by Bill Noel
We pulled in the parking lot and Charles once again asked the question for which I had no reasonable answer.
“What about the gun?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What I do know is Starr had a reason for lying about being on Folly, a reason which may have gotten him killed. We need to find what it was. We also know the police aren’t looking beyond Heather. I need to head home and see what I can learn.”
“What time are we leaving?”
I told Charles we should leave in the morning. He asked why we couldn’t leave now. I asked if he wanted to drive all night; he said on second thought, leaving in the morning was a good idea.
I couldn’t have been asleep more than an hour and wondered why the alarm clock was going off. It took me a few seconds to escape from the sound sleep and to realize I didn’t have an alarm clock. It was the phone. By the time I was awake enough to answer, whoever had called had been sent to voicemail.
It was after midnight so whoever had called must have had a good reason for calling. I tapped the voicemail icon.
“Yo, Chris,” Cal said. “It’s—oh, oh—past your beddy-bye time. Sorry. Anyway, if you get this and aren’t going to give me a scolding for calling late, call me back. The number is—hell, you know the number.”
I wasn’t going to rule out scolding, but knew it had to be important for him to call. I tapped his number.
“Hello,” he yelled, above the sound of George Jones bemoaning something from the jukebox, and a few patrons who sounded like they had consumed a few beers on the other side of sober.
I told him who it was and said it sounded like he was busy. He said something about overflow from a property-managers’ convention at the Tides and said he was glad I had called.
“Didn’t wake you up, did I?”
I said he hadn’t and asked what was so important.
“Think I’ve figured out something about shyster Starr’s trips over this way.”
Someone in the background yelled, “Another round, cowboy.” I heard other voices but couldn’t tell what they were saying.
“You still there, Kentucky?”
I said I was and that I didn’t catch what he'd said.
“When’re you moseying this way?”
I told him Charles and I were heading to Folly in the morning.
“Hold your jackass,” Cal shouted.
I told myself he was talking to a soused property manager and not me.
There was more mumbling in the background and Cal said, “Holler when you unsaddle at your bunkhouse.”
I went out on a limb and assumed he meant for me to get with him when we got home. “You got it, pard.”
It was another hour before I stopped wondering what he had learned and returned to sleep.
19
After one Starbucks’ stop, a Dunkin’ Donuts’ detour, and yawns that made the inside of the car sound like a six-a.m. commuter train, Charles and I were on the Interstate headed to Folly Beach.
Between yawns Charles asked, “What do you think Cal wants to tell you?”
“Don’t know. He doesn’t call often, so it’s important.”
Charles nodded, took another bite of doughnut, and mumbled, “Maybe you ought to call him.”
I explained that Cal didn’t get home from work not that long ago. If he wasn’t asleep, he should be. It could wait until we got back. Charles said I was right about Cal being asleep and I could wait another couple of hours to call. The wait until we got back part slipped past him. I pretended it was a good idea.
The trip was all Interstate and except for several miles of winding roads on each side of Asheville, was easy driving. My age and having made the trip so many times in the last couple of weeks was taking its toll on my aching bones and my posterior. Despite his constant babbling about things trivial and irrelevant, having Charles with me made it go quicker. I would have been less patient if I hadn’t suspected he was trying to distract me, as well as himself, from thinking about Heather’s problems. He wasn’t successful. Several times he repeated his belief she was guilty and wondered how he had fallen for a killer. I still couldn’t wrap my arms around her guilt and tried to tell him we would do everything possible to find the real killer. I tried to be convincing, yet wasn’t certain he was wrong.
Two hours later, Charles remembered his brilliant idea for me to call Cal. Unless I called, I would hear it repeated each mile marker, so I had him punch in the number. He did and handed me the phone. I got Cal’s brief voicemail message and left him an equally brief request to call.
Cal hadn’t returned my call when we reached the bridge over the Folly River. I was exhausted and suspected Charles was too, yet he insisted we go to Cal’s and find the inconsiderate crooner before doing anything else. I parked a block from the bar in an empty spot in front of Cal’s classic Cadillac.
I smiled, albeit an exhausted smile, as I entered Cal’s. I felt at home. The aging singer greeted us in his Stetson. In the spirit of Folly, he wore a faded, black Nike golf shirt, yellow shorts, and mismatched tennis shoes. Charles had done better in his orange Clemson University National Champions long-sleeve T-shirt, blue shorts, as he tapped his cane on the worn carpeting. As usual, I was the most boring and least Folly-attired of the three in my light-blue golf shirt and navy shorts. The familiar, welcoming smell of frying hamburgers and seeing Cal made the long, exhausting trip worth it.
There were a couple of dozen others in the bar, a good crowd for a weeknight. I knew several of them and they waved at us. We reciprocated and Charles lit into Cal.
“We called you a thousand times. Got your danged machine. You never called back. We could have been turned upside down on I-26 and you didn’t even listen to our messages to save our lives.” He paused and took a breath. “Well, what do you say for yourself?”
Cal pushed his hat back and leaned against the bar. “Well, former Folly resident,” Cal said in a calm voice he’d perfected during his years entertaining in bars to defuse difficult situations. “Seems to this old-timer that if you were ass up on the side of the road, you would’ve been better off calling 911 than this old barkeep.”
Charles huffed. “Not the point.”
I thought it was a good point and hugged Cal and said it was good to be home.
He thanked me, walked behind the bar, got us drinks, and said, “Sorry, Charles, didn’t know you called. Must’ve left my phone in the car. What’d you need?”
Charles smiled. “Apology accepted. Chris wanted to hear what you learned and couldn’t wait until we got back to ask.”
I must have forgotten that part.
“Think I’ve got it figured out. It’s gonna get Heather off the bucking bronco, and lasso the real killer.” He put Charles’s beer on the bar, looked around and saw no one was waiting for a drink, “Hang on a sec. Let me get the phone before I forget.”
Charles started to object. It wouldn’t have mattered since Cal was already headed to the door.
Caldwell Ramsey moved up to the bar and stood beside us. “Hello, Charles, Chris.”
“Howdy, Caldwell,” Charles said and looked behind the music promoter. “Where’s Mad Mel?”
Caldwell nodded toward the empty bar stool. “May I join you?”
I waved for him to have a seat.
He sat and looked at his watch. “Mel should be pulling in to the dock about now. He had a group of college students who wanted to enjoy the marsh, privacy, and a few drinks. I was supposed to meet a client here but she called and said she wasn’t going to make it.”
“So, you’re slummin’ with Chris and me.”
Caldwell smiled. “I’ve spent time with worse.” His smile disappeared. “Cal told me about Heather—terrible. How’s she doing?”
Charles gave a sanitized update on Heather’s condition, how she was handling jail, and about her lawyer.
Caldwell leaned his tall, trim body close to Charles, listened, and nodded,
before saying in a low voice, “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I will. Thanks for asking. Can we buy you a drink?”
Caldwell looked down at his watch again. “Think I could throw back one more.” He looked around the room. “Where’s Cal?”
“Went to the car to get his phone,” I said. “Should be back soon.”
Caldwell smiled. “Suppose I can wait a little longer for my beer.”
John Anderson’s “Swingin’” blasted from the jukebox and one of the patrons I didn’t recognize, accidently elbowed me on his way to the bar. “Excuse me,” he said with a beer-breath slur. “Where’s the cowboy?”
Charles told him to cool his jets and the bartender would be right back.
Caldwell looked toward the door and at Charles. “Where’d he park, Mt. Pleasant?”
Charles looked at Caldwell, and at the other man who was staggering around waiting for another beer. “Let’s check on him. He should’ve been back.”
I wasn’t nearly as nosy as Charles, and it felt good to be relaxing at the bar after a day on the road. I followed Charles outside.
We’d parked in front of Cal’s car, so we knew where it was. The area was poorly lit and from a distance everything looked fine; fine except no Cal.
“Where’d he get to?” Charles asked. He stopped and shouted, “Cal!” Charles pointed to a body on the ground beside the car’s rear door. I was behind Charles and couldn’t see who it was until I recognized our friend’s unmistakable attire. Cal was on his stomach and splayed out on the sandy berm. His Stetson was upside down beside his arm and it looked like it had been stomped on. So did Cal’s head. His long hair was covered with blood and a trickle of it ran down the side of his face.
I rushed past Charles and bent down to see if Cal was breathing. At first, I didn’t think so, until I saw his hand twitch. Charles moved to my side and bent over to get a better view. He asked if Cal was alive. I said barely, and told Charles to run get a medic and a cop. City Hall was across the street from Cal’s and housed both its police and fire departments.
Charles rushed off and I kept asking Cal if he could hear me. He didn’t respond. I was afraid to move him so I yanked off my shirt and pressed it against the head wound. I prayed an EMT would arrive in time to help. Blood was still oozing from his head, but seemed to be slowing as I kept pressing on the shirt. I hoped it wasn’t wishful thinking on my part.
I realized that whoever had hit him could be nearby. I craned my head around while maintaining pressure on his wound. Laughter from a group walking on the other side of the road was all I heard. I didn’t see anyone else.
Charles must have made quite a ruckus at the public safety building. Two minutes later, he was back with two EMTs and two police officers. I stood and on wobbly legs stepped aside for the medics to do their thing. One of them asked one of the cops to call for an ambulance. He said he already had. The other police officer pulled Charles and me away from the life-saving efforts and asked what had happened. We said we wouldn’t be much help and explained how we had been with Cal in the bar when he left to get his phone out of his car. Officer Kasper took our names, contact numbers, and told us a detective would be contacting us in the morning. He said that was all he needed and waited for us to leave.
I wasn’t going to be dismissed. “Is his wallet on him?” Cal always carried an oversized wallet.
Kasper walked over to the paramedic who was watching his partner work on Cal and asked if there was a wallet. The paramedic bent over and felt the back of Cal’s pants.
“Don’t think so.”
The officer shook his head. “Looks like a mugging. Thanks again, gentlemen.”
I was polite but firm and told him Cal didn’t have any relatives, Charles and I were his good friends, and we weren’t going anywhere until he was on his way to the hospital. I also told him we would follow the ambulance. From our vantage point, it didn’t appear Cal had moved since we’d found him.
We waited for the ambulance, and I grabbed a clean shirt from my suitcase, before realizing there was no one in charge of the bar. I called Preacher Burl who agreed to play bartender and close for the night. He said he would pray for Cal. I prayed he would be successful. After watching the seventy-two-year-old lay motionless on the berm, I wasn’t optimistic.
20
I had spent so much time at the hospital in Charleston, I should have been given access to the doctor’s parking lot and the employee’s discount at the restaurant. I’d been here as a patient, and often had visited friends in varying degrees of medical distress. I was never comfortable with the annoying odor of the antiseptic cleaning fluids and the sad sight of sick and injured people in the emergency room.
“When are they going to tell us something?” Charles asked, for a third time. He had stopped pacing the room, and flopped down in a chair.
“When they know something,” I said, for a third time.
It had been an hour since the EMTs wheeled our friend through the door into the bowels of the hospital. One of the medics who transported him told us he had a concussion, and had lost a lot of blood. His vitals were adequate, although nothing to brag about. I had asked if Cal would make it and was told it wasn’t up to him to say.
Preacher Burl called to ask about Cal, when a middle-aged, overweight doctor with a face that hadn’t seen a razor for a few days walked out of the treatment area, looked around, and plodded over to Charles and me. I told Burl I’d call him back and shook hands with the doc. His face didn’t give anything away except fatigue.
I explained Cal didn’t have any family and we were his best friends. He hesitated before saying anything, but said, “He’s fortunate. His skull isn’t fractured. His brain’s taken quite a jarring. To put it in simple terms, he was hit with a heavy object, maybe a ball bat or piece of wood or metal.” He hesitated and rubbed his temples. “The blow caused his brain to rattle around in his head. It bounced off his skull, causing bruising.”
Charles stepped closer to the doctor. “Is he conscious?”
The doctor grimaced. “He’s mumbling and not making sense. Is he in the music business?”
I said he was a singer and had been for decades.
“Country music?” the doc asked.
I nodded.
“Makes more sense. Mr. Ballew tried to sit up in bed and started talking to someone he called Roy about singing ‘Wabash Cannonball.’ Then he said something about seeing her in Nashville and how much he missed Patsy.” He smiled. “My dad was a big country fan and was always talking about Roy Acuff and Patsy Cline. Figured that may’ve been who your friend was referring to.”
“Is it normal for him to be talking about ancient history?” I asked.
“Not unusual,” the doctor said, back in his medical-professional voice. “A head trauma can cause a plethora of distinct and nonlinear reactions within the brain. He may not be able to remember what happened tonight, while he’s as clear as day about incidents fifty years ago. It’s possible to confuse periods of time.”
Charles said, “Will he be okay?”
“His vitals are strong for someone his age. It may take time, but the odds on a full recovery are decent.”
“Can we see him?” I asked.
The doctor shook his head. “The fewer distractions he has over the next twenty-four hours the better. He needs to stay calm. Maybe tomorrow afternoon. Leave your number at the desk in case we need to get in touch with you. Sorry about whatever happened.”
We thanked him and he headed back to the treatment rooms.
“He’s fortunate to be alive,” Charles said. “No matter what you say, being hardheaded’s a good thing.”
“Hardheaded and wearing a Stetson.”
“Huh?”
“Did you see his hat? It was crushed; must have taken some of the steam out of the blow. If he didn’t have it on, I bet he wouldn’t be with us.”
“Fortunate,” Charles said. He turned his attention to two men
entering the room.
One was in a sport coat but with no tie and the other in a white polo shirt. Regardless of their dress, their gait and the way they surveyed the room screamed official, detective official. It also didn’t hurt the identification to see each had a holstered firearm attached to his belt. The emergency room was nearly vacant, a rare sight, so the detectives focused on Charles and me.
The one in the sport coat asked, “Are you the ones who found the guy by his car?”
I was irked by his impersonal attitude, and told him yes, we found “Mr. Ballew.”
He introduced himself and his partner as detectives from the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, didn’t bother to show identification, and said they had a few questions.
The other detective nodded toward the treatment rooms. “He going to make it?”
“The doctor said Mr. Ballew has a good chance of recovering,” I said, with an emphasis on Mr. I also told them what the doc had said about visitors in case they’d planned to barge in the treatment room.
“Oh great, now we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to talk to him,” the first detective said, and hesitated like he had realized how callused he’d sounded. “Glad he’s going to pull through. The cops on Folly didn’t think he was going to live. They told us what you told them. Let’s hear it from you.”
“I doubt we can add to what you already know,” I said, and repeated what we had told the responding officers.
“Before the vic, umm, Mr. Ballew, left the bar to get his phone, did you notice anyone paying particular attention to him or if anyone left when he did?”
“We hadn’t been there long,” I said. “I didn’t see anyone paying attention to him. Did you, Charles?”