Beach Town (7 page)

“What about the town council?” Greer asked, grasping at straws. “If it's city property, don't you have to put something like this to a vote? Isn't there a committee or something?”

“Oh sure. I guess that would come under the Ways and Means committee.”

“Great. Who's on that committee? And when do they meet?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Let's see. Ways and Means? That'd be Ginny Buckalew. And Dr. Borden. And me. Ways and Means meets the first Monday of the month, which was this past week.”

“Let's go look at houses,” Greer said wearily. This was not surrender, she vowed to herself. More like a temporary retreat.

*   *   *

She followed Thibadeaux back to the Silver Sands and waited for him outside his office. He pointed at a blue golf cart parked in the lot. “Might as well ride over there with me.”

Greer climbed into the passenger seat without comment. As they puttered along the quiet downtown streets, the mayor waved and nodded and greeted his constituents by name as his passenger quietly fumed and plotted her next move.

“Hey, Bernice,” he called to an elderly woman driving a golf cart with a large black dog belted into the passenger seat. The driver of a rusting brown Chevy pickup with the bed loaded with crab traps beeped his horn and leaned his head out the open window. “Hey there, Eb.”

“How ya doin', Kenny? Catching anything?” the mayor hollered.

A pair of oversize stucco columns flanked the entrance to the subdivision, which looked more like the entrance to a weedy meadow. The plaque on the columns read Bluewater Bay Luxury Residences.

“There's where the guard shack was going to be,” Eb pointed.

Greer studied the road. “Hmm. Wonder how quickly we could get some gates and a shack built?”

“You'd need a variance,” he said.

“Let me guess. That has to be approved by the mayor?”

“Actually, no. That's the city clerk's job.”

“And is the city clerk by any chance related to you?”

He laughed. “She was—by marriage. But she got smart and dumped my cousin Butch.”

At first glance, Bluewater Bay didn't exactly live up to its name. She saw no signs of either blue water, bay, or luxury. Asphalt roads looped through a landscape dominated by sand, scrub oaks, and clumps of palmetto. Every few yards a forlorn-looking
FOR SALE
sign poked up from the sandspurs.

Thibadeaux saw Greer's look of dismay. “It gets better down at the cul-de-sac. All this land used to belong to the paper company. They bought it for the timber, logged it, and kept it, because that's how they ran their business. Then, after they closed the box mill, they decided to get into real estate development. Four years ago they came in, clear-cut this parcel, and subdivided it. The idea was to sell waterfront lots to builders for spec homes. Only problem was, by that time, the economy sucked. They finally ended up selling the lots for next to nothing. Milo Beckman, a local builder, built four houses. He lives in one, and he managed to sell one to a retired couple from upstate New York, but the other two houses have just been sitting here.”

The street came to a Y in the road and Thibadeaux veered off to the right. As promised, at the end of the cul-de-sac she spied four large houses situated on large, nicely landscaped lots.

“This is the four bedroom one I told you about,” Thibadeaux said, as he pulled the cart into the driveway of a vaguely Cape Cod–inspired white frame house raised up on concrete block pilings. “Milo hired an interior designer from Gainesville to decorate them as model homes, and the furniture is still here.”

Greer followed him up the wood-plank steps. He unlocked the door, then stepped aside to allow her to enter.

“Killer views,” he said.

Which was an understatement. They were standing in a vaulted-ceilinged great room with a back wall made up of three sets of French doors. There was a deck outside, and beyond that she saw a small swimming pool surrounded by a white concrete deck. Just past that sparkled the very blue waters of Choklawassee Bay. A squadron of pelicans flew past in V formation and, below, she saw the gray back of a dolphin as it coursed through the waves.

“Wow,” Greer said, moving toward the French doors. Her footsteps on the wooden floors echoed through the high-ceilinged rooms. The furnishings were what you'd expect: large sofas, rooms decorated in beachy green and blue hues. Nothing spectacular, but nothing obnoxious either. She did a quick walk-through, shooting pictures with her cell phone, and e-mailed them off to Bryce Levy's assistant. When she returned to the living room she found Thibadeaux reading e-mails on his own phone.

“The house is great,” she said. “Decent kitchen, nice-sized bedrooms and baths. Is the other house about the same?”

“Two more bedrooms, three baths, plus a half bath in the, uh, pool house, I guess you'd call it,” Thibadeaux said.

She nodded thoughtfully. “But no basketball court?”

“There's one at the city park, on Pine Street,” he offered. “The locals play pickup games most weekends.”

“Not sure Kregg is going to like that idea,” Greer mused.

“Who?”

She clapped her hand over her mouth. “Damn. Nobody's supposed to know it's him. Pretend you didn't hear that,” she said quickly.

“Did you say Kregg? That's a person?”

“Obviously you're not a big hip-hop fan. You really never heard of Kregg? As in
Wannabe Crazy
or
Lies, Spies and Killa Highs
?” Greer asked. “The guy is huge. He's on the cover of this month's
Rolling Stone.
What century are you living in?”

“This one,” Thibadeaux said with a shrug. “I mostly listen to country music. With a little alternative rock thrown in, just to prove to my niece that I'm not a complete troglodyte.”

“How old is your niece?”

“Allie is seventeen. She lives with Ginny, but I guess you'd say I'm sort of her guardian.”

“And how old are you?” Greer asked.

“How old are you?” he countered.

“I asked first.”

“Forty-one,” he said. “Yourself?”

“Midthirties,” she admitted.

“No wedding ring?”

“No.” She left it at that. She and Sawyer had lived together on and off, mostly off, and although she'd secretly fantasized about marriage, she'd somehow known from the beginning that Sawyer Pratt was a pathological bachelor.

Anyway, that was a long time ago.

Eb Thibadeaux wasn't done with his cross-examination.

“How old is ‘midthirties'?”

“Thirty-five. Okay?”

He pondered that nugget of information. “About what I figured. And you actually listen to that hip-hop crap?”

“I'm in the entertainment industry,” Greer reminded him. “Pop culture awareness is part of my job. As for Kregg? His stuff isn't
that
bad. He's kind of cute, if you're into that sort of look.”

“Which look?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. Tattoos, scruffy beard, ripped jeans, soulful, urban, wounded, self-absorbed. Like that.”

“I'm sure that's catnip for girls Allie's age.”

Greer clutched his arm. “You can't tell her Kregg is coming here, Eb. You can't tell anybody.”

“Cypress Key is two square miles. You've seen what people on this island look like. Don't you think somebody is going to notice when this Kregg character shows up in his ripped jeans and urban, wounded soul patch? So, what's the big deal anyway? A few girls squeal a little and ask for an autograph?”

“You don't understand,” Greer said. “It's not just a couple of girls. Kregg is a huge deal. This is his first movie. If word gets out that he's here, this place will be swarmed with fans. Crazed, obsessed fans who will stop at nothing to take a selfie with him.”

“And that's a bad thing?”

“It is if you're trying to make a movie. You have no idea of the security hassles involved with a star of Kregg's magnitude. They'll show up on the set and disrupt filming. They'll stalk him, follow him to restaurants, the gym, home, pester him until he signs their CDs or allows a photo. And it's not just the fans. Once word gets out, we'll have the media here too. And that's another whole layer of trouble.”

“Okay. I'll keep it to myself. About the houses? Yes, or no? I'll need to talk to Milo to make sure he's okay with a short-term lease, but I'm thinking they've been on the market long enough, he'd just like to see some positive cash flow.”

Greer heard her phone bing, notifying her of an incoming text message. She glanced down, then nodded. “That was from the director's assistant. Yes on both houses. But we'll need a guarantee that security will be in place by the time Kregg gets here Monday. So, can you do that? Get a variance from the city clerk and get some kind of gatehouse erected by then?”

“I'll talk to Milo,” Thibadeaux repeated. “Not sure about the timing of building the gatehouse. Tell you what I can do, though. There's only one street coming in and out of the subdivision. I'll ask the chief of police to station an officer out here to keep folks from coming in.”

“That would be perfect,” Greer said.

“It's gonna cost you,” Thibadeaux warned. “We've only got six officers on the force. You'll have to pay for an off-duty officer.”

“Of course,” Greer said. “We'll need security for the duration of the shoot anyway.”

“You can take that up with the chief,” Thibadeaux said. “Her office is back at city hall.”

“I'm headed that way as soon as I get my car from the motel,” Greer said.

 

8

The police chief was an imposing-looking black woman named Arnelle Bottoms. “So y'all want to make a movie. Right here in Cypress Key? Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” Greer said. “Eb Thibadeaux suggested I talk to you about security during the shoot. We anticipate being here about five or six weeks, and we need to make sure we don't have people wandering onto the set or bothering the cast, especially our male star, once everybody gets here.”

Arnelle Bottoms was probably in her early forties, Greer decided. She wore her hair short and natural and her lipstick fuchsia. There was an engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand, and a pair of framed photographs on her desk showed two children—a teenage girl and a boy of probably ten or twelve. Her blue uniform fit a little snug through her ample bosom, and a small American flag brooch was pinned to her lapel.

Chief Bottoms pulled a yellow legal pad from her top desk drawer and started jotting notes. “Mmm-hmm. So we'll need, what, one or two officers to secure the perimeter of your area. Any idea how many hours a day, that kind of thing?”

“The script is sort of a work in progress,” Greer said. “I should have a better feel for it once the director and his folks arrive Monday, but usually they try not to work longer than eight hours, although that can vary. And from what I've seen of the film treatment, there will definitely be some night shoots.”

“All right,” the chief murmured. She looked up. “You said something about security for your male star?”

“Yes. He travels with his own security people, but we'll need somebody to guard the street leading into Bluewater Bay, where he'll be staying, to turn away fans and media people. The mayor promised he'd talk to the owner of the subdivision about building a guard shack and a gate. Until that gets done, we'll need an off-duty officer.”

“You mind my asking who the star is?” the chief asked.

“I can tell you, but we're hoping to keep it on the down-low for as long as we can,” Greer said. “He's a hip-hop artist named Kregg.”

“Kregg!” the chief exclaimed. “For real?
The
Kregg is gonna be right here in Cypress key?”

“So you've heard of him?”

“Girl, my kids have played ‘Wannabe Crazy' so many times I could sing it in my sleep,” the chief said. “My daughter Tasha and her friends are gonna be so excited when they hear this.…”

“But not until we have all the security lined up, please,” Greer reminded her. “Since you know how huge Kregg is, you get that his people are concerned about security. From what I've been told, his fans can get really crazy.”

“Not on my watch they won't be,” Chief Bottoms said firmly.

*   *   *

Her phone dinged to indicate an incoming text. She glanced at the screen.

Hi Greer. It's your dad. So sorry to hear about your mom. We really need to talk. Please call me if you get this.

The hell she would. She wondered how he'd heard about Lise, wondered if her mother had given Clint her phone number and e-mail address. Not that it mattered.

She got out of the Kia and slammed the door. She headed back into city hall to do her job—without any annoying family distractions.

*   *   *

“Hi, Cindy. I'm ba-ack.”

It was a play she'd learned all those years ago as a baby P.A. on her first television shoot. Learn people's names and use them. Everybody likes to think they matter. And everybody likes to think they have the inside scoop.

The city clerk looked up from her computer monitor and smiled.

“So I see. Did you ever track Eb down?”

“I actually did, thanks to you,” Greer said.

“What can I do for you now?” Cindy asked.

“Um, well, I'm interested in doing … what would you call it? A title search? I need to find out who owns a piece of property I'm interested in for the film shoot.”

“Film shoot?” Cindy turned from her monitor. “How exciting! So that's why you were looking for Eb?”

“Yup,” Greer said. She leaned across the front counter. “It's supposed to be on the down-low. You know, sort of a not-so-secret secret.”