I started an electronic profile for Phillip Drayton, pulling together information from public records, several private subscription databases, the scant information in his obituary, and what Sonny had told me.
Phillip Michael Drayton was born March 23, 1973 at Medical University of South Carolina to parents Charlotte Ann Bull and Phillip Michael Drayton, Senior. Both parents were Charleston natives, their names indicating I could spend days tracing their heritage and, while interesting, it was likely irrelevant. They were both deceased.
Phillip attended Porter-Gaud private school and then Duke University. He had no criminal record, and no civil actions had been filed against him. He owned his home on Murray Boulevard through a family trust, as well as property in Naples, Florida and Southampton, New York. None of the property was mortgaged.
He’d been publicly recognized for sizable charitable contributions made through The Drayton Foundation. He and Mrs. Drayton enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle. No software or database I had access to would give me banking information or the details of his investment accounts or tax returns. There were limits to the information I could gather electronically. But everything I could find indicated that whatever Phillip Drayton’s problems had been, they weren’t financial in nature. Anne Frances Drayton was the only other beneficiary of the family trust, and she now controlled The Drayton Foundation.
Phillip’s blog, Charleston Feasts & Yarns, was interesting. Along with weekly restaurant reviews, he posted historical anecdotes and notices of upcoming cultural events he found intriguing. From skimming his blog, I couldn’t see angry restauranteurs coming after him. Then again, there were hundreds of reviews here and it would take days to read them all, but from what I’d seen of the most recent, if he’d ever eaten at a restaurant he didn’t find superb, he didn’t blog about it.
Phillip seemed to enjoy having his photo taken with chefs, and every one of those featured was smiling. Still, I needed help going through the reviews. I couldn’t discount someone taking revenge for a bad writeup from two years ago that had led to a restaurant’s demise. Interesting that Phillip’s highly photogenic wife wasn’t in any of the photos, nor was she mentioned in the blog posts I read.
I logged on to Facebook and searched for Phillip Drayton. His security settings must have been set to public, because I could browse his friend list and, it appeared, everything he’d ever posted—and he’d posted a lot. There were links to his blog posts, photos of him with restauranteurs, chefs, and local celebrities. I scrolled past two with Bill Murray.
There were occasional photos with his wife—at charity events and on holidays. I studied the photos of Anne Frances Drayton. She looked happy. They both did. But appearances were often deceiving. Like the blog, a thorough search of Facebook would be time consuming. I set that aside for later.
Next, as was my custom, I created profiles for everyone closest to Phillip and worked my way out. The software I used made easy work of tracking family connections, automatically populating information on close relatives. Sadly, Phillip had few of those. I found the brother Sonny had mentioned, Daniel John Drayton. Phillip had married only once, five years ago, and had no children. I started with his wife.
Anne Frances Carlisle was born on May 5, 1976 in Chicago. Her parents still lived at the same address and she had a brother in an adjacent zip code. Nothing I found suggested she’d attended college. The first address records I located aside from her current address and the one on her birth certificate was in Naples, Florida, where she lived from 1995 until she married Phillip Drayton in June of 2010. She’d worked as an interior decorator. Was that how they’d met?
An announcement in the Naples Daily News said that the couple had married in a private ceremony at The Inn on 5th, and then left for an extended honeymoon trip to Europe. No attendants’ names were listed. It was a low-key wedding for someone with Phillip Drayton’s means, especially given that it was a first marriage for both of them.
I couldn’t find any evidence that Anne Frances had worked after they returned from their honeymoon and settled into Phillip’s Charleston home. So, she gave up her career, but based on what Poppy had said about her being at home every day, she didn’t seem to have thrown herself into the Charleston social scene. She had no criminal record and no civil actions against her. And no Facebook profile. Anne Frances Drayton had a small electronic footprint. Sonny had said Phillip’s brother suspected she had something to do with his death. Why?
Daniel John Drayton was two years younger than Phillip and had attended the same schools. He, likewise, had no criminal or civil actions and had inherited wealth which he seemingly managed well. If he’d had a motive to kill his brother, it didn’t appear to be money, even if he hadn’t known that Anne Frances inherited everything. I’d need to learn much more about him than was available in databases.
I did a preliminary search for distant Drayton and Hall relatives. Second and third cousins were scattered across California, in the Atlanta area, and in Vermont. It was virtually inconceivable that any of those folks were involved in Phillip’s death. Still, I made a note.
Next, I turned my attention to Poppy Jayne Oliver. She was born on Valentine’s Day in 1981, at MUSC. Her father was in the Army and died in a training accident at Fort Irwin in California when she was only two. Her mother, the former Jayne Smith, had died of breast cancer in 2008. Poppy was the only child of two only children. Both sets of grandparents were deceased. How sad for anyone to be that completely alone in this world. I said a prayer of thanks for each and every member of my gloriously dysfunctional family.
I wondered how long Poppy’s mother had been sick. Nothing I found indicated she’d gone to college. Had she been taking care of her mother? They’d lived in a quiet West Ashley neighborhood. I remembered Poppy saying that she’d had to sell the house to pay the medical bills. She’d gone to work for the postal service twelve years ago. Before that, she’d held a variety of jobs at businesses ranging from restaurants to retail shops to a grocery store. Nothing vaguely suspicious popped up in Poppy’s background—not even a traffic ticket.
I sighed long and loud. “All of these people have uneventful timelines. We need to talk to Mrs. Drayton, and to Daniel, the brother. Find out what’s not a matter of record. Why he’s suspicious of her. But with the visitation tomorrow and the funeral Tuesday, I don’t want to intrude on these folks’ grief.”
“Probably better we don’t introduce ourselves as investigators until after the funeral anyway,” said Nate.
I noodled that over. “Plus, whoever is responsible for Phillip Drayton’s death, they’re already worried about the police. As soon as they find out private investigators are also snooping around, they’ll get even more skittish. We need them to relax and get careless. The more they have to worry about, the more careful they’ll be.”
“So, you think we should put off interviewing the widow and the brother for a few days?”
“That feels right,” I said. “This whole case is unconventional—we don’t even know who our client is. Perhaps our approach should be upside down as well. The first thing we typically do is talk to everyone involved. Let’s don’t interview anyone just yet—don’t let them know we’re investigators. Let’s watch them all for a few days and see what happens.”
Nate thought for a few moments. “That could work. At least until we find out who hired us and what they know.”
“Want to go to the visitation as Tommy and Suzanne?” My middle name was Suzanne. Nate’s was Thomas. We often used our alter egos, Tommy and Suzanne, for situations requiring a pretext, along with Mamma’s maiden name—Moore.
“That works,” said Nate.
“I think we should be married.”
Nate tilted his head from left to right, considering. “Okay. Tommy and Suzanne with a twist. What’s our connection to Drayton?”
“Seriously? No one is going to ask us that. If they do
, I’ll be suddenly overcome with grief and you’ll have to take me home. If we try to fake something, we run the risk of tripping up.”
“Okay,” said Nate, “but you’d best go in disguise. Then you can still interview the wife and the brother later on.”
“Fine by me. I love playing dress-up.”
“Do you now?” His drawl was low, husky, suggested all manner of things.
My breath caught in my throat and my heart rate picked up. His blue eyes twinkled with warmth and mischief. I made a few promises with mine. Then I stood and sashayed out of the room.
He caught me before I reached the stairs, wrapped long, tanned, strong arms around me and kissed me on the back of the neck. Then, real low, he said, “You have some intriguing possibilities in your closet. I confess to a particular fondness for the black lace. I’ll open a bottle of wine and be right up.”
I smiled as I climbed the stairs. I was a lucky, lucky woman.
NINE
Monday morning, after our run and breakfast, I headed back into Charleston. Nate’s project for the day was to dig deeper into Phillip Drayton’s life—his friends, his blog, and his social media presence. I was off to check in with Sonny and then Poppy before running surveillance on Tess Hathaway.
It was a sad truth that the people closest to Poppy were the people on her mail route. That included 327 homes and forty businesses. In theory, any of them could’ve been our client. But we had to start somewhere. The conversation I’d overheard between Tess and Aida Butler, where Aida’s primary concern was her reputation and Tess referred to Poppy as “Our Poppy,” convinced me Tess Hathaway was the logical place to start. My instincts said she was our client, and my instincts typically served me well. I wanted to know what our client knew. I met Sonny for coffee first thing at Kudu on Vanderhorst.
It was early yet and still bearable, so we sat in the courtyard. I admired the artsy flourish on my mocha, inhaled deeply, savoring the blend of coffee and chocolate, then took the first sip. Sonny washed down a bite of ham and cheese croissant with coffee, then said, “So, what do you have?”
I raised both eyebrows, widened my eyes. “Virtually nothing. For several reasons, we’ve elected not to interview anyone directly just yet. We want to observe them for a few days.”
“Good luck with that,” said Sonny. “The wife has barely left the house. I followed her to the funeral home and to the church to make arrangements.”
“Any friends come by?” I asked.
“A few neighbors, couple other women brought casseroles and whatnot,” he said. “But no one stayed longer than five-ten minutes.”
“She seems very isolated,” I said. “Her only family is in the Chicago area. A brother, parents. It’s sad none of them have come down to be with her.”
“Not everyone is as close to their family as you are.”
“I know that’s true. I just feel bad for her,” I said. “From a practical standpoint, it doesn’t appear that she has family close enough that they would kill to protect her.”
“You mean if her husband was abusing her.”
“If he was, right,” I said. “And if she has local friends who would defend her to the death, they’re staying clear of her right now.”
“Looks that way.” Sonny had a great poker face.
“I dug into her background last night,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows, looked away, and picked up his coffee.
Had he found something there I’d missed? Sonny had access to certain types of information I didn’t. “Her electronic footprint is awfully small,” I said. “Have you run across anything that makes you suspicious of her aside from the fact that she’s the spouse?”
Sonny gave me a sour look.
I knew it. He knew something he hadn’t planned to volunteer just yet, but he wouldn’t lie to me either.
“This probably doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
“What doesn’t?”
“She popped up in a report as a witness in a drug case. Apparently ran with a rough crowd as a teenager—before she left Chicago. She was a known associate of Lucious Calvin Carter, a drug kingpin. Back then he was more a rising star in the drug and gang world. He’s got a long rap sheet and a reputation for violence.”
I stared at him. “That was an awfully long time ago. Did she have a juvenile record? Did she testify against him?”
“No, she didn’t have a record. And the case wasn’t against Lucious, it was one of his underlings. She did not testify. The defendant never made it to trial. He was killed in a hit and run accident.”
“Wait, Sonny. You don’t think—”
“No, I don’t think Anne Frances Drayton is a serial hit and runner. I told you. I know she didn’t drive the car that hit her husband. It’s just—” He seemed to be searching for a word.
“Intriguing,” I said.
“Yeah, intriguing.”
I mulled that for a few minutes. It could be irrelevant. Everyone had baggage. Some of us had heavier bags than others. “She’s certainly turned her life around. She lived in Naples for fifteen years after she left Chicago—no criminal record. She must’ve been running with a classier crowd or she would’ve never met Phillip Drayton, much less married him.”
Sonny shrugged. “I told you. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”
I tucked that away to think about more later. “Hey, I wanted to ask you: when you came to her door Thursday night, how long did it take her to answer?”
“Less than five minutes. Why?”
“If the doorbell woke her right up, she didn’t miss anything else that went down in her house.”
“That’s a fact.”
“What was Drayton wearing?” Poppy had told me, but I was leading Sonny somewhere.
“Khakis. A golf shirt. Loafers, no socks. No raingear.”
“So, what’s your theory? I mean, what was he doing outside in that torrential rainstorm?”
Sonny took a long sip of coffee, rolled his lips in and out. “Honestly, I have no idea. It could’ve been anything. Maybe he saw someone in distress. Maybe he took a wild hair to walk in the rain—people do that. We may never know what he was doing outside. But your client and her car were there, and her car has a dent in the fender. She is also overly involved in the lives of the people on her mail route. Could be she was lying in wait, watching the house. Might’ve done that for a long time, waiting for an opportunity. Maybe in her mind, she thought she was saving Mrs. Drayton from further abuse and possible death. That’s one of several possibilities I’m working.”
“But then why would Poppy get out of her car? Why stop at all?”
“I don’t know that—yet.”
“Sonny, you know I have a lot of respect for you. Hell, you’re family. But I think you’re reading this one wrong.”
“Noted.”
“What about the cars street-parked along Lenwood that night?”
“What about them?”
“Did you run the tags?”
“Of course I did. Every one of them belonged to someone who lives on Lenwood.”
I shrugged. “Just dotting my i’s.”
“Yeah, well. Let me know when you’re all done.”
“Has forensics finished with Poppy’s car?”
“Not yet.”
“But clearly they haven’t found any trace evidence—fibers, blood, anything that ties Poppy’s car to Phillip Drayton— or you would’ve already arrested her.”
“There are more tests they can run.”
“Let me know when you’re all done.”
If you know the route of any given mail carrier, it wasn’t hard to track them down. Fortunately, the routes are posted online. I was certain there was some scientific method or other as to how the routes were drawn, but it evaded me. Many of them included non-contiguous blocks and part
ial blocks. I picked Poppy’s out easily based on the few stops I knew were on it. I had no way of knowing where she’d start her route, so I drove the streets until I saw a mail truck parked on Hasell, between Meeting and King. I snagged a metered spot half a block away, locked the car, and scanned the street for Poppy as I made my way to her truck.
I didn’t have to wait long. As Poppy approached, the wary look on her face came into focus. “Fancy meeting you here.” She put her mail cart in the truck.
“Hey, Poppy,” I said. “You doin’ okay today? I have some bottled water in the car if you need it.”
“I’m good. Just, you know, have to get the mail delivered.” She looked at a spot over my shoulder, gave me a little half smile. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m so sorry to bother you while you’re working. But something’s come up, and I wondered, how well do you know Tess Hathaway?”
Poppy blinked, looked directly at me. “Mrs. Hathaway? She lives across from White Point Garden.”
“Right. How well do you know her?”
“Not well. She’s usually not there when I deliver the mail. I mean, she’s a nice lady. Why are you asking me about her?” Poppy sounded vaguely protective.
Strains of music wafted across the street. Classical. I didn’t know the piece, but it was lovely, soothing. I glanced towards it. A grey Honda Accord rolled slowly by with the windows rolled down. The woman behind the wheel stared in our direction, either at me or at Poppy, it was hard to tell. She was maybe in her mid-thirties with long, straight, pale blonde hair that extended below the window line. My eyes met hers and she jerked her head towards her windshield, then slammed on brakes as she nearly rear-ended the car in front of her. What was her deal? It was probably nothing, but I made a note of the tag number. Where had I seen a grey Honda recently? I thought for a moment. The woman parked along the Lower Battery, staring across the water. But there must be hundreds of grey Honda Accords in Charleston County, not to mention the daily influx of tourists.
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