Shadows on the Sand

by Gayle Roper

  Two cars pulled into the lot, and a twenty-something climbed out of each, one male, one female. They huddled with the other watchers, whispering and pointing when their thumbs weren’t dancing on their keypads.

  Rog was grinning as he rejoined us. “Dispatch already knew. Several phone calls to 911 from people tracking the Hummer. I bet he’s got a line of cars behind him, all tweeters and their friends. He hasn’t got a chance.”

  “Sort of a wedding party motorcade without the crepe-paper streamers,” I said. “Or horns. Or bride and groom.”

  Greg put his hand to his head.

  I forgot the tweeters. “Headache?” Dumb question. Why else would he hold his head?

  “Oh, yeah. I never should have left the café.”

  Café! I glanced at my watch. Eleven thirty-five! “I’ve got to go. It’s lunchtime.”

  “I need to talk to you more,” Maureen said.

  “Sure, but can you stop at the café? I’m seriously understaffed and need to be there.”

  She nodded. “I’ll drop in after the crime scene techs finish here.”

  I smiled my thanks and looked at Greg. “You stop in too. Someone’s got to clean those scrapes.”

  He waved his hand like he was erasing the cuts and blood. The heel of his palm was red and weeping.

  “You haven’t seen yourself, bub. Stop in.” I turned away before he could say no. What was it with men? When it wasn’t “if you build it, they will come,” it was “if you ignore it, it will heal.”

  As I hurried down the street, several of the texters followed me, joined by a gray-haired lady who zipped right along with the crowd in her motorized scooter. Cilla Merkel, a café regular.

  “Did you see it happen?” one tweeter called to me. “I know some lady in a blue top was a witness to that mess. SweetCilla said so. She heard the lady’s screams and saw the whole thing go down from her place across the street in that apartment building.”

  I glanced down. I had on my blue Carrie’s Café shirt today. It felt very strange knowing that my screams were responsible for all these people. I glanced at Cilla and gave her a did-you-have-to look. She grinned back.

  “Yeah, my Twitter source said blue shirt too,” another texter called. “Said her name’s Carrie. You Carrie?”

  “So what did you see, Carrie?” a third yelled. “Did you scream because he tried to run over you too?”

  I began to feel a bit heckled. “Don’t you people have jobs?” I asked over my shoulder. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

  “Yeah,” Number One said. “What’s your point?”

  There was a rumble of agreement from the rest of the tweeters as we reached the café.

  I turned to them. “You’re welcome to come in if you want to buy something to eat. If not, stay out here. Okay? Just remember I don’t know anything, and nothing’s going to happen here except lunch.”

  “But you haven’t told us what you saw.”

  And I wasn’t going to. “That’s because I think I should tell the police first.”

  There was another rumble but not of agreement. They saw me as unreasonable. I studied the motley crew of twenty- and thirty-somethings and Cilla who was old enough to know better, though I supposed she was the only one not cutting work to trail me. The older couple must have been smart enough to continue their walk to the boardwalk. The young mom was here, her two kids hanging from her legs.

  “Come on, guys. If you hang outside my door in a big clump, you’re going to scare off my customers.”

  They looked around as if searching for said customers and finding none.

  “They’ll be here,” I said somewhat defensively. “Lindsay’s quiche is famous in these parts.”

  “It’s wonderful,” Cilla agreed. “My favorite. You got tomato basil soup today? It’s Monday.”

  I gave her a faint smile and addressed the others. “Maybe you could wait across the street by the drugstore.” People had to go in to get their medicine regardless of street crowds, right?

  “I’ll go in and get lunch,” Cilla said to the tweeters. “I’ll let you know if anything happens. Anything at all.” She waved her iPhone.

  There was a chorus of “Promise?” and one “You sure you know how to use that?”

  Cilla skewered the doubter with a steely look that had him taking a step backward.

  “Hey,” Number One said. “This is SweetCilla.” Like she was royalty.

  The doubter looked instantly impressed. “I’m so sorry. No disrespect intended.”

  Cilla waved a hand, forgiveness granted. Queen Cilla.

  As I let the door fall shut behind me, I nearly ran over Lindsay, Ricky, and Andi staring out at our visitors. Linds had her smartphone in her hand, and Ricky was standing too close to her under the guise of reading over her shoulder. His own phone was still in its holder clipped to his belt.

  Andi, pink phone in hand, vibrated with excitement. “You saw Chaz try to kill Greg?” Her hazel eyes were wide.

  “He was mad about being evicted, and he rammed the building.”

  “He wasn’t after Greg?” Linds held out her phone. “Cilla said it was attempted murder.”

  “She did, huh?” I replayed the scene in my mind, and I realized I couldn’t say whether Chaz wanted to harm Greg or not. He seemed nutty enough to do something that rash, but I didn’t know that was what he intended. If you’re nuts enough to ram a building with your shiny yellow Hummer, you might be crazy enough to go after a person too. But the word was might.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and the three looked disappointed.

  The door opened, and Cilla drove in. She smiled sweetly. “Don’t you worry, Carrie. I won’t bother you.”

  I gave her my hostess smile. “Take any seat you’d like.” I waved my hand to show her the possibilities, and there were many since no one in Seaside seemed to be taking an early lunch.

  “We follow you on Twitter, Ricky and I,” Lindsay told Cilla. “I’ve learned more about Seaside past and present from you than anyone else.”

  Cilla nodded, as regal as Elizabeth II, taking the compliment as her due. The only thing missing was the royal wave. “I just sit at my window or on the boardwalk and report what I see.”

  Even I recognized an understatement.

  Cilla rolled up to table two, her eyes sparkling with life and intelligence and her gray hair curled around her very attractive if somewhat wrinkled face. She was a widow, and I wondered why no man had stepped up to take Mr. Merkel’s place. Probably no one her age could keep up with her.

  “I’ll take Lindsay’s quiche with fruit on the side and a cup of tomato basil. Oh, and a sweet iced tea, BTW.”

  BTW? Give me a break!

  The door opened, and two of the texters came in.

  “You have to order food,” I said as I shooed my staff back to work.

  “We have to eat lunch sometime,” said the taller of the two, “so we decided to eat it here.” They slipped into a booth. In another minute all the street group were inside, seated and scanning menus, even the young mom with the two little kids.

  As soon as they placed their orders, they began texting, though I couldn’t imagine what they were talking about. I ordered quiche or I’m having grilled cheese with ham and tomatoes? Nothing else newsworthy was happening unless you counted someone dropping a tray of silver in the kitchen with a horrendous crash. Today’s dishwasher?

  Which reminded me, if Jase wasn’t going to be here, I had to do something about tomorrow. And where was he? Lord, let him be okay, okay?

  Whenever one booth or table emptied, another group of tweeters appeared. Aside from the little bleeps and chimes that denoted new messages, the place was eerily quiet. The upside was that they were too preoccupied to notice the slow service.

  “Since he couldn’t get over the bridge and out of town, he’s speeding south into Avalon on Ocean Drive,” one texter announced just in case the others had missed that information.

  Ocean Drive was a highway
that linked the run of barrier islands that edged South Jersey, protecting the mainland from the ravages of the ocean’s temper. I sometimes wondered what would happen to the highway and all the islands if the predictions of global warming came to pass. The highest point in Seaside was less than ten feet above sea level, and it wouldn’t take much to devastate the town. In a storm several years ago, the ocean and bay met in Harvey Cedars, an island community several miles north of Seaside. Would such a thing happen permanently up and down the coast someday?

  “It’s a good thing it’s off-season and there aren’t many people and cars around,” Cilla said when I refilled her sweet iced tea. “I can’t imagine the confusion and danger if the place was crawling with summer people.”

  I had to agree. The thought of that huge vehicle speeding through streets swarming with vacationers was enough to give me the shudders.

  The café door opened, and Mary Prudence, Lindsay’s and my fairy godmother, walked in, making her way through the three parties waiting for tables.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Not that I’m not always glad to see you, but what’s up?”

  “I read on Twitter that things were slightly nuts here. I thought I’d better come in and help you out.”

  “You’re on Twitter?”

  “Sure. Isn’t everyone? I follow SweetCilla. She’s been reporting everything ever since you screamed.”

  Uh-huh.

  “And I follow Mary P,” Cilla said.

  “And I follow both,” called a slick-looking guy whose suntan was fading toward winter wan.

  A flurry of “me too’s” and “so do I’s” sounded.

  I looked at Cilla with her gray hair and Mary P with her carefully tinted hair. How weird that they knew more about technology than I, who was at least thirty years younger than Mary P and closer to forty for Cilla.

  “So what can I do to help you out?” Mary P slipped her smartphone into its holder clipped to her belt.

  A stray piece of information finally connected. “Carrie’s Café is being mentioned on Twitter by name?”

  Mary P nodded. “Facebook too. You couldn’t pay for publicity like this.”

  Wow. Maybe there was something to social networking after all.

  She wrapped an apron around her ample middle. “You want me to do counter or tables?”

  I smiled at her. It was like old times, only then she was the boss and I the employee being told my wait station.

  “I’ll take the counter and the register,” I said. “You and Andi take the tables and booths.”

  With a nod, Mary P went to talk with Andi about division of labor.

  “They got him,” Lindsay yelled to the customers.

  “Yeah,” called a guy with black glasses and a terrible haircut. “The Wildwood PD was waiting for him at the south end of town.”

  “He smashed up a cop car when he tried to run a barricade,” Cilla said. “Marleysghost has pictures on YouTube!”

  Everything stopped as everyone, including the cook, the baker, and both my servers went to Marleysghost’s YouTube post.

  “Ricky,” I yelled. “All the cheese in the grilled cheese for booth one is melting out of the sandwich! And smoke’s beginning to swirl. Quick or we’ll have the smoke alarms blaring!”

  Ricky grinned at me and cocked his head toward our customers. “They’ll never notice.”

  How true.

  He flipped the sandwich, and it was fine—which I knew. I’d just been trying to keep his mind on his job.

  When Maureen and Rog came in around one thirty to hear my version of the incident at the Sand and Sea, I thought my remaining customers would twist their heads off their shoulders as they tried to watch what we were doing and eavesdrop on our conversation. When we went to the back of the café and my office, there was a collective groan.

  “Don’t worry,” Lindsay called to them, waving her smartphone. “I’ll keep you updated.”

  Not if I didn’t keep her updated.

  I closed the office door behind the three of us, relieved to be free of being reported on. Who knew being a celebrity was so wearing? But if it meant more business …

  “I’ve got a question for you guys,” I said. “How come there isn’t an army of texters out there looking for Jason Peoples?” I’d been thinking about that for the last hour. “If some idiot ramming a building got everyone so excited, you’d think a missing person would make them froth at the mouth.”

  “Good question.” Rog looked around my cluttered office. “We’ll have to get SweetCilla and Mary P on it. Our sources haven’t come up with much.”

  “Tell me you don’t follow them on Twitter,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised what those two ladies have uncovered.” Maureen looked around for seats.

  I indicated my desk chair. “Yours, Maureen.” I pulled a pair of folding chairs from against the wall, offered one to Rog, and took the other.

  Maureen sat with caution in the desk chair, well used when I got it. It only wobbled slightly. “As to Jason Peoples, we do know he had a fight with a guy, big and with dark hair, first name Bill. We’re looking for that guy as a person of interest, but we don’t know much else.”

  So Bill hadn’t followed Greg’s advice and gone to the police. I wasn’t surprised. My feeling was that Bill would buck authority without a second thought, convinced that he, ruler of his small universe, knew better than they. After all, their only purpose was to interfere with his life.

  Maureen appeared frustrated. “No one at the party knew this Bill, or so they say. They’re all telling us he crashed the party with some pretty girl with strawberry-blond hair and he got into the fight over her.”

  I flinched. Andi. “You’re looking for Bill Lindemuth.”

  Maureen looked blank, but Rog, a lifetime resident of Seaside, perked up. “The football hero of a couple of years ago?”

  I nodded. “He was in the café this morning for breakfast.”

  “Yeah? How do you know he’s the guy we’re looking for?”

  I hesitated for a moment, feeling like a traitor but knowing I had to tell them what I knew. Finding Jase was more important than the almost certain possibility of angering Bill or upsetting Andi.

  “You need to talk to my server, Andi Mueller. She’s a friend of his. In fact she’s the girl he was with at the party. But she’s only sixteen. Take it easy on her.”

  8

  Greg Barnes stood alone, staring at the damage done to the Sand and Sea. The locksmith had come and gone, but what good was a new lock on the front door when the wall was an open invitation to the crooked and the curious?

  He’d called his boss to report what had happened, and with any luck he’d be gone before Josh showed up.

  He sighed. Sooner or later he’d have to talk with the man. He just preferred it to be later. After all, it was imperative he go to Home Depot over on the mainland for a couple of sheets of plywood to cover the hole. What if the weather turned? What if night fell and bad guys or nosy kids climbed in? His duty as a property manager demanded he leave ASAP.

  As he tried to work up the energy to get in his pickup and drive to the store, a black Cadillac Escalade pulled into the lot. He sighed again as he watched the unfamiliar car park. Another nosy tweeter?

  He rubbed his forehead. Much as he hated to admit it, he hurt, but no way would he go to a doctor. Too time consuming. Maybe he should stop and let Carrie tend his wounds. Somehow thinking of her concern for him made him feel a little less achy.

  He studied the Escalade. Nice car, very nice car. Big. Shiny. New. Much classier than the Hummer that had shouted, “Notice me, notice me; I’m special and so’s my driver.” Of course anyone driving an Escalade wasn’t the retiring sort either.

  He blinked as Josh Templeton, sleek and buffed, climbed out, sporting new dark glasses and an extra measure of attitude. Huh. Too late to run. And Greg would have to rethink that classier thing.

  Josh strode across the lot, his hair moussed to
perfection, his trousers sharply creased, the polish on his tasseled loafers getting dusty in the cinders and sand. He stopped beside Greg and studied the hole without a word, though he vibrated with anger. Even his jowls, developing in spite of his attempts to stay young forever, seemed to shimmy with fury.

  Greg took a deep breath and waited with patience for the explosion. It was inevitable, and since he was the one standing here, he would be the one getting the blame. The fact that he hadn’t been the driver of the car would matter little to Josh.

  Well, he could take it. He had no choice if he wanted to keep his job. On the bright side, Josh would be his boss for only two more days.

  “What were you thinking, Barnes,” Josh snarled, “to let things get this out of hand?”

  Greg took a minute until he trusted his voice. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. The blood, abrasions, cuts, and bruises aren’t all that major, though I was worried for a minute there when he drove straight at me.”

  Josh scowled and waved the air as if brushing away a gnat. “Get over yourself. You’re fine. You screwed up. You might as well admit it.”

  Greg sighed. What was the use? It was a good thing Scripture said to love one another, not like one another. He could behave properly toward Josh in an agape love, polite sort of way—his mother and Ginny had trained him well, as had the instructors at the police academy—but he couldn’t bring himself to like the man. At all. Sometimes it felt more like a case of loving your enemy.

  “I did not screw up.” A bit of self-defense was appropriate. After all, he had Carrie and Blake, to say nothing of the tweeters, as witnesses.

  Josh spun to him, mouth open to rebut.

  Greg held up a hand. “I will not discuss culpability with you, Josh. I know what I know. I was here. You were not. Blake Winters was here too. Talk to him if you want an unbiased report.”

  Josh looked around. “Where is he?”

  The subtle thread of disbelief about Blake’s presence when the incident occurred angered Greg, but he held his temper. It wasn’t a war worth fighting. It was just Josh being his usual disagreeable self. “He left after the locksmith changed out the locks.”