Boneyard Beach

by Bill Noel

  We walked back toward town and William asked, “Shall we take a brief walk on the pier; perhaps find a venue with more privacy?”

  I said that was fine, and Charles repeated, “Okay by me.”

  It was noon and the pier was more crowded than usual so we walked to the far end to find a bench that was both in the shade and isolated. Along the way, William never hinted at what he wanted to talk about but talked about the panoramic view of the beach from the pier, and how he planned to try his hand at fishing when he was fortunate enough to retire.

  We settled on a wooden bench in the shade overlooking the east end of the island, and William looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. We were alone.

  He looked at Charles and then at me. “May I be perfectly candid?”

  I said of course, and Charles sounded like a broken record when he said, “Okay by me.”

  William grinned, looked toward the shore, then at me. “You don’t believe that your friend Mel Evans killed Mr. Casey?”

  “No,” I said, “but to be honest, it’s easy to see why the police think he did. They have a rag from Mel’s garage with Casey’s blood on it; Mel hadn’t been forthcoming about how many times he’s gone to that bar in Charleston; and most damning, the police have a witness who can place Mel in the area where the body was found, Mel had said that he only left the boat to urinate, and he had gone in the opposite direction from where the body was found.”

  William said, “Ah, the witness. That’s what I wish to confer with you about. For you see, I am aware of who he is. The gentleman’s name is Darnell Embley, and like the late Drew Casey, Mr. Embley is one of my students.” William paused.

  William was hesitant to talk about others, and I hoped that Charles wouldn’t push him. The stars must have been aligned because Charles remained silent.

  William continued, “As you can imagine, the death, especially by such despicable circumstances, of someone known by many of our students, has become a major topic on campus. Since Mr. Embley was part of the ill-fated party, and has gained extraordinary notoriety from being the individual who saw the killer, he is prone to expound upon the experiences at every opportunity.” William hesitated.

  I was beginning to wish we were listening to Dude.

  “Notwithstanding,” William said, “I believe there are a couple of things that Mr. Embley has said that detracts from his credibility; things I must confess, I overheard at a time I shouldn’t have been listening.”

  I said that it was okay.

  William took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. “Mr. Embley was speaking to two students who were present at the party. They were standing in the corridor outside my classroom, and I couldn’t help but overhear.” He took another breath.

  Once again, I was surprised by Charles’s silence.

  William continued, “Mr. Embley was laughing and said, and these were his words, ‘Were we soused or what?’ And one of the others said that he couldn’t remember because he was so drunk that he couldn’t tell if he was on the beach or in the library. The third student said that everyone was so sick the next day that they never wanted to see another beer.” William shook his head. “Mr. Embley said he quickly overcame that aversion.”

  William hadn’t said anything that I hadn’t suspected, but was surprised that the only witness admitted to being “soused” and wondered if detectives were aware of it.

  Charles couldn’t hold his silence. “So that’s it?”

  William shook his head. “Perhaps another item that one might call a clue. A young lady, someone who hasn’t had the privilege of being in one of my classes, so I don’t know her name, approached the gathered gentlemen. I didn’t hear her salutation, but she laughed and said something to Mr. Embley to the effect that he was the hero who helped the police catch the perpetrator. Mr. Embley laughed and said that he didn’t exactly recognize Mel near the scene, but, and again these are his words, ‘It was an old bald guy in dark clothes. Who else could it have been?’ To my untrained law-enforcement ears, that sounded inadequate as a positive identification of Mr. Evans.”

  I told him that I agreed. William then said that he knew we would want that information and agreed to tell the same thing to the police if they talked to him. I thanked him for sharing, he said he was uncomfortable listening in on his students’ private conversation, but was glad he could tell us what he had heard.

  William headed home, and I asked Charles if he was up to a beer on the outdoor deck at the bar at the Tides.

  The record was still stuck. “Okay by me.”

  The weather was nice and the bar crowded. We ran into Jay, the omnipresent and personable bellhop, greeter, and all-around nice guy, who told us that an accountants’ convention had invaded the hotel, and for some strange reason, the participants appeared more interested in the bar, the view of the ocean, and sunshine than being in a seminar about how to depreciate heavy equipment under the new tax laws. “Go figure,” Jay said, with a smile.

  We ordered drinks and waited in the shade of the nine-story hotel until two bar-height chairs became available at the long, elevated bar that overlooked the beach and the pier. Finally, two men finished their beers, gazed at the ocean, and headed inside. I said that they probably felt guilty about missing the “highly stimulating” seminar and were returning to the meeting room. Charles said that he could tell from the sweat rolling down their faces that they were hot in their sport coats and ties and were headed to the inside bar to continue “networking.” Either scenario, we grabbed their chairs.

  “I’ve still got mixed feelings about Mel,” Charles said, as he set his Tilley on the bar. “We don’t know him that well; he’s got a lot of past that we’ve never heard about. Besides, the police seem to have a strong case. Got a witness; got a bloody rag; got a motive, sort of; and got Mad Mel locked up.”

  “Until a day ago, I might have agreed,” I placed my hat next to Charles’s. “We don’t know everything about Mel, but look at what we do know. He’s devoted to Caldwell. I can see him frequenting the bar, he’s never shied away from throwing back a few beers, but I can’t see him there to pick-up college kids.”

  “I guess,” Charles said.

  “He’s also smart; maybe not book-smart, but I would match his common sense against anyone. Do you think he’d be stupid enough to leave the bloodstained rag in his garage?”

  “That bothered me too. But what about the witness?”

  “You mean the soused one?”

  “Yeah, but he was pretty sure the person he saw was old and bald; that wouldn’t fit anyone on the trip but Mel.”

  “Look at the timeline. First, Mel said he asked if everyone was onboard when they were leaving the beach. No one said someone was missing. You had a boatload of drunks; some probably didn’t even know they were on a boat. Then no one noticed anyone missing until the next day when the trip’s organizer contacted Mel. Finally, my understanding is that the witness didn’t come forward until a few days after the trip.”

  I paused, too long for Charles. “So?”

  I looked at the waves rolling in and over to Charles. “Let’s say the soused witness saw someone. I suspect that after the time he’d learned that Drew Casey was killed there had been many conversations with others from the trip and the witness started thinking all sorts of things. They were trying to figure out what had happened. They probably accused each other of killing him; then talked about him being gay; and then, no telling what else. In other words, days went by before the soused student remembered seeing an old bald guy near where the student was killed.”

  Charles started to interrupt but I stopped him. “I’m not saying he didn’t see what he says he saw, all I’m saying is that considering the delay between the killing and him coming forward, it leaves a lot of room for doubt about credibility.”

  Charles said for me to hold that thought as he jumped up and headed to get more drinks. I spent the time watching a couple with three small children putting their feet in the puddl
es of water left on the beach as the tide receded, and a teenager walking under the pier. I thought about how many people’s worlds were intersecting day in and day out with each being oblivious to each other. Charles returned before I was able to discover the secret of life and our role in it.

  Charles set wine in front of me. “So Mel’s being framed.”

  “Yes,” I said and took a sip of the cold drink.

  “Who and why?”

  “Don’t know. The first possible who would be one or more of the others on the boat, but that seems unlikely. Only the group leader knew who Mel was; and according to Mel, the leader contacted him by phone. Mel only uses his cell and his home address is unlisted, so how would one of them know where he lived to put the bloody rag in his garage?”

  “Doesn’t rule them out, though. With everything on the Internet—maps, addresses, and stuff I don’t have a clue about—someone could find where he lives.”

  “Possibly.”

  “But if it wasn’t one of the students, the killer had to know that Mel was taking the group out and where they were going; and had to be someone who knew where Mel lived.”

  “Yes.”

  Charles looked at the surf and back at me. “If that’s true, how likely would it be for that person to know Drew Casey and to want him dead?”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  “Huh?”

  “I think Drew Casey was killed to frame Mel, not because Casey meant anything to the killer.”

  “If it wasn’t someone from the boat, how would he or she know that Casey was gay?”

  “He wouldn’t. Mel could still have been framed for killing a student. It turned out that he was gay and that helped the frame, but the gay angle wasn’t necessary.”

  “If that’s true, what did someone have against Mel; something that was worth killing over and going to a lot of trouble framing him?”

  “That’s the real question,” I said and looked at a group of accountants competing for bar space, oblivious to what we were talking about.

  “So what’s the answer?”

  The most common reasons for murder, I thought, and said, “Love or money?”

  “Unless someone’s out to get Mel to break up with Caldwell and put the moves on him, love seems unlikely.”

  “I’d eliminated that one,” I said.

  Charles’s head bobbed and then tilted. “Money doesn’t make any more sense. Mel doesn’t have anything more than a pile of debt on his boat and his Camaro. How could money be the motive?”

  “Charles, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be talking to the detective instead of to you.”

  “That’s what I thought. Guess we don’t know much of anything.” He finished his beer and looked at the door to the hotel. “Want to learn how to depreciate heavy equipment under the new tax laws?”

  I quickly declined.

  “All this talk gave me a headache,” Charles said. “I need a nap.”

  I agreed.

  Chapter Thirty

  The next morning began with another thunderstorm pounding the metal roof, a parade of work trucks roaring past the house on the way to job sites, and me sitting in the kitchen, drinking scalding coffee from a Lost Dog Café mug, staring at a three-year-old calendar magnet stuck on side of the refrigerator, and thinking about friends. Friendships are strange. They’re often forged by things we have in common: children, hobbies, work. The emotional bonds created survive the differences friends have. After the bonds are cemented, and one of the friends does something that the other person doesn’t agree with, or that happens to bend the law, the friendship generally prevails. Why? Psychologists and sociologists have pondered this question for decades and are often divided on the answer. Do we recognize and choose to overlook the differences and actions of our friends, or does friendship cloud our perceptions of the actions of others?

  The friendships that I have made since arriving on Folly would confound anyone attempting deep analysis. I consider my closest friends to be Charles, Bob Howard, Cal, Amber, Chief Cindy LaMond, William, and word-challenged Dude. I don’t have children, so that it would be out as a cause for friendships. I could say that Charles and I share photography as a hobby, although before I arrived, he didn’t know what end of a camera to look through. And forget work as a common thread.

  There are two things my friends and I do have in common. First is a deep love for Folly Beach, its character and characters. Yes, even Bob falls in that group although it’d take a court order and an orthodontist pulling his teeth with no anesthesia to get him to admit it. And second, we all share a handful of dreadful experiences, often in chase of a murderer, or being on the barrel end of a firearm. One way or another, my friends have saved my life and I theirs. Beyond that, we share dissimilar backgrounds, dissimilar careers, if we even have or had any, dissimilar tastes in clothing, food, housing, and most likely, if we ever got into a discussion about it, politics, religion and the hereafter. With that said, I would give my life for each of them, and I suspected, and I hope never again tested, that they would do the same for me.

  I also considered Larry and Mel among my friends. I haven’t known them as long as some of the others and both have dark holes in their past. Larry has been more open about his years on the wrong side of the law but they were a long time ago. Since he’s been here, he’s been a model citizen and unless he chose to share what he’d done, no one would have suspected anything undesirable about him. Mel has never revealed anything other than a bullet-point resume of his life, but I’ve suspected that there’s more than he’d told; more that is best not revealed to the police.

  Do I believe that either was capable of murder? Good question. Larry had a powerful motive, no doubt, but I can’t see him pulling the trigger, regardless how evil Abe might have been. Then again, has friendship clouded my thinking?

  Mel provided me with another dilemma. Yes, I could see him killing someone; and he possibly has during his stint in the military, and maybe as a civilian. But, I can’t see him having a motive strong enough to kill the college student. Again, is my belief fogged by friendship?

  Friendships have given me more pleasure, more warmth, more camaraderie, and more depth to my life on Folly, than I had experienced my first six decades. I owed it to myself and my friends Mel and Larry to do everything I could to prove that they were innocent. If they didn’t do it, someone else did. Abe’s choices in life would have created any number of enemies; enemies from as far away as Georgia and as close as the .5 group. I had no idea who the outsiders might be, but had a strong hunch about Harriet. I would have her much higher on my list if she was twenty years younger, a hundred pounds heavier, and went by Harriet “Annie Oakley” Grindstone. But, she had grown up on a ranch, was probably familiar with firearms, and from how she doted on Theo, would have gone to great lengths to protect him.

  Harriet had motive, opportunity, and possibly means; and that brought me to Mel. He had opportunity and means, but to me he had zilch motive. So if that’s true, what about the witness? Sure, the student who said he had seen Mel near where the kid was killed, could be discredited in court. He was “soused,” didn’t come forward until days after the death, and said he was sure the person was Mel because the person he saw was bald and old, so who else could it be? Any defense attorney worth his fee could convince a jury that there were countless bald and old potential suspects within fifty miles of the crime scene. Would they have had motive? Of course not, but all the attorney had to do was cast reasonable doubt.

  The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that Mel was set-up. It didn’t appear to be for love, so that left money. Who would benefit financially if Mel was convicted? Mel was upside down on his boat and his car. A few years ago, he’d shared that he didn’t believe in life insurance; said he came into the world with nothing, planned to go out that way, and was “damned sure” he wasn’t going to let anyone benefit from his demise.

  And I remembered a comment made in an earlier convers
ation; a comment that meant little at the time, but that indicated that there was someone who would benefit from Mel’s arrest and probable conviction. But how could I prove it? I’d be laughed out of the police station if I shared my theory with the detectives.

  If I thought my mental gyrations would give me the answer, I was a colossal failure. The rain continued, the vehicles continued to roll by the house, and I did the most productive things I could think of to do: I poured more coffee, hoped that the weather would clear for tomorrow’s boat trip to Boneyard Beach, yanked the outdated calendar off the refrigerator, and dropped it in the trash.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  With Charles in tow, I showed up at the entrance to Mariner’s Cay condos and its marina where Robbie’s boat was docked and punched in the gate code that he’d given us. Mariner’s Cay Marina was more up-scale than the Folly View Marina where Mel’s Magical Marsh Machine spent its free time. Since we were operating on Charles Standard Time, I doubted that Robbie would be at the boat so we waited in the car.

  The captain’s Nissan pulled in beside us as I started to tell Charles my suspicion about who might have killed the student. Robbie looked around, smiled, and walked over to the car. He looked captainly in navy shorts, a tan safari shirt, and a FB ball cap.

  He chuckled. “No worms here.”

  “Huh?” Charles said as he got out and shook Robbie’s hand.

  “You’re early birds. Catching worms, get it?”

  “This is Charles’s version of on-time,” I said.

  We spent the next ten minutes talking about a new gift shop in town, how slow gallery and tour businesses were, and how Connie had conned her brother into taking us on the trip for such a low price. I told him how much the trip meant to Chester and how we appreciated his generosity, although it didn’t appear that he had anything else to be doing.