Missing

by Bill Noel

  “What now?” I asked.

  Brian flipped over another couple of pages in his notebook and handed me a folded five-by-seven-inch piece of paper. It was a photocopy of a straight-on shot of an attractive, thin female. It looked like a jail mug shot, but Brian assured me that it was a driver’s license photo of Constance Garvin, the missing student.

  “All my guys have copies,” he said. “So do most patrol officers in Charleston County, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. First, we don’t know that she even came here. And, do you know how many twenty-three-year-old females around here look like this photo?”

  I didn’t think he wanted an exact number. I nodded to show that I got the point.

  Brian looked at his watch and sighed. “I have a meeting in a half hour with the new mayor.”

  Excitement and enthusiasm would have been far down on the list of emotions that Brian conveyed when he referred to the meeting. Of course, Karen’s comments may also have clouded my interpretation of his comment.

  “How’s it going with him?”

  “I don’t know, Chris. I’ve been doing this a long time. Maybe I should think about retiring. Maybe the department needs younger leadership. Maybe—”

  “Whoa,” I said and gave a quick head shake. “You know that no one could do the job better. You’ve got the experience, the temperament, the support of your guys, and a community-wide approval rating that’s far above anyone else’s in city hall. You don’t want to retire.”

  He rubbed his temples with his left hand and then looked around the room again. “No, I don’t,” he mumbled.

  I leaned closer to hear what he said.

  He then returned his gaze at me. “How are you doing?”

  “Okay. Why?” I said.

  He continued to stare at me. “Let’s see. You’re quieter than usual. Amber told me that you seem depressed. And two people, who asked to remain anonymous, said you haven’t been smiling like the old Chris. Is that enough?”

  I was surprised but knew what he was talking about. The recent death of Joan, my ex-wife, had hit me hard. I thought that I was handling it, but if I was honest with myself, it hurt—it hurt badly. I wasn’t hiding it well.

  “Truthfully,” I said, “it’s been a tough few months. I’ll be okay.” I smiled—or tried to. “Thanks for asking.”

  Brian looked around the room one more time and then tilted his head in my direction. “If I can do anything, let me know.” He then patted the table with the palm of his right hand. “Got to get to my meeting.”

  I said that I’d take care of the check. He said he’d keep an eye out for the missing person and abruptly stood and walked toward the exit. It may have been my imagination, but his posture seemed to slump as he stepped out into the heat of the day.

  I wondered how much more heat he would be facing as he met the mayor. I then wondered what it would take for me to be as okay as I had been telling everyone that I was.

  CHAPTER 7

  I WALKED THREE BLOCKS TO SAMUEL’S HOUSE TO SEE IF he’d recognize the woman in the driver’s license photo. He lived in a modest, wooden-frame, ranch-style house two blocks off Center Street. His father worked at the Piggly Wiggly, and Samuel was an only child. He’d never mentioned his mother.

  I was greeted by Samuel’s father. He yawned, and his wavy, dark brown hair was mussed in back. I suspected a nap had not been far in his past. He had a confused look on his face and a slight glimmer of recognition.

  I introduced myself and said that I recognized him from the Pig. “Sure, I’ve seen you there,” he said. “Samuel talks about you.” He smiled. “A few times you’ve been in the paper and Samuel reminded me, constantly reminded me, that you two are friends.”

  I told him that Samuel and I had talked several times over the years and that I liked his son.

  He licked his left palm, smoothed down the hair on the back of his head, and extended his right hand. “And I’m being rude,” he said. “Tell you the truth, I just woke up. I’m Jacob. Please come in.” He pushed the screen door open and waved toward the living room.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” I said. “Is Samuel here?”

  “Please come in,” he repeated.

  I hesitated but couldn’t find a reason not to. The furniture was old but in good condition. Everything seemed in place—no newspapers on the floor, extra papers or drink glasses on tables, or other things that accumulate in a womanless home. Jacob moved a pillow off the couch and waved for me to sit. He offered me a drink. I declined.

  “Samuel’s in Charleston with friends. A friend’s mother took three of them to the market. She had to pick up some gifts to send to a cousin, and the boys wanted to tag along.” He laughed. “Think Samuel just wanted to get away on my day off.”

  Fleetwood Mac played in the background, and the large window air conditioner roared through its efforts to cool the house. It failed.

  “Samuel had come to me about an incident a few days ago,” I said. I wasn’t comfortable telling Jacob about it, but I had to tell him something.

  “I know, I know,” said Jacob. “He told me. Sorry he burdened you.”

  “No burden at all,” I said. “I wanted to let him know what I’d found—actually, how little I had found.”

  “Mind if I get a beer?” said Jacob. “Sure you don’t want one?”

  I said no to both questions as he headed to the back of the house. I looked around. The room didn’t have any personal items or mementos sitting around except for one silver-framed photo on the small table by the door. It showed a much younger Jacob with his arm around a petite, attractive, curly-haired blonde whose arms were on the shoulders of a young boy, perhaps four or five years old, standing in front of her.

  Jacob returned to the room and caught me looking at the photo.

  “Happier days,” he said. “That’s Patricia, my wife, and Samuel ten years ago.” He looked down on his bottle of Coors and then slowly back at me. “It was taken six months before we lost her.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  His gaze had fallen back on the beer bottle. “She went in the hospital for routine surgery on a torn ligament in her leg—waterskiing accident. She got MRSA, a staph infection. Dead three days later.”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated. What else could I say?

  “Yeah,” he said and slowly shook his head. “Samuel took it hard—as you could imagine.”

  “He seems like a great kid,” I said. A bead of sweat rolled down my left cheek, and I wiped it away.

  “Sorry about the heat,” said Jacob. “The air conditioner’s busted, I think.”

  “Not a good time for that,” I said and smiled.

  He shook his head and continued, “Yeah, my boy’s a good kid.” He paused and then smiled. “Most of the time. It’s been hard on him. I’ve tried to be a good dad, but bringing him up alone, I haven’t been here for him much.”

  “I can’t imagine,” I said—a feeble response, at best.

  “To make ends meet, I’ve had to spend whatever hours they can give me at the Pig, and for a few years, I had to take a second job washing cars.” He paused and took another swig. “Ate up most of the hours in the day—hardly ever saw the boy.”

  Jacob worked in the meat department at the Pig and was there nearly every time I was in the store. I was also surprised that Samuel had never mentioned his mother.

  “I guess I’d better be going,” I said.

  Jacob motioned for me to stay seated. He looked at the floor and at the photo of the family’s happier days. “I’m not saying that Samuel didn’t see what he told you, I’m really not. But—” He paused and turned toward me. “Umm, let me tell you something. This isn’t the first time that Samuel has come up with a story that’s—let’s say a stretch.”

  “A stretch?”

  “The boy has a powerful imagination,” sa
id Jacob. He paused again and looked at the ceiling like he was trying to remember something. “A couple of years back, he read in a history book that in World War II a German submarine was spotted off the coast near here. Don’t think it was ever confirmed, but that was the story.”

  “I remember hearing about it,” I said.

  “In March, the boy and a schoolmate, Ron, came home from the beach down by the Tides and swore they saw the conning tower of a sub popping up out of the water in the direction of Kiawah.”

  “Anyone else see it?” I asked.

  Jacob shook his head. “Samuel told the story twice, and I looked at Ron. He slowly shook his head, so I asked him if he’d seen the sub.”

  “I’m guessing he didn’t,” I said.

  “He told me that that Samuel saw it and by the time he could show Ron where it was, it had submerged.” He shrugged.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Sure you don’t want a beer?” asked Jacob.

  Now I was tempted, but still I declined. I was feeling uncomfortable hearing this about Samuel.

  “Let me tell you another one,” said Jacob before he walked toward the kitchen.

  I waited, and he returned with another Coors and another story.

  “Mr. Black—he’s our neighbor over there.” Jacob nodded toward the house next door.

  I told him that I knew the neighbor. I first met Samuel while I was photographing Mr. Black’s bottle tree.

  “The man’s lived there since Hurricane Hugo in the 1980s; he’s got to be ninety—well, anyway, Samuel has a telescope. I bought it for him when he was ten. I’d hoped it would distract him at night when I was working. The boy started seeing lots of people at Mr. Black’s place. So he started looking at the front door with the telescope. I’d come home from work and Samuel would tell me about all these folks coming and going. I said they were probably friends. The boy’d say no, it’s something else.” Jacob smiled and looked toward Mr. Black’s house. “I didn’t pay attention at first; I didn’t think there was anything strange about someone coming to visit the man. Then Samuel said that he’d figured it out. Said old Mr. Black was selling drugs. He said he’d seen the people going in the house carrying nothing and then leaving with brown bags.”

  “Big sacks?” I asked. “Small?”

  Jacob blinked twice. “Samuel said they were about the size of those bricks of cocaine that he saw on television. He said they weighed about 2.2 pounds. I asked how in the world he came up with that. He said that’s what they said on television that a kilogram weighed, and that’s what a brick of cocaine was. I pushed him on it, and he finally said that not all were that size, some were larger, some as large as a microwave.”

  This story had my attention. I wondered where it was going. “Ever figure out what was going on?”

  He nodded. “Cops are always coming in the Pig, and I got to know a few of them pretty well over the years—at least learn how much steak or hamburger they buy.” Jacob smiled at what I assumed was a humorous incident in the store. “I asked a couple of them if they heard anything about any unusual activities that had to do with Mr. Black. Finally, Allen Spencer, Officer Spencer, said he’d ask around.”

  I told him that I knew Allen Spencer. He had joined the police force a few months before my first visit to the quirky island.

  “Spencer came back into the Pig two days later and said that he knew what was going on. It seemed that Mr. Black visited all the yard and estate sales and bought up the small stuff like jewelry, watches, antiques, old tools, all sorts of things. Got it for a song and then put it on Craigslist and eBay. Spencer said that the folks at the post office said he practically lived there. Anyway, he sold a lot of the stuff to people in the county, and they picked it up at his house. Simple as that.”

  “Don’t guess he advertised cocaine on eBay?” I said and smiled.

  That finally got a laugh out of Jacob before he chugged the rest of his beer.

  Yes, Samuel did have a vivid imagination. And yes, perhaps he didn’t really see a submarine or a dope-selling nonagenarian. But he did tell me a convincing, sincere, and dramatic story about a young lady being taken against her will. And Brian Newman did say that there was someone missing who fit the description.

  I couldn’t shake those facts on my walk home. Was I letting the imagination of an impressionable teenager cloud my feelings? Or did something terrible actually happen? If it did, what could I do about it?

  CHAPTER 8

  I DID IT,” SAID CHARLES.

  He and I were walking on the Folly Pier. I knew better than to ask but did anyway. “Did what?”

  Charles and I had met during my first week on Folly Beach. He had already lived on the island for more than twenty-five years after “retiring” here at the ripe old age of thirty-four. He was from Detroit, where he had worked for eight years at a Ford factory and as a seasonal landscaper. He was three years younger than me, a couple of inches shorter, and about fifteen pounds lighter.

  “Quit Cal’s,” replied Charles as our walk ended on the Europe end of the thousand-foot-long pier. We moved to one of the wooden benches under the diamond-shaped, two-level sheltered platform at the end of the structure. Shade was at a premium, and we grabbed what little we could find.

  “Not a good enough retirement plan?” I teased.

  Charles lived in an old apartment building on the marsh side of the island. He had never held a steady job since moving to Folly, and he met his meager expenses by doing odd jobs for local restaurants, performing occasional manual labor for local contractors, and delivering goods for stores. His only functioning vehicle was a 1961 Schwinn bicycle, so his range of operation was limited to the six-mile-long, half-mile-wide island. He owned a 1988 Saab convertible, but it had resembled a piece of yard art for the last five years. Charles had sworn that it “might” run. I said I’d believe it when I saw it. In the last three years, he hadn’t proven me wrong.

  “Funny,” he said as he removed the Tilley from his receding hairline and waved his face with the tan headdress. I’d given him the hat the year we had met. “No, I’m not genetically cut out to be a bartender. As Abraham Lincoln said, ‘When you have an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away, it’s best to let him run.’ Bartending was too big and fat for me—too many drinks and too little interest in learning how to mix them.” He nodded. “Way too many.”

  One of Charles’s irritating, and yet ingratiating, habits was quoting United States presidents. To paraphrase Charles, the quotes were too many, and I had too little interest in verifying them.

  I leaned against the wooden bench and looked at two seagulls circling a small fishing boat a couple hundred yards off shore. “What about your private detecting?” I asked while still watching the birds.

  “Hmm,” he growled. “You know how successful I was as a detective.”

  Cal Ballew, an aging, country music singing one-hit wonder and friend of both Charles and me, had bought a bar a year ago, renamed it Cal’s Country Bar and Burgers, and asked Charles if he would try to find out who had been stealing from him. Charles had been telling everyone who would listen for the last four years that he wanted to be a private detective. Cal had taken him up on the offer and embedded him in the bar as a bartender. Charles could then investigate without raising suspicion. Charles knew as much about bartending as Cal did about owning a bar, which was slightly less than an amoeba did about working a crossword puzzle.

  After two near-death experiences, a few alleged ghost appearances, and mixed results, Charles ended the undercover private detective part of the job but agreed to stay on as part-time bartender until Cal could replenish his stock of employees.

  “So what career path have you chosen to follow now?” I asked. I was certain that I knew his answer, considering his history of varying degrees of nonwork.

  He grabbed his ever-present, homemade wooden
cane and pointed it toward town. “It’s your lucky day. I’m ready to go back to being your executive sales manager.”

  He had apparently given himself a promotion while away from my struggling photo gallery. Before answering the call from Cal, Charles was my unpaid sales manager, and now the gallery was only open four days a week. I learned the first two years that I could lose as much money being open every day as I could lose only being open four days. And, after all, I was supposed to be retired, so four sounded better than seven.

  Truth be known, I had missed his quirky habits and the nonsensical conversations and good times we had had together before he went to Cal’s aid. “Sounds good,” I said. “Then I won’t put you on the payroll starting Friday.”

  “Seems that’s a little low on the pay scale for someone with my talents,” he said and glanced sideways at me.

  The two seagulls squawked at the boat they were circling like they expected the two fishermen to throw them some lunch. A young girl squealed from glee as her dad yanked a small shark onto the deck of the pier. And my newly rehired sales manager—correction, executive sales manager complained about his nonsalary. All was abnormally normal on Folly Beach.

  * * *

  Charles arrived a half hour before I normally opened the gallery. Another one of his quirky habits was alternating among what seemed like a limitless supply of college and university T-shirts or sweatshirts—long-sleeved regardless of the temperature. His first day back was no exception. A black bear’s head zooming off somewhere with the words “Michigan Tech” in gold under it adorned the gold, long-sleeved shirt that covered the chest of my “executive” sales manager as he entered the front door with a cheerful smile. His cane tapped the well-worn floor.

  He waved the cane around the room. “Are we going to sell a herd of these photos today?” he said in a singsong voice.

  We had never sold anywhere near a herd of photos since the gallery opened—although I’m not certain how many that would have been. Fortunately, I did not have to count on the profits from the gallery to survive. If I did, there wouldn’t be a gallery. The financially draining business cost me considerably more than I took in, but as a result of an early retirement buyout from my boring job as a bureaucrat in middle America, two lucky real estate ventures, and an inheritance from an acquaintance on Folly, I could still lose some on my expensive hobby while keeping the doors open.