Off You Go (6 page)

He was building a theory in his head and her
going to Beaufort fit into it nicely. Judging by the secretive
nature of the relationship, it looked like she was sleeping with
someone she shouldn’t have been seeing. Was he married? Was he
older? Was he high-profile? She hadn’t even told her best friend
about him. What else could it be? So they were having some kind of
discreet affair and they were meeting out-of-town. Beaufort made a
lot of sense. It was a sleepy, romantic little town that was what
Charleston was fifty years ago. The kind of place you might have a
nice sultry affair—as long as you were careful not to run into any
other visitors from Charleston that you might know.

Dewey looked at his phone. Faye had sent
Gina’s financial statements. He ran through them, having to squint
to see the numbers. What he found got him fired up, in a geeky,
Sherlock kind of way. Two months earlier, Gina had bought something
at a gift shop in Beaufort. Three weeks ago, she’d filled up at a
gas station in Beaufort. Something special was down there. Dewey
had no doubt that she’d rendezvoused with a lover there—most likely
the Hippo—but was this where they’d met the last time?

Dewey went with it. They
had to have met Thursday morning somewhere in between her leaving
the gym and the coffee shop in Beaufort. They would have spent the
evening together—an easy assumption after reading their racy
correspondence—and then gone their separate ways Friday, where she
went on to kill herself. This is where the guesswork came in. If
they’d met in Charleston before the drive down, Dewey had no hope
of finding out where by 11 a.m. He didn’t even have a clue. They
wouldn’t have met at her house, he concluded. Hopefully, they
wouldn’t have risked leaving a car somewhere, and they had decided
to drive separately. And that was
if
the Hippo was from
Charleston.

There was enough evidence indicating they’d
met down in Beaufort to at least give it a shot.

Dewey made small talk with Candice as he
left but got out of there before things got too spicy. As he
climbed into the truck with a butt dangling from his mouth, he
looked at the picture of his wife and girls next to the
speedometer. The three most beautiful human beings on the planet.
He wasn’t interested in anything else.

CHAPTER 7

Dewey got up early the next morning and hit
the road. He’d almost driven down the night before but decided to
save the money on a hotel. Beaufort was about an hour-and-a-half
drive from downtown Charleston. Before driving into town, he
stopped at the gas station that she’d been in a few weeks before.
As he suspected, it was a futile attempt, and he continued on.

Timeless in its
disposition, Beaufort only stole the good ideas from modernism like
craft beer, local food sourcing, recycling, and good coffee houses.
Otherwise, the town seemed unfit for cars and more hospitable to
horse-drawn carriages that mosey up the streets carrying dapper men
and done-up women to the local theater to watch
Porgy and Bess
.

Dewey parked on Bay Street and walked down a
back alley into Common Ground, the coffee shop Gina had stopped in.
He ordered the biggest coffee they had, and walked out the back.
Coffee and cigarettes…the recovering alcoholics lifeline. The back
door opened up to the stunning waterfront park that pushed up to
the bay. Perfectly manicured grass stretched for blocks, and the
flowers along the borders were in bloom. The benches and swings
were full of people staring out over the marsh grass to the water.
Lighting up a butt, he sat on a concrete wall circling a tree and
assessed his surroundings. “I’m onto you…I can feel it.”

He ran through the events of the Thursday
before, the day they possibly met there. Gina and the Hippo had
been at the coffee shop at 11:32 a.m. She’d left the gym at 8 a.m.
Probably went home and cleaned up. Matter of fact, she probably
spent a little more time than usual primping herself, preparing for
her hot date. She had to pack, unless she’d done that the day
before. “I bet you were out of your house by nine at the earliest,
which would have put you here by ten-thirty. Not much time to do
anything else. You either met in the park, in the coffee shop, or
somewhere nearby. What to do? What to do?”

He walked back into the coffee shop and said
hello to the barista. “Were you working last Thursday by
chance?”

She thought about for a second and said,
“Yep. Sure was.”

He handed her the photo Faye had given him.
“Do you happen to remember seeing her? She’s my daughter.”

She analyzed the photo. “No, sorry. I see so
many people.”

“
Were you the only one
working?”

“
Yeah.”

Dewey thanked her and walked out the other
door toward town. He pulled out his iPhone. There were quite a few
bed-and-breakfasts in Beaufort. Dewey put himself in the Hippo’s
shoes and said out loud, “You could rent a house, stay at a hotel
or motel, or a bed-and-breakfast. I’d go B&B if I was romancing
someone.”

Dewey had brought Erica down to Beaufort a
few times, and they’d stayed at a couple of the B&B’s that came
up on the Google map on Dewey’s phone. First stop was the Beaufort
Inn, which was a couple blocks inland. Surrounded by gardens that
had been host to countless weddings and debutante functions over
the years, the Beaufort Inn was the quintessential antebellum
mansion. It was painted pink in the great pastel traditions of the
Caribbean, something that Beaufort and Charleston had taken as
their own a couple hundred years before.

Dewey trudged up the steps, knowing
perfectly well that getting info from a B&B would be at least
as—if not more—difficult than getting it from a hotel. The
accommodations business followed strict rules in protecting the
privacy of their clients. He’d learned that the hard way about six
months earlier, while trying to find out if a man was cheating on
his wife.

With his head held high and a certain air of
confidence, Dewey straightened his plaid fedora and approached the
young lady sitting behind the desk. “Good morning,” he said.
“That’s a lovely brooch you’re wearing.”

She touched the dragonfly pin on her shirt
and smiled. “Why, thank you. It was my mother’s. How can I help
you?”

Dewey handed the picture of Gina to her.
“Did this woman stay here last week?” It was the good ol’ honest
approach.

The courteous and gentle smile of the young
woman disappeared faster than butter in a hot pan. “I’m sorry. We
don’t share information regarding our guests.”

Dewey took out his private investigator’s
license and showed it to her. “This is official business. She died
last week, and I’m trying to find out about her last days.”

She looked at the license. “You’re a
PI?”

With a bit of pride, Dewey responded, “Yes,
I am.”

“
Why didn’t you say
so?”

“
Oh, I thought I would
just ask first.”

“
A private investigator.
So you’re not even a cop?”

Dewey visibly deflated. He was dealing with
a smart aleck.

The young woman smiled dryly. “I’m sorry,
but I certainly have no obligation to share private information
with a PI. If you were a real law enforcement officer, I’d be
obliged to, but alas…” She sat straight up. “You are not.”

That was more than Dewey needed so early in
the morning. A couple walked in the front door, breaking up the
uncomfortable silence.

“
Is there anything else I
can do for you?” she asked, trying to move him along.

Trying the compassion
angle, Dewey put his hands on the desk and said
sotto voce
, “Please. I’m trying to
help this woman’s mother find out why she died.”

“
Sir, we’re finished here.
If you wanted a little more respect, perhaps you should have gone
to the Police Academy.” She looked past him. “Next.”

“
You are a mean person,”
Dewey said. “Just a mean, mean person. And you’ve hurt my
feelings.” With that, Dewey turned and marched out of
there.

He fired up a butt on the
way down the steps, wondering what the heck had just happened. He
had a knack for getting things out of people…but that woman was
just born difficult.
You can’t be fragile
in this business, Dewey. Don’t let her get you
down
. Easier said than done.

He tried four more B&Bs to no avail.
None of the staff were as mean, but they were certainly equally
unhelpful. Now it was quarter ‘til eleven, and he hadn’t gotten
anywhere. His only strong lead was about to burn out. He went back
to the center of town and found the clothing boutique Gina had
spent fifty bucks in two months before. No luck. He popped into
other stores, showing her picture and flexing his charm. After a
couple more clothing boutiques, a stationery store, two antique
shops, and a bookstore, he started to lose hope.

At a little after eleven, he swung by his
truck, grabbed his camera, and returned to his seat on the concrete
wall in the waterfront park by the coffee shop. It was even more
crowded than before. With no other options, he began shooting
people with his Canon Rebel and zoom lens. For thirty minutes, he
shot photos of any male over ten years old that entered the park
alone. He continued back on Bay Street, shooting any potential
Hippos. Dewey Moses was on a safari. No one stood out, but that was
okay. Maybe Faye or Sandra or another of Gina’s friends or family
would recognize someone.

A church bell chimed at noon, and Dewey
decided to grab a bite. He cut through a side street heading toward
Wren, his favorite restaurant in town. He was singing a song T.A.
Reddick, his banjo-picking friend had written, when, suddenly,
something crossed his field of vision in a blur and he felt a loop
settle around his neck. Seconds later, he was being pulled
backwards by what he later figured was a belt into an empty
doorway.

The attacker threw Dewey to the ground and
fell on top of him, pulling the belt tighter. He was much stronger
than Dewey and cut off his air with ease. Dewey tried to roll away,
but the attacker only pulled tighter and pushed a knee harder into
Dewey’s back.

It didn’t take long for him to feel dizzy
and faint, and reality momentarily faded away.

***

When he came to, he was drooling blood onto
the pavement below him. He gasped deeply for air, spending thirty
seconds trying to calm his breathing.

He turned slowly, feeling the pain from
where the belt had been. He brushed off bits of gravel and slowly
pushed himself up. No one had noticed him. The attacker was gone.
Dewey stumbled some before finding his balance. He dusted off his
fedora and placed it on his head.

His camera bag was gone. He’d spent more
than a thousand bucks on that camera and lens. What a bad day. His
wallet was missing, too, although the man hadn’t taken his phone or
his smokes.

Dewey was tempted to call the cops, but to
what end? They always slowed him down. Dewey was clearly on the
right track. Had he taken a picture of this attacker earlier? Most
likely.

His throat still felt a bit raw, but his
head was clear; luckily, it didn’t seem like he had gotten any kind
of a concussion when he hit the ground. Dewey decided he was okay
to drive. He stumbled to his truck and drove back to John’s Island,
defeated. To add to the misery, the front door to his place was
wide open. Someone had broken in. He ran up the stairs, saying,
“No, no, no, no.”

Gina’s computer was missing. After a few
minutes, he confirmed that was the only thing taken. It wasn’t
worth involving the cops.

After cleaning up his face, Dewey plopped
down in a rocking chair on the porch. “This just sucks.” The thing
that bothered him the worst was losing his driver’s license. He was
not a fan of the freaking DMV. He’d almost rather start bicycling
around, but then he’d have no way to transport his crops.

Dewey’s phone rang. T.A. Reddick popped up
on his caller ID.

“
Dewey here.”

“
I got your tests back,
buddy. The fingerprints are a match.”

“
I thought so. Thanks for
your help.”

“
You sound flat. What’s
going on?”

“
Having a less than
stellar day, that’s all.” Dewey elaborated.

“
Let me know if you need a
professional’s help. You PI’s love to get in over your
heads.”

“
Why is everybody a PI
hater these days?”

“
You people are a dime a
dozen, Dewey Moses. A dime a dozen. And at least half—you not
included—are numbskulls.”

“
Anyway, let me go before
I kill myself. Hopefully we can get together and pick some tunes
soon.”

“
I look forward to
it.”

Dewey made a sandwich and
sat down with one leg over the other to read the day’s paper. On
the second page of the
Post and
Courier
, something caught his attention.
The headline read, “Golfers, Say Good-bye to Bird’s
Bay
.
” There was a
picture of two men underneath. The man on the left, the older of
the two, was Hammond Callahan, Gina’s father.

The man on the right, as captioned beneath,
was Rowe Tinsley. Dewey didn’t recognize the name, but he certainly
recognized the face. “Where have I seen you before?” he said,
setting the open paper down on his lap and taking a bite of the
sandwich.

He looked back down at the photo. The man
looked to be around Dewey’s age—just under the hill. He was
celebrity handsome and had a confident half-smile that showed he
knew it. His hair was cut very short and showed some graying around
the ears.