by Bill Noel
We had perfected our instant parties after three years of practice-practice-practice. Larry was assigned to bring the beer and always did. Charles said he would bring the snacks, but never did. And I was to furnish my beverage of choice, wine. I never failed. I also had to have snacks on hand. Charles had told Cal he could bring the musical entertainment.
Charles and I took turns filling Larry in on what we had learned about Pat and our visit to Mrs. Klein. Larry, pulling from his checkered past, reminded us that the contents of the box was evidence in a multiple murder and our borrowing it was, most likely, a felony. We agreed to turn it over to the “proper authorities” tomorrow. “After we make copies,” Charles added under his breath.
Cal sashayed around the corner before Larry could enlighten us on the booking procedures before our indoctrination to the state prison system.
“Hey, Michigan, Kentucky, Hardware Store Person,” said Cal. “Thanks for the invite.”
He wore his signature Stetson, khakis, and a short-sleeve, bright orange golf shirt with the Titleist logo on the front. He had a beat-up guitar case in his right hand and a six-pack of Coors in his left. He looked like Country Club Cal.
Charles formally introduced Larry to Cal while I took the beer to the refrigerator.
On my way back, I heard Cal ask, “Ever been a jockey?” He looked down at Larry.
I cringed. Larry hated horses.
“Never,” said Larry, curtly.
“Oh,” said Cal.
Charles sensed a lack of instant bonding between the two. “Any murders at your home this afternoon?” he asked, like it was an everyday occurrence.
“Don’t think so, Michigan,” Cal replied. He had turned away from Larry and looked around like he was missing something.
Larry cleared his throat. “Let me get you a beer,” he said.
“Much obliged.”
Larry headed to the kitchen, and Cal thanked us again for inviting him. “Tight quarters at home,” he said. “But not much to do outside except get plastered and saunter into things I better avoid.”
Larry handed him a Coors.
Cal tipped his hat toward Larry. “Thanks. You’re a courtin’ the cop from my building?”
Larry looked up at Cal, his jaw tensed. “Officer Ash and I are dating.”
“Yeah,” said Cal, “I seen you around before. She seems nice, real cute-like.”
Charles felt the tension and interrupted. “Cal, how was the jamboree last night?”
“Sort of a downer, Michigan,” he said, turning away from Larry. “Everybody’s getting bummed by the murders. I didn’t know her much, but a few of the gals there had talked a lot to Rowland. She’d hung around some; spent most of her time on a stool at the bar. They were crying in their beer.” He shook his head. “Folk’re staying home—scared. Nearly half the people there were cops. Do they think the killer’ll bring his danged crossbow into GB’s and start shooting arrows around the room? Don’t know what to think; no, don’t know what to think.”
“What were the police doing?” I asked.
“Trying to look inconspicuous,” said Cal. He giggled. “Yeah, inconspicuous. About ninety degrees in there, and you got these guys with burr haircuts, shiny, polished, black dress shoes, armpit-stained sport coats, with bulges barely hiding their guns. Yep, inconspicuous.”
“Local or Sheriff’s Department?” asked Charles.
“I don’t know all the local cops like you do,” said Cal. He slowly turned to Larry. “But they didn’t look familiar.”
“Did Heather sing?” asked Charles.
Cal smiled. “She was there. Stood on the stage. Made noises into the mike. Sing? Wouldn’t say so.”
Larry had opened a family-size bag of chips and poured them in a large mixing bowl he found in the kitchen—not the bowl’s intended use, but I was certain I’d never be mixing anything in it. He went back and brought out three frosty brews and told me I was on my own getting wine. We all sat on the bench seats attached to the picnic table. We touched our glasses together “in memory of our friends from the Edge,” said Charles. I thought about Cal singing “Amazing Grace” at the jamboree a couple of weeks earlier.
“Larry,” said Cal, “are you worried about Officer Ash living where she does?”
“Why?” asked Larry, much too quickly.
“I was thinking about Heather,” he replied as he took off his Stetson and set it on the guitar case beside the table. “The gal can’t sing a lick, and she’s as strange as a praying mantis—talking about ghosts going bump in the night, divining for goo-goo spirits, and all. But I’d hate to see anything happen to her, living where she does and all. Just thought you’d be worried about your cop gal, that’s all.”
Larry lowered his head and slowly took a chip from the bowl. I knew he was worried but also knew calling Cindy “cop gal” wasn’t wise. Charles was rubbing off on me. “Cal, did you know Travis Green? I hear he’s split,” I said.
Cal’s head jerked toward me and twitched. His mouth barely moved when he said, “The first time I met him, he told me country music was for old farts, sagging-boobed broads, and Democrats.” Cal turned to Larry and then to Charles. “That was our longest conversation—if you could call it a conversation.”
I saw a slight smile flicker across Larry’s face. “Suppose he’s not jamboree regular?”
Cal leaned down to his guitar case, took his Stetson and placed it carefully on the ground, and took out his classic Martin. “Speaking in Heather-speak, I’d have to say that the vibes improved a bunch at home when Green, that little toad, hit the road.”
“Think he’s the killer?” asked Charles.
“He’s my bet,” said Cal. He hesitated, ran his right hand over the strings of his guitar, and stared at the plywood patch. “If he isn’t, the killer could do worse than skewering him.”
Maybe we should hold our next fun-filled party at a funeral home, I thought.
Fortunately, a half dozen beers and a bottle of wine later, the mood had swung from depressing, somber, and hostile, to laid-back, mellow, and neutral, and then to giddy, funny, and festive. I don’t think it made it to illegal, illicit, and definitely not salacious—perhaps next time.
Even Larry loosened some when Cal told us how he had toured the South for forty-plus years, the last thirty of them in a white 1971 Cadillac Eldorado.
“Bought it in 1973 from a country star who’d gone the same route I took earlier—booze, drugs, cheap-expensive women.” Cal strummed the guitar the entire time he was talking. “The poor guy bought the Caddy new for eight grand. The payments came due more often than his checks for singing. The night before I got it, he was saturated and backed it into the only light pole in an empty parking lot at a two-bit bar; put a god-awful dent in the rear.” Cal laughed. “The Caddy was about the length of the Queen Mary, so I never got around to fixing the rear—didn’t need all that space anyhow.” He hesitated, hit a couple of soft licks, and said, “Made parallel parking a hell of a lot easier; never worried about the car behind me.”
I could identify with that. All I had to worry about was what was in front of me.
CHAPTER 38
A late summer thunderstorm swept through the Lowcountry Thursday morning. The paper said the rain would move out to sea by midmorning and had mentioned a tropical storm that Florida might need to worry about sometime late next week. They could have it.
I looked out the kitchen window for remnants of last night’s party—illegal, illicit, or otherwise. A few stray chips were all that remained. The night had had its ups and downs, but as the hours passed, things improved. Cal and Larry had appeared on better terms by the end of the night. They had put their daggers, barbs, and hostile stares away. We had nudged Cal into a miniconcert. Listening to him pull songs from the Hank Williams Sr. songbook interspersed with tea
rjerkers from the early sixties, I remember thinking I had been sent back through time to a table behind an old roadhouse somewhere in Alabama—old-timers talking about getting in the cotton crop or talking about the “Commie-led civil rights uproar yonder in Selma.” I also remember thinking I should thank God every day for such good friends as Charles, Larry, and maybe Cal—if he didn’t turn out to be a killer.
That jarred me back to the present. Sometime during the evening, Charles and I had agreed that I would get Pat’s cache copied and turned over to the police. I didn’t remember which police or even if we had decided. I did recall that he would staff the gallery so I could take care of that simple task.
Rain or not, it would be a good time to visit Brian, possibly have lunch with Bob, get the papers copied, and then find the nearest police officer to hand the originals to. Would they believe me if I said the box was left on my doorstep?
Traffic was light on Folly Road—the rain was keeping the day-trippers away, and it was after the morning rush hour. That was good since the windshield wipers were working overtime and still not keeping up with the downpour; standing water covered long strips of the roadway.
The rain had eased slightly by the time I pulled in the hospital, but I still had to slop through puddles to get from the parking garage to the covered entrance. My deck shoes were soaked; why had I chosen today to make the visit? I stopped feeling sorry for myself when I waited for the elevator and realized how fortunate it was that I was visiting a living director of public safety and friend.
I forgot my wet feet and water-dripping Tilley when I peeked in Brian’s room and saw him sitting on the bedside chair. He was alert, had only one tube running from his body, and was reading People magazine. It was a fantastic sight.
We exchanged pleasantries. I asked when he would escape, and he said sometime over the weekend—“unless I kick the bucket before then,” he added. A clear sign that his sense of humor was back.
He threw the magazine at the table about five feet from his chair. It missed. More recovery apparently was needed. “So,” he said, “I hear the acting chief thinks you and your band of misfits are one step above baby killers and goat thieves.”
“He doesn’t appear to have your tolerance for community involvement by law-abiding citizens,” I said. “Who told you that?”
He grinned. “I have sources.”
Every member of the Folly Beach Department of Public Safety had visited their chief, some multiple times, so I didn’t know who his sources were, but it would have been a safe bet that each of them wore a badge.
“Any idea about work? It’s no secret that the acting King is driving everyone crazy on your island.”
His smile faded. “Not really; it’ll be months, I’m afraid.”
“Brian, with your contact in the Sheriff’s Department, I suspect you’re up on the crossbow thing. Is anyone making progress? I’m worried.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Mainly because Cindy Ash lives at the Edge. But since this has started, I’ve gotten to know a few of the others—Country Cal, Arno Porchini, Harley Something, and even Heather Lee. Any of them could be next. It’s scary.”
Brian kept alternating his gaze from me to the door leading to the corridor. “Everybody’s been trying to shield me from the investigation—keep my stress level down, they say—but according to Detective Lawson, the Sheriff’s Department is doing all it can. There’s an unusual shortage of leads for such visible crimes.”
Brian had always referred to his daughter by her title when work was involved.
“What about your guys?” I asked.
He looked toward the door. “You didn’t hear it from me, but they hate their acting chief. He’s treating them like head lice, not listening to anything they say; he’s pompous, knows it all, and tells his colleagues from the Sheriff’s Department how stupid my officers are.” He paused; his hands gripped the chair arms. His stare burned into my brain. “And I can’t do a damn thing about it—not a damn thing.”
A nurse came through the open door. “Mr. Newman,” she said with a tone of finality, “time to get back to bed and get some rest.” She was about six feet tall and had the bulk of a pro running back. He wasn’t about to argue. He stood on his own but kept a tight grip on the bedside table. Before he reached the bed, Nurse NFL turned to me and said, “He needs to rest now.” She stopped and looked toward the door. No argument from me either. I told Brian I’d see him later. He thanked me for coming. As I headed to the door, he said, “I’m worried, too. Be careful.”
CHAPTER 39
I had called Bob on the way to the hospital and got his machine; left a message about lunch, but hadn’t heard from him. The rain had stopped, and I was thinking about calling again as I maneuvered around the puddles in the hospital’s lot. I changed my mind when I saw Detective Lawson’s blue Crown Vic pull into a space two rows from my car.
I was between her and the hospital entrance, so I waited.
She seemed surprised to see me in the lot but covered it well with a smile. She was dressed in her on-duty attire with her hair pulled back. She looked both professional and attractive. “Here to visit Dad?”
I told her I’d already seen him and that Nurse NFL whistled nap-time.
She laughed. “She has a way about her. We could use her on the force.”
Karen was off duty and stopped before heading home. I stood in the lot and didn’t know what to say. She solved that problem when she asked if I wanted to walk with her to Al’s—she was starved.
During the short walk, Karen talked about how relieved she was about her dad’s recovery. She walked a little peppier when she talked about him. She was worried who would take care of him after he was released, and I tried to reassure her that he was self-supporting and would need little assistance. Besides, I said his officers would be checking on him more than he wanted.
A block before Al’s, she reached over and grabbed my right hand. “Thanks for being there for him.” She gave my hand a tight squeeze, and abruptly let go. She looked away.
“He’s a good guy. I’m glad he’s okay.”
Al’s was nearly full as we crossed the threshold into the bar and went from light to dark.
“Oh, Lordy,” bellowed Al when he saw us. “I hope this isn’t a raid. First time I’ve been full in weeks.”
Customers at the two tables closest to the door abruptly stopped their conversations and turned to see who had entered. They didn’t see battering rams or semiautomatic weapons being brandished by burly guys wearing black vests with POLICE emblazoned on the front, so they went back to their burgers.
Al grinned; his coffee-stained teeth reflected his age and bumpy life.
Karen leaned over the bar, and in her most official voice said, “If I can’t get one of your world-famous cheeseburgers in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll haul you out of here quicker than you can scream police brutality.”
She winked at the aged barkeep/restaurant owner; Al laughed again. I stood back and admired the detective at work.
“Miss lady detective,” said Al, “you ain’t getting anything to eat until you tell me how your daddy’s doing.”
Instead of pulling her handcuffs, Detective Lawson gave Al a glowing update.
“Fantabulous,” said Al. “You bring him here when he gets out of that hospital. I’ll treat him to the biggest, best burger in these here United States.” Al turned to me. “I’ll send the bill to Bubba Bob.”
“Good idea,” I said. “What could be better for a heart attack victim than a big, juicy hamburger?”
“Don’t forget the double slice of cheese.” Al’s grin widened, and he continued, “Chill, man can’t live on lettuce alone.”
Al told Karen that he’d be able to meet her culinary needs, but “Bubba’s Booth” wasn’t available and the “squatters”
in it wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. She said that wasn’t a problem and that “just being in your company” made it worthwhile. “That’s so sweet,” replied Al. The syrup flowed freely.
We were seated on mismatched wooden chairs at a small table near the front window instead of the soft, and broken-down, vinyl-topped bench in Al’s only booth. The table slanted toward the blacked-out front window; a stack of bar napkins was wedged under one of the legs to keep the top from looking like a ski slope. The cheeseburgers and fries tasted just as good as they did at the booth.
“Any news on the crossbow killer?” I asked between bites.
“You know I can’t tell you anything,” she said as she surveyed the diners. As usual, we were the only Caucasians there. Other customers glanced our way. I didn’t know if it was because of the pigment of our skin, the attractiveness of a young female, or the transparent nature of her occupation.
She took another bite, looked down at her fries, and said, “Off the record?”
I nodded.
“Our department’s throwing all its resources at it.”
“Except you?” I said.
“Yeah … that’s crap.”
“Why not you?”
“It galls me,” she started. “I’ve been the primary on every homicide on Folly Beach for the last five years—you know that, you’ve been in the middle of most of them.” Her shoulders were tensed, her left hand pushed down on the table jiggling the delicate balance provided by the bar napkins. “And all of a sudden, the Sheriff decides that since my father is chief, I couldn’t objectively investigate the murders. Crap.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
“He says it’s because of Dad’s heart attack. Just crap. Now your new acting chief’s making it worse. Instead of using the experienced eyes and ears of the Folly force, he’s pushing them away.”
“That’s what I hear. Leads?”
And here I sat with a box of potential leads in the car. Should I tell Karen? Why was I hesitating?