Choosing Charleston

by T. Lynn Ocean

  * * *

  Driving to the Stillwell home, I thought about the murdered man. Trent had described him as a hard worker and a good father. But I had to wonder why he was at the site so late. Had he really gone to lock up a building?

  I didn’t know if his widow would talk to me, especially unannounced, but I was on an investigative roll and figured it worth a try.

  Entirely unlike what I expected, Alecia Stillwell opened the door with a toddler clinging to one leg. Another, slightly older boy watched from the hallway. Despite having given birth to two children, she had a dainty frame and appeared fragile.

  With an apologetic smile, she told me she wasn’t interested in buying anything, but thanked me for stopping by.

  Before she could shut the door, I explained I was researching the construction site fire and wanted to talk to her. Just for a few minutes.

  “I’ve already spoken to the police. And the fire investigators. And two SLED officers. And three reporters. Please, leave me alone.”

  “Look, I can’t begin to imagine what it’s been like for you. Losing your husband. And I’m sorry to barge in on you. But I really need your help. I’m trying to find out who killed your husband.”

  I didn’t tell her I already had a pretty good idea who’d killed her husband.

  “Who are you?”

  “My daddy owns the hardware store across the street from the construction site where Jerry worked. Stone Hardware and Home Supply?”

  Something dawned in her eyes. “You’re that bird lady. You’re like a lawyer or something? Jerry told me about you. He said you stopped construction because of some woodpeckers in the trees? He lost five days’ pay over that. Luckily, Mister Protter gave him some work at another site, painting, until he could start clearing again.”

  I nodded. That would have been me. The bird lady.

  “Look, I may have a lead on who did it, but I can’t go to the police until I get more information.”

  Extracting the young boy from her leg, Alecia sighed and invited me inside.

  With the click of a remote control, she turned on a cartoon to occupy the boys in front of a small television and served me a glass of apple juice, apologizing that it was all she had on hand, besides milk. I loved apple juice, I assured her, and asked her to tell me about the night of the fire.

  “There’s nothing new, that I haven’t already told everyone else.”

  “Alecia,” I said, “from the police department’s point of view, I’m just a concerned citizen. They’re not sharing their information with me. So, I have no idea what you’ve already told them. All I know is your husband left home that night because he forgot to lock up a building.”

  “We had supper,” she began, sounding tired. “Mashed potatoes and chicken. It was leftover from the night before, but the boys will always eat mashed potatoes and fried chicken. That was around six o’clock, or maybe a little after. Then Jerry played with the boys for a while… they were working on one of those big puzzle things,” she gestured toward a child-sized wood table that Jerry had probably built from scratch. It held some books and toys and pieces of a giant puzzle that appeared to be an orange and green turtle.

  “Then we were watching TV and right in the middle of the show, Jerry remembered he forgot to lock the shed. He said he had to go lock it and he’d be right back.”

  “The shed?”

  “On the construction sites, they always put up a temporary storage building. A shed. It’s where they keep oil and stuff for the heavy equipment. There’s always a fuel truck on site to fill up the diesel tanks, but anything in containers or drums goes in the shed. And also supplies and chemicals, I guess, like adhesives and stuff.”

  “So he left to check on the shed?”

  “Yeah. They keep it locked up just for safety, really. I don’t think people would try to steal anything in there. But, like, kids or something could be out messing around and some of that stuff could be dangerous if it were out in the open.”

  “So Jerry always locked up the shed?”

  “No, several of the guys had keys to the shed. All the supervisors. And all the heavy equipment operators, like Jerry. I think whoever was last off the site for the day made sure the shed was locked up.”

  I nodded. “So then what happened?”

  “Jerry called me half an hour after he left. He said there was something suspicious going on. That the shed doors were open.”

  “Open as in wide open?”

  “Yeah. Normally the doors would stay shut. Even if the shed wasn’t locked up.”

  “I wonder why he didn’t call the police when he found the doors open,” I said.

  “That’s not Jerry’s style. He is a— I mean, he was a pretty self-sufficient man. He would’ve walked the site, checked the heavy equipment, taken a look around to see if anything was missing. Then he might call his boss if something was really wrong. But see, he just called me so I wouldn’t worry because he’d driven the motorcycle and he knows how much I hate him driving it. Those things are like, so unsafe. But our car is in the shop because the transmission went out. So anyway,” she took a deep breath, heavy with burden, “he called to let me know he wouldn’t be right back. But that’s all he said. The shed doors were open and something wasn’t right and he was going into the trailer to get a flashlight so he could look around the property. And I never saw him again.”

  Her voice quivered and she wiped away a tear with the back of a balled fist.

  “So it was dark, then? If he had to get a flashlight?”

  “Well, yeah. It was already getting dark when he left the house.”

  “So, he called to tell you he would be a little longer than he thought and not to worry.”

  “Yeah. It was no big deal. But, then it was like an hour and a half later, then two hours later. And I really did start to worry. I called his mobile phone, but he didn’t answer. I wanted to drive to the site, but couldn’t with the car in the shop.” She sighed and drank some apple juice. “It’s still in the shop. It’s just old. So I was going to ask one of the neighbors to drive me, but by then it was already getting near eleven o’clock, and I didn’t want to wake anyone up. So I called the police.”

  “You didn’t call anybody at the company?”

  “No. Jerry would have been mad if I’d called one of his bosses at home, late at night.”

  The comic whoops and bangs and crashes of cartoons filtered to the small dinette area where we sat and I could hear one of the boys laughing. They were probably too young to comprehend death and understand that they’d never see their father again.

  “I guess I should have. Called Jerry’s boss. But I’m told Jerry was probably already dead by then anyway,” she said matter-of-factly.

  I nodded. That fact I already knew.

  “So instead of calling the Protter family, I called the police and told them what happened. The dispatcher said she would have an officer drive to the site and check things out. But I knew she figured that Jerry had just stopped off at a bar for a drink or something. They probably get calls from concerned wives all the time.”

  One of the boys let out a yelp and began crying. Alecia left the table to check on her children. I drank some more apple juice. After a couple of minutes, the crying stopped and she returned to the table.

  “Some more time passed. I checked on the boys. They were sound asleep. I read a few chapters of a paperback. I tried Jerry’s mobile number a few more times. Then I did call my upstairs neighbor, Lisa, and ask her to drive me out there. But when her husband heard what was going on, he said for me to stay here with the boys and he went. If nothing else, he told me, he’d look for Jerry’s motorcycle to see if it was there. So Lisa sat with me while we waited. And then the phone rang. It was Matt. Her husband. He told me there was a fire. The next morning, Jerry’s boss knocked on my door. That’s when I knew. Jerry was only twenty-eight, you know.”

  “Who came by your apartment that morning?”

  “Trent Protter.
One of the owners. He’s the one that hired Jerry. He told me they found Jerry’s body and I got sick and I think I screamed at him and he helped me to the sofa and asked if he could call someone. My mother came, but she had to go back yesterday because she works. Me and the kids are going to move in with her in a few weeks. She lives in Savannah.”

  Before now, Jerry Stillwell had simply been an unlucky heavy equipment operator who worked for Protter Construction and Development Company. But as I sat across from the young mother and watched her two boys playing on the floor in the next room, Jerry Stillwell became the husband and father that Trent had spoken of when we’d met for lunch on the rooftop terrace. When I’d accused him of being responsible for Jerry’s death.

  “Alecia?” I said. Her attention had drifted, and she stared at something on the tabletop that I couldn’t see.

  She looked up. “Yes?”

  “You don’t know me, but this is a genuine offer, okay?” I took a notepad out of my purse and wrote my mobile number and Mamma and Daddy’s home number on it. “If there is anything I can do to help you, I want you to call me. I just moved from New York and I’m living at Mamma and Daddy’s house. But, they would welcome you into their home – I don’t even have to ask. Even if you and the boys would just like to come over and have supper with us one night before you go to Savannah.”

  Alecia took the paper. “Thanks.”

  “And, if you happen to think of anything else that could be important, would you call me?”

  “Okay.”

  I pulled a photo of Robert out of my purse. Originally it had been a shot of me and him at my company Christmas party. I’d cut myself out of it. I laid it on the table in front of her.

  “Do you recognize this man? He might have come by the house sometime to talk to Jerry?” It was a long shot, but worth a try.

  She shook her head. No. I put the picture back in my purse.

  “Just one more thing,” I said, “and you can tell me to mind my own business if you want to. Are you okay with the finances? Do you need any help paying your bills?”

  She shook her head again. “We’ll be okay. Mister Protter gave me three months of what Jerry’s pay would have been. It’s enough to get us by until I find a new job in Savannah. And the company paid for Jerry’s funeral. It was a real nice one, too.”

  I didn’t need to ask which ‘Mister Protter’. I knew it was the same one who’d knocked on her door to deliver the news in person. The same one who’d held my hand across the bulky console of his truck and assured me that we’d figure this thing out together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Robert found me before I had a chance to track him down. Stretched out on the back porch, I took up the majority of the well-used wicker and throw-cushion sofa and poured through all the information I’d accumulated about the land, the fire and the investigation.

  I’d been engrossed in a tax map printout, trying to figure out what bothered me about it. Public record, it contained a property description, the seller’s name, the buyer’s name and address, the purchase price. Nothing out of the ordinary. But, I kept going back to the single sheet of paper that I’d obtained from the courthouse, and was re-reading it for the third time when the cordless phone rang. I answered it without sitting up.

  “Carly, it’s me.”

  ‘Me’ was Robert. I sat up.

  I hadn’t been able to find out where he was living, and his mobile number had gone unanswered. I’d tried his office, but they said he worked mostly from home, and wouldn’t give out the number. In fact, my divorce lawyer hadn’t been able to track him down to serve the papers. When a New York process server went to Robert’s office, she was told that he no longer worked there and they didn’t have a forwarding address.

  “Where are you?” I said. “I’ve been trying to call you.”

  “Sorry about that. I changed cell phones and got a new number. And I did get the message you left at my office, but I wanted to talk to you in person.”

  “If you wanted to talk to me in person, why are you calling on the phone?”

  “I’m outside,” he said. “In the driveway.”

  Shaken, I confronted him immediately, outside, with Taffy on my heels. I didn’t invite him in. Daddy was working and Mamma and Granny had gone grocery shopping, and I didn’t want to be alone in the house with him.

  “Tell me about the land deal, Robert. I’d like to know what motivated you to screw your own aunt and uncle out of a fair price at the same time you screwed Daddy out of a chance to buy it.”

  “Whoa, slow down” he said. “It’s been a long flight. I got stuck in Atlanta. And then when I finally got to Charleston, the rental car place lost my reservation. You could at least say, ‘hello’. Offer me a beer or something before you start interrogating me.”

  He made a little motion, as though waving an invisible white flag in surrender.

  “Tell me about the land, Robert.”

  He sighed, then smiled. “Okay, Carly. We’ll play it your way. But can we at least sit down first?”

  I moved to a lawn chair in the back yard, near Mamma’s fragrant garden. Robert followed suit and sat across from me.

  “I assume you’re talking about the land Protter bought for the shopping center? Minnie Beth said you and your mother stopped by.”

  “Yes. To both.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Well, you can start with why you bought the land from them for the ridiculously low price of fifty thousand dollars. And then, only gave them ten thousand. And you can finish by telling me why you didn’t let me or Daddy know they were ready to sell the land. Or why you didn’t even tell me that Patrick was so sick.”

  Robert took a deep breath and ran both hands through his hair before looking at me. I noticed that beneath the handsome, salon-tanned exterior, he look tired.

  “Okay. The fifty thousand dollars. It was simply a price on paper. If Minnie Beth told you any different, then she’s confused. I think she’s been getting into Patrick’s pain medicine and drinking too much wine, and she’s not thinking right.”

  He reached out to pet Taffy. But perceiving what I felt towards Robert, the dog sniffed his legs, backed away, and sat by my feet. We both looked at him, awaiting answers.

  “Putting just fifty thousand dollars on the paperwork saves them a lot of money. Think of how much capital gains taxes they’d have to pay on four hundred and twenty thousand dollars! They’ve done little to zero retirement planning. They have no tax shelters,” his arms stretched out in a semi shrug. “I thoroughly explained to Minnie Beth that I’d give them the full purchase price as soon as the money came through. But, I’d give it to them in a way that wouldn’t cost them any capital gains or income taxes.”

  “Okay, so where is the money? Other than the lousy ten grand you gave them, which didn’t even cover the outstanding medical bills. And speaking of medical bills, why didn’t you tell me what was going on with them?”

  “Please. Carly. I’ll tell you everything you want to know, but one thing at a time. First of all, the ten thousand was all I had in liquid savings and I gave them that as earnest money. Second, I had to do some creative financing on another project, so the rest of the money was tied up for a while. I planned to surprise you with this, but I’ve been working on opening my own agency. In fact, I’ve left the firm and I’m already working for myself.”

  He managed a bright smile and the charm that had convinced me to walk down the aisle a year ago reappeared. But now, it seemed forced, like the smile of a veteran used car salesman trying to cement another deal. And besides, I already knew that he’d quit his job. My divorce lawyer had been unsuccessfully trying to track him down.

  “And, third, I just gave Minnie Beth and Patrick the money. The entire purchase price, less closing costs and my expenses. That’s why I came to Charleston. That, and to talk to you.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Carly, if you don’t believe me, pick up the phone
and call them. I drove Minnie Beth to the bank. She opened a money market checking account. I’m not the monster you seem to think I am.”

  He leaned forward, as if to take my hand.

  Reflexively, I leaned back, out of his reach and readjusted my chair so that I sat even further away from him. A pained expression crossed his features, but I felt no sympathy. Talking to the man I’d professed to love till death do us part was one thing, but having physical contact with him was another.

  “You think I’m a monster,” he announced and then waited for me to disagree or offer some words to soften his conclusion.

  I didn’t.

  “We both know I hurt you and really screwed up our marriage. I acted selfishly and I’m sorry. And we both know that I’ll never think of Minnie Beth and Patrick as real parents. They took me in like a stray dog, and made sure to put food in my bowl every day, but it wasn’t enough.”

  I started to disagree with him, but it wouldn’t have done any good. He had issues about being orphaned and subsequently raised by two people he wouldn’t have chosen if the decision were left up to him. He’d always considered himself suave and refined, while they were embarrassing rednecks.

  “But just because I don’t call them Mom and Dad,” he continued, “doesn’t mean I’d steal from them.”

  I thought he was lying. I dialed their number and Minnie Beth answered on the second ring.

  “Hi, Minnie Beth. It’s Carly. I just wanted to see how Patrick is feeling,” I said.

  “Oh, he’s much better! Right now, he’s sitting outside to get some sun.”

  Before I could inquire further, she told me the good news. “And guess what? Robert came by earlier and brought us a big check! Almost four hundred thousand dollars, the money he got for our land!”

  She happily rambled on about what a good boy Robert was and how proud she was of him for getting his own business started and how Patrick had gotten himself all worked up about nothing, probably due to all the drugs he’d been taking.

  “That’s wonderful, Minnie Beth,” I said. “I’m very happy it all worked out for you.”