by Bill Noel
Cal was in his stage outfit. I saw his rhinestone coat in a new light; I smiled to myself when I thought about the supplier of his fine jewels. He saw Amber and stood, tipped his Stetson, and pulled one of the three vacant chairs out for her.
“Ah,” she said, “one gentleman in this dive.”
Cal beamed and waved to the waitress. Amber ordered a Miller Light; I asked for GB’s finest white wine. They only had one, so it sounded more lavish than it was—Chris, the connoisseur.
It was early, but there was only one empty table. The strong smell of onions on the grill and the stale smell of beer were in the air. I recognized a few of the patrons, but several had the sunburned glow of vacationers. I wondered how long it would take them to figure out that Garth Brooks wouldn’t be dropping by.
Charles sat closest to the wall, and Heather perched cross-legged on the chair next to him. She wore the same yellow sequined blouse and wide-brimmed straw hat I’d seen on her each Tuesday. She had on slacks instead of the billowy skirt. There were two beer bottles in front of her—one half empty, the other ready for the recycle bin.
Arno was in the chair to the right of Charles. His sling was showing wear; streaks of dirt covered the area under his elbow, and someone had tried to sign the side. It was still wrapped around his shoulder, and he grimaced every time he lifted the beer bottle. He already had two empty bottles in front of him. The grimaces should subside shortly.
“How’s your shoulder?” asked Amber. She had taken the first sip of her drink and was turned facing Arno.
“Killing me,” he said and took another swig. “Go to the doc next week; damned pain pills ain’t doing a thing.”
One of Charles’s friends, Jim Something-or-other, came over to the table. Jim worked at the Holiday Inn, and I’d had several pleasant conversations with him during many of my coffee runs. He said hi to Arno, Amber, and me, and then leaned down to Charles. “Hear you spent a night wasting my tax money,” he said and laughed. “Does you right. When’re you going to give up on this country music and get a good music education over at the Bluegrass Society?”
Jim was one of the organizers of the Folly Beach Bluegrass Society and their popular Thursday night bluegrass jam at the Rock and Roll Rolling Thunder Roadhouse—called the Roadhouse Café by the locals. Charles said something about Thursdays were his night to get a facial and he couldn’t work bluegrass into his schedule. Jim looked at Charles and waited for a follow-up comment. Charles looked at him and grinned. I choked on my wine—Charles, a facial!
“Funny,” said Jim, who turned and started back to the bar, but hesitated. “Remember, Charles, country music comes and goes; bluegrass is forever.”
“So are death and taxes,” said Charles, but Jim was already across the room.
GB tapped on the old-fashioned mike and cluttered the airwaves with the electronic equivalent of fingers scratching a chalkboard. “Testing, testing,” screeched his smoke-clouded voice. He welcomed “friends, good buddies, and vacationers from afar to a night of music you’ll never forget.” I wasn’t sure where he put Jim in that mix; after all, he was trying to recruit patrons away from GB’s to forever bluegrass.
Heather reached behind the chair for her guitar, told us that she was first, and then bounded toward the raised wooden stage. GB had started her introduction. Cal leaned over to me. “I’ve told him; I’ve told him. I’ve told GB not to start with Heather—the customers aren’t drunk enough yet.”
I tried to be polite but couldn’t stifle a little laugh.
As a prelude to her terrible singing, she honored her fans with the nonmelodious sounds of her tuning the guitar. I heard Arno ask how Charles liked his accommodations last night and if he was any closer to catching the killer. Cal told “North Carolina,” known to me as Amber, that if she ever got tired of “boring ole Kentucky” she was hanging around with, he was “available to soothe all your aches and pains, give you new dreams, and make you feel eighteen again.”
She said “eeyew” to experiencing eighteen again but would remember his kind offer. She reached around me and pulled me closer and kissed me on the cheek. I was beginning to relax despite Heather’s best efforts to destroy my hearing. She was singing a cockatoo’s version of “I Fall to Pieces.”
Heather had finished her quota of one song, and GB was telling his friends and good buddies that “World-Famous Recording Artist, Country Cal” would be on a little later and to drink up. I looked at Cal and mouthed, “World-Famous.”
He sat back in his chair and grinned. “Ain’t GB the best?” he asked.
I flashed back to my days in the world of work and remembered how my company would give someone a fancy title instead of a raise. GB would have fit in well. I also flashed back to the middle of last night when Charles and I had decided that the killer was either the mysterious, missing, Volvo-driving Travis Green or my friend, the world-famous Country Cal. Please let it be Travis.
Cal noticed two unattended females at the bar and excused himself to “make proper introductions.” Amber excused herself to visit the ladies’ room. I moved two chairs over and butted into the conversation between Charles and Arno.
Charles was telling Arno that he didn’t think the killer would come after him again. “Chris and I,” said Charles, “have figured that Pat Rowland was the target. It had something to do with some stolen stuff in Kentucky.”
Arno did a double take at Charles and then turned to me. “Then why’d the killer murder Lester, shoot me, and, God forbid, maybe Travis?” He paused like he had a thought. “Or is it Travis?”
“To confuse the cops,” said Charles before I could respond. “I think you’re safe.”
“Easy for you to say,” said Arno. His voice was getting louder, and he was becoming more agitated. “You weren’t the one with the damned arrow in you.” He took another long swig. “I’m scared … thinking about leaving this godforsaken island. Even rough-tough Harley’s getting spooked and talking about skipping.”
“I don’t think you’re in more danger,” said Charles. “Besides, we told the cops most of it, so it shouldn’t be long before they catch him. Hang in here.” Charles continued to whisper. “Besides, where would you go?”
Amber had returned and saw we were in deep conversation. She quietly sat on the other side of the table.
Arno smiled at her and turned his attention back to Charles. “I’m a good carpenter. I could get a job anywhere.”
Charles laughed. “True,” he said. “I remember those carpenters over on Sea Crest at that remodel job getting mad at you when you built that sawhorse-like-thingee that held one end of that eight-foot-long two-by-four so you didn’t need someone to hold the other end while you nailed it to the wall.”
Arno smiled. “Yeah, I remember,” he said. “The contractor fired one of them; told him he didn’t need him. Thought the guy was going to punch me out. Ah, the good old days.”
Once again, Charles was able to turn someone’s terrible, frightened mood to laughter.
Cal returned and looked at each of us. “They look like lesbos to you?” he asked.
Charles lowered his head and rolled his eyes up to look at the two ladies still sitting at the bar. “Not until you walked over.”
Cal glared at Charles. I laughed. Arno moaned. And Amber slowly lifted the bottle to her lovely lips.
Heather had stopped at a table of vacationers—given away by their stop-light-red complexion—and shook hands with each of them before moseying back to our table.
“Fine job, Heather,” said Cal as he tipped his hat to her.
“Nice,” said Amber.
I simply nodded.
Charles took his hat from the back of his chair, put it on, and then, not to be outdone by Cal, tipped it toward Heather. “Really good,” he said.
Heather beamed and then hugged Charles. He almo
st fell out of the chair.
She repositioned her chair and moved closer to Charles. Hmm, I thought.
The next singer, a younger, heavier, and less talented—much less talented—version of Randy Travis was working his way through “1982,” but few in the standing-room-only bar could hear him. The group at each table had to talk louder to be heard over the voices coming from the adjacent table. Instead of yelling across our table, I talked to Amber—my preference anyway. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Charles leaning toward Heather; both were laughing. And Cal and Arno were deep in conversation. The more Arno drank, the less he grimaced when he moved his arm. Apparently, his doctor had prescribed the wrong painkiller.
Was this the calm before the storm?
CHAPTER 52
I did something Wednesday morning I had been determined not to do since I retired. I turned on the radio to hear the weather. I wished I hadn’t.
The harried weatherman was recounting the top story and telling the early-morning listeners that Hurricane Greta was now a Category 4 storm, with sustained winds exceeding 140 miles per hour. It was located off the coast of Florida and projected to hit landfall Friday somewhere between Charleston and Georgetown.
I stared at the radio. What we had talked about for several days was only talk. Now Greta was being spoken of in the same breath as Hurricane Hugo, one of the worst storms ever to hit the area, and I was sitting a few miles from where it was projected to slam ashore.
The weatherman had passed the mike to a newscaster, who reported that mandatory evacuations would be imposed—possibly as early as in the morning from as far south as Savannah and as far north as Myrtle Beach. It didn’t take a geography degree to know that Folly Beach was dead in the center.
I looked down; my hands shook. In two weeks: two hurricanes; two murders, maybe three, one attempted murder; a failing business; a night in jail; being subjected to Heather’s “singing”; and a headache to cheer the heart—and wallet—of a neurologist. I also realized I was hungry; my total food consumption at GB’s was fries swiped off Amber’s plate. I threw on my I-live-here-and-can-wear-what-I-want clothes and headed next door to Bert’s to grab some junk food. Others must have been listening to the weather alarmists; the line of customers was longer than for a Miley Cyrus concert—shelves that normally held bread, milk, beer, and batteries were empty.
I had no interest in fighting the herds and turned toward the Holiday Inn. I didn’t want my friends at the Dog to see me in my current state; the nice, pleasant, hot, and predictable breakfast at the hotel sounded better with each step.
Breakfast was not to be. A white, City of Folly Beach Crown Vic patrol car pulled beside me before I crossed Arctic Avenue to cross the hotel’s parking lot. Cindy Ash lowered the window, looked around, and asked me to hop in. Hop in didn’t sound like a formal command, so I walked around the cruiser and slid into the front seat instead of behind the partition.
“What’s up?” I asked.
She continued to look around. “Hold on,” she said; her voice cracked.
She drove about three blocks past her apartment and pulled into one of several small lots available for beach parking.
“The Sheriff’s Department arrested Cal.”
I was stunned. “Huh … when, why? I was with him until late last night.”
“They kicked his door in around four.” She slurred they into an obscenity. “Took about twenty of them to arrest one sleeping cowboy singer. Happened right over my room. Sounded like a herd of buffalo stampeding across Wyoming. Woke everyone in the building.” Her voice grew louder. “Nearly gave Mrs. Klein a heart attack. Idiots!”
“What charge?”
“Two counts of murder; one of attempted murder.”
Charles and I had discussed Cal as a suspect, but I was still shocked. “He say anything?”
“Hell if I know. I rushed out of my room when I heard the commotion. One of the deputies grabbed my arm; said, ‘Now get back in your room, missy’ … missy! He knew I was on the job but treated me like I was seven.”
“Evidence?”
“I headed to the station,” she said. “No way to go back to sleep. Wasn’t scheduled to go on duty until seven, so I hung around the station until then.”
I knew she had heard my question; I waited. She was fidgeting less and not looking around to see if she was being watched.
“One of the jackass sheriff’s deputies bullied his way into the station about five—all puffed up and cocky like he’d caught Osama Bin Laden. He lowered himself enough to tell a couple of us stupid local cops that his office received a call telling them that Calvin Ballew was the killer and that the crossbow was in his room.”
“Was it?”
“Sure was; wrapped in a mangy beach towel under his bed—surprise, surprise.”
“Trace the call?”
“Prepay cell phone; no way to trace.”
“Convenient … convenient and fishy,” I said.
“Not fishy enough for the brilliant detectives,” she said. “They hauled him off to the county jail.”
Cindy jumped out of the cruiser and began walking toward the beach. I followed. She kicked the sand and cursed under her breath. I had no idea if Cal was the killer; could make a good argument either way; but the dead fish smell in the air matched my comments about the helpful—fishy—tip.
Cindy took a couple of deep breaths, and we stood side by side and looked out to sea. I listened to her wax profanely in her east Tennessee twang.
I felt helpless.
“Got to get back on patrol. My day could only get worse if Acting Chief King caught me talking to you.” She finally smiled and offered to take me back to the hotel. I told her I needed a walk. She thanked me for listening to her rant.
I was having trouble catching my breath by the time I made it to the hotel. It wasn’t that far, but the humidity must have been 700 percent. My food-stained golf shirt was sticking to my skin. I entered the side door and plopped my less-than-trim body onto one of the new, green, cushioned chairs in the corridor overlooking the pool. I sat for a moment to let my heartbeat settle and stared at the new glass-covered columns as the high-tech lighting changed colors to give the effect of the changing sea. I even resisted a cup of “complimentary” coffee.
I tried to remember anything significant from last night. Charles, Heather, and Cal had been soaking up the ambiance of GB’s when I left around eleven. Arno’s Milwaukee-produced medication had worn off, and he left before I did. Harley even stopped by around ten and had a beer. Charles introduced him to the others before he said he had to get his hog home.
The sun was shining brightly; hardly a cloud was in the sky; the sea was no rougher than usual. And I sat here knowing that one of the largest hurricanes in decades was churning a few hundred miles away, preparing to wreak havoc on us. The beautiful calm sea was filled with vacationers from all over the country; the same sea that hid sharks, riptides, and other unseen dangers—and a new friend was either a gruesome killer, or there was someone smiling and getting away with murder. Irony flowed as powerfully as the tide.
I called Charles. He probably had already heard about Cal since Cindy said that the commotion woke everyone; Heather may have called her new “fan” with the news.
Charles didn’t own a cell phone, so if he failed to answer, the only way to contact him was to ride around the island until you found him. After seven rings, I was afraid I would have to enter the September sauna. His groggy, last-second “hello” saved me.
“Heard about Cal?” I asked without preamble.
“What about him?” He was more alert.
I gave him a thirty-second sound bite about the arrest and asked him to meet me on the pier. He hesitated, which surprised me. He was usually ready to go at the drop of a Tilley. He hemmed and hawed before saying he would
be there in a half hour. That was fine; I was finally getting comfortable, and my shirt wasn’t sticking quite as tight to my back.
Jim stopped by the chair to make sure I’d survived a night of country music and to encourage me to “see the light” and convert to bluegrass. I said I’d think about it. I then asked Diane, the night clerk, if she had an update on Greta. She didn’t but said she was heading as far away as she could get when she got off. She had already requested vacation time for the rest of the week and had relatives somewhere near Greenville. She told me to get out, too.
As we were talking, I saw Charles pedal up to the front of the hotel on his trusty Schwinn. He parked it to the left of the main doors. He had on a long-sleeve, white, Arizona State Sun Devils T-Shirt, faded jeans, and his hat.
I pointed at his shirt. “To scare off Greta?”
We walked toward the east end of the hotel and then across the parking lot to the steps leading to the pier. To his credit, he didn’t start peppering me with questions until we were halfway out the pier and settled on one of the many wooden, stationary benches that lined the impressive structure.
“I thought maybe Heather would have called you; Cindy said the cops made enough noise to wake everyone.”
“Umm …” He paused and looked toward the boardinghouse. “Nope.”
I turned toward Charles and saw a rare sight. He blushed. “Yeah,” I said, “maybe she wasn’t close enough to hear the commotion.”
“What else did Cindy say?” His changing the subject answered my unasked question.
I told him about the anonymous tip, the untraceable cell phone, and the crossbow under the bed.
He slammed the point of his cane on the wooden deck of the pier. “That proves it.”
Proof was the last thing I heard in my recounting Cindy’s story. “Proves what?”
“Travis Green’s the killer. Heather told us.”
“Yeah, but …”
