Lowcountry Boil: A Mac Burns Novel

By Phil Perkins

Mac Burns is a retired police detective from Atlanta who makes a new home in the sleepy lowcountry town of Bluffon, South Carolina. Mac is devoted to his divorced status, and not particularly interested in a new relationship, however...

Shelby, many years Mac's junior may be interested. Is Mac?

Enter Percy, his next door neighbor and a disbarred attorney, who proves to be, at very least, a reliable drinking buddy.

When an old acquaintance from his days in Atlanta shows up, his hopes of a "ho hum" existence are quickly dashed. Mac discovers that the instincts he cultivated as a big city cop haven't faded as he reluctantly but purposefully dives into the task of solving a mystery that will take him from Charleston to New Orleans and even back to Atlanta. Nothing could prepare him for the ultimate outcome.

Lowcountry Boil is an engaging and entertaining page turner, particularly for fans of crime fiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665534017

Phil Perkins

Phil Perkins is a writer, businessman, and musician who lives in Richmond, Virginia and Hilton Head Island with wife Sandi and two pups. He is the author of several business books and blogs frequently. His interest in surfing and surf culture motivated him to write his first works of fiction, The Legend of Corky Sandoval and the sequel, Corky's Beach Bar. Lowcountry Boil and Porch Rocker were his first departure from his beach-oriented roots and introduces new characters in the series of Mac Burns novels. Phil often says that his heart is in the lowcountry, that section of South Carolina that includes his much loved Hilton Head Island.

Book preview

Chapter One

Ho Hum.

That’s the only thought in the head of MacArthur Mac Burns as he sat in a rocking chair on the front porch of his modest home in Old Town Bluffton, South Carolina. He chuckled at how cliché that seemed. But Mac loved the peaceful feeling and even the boredom that came with retirement. He loved the relative quiet of the little southern town and the way life seemed to move more slowly there. Of course, that observation in itself is cliché.

It was early May so the humidity that was so prevalent in the summer months was yet to influence his morning. He loved sitting on the porch and watching the mostly older neighbors walk to their little shops and art galleries on Calhoun Street. Most waved at him and he waved back. He didn’t have much of an eye for art, but knew that there was value in the gift those folks gave to their town.

Mac had retired 4 years ago at age 50 after putting in the obligatory 20 years of service as a police officer in Atlanta. While he retired as a detective and thought he had done some good during his career, he didn’t miss police work at all. He’d seen his fill of bad actors and criminal behavior. He’d had to console too many widows. Widows of victims of foul play both civilian and police. He’d lost one partner to a bullet during a burglary gone wrong and had elected to inform his wife himself. It wasn’t a chore he relished ever doing again.

But all of that was behind him now and he planned on enjoying a little ho hum.

Mac was born upstate in Charleston but had fallen in love with the lowcountry early in life after visiting the barrier islands off the coast. He had always planned to retire somewhere in the area but hadn’t given much thought to Bluffton until a college buddy, Dan Wheeler, introduced him to the little town across the bridge from Hilton Head Island. Dan had tried his best to convince Mac to buy on the island itself but Mac felt strongly about avoiding tourists. So, when Dan took Mac to lunch in Old Town both men knew it was a more appropriate choice.

Many of the houses Mac ended up looking at were fixer uppers, but the ex-cop was at least somewhat handy. Anyway, he didn’t really have anyone to impress to any great degree. His wife had left him several years ago and he’d only had an occasional very casual date. In fact, he had worked hard to avoid commitment. He was quite good at it. Solitude served him well for the moment.

One of the aspects of retirement that took some getting used to was waking up on a given day and having absolutely no plans. Mac had to overcome the tendency to sleep the day away. His first year off the job he’d adopted an eat sleep repeat routine that tended to pack on the pounds. Mac had been fit most of his life. He had been a fair athlete in high school and college, playing both baseball and football. At the University of South Carolina as a wide receiver he twice scored the winning touchdown against Georgia. His Bulldog friends never forgave him for that but the rivalry was generally good natured.

Dan also played football at South Carolina. Unlike Mac, he was a defensive lineman. Borrowing from infamous boxer Leon Spinks Dan always said that his job description was to knock fuckers out. He got pretty good at that task, figuratively if not always literally. Dan had majored in philosophy so naturally he ended up selling real estate. No offense intended. Mac had majored in criminal justice and early on had aspirations of becoming an attorney, until he decided he liked them even less than he liked tourists.

After school, and particularly while working in Atlanta, he was compelled to stay fit, of course, so the thought of continuing to gain weight was alien to him. After several months of being as he called it a slug he joined a gym and took up a routine of working out 3 or 4 times a week. Now he was a pretty solid 180 pounds. On his six-foot frame he felt that about right.

While working out reinvigorated him physically, he found little mental challenge in reading the daily paper and actually found himself following up on crime reports even to the point of going to the police station to ask questions of some of the officers there. He had struck up casual friendships with a few of the older cops and most didn’t mind him asking questions and even sharing his opinion. It wasn’t as if there was a major crime wave in Beaufort County. There were minor break-ins, assaults and an occasional domestic dispute to deal with but many of the officers spent a good bit of time on rounding up out of control tourists. Mac just rolled his eyes when they shared stories of the high jinx associated with spring break.

At one point, Mac was offered a part time job with the local PD but quickly turned it down. Even though it was tempting, he’d definitely had enough.

One routine that Mac really enjoyed was visiting a river front fish house that had a lowcountry boil special every Friday night. The boil consisted of a combination of crab legs, corn on the cob, Polish sausage and red potatoes…all cooked together in a pot. Mac was crazy about the concoction and never missed a Friday night.

It was at that fish house that Mac met Shelby Crewe. Shelby was a 38 year old divorcee whose husband ran off to Florida with her best friend Heidi. Shelby was about 5 foot 6 and nicely built, Mac thought. She had brown hair with blonde highlights. Every Friday night Mac found himself maneuvering so that he was seated in her section. It didn’t take much, just a fiver and a friendly greeter. He liked the way the young woman called him hon and seemed to light up when she saw him. He knew that it was possible that she offered the same greeting to all male customers, but he decided to just enjoy it anyway. They did chat a little each Friday. Shelby seemed particularly interested in the fact that he had been a police officer, asking him questions about the types of situations he’d faced. He shared only short tidbits but she seemed to relish the stories and lingered a little longer at his table than was prudent to insure continued employment he thought.

Mac knew that at some point he would ask Shelby out. Even though he had been a cop, he was still socially inhibited. He also realized that the age difference might make the thought a non-starter. Still, he lay awake on occasion planning on how he might approach the subject and how he might deal with rejection.

He vowed to make the move the very next Friday.

Chapter Two

Tuesday morning it was raining as Mac awoke. It was one of his days to go to the gym but he lacked motivation. He headed out to get his morning paper only to find it laying wet and unreadable on the bottom step. Cursing under his breath he left it where it was and shuffled to the kitchen to turn on the coffee. Normally he would prepare a pot the night before so that all that was needed was the simple push of a button to render a full pot of that wonderful concoction. Mac cursed again as he realized he had forgotten to prepare the coffee in advance. As he set about making up for the gaffe, he made a personal commitment to himself to buy a Keurig at the first opportunity.

Once the coffee crisis was behind him he turned on the TV to find an alternative source for news. As usual there wasn’t much happening in Bluffton or across the bridge. No crimes of note, no new shopping centers (thank goodness Mac thought), no major pileups out on I95 and no celebrities in town. Mac did lean forward just for a moment when a story about the closure of his only reason to visit Hilton Head Island was featured. Over time he had grown fond of a style of cooking called Gullah. It was a simple array of nutritious if not fancifully prepared meals based on the culture of the original inhabitants of the area. Most of those had been freed slaves.

Dan had turned him on to the food and the Gullah culture and he had come to love the little hole in the wall restaurant called Spoon’s. He particularly appreciated the fact that it was off the beaten track and away from the touristy areas of the island on a less traveled Marshland Road. He’d had the opportunity to meet the owner and head chef of Spoon’s who, as you might imagine, was named Ms. Spoon. He never did hear anyone mention her first name and noticed that everyone called her Ms. Spoon. He loved her lilting Gullah dialect and the way she commanded respect from employees and customers alike. "What a loss," Mac thought.

He again cursed under his breath and abandoned the TV, given its propensity for delivering unwelcome news.

Now what?, he thought, his day only just begun and proceeding downhill rapidly. Despite the fact that Mac had been in Bluffton for a good while and despite the fact that he was never a particularly religious man, he was drawn to the Church of the Cross on Calhoun Street. He’d walked by many times and found that, even on the hottest most steamy days, the land around the beautiful church on the May River seemed cool and inviting. He wondered how it might feel on a rainy day.

So, he managed to motivate himself to have a quick shower, get dressed and find a seldom needed umbrella. The walk to the church was barely 10 minutes but in the rain it seemed somewhat longer. None the less, Mac found himself standing in front of the historic building with the beautiful and expansive May River on his left. Mac couldn’t put his finger on why the church drew him in. It certainly wasn’t his non-existent religious upbringing. His parents had never routinely attended church services, although he did remember one occasion when his mom had dragged him to the Christmas Eve Mass celebration. Mac had fought that tooth and nail thinking it would stymie Santa’s visit to the Burns home.

In a moment of what he might otherwise consider weakness, he found himself thinking about what had ruined his marriage. He didn’t typically spend a great deal of time worrying about that but he was working on what he called Mac 2.0. Sure, he knew that was a trite concept but somehow he realized it was time for some self-evaluation and refinement. Mac realized that his job in Atlanta had been overly demanding but he also accepted that he could have managed the conflicting commitments a little better. His wife had worked hard to keep it together but, as much as he loved her, he let it slip away…and with it went his youth.

So, as he gazed up at the beautiful church he wondered if his next chapter would allow him to forgive himself for fumbling the ball at the 5 yard line and not scoring that winning touchdown called a successful marriage. Time would tell he supposed.

As he headed home Mac began to think about how he might approach young Shelby and have the faintest chance of winning a date with her. He knew he was a little rusty in the lines department but back in his youth he was able to hold his own when it came to chatting up the young ladies. Of course, being on the football team didn’t hurt..at least with some young women. He had nothing like that to fall back on now.

Friday was fast approaching so he figured he’d better formulate a plan pretty quickly. As he neared home, the clouds seemed to break up and the sun peeked through. He welcomed the change in weather and his mood quickly improved.

As he normally did, Mac checked voicemail when he got home. There was only one message and it immediately puzzled him.

Hey Mac, it’s Jimmy Lafontaine. Long time no see, compadre. Hey listen, I’m between cell phones right now so I’ll have to call you back. On the road but I think I need your help. Talk to you later.

The voice sounded a little familiar, if not the name…… Jimmy Lafontaine. "Come on, Mac, who is that?", he thought.

After a while Mac assumed it was just a wrong number. Of course, the guy on the line did call him by his name. Coincidence or something else? Needed his help? Mac decided to just put it out of this mind.

Chapter Three

Mac considered himself a pretty fair judge of people, of human nature. He figured that his 20 years of being a cop had sharpened his sense of what made people tick and what motivated their actions.

On Wednesday morning he had occasion to doubt that assessment. This particular Wednesday started as sunny as Tuesday was rainy. As Mac headed down his front steps to grab the paper he felt much more chipper than he the prior day. So much so that he thought he would make up for the missed workout at the gym. As he began back up the steps he noticed that his neighbor was also retrieving his paper.

Mac had never actually met his neighbor. On the rare occasions he saw him outside of his house the man seemingly restricted his scant acknowledgement of Mac’s presence with a nod and grunt. He was a few years older than Mac but a little young for grumpy old man status. Still, he seemed anything but friendly or neighborly.

On this sunny day Mac decided enough was enough.

Hey neighbor, beautiful day today isn’t it?, Mac ventured a first overture.

The man at first just stared in Mac’s direction leading Mac to think the man didn’t particularly like the interruption.

Finally, he replied, If you say so.

Boy yesterday I thought it would never stop raining. Mac ventured further.

After what seemed like five minutes of silent staring Mac decided to give up and classify his neighbor officially as an old poop as his dad used to call men of a certain age.

Before Mac could reach his front door the man finally spoke again.

You’re that cop, aren’t you?

Ex-cop, friend. Mac replied.

Still.

Mac stood for a moment wondering if the man had anything more in the gas tank.

I did some time. the man blurted out.

Lot of people did. Mac let him off the hook. He wasn’t inclined to ask the man much about what put him in prison.

I thought that might be a little off-putting…to have a neighbor with a record. the man offered up.

Couldn’t care less.

Then I’m sorry…the name is Percival…Dick Percival.

Mac Burns, friend, Mac turned to face his neighbor. Should I ask what you were in for?

There was a long pause.

They say I defrauded some clients. Percival responded.

Did you?

I did not.

Then why were you convicted?

Lying witnesses…lying from the jump.

Every con says they’re innocent.....Dick….can I call you Dick, friend?

Sure…but I was and am ….innocent that is.

How much time did you do?

Coupla years….got off on good behavior.

Curious, Dick, what line of work were you in?

Lawyer.

"Oh