A Timely Vision (22 page)

I thought about Silas Butler, but then shook my head. “If I can help in any way, please let me know. What happens now?”

“She’ll be assigned to a mental hospital, probably on the mainland. Someone will be put in charge of her well-being. I suppose some family member will be given her power of attorney and they’ll take care of her estate. She could be stripped of her rights in a legal procedure. But that will take some time.”

“She has no family left. The sisters had no heirs. There aren’t any cousins, nephews. At least not as far as I know.”
Silas Butler
whispered in my brain.

“I guess a legal guardian will be appointed.”

I put up my hand to shade my eyes from the sun behind his head. “Could that be
you?
”

“I don’t know. I’ll check on it and get back to you.”

“Thank you so much, Luke.” I put out my hand to shake his. “I really appreciate what you’ve done.”

He shook my hand and smiled. “That’s what I like about Duck. Everybody looks after everybody else. It means we all get in each other’s business from time to time. But it’s okay.”

“That’s true.” We stood there smiling at each other for a few minutes. The rest of the small ribbon-cutting crowd wandered away. Part of me was thinking about Silas Butler and Miss Mildred. The other part was noticing how blue Luke’s eyes were.

“Would you like to get some lunch?” he asked in an offhand way, as though unsure of how I’d reply.

“Sure. Why not?”

I judged his age to be around forty, not too far ahead of me. He seemed to be in good shape. He must’ve been a very good lawyer to have retired so young. I could do worse for a lunch companion.

We agreed to try out the new restaurant. The enticing cooking aromas were already wafting out to the parking lot.

Inside was cool and colorful with Mexican music playing in the background. There weren’t many people yet. I felt sure it would be popular later. We ordered our food, then sat back in the cool, dark booth to look at each other. Oh, the awkwardness of first encounters!

“How about those Braves?” Luke began the conversation after a long pause. “They’re really moving this year.”

I hated to admit I knew next to nothing about sports, so I nodded and agreed. I’d realized earlier in my career as mayor of Duck that this was all most people needed. “This is a nice place,” I commented. “Especially since we don’t have any other Mexican food down at this end.”

He nodded, smiled and agreed, which told me he knew next to nothing about local demographics. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for Mrs. Mason. But I’ll check on being the trustee for her estate.”

“That would be wonderful.”

The waiter brought some chips and salsa, and we spent the next few minutes munching. I could hear a TV somewhere in the restaurant, but I couldn’t see it. That was okay with me. It was probably tuned into a sports event anyway.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.” I finished a chip and waited for the question.

“What makes you so certain that Mrs. Mason
didn’t
kill her sister? Is that a Duck thing, all for one and one for all?”

I thought about it. “I’ve known her all my life. She taught most of the people who live here at some point in their school careers. She was widowed young like her sister. She never had any children of her own. She gives to every children’s charity that exists, besides being an all-around good person.”

He nodded. “I get that. But you know, sometimes good people do bad things. The case against her may be circumstantial, but it’s strong. When I was working in the system, I would’ve considered this a slam dunk.”

“Why did you offer to defend her?”

“Because she didn’t have anyone else, and everyone is entitled to representation. That’s what our government is based on. She seemed like a worthy cause to me.”

“That’s very good of you, Luke. Even if you don’t think she’s innocent.”

He leaned his head closer to mine across the narrow table. “It’s enough that
you
feel she’s innocent, Dae.”

I was very flattered by the way he said it. I glanced up as someone brushed by us and looked into Kevin’s slightly sunburned face. I moved away from Luke suddenly, as though we’d been doing something wrong. Then felt silly for doing it. “Hi, Kevin. I’m surprised to see you here.”

“I needed a break from roof repair.” He nodded to Luke. “Hey there.”

Luke nodded back in that way all men seem born to understand. “How’s it going, Brickman?”

“Would you like to join us?” I ventured, since he seemed alone.

“No, thanks. I’m meeting someone. I’ll talk to you later.”

I watched him walk away and wondered if Shayla would be tripping in after him. Our food arrived after he was gone. Luke and I spent the next thirty minutes making small talk around burritos and enchiladas.

When all the food was gone and the conversation had simply died out, I smiled and said, “I guess I should get back to the shop. Lunch was great.”

“It was. Let’s do it again sometime. Where’s your shop?”

I gave him the directions, which didn’t take long. He picked up the check, and we said good-bye. I walked across Duck Road, wondering how someone who had seemed so interesting could end up being kind of boring. Maybe he was shy, although that didn’t fit my ideas about lawyers.

At any rate, I didn’t expect him to call or anything. We obviously weren’t well matched. I stopped for an extra minute at town hall where Nancy was beaming. “It’s been a very good day,” she told me. “I had misplaced an important message for the chief, and somehow it found its way back to my desk. I think it was the janitor. Then they finally got the phone system working right. I even heard from my daughter. How was the ribbon cutting?”

“About like normal, maybe a few less people.” I took my messages from her, hoping there would be one from the chief explaining Silas Butler’s message.

“And there was food too!” She pushed back her hair. “Someone needs to get after the other chamber members. What if a newspaper decided to cover a ribbon cutting? Say, about last night, did you hear or see anything out of the ordinary? ’Cause I have to tell you, I had a lot of wine, and I’m blaming it on a few things.”

“Like what?”

“There was a sound. It was like someone was talking, in a breathy kind of way, you know? Then on the way home, I saw some shadows where there shouldn’t have been shadows. Do you believe in ghosts, Dae?”

“I’d like to. I haven’t ever seen one. But I did hear something last night at the Blue Whale. I’m not sure what it was, but I didn’t have
that
much wine. I think someone was trying to tell us something.”

Nancy’s red lips formed an O. “That’s what I was thinking too. I think Wild Johnny Simpson knows that some people think Miss Elizabeth killed him. He loved her even though he left. He doesn’t want her blamed for his death.”

“I guess that’s possible.”

“Any word on Miss Mildred?”

“Not really.” I didn’t want to repeat what Luke had told me. I didn’t have the heart for it. There was no message from Chief Michaels in the small stack of notes she gave me. That made me feel even worse. Why hadn’t the chief told me about Silas Butler? “I have to get back to the shop, Nancy. I’ll see you later.”

“All right, sweetie. You take care.”

I followed the boardwalk back to Missing Pieces, hardly noticing the antics of the gulls over the water. I was surprised to find the “Open” sign out and the door unlocked. Without thinking that someone might have broken in, I walked inside and looked around.

“I hope you don’t mind.” Gramps was down the aisle with the dinnerware. He wasn’t alone. “Mary Lou wanted to come in and take a look around.”

Mary Lou smiled and waved. “Hi, Dae. I can’t believe I’ve never been in here. You have a
huge
collection. Mind if I look around with Horace?”

“That’s fine.” I gave Gramps the you-know-what-to-sell look and walked back outside. I was surprised to find Kevin about to walk in. “Done with lunch already? Shayla eats like a bird, but this is quick even for her.”

He smiled. “What makes you think I had lunch with Shayla? I think she’s dating your future husband right now.”

“My future husband?” I searched my brain and remembered that he’d heard Tim propose to me at the Blue Whale. “That proposal was something he does from time to time. He started in high school and won’t take no for an answer.”

“Unless he’s seeing someone else?”

“Exactly. Sorry for the Shayla crack. I know she likes you.”

“I like her too, but not in the way you’re thinking. I’m a humble innkeeper now. I don’t think my life is exciting enough for her. Maybe she and Tim will work things out.”

“That would be nice, but unlikely.”

“Is that jealousy I hear? You don’t want him, but you don’t want anyone else to want him either?”

“No! That is definitely
not
it.” I laughed, but wondered what brought him to the shop. Whatever it was, I was glad to see him. There was no one else I could talk to about Chief Michaels. Gramps would never take me seriously and worse, would feel the need to tell the chief. “You came to see me?”

“Yeah. Have you got a few minutes?”

We went to sit down on one of the boardwalk benches overlooking the water. It was a quiet day, probably a lot of visitors on the beaches since it wasn’t so hot. The water lapped gently at the shore, and I spotted a bicycle tire someone had thrown out down there. I’d have to remember to mention it to the public works guys.

“I had lunch with an old friend of mine who’s down here with the SBI,” Kevin said. “He’s working on both cases. They know it was a .22-caliber pistol that killed Wild Johnny. The bullet was still in his head. They’re working on the DNA material they have, Johnny’s, and the evidence they found with him. He had a calendar open on the desk. He met with Miss Elizabeth the day before he died.”

I took in the information. “Or at least he was
supposed
to meet with her. We’ll never know if he did or not.”

“I’m afraid evidence doesn’t work like that. The SBI will assume they met. A natural assumption after that would be that she went to the Blue Whale and shot him. Obviously, he trusted whoever killed him. He let her in his room and didn’t look around to see what she was doing. Miss Elizabeth fits that profile.”

“And she’s not here to defend herself.”

“Yeah. That makes her the perfect suspect. Everyone likes a closed case.”

I took a deep breath. I hadn’t known Kevin long, but I trusted him. I needed someone to hear what I suspected about Chief Michaels. “There’s something else. I can’t tell anyone else about this. I hope I can trust you with it.”

“What is it?”

Strangely, I felt better that he didn’t try to convince me to trust him. Maybe that doesn’t make much sense, but I don’t like people who try too hard. “It’s about something that happened last night at the séance.” I told him about Nancy and the note I found next to her desk. I explained about Silas Butler, minus the folklore, and kept to the facts from the sheriff’s report. “I called the phone number this morning. It belongs to a nursing home in Kitty Hawk. Tim told me he took the chief out to a senior care center last week.”

Kevin nodded as he stared off at the horizon. “So you think Chief Michaels is hiding the man he reportedly killed thirty years ago?”

“You see why I can’t say anything to Gramps or anyone else from Duck. No one would take it seriously. But
something
is wrong. And it seems like a
big
coincidence to me that it’s happening at the same time as all of this with Silas’s sisters.”

“I don’t know the chief well, but I trust him,” Kevin said. “There may be a reasonable explanation for it.”

“I feel the same way, but I need to know what that explanation is. But what do I do now?”

“I guess you investigate. We’ll drive down to Kitty Hawk and pay Silas Butler our respects.”

“
We?
You mean you’re willing to go with me?”

“A deal is a deal, although I haven’t seen much painting going on.” He grinned at me. “I’ll trust that you’re good for it. When can you go?”

We agreed to meet about five to drive to the nursing home. I also told him what Luke said about Miss Mildred being judged incompetent. “It might be for the best right now,” he said. “As awful as it seems, at least she’s safe where she is. Someone went to a lot of trouble to set her up so she could take the fall for her sister’s murder. That same person might not like it if he or she feels their plan isn’t working.”

I hadn’t considered that. “You mean they might try something else?”

“I don’t know. I was in law enforcement a long time, Dae. I suspect everyone of everything.”

I considered what Luke had asked me earlier about Miss Mildred. “Why are you helping me try to prove she’s not guilty if you’re so suspicious?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I just need some cheap labor.”

I was looking into his eyes when he said it, and I could see something there, something deeper than his joking words. “Thanks for listening to me about the chief. I’m glad you’re on my side.”

He smirked. “Looks like Luke is on your side too. How was lunch?”

“Different. Probably not something either of us would do again.”

“I bet you’ll be surprised.” He got to his feet. “I’ll pick you up over here at five. Do you have a tape recorder?”

I thought fast. “Nancy does. I’ll borrow hers. Do you think I should bring a camera too?”

“Whatever we can do to prove Miss Mildred is innocent, Dae. Believe me, we have a long way to go.”