by Bill Noel
My admiration for Charles’s main squeeze increased.
Charles’s hand was back in the box, and he pulled out a barometer, a compass, and another handheld contraption the size of his palm. It was similar to the ion counter, with a digital readout and a dial.
“And what’s that?” I asked.
“A compass,” he said with a grin.
“I know that,” I sighed. “I meant that other thingie.”
“Happens to be a three-axis gaussmeter—says so right here on the front.” He held up his right hand. “Don’t bother asking; I don’t have any better idea what the numbers mean than I did with the ion counter.”
“So when those digital meters start dinging, vibrating, or whatever they do when a ghost happens to stop by to visit two human idiots in a bar, you’ll call Heather, wake her up, and ask what to do next?” I plopped down in the chair closest to the bar, leaned back, clasped my hands together behind my head, and then rolled my eyes. My shoulder and knee still felt as if I’d been hit by a beer truck.
“Didn’t say the plan was perfect.” He sat in the chair next to me. “This is what detectives do. Solving crimes is boring work.”
“I think this is what ghost busters do,” I said.
Charles studied the array of stuff he had removed from the box. “She said I couldn’t be trusted with her infrared thermal scanner, hydrometer, and thermal imaging scopes.” He shook his head and frowned.
Another feather in her yellow bonnet.
* * *
If the clock on the wall behind the bar chimed instead of just telling time and advertising beer, it would have chimed twice. Charles had lit candles on four tables and turned off the cold-hued fluorescent lights. Heather had told him that the candles were critical because ghosts can drain equipment energy and our flashlights may be useless. I found that information less than encouraging. Twice in the last hour, Charles said he believed he heard ghosts but soon decided that it was the normal cold weather creaking of the old building. Occasionally, the sound of a vehicle roaring past broke the middle-of-the-night silence.
“Charles,” I said around three thirty, “let’s pretend that the thief is a real person. If that’s the case, and I know that it is highly unlikely, who are your suspects—excuse me, ’spects?”
He looked in the flickering candle on our table. “Between you and me—”
“And the ghosts,” I interrupted, sarcasm getting the better of me.
“And the ghosts,” Charles continued. “I’m not as certain as Heather about ghosts. Don’t tell her, okay?”
I frowned as if I were giving it serious consideration and then nodded.
“It could be anyone on Folly,” said Charles. “But it would make more sense that it’s an inside job. The employees know where Cal keeps the money, when the liquor’s delivered, and where it’s stored. They also know the most expensive bottles and know their way around the bar.”
“Yes, but so do any of the barflies who hang out here more than they do at home,” I said.
“True,” said Charles, “but aren’t the odds greater that it’s an inside job?”
I nodded again.
“I guess it could be any of them except Kristin. She went home to Nashville over the college break and wasn’t within several hundred miles when the last theft occurred.” He hesitated. “If I had to rank the ’spects, I’d put Nick at the top, then Kenneth, and then maybe Dawn.”
“Why?”
“Nick doesn’t like me—that rocketed him to the top of the list. He’s been here three years and knows his way around the bar. He’s always flashing a fistful of cash. And every time Cal mentions the thefts, Nick’s quick to blame vacationers or some of the homeless folks who call Folly home. He’s never said it could be someone who works here.”
I’d witnessed their near confrontation on Christmas and knew they’d never be fishing buddies, but I didn’t believe disliking Charles should put someone at the top of a suspect list. It was interesting, though, that Nick wouldn’t think it was an insider. “Why Kenneth?”
“Nothing specific,” said Charles as he walked behind the bar to the industrial strength coffeemaker and poured a cup for each of us. “He’s almost as secretive about his past as you are. Greg hired him before he left. Hang on a second—let me show you something.” He headed off to the storeroom.
I wondered where he thought I might be going.
Charles returned with a crinkled-up manila file folder in his left hand. “I was sort of going through the personnel files—”
“Sort of?”
“Okay, I was nosin’ through them,” said Charles. “Detective stuff, you know.” He handed me the file. “Look at this.”
The name Kenneth Landry was scribbled in blue ink on the top tab. I laid the file on the table and opened it. There was only one sheet of paper in it: an application for employment. The top two lines of the application were filled out with the applicant’s name, Kenneth Landry, and his social security number. An address on James Island was listed under residence, but it was scratched out and replaced with an apartment on Folly.
I waved the application in Charles’s face. “What am I supposed to be looking for?” I asked.
“Look at the oodles of information on it,” said Charles.
The only other thing on the application was the name of two bars listed under references. In fine print at the bottom of the application was a notation written in a different color pen: Hired. Only applicant!
“Did Greg check references on his other hires?” I asked.
“Yeah. It looked like he called former employers. But not with Kenneth.”
“You’re right,” I said. “It is strange. But I wouldn’t use it as a reason to consider him the thief.”
“True,” he conceded. “But it’s enough to get him on my list.”
Our conversation was interrupted by the loud siren of one of Folly’s fire engines as it left the station across the street. The high-pitched attention-grabbing noise bounced off the walls.
I waited for the truck to get around the corner and the noise to subside. “Why Dawn?”
“It’s funny,” said Charles who was trying to balance his cane vertically with the rubber-tipped end on his palm. “She’s on the list for the opposite reason as Nick. Dawn’s always broke. Her ex-husband hasn’t done anything but cause trouble. He dumped her with a spittoon full of debt. Her two kids skipped the state once they were old enough. She doesn’t know where they are. She’s always getting calls here from people she owes money to.” The cane flipped out of his hand and bounced off the table. “Whoops,” he said.
After suggesting that he keep his bartending detective job and not join the circus as a juggler, I asked if poverty was the only reason he suspected Dawn. A scratching sound coming from the ceiling interrupted our conversation.
Charles jumped out of his chair and grabbed the ion counter and a candle. He pointed to the ceiling and stared at the digital screen on the counter, where nothing, absolutely nothing, happened.
The scratching appeared to scurry to the other side of the ceiling, and I laughed. Charles put his finger to his lips for silence.
“It’s a mouse,” I said. “I told you there’s a bunch of them here. I’m not the expert on the unnatural like you and Heather, but I know a mouse when I hear one. Is that what you’ve heard after closing?”
“Could be. I never thought of it in rodent terms,” he said, clearly disappointed. “How about the ghost of a mouse?”
I ignored his desperate stretch and suggested that we give up ghost watching for the night. I thought the mouse population would be here all the time, and no self-respecting burglar would be out at three in the morning.
“Another half hour?” he asked. His tone was close to begging, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to stay thirty more minutes. We settled back in our chairs, and
I pinched my arm to to keep from falling asleep.
“Heather says Daniel’s alive,” he said without looking at me.
Considering the source, I would tend to dismiss Charles’s comment if I hadn’t been thinking the same thing after I let Joan out at Water’s Edge. “Why does she think that?”
“Said she would know if he had crossed over to Deadsville.”
“She never met the man,” I said. “She’s never been to Gatlinburg, and she hasn’t even met Joan. How would she know that?”
“Good question,” he said. “I asked the same thing. She said she knows my vibes, and I’d spent time with Joan and even visited the scene of the intentional accident. She seemed mighty confident.” Charles paused and then carried his cup over to the coffeepot. He refilled it, picked up his cup, and then set it back down. “Do you know why he may have faked his death?”
I didn’t tell Charles that I’d had this same conversation with myself within the past twenty-four hours. “He was mysterious with Joan about why he got out of the Jaguar partnership. Actually, he was evasive about why he’d decided to leave California.”
“Sounds like reasons to me,” said Charles. “Think he wanted to get away from her? It’d be mighty cruel to fake his death and leave her hanging, unless he wanted to vamoose.”
“I don’t know enough about their relationship to say. I think she has emotional problems, but in the last day, I’ve seen glimmers of the kind, wonderful lady I fell in love with years ago. But really, no clue.”
“Hmm,” said Charles as he walked around the bar and blew out candles. “Anyway, that’s only Heather’s psychic whatever speaking.”
“Do you have a different idea?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Charles. He turned on the fluorescent lights, blew out the last candle, and said, “I think Joan killed him.”
I didn’t see that coming. “What makes you think that?” I asked.
“What do you really know about her?” he asked. “I know all the blah, blah, blah stuff from when you were married. That leaves out the last twenty-four years. A lot can happen in that amount of time.”
“I can’t argue with that. But why do you think it was her?”
He shrugged. “No good reason. Just think it should be considered.”
I offered a silent prayer that neither Heather nor Charles was right.
CHAPTER 34
I hadn’t heard from Joan the last couple of days, and then I literally ran into her at Bert’s. She was carrying cleaning supplies and a quart of milk. I knocked a box of dish soap out of her arm.
“Sorry,” I said. I leaned down and picked up the box, smiling at her. “I didn’t think you liked the shopping on Folly.”
She returned my smile and then looked around the iconic store that sold everything from beer to bait. “I possibly mistook character for grunge. I figured if it was good enough for you, I’d chance it.”
That was the second time that she’d said something like that. I nodded as she paid Eric, whose dark hair and beard were almost as long as some of the tales I’d heard in the grocery store.
“Want to get some lunch?” she said as I followed her out to her car. She had parked on the side of the store that was covered by a painted mural featuring a larger-than-life likeness of Bert.
“Sure,” I said, offering to pick her up at her place. My car was at the house, within sight of the store. She said it wasn’t necessary and for me to hop in. Before she pulled out of the parking space, she stopped, studied the mural, and then turned to me. “Folly?”
“You got it.”
She stopped at Water’s Edge and took the bag to her villa while I waited in the car. I mentioned the Charleston Crab House, and she said, “Why not?” The restaurant was off Folly Road, about nine miles from the island.
I then said a silent prayer for a safe trip as she got behind the wheel and failed to fasten her seat belt, a habit that I had given up trying to break back when George H. W. Bush was president. We weaved through a residential area of Folly, past some of the quaint, rustic cottages that contributed to the island’s unique charm, and slid onto Folly Road. I grabbed the door handle and Joan reached over and patted my knee. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ve had high-performance driver training.”
I didn’t loosen my grip on the handle but managed to ask, “Why?”
She laughed. “Daniel said that if I was going to be driving cars that cost more than starter homes, I needed to know how to not wreck them.” She passed a driver who had the audacity to drive the speed limit and almost rear-ended a bumper sticker–adorned minivan. “Besides, I think he liked to brag to his friends about his ‘cool race car–driving wife.’”
Her conviction that speed limits didn’t apply to her ensured that we arrived ahead of the lunch crowd. We were escorted to the best indoor table, which overlooked Wappoo Creek. In the summer, diners would be entertained by dozens of small boats packed with laughing, happy groups enjoying the scenery and the occasional dolphin that chose the peacefulness of the creek over the rambunctious Atlantic. Today one small pleasure craft motored by on the creek that was as wide as many small rivers.
A typical fish restaurant menu matched the décor and featured some of the freshest seafood in the area. Joan ordered a bottle of Cabernet without asking what I wanted—perhaps she knew me better than I thought. I recommended the coconut fried shrimp plate and ordered the fried flounder plate for myself. She sat back in her chair and took a deep breath. A faint smell of frying fish reached our table.
She smiled. “This is nice.”
I returned the smile and asked how she was adjusting to Folly Beach and her villa.
“I’m trying to make the best of a bad—scratch that, a terrible situation.” She tilted her head to the left and then to the right. “I don’t want to be here, but … I can’t turn back the clock. Daniel’s gone; my home’s gone. And I think I’m getting used to your island.”
The wine arrived, and we each took a sip and looked out on the waterway. Joan was much more relaxed than the last time we’d talked.
“Remember,” she said, continuing to stare outside, “the time we drove up to New York City and the car broke down on the Pennsylvania Turnpike?”
“And you said, ‘Who wants to see that old Empire State Building, anyway?’”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “I was thinking about that on the way over here from home, er, Gatlinburg. If Daniel and I had car trouble, he would have cussed, fumed, and been mad for days. All you did was say not to worry. Said we’d get the car fixed and still see all there was to see in the Big Apple.” She paused; a sparkle appeared in the corner of her eye. “I also remember that night in the roadside motel with the squeaky bed and all.”
I thought I might be blushing. “I remember too,” I said.
“Maybe you’re not so dull after all. I could’ve used a lot more of that calm in my life.” She finally turned toward me and smiled.
“‘Not so dull.’ Gee, thanks.”
Our lunch arrived, and we ate in silence until she said, “Tell me about Amber.”
I nearly choked on a hush puppy. “What about her?”
“I’ve been in the Dog a couple more times, and she waited on me once. Said she knew you pretty well. She didn’t say it, but I had the feeling there was history between you two.”
I hesitated and then realized that there wasn’t any reason not to tell her about Amber—but also no reason to tell her. I gave her an abridged version of how I had met Amber, how we had been friends for a year or so before going out, and what had occurred that ended our dating.
Joan surprised me when she said, “Her loss.” My next sip of wine was larger.
“So now you’re dating Karen, the ‘government worker’ who happens to be a detective with the sheriff’s office,” she said with a wink.
My face reddened; it was
no big deal what Karen did, but we had hidden it from Joan. “We’ve gone out some. I don’t know how serious it is.”
“I hear her dad’s Folly’s police chief,” she said.
How can I keep Joan away from the Lost Dog gossip pit? I wondered.
“Yes, Brian’s the chief and a friend,” I said. I wanted to change the subject. I knew if we stayed on this topic, Joan would start thinking about the alleged killer. The lunch was too pleasant to sink to that. I told her about Charles and how we had met, mentioning our shared interest in photography and a little about the history of the struggling gallery.
“Remember when we went to the Four Tops concert in Cincinnati?” I said.
“Yeah, I remember that you complained the whole way.” She held her wineglass up to me as if she were toasting something. “You kept saying, ‘Motown, Motown, and a two-hundred-mile drive. Yuck!’” She laughed. “I also remember your saying on the ride back how much you liked the concert.”
“The point is—”
“The point is,” she interrupted, “that you finally surrendered and started liking the Supremes, the Temptations, and the other groups that I liked—groups you wouldn’t listen to before.”
“True,” I conceded, “that’s one point, but I brought it up because it’s similar to you and Folly. You said you didn’t like the feel and look of the place, but the more you give it a chance, I guarantee it’ll grow on you.”
“So,” she said, rubbing her chin in an exaggerated motion, “because you like the Supremes, you think I could start liking weird president-quoting scruffy ole Charles?”
I laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. Take it one step at a time.”
The longer we sat, the more we drifted to the kinds of conversations we’d had in college. We talked about the things we agreed on and some of the same things that we had debated some forty years ago. She still couldn’t understand how I could like both the Beach Boys and George Jones. I said it was an admirable eclectic musical taste; she said it was just weird. Her laughter came more naturally. She shared how she had acquired an interest in opera and ballet. I said I would be glad to give her any tickets I was given to either of those events.
