Shadows on the Sand

by Gayle Roper

  “Very impressive. What about now?”

  “He was named Most Valuable Player.”

  “Even more impressive. What about now?”

  She began making sure the little stacks of sugar and sweetener packets in the holders on the counter were straight. “Right now he’s just trying to figure it all out.”

  Being. Figuring. And punching guys out while he thought. “You mean he’s trying to decide what he wants to be when he grows up?”

  She glared at me. In her mind he was grown up. She turned her back with a little sniff and went to clean off a dirty table.

  Lindsay swallowed a laugh. “Your sarcastic streak is showing, Carrie.”

  Mr. Perkins, another regular at Carrie’s Café and at eighty in better health than the rest of us put together, rapped his cup on the pink marble counter. He’d been sitting for several minutes with his eyes wide behind his glasses as he listened to Andi.

  “No daughter of mine that age would ever have gone to a party where there was drinking,” he said. “It’s just flat out wrong.”

  Since I agreed, I didn’t mention that he was a lifelong bachelor and had no daughters.

  He rapped his cup again.

  “Refill?” I asked, not because I didn’t know the answer but because the old man liked to think he was calling the shots.

  He nodded. “Regular too. None of that wimpy decaf. I got to keep my blood flowing, keep it pumping.”

  I smiled with affection as I topped off his cup. He gave the same line every day. “Mr. Perkins, you have more energy than people half your age.”

  He pointed his dripping spoon at me. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “Watch it,” I said in a mock scold. “You’re getting coffee all over my counter.”

  “And a fine counter it is.” He patted the pink-veined marble slab. It was way too classy and way too pricey for a place like the café. “Did I ever tell you that I remember when it was the registration counter at Seaside’s Grand Hotel? And let me tell you, it was a grand hotel in every sense of the word. People used to come from as far as Pittsburgh, even the president of U.S. Steel. Too bad it burned down. The hotel, not U.S. Steel.”

  “Too bad,” I agreed. And yes, he’d told us the story many times.

  “It was in 1943,” he said with a faraway look in his eyes. “I was thirteen.” He blinked back to the present. “It was during World War II, you know, and people said it was sabotage. Not that I ever believed that. I mean, why would the Germans burn down a resort hotel? But I’ll tell you, my father, who was an air-raid warden, about had a seizure.”

  “I bet he was convinced that the flames, visible for miles up and down the coast, would bring the German subs patrolling offshore right up on our beaches,” Lindsay said with a straight face. “They might have attacked us.”

  I glared at her as she repeated word for word Mr. Perkins’s line from the story. She winked unrepentantly.

  Mr. Perkins nodded, delighted she was listening. “People kept their curtains drawn at night, and even the boardwalk was blacked out for the duration, the lights all covered except for the tiniest slit on the land side, so the flames from the fire seemed extra bright. All that wood, you know. Voom!” He threw his hands up in the air.

  Lindsay and I shook our heads at the imagined devastation, and I thought I saw Greg’s lips twitch. He’d heard the story almost as many times as we had.

  Mr. Perkins stirred his coffee. “After the war some investor bought the property.”

  “I bet all that remained of the Grand was the little corner where the pink marble registration counter sat.” Lindsay pointed where I leaned. “That counter.”

  Again she spoke his line with a straight face, and this time Greg definitely bit back a grin.

  Mr. Perkins added another pink packet to his coffee. “That’s right. The buyer decided to open a restaurant around the counter and build a smaller, more practical hotel on the rest of the property.”

  Even that hotel was gone now, replaced many years ago by private homes rented each summer to pay the exorbitant taxes on resort property.

  I walked to Greg with my coffeepot. “Refill?”

  He slid his mug in my direction, eyes never leaving his paper.

  Be still my heart.

  2

  The café door opened again, and Clooney sauntered in. In my opinion Clooney sauntered through life, doing as little as possible and appearing content that way. I, on the other hand, was a bona fide overachiever, always trying to prove myself, though I wasn’t sure to whom. If Clooney weren’t so charming, I’d have disliked him on principle. As it was, I liked him a lot.

  Today he wore a Phillies cap, one celebrating the 2008 World Series victory. His gray ponytail was pulled through the back of the cap and hung to his shoulder blades.

  “You work too hard, Carrie,” he told me frequently. “You’ll give yourself indigestion or reflux or a heart attack or something. You need to take time off.”

  “If I didn’t want to pay the rent or have insurance or eat, I’d do that very thing,” I always countered.

  “What you need is a rich husband.” And he’d grin.

  “A solution to which I’m not averse. There just seems to be a shortage of candidates in Seaside.”

  “Hey, Clooney,” Andi called from booth four, where she was clearing. She gave him a little finger wave. Clooney might be her great-uncle, but try as I might, I couldn’t get her to call him Uncle Clooney. Just “Clooney” sounded disrespectful to me, but he didn’t seem to mind.

  “Hey, darlin’.” Clooney walked over to Andi and gave her a hug. Then he came to the counter and slid onto the stool next to Greg. He did not take off his cap, something that drove me crazy. I’ve developed this manners thing, probably because my childhood was so devoid of anything resembling pattern or politeness. I know people thought me prissy and old-fashioned, but I am what I am, a poor man’s Miss Manners.

  Clooney pointed at a muffin, and I placed one on a dish for him. He broke off a chunk, then glanced back at Andi. “She tell you about that fool Bill?”

  I grinned at his disgruntled expression. “She did.”

  “What is it with girl children?” he demanded. “I swear she’s texted the news around the world.”

  “She thinks it’s a compliment—her knight defending her.”

  Clooney and Greg snorted at the same time.

  “Slaying a dragon who’s threatening the life of the fair damsel’s one thing,” Greg said, actually looking at me. “Decking a kid for saying hi to a pretty girl is another.”

  “Your past life as a cop is showing,” I teased.

  He shrugged as he turned another page of the paper. “Old habits die hard.”

  The door opened again, and in strutted the object of our conversation. I knew it had to be him because, aside from the fact that he looked like a very tanned football player, he and Andi gazed at each other with love-struck goofy grins. I thought I heard Lindsay sigh.

  Andi hurried toward the kitchen with an armful of dirty dishes from booth four. She squeaked in delight as Bill swatted her on the rump as she passed. Clooney stiffened at this unseemly familiarity with his baby. Mr. Perkins tsk-tsked his disapproval.

  “Can I have breakfast now?” Andi asked when she reappeared empty-handed.

  The wait staff usually ate around ten thirty at a back booth, and it was ten fifteen. We were in the off-season weekday lull between breakfast and lunch, and the three men on their stools were the only customers present. I nodded.

  Bill looked toward the kitchen. He appeared overwhelmed at the prospect of food, unable to make a selection. He draped an arm over Andi’s shoulder as he considered the possibilities, and she snuggled against him. Clooney’s frown intensified.

  Bill was a big guy, and it was clear by the way he carried himself that he still thought of himself as the big man on campus in spite of the fact that he was now campusless and unemployed. As I studied him, I wondered if high school football wou
ld end up being the high point of his life. How sad that would be. Clooney drifted through life by choice. I hoped Bill wouldn’t drift for lack of a better plan or enough ability to achieve.

  Careful, Carrie. I was being hard on this kid. Nineteen and undecided wasn’t that unusual. Just because at his age I’d already been on my own for three years, responsible for Lindsay, who was six years my junior …

  Bill gave Clooney, who was watching him with a rather sour look, a sharp elbow in the upper arm and asked, one guy to another, “What do you suggest, Clooney? What’s really good here?”

  Clooney’s relaxed slouch disappeared. I saw the long-ago medal-winning soldier of his Vietnam days. “You will call me ‘sir’ until I give you permission to call me by name. Do you understand, boy?”

  Bill blinked. So did I. Everyone in Seaside, no matter their age, called him Clooney.

  “Stop that, Clooney!” Andi was appalled at her uncle’s tone of voice.

  “Play nice,” I said softly as I realized for the first time that I didn’t know whether Clooney was his first name or last. I made a mental note to ask Greg. As a former Seaside cop, he might know.

  “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, darlin’.” Clooney gave Andi an easy smile. He gave Bill a hard stare. “Right, Bill?”

  Bill blinked again. “Y-yes, sir.”

  Andi took her beloved’s hand and dragged him toward the back booth. “Ignore my uncle. He’s having a bad day.” She glared over her shoulder at Clooney, who grinned back at her.

  “She’s got spunk, that one,” he said with pride.

  “How’d she end up living with you?” I’d been longing to ask ever since Clooney showed up with Andi just before Labor Day and asked me to give her a job. I did, and I guess I thought that gave me the right to ask my question.

  Clooney disagreed because he said, “I think I’ll have one of your amazing Belgian waffles with a side of sausage.”

  “I’m on it.” Lindsay headed back to the kitchen before I said a word. “Got it, Ricky?”

  “Got it.” Ricky tested the waffle iron with a flick of water. He smiled as the water jumped and evaporated. He was a handsome kid with dark Latino looks of the smoldering kind, a young Antonio Banderas. Unfortunately for him, his smoldering looks appeared to have no effect on Linds.

  Another victim of unrequited love.

  Andi came to the counter and placed an order for Bill and herself. I blinked. We could have served the whole dining room on less.

  Mr. Perkins eyed me. “Are you going to make him pay for all that? You should, you know.”

  True, but I shook my head. “Job perk. He’s cheaper than providing health benefits and not nearly as frustrating.”

  “So say you.” Clooney settled to his waffle and sausage.

  I watched the parade of laden plates emerge from the kitchen and make their way to the back booth, making me reconsider the “cheaper” bit. Andi took her seat and stared at Bill as if he could do no wrong in spite of the fact that he leaned on the table like he couldn’t support his own weight. Didn’t anyone ever tell the kid that his noneating hand was supposed to rest in his lap, not circle his plate as if protecting it from famished marauders or little girls with ponytails?

  “Look at him,” Clooney said. “He’s what? Six-two and over two hundred pounds? Jase Peoples is about five-eight and one-forty if he’s wearing everything in his closet.”

  “Let’s forget about Jase, shall we?” Andi’s voice was sharp as she came to the counter and reached for more muffins. “The subject is closed.”

  I grabbed her wrist. “No more muffins. We need them for paying customers. If Bill’s still hungry, he can have toast.”

  “Or he could pay.” To Mr. Perkins a good idea was worth repeating.

  Andi laughed at the absurdity of such a thought.

  Ricky had left his stove and was leaning on the pass-through beside Lindsay. “Four slices coming up for Billingsley.”

  “Billingsley?” I looked at the big guy as he downed the last of his four-egg ham-and-cheese omelet. With a name like that, it was a good thing he was big enough to protect himself.

  “Billingsley Morton Lindemuth III,” Ricky said.

  “I should never have told you.” Andi clearly felt betrayed.

  “But you did. And you got to love it.” Laughing, Ricky turned to make toast.

  “He hates it,” Andi said.

  I wasn’t surprised.

  Greg drew in a breath like you do when something terrible happens. We all turned to stare at him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He was looking at the front page of The Press of Atlantic City. “Jase Peoples.”

  “What?” I demanded.

  Clooney grabbed the paper and followed Greg’s pointing finger.

  I could see the picture and the headline above it: “Have You Seen This Man?”

  3

  Clooney began to read aloud:

  Jason Edward Peoples, 25, of Seaside, NJ, was reported missing Sunday night by his parents, Joseph and Margaret Peoples.

  “He never came home Saturday night,” a distraught Joseph Peoples said. “Or all day Sunday.”

  Clooney interrupted himself. “I’d think lots of twenty-five-year-old guys didn’t come home to Mom and Pop on Saturday night.”

  There were general grunts of agreement from Greg and Mr. Perkins.

  “But he’d been gone for several years,” I said. “I imagine they were afraid he’d taken off again.”

  “Keep reading,” Lindsay ordered from her listening post.

  Peoples was expected at a large family gathering held in his honor Sunday afternoon, according to police. He never appeared.

  “Since the last time he was seen was during a fight at a party Saturday night, we are investigating,” said a police spokesperson.

  “We called his cell phone when he didn’t come home as planned,” Margaret Peoples said. “We called him all day Sunday. He never answered. He’d never have missed the party. After all, it was for him.”

  Jason Peoples had been out of contact with his family for several years. He returned to Seaside a month ago.

  “No one has seen him since someone picked a fight with him at that party,” Joseph Peoples said. “What if he’s hurt and needs help? You can understand why we’re so worried.”

  The police are asking anyone with information about Peoples’ movements to contact them immediately.

  There was a moment of silence. Then we all turned as one and looked at Bill, who had walked to the counter as Clooney read.

  He stared back, his face white.

  Clooney made a growling noise deep in his throat. “You need to contact the cops, boy.”

  Bill stood and held his hand up in front of him as if to ward off Clooney’s words. “I don’t have to do anything. I didn’t make him disappear! I’m not going to the police.”

  Andi flew to his side. “He didn’t do anything wrong! I know. I was there.”

  Greg stood, pinning Bill with his gaze. He might no longer be a cop, but at the moment, that authority sat easily on his shoulders. “Someone will give details of the fight, including your name, Bill, if it hasn’t been done already. It’d be good if you went to the police on your own rather than wait for them to come looking for you.”

  Bill stared back, bristling with attitude. “I gotta go. I got”—he seemed to be searching for a word—“stuff to do.” He made for the door.

  “Bill!” Andi bolted after him.

  “Later, cupcake.” He pushed the door open, intent on escape.

  She followed him outside and grabbed him by the arm. He turned. They stopped in front of the picture window where we could see them. He stared down at her, one unhappy camper.

  “What?” I could read his lips with ease.

  She spoke to him with urgency, her hands flashing.

  His frown deepened, and he said something that displeased her. One hand went to her hip, and she poked him in the chest with the other. I had to admire h
er chutzpa.

  He grabbed her by the wrist, and she flinched. She tried to pull free, but he held on, leaning down and yelling in her face.

  Clooney was off his stool faster than a runner off the blocks at the sound of the starter’s pistol, Greg right behind him, but Bill was already moving. He pushed Andi away with enough force that she stumbled and almost fell. He strode away without a backward glance.

  Clooney shoved the door open, his angry gaze on the retreating Bill. “You ever touch her in anger again, kid, and you’ll answer to me!” He reached for Andi. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

  She ducked away and glared at him. “Stay out of it, Clooney.”

  Her unexpected anger sparked his. “Fat chance of that!”

  “I can handle him!” She pushed past her uncle and made her way back inside, rubbing her wrist.

  Muttering to himself, Clooney followed and caught her by her apron strings. “Let me see!”

  She held out her arm with an impatient sigh. “I’m fine.”

  He ran his fingers over the bruise already forming. “No, you’re not.” He grabbed her in a hug. “Stay away from him, honey. He’s a bad one.”

  “He’s not,” she said, her anger gone, her voice teary. “He’s just upset.”

  “No matter how upset a man is, he never manhandles a woman,” Mr. Perkins announced from his stool.

  Andi rolled her eyes.

  Clooney growled agreement. “If he comes near you again, I’ll have to teach him a thing or two.”

  Andi pulled away and glared at her uncle. “I don’t want to hear anyone talking against him.” She grabbed his arm. “I mean it, Clooney.”

  He folded under her angry look. “Yeah, yeah.”

  She turned to Mr. Perkins. “Got that?”

  She stared at him until he said, “Yes, I got it.”

  She nodded, then ruined her defense by rubbing her wrist as she stalked off to hide in the ladies’ room at the back of the dining area.