by Bill Noel
Sometimes thinking sucked.
***
Amber lived in a second-floor apartment over a gift shop on the same side of Center Street as the gallery, but three blocks closer to the ocean. This was my first trip upstairs to her apartment, and I was as nervous as a fifteen-year-old on a first date.
She must have heard me clomping up the steps because she opened the door before I knocked. She was dressed in teal shorts and a simple white blouse with no sign of the Lost Dog Café logo. Her long brunette hair, usually pulled into a ponytail, had been freed and flowed over her shoulder. She was lovely. She gave me an awkward peck on the cheek and asked if I wanted to come in and see her “humble abode.”
The living area was small, especially for a two-person place, but everything was neat with the space being used to its maximum benefit. The furniture was vintage 1980s—sturdy and well placed in the room. A small bookshelf against the wall opposite the door contained the books one would expect from a preteen reader. The television, thirty-six-inch I would guess, was in the corner where as in most living rooms, it was the focus of attention for the seating.
I followed her into the kitchen. Like the living room, it was neat with the items on the counter carefully organized. A small metal-framed table with a patterned laminate top was pushed against the wall with two wood chairs underneath. On the table was a clear glass vase with three long-stem flowers. The vase was probably not usually there.
Back into the living room, she hesitantly pointed to an opening that went down a short hallway.
“Our bedrooms are back there,” she said while avoiding eye contact. “They’re a mess, so we’ll skip that part of the tour.”
“Ready to get some food?” I asked, breaking the awkward silence.
She said she was starved and grabbed her purse from the old recliner that faced the television.
We decided to drive toward Charleston, so she wouldn’t have to eat another meal on Folly. She knew most of the waiters and waitresses on the island and said it would be easier to relax if we distanced ourselves from it.
The Charleston Crab House was a locally owned small chain of seafood restaurants. My favorite was off Folly Road a few miles past the turnoff that goes to Charleston. It overlooked one of the creeks that emptied into the Ashley River. The restaurant claimed to serve the absolute freshest seafood in town. I had no way to prove that, but knew it was excellent.
It was already crowded, but we managed to get one of the tables on the deck overlooking Wappoo Creek. I ordered a bottle of a midpriced Chardonnay and “Crab-A-Tizer” of Coconut Fried Shrimp. A procession of small crafts maneuvered the narrow waterway and provided us with a peaceful view.
We talked about my trip to Charleston and my lunch with Bob. She shared a couple of humorous stories she’d heard about some of her regulars and laughed at the annual parade of sunburned vacationers who visited the Dog. She also told me that Larry’s nemesis Tony had been in today and laughed about the dog, deer, and spiders in Larry’s tub.
She said she and another waitress flipped a coin to see who would have the privilege of waiting on him. Amber won the toss, so Tiffany did the honors.
“That guy gives me the creeps,” said Amber. “Every time he looks at any of us girls, his eyes never stray above our neck.”
We each took another sip of wine and continued to watch the small boats on the waterway.
“Think he could be behind Larry’s troubles?” I asked.
“He could easily round up a dead dog,” said Amber. “And he definitely would attract spiders; I’m not sure about the stuffed deer head.” She hesitated as she continued looking at the boats. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed to get some stupid blood. The thing I’d wonder about would be if he was smart enough to pull it off. He’s never struck me as someone who had the brains to plan something that complicated.” She paused again. “But you never know.”
The waitress interrupted asking if we were ready to order. We each chose the Charleston Grouper, and I added a second bottle of wine to the mix as the first had somehow evaporated. We agreed it must have been the hot night.
“Enough about blood, dead animals, and others—tell me about yourself,” I suggested when the waitress headed toward the kitchen. “I don’t know much about you.”
“Not much to tell,” she said. “My forty-plus years have been fairly boring.” She hesitated and started fiddling with her napkin before looking up. “Are you sure you want to hear this?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, you asked for it. I grew up in Mars Hill, North Carolina. It’s about eighteen miles north of Asheville. Actually, Mars Hill was the nearest large city; we lived between Mars Hill and Grapevine. This may surprise you, but I was second in my high school class.” She giggled and then took another sip of wine. “That was the first time I’d ever heard the word salutatorian—then I was one! But it wasn’t that exciting. The class was small, and most of them were real dummies, so second wasn’t that great.”
I wasn’t surprised to learn she had been second in her class.
“And, after high school?” I prodded.
“We didn’t have much—Dad worked at the gas station, and Mom was sick most of the time and didn’t work. I was an only child. I couldn’t go to college even though we had a nice one right in Mars Hill.”
She was playing with the napkin again, clearly out of her comfort zone. “After graduating high school, I headed to the big city of Asheville and got a job in a textile mill making underwear. Most of the mills are gone now. It was boring, boring, boring, but I stayed for five years. One morning, I woke up and instead of punching in, hitchhiked west.”
“By yourself?”
“Yep,” she said. “It took me three weeks until I ended up in Seattle. I wanted to go to Los Angeles, but the rides kept going north. Beggars can’t be choosy.”
Our entrees arrived. We were hungrier than I thought, as all conversation stopped while we attacked the food.
“What’d you do in Seattle?” I finally asked her.
“Nothing. But then, I got tired of living on the street and bumming meals at homeless shelters. I started looking for a job. Then one night, I called home—the first time in more than six months. My aunt answered the phone and said my mom had died a week earlier, and Dad was in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“They both had lung cancer; that’s why Mom was always sick. I remember trying to watch television at home when I was little. I could barely see through the cloud of smoke. They both chain-smoked themselves to death.” She stopped talking and began picking at the coleslaw with her fork.
I waited.
“Well,” she finally continued, “I hitchhiked home and was able to spend two weeks with Dad before he passed. I stayed in the house for the next three years and found a job as a waitress. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Was your aunt nearby?”
“No, she lived in West Virginia and had only come to Mars Hill when Mom died. I didn’t have any relatives in the area.”
“Mars Hill’s a long way from Folly Beach. How’d you end up here?”
“Long story, short telling,” she said. “I met a guy at the restaurant where I worked. He was a local preacher. He was fantastic, great to me—probably better than I deserved. We got married. Happy as two lovebirds.”
She hesitated, fiddled with her watch, and looked me in the eyes. “I found out on a Monday morning that I was pregnant. Tuesday morning he told me he’d prayed about it and God didn’t want him to be a father. When I got home from work that night, he was gone—lock, stock, and Bible. He left a note on the door of the church telling his parishioners that he’d been called to minister to the poor in Africa. They never heard from him again. Neither did I.”
“I’m sorry. That’s terrible,” I said.
We’d finished our supper.
“Terrible? No,” she said, then smiled. “The greatest thing that ever happened to me came out of it. God may have told my ex he didn’t want children, but he sure blessed me with the greatest one ever—Jason.”
The waitress returned and asked if we wanted dessert, but we declined. Amber turned toward me. “Once I learned I was pregnant, I decided Mars Hill and I had had enough of each other. I took the money from selling my parents’ house and headed to the beach. What better place for a kid to grow up?”
That was hard to argue with; besides, I was in no mood to argue with Amber about anything.
“The rest is history,” she said, then pointed at me. “Now, about you. I know you were married, and I bet it was longer than my marital bliss.” She giggled again, “So, spill it.”
“Longer, yes,” I said, “but nowhere near as eventful. I married my high school sweetheart, and we spent twenty mostly boring years together until she decided her life would improve without me. She may have been right.”
“Sorry—I find that hard to believe. You’re good looking, smart, talented, charming, and a fantastic listener. I think she was an idiot—but, I’m glad she let you go.”
I felt my cheeks get hot. “Gee, thanks,” I muttered. “Maybe Folly Beach brings out the best in me.”
“Could be the people here—me especially,” she said, and then laughed.
“Could be,” I confessed. “Does Charles know about your past? He tells me a lot about most everyone, but has never mentioned anything about it.”
“Chris,” she said, maintaining eye contact, “you’re the only person in South Carolina I’ve told any of this to. The first few years—especially when Jason was a cute baby—I had to avoid the questions almost daily. The last few years, it’s been easier. Most of the busybodies have given up. Even Charles.”
“Why the big secret?” I asked. “I haven’t heard anything you couldn’t be proud of.”
“I don’t have much. My livelihood is based on the generosity of my customers. My extended universe goes to the other side of Charleston and the Atlantic Ocean. What I do have is my past. To me, the past is a hidden gem—one gem I don’t have to share. It belongs to me and me only. That might not make sense to most folks, but it does to me.”
I was touched. “Amber, I’m honored you chose to share it with me. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but thanks.”
“Chris, I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re the only person I’ve ever known who appreciates me for what I am. Most customers want their waitress to be dumber than they are so they can feel superior. You’ve never been that way, and you’ve never asked anything of me. You listen when others give lip service. I love you for all that.” She hesitated and looked at her watch. “Now, before I get all mushy, let’s get out of here. I’ve got to be at work before most of you lazy, no-good residents take your first yawn.”
We were silent most of the twenty-minute ride back to the beach. I stopped in front of her apartment and offered to walk her to the door.
“Chris,” she said with her hand on the door handle, “I’d invite you up but you’d be exposed to the frightening sounds of my snoring as soon as I hit the bed. I’m offering rain checks if you’d like one.”
“I’ll take two.”
Without taking her right hand off the door lever, she leaned across the console and kissed me hard on the lips. And then did it again. “You’ve got it,” she said before jumping out of the car and bouncing up the steps two at a time. My heart was beating at about the same speed.
Chapter30
“Remember what today is?” asked Charles. He bounded through the gallery door, waving his cane in all directions.
“Um, Friday?” I said.
“Oh, how quickly you forget. Today’s the day I’m going to use my astonishing detecting skills to prove Tony threatened Larry and killed those guys.”
“So that’s why you’re wearing the NYPD T-shirt?”
“Subtle, huh?”
“Yeah, right. And how do you plan to get the information out of him?”
“I’ll tell you when I get back. Right now I’m not rightly sure.”
With that insightful statement, he pivoted and left as quickly as he had entered.
The morning started cloudy, then a stray shower pelted the beach. This was perfect weather for shop owners, but none would admit it. Vacationers think twice about heading to the beautiful waves and instead kill time visiting shops, opening their wallets, and buying stuff they would never consider purchasing at home. U.S. Federal Reserve Notes become play money when they get within a mile of the beach. I was thankful.
No sooner had I heard Charles fire up his convertible when the first customer arrived, a couple wearing light jackets who leaned their soaking umbrella against a bin of photos. Fortunately, the images were encased in plastic and would survive the deluge. I would have called them elderly in my younger, more foolish days, but in reality they didn’t have me beat by much. I didn’t know whether the rain or that realization depressed me more.
“Ya’ll have coffee in here?” asked the gentleman. His eyes darted around the room.
I wasn’t sure who “ya’ll” included, but I apologized—with a total lack of sincerity—about not having coffee for customers. I recommended the Dog, a short walk away, but could tell paying for a beverage wasn’t in his plan. Without coffee, they left instead of asking if warm cinnamon Danish rolls were on the menu.
There was nothing for me to do but watch raindrops splattering on the sidewalk, so my mind wandered as to who might have reason to make Larry’s life miserable. I hadn’t considered Parker, but remembered that Dude had said he was a “bad seed.” It was a long shot, but I didn’t know anything about the young man other than that he hung around with Tommy and Louis.
I called the surf shop. I didn’t recognize the high-pitched screechy voice that answered, “Surf Shop, What’s up?” I asked for Dude Sloan and all nine of my ear muscles shook when the phone slammed down on the counter. Ouch! In the background I heard Mr. Phone Etiquette yell, “Dudester, geezer for ya.”
My sense of humor must have survived the reverberation in my ear as I laughed. It was an eternity before the friendly—more friendly anyway—voice of Dude said, “Surf Dude. Identify yourself.”
“Chris, the geezer,” I said, holding back remnants of my earlier laugh.
“Sorry, Christer. Told that sorry-surfer mucho times, don’t insult the phoners.”
“Slow learner,” I said sliding into Dudespeak.
“Try to keep phone out of his mitt. Busy morning. Bunch of board dingers here. Sorry.”
Without my translator, I was surfing without a board, but I pressed on. “The other day you said Parker, the kid who hangs around with Louis and Tommy, was a bad seed. What do you know about him?”
“This about my bud, Lar?”
“Could be; I’m trying to figure things out.”
“Stopped that years ago, I did,” he said. No surprise there. “Don’t know much. Hangs with surfers every summer, trolls for chicks, fails mostly. Here he’s been in clink for being an asshole or maybe for shoplifting. Get different story from my snitches.”
“Know where he lives—how he latches onto kids who aren’t troublemakers?”
“He cribs with his mom a couple of miles off-island. Head up Folly Road, turn on first slummy road to the right, across from the Pig; trailer house on left. A dump.”
Dude asked me to hold for a second and yelled at one of his customers to either buy the surfboard or hit the pavement. “Ain’t no person parking lot in here,” he said when he returned to our cryptic conversation. “Parker rides his bike here most every morning. When mom gets drunk, he pirates her old Buick wagon. Last of the land yachts. Good log hauler.”
For not knowi
ng much, Dude sounded like Parker’s biographer. “What do Tommy and Louis see in him?” I asked.
“Comparative shopping, Christer,” he said. “Chick looks at three guys, throws Parker out of running first sight. Tommy and Louis tied for first. Comparative shopping.”
It’s about time to admit that my age was showing; but I’d never admit it to Dude. I thanked him for sharing his wisdom, but wisdom was said to dead air. He’d hung up.
Chapter31
Parker may be a bad seed, shoplifter, hanger-on, or asshole, but I couldn’t see him as a sadistic killer. He might not even know Larry. Something else kept bouncing around in my mind. Scary as it might be, it was something Dude had said—the killer had a “deep hate for Larry” and that the “reason ain’t recent.” Parker didn’t fit that bill—or did he? If so, how?
Another person we hadn’t discussed was Brandon. I knew he was Larry’s only full-time employee and hadn’t been there long, but that was it. If owning the hardware store was something he had an interest in, he could be a suspect. I would ask Larry about him.
Before I could add more names to the list, four customers arrived. After the obligatory discussion about the weather and how sad it was that they couldn’t be frying on the beach, I convinced two of them that a large framed photo of one of Charleston’s signature gaslights surrounded by wisteria was the perfect piece for their condo’s entry hall. By a landslide, this was the most productive thing I’d done all day.
I watched the rain slow to a drizzle, listened to a dozen county songs on the MP3 player in the corner of the gallery, and relived the fantastic time last night with Amber. After an hour of that excitement, Charles returned from detecting.