The Edge

by Bill Noel

  “Let’s wait and see what Sean says in the morning,” I said. “I’m about at the end of my rope on this. We seem to be losing.” My head was splitting from ear to ear, I was hungry, and I was ready to crawl into a ball and fall asleep—on the floor.

  “Chris, Chris,” said Charles. He was slowly shaking his head. “As my least favorite president, Tricky Dick, once said, ‘A man is not finished when he is defeated. He is finished when he quits.’”

  Then I quit, I thought. But decided not to tell Charles—I didn’t need a prison riot.

  CHAPTER 49

  “Wake up.” Someone was shaking my shoulder. I thought—hoped—it was Amber. The room was illuminated by a low-watt bulb outside the cell. Reality oozed into my caged-in brain. Charles was rudely shaking me from a sound sleep. A blurred look around told me that I wasn’t where I wanted to be, and the total silence around me combined with my stuck-shut eyes, told me roosters were still asleep.

  “What?” I asked, not even pretending to be polite. I stretched my legs and sat upright. I felt like I’d been carrying fifty-pound bags of potatoes on my head; a shooting pain ran down my back. Every bone in my body ached.

  “Ready to break out of this joint?” he asked. A wide grin covered his shadow-covered face. “Just kidding—always wanted to say that.”

  Now polite was in my rearview mirror. “You woke me to tell a joke!”

  “Of course not,” he said, feigning hurt. “It just came out. Sorry.”

  My eyes were growing accustomed to the low light. “So, why?”

  Charles had moved back to his steel bed and stared at me. “I wanted to wait until morning to talk to you, but couldn’t.”

  He continued looking at me as I rubbed my eyes with my wrist. I nodded and looked at my watch—3:15.

  “I’ve been on Folly Beach for nearly a quarter of a century.” He looked down at the fingers on his left hand. “During that time, I’ve never been on a payroll. I worked some here and there, earned a few dollars under the table; been considered a bum by a few; been ‘that’s ole Charles’ to others. I know some see me as a joke, a worthless, but harmless, inconvenience.” He looked at the floor. “I know a flock of folks, but none would consider me a close friend.” He looked up; his eyes were red. “Until you came along. You treated me like a person, taught me photography, paid for some stuff you knew I couldn’t afford.”

  “Charles …”

  “No,” he said, “please let me finish. I just memorized this a few minutes ago. You became my best friend. Sure, you make fun of me sometimes.” He smiled. “For good reason usually; but you treat me with respect, and when you opened the gallery, you gave me real responsibility. You gave me purpose … a purpose. If you close the gallery, it’ll pull that out from under me. I don’t want you to lose money, but I don’t want you to close our gallery.” He hesitated and looked toward the door. “There, now I’ve said it. Go back to sleep—pleasant dreams.”

  “Whoa,” I said. “You didn’t wake me out of a dream—a very good one, I might add—and lay this on me and then go beddy-bye.” I was humbled and touched, but needed to lighten the mood—not the easiest thing to do sitting in a jail cell at 3:15 a.m.

  “Okay,” he said, “now that you’re awake and I’ve said my piece, let’s talk about the murders.”

  “Why not?” I said. “My head’s killing me, and my back feels like it should be in a pretzel bag. What about the murders?”

  “We agree,” he began, “it must have something to do with the Edge.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And we’ve eliminated Lester, Arno, Pat, and Cindy.”

  “Since Lester and Pat are dead, Arno almost was, and we both know Cindy—yeah, I guess.”

  “Then that leaves the missing Travis Green, songbird Heather Lee, Harley Harley, old Mrs. Klein, and … and Cal.”

  “Assuming it’s someone living there.”

  “Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say the killer was someone who worked on Stewart Barlow’s house and is a guy.”

  “I’m not sure that’s accurate,” I said. “But go with it.”

  “That eliminates Heather and Mrs. Klein. Harley’s a plumber and knows his way around a bow and arrow, has a weak alibi, but passed the lie detector test—so he’s probably out.”

  “Those tests aren’t foolproof. Another weak assumption, but okay.”

  “That leaves Travis Green and Cal. And,” said Charles, “since Travis drives a Volvo, he couldn’t be the killer.”

  I smiled as I thought of Dude’s proclamation. “Knocks him right out of the running,” I said.

  Charles appeared not to see the humor. “So,” he said, “did we spend the last three days with a cold-blooded killer? A crooning, Hank Williams-imitating, cold-blooded, psycho killer?”

  All my adult life, I had found that things seemed at their worst in the middle of the night. This moment was no exception. “To be honest, I don’t know.”

  “Me either. Dream away.”

  * * *

  Things didn’t appear much better when 7:00 a.m. rolled around—especially when the next sight my weary, sleep-filled, eyes saw was Acting Chief King yanking open the door to the room where Charles and I were sleeping. His burly body filled every cubic inch of his uniform shirt and slacks; his scowl was magnified by the scar over his eye.

  He rammed his open palm into the steel door. I saw it coming and wasn’t startled; flesh on steel jarred Charles out of his sleep. “What’d I tell you when we met?” growled King. “What’d I say about your damn meddling? Where’d I tell you you’d end up if you didn’t pay attention?”

  I assumed his questions were rhetorical and didn’t speak. I wasn’t sure Charles could; his eyes were still trying to focus. We were exactly where he said we would be.

  “Don’t even try to explain,” he said. “Your freakin’ lawyer is out there to talk to you.” He waved us out of the room and motioned us down the narrow corridor to a battered, wooden table and four chairs in another tiny room. “We’ll continue this later.” He spun and stomped out.

  Charles’s faux grin emerged. “Something to look forward to.”

  I heard muted conversation from outside, and then Sean Aker came in and greeted us with a smile.

  “Pleasant night?” he asked. He was dressed in Folly Beach attorney-casual, wrinkled khakis, a bright orange polo shirt, no socks, and scuffed, dusty, deck shoes.

  We were short on humorous comebacks, so we stared at our attorney and waited for him to sit.

  “I had a nice, pleasant conversation with your new best friend, Chief King,” Sean began. “Before I tell you what we discussed, tell me everything you know about finding Pat Rowland’s papers and anything else about the murders.”

  “Well,” started Charles, “we …”

  “Hold it,” interrupted Sean. “If you did anything illegal, you may want to skip it when telling me what happened. I’m not a criminal attorney.” He paused and glared at my cellmate. “But I know I can’t knowingly lie to the police.”

  We spent the better part of an hour telling Sean everything we knew about Pat Rowland, what we had learned from the box of papers, and our trip to Lexington and talk with Stewart Barlow. He asked a few questions but spent most of the time shaking his head and running his hands through his thick crop of hair. “Happy camper” wouldn’t describe his stare.

  We finished and leaned back in our chairs. Sean looked at each of us and down at the notes he had taken. He then pushed his chair away from the table, stood, and walked to the door. He hesitated and then returned to the table.

  “Okay, here’s where we are. Other than gross meddling, the chief doesn’t have a whit of spit to hold you on. You turned over the papers—maybe not as quickly as you should have—but you turned them over. The trip to Lexington is a bit problematic. It w
as more than gross meddling; it could have impeded a police investigation, but it still won’t stick.”

  “What next?” I asked.

  “We ask the chief to come in, give him our best smiles, and grovel.”

  “Gee,” said Charles, “we’re paying you for that advice?”

  “First,” said Sean, “you know you won’t be paying me a dime. Second, the chief knows he doesn’t have anything on you. Third, I talked to the Charleston County police this morning, and they’re frustrated with our acting chief and he knows it. He’s in no position to make a big deal out of two meddlers in the middle of the largest murder investigation in eons.”

  “Concerned citizens,” said Charles.

  “Meddlers,” said Sean.

  Sean had my vote.

  “Now,” said Sean, “are you going to listen to me, or argue semantics?”

  Charles huffed and puffed, took a deep breath, and then we listened to what Sean had to say.

  “Bring on the chief,” Charles said.

  Charles could spread BS better than a farmer could spread its namesake, so he was our spokesperson. Sean made sure to sit in knee-kicking distance. Charles began and shared how he had been having a pleasant conversation with his friend, Mrs. Klein, and how she had accidentally let it slip that Pat Rowland had left a box in the storage locker. Of course, according to Charles, we knew that the box would be of great value to the police, and so we had asked Mrs. Klein if we could take it to give to the proper authorities. He forgot the part about copying the documents. Acting Chief King was sitting back in the fourth chair around the table; his arms were folded in front of him. He wasn’t believing a word from my tale-spinning friend.

  Charles then told the acting chief that he wanted to see where his good friend, Chris, had lived in Louisville and convinced me that we should take a long weekend and visit Kentucky. Lo and behold, Country Cal wanted to go with us, and coincidentally, during the trip, I had remembered the name Stewart Barlow from the papers we had turned over to the proper authorities. Since we were driving right by Lexington, Cal thought it might be a good idea to stop and see Mr. Barlow. If we learned anything, we could tell the proper authorities, thus saving taxpayers money and the police time by not having to go all the way to Lexington.

  I was touched by how conscientious and concerned we were about taxpayers’ money.

  Our noncriminal attorney figuratively stepped in and held up his hand to Charles. “There you have it, Chief. My clients have been forthcoming.” He turned to me, “Chris, did you learn anything from Mr. Barlow that could help Chief King with solving these heinous crimes?”

  Sean wanted to steer past the fact that we failed to get within eighty miles of Louisville, had rooted though the papers enough to learn about Barlow’s address, and the time lag between when we found the box and when we turned it over to the police. Thank you, Sean.

  I reached for my most sincere voice and told the chief how distressed Barlow was when we told him that the investigator he had hired was dead. I also told him how unhinged he had appeared when we mentioned two of the names we had accidentally seen in the box of papers from Pat Rowland—Timothy Bussy and Peter Loy.

  Acting Chief King surprised me when he asked what it meant.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But it shook him. We simply asked if he knew them, and he reacted like a dark secret had been uncovered.”

  “Hmm,” said King.

  “He also said he was in France the week before,” I said. “If that’s true, he couldn’t be Rowland’s killer. That should be easy for you to verify.”

  “Fellows,” said Sean as he pushed the chair back from the table, “let me talk to the chief a minute. I’ll be back.”

  Like we had a choice, I thought.

  Sean and the chief left, and the minute turned to an hour. We stayed at the table. We must not have been considered a flight risk since we were not escorted back into the cell.

  Sean opened the door and stuck his head into the room. “Let’s go.”

  I looked at Charles. “No argument from me,” he said.

  CHAPTER 50

  “Yo, Bonnie and Clydster,” yelled Dude. He was sitting at his regular table in the Dog and waving a copy of Astronomy magazine over his head for us to join him.

  “I’m Clydster,” I whispered to Charles as I tried to be invisible and hurried toward his table along the far wall. Moments earlier, we had “escaped from the big house,” as Charles had proudly put it. More accurately, we had walked out of the small holding cell in the city hall, but I agreed with Charles’s glee. A celebratory breakfast would help us adjust back into freedom. I should have known that rumors traveled faster than our feet carried us the three blocks.

  We passed the table where the two city council members held their daily meet-and-greet sessions and were subjected to Councilmember Salmon’s off-key humming of the theme from “Cops.” He made Heather Lee sound like Tammy Wynette. “Hide the silverware, they’re out,” came from someone at the table closest to the counter, but by the time I turned to see who it was, the three men and one woman at the table had their heads buried in menus. Charles grinned, and I kept walking.

  “Couldn’t keep the striped shirts, huh?” said Dude. He was enjoying himself far too much.

  “Nope,” said Charles with a straight face. “Had to give the saw you sent back too; the acting chief enjoyed the cake.”

  “You should’ve vegged in the clink for the big-blow,” said Dude. His grin had faded. “Jail be safe when Greta visits. She ain’t no Gidget heading our way.”

  I knew I’d regret it, but blundered ahead. “‘Gidget’—the movie?”

  Dude rolled his eyes—one of these days he’ll learn he’s dealing with a landlubber. I looked to Charles for a translation.

  He didn’t disappoint. “Gidget’s a contraction for girl midget, a small female surfer. Right, Dude?”

  “Well, yeah,” said Dude. “Of course! Dude to Chris; Greta’s going to be a big-butt-blow.”

  Now that we were on the same page—okay, same planet—I asked Dude when and where they’re saying Greta will hit.

  “Fish day; where we unloaded my boat to that sucker last year,” said Dude.

  “Friday at Murrell’s Inlet,” said Charles.

  “Charles,” I said, “I got it—I was there, remember?” Murrell’s Inlet was about ninety miles north of us, but I also remembered that Hurricane Frank was supposed to hit Savannah and it decided to visit my front door instead. How can experts tell the exact time of sunrise in the year 2941 and screw up where a hurricane will hit by a hundred miles? I knew better than to ask Dude or Charles.

  “Enough big-blow jabber,” said Dude. “That be somebody else’s bad. Who be bumping off bods?”

  I didn’t see an upside to sharing our theories with Dude, so I shrugged and asked him if he had heard anything else about his friend, Travis Green.

  “Still be gone,” he said. He shook his head; his long, gray hair waved freely following his head. “Think he be croaked … yeah, he be croaked.”

  Charles asked why he thought that.

  Dude looked toward the door to the front patio and then back at his glass of water.

  “Intestines.” Dude looked up from the water glass and alternated his gaze between the two of us and repeated, “Intestines.” He abruptly stood, took his magazine from under his napkin, and left.

  Charles and I were in no position to argue. I prayed Dude’s gut—intestines—was wrong.

  We were almost finished with the breakfast that Amber had stealthily slipped in front of us while we were talking to Dude. Charles remembered that it was Tuesday and decided that we needed to go to GB’s for the country jamboree. He also decided that the we should include Larry, Cindy, Amber, and anybody he could “pick up” between now and then.

&n
bsp; I was pleased when Amber said, “Sure, Jason’s doing homework and spending the night with Samuel.” Our luck ran out when a call to Pewter Hardware resulted in Larry laughing at me. He was in “hurricane’s a-coming” mode and needed to overfill the shelves with screws, plywood, generators, pumps, and batteries. He also said that Cindy was working the second shift and might drop by GB’s later. I wished Charles good hunting on his quest to find a date and walked home to take a nap.

  A night in the hoosegow was exhausting; who would’ve thought?

  CHAPTER 51

  Age and a growing paunch took much of the pleasure out of walking, but I knew parking anywhere near GB’s would be near impossible. Amber’s apartment was only a block from the Tuesday night happening, so I met her at her door for the short walk to the bar.

  I continued to be amazed how fantastic she could look after an exhausting day on her feet smiling at customers like she truly cared how much extra syrup they wanted for their pancakes or how glorious their day at the beach was going to be. I was amazed and pleased. I gave her a “hello” kiss that lingered to the point where I almost suggested that we skip the jamboree and spend a quiet evening in the apartment—kitchen and living room excluded. The sweet smell of bath powder, the touch of her slightly damp auburn hair, and the cute dimples in her cheeks when she smiled were hard to resist, but I knew if we didn’t show up at GB’s in the next fifteen minutes, Charles, his date, if he managed to find one, and no telling who else, would be knocking on the door interrupting any privacy we could muster.

  “About time you got here,” said Charles before our feet had cleared the threshold. He had pulled two of the round tables along the wall opposite the bar. Seven chairs were already situated around the tables. Charles, Country Cal, Arno Porchini, and Heather Lee occupied four of the chairs, and seven beer bottles occupied the tables.