Boneyard Beach Read online

  Boneyard Beach

  A Folly Beach Mystery

  Bill Noel

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  About the Author

  Also by Bill Noel

  Prologue

  “Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder!” rang out one more time on the boat crammed with eleven of my fellow college students. I clasped my hands against my ears. How many more times would I have to hear it before my brain exploded? How had I let Cleveland talk me into going on the euphemistically-named “moonlight marsh educational activity” when everyone knew that it was an excuse to get away from the pressures of tests, studying, and boring professors? More importantly, it was an excuse to get smashed.

  If I had any doubt about the intent, it was clarified when the guys lugged three large maroon and white coolers down the pier and hefted them onto the twenty-five foot long Carolina Skiff with letters on the hull announcing to all but observers with severe cataracts that it was MAD MEL’S MAGICAL MARSH MACHINE. This was my last chance to let reason prevail and scamper off the pier and hitch a ride back to the college library to study for Dr. Hansel’s test. I’d turned to go when Cleveland came up behind me, put his arms around my shoulders and said, “Drew, ready to party?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer as he led, nearly shoved, me toward the boat, stepped around an old bald-headed guy, dressed in camo gear, who I would have guessed from a mile away was Mad Mel, and then deserted me to grab a beer. I didn’t drink, but didn’t dare ask if they thought to bring anything non-alcoholic on the “educational activity.”

  Thirty minutes, or about twenty renditions later of the obnoxious ‘beauty is…” chant, on a boat now cluttered with two-dozen empty beer cans, the captain slammed the bow of the skiff onto the beach.

  “Holy crap!” a classmate yelled. “We’ve landed on the moon.”

  He was 239,000 miles off—see, I do pay attention in class—but I understood what he’d meant. The sand was dotted with large, white, windswept trees, straggly vegetation, and other than the nonsensical sounds and laughter from the boat, dead silence. The sun was on its descent behind the trees and their eerie shadows reached out to the boat like a witch’s talons drawing us in.

  We had reached our destination and half the group bounded over the side to the wet sand. One of the coeds landed in water that lapped over her feet. “Shit!” she yelled and high stepped it out of the surf. The student behind her laughed, not the sympathetic response the tennis-shoe-soaked coed had hoped for.

  Six guys lugged the coolers over the side and staggered, more from beverages consumed on the journey than from the weight of the coolers, up the small incline to where the sand met native vegetation. The rest of us—yes, even I—followed the coolers like ants following the lead ant dragging a cake crumb.

  “Halt!” Mad Mel bellowed. “Before you go farting around and doing whatever worthless college students do, this craft is departing at twenty-two hundred. Be here! If you don’t have a moon beam, stay with someone who does. It’ll be dark in ninety minutes.”

  Charming, I thought, and wondered how he’d managed to book any tours. Two guys were mumbling something about when twenty-two hundred was and two gals were giggling about finding the nearest porta pottie. And, Timothy, standing beside me, asked what a moon beam was.

  I said, “A flashlight.”

  “Why didn’t Rambo say so?”

  I didn’t have an answer and it didn’t matter because Timothy had already beelined it to the cooler. Once again, I wondered why I had come.

  I’m not naïve to the ways of my fellow College of Charleston students; after all, I’m a junior and live in a dorm, but I’m also a loner by nature, and have never been one to get caught up in the partying that is as normal in colleges as student loans and all-nighters. I stepped away from the crowd and realized that I only knew four of the eleven students and would consider none of them friends. I knew the names of four guys because I’d met them while attending Gay-Straight Alliance meetings. Yes, I’m gay. It’s no big deal and I don’t flaunt it. I don’t march in gay pride parades; I don’t have any interest in crusading for gay rights or protesting intolerance. Most people who know me casually don’t know anything about my sexual persuasion. For that matter, they don’t know my religion, my political affiliation, or whether I prefer hamburgers to hot dogs. I’m a loner who happens to be gay.

  I’m also an observer and would rather listen to a conversation than participate in it. That’s why I’d chosen to move to the edge of the vegetation, sit on one of the horizontal branches of a sun and sand whitewashed oak and observe: observe my fellow students attack the beer cooler, observe the historic Morris Island lighthouse off shore as only the top third benefitted from the setting sun, and observe the seagulls as they circled the exposed sandbar in front of the lighthouse.

  I also observed two guys as they walked away from the others, stepped over two of the downed trees, and disappeared down a path toward the marsh. They were backlit by the sun, but I could tell that they had been strolling hand-in-hand.

  A little later, I was in the same spot, a hundred yards from the coolers, and the sky had gone from bright orange, to a muted blue-orange with darkness soon to follow. There were three people gathered around the coolers like they were afraid that a band of marauding pirates would sneak ashore and steal the beer. The boat hadn’t moved and I saw Mad Mel’s silhouette as he leaned against his Magical Marsh Machine. I couldn’t see anyone else, but the sounds of laughter and an occasional whoop in the distance let me know that there wouldn’t be beer left for pirates to commandeer.

  I had finally stopped rehearsing my answers for tomorrow’s test and had begun relaxing. Participating in this educational activity wouldn’t have been on my to-do list, but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

  That was until I heard a rustling sound behind me. I turned in time to see a three-foot long, thick piece of a whitewashed oak branch coming at me. I felt nothing as it slammed my head.

  Drew Casey never heard the laughter as his fellow students climbed onboard Mad Mel’s Magical Marsh Machine. He never heard the captain shout, “Everybody here?” Nor did he hear the slurred voices of a few of the students say, “Yes.” And he missed hearing their drunken voices chant seven times on the return trip to the dock, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder.”

  Chapter One

  The pulsating roar of an engine from a retro-styled Chevrolet Camaro, unencumbered by a traditional, sound-deflecting muffler, reached me seconds before someone pounded on my door. My keen perception told me that my peaceful morning enjoying a cup of freshly-brewed coffee while I regaled in not having to be anywhere was about to end.

  I had retired to South Carolina eight years ago. Since then, someone in a pick-up truck
and another person in a car had tried to run me down; someone else tried to shorten my life with the sharp end of a pair of shears; I've had a gun pointed in my face more than once; another person had tried to drown me, and a malcontent with a torch attempted to turn me into a crispy critter.

  While pondering retirement for several years before I took the plunge, I had devoured nearly every book and magazine article about how, when, and where to retire, and regaled in stories of happy retirees living out their dreams as they rode off into the sunset on a golf cart. As shocking as it may seem, not a single publication had mentioned how many different ways a retiree could be murdered. I should consider writing that book, and I would if I enjoyed reading and writing. I don’t.

  If I’d spent my life working in law enforcement, what I had experienced may not have been unusual, but give me a break. I was in my mid-sixties, lived on a small barrier island, and owned Landrum Gallery, a tiny photo gallery named after yours truly in an egocentric moment. How dangerous should that be? The closest I’d ever come to a law enforcement career was during a brief stint as a school crossing guard when I was in the sixth grade.

  Now what? I thought as I exhaled and headed to the door to welcome one of my more outlandish friends, and owner of the Camaro.

  “Hey Chris, got a question,” Mel Evans shoved past me as I opened the door. He rushed to the kitchen and Mr. Coffee.

  The new arrival grabbed a mug, poured a cup, and glanced around the kitchen like he was looking for Frisch’s breakfast bar. My kitchen was the most underused room in my small cottage and he should have been thrilled that I had coffee.

  “What’s there to eat?” asked the six-foot-one, sixty-year old with a salt-and-pepper, Brillo-pad haircut. He wore woodland camo field pants sheared off at the knee and a leather bomber jacket with the sleeves cut off at the shoulder and a frown that appeared surgically implanted.

  “Is that the question you barged in and disturbed my peaceful morning for?” I asked and refreshed my coffee.

  Mel’s unlikely friend Jim “Dude” Sloan, an aging hippie and owner of the island’s largest surf shop, had introduced us. Mel ran a marsh tour business that catered to young adults who wanted to get away from the judgmental crowd and party on the small islands or low-tide sandbars that surrounded my home on Folly Beach, or its better known big brother, Charleston, a stone’s throw away.

  “No, smartass, that’s not it, but I can’t get to it until I’ve had something to eat.”

  “Then you knocked on the wrong door unless you want corn flakes sans milk, or M&Ms, or Cheetos.”

  Mel returned to the living room and I followed. “Considering your culinary options, I long for the good old days back in seventy-three when I joined the Marines. They dropped us from a chopper in the swamp on a five-day training mission and we had to catch and eat bugs, cute critters, and snakes that didn’t taste like chicken no matter what they say.”

  I pointed toward the kitchen and said, “There’s been a mouse sneaking in. Have at it.”

  “Damned rodent’ll starve to death in there. Where’re the Cheetos?”

  Instead of casing the kitchen for Mickey, five minutes later Mel had finished a half bag of Cheetos, gulped down a can of Budweiser Light that he managed to find tucked-in behind a box-wine in the refrigerator, plopped down in one of the kitchen chairs, and belched.

  Mel looked at the empty beer can and then around the room like he expected someone to be hiding in the corner, or maybe he’s looking for the mouse for dessert. I sat and waited.

  “Now the question,” he said.

  “About time.”

  He waved my comment away. “Let’s say hypothetically someone took a dozen kids for a moonlight ride and docked at Boneyard Beach.”

  Mel hesitated. Boneyard Beach was a desolate area at the north end of Folly Beach that overlooked the historic Morris Island lighthouse.

  “Okay,” I said and waited.

  “The next day,” Mel shook his head, “the guy who hypothetically booked the trip calls and says that only eleven of them made it back.” He held out both hands and his frown deepened.

  I suspected that Mr. Hypothetical had been feasting on my Cheetos and beer. “Did the hypothetical someone stay with the boat or was he on the beach with the group?”

  Mel shook his head and then nodded, an incongruous visual message if there ever was one.

  “Sort of both,” he said.

  I again waited, anticipating an interesting explanation.

  “He left them on shore and stayed with the craft, except when he hypothetically had to piss. He didn’t think that needed to be a group activity, so he went the opposite direction from the sorry-ass students.”

  I didn’t believe that needed a response so I nodded. “Did the hypothetical captain take a head count before he headed back?”

  Mel brow furled and he stared at me. “Umm, he sort of yelled, ‘Everybody here?’”

  “And?” I prompted after Mel’s long hesitation.

  “Heard some slurred yeses,” he said, not more than a whisper. “Then shoved off.”

  “Anybody say no or act concerned about someone missing when they got to the dock?”

  “Not a hypothetical peep.”

  “Anyone sober?”

  “Only the hypothetical captain,” Mel came close to grinning, but couldn’t get his facial muscles to cooperate. “He didn’t want to be a bad influence on today’s spoiled, sniveling, rudderless brats.”

  I hesitated, shook my head, and wanted to ask what kind of influence a marsh boat operator who hypothetically specialized in ferrying groups of spoiled, sniveling, rudderless brats to isolated beach parties would have by staying sober.

  I resisted and asked, “What did the caller want?”

  This time Mel did grin. “Wanted to know if the hypothetical captain found any leftover bodies on the boat this morning.”

  “No, I assume.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Affirmative to finding a body, or to no?”

  “Affirmative to no.”

  “So,” I said, still confused, “What’s your question?”

  “Think the hypothetical captain might be in trouble?”

  “Affirmative.”

  After my no-brainer answer to Mel’s long-coming question, he stared into his coffee mug, and then at his empty beer can. “Got any whiskey?”

  “Coffee, white wine, beer,” I said.

  He shook his head. “This sure as hell ain’t a well-stocked advice center.”

  “There’s no shortage of advice, but you’ll have to go somewhere else if you want a wider drink selection.”

  “I’ll stick with coffee.” He walked over to Mr. Coffee and refilled his mug. “I’ve got to stop the hypothetical crap. It’s too big a word for this old, broken-down jarhead to throw around. It all happened to me.”

  I made a half-hearted attempt to act surprised. I had met Mel a few years back when a body had turned up in the marsh and a friend of mine had been accused of putting it there. Mel took a couple of us to the site where the body had been found and later helped us catch the killer. The former Marine was gruff, more profane than I preferred, but I was fascinated with his near twenty year friendship with Dude Sloan, the sentence-challenged hippie. Dude was as opposite from Mel as two people could be. Mel had mustered out of the Marine Corp after twenty years of serving “your damned country and you’d better not forget it,” as he was prone to say. He had moved to Charleston and hitchhiked to Folly on weekends to surf and fell in love with the area.

  “You think I could be in trouble?”

  “What did the kid say after you said that you didn’t find a body?”

  Mel stood and walked to the window. His white Adidas tennis shoes looking as out of place with the rest of his attire as LeBron James at a KKK rally. “The twerp mumbled something about hell to pay, cops, lawyers, lawsuits, and maybe firing squad. By that point, my ears were burning and my focus screwed.”

  He returned to
the chair and put both elbows on the table. “So what do you think?”

  By now I had no idea what to think, but did have more questions.

  “When did you take the group out?”

  He glanced down at his black, stainless-steel Fossil watch with more dials and buttons than a Boeing 747, and then back at me.

  “Eighteen-hundred, two hours before sunset.”

  “And returned?”

  He looked back down at his watch like the answers were engraved on the bezel.

  “Twenty-two-hundred. Was black as a witch’s … umm, witch’s hat.”

  “What kind of group was it?”

  “College students.”

  The phrase pulling teeth came to mind as I tried to drag information out of my friend.

  “Why do you think that?”

  “They were that age and acted stupid like college students.”

  “Stupid how?”

  “Half were plastered before we left the dock. The whole way to Boneyard Beach they kept chanting, ‘Beauty is in the eyes of the beer holder.’ They did it over and over, and over and over.” Mel gritted his teeth. “I was about ready to say, beauty in my eyes is throwing you twerps overboard.”

  Mel’s career path after leaving the military had taken a rather strange direction for someone who had been accustomed, “brainwashed” according to Dude, to the rigors and inflexibility of the life of a Marine. He went from working for a septic tank cleaning company to buying a struggling marsh tour business from an old-timer who had actually cared about the ecology. Mel piloted the business into a lucrative niche market where none of the customers cared a whit about anything other than having a good time. I smiled when I thought of Mel and college students in the same sentence.

  I needed to hear more about the group before offering advice.

  “Were they couples?” I asked.

  “Good question. Let me think, umm, don’t think so. Didn’t notice hugging, smooching, or pawing each other. But, I wasn’t surveilling them closely and could be wrong. Remember, I wasn’t with them on the beach.”