Missing

by Bill Noel

  I caught my breath and took off my fedora-style, canvas Tilley hat and waved it in front of my face. It wasn’t a blast of cold air, but it helped. We both wore shorts, and I could see drops of perspiration rolling down Karen’s well-toned legs. I gave her a summary of Samuel’s tale.

  “Can you trust him?” asked Karen when I finished.

  “I’m not certain. I’ve known him casually for years. He’s a good kid, friendly and intelligent.” I put the hat on the bench beside me and leaned back. “But truthfully, I don’t know what he saw.”

  She reached across my lap, grabbed my Tilley, and began fanning her face with it. “I’m no expert on teenagers,” she said. “Lord knows it’s been years since I was one, and I’m not around them enough to know much. I know they have vivid imaginations.”

  I had spent some time a couple of years before with Jason, Amber’s son, so I’d spent a modicum of time observing the mind of the young adult. “My experience is limited too,” I said. “But Samuel came across as truthful and was sincerely upset by the mysterious event.”

  “Even if he thinks he saw what you described,” said Karen, “you know eyewitness descriptions are unreliable.”

  I nodded.

  “It could’ve been lovers having fun,” said Karen. “Playing games, pretending, horsing around.”

  I nodded again and remained silent.

  “Okay,” she said. “What is it?”

  “What if he’s right?” I asked. I looked toward the bay and then back at Karen. “I’d feel terrible if someone was nabbed right off the walk to the beach and something horrible happens.”

  Karen smiled. “What’s your gut tell you?”

  “Samuel saw what he thought he saw.”

  She smiled again. “I can’t do much about it from my end, but since you and Chief Newman are close, I bet he’d run it through his databases and see if anyone is missing who fits the description.” She gave me a big grin. “Don’t tell him I suggested it.”

  I said I’d get with the chief tomorrow. She said “good” and told me that all this detective work had given her an appetite. She wanted to know where I was going to feed her—or, more accurately, which air-conditioned restaurant we were driving to.

  Fortunately, Karen was a cheap date, and we settled on McDonald’s.

  CHAPTER 4

  KAREN GOBBLED A HANDFUL OF FRIES TO REPLENISH the energy lost during the walk, took a sip of her drink, and then said, “I hear the mayor’s trying to force the chief out.”

  The restaurant was packed, but no one paid attention to our conversation. Kids screaming about getting to the pool took priority over a balding gentleman and the attractive, twenty-years-younger off-duty cop who was his lady friend.

  Mayor Joshua Lally had been elected in April and had used his landslide victory to hit the ground running. It seemed that his goal was to overturn everything the former mayor had worked for years to put in place.

  “Doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “I’ve heard he’s a puppet for that bunch they’re calling the interlopers.”

  “You’re right if you mean the new rich who are moving to the island and trying to sanitize it so it’s like Isle of Palms or Daniel Island,” she said, slamming her drink on the table and glaring out the large window at the traffic on Folly Road.

  I’d struck a nerve. Over the last decade there had been skirmishes, some minor and some coming nearly to blows, between two groups. There were those who wanted to, as they put it, “keep Folly, Folly.” The laid-back bohemian atmosphere and the dearth of hotels, major condo complexes, and upscale shopping so prevalent in up-and-coming beach communities were points of pride for most old-timers and newcomers who wanted the simpler lifestyle. And then there was the growing legion of recent arrivals who had money and wanted to use it to insulate themselves in McMansions, who abhorred the casual way of life and people, and who thought vacationers were as undesirable at “their beach” as sand fleas and tiger sharks.

  Folly’s mayor and six-member city council were elected to represent their constituents regardless of how diverse and divisive their interests may be. Each election brought the opportunity to change some of the cast of characters and the direction in which the majority led.

  “Has the mayor or any council members told the chief they want him out?” I asked.

  “Not directly,” said Karen. “The chief isn’t in a position to ask, of course. He’s only heard rumors, unless there’s something he hasn’t told me.”

  Karen referred to her dad as “the chief” other than during the most intimate family conversations. For several years, many residents didn’t know their true relationship and speculated—a kinder way of saying “sowed rumors”—that she was his young lover.

  “Has the mayor said anything to him about his performance?”

  “Yeah,” she said and then made a noise between a laugh and humph. “Said he was too soft on criminals.”

  She shook her head. “The man’s been Folly’s chief for eighteen years. He came right out of the army, where he was an MP and Special Services before that. He’s tough as titanium. Too soft? Bull!”

  I had seen the chief at work and knew he was good at balancing strict law enforcement with doses of common sense. If an inebriated citizen walked home and was thirty feet from his front yard, the chief would help him make it home safely. He knew his islanders, knew if they were a danger to themselves or others, knew when trouble was around the corner, and understood that tourism was a major industry on Folly Beach.

  I wasn’t certain where our peaceful, calm conversation about the alleged crime that Samuel had reported had gone astray. Karen was livid. I reached across the small table and put my hand on hers. Her fist was balled up, but she didn’t pull away. “What can I do?” I asked.

  “It’s unfair,” she said as she looked at our hands on the table. “He’s given a good part of his life to that community. He almost died three years ago doing his job and now this.” Her gaze moved to my face.

  “There’s nothing you can do.” She gave a strained smile. “Thanks for listening.”

  “Let me think about it,” I said. “And I’ll get with him tomorrow about Samuel.”

  Let me think about it, I thought. What did that mean?

  * * *

  I was cautious about the political dynamics and atmosphere at the police station, so I called Brian at home. He lived just off-island in a condo complex across Folly Road from the Piggly Wiggly, where he was close enough to respond to emergencies yet out of the fray of the beach life.

  Brian sounded out of breath, and it scared me. He was in his late sixties, trim, and generally in excellent health but had had two heart attacks three years ago and almost died. I was relieved when he said he had jogged three miles on his treadmill and feigned being insulted when I said I was worried.

  “Since it’s not yet eight o’clock,” he said and took a deep breath, “I assume this isn’t a social call.”

  No wonder he was chief. “Got a favor to ask,” I said. I gave him an abbreviated version of my conversation with Samuel and asked if he could check if there were any missing persons reports that would match the extremely skimpy description of the woman Samuel saw abducted.

  “Saw allegedly abducted, you mean.” Brian sighed. “Are you meddling in police business again?”

  I huffed. “Of course not,” I said. “I’m simply doing my civic duty and reporting a suspicious incident to the local authorities.”

  I had butted heads with the chief on a couple of occasions. Of course, it wasn’t my fault that I had stumbled on a murder or two, and of course it wasn’t my fault that I, along with a few, shall I say, strange friends had managed to catch the killers using techniques that were not found in any police procedures manual. I never could tell if the chief was more perturbed that a bunch of amateurs had achieved something that law enforcement had failed to
do or that I nearly got some of his innocent citizens killed in the process. Regardless, over time he and I had become close friends. He knew that I was prone to butt in where I shouldn’t and I knew that he would grouse, grumble, and yell at me for doing it.

  “Civic duty, right,” he said.

  “So,” I said, “will you check?”

  “Will you drop it if I don’t?”

  “Umm, well—”

  “That’s what I thought,” he interrupted.

  After a couple more back-and-forth digs, Brian agreed to check on missing persons and I agreed not to do anything about it until I heard back from him. I had no trouble agreeing to that since I didn’t know what I could have done. He said he didn’t have more time to waste on wild-goose chases and had to take a shower and get back to real police work. I said that I was sure that I had something important to do as well. I didn’t know what it might be.

  I hung up and walked to the aging Mr. Coffee machine. I had pressed the on button before I called the chief, but apparently the machine didn’t get the message. After a long illness, Mr. Coffee had passed away. I stared at the deceased near-antique and reflected on the chief’s statement about me meddling in police business.

  Samuel had come to me because he trusted that I would take him seriously. No, I wouldn’t stop.

  Would that be a decision that I would live to regret?

  CHAPTER 5

  IT HAD TAKEN ME NEARLY SIX YEARS OF RETIREMENT—more accurately, semiretirement, since I opened the photo gallery four days a week—before I’d gotten the hang of cramming fifteen minutes of worthwhile activity into a twenty-four hour day. I got off the phone with the chief and walked next door to Bert’s Market, Folly’s iconic grocery, to take advantage of its free coffee and buy a replacement for my Mr. Coffee machine. I had often told anyone who asked that Bert’s, in addition to never closing, sold everything from beer to bait. I quickly realized that a replacement for my coffeemaker didn’t fall within that range, so I decided to take a road trip to America’s answer to the total shopping experience—Walmart.

  I wasn’t a connoisseur of coffee and was befuddled by the thirteen different coffeemakers on the shelf. I thought all they had to do was to slosh hot water over ground coffee and drop it into a pot. So, I took the retiree’s solution and picked the cheapest machine. Besides, Bert’s made some of the best coffee on the island, and I was its neighbor. I couldn’t think of a reason to buy a contraption that made frappes, tea, and hot chocolate, ground the coffee beans, and, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn, received 137 cable channels plus HBO.

  “You escaped the island,” came a voice from behind me. I tucked the seventeen-dollar purchase under my left arm and turned to see the smiling face of city council member Marc Salmon. He had a plastic Walmart bag in each hand.

  “I see you’re on a major shopping expedition,” I replied.

  I had known Marc for most of my time on Folly. He and a fellow council member, Houston, held court daily at the Lost Dog Café and spread gossip and occasional facts. He had been reelected several times and understood the compromises—waffling, according to cynical residents—needed to hold the job.

  We shared comments about the hot temperatures, about the great deal he had gotten on laundry detergent, and about the herd of vacationers who had invaded the island before I broached the subject of Chief Newman. He’d made comments before that were supportive of the chief, so I felt comfortable raising the subject.

  “I hear Chief Newman’s head’s on the block,” I said.

  “Hmm,” said Marc. He set the two bags on the floor and leaned against an end cap in the pharmacy aisle. “Our new ‘yuck, there’s a vacationer’ mayor’s doing everything he can without calling out the National Guard to get Newman gone.”

  That answered any question I may have had about Marc’s loyalty to the new mayor. “Going to succeed?” I asked.

  Marc looked around. “Wouldn’t be surprised. Don’t think the majority of the council members are on Lally’s side—yet. But he’s doing everything he can to stack the deck.” He looked me in the eyes. “Maybe Newman’ll resign. He doesn’t have to put up with that crap.”

  Marc knew that I was close to the chief, and perhaps he was hinting that I should carry that suggestion to him. If so, he clearly didn’t know Chief Brian Newman. There’s no way he would resign.

  “Let me know if you hear anything,” I said. Marc loved to talk, so he’d take that as a personal invitation to nose around.

  With a new coffeemaker in hand and an ally on the council nosing around, I had already exceeded my fifteen minutes of worthwhile activities. I headed home to my air-conditioned cocoon to plan tomorrow’s worthwhile activity—planning that would prove to be worthless.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE PHONE RANG AT SEVEN THIRTY. BRIAN NEWMAN said that if I still wanted to hear what he had learned about the alleged abduction, it’d cost me lunch. I told him to name a time and place. He did and hung up. I stared at the phone.

  “Thanks for checking,” I said. Chief Newman and I had taken the booth near the restroom door in Rita’s. The popular restaurant was nearly full, and the chief had surveyed the room with his police gaze before deciding on the isolated table. Brian gracefully slid into the seat facing the restaurant. He wore a navy blue Tommy Bahama camp shirt and tan khaki slacks. He had once told me that after thirty years in the military, his goal was to never wear a uniform again, and it was a rare event to see him in police garb. His six-foot-plus stature combined with textbook-perfect posture communicated authority and a long military tenure.

  Helena, a waitress who had waited on me before, was quick to the table with the menu and water. We were equally quick to order burgers. Brian asked her to substitute a small salad for his fries. I said she could add his fries to my stack.

  He took a sip of water and then said, “I checked the two databases we have and even the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.” He took another sip. I waited patiently.

  “There are five reports of missing persons in the last four weeks in South Carolina. The first is a seventy-seven-year-old male Alzheimer’s victim from Georgetown. Then two runaway teens—one in Columbia, the other in Greenville.”

  “Sounds promising.”

  “Not really,” he said. “The girl from Columbia is seventeen and African American. The person Samuel saw was Caucasian, right?”

  I nodded.

  “The other girl just turned thirteen and has short cropped hair. Doesn’t sound like the person Samuel saw.”

  I agreed.

  Helena was already back at our table with the burgers. I had eaten a couple of meals at Rita’s with the chief, and it seemed that his order got priority in the kitchen.

  After we said that there wasn’t anything else she could get for us, Brian continued. “The other missing person is even younger. He’s a five-year-old—listed as missing, but his dad picked him up from day care and he hasn’t been seen since. The parents are in the middle of a custody battle. He’s probably with the dad, but no one knows where. Sad, so sad.”

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “Nope, I saved the best for last.” Brian grinned. “That’s what you’d do to me. It feels good being on this side of the table.”

  “Hi, chief, Chris.”

  We were joined at the table by Ed, Rita’s personable manager. We both smiled.

  “How’s the food?”

  “Better than road kill,” kidded the chief.

  Ed grinned. “Always aim to please the local constabulary.”

  After a couple more pleasantries, Ed wished us a great day, told the chief to keep the island safe and not to listen to me, and headed to the next table to greet more customers.

  “The last missing person?” I prompted.

  Brian looked around the room and then took a bite of burger. After what seemed
like an eternity, he said, “Female, Caucasian, twenty-three, graduate student at USC, from somewhere in rural North Carolina.”

  “Color of her hair?” I asked.

  “Brown and long.”

  “Like Samuel said.”

  Brian nodded. “She rooms with two students in Columbia. They also go to USC. She told one of them a couple of weeks ago that she was going to the beach for a few days. They haven’t heard from her since.”

  “Folly?”

  Brian picked at his salad and then shrugged. “She didn’t say. One of the roommates thought she’d head to Myrtle Beach, the other one said maybe somewhere around here—Kiawah, Sullivan’s Island, Folly. She’s gone to all of them on long weekends, and they didn’t ask.”

  “When did they report her missing?”

  Brian took a small notebook out of his breast pocket and flipped through the pages. “They began to worry after a week,” he said. “Said she’d never stayed away that long; she had a couple of tests that she missed. It was unlike her, they said.”

  Brian shook his head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Don’t think the local police took the report too seriously,” he said. “College student goes to beach and doesn’t return when the roommates thought she should. She didn’t tell them when she was coming back, so the police didn’t think it suspicious. Besides, where would they look? There are only a zillion miles of beach within a few hours of Columbia.”

  “Boyfriend?” I asked. “Has her family heard from her?”

  “She’d recently broken up with a doctor.” He held up his right hand. “Before you ask, he never left his job at the hospital for more than a few hours at a time. Airtight alibi. And no, her family hasn’t heard from her.”

  “Airtight only if she made it to the beach,” I said.

  “Good point,” conceded Brian. “I’ll throw that question back at the cops in Columbia.”