by Bill Noel
“Wow, Charles, I’m impressed. Except your Mr. Wilson is dead, deceased, no longer with us.”
Charles lowered his body into the old chair by the table and stared at me as though I’d told him his hamster died. “Holy spittoon,” he said.
He hadn’t learned that from the construction crew, but I appreciated his clear, yet nonsensical analysis. I shared my conversation with the helpful Ms. Mayfield. I also shared my confusion about if someone wanted Larry to die, why not just kill him? Charles agreed that the messages were to scare the holy hell out of Larry. Before I knew what he was doing, he grabbed the phone and invited Larry to our emergency meeting. I suggested that he bring the messages he’d received, and Larry said he was on his way.
Our wait was interrupted by a customer staying at the Holiday Inn. His wife was at the pool, and his two children had walked to the end of the pier. He’d wisely decided to be anywhere but in the direct sun, which is clearly where he’d spent too much time since checking in. He leisurely looked at most of the prints and bought a handful of note cards. Larry made his grand entrance as the pre-skin-cancerous customer paid.
“Sorry, it took so long,” said Larry, “I couldn’t find all of them. The police still have the originals, but I have copies.”
I told him what I’d learned about WW’s official correctional department status. All Larry said was, “Oh.”
We moved to the office and Charles cleared the table. Larry then unfolded the photocopy of the first message: My turn—DeAD! The My and turn were whole words. DeAD was composed of individual letters cut from magazines.
We stared at the note, but nothing insightful resulted. I grabbed three Pepsis, and we each took a slug; now we were refreshed, but no more insightful.
We debated about exactly what had been written on the cake. Charles thought Larry had told him it said Revenge, You’re Dead, but Larry insisted it was REVENGE—DEAD!, all in caps. As Larry was the only one who’d seen it, Charles deferred to him.
Charles then wrote the first two messages in large letters on a legal pad, one message per page, and taped them to the wall. He said that’s what they did with clues on television.
The puddle of blood on the hardware store floor didn’t say anything but had struck terror in Larry—its intent, we assumed. We’d all seen the bloody message in Larry’s kitchen: RU reAdy TO be even—DeaD. Charles continued his detecting strategy by carefully copying the message on his legal pad and taping it to the wall while Larry spread out a copy of the message he’d found on the door of the hardware. The messages were getting longer: I’ve stoppeD PLAYING—RU reAdy to Die?
I felt my chest tighten as we looked at each cryptic, chilling message. Larry didn’t say anything, but his hands began to shake. Charles was having a hard time taping the message to the wall.
“Don’t forget the notes left on the police car and the television truck,” said Larry.
“Right,” said Charles. “Anyone remember what they said?”
“Something about a bloodbath at my house,” said Larry. “We never saw them.”
“What’s with the animals in the tub?” asked Charles.
Our collective ignorance prevailed, so we moved on.
The last message, the one attached to the black wreath, stared at us from the table: For yoU—DeAD, DEAD, dEAD! That one had bothered me from the first time I saw it. I finally knew why.
“Guys,” I said, “we found this when we went to your house after the explosion, right?”
Charles finished taping his handwritten copy on the legal pad on the wall, turned to me, and nodded. So did Larry, who added, “So?”
“So, that was after the explosion. If it hadn’t been for incredible luck, you wouldn’t be here now. Right?”
Another nod from Larry and Charles.
“I think I see,” said Charles. “If Larry was already in small pieces in your front yard, why the message? Who was it for? For yoU. You who?”
“Could it have been there in case I didn’t die?” asked Larry. He was slumped in the chair, his hands still shaking.
“Unlikely,” I said. “The bomb wasn’t a warning. It was set to go off when you were in the truck. You couldn’t have survived the explosion. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Speaking of not making sense,” said Charles. Now out of clues to put on the wall, he sat down. “Back to the animals. What about the deer head, spider, and dog in the tub? Gross.”
Larry shuddered when Charles said dog. “I wish you hadn’t reminded me,” he said. “I see it every time I shower.”
We sat quietly and stared at the clues. I don’t know what we thought would happen, but we weren’t any closer to figuring it out than when we’d begun. Instead of answering any, we’d just added more questions.
Something else bothered me about the messages, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Larry continued to look at the wall. “I’ve been thinking more about it—about selling the hardware and moving. Ben left me another message. He wants me to call. I don’t know how much more I can take.”
“I understand,” I said. “That’s how I felt when I stumbled on that body and that maniac who tried to kill me.”
“That’s when I saved you,” said Charles.
He’d followed the time-honored tradition of reinventing history. Again I let it slide.
“Larry, whoever is doing this has already killed two people. He has gone to great lengths to send you a message, and he made a nearly successful attempt on your life. Even if you move, it won’t end.” I paused to make sure I had Larry’s attention. “Besides, I don’t think I could live with myself not knowing who it was.”
Charles stood, grabbed his cane, and pointed it at the wall of clues. “And,” he said, “we won’t be around to save you if you’re not here. Who would we eat pizza with? Hey, who would that cute Officer Ash serve and protect? Besides, it makes me feel tall being around you. How could you leave all that?”
Charles was wise, far beyond his outward appearance and most of his words.
Charles walked around the small room, increasingly more agitated. “As President Woodrow Wilson said, ‘Better a thousand times to go down fighting than to dip your colors to dishonorable compromise.’”
“I wish I shared your optimism,” said Larry, “but I’m the one who’ll be going down.”
“Charles,” I said, “I think you make up half those quotes. Larry, remind me to look some of them up.”
Larry turned away from the clue wall. “I have books in the store on plumbing, how to build a doghouse, and retiling a bathroom, but I don’t think I have one on presidential quotes.” His grin had returned.
“Ye of little faith,” said Charles, “I stand by their words. You two are patently envious of my brilliance and wisdom.”
That got more than a smile from Larry, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Uh, guys,” I said, “I hate to break this up, but we’re not making progress, and I promised someone dinner. Larry, any problems with stopping now?”
Larry admitted he also had plans.
Charles said, “Ah, love is in the air. Bill Clinton is about the only president who knew anything about that, and I refuse to quote him.”
Charles, the bodyguard, offered to walk Larry home. I said I’d handle the customer rush, and we parted.
Would we really figure out the mystery tomorrow?
Would we have that much time?
Chapter51
I didn’t tell Charles and Larry, but I had a double date for supper, or more accurately, a single and a half. Amber and Jason greeted me at the door of their apartment and declared they were starved. My plan to take a pleasant, leisurely walk on the pier before supper was quickly scrapped.
We took the short walk to Jason’s favorite restaurant, Planet Follywood. He sa
id the painting of Elvis on the wall was “cool” and the food was okay. Amber’s friend, Noelle, greeted us and again gave us priority seating.
We kept things simple by ordering a “heaping basket” of onion rings and burgers. I asked for a bottle of their best Chardonnay for Amber and me while Jason slurped on a Coke. Jason regaled us with stories of what he and Samuel had done together. Alaska and Hawaii had just become states and Dwight Eisenhower was president when I was last eleven, and I had no clue what mischief I’d been involved in. I almost asked Jason if he knew who President Eisenhower was, but I didn’t want to hear that he’d learned about him in ancient history. For a moment, I wondered what Jason and Samuel had done that he didn’t tell us about. Thank goodness that wasn’t my problem. Or, was it becoming my problem?
I learned there were now computer games based on the board games of my earlier years; Jason and Samuel’s favorite was Scrabble. Jason said you could play it online with people from around the world, but he and Samuel liked it when just the two of them competed.
“What I don’t like about it is that all the letters are capitalized and the words look funny. We don’t write them like that in school.”
What a great problem to have. We’d succeeded in furthering the education of our youth without their knowing it. I’m not positive, but I believed my biggest worry at that age was whether I would have time to hide after lighting a cherry bomb in a neighbor’s mailbox.
After he’d filled his belly, Jason agreed to a walk on the pier. It was a cool night for July, so we were comfortable. There were groups of pier walkers and a few fishermen who hoped to hook an unsuspecting fish.
When Jason drifted out of earshot, I filled Amber in on my day. She listened without interrupting, then asked if I had any idea who was behind it. My best response was, “Not really.”
She put her arm around my waist. “You and Charles are the best thing that’s happened to Larry in years,” she said. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah,” I laughed and said, “Officer Ash isn’t so bad for him either.”
“If you tell Larry, they’ll find your body under this pier,” said Amber. She looked over the edge like she was selecting my final resting place. “Cindy Ash told me she’d be quite honored to have the job of protecting Larry, day and night.”
“I hope she has a chance.”
Chapter52
I tossed and turned most of the night. I dreamed about being on the ski slopes with Amber and Tammy. What was with that? A couple of times when the air conditioner went off, I sat up in bed remembering when the fuse died and I’d walked to Pewter Hardware, my introduction to Larry’s nightmare. That morning was as clear as last night’s walk on the pier. I remembered the terrified look on Larry’s face when he’d opened the door to a pool of blood and the sounds of the police cars as their sirens broke the early morning silence on the sleepy island.
I smiled to myself when I remembered yesterday’s conversation about checking out some of Charles’s presidential quotes. Sleep had already left the building, so I got up.
I went to the Holiday Inn to get a cup of complimentary coffee and to spend a few minutes shooting the breeze with Diane. She was less than an hour from getting off and glad to have anyone to talk to. She’d said before she enjoyed talking to me, but I guessed it was more to help her stay awake.
It was too early to go to the gallery, so I accessed the Internet. I was curious to see if Jason had been pulling our legs about online Scrabble. Of course he wasn’t, and I felt significantly older knowing that the game was being played by wordsmiths from around the world.
While I was on the Internet, I did what I’d told Charles I was going to do for a couple of years. I remembered part of the quote he’d thrown at Larry and me that he’d attributed to President Wilson. Then the fun began: I wandered through a half a dozen sites that had quotes from Woodrow T. Wilson, the twenty-eighth president of the United States. I wrote down one of Wilson’s quotes I could use when Charles, Larry, and I are together—“I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow.”
I waded through two more presidential quote Web sites, then hesitated when I saw something on the top of the last site. I took a second glance, then felt the energy seep out from my body.
Could it be? How could I find out? Where would I begin? Had I added one and one and come up with three? Was my need to find the killer so great that I was making connections where none existed? Or, was I sitting here knowing exactly why Larry was the target, and more importantly, the name of the killer?
Chapter53
I worked through the initial shock and realized I was staring at the way to put the puzzle together. I’d learned from Tammy that most large city newspapers are online. Not only do they feature current news, but many have their archives on the Internet. My first step was to Google a person I’d never met. With luck—lots of luck—a key piece of the puzzle would appear.
Finding quotes from a long-dead U.S. president had been a snap compared to my search for sensitive information on one individual from the mid-1990s. There were numerous references to him in the society pages, stories on professional achievements, and civic accomplishments. But, all were within the last three years.
Then I found it. It was hidden in an article featuring biographies of the key donors to the Georgia Adoption Rights Coalition.
I had to be right. A multitude of things came to me, and they all fit. Comments Al had made, remarks by Bob and Dude and William—even the killer had given me a clue. And now, something that Jason had said last night was the key—something that had bothered me about the messages.
I closed my eyes, had one more flashback, and knew I was right. Another part of the puzzle could be put in place, but I needed to go to the gallery. I printed a few pages from the Internet and wrote some notes while things were fresh on my mind. Then with a huge weight off my shoulders, I headed to the gallery.
Charles’s handwritten clues were still on the wall. I got a Diet Pepsi and sat in the chair facing it. With what I had learned earlier from the Internet and Jason’s comment, the meaning of the messages was undeniable. I not only knew the name of the killer, I had no doubt why.
The doorbell jarred me from my revelation. I violated the shop owner’s creed and prayed it wasn’t a customer. My wish was answered, sort of. It wasn’t a customer, but an entire family of customers who’d decided to stay off the beach and shop.
All I wanted was to get Charles and Larry together and share the news, but all the customers wanted to do was talk about the photos: where each was taken, what kind of equipment I’d used, and whether I would ship to their home in Illinois. I came close to telling them I would give them any photo and pay for shipping to their front door if they would leave. I didn’t, but I came frighteningly close.
They decided to buy a dozen note cards to send to friends to remind them they were at the beach and that their friends weren’t. They didn’t ask me to ship the cards.
Larry was at the hardware and agreed to come over at noon when Brandon arrived. Charles didn’t answer at home, but I left a message that he needed to get to the gallery ASAP. He refused to carry a cell phone so I’d probably have to wait for him to check his messages.
Larry walked through the door at exactly noon. Charles entered five minutes later; he hadn’t been home to get his message, but thought he’d better help me with the customer rush he felt was coming. I told him he’d missed the rush. Then I put the “Open When I’m Here; Closed When I’m Not” sign in the window and locked the door. Neither asked why as they followed me to the office.
I asked them to take seats. Then I stood and announced to Larry that I had good news and bad news. “First, the bad news. Charles, in fact, quoted President Wilson correctly last night. I was wrong. Sickening, isn’t it?”
Charles interrupted, “Thanks for calling this special meeting and
shutting down the entire gallery to apologize for falsely accusing me.”
“And the good news?” asked Larry.
“The good news is I know who’s trying to kill you.”
Chapter54
I had my pupils’ attention.
“Who?” asked Larry.
Although I wanted to blurt out the name, I decided to explain my reasoning first. “It’s all clear to me now. Last night at dinner, Amber’s son, Jason, told me how he and a friend play online Scrabble. He said all the letters were capitalized and the words looked funny because he didn’t write them that way in school. It got me wondering about the letters in these messages.” I pointed to Charles’s “clues” on the wall. “I knew the letters were cut out of magazines, but I’ve been curious why there are uppercase letters in the middle of some words.”
“Because that’s what he found when he needed a letter to make the word,” said Charles.
“That’s what I thought,” I said. “But look how meticulous the person was. Everything was deliberate: the grammar decent, the use of dashes appropriate, all lines nice and straight. Nothing has been left to chance. He could easily have found lowercase letters. Remember, we agreed the messages meant something?”
“So what’s your point?” Charles was tapping his fingers on the table.
I walked over to the first note Charles had taped to the wall.
“Look at the word DeAD—what’s different in the first note?”
“The e is not in caps,” said Larry.
“Okay, if you leave the e out, what’s it say?”
“My Turn—DAD!” said Larry.
“Okay,” I continued, “look at the message in blood on the wall.” I pointed to: RU reAdy to be even—DeaD? The out of place letters are the A in ready, and the two Ds in dead. In other words it could be a double message, Are you ready to be dead; and if you arrange the out of place letters they spell DAD.”
