“Sonny, Sonny, wait. What’s he wearing?”
“What?” His tone implied unkind things regarding my mental health.
“I’ll explain later. I promise. Just tell me what he’s wearing.”
“Khaki pants and a checked button-down. No coat.” He ended the call.
Five
Nate drove, and Colleen rode with us into Charleston.
“I tried to tell you there was no time for all that frolicking.” Colleen’s head poked between our seats. Today’s outfit was a Christmas sweater with a jeweled angel, skinny jeans, and a Santa hat. Since her death, Colleen could wear whatever she liked simply by thinking about it. She was working my last nerve.
Hush up. Thinking my side of the conversation wasn’t nearly as satisfying as talking. I purely hated it when she put me in a position where I had no choice and then baited me.
I called Olivia. “Have you picked up your car?” I asked the second she picked up. I’d left the car on South Battery, which bordered White Point Gardens.
“Robert sent his secretary over with a friend to drive it back. She called me just a second ago to let me know they found it. Why?”
“Call her back right now and tell her not to move that car until we get there. We’re in a brown Explorer. Call me back.” I ended the call before she could ask questions. Between the media and the looky-loos we’d never find a place to park.
A minute later my phone rang. Olivia said, “Something big is going on over there. They’re holding the spot.”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“Something happened in the park. There’s crime scene tape and—” She made a godawful noise, somewhere between choking and yodeling.
“Listen to me. We do not know there’s a connection. Do. Not. Say. A. Single. Solitary. Word. To. A. Soul. Understand? Tell me you understand.”
“Yes, of course. Ohmygod. Ohmygod.”
“Olivia, do not panic. Go on about your day, just like any other Tuesday, hear?”
But for ragged breathing and muffled sobs, she was silent.
“I’ve got to go. I’ll call as soon as I can.” I ended the call.
Nate pulled onto the ferry. At eight a.m., even on a Tuesday, it was crowded. Along with regular commuters, this close to Christmas, lots of folks were headed to Mt. Pleasant and Charleston to shop. We stayed in the car.
“What was the victim’s name again?” Nate asked.
“Thurston Middleton…” There’d been Middletons in Charleston forever. Something tickled the back of my brain. I pulled out my iPad and commenced Googling.
“Damnation,” I said, after reading the first article that came up.
“What’d you find?” asked Nate.
“I thought that name sounded familiar. He’s a local real estate developer. Into green technologies. Comes from money. He was gearing up to make a run in the Republican primary for the First Congressional District next year.”
“Now right there’s exactly what this mess needed. A politician. He was going to challenge Mark Sanford?”
“That was the plan. Assuming Sanford runs again, I guess. I don’t follow politics beyond Stella Maris. Too depressing.”
During the ferry ride and trip through Isle of Palms and Mt. Pleasant, I picked up as many details as I could from the internet, sharing salient points as I found them. From all appearances, Thurston Middleton appeared to be a Boy Scout. He’d served in the Air Force, was active in local efforts to assist the homeless, married to Julia Bennett Middleton for eighteen years, four sons.
“This is so sad,” I said. “Looks like he was one of the good guys.”
Nate drove onto the Cooper River Bridge. “Maybe he was. But he was sure in the wrong place last night. Sonny’s going to have fun with this one.”
Scrambling, I said, “We don’t know for sure his was the body Olivia saw.”
“Are you kidding me?” Nate asked. “You are not seriously advocating the notion that two men who strongly resembled each other were killed last night, in the same manner, within a block of each other, wearing the same clothes, with one of their bodies unaccounted for. Are you?” He glanced at me long enough for me to read his incredulous expression before turning back to the road.
“It’s possible,” I said with a straight face. I stared at the photo of Thurston with his wife and sons in the newspaper article on the screen. “Though I can see the resemblance to Robert. Looks to be about the same height and build. Same hair color. Their facial features are very different, but from behind…The point is, all of this is conjecture.”
Nate shook his head.