Missing

by Bill Noel

  Just curious is often the start of something much worse, I thought.

  Folly Curls was in a small, red, one-story building a half block off Center Street. The building had housed many failed businesses over its thirty-five-year history. Its most recent incarnation opened a couple of years ago and was owned by a young couple, Anne and Cameron Potterfield. Anne was a hairdresser who worked in the shop six days a week and rented chairs to two other stylists. Cameron was a carpenter with Edelen Construction on James Island. I wouldn’t have known any of this if I hadn’t gotten my hair cut at Millie’s and learned about the competing salons through osmosis.

  I asked Charles if he had ever been in the salon as we headed up its sand and crushed-shell walk. He said “sure” but then added that it had only been once and that had been this morning when he delivered Melinda.

  We were greeted by an attractive stylist in her late twenties. She had her left hand tangled in a middle-aged woman’s mane and her right hand gripping a hair dryer. She said her name was Anne and asked if she could do anything for us. Before she could answer, I heard the familiar voice of Melinda from behind a portable bamboo partition. “Is that you Charles?”

  “As sure as the ocean’s wet,” he said.

  I would have been more impressed with his poetic answer if my eyes hadn’t been directed to the right side of the room, where there were five Styrofoam heads covered with a variety of wigs in colors ranging from glow-in-the-dark blond to pitch black. None of them was more attention-grabbing than the Carolina-blue wig in the center of the room, snugly placed on Melinda’s head. I had no idea what to say. To my amazement, neither did Charles.

  “Didn’t he work wonders?” said Melinda. She turned her head so we could get a view of all sides. The hairdresser who stood behind her raised both hands over his head and clapped. He reminded me of a trained seal begging for a fish.

  “Aunt Melinda,” said Charles, “wonders doesn’t do it justice.”

  Charles had said it all.

  “Oh, I’m being rude,” said Melinda. “Meet Damian, umm—”

  “Sharp,” said the midthirties hairdresser. He walked around the chair and shook my hand and then Charles’s.

  “Ain’t he a doll?” said Melinda. “He said he’d never colored a wig quite like this before, but when I told him it had been my dream for years, he said he’d do it.”

  Damian grinned and bowed at his trim waist. But when Melinda turned toward Charles, he rolled his eyes. I was in agreement.

  “Your aunt’s quite a lady,” said the dirty-blond-haired wonder worker. “It’ll be fun having her around—I hope it’s for a long time.”

  Charles cringed. I hoped Damian was right.

  “Think we could get a taxi back to my place?” said Melinda as she looked at Charles. We stood outside the salon, and she leaned against the side of the building.

  Charles looked at me. The nearest taxi was in Charleston, so I volunteered to get my SUV and pick them up. Melinda looked exhausted and slowly lowered herself to the step.

  By the time it took me to walk home and get Melinda’s ride, she had perked up and was in animated conversation with Charles about a couple of the other customers and how even she thought they were a bit nutty. She whispered that one of the customers, Sylvia, was “nuttier than a squirrel turd” and then asked Charles if he had solved the murders. Charles told her with great confidence that he and I had been working on the case and had a “hot lead.”

  “It’s only a matter of time before we catch him,” he said.

  I stared straight ahead at the road and thought that perhaps Sylvia wasn’t the only nutty person Melinda had encountered today.

  CHAPTER 25

  ONLY A MATTER OF TIME … ONLY A MATTER OF TIME before we catch him,” I mumbled to Charles.

  We had dropped Melinda off at her apartment, and Charles had suggested that we go to my house and get on the Internet. He said that Melinda may not have much more time around and we had to solve the murders before she went on to meet other angelic alcoholics in distilled-spirits heaven. He reminded me that I had mentioned that my calendar was clear for the next four days, and he planned to fill them with “killer-catchin’ stuff.”

  It didn’t take long to find a photo of the late Nicole Sallee in the Valdosta Daily Times. The image was wrapped in the tragic story about the death of the beautiful master’s degree holder from Valdosta State University. The photo was a glamour shot pulled from her modeling portfolio. Nicole was as pretty as Kendra Corman-Eades. The article shed little additional light on her death. It did say that she had married right after college but that it had only lasted a year. He ex-husband said her death was “beyond belief” and that he hadn’t seen her in months. The Charleston police were not commenting on the death other than that foul play hadn’t been ruled out.

  I printed a half-dozen copies of the photo. Charles also asked me to “copy it to a thumb thing.” He said that while I was at it, I could scan the photo of Ms. Corman-Eades he had received from Cindy and add it to the “thumb thing.” I asked why and he said, “You never know when you might need more copies.” I gave him a sideways glance and started to scan the image.

  “Umm,” he said and pointed to the computer. “While you’re at it, could we use your computer magic and add some words?”

  “We could,” I said and stared at him. The ball was in his court.

  “Then why don’t we say something like, ‘Do you know anything about,’ and then you could add their names.”

  I said, “We could.”

  And then he mumbled, “Then under the photo we could add, ‘If so, please contact Charles Fowler at,’ and then you could put my phone number.”

  “We could.”

  “Great idea,” he said and then pointed at the keyboard. “Then you could stick all that on the thumb-thing doohickey, and we could go over to Pack & Mail and get a couple hundred flyers printed.”

  I knew it was a terrible idea. Pursuing the issue was the wrong thing to do, and it could only lead to trouble. I also knew Charles.

  “You bet,” I said and started Photoshop.

  It took an hour before amateur graphic designer and faux detective Charles was satisfied with the layout. The photo of Kendra Corman-Eades was sharp but in black and white. The low-resolution image of Nicole Sallee taken from the newspaper website wasn’t as clear, but she was recognizable. Charles had urged me to add my name and phone number as a second contact, but I declined. I controlled the keyboard, so I won a minor victory.

  An hour later, we were back on Folly Beach with two hundred and fifty flyers. Charles wanted to get started distributing them to every business on the island and attaching them to every light pole, announcement board, and store window. I wished him well and chose a nap over covering the island with images of the two deceased women.

  Naps and I don’t get along. The phone rang before my eyes were closed, and I heard the calm, cheerful voice of Chief Brian Newman. “What in blue blazes is that damned friend of yours trying to do? Don’t answer!” he yelled. “I don’t want to know. Damn, go ahead and tell me. This had better be good.”

  This would be a perfect time for me to play ignorant. “I’m sorry, Brian, what do you mean?”

  “You … you know damned well what I mean. Frickin’ flyers stuck on poles down Center Street. Charles doesn’t have a computer or a way to make anything as nice as what’s stuck all over. You do.”

  Brian wasn’t the chief by accident. “He wanted some flyers to see if anyone knew about the two women. He wanted to get information to turn over to the police. How’d you hear about it?”

  He made a noise that sounded like a snarl and then said, “Oh, could be because in the last half hour I’ve received calls from two restaurants, one city council member, two of my officers, and, best of all, our mayor.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Y
eah,” said Brian. “And our mayor said that if he sees one of those blankety-blank flyers on any surface on his island after eight a.m. tomorrow, the world will come to a screeching halt for two people.”

  “I’ll share that message with Charles,” I said.

  “I would have told him myself, but the idiot who’s asking people to call doesn’t have an answering machine. He’s not sitting by the phone waiting for calls—probably still out plastering what’ll be my termination notice on telephone poles. I’d go looking for him, but I’m afraid if I found him, I’d shoot first and ask questions later. Oh yeah, when you find him, you might suggest that first he removes the two copies from the window at city hall. Damn, my head hurts.” The phone went dead.

  I realized that my head didn’t feel so well either and headed to Bert’s to get something for it. I was tempted to seek relief in the wine department but instead headed down the medicine aisle.

  “Yo, Christer,” came a squeaky voice from the next aisle. “Got datum for you.”

  Dude and his glow-in-the-dark, peace-symbol-adorned, tie-dyed shirt were instantly recognizable, but hearing the surfer say “datum” threw me. I supposed he had gleaned it from the pages of Astronomy magazine. “Hey, Dude,” I said. “What would that be?”

  Instead of answering, he scampered down the aisle and around to where I was standing in front of the headache medicines and then looked around. “Me be careful about who’s nosin’ in,” he whispered. He had a jar of mayonnaise in his left hand and a pack of fishhooks in his right. I wasn’t about to ask why. “Hear number of missin’ chicks be upped by fifty percent.”

  I tried to grasp what that meant and ventured, “Someone else missing?”

  “Be story going around-and-around.”

  “What else did you hear?” I learned long ago that Dude often leaves out important parts of his stories.

  “Heard at Planet F that parents from Peachtree town called local fuzz.” He set the jar of mayo on a shelf, looked at the ceiling, and then continued. “Offspring be missin’.”

  I assumed Planet F was Planet Follywood. Peachtree town needed clarification, and I asked Dude to repeat where the call had come from.

  “Atlanta,” he said and sighed. “Town where streets be named Peachtree this, Peachtree that.”

  “Got it,” I said. “When did they know she was missing? What’s her name?”

  “Me look like boob-tube reporter?” asked Dude.

  I smiled. “Not even close. Just thought you might’ve heard.”

  “You knowin’ all I be knowin’,” he said. Then he picked up the mayonnaise jar, waved it in front of my face and said, “Gotta scoot.”

  He did, and I skipped the regular headache pills and looked for the extra-strength bottle. On the way out, I noticed that Charles had already taped two of his flyers on the glass door, one on each side. I tried to resist but couldn’t help smiling.

  The smile didn’t last long when I thought of what Dude had said. Was it possible that a third woman was dead? Could all three be related? And could there be a serial killer running loose on Folly Beach? My mind rushed back to the half-dozen or so patrons in Bert’s and wondered if one of them could be a murderer.

  Instead of being another citizen who called and got no answer at Charles’s, I called Cindy’s cell to see if she’d heard anything about a third missing girl. She said that she was in the middle of a traffic stop but that she had heard something and would call me back in a few minutes. Two extra-strength headache pills, a glass of Diet Pepsi, and fifteen minutes later, she called.

  Dude’s information was accurate—although abbreviated. A twenty-four-year-old, Caucasian female from Buckhead, a wealthy suburb of Atlanta, had been reported missing by her parents. According to them, their daughter, Chelsea Hall, had told them she was going to Folly Beach for a long weekend with two of her friends from Emory University. The trip was not that unusual. The three friends had taken minivacations together before. This time, one of the girls Chelsea was supposed to be with called and asked her parents if they had seen her. They later found out that neither of the other girls knew about the trip. That was enough for Chelsea’s parents to call the Folly Beach police.

  Cindy said that the call wasn’t that unusual. They received several like it each summer. Usually it’s because college students head to nearby beaches and “forget” to tell their parents things like where they are going, where they are staying, whom they are with, and when they are coming home—pesky details parents are hardwired to worry about. Because of the recent deaths, the local police were being extra vigilant in looking for Chelsea. I wished Cindy luck, hit end call, and then admitted to being impressed by Dude’s information.

  CHAPTER 26

  I WAITED UNTIL MORNING TO TELL CHARLES ABOUT Chelsea Hall. If I had told him yesterday, I never would have gotten any rest. I would still catch grief for not telling him “way, way, way earlier.”

  We were seated under the pagoda at the small city park beside Folly Road and the Folly River. A cold front had approached, and rain showers were expected later in the day. It was the coolest morning in the last three weeks, and it felt good being outside without sweat running down my face.

  He didn’t disappoint. “Tell me again what Cindy said.” His voice had a how dare you not tell me tone.

  I told him that it was just yesterday afternoon, and he told me how incredible it was that I had delayed all those many hours before letting him know. He said something about needing to redo all his flyers, take them to every store on the island, and stick them on every vertical surface, and then he started to add something else to the list.

  “Whoa,” I said and threw both hands in front of his face. “Give silence a try—for a minute, anyway. I have something else to tell you.”

  “What?” he said. “Like you forgot to tell me that you’re moving to Madrid, or that the gallery is going to become an Apple store, or—”

  “Whoa, again!” This time I smacked my right palm on the seat. Surprisingly, he stopped talking, and I told him about my conversation with Chief Newman. He huffed but appeared more hurt than angry. He had worked hard on the flyers and would have made a campaigning politician proud by how he’d plastered the business district with them. Now he had to retrace his steps and undo all his hard work.

  He stood, turned toward the river and then to his left, and faced the Baptist Church across the street. He slowly returned to his seat. “Would you help me take them down?”

  I told him of course I would—after I packed for my move to Madrid and emptied the gallery so Apple could stock it with iThings.

  “Ha, ha,” he said without the slightest hint of amusement.

  I then asked if he had gotten any calls about the victims.

  “Five,” he said. He rubbed his chin. “Maybe I need to get an answering machine; I could have missed a few more.”

  “Learn anything?” I asked.

  “In fact I did. I hate machines,” he said. “Oh, never mind. I think two of the calls were unrelated. I didn’t know the callers. One wanted to sell me a cemetery plot, and the other one wanted to order a pizza.”

  “Glad you’re a detective,” I said. “Most mortals wouldn’t have figured out those weren’t related.”

  He responded with another humorless “ha, ha.” “The other three were interesting.”

  He paused and looked back at the church. “One was from Ada. You know, from Ada’s Arts and Crafts?”

  I nodded. Ada was an elderly lady who painted scenes on driftwood, mainly of birds, and sold them in the small store beside Cal’s bar. She had been there longer than Charles could remember.

  “She said that Nicole Sallee had come in her store and commented on how she liked to paint but never got the time to.”

  “Was she sure it was Nicole?”

  He gave a half nod. “You know Ada’s a few generations prepol
itical correctness.”

  It was my turn to nod.

  “She said it had to be Nicole because not that many ‘darkies’ frequented her store. ‘Besides,’ she added, ‘the girl sounded like she was from Georgia.’”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Nope, that’s all Ada knew. But I had just hung up with Ada when I got another call.”

  “Pizza or cemetery plot?” I joked.

  “Funny,” he said and then shook his head. “It was Oscar—”

  “Oscar from the gas station?”

  Charles stared at me. “How many Oscars do you know?”

  “Just checking,” I said. Oscar was in his midtwenties with hair that matched his personality. It went all directions without any plan or semblance of order.

  “Now, if you’ll let me finish, I’ll lay a big clue on you.”

  I nodded.

  “Oscar said Kendra Corman-Eades bought gas from him a few days before she turned up missing.”

  “How’d he know it was her?”

  “Good question,” said Charles. “I asked him the same thing.” He nodded.

  “Well?”

  A large construction truck rumbled down Center Street and interrupted his concentration. He stared at the truck until the sound level fell below that of a jetliner taking off.

  “Oscar might be a bit scattered—okay, seriously scattered—but one thing he can focus on is young, pretty women.”

  “How—”

  “Hang on,” said Charles, “I’m getting there. Apparently she came in around midnight. That gave Oscar time to give her his full attention. She started to pay by credit card, but then she pulled it back, giggled, and said she’d better use cash. Astute, sharp-eyed Oscar saw the name on the card. Said he couldn’t remember what it was, but it had a hyphen. Seemed funny to poor Oscar, and he committed it to whatever memory he has left.”

  “Did he tell the police?” I asked.

  “Oscar has an extensive history that’s intertwined with law enforcement. Said he has a serious allergy to fuzz in any shape, form, or uniform.”