Missing

by Bill Noel

  Charles cringed when Amber said it. So did Melinda. She patted Charles on the arm again, looked up at Amber, and said that she would make time. I exhaled and felt sorry for Amber, who didn’t know about Melinda’s death sentence.

  Melinda picked at her burrito and then took a small bite. She said, “Yum” and then turned to me. “Charles tells me that the two of you are professional amateur detectives. Something about you getting into trouble and then him having to come to the rescue and pull your bacon out of the fire—time after time.”

  Charles leaned back on the booth and smiled. I looked over at him and then at Melinda. “I wouldn’t say—”

  She waved her fork in my face. “No need to finish whatever you were going to say. I knew Charles before he could ride a bike and long before he inflicted himself on you.” She looked over at him and waved her fork in his direction. “He’s a sweetie, but occasionally he gets his stories a bit lopsided and upside down.”

  “Nooo,” I said.

  “Didn’t think that’d shock you,” she said and gave one of her laughs. “Now I’m going to sit here and keep eating while you give me your version of the pickles the two of you have dived into.”

  “Okay, Aunt M.,” said Charles before I could set my coffee cup down, “Let me tell you about the first time I saved him after he came a-vacationing here and stubbed his big toe on a dead body. Chris seriously irritated a killer. And I had to—”

  She gave a move with her fork that would be the envy of any orchestra conductor. Charles sat back as the fork nearly clipped his nose. “Let’s hear your friend’s version, shall we?”

  Note to self: Don’t mess with anyone’s elderly aunt brandishing a fork. I nodded to Melinda, smirked at Charles, and proceeded to share a few stories about how Charles and I had stumbled, bumbled, and even made a few correct decisions that helped the police catch some really bad guys. Each time I mentioned something that Charles contributed to the solution, Melinda patted him on the arm. He tried to interrupt twice, but the flying fork and a dirty look from his only living relative stopped him. I thought about starting to carry a fork around with me but doubted that it would have the same effect.

  Melinda was a good listener and always gave an appropriate “ooh,” “wow,” or “cool” at the right spot in the stories.

  I wasn’t going to tell her about Samuel and the alleged abduction, but Charles got in enough about it that Melinda asked what he was talking about. I gave her a capsule version of Samuel’s story and our trip to the police station. Charles said that I certainly was working hard to solve a mystery that didn’t exist.

  Melinda proved once again that she was related to Charles when she waved her fork at him, a move that I was getting used to. “My favorite nephew,” she said, “despite your many shortcomings, picking friends doesn’t appear to be one of them. You have chosen Chris here as your best friend, so he must be good, able to be trusted, and usually right.” I wanted to interrupt and ask about his many shortcomings, but I sat silent and wondered where she was going with her wisdom. “So, if he says that someone he trusts—that youngster named, what was it again?”

  “Samuel,” I said.

  “Yeah, Samuel,” she continued. “If Chris trusts Samuel and Samuel said someone was swiped right off the walk, then probably she was, God help her soul.”

  “Aunt M.—”

  There went the fork again. “Y’all need to figure it out now. And I’ll help.”

  I hadn’t looked at my watch and was surprised when I looked around the room and saw that most of the lunch crowd had departed, either for the beach or an air-conditioned condo. Melinda was still attentive, but I noticed her head nodding. I suggested that we should get her checked into Mariner’s Breeze. She nodded. Her fork hand was exhausted.

  CHAPTER 15

  CHRISTER,” SAID DUDE. HE FLAILED HIS ARMS AND pointed to the empty space beside me on the bench. “Parking space available?”

  My translation of Dude-speak was that he was asking to join me. I had ignored the heat and walked to the end of the pier to watch the sun set over the island. I was exhausted after helping Charles get Melinda settled in a three-room “suite,” as Charles kept referring to the tiny bedroom with a kitchenette, living room about the size of a medium-sized doghouse, and bathroom that wasn’t large enough for a tub, just a half-sized shower tucked in the corner. She had joked that it would do since it was larger than her subsoil home would be. Charles and I had smiled, but I didn’t see the humor. My exhaustion was more emotional from dealing with the terminally ill, sweet lady, rather than physical. The walk had felt good.

  “I’d be honored,” I said—although it was a slight exaggeration—and removed my Tilley from the bench. Dude was attired in his ever-present tie-dyed shirt and cargo shorts. His long white-and-gray hair flowed to the beat of a different hairdresser.

  “Missin’ chick be found?” he said.

  Dude had the uncanny ability to underwhelm anyone who met him for the first time—several times in some cases. He had never met a sentence that he couldn’t screw up. He apparently thought that he only had a limited supply of words to speak in his lifetime, and he didn’t want to run out before he met the great surf maker in the sky. He was also proof that looks, and even words, could be deceiving. It had taken a while, but I had learned to appreciate his humor and innate intellect. He said that he had never completed high school but was world-wise and extraordinarily knowledgeable about astronomy, and despite having just turned sixty, he could still surf with the “baddest” surfers on the island.

  “Maybe,” I said. Dude could also bring out the brevity in those who spoke with him.

  “Bloated bod be her?” he asked.

  “Good possibility,” I said and then told Dude about Samuel and my trip to the police station.

  “Cutie-face O’Hara be poser,” said Dude.

  Charles was usually around to translate Dude-speak for me, but now I was on my own. “That’s bad, right?”

  “Well, yeah. Bad be bad; not good bad,” said Dude.

  I actually understood—I’d been on Folly too long. I agreed with Dude after only one exposure to Officer O’Hara, but I wanted to hear his reasons. “Why?”

  “Cute-face cop be on surfer patrol. Chills cop car at Washout fishing for trouble.” Dude shook his head in disgust.

  The Washout was a popular surfing area on the east end of the island. Surfers have had a decades-long love-hate relationship with Folly Beach. The local government was often caught in the middle between the free-spirited surfers and the business and full-time resident community who were often at odds with them. Dude had made a surprisingly good living catering to the surfer crowd. He knew most of them by face and almost as many by name. He had a reputation with the surfers as a stand-up guy, someone who would know about the occasional violation of law or social standards by his customers but was also a good representative for them in the more established, conservative crowd. In other words, he wasn’t a snitch.

  I shared that I was going to talk to Chief Newman about how Officer O’Hara had treated Samuel and me.

  Dude grinned and looked over my shoulder. “You be future-seer,” he said.

  “Thought I saw you out here,” came the distinct voice of Chief Brian Newman from behind me.

  “Park a spell,” said Dude as he moved over to make room for Brian.

  “Just for a minute,” said Brian. He had on a blue-and-white striped shirt and gray dress slacks. “Got a meeting at city hall—fun, fun, fun.”

  “Chris got words for you,” said Dude. He looked at me and grinned.

  I frowned at Dude and then turned to Brian. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Good,” said Brian. “I wanted to tell you that the woman who drowned wasn’t the person Samuel thought he saw.”

  “Bummer,” said Dude.

  “You sure?” I asked.

&nb
sp; Brian took his small notebook out of his shirt pocket and flipped through a few pages. “Yeah. According to the coroner, she had been dead for at least three weeks. That’s a week before Samuel saw whatever he saw. He also said she’s African American.”

  “No Gidget be missin’,” said Dude.

  “Female surfer?” I asked. Dude would have had the inside track if any surfers had been missing.

  “Duh, yeah,” he said.

  I turned back to Brian. “Who was she? What killed her?”

  He looked back at the notebook. “Not certain, but she generally fits the description of a missing person from Georgia, Nicole Sallee, age twenty-five. About the same height, five foot six, trim.” He shook his head. “She had a master’s degree from Valdosta State University and was a part-time model. She’d won a bunch of beauty pageants when she was in her teens. She had told her friends she needed to get out of Georgia and figure out her life. She was married but had left her husband.”

  “When will you know for sure?” I asked.

  “A few days.”

  “Dead how?” asked Dude.

  “Nothing obvious,” said Brian. “Could have been accidental drowning. Don’t even know if she was ever on Folly. She could have floated over from Kiawah or have fallen off a boat anywhere out there.” He waved toward the Atlantic and looked at his watch. “Got to go; just wanted to let you know it wasn’t who Samuel saw.”

  Brian headed toward the street to his fun-filled meeting at city hall.

  Dude looked in the direction the chief had headed. “Be two missin’ peeps now.”

  “Actually,” I said, “there’s only one missing. It appears that Ms. Sallee has been found.”

  Dude looked at the ceiling and then back at me. “Bod not missin’, story be nowhere to be found.”

  Excellent point, my sentence-challenged friend, I thought. Excellent point.

  CHAPTER 16

  I THOUGHT THE TEMPERATURE COULDN’T GET HOTTER, and then Tuesday proved me wrong. By eight a.m., a light rain that had fallen during the night was transformed to steam and rose from every exposed surface. The needle on the thermometer outside my kitchen window had already edged past the halfway point between eighty and ninety. The air-conditioned comfort of my cottage would be the perfect place to spend the day. I was behind on paying bills, and there were three photos that I wanted to print.

  The phone rang as I was putting photo paper in the printer. “Hey, where are you?” asked Charles. “You’re late.”

  “Late for what?” I asked. I thought it was a fair question since I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “I’m here in Aunt M.’s suite waiting for you so we can go clothes shopping.” I heard Melinda say something in the background. He continued, “We talked about it last night. Remember?”

  I clearly remembered not talking to Charles last night. Most likely, he forgot he was supposed to discuss it with me. I sighed and said I’d be there in ten minutes.

  “Hurry, we’re tired of waiting,” he said. He then whispered, “Thank you.”

  I pulled in one of the two vacant parking spaces in front of the boarding house. A permanent wooden sign reading Rooms Available was attached to a bracket by the front door. One of the hinges was broken, and the sign listed at a forty-five-degree angle.

  Melinda’s “suite” was in back, so Charles must have been waiting inside the building’s front door. He and Melinda started down the steps before I opened the car door. Melinda had on the same wrinkled outfit she had worn yesterday. Charles’s orange, long-sleeved University of Tennessee Volunteers T-shirt clashed with Melinda’s top. She held the shaky, wrought-iron handrail with both hands, and Charles’ right hand topped his cane.

  Melinda giggled as she walked across the gravel and oyster-shell covered lot. The sound of crunching shells amused her. “Don’t hear that sound in Detroit,” she said.

  Charles helped her get situated in the backseat. “Don’t feel like a sauna back home either,” she said, wiping perspiration from her forehead.

  “And where did we decide we were going?” I asked Charles about our imaginary conversation. I had pulled on Center Street and headed off island.

  “You suggested Walmart,” said Charles. “Aunt M. said that’d be okay.”

  There was a Walmart off Folly Road about five miles from the beach.

  Melinda leaned toward the front seat and rested her arm on Charles’s shoulder. “Umm, would you mind if I borrowed a few dollars?”

  Charles gave me a sideways, confused look and then turned to face his aunt. “Sure. Didn’t you bring a credit card?”

  She kept her left hand on his shoulder and rubbed her eyes with her right hand. “Remember the other day when I told you I had a few dollars?”

  “Yeah,” said Charles.

  “The look on your handsome face said that you thought that I meant I was loaded.”

  “Not loaded,” said Charles. “But I knew you had to be in good shape.” Charles smiled. “All those husbands should’ve fixed you up.”

  “Shi—I mean, shoot,” she exclaimed. “I wish.”

  “Oh,” said Charles.

  I resisted glancing in the rearview mirror.

  “My dear nephew, I really meant it when I said I had a few dollars. I’ve got seventeen, to be exact.”

  “Oh,” repeated Charles.

  “Now don’t get all flustered,” she said. “I’ll be getting a Social Security check in a couple of weeks. Whatever we spend today will be a loan.”

  I pulled into the big-box stores’ massive parking lot before Charles and Melinda could get into loan terms, interest rates, and late fees.

  We stepped out of the cool, comfortable shopping experience into the extreme Low Country summer heat exactly two hours and twenty-seven minutes later. I knew because I had been watch-watching the last forty-five minutes. Actually, only two of us walked out; Melinda had weakened after an hour and taken advantage of one of the loaner wheelchairs. Along with the three of us came a shopping cart carrying seven plastic bags stuffed with five new blouses, three pairs of shorts, four pairs of shoes, assorted “unmentionables,” enough toiletries to stock a small convenience store, and a bright purple wide-brimmed straw sunhat. And because Charles is, for some unknown reason, philosophically opposed to credit cards, checks, or carrying cash, my Visa card was four hundred thirty-seven dollars lighter as we loaded the packages and Melinda into the SUV.

  “That was enough to wear an old broad out,” she said and directed the rear seat air vent toward her face. “Where can we get an alcoholic pick-me-up?”

  “I’ll second that,” said Charles. No surprise, since I doubt he’d ever spent more than two hours total in a Walmart. Shopping was right up there with collecting a paycheck in his category of least desired activities.

  I suggested Taco Boy on Folly. It had a large interior seating area and easy access with minimal steps, something I thought would be a plus for Melinda. What it didn’t have was nearby parking. I let Charles and Melinda off in front of the restaurant and went searching for somewhere to park—not a simple task in August.

  I lucked out on a space in the small lot beside Millie’s Salon. By the time I had hiked two blocks to Taco Boy, my shirt was stuck to my soaking-wet back. Charles had found a vacant table near the rear of the restaurant, and a glass of ice water was waiting for me.

  Melinda had already consumed half of what Charles described as some sort of Mexican cocktail with tequila and something fruity tasting over ice. His description didn’t quite do the drink justice, and Melinda summed it up better when she said, “Yum” and ordered a second. Charles was yet to take a sip of his Bud Light when the waiter returned with a glass of house Chardonnay for me.

  Charles had told me years ago, and again the other night, that his grandmother had said Melinda was an alcoholic. He was never certain, but he
remembered that she was a huge fan of alcoholic beverages. I was seeing it firsthand. I was keenly aware of the terrible consequences of alcoholism. During my years working in human resources, I had to deal with employees, families, and coworkers whose lives were devastated by the disease. Folly Beach, like most communities, had its fair share of people whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed by alcohol. Nothing good could be said about the disease, but, considering what Melinda had told us, drinking was the least of her worries. Besides, two and a half hours in Walmart could drive anyone to drink.

  We finally cooled down and munched on a version of Taco Boy’s specialty tacos. Suddenly, Charles jumped up from the table and made a beeline toward the front door.

  “Hey, Chief!” he yelled.

  CHAPTER 17

  CHARLES RETURNED WITH CHIEF NEWMAN IN TOW. Brian teased that he had made the mistake of walking past Taco Boy and gotten caught. He had known Charles for several more years than I had and was familiar with my friend’s quirks. They weren’t close—in fact, they were opposite in many ways—but for some strange reason, they respected and liked each other.

  Charles pointed to the empty seat beside me and nodded for Brian to join us. “You weren’t running, so I figured you weren’t chasing a bank robber or a speeding poodle,” said Charles in response to Brian’s quip. “Anyway, I wanted to introduce you to my favorite relative, Aunt Melinda Beale. She’s come down from Detroit.”

  “Only relative,” interrupted Melinda. “Don’t let him fool you into thinking he chose me over anyone else. The rest are planted under tombstones.”

  Brian gave her his best Chamber of Commerce smile. “Any relative of Charles is more than welcome here.”

  Melinda grinned and turned to her only above-ground relative. “Well, ain’t he a charmer?”

  Charles shook his head and gave a look of disbelief at the same time.

  “How long will you be visiting?” asked Brian. He didn’t know what he’d stepped in.