In the parking lot of the shooting range, I propped a foot on the front bumper of my Jeep while I checked my cell. The message symbol showed I had a voicemail from Detective Wilson, asking me to give him a call.
This time he answered. “I’m sitting in your living room, Pel-ton. Nice view. You left your door unlocked.”
I watched the traffic pass by on the four-lane. “There wasn’t anything left to break or steal.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t do worse,” he said, “and you really need to file a complaint with Sullivan’s Island P.D.”
“Yeah. I’ll get right on that.”
“I’m not sure why you want me here. Unless it’s for my health. You know, the beach air and all.”
I felt myself get rigid. “You don’t see a connection? What do you want, a map?”
“Look, Pelton, I’ve got some news.”
I had a bad feeling.
“All the evidence in your uncle’s case points to a mugging.”
“He knew the killer,” I said, my voice getting louder. “Remember? Ray?”
“I wish there were something else I could do. Just isn’t enough for us to go on. The coroner’s office is ready to release your uncle’s remains.”
“Isn’t it a crime to slice through the evidence tape you guys put on his door?”
The detective said, “It could be you got a jealous family member or friend looking for some precious heirloom.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” My standard response to news. “You’ve seen the bar and his house. Does it look to you like he had any precious heirlooms?”
Silence.
I said, “What about the gambling connection reported on the news?”
“We didn’t find anything to support that. If a TV station wants to go a certain direction on a story, it’s not our concern.”
I couldn’t control myself anymore. “Seems to me the only concern you got is how quickly you can get the file shut on this one. But it’s not going to happen. I’ll let you in on a little secret you probably already know. My uncle was back with his ex-wife. You know who she is, don’t you? You say it’s not your concern if a station decides to go a certain way on a story? Then you better be ready for World War Three in the media ’cause it’s coming to a Channel Nine broadcast near you.”
I hung up and called Chauncey Connors to tell him about the police releasing Uncle Reggie’s body. It was a harder conversation than I’d anticipated. The whole concept of talking about Uncle Reggie as “remains” was too much.
I stood in the parking lot for at least ten minutes after these calls to shake off the anger.
Three teenage girls arrived in a yellow Beetle convertible and parked by the curb to the convenience store next to the shooting range. The aroma of suntan lotion and cigarettes wafted my way. When the girls spotted Shelby, he barked and wagged his tail and they surrounded him. He rolled over on the sidewalk and let them scratch his belly, his tongue hanging out.
“You’ve got a sweet dog,” one of the girls said.
“Thanks.”
My dog received attention from every female in close proximity. I couldn’t even get the police to pursue a murderer in the middle of the tourist district. The girls went inside the store and Shelby perked his ears, curled his tail high, and danced around in victory.
“Go ahead and gloat,” I said. “They’re nothing but heartache.” Sometimes forever.
Unlike the natural surf of Sullivan’s Island, Folly Beach had empty beer cans and the occasional used condom washing on shore to uphold its reputation. The warm ocean breeze blew inland as Shelby and I walked the sand. I thought about the arrangements for the wake. Chauncey told me my uncle’s wishes were cremation and no funeral. Typical Uncle Reggie to make it easier for me.
I wore the ball cap and sunglasses I’d bought and led Shelby to Folly’s main drag to find lunch. The gun rested under a folded stack of boxer shorts at the rental because I wasn’t sure I’d need it just yet. At a food joint with an outside counter, whose health code score I purposely didn’t look at, I bought a couple of chili dogs and a root beer and sat on a bench close by. The teenage girl who served us had a cheery personality. She slid over the counter, got down to pet Shelby, and gave him a bowl of water, talking nonstop the whole time. With my hunger satisfied, listening to how a younger person views the world made me realize there might still be hope. I gave the girl a ten-dollar tip and walked away. My phone chimed and I checked the caller I.D.
“Hello, Darcy.” I put a King Edward cigar in my mouth.
“Got your message about the police putting the case on the back burner,” she said. “I did some checking and couldn’t find out anything new. My sources said they’d get back to me. Where are you?”
“Tell you what. I’ll meet you at the news office.”
“You holding out on me?”
“You’re the reporter.”
“Maybe so, but there’s one thing I know for sure.”
I said, “What’s that?”
“Your fly’s open.”
Without thinking, I looked down to see if she was right. A car horn blew. Across the street sat a shiny red Infiniti convertible, with Darcy waving from the driver’s seat. She held a phone to her ear. “Gotcha.”
I pressed End on my phone as she made a U-turn and pulled to the curb in front of me. The grin on her face said it all.
“Nice,” I said. “Real nice.”
“I spotted your dog as I was driving by a while ago. At first, I couldn’t tell for sure if it was you with him.”
So much for low profile.
She said, “I went by your house and it was roped off with crime-scene tape like your uncle’s. By the way, your neighbor is crazy. She told me to stay off your property and away from you. Eleven in the morning and she was sucking down highballs.” Darcy shook her head. “Reminded me of a drunk Daisy Duke.”
“Everybody likes Daisy,” I said.
Darcy rested her elbow on the top edge of her car door. “I’ll bet.”
Darcy, Shelby, and I sat on the back deck of the beach rental. A flock of pelicans flew over the vast expanse of ocean in front of us, their V-formation reminding me of fighter ships in a Star Wars movie. A school of dolphins cut through the surf fifty yards out, their silver-gray bodies arching in and out of the water as they swam.
“You’ve got a killer view,” she said, “but this place is a dump. How’d you get it on short notice?”
“Cancellation. You’d think they would give me a reduced rate for filling it.”
She laughed and I caught another glimpse of Jo and felt the need to change the subject.
I asked, “You own a handgun?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“An important one.”
She pulled a thirty-two semiautomatic out of her purse. “Of course. Why?”
“Know how to use it?”
“My father taught me.”
“Good,” I said. “I’d like to check out a property downtown, but it’s not exactly on the Battery.”
Notorious for summer afternoon downpours between four and five o’clock, Charleston apparently enjoyed drenching her residents as they dashed to their cars after a long day at work. Lowcountry inhabitants learned early to plan around this meteorological practical joke. Unfortunately for me, my arrangements weren’t planned as skillfully as others. The sole protection for my Jeep was an old strip of canvas strung from the windshield to the roll bar. Called a bikini top, it functioned like the apparel—it barely covered anything. The top worked except when the wind blew the rain sideways.
I parked underneath an overpass and waited out the monsoon. Darcy had decided to give up a little control and let me drive. She stayed busy in the passenger seat making phone calls. Shelby stretched out in the back, oblivious. My gun was locked in the glove box.
Inactivity gave me time to contemplate my life. Until a week ago, I was content to work at the Cove with my uncle and let thoughts of Jo consume me. Before that my goal consisted of suicide missions in Afghanistan, so I’d made improvement. But unlike my wife’s death, someone was responsible for Uncle Reggie’s, and I had the feeling the cops thought it was me. They wouldn’t have frozen his accounts otherwise.
Someone tore up the houses looking for something. If it wasn’t to find and take the jump drive and files, I was in trouble because I hadn’t a clue what else it could be. I pulled the pack of cigars out of my soaked shirt pocket and pressed the Jeep’s cigarette lighter. The cigar lit nicely. Darcy coughed and fanned at the smoke with her free hand. I blew a ring in her direction.
Forty-five minutes later, Darcy and I arrived at the property Brother Thomas and I had checked out Tuesday night. On the rusted chain-link fence in front of the place hung a white sign with green lettering obscured by kudzu. I got out and brushed away the invasive vine and read: U.S. EPA SUPERFUND CLEANUP SITE. Back in the Jeep, we bounced over a rough and muddy drive on the side of the property I’d missed before. A faded business placard could still be read: CHEMCON. Using a pen and scratch pad I found in the glove box, I wrote down the company name and what the white sign out front stated. Darcy used her phone to take pictures of everything. Busted windows lined the sides of a large steel and brick building near the roofline. Weeds poked through cracks in the asphalt of the parking lot. The landscaping had long ago been taken over by undergrowth. We walked the fence line. The ground still damp from the rain, my sandals had trouble finding traction as we traced the property—at least ten acres by my estimate. Shelby had a field day marking the turf.
Along the rear of the building, the wood around the truck docks had rotted away. One of the roll-up doors had been pushed in. Two large pools of stagnant brown water took up the back corner of the property. With the Cooper River two blocks from this chemical plant, I understood why EPA signs were posted.
We drove I-26 West toward the Ashley River and my land inheritance. This place reminded me of one of the last missions I’d taken in Afghanistan. My company escorted an Army Corps of Engineers team to a wastewater treatment facility. With insurgents all around, we took a lot of gunfire but held our ground. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, we risked our lives for one big septic tank, and I wasn’t sure which side was crazier.
From the driver’s seat of my Jeep and under a curtain of bug spray, I took in the sight of Sumter Point. The sulfur smell of the marsh penetrated everything. I pulled out another cigar, and pressed the lighter.
Darcy swatted at a mosquito. “I say sell it.”
Two more bloodsuckers circled my feet, trying to find a break in the repellant.
The Jeep lighter popped out and I lit the stogie, my third of the day. Darcy didn’t mind this time once the mosquitoes vanished with the first whiff of cheap cigar. I blew out a cloud of the pollutant. “There has to be more to this than riverfront property.”
Darcy’s cell phone chimed. She said, “Patricia sent me a text. She’s got someone for you to meet.”
The Palmetto Pulse office was all business. Scarred desks furnished a large open room occupied by people working on laptops. Darcy greeted a few coworkers as she led me to an office in the back and rapped on the jamb of the open door.
“Come in,” Patricia said.
Shelby entered first and Darcy and I followed. Patricia’s personal office had nicer furniture than the outer room. She sat at a large antique mahogany desk I guessed was two-hundred years old. Unrestored, it had a perfectly aged patina of nicks and scratches. Patricia kept it gleaming. I would’ve bet big bucks the Tiffany lamp on its corner was also original.
Shelby walked around the desk and poked Patricia’s leg with his nose.
Patricia scratched behind his ears. “Hello there, sweetheart.”
“Hello, yourself,” I said.
“I was talking to your dog,” she said.
In one of the chairs facing Patricia sat a white-haired woman with a squat figure and big glasses. She turned slightly to get a look at us.
Darcy patted the woman on the shoulder. “Hello, Mrs. Calhoun.”
The woman’s face lit up. “Hello, dear. It’s so nice to see you.”
Darcy asked, “How did you get here? You didn’t drive yourself, again, did you?”
“Oh, heavens no. My driver is picking up a few things at the store for me. He’ll be along soon enough.”
“Mrs. Calhoun,” Patricia said, “this is Brack Pelton.”
The old woman reached and took my hand. “I’m so sorry to hear about your uncle.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said. “Did you know him?”
She let go of my hand. “I was telling Patricia here about the time my daughter and son-in-law brought the grandchildren to see me. We took them to the beach and afterwards went to your uncle’s pirate place. The kids loved it.”
I looked at Patricia and wondered what this had to do with anything.
“Mrs. Calhoun is on the Isle of Palms Town Council,” Patricia said. “She wanted to meet you and talk about what your plans were for Pirate’s Cove, since you’ve inherited it.”
The town council had been trying to get rid of the bar for years. It occurred to me the rich old bat sitting here was a little less than sincere. Probably not too sorry to hear about Uncle Reggie’s demise, either.
Darcy pulled a chair for herself from the conference room across the hall.
I took the seat next to Mrs. Calhoun. “Well, ma’am, I haven’t thought that far ahead.”
She nodded. “Oh, I understand, dear. I don’t mean to pry, but through the years the Isle of Palms has developed a good reputation. People who visit our island expect things a certain way. Our beaches are clean, and alcohol is not allowed on them. Our businesses have certain codes to be met. All these things have been put in place to make sure people want to keep coming back to our little paradise.”
“What can I do to help?” I hoped I sounded convincing.
“That’s why I’m here,” she said. “I want to make sure you know you have the town council’s support. Several people have come forward inquiring as to the future of your restaurant and I believe a generous offer will be delivered to your lawyer’s office before the end of the week.”
“And what would the members of the council deem a good future for the place?” I wanted to hear her say the answer I knew she was going to give.
Her face became one big grin and her eyes sparkled behind her Coke-bottle glasses. “Oh, it would be in good hands. The last phase of the shops and restaurants on Ocean Avenue would be complete.”
“What changes could make that a reality?”
She touched my arm again. “You are such a dear. We’d rebuild it to match the Charleston theme we’ve been using on the other shops and cafés and create a more family-friendly atmosphere.”
I rubbed my chin. “You’d have it torn down.”
“Oh yes. Especially that scary cigar-smoking skull flag.”
Patricia chimed in. “What would you call it?”
The old woman sat up in her chair and clasped her hands together as if in prayer. “We have several names in mind. Um, let’s see . . . Pelican Bay is one of them, and we’d put in those observation viewers so families could watch the birds in their natural habitat. Another is Dolphin Swimmer. We’d create a mini-museum and education center so kids could learn all about the ocean wildlife.”
Patricia’s tightened smirk softened at the edges.
I turned my attention to Mrs. Calhoun. “You guys have this all planned out, don’t you? It’s a good thing my uncle wants to be cremated because he’d turn over in his grave if I let any of that happen.”
Mrs. Calhoun’s high-spirited disposition dropped back to reality. “Now listen here, young man.”
“No. You listen. If the good members of the town council were so interested in educating the public to save our local wildlife, they never would have allowed all those hotels and shops to be built in the first place. You know how fragile the sand dunes are because you post signs everywhere to stop people from walking on them. Though I guess it’s okay to bulldoze them flat and pour concrete foundations there.”
Mrs. Calhoun abruptly stood up, gave Patricia a curt nod, and marched out of the room. Patricia, Darcy, and I stared at the doorway a few seconds.
Patricia broke the silence. “I think that is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.”
I said, “Dolphin Swimmer?”