The Pier, page 20
“Do the police know more about what might have happened?” asked Charles, never failing to go where angels feared to tread.
“We haven’t heard anything from the police since they said it was a burglary gone bad,” said Sandy. “Mom, you haven’t heard anything, have you?”
“No,” said Amelia, clearly uncomfortable with the topic. “They’ve been nice, but haven’t said anything. It seems so unfair. Of the hundreds of condos around, why did someone pick Mike’s? Why’d he have to be there? Why’d he have to get killed over stupid stuff? Why?”
These were good questions—but only questions, with no answers in sight.
“So, how’s Bill?” asked Amelia suddenly, providing a welcomed change of topic.
I told her about my recent visit and that he’d be able to come home in a few days.
“I know he was such a good friend to Jay,” she said. “I feel we’re close.” With a small giggle, she continued, “The three of us have one thing in common: few friends. We can’t afford to lose any of them. Now that Jay’s gone, I wouldn’t want to lose Bill.”
Knowing that she had only met Bill once, during which he had been borderline hostile, believing she had killed his friend, I couldn’t see how she considered him a friend. Yes, he was a friend of Julius, so it was possible they were friends by association. I suspected she was really thinking more about her health situation—the friends she would soon be leaving. If a more helpless feeling could exist than the one that gripped my heart, I couldn’t imagine it.
“When Bill gets back home, would you bring him over?” she asked. “Even better, maybe we could go out to a nice restaurant in the city. Jay really liked to eat; I bet Bill does too.”
I assured her we’d be over as soon as possible.
“Mom, don’t you think you need to rest?” asked Sandy.
Sandy stood and started walking to the door before her mom could answer—not so subtle. Being as bright as we were, Charles and I stood and offered our condolences. Amelia stood and hugged each of us. Tears filled her eyes, and she thanked us profusely for coming. That alone made the visit worthwhile. I hated to admit it, but Charles’s idea to visit had been a good one.
Sandy didn’t stop at the door; she followed us down the stairs and halfway down the walk.
Her eyes on the walk, she finally said, “Mom’s getting worse by the day. Mike’s death has taken months off her already shortened life. To be honest, I’ll be surprised if she makes it to summer.”
We both said we were sorry and asked if there was anything we could do.
“No. My damn brother’s done it all. He hurt her deeply for years—ignoring her, acting like she was beneath him ... beneath all of us, pretty much. And now this.”
Not the most appropriate words for a eulogy. We left on that very low high note.
CHAPTER 38
“So, when’re you going to stop dallying around and get this place open?” asked Charles. We’d walked back to the gallery from Amelia’s.
I had known where he was going with the question. Rather than admit I was scared of opening and the possible rejection of my work, I promised to set up shop as soon as we got the flyers prepared and the final photos displayed ... barring unforeseen delays, of course.
“Good,” he said. He looked around the half-bare walls and tossed his jacket on the straightback chair in the corner. “I was thinking I was going to have to sneak customers in here when you were away. How can I start earning big commissions if we’re not open?”
This was the first time commissions had been mentioned, much less big ones!
“So, how’d you know Buddy was a hunter?” Changing the subject was in order. I led him to the office, so he wouldn’t keep staring at the empty spaces on the gallery walls.
Charles raised his cane to his eye as if he were sighting a rifle. “Didn’t,” he said. “He’s a young guy, works at a convenience store, looks kind of macho. I figured that was a better question than, ‘Hey, dude, been to any good ballets lately?’”
“I wouldn’t have expected you to judge a book by its cover—Mr. Presidential Biography and Shakespeare Reading Vagabond.” I tried to hold back a laugh.
“Live and learn,” he said. “And speaking of learning, what’d we learn today?”
“Let’s see.” I rubbed my chin and gazed at the ceiling. “Mike wasn’t a finalist for any son-or brother-of-the-year award. Not many people have visited to offer condolences. Sandy’s not a happy camper, and the coffee cake was way too good. How about you?”
“Ate too much too.” He rubbed his stomach. “Besides that, Amelia appears desperate for friends. And you can add Steven to the long list of suspects with a boat.”
Our rehashing of the visit was interrupted when Amber knocked loudly on the locked front door. She was still in uniform; her shift had just ended. The sunshine gave her clear, smooth skin an extra glow that wasn’t evident in the harsh, white florescent illumination of the Dog. She looked lovely. Her son had an after-school meeting and wouldn’t be home until after five. That had given her a rare two hours to herself; it was nice that she chose to spend them with us.
“So when’s Landrum Gallery opening?” she asked as she looked at the walls with the same expression Charles had aimed at them. “Customers are beginning to ask what’s going on over here. I’ve been telling them some northerner is going to open an adult bookstore and porn shop. Be ready to have a bunch of customers when you first open ... and some protesters from the Baptist church.”
“Did Charles put you up to asking about opening?” I asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. “I guess I’d better get extra copies made of a couple of nude-statue photos.”
“Good plan,” she replied, followed by a slight giggle. “I’m doing my best to drum up customers for you. Got any of that beer in back you keep talking about, or is it an all-male club?”
“There goes the neighborhood,” said Charles. “Now you’re letting women in; next you’ll have Bill over here; before you know it, Steven will get an invitation. What’s next, a pony?”
“Funny you mentioned Steven,” said Amber, ignoring Charles’s discriminatory remark. “One of my less-than-regular customers told me yesterday that he heard that the new design shop in Charleston was already closed. My customer, Frederick, a late lunch eater—and gay, I might add—was talking about how hard it was to find a designer good enough for him in these parts. Said he’d finally found someone who understood his needs, as he put it, and now Frederick isn’t sure he’ll be able to locate him. Frederick has one of the McMansions out past the Washout ... a real nice guy.”
I was already in the back room, getting Amber’s beer from the mini-fridge; I wasn’t sure I had caught all her comments about Fredrick’s quest for the perfect designer.
“Did he say who he was talking about or the name of the shop?” I yelled to the other room.
“No,” she said, “but it’d be too big a coincidence if it were someone other than Ms. Hogan’s son, wouldn’t it?”
True, I thought as I handed her the cold Bud Light and encouraged the two of them to adjourn to the back room, where we all could sit.
Amber shared an amusing story about a couple of citizens we were acquainted with and the latest rumors about the newly elected city council members and how they were going to get Folly going in the right direction again.
“Councilman Metts was even talking about buying some of those cute little Segway scooters,” she said. “He wants our police to patrol the city streets and beach—said they wouldn’t need gas, and some of the other big cities were already using them.”
“I wonder if Chief Newman knows about that brilliant plan,” I said wryly. “I also wonder if the Census Bureau is aware that Folly Beach is a big city.”
“Lord, let me have my camera ready the first time three-hundred-pound Officer Robins steps on a Segway,” added Charles. He held his hands over his head, clasped together in a poor excuse of a prayer pose. “’All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people,’ according to long-dead United States President James A. Garfield. I’ll let you guess his answer to that one—wisdom or folly?”
That was the easiest question I’d faced that day.
“Gotta run—the rest of my family should be getting home anytime,” said Amber. She kissed Charles on the cheek and hugged me before leaving—an interesting choice of departing affections.
* * * *
“I just heard an interesting rumor,” I said, cell phone to my ear. “Thought you could check it out for me.”
After Amber left, I had called Bob—her rumor about a design shop closing was way too close to everything going on to ignore.
“No, Bob, I’m not dead, and you can’t sell my house yet. I’m here with Charles ... yes, that damn worthless twerp ... yes, the same one who’s staring daggers at the phone. Okay.” I turned to Charles. “Bob says yo.”
After Bob got around to offending most every ethnic group and other minority—including, for some reason, the Daughters of the American Revolution—he agreed to ride past the Design Shop to see if it was open and to gather information. He got more excited when I suggested he could possibly snag a real-estate listing if it really was closed.
“That man should be glad I’m not rich,” said Charles when I hung up. “If I were and wanted to buy a house, I sure would find another Realtor. Look at all that money he’d lose.”
I assumed he realized Bob was making the same amount of money off him now as he would in Charles’s hypothetical dream of wealth.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” added Charles. “If Bob’s your friend, he’s a friend of mine. I guess being called a worthless twerp by someone like him isn’t such a bad thing.”
That was something to ponder as Charles headed home for the night. What a day. How did I ever have time to work for a living? I wouldn’t ponder that one.
CHAPTER 39
Sunrise broke over the ocean for the kind of day the chamber of commerce coveted: sunny, with highs near seventy expected.
After the previous day, I wanted solitude. Breakfast at the Holiday Inn would be my second-best shot. I could have enjoyed the solitude of my kitchen, but would have had to fix breakfast. I was finally feeling comfortable in my house—boxes emptied, moving trash long gone, and the feel of “home” emerging. But the kitchen was still a stranger; a restaurant would trump that option every time.
Putting it mildly, midweek in early March wasn’t going to break occupancy records at the island’s only chain hotel. I had my choice of all but two tables. I walked past several silver-framed, black-and-white photos of Folly from times gone by and chose a spot overlooking the beautiful Atlantic and the Folly pier. The waitress, who I knew only by smile, welcomed me, made a benign comment about the weather, and took my order. The sun still drowsily rose in the east, backlighting the pier—a great photo op made more difficult with my camera at home. For a second, I wondered if the view would have been more majestic if Amber had been serving my breakfast.
The more I stared at the thousand-foot-long pier extending over the churning, ominous Atlantic, the more I became convinced of the accuracy of Charles’s theory. There was no way the killer could have dragged someone that afraid of water out there without knocking him out with drugs or a blunt object, then carrying the dead weight a long distance. It would have been far too risky; the killer could have easily been seen.
My stuffed French toast arrived and interrupted the rehashing of the “dropped off a boat” theory. The arrival of Chief Newman interrupted my French toast—so much for my desire for solitude.
“I thought you might be here,” said Brian as he stood by the table and looked down at me. “I went to the Dog, and Amber said she hadn’t seen you. Then I dropped by your house—no answer there.”
“Guess that’s why you’re such a good police chief, Brian—a mystery solver.”
“Not really,” he said. “Your car was at the house, so I knew you had to be at the Dog, here, or walking around with your camera. That was my next option.”
Creatures of habit were much too easy to find, I mused. I needed to work on some variations, if for no other reason than to think of myself as not being so predictable. That’s what I should do, I thought ... but most likely, I won’t.
“Care to join me?” I nodded toward the empty chair. “I doubt you went to all that trouble just to wish me a good morning.”
“Sure.” He gracefully lowered his tall frame into the white wicker chair and looked around the near-vacant dining room. “Hey, P. J., could I get coffee and some dry toast?” he asked, then turned his attention back to me. “You’re right about me trying to find you. Heard something last night I thought you’d be interested in. Yesterday afternoon, the sheriff’s department pulled in Steven Hogan. He’s being questioned about the death of his brother and the break-in at Julius Palmer’s house.”
“Wow, what happened?” Optimism and confusion collided in the pit of my stomach. “I just heard yesterday that his design shop closed.”
“You get part of the credit about the break-in,” said the chief at the same time P. J. brought his toast. “After you raised such a ruckus about Palmer being murdered, we took an extra look at his house. We first thought it was simply a burglary of convenience—funeral and all—but after going back, we found several of Steven’s prints on items he wouldn’t normally have touched. We knew he’d been in the house and worked with Palmer on decorating. But that didn’t explain his fingerprints on a letter opener in one of the drawers and on an antique pillbox in the bedroom dresser.”
I had underestimated the persistence and professionalism of Chief Newman and his department. Maybe he actually listened to what citizens thought.
“And get this,” he said. “He waived his right to an attorney and admitted to the break-in. Detective Lawson called me after he let the cat out of the bag. Steven said he broke in a couple of hours before the funeral.”
“Why?”
A huge weight lifted off my shoulders—at least partway, anyway.
“Said he’d heard rumors that Palmer had his mom in his will. When pushed, he said he actually heard that from Mike. He didn’t really believe it and wanted to see for himself.” The chief paused as if he wanted to tell me something else, but didn’t.
“All that seems implausible,” I said, waiting as long as I could before speaking. “If it were true, he would have found out soon enough. Besides, his mother inherits, not him.”
“From other things he said, I think his new business was in trouble, and he was getting desperate. The sheriff’s department found letters in his house from two banks threatening to call in their notes if they weren’t paid in full in ninety days. He was going to ask his mother for a loan—or so he said.”
“That’s consistent with what I heard about the business. Was Lance involved?”
“Not according to Steven. He said Lance didn’t have any idea what was happening. He said the two were ‘bickering’ the last few months; the money problems were driving a stake into their relationship.”
“Lance wasn’t at Mike’s funeral,” I said.
The chief nodded, then moved on. “But while he confessed to the break-in, he vehemently denied killing his brother. Unfortunately for him, according to phone records, the last call to Mike’s house before his death was from Steven’s cell phone. I think he was calling to make sure Mike was home. Steven’s prints were all over the condo, and we can’t verify his alibi for most of the day Mike was killed.”
“Sounds circumstantial. Any evidence?”
“Nothing direct, but they’ve just begun the search,” he said. “It won’t mean anything in court, but it’s interesting that Steven took shooting lessons in December. He brought a handgun to the shooting range, but there’s no record of any being registered to him.”
“Motive?”
“Money,” he said as he pushed away his empty plate, leaned back in his chair, and stretched his lengthy frame. “He knew his mother had only a few months to live. He knew she was going to be more than three million dollars richer. With her gone, he was going to inherit a million bucks. Now, with Mike out of the picture, his bounty would increase fifty percent. In his current financial condition, that extra half million was worth killing for. Besides, from what we’ve learned, there was little love lost between the brothers.” The chief nodded as if he had it figured out.
“So what incentive did he have for trying to run down Charles and me? Anything to tie him to Palmer’s murder?”
“I wish you were half as tired of hearing this as I am of saying it,” he said. He stopped nodding and fixed his cop’s stare on me. “Mr. Palmer’s death was suicide. Wishing it not to be won’t make it so. Also, I still think the near accident the other night was caused by a drunk driver. We did find that stolen Ford pickup. It was in Charleston, parked on the street in front of the College of Charleston’s administrative building. Whoever took it wiped the wheel and door handles clean. There’s no reason to think it was the truck that almost got you two.
“Brian.” I thought I might as well try again. “If you were in my shoes, you’d be convinced you were the target of the truck, not just an unrelated bystander who happened to be endangered when a drunk driver decided to navigate the streets. Please keep your mind open. Also, take a look at that pier.” I nodded toward the massive wooden appendage sticking out into the Atlantic. “If you were deathly afraid of the water, can you, in good conscience, tell me you’d be able to walk to the end, climb over the rail, and step off into the Atlantic, regardless of how depressed you might have been?”
