by Bill Noel
“Other than the victims living at the same place and seeing each other at GB’s weekly gathering, there’s nothing tying them together.”
“Could it be a nut killing for no reason other than they live there?”
Karen looked around the room. Her hand was more relaxed. “Sure, it could; but random killings within such a small target group are rare. There’s some tie.”
“I hear one of the residents, Travis Green, has skipped. What happened to him?”
“There’s a BOLO on his car, but all it takes is a couple of license plate switches to screw up the system. Law-abiding citizens don’t check to see if the plates on their vehicles are theirs. Just being gone makes him a suspect.”
“What about the others?” I asked. I was surprised by her candor.
“When you throw a bunch of people, some working, some semiworking, in a low-rent boardinghouse on Folly Beach, you can be assured of a mixed bag of backgrounds. We’ve found a felony, a few misdemeanors, a herd of divorces, more than a handful of DUIs, and bankruptcies galore.” She stopped and ate a fry. “Heavens, Chris, we even found a cop!”
“No Olympic crossbow champs?”
She giggled; her eyes brightened even in the dim light. I assumed it was because of my charm, but most likely, it was her second beer. “Well, as a matter of fact, one of the residents, Harley McLowry, hasn’t bagged any Olympic medals, but had shot a few deer with a bow and arrow. He doesn’t have strong alibis—no witnesses to where he was; said he was at home or out for a ride—but he’s passed a lie detector test.”
“What next?” I asked.
Rap music—or as Bob calls it, rap-crap—blared from the jukebox, and I had to lean in to hear. I was tempted to contribute a couple of dollars and punch up some country.
“They’re battling with a judge now,” she said. “They want warrants to search all the apartments and vehicles of those who live in the house, but the tight-reared judge says there’s not probable cause. Cindy Ash volunteered her apartment for a search. That happened yesterday; and, of course, nothing was found.”
“She’s scared,” I said.
“Don’t blame her. I’d be.” Karen stared at me and began to say something.
When she stopped, I asked, “What?”
“You and Charles aren’t playing detective, are you?”
“Of course not.”
Believe me, believe me, please believe me.
“Remember, you’re talking to a highly-trained, skilled, experienced detective.”
“We’re worried about our friends,” I said. “I have no interest in getting involved with a loony killer.”
Can I actually fool a highly-trained, skilled, experienced detective?
“Glad to hear it,” she said.
I had no training, little experience, and no skills, but still didn’t believe her. I felt the Chardonnay turning sour in my stomach. Should I tell her about the box? Wouldn’t it be better to turn it over to someone else to keep her out of the loop?
Were Charles and I really trying to find the killer? Was Cindy in real danger? Was Cal? Arno? Heather? Harley? And even Mrs. Klein?
And the more frightening question, was one of them the killer?
I hadn’t realized how far my mind had wandered until I heard her tapping on the table.
“Huh?” I said.
“How’s Amber?” Karen had finished her heart-healthy cheeseburger and was on her last few fries.
“Oh, fine.” I said. Went out on a limb with that one, didn’t I, I thought.
“She’s a lucky lady.”
Al finally made it to our table before I could reply. His arthritic knees slowed him more than usual. It hadn’t hit me until now that he was the bartender, waiter, busser, cook, and cleaning crew. He said he’d heard about Pat Rowland and asked if we knew who was doing it yet. We both shook our heads no.
Al broke out his best grin and looked over his shoulder toward the jukebox. “Your murderees liked country music, didn’t they?”
I nodded.
“Guess that guy sitting at the table in the corner’s the one.”
Karen and I quickly looked to the corner. The gentleman Al referred to must have been in his nineties. A walker was sitting beside the table. “Why?” we asked in unison.
“He hates country music. Almost got in a fight with Bubba Bob last week when a George Jones song wandered between two blues tunes.” Al started laughing, and cringed when his knee began to buckle. “Almost had to take his walker away. Yep, think he’s your guy.”
I was glad I had resisted the temptation to refine the music selections.
Karen thanked him for the “hot lead” and said she needed to be going. She planned to visit the hospital and see if she could make enough noise to wake her dad.
Had I made a mistake by not telling her about the box?
CHAPTER 40
I stopped at Pack & Mail on the way home to get copies of Pat Rowland’s stash of papers. The helpful owner gave me a puzzled look but copied everything without question. She said that stranger items had graced her copier.
Now the hard part. Who was I going to give the box to? I had eliminated Detective Lawson and Officer Ash, and it would have been a mistake of grand proportions to voluntarily approach the acting chief. So I did what no sane citizen would do and drove around Folly Beach looking for the police.
There was more traffic on the island than places to park, so I knew there was a good chance I’d find an overworked, tired, frustrated, and sweaty, officer at the turnaround on the east end—the entrance to the old coast guard station and path to the best view of the historic Morris Island Lighthouse. A dead-end road at one of the most popular spots on Folly Beach during the summer is a guaranteed formula for a traffic jam. Today was no exception.
Two patrol cars were parked driver-side to driver-side in the widest spot in the circular turnaround. Cars were weaving around them in a semiorderly fashion. Officer Ash was in one of the marked cars, so I fell in line with the vacationers and headed back toward town.
The next patrol car I found was parked in front of Bert’s. It wasn’t quite on the same level of an answered prayer, but finding an officer within a hundred yards of my house was convenient. Bert’s lot was full, so I parked in front of my house and lugged the Bonterra Vineyards box to the store. I found Officer Spencer standing in a checkout line that would have been the envy of most groceries. No fewer than nine customers—nine human customers and three dogs—were waiting patiently as the clerk systematically rang up their goods and tossed treats to the canines. Officer Spencer was second in line, so I waited by the double door at the front of the packed store. I stood as close to the wall as possible; I had learned never to stand in the way of a thirsty customer heading to the beer case.
“Delivering for the wine distributor?” asked Officer Spencer as he gingerly stepped between two growling poodles that were approaching each other and leading their masters to the store.
“Not a bad idea,” I said. I had backpedaled and was standing beside Spencer’s patrol car. “But no.” I set the box on the hood and wiped my hands on my shorts to loosen some of the dust from the box. “Actually, this is for you.”
“I’m a beer man,” he said as he looked at the Bonterra box.
Now that we had established his drinking habits, I explained that Charles had come into possession of the box and that we thought it might have relevance to the murders. We wanted to “do our civic duty” and turn it over to the “proper authorities.”
I concede to being a senior citizen and, of course, am coming face-to-face with senility, so I forgot to tell him when we came into possession of the box, why we had visited Mrs. Klein, and how we had spent a great deal of time reviewing its contents. It even slipped my mind to mention that we had made copies.
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bsp; I wasn’t certain how much he believed me but knew he would hesitate to challenge my story. He opened the flaps covering the box, looked inside, and turned his gaze back to me and said, “Um hum.” He handed me his plastic grocery bag and put Ms. Rowland’s box in the backseat of his Crown Vic. “You know I’m going to give this to Chief King, don’t you?”
I nodded. “Good.”
“And,” he continued as he got in, “he’s going to want to know how you got it, and when, and more importantly, why.”
“Sure,” I said.
“And he’s not going to believe your story. In fact, he’ll scream at me for not bringing you in for obstructing justice, withholding evidence, and … and, in general, pissing him off.”
So much for civic duty.
CHAPTER 41
Twenty miles west of Charleston, I tried to recall why I had agreed to be on I-26 headed to the Horse Capital of the World, Lexington, Kentucky. Charles rode shotgun and was doing everything he could to distract me—no accident, I suspected. As we left Folly Beach, he felt compelled to share that the causeway to the beach wasn’t opened until 1920 and that was only to property owners. The next year it opened to everyone, and the lot prices “soared” to two thousand dollars. He told me about the history of the developed areas along the Ashley River, and something about something else—I had tuned him out by then. Besides, his words had been drowned out by the strumming of a Martin guitar and Country Cal in the rear seat singing,
“… The next time we met, there were others;
you introduced me to your husband, kids, and world.
You were older, no longer a child but a person;
I saw beauty, strength, a glimmer or our past unfurled …”
I vaguely recalled a late-night call from Charles, who said that we had limited our search for the crossbow killer to too small an area; we needed to “saunter” slightly northwest a bit. I wasn’t paying much attention until he told me “a bit” was nearly six hundred miles. The key to the killings, according to Charles, was Stewart Barlow. That’s who had paid Pat Rowland to find something or someone. I recalled telling him that I’d think about it. He said, “Good. I’ll be at your car at 6:00 a.m.”
Once Charles decided something, it was pointless to try to dissuade him. In my younger, more foolish, years, I might have tried. Maturity, or more accurately, surrender, dictated that I didn’t make the effort. Besides, it had been a while since I had been to my home state and, unfortunately, didn’t think the public would mind the gallery not being open.
I had packed enough clothes for a few days and opened the front door at Charles’s designated time. I would have been shocked if he hadn’t been leaning on the car and grinning at me. He was there, so I used my one available shock when I saw Cal standing with him, his beat-up guitar case and olive drab, road-worn, cloth carryall sitting beside it. Rather than seeing Country Cal, I got my first glimpse of Calvin Ballew, wearing navy blue shorts, way-off-white tennis shoes, and a relatively neat, bright blue golf shirt. He was Stetson-less.
I also remembered thinking that Calvin, alias Country Cal, could easily be a suspect as well as Charles’s country-crooning buddy. Should I have asked to check his bag for a crossbow?
With the sun rising behind us and Cal pausing after his melodic version of his greatest hit, Charles finally decided that I needed to know why the backseat was occupied.
“Wasn’t it great that Cal could get away to go?” he shared.
“Uh-huh,” I whispered and nodded. Anything else would have slowed his story.
“When I saw him last night at Bert’s, I was afraid he’d be playing at GB’s tomorrow and stuck on the beach.”
“Nice of Michigan to invite me,” chimed in Cal. “He thought that since I lived at the Edge, my life was in danger, and …”
“Cal,” interrupted Charles, “how about staying on a first-name basis instead of state of origin? Chris’d appreciate it.”
I knew Charles wouldn’t be able to take being called Michigan for twelve hundred miles and no telling how many days. It was kind of him to use me as his reason for the request.
Cal strummed his guitar and looked at the back of Charles’s head. “First you tell me I have to dress like a detective and not a rhinestone cowboy, and now you’re telling me what I have to call you.” He strummed again and then laughed. “A control freak, ain’t ya?”
Cal’s a quick study. Charles grinned but didn’t turn his head from the road. “Yep.”
Another strum, and then Cal said, “Okay then, Charles, why are we taking this little trip? You told me you’d explain on the way.”
Thank you, Cal.
“Simple,” said Charles. “Process of elimination. Lester Patterson got himself killed—no reason anyone can figure; and then Arno barely escaped with a bolt in the arm—no reason anyone could figure; and now, Pat Rowland got herself murdered on the streets of Folly Beach; and, lo and behold, Chris and I found a reason … sort of.”
“And it is?” asked Cal.
Thank you again, Cal.
“We’ve learned from sources I can’t divulge, that Rowland is … was … a private detective hired by a bigwig in Lexington. She was supposed to find someone. She’d looked in several cities before ending up here.”
“And that makes her the key, how?” asked Cal, without a strum.
Thank you, Cal—for not strumming.
“She’s the only one living at the boardinghouse with anything we can figure as a reason for murder,” said Charles.
“I’m confused,” said Cal.
“Welcome to my world,” I mumbled.
He continued. “Then how come shoot Lester and Arno?”
“And,” I added, “what about Travis Green? It’s mighty suspicious that he’s disappeared.”
“And,” Cal jumped on the bandwagon, “why not Harley? He lives there, too.”
“And,” I added, “why not Heather Lee?”
“Yeah,” said Cal. “One more night of listening to her off-key warbling, I’ll be shopping for a crossbow myself.”
“It’s good to hear you don’t have one,” said Charles. “Didn’t think your bag was big enough.”
So far, no one had mentioned Cindy Ash or Mrs. Klein as suspects. No need for me to stir the confusion.
“Fellas,” said Charles, “I don’t have it all figured out. That’s why we’re heading to the birth state of A. Lincoln; sorry I don’t have an appropriate quote for your proper edification.”
“Thank the lord,” said Cal.
“Want to hear my theory or waste time being jealous of my brilliance?” asked Charles.
The only sound was the car engine. Charles took it as an apology and continued. “I think Pat Rowland was following the trail of someone for Stewart Barlow who, as Cal and his country-compadres would say, had ‘done him wrong.’ The trail led to the cities that we found the receipts for and ended at Folly Beach.” He paused and then said, “Yep, I think that’s it. Somehow she suspected that the person, or persons, who done Barlow wrong lived at the Edge, but she didn’t have enough proof. She moved in to get closer.”
“And then … then, someone shoots Lester, Arno, and Rowland?” asked Cal. “I’m not following, so …”
Charles interrupted. “My theory’s not quite foolproof, and I’m getting hungry.” He looked out the side window as the exit zoomed by. “Don’t you ever stop?”
We were on the outskirts of Columbia, and I did need a coffee break. Charles’s analysis hadn’t quite put me to sleep, but it didn’t help me stay awake. I stopped at a Starbucks just off the interstate west of the state capitol. The freestanding, shoebox-shaped coffee shop was typical Starbuck’s. The multilevel and multicolored hanging ceiling panels looked like hovering spaceships, and the air vents like baby ships. The multicolored theme was carried th
rough with the pendant lights, and poor quality, but colorful, oil paintings dotted the gallery wall near the restrooms. Soft jazz played in the background. We joined the line waiting to order—a line of construction workers mixed with businessmen in suits and retirees killing time.
We corralled a rare, unoccupied table in the corner. Coffee cups, laptops, and newspapers occupied the rest.
Under the bright lighting, I noticed that Cal’s blue eyes were fading to gray from age and hard living. He sipped black coffee and stretched his long legs out into the aisle. He’d told the barista that she’d better not put any of that latte, or green or purple tea, or whatever else they use to poison a good cup of Joe in his cup. His grin said the coffee had met his standards.
“A few years back,” he said to no one in particular, “I played a couple of bars over on Broad River Road.” He pointed toward the interstate. “Never thought the world would come to looking like this at a coffee house. Nope, never did.”
“You must have done quite a bit of traveling,” said Charles. He blew on his steamed, extra hot, hot chocolate to cool it enough to drink and leaned on the small table that separated him from Cal and me.
“Yep,” said Cal, “played about every small town between here and Missouri.” He hesitated and stared out the window. “Drove that old Caddy about seven zillion miles; lived out of the backseat most of the time.”
Charles took a sip and a bite of coffee cake. Crumbs dotted his University of Kentucky long-sleeve T-shirt. “How’d you get bookings?”
Cal laughed. “A one-man show.” He fiddled with the plastic top on the coffee and looked at the writing on the cup like he was studying Egyptian hieroglyphics. “In the mornings, I’d drive from small town to small town, look for an old high school gym or bar, even some colleges. I’d find someone around who looked official and said I’d play a concert that night for tips and a chance to sell my records and 8-track tapes out of the trunk.”
“Guess it worked,” I added.
“Most of the time,” said Cal. “Remember, that was a while back—no cable TV, MTV, CMT, music in everyone’s ear with MP3 players, computer games … hell’s bells, no one even had a computer. In the small towns, I was a combination of a traveling circus, medicine man, live entertainment, and celebrity. All free.” His stare drifted to the window again, memories flashing past. “By the afternoon, everyone in the town knew about the big, free concert.”
