by Bill Noel
Cindy went into police mode and took notes. She lifted her head from her pad and turned to Joan. “And you’re certain you don’t know where you’ve seen the guy before?”
“Sorry, no,” said Joan, “As I told Chris, it could have been from California or Tennessee.” She paused and looked at the coffeemaker. “It wasn’t from here.”
“Describe him again,” said Cindy, her pen poised over the small notepad.
“Brown hair,” began Joan. “I guess he was average height, maybe five ten or so. His weight, also average.”
“Around one sixty?” asked Cindy.
Joan shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”
“Clothes?”
“Dark slacks, long-sleeved shirt, maybe brown. No coat. Sorry, that’s the best I can do—I only saw him for a second.”
“No, that’s great. Age?” asked Cindy.
“Not too old; not too young,” said Joan.
That will help a lot, I thought.
Cindy tilted her head in my direction. “Older than old man Chris here?”
Joan grinned. “Much younger than that,” she said, tapping me on the arm.
“Okay,” said Cindy as she pretended to jot down a note. “Pregeezer.”
That got a bigger laugh from Joan than it deserved. But I was pleased that the two were getting along and that Joan was relaxing. Cindy took the description of the pickup from yesterday. Joan was pleased that Cindy took her more seriously than the Charleston cop had.
Joan told us that she couldn’t remember anything else, and then Cindy turned to me. “I can’t put this through the system, but Allen Spencer’s on patrol. I’ll get with him and give him this description. If that truck’s on Folly, we’ll find it.”
On her way out the door, Cindy touched Joan’s arm and said, “I’m sorry for your troubles. If you need anything while you’re here, please let me know.”
“Nice lady,” said Joan as she watched Cindy drive away.
CHAPTER 38
Charles, William, and I were at the gallery the day after Joan saw the “killer.” I had told them about the truck ramming, Joan spotting the “familiar” person, and our meeting with Cindy.
Then Charles said, “Cindy called you a geezer?”
He needed more detective lessons. I ignored him.
William took the high road and said, “From what you have so eloquently shared, it would appear that your initial concerns about Joan being paranoid with an overextended imagination could be highly inaccurate.”
I figured that meant that William thought Joan was telling the truth. “I can’t be certain about the death of her husband or the explosion, but yesterday’s love tap by a monster truck was bone-jarringly real. Her defensive driving was all that saved us from a trip to the hospital or worse.”
“I surmise that Officers LaMond and Spencer did not find the gentleman,” said William.
“No,” I said. “Cindy called last night and said they ‘covered the island like a bad blizzard’ and saw ‘neither hide nor follicle’ of man or machine.”
“Too many places to hide a truck,” said Charles. “Besides, there’s no reason to think he’s staying on-island, is there?”
I shook my head.
“Chris,” said William, “I don’t wish to complicate this matter more than it already is, but—and tell me if I could be wrong—the gentleman somehow following Joan to Folly doesn’t preclude the possibility that her husband faked his own death and ignited the explosion to the family home or hired the gentleman Joan saw to set it.”
“That’s possible.” I thought for a second. “She could have recognized him as someone she’d seen with Daniel.”
“If that’s true,” said Charles, “why kill her?”
“Why does anyone want her dead?” I said. “Apparently someone, someone who could be Daniel, believes she knows something that’s a threat.”
“And,” added William, “she may or may not know what it is.”
We weren’t getting anywhere—at least, anywhere productive—so I changed the subject. “Charles, what’s the latest on your hunt for the bourbon bandit?”
Charles huffed. “Thanks for bringing that up—again,” he said. “This morning the tables were rearranged and a deck of cards was placed on the center of one of the rearranged tables. Five chairs were knocked over and scattered around on the floor. Dawn locked up last night. She said that everything was fine when she left.”
“What was purloined?” asked William.
“That’s what’s strange,” said Charles as he shook his head. “Nothing—absolutely nothing was missing.”
“The ghosts played a few hands of poker?” I asked.
“That’s what Heather said. What’s worse, I think word’s out about me. Some of the ’spects are asking who I think’s doing it.”
“Our island does have a storied history involving ghosts,” said William.
That got my attention, although I’d heard bits and pieces about ghosts in the Charleston area as well as on Folly.
“The Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment was one of the first African American units in the Civil War. They were called colored units—and much worse.” He slowly shook his head. “Anyway, the regiment fought gallantly for the Union. Accounts reveal that the unit left Massachusetts to head here in excellent spirits despite the Confederate proclamation to put all African American soldiers under what amounted to a death sentence.”
“Glory—Morgan Freeman,” said Charles.
“Correct,” said William.
“Huh?” said I.
“The movie Glory, from the late nineteen eighties, depicted the exploits of the Fifty-Fourth,” said William. “Now, Charles, if I may continue.” He looked at Charles as if he were one of his students throwing spitballs at the cute redhead two seats over.
Charles leaned back. “Please do, Professor.”
“In eighteen sixty-three, the regiment fought a courageous battle at Fort Wagner, which was on Morris Island, off Folly Island, past the decommissioned coast guard station. They suffered more than two hundred and fifty casualties, including fifty-three men who died in the battle or later from wounds suffered.”
“Your point, Professor?” said the inpatient private investigator.
“Ah, patience, my friend,” said William. “Fifty-two of the men from the Fifty-Fourth—and, a little later, the Fifty-Fifth Massachusetts Volunteers—were never accounted for, and many of the dead were buried on Folly. I have been told by people who have heard it on good authority that the ghosts of some of these young men, cut down in their youth defending their country, still haunt the island.”
“Any bourbon drinkers?” asked Charles.
Scary as it seemed, I think he was serious.
William took a sip of tea I’d managed to brew and then smiled. “Most likely,” he said. “Whiskey was the alcoholic drink of choice of many in those days, but I never heard it specifically mentioned. Most recent reports talk of strangers walking up to someone and even speaking before disappearing in direct view of the startled observer. Others reported smelling burning flesh and seeing shadows near the graffiti-clad concrete foundation from one of the demolished coast guard buildings. One person even shared that the ghost saved a life by telling the person about deadly rip currents and saying that others were in danger.” William hesitated and looked toward the door. “I’m not certain that I believe these stories, you understand; I’m simply repeating what I have been told.”
Charles pointed his cane toward Cal’s. “You may not be certain,” he said, “but Heather is convinced beyond a shadow of a ghost that Cal’s is haunted and the haunters are stealing whiskey, money, and having a jolly good time playing cards.”
William listened patiently as Charles presented Heather’s theory and waved his cane around dangerously close to my head. �
�Let’s for a moment go out on a limb and say that Miss Heather is incorrect,” said William. “If a mortal creature is responsible, how is he or she entering Cal’s?”
I liked the limb he was on and waited for Charles. Both Dude and William had asked the same question.
“I’ve not the foggiest idea,” he said.
And I waited for that, I thought.
“I am not a detective like you,” said William with a straight face, “but I would think that if you determined the method of entry, you would have traveled a long way toward solving the crimes for which you are being compensated to decipher.”
Go, William, go.
Charles pointed his cane at William. “I don’t have my official private detective license and decoder ring,” said Charles. “But your question has been right up here.” He put the tip of his index finger to his head. “It’s got me befuddled.”
“Could he or she possess a key?” asked William.
“The first couple of times, sure,” said Charles. “There were several keys to the building and to where the cash was stashed. Cal had Larry change the locks. There are two keys now. Cal has one, and I have the other. If others open or close, they get the key from Cal.” Charles reached in his pocket and pulled out a key ring that held three keys and a mangy-looking rabbit’s foot, holding it up as if we had never seen a key ring before. He took each key and pointed it at us. “This is for my apartment; this one’s the key to Cal’s; and I don’t know what this one’s to.”
“And what would be the significance of the Leporidae?” asked William.
I speculated that he meant the rabbit rather than the Latin name for a silver key ring.
“Dang, William,” said Charles. “Am I going to have to start hauling a dictionary with me in case I cross your path?”
William chortled. “Sorry, my friend,” he said. “I had assumed that you were smarter than the average Ursidae. Leporidae is a rabbit.”
Ah, William does have a sense of humor to go with his extraordinary vocabulary, I thought.
Charles sighed and dropped his arms to his side. He refrained from asking about Ursidae and said, “Why didn’t you say so?” He then waved the rabbit’s foot in William’s face. “Heather said it would ward off evil spirits.” He looked at the appendage in his hand. “I think she may have made that up so that I wouldn’t worry.”
“Shocking,” I said. I had had enough Latin lessons and was curious to hear how well Charles had checked out possible ways a nonghost could have entered Cal’s.
Charles apparently had expanded his vocabulary as much as he could take. “Back to my point,” he said. “The unsub—that’s what we detectives call the unknown perpetrator, you know—didn’t use a key to get in. There was no evidence that the doors were jimmied. They look good as new, or as new as an old door can look.”
“It’s an old building,” I said. “Are there other openings like a crawl space or loose wall boards, or openings where pipes enter the building, or … anything?”
“I’ve walked around it I don’t know how many times,” said Charles. “I can’t see anything. It sits smack-dab on the ground; there’s no crawl space. Three of the sides don’t touch anything, and the other side shares a wall with Ada’s Arts and Crafts.”
Ada Yurt, an eighty-something-year-old native of Folly Beach who painted landscapes of scenes from along the coast, was the owner of Ada’s Arts and Crafts. She painted as well as Heather sang and as well as sea turtles flew, but she was likable and sold dozens of paintings each year. Most of her sales were of foot-long pieces of driftwood with a grinning—according to the artist—seagull painted on them. The quality of the unique pieces of art was dreadful, but Ada was so sweet that guilt usually convinced vacationers to purchase one.
“Could someone get in Cal’s through Ms. Yurt’s store?” asked William.
“Already checked,” said Charles with his chin held high. “Ada let me inspect the connecting wall. Checked it twice. All that’s against the wall is a shelf with tubes of oil paint on it. There’s no way anyone could get in Cal’s from there. And if you know anyone who would like to buy a lovely painting of a seagull on driftwood, let me know.” He shook his head. “I’m now the proud owner of two.”
Neither William nor I jumped at that opportunity.
Perhaps it really is a ghost, I thought.
I may have had doubts about whom or what was stealing Cal’s bourbon, but it wasn’t a ghost that wanted to cause serious harm to Joan. And that was frightening.
CHAPTER 39
I blocked out thoughts of Joan’s problems and Charles’s ghosts for the next two days. The beach had an unusual influx of off-season vacationers, and I was surprisingly busy in the gallery. Charles had stopped in and hinted that he was exhausted from tending bar—until I said that I could handle the steady stream of customers by myself. He yawned, thanked me, and headed home to get his “beauty sleep.” He would normally have knocked me out of the way to assume his sales manager role. He really was tired. And although he wouldn’t admit it, he was worried about catching whomever or whatever.
Charles and Heather stopped by the gallery late Saturday afternoon. He wore a crimson sweatshirt with NEW MEXICO STATE AGGIES and what looked like a gunslinger on the front. Heather was more muted in a dark green blouse under a fuzzy light green jacket. She said that “Chucky” was taking her on a date and they were going to supper at Woody’s, Folly’s pizza restaurant of choice.
I thought about telling them to be careful, not do anything that I wouldn’t do, and to be home early, but went with, “You kids have fun.”
Heather wrapped her arm around Charles and giggled. “We plan to,” she said.
Charles rolled his eyes toward the brim of his Tilley.
Heather stuck her tongue out at him and then turned toward me. “Hey,” she said, “why don’t you and Joanie double-date with us?”
Charles pulled her close to his side.
“I’ve had good sales today,” I said. “I’m going to hang around a couple more hours. Besides, Joan and I aren’t dating.”
“That’s not her fault,” said Heather. “I heard—”
“Time to go,” interrupted Charles.
Heather wasn’t to be deterred. “Oh, Chucky, Woody’s isn’t that busy.” She elbowed Charles. “Chris, Amber tells me that Joanie the ex has been in the Dog a few times asking about your social life. Heck, I saw her there myself. She was asking more questions than a lawyer on an hourly rate.” Heather gave her head a big stage nod. “Yep, she’s out to rehook you—no doubt.”
Heather had finally said her piece and then allowed Charles—Chucky—to guide her toward the door and on their way for a hot date at Woody’s.
Charles and Heather hadn’t been gone five minutes when Karen called. She asked if I wanted to get something to eat. It was rare for her to call, and this was the first time she had asked me out. I said sure, adding that I was closing in thirty minutes; curiosity trumped last-minute sales.
We met at Applebee’s off Folly Road, halfway between the island and her house. I preferred locally owned restaurants—McDonald’s being the exception—but Applebee’s was convenient, with a predictable and reasonably priced menu. Besides, I wasn’t about to go against Karen’s suggestion. Curiosity also trumped restaurant choices.
Karen was in a booth when I arrived. She stood and kissed me on the cheek. It felt comfortable. She wore tight black jeans, a maroon turtleneck, and her lightweight bomber jacket.
We each ordered an entree and a glass of red wine before she got to the reason for the unexpected invitation.
“I thought about the incident on Folly Road, especially in relation to the other two events that Joan went through,” she said. I had called Karen the day after the truck ran us off the road and told her what had happened. “I called Officer Norton in Gatlinburg. I got his cell number when we were ther
e.”
I said I was pleased with her initiative.
“I caught him playing in the snow with his kids, but he was cordial. He asked how Joan was; he said he wondered where she had gone. Said everyone at church was praying for her.” She looked at the floor as if trying to remember anything else he had said. “Anyway, I told him about the incident with the truck, and he was stunned. I didn’t want to come across as telling him how to do his job, but I shared my view that the three incidents were related.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Said he agreed—in fact, he said he wasn’t happy with what happened there but couldn’t convince the higher-ups to do anything. Norton said that his guys just gave a cursory look at the scene. There are several gas leaks this time of year, and occasionally one causes an explosion. He then started talking really low and said something about the medical examiner’s office screwing up the tests.”
“DNA?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “They finally determined that it was Daniel in the car.”
“Wow. That sure eliminates him as a suspect,” I said.
“Yeah, but not much else.”
“What can Norton do?”
Karen laughed and shook her head. “He asked for a description of the truck and the man Joan saw. When I finished, he said, ‘Okay, all I have to do is find an average-looking guy driving a black pickup truck in the pickup capital of these here United States?’”
She reached across the table and patted my hand. “He said that he could find fifty people who fit that description in fifteen minutes and asked if I wanted to hold while he rounded them up.” She laughed again. “He said he knew three people in the police station who qualified.”
I smiled. Her warm hand felt good on my fingers. “I suppose finding the right one will be the problem.”
“That’s what he said.” She squeezed my hand and then let go. “He also said that a couple of people in the church who knew some about Daniel’s car business said that the last few months he seemed distant and worried about something. One of the men told Norton that when he asked Daniel what was wrong, he waved him off and said that he was having some paperwork problems with the California sale. ‘Stupid tax stuff,’ was how he put it.”
