Page 140 of The High Tide Club
“I’m good,” Brooke said. Seeing the newspaper reminded her of something that had been bothering her. “Janice, have you had an older guy in here a lot lately?”
“Tons,” Janice said. “The retirees come in to research their stock picks and read their hometown newspapers online, the unemployed want help writing résumés, and the homeless ones like the air-conditioning and use our bathrooms. Which old guy are you looking for?”
“He’s short and wiry, has a gray ponytail, always wears a baseball cap?”
“And smokes those stinky cigarillos? Don’t tell me he’s a friend of yours.”
“No. He’s an, um, acquaintance.”
“He’s a pain in the butt is what he is. He’s been researching back issues of the Savannah and Atlanta newspapers, doing all kinds of online searches. He seems to think I’m his personal computer instructor.”
“Any idea what he’s looking for?” Brooke asked.
“He’s very interested in local history. Especially the Bettendorf family. Do you know about them? They owned Talisa Island, and the last remaining member of the family died recently.”
“I know them,” Brooke said.
“I showed him how to search the local genealogical society databases here and in the next county over. And then we had to order him some books through interlibrary loan. One was an old out-of-print book about Josephine Bettendorf Warrick that she apparently commissioned back in the 1970s. He was incensedthat we charged him three dollars for ordering those materials and having them shipped here. Gave me the whole line about being a Vietnam vet and how his tax dollars paid our salaries.”
“What kind of books?”
Janice lowered her voice. “I don’t mind telling you, because you’re a longtime patron, but that man, Mr. Anthony, was obsessed with privacy. To the point of being paranoid. He wanted to make sure we weren’t keeping any records of what he was looking at.”
“Which was?”
“Hmm. Well, he looked at the county property tax records. I know, because I helped him with that. He printed out some records concerning Talisa. And then he also researched legal records from Glynn and Chatham counties.”
“Did he say why he was interested in those counties?”
“I tried not to get too close to him, to tell you the truth,” Janice said. “His personal hygiene isn’t the best, if you know what I mean. But I think I printed out some tax records for him. And he was looking at civil and criminal dockets for those counties too. I remember because he raised holy you-know-what because we charge ten cents apiece for printouts!”
“Weird,” Brooke said.
Janice looked around to make sure she couldn’t be overheard. “Pretty sure he was also trying to look for online pornography sites too. We have blocks to keep people from doing that, but a couple of times, when he left before signing off the computer, I saw the record of his Google searches. Yeesh!”
“Anything else you can think of?”
“He was very interested in wills and trusts and that sort of thing. Funny, because he didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would stand to inherit anything from anybody.”
“Fascinating,” Brooke said. “Has he been in here lately? Like in the past week or so?”
“I didn’t see him myself, because I was at lunch, but Myra mentioned that he was here last week. She finally had to ask him to quit standing outside the doors smoking those cigars of his, because the other patrons were complaining. Excuse me,” Janice said, hurrying off to quiet a table of giggling teenage girls.
60
“Brooke?” Lizzie’s voice was crackling with excitement when she called early Thursday morning. “I found something. You need to get over here right away and take a look.”
“I was planning on coming this morning. Are you at Shellhaven now?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“Can you ask Shug to come pick me up? I can be at the marina by nine o’clock.”
“He just pulled up with Louette,” Lizzie said. “I’ll ask him now.”
***
Lizzie met Brooke at the Shellhaven dock, and it struck Brooke that although she’d been on the island only a short time, the change since she’d arrived from California was remarkable. She wore shorts, a white tank top, beat-up sneakers with no shoelaces, and a baseball cap. She held Dweezil in the crook of her elbow.
