Off You Go (7 page)

Dewey enjoyed another bite without taking
his eyes off the photo. It was the gray sideburns that finally
triggered the memory. He sat up and jabbed his finger at the man’s
head. “It was early today! In the park!”

In fact, Dewey had taken a picture of him.
Rowe Tinsley had been walking alone in the park, wearing suit pants
and a white button-down. It looked like he’d just taken off his
tie.

Dewey’s day just got a lot better.

CHAPTER 8

“
Rowe Tinsley. Are you my
guy?” Dewey stared long and hard at the man in the photo. “I bet
you didn’t count on me having a photographic memory. I’m going to
get you, you little dirt eater.”

Dewey read the article. Over the past two
months, he had read several like it, discussing the details of
Bird’s Bay and its possible development into a luxury community
with stand-alone homes, condos, parks, a marina, and retail and
restaurant spaces. Dewey had a vested interest, as he loved the
game of golf and had been playing since he was four. Matter of
fact, he’d been playing Bird’s Bay for more than thirty years.
Dewey played in high school but didn’t bother with the College
team. He liked to think he could have made it. Though his size kept
him from being a big hitter, his short game was top-notch. Or at
least it used to be.

He didn’t get out as much as he used to, but
when he did, Bird’s Bay was high on the list. It was the best
inexpensive course in the state. Many of the holes were right on
the harbor. Not to mention, it was the closest course to downtown
Charleston, so it was easily the most popular. He understood how
controversial ripping it up could be.

Rowe Tinsley, the article stated, was
Hammond Callahan’s right-hand man at Brightside Development. With
some very slick maneuvering, Brightside had managed to convince the
state to move the public golf course to another piece of land.
Since 1958, Bird’s Bay had been owned by the people of South
Carolina. The terms created at the time did not allow for the
property to ever be sold or developed save one condition: a land
swap. Supposedly, the written terms were quite vague when it came
to the swap, but if a property of equal or greater value was
swapped for Bird’s Bay, it could be allowed.

A year before, Brightside Development, with
the help of several sizeable investors, had purchased 284 acres
north of Mt. Pleasant, off Highway 17. They’d agreed to build a
brand-new golf course and swap the entire property for the land
hosting the golf course and bird sanctuary on Bird’s Bay. The state
would keep the land, along with the water associated with the
retired battleship. The reason the state was about to agree was
because of that battleship. The Navy had publicly and formally
requested a much-needed renovation of the ship, which had become a
mainstay and serious tourist attraction for Charleston County.

The renovations were estimated to cost
upwards of one hundred million dollars, an amount the state could
never pay back based on the current income of the battleship
tourism and the golf course. Brightside Development and its
investors, as part of the land swap deal, had agreed to absorb half
the cost of the renovations. As Hammond was quoted as saying
halfway down the article, “We all win. We get to keep our
battleship, we get a newer and better golf course, and we get to
realize the true potential of some of the finest land in the
Southeast.”

“
Spoken like a
politician,” Dewey said, sticking the last bite of the sandwich in
his mouth.

He took a pair of scissors out of the
kitchen drawer and cut out the article. Then he called Faye. She
said she could meet him at six in Mt. Pleasant. He wrapped up a few
things around the house and left a few minutes early. On the way,
he called Ashton, the computer whiz, and asked him to put together
a packet on Rowe Tinsley.

Getting to Mt. Pleasant required using
several bridges. First, he crossed the John’s Island Connector to
James Island, then the James Island Connector to Charleston, then
finally the Cooper River Bridge to Mt. Pleasant. Up and down and up
and down and up and down.

That last bridge was the one that Gina had
jumped off. Dewey had time to kill, so he parked on the Mt.
Pleasant side and started walking up. The Cooper River Bridge was a
three-mile long cable-stayed bridge reaching high enough into the
air to let the thousands of container ships pass underneath yearly.
It also reached high enough to provide for an almost perfect
suicide jump. There had been ten jumpers since the bridge had been
completed in 2005. No one had survived. Two had lived long enough
to make it to the hospital but had died within twelve hours.

Dewey visited his dark
side for a moment as he slowly meandered up the walled off
pedestrian path. He contemplated how suicide could happen. Even at
the darkest of his moments, he hadn’t given it much thought. And
there were three reasons why: Erica, Elizabeth, and Sonya. He could
never have left them. Even after Erica had kicked him out, when he
was drinking two gallons of Russian firewater a day and barely
eating and waking up not knowing where he was. Sure, he hated
himself; sure, he didn’t want to be alive…but the love he had for
his family was too deep and unshakeable. He
had
to stay alive. He had to be
there for his little girls, even if that meant only sending them
love from afar.

Dewey thought about the woman he’d heard
speak at the AA meeting. It was her little boy who had saved her.
He was the reason she couldn’t do it. If you had nothing to live
for, killing yourself might not be that difficult, but for someone
with a child—even one in your belly—it really wasn’t an option. So
Dewey was having a hard time accepting the fact that Gina had
jumped over that bridge on her own.

“
Did someone make you do
it?” he asked. “What did Rowe, the Hippo, have to do with it? Did
he really break your heart so badly that you wanted to take his
child away from him?
Your
child? It makes no sense to me.”

Dewey looked at the bikers and joggers and
walkers enjoying the beautiful late afternoon. The view from up
there was hard to beat. Charleston truly was a city of wonder. As
he looked over the low skyline of Charleston, Dewey thought about
how it probably didn’t look that much different than it had eighty
years ago. The powers that be, the South-of-Broad folks—the same
ones who were pushing for the Bird’s Bay development and more
disastrous cruise business (an entirely different discussion)—had
done one thing really well, and that was preserving their precious
Holy City. It was nothing short of the finest place on earth to
Dewey. He was never going anywhere. The ocean, the food, the
scenery, the people, the fertile soil. What else do you need?

Reaching the top, Dewey took hold of the
rail and looked down. His legs tingled. Yes, sir, it was a long way
down. The boats looked miniscule from up there, but the harbor
looked massive and dangerous and deadly. He wasn’t particularly
fond of heights, so he couldn’t imagine jumping.

Something occurred to Dewey. “But you
weren’t afraid of heights, were you, Gina? This was like just
another day at the wall.”

***

Dewey met Faye about fifteen minutes later
in the Whole Foods parking lot. She climbed into his truck. Despite
everything in his life being a mess, Dewey was a clean guy, and
this included the inside of his truck. They shook hands, exchanged
pleasantries, and she commented on his cleanliness. He told her it
was from his OCD military grandfather having raised him.

Wasting no more time, Dewey handed Faye the
newspaper clipping of her husband and the potential Hippo. “I’m
assuming you know Rowe Tinsley pretty well?”

“
Sure, I know Rowe. What
does he have to do with this?”

“
Potentially everything.”
He explained what led him to Beaufort and what happened there. Then
he dropped the bomb. “Rowe was there in the park. He was one of the
men I took a picture of.”

“
You’re sure?”

“
Positive. Is this a
possibility?”

She stared off through the windshield. A
painful minute later, she said, “I hate him. I hate Rowe. He’s a
playboy. Yes, it’s a possibility. Hammond will kill him,
literally.”

“
We can’t make
assumptions. It could very well be a coincidence.”

“
Well, I doubt it. This is
exactly the kind of thing that that predator would do.”

“
Let me find out more
before you get ahead of yourself. Please, Faye.”

She nodded, still staring out. Dewey felt
the phone in his pocket vibrate. Someone had texted; he’d check it
later.

“
Tell me about
him.”

She finally looked at Dewey. “He’s a
first-rate scumbag. His wife has caught him cheating before. Maybe
more than once. He told Hammond all about it one day during a round
of golf. I never liked him since the moment Hammond hired him, but
of course Hammond cares more about drive and intelligence than
plain old common sense and moral stature. I can’t believe this. I
just can’t believe it.” She spoke with deep pain.

“
Gina and Rowe knew each
other?” he asked.

“
Of course. He’s been
working with Hammond for more than ten years now. He’s been to our
house many times. And vice versa. We’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner
with them, for God’s sake.”

“
Where does he
live?”

“
In the Old Village in Mt.
Pleasant. On the water, near the Pitt Street Bridge.” Dewey knew
that area well. He asked her several more questions. Rowe’s second
and current wife was a stay-at-home mom to their twins. He had
another son with his first wife; the boy was sixteen and a junior
at Philips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, one of the toughest
preparatory schools in the nation to get into. (It wasn’t just
grades that got you in. This guy clearly had some friends in high
places.) He was forty years old, about the same age as Dewey, so
Rowe had had his first child much younger than Dewey.

“
There’s something else,
Faye.” Dewey wasn’t sure if sharing more was a good idea or not,
but she was his employer. “Gina was pregnant.”

“
What?” Faye sat up and
put her hands on her thighs. “What? How do you know?” He told her,
and her kind face quickly melted into a ball of tears and sadness.
Dewey let her work through it, suppressing a sadness of his own,
and then said, “Faye, I have to say this—though I expect more from
the two of you. If this does prove to be true, it’s not a situation
for you to deal with on your own. I told you I would find the
truth, and I will, but I will not let the two of you do anything
illegal. Especially your husband. You might want to think long and
hard about even telling him.”

Dewey offered Faye the handkerchief from his
back pocket. She wiped away her tears and smiled in a deeply sad
way. “Do I look like the kind of woman who would go break someone’s
legs for sleeping with my daughter? I’m sure he’s not the first
older man that she’d slept with. Or married one. But I can promise
you that, if this is true, Rowe will certainly be looking for a new
job within a week, and most likely a new wife. I’ll make sure she
finds out. That bastard.”

Dewey was suddenly seeing the darker side of
Faye Callahan, the apple-pie-baking, sweet mother of one. Of
course, everyone has a dark side somewhere, and this news was
enough to provoke the worst in anyone. Matter of fact, although he
was telling her that he didn’t condone any illegal activity, he was
thinking how—had it been one of his daughters—he’d be feeling quite
differently.

“
You find out the truth,
Dewey Moses,” she told him. “You find out the truth and you come
tell me immediately. I want proof.”

“
I will. You’re going to
stay out of it, right? I can’t have you going around telling
people, especially Hammond.”

“
I will stay out of it
until you confirm it.”

“
Good. I don’t like Rowe
anymore than you. He whooped my butt this morning. But you’re only
going to slow me down if you don’t listen to me.”

She opened the car door. “I want to know if
he was sleeping with my daughter and exactly what that had to do
with her suicide. I know it had something to do with that baby. You
find out if he’s the reason my baby girl and my grandbaby are
dead.”

“
Yes, ma’am. I’ll be in
touch.”
As she closed the door, worry washed over Dewey. This was getting
unhealthy. He did not get into

this business to create more pain for
people; he got into this business to solve people’s problems. To do
something good for somebody else for once in his life. At the
moment, he didn’t feel like he was helping anything.

He’d intended on grabbing a quick lunch in
Whole Foods but he’d lost his appetite. Instead, he took a seat on
the tailgate and fired up a smoke. After a couple of soothing
drags, he pulled out his phone to look up the address of Brightside
Development. No better time than now to go by and visit. Besides,
Dewey wanted his darn camera and license back almost as much as he
wanted the truth.

He’d forgotten that he’d
missed a text message. It was from a number he didn’t know. It
read:
It’s Candice. I live next to Gina.
You told me to let you know if someone came by. Her dad’s over
here.
The text was followed by a smiley
face emoticon. Dewey was not a fan of the emoticon. In fact, he
detested them.

So Hammond was over at Gina’s. Nothing wrong
with that. It was probably a similarly cathartic experience to
visiting a grave. Dewey had gotten everything he needed, so he
wasn’t worried about things getting moved around.