Washout

by Bill Noel

  “Damn,” added Charles.

  “Now this one,” I pointed to I’ve stoppeD PLAYING—RU reAdy to Die?”

  “Dad again, right?” asked Larry.

  “Double damn,” said Charles.

  “Now the one that bothered me the most—the wreath,” I said and pointed again to For yoU—DeAD, DEAD, dEAD! “Remember, it was supposed to be found after you were dead, Larry. Now what do you see?”

  “Triple damn,” said Charles. He continued to stare at the wall, made a deep guttural sound, and continued, “It says ‘For you—Dad.’ And you is both spelled out and the letter U.”

  “Yeah, he’s telling his dad that he did it for him. My theory’s not perfect,” I said. “A couple of them aren’t that clear, but I think that if he made them the same, he was afraid someone would have figured it out.

  “So he wanted Larry to see the messages but not understand them?” said Charles. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “To a normal, well-adjusted person, you’re right,” I said. “I think we’re dealing with a deeply troubled individual. I believe he thought Larry would understand the notes on some subconscious level, but who knows?”

  “What about the animals in the tub?” asked Larry.

  “Good question,” I said. “That one just came to me. What’s the first letter of the kind of animals you found?”

  “D for Deer, S for spider, and D for dog,” said Larry. “So what?”

  “Charles, you’re a walking encyclopedia,” I said. “What family do spiders come from?”

  He raised his chin and smiled. “Arachnids.”

  “Deer, Arachnid, Dog,” said Larry. “DAD.”

  “I’m out of damns,” said Charles.

  “Good!” Larry and I said in unison.

  I got Larry and Charles a beer along with wine for me.

  “Larry, who’s the only person who you know who has had a long-standing grudge against you?”

  “WW.”

  “More accurately, he was Woodrow Wilson,” I said. “Most likely, his parents named him after President Wilson, and we know he had four children. But that’s all we knew about them.”

  “Chris,” said Charles, “your gibberish is giving me a headache. Can we get on with this?”

  “Anything for you, Charles. You’re the undisputed expert on former U.S. presidents. Would you agree?”

  He nodded.

  “Charles, what’s President Woodrow Wilson’s full name?”

  “No idea.”

  “Okay, another hint,” I said. “Charles, can you think of anyone who has ever bested you in quoting one of our deceased presidents?”

  “No one ever has,” he said.

  “Wrong,” said Larry. “Remember the other day. You were making some arcane quote and that high school student—Tommy, isn’t it?—told us who said it.”

  “Yeah, it was President Woodrow Wilson,” said Charles so softly we barely heard him. “Don’t tell me the president’s real name is Tommy.”

  I looked at Charles. “No, not Tommy—his full name was Thomas Woodrow Wilson.” I turned to Larry before Charles could respond. “Larry, remember when you found the blood on the floor in the hardware?”

  “How could I forget?” he asked.

  “Who was there when the police arrived?”

  “Chris, I was so shook, I don’t remember the police arriving.”

  “I do,” I said. “There was some guy in an old Volkswagen Beetle who stopped to see what was going on, there were three of our regular early morning dog walkers—and two kids riding bikes and carrying surfboards. I didn’t know who they were then, but I do now. They were Tommy and Parker.”

  Charles took a swig of beer and turned his attention to the clues on the wall. Without turning, he said, “Are you saying those kids killed two people and are trying to kill Larry?”

  “I don’t believe Parker was involved,” I said. “He and Tommy are too far apart. Also this was way too calculated for Parker, and I don’t think Tommy would have trusted him.” I stared at Larry. “You see,” I said, “Tommy was on a mission, a solo mission, a mission to get revenge for his father. His father who named his son after the same person he was named after—President Thomas Woodrow Wilson.”

  “Sorry,” said Larry, “I’m not following. Tommy’s dad is some highfalutin’ doctor.”

  “I thought so too, Larry, until I started doing some checking on Tommy’s dad, the esteemed Dr. Gaelin Stiles. Amazing what you can learn on the Internet. Five years ago, Dr. Stiles was one of the honorees at the Georgia Adoption Rights Coalition’s annual meeting. He had made some big-time donations to the organization that supports the rights of nontraditional couples and others who fell out of the mainstream of appropriate parents eligible to adopt.”

  “Same sex couples,” interrupted Charles.

  “That’s one example,” I said, “and then you have singles who would like to adopt, or actually anyone who doesn’t meet the traditional criteria.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Larry. “Get on with it.”

  Charles’s nodded agreement.

  “Dr. Stiles’ biography said he was eminently qualified to speak on the topic of adoption as he and his wife had adopted two children themselves: a daughter from China and a son from Atlanta. A son named Tommy.”

  “How did you put this all together?” asked Larry. He no longer slumped. His elbows were on the table and he leaned forward.

  “Little things. William Hansel was talking the other day about all the baggage his students brought to the classroom. Their lives were full of divorce and split families, and with the complexities of the modern world, they could barely concentrate on class. He mentioned adopted children as another group with built-in problems. And then Al, Bob’s friend with the bar, was talking about his nine adopted children. He said he and his wife couldn’t tell what was in their genes. I knew Tommy and his two friends had been spending a lot of time at Pewter Hardware and in here, two unlikely places for eighteen-year-olds. Tommy wanted to come in, but Parker and Louis wanted to get out. Tommy’s bright—he used the other two washouts as foils. If anything went wrong, he could blame them. More accurately, he would kill one, and then blame him.”

  “Chris,” asked Larry, “why would you think Tommy’s quoting President Wilson would have anything to do with all this?”

  “I didn’t, for sure,” I said. “If I had, we could have put it together sooner. I guess what kept bothering me was how many high school kids would even care about what a—in Charles’s words, ‘long-dead, United States president’—would have to say about anything. For some reason Tommy had studied President Wilson. I guess he got it from his real father.”

  Charles sat silently, clearly something not in his genes. “Chris, how did Tommy know about his dad’s grudge against Larry? Why would he take up the cause? He has the entire world in front of him: plenty of money, good education, loving parents.”

  “To be honest, I have no idea. He could have spent time with his dad when he was young. Woodrow was in and out of prison during that period. He could have sent letters to his ex-wife, Tommy’s mother, or even to Tommy for all we know. Woodrow could have spewed enough hate for Larry that Tommy felt he needed to do something. Tommy did hint once that he had been, or was still, in therapy. He’s a troubled kid.”

  “Chris,” said Larry. He stood and got out another beer, offered Charles one, then continued, “you’ve convinced me. Can you prove it?”

  I hesitated, looked at the messages taped to the wall, and then back to Charles and Larry. “No. But we don’t have to. I think we can hand Chief Newman enough circumstantial evidence to get search warrants. Between the local police and the resources of the Charleston County Sheriff’s Department, they’ll find something. Tommy thinks he’s brighter than any eighteen-year-
old. He’ll do something stupid, if he hasn’t already.”

  “So why are we sitting here?” said Charles. “Call the chief.” He jumped to his feet, grabbed his cane, and pointed it at the phone.

  I called Brian Newman’s cell and listened to his voice mail saying to leave a message. I then called the station and the dispatcher said the chief was unavailable. After some name dropping and telling the dispatcher I was close enough to the chief to be able to have tried his cell phone number, he confided that the chief was in Columbia for the day, but would be in the office in the morning. The helpful dispatcher said he would certainly leave a message for his boss and took my name and number. I thought I heard a muted mumble when he heard my name. It sounded like you again.

  Larry said he’d love to stay around but knew Dude was having a problem with one of the locks on his display case. Larry had promised he would stop at the shop to give his expert hardware store opinion on how to fix it. Bodyguard Charles said he would escort Larry to the surf shop. Larry didn’t argue. He also said he had a date with Officer Ash that evening, so he would be in good hands. He agreed not to tell Ash what we’d learned as we owed it to the chief to tell him first. But, I was relieved to know he would have an armed escort for the evening.

  We agreed to meet at the gallery at 10:00 a.m. If we hadn’t heard from the chief by then, we would scour the island until we found him.

  The end was in sight—what a relief.

  Chapter55

  The sounds of my growling stomach woke me at six. I realized that with all the excitement yesterday, I’d hardly eaten. I was too nervous to go back to sleep, and too hungry to stay home and stare at an empty cupboard, its normal condition.

  The Dog would open soon, and I couldn’t come up with a single reason not to be its first customer. I was already in the restaurant when I remembered it was Amber’s day off. I was given the choice of any table by Temple, another member of the wait staff. I elected to sit on the front porch so I could wave to the other regulars, one of the favorite pastimes at the Dog.

  The two city council members were the next to arrive. They were already arguing about a proposed ordinance to limit further growth on my island. They interrupted their discussion to wave and tell me it was a grand morning. A young couple, accompanied by their black-and-white boxer, arrived next and wandered toward the side porch. Temple told me they had my favorite breakfast, a Belgium waffle, on special so I didn’t have to think about my order. I put my phone on the table and wished for it to ring. Who else looked forward to a call from the police? I wondered.

  “Yo, Christer,” said Dude, as he approached from the road. “Hear you and your buds are partying heavy today. Cooking day for it.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” I asked.

  “Larry told me yesterday when he and the Chuckster stopped by to fix my cabinet. Fixed it fine, he did. Talk later—got my new astronomy mag, got to read in peace.”

  It was going to be a beautiful day at the beach, and after we unloaded the information on the chief, it would be all the more phenomenal.

  I was first to arrive at the gallery, so I brewed the coffee. I then cleaned the table and threw out the empty beer bottles from yesterday. I wanted to put our best foot, or feet, forward for the chief.

  The doorbell announced Larry’s arrival. He had more life in his step than I’d seen in weeks. We still hadn’t heard from Chief Newman when Charles arrived, cane swinging, wearing his favorite crime-fighting T-shirt displaying an oversized NYPD on the chest. We took our turn at the coffeepot and sat around the table to wait for Folly’s top law enforcement official.

  A little after ten, the doorbell announced the arrival of our next visitor.

  “It’s about time the fuzz arrived,” said Charles without moving from his chair.

  A phenomenal day it wasn’t to be.

  Chapter56

  The next face I saw belonged to Tommy. The barrel of a handgun slightly larger than Minnesota drew my attention away from his face. It was pointed at my head. Tommy turned the screw lock on the door with his left hand while maintaining aim with his right hand. A black nylon backpack was strapped over his shoulder. He was alone. I had the distinct impression he wasn’t going to buy photos.

  “Start walking to the back,” he said as he waved the handgun toward the office. “Don’t get any ideas—I know how to use this.”

  I tried to speak, but each word slipped to the pit of my stomach. My legs felt like they were walking in a vat of mud. The sun beamed brightly through the window, and I knew I wasn’t dreaming regardless how much I willed myself to be. I did as directed.

  Charles had already started to ask the chief where he’d been when he saw the visitor was from the other side of the law.

  “What the …” said Charles, and then he stopped. The answer was abundantly clear. He stood beside his chair and grabbed the backrest.

  Larry looked up and shook his head. My mind rushed back a few years to when I had seen a beautiful border collie that’d been hit by a car. The mangled back legs spread in two unnatural directions, blood poured from the ears, and the near-lifeless look on its face brought tears to my eyes. Larry’s gaze made the poor dog’s look cheerful.

  “Mr. Fowler,” said Tommy. His calm manner shook me more than if he were yelling. “Sit. Mr. Landrum, please take the other chair.”

  He didn’t have to tell me to sit. My legs struggled to keep my body upright. Tommy carefully set the backpack beside the door, bent his knees, and took a roll of nylon rope from one of the pockets. He stared at us for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes giving nothing away.

  Finally, he told Larry and Charles to put their hands behind their back, then for me to get up and loop the rope around their hands and through the frame of the chairs. I had a hard time, but I focused on the task. Tommy had me start and stop a couple of times as I pulled the rope tighter with each effort. He stayed out of my reach but watched every move I made. Once I finished with my friends, Tommy took the rope and continued the weaving the same way I did to Charles and Larry.

  “Scoot your chairs under the table,” he said. He kicked the leg of Larry’s chair.

  Tommy pulled the rope around the legs of the table until our stomachs pushed against its top. The rope looked like a huge lasso, with Charles, Larry, and I replacing the helpless steer in its grip—a steer to be led to slaughter.

  Before he was finished, we were bound so tightly that I felt the rope tighten when either of my friends took a breath. I felt like the unfortunate victim of a python that constricts each time its prey inhales. In addition to being a cold-blooded killer, Tommy must have been a whale of a Boy Scout.

  The phone rang. Tommy jumped.

  “Don’t think about answering that,” he said, then giggled at the absurdity of his statement. I had my back to the phone but saw Charles, Larry, and Tommy stare at the black inanimate object. Four rings later, the answering machine picked up.

  It was Bob. He was supposed to call this morning when he found out more about Ben. In his charming way, he said, “Damned if I’m going to leave you a message. Your loss.” The phone went dead.

  Tommy took a deep breath. “Mr. Landrum, Mr. Fowler, I hate to involve you, but I’ve got to. People keep telling me how you meddle into everyone’s business. I figured it was only a matter of time before you got too close.” He began pacing around the room, then continued, “I knew I made a mistake by quoting President Woodrow Wilson. It seemed that almost every time I talked to Dad, he either relived the story about how he was screwed by LaMond or he talked about President Wilson.”

  Tommy stopped and stared at the blank wall. His left hand was nearly touching his mouth, and he nervously chewed his thumbnail. I didn’t know what he saw, but whatever it was wasn’t in the room. Not in recent history, I suspected.

  He moved his gaze to the ceiling and went on, �
��It was almost like Dad and President Wilson were related, which, of course, they weren’t. I became a little obsessed with the president as well. I knew you’d figure it all out eventually. I should’ve kept my mouth shut and acted like an ignorant teenager. Sorry. My obsession is getting you killed.”

  He continued to walk around the room like nothing was out of the ordinary. “I knew I had to act when Parker told me he heard LaMond tell Dude yesterday that you were gathering this morning. Sorry, my fight was only with LaMond.”

  “Why?” I asked. I wanted to hear his story, but mainly wanted to give the chief time to call or get here. “What’d he do to you?”

  Tommy looked at the notes taped to the wall that Charles had kindly displayed for all to see. Tommy chuckled, “See,” he said, “you’re on your way to figuring it out. I bet you already know about my father.” He hesitated, then kicked the leg of Larry’s chair. “What you don’t know is how your friend here killed him.”

  Tommy moved to the back of the office where he had a clear view of the gallery door leading outside. As soon as he turned his attention away from the table, Charles began frantically making head gestures directing my attention under the table.

  I was clueless. He rolled his eyes like I was an idiot for not understanding his message. Guilty as charged, I thought.

  Fortunately, Tommy missed Charles’s gyrations and continued. Saliva spewed from his mouth along with the deep-seated anger. His abrupt mood swings were startling. “LaMond was responsible for Dad’s arrest. He turned on him, deserted him. Dad thought they were friends. He drank. He snorted coke. It killed him, and that man’s responsible.” He pointed the gun at Larry’s chest.

  “What makes you think Larry’s responsible?” I asked. “You must have been what, five or six when your father died?” I tried to sound calmer than I felt. I could smell my own perspiration mixed with the aroma of fear.