by Bill Noel
I remembered what Marlene had said about Elder and Long’s heated discussions and how Elder had accused Long of cheating him out of oodles of money. I tried to be inconspicuous and turned to get a better view of our new tablemate.
Elder was tall, maybe six foot five or six, appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties, and looked as out of place in the iconic restaurant as Charles would be in the Supreme Court chambers. He had a buzz haircut a lot like some of my high school classmates; his black-framed, Buddy Holly-style glasses were from the same era. A mousy-looking lady with him was about twenty years his junior, thin, and had spiked, shoe-polish-glistening black hair.
Charles whispered, “Daughter.”
I responded, “Wife.”
Charles came back with, “Mistress.”
Before I responded with “daughter of his mistress,” Charles had leapt to his feet, stood over Elder’s plate, and invited him and whomever to join us at our end of the table.
Heather had been oblivious to Charles’s and my conversation and finally noticed Elder. “Hey. Hi, Mr. Elder, how was your trip to Baltimore?”
He looked at Heather and seemed confused; he had never seen her when she wasn’t in her massage uniform, and her wide-brimmed hat had to be a major distraction.
“Oh,” said Elder, who finally had a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. “Hi, umm, umm …”
“Heather,” she said, giving him a break.
Charles was still standing behind Elder. “You two know each other,” said Charles. “So you will join us, won’t you?”
I began to sense surrender rather than desire on Elder’s face. His wife/daughter/mistress looked at him and said, “Sure, why not?”
“While you are figuring this out, I’m going for drinks,” said Amber. She smiled, but I knew it was her work smile. Heather jumped up and said she would help with the drinks.
Elder slid his plate toward our end of the table. His gold Rolex glistened in the sunlight that washed through the nearby window. He rubbed his hands on his tan linen shorts so they wouldn’t get caught on a splinter from the chair and then introduced us to Samantha, his wife. That answered one question. I’d venture to guess that it wouldn’t be Charles’s last.
Charles told the Elders that he had often seen them around town and that’s why he’d invited them to join us. I knew Charles had seen Conroy perhaps once, and I doubted he had ever seen his wife. Elder mumbled something about thinking he recognized Charles and thanked him for the invitation.
“I may have seen you in Aker and Long,” continued Charles with his imaginary story. “I’m in there every once in a while on estate-planning business.”
I bit my lower lip not to laugh.
“Could be,” said Elder.
Before Charles could continue the interrogation—under the guise of friendly, neighborly conversation—Amber and Heather returned with the second round of drinks. Introductions were repeated for the newcomers.
Charles turned to Heather. “I was telling Conroy that I remembered seeing him at the law office.” She hesitated, giggled, and then turned to Elder.
Charles was on a roll and didn’t want Heather to distract Elder. “I think I heard you and Tony splitting a few profanities a few weeks back,” he said. “Heck, I’ve often wanted to cuss out my attorney, but never had the nerve.”
Elder blinked and quickly looked away from Charles and toward Heather like he wanted her to bail him out. He regained his smile. “Oh,” he said, “that must have been when Tony and I were talking about our fishing trip.” He shook his head and grinned. “We were joking about the one that got away and how big it was. I may have cussed a bit when I said he was about as big a liar as the size of the fish he fabricated.”
“Could be,” said Charles. “So you and Tony were good friends?”
“Not close. More like fishing buddies; and he did some of my legal work. It sure was sad about what happened.”
“Terrible,” said Charles. He continued to stare at Elder. “Who do you think killed him?”
“Heavens. I have no idea,” said Elder. He leaned closer to Charles. “I hear he had mob friends, but don’t know that for sure.”
“Like Mafia?” asked Charles, although he already knew the answer. “Wow.”
“You never can tell about those people, you know. I do know that he was on his phone a lot when we were trying to silently commune with nature, or at least I was. He seemed to be involved in a lot of deals, but I never knew who he talked to. Lawyers!”
Charles looked around the table, smiled at Mrs. Elder, and pointed at the double order of fries in front of the group. “Eat up; enough sad talk,” he said.
Apparently, Charles had given up on sneaking a confession out of our guest.
By now, the room was packed. Amber had loosened a bit and actually spoke to me. Elder offered to buy the next round, and he and Samantha walked arm in arm toward the bar.
“Check out his shoes,” said Charles as soon as Elder was out of hearing range. “They’re python, Ferragamo, nine hundred bucks.”
I had no idea how Charles knew that, unless some United States president had a pair. Until Charles’s recent inheritance, his net worth would be a flat-screen television shy of nine hundred dollars.
“Think they can walk on water?” asked Heather.
A legitimate question considering the price, I thought.
“Check out his tanned legs,” said Amber. “Took a lot of sun-time to get those.”
“Out of a bottle,” said Heather. “Learn a lot working in a spa.”
I leaned back in my chair. I had no interest in his tan or overpriced shoes, regardless of what reptile they used to slither around on. I did wonder if he believed we were dumb enough to fall for his fish tale.
I pulled back to the table when Heather asked Amber if she thought Elder’s wife was too young for him. My effort to hear went for naught; Amber leaned over to Heather and whispered something. Heather rolled her eyes and said, “Good point,” and then looked at Charles and over at me. Not even Charles had the courage to ask what Amber had said.
Conroy and Samantha set our drinks on the table but didn’t sit. “Sorry to have to leave,” said Conroy. “I forgot we’re to be on Tradd Street at a cocktail party. Good talking to you.” He looked at Heather. “I’ll be sure to ask for you at Millie’s the next time I need a massage.”
Conroy and Samantha headed to the door before I could stand and offer an appropriate goodbye.
“Hard to keep up with all those Charleston cocktail parties,” said Charles. He stared at the door through which the Elders had just exited.
“Right,” I said.
Amber mumbled that she needed to get home, since she had to be at work early. Charles tried to talk her into riding up Ashley Avenue with us to get a “gander” at Conroy Elder’s house; he said we’d drop her off at her apartment on our way to GB’s. She said, “No thank you,” in the same voice I had heard her use many times when a more amorous customer had asked her for more than the check. She was pissed, politely; I didn’t try to sway her into going with us. My heart wanted to keep her in the car; my head and foot knew braking at her apartment was the right thing to do.
“So,” I said after I pulled away from Amber’s apartment and turned left on East Ashley Avenue and headed toward the Washout, “anyone know where Elder lives?”
“Pull in here—I’ll ask,” said Charles as we approached Bert’s Market.
I swung into one of the rare empty parking spots in front of the grocery. Charles hopped out before I had put the car in park. It took him less than two minutes to get his question answered. “Past the Washout; then about halfway to the old coast guard station,” he said as he got in the front seat, leaving Heather in back to be chauffeured.
The Washout was well known as one of
the best surfing areas along the Eastern Seaboard and was about two miles east of Center Street at the most narrow section of Folly Beach. Hurricane Hugo had remodeled most of this area of the beach when it rolled through more than twenty years ago, and many of the houses along this desolate strip were replacement structures—replacements and much larger than their predecessors; much larger and had price tags that ended in the word million.
The sun rapidly sank over the marsh behind us, but there still weren’t any vacant parking spaces in the metered berm along the ocean side of the road. Surfers of all shapes, sizes, genders, races, and socioeconomic levels rushed to catch the last boss waves before dark.
My navigator tried to catch house numbers once we passed the mass of surfers. I had long suspected that Charles needed glasses but decided if he didn’t mind squint lines on his face, it was his call.
“There it is,” he said and pointed to the large, elevated three-story house we had passed.
I hit the brakes and wished that I had talked him into glasses after all. I slowly pulled into a drive a hundred yards past Elder’s McMansion, waited for a steady stream of vehicles to pass, and then pulled back on the street.
Elder’s humble abode stood out like a porcupine at a nudists’ colony. It dwarfed its neighbors in pure mass and quality of exterior finishes, and by a multiple of millions in value. He clearly didn’t want his mode of transportation to feel slighted; a white-on-white Bentley convertible was backed into the drive. Its wide, distinct grille and four large headlights smugly stared at the nightly parade of hand-painted mini-vans, Volkswagen beetles, and Dodge four-by-four pickup trucks that had infiltrated the automotive stock on the island. Elder’s Ferragamo shoes began to seem cheap.
Charles asked if I wanted to stop and request that our new friend give us his financial statement. I rolled my eyes and continued toward the center of town. He also wondered what the Elders had driven to their cocktail party in Charleston; I treated it as a rhetorical question and didn’t comment. Heather summed it up best when she said that twenty-four caret gold chi wasn’t as strong as the good ol’ American-made forged-steel kind. I couldn’t explain it to anyone, but got her point. I was thankful she didn’t try to sing it.
I took my first sip of wine, looked around the near-full bar, and thought what a difference a week made. Seven nights earlier, Colleen had served my drink of choice, and the members of the City of Folly Beach fire department were sitting around bored, prepared for a disaster while wishing they never would have to face one. I had struggled with the need to close Landrum Gallery without hurting Charles any more than I already had, while at the same time, Amber and I were getting along fabulously.
Now Colleen was dead and Sean Akers’ law office was literally in ashes, as might be my relationship with Amber. The only saving grace was the knowledge that through the generosity of a cantankerous old lady, Charles and I would have enough money to not worry about feeding my costly hobby—the gallery.
Charles tapped me on the knee before I had a chance to ride more hills and valleys on my rollercoaster ride down short-term-memory lane. Laughter and the usual Tuesday night sounds inside GB’s didn’t sound quite as festive as usual. I got a whiff of the charred wood from the fire each time the door opened.
“So,” he said as he tapped me a second time, “Now that you’re rich, am I going to get a big raise?”
Heather was walking toward the bandstand to “entertain” the crowd with her one allotted song, so Charles could spend a minute or so talking to his driver, boss, and depressed friend.
“’Bout time we got a hot chick up there,” yelled a man at the next table.
He had been making comments ever since we came in and took the last empty table in GB’s. Each comment was louder than the one it followed. He was alone at the four-top table, but there were enough empty beer bottles spread around it for a small army. Either his friends had deserted him, or he was in no condition to move.
I leaned into Charles so he could hear me. “Rich, right,” I said. “Before long, Mr. Elder’ll be borrowing money from me.” I tried to smile but my facial muscles weren’t up to it.
Charles watched Heather tune her guitar on the corner of the stage but leaned closer to me. “Speaking of Elder, think he killed Long?”
“His version of the cussing match between him and Long sure differed from Marlene’s,” I said. “After seeing his house, if he felt Long screwed him out of a deal with his business, we have to be talking big bucks; he’s not a petty-cash kind of guy.”
Charles still watched Heather, who was almost to the mike. “If Long helped drive him to the poorhouse, he was going in a mighty nice ride; I’d put him at the top …”
Charles’s last few words were swallowed by Heather’s rendition of “Faded Love.”
Her warbling wasn’t the only thing depressing about the song.
Charles stopped talking and gave his full attention to the stage. A quick glance around the room told me that he was the only one. Three minutes—three long minutes—later, Heather finished the sad song and took a big stage-bow to the round of applause from Charles—Charles and the drunken, slovenly, rude vacationer at the next table, who had spent the last half hour asking everyone around him when Garth Brooks was singing.
“Take it off; take it off, cowgirl—you sure as hell ain’t a singer,” continued the drunken heckler. His eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Hell with you anyway. You’ll never compete with cute Colleen. She understood … She …”
Greg had moved in behind him and slowly reached out and took a handful of the man’s loose shirt and pulled him back against the chair. Greg’s smile never faded, but he told the disruptive visitor that he would recommend he find another bar, and find it fast.
The confused slob turned and looked up at Greg. “Who the …”
He wisely didn’t finish the sentence and was sober enough to see that the man pinning him to his chair was serious. “Okee-dokee,” he slurred and stumbled to his feet.
I wasn’t a big enough hypocrite to applaud Heather’s massacring of a pleasant, albeit depressing, song, but was ready to give Greg a standing ovation. I was close to throwing the unwelcome nuisance out the door myself. I probably was spared a black eye or worse when the patron managed to find the door on his own. I had my hands full enough trying to keep Charles from jumping into the fray.
Greg turned to our table and wiped his hands together like he was slapping off dust. “Ah,” he said, “the fun and frivolity of owning a bar. He’s been in a few times the last three weeks. Just to see Colleen, I think. Name’s Dillon something or other. Not a bad fellow when he’s sober.” Greg stared at the door. “Thought we’d seen the last of him now that poor Colleen’s gone.”
“What’s going on?” asked Heather. She had leaned her guitar case against the wall and put her arm around Charles.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just talking to Greg.”
Greg turned to Heather. “Fine job, little girl. ’Cept, I got a crow to pick with you.”
“Pick away, Greg—pick away,” she said as she removed her large straw hat, moved her half-empty beer bottle out of the way, and set the hat in the middle of the table.
“Heard you sung two songs last week,” said Greg as he shook his head. “What’s the rule?” He pointed his index finger at Heather. I was afraid he was going to hand her a notebook and pencil and have her write the answer in it.
Heather put her index finger on her right hand on the side of her nose and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, paused, and then said, “One song … but remember, you said …”
Greg looked down at her. “Little girl, I believe I said maybe … maybe ain’t a yes.”
“Ain’t a no either,” said Heather.
I couldn’t argue with that, but didn’t think arguing with the person who controlled access to the stage was a wise m
ove.
Greg’s face broke into a big smile. He put his burly left arm around Heather and hugged. “One means one,” he said and unwound his arm from Heather’s waist. “Next drink’s on me.” He nodded. “Y’all come back,” he said as he left the table.
Charles’s right arm replaced Greg’s around Heather’s waist. He nudged her back in her chair and grabbed his cane and pointed it toward the bar. I could take a hint and started to the bar to replenish our liquids. Before I got too far from the table, I heard Charles say to Heather, “As President Johnson said about Gerald Ford, ‘He’s so dumb he can’t fart and chew gum at the same time.’”
He had been referring to Greg—I assumed.
Al’s Bar and Gourmet Grill was a block off Calhoun Street, the main road from Folly to the center of Charleston. It was three blocks from one of Charleston’s modern hospitals; the only thing modern about Al’s was a forty-year-old jukebox. The hole-in-the-wall bar shared a concrete block building with a Laundromat. Al’s jukebox was newer than the washers and dryers next door.
Illumination in Al’s was provided by Budweiser and Budweiser Light neon signs behind the bar and the cheerful eyes of Al, the bar’s seventy-something owner, barkeeper, cook, waiter, and cleaning crew.
Bob Howard had agreed to meet me at Al’s if I bought lunch—solid and liquid—and would tell him how I wasn’t going to get involved in the murders of Long and Colleen. My fingers were crossed when I agreed.
Traffic on Folly Road and Calhoun Street was surprisingly light, and I arrived at Al’s thirty minutes early. I was still surprised that Bob wasn’t already there with a head start on one of Al’s “world famous,” according to my Realtor friend, cheeseburgers, and a brew from Milwaukee.
“Lordy, lordy,” boomed a voice from behind the bar as I walked through the paint-peeling front door and went from light to dark. “The boy’s still alive.”
Al, slowed by arthritic knees and a hard life, walked around the bar and met me in the middle of the room. He gave me his biggest smile; his coffee-stained teeth barely contrasted with his skin, which was somewhere between light black and dark brown. He wrapped his frail, thin arm around me and gave a tight squeeze. My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark room, and I noticed we were the only people there.
