Chapter 16

Palmetto Nature Expeditions didn’t exist, not in a physical sense. Just like Liz Morgan.

The address Alex Reese had given him turned out to be a Brazilian wax parlor on Old Savannah Highway on the other side of Charleston, and when Connor pushed his way through the tinted front door it was obvious he was in the wrong place. Or, more accurately, the right place but clearly the wrong business.

“May I help you?” asked a young woman who was sprinkling flakes of food into a large glass tank that held several varieties of tropical fish. She was on the short side, maybe five-three, with black hair that was too goth to be natural. Black midriff shirt exposing plenty of belly, purple leggings, and a purple leather collar with chrome studs affixed around her neck. Brick-colored blush had been applied liberally to her cheeks, and dark mascara almost made her look as if her eyes had been gouged out.

Connor glanced from her to a menu board on the wall that listed the prices for a variety of wax services. Full leg, underarms, stomach strip, lips. And, of course, the Brazilian full monty. “Something tells me I have the wrong address,” he finally said.

“Let me guess: you’re looking for that nature adventure company,” she replied. “We get that a lot.”

“I take it they’re not here?”

“Not in the six years since I signed the lease.” She replaced the lid on the fish tank and set the container of food on the edge of a small file cabinet. It was her turn to study Connor, mostly the tattoo sleeves on his arms. “Hold moly, you have some seriously sweet ink going on. Did Darren do some of that?”

“Darren?” he asked.

“Darren Krider. Owns The Inkwell on James Island. Great artwork and his rates are fair. He gave me a sweet double rose with a ladybug, really delicate-like, but if I showed it to you, my boyfriend would shoot you.”

“Some other time,” he said with a laugh. “You say other people have come in here looking for Palmetto Expeditions?”

“Every now and then, yeah. I’d complain, but a couple of ‘em ended up sticking around for a wax. We do a lot of men, you know. Mostly chest and back combos. We’re running a special right now, if you’re interested.”

“I’ll think about it,” Connor told her. “Meantime, what can you tell me about these other people who came to the wrong place?”

“What’s there to tell? They’re all guys, looking for this company that I guess offers deep woods hunting tours. Started happening last winter, and I finally checked ‘em out on the web.”

“Was there anything about them that struck you as odd?”

Odd was a peculiar word, given the body wax thing. And her full-goth appearance. Still, she gave the question some genuine thought before shaking her head.

“Not really,” she said. “They’re mostly our age, and older. Seemed nervous to be here, too. Almost like waxing is somehow against the law, or something.”

Connor considered what she was saying, realized he was feeling a little uncomfortable, too. Maybe it was the nature of the work involved, particularly the genital proximity that was involved in the Brazilian process. Along with all the razors, tweezers, and hot wax. Who knew what was going on right now behind that door, there, at the rear of the lobby?

“Maybe they’re fixated on the pain, yanking out all that hair,” he suggested.

“No worse than getting those,” she replied, nodding at his tattoos.

“A lot of guys are wimps. That’s why God doesn’t allow us to give birth.”

Now it was her turn to laugh. “Good point,” she said. “Anyway, sorry to disappoint you about the nature expedition thing. And give some thought to our men’s combo special. But not too much, ‘cause it’s only good through the end of the month.”

On his way back to Folly Connor detoured by MUSC, where he found Cherine Dupree sitting up in her bed in the ICU. Family and friends were now being allowed into the unit on a limited basis, and he considered himself one of the latter. If only because they had shared a car ride together, as well as the same near-death experience.

Tubes and wires continued to monitor her life, but her condition had improved a bit since the last time Connor had seen her. The ceiling light was brighter, which made the room look less dismal and bleak. Several vases of flowers added a touch of color to the space, and a hard-wired phone was positioned close to her on the bedside table. He found her picking at a bowl of Jell-O with her good hand, none of it getting anywhere close to her mouth.

When Connor poked his head in, she set her spoon down and managed the slightest of smiles. “Looks like they’re letting just about anyone in now,” she said, working diligently to sound out every syllable.

“Good to see you, too,” he replied with a grin. “How are you feeling?”

“About the same as I look, but better than the alternative.”

“What are the doctors telling you?”

“That I’m one lucky woman, but nowhere near out of the woods,” she explained. “Twelve broken bones, ruptured spleen, nicked radial artery, and a lead slug lodged about half a centimeter from my L5.”

Connor suddenly felt guilty just for being able to stand on his own two feet, his only visible injury being the bandage on his hand. The bruises around his eyes and his jaw had faded, and he was managing to walk without a sharp pain stabbing at his ribs or ankle. There was nothing he could tell her except, “I’m so sorry about all of this.”

Cherine gave a slight shake of her head, and said, “It’s not your fault. No one could have known anything like this was going to happen.”

Not quite true. Bounty hunting was an imprecise business, with incalculable risks and unforeseen complications. He could remind her that she wouldn’t be lying in intensive care right now if he hadn’t allowed her to go ride with him, but figured that probably would come across as sexist. And something she had probably figured out on her own. They could debate the causes and effects of the shootout all day long, but that would serve no purpose and resolve nothing. Or relieve her misery.

Instead, he asked, “Do your doctors have a plan to remove the bullet?”

“They’re going in to get it first thing tomorrow,” she told him. “Hence the Jell-O. I’m thinking maybe I could have them do a little liposuction at the same time.”

Laughter is considered the best way to deal with a tough situation, and Cherine was doing her best to inject a little humor into a serious issue. “That’s like giving a fish a glass of water,” he replied.

“If that’s a compliment, I’ll take it.” She studied him a moment, then added, “And don’t take this the wrong way, but I get the feeling you’re here for a reason. Beyond being genuinely interested in my health.”

She was right, and it was complicated. Connor’s immediate reason for being here, standing at her bedside and making small talk, was because he had a couple questions he wanted to ask. What she knew about Ronson and his copper theft case, what he might have told her while prepping for his preliminary hearing. And anything else of a private nature they might have discussed during subsequent conferences. Even though her client was dead, attorney-client privilege remained in effect, but he hoped she might be willing to share something that might help him make sense of what happened.

But there was another reason Connor was there in the ICU, hovering over Cherine Dupree, and it was even more complicated than the others. Maybe even counterintuitive. A few years back the love of his life had taken a bullet that had been intended for him, and she had almost died. Almost, but not quite. Her heart had stopped on the way to the hospital, and the EMTs had to use a defibrillator on her twice before they got her to the emergency room. The bullet that had ripped into her body had carved a path of destruction before exiting, and she had not been expected to live. The blood loss and serious threat of sepsis that followed had the nurses and doctors preparing for the worst, not daring to hope for the best.

Her name was Danielle, and she had pulled through. The day Connor wheeled her out of the hospital sixteen days later, she had told him she’d had a lot of time lying in her bed to reflect on her life, and decided she couldn’t be around someone who continued to put his life on the line. And hers, in the process. “We only get one shot on this planet, no pun intended,” she’d told him. “And I came damned near close to losing mine. I can’t be with you if you insist on doing foolish shit.”

Being in a hospital, whether as a visitor or a patient, caused random fragments of those days to cascade through his brain. Danielle’s close call with death had devastated him, but their break-up had sent him into a tailspin. The glass of gin every night had turned into a bottle-a-day habit. Alcohol was a great way to numb the mind, and in short order it had fueled a dark depression that ultimately pushed him into a bottomless chasm of desperation. If not for the intervention of a state trooper who had peeled him out of the wreckage of his car and cared enough to see him through to VA rehab, that’s where his life probably would have ended.

Seeing Cherine lying there in bed, bruised and broken with two bullet wounds—all as a result of his reckless actions—brought it all back to him.

“Did Willis Ronson ever mention someone by the name of Liz Morgan?” he asked her, pushing aside everything else that was going on in his mind.

“Who’s she?” Cherine replied.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Connor said. “The name came up, and it may have something to do with why Ronson was at that motel.”

She appeared to give the question serious thought, then said, “I don’t think he ever mentioned her.”

“Who didn’t mention whom?” came a familiar voice from the doorway. Connor didn’t need to look around to know who it was. Nelson Burdette.

“Just my doctor,” Cherine covered quickly, intuitively sensing this was not something they should have been discussing. “And a med tech who was here earlier. I’m scheduled to have surgery in the morning.”

The SLED investigator seemed to believe her, and Connor wondered how she intuitively knew to go into obfuscation mode. Other than the fact that she was a lawyer.

“That’s what they tell me,” Burdette said. “And it’s why I’m here.”

“Giving me one last chance to talk, just in case I don’t pull through?” she asked.

“Well, that’s not how I’d put it, but I do have a few more questions to run by you, if you don’t mind. It won’t take long.”

“Define long.”

“Five minutes, no more than ten,” Burdette said. He drew a brief glance to Connor and added, “Just her and me.”

“I was just leaving, anyway,” Connor replied. He thought he caught a look in Cherine’s eyes that seemed to mean don’t go, but she said nothing as he edged toward the door and told her, “Good luck tomorrow.”

It had been a long day, and Connor wasn’t done yet. By the time he arrived at The Sandbar, Julie had already unlocked the booze and was standing behind the counter slicing limes. He still had a few things he wanted to check online, but that was going to have to wait until later.

“Give me five minutes to change,” he told her as he headed toward the stairs that led up to his apartment.

“You’re a man,” she shot back. “You’ll never change.”

Thursdays were the start of the weekend in Folly, just like every other beach town in every other part of the world. By five o’clock a small crowd was loitering down below in the gravel lot, and as soon as Connor rang the captain’s bell, they were streaming up the stairs to lay claim to a stool or a table. As with just about every afternoon, half of them were locals and the other half were tourists, either daytrippers from around the lowcountry, or out-of-towners getting an early start on the summer. There was an early run on frozen margaritas which, for some random reason, shifted to rum punches as the evening wore on.

A gentle rain moved through an hour before sunset, just enough to drive families picnicking on the beach to their cars, and those over twenty-one to the drinking deck for a beer. The shower passed as quickly as it began, but the crowd remained as the sun disappeared in the west in a brilliant palette of orange and violet. Around nine o’clock someone broke out a guitar and started strumming Jimmy Buffet tunes, with a little Kenny Chesney and Alan Jackson thrown in. The off-key, alcohol-induced crowd joined in the singing, and Connor began to fret that the cops might show up. He didn’t have a license for live music, and the bar was right at the edge of a residential neighborhood with sidewalks that rolled up at sundown. It was only a matter of time before someone dialed nine-one-one.

He had just turned his back to grab a bottle of high-end Scotch from a top shelf when he caught a voice he hadn’t heard in months.

“Hey, Magic Man…don’t suppose you’d do that killer lime trick for me, would you?”

Man-oh-man, did that send a flush of ice water through his veins. Thinking back to last summer, when one simple magic stunt with a piece of fruit knocked down a domino line that almost got him killed in the process.

For a second he couldn’t move; then he turned slowly and found himself gazing into the eyes of a distant memory. A moment frozen in time, gazing at him with eyes that sparkled like brilliant green opals, framed by hair the color of cinnamon that reached to her shoulders. Navy blue sundress with white daisies on it, white straw hat with a yellow ribbon perched at a slight angle on her head.

“Jessica Snow, as I live and breathe,” he said, because he couldn’t think of anything that came anywhere close to witty or clever to say.

“Mr. Jack Connor,” she replied, equally adroit in her rejoinder. “How’s your arm?”

She was referring to the injury he’d received last summer, when he’d taken a bullet in the middle of his black panther tattoo. An unfortunate and painful side effect of why she’d come to Folly Beach in the first place, and a good part of the reason her work partner at the time had died. All of it having to do with the wrong place and time.

“Good as new,” he said. “May I buy you a drink?”

“Only if you promise to do that lime trick.”

“Well, you’re in luck. I just got a shipment in today. Bay breeze, right?”

Jessica removed her hat and set it upside-down on the bar. “Good memory,” she said.

“How could I ever forget?” Connor asked as he poured a measure of vodka into a plastic cup. He splashed in some cranberry and pineapple juice, then added a maraschino cherry and set a plastic mermaid on the rim.

“That’s a new touch,” she observed as he placed the concoction on a parrot Sandbar napkin in front of her.

“Free promo from my vendor,” he told her. “Really spices up a sex on the beach.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she said.

Jessica Snow had walked into his bar just about a year ago, and then disappeared from it just as quickly. The attraction had been mutual and instant, their entanglement intense and passionate. And, regrettably, brief. Differing approaches to work and play did not bode well for the survival of a long-term liaison, and the last time they had been together was Halloween night.

Trick or treat.

“So…what brings the U.S. Marshal’s Service to town, Jessie?” Connor asked.

“You do remember that my name is really Lisa King, right?”

“Maybe that’s what it says on your badge, but to me you’ll always be Jessica Snow.”

It was four hours later, and he was no longer standing on the other side of the wooden counter, slinging drinks and making limes disappear. Instead, she was lying on her side, her face nuzzled up against his chest, their naked bodies intertwined in sheets that would need washing in the morning. He moved his head just enough so he could give her a gentle kiss on the top of her head, then softly stroked her shoulder.

“I can’t just pop into town for a moment of pleasure?”

“You can, but you don’t.”

“You have to admit, this place is a bit off the beaten track,” she replied.

“That it is. And I didn’t mean for you to get your panties in a twist.”

“In case you didn’t notice, I’m not wearing any panties.”

“My bad.”

Jessica giggled, but didn’t say anything for a while. Just lightly trickled the tip of her finger from his lips over his chin and over the skin of his neck, even in the darkness finding the dragon etched into his chest, following the tail all the way down to its tip.

Much, much later, she again snuggled up alongside his body and kissed him on the cheek. “In all honesty, I actually did drop by for a reason,” she said, her voice little more than a purr. “In fact, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“You’ve always had a funny way with words,” Connor replied.

Another giggle. “Body language,” she told him.

“You speak it fluently.”

“And you’re a damned fine listener.”

“I’m told it’s a lost art. And since I’m so good at listening, tell me—Miss Jessica Snow aka Lisa King—what’s on your mind?”

Silence again, but he sensed her studying him in the darkness. “Willis Ronson,” she finally said.

That was the last thing Connor was expecting, and he lay there in the dark a moment while he tried to figure out what was going on here. Finally, he said, “He’s dead.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“And you have an interest in him, why?”

“Why do you think?” Jessica countered.

Connor started to say something, but hesitated. Last summer, when she had walked into The Sandbar, she had been working undercover to bring a whistleblower into the Witness Security Program, which was a part of the U.S. Marsha’s service. He hadn’t known it at the time, of course, and the operation had gone downhill fast when her guy had ended up dead. So had her partner, who had turned out to be playing both sides of an elaborate cross.

She waited for him to piece together what she was saying. And, more important, what she wasn’t saying.

“You were protecting him?” he finally asked.

“That was the plan,” she said. “Things went awry.”

“Not the first time.”

Not something she needed to be reminded of, and it clearly wasn’t why she was in his bed, running finger down his chest.

“So, what is it you want to talk about?” he asked.

She was gone when the divers down below on the street awakened him just before eight.

Her departure wasn’t unexpected, of course, yet he was disappointed not to see her lying next there as the first rays of morning streamed through the slats in the window blinds. Lonely, too, but life goes on.

And, he hated to think so soon after her departure, she wasn’t Danielle.

He snapped a leash on Clooney, who charged out the door and down the stairs to the drinking deck. He bucked and pranced to get past the gate, and when Connor opened it for him, he broke loose and shot down the ramp at a full gallop. Connor caught up with him in the gravel lot and, when he’d finished his business, they strolled up the street to Gilbert’s. A fresh pot of coffee had just been brewed, and Connor ordered a large cup and an egg sandwich to go.

Clooney busied himself sniffing and snuffling at the weeds sprouting at the edge of the street while they wandered back to the bar. Connor mentally replayed the events of last night, not just the steamy interludes in the dark, but also the quiet of the night and the gentle tingling of Jessica’s touch.

Back upstairs, he woke up his laptop and entered the DMV database to which he was not supposed to have access. Two minutes later he had the information he was seeking: the camo box truck he’d followed earlier in the day was registered and titled to a company doing business as Palmetto Nature Expeditions. Just as Alex Reese had told him. This time, however, the address was not for a bikini wax salon in West Ashley, but for a company located on Highway 17 up in Litchfield, which Connor knew was just a few miles south of Georgetown near Pawley’s Island. A quick search on Google maps confirmed his suspicion that the address was bogus and, in fact, belonged to a franchise store that shipped packages and rented mailboxes by the month.

The nature company had a basic website and Facebook page, but no Twitter. He scrolled through a few pages that listed tour packages and personal expeditions, with accompanying photos that showed people kayaking down white-water rapids and hiking along deep-woods trails. No prices, no calendar, no way to schedule a vacation. The more he searched, the more he got the sense this was all bogus, a front for something far different from what he was looking at. The only way to contact anyone was through a number on the contacts page, but when he dialed it, he only got a voice that told him he’d dialed it in error, and please try again.

Connor then fed the company name into several other databases, but came up empty. There were no incorporation records for a company called Palmetto Nature Expeditions in South Carolina. No LLC, no S Corp. No shareholders or officers. No corporate documents, no evidence that the entity even existed.

Nada.

Eventually his train of thought circled back around to Lomax Industries, and a much broader scenario. What would a poultry empire possibly want with an expanse of second- and third-growth pines and cedars set at the edge of the swampy wetlands of a national forest? It was located nowhere near a major highway suitable for eighteen-wheelers, and the nearest railroad line was miles away. Much of the land in the area at one time had been used for agriculture, mostly rice and indigo back when slaves had worked the soil in the hot fields, then harvested the crops when the seasons rolled around. But those days were long gone, the antebellum way of life long since returned to the earth.

The land wasn’t even any good for real estate development. The closest town of Andrews was about twenty miles away, population just over twenty-five hundred. Kingstree, thirty miles to the north, was only slightly larger at three thousand. Both of them too distant to build homes or commercial warehouses this far away, and any sort of exclusive golf and tennis resort was a nonstarter. Too muggy, boggy, and buggy. And, if Caitlin’s research was accurate, permanently zoned against that sort of thing.

Lomax—the man and the company—had bought the property for a reason, however, and the more Connor thought about it, the more he suspected it had nothing to do with raising chickens. For starters, he was a very wealthy man. One source listed his net worth at a little more than five hundred million dollars, while another Wall Street site placed it at closer to seven hundred. Nowhere near the rarified air of the billionaire’s club, but both estimates placed him among the richest people in South Carolina. Jordan James was on the same list, but much further down.

Lomax also was heavily involved in politics, both on the state and national level. He regularly contributed the individual limit to state and federal political candidates, and had personally organized several Super PACs that represented groups aligned with steadfast ideological causes. Among them: the Alliance for the Second Amendment, Don’t Tread On Liberty, and something called The Patriot Front.

Despite the man’s financial support for politicians, he never showed any enthusiasm for running for office himself. Not enough money in it, Connor guessed, especially when a few dollars placed here or there probably bought him the influence he craved and, at the same time, kept him out of the public eye. Over the past twenty years he’d gone from “Carolina Chickenman” to “Carolina Kingmaker,” known for his exceptionally deep pockets and Machiavellian principles. Many were the craven sycophants who bowed to him and groveled at his feet, while those who refused to kiss his ring often found their careers and personal lives destroyed forever. It was rumored but never proven that his odious dirty tricks and vile whisper campaigns had gleefully destroyed more than one high-level campaign, and the man was known to stop at nothing to attain his personal objectives.

Lomax’ current pet project was Garrett Tipton, senior senator from South Carolina who, just a month ago had announced his candidacy for president of the United States. The two men had been fellow cadets at The Citadel, and Lomax was a solid contributor to Tipton’s Congressional campaigns. By strict coincidence, Lomax Industries saw a half dozen federal regulations ease up over the ensuing years, which resulted in higher production capacity and relaxed waste standards at his factories, drawing the wrath of neighbors and environmentalists alike.

The online version of a recent cover article published by a trusted financial magazine profiled him as a particularly boorish and ill-mannered business titan, possessed of a startling lack of ethics and scruples. Titled “The Life and Times of the Carolina Chickenman,” the story recounted how Lomax was the focus of numerous legal challenges related to his strongarm coercion tactics—schemes that not only were related to his poultry farms, but also his vast real estate holdings and ties to foreign money:

Lomax is facing no fewer than four class action lawsuits, involving contractors and employers who claim he and his company failed to pay for services rendered, withheld back wages, underpaid taxes, engaged in financial manipulation, and promoted fraudulent investment schemes.

Plaintiffs say the wealthy businessman has defaulted on loans, filed falsified tax returns, and is overextended with his lenders, both foreign and domestic. Additionally, federal investigators are looking into claims that several shell companies established by him and his associates are laundering money in an effort to fund fringe political groups engaged in vigilante justice and anti-government activities.

Aside from his official bio on the company website, every page Connor read characterized Lomax as a hard-assed opportunist and ruthless narcissist who never took “no” for an answer. He also abhorred losing; in fact, in one pompous Q&A interview he claimed to be “a compulsive winner” who could “out-think and out-compete anyone in the business world today.”

The word pathological easily came to mind.

A little before noon Nelson Burdette was downstairs, pounding on the gate. A solid sign that he wasn’t going away until Connor opened up.

“Where the fuck were you last night?” he demanded, before Connor had a chance to even say hello. “Be straight with me.”

“Right here,” Connor replied. “I closed up at midnight.”

“I assume you have witnesses?”

“Only everyone who was here. Why?”

“Don’t fuck with me,” the SLED cop said, jabbing a finger at Connor’s chest.

“Hey…lay off,” he said, brushing the hand away.

Burdette shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and a speck of certainty seemed to drain from his face. “We can check your cell phone,” Burdette said. “See if it went anywhere last night.”

“Knock yourself out. And like I said, what happened? Why are you at my front door giving me the third degree?”

Burdette stood there a second, then said, “Mind if I come in?”

Yes, he minded, but what choice did he have? “We don’t open until five, but I can make you some coffee.”

“No thanks. This’ll only take a second, and your coffee tastes like chain saw oil.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Connor replied as he unlocked the gate and waved the cop inside.

Burdette sat on a stool with his back to the shuttered bar, staring out at the beach that was quickly filling up with bikinis and board shorts. Eventually he drew his gaze back to Connor and said, “Someone broke into Ronson’s room at the Starlight Motel up in Andrews last night.”

That took Connor by surprise, and he let it show. “You think I had something to do with that?” he asked.

“Did you?”

“Like I told you, I was here all night.”

“No, you said you closed up at midnight. What about after that?”

No need to get Jessica Snow involved. Too dicey, given her law enforcement status, and none of Burdette’s business. “I was alone, but I couldn’t sleep, so I watched The Natural.”

“Then you should know what team Robert Redford plays for in the movie?” the SLED cop asked, testing him.

“The New York Knights. Except in the beginning, he’s on his way to try out for the Cubs.

“Was anyone in the room at the time?”

“What?” Burdette asked.

“At the time of the break-in.”

“Oh. No. Still under official seal. And that’s not how this works. I ask the questions, you answer them.”

“Then ask a better one,” Connor suggested, “Meanwhile, I can assure you I was nowhere near that place last night. See that camera up there?”

He cast a nod at a small device affixed to a support post, just under the spinnaker canopy that shaded the drinking deck.

“That works?”

“It should,” Connor assured him. “I installed it after the place burned down last year.”

Burdette gave a heavy sigh of resignation, or maybe disbelief. Then he said, “Look, Connor. I’m going to believe you, for now. I’ve also been more than fair with you. But if I find you’ve been poking around in my investigation, the hammer will come down on you swift and fierce. Job, license, everything. Got it?”

“Hundred percent,” Connor replied.

“You don’t happen to own a crowbar, do you?”

Connor rolled his eyes in exasperation, and said, “I did, in the back of my old Jeep. Go ahead and take a look. It’s probably somewhere in your evidence shed, or wherever you guys towed it.”

“I may just do that,” he said as he rose from his chair and made a move toward the gate. He reached into his pocket and took out a ring of keys, one of which probably belonged to the black Yukon parked down on the street. Then he turned back and said, “There is one more thing.”

“And what might that be?”

“Well, you see, Connor, The Natural was an okay movie, all about baseball and heartache and romance. Attempted murder and suicide, all the great elements of intrigue and mystery. But Field of Dreams was a much better baseball parable, in so many ways. It really could have been about any sport, because it’s really not about baseball at all.”

“Then what’s it about?” I asked him.

“It’s about the courage to dream, getting past the animosity you carry around if you don’t give yourself the chance to move beyond the memories that bind you to the past. But even more than that, it’s about the reconciliation between a father and his son, using the metaphor of playing catch as a means of reconnecting and finding your way home. Something I’m sure you can relate to, if you can manage to get out of your own way.”