The St. Simons Island Club , livre ebook

THE
ST. SIMONS ISLAND CLUB
THE
ST. SIMONS ISLAND CLUB
A JOHN LE BRUN NOVEL
by
Brent Monahan
Turner Publishing Company 424 Church Street Suite 2240 Nashville, Tennessee 37219 445 Park Avenue 9th Floor New York, New York 10022
www.turnerpublishing.com
The St. Simons Island Club
Copyright 2015 Brent Monahan. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Cover design: Maddie Cothren Book design: Glen Edelstein
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data TK
Printed in the United States of America 14 15 16 17 18 19 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Chapter One: March 18, 1908
Chapter Two: March 20, 1908
Chapter Three: April 29, 1908
Chapter Four: April 30, 1908
Chapter Five: May 1, 1908
Chapter Six: May 2, 1908
Chapter Seven: May 3, 1908
Chapter Eight: May 4, 1908
Chapter Nine: May 5, 1908
Chapter Ten: June 19, 1908
Chapter Eleven: June 20, 1908
Chapter Twelve: June 21, 1908
Chapter Thirteen: June 28, 1908
Chapter Fourteen: September 15, 1908
Chapter Fifteen: September 16, 1908
Chapter Sixteen: September 17, 1908
Chapter Seventeen: September 18, 1908
Chapter Eighteen: September 23, 1908
Chapter Nineteen: October 23, 1908
Chapter Twenty: October 24, 1908
Chapter Twenty-One: October 26, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Two: October 27, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Three: October 29, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Four: October 29, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Five: October 30, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Six: December 26, 1908
Chapter Twenty-Seven: January 4, 1909
Chapter Twenty-Eight: January 4, 1909
Chapter Twenty-Nine: January 7, 1909
Chapter Thirty: January 8, 1909
About the Author
for Ian Monahan, who thinks his dad is as good at detective fiction as Poe and Conan Doyle
CHAPTER ONE
March 18, 1908
John Le Brun Regarded the sun rising over St. Simons Sound. He squinted against its blinding splendor in the cloudless blue sky. A gentle breeze blew from the southwest, creating a second sea from the pickerelweed, arrowhead, bulrushes, arrow arum, and other vegetation bending in lazy waves over the salt marshes of Glynn County. Le Brun carried the final, deathbed version of Walt Whitman s Leaves of Grass in his left hand. He had purchased the poetry collection in Atlanta the previous year but had only begun reading it during the past week. Now that the Yankee tourist season was coming to a close in Brunswick, he was resigned to absorbing the precious life-blood of master literary spirits in lieu of live companionship.
A shady bluff signified the far point of Le Brun s habitual late-morning strolls. He groaned softly as he eased his nearly sixty-year-old bones onto a mossy mound. He had read only the first poem when he recognized the voice of Sheriff Warfield Tidewell calling his name behind him. He waited patiently without turning, a faint smile elevating his cheeks. He knew the only thing that would cause his successor to interrupt Le Brun s solitude was police work.
As the pebble-covered pathway crunched under Tidewell s shoes, Le Brun angled his face once more toward the sun and said, The very reason for callin this region The Golden Isles. It s no wonder the ancient Greeks decided it was Apollo ridin his golden chariot.
No wonder, Warfield echoed.
John s smile grew broader. The game had begun, whether Warfield would first state his dilemma or John would betray his continued interest in the investigation of criminal activity. John broke the silence, but not regarding the real matter at hand.
I thought you d be out of the law enforcement business by now, War. What s up with that horseless carriage franchise?
I can t believe you haven t heard, Tidewell replied. Colonel Jim Gould stole the march on me. He locked up the rights to a Brunswick Ford dealership.
Le Brun pivoted and focused on the tall sheriff with a patrician s bearing. Sorry to hear.
But my friends up in New York are working on what may be a better deal for me, Warfield continued with enthusiasm. A couple brothers named Fisher are building the bodies for several automobile companies. I might be the dealer for Cadillacs and Buicks.
Le Brun rose with a grunt and brushed off the seat of his pants. Buick, you say? That would make it much easier to repair that contraption you bought in December.
It would indeed.
Willie Parker could benefit from such an agency. Doesn t he own a Cadillac?
Indeed. The first motorcar in Brunswick. Speaking of another Gould, there s a problem at the docks.
John walked past Tidewell in the direction of the city. Do tell.
Quite a puzzle. The sheriff came up beside the man who had been his superior for almost seven years and his mentor for ten. Merriweather Gooderly s discovered a robbery in his warehouse. The Edwin Goulds, over at the Jekyl Island Club, like to have some of their art on display in their cottage when they winter.
That mansion with the leaky roof and basement.
Not anymore. He had it fixed when he bought it. Renamed it Chicota.
You are still too much in awe of those robber barons, Le Brun chided. Go on.
Well, they had the club superintendent wrap the artwork up, secure it in a large crate, and transport it over to Gooderly s warehouse, for return to Oyster Bay. You know your other stomping grounds among the robber barons. He cocked an amused eyebrow as he delivered his return rebuke.
John declined to comment on his visits to New York and his occasional hobnobbing with the ultrarich. The crate disappeared?
No. It s still there. But it s empty. It s a real skull scratcher, because Gooderly s is the most secure warehouse in the city, Tidewell declared.
John Le Brun continued his unhurried pace. Was.

Merriweather Gooderly s sure-tite Warehouse stood beside the Brunswick freight house tracks and within shouting distance of Oglethorpe Bay. It had been built in 1900, following the massive fire that destroyed the B W Docks and another half-dozen adjacent companies. Toward the close of the nineteenth century, Brunswick had grown into the fifth largest port on the Atlantic coast and ranked number one in shipping lumber. Good money was being made, even during the national financial crisis of 1907. Gooderly owned two dock-and trackside properties. The one near where the Brunswick River emptied into Oglethorpe Bay served for shipping lumber north, exporting cotton to Europe, and receiving European goods. The smaller Sure-Tite Warehouse handled delicate and valuable items, particularly for the local wealthy and the seasonal millionaires whose families wintered on nearby Jekyl Island, the most exclusive family resort in the world.
The warehouse was built as securely as a prison. There were no windows in the brick walls. Natural illumination was supplied by eight large skylights arrayed between the massive roof rafters. The side facing west had two doors. The standard-sized portal was solid, sheathed in steel, opening into a corridor that led to the warehouse office. The other was a massive rolling-door access for trucks and wagons, also covered in steel sheeting. The first had both a regular lock and a padlock; the second could only be opened from the inside. A third door was set in the east wall. It presented a smooth barrier from the outside, with neither keyhole nor handle. It served as an emergency exit and closed automatically with a spring mechanism above the inner side. The bayside wall was completely solid. Opposite it, the fourth, trackside wall was built without a docking platform. The warehouse instead had three upward-rolling dock doors that nearly butted up against a railroad freight car when it was positioned on the service track. The structure s single floor was fashioned of thick, long-leaf yellow pine planks and elevated to the height of freight-car beds. During loading and unloading, a ramp was set down between that floor and the boxcar.
John Le Brun knew the layout of the warehouse from both firehouse blueprints and direct observations, as he did every other commercial building in Brunswick. He did not, however, have the same intimate level of acquaintance with Merriweather Gooderly that he did with the rest of the dock-area business owners. The word used around the port for this businessman was standoffish . Gooderly claimed to have come from Atlanta money and had moved to the seaport in 1900. His local associations were scrupulously limited to, as he claimed, the better people of Brunswick. Seated directly across from the clearly aggravated man, John absorbed not only his words but also his facial expressions, his gestures, and the staccato cadence of his speech.
Not even a five-year-old could slip between the boxcar sitting there and the warehouse wall, Gooderly asserted, mopping his temples and high forehead with his handkerchief. The warehouse office was cool, suggesting to Le Brun that the man s profuse perspiration came from a surplus of emotion rather than exercise or the room s temperature. Even if somebody could, that door was closed overnight. I make my living on the very real perception that this place is virtually impregnable. A goddamned fortress for their belongings and products. He focused his furrowed stare through the pane of glass that separated his office from the storage areas. I ll show you, if you care to take a tour.
Not necessary on the outside, John replied. Sheriff Tidewell and I perambulated the property before we entered the buildin . He rocked back slightly on the rear legs of his chair. But the inside is a different matter. This has the smell of an inside job.
The portly Gooderly wore a tailored three-piece suit.