Chapter 17
Whelan got to town on Tuesday morning, and by that afternoon he’d rented a grubby, overpriced, furnished efficiency above a surf shop in the village. It wasn’t much—a pullout sleeper sofa, kitchenette, and tiny bathroom—but he didn’t need much.
On Wednesday, he activated his Uber app and started accepting fares. It was a good way to figure out the lay of the land, the money was semi-decent, and it allowed him the flexibility to do what he needed to do.
First stop was the Bonaventure sheriff’s office, located half a mile from the causeway that led to the resort. It was a picturesque pink stucco building designed to look like an annex of the Saint, complete with fake minaret and a wrought-iron balcony to nowhere. The place could have been mistaken for one of those cutesy cupcake bakeries.
Inside, the lobby looked more like a dentist’s office than a cop shop. A young, uniformed female deputy sat at a desk in the center of the room.
“Hi. How can I help?” Whelan found her unnervingly cheerful. For a cop.
He told her what he was looking for and she handed him a form to fill out. He scribbled in as much as he knew: the date of the incident, the victim’s name, and the location.
“Driver’s license?”
“Huh? He didn’t have a license. He was only eight.”
She laughed and held out her hand. “I meant your driver’s license.”
He handed it over, and she scanned it on some kind of box on top of her desk and began typing on her computer, her long nails clicking as her fingertips flew over the keyboard.
“Found it,” she said. A minute later she pulled a document from the printer and showed it to him. “That’ll be twenty dollars. And we don’t take credit cards.”
The 2002 incident report told him little he didn’t already know. The name of the responding officer, estimated time of death, the name of the witness who’d called in the report.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“Excuse me?”
“I’d like to see the officer’s supplemental report, witness statements, coroner’s report. The whole file.”
Her smile evaporated. “I’m sorry, this is all the information I’m authorized to share with a civilian. Department policy.”
Whelan felt himself losing his cool. “It happened more than twenty years ago. What possible reason could your department have for keeping this file under wraps?”
“Sir?” Her tone had gained an edge. “If there’s nothing else, I’d like you to leave now.”
“Screw it,” he mumbled. “I’ll file a Freedom of Information Act request.”
“Help yourself.” She pretended to busy herself with the papers on her desk, but he could see her watching him as he left the building and got into his Tahoe. Probably running his license plate, he thought, as he pulled away.
The Bonaventure County Public Library building was not nearly as scenic as the sheriff’s office. A bland, beige brick box wedged in between a nail salon and a Piggly Wiggly supermarket in a strip shopping center. It was quiet inside, with only a couple of senior citizens sitting at tables reading newspapers.
He told the librarian, a middle-aged Black man in a bow tie, what he was looking for and explained that he’d already done a database search on his own, which yielded nothing.
“We can access digital copies of the Atlanta, Jacksonville, and New York newspapers here,” the librarian said. “I can show you how to do that, if you like.”
Whelan gave it some thought. “What about the local paper? Do you have those here?”
“The Island Express? Afraid not. They went out of business a few years back. Unfortunately, their files were never digitized. All their bound copies are kept at the historical society. I can give you directions if you like. It’s just over in the village. Five minutes from here.”
“Thanks, I can find it,” Whelan told him. “Maybe I’ll just search the bigger papers first.”
As he’d suspected, the big-city papers contained nothing helpful. Why would they care? Shootings, stabbings, political unrest made the headlines of the day. The drowning of an eight-year-old boy at a posh resort on the Georgia coast was definitely not newsworthy. To them.
Whelan decided to grab lunch before hitting the historical society. Pour Willy’s was located two doors down from his apartment, and it wasn’t busy. Perfect.
He sat at the bar, looked at the menu written on the blackboard, and ordered nachos and a Heineken. The bartender wore a T-shirt that read I WILL PUT YOU IN A TRUNK AND HELP PEOPLE LOOK FOR YOU. STOP PLAYING WITH ME.
“Cute,” he said, pointing to her chest when she brought his beer.
“I absolutely mean it,” she said, looking him over. “No offense or anything, but aren’t you kind of old to be hanging out in a place like this?”
He looked in the mirror in the bar back. He’d let his hair grow out and it was streaked with silver and almost touched his shoulders. He wore a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap, and one of the many Hawaiian shirts in his collection. His mustache needed a trim, his skin was weather-beaten, and his sunglasses dangled from a string, resting on his chest.
“I could say the same of you,” he pointed out. She had long, frizzy gray hair and tinted granny glasses perched on the end of her nose.
“True that,” she said. “But I’ve got family to support. I work here a couple days a week as a side hustle. And I fill in sometimes at the Saint.”
He raised an eyebrow in question.
“You know. The Saint Cecelia. The big pink hotel?”
“Ohh. Right.” He pretended to be surprised. “I keep hearing about that place. Maybe I’ll take a ride over there to check it out.”
“You can’t.”
“How’s that?”
“Unless you’re a member or a hotel guest or a guest of a member, you can’t get in. There’s security. And they’re real particular about who they admit as members.”
He chuckled. “So, that’s a nice way of saying they’d never admit a lowlife like me?”
“Around here, if you belong, you’re a Saint, and if you look like you and me…” She pointed at her faded T-shirt and worn jeans. “You’re an Ain’t.”
“Guilty,” he said. “Guessing you’re a local?”
“Grew up here, never got around to leaving.”
She went to the kitchen and brought back a plastic basket with his nachos nestled in a wax paper liner.
The place was empty, except for a couple of blue-collar types who were sitting at the end of the bar, watching a rerun of Cheers. The bartender busied herself near him, unloading glasses from a dishwasher rack.
After a few bites, he blotted his lips with a paper napkin. “Hey, uh, since you’re local, you ever hear of a little kid drowning out there in the pool at that pink hotel? Would have been back in the summer of ’02.”
She screwed up her face as she considered his question. “Let’s see. Two thousand and two? That’s the summer I split with my husband. The first time, anyway.”
“Were you working at the Saint back then?”
“Nah. I was working day shift at the paper plant.”
“So. The drowning?”
“Well, now that you mention it, I do remember that. I was kinda seeing a guy on the side who worked as an EMT back then. He was working that day. By the time they got down to the pool, the kid was dead.”
“Huh.” Whelan set his beer down on the bar top and twirled it between his hands.
“Where did you say you’re from?” she asked, not bothering to hide her curiosity.
“Me? I’ve lived all over the place. Most recently, Orlando.”
“Since I’m being nosy, what brings you to a backwater like Bonaventure? And why’re you interested in something that happened so long ago?”
“I just took early retirement. My mother passed away recently, and while I was cleaning out her condo, I found some old letters and stuff. Things that made me think maybe it’s time I figured out the answers to questions that I’ve been wondering about for a long time.”
“And you think the answers might be here?”
“Could be. I got nothing better to do. And this seems like an okay place to do nothing.” He stuck out his hand. “By the way, I’m Whelan.”
She shook, briefly. “Cool. Like Waylon Jennings?”
“Different spelling, but close.”
“And I’m Marie.”
“Like Marie Osmond?”
That gave her a laugh. Not even.
“Hey,” she said, after a moment. “You looking for work?”
“Might be. What do you have in mind?”
“You could try out at the Saint. They always need help.”
“Maybe I’ll check it out.”
“You, uh, might want to think about spiffing yourself up a little first. They’re real persnickety about how the help looks.”
“Oh.” He swept his hair back under his cap. “I got ya.”
She pointed at the tattoo on his right forearm. Semper Fi with the Marine Corps screaming eagle.
“You served?”
“Yup.”
“Good for you, but you’re gonna want to cover that up. The GM has a bug up his butt about that kinda stuff. No tats, piercings, long hair. You apply for a job, you need to look like one of them clean-cut Mormons that go around door-knocking and handing out Bible tracts.”
By the following Monday Whelan was wearing a set of coveralls in what he’d come to find out was the ever-present Saint signature pink. His hair was shorn, mustache gone, and the tattoo was hidden beneath long sleeves—at least until he started work and ditched it.
They’d made him an assistant supervisor on a landscape crew, which he found surprising, but not challenging.
This week they were weeding the miles of colorful flower beds that lined the roadway leading to the resort. It was hot, backbreaking work, but he found the mindlessness suited him. Weeding, planting, mowing, blowing; there was a rhythm that appealed to him. He clocked in at seven and out at four. Then he went back to the apartment over the surf shop, showered, and cooled down. Some nights he fixed himself a sandwich for dinner and watched a Braves game, other nights he grabbed something at one of the bars or restaurants in the village before turning on his app and driving.
He usually stopped accepting fares at eleven, because he’d quickly learned that anyone he picked up later than that was more than likely an obnoxious drunk.
Other nights, he sat at the tiny table in his crummy apartment and went through the papers he’d found in his mother’s condo. There hadn’t been a lot. She wasn’t the sentimental kind. Or maybe she was, but just not about him.
He’d been going through Kasey’s clothes, tossing things into a box to donate to charity, when he came across an old Christmas card box. Now that was a surprise. She wasn’t a Christmas card kind of person. Never once had she sent one to him. In fact, he couldn’t ever remember her sending him a birthday card. He’d been about to throw the box in the trash, but something made him stop. He could feel things inside, sliding around.
What he found inside the box—those little scraps of paper, a few baby pictures, and a notebook written in girlish handwriting, a kind of journal, he supposed you’d call it—that was the real reason he’d come to Saint Cecelia. It was time he found some answers.