The Marsh Read online

  “That’s a lot of thinking this early,” he said. “No idea; didn’t see him.”

  “Hmm! Hmm!” said Charles as he tapped his cane on the painted concrete floor. He had magically appeared by the table and stared down at Cal.

  I looked at my watch and smiled. Cal was in Charles’s self-appointed seat. “Late again,” I said.

  “Hmm,” he repeated and grabbed one of the two vacant chairs at the table and plopped down like a pouting ten-year-old. He looked at me and then back to Cal. “Want to change seats?”

  And he called me a creature of habit.

  Cal said he would do Charles one better; he would leave. “You can have both of them,” said Cal as he unfurled his tall frame and bowed toward Charles.

  “Hmm,” said Charles, for the third time, as Cal headed to the door. He moved to the chair Cal had vacated and sighed. Charles was back in his comfort zone.

  Cal tipped his imaginary Stetson at Amber as he passed her near the exit. He tipped his air-hat once more and sidestepped to avoid running into Cindy Ash as she opened the heavy front door. She grinned at the grand, bordering on silly, gesture and headed directly to our table.

  “Morning,” I said. “Have a seat; Charles’ll let you have his if you want.”

  She looked at me like I was a grasshopper and sat in one of the empty chairs. Charles grinned and asked her how Larry was.

  Charles swore that he could tell from the early-morning glow on Cindy’s face whether she had spent the night at Larry’s rather than in her small room at Mariner’s Breeze.

  She turned a shade of red just shy of tomato soup and mumbled, “Fine.” Before Charles could pursue his line of questioning, she continued, “I wanted you to know that the fire was arson.”

  “Wow,” said Charles, forgetting about where Cindy had spent the night. “You sure?”

  “The techs from Charleston’s Explosive Devices Unit confirmed it this morning; my contact there called me. There’s no doubt. They found evidence of an accelerant in three or four places in the suite.”

  Amber brought Cindy a mug of coffee and asked if she wanted anything to eat. Cindy declined and said she was on a diet and wanted to lose ten pounds by the wedding. Amber stared at me and said she wished other people would try to lose some weight. I was an advocate of the denial approach to many problems; she must have been talking about Charles.

  “Do they think Sean set it?” I asked.

  “No,” said Charles sharply. Cindy didn’t answer. “Why would he? If he wanted anything destroyed, all he had to do was take it, shred it, and be done with it. No, he didn’t start the fire.”

  Good point, but I remembered what Marlene had said about each attorney having a key to his, and only his, filing cabinet. But she had also said that the cabinets were anything but burglarproof.

  “Anything new on Colleen?” I asked.

  “Not that I know,” she said and turned toward the door. Ever since Acting Chief King had been appointed by our misguided mayor, he had treated Charles and me as pariahs and looked down, way down, on Cindy by association. “Still looks like a simple drug overdose.” She excused herself and headed to work.

  Charles looked into his mug and then at his left palm. I thought he might read a passage from it—the influence of Heather. He finally spoke. “Did I tell you about the first time I met Sean?”

  I often tune Charles out, so I wasn’t certain. “Don’t believe so,” I said.

  “Didn’t think I did.” He maintained the gaze at his palm. “He’d just moved here and opened his law office. I’d been around for several years and worked a couple of days a week for a builder; did mostly remodeling. It paid cash—lowered my tax bracket … well, anyway, we were working on a house by the Washout.” He paused as Amber refilled our mugs. “Where was I?”

  “Remodeling a house by the Washout?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, well, the builder had the naïve owner, a fellow from Virginia, pay half down on the job—several thousand, a ton of money back then. That’s when I learned that the guy was a fly-by-night operator … he flew. Poof! Gone. Guess who was the only person left on Folly Beach who had worked on the job?”

  “Guy named Charles?” I asked.

  “Bingo,” he said and pointed to me. “Maybe bunko.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I heard the cops were after me. Didn’t know what to do, so I walked up the stairs to the new attorney in town. Sean had just passed the bar, had student loans out the as—wallet. He was hungry as a starving shark in a cornfield for paying business.”

  I didn’t have that many years left, so I had to move the story along. “And then what?”

  “Then …” he said and huffed. “I had seventeen dollars and thirty-five cents in my pocket, and in my bank account, in my IRA, and in my off-shore accounts … and …”

  When will I learn not to rush him?

  “Okay, okay,” I said

  Charles grinned and continued, “Sean listened to my sad story and told me his fees. No wonder lawyers have two American homes and three European cars. Well, I told him that I could pay for about seven minutes of his time.” Charles smiled at the memory. “Sean laughed—a good sign, I thought. He looked toward his empty reception area and then said he was holding a grand opening sale and asked me for a dollar.”

  I stared at Charles, afraid to say anything.

  “Well,” he continued, “to make a long story short—”

  “Too late,” I interrupted.

  He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, he met with the cops, talked to the prosecutor, and spoke to the homeowner. He got them to not charge me with anything … not even turn me over to the feds for tax evasion … all if I ratted on my former employer.”

  Charles looked back into his mug. “Chris,” he mumbled, “anyone who would be that nice to a total stranger—a broke, looking-like-a-bum stranger—couldn’t be a killer. He simply can’t.”

  I nodded, but wasn’t sure the logic was foolproof.

  To the police, Colleen’s death was a “simple overdose,” and Sean “simply can’t be the killer.”

  But nothing was simple on Folly.

  We left the Dog, and I was faced with the dilemma that I had faced on a recurring basis over the last few months: open the gallery or find an excuse—any excuse—not to. Charles wanted to check on Harley. There was my excuse du jour.

  Mariner’s Breeze Bed and Breakfast was on Sandbar Lane, within sight of Charles’s apartment and the Sandbar Seafood and Steak Restaurant. The main—and possibly only—redeeming feature of the dilapidated B&B was that it sat on premium real estate; it backed up to the marsh and the Folly River. The aging, two-story wood building fit in well on Folly Beach. Paint peeled in large chunks from the formerly white exterior. A permanent Rooms Available wood sign was precariously attached at a forty-five-degree angle to a bracket by the front door. Half of the roof had been patched, and several shingles were twisted and broken on the other half.

  There was a small gravel-and-shell parking lot in front and seven more spaces on the side. Harley’s motorcycle wasn’t in either lot, but Charles insisted on checking anyway. I said, “Okay,” since it beat opening the gallery and listening to the doorbell not ring.

  True to the axiom “Where Harley’s Harley goes, so goes Harley,” no one answered Charles’s knock.

  “We should have called first,” I said.

  “Have his number?” Charles asked.

  I did, but it was at the house. I asked if Harley had a cell phone. Charles said he didn’t have a clue, but maybe Sean had it. I couldn’t figure what that had to do with now; I didn’t ask. Charles knocked harder, but with the same results. My mind flashed back to when I had knocked on Colleen’s door. A chill ran down my spine. Instead of anyone answering at Harley’s, Heather couldn’t resist seeing who
was knocking on the door across from her apartment. She flung her door open and broke into a big grin when she saw Charles. He reciprocated.

  Heather was in massage garb and had her purse over her shoulder and her straw hat in hand. Charles, being the detective that he was, asked if she was headed to work. She said Millie’s had called a half hour earlier with a request from a customer, Conroy Elder, who was demanding an “emergency massage.” He was flying to Baltimore, and he wanted to be loose for the flight.

  Charles looked at me. “Isn’t that the guy Marlene said fought with Long?”

  I nodded.

  Heather closed the door and pointed for us to walk with her down the steps. “Wouldn’t surprise me,” she said. “Elder is the most uptight client I’ve had. I need twice as long to loosen him up as my other clients.” She started down the steps, and we followed. “His inner turbulence is much stronger than is healthy. I don’t care how rich he is—he won’t enjoy it when he dies from a frozen ticker.”

  We reached the parking area, and Heather put on her oversized hat. “What’d you need with Harley?”

  “Just wanted to see if he was okay,” said Charles as he matched her step for step. Heather didn’t have a car and walked toward Millie’s, about a quarter of a mile away. “I guess he was close to Colleen.”

  Heather stopped. “Close enough to make the building shake like it was in the middle of an earthquake about three times a week.” She grinned at Charles and then turned to me. “If you catch my drift.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “When did you see him last?” I wanted her to talk but wasn’t about to follow her to Millie’s.

  She reached the end of the street and leaned against the stop sign. “Night of the fire; he was in the crowd across the street from the action. Haven’t seen him since; his cycle hasn’t been here. Gotta go; don’t want to keep Mr. Tense tight.”

  Charles offered her a ride, but she said she needed to decompress her body and awaken her chi before taking on “The Rock.” Charles, the gentlemen, then said he would walk with her and that I could probably find my way back without him.

  Two phone messages greeted me at the gallery. One was from my landlord, who wanted to offer to lower the rent and extend my lease for another year. The building had stood vacant for more than a year when Bob Howard conned me into renting it; the landlord desperately wanted to keep me there. If the landlord wanted me that much, he should have lowered the rent before I told him I was not renewing the lease. I deleted the message.

  The second message was from Marlene. Sean had asked her to contact Charles, Harley, and me to meet him the next morning at nine o’clock at the Tides. He had rented one of the hotel’s meeting rooms to work out of until he found a better alternative. It would be several months before his burned-out space was rebuilt. She also said she had talked to Harley, which answered the question about Sean having his cell number. I returned the call and said I’d be there and would tell Charles when I saw him. Marlene didn’t tell me what it was about, and I didn’t ask. Since the three of us were invited, I assumed it was to discuss the will.

  I looked down at Colleen on her bed with the deadly needle stuck in her arm, and then I shifted to Amber with a terrified look on her face as someone pounded on her door. That was enough to jolt me awake. I rubbed my eyes and realized that the horrible dream was more fact than fantasy. I had no interest in going back to sleep, even though it was well before sunrise and the meeting with Sean wasn’t for four hours. I quickly showered and dressed, not because I was in a hurry but because I wanted to do anything to avoid thinking about the nightmare I had awakened from—the nightmare I had lived the last few days.

  The Mr. Coffee machine sputtered through the last drops of brew, and I sat at the small kitchen table and stared at—well, stared at nothing. I had moved to Folly Beach so I could live out my mostly routine life in an environment with a mild climate and idyllic ocean, with a few good friends, to pursue my passion for photography and with any luck, sell enough of my photographs to fend off poverty.

  Here I was, exactly where I wanted to be—the ocean two blocks away, with more friends than I ever had in Kentucky—and I sat here thinking of death, murder, fire, and if I gave in to my more depressing thoughts, rapidly heading to the natural conclusion of my life.

  Nothing good came from sitting in the kitchen, staring at the wall, and moving closer to depression. I grabbed my Nikon and the one piece of photographic equipment I hated, a tripod, and headed toward the center of town.

  A tattoo-covered arm on a young, unshaven construction worker held the door open for me, and I entered Bert’s Market, Folly’s iconic grocery, which specialized in everything from beer to bait and prided itself on never closing. The early-bird worker took a bite of apple, yawned, and showed teeth that would be a perfect before photo in a dentist’s newspaper ad.

  My house was within a nine-iron shot of Bert’s, and over the years, I had spent more time in the store than some of its employees. The Tides’ revised complimentary coffee policy encouraged me to take took advantage of Bert’s twenty-four-seven coffee urn with the handwritten note taped above it that displayed one of my favorite words, free. Clint, one of the night clerks, was stocking the cigarette rack behind the counter, and two customers hovered near the processed breakfast food rack. From their disheveled appearance, they could have still been out for a night on the town or headed to a job on a Charleston street corner holding a cardboard sign announcing “Will work for food!”

  Clint was one of the wannabes who sang each Tuesday at GB’s. He was always pleasant at the store but seldom said more than what was necessary to complete the transaction. I was surprised when he stopped stocking the cigarette rack and walked over to me at the coffee urn.

  He gazed at the concrete floor. His jet-black, six-inch-long, curly beard was pushed against his Bert’s T-shirt. He hesitantly said, “Good morning.”

  I looked at him and nodded.

  “Terrible about Colleen,” he said and looked at me for a response.

  “Sure is,” I said. “Did you know her?”

  He looked over toward the other two customers. They were on the far side and talking to Eric, another of Bert’s unique employees, whose substantial beard made Clint’s look like he had simply forgotten to shave that morning. Eric won the hair-length competition locks down. They were out of hearing range. “We sort of dated for a while,” continued Clint. He paused again.

  I wanted to ask what sort of dated meant, but since this was the most he had ever said to me other than the cost of whatever I was buying, I chose to move the conversation at his pace.

  “Thought we had something going,” he said and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Then that biker bloke made a move and swept her off her cute feet.” Clint smiled. “My Ford Pinto couldn’t compete with his big ol’ Harley phallic symbol.”

  What could? I thought. I nodded.

  He surprised me when he continued, “I feel bad, though. I thought she’d kicked the drugs. She told me she’d been clean since Christmas. She was real proud of that. Had a fairly shaded past, you know.” He sipped his coffee and gazed at the other two customers, who were near the back of store.

  I didn’t know about her past and was certain that Charles would shun me for days if I didn’t ask. “Shaded how?”

  “Umm … well, I guess it’s okay to tell you since she’s … she’s gone.”

  He paused and stared at the floor and then toward the front door. “She came over here from Atlanta. Umm, she was, let’s say, a working girl.” Clint smiled. “She jokingly called herself the not-so-happy hooker.”

  “Oh,” I said. After all, it was early, and my profound words were still asleep.

  “Well,” continued Clint, “she came here to leave that life behind.” He continued to stare toward the door. “She was happier here than ever.”

  He wa
s near tears, so I didn’t say anything.

  Clint shook his head and finally said, “Think Harley kicked her off the wagon?”

  “No idea,” I said. I remembered that Cal thought she was clean, but that Cindy wasn’t sure. Neither apparently knew about her “career” in Atlanta.

  “You know, if Harley did lead her astray, it happened in the last week,” said Clint, who was clearly in need of someone to talk to.

  “Why?”

  “The other open-mike night—not the night of the fire, but the week before—I was outside GB’s having a smoke when she came out and looked down the street. She said she was looking for Harley.” Clint maintained his gaze at the other two customers, but continued, “I asked, all friendly-like, how she was doing. She said great; said she was still off the hard stuff. She said she was overjoyed about her new life.”

  “Don’t guess that meant booze?” I said.

  “Nope, coke—still off it.”

  The two men finally made their grocery selections, and Clint headed to the register. Three more customers arrived and got in line behind the first two; Eric manned the second register. I walked to the exit, held up my Styrofoam cup in mock salute, and thanked Clint. He nodded and continued to ring up the purchases.

  I walked to the pier and set my tripod up halfway to the end of the long walkway. I attached the Nikon and pointed it to the east over the Atlantic. The slightest glimmer of natural light reflected off the low, dark clouds near the horizon. While a bit jaded, I was still optimistic that someday I would capture the perfect sunrise photograph. I was a good photographer, and occasionally thought better than good, but I lacked the one characteristic that was necessary for me to be consistently better—patience.

  I practiced patience, but all that resulted was me asking myself questions—difficult, frightening, and confusing questions.

  Did good guy Sean kill his partner? If he didn’t, who did? Did Sean set his office on fire? If he didn’t, who did? Did Colleen die of an accidental overdose? Was it suicide? Did someone kill her? Could it have something to do with Long’s murder? If it did, what could be the connection? Or could it be related to her secret past in Atlanta? Was meddling in the murder or murders worth risking my relationship with Amber over?