by Bill Noel
I heard Amber greet customers at a table near the door before I saw her. “Good morning, I’m Amber, and will be doing everything I can to make your breakfast experience as positive as possible.”
She had welcomed me with that endearing, albeit lengthy, line the first time I’d stepped inside the Dog. I couldn’t have received a more pleasant welcome to Folly Beach.
I caught her eye, and she winked and tilted her head toward my favorite table. Charles had already commandeered the spot and had his nose in a book—not that surprising a pose. The smell of frying bacon whiffed through the air.
His gaze drifted over the top of the book. “Did you know Scarlett O’Hara was originally named Pansy? A friend made Maggie change it.”
If it weren’t for trivia, Charles wouldn’t have much to say. He was reading Gone With the Wind, so I assumed Maggie was Margaret Mitchell.
Charles often read from the same etiquette book as Bob. “Didn’t know that, Charles; thanks for sharing.”
“Then I guess you didn’t know this tome has sold more books worldwide than most any other book except something called the Bible.” He turned back to the book and didn’t wait for my answer.
I ignored his priceless information, put my hat on the corner of the table, and took the seat opposite him. Amber delicately placed a mug of steaming coffee in front of me before I had time to pull the chair back to the table. Her unencumbered arm grazed my shoulder and hesitated.
“Yuck,” said Charles, barely taking his eyes from the page, “can’t you see this is a public restaurant? Kids are here; stop making out … yuck.”
Even Atlanta burning couldn’t keep the silliness out of Charles. I tried another tack. “Les was killed with an arrow from a crossbow.”
That worked. Amber had already giggled at the “making out” comment and left to fulfill her duties to the rapidly filling restaurant. Charles put a wrinkled, catsup-stained seven of spades in Maggie’s book and set it in the chair next to him. His attention was no longer on the Yankees and Rebels.
“Crossbow like the Chinese invented in the fourth century BC?” he asked.
I quickly responded, hoping to avoid a history lesson. “I suspect it was a newer one; but, yeah, a real crossbow.”
“I knew the arrow was too short for a regular bow, but thought it had broken off when poor Les bit the mud,” said Charles. “You know, a crossbow arrow’s called a bolt. It’s usually around twenty inches long, where a regular arrow is longer, twenty-nine inches, give or take.”
I didn’t know that; didn’t care. I wanted to know how he knew, but common sense stopped me from asking.
“Bob told me,” I said.
“Let me guess; Louise heard it on the scanner and called Bob?”
Charles knew the answer, so I didn’t respond. I make up for my lack of exercise by eating unhealthy foods. Amber’s on a one-person crusade to break that habit. She brought Charles a breakfast burrito he ordered before I’d arrived and a bowl of oatmeal with bananas for me. I scraped the bananas off and covered the oatmeal with a layer of sugar. You can lead a hundred-eighty-pound, five-foot-ten, exercise-avoider to healthy food, but you can’t make me eat it.
Being in a room full of people with Charles is like hanging out with an extrovert running for office. Breakfast was interrupted by Marc and Houston, two city council members who held court most every day in the Dog. They stopped to ask what he was reading. Then, a real estate agent whose office was across the street wanted to know if he would be interested in cleaning a condo she had for sale. The president of Preserve the Past, a group dedicated to saving the historic Morris Island Lighthouse from erosion and neglect, interrupted next. And finally, Wynn Stamper, one of Folly’s most vocal antigrowth advocates, couldn’t restrain his curiosity. His favorite saying was, “Folly must stay the same to grow.” One day someone will tell me what that meant.
With the exception of Stamper, each had managed to bring the conversation around to what Charles had learned during his “investigation” at the scene of the murder. Stamper had begun to head down that trail when Charles told him that the Chinese army had more than fifty thousand crossbowmen in 209 BC.
Stamper scampered!
CHAPTER 6
Charles and I left the Dog after he shared his version of what happened with most of the regulars and a couple of vacationers who found the nerve to wander over.
“Time to check damage on the beach,” said Charles as he got in the car.
That was Charles’s excuse; my suspicion was that he wanted to case the Edge, the boardinghouse where Les Patterson had last hung his hat.
Folly Road became Center Street once it crossed the bridge to the island. Center Street dead-ended at the parking lot of Folly Beach’s tallest—and most out-of-place—structure, the Holiday Inn. The nine-story hotel was not only the most conspicuous structure on the island, but for years its color—charitably called pink—had been proclaimed by no less than Mayor Amato as the “ugliest building on Folly Beach.” And that was among mighty stiff competition. But pink was in the past. The Holiday Inn had closed during the winter for a complete renovation and exterior painting. It had reopened to rave reviews.
While I didn’t quite rave about the remodel, I found comfort in knowing the local ownership was committed to improving the hotel. Besides, my main interest in the hotel was its coffee bar, intended for use by those who rented rooms. Fortunately, its local owners had a more liberal view of the service, and I had taken advantage of its “complimentary” coffee for the last three years. Charles and I filled our cups and then asked the clerk how the hotel had fared in the storm. Between yawns, she said only a handful of the sliding glass doors on the upper floors had failed to hold back the windswept rains and the pool area suffered only minor damage.
The thousand-foot-long, majestic Folly Pier jutted over the Atlantic to the left of the Holiday Inn. The pier was relatively new and constructed to withstand hurricane-strength winds and surfs that far exceeded Frank’s best efforts. We walked halfway to the end of the pier, leaned against the wooden rail, and looked up and down the beach for damage. From our vantage, there was a large, modern, four-story condo complex to the left of the hotel. Several units had sliding glass doors covered with plywood, and patio furniture was strewn haphazardly in the neatly manicured grassy area between the building and the beach. The condo owners would be thrilled if that was the worst Frank had wrought. Looking to the right of the pier, the buildings were not as new, and a few of them were visibly damaged. Plywood shields had blown off some windows, small palmettos were uprooted in two yards, and dune fences were carried onto three patios that overlooked the beach. Still, the aftereffects were minor. The quirky island I had fallen in love with had survived with only a few bruises.
“Ready to check the Edge?” asked Charles. He was getting antsy; he tapped his cane on the pier and used his canvas Tilley to fan his face.
“Sure,” I said, clearly the answer he wanted. Besides, I was hot and still had remnants of yesterday’s supersized headache.
The boardinghouse was a block east of the pier and ranked as probably the strangest house among many strange residences on Folly Beach. I hadn’t known anything about it but had captured it in my viewfinder from every legal perch I could find. It was large, long, and narrow and constructed from concrete block, stone, brick, and massive wooden beams. On two corners, the concrete blocks were neatly coated with cement and resembled stucco; an industrial-looking, concrete block wall faced the ocean. The superstructure was wood covered with a thin layer of cement. Bricks were haphazardly located in the front yard, and a stone wall protected the property from moody ocean tides.
“Margaret Klein’s the owner,” said Charles, sharing a fact I’d learned from Chief Newman a day earlier. We approached the house from the beach. “She converted the house into eight apartments years ago.”
“Where’d it get its name?” I asked. We were walking about three feet from the water, and I sidestepped the methodical waves to keep my shoes dry.
“Don’t know for certain.” Mr. Trivia surprised and disappointed me. “Folly Beach is called ‘The Edge of America,’ so I figure she got it there. After all, it’s on the edge of the edge.”
“Designed by a drunken architect?” I asked, more serious than not.
“It’s got character, Chris. Don’t forget where you are—Character World.”
Ms. Klein was in front of the house fussing with one of the potted cactuses that were randomly placed in large pots on the fence and in the yard. She had been about five feet two in her prime, but now was growing closer to the ground and dipped below five feet. She was oblivious to a single pontoon from a boat, pieces of erosion fencing, and a man’s bathing suit, all of which had been deposited in her yard by Hurricane Frank.
“Permission to board?” asked Charles. We stood at the bottom of a steel ladder leaning against the stone wall in the front yard. The distinct smell of rotting fish was strong along the dune line.
Ms. Klein looked up from the cactus, took a swig from a large tumbler filled with a caramel-colored liquid, and smiled. “Sure, boys, come on up—unless you’re pirates.”
Charles returned her smile, allaying her fear that we were pirates, and we climbed the seven steps to yard-level. I looked around to make sure there weren’t any planks she might have us walk.
“Ms. Klein,” said Charles. “Know my friend, Chris Landrum?” He took a step back, and I offered my hand.
“No, Charles, we’ve never had the privilege of meeting,” she said. She took the gardening glove off her right hand and shook mine. “But I know who he is.”
She was either near deaf or thought we were. A couple of sunbathers a hundred feet away turned to see who was yelling.
She caught my puzzled look. “Louise from over at Island Realty is a good friend. We go back … well, we go back. She’s told me how you keep getting into trouble and how her favorite nephew, Bob, has to save you time after time.” She took another drink. “She also said you’re mighty sweet, except everywhere you go, someone ends up croaked.”
Charles took off his hat and wiped his brow with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Ms. Klein,” he said, “think we could get in the shade?”
“I guess. You youngsters sure are getting wimpy. A little heat ain’t going to kill you.”
We followed as she unhurriedly walked around the house to the patch of yard shaded by the house and to a battered, vinyl-covered, decrepit card table. The hem on her faded, print dress touched the ground as she walked. Four folding chairs were leaning against the house.
“Just rustled these up from all over carnation,” she said as she grabbed the chair closest to the table. Charles and I selected two of the three that had the best chance of holding us.
“So my friend Louise is right,” she said and sighed heavily. She took a cigarette from the pocket in her billowy dress, took her time lighting it, and enjoyed another sip from the tumbler. “Poor Les gets himself skewered, and you appear. You ought to be wearing a long black robe and carrying a big-ass scythe.”
I was ready to agree when Charles came to my defense. “Now, Ms. Klein, Chris and I just stopped by to see if you and your house were okay and to check on our friend, Cindy Ash. She’s one of your tenants, isn’t she?”
“Charles,” she said, “you must be taking advanced lessons in bull poop.” She laughed at her comment and held the tumbler up so the last drop could land on her tongue. “You know good and well that that cute police officer lives here. As nosy as you are, you know she’s just fine—she’s out helping our citizens recover from Frankie.”
“Any damage to your house?” I asked.
“Nothing bad,” she said. “Couple more cracks in the walls than I had before. The old buzzard’s strong like that.” She pointed to the second floor, where I could see fresh breaks in the stucco covering the wood-studded walls. The first floor was solid concrete, and I doubted anything could hurt it.
She looked into the empty tumbler; her shoulders sagged toward the table.
“My glass says it’s time to take a nap,” she hollered and then giggled.
I didn’t think Charles and I were that funny, so I guessed that something else accounted for her mood—the former contents of her glass.
We told her we were glad everything was okay, and she told us to come back anytime. Before we were out of hearing range—which could have been almost a half mile—she said, “Boys, y’all find Lester’s killer, would you?”
I responded with a benign, “We’ll see.”
Charles yelled, “You bet.”
CHAPTER 7
The surf shop is another institution on Folly Beach. I never got a straight answer out of its owner, Jim “Dude” Sloan, but legend is that he has owned the shop since the late eighties. Dude and I had become friends once I learned to appreciate his off-center outlook and his stilted communication style. I giggled every time I remembered his response when I had asked him why he bought the shop. “Needed job; liked area; couldn’t cook. No skills; saw ad in paper; went to bank. Idiot bank lent me money. Rest be history.”
After he told me that, I decided not to ask why he didn’t capitalize the first letters of the shop’s name.
Dude’s shop was the next stop on our “any damage?” tour. The aging, wooden structure was only a block from the pier but was elevated and had withstood several hurricanes over the years. Its exterior walls were protected by countless layers of paint plastered with surfboard-sized decals promoting surf products. I doubted it had suffered much.
Dude met us at the front door. He was a near exact replica of Arlo Guthrie, the folksinger. His flowing gray/white hair was pulled into a ponytail by a bright red, children’s hair band; he wore a psychedelic, tie-dyed T-shirt with a huge yellow peace symbol on the front.
“Boss waves yesterday—catch any?” he said.
I assumed he meant the hurricane, but with Dude I was on shaky ground assuming anything.
“Nope,” said Charles. “You?”
The two clerks had the handful of customers taken care of, so we followed Dude to the rear of the shop. There was one wide aisle, but most of its floor space was covered with surf gear—boards, wet suits, clothing, and stuff I had no idea of its function. In one of my weaker moments, Dude had introduced me to surfing. My main recollection was that I thanked God that I’d survived. My surfing career had begun and ended that day. To put it mildly, I was not a regular customer at the surf shop. Dude was a regular at the Dog, so we had our regular, irregular conversations there.
He ignored Charles’s question, so I gathered that he wasn’t surfing in Hurricane Frank.
“Hear my bud Les used for target practice?” asked Dude. He had grabbed a root beer from a mini-frig and nodded to the open door. Charles bypassed the bottle of peach schnapps and pulled out two Diet Pepsis and handed me one.
“Yeah,” said Charles. “How well did you know him?”
“Few years,” responded Dude. “He be fox surfer.”
“Huh?” said Charles.
“Fox surfer,” said Dude, “like fake—thought you knew it all.”
“You mean faux?” asked Charles.
“Duh, yeah, fox. He bought surfer stuff two plus one years back. Only bought when under influence of moons aligning, or beer, not sure which—fox surfer.”
Dude took two quick sips of root beer. He had spoken too many words and needed a break.
“Idea who shot him?” asked Charles.
“Nope. He be into flying saucers, ghosts, who killed JFK, weird crap. But who isn’t?” he shrugged. “No reason to arrow him.”
“He have any friends?” I asked.
“Likable guy—slacker on the
surf—but likable. No friends I know of.”
“Who killed JFK?” asked Charles.
I knew he couldn’t let that one slip by.
“Les said it was someone not from South Carolina; some other planet, he shared. Les was a bit strange, truth be known.”
Dude calling someone strange was scary. But his knowledge of other planets was not unusual. He was a voracious reader of Astronomy magazine, and Amber had often claimed he wasn’t from earth and maybe not from our solar system.
Dude had shared all he knew about Les and assured us his shop hadn’t suffered significant storm damage. Our task was completed.
Before we weaved through the surf shop crowd, Dude whispered to us, “You be finding out who offed Les, right?”
I told him it was a matter for the police and none of our business. Charles interrupted, “Yeah, Chris, it’s your duty; he was wiped out on your street. You be dissed!”
Clearly, “to be or not to be” was not the question. “Dude,” I asked, “have you been talking to Ms. Klein?”
“Who be she?” he asked.
CHAPTER 8
An unseasonable hot weather pattern had covered the area. I was on the porch trying to force the twisted screen frames back into their pre-Frank positions before it got too hot. No rain was forecast for the next few days, so I didn’t have to borrow a ladder and tackle the bent roofing. It was Sunday morning, and the rush of shoppers at Bert’s clogged the street. I caught the flashing blue lights of a Folly Beach police cruiser out of the corner of my eye and figured it was there to “politely” ask someone to move a vehicle blocking a drive—a fairly common occurrence during the summer.
Instead of heading toward Bert’s, Officer Cindy Ash was walking toward me. She had her head down and seemed more intent on staring at the ground than at her destination. Cindy had joined the police force a year ago after moving from east Tennessee. She was in her mid-forties, short, full-figured, with curly dark hair. Not only was she the most attractive member of the force (from a male’s perspective), she dated Larry. That was welcome news to all who knew him, and certainly brightened his outlook. She didn’t seem any the worse for their budding relationship.
