The Folly Beach Mystery Collection Volume II

by Bill Noel

Charles hadn’t been back to Folly to get his massive collection of books, yet he had already started a mini-library along one of the living room walls. Bricks that had come from the same era as the building were stacked three-high on each side of a four-foot-long board he had repurposed as a bookshelf. Approximately fifty books, many with library labels, stood at attention on the shelf. Fist-sized rocks served as bookends.

  Heather waved her arms around the room. “What do you think?”

  We had just entered the apartment and hadn’t had much time to think. It didn’t stop Cal from saying, “Honey, it’s better than anywhere I’ve ever lived.”

  It wasn’t saying much since Cal had spent much of his adult life living out of his 1971 Cadillac, and since settling on Folly, he lived in a run-down apartment building that had been swept out to sea during a hurricane, and was currently residing in an apartment which was a candidate for condemnation.

  “I knew you’d love it,” she said, responding to words which hadn’t been spoken. “How about you, Chris?”

  I moved to the corner of the room where I could look at the door leading to the bedrooms and glanced at Heather’s black and silver karaoke machine and music stand, items I had helped her load in Charles’ car the day they had left the beach. Crystals attached by a thin thread dangled from the top of a chrome picture frame that held a prominent place on a manicurist’s table inside their bedroom. In addition to being a massage therapist and alleged singer, Heather prided herself on being a psychic. If true, a fact that’s still unproven, her psychic abilities fall somewhere between her massage therapy skills and her singing. A forked, hazel twig, Heather’s divining rod, leaned against the bookcase.

  “What can I say, Heather, it’s you.”

  “And me too,” Charles said, as he leaned over and patted the bookcase. He didn’t wait for a response. “Want the rest of the tour?”

  Cal said, “You bet.”

  The entire apartment couldn’t have taken up more than 700 square feet of Nashville’s 504 square miles of land. The kitchen wasn’t large enough for all of us, so I stood in the doorway while Heather pointed out each new appliance. I’m no expert in the kitchen, but had learned over the years what a refrigerator looked like. I was happy to see Heather so excited to show it to us. After moving her guitar case and wide-brimmed, straw hat she wore during most every performance, we were able to get in their master bedroom, as Heather proudly proclaimed. Cal and I nodded when she told us how grand the room was. She started to say something about the bed and mattress, when Charles interrupted and said it was time to see our room. She had inched close to too much information, and I welcomed Charles’s interruption.

  The best thing about the bedroom Cal and I would be sharing was it had a queen-sized bed and enough space for both of us to be in the room at the same time. Cal said, “Cozy,” and we moved past the tiny bathroom back to the tiny living room. By Manhattan apartment standards, the room may have been considered spacious. It made my tiny cottage on Folly seem palatial. Cal and I squeezed together on the mini-couch, Heather sat in the only chair in the room, and Charles moved to the floor.

  The awkward moments people experience after arriving at someone’s house and having finished the tour, were beginning to set in. What do we talk about now? Heather came to the rescue.

  “Are you ready to see our city?”

  After spending the better part of the day in the car, I wasn’t anxious get back in one, so I said, “Looked like there are lots of interesting things within walking distance. I’d like to see some of them.”

  Cal added, “I’ve got a couple of stories you wouldn’t believe about things that happened to me right up the street.”

  Whether he did it on purpose or not, I was glad he kept us focused on a walking tour.

  Heather grabbed her straw hat and waved us toward the door. “What are we waiting for?”

  The temperature was mild for June and a walk would do my old muscles good. Tour guide Heather told us we were just three blocks from Lower Broadway, in her words, “The plum center of the country music entertainment universe.” I’m sure many would disagree, but it was a major entertainment area in Nashville. We walked past the Ryman Auditorium, the former church that became the long-time home of the Grand Ole Opry, before the radio show and performing venue moved to its new home in 1974, and Cal started to tell us one of his stories we wouldn’t believe. Heather would have none of it; it was her tour and we were moving on.

  A half block more and we were standing at the corner of Fifth Street South and Broadway. Across the street was the Nashville Visitor’s Center and behind it stood the Bridgestone Arena that looked like a giant spaceship plopped down in the middle of a historic district.

  “Ain’t they something?” Heather said with a wide grin.

  No argument from us.

  “We’re going this way.” She turned left on Broadway.

  We were standing beside a guitar on the sidewalk that was the size of a Boeing 747. Live music flowed across the street from the second-floor bar at Rippy’s Ribs & Bar-B-Q, and from the loud sounds of electrified country from the open door of Legend’s Corner fifteen feet away.

  “Ain’t this something,” Heather repeated as we headed down the sidewalk, dodging tourists.

  Charles tapped me on the shoulder and motioned for me to wait while Heather continued her tour. Heather stopped in front of Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Nashville’s most famous bar, and Cal finally got to tell one of his stories. He was telling Heather about having spent many late nights in there. “Most of the time in a booth, some on the floor. Ah, the good old days.”

  Charles took a couple of steps farther away from Cal’s story and pulled me with him. He whispered, “Think we’ve got a problem.”

  I glanced at Heather who was focused on Cal’s story, and asked Charles, “What?”

  “Chuckie,” Heather said, “you and Chris ain’t baskin’ in Cal’s fascinating story.”

  She said something else, but was drowned out by “The Race Is On,” the George Jones classic, being sung by an overweight, middle-aged man on the stage inside the front door of Tootsie’s.

  “Later,” Charles whispered before he moved closer to Cal, Heather, and the George Jones semi-sound-alike.

  Heather continued her tour pointing out the bars and live music venues along Broadway. She appeared cheerful and more in her element than I’d ever seen her. I was happy for her, yet conflicted knowing it would take something approaching a major miracle to convince her—and Charles—to move back to Folly.

  We reached Second Avenue North and Heather guided us left where we walked three blocks and left again and back to their apartment. Cal said he needed a nap. He said his seventy-two-year-old body didn’t quite have the “get-up-and-go” it had when he closed many of Nashville’s bars “a while back.”

  His nap became our nap which flowed into bedtime. Heather said she and Charles were going to take in one more bar before “hitting the hay.” We wished them well.

  Cal’s snoring woke me up at three in the morning; he also was occupying more than half of the bed. I stared at the dark ceiling and wondered what problem Charles and Heather had. Although we shared a lot of words after returning to the apartment, his “later” had not been among them.

  4

  Heather rattled enough pots and pans the next morning to wake Cal and me, and probably anyone living nearby. I suspected it was her intention, since she had fixed us a gourmet breakfast of Dunkin’ Donuts with the consistency of Styrofoam. Nary a pot or pan was used in the preparation. She said the donuts would provide us energy for another day of walking around her town.

  To a casual observer, our activities would have appeared to be a rerun of yesterday’s tour. Lighter crowds and fewer live performances were all that separated the two days. She did listen to more of Cal’s reminiscing about his days as a “big star,” during his performances at the Grand Ole Opry House, his walking across the alley from the Opry to Tootsie’s for a midnigh
t brew, and staggering across Broadway to take in the live, midnight radio shows from the Ernest Tubb Record Store. Charles and I had heard most of it before. If Heather had, she fended enough enthusiasm for Cal to rehash his adventures.

  Heather suggested we check out the Nashville landmark after hearing Cal’s Ernest Tubb Record Store story. Charles said for Heather and Cal to go ahead, and he and I would stay and shoot the breeze until they got back. Heather seemed hurt we wouldn’t be joining them. She got over it and grabbed Cal’s hand and led him through the light traffic as they crossed Broadway.

  I watched them and turned to Charles. “Is later now?”

  “Good memory.” He motioned me to join him on a bench in front of the Stage Bar.

  Charles grabbed a hot dog wrapper from the bench and dropped it in a nearby trashcan while fifteen feet to our left, a street musician strummed on an old Yamaha guitar. From his straggly, age-stained attire, and equally straggly face, he appeared to be a permanent resident of a homeless shelter, and from the single, one-dollar bill in an open guitar case at his feet, he wouldn’t be moving to the Hyatt anytime soon.

  I turned back to Charles. “What’s the problem?” We didn’t have much time before Cal and Heather would be returning and I wanted to hear what Charles had to say.

  He looked at a crumpled napkin on the sidewalk. “Kevin Starr.”

  I waited for him to pick it up and put it in the trash. He didn’t, so I said, “What about him? He’s still Heather’s agent, isn’t he?”

  “Think he’s ripping her off.”

  I had thought that from the moment on Folly after he’d heard her sing and said he’d like to represent her. Her bubbly stage personality made up for much of what she lacked vocally. I still didn’t think it would be enough for her to be successful. Heather may be many things, and no doubt the best thing that had ever happened to Charles, but a singer, she wasn’t.

  A few days after Charles and Heather had arrived in Nashville he’d called me and said Starr wanted her to cut an expensive demo CD.

  “Did she get the demo she paid for?”

  Charles waited for a tour bus to pass before continuing. The smell of burnt diesel fuel washed over us.

  “Yeah, the demo was pretty good. It showed Heather at her best.”

  “What’s he done to make you suspicious?”

  “Chris, we’ve met with the man four times. Each time was at a Starbucks over on Church Street. Yeah, it’s convenient to our apartment, but each time Heather asked him if we could meet at his office, he told her he meets his artists in different public spots around town. Heather is in love with everything about Nashville and wants to add a trip to a real music agent’s office. Starr always says something about how he likes his meetings to be convenient for the client.” He paused and looked across the street to the record shop, and back at me. “I’m wondering if he has an office.”

  Heather and Cal were still in Ernest Tubb’s. “Don’t suppose he has to have an office. He could work out of his house.”

  “Maybe. That’s not all. Heather’s appeared at the Bluebird five times. Starr—her agent—said he’d be there each time.”

  “And he wasn’t?”

  He shook his head. “Plus, we’ve met other songwriters while we’ve been standing in line at the Bluebird. Heather’s gotten to know a couple of them pretty well. They say Starr Management was handling them. It sounds good and impressive until they start talking and their stories are not a hair different than Heather’s. None of them have been struck by fame.”

  A girl around nine dropped another dollar bill in the street singer’s guitar case. The musician smiled and started singing “You Are My Sunshine.” The child laughed and her parents stood behind her and smiled.

  I waited for the song to finish, watched the parents applaud, and turned to Charles. “Have you confronted Starr?”

  He shook his head. “You know I’m a detective, well, sort of, and I’ve—we’ve—gotten pretty good at it.” He pointed at me and at his chest.

  Now’s when I wished Cal and Heather would run back across the street and interrupt the direction Charles was headed.

  “We’ve been lucky,” I said.

  “You call it luck, I call it superior detecting skills.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Anyway,” the faux-detective continued, “I thought since you were heading over anyway, we could talk to Starr. Then we could put our heads together and figure out if he’s what he says he is, or if he’s ripping us off.”

  Charles’s reason for suggesting I needed a vacation was beginning to come into focus. This was as close as he would come to asking for help, and he was the best friend I’d ever had.

  “What’s Heather’s take on Starr?”

  Charles looked at another tour bus as it rolled by, at the singer, and finally at me. “She’s trying to keep her head up and her cute little grin on her face.”

  “But?”

  “She POed. She doesn’t say he’s conning her, although she wanders close to it. I’ve caught her balling her eyes out twice. She said it was Tennessee allergies. I didn’t believe it.” He glanced across the street. “She has a temper, you know.”

  She was high-strung and could be moody. I nodded.

  “I think if Starr had come knocking on our door the day before you got here, he would have been greeted by a frying pan in his toothy smile. She’s putting on a good front for you and Cal.”

  “Is she going to talk to Starr?”

  “Don’t know. On one hand, she’s afraid he’s taking advantage of her dreams, and she also wants to believe he’s on the up-and-up and is going to make her famous. God, Chris, it tears me up seeing her hurt.”

  “I know. You’re leaning toward him ripping her off?”

  He nodded.

  “Does she know about your plan to investigate the agent?”

  “Umm, not yet.”

  “That’s what I thought. When are you supposed to talk to Starr again?”

  “He told her he was coming to the Bluebird Monday.”

  “He’s said that how many times and failed to show?”

  “I’m playing the law of averages. He’s bound to show this time.”

  My law of consistency says if he hasn’t shown the last five times, he won’t be there Monday.

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Tuesday morning we’ll set out to find him. After all, I am a detective.”

  Heather and Cal made their way back from the record store.

  Cal shook his head and pushed his Stetson back off his forehead. “Fellas, I remember back in the day when ETs was stocked out the door with records and people. Know what I couldn’t find over there until your gal Heather showed me?”

  My guess would have been records and people. I didn’t want to spoil Cal’s story, and said, “What?”

  “It’s chock full of books, CDs, DVDs, photos, songbooks, souvenirs, and a danged actual record section the size of Charles book shelf.” Cal pointed in the direction of Charles and Heather’s apartment. “To top it off, Heather and I were the only customers in there until a gal came in to see if they had guitar strings. Fellas, I’m dee-pressed.” He shook his head again. “Should have let my memories do the walking over there instead of these old calloused feet.”

  Charles began humming “The Times They Are A-Changin’” but Cal was stuck in his memories and didn’t appreciate, or hear Charles.

  Heather convinced us we needed to spend culture-accumulating time a couple of blocks from where we were standing over a brew or two at the Tin Roof.

  The Tin Roof called itself “A Live Music Joint,” and looked a lot like a bar. A male-female duet was playing from the stage that had the front windows as its backdrop. The bar had a balcony, but we opted for a table on the first floor. We didn’t want Cal’s old calloused feet to walk more than they had to. As per Heather’s suggestion, our brew became two, and we added Tennessee Hot Tops, another brew, and to honor my home state, Charles ordered Ke
ntuckyaki Wings, followed by another brew. The band changed once, our conversation changed several times, and Heather changed from the venue’s typical music fan enjoying the food and music, to a marketer when she asked the server what it took to get a gig playing there.

  The mid-thirties, bearded server gave her a big smile and said, “Get in line, honey. Plum near every server, bartender, and taxi driver here is ahead of you to the line. We’re all singers or song scribes waiting for our big break.”

  “You too?” Heather said.

  “You bet.” He pointed to the stage. “I was up there yesterday.” He laughed. “Had my fifteen minutes of fame, but drug it out to two sets.”

  Heather looked at the stage and back at the bartender. “How do I get up there? I’ve got an agent. Can he contact someone here?”

  The server nodded. “Could. It won’t do much good. Word of mouth is the best way to get in the bars down here. We know who’s good or not and tell our bosses; they tell other bosses, and time slots are filled. Word of mouth, honey.”

  Charles leaned close to me. “See. What good’s Starr, even if he’s on the up-and-up, which I’m doubtin’, seriously doubtin’?”

  The server told Heather he’d love to stay and talk but had other customers.

  A new band had begun its set and Heather leaned closer so we could hear her. “It’s what Gwen told me.”

  Cal said, “Who’s Gwen?”

  “A friend. Met her at the Bluebird. She’s also a songwriter and not a bad singer.” Heather rolled her eyes. “She’s also a client of Starr Management.”

  Cal asked, “Has Starr made her famous?”

  “No. She’s been his client for a couple more months than me. Claims he got her a couple of auditions on Music Row. Gwen said auditions meant getting to hand her demo to someone who acted like a receptionist more than someone important. They said they’d get back with her if there was interest. She’s never heard a peep. That gal’s pissed at Starr.” She huffed. “Don’t blame her.”

  Heather’s dark side had made a brief appearance until more drinks followed. She cheered up, Charles asked about getting a Tin Roof T-shirt but declined when the server said they all were short sleeve. We called it a day.