by Bill Noel
Two days had passed since Al Washington had started speaking in coherent sentences and asking about how Bob was doing running Al’s Bar and Gourmet Grill. I had gotten to see him for a few minutes and joined in a lengthy line of visitors who had lied to him about how wonderful things were at the bar but were truthful when we said he was sorely missed.
And, it had been twenty-four hours since Bob decided to hold a party at Al’s bar to celebrate Al rejoining reality. Another reason became apparent when he said, “Since I’ve got to be at that damned run-down shack anyway, I want some of my friends suffering along with me.”
I hesitated for several hours before calling Charles to see if he wanted to go with me. I had talked to him once since the explosion and had left three messages he hadn’t returned. In the off-kilter spirit of Folly, apparently four times was the charm instead of three. Charles answered the phone. It was three in the afternoon but he sounded like he had been asleep. I told him about Bob’s misery loves company party, and was surprised when he said, “Sure, nothing else to do.”
It was Monday, a traditionally slow night for bars and restaurants, and Al’s wasn’t bucking the trend. Four elderly gentlemen were seated around the table closest to the door. Each held a beer bottle and a hand of cards. There was a pile of matchsticks on the middle of the table that I suspected had some value other than cheap wood. Two other tables were occupied with couples. I had seen most of the diners in Al’s but didn’t know their names. Bob had told us the party was to begin at eight, so of course, Charles insisted we arrive by seven-thirty, so, other than Bob, we were the only partygoers present.
Lawrence greeted us at the door. “Thank God, some of Bob’s white friends finally got here. He’s been pestering me ever since six wondering if anyone would show.”
I told him that Bob told us the event started at eight.
Lawrence held out his hands. “Don’t tell me anything about him. Lord, he’s your friend. He only inherited me.”
The only sound in the room was laughter coming from the card players. Bob looked over at us and walked to the side of the jukebox and hit some buttons. Willie Nelson began his version of “Faded Love,” and an audible groan arose from the men at the card table.
Bob yelled over Willie’s singing, “The party’s on. Drinks are on me!”
That immediately stopped the card game and three of the four men raised their hands for more beer.
The door opened and Cal, followed by Chester Carr, stuck their heads in and stepped the rest of their bodies into the room, deciding it was safe. Cal had on his Stetson, his rhinestone-studded jacket, and jeans. Chester wore a navy blue, starched, dress shirt and gray dress slacks.
Bob saw them enter and said, “Look everybody, it’s Hank Williams Sr. himself. And they thought you were dead.”
The regulars had learned how much credence to put into anything Bob said; they ignored him. Rickey Van Shelton and “Somebody Lied,” followed Willie on the jukebox and I heard one of the men at one of the other tables say something about grabbing the picket signs. Bob laughed, and Lawrence brought each of the newcomers a drink. It didn’t look like the party’s host was going to do it, so Charles and I pulled three tables together and slid chairs up to them.
It was Chester’s first visit, and he looked around and took the chair closest to the back of the room. “How’s Al doing?” he asked, to no one in particular.
Bob smiled and said, “He’ll be back sitting over by the door in a couple of weeks. We’ll try to find a chair for him or make him bring his own if we’re crowded.”
Right, I thought.
The Four Tops began “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” and an on-key chorus of Hallelujah came from the card players. Bob made a choking motion and asked Charles how he was doing. Charles mumbled a neutral response and then Chester asked him if he knew anything about what was happening with Joel and Wayne.
“According to Marc Salmon, Wayne doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in that fryer over there.” Charles pointed to the small kitchen. “And, while there isn’t much to pin on Joel, he started his campaign as a dark horse candidate, and now would have a tough time finding a snail to ride to the polls on.”
Bob had moved behind Charles. “That mean I can have my campaign contributions back?”
“No,” I said.
“That’s okay, my commission from finding the Burtons somewhere to live after Chris blew their house up will make up for it.”
Cal tipped his Stetson in Bob’s direction. “I hear finding them a house was easy. Didn’t four people volunteer somewhere for them to live?”
“So, what’s your point?” asked the Realtor.
Cal smiled. “My point is Folly has the kindest, most giving folks in the world and the Burtons are lucky to live there.”
Chester didn’t want to be left out. “And Chris is mighty lucky too. He ain’t got Brad Burton next door anymore.”
“Until they rebuild,” Charles added.
Thanks for the reminder, friend.
Lawrence brought a second round of drinks to our table, and no telling what round to the card players. From the corner of my eye, I saw one of the players head to the jukebox and another member of the group move behind Bob.
The Four Tops blared, “Can’t Help Myself,” the man behind Bob twisted him around and walked him to the center of the room, where they were joined by the man who had gone to the jukebox.
Sugar pie honey bunch I’m weaker than a man should be, sang the man on each side of Bob.
Bob smiled and blurted out, “I can’t help myself, I’m a fool in love you see.”
I found myself somewhere between shock and amusement—not a bad place to be.
Can’t help myself, no I can’t help myself.
Joy
A Folly Beach Christmas Mystery
1
Barb Deanelli was waiting for me in front of her condo building on West Arctic Avenue. It was a little after sunrise on a cold, mid-December morning, and she had on black skinny jeans, a black down jacket with a texture that looked like bubble-wrap packing material, black boots and a black wool beanie cap. She looked like someone planning to break in someone’s second-story window.
Barb folded her five-foot-ten-inch trim frame into the front seat of my car and gave me a peck on the cheek. She was sixty-four years old, three years younger than me, yet looked much younger.
“You look more ready to climb Mt. Everest more than hunt shark teeth,” I said and leaned closer to receive another kiss.
I was rewarded with an eye roll from the woman I’d been dating for six months. “After last-night’s storm, I didn’t know what to expect. Besides, the wind’s kicking up and from previous trips to the County Park, I knew that there was nothing to block it from chilling my bones.”
The Folly Beach County Park anchors the west end of the small South Carolina barrier island and is a mile-and-a-half from Barb’s condo. The park doesn’t open to vehicles until ten, so I navigated the turnaround in front of the locked gate and moved to the nearest spot where I could pull off the road and park.
Barb was wiser than I was since I didn’t have a down coat and had to get by with a lightweight jacket over a long-sleeve denim shirt. I’d never admit that I was cold and on my way to freezing in the brisk wind.
The park consists of more than a hundred acres of mainly flat, sandy terrain, and its beach covers more than four-thousand feet of ocean frontage. There’s a picnic area, boardwalks, showers, dressing areas, and restrooms, but we appeared to be the only humans making our way from the deserted parking area to where she hoped to find shark teeth along the receding tideline.
“Tell me again why you decided to drag me out here this morning,” I said as I put my arm around her waist to help block the wind. Block it from me, not from her.
“One of my customers, Michelle, makes shark teeth jewelry. I asked where she bought the teeth and she said she found them on the beach, and the best time to find them is after a storm stirs up
the surf and extracts them from deeper water. I suppose I’ve led a sheltered life and didn’t know that you could find them here.”
“Thinking about making and selling jewelry in the store?”
Barb moved to Folly a year ago from Pennsylvania and opened a used bookstore on the town’s main drag.
“No, it takes more patience than I have. I told Michelle I’d carry hers. She did pique my interest enough to ask where she found the teeth. She said anywhere along the beach, and the County Park was a good location, especially before others traipsed along the waterline and grabbed them.” She waved her arms toward the ocean. “And, here we are.”
Residents and visitors spend hours scouring the beach hunting the teeth that can date to prehistoric times, but in the decade that I’d lived here, I’d never found any. Someone once told me that you don’t find shark teeth, they find you. Fortunately, no teeth still attached to a shark have found me, nor have any teeth from their ancestors. I didn’t know about shark teeth, but yesterday and last night’s tumultuous storm brought some of the largest waves I’d seen in years. Regardless, it was fun spending the morning with Barb.
Then it ceased being fun.
Barb pointed to something at the shoreline a hundred yards in front of us. It looked like a surfboard with someone splayed out on top. My hunch was confirmed as we got closer. The surfboard was barely out of the water and the body of a woman was partially on the board with her arms wrapped around it. Long, black hair either flecked with gray or mixed with sand was spread out and covered part of the white board. She had on tan khaki slacks, a red sweatshirt, and was barefoot. I wasn’t optimistic about her being alive since the water temperature was in the low-fifties and prolonged exposure to it could be fatal. The top of her sweatshirt was dry, but the lower half was wet as were her slacks.
I bent down to feel for a pulse when her left hand grabbed my wrist. The sudden movement startled me, and I fell backwards in the damp sand. She let go and pushed up off the board before falling back. Barb moved to the other side of the board, knelt, and whispered something to the woman. The sky was getting lighter, and I noticed the woman’s arms shivering.
I removed my jacket and covered her back. Barb laid her heavier jacket over the woman’s legs before wrapping her arms around her to provide body heat.
I leaned back and punched 911 on my phone and told the dispatcher where we were and what we found. I suggested that along with medical help, she send the police. I didn’t know what had happened but was confident that it wasn’t a surfing accident.
Barb was talking to the woman, who’d turned on her side and faced my friend. A good sign.
The screaming siren of a police cruiser could be heard a few blocks away, and the distinct sound of one of the city’s fire engines followed the cruiser. Help was on the way. The car’s siren shut off, and it took another minute for its occupant to open the park’s gate and continue to the parking area near where we were huddled.
“Chris Landrum, is that you?” yelled a Public Safety Officer, the official name of Folly’s police officers.
I turned toward the voice and recognized Officer Allen Spencer. I’d met him shortly after he and I arrived on Folly ten years ago. At the time, he was in his mid-twenties, six-foot-tall, and at least thirty pounds lighter. We crossed paths often and had a good relationship.
“Allen,” I said and stood to shake his hand.
We shook, and he nodded toward Barb. “Ms. Deanelli.”
Barb acknowledged the new arrival and Officer Spencer shifted his attention to the person Barb had her arm around and who was sitting on the surfboard. Spencer saw how much she was shaking and added his heavy jacket to mine and Barb’s.
The fire engine pulled beside Spencer’s vehicle and two firefighters hurried over. One carried a heavy blanket and wrapped it around the woman. The other firefighter, who on Folly doubled as a certified EMTs, started taking the woman’s vitals.
She was in good hands, so I stepped away from the medical team. Spencer followed and looked up and down the shore and then toward the parking area. “Chris, what happened?”
I said I had no idea and this was how Barb and I’d found her. He asked why we were here, and I shared Barb’s story about hunting shark teeth. One of the EMTs returned Barb’s coat and offered me my jacket.
Spencer watched him go back to his patient and asked me, “Did she say anything?”
“She mumbled something to Barb, but I didn’t hear what it was.”
Barb was standing back and watching the EMTs work on the woman. Spencer waved her over and asked her the same thing he’d asked me.
“She asked two questions. She said, ‘Where am I?’ I told her on Folly Beach.” Barb looked back at the woman and shook her head.
I said, “The second question?”
Barb looked at Spencer. “She asked, ‘Who am I?’”
2
The sun had begun warming the air while Barb, Officer Spencer, and I stood back and watched the EMTs load their patient in the ambulance that had arrived from nearby Charleston ten minutes after the first responders from the fire department. The three of us moved to the surfboard to see if it held any clues to what had happened.
Spencer flipped the board over and glanced at its underside. “This isn’t a crime scene, so it doesn’t matter if I disturb it,” he said, more to himself than to Barb and me.
I knew as much about surfboards as I knew about the Harappan civilization. “Learn anything?”
“Not really. It’s a Channel Islands New Flyer. Popular and common. Board of the year a few years back.”
Officer Spencer spent many off-duty hours sitting on a surfboard waiting for the perfect wave, so I wasn’t surprised with his knowledge of the vehicle that transported our mysterious lady to shore. I suspected that’s where his knowledge about the event ended.
The first firefighter to the scene had loaded his equipment on his vehicle and came over to the three of us.
Spencer said, “Len, is she going to be okay?”
“I didn’t see any signs of physical trauma. She has hypothermia and if you hadn’t found her when you did, she might not have made it. Did you notice the red marks around her ankles?”
I said I had.
The firefighter, whom I’d never met before today, said, “It’s not uncommon to see something similar caused by a surf leash attached to the ankle. Never around both ankles. She also has marks around her wrists.”
“Think she was restrained?” I said.
“That’d be my guess. Don’t hold me to it. It’s for someone else to determine. Gotta get back to the station.”
Spencer said, “Len, before you go, did she say anything about who she is or how she got here?”
“Nothing that made sense. Her speech was slurred, and she didn’t appear to know where she was or why. Allen, don’t read too much into it. Those are symptoms of hypothermia. She’ll probably be fine in a few hours.”
“Did you ask her name?”
He nodded. “She couldn’t remember.”
Len repeated that he had to get back to the station and walked away as a silver Ford F-150 XLT pick-up truck slid to a stop in the sand behind Spencer’s cruiser. Cindy LaMond was named Director of Folly Beach’s Department of Public Safety two years ago, and I’d known her since she joined the police force six years before that. She was a good friend and married to Larry LaMond, owner of Pewter Hardware, Folly’s only hardware store.
The five-foot-three, well built, bundle of energy didn’t waste time getting to us. In her endearing style, she said, “Hi Barb, what’s that old fart Landrum dragged you into this time?”
I didn’t recall dragging Barb into this or similar situations, but I’d inadvertently been ensnared in a few horrific situations since retiring on Folly after a peaceful, a.k.a. boring, life as a bureaucrat in a large insurance company in Kentucky.
Barb didn’t know Cindy as well as I did, but knew her enough to ignore her comment. “Hi, Chief. Chris and
I were looking for shark teeth and instead found a damsel in distress.”
“Crap, Barb, you’re beginning to sound like the old fart.” The chief turned to me, “Okay, spill it. What in the hell have you stepped in now?”
We shared everything, which wasn’t much, about what we’d found.
Cindy gazed out to sea, and said, “My highly trained, police brain tells me that the person who rode in on this board didn’t surf from Wales. Any boats out there earlier? Any evidence she was at the park before ending at water’s edge?”
“No and no,” I said.
Spencer said, “It’s possible she came from Kiawah.”
Kiawah was another barrier island, and a gated resort fewer than two miles across the Folly River and the Stono Inlet from the County Park.
Cindy sighed. “It’s also possible she was dropped out of a space ship and landed on our lovely slice of earth. Officer Spencer, contact the powers that be on Kiawah and see if they have any missing person reports. I’ll do the same here.”
I said, “Anything I can do, Chief?”
“Yes, you and the lovely lady standing beside you, the one I can’t figure a reason in the world why she’d want to hang around with you, continue your search for shark teeth.” She snapped her fingers. “Oh yeah, one other thing. Don’t, that’s do not, get the slightest inkling to butt in police business.”
“Cindy—”
She interrupted, “I know, I know.” She waved her hand in my face. “There’s a better chance of you sprouting wings and flying to the Bahamas than minding your own business. Give it a try, for once.”
“Of course, Cindy.”
If she noticed my crossed fingers, she didn’t let on.
