First Light: A Folly Beach Mystery

Copyright © 2015 Bill Noel.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Cover photo by Bill Noel.

Author photo by Susan Noel.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8514-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-8515-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014918579

iUniverse rev. date: 12/11/2015

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

CHAPTER 1

F lickers of sunlight animated the soft cumulus clouds on the horizon. A handful of seagulls circled above the breaking waves along the untouched predawn beach while a lone pelican crashed into the sea in search of breakfast. The distant rumble of a truck's engine was the only sound I heard that summer morning as I walked along deserted East Arctic Avenue away from the center of town.

This was my favorite time of day on the small barrier island that I call home. I carried my camera in hopes of capturing sunrise photos over the ocean fifty yards to my right, and I was thinking about leaving the road and going between two houses to the beach access when a voice startled me.

Hey you! Wait.

I instinctively pulled the camera close to my side, stopped, and turned to see who had disturbed my peaceful walk. It was still mostly dark, so I could only make out the silhouette of a man about ten feet behind me and closing in rapidly. Great, I thought. Am I going to be robbed in the middle of the street? Should I run? I was in my midsixties, out of shape, and slightly overweight, so I doubted that I could outrun anyone faster than a lame turtle. I couldn't see the man's face, but he appeared to be about five foot seven---roughly three inches shorter than me---and didn't have anything in his hands.

Didn't startle you, did I? he said as he stopped beside me.

If he only knew. No, I said through clenched teeth.

Good. Saw you and thought I'd say hi. I walk through here nearly every morning and don't usually see anyone out this early.

I smiled. Then, hi.

He started up the street and waved for me to follow. I was at his side when he said, What's your job?

A strange question, I thought, but before I could answer, he said, My name's---

The roar of an engine behind us drowned out the introduction. I glanced back and saw a car, headlights off, barreling toward us. I grabbed my new acquaintance's arm and yanked him to the left side of the wide one-way street to give the car room to pass. As I pulled, the speeding mass of steel swerved in our direction. I lunged toward the berm, yanking the stranger. But not quickly enough. The sickening sound of steel on flesh filled the air as the car slammed into the unsuspecting pedestrian. His arm was wrenched from my hand; the wind draft from the vehicle smacked my face. The man's body flew over the hood, collided with the windshield, and then tumbled over the roof. The car's brake lights never lit. It never slowed.

I dropped to my knees and watched in disbelief as the one-and-a-half-ton weapon sped a couple more blocks and turned away from the beach. The victim lay prone five feet from me. I struggled to catch my breath, slowly pushed up from the pavement, shut my eyes, and prayed that it had been a dream. It was a prayer not answered. I walked over and hesitantly looked at the body. He appeared to be in his fifties. His legs were bent in directions that they weren't designed to go. Blood oozed from his knee and his mouth, because his heart was as dead as the rest of him. There was nothing I could do for the poor soul, so I turned and slowly moved back from the body and looked around. The sky was getting lighter, but there were no moving vehicles, no early-morning joggers. There was no one around. I punched 911 on my cell phone.

The throaty siren from one of Folly Beach's fire trucks leaving the station less than a mile away broke the silence. The shrill sound of one of the beach's patrol cars rapidly approached from the other direction. I felt light-headed and lowered myself to the sand on the side of the road, turning away from the body.

How could a beautiful morning turn so tragic so quickly? I didn't have time to think about it before the fire truck lumbered to a stop. Two firefighters who doubled as EMTs jumped from the cab. One grabbed a medical kit from behind the seat and rushed to the body on the street. I watched in silence but knew the medical kit was useless and that rushing was wasted energy. The other EMT came over and asked if I was hurt. I said no, not physically.

The patrol car that had approached from the other direction came around the block and stopped beside the fire truck, blocking the street. I heard the sirens of two more police vehicles. The porch lights from the elevated house on the beach side of the road flashed on, and a face silhouetted in the window stared at the commotion.

I didn't know the EMTs but recognized the first police officer on the scene. I had met Allen Spencer the week I had arrived on Folly some eight years earlier. He was new to the force and had appeared no older than the shoes I had been wearing. Since our first meeting, he had added roughly thirty pounds of muscle to his formerly trim six-foot-tall frame. He had attributed the buffing-up to surfing and weight lifting, two activities the two of us will never share. Spencer looked over at me, nodded recognition, held up his forefinger, and quickly moved to the first responders. I assumed he meant for me to stay where I was. He needn't have worried; my legs were shaking too much to carry me anywhere.

A second patrol car, LED lights flashing and siren blaring, skidded to a stop behind Spencer's vehicle. The officer ignored me and rushed to the body, looked down, and said something to Spencer, who then slowly walked over to me.

Good morning, Mr. Landrum, the always-polite officer said.

I nodded. Allen.

What happened? He tilted his head in the direction of the body, as if I wouldn't have known what he was talking about.

Tragically, I did know, and I explained about walking down the street in hopes of getting sunrise photographs with palmetto trees in the foreground when the gentleman started talking to me and about the car pulling out of the side street and what happened next. I realized I was rambling and shut up.

You're lucky, Spencer said. It looks like the driver didn't see you all. He jotted something in a spiral notebook.

I waited for him to stop writing. No, Allen. The driver saw us, swerved, and intentionally hit him.

Spencer lowered the notebook to his side, looked at the body and back at me. Crap.

I figured it wasn't a police acronym and agreed.

Spencer told me to hang on while he shooed the bystanders away. I said I wasn't going anywhere. He then herded them back and walked to a black Ford Crown Vic that had pulled in behind his patrol car. It was now light enough for me to see that it was Police Chief Cindy LaMond. Her window was down and Spencer leaned on the windowsill. Then he stepped back and pointed at me.

The chief headed my way. My legs had regained most of their strength, so I pushed myself up, brushed off my shorts, and gave the chief my best feeble smile.

She shook her head. Chris, she said in her Tennessee drawl. "You okay?

I nodded.

She looked toward the body. What in the holy hell have you got yourself into now?

Cindy, Chief LaMond, was nearing fifty, was sturdily built at five foot three, and had curly dark hair and a quick smile. She was married to Larry LaMond, owner of Folly's small hardware store, and was a good friend. She knew that over the last few years I had stumbled across a few murders, and with the help of a few left-of-quirky friends, had helped the police bring the murderers to justice and one to an untimely demise. It had nearly cost me my life, and Cindy had played a part in solving a couple of the crimes. I was glad to see her, sort of. She looked around and suggested that we move to the comfort of her car.

Front or back seat? I asked. One of my defense mechanisms was to mask fear with humor. Most of the time it helped, and much of the time only I found it humorous.

Front, she said. Unless you want me to arrest you for something.

Cindy had moved from East Tennessee to Folly six years before to join the Folly Beach Department of Public Safety, which included both the police and fire departments, and had been appointed chief earlier this year after the long-term chief, Brian Newman, had been elected mayor. Her appointment was controversial in some circles; she was iconoclastic, drastically different in style from Chief Newman, and, heaven forbid, a female. She was a great choice.

I slid in the passenger's seat and quickly accepted a bottle of water. The shock of coming within inches of being splayed out on the street with the victim combined with the sweltering South Carolina humidity had drained me. She waited for me to take a long draw before asking for details. I repeated the story, and she listened without interrupting. She asked me to wait while she conferred with her guys, and then she left to talk to the EMTs and police officers who had gathered around the body. Another police vehicle had arrived, and two more officers were draping yellow crime-scene tape across the street. Nine locals, and probably a vacationer or two, had inched up to the restricted area.

I closed my eyes, replayed the incident, and shuddered as I pictured the car plowing into the man who was simply walking down the street, minding his own business, and talking to me. Cindy opened the door and startled me out of my nightmare. She called dispatch and asked them to contact the Charleston County Sheriff's Office to send a crime scene unit. Our tiny island was in Charleston County and had its own police department but relied on the sheriff's office to investigate major crimes. The working relationship between the two departments wasn't always harmonious, but Cindy knew the limitations of her small department. She'd told me before that she had often taken Kenny Rogers's advice: You've got to knows when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em. Had I mentioned she was from East Tennessee?

She finished her call and said to me, My guys say it looks like an accident.

I started to interrupt, but she stuck her palm in front of my face. Whoa, let me finish.

I closed my mouth and shrugged.

They said the driver was probably drunk, and since it was dark, he probably never saw y'all.

I tilted my head, looked at the group gathered around the body, and turned back to Cindy. Drunk before six?

Cindy grinned. You wouldn't believe how many drunks we pull over this time of morning. You know how Folly is---like Vegas. No clocks, no worry about time, and access to enough alcohol to kill all the germs and reality within thirty miles.

I knew what I'd seen. The driver zipped around that corner. I pointed to the intersection of Second Street and East Arctic Avenue. When we walked past there, nothing was moving, no engine running. It was like someone had been waiting for him.

Cindy looked back at the intersection. Did you see the car parked there?

I didn't notice, but it was quiet and I would've heard the motor running. When it started toward us, it was in the right lane. I moved to the left and pulled him with me. It had plenty of room to go around us.

I caught my breath and Cindy stared at the gathering around the corpse like she was trying to picture the chain of events.

She started to speak, but I interrupted, Cindy, it swerved and pointed toward us like a guided missile. It never slowed. After it hit ... him, it kept going. Your people weren't here. They didn't see what happened. It was no accident.

Cindy put her hand on my shoulder. Chris, I've known you for a long time; you don't jump to conclusions. You saw what you saw, and I can't argue with that. She hesitated. Let's wait and see what the forensics folks come up with.

There wasn't any sense arguing. I didn't know what they could tell from the scene, but I knew that I couldn't prove what I was certain of. Any idea who he was?

Cindy shook her head. Afraid not. No ID, no wallet, nothing other than three crumpled-up dollar bills. I didn't get a good look at his face, but I don't think I recognized him. Did you?

He looked vaguely familiar, I said. But I don't know from where, maybe just around town.

His clothes are pretty ratty. Looks more like one of our loveable bums than a vacationer or one of our upstanding citizens.

Hard to tell the difference sometimes.

Cindy smiled. That it is.

He said he walked the same route nearly every morning, I said. I suppose he lived nearby.

We talked for another half hour, and she took notes of everything I said about the event. Then a white Charleston County Sheriff's Office crime-scene SUV pulled in behind us. Cindy said she knew where to find me if she needed anything and politely excused me before going over to the man and woman who had exited the forensics services vehicle.

I walked the three blocks home and wondered whether I had only imagined that the driver had intentionally hit the victim. No, I was certain. And then I wondered who the target was. Could it have been me and the driver had missed---by less than a foot?

CHAPTER 2

I was still shaking. It's not every day that I nearly get run down and witness a murder. I paced around my small cottage, downed two cups of coffee, and stared at the walls, all while visualizing what had happened and questioning myself about what I could have done to prevent it. I also wondered who the poor soul was who had taken his last breath in the street.

I decided that I'd be better off at the small gallery I owned than sitting around the house replaying the tragic event. Landrum Gallery was a money pit that allowed me to display and occasionally sell prints of photos I'd taken over the years. Before moving from Kentucky to the Edge of America, better known as Folly Beach, I'd participated in a few art shows and would have preferred to attend more, but my day job in the human resources department of a multinational health care company had managed to eat up most of my time and energy. I had long envisioned opening my own gallery.

I was able to live that dream on Folly, but like most dreams, reality didn't jibe. I'm far from wealthy, but through a couple of profitable real estate ventures, a pension from the company that I had given most of my life to, and an unexpected inheritance from an appreciative, eccentric Folly old-timer, I was able to operate the gallery at a loss, until recently. It had taken me a couple of years to figure out that being retired shouldn't include keeping the business open six days a week or, for that matter, having to be anywhere that often. Visitors spent most of their money on weekends, so now I opened the gallery only Friday through Sunday.

The business was located on Center Street, the figurative and literal center of retail on the six-mile-long, half-mile-wide island. There were no sidewalks on the long block from the house to Center Street, and I cringed each time I heard a vehicle approach. I began to relax once I reached the sidewalks along the city's main drag, and I walked two more blocks to my destination. The dozen or so pedestrians I saw along the way were going about their early-morning business, oblivious to what had happened.

I had poured my first cup of coffee from Mr. Coffee in the work area--office--gathering spot-for-friends--all-purpose room in back when the jangling bell on the front door announced someone's arrival. I glanced at my watch and realized that it was only a little after eight, much earlier than I usually arrived, and nearly two hours before the usual opening.

Isn't anyone going to wait on me in this damned picture store? bellowed the familiar voice of Bob Howard.

I smiled and peeked around the corner, and I saw Bob glancing at a large print of a sunrise behind Folly Pier. Good morning, Mr. Howard. Interested in purchasing one of these fine prints?

Hell no, he said. His four-day old beard, burly six-foot frame, faded shorts, and Hawaiian-print shirt made him look more like a homeless bum than a successful Realtor. Why would I waste my hard-earned money on a picture of something I can see down the road?

In addition to his rumpled exterior, Bob had the charm of a pit bull, no offense to pit bulls. He was also a friend. During my first year here, the surly Realtor had helped me after my rented house was torched with me in it. Bob had found me a place to live, helped me move in, and sold me my home. On another occasion, he had provided valuable information that helped me catch a killer.

He stared at the mug in my hand.

Want a cup? I asked.

Does an octopus poop in the ocean? He headed to the back room.

His G-rated language surprised me. Poop? I said.

Cleaning up my vocab. He shrugged. Betty said I'm a bad influence on young 'uns.

Betty was Bob's near-saintly wife, and everyone who knew them wondered how she had put up with him for several decades. I was among that group.

Good for her, I said.

Damned right!

By now I'd forgotten the question and he'd forgotten Betty's advice, but I thought it had to do with him wanting coffee, so I followed him to the coffeemaker and found a nearly clean mug.

Have five---no, make that six---pancakes; three eggs, scrambled; sausage; grits; and biscuits? He looked around the room as if he expected to find a full-service kitchen.

Plumb out, I said. How about a stale Oreo and a moldy bagel?

Hard to turn down, but this'll have to do. He hoisted the mug in my face.

I poured a refill as Bob plopped down in one of the rickety wooden chairs by the yard-sale table. One of these days his seventy-five-year-old obese body would go right through the chair. Thankfully, today was not that day.

I sat facing him. So to what do I owe the pleasure of your company? You're not here to buy anything, my food selection is limited, and the gallery doesn't open for two hours.

He huffed like I had slapped him. Couldn't I have stopped to see a dear friend?

No, I said and stared at him.

He took another sip and then held the mug at arm's length.

I rolled my eyes and got him more.

He came close to thanking me but simply nodded. You know, the lease on your gallery is up in two months.

I hadn't remembered. Of course.

The landlord called. The old codger said he wants you to sign an extension.

Mm-hmm, I mumbled.

Hold the drum roll. Bob tapped his palms on the table. Your outstanding Realtor was able to use his decades of finely honed negotiating skills and got the damned greedy landlord to offer you a five-year extension with no increase in rent. He bowed his head. You're welcome, you're welcome.

I smiled. He couldn't find anyone else who wants it.

Bob waved his arms toward the showroom. Hell no. Who'd want this dump?

I laughed and knew Bob was right. Exactly what were you able to get from him with your superior negotiating skills?

Let's see, Bob said. He wanted a ten-year lease, but I told him that you were getting long in the tooth and probably would kick the bucket before then. He'd be stuck with all your photo crap.

Good strategy, I said with a nod and an overabundance of sarcasm.

Also told him that the way you keep stumbling on murders, you'd probably get yourself killed long before a five-year lease was up, but he said the bank needed that long so he could refinance this dump---excuse me, prime class-A rental property.

Bob's mention of murders reminded me of what happened earlier, and I interrupted his tale of real estate negotiations to share my morning with him.

Damn, damn, damn, Chris! Bob rolled his eyes toward the ceiling. I need to get you a month-to-month lease---hell, maybe day-to-day. You're not going to live five years. What in the hell have you stuck your foot in now?

It was not yet nine o'clock and I'd heard the same sentiment twice already. I told him that I wasn't involved and that I had simply been walking down the street.

The sound of hammering from next door distracted Bob before he got too far into telling me how big an idiot I was, how if I got myself involved in another murder, he wouldn't wait for a killer to do me in, that he would kill me himself.

What's going on over there? Bob interrupted, pointing to the wall that separated my gallery from the attached space. Sounds like Woody Woodpecker on steroids.

It's someone from that new church that meets on the beach, I said.

Bob looked at me and then at the wall where the racket was coming from. I'm not good at geography, never much gave a flying flounder about where places were, but after being a highly successful Realtor for just shy of seven hundred years, I can tell you where the beach is. He frowned and nodded toward the pounding. It damned sure ain't that direction.

"Wow, you are good. Since you've been around that long, you probably know that the weather isn't always great on Sunday