by Bill Noel
She had a mouth full of chips, so I waited. A few crunches later, she said, “Two more. Heather Lee and Harley McLowry.”
I already knew about Heather. “She’s the singer?”
“If that’s what you call her. She lives behind me—one thin wall behind me. I hear her day and night doing what she calls ‘singing.’” Cindy rolled her eyes, looked at the ceiling, formed a circle with her lips, and howled. “Heather calls it singing; back home we call it slaughterin’ the hogs. A half-dead hog carries a tune better—a lot better.”
Cindy had done what Charles, Larry, and Dude had failed to do. I laughed so hard, pizza came out my nose. After having listened to Heather, I readily agreed with Cindy.
“What do you know about her?” I asked.
“More than most of the residents,” she said and then sipped her beer. “She’s in her forties. With the voice God gave her, she wisely chose massage therapy to make a living. She works freelance at several spas in the area, including Millie’s over here. One look at her hands tells you she uses them for her income.” Cindy paused and fiddled with the chip bag. “Everything else is gut reaction. I think she’s bipolar or running from something. Cops don’t like to take their work home, so I don’t press the issue.”
“Think she could be involved in the killings?”
“Doubt it. She’s a little nutty but seems harmless. She told me she’s psychic. Funny what you said about the ghost though; she told me she knows the house is haunted. I figure if it is, her singing would scare any self-respecting spook away.”
It was easy to see why Larry liked Cindy. She’s funny, has a who-cares attitude, but is well-grounded.
She leaned back in her chair, totally comfortable with herself, and relaxed. “So, what’s with you and Detective Lawson?”
That curve almost beaned me. “Nothing. Why?”
“Come on,” she said. “Not only is she a fine detective—someone I could emulate—but she’s an attractive woman—an attractive woman who has her eyes on you.”
Has Cindy been talking to Amber? “She just appreciates that I’ve visited her dad in the hospital. Nothing more.”
“Hmm. Then I wonder why she couldn’t stop talking about you when she came to the station to tell us about the chief—how nice looking and sensitive you are and how kind of you to keep checking on them, how …”
“Tell me about Harley McLowry.” I said. I’d heard enough about women’s intuition.
Cindy laughed. “Coward,” she said. “Okay. You know how some people start looking like their dogs? Harley told me once that his dad named him after his motorcycle. He couldn’t have come up with a better name. Harley’s low, wide, and loud—a Harley.”
“Other than his outstanding body, know anything about him?”
“He’s a plumber, but I think he’s out of work more than plying his trade. He also brags about being an avid hunter.”
“Bow and arrow, by any chance?”
Cindy smiled, “Yep.”
“And …?” I asked. I was beginning to sound like Charles.
“And the all-knowing detectives from the Sheriff’s Department say Harley had a ‘decent’ alibi for Lester’s killing. Of course, in the spirit of openness, they wouldn’t tell me what it was. Spirit of openness, huh.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought that was too easy.”
“Yeah, sorry,” she said and looked at her pink Swatch. “I’m on first shift and need to get going. Thanks for the supper and company. To be honest, the less time I spend in my room, the better.”
“I bet Larry’d do something about that,” I said as I walked her to the door and noted to myself that Cindy added more pink to my house than everything in it combined.
“Yep,” she said as she waved good-bye, looked both ways, and then made a run for it.
CHAPTER 32
Before Charles had a chance to settle in his favorite chair, I said we were heading to the boardinghouse. I gave him a capsule summary of supper with Cindy and the remaining cast of characters—Harley and Heather. A cool front had swept through the area, so it was in the low seventies. Charles talked me into walking.
“Hey, Harley, how ya doin’?” asked Charles. His right hand was out to shake the hand of the short, five-five or so, chunky man who was leaving the side door of the Edge as we walked across the sand-covered parking lot. The lot was also a walkway to the beach and a major thoroughfare for surfers and families headed for a day of fun.
“Umm … fine as frog’s hair,” said the clearly confused gentleman. “How about you, pard?” He slowly raised his pudgy right hand and shook Charles’s outstretched mitt. He was so loud that three surfers heading to the waves stopped to see what was going on. They quickly figured out it was nothing worth stopping for and continued their journey.
“Doing good, Harley. Doing good,” said Charles like he was speaking to a long-lost cousin. “Meet my friend, Chris.”
I didn’t recall ever seeing Harley, and from what Charles had said earlier, I didn’t think he knew him either. We shook hands, and I dropped Charles’s name into the conversation twice on the good chance Harley had no idea who he was talking to.
I was relieved when Charles took the lead. “We’re good friends with Cindy Ash and were going to see if she’s in.” Charles looked at the house.
“Oh, the cop,” said—more accurately, yelled—Harley. The look on his face went from “who are you?” to irritation. Perhaps encounters with law enforcement had clouded his opinion of Cindy.
Harley lit a cigarette, tilted his head and blew smoke in the air, and then walked over to a shiny, black Harley-Davidson sitting beside a hand-painted, red, white, and green Volkswagen Bug. The Harley was the length of the German paint palette.
“Nice hog,” said Charles as he followed Harley. “What year?”
That got a smile. “99 Road King Classic.”
The bike was neatly pinstriped in red; the chrome sparkled. The parking area was sand- and occasionally dust-covered, so Harley must clean the bike often.
“Got it up in Jersey last year. Only seven thousand miles,” said Harley. He was proud of his mode of transportation and was talking about something in his comfort zone.
“Stage two fuel injection?” asked Charles.
“Yep,” said Harley, who was lovingly staring at the hog. “Got full manual pump for air shocks, too.”
I was tempted to run to the surf shop to get Dude to translate for me.
“Wow,” said Charles, who was rubbing his hand over the chrome-tipped front fender.
Harley took one last puff and flicked the cigarette butt into the parking lot far away from his prized possession. “Gotta go,” he bellowed. “Got a part-time job. Have to pay for this baby.”
Charles stepped back as Harley mounted his baby. “Know if Mrs. Klein’s in?” Charles asked. “Got a question for her.”
Harley leaned toward Charles. “Know about her imbibing?” he asked. He tried to lower his voice, but anyone within twenty feet would have heard.
“Tell us,” said Charles.
“She’s okay before 5:30; otherwise, she’s ‘under the weather,’” he began. “Between December 3 and March 20, the old lady drinks eggnog and Maker’s Mark sprinkled with Hershey’s cocoa.”
I bit my tongue not to ask about the dates. Besides, Harley, Charles, and I were such good friends now, he might tell us anyway.
Harley seemed to forget about being in a hurry. He took out another cigarette and, to my chagrin, blew smoke in my face. He didn’t do it on purpose; we were simply sharing a private conversation.
He continued, “She drinks Maker’s the rest of the year without the eggnog and that good-for-bones stuff—what’s it called?”
“Calcium,” guessed Charles.
Harley aimed his fat index finger
at Charles. “That’s it. She drinks the bourbon on the rocks.” He hesitated and then smiled, “More like, drinks it on the gravel. The ice is so small.” He laughed at his joke. So did Charles; I smiled.
“She should be okay now; long way to 5:30,” said Harley. He waved us away from the bike and started the engine. The pulsating roar of the motorcycle drowned out his final comment—no small accomplishment—and he slowly drove out of the lot. A cloud of dust followed.
“I didn’t think you knew Harley,” I said as the bike turned right on Arctic Avenue and out of our sight, but not quite out of ear range.
“Do now,” he said.
“How’d you know it was him?”
“Well, the guy was alive, so I figured it wasn’t Lester or Pat; knew it wasn’t Cal, Arno, Cindy, or Mrs. Klein. You said Travis was MIA. He wasn’t Heather. Besides, he looked like that hog that was sitting there.” Charles pointed his cane to where the 99 Road King Classic had been parked.
I thought it would have saved a whole herd of words if he had simply said he recognized him from Bert’s. But that wouldn’t have been Charles. I didn’t want to know how he knew so much about motorcycles; actually, I did want to know but didn’t think I had enough time left in my life for the answer.
Harley had the look of a crossbow killer to me. I wondered how foolproof his alibi was.
CHAPTER 33
“Hello, boys. Good to see you again.” Margaret Klein came to the paint-peeling apartment door dressed in a multicolored, faded lightweight robe, open-toed purple house slippers, and a hairnet covering her thinning white hair. “Come in.”
I followed Charles into the tiny apartment. It felt like I’d stepped into a Charles Dickens novel. The main living area was small and felt even smaller because of the clutter and dark, wood-paneled walls. An old Victorian-style couch blocked most of the far wall; two dark-stained, wood rocking chairs with puke green cushions sat to the left in front of an exit door. There was one small window beside the blocked door, but it was covered with deep burgundy drapes. The sounds of a quiz show bellowed from the Kenmore console television.
“You’re not bringing me another dead tenant, are you?” she asked as she pointed for us to sit in the rocking chairs. “My friend, Louise, was right about you, you know.” She sat on the couch nearest the rockers and shook her head. “Now, poor Arno has a hole in his arm from the crazy archer; and dear, sweet Pat, oh so sweet, Pat is gone.” She stopped and looked at the television. “Oh, I’m being rude. Can you hear it okay? Let me turn it up.”
I would’ve been amazed if the volume knob turned further clockwise. A vase on the small table beside my chair vibrated from the sound waves. “No, it’s fine, Mrs. Klein. Actually, we don’t need to see the show; maybe we could turn it off.”
“Well, okay—I guess.”
Charles reached over and turned the set off before she changed her mind. All three of us stared at the television as the picture went from a quiz show to a white screen closing into a solitary, bright white dot in the middle of the picture tube. The vase stopped vibrating.
I wasn’t certain what we had hoped to learn from Mrs. Klein, but I was surprised how kindly she had described Pat. I asked if she knew her well.
“Hardly at all,” came her answer, interesting considering how so sweet she was. “She just moved in last month. Make it a point not to ask much about my tenants. That was my late husband’s wish.”
“Why’s that?” asked Charles.
“Mind if I smoke?” she asked.
We did, but she didn’t care. A crystal ashtray the size of a cake pan was sitting beside her on the overstuffed couch. It had about three packs worth of butts in it—a deadly house fire waiting to happen. She already had a cigarette in her left hand and a Zippo lighter in the other.
“My dear husband, Joseph, worked for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus from ’36 to ’41. He was their finance guy.” She took a puff and continued, “The Ringling Brothers, seven of them in all, started the circus back in 1884 in Wisconsin—Baraboo, Wisconsin, I believe. They ran the only clean circus around. The others shortchanged customers and had gambling on the lot—nasty stuff. Well, moving on, the brothers merged with the Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1919.”
“I’ve seen that circus a few times,” said Charles.
I looked at him; I had a hard time picturing Charles at a circus—in one, maybe, but not attending.
“Not like when dear Joseph was with it,” she said and shook her head, moving the cloud of smoke around above her. “Back in the day, there was only one big traveling RB circus; nothing like those three piddling units jumping around the country today. Did I tell you, the most famous clown of all, Emmett Kelly, joined the circus the same year Joseph left?”
“That’s interesting,” said Charles. I suspected he actually meant it.
“Being the money man with the traveling troupe, dear Joseph saw the writing on the wall. About that time, talkies were sweeping the movie world, and everyone wanted to go see the big-screen stars; the appeal of the circus was waning. So guess what?” Fortunately, Mrs. Klein didn’t pause for us to guess. “Dear Joseph took the money he had made with the circus, borrowed more, and opened a chain of movie theaters.” She smiled. “My dear Joseph made a boatload of money and invested it wisely enough for us to have plenty forever.”
Charles leaned forward, tapped his cane on the floor, and said, “‘Every crowd has a silver lining,’ according to the circus founder, Phineas Taylor Barnum.”
Mrs. Klein laughed and slapped her knee. “That’s old P. T. for sure.”
Mrs. Klein had shouted out an interesting story, and Charles continued to amaze me with his range of useless trivia, but nothing had been mentioned about a crossbow, nor had Mrs. Klein shed any light on why her boardinghouse was the target of a crazed killer. Why were we here?
“We ran into Harley in the parking lot,” Charles said. “He’s a character.”
Mrs. Klein lit another cigarette and took a long draw before responding. “Old Harley has a bad habit of smoking, but he’s still okay. Got one hell of a hog, too. See it?”
“Sure did,” said Charles.
“Yeah,” said Mrs. Klein. She set her cigarette on the overfull ashtray and focused on the black screen on the television. “It reminds me of those little motorcycles the clowns rode in the circus. I told you my husband, dear Joseph, worked for the circus, didn’t I?”
We nodded. I didn’t figure she could hear me without me screaming anyway.
“Now tell me again,” she said, turning her attention from the screen to us, “why are you here? I don’t rent rooms to homo couples—not that I have anything against the gay persuasion; don’t rent to any couples.”
“Cindy Ash is a good friend of ours,” said Charles. “We’re worried about her with the murders and all.”
“I remember now,” she said, “you are the boys who follow around murderers. Terrible, terrible.”
“We also know Country Cal and Arno Porchini. Both live here, don’t they?” asked Charles.
She turned back to the television. “After dear Joseph made all his money, he said he was tired of living in Middle America and wanted to be at the ocean. He had been to Charleston with the circus and remembered Folly Beach. Never thought to ask him why before he passed back in ’84. Before starting the movie houses, he traveled the country by rail, living in circus cars. After he made some money, we traveled the world. He decided he wanted to build a house that was unlike any other. Said he wanted the circus look but plenty of space—something he never had with Ringling.” She spread her arms out and looked all around the room. “This was his dream.”
“He succeeded; it’s unique,” said Charles. He almost made it sound like a compliment.
She turned her attention back to us. “I think Travis Green killed those people.” She loo
ked at me and then back at Charles.
I finally asked why she thought that. She asked me what I said and I repeated it, at a decibel level just below a foghorn.
She nodded. “Well, he’s always late with his rent, the police keep asking about him, and you know he’s disappeared. He did it.”
With our list of zero good suspects, we were in no position to argue—although I wouldn’t have included late rent as a motive.
With that minor bit of detecting out of the way, Mrs. Klein seemed to shrink back into the blank television. “My husband, dear Joseph, owned some movie houses, you know. He had this house built for us; loved every second in it until he passed. He had an unhappy streak in him, you know. Every time he was around the ocean, he would look at the houses and say that only rich people got to enjoy living with the ocean in their backyard.”
“I’ve often said that,” commented Charles.
I’d never heard Charles say anything remotely sounding like that, but I don’t always listen when he’s rambling off on some obscure topic.
“Joseph made me promise that once he’d passed, that I’d turn his dream house into a boardinghouse, so poor people would have the view he adored. He didn’t think I’d do it, so he had the lawyers plop it in his will. He even had an architect draw up the design to get the most rooms in it; gave me a storage room and two with private storage cubes for the renters; put in individual bathrooms for the units on this floor; the folks on the second floor have to share a bath. They squeezed a lot of stuff in here. He even joked about secret passages, like some of the circus cars had; I never saw any and think he was pulling my leg.”
“That was admirable,” I said.
“The lawyers said I had to do it, but didn’t say when,” she said with a grin. “I spent another decade rattling around this old place by myself before converting it. I hated it at first when I had to go from this big house to these tiny rooms and rent to people I didn’t know. But, God rest his soul, my dear Joseph knew what he was doing. Lately, I don’t need much room, and I do enjoy talking to the youngsters living here.” She shook her head. “It’s a shame Travis is a killer. And now I have three rooms to rent.” She stared at Charles and then at his cane. “But I’m sorry. Even if you’re a cripple, I won’t rent to a couple, gay persuasion or not.”