Dead Center Read online

“It seems before our latest murder victim moved up the road five years ago to the hoppin’ community of Myrtle Beach, he lived in Newark, New Jersey, where frustrated state cops spent years trying to pin a couple of hits on him. He was never arrested; seems the boy was as slick as WD-40 on ice.”

  “So he moved, unscathed, to Myrtle Beach, semi-retired from ‘selling tractors,’ and took a part-time job doing something his wife knew nothing about, and turns up here.”

  Cindy nodded, “Add dead to that and you’ve got it.”

  “Here’s my question, Chief LaMond, what was Lawrence Panella doing on Folly?”

  She shook her head. “Citizen Landrum, I have not a freakin’ idea. I do know when he got here, at least in the area.”

  “Am I going to have to drag it out of you?”

  “Might be fun trying.” She chuckled. “Mr. Panella checked into the round Holiday Inn a week before he took his perma-nap in the alley.”

  “Holiday Inn-Riverview?”

  “That’s what I said—sort of. He checked in under his name, paid with a credit card, didn’t make any calls from the hotel phone, but nobody does anymore since every Tom, Dick, and Alexander Graham Bell has a cell phone. Nothing suspicious.”

  “What next?”

  Cindy shook her head. “State and sheriff folks are wading through his things, physical and digital: bank records, electronic correspondence, phone records, other high-tech stuff. To be honest, if he managed to thwart law enforcement much smarter than our state and local guys for all those years, I can’t imagine being able to pin anything on him.”

  “So, I repeat, Chief LaMond, what next?”

  Cindy bit her lower lip, glanced at a fisherman pulling his rolling cart toward us, and nodded. “Let’s see. I’m going to, umm, take an hour of my day off and go to the office, answer a couple of irate e-mails, one from one of our fine, upstanding citizens who thinks my department is playing Gestapo, and the other one from a fine, upstanding citizen who thinks we’re too easy on the bad guys, and then—”

  I chuckled. “Okay, okay, what will you do about the murder?”

  One of Cindy’s most endearing qualities, and I suspect one that helped her diffuse difficult police interventions, was her sense of humor and irreverence. It was also her way of pleading helplessness without having to say she didn’t know something.

  “I could go to the post office and see if the John Deere salesman, slash hit man sent me a letter telling who hired him and who he was hired to bump off, maybe even including a signed confession by the hirer. My keen women’s intuition tells me those documents ain’t there.”

  “So there’s nothing you can do?”

  “Chris, the state cops have the resources to do all the digital forensics, the fuzz in Myrtle Beach are capable of tearing the man’s home and records apart, the gun’s already been analyzed, and the bullet from his head is setting somewhere waiting for the tool that put it there to show up.”

  “But—”

  She put her hand in my face. “From what I can tell, no one on our beloved island knew anything about the hombre. What do you suggest I do?”

  I couldn’t think of anything and told her so.

  She started to stand. “Now I have to go start communicating with my constituency.”

  “Cindy, will you—”

  She huffed. “Yes, Chris, I will let you know if I learn anything. You know I live and breathe so I can tell you everything that’s going on, especially when it involves dead folk.

  I smiled as she walked away. The smile was for my relationship with Cindy, and not for what was going on—whatever it was.

  Chapter Eleven

  My earliest memories of Charles were of us walked down the side streets and taking photos. I focused on Lowcountry landscapes, and rustic houses and cabins encapsulated in character and inhabited by some of the finest people on earth, including a healthy mix of characters. Charles, to put it artistically appropriate, leaned toward the avant-garde and captured images of discarded candy wrappers, flattened soft drink and beer cans, and interesting shaped, and often tire-flattened pooch poop.

  Our conversations, which I enjoyed more than the photography, were as varied as the photos. My friend was one of the island’s leading experts on gossip, arcane information, the lesser-known dalliances of prominent citizens, and everything related to how to get through life without a visible means of support. I brought to the table, or more correctly, the street, my experiences from many years in a bureaucratic megacorporation, and insights into human nature gleaned from human relations training and a degree in psychology. Charles also credited me with saving his life on a couple of occasions, and I gave him kudos for doing the same related to a few hair-raising situations I’d found myself in.

  Charles greeted me at the door of his apartment with a broom in his hand, and on his torso, a long-sleeve, gray Bowling Green State University T-shirt with a falcon’s head on the front.

  I pointed at the broom. “Flying somewhere?”

  “Funny. It’s called house cleaning. Did it last March, but figured since there wasn’t a gallery that needed me, I’d do it again.”

  He still hadn’t forgiven me for closing the gallery, but was coming closer to accepting it was gone and never to return.

  “Grab your camera. Let’s walk.”

  He grinned, and said for me to give him a minute.

  Twenty seconds later, he was back. He had slipped a Lost Dog Cafe sweatshirt over a college T-shirt, slipped his Nikon camera strap over his shoulder, slipped his Tilley hat on, slipped on a bright-yellow jacket that had somehow slipped in his closet void of any college logo, and he slipped a genuine smile on his face.

  “Where to?” he asked.

  “Your call.” I was interested in talking about the recent events more than our destination.

  “How about Vermont?” he said with a sly grin.

  “How about somewhere closer?” I was pleased with his mood.

  “Party pooper. Okay, follow me.”

  We left the gravel and shell parking lot he shared with a few other apartments, walked past Heather’s building, and away from town on West Indian Avenue. We had gone about two hundred yards when Charles came across a treasure-trove of photo ops. A opossum or a raccoon had foraged through someone’s trash, and left three, empty green beans cans, a Ritz cracker box, and five Payday wrappers along the side of the street. You would have thought Charles was a paparazzi and had stumbled on a secret meeting of Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, and the Pope. He snapped photos from all angles and treated each discarded wrapper photo like it would become a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

  I stood at the side of the road and watched my friend at play. I wanted to tell him about what I’d learned from Cindy, but wasn’t ready to interrupt his mission to document the trash of the world, or at least our small corner of the globe. He had exhausted the angles from which to photograph the detritus and looked around for somewhere to discard the mess. While he may clean his house no more than every eleven months, he couldn’t stand litter on his island. He pointed to an aluminum garbage can on the other side of the street and I dragged it over while he used his foot to scoot the trash in a pile and onto a piece of cardboard to scoop it in the can.

  He finished cleaning the roadway and I lugged the can back to its rightful yard.

  He tapped the camera. “Too bad we don’t have a gallery to display these photos.”

  I started to respond, when he said, “Kidding.”

  Right, I thought as we continued away from town.

  We had reached the corner where Shadow Race Lane intersects West Indian when he asked, “Any news on the killing?”

  “Glad you asked.” I continued walking. “I talked to Cindy.”

  “When?”

  There was a reason Charles was one of the island’s top contenders in the race to accumulate the most trivia.

  “Are you ready to hear what she said?”

  I told him about Lawrence Panella and his alleged career.


  Charles stopped, and pushed his hat back on his head. “A hit man. A hit man like in the movies who gets paid to go around killing people?” He waved his arm around his head. “A hit man like in the movies who was right here on Folly Beach?”

  I wondered what other kind of hit man there was. I nodded.

  “Wow! And you didn’t call me from the pier so I could hear what she was saying.”

  I look at the pavement and shook my head. “You want to mope or hear the rest?”

  “The rest.”

  I repeated Panella’s bio and about the gun found on the body. I also told him his wife didn’t know why he was here.

  “Doesn’t sound like he was on vacation since he lived by the ocean at Myrtle. Don’t suppose he was hired to kill himself.”

  “It wasn’t his gun that killed him.”

  “Who was he here for?”

  “Don’t know and neither do the police. Besides, I don’t know he was here to kill anyone.”

  We had reached the turnaround at the end of Shadow Race Lane and Charles had stopped to look at a small boat parked in the drive of one of the large, elevated luxury homes that dominated Folly’s newer developments. He mumbled, “Who killed the killer?”

  It was rhetorical and I shook my head. We walked in silence as we headed back toward Charles’s apartment. I was shocked he didn’t ask more questions. Something was on his mind, but something else you didn’t do with Charles was to ask what was bothering him. He was obsessive about being early to everything—to Charles, on-time meant thirty minutes early—yet when it came to talking about his feelings, later, if ever, was his timeline. I was the same way so I didn’t push.

  He was the one who couldn’t stand silence, and had a comment to make regardless of its relevance. This time I was feeling uncomfortable and shared I also had visited Barb’s Books.

  “Oh.”

  “She has a nice store,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I had expected an avalanche of questions since it was my first visit. I decided to drop the subject and enjoy the pleasant weather and scenery.

  Instead of turning on his street, Charles continued on West Indian Avenue and headed to the pocket park behind Folly’s combination community center and library. The Lost Dog Cafe shared a property line with the park and in-season there were often groups of vacationers waiting in the shade for a table. Today, the park was empty and Charles sat on a bench overlooking a wooden bridge that crossed a tiny, dry stream. He removed his hat, rubbed his hand through his hair, and moved his head around like he was working a crick out of his neck. I sat beside him and waited.

  Charles turned and looked at the crepe myrtle behind the bench. “He called.”

  “Who?”

  Charles was slumped over; he reminded me of a deflating balloon.

  He glanced at me. “The Nashville sleazeball.”

  “The agent called Heather?”

  Charles nodded.

  “Why?”

  Charles looked at the ground. “Told me last night. She called and was so giddy I had a hard time understanding what she was talking about.” He sighed and looked up at me. “Kevin Starr wanted to know if she’s a songwriter. She told him she’d written a couple, but mainly covered hits by Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, and other classic country greats, or something like that.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “And?”

  “He said a couple of Nashville’s well-known bars had open-mic nights and with his connections, he’d get her appearances. Said bunches of singers and writers were ‘discovered’ there.”

  I wondered if Kevin Starr had been listening to the same Heather I knew.

  “Why’d he want to know if she’s a songwriter?”

  “The open-mic nights he was talking about were for writers, not singers. They’d still get to sing the songs they wrote.”

  “And he thinks someone would hear her and want to sign her to a record deal?”

  “That’s what Heather thinks. She told me she’d heard of a couple of people who had made it big after being discovered at these bars.”

  I’d been a longtime country music fan and when I was living in Kentucky had visited Nashville a few times and knew a little about its popular music venues.

  “Remember the name of the bars?”

  He looked up at a nearby Palmetto tree, or was looking heavenward for divine inspiration. “One was Bluejay something.”

  “The Bluebird Cafe?”

  “That’s it. Heather said Garth Brooks played there before he became famous. The other one was Douglas Corner Cafe. Ever heard of it?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. I haven’t been there in years.” I hesitated and dreaded the next question. “What does Starr want Heather to do?”

  “Duh. Go to Nashville. He wants to sign on as her agent and make her famous.”

  That was as likely as me flapping my arms and flying to Kuwait. I bit my tongue. I didn’t know what Starr’s game was, and suspected it couldn’t turn out good for Heather. “You said open-mic nights. Can’t anyone sing? Why would she need an agent to get in?”

  Charles shrugged. “The open-mic nights I know about are at Cal’s and showing up is his only requirement. Don’t know about famous Nashville hot spots. Know Heather was babbling like a four-year old on Christmas morning.”

  I didn’t tell him, but I would check the websites to see if the venues he mentioned had other requirements for appearing.

  “Is she going?”

  “I love Heather. She’s a kind, funny person.”

  I nodded at his non-answer.

  He looked at the bridge and said, “She’s a good masseuse; maybe good at being a psychic.”

  I didn’t think he wanted a response.

  He looked around and leaned closer. “Between you and me, her singing might not be the best in the world.”

  It was like saying a chipmunk might not win the Westminster Dog Show. I said, “You could be right.”

  “Heather knows her voice isn’t as great as some. She also says the voice isn’t all there is to be famous.”

  Ernest Tubb and Kris Kristofferson came to mind, and don’t get me started on Bob Dylan. Compared to Heather, they would have been candidates for the Metropolitan Opera.

  “Is she going?”

  “Remember the other morning when you met Russ and he asked me to let him know?”

  I wondered what that had to do with Heather and Nashville, but following Charles’s logic was occasionally a circuitous trip, so I chose to take it with him. “And I asked you what and you said nothing.”

  “Russ wants me to run one of his stores,”

  I was stunned. “Like a real job?”

  He nodded. “He knows I’m a big fan of T-shirts and I was your sales manager at the gallery. He thinks I would be good at the SML store since its sales ain’t up to snuff.”

  “Are you considering it?”

  “The best time I’ve had in years was when I felt you needed me in the gallery. It gave me a reason to get up in the morning. I miss that, and doing the same for Russ might be what’s best for me.”

  “I’m surprised, but understand. And then the Nashville thing comes up with Heather.”

  “So yeah to your earlier question, about her going, I don’t think I can stop her. What can I do?”

  “What do you think?” I asked, channeling my counseling training from the dark ages.

  He looked at the urn-shaped concrete fountain and then back at me. “What kind of stupid answer’s that? I thought I asked you.”

  So much for my rusty education.

  “Let’s try it this way, what’ll you do if she goes?”

  He whispered, “I don’t know.”

  Chapter Twelve

  I would love to say Charles and I came up with a perfect solution to his dilemma. I would love to say Heather had miraculously acquired a world-class voice and became as famous as she had dreamed of becoming and she and Charles ne
ver had to leave Folly Beach. I would love to say what to tell him to tell Russ. I would love to say I’d found the Fountain of Youth. I couldn’t say any of these things. What I could say was Charles agreed to suggest to Heather that perhaps her voice wasn’t up to country stardom, and I would search the Internet and see what I could find on Kevin Starr. Was he on the up-and-up? Had he discovered stars? Was he a con artist trying to take advantage of Heather? Or, and my guess, was he tone-deaf and delusional? What I was certain of was if Heather moved to Nashville to chase her dreams, Charles would follow. I would be devastated.

  Karen called when I was on my way home and asked if I was interested in sharing a feast of chicken fried in eleven herbs and spices. I agreed and asked if she wanted to meet me at the KFC near her house. She said no and would bring box suppers to my place.

  I had an hour to kill before the home-delivery accompanied by a detective, so I began an Internet search for Kevin Starr. I had hoped the first reference would say something like: Fake music agent arrested for bilking thousands out of aspiring singers. Instead, there were five LinkedIn references to Kevin Starr; two of them referred to Nashville and music agent. I wasn’t a member of LinkedIn, so those sites were useless. I found a photo of him on an on-line Nashville weekly paper over the cutline: Agent Kevin Starr with newcomer Sandra Ball. The photo showed Kevin with a well-endowed woman in her twenties. Both were smiling at the lens. The photo was taken at a cocktail-party fundraiser for an animal shelter, although I couldn’t tell how recent it had been taken. It didn’t prove anything other than Kevin was in Nashville and had told the photographer he was an agent. More digging, but I couldn’t find any websites listed for Sandra Ball, Kevin Starr, or Starr Management. I understood a newcomer might not have a site, but found it incredulous there wouldn’t be one for Starr or his company. I Googled yellow-pages for a phone number, and an address, for Starr Management, and found a listing with a phone number, the number he’d written on the card he’d given Heather. No address was listed.

  Karen arrived before I could dig further. The familiar smell of fried chicken seeped from the large sack she handed me as she stepped into the living room. Karen was pushing fifty, runner-thin, with shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair, and, in my opinion, beautiful. Instead of her typical navy-blue pantsuit work attire, she wore a dark-green blouse and tan slacks.