The Trees Beyond the Grass (A Cole Mouzon Thriller) (9 page)

CHAPTER 21

WALKING PAST WASHINGTON
Square, Ann looked over at Cole. “What is it?”

“Someone is calling me again. Didn’t they get the memo?” Cole shook his head as he looked down and began digging into his back pocket for his phone. He pulled it out after some struggle,
damn tight jeans
, and saw it was Jackie calling.

“Well, speak of the devil,” he announced into the phone as he brought it to his ear. Jackie was speaking softly; it was almost eleven p.m. on Friday night and she was likely trying to avoid waking Billy, Cole’s four-year-old nephew. A crowd of people passed by, making it difficult to hear exactly what Jackie was saying so he pressed his ear tighter to the phone. Being Memorial Day weekend, coupled with Spoleto, the streets were busy and loud with strays and couples.

“You need to talk to me? Huh? Can’t this wait till tomorrow?” Cole yelled in hopes that Jackie could hear him. “No? Why not? I’m out with Ann. I’m supposed to see you at brunch tomorrow to pick up Billy, right?”

From the comments Ann could tell that the conversation was serious. She looked at Cole in his jeans and his snow-cone blue gingham shirt and mouthed ‘dashing.’ Cole smiled and bowed with large accompanying hand gestures.

Ann whispered, “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know.” Cole responded while covering the receiver of his phone. “She’s acting weird. Something’s up. She’s demanding I go to Mount P tonight.” A quizzical look came over his face as he pondered why his sister was being so insistent.

Cole spoke into the phone. “Mount Pleasant? Tonight? Why?”

After a few moments of listening, Cole whispered back to Ann. “She keeps saying she’ll fill me in when I get there.”

Shaking his head in defiance, Cole responded to his sister. “Listen Jackie, I’m out with Ann and we’ve already had a few drinks. You’ve said no one’s is dead or dying, so let’s do this in the morning. I’ll come over earlier, say ten? But for now, Ann and I are going to close out the night.”

Jackie had relented. Cole ended the call with a rushed, “Yeah, I love you too.”

Ann’s eyes were big as she pushed for details. “What’s up?”

“Ugh, no clue. She was like in a panic but refused to say why. But she said it could wait till tomorrow. So it’s clearly nothing urgent. Funny though. She told me to watch out and make sure to watch out for you, too.”

Ann and Cole puzzled over the call for a minute more before brushing it off to wander the streets of Charleston, passing by cobblestoned streets and private gardens on their way back to the hotel. A horse-drawn carriage passed by without clients as it headed to the stables. Away from the main drag of Meeting Street, the thick air dampened sounds and made the city seem empty. Gas lamps lit their way with a warm glow usually associated with some European town. Reaching the hotel after their slow saunter through the side streets of the Peninsula, they parted to their respective rooms.

BACK IN HIS
room, Cole picked up the phone and called Jackie back; he needed to know what in the world was going on.

Jackie pounced to answer the call, ultimately disclosing the reason for her earlier panicked call. “Yeah, some FBI agent, that’s all he would say.”

Cole saw his face narrow into a puzzled look in the mirror that sat across the room, as he wondered why an FBI agent would want to talk to him. The FBI didn’t scare him. He had worked for the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. the first two years out of law school, where he interrogated FBI agents, Department of Defense personnel, and others. But that all related to environmental cases. Them calling now out of the blue, well…that was new.

Why would the FBI want to talk to me?
At age three the FBI collected a copy of his fingerprints from a safety fair he attended at school. Since law school he had been fingerprinted at least half a dozen times in relation to school and licensing requirements in various states. Each event flashed in his mind with vivid accuracy. Trying to get away with a crime was the stupidest thing he could ever do.

Cole’s mind immediately went to the image of a typed document, a pending application for admission to practice in New Mexico.
Damn those people are detailed
. It had been one of the most difficult and prolonged admissions he had gone through, and he had been through ample, with four states already under his belt. His clients were all over and they didn’t want to use anyone but him. It was flattering and good for the wallet, but getting admitted to any state was a pain, with background checks, credit checks, and all sorts of checks. New Mexico had all but asked for a cavity search.

“Awh, Jackie, that’s just in relation to me getting licensed in New Mexico. They’ve been calling every place I’ve lived, worked, and obviously now been born, in the past few weeks as part of my application.”

“No Cole. This was an FBI investigator, not some bar association. He was looking for you. Detective Phil Betrous over in Charleston put him in contact with me. Agent Leas?” She paused on the line as if to see if Cole would respond. Hearing no response, she continued. “I told him you didn’t live here anymore, that you lived out in Denver. He said he knew that but he also knew you were in town. He refused to tell me why he needed to talk to you, just saying I needed to get you in touch with him, pronto.”

“You think one of my old criminal clients has gone crazy?”

“Cole, don’t joke about such things. Georgia is just a hundred miles away to Savannah and if one of your crazies comes here looking for you, the only person he is going to meet is my friend Mr. Glock 21.”

Cole regretted the guy that pissed off his sister now. She had always been tough, and if she hadn’t been in love, she would have introduced her ex-husband to Mr. Glock. But she was, and she didn’t. After, she was stronger than ever, with a splash of attitude in there that made her dangerous.

Cole chuckled. “Okay there Dirty Harry, I’m sure whatever it is it isn’t serious. How did he know I was here? I’ll call this when I hang up. I bet he called my office this morning. They wouldn’t have seen it as serious. The FBI calls me frequently on my cases and I use ex-FBI agents on occasions as investigators. But this is clearly different. Those guys don’t fly cross-country to give me a surveillance report.” The puzzled look returned to his face.

“Give me his information and I’ll call him tonight or in the morning.” Cole was concerned but didn’t want his sister to worry. He assured himself that whatever the FBI wanted it was nothing big and didn’t directly involve him. It likely was one of his crazy criminal clients back in Douglas County, or so he chose to believe until he heard otherwise.

Moments after getting off the phone with his sister, he called the number she had given him.
Damn voicemail
. He left a message and tried to forget it. He was on vacation and didn’t want to deal with whatever the FBI wanted.

CHAPTER 22

Day six-ninety.

AS WITH THE
LAST thirty days or so, the dream had come, waking Cole in the middle of the night. The morning routine that followed was the same. Slowly he forced the wall to go up while staring at himself in the hotel bathroom’s black-framed mirror to create the facade of having it together.

Seated in the passenger side of Cole’s rental Ann waved her hand across her bare legs. “Can I just tell you, I am so in need of this beach day. I mean, look at me…ghost!” They had taken it easy their first morning in Charleston, having a quick breakfast at a dinner in Mount Pleasant to meet his sister and grab Billy for a beach day. To Cole, Billy was pure entertainment; almost always happy and very inquisitive, things Cole loved to be around… needed to be around. His ability to swing from tantrum to crying to bliss and come out completely unscathed instilled hope in Cole.

Jackie had pressed about the FBI call during their brief exchange at brunch, but Cole brushed it off. He had no desire to mess up his Saturday at the beginning of the day. Things that could potentially go bad were always best left to the end of a day, in his opinion,

Reconnecting to the present conversation, Cole said, “Yeah, I was going to talk to you about that. It’s bad enough you didn’t shave those Frankenstein legs, but if I’m going to have to look at them you should have warned me to put my sunglasses on earlier.” Cole smiled an ‘I got you’ look.

Ann looked with wide eyes, her mouth open. “Why, I oughta…”

Leaning away and placing his hand in the air to avoid a possible swat by Ann, Cole laughed. “Careful. Children…” Billy looked up in the rear-view mirror and laughed. “I told you we could have run to the Super Piggly Wiggly to get you some stronger sunscreen so you wouldn’t burn, but, noooooo… you said you wanted to get some sun. So don’t complain to me when you are as red as a lobster.” Ann stuck her tongue out at Cole and then turned to peer out the window.

As they approached the old Ben Sawyer Bridge between Mount Pleasant and Sullivan’s Island, Cole’s mind flashed back to the image of the bridge knocked down, one end submerged in the water below, by Hurricane Hugo twenty-four years earlier. He could still see Oprah walking the streets in her TV special, surrounded by homes sifted into the streets and boats washed ashore.

Passing over its grated supports, Bruno Mars started singing about being locked out of heaven on the radio. Cole reached for the knob and turned it up to join in. Ann followed the chorus as Billy covered his ears in feigned pain. In an attempt to make Billy laugh, Cole switched up the words to ‘locked out of Chucky Cheese.’ Billy broke out in a high pitched squeal of a laugh.

Moments after the impromptu concert, they parked the rental on the sandy lot of the Sand Dunes Club where Cole had lifeguarded in college. Owned by the local power company, it was run like a country club for employees until the island residents complained enough to gain access in exchange for quelling their disputes about traffic and noise.

Billy immediately ran under the elevated pool’s deck after being set free of the seatbelt he had struggled with for the entire drive to the barrier island. Pressing his face against the glass, Billy peered into the round underwater windows to catch a glimpse of the legs in the water. “Billy, come on, this sand is hot, boy!” Seconds later Billy ran past them, taking the lead to the beach on a narrow, sticker-laden path running between the pool and a large white stilted home. “Hey, you know that’s Mark Sanford’s old house, right?” Cole pointed to one of the homes along the beach drive.

Ann nodded. “Yeah. Can you believe he’s back in politics? At least his wife got the house.”

His eyes squinting in the bright sun, Cole let out a loud single laugh. “That’s no surprise. It’s South Carolina. We like our givens, even if we don’t like what is being gave. Strom Thurmond was like a hundred before they let him leave office. We have over three hundred years of history with sex, guns, and religion. Can’t mess that up now…it would be bad for business.”

“Spoken like a true South Carolinian.” Ann laughed at Cole’s nonchalant attitude.

He nudged her side with his hands full of beach towels and a cooler as they walked toward the beach. “Don’t talk, you’re one, too.”

“Ouch!” Cole looked over to watch as Ann balanced her load of beach chairs and then lifted one foot to pull the sticker that had just become embedded in her foot. Free of the burr, she responded. “Yeah, but unlike you, I wised up to the fact that things are not always what they seem in this fried-shrimp and sweet-tea paradise. Like here… The idea that forty percent of all slaves in this country came in right here, right where we are standing on this island, is just shocking if you looked at it today. It’s the Ellis Island of blacks.”

Cole added, “Let’s just be happy we didn’t grow up in that and weren’t raised that way. My granny would have cut my ass if I treated MeMe any differently than a white. I can hear Granny now, “You better get your white ass out there and apologize. Granny don’t play.”

“Oh, you don’t have to tell me! Remember when she caught us smoking behind her house in town? I think she had made a run to the drive-through margarita place on Coleman and busted us running off the back porch when she returned. That crazy woman made us put a bucket over our heads, covered it with a wet towel and then made us smoke a whole carton of cigarettes. I don’t think I’ve ever puked so much in my life.”

Cole shook his head as he dropped the cooler on the beach. “Ha! Good’ol Granny. You have to love that crazy woman.”

“Indeed.”

Billy had already reached the frothy waves and kicked off his sandals to get in the water. Cole shouted against the wind for him to go on, but stay in eye-sight while he and Ann set up the towels. Moments later they joined him in an effort to wash off the sticky sand that had already caked their skin, kicking and splashing upon reaching the water. Billy was lifted on Cole’s shoulders and all three waded waist deep until they found a sand bar several yards out, Cole and Ann still discussing their youth, which had been filled with days like this one.

“Billy, hold on…here you go, don’t drop it.” Cole had found a sand dollar and, using his toes, sandwiched its flat disk between his toes and drew it up for Billy to see. “You know there are angels inside of sand dollars, right?”

“What?” Billy inspected the light brown disk now in his hand and its small million red-peach colored feet still fighting to find something to grasp.

“Yep, we’ll let that one go, but if we find a dead one, I’ll show you.” Billy turned his hand and let the animal fall, rocking back and forth as it fell back to the murky bottom.

Several minutes of flipping Billy through the air and into the water, they were all back on shore. Cole took in the moment to watch Billy make a sand castle a few yards away.

CHAPTER 23

“SO, COUGH IT
UP, mister. How’s the dating life?” With Billy out of earshot, Ann had decided to finally press for details on Cole’s life in Denver.

“Ugh, are we really going to talk about that? There are so many better things to talk about, like
your
dating life. What was his name again, Jose? Columbian, if I recall….”

Ann’s eyes went up and rolled. “Brazilian, thank you very much. But we’re not talking about me. Seriously… How’s your bed treating you?”

“My bed is treating me very well, thank you very much. Probably because the only person in it is me. Well, and Dixie.”

“Sounds lovely…. Are there any potentials? Give me the scoop.” Ann leaned in as though something exciting was about to be said.

“There are a few, but I really don’t have time for that right now. My job keeps me pretty busy, and then otherwise I am enjoying exploring the West. Plus, you know all the good ones are taken by the age of like twenty-eight, anyway.”

Disappointed at the lack of anything juicy, Ann leaned back into her seat and stared at the waves. “Yeah, but in reality the great thing is we are all royal fuck-ups. So the game plan for those of us who haven’t landed a keeper by thirty is to wait until someone messes it up with one of the good ones or gets really stupid and dumps them. Then…like sharks, we smell the blood in the water and grab that sucker before someone else does, praying that we don’t repeat the first guy’s mistake. That’s the key, mister, don’t mess up.” She reenacted someone capturing a fish with their hands.

“Wow, you and Dr. Phil should write a book together. I’d like to think love is a little more romantic than sharks fighting over a bite into the next tuna. Plus, I think I’m done with all that for now. Let some shark find me.”

“Cole, you can’t hide behind your job forever. You have to date.”

“Ann, I’m not hiding behind my job. I’m just busy, okay?”

“Look, I love you, you know I do, mister. And I just want the best for you. It’s been two years, don’t you think it’s time to try again?”

Cole’s mind went to Atlanta. He had let down his defenses for the first time ever and been damaged. The pain wasn’t fresh, but it did linger and he secretly had no interest in trying again. Cole didn’t know if keeping it in, refusing to feel, was good or bad, but it was the only way he could exist and function for now. In the mornings, when the wall was its lowest, the emotions came flooding in, blinding him and reminding him of just how helpless he now felt. To him, being unable to save someone he loved meant he deserved the cold side of the pillow every morning.

Over the past year an internal fight had developed between the longing to be loved and feeling unworthy of actually having it. He felt helpless against his own yearnings. With the wall, the two feelings were forced into their corners like fighting little boys, held there only so long as he was awake. In sleep, they were free to wield their punches, tearing away at the scar that had been created in Atlanta.

Closing his eyes in an attempt to wipe the blackboard of his thoughts clean, Cole lied. “It isn’t that, promise.”

“Bullshit. You left Atlanta to get away, and now you’re burying your head in your job. You aren’t getting any younger, Cole.”

She had pushed too hard. Cole looked up from watching his toes dig in the sand and yanked off his sunglasses. “Look who’s talking… I know, I know, you’re right. And I have gone out on dates. But how do you teach yourself to trust…yourself? To feel again? H. E. double L, I was barely feeling before. I can’t stop seeing it, Ann. It’s like it happens all over again every time I think about it. You know how I am, Ann. Images get stuck in my head like a bad movie on loop. And the only thing I can think is I failed. If I had done more or said more, it wouldn’t have happened. A cocaine overdose, Ann, cocaine. With me in the other room. I had no f-ing idea of the drugs, the hurting. What kind of boyfriend does that make me? That’s not good for the ‘ol heart. And it sure as hell isn’t good for the self-confidence that you can provide what your lover needs.”

“God man, you are…” Ann looked over to Billy a couple yards away now digging a moat around his sand castle, having taken note of Cole’s spelling of certain words. “F-ed, up aren’t you?” Ann smiled at her attempt at levity, apparently realizing she had crossed a line.

“Cole, you are an amazing man. You deserve someone just as amazing in your life. But you can’t have that if you don’t try. It wasn’t your fault. Some people are just damaged beyond repair and there is nothing you can do about that. You asked how you learn to love again, to feel again? Well, you can’t learn those things if you don’t extend love.”

Cole relaxed back into his chair. “And my head agrees, but my heart hasn’t found the person it wants to attempt that with yet, that’s all I’m saying. I’m enjoying my unfeeling world. You can’t be hurt by what you don’t feel. Come on in, it’s nice and comfy.” Cole spread his arms in his imaginary hot tub.

Ann relented. “Fair enough…” There was a long pensive pause, then Ann spoke again. “Just make sure I’m invited to the wedding.” Cole smiled at Ann, the sun shining in her face and wind sweeping her hair.

“I can’t imagine it without you… Someone has to be the drunk fool; it might as well be you.”

By two the sun had drained them of all their energy and their stomachs ached in hunger. “Billy, you about ready to go grab some lunch before we have to drop you off?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Will you grab Miss Ann’s towel and see if she needs help with anything else?”

Billy rushed over to Ann now standing to brush the sand off her legs. “Miss Ann, do you need help with anything?”

“Oh baby, I’m good. If you will grab that towel, that will be enough.”

Arriving at the pine green-sided Dunleavy’s Pub just down the main street of the island, they slid into an old picnic table outside and promptly placed orders for sandwiches. Cole was starved and dehydrated, never a good combination for Billy’s boundless energy. Dread passed through his mind for a moment as he recalled having to ultimately deal with the FBI agent.
Why was he asking to meet? And why is he coming to Charleston?