never been particularly good friends with Max. They were in Vietnam together, in the jungle…in the village. Afterward all four men had gone their separate ways, desperate to put the past behind them, to forget. No one wanted a reminder of what they’d done. Least of all Bob.

After the war, Bob had stayed away from Cedar Cove simply because Dan had chosen to return to their hometown. Bob did eventually move back, but the two men rarely spoke. It was as if they were strangers now, although in their youth they’d been close friends.

“He died before he could tell you anything?” The sheriff made it a question.

Bob pushed away his chair and stood. With his back to the sheriff and Peggy, he stared out the window. “No matter how many times you ask the question, I can only answer it one way. Max came to the door without giving us so much as his name, paid for a room and said he’d fill out the paperwork in the morning.”

“But by morning he was dead.”

The sick feeling in Bob’s stomach intensified. He didn’t understand why Max had come to Cedar Cove in the first place. Even more of a mystery was the fact that he’d had extensive plastic surgery—and that he’d carried false identification.

“How’d you find out who he was?” Bob had a few questions of his own.

“His daughter filed a missing person’s report with the police in Redding, California. I spoke to Hannah Russell earlier in the week.”

“California?” Bob repeated. The trail had first led to an investigation in Florida, but that had quickly gone cold.

“What did she tell you?” Peggy asked before Bob could.

“Unfortunately not as much as I’d like. The last time she spoke to her father, he told her he was leaving town. He didn’t give her any details. They were apparently quite close, but when she questioned him about where he was going and why, he was evasive.

“He never returned. After two weeks, she reported him as a missing person.”

“That’s all she knows?” Bob turned to face the sheriff. He gripped the back of his chair and slowly released his breath. Reclaiming his seat, he mulled over the information, feeling more confused than ever.

“It seems so,” Davis told him, picking up his coffee.

“Was it a business trip?” Bob asked next.

Davis shook his head. “He hasn’t worked since the accident.”

“Accident?” Peggy echoed.

“He was in a car crash five years ago. It killed his wife and badly disfigured him. The accident was the reason for his reconstructive surgery.”

Well, that explained that….

“I didn’t recognize him at all,” Bob murmured. He’d seemed vaguely familiar—his bearing, perhaps, but Bob would never have associated that stranger with the twenty-year-old he’d once known.

“In the last few years, Hannah’s lost both her parents. She took the news hard.”

“That poor girl,” Peggy said sympathetically. “She must’ve been beside herself when she didn’t hear from her father all those months.”

“It’s no wonder.” Bob didn’t realize he’d spoken aloud until he heard the sound of his own voice. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table, splaying his fingers through his hair.

No wonder the nightmare had come that night. His subconscious had made some connection, and he’d been swept into the churning memories the nightmare induced.

“Do you know why Max would seek you out?” Sheriff Davis asked again.

“No.” Bob could only speculate.

“His daughter’s coming to get the ashes.” The sheriff looked from Bob to Peggy. When there was no one to claim the body or pay burial expenses, the county cremated the remains. “Hannah asked if she could speak to you both.”

“What did you tell her?” Bob asked.