No Joke

by Bill Noel

  Charles was clearly depressed since he didn’t interrupt countless times.

  I finished, and he said, “Let’s walk out to the river.”

  A narrow walking pier went from the park over some of the marsh and ended a few feet over the Folly River. Charles didn’t speak as we made our way to the river end of the pier. We leaned against the railing, watched traffic cross the bridge, and a fishing boat meander under it.

  Charles continued to stare at the boat. “What’s your take?”

  I told him about seeing Neil Wilson and how, until this morning, I was leaning toward him as being the killer. I also shared my gut feeling that Janice could have done it.

  “You eliminated them because the card was in Wallace’s room?”

  “Sure.”

  “You said Wallace seemed surprised that the credit card was there.”

  “True.”

  “And Wallace claims to have killed the bookie with a candlestick?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  “That says the boy’s off his rocker, not that he’s a killer. Let’s say he needs to be in a padded cell rather than in a jail cell, then who put the card under the mattress to frame him?”

  Charles was becoming more animated the more we talked. Bad topic; good sign. I saw the Charles of earlier days inching his way back.

  “Sal, Pete, even Theo.”

  “Yes,” Charles said, and rubbed his three-day old beard. “Don’t forget Ray. He could’ve put it there before he took his tumble.”

  “Or Ray,” I conceded. “If the bookie was killed for money and credit cards, it wouldn’t have been Theo. He has all the money he’ll ever need.”

  “That leaves the living houseguests, plus Ray. All had access to the room.”

  I was almost convinced it was one of the houseguests when I remembered what Neil had said about when he was hired in the job from which he’d been terminated. His boss had hired him, despite him having a record that dated back several years. It was a stretch, but I wondered what his crime had been. Cindy talked to him about the murder and could have run him through her databases. I made the mistake of mentioning this to Charles.

  “Call her.”

  My choices were to get yelled at by Charles if I didn’t call, or get yelled at by Cindy if I did. Charles was showing signs of improving, so I chose to incur the wrath of the chief.

  Cindy greeted me with, “This better be good.”

  “Got a question.” She could decide if it was good or not. “You said you’d questioned Neil Wilson about where he was when Michael Hardin was killed.”

  “Yes, and—”

  I interrupted, “Did you run a criminal check on him?”

  “Do you sit for hours at home in your big, plush easy chair thinking up things to make my life miserable, or do they just come to you?”

  I chuckled and said, “Some of us have the gift.”

  “No.”

  “No to me having the gift, or no to checking his background?”

  She sighed. “You have the gift. No, I didn’t check. Dare I ask why?”

  I shared what he told me about his recent termination and how he mentioned being arrested several years ago.

  Cindy said she’d check when she got to a computer and let me know.

  Charles was pestering me about when she would let me know before I had time to return the phone to my pocket. The old Charles was in sight.

  We left the park and walked down Center Street toward the ocean. The sidewalks were more crowded than I’d seen since last summer. We stopped in front of Mr. John’s Beach Store.

  Charles looked at a large, inflated float shaped like a frog that was hanging on a pole at the side of the building and said, “Ray may’ve killed the bookie and hid the credit card in Wallace’s room, but he didn’t steal the cash from Theo and take the stupid silver frog.”

  “He was dead when the frog reappeared.”

  “Yep,” Charles said. “Unless his ghost brought it back, or the frog hopped back, you can mark him off the money and frog heist suspect list. That leaves Sal, Wallace, Pete, and Theo, who would have to be nuttier than Wallace to take his own stuff.”

  “Other than Wallace’s confession that won’t hold up, what do we know about the other three comics?”

  Before answering, Charles stooped to pet a dog that was leading its master down the street. “You’ve been with them more than I have. I know they ain’t knee-slappin’ funny for being Legends. They probably played their last gig for George Washington and are broker than an amoeba. Speaking of Washington, he said, ‘Truth will ultimately prevail where there are pains to bring it to light.’”

  Getting to the truth has been a pain, and I was clueless about what to do next. Other than Charles stating the obvious, I didn’t know how we, or the police, were closer to knowing what happened. Other than stumbling on the body and seeing Theo hurt from his experiences with his houseguests, I couldn’t come up with a good reason to be involved. It would be easy to accept that the police had the killer in jail. It likely was the same person who stole money from Theo. Case closed.

  Why did I have the feeling that I knew something or heard something that would lead to a different ending?

  I was sitting in, as Cindy called it, my big, plush easy chair and instead of thinking of things to make her life miserable, thinking about each interaction I’d had with the comics. I thought of several things, but none of them brought me closer to what had been nagging at me. I got a reprieve when the phone rang. Cindy’s name was on the screen.

  “Good evening, Chief.”

  “If you say so. It’s been such a fun-filled afternoon, I thought I’d fallen asleep and dreamed I was being followed around by a camera filming an episode of America’s Biggest Idiots.”

  “What happened?”

  “When I was a teeny-tiny sprout in East Tennessee, our next-door neighbor had an old billy goat. Ornery thing, about as smart as a piece of chalk, but not as useful. He’d sit in the corner of the yard and watch cars go by. Half the time, he’d run along the fence, thinking he was a dog chasing the car. Other times, he’d stand in the middle of his pen, think he was a Mexican jumping bean, and jump straight up in the air. Occasionally, he thought he was a gymnast. He’d stick his head on the ground and somehow push off with his back legs and throw his rear end up in the air and balance himself in his front legs and head. Get the picture?”

  I said yes, but I wondered why I was hearing about her tiny-sprout days.

  “Chris, Wallace Bentley makes that old goat look like Albert Einstein.”

  I repeated, “What happened?”

  “Officer Spencer almost ran into a garbage truck when Wallace stripped naked and mooned an eighty-seven-year-old granny following the cop car in her 1977 Ford Granada. After he got to the interrogation room, he told Detective Callahan, in such a sincere voice, that he could be mistaken for the Pope, yes, he’d killed Michael Hardin, and had killed Adolph Hitler, and while he was at it, admitted killing David Letterman, who, unless you know something I don’t know, is still walking among the living.”

  “Oh.”

  “You won’t find this hard to believe. Instead of sticking him in one of the fine, well-appointed prison cells provided by the County of Charleston, Wallace is over at the hospital, handcuffed to a bed being evaluated by a head doc.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “There was a high-powered lawyer at the jail to talk with him but, after a few seconds, she decided that psychiatric care was needed more than legal care. The lawyer said Theo Stoll hired her. That was generous of your friend. So far, it’s not going to help Wallace.”

  “Do you think he was faking?”

  “Not after what I saw and heard today.”

  “Thanks for letting me know.”

  “Other than playing ringmaster in a three-ring circus, I did one useful thing for you. You’re welcome.”

  “What?”

  “Your boy, Neil Wilson, was arrested twelve years
ago after he and three of his buddies got hopped up on something and broke into a drug store. It was in a town in Arkansas where everybody knew everybody. The guys got off light. Seems some of their parents were good friends with the pharmacist, and some were friends with the local judge. Neil had a shortage of influential friends and got the short end of the stick and spent two years behind bars.”

  “Why’d he get the short straw?”

  “Seems he was the one who picked the drugstore lock. The other three guys just happened to follow him in. That was their story. They stuck to it, saw the light, and were back roaming the streets three months later.”

  I heard Larry in the background asking Cindy something. She said, “Yes, dear,” and whispered to me, “Gotta go. I’m back in good graces with the shrimp. Need to keep it that way.”

  She didn’t wait for me to say goodbye.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The simplest explanation for everything was that Wallace met Michael Hardin, learned he was a bookie, and tried to rob him. Michael put up a fight, and Wallace hit him hard enough to kill him, or Wallace intended to kill the bookie and rob him. Often the simplest explanation turns out to not be so simple. If that’s what happened, why did Wallace tell me he had seen a body? That admission was the first thing tying him to the crime. Next, why did he go off the deep end with the story that he killed Michael with a candlestick in the library? Two things could have accounted for that. He could’ve decided once suspicion had been raised about him, to make up the far-fetched story to craft an insanity defense, or he had actually hopped off the sane train.

  I didn’t have answers for those questions, although I knew that Wallace had come into an unexplained amount of money. It could have come from the bookie, or was the money taken from Theo? If Wallace stole it from Theo, it was possible that he didn’t kill the bookie. That led me back to why he had said that he’d seen a body in the first place. The simplest answer is that he saw the body, but hadn’t been the killer.

  Then what about Neil Wilson? He owed the bookie and had asked me if I knew of part-time jobs. He was desperate for work, which meant that he didn’t have the money to pay the debt. Now I learn that he possessed lock-picking skills, which meant that he could’ve broken into Theo’s house and planted Michael Hardin’s credit card in Wallace’s room. If he killed Michael and planted the card, how did he know anything about Wallace? Silly question, I realized.

  Rumors fly around Folly as fast as a speeding bullet, and it was no secret that Wallace claimed to have seen a body. Neil had been questioned by the police and could’ve figured they knew about the holes in his alibi, so he had to deflect guilt. What better way than to frame an outsider, someone who would have little community support, someone who was having troubles with reality, someone who had already said he’d seen a body, presumably that of Michael Hardin.

  Returning to Barb’s thought, there could have been two separate crimes and two criminals. The most likely candidates for stealing Theo’s money and taking and returning the frog, would’ve been one or more of the houseguests.

  The most likely person to have killed Michael Hardin would be Sal, Wallace, Pete, or even Ray, who could have killed him and slipped the credit card under Wallace’s mattress days before his death. Add Neil Wilson as a long shot and, if I was objective, an even longer shot would be Theo. What about Janice Raque? She thought Michael Hardin cheated her out of enough money to pay off her debts. She has a temper and told more than one person that she resented the bookie. Each of them could be the killer but considering how difficult it would have been for Neil, or Janice, to have put the credit card in Wallace’s room, they would be down the list. If I marked Neil and Janice off, and removed Theo, because he didn’t need the money and I had known him long enough to trust him, that left Sal, Wallace, Pete, and Ray.

  Sal, Wallace, Pete, Ray. I said the names several times and remembered something that was said the first time the comedians had been in Cal’s. It didn’t strike me as unusual at the time but, the more I think about it, the stranger it seems. Who said it? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember. Cal had been there, so maybe he’d remember. A late afternoon walk to Cal’s would get me out of the house and, with luck, an answer.

  A dozen or so folks were enjoying drinks, conversation, and country classics from the jukebox. The bar’s owner was wiping off the counter and singing along with Jimmy Rogers. Cal had his Stetson tilted back and wore a green Polo shirt instead of his rhinestone coat.

  He waved me over. “What brings you out so early?”

  I told him I had a question about the first time he’d met the comedians.

  “It’d better be easy. I’d have to strain my brain to remember what happened this morning.”

  He looked around then pointed to a vacant table nearest the bar. “Lasso that table and I’ll have Joy take care of the customers.”

  I headed to the table as Cal headed to the storage room to find the server.

  A minute later, Cal set his Stetson on the table and said, “Okay, what’s on your mind?”

  “What do you remember about the first night the group came in and talked to you about appearing here?”

  He ran his fingers through his long, gray hair. “They were late. Pissed me off, since I was already tired. You’d said they were coming at 9:00. They didn’t strut in until, well, a lot later. Speaking of strutting in, they looked like they were on their way to a Halloween party.”

  I chuckled, and Cal continued, “What else? Let’s see, okay, they told a couple of corny jokes, and one of them, maybe it was Pete, started raising a ruckus about smoking. It’s coming back to me now. Pete brought it up, remember, because of the one with the silly ascot. Wallace, the nutty one, started tag teaming me about smoking. Something about being funnier if the customers were puffin’ on a cigarette, cigar, pipe, or funny weed. If they weren’t staying with Theo, I’d have thrown the whole lot of them out the door. How am I doing?”

  “Not bad.” It wasn’t what I was fishing for. “Do you recall one of them saying something about the death of the bookie?”

  Cal rubbed his chin and tapped his fingers on the table. “Can’t say that I do. Why?”

  “At the time, little was known about Michael Hardin’s death. Most folks didn’t know who the victim was, fewer knew he was a bookie. One of the comics asked about the death and used the term bookie.”

  “Yeah, that was the first time I heard who he was. I think you’re the one who told me. What’s so important about that? Some people must’ve known.”

  “Yes, but Theo’s houseguests weren’t from here. They’d been on the island only a few days. Doesn’t it seem unlikely that they would’ve known who or what Michael was?”

  “I thought everyone knew that. Hasn’t the nutty one confessed? I hear he was hauled off to jail. He would’ve been the one who knew the bookie was a bookie and said it that night. Mystery solved.”

  Cal made sense, but I didn’t think it was Wallace. I said, “Could’ve been.”

  “There you go, that solves it.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “Remember anything else they said?”

  “Sure do. I didn’t think they were that funny up there on the stage.” He pointed at the microphone. “But when Sal referred to them wanting to perform in here as part of the Comedy Legends World Tour, that was danged hilarious. They should’ve saved that joke for their performance.”

  “They were serious.”

  Cal smiled. “That’s what I thought when they said it. That’s why I didn’t laugh, even though it hurt my innards not to.”

  “Remember anything else?”

  “Afraid not. Do the police think it’s someone other than the one who needs to be in the looney bin?”

  “They arrested Wallace because they found Michael’s credit card in his room. That was the reason more than his confession.”

  “It seems to my withering brain that you don’t buy into that.”

  “I’m not sure.”

 
“You’re playing detective?”

  “Trying to wrap my hands around what’s going on. Theo is a friend. I’d hate to see him caught up in something that isn’t resolved. He’s already hired an attorney for Wallace, he’s putting up the group in his house, covering their expenses while they’re there. It looks like they have no plans to leave.”

  “Except the nutty one.”

  “True.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “I wish I had your confidence.”

  Cal looked at Joy who appeared to have things under control and turned back to me. “Let me change gears. I learned something yesterday that I think you’d be interested in.”

  “About the comedians?”

  “Nope, about Janice Raque. Remember, you, Chester, and I were confabbing about her? You said folks mentioned her ferocious temper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rumor is that Horace packed up his belongings and skipped out on her. Somebody told me that somebody told them that he found a young chickadee over in Mt. Pleasant that he’d rather spend time, dusk ‘til dawn time with, than with his beloved spouse. Looks like he decided to extend that time to twenty-four-seven. To this old observer of heartbreaks, I’d say that’s why she’s been on such a tear. I feel sorry for her. She’s not as bad as she’s been made out to be.”

  That could explain her tantrums in the Dog, explain arguing with the bookie.

  “That’s too bad. What’s she going to do?”

  “Don’t know. She doesn’t work so, unless the creep Horace keeps paying on her condo in Mariner’s Cay, she’ll have to find somewhere else to live. Tell you what, I won’t miss her bickering with hubby every time she’s here.”

  Joy came to the table and said she was sorry to interrupt, but she needed Cal at the bar, something about the credit card machine had a mind of its own and wasn’t charging enough.