by Bill Noel
“Thank you for taking me. Sorry I couldn’t remember more.”
“That’s okay. It’s coming back.”
“Joy,” Charles said, “when you were talking about being on the boat, you said, ‘He didn’t look back.’ Do you remember anything about him?”
“No.”
I said, “Was there only one person?”
“There could’ve been more. I only remember the one sitting behind the wheel in front of me.”
“And you can’t remember anything about him?” Charles said. “What he was wearing. If he had a hat on, or if you could you see the color of his hair. Did he say anything?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You’re doing fine, Joy,” I said. “Tell you what, if you remember more about being on the boat or the man, or if there was someone with him, would you give me a call? I can let the police know so they can follow up.”
“Okay,” she said, and thanked us again for lunch and for taking her to see the boat.
I pulled in Charles’s gravel parking lot and waited for him to say something about Joy. He’d been unusually silent since we’d left her.
“Chris,” he finally spoke, “I don’t know what to make of it. I don’t understand amnesia. How could she have been in that boat and then get off the boat and float to shore on a surfboard without remembering anything about it?”
I was no expert on retrograde amnesia but knew it was real. Joy had no reason to fake it. Slices of her memory are coming back, and if Barb was correct, most, if not all, will eventually return.
I shared my limited knowledge with Charles, and added, “I’m more worried about her safety. Whether it be one, two, or more people who took her out on the boat, it was against her will and I can only imagine what he, or they, had intended.”
Charles added, “Dump her in the ocean, never to be seen again, alive, that is.”
I nodded.
“You’re afraid whoever it was will try again?”
“Yes. Despite the best efforts to keep her whereabouts secret, too many people know where she’s living.”
“That’s why we have to figure out who and stop them from causing more harm.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s why the police need to solve it—emphasis on police.”
“Whatever. That’s why you’re going to pick up your phone and call Chief LaMond and tell her what we heard about Joy and the boat.”
I thought about waiting until I got in the comfort of my home before calling and being the recipient of her wrath about me nosing in police business. Why not let Charles suffer with me? I called the Chief’s cell phone and hit the speaker icon.
Cindy answered with, “Happy almost Christmas, Mr. Landrum.”
Her pleasant comment threw me, and Charles stared at the phone like it was a scorpion.
“You’re in a good mood,” I said.
“Aren’t I always?”
“No.”
“Well, aren’t you a damn Debbie downer? Get in the Christmas spirit. Take me, for example. I’m standing in this hoity-toity jewelry store in downtown Charleston with my lovey-dovey hubby and trying on an antique gold ring with a beryl stone and a cute little diamond on each side of it.”
“Beryl?” I said.
“Light-blue gemstone, my jewelry-challenged friend. Enough about the exquisite ring lovey-dovey is getting me for Christmas. Why have you called to ruin my perfectly wonderful, and I might add, historic, day when hubby takes me jewelry shopping?”
“Charles and I were having lunch with Joy and she asked us to take her to the boat on Tabby Drive.”
“Why?” she interrupted.
Charles leaned close to the phone and said, “Because we were hungry.”
“Why’d she ask you to take her to the boat, Chris, who now sounds a lot like Charles, that moronic friend of yours?”
Enough foolishness, I thought. “She hoped it would bring back memories.”
Cindy sighed. “Did it?”
I shared what Joy had remembered. Cindy asked twice if she said anything about the man in the boat other than he was sitting behind the wheel. Twice, I answered she hadn’t.
“What am I supposed to do with that modicum of near-worthless information?”
“Modicum?” Charles said.
“Itsy, teeny-weeny bit,” she said.
I was ready to hang up on the chief and throw Charles out of the car, when Cindy added, “Thanks, Chris. It’s not much but it confirms that Joy was on the boat, and most likely, in the ocean. The who, what, and why are yet to be determined. Any word on Pluto?”
That kind of abrupt transition was a hallmark of Charles, but not foreign to several of my friends.
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Me either,” Charles added to not be left out.
“Larry has another gem for me to try on. Better go. He only gets in this generous mood every… umm, never.”
She ended the call after agreeing to let me know if she learned anything or if Pluto was found. And, at her urging, I agreed to let her know before I got killed playing cop.
16
I walked to Bert’s to get prepackaged doughnuts for breakfast. It was four days until Christmas and Bert’s employees’ shirts reflected the holiday. Two guys hard at work behind the deli counter wore red T-shirts, one with a picture of Santa on the front and the other with the head of a smiling reindeer. Mary Ewing was stocking a shelf near the back of the store and smiled when she saw me. She had on a red and white Santa’s hat and a green sweatshirt with Merry Christmas on the front. When I met Mary a year ago, she was anorexic thin with dirty blond hair. Since then, she’d added twenty pounds to her five-foot-five frame and her hair was clean and pulled in a ponytail. She looked fresh and younger than her mid-twenties.
Her smile lit up the room. “Good morning, Mr. Landrum.”
“Mary, you know to call me Chris. Ready for the big day?”
She gave me a hug, stepped back, and continued to smile. “I’d better be. Jewel and Joanie are counting the hours until Santa arrives.”
The single mother and high-school dropout was struggling last Christmas to find somewhere warm to spend the nights with her girls. Preacher Burl heard of their situation, found them a place to live, got Mary the job at Bert’s, and gave them hope. He also got her enrolled in a GED program where she could work toward her high-school equivalency diploma.
I remembered how excited Joanie and Jewel were last Christmas to get something as simple as new clothes for the holiday. “I bet they’re excited.”
A customer interrupted our conversation to ask Mary where to find ketchup. Mary smiled and walked the woman to the condiments and returned to where I was looking at the packaged sweets, a.k.a. breakfast.
“They’re super excited. This’ll be the first Christmas for Jewel in a house where we’re actually living.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“I almost forgot,” Mary said and tapped the side of her head. “I met someone you know.”
“Who?”
“Joy. She said you and your lady friend saved her life.”
“Barb and I were in the right place at the right time. Where did you meet her?”
“Yesterday, after work, Joanie, Jewel, and I were walking along the beach. It was windy and cold, but when my gals want to walk on the beach, nothing can stop them. We were bundled up and saw Joy walking toward us. She was wrapped-up in a big coat and looking at the pier. You know Joanie’s never met a stranger, so she went over to Joy.” Mary laughed and shook her head. “Joanie said, ‘I’m excited about Christmas. How about you?’”
That sounded like Joanie. I smiled, and said, “What did Joy say?”
“She knelt and smiled at Joanie. I didn’t think there was much happiness behind her smile, anyway, she said she was excited and asked Joanie her name. You know, that’s all it took. Joanie not only told the stranger her name but pointed to Jewel and me and shared our names, where we lived, and how much we were looking
forward to Christmas. She finally got around to asking the lady who she was. She told us she was Joy.” Mary chuckled. “Joanie is obsessed with words, something she’s getting from school, I suppose. She pointed to her sister, at Joy, and then at herself, and said, ‘That’s funny. All our names start with J.’ That got an honest smile from Joy.”
“How’d you learn that Joy knew me?”
“My busybody seven-year-old. After she figured out the J names, she asked Joy if she lived on Folly. Joy said she guessed she did. That did it. Joanie asked what Joy meant by guessed she lived here. Joanie said something like, ‘Don’t you know where you live?’ Joy told her it was hard to understand, but that you and Barbara found her, and she was now staying at Hope House. Joanie knows about the house and that it was started by that wonderful man, Preacher Burl. I interrupted Joanie’s interrogation of the poor lady who’d been minding her business and walking on the beach. I told Joanie we needed to get going and to let the lady continue her walk.”
“That was nice of Joanie to talk to Joy.”
“Yes. Joy said it was nice meeting us and that she looked forward to seeing us again. I told her that you and I were friends. I hope that was okay.”
I told her it was. Mary said she didn’t know anything about Joy but that she was going to stop by to visit her. I said it was a good idea. Another customer asked Mary a question, and I told her that I didn’t want to keep her from work.
I grabbed some coffee, paid for breakfast, headed home, and thought how it would be good for both Mary and Joy to get better acquainted, or, knowing as little as I did about Joy, thought it would be good.
I tore open the package of doughnuts and started breakfast when the phone rang.
“I was thinking,” Charles said to open the conversation.
“Might I ask what?” I said before stuffing one of the treats in my mouth.
“You might,” Charles said, and smiled.
I waited for him to tell me instead of asking again.
“You’re no fun. Why don’t you come pick me up and I’ll not only tell you, I’d do a show-and-tell, and we can see if I’m right.”
The logical thing to do would be to ask what he might be right about, or moving past that, suggest that he pick me up. He had a car, and it was his idea. Logical and Charles seldom coexisted. I told him I’d be at his place in fifteen minutes.
“Where are we going?” I asked as he got in the car. I thought it was an appropriate question since all Charles had said was for me to pick him up.
“East Arctic, three-hundred block.”
“Why?”
“To visit Martha.”
“Martha?”
“Martha Wright. Remember, you asked about her after church?”
“One of the older ladies you were talking to?”
“Ah, ye of declining brain cells, you remember.”
I’d turned left on East Arctic Avenue in front of the Tides Hotel.
“Now that we’ve determined the who, how about why?”
“Martha loves animals. I’ve never been there but have heard she has bunch of pets. She puts food out every night for hungry, homeless critters. I was told that if you walked by her house around sunset, you could see animals of all sizes, shapes, and kinds. The Ark would’ve been too small to hold them all.”
The purpose of our trip finally dawned on me. “You think Martha has Pluto?”
“It’s possible. Martha’s house is close to Dude’s if you go as the crow flies, or as the Pluto trots. He didn’t have a collar and he’s adorable. He could’ve been tempted by the food and as friendly as he is, I can see Martha taking him in. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” He pointed to a large, two-story, new, sky-blue house on our right that backed up to the beach.
I said, “Looks like Martha can afford plenty of pet food.”
“I hear she’s worth millions. She plops a couple of C-notes in the collection basket each week. Her husband died a few years ago, and she moved here from Atlanta. Rumor is hubby hated the beach and wouldn’t leave the Peachtree State. He didn’t have to. Now he’s planted there, and Martha has her beach. A best-of-both-worlds’ marriage.”
“What’s your plan? Knock on the door and ask if she’s stolen any dogs?”
“Doubt that’ll work. I’ll start with my charming smile, then step aside, and you can ask if she heisted the little fellow.”
We climbed what seemed like a hundred steps to the front door, and Charles, good to his word, rang the bell, and moved back. It must’ve sounded like the dinner bell. There were barks ranging from high-pitched yelps that sounded more like squeaks, to Barry White rumbles. None of the noises sounded like someone answering the door. Charles rang again, again receiving a cacophony of animal utterances.
Charles leaned closer to the door and said, “Hear Pluto in there?”
I looked at him and shook my head.
“I don’t either,” he said. “Pluto’s not a big talker, takes after Dude.”
Still no answer.
The garage door was closed so we couldn’t tell if a vehicle was inside. Charles suggested we walk around back and see if Martha was in the yard. The back yard consisted of a thirty-foot deep patch of perfectly manicured grass, before steps that led to the beach. There must have been two dozen stainless-steel bowls along the rear of the house, with half of them overflowing with dog food. It was no wonder that canines, and I suspected a few cats, racoons, and an occasional opossum chose this restaurant for their evening meal. What wasn’t in back was Martha Wright.
“Now what?” I said.
“Other than breaking in?”
“That’s not an option.”
“You’re right,” Charles said and looked at the back door. “Some of those dogs sound like they could have us for dessert.”
That wasn’t my reason for not committing a crime, but if it stopped Charles, I’d agree with him.
“Let’s see if the neighbors know anything,” he said, and looked to either side of Martha’s house.
No one was in the yard, and for as far as we could see, the beach was deserted. We returned to the car and Charles looked across the street.
“Wonder if Dixie’s home?” Charles said and started across the street.
Charles had already started up the steps of the house directly across from Martha’s, so I assumed it was Dixie’s. All I knew about her was that she attended First Light Church, and according to Charles was an uber-gardener and Martha’s close friend.
We had better luck at Dixie’s door. I recognized the woman who answered from church. She was in her late seventies, tall, at roughly five-foot-nine, thin, with hair so white that I suspected it might glow in the dark. Her face was tanned and leathery. She smiled at Charles and her teeth matched the color of her hair. She had on a white, long-sleeve men’s dress shirts and jeans with mud caked on each knee.
“Charles, my oh my, what a pleasant surprise. Who’s your friend?”
Charles nodded in my direction. “Dixie, this is my best friend, Chris Landrum. Chris, meet Dixie Thompson.”
We exchanged pleasantries and Dixie invited us in, something I’m not sure I’d do if I found two guys who looked like us at the door.
“I wasn’t expecting company, so things are a mess. I just came from the garden. Would either of you like a drink?”
“Water would be nice,” Charles said.
She winked at me and said, “I’ve got bourbon.”
“Water’s fine,” I said.
Charles and I sat on a burgundy sofa. Dixie was gone several minutes before returning with water in plastic glasses for Charles and me. She went back to the kitchen and returned carrying what I’d always heard referred to as a rocks glass filled with ice cubes and an amber-colored liquid. The odds on it being tea were slim. Her house wasn’t nearly as new as Martha’s and the living room furniture had been new in the 1950s. Dixie sat across from us in a white-on-khaki medallion patterned chair. She didn’t seem worried that her m
uddy jeans would hurt it.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love company, but what brings you gentlemen out today? Surely it’s not to visit an old lady.”
“Now Dixie,” Charles said, “you’re not old.”
“Charles, you’re a dear. You may not know this, but I pride myself in being able to spot bull dung a block away.” She gave Charles a smile incongruous with her words.
Charles smiled. “You caught us, Dixie. We were at Martha’s and it doesn’t appear she’s home. You know everything that goes on around here, so I figured you’d know where she is.”
Martha smiled and wiggled her forefinger at Charles. “Did you forget what I said about my bull dung meter. I don’t know everything, but I know Martha’s whereabouts.”
Charles smiled and said, “Where?”
“Dayton, Ohio. She’s visiting a cousin who had a stroke.”
I asked, “When’s she coming back?”
“Christmas Eve, if the danged airlines don’t mess up her flights. They’re getting worse every day. You wouldn’t catch me dead flying anywhere.” She hesitated and bit her lower lip. “I do worry about Martha.”
Charles asked, “Why?”
She frowned and shook her head. “The dear lady would slap me senseless if she knew I was telling you this. Her memory’s slipping. She says she’s fine, but she’s fibbin’. If you ask me, she’s on the road to Alzheimer’s.”
I said, “I’m sorry to hear it.”
Charles jumped in with, “Who’s taking care of her pets?”
“I offered to. She said don’t be silly that it wasn’t safe for me to be crossing the street to her house.” She shook her head. “Charles, I’ve crossed that street for thirty-five years. Haven’t been flattened yet. She hired a pet sitter; can you believe that? I’d never heard of such until Martha told me about it. The sitter, a sweet little thing, can’t be over twenty, comes twice a day to feed and walk Martha’s dogs. Didn’t have jobs like that when I was a youngster. They sure didn’t.”
Charles said, “What time does the pet sitter come?”