by Bill Noel
The Fire-Rescue truck arrived first and two firefighters who doubled as EMTs rushed up the steps to the unmoving con artist. Medical training wasn’t necessary for them to tell there was nothing to do for the body splayed in the doorway. One of them turned to me as I stood on the porch and stared at my yellow polo shirt and asked if I had been hit. It was the first time that I’d noticed blood spatter on the shirt. I caught my breath and told him that I was okay. Officer Bishop, whom I had met only a few months earlier at the scene of another death, jumped out of the first patrol car and rushed over to Abe, assessed the situation, and then turned to me. Next to arrive was Officer Allen Spencer, whom I had met my first month on Folly, and had established a good relationship with him over the years.
I described what had happened, and what I had seen across the street. Both officers looked toward the tennis court and asked if I had seen the vehicle the shooter left in. I said no and that the person had gone around the corner and I couldn’t see anything. Bishop radioed to the only other patrol officer on duty to stop any vehicle moving in the general vicinity. Spencer walked to the fence to see if he could see anything. I figured it would be futile.
I was surprised to see Cindy’s unmarked police car arrive next. Like Officer Bishop, she walked over to Abe, spoke to the EMT, and said something to Officer Bishop before coming over to me.
She looked at my bloody shirt. “You okay?” Her face was expressionless but she looked like she had aged ten years since last night. She turned and looked toward the tennis courts.
It was warm but I was shivering. I said I was okay and she asked me to join her in her vehicle. She offered me a bottle of water. I accepted.
“What happened? Don’t leave anything out.”
I began from when I arrived through when I called 911. She asked me to repeat what Abe and I had talked about and what I saw across the street after Abe had taken his last breath. She mumbled a half-dozen profanities and then called Detective Adair. She slammed her hand on the steering wheel and stared at Abe’s front door. I wished that I had a steering wheel to pound.
Chapter Nineteen
I was still in the chief’s car when the Coroner’s van inched around us on the narrow road and stopped in front of Abe’s house. Five minutes later, a white, unmarked Chevy Caprice pulled in behind the coroner’s vehicle and Detective Adair stepped out, buttoned his navy blazer, and glanced around before walking up the steps and looking at the late Abe Pottinger. Adair looked as fresh and unruffled as if he had just stepped out of a clothing store ad as he talked to Officer Bishop and he looked back at us before walking to Cindy’s window.
“Good evening, Chief,” he said in a tone that didn’t imply that there was anything good about it. He then leaned down and stared at me. “You again.”
Cindy gave him a staccato, police-speak version of what had happened and Adair asked if Cindy and I could join him in his car. It was one of the last things I wanted to do, but didn’t take it as a request. We followed with Cindy taking the passenger’s seat and I slid in back.
“Mr. Landrum, why were you at the victim’s house?”
I had hoped we would ease into that question, but Adair didn’t seem able to ease into anything.
I nodded toward the house. “I met him a few days ago when I joined a walking group that a friend had started. Abe was a member of that group.” All true, I thought, and continued, “He had been talking to the others about something called a reverse mortgage that he was selling. I wasn’t knowledgeable about it and wanted to find out more.” All true, but not quite—not even approximately—all the truth.
Cindy leaned up in the seat and turned toward me but didn’t say anything.
“Why were you meeting with him this late?”
A marginally good question, I thought. “When I called him he said that he would be at a meeting in Charleston and wouldn’t be home until nine.”
“And your curiosity about reverse mortgages couldn’t wait another day during normal business hours?”
“Could have, I suppose.”
Adair jotted a note in a small notebook that he had taken from his inside coat pocket and turned back to me. “Hmm, okay,” he said, and frowned. “Walk me through what happened.”
This is where it’s going to get tricky. I told him that we had finished our conversation about reverse mortgages and I was leaving when Abe was shot.
I looked at Adair and looked at Abe’s front door. “I was going out the door and Abe was holding it for me, then the shot.” I looked at Adair like that was it.
He stared at Abe’s door. “Were you facing the street? Did you see where the shot came from?”
Careful Chris. “No. I was facing Abe.” I glanced down at the blood spatter.
The detective followed my gaze, and then looked at his notebook. “Were you beside him in the doorway, in front or behind him?”
I knew where he was headed. “I was sort of in front of him, almost on the front porch, sort of turned sideways, I guess.”
He looked at the front door and then across the street at the fence and the tennis court. “Mr. Landrum, is there anyone who would have wanted you dead?”
Other than Abe Pottinger, I thought. “No, why?”
Adair rubbed his chin, glanced at Cindy, and back at me. “From how you described what happened, it looks like you could have been the intended victim and the shooter missed. You were between Pottinger and the shooter. Why would someone have taken a shot at him with you in the way?”
“Good point,” I said, knowing that if the forensic services techs were as good as I thought they were, the pattern of blood spatter on my shirt would tell a different version, would tell that I was flat on the porch when the shot was taken. How would I explain that?
Adair squeezed the bridge of his nose and stared at me. “You’re certain you don’t know anyone who had it in for you?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
He jotted another note. “Okay, now when you were in there,” Adair nodded toward Abe’s house, “did he seem nervous, say anything about being in danger, or anything out of the ordinary?”
“Not really. I’d only talked to him briefly before tonight, so I couldn’t tell if he was acting strange. He seemed fine.”
“Did you notice anyone in the area when you arrived?”
Like someone with a rifle lurking around the house, I thought. “No.”
Adair turned to Cindy. “Chief, did you know the victim?”
And I thought my answers were touchy.
“Umm,” Cindy said, and then she paused. “I never met him.”
“Okay,” Adair said. “Back to you Mr. Landrum. You told Officer …”
“Bishop,” Cindy said.
“Right. You told Officer Bishop you saw someone running away by the fence.” Adair looked toward the two officers who were waving flashlights back and forth lighting the ground beside tennis court fence.
“Not running, it was more like a confident walk. All I could tell was that the person was dressed in dark clothes.”
“Man or woman?” Adair asked.
“Couldn’t tell.” The person was too far away and it was dark.”
He jotted another note and then looked me in the eyes. “Tell me one more time where were you were when he was hit?”
I repeated my fictionalized version. Adair looked skeptical, but he always did, so I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. He asked if there was anything that I wanted to add. I said no and he closed his notebook.
He asked Cindy to stay behind and told me that he didn’t have anything else—for now.
Detective Adair hollered as I walked away, “Mr. Landrum, please give your shirt to one of the techs standing by the Forensic Services SUV.”
I said, “Sure,” as if there was a choice.
Five minutes later I was pulling into my drive, shirtless, sweating and still trembling from what had happened. I was thinking how things couldn’t get worse, when my phone’s ringtone startled me.
“Chris, this is Sean. Thought you’d want to know. The police arrested Mel Evans for murder.”
I nearly dropped the phone. “When?”
“An hour ago. He called from jail. I’d told him that I wasn’t the person he needed if he was arrested; I reminded him of that, hung up, and called my buddy, Martin Camp, he’s one of the best criminal defense attorneys around. I caught him at a fund-raiser for a gubernatorial candidate. He griped about having to visit the jail in a tux, but said he would head over and see what he could do.”
“What evidence do they have?”
“No clue. Mel didn’t know.”
Will I ever learn not to say that things can’t get worse?
Chapter Twenty
I called Charles first thing in the morning to see if he wanted to meet for breakfast. I realized that I hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday, was starved, and needed someone to talk to about what had happened. More importantly, Charles would be on my case for weeks if I let much time pass before I told him everything. If he heard it from someone else, he’d make me regret not telling him not only for weeks, but for months, possibly years. Charles’s memory would make an elephant look senile.
As usual, he was sitting on the front patio of the Dog and was quick to remind me that he had been there for a half hour, and that I was late because I had the audacity to arrive at the time we had agreed upon. After the last twenty-four hours, I was in no mood to banter, and ignored the comment.
“Did you fall off the wrong side of the bed this morning?” he asked as I lowered myself into the chair.
“If you only knew.”
Amber stopped at the table after delivering breakfast to two couples at the next table.
“Coffee?” she asked.
I nodded and she headed inside. Amber and I had dated for a couple of years and we had still remained good friends.
“Then you’d better tell me what I should know,” Charles said.
The patio was full and I leaned closer to the table so I wouldn’t have to talk loud. “Mel was arrested last night for killing the student.”
Charles reacted like he’d been hit by a Taser. “You’re kidding.”
“Sean Aker called me late to tell me.”
I didn’t want to say it was before eleven o-clock or Charles would have chided me for not calling him last night. I didn’t look forward to sharing what else had happened.
“Why? What do they have on him?”
His questions were familiar since they were the same ones I’d asked Sean. I told him everything that I had learned, which wasn’t much, and he asked what we could do. I said there wasn’t anything until we knew more.
Charles took a deep breath, looked around to see if anyone was eavesdropping, and leaned closer to the table. “Could he have done it?”
Good question, I thought. “He has a temper; his military training probably taught him a dozen ways to kill; and, he has little sympathy for, as he puts it, ‘the sniveling, spoiled, college brats,’ that he ferries through the marsh.”
“Christ, Chris, I hope you’re not his defense attorney.”
I shook my head. “Hold on.”
Charles gestured for me to continue.
“With that said, I haven’t seen anything to make me to believe he’s guilty. He came to me as soon as he heard that someone may not have made it back from the party. He asked me to go with him to Boneyard Beach to see if we could find out anything about a missing student. Would he have done that if he killed the kid?”
“Not unless he was trying to deflect blame.”
“What motive would he have for killing a sniveling, spoiled, college brat?” I asked.
“You said William told you that the kid was gay. Maybe he made a pass at Mel, or vice versa, and something went wrong.”
I shook my head. “Can you picture Mel killing a kid over that?”
Charles looked down at the table and back at me. “No, but it doesn’t matter a fig what I think. What do the cops think? They must have something more than a hunch or Mel wouldn’t be in jail.”
“We need to wait and see.”
Amber returned with my coffee and apologized for taking so long. I ordered oatmeal and bacon.
“Got it.” she said. “And what’s this I hear about you being with that guy who got murdered last night?”
Charles jerked his head toward me so quickly that I feared that he’d sustained whiplash.
I looked at Amber. “I’ll tell you later.”
She started to object, but instead said she’d get breakfast started.
Charles had both hands on the table and looked like he was ready to leapfrog over it to get to me. “Spit it out.”
I motioned for him to sit back and I began with my conversation with Larry and Cindy and regurgitated everything from that meeting to handing my shirt to the Forensic Services tech. Charles had asked me to repeat so much of it that my breakfast had arrived and was getting cold before I had to tell him for the second time what color shirt I had been wearing.
Charles let the information percolate. “So, if you hadn’t stumbled, I’d be eating breakfast by myself.”
“True, but only if I was the target.”
“Other than me at this moment, who’d want to shoot you?”
“You’re beginning to sound like Detective Adair, without the good clothes and starched-on frown.” I shook my head. “I don’t know anyone who would want me dead.”
“Then who’d want Abe coffined, besides, I can’t believe I’m saying this, Larry?”
I pushed the oatmeal around the bowl. “Larry thought that Abe was up to no good when he joined the walking group. Chester said the same thing. If that’s true, any of the walkers could have a motive.”
“You said you saw someone rushing away.”
I nodded.
“Then scratch Theo.”
I smiled. “True.”
Charles turned serious. “Who knew you’d be there?”
I looked toward the street and the small group of people waiting for a table, and back at Charles. “Only Larry and Cindy.” I hesitated. “Unless Abe told someone.”
“And according to my source who waited hours, many hours, to tell me about the murder, Cindy was one of the first there after it happened.”
I wondered what had taken him so long to “remind” me about waiting until this morning to tell him. Wondered, but didn’t acknowledge it. “She was there almost immediately.”
“So unless Larry was doing something like hosting a prayer meeting, he doesn’t have an alibi.”
“Odds are he was alone,” I said.
“And he had one humongous clump of motive.”
“Yes.”
Charles leaned back in his chair and looked at me. “And it slipped your mind to tell Detective Adair about the real reason you were at Abe’s?”
“I wouldn’t say slipped, but I didn’t tell him.”
Charles’s head bobbed up and down. “Because if you told him, Larry’d be sharing a cell with Mel.”
“Adair would need more than that, but that’s a valid point.”
“Let’s say that Larry did it, why would he shoot him when you were there?”
“Don’t know, but Larry was mighty angry at Abe. Cindy was working so he was alone, and he knew when I’d be there, and could have figured that Abe would be at the door to meet me, or see me off.”
Charles rubbed his left temple and gazed at a car parking in the small lot in front of the restaurant. “It would’ve taken a good shot from someone across the street to hit Abe. Does Larry even know how to shoot a rifle?”
“Don’t recall him saying anything. But that’s not something that comes up in many conversations.”
“So, we don’t know if Larry was a good shot, but we do know that it doesn’t take a whole hell of a lot of training for someone to take a piece of wood and smack a college student on the noggin’.”
My head began to hurt. In fewer than twenty-four hours one frien
d was arrested for murder and another good friend became, to me, the prime suspect in another killing. And, if I told the police what I knew, Larry would go to the top of the cop’s suspect list. Could both Larry and Mel be guilty? They’re head-strong, neither has an alibi, and if pressed under the right circumstance, they were capable of violence.
“Are you listening?” Charles said, jolting me out of my depressing thoughts.
“Sorry, what?”
“I said what are we going to do about it?”
Take three ibuprofen, get in bed and pull the covers up over my head, and wish it would all go away, I wished. “Find out what’s going on.”
“Right answer.”
While Charles said it was the right answer, he also said he didn’t have time to talk about it because he had to deliver some surf-stuff for Dude. Before he headed out, he said that he and Heather wanted to go to Crosby’s Dock Party tonight and asked if Karen and I wanted to go with them. That was Charles-speak for could I drive. I reminded him that Karen was out of town, but that I’d go. He said great and asked for a ride. I said sure.
Chapter Twenty-One
I picked up Charles and then Heather at her tiny apartment in a former bed and breakfast that had been converted into apartments. Charles’s aunt had lived there for the all-too-brief time that she had been with us on the island. Her death still hurt each time I saw the building and I knew it affected Charles, although having Heather there brought enough cheer to his life to neutralize some of his pain.
Crosby’s Fish & Shrimp Co. was a family-owned seafood market by day, rented its dock and facilities for weddings and other special events, and, most every Friday evening, hosted a party featuring, to no one’s surprise, fresh fish, beer, wine, and live music. The event had been a favorite for locals and enlightened vacationers for years, and garnered large crowds to enjoy the food, drink, and fantastic views of the sun sinking behind the water and marsh. I had attended a few times with Karen, and was surprised that Charles had wanted to venture this far off-island. On the mile-long drive over, I learned that attending was Heather’s idea. She said that Charles needed to expand his horizons, and besides, she wanted to hear who her musical competition was. I thought, but didn’t say, that no one could compete with Heather’s vocal skills, although chalk scraping a blackboard would come close.
