He poked his head out the side door to find Charlotte Mills in her signature floppy hat and cat-eye sunglasses, the hat too big and the glasses too bright for her small, meek features. Her pants legs were rolled up and she wore a long-tailed white cotton shirt over a formfitting tank top. Yellow flip-flops accentuated bright-red toenails. Her pockets bulged with seashells. Before he had gotten to know her, he’d called her the beachcombing widow—but only in his mind.
“I have a couple of dogs still warm if you’re interested.”
“Only if you have time. Everyone seems in a hurry today.”
“Aren’t you packing up?”
“Humph.” She waved a birdlike hand at him. “I’ve gone through worse than what’s coming. Last time I left, they wouldn’t let us back on the beach for weeks.”
“If I remember correctly, the bridge was out.”
“Or so they said.”
Years ago Charlotte’s husband was killed in a plane crash, just days before he was to testify in a federal investigation against a state senator. There was never any evidence that the crash had been anything more than an unfortunate accident, but Charlotte believed otherwise. Walter wondered if she had always been prone to conspiracy theories because she saw them everywhere now.
“This storm’s gonna be bad.” Walter had slid the window back open and started pulling out condiments to prepare her hot dog. He decided to fix himself one and join her. “If you need a place to stay, you’re welcome to come to my house. I’m well above the floodplain and about a quarter mile from Escambia Bay. It’ll just be me, my daughter, and maybe my son-in-law.”
“That’s so sweet, Walter. But no, I’m staying. Already got the plywood up. Plenty of batteries and the generator’s ready to go in the garage.”
“Now, Charlotte, remember how Ivan shoved water and sand right through most of these beach houses?”
“Mine’s cinder block. It made it through Ivan, I’m sure it’ll make it through this.”
“Hey, Mr. B.”
“Well, if it isn’t Phillip Norris’s son.”
Walter almost regretted remembering the name of the young man’s father. The look on Norris’s face was a combination of shock and embarrassment. It was obvious he hadn’t wanted Walter to remember.
He introduced Charlotte, giving the young man the opportunity to introduce himself only if he chose to. Walter was pleased, but surprised, when Norris held out his hand and told her, “I’m Joe Black.”
“I was just trying to convince Charlotte that she needed to leave the beach during the storm.”
“I have a nice, solid, two-story cinder-block house, one lot back from the water. I’ll be fine.”
“People disappear during hurricanes,” Joe said, and both Walter and Charlotte stared at him, startled at his bluntness. “There were more than three hundred people who went missing after Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, Texas. I’m just saying it happens. You really might want to reconsider.”
CHAPTER 40
Maggie spent the rest of the afternoon back in her hotel room. Outside, the parking lots were filled with people packing up their belongings and getting ready to evacuate the beach. Most of the businesses were closed, the owners starting to board up windows and doors. However, surfers were still riding the waves. Some of the restaurants remained open. The Tiki Bar had a huge sign out front offering free drinks till they ran out.
The hotel manager had told Maggie he’d stay until the authorities closed the bridge. Maggie and Wurth were welcome to stay until then. Almost all of the other guests had checked out. Maggie suspected, from the absolute quiet, that she was the only one on her entire floor.
Sheriff Clayton had been gracious enough to drive her back to Pensacola Beach after the autopsy.
“Sorry, I can’t be of much help,” the sheriff had told her. “I’ll contact Vince Coffland’s next of kin. But anything else will have to wait until after the storm.”
Maggie asked him to give her cell-phone number to Coffland’s widow. If she wanted to talk about the details of her husband’s disappearance, Maggie would be interested in listening. Clayton agreed.
Now, as she sipped a Diet Pepsi and waited for her laptop to boot up, she kept glancing at her cell phone. No calls. No messages … from anyone. She had the TV turned on to the Weather Channel but muted. Every once in a while she glanced at the onscreen graphics of Isaac’s progression. She noticed one of the weather reporters, handsome, shaved head, nice legs, standing in front of the Gulf with its emerald-green rolling waves. She read the crawl: JIM CANTORE REPORTING FROM PENSACOLA.
“Oh Charlie, he’s here.” She smiled as she started jotting down things she wanted to remember.
Clayton had been correct about the severed hands and the fingerprints. None on file. They would need to wait for DNA to see if any of the hands belonged to Vince Coffland. A simple blood test had already found the foot to be someone else’s. Vince Coffland was type B. The foot’s blood was type O.
On the hotel notepad she wrote:
Coffland disappeared July 10
Port St. Lucie over 600 miles (land miles) away
Foot: metal debris; belonged to a 2nd victim
Plastic: heavy ply (commercial use?)
Fishing cooler: Why?
Tie-down: man-made synthetic rope, blue and yellow fibers