A Timely Vision (33 page)

He moved closer. “What did you find?”

I told him about the dress and wig. “I know it’s important. You’d think after all these years Tim would trust me enough to believe I find things. Everyone knows I find things. I didn’t want to find this. But I did, and I don’t know what to do.”

We sat down on a large gray rock that was underwater during high tide. There were still a few starfish clinging to the bottom where the rock was wet. Tiny crabs scuttled away when we sat down. The sun had warmed the stone, and the cool water reaching the shore felt good on my toes as I dipped them, and my sandals, into the surf.

“What do you
want
to do with the information?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I feel sure this is why Miss Mildred thought she saw her sister’s ghost. I know it doesn’t make any sense, but we know someone set her up.”

“And you think Mary Lou was the one?”

“I don’t
want
to think it.” I glanced at him, narrowing my eyes as I faced the sun. “What do you think?”

He considered it. “I think unless she confesses, it would be hard to make a case out of this. Was there any animosity between Mary Lou and Miss Elizabeth?”

“Not as far as I know. Mary Lou helped out at her house a lot. They seemed to be friends. I can’t imagine her hurting Miss Elizabeth. But there’s something else too.” I nodded to one of the workers a few yards away. “Those blue gloves over there are like the kind that were in Miss Elizabeth’s purse. And those little stainless steel shovels they all use could be the same kind that killed her.”

“Of course, those shovels and gloves are sold everywhere on the island,” he reminded me. “That wouldn’t be enough to reopen the investigation.”

“What would be?”

“New DNA evidence. Or a confession.”

“I don’t know how to get new DNA evidence.” I thought about what I was saying with my head and not my heart. If Mary Lou was guilty of killing Miss Elizabeth, even if it was an accident, she needed to explain herself and rescue Miss Mildred. “But I might know how to get a confession.”

“What do you have in mind?”

 

It was well past midnight, not a time I’m used to being out and about. Traffic on Duck Road had slowed to only a few cars. There was the faint sound of music coming from some of the bars and restaurants. A few crickets chirped, and the breezes rushed through the bushes around me. I looked at the dark shadow of Mary Lou’s house and felt a terrible chill.

What if I was wrong? What if Mary Lou had nothing to do with what happened to Miss Elizabeth and I was only too eager to pin it on anyone to save Miss Mildred? What if I ended up convincing Mary Lou that she’d done something wrong when she hadn’t?

“What are you doing out there, Mayor?”

The voice was coming from the earpiece I was wearing. It was Agent Walker, who was waiting in a surveillance van not even half a block away. Kevin had convinced me (though I’m not sure how) that we needed help. He’d told Agent Walker my plan to get a confession from Mary Lou, and surprisingly, he’d agreed.

“You have to go into the house,” he said. “I don’t think you can scare a confession out of her from the backyard.”

I didn’t want to respond to his prodding. I had a bad case of cold feet. Making Mary Lou believe I was Miss Elizabeth’s ghost had
seemed
like a good idea when I suggested it on the beach yesterday. But that was before I actually had to do it. “Maybe we should wait,” I whispered.

“The auction is only a few hours away,” he reminded me. “This was your idea. Are you saying now you don’t think Mary Lou had anything to do with what happened to Mrs. Simpson?”

I had been amazed that Kevin and Agent Walker thought scaring Mary Lou into a confession was a good idea. I was still amazed that they even considered she could be involved. Agent Walker had confessed, when Kevin and I told him a few hours ago, that he’d felt through the whole investigation that something wasn’t right.

Of course, I felt completely guilty that I hadn’t told the chief and asked for
his
help. Tim’s reaction had surprised me yesterday. I was afraid the chief would feel the same way, and the truth, whatever it was, would never come out. More than a small part of me wished I
had
told the chief and he’d talked me out of the whole thing.

I wasn’t too pleased to be standing in Mary Lou’s backyard in the middle of the night. I was wearing the black dress with the little pink hearts—sort of. I’d had to cut out the back to fit into it (who knew Mary Lou was so much smaller than me?) and then pin it on over my bathing suit to keep it from falling off. I’d put on some white makeup from last Halloween and arranged the gray wig on my head so she couldn’t see my hair.

I’d felt the first twinge of doubt when I looked at myself in the mirror at my house. Would this getup scare Mary Lou to death? Would she admit to killing someone because she was terrified? The whole thing had suddenly seemed like a bad idea.

I would’ve backed out. Really, I didn’t have the backbone that Agent Walker assured me I had. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. And I didn’t like to think how Gramps was going to feel when he found out I’d done this. Whether Mary Lou was guilty or not, I
knew
he’d find out.

“Are you ready to move in? We can’t sit here all night. We only have this van for a few hours,” Agent Walker’s voice prodded from my ear.

“I’m going. I can’t talk anymore.”

It was really Kevin who’d convinced me (again) to go through with it. When he pinned the small microphone and receiver on my dress, he looked into my eyes and told me, emphatically, “You can do this, Dae. You might be the only one who can.”

That, and that funny fluttery feeling I got around him, sent me out the van door and into the warm, humid night. But that was as far as it had gotten me. Now, I was standing under the bushes, watching Mary Lou’s house, wondering again whether I was doing the right thing.

Then I thought about Miss Mildred and Miss Elizabeth and Wild Johnny Simpson. All of their lives had been built on mistakes and misunderstandings. I had to make sure this wasn’t one of them. I couldn’t allow myself to be scared. I had to find out the truth.

I walked up to the old house, jumping a little when an owl hooted and flew down close at me to take a look. “I’m too big to be a mouse,” I whispered.

“What was that?” Agent Walker asked from the van.

“Nothing. Just talking to the owl.”

He didn’t remark on that. I moved steadily across the sandy ground, carefully skirting the rose bushes and gravel that might give me away. I half hoped the back door might be locked. There wouldn’t be anything to do about that but go home. Too bad. Nice try.

But the back door was unlocked, even slightly open. I crept across the dark porch, trying not to step on buckets and shovels left there from the turtle rescue project.

I pushed open the door to the house and walked into the kitchen. I navigated carefully around the table and chairs, glanced at a nightlight glowing from the bathroom. The house was
so
quiet. No sound from the friendly owl outside, not even traffic sounds from the road.

I wondered, as I approached her bedroom door, if Mary Lou had noticed that the dress and wig were gone. Even with the mess, she might’ve been able to tell the difference. If she’d noticed, would she have thought of me and Tim?

I could hear her snoring softly from the bed. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say. I had a silly image of myself holding a flashlight under my chin, like we used to do when we told ghost stories around the campfire. I walked closer, wondering if I should make some scary sound, booing or something, then I tripped over a pile of clothes in the middle of the bedroom floor.

That was enough to startle Mary Lou out of her sound sleep. I stood completely still, not even daring to breathe, as she turned on a flashlight and pinned me with the beam. “I knew it was you, Lizzie. Come for me, have you? Well, you can’t make me feel any worse than I have for the past two weeks since I accidentally killed you. Go ahead. Take your revenge.”

“Get her to talk about it, Dae,” Agent Walker said in my ear. “We need as much as we can get.”

Wasn’t it enough already?
Mary Lou had confessed to killing Miss Elizabeth. How much more was there? I didn’t move, couldn’t speak. I stood still, the flashlight beam shining in my face.

“Aren’t you going to say anything, Lizzie?” Mary Lou asked. She had slipped her legs out of bed. I could she was wearing the same short brown pants she’d been wearing at the beach. “I don’t blame you for being angry. I made a bad mistake. I’m sorry I tried to blame it on Millie. It was wrong. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

I realized at that moment that I couldn’t go on with the charade. We knew now that Miss Mildred wasn’t responsible for killing her sister. Surely Mary Lou deserved a lawyer now before she said anything else. It was an accident. Agent Walker didn’t need to know more.

I started to walk out of the bedroom. Mary Lou followed me. “Where are you going, Lizzie? Please take me with you. I don’t want to live with all this guilt. Someone else will take care of the turtles. Let me go with you, please.”

“Keep her talking,” Agent Walker advised in my ear.

I walked out of the house into the dark yard, hoping she’d stay inside and have a cup of coffee or something. I couldn’t warn her off any more than I could get her to confess anything else. It was over, as far as I was concerned. We had what we needed to set things right.

“Lizzie! Why won’t you talk to me? Where are you going?” Mary Lou stayed one step behind me.

Between Agent Walker’s proddings and Mary Lou’s plaintive calls, my ears were ringing. I kept hoping she’d give up or I’d find a big bush to hide behind. I couldn’t believe she’d confessed to killing Miss Elizabeth. I’d suspected her and helped catch her, but knowing for certain was different. It was like trading one friend, one piece of my life, for another.

I wished Agent Walker would stop talking. I wanted time to absorb all of this and grieve for another loss.

“Lead her back to the van.” Kevin’s voice replaced Agent Walker’s in my ear. “Let us take it from here, Dae. You’ve done what you could.”

I wanted to scream at Mary Lou to run away and hide. Agent Walker had his information. We could save Miss Mildred with it. I knew Mary Lou would have to be punished. At least my rational mind knew it. With all my heart, I wished she’d get in her car and drive far away. But I kept walking, and she kept following across the sandy ground and down the road.

We finally reached the van where Kevin and Agent Walker waited. I didn’t know if I’d ever been so exhausted. I felt like I could fall on the ground and sleep for days. I thought it was probably a reaction to being so nervous and finding out I was right about Mary Lou.

I heard the van door slide open, then saw a glint of something metallic in the dim light from the interior. Without thinking, I threw myself in front of Mary Lou. She cowered on the ground before me, whimpering, probably thinking I meant to kill her. “Don’t hurt her! It was an accident. She deserves to be judged by a jury,” I yelled out.

“Dae?” Mary Lou looked up at me. “Is that
you?
”

“I’m Agent Walker with the State Bureau of Investigation.” He stepped beside her as several lights flashed on from outside the van. “We need to have a serious conversation, Mrs. Harcourt. Why don’t you come with me and tell me what happened to Mrs. Simpson?”

“It was the turtles,” she blurted out with a sob. “They
need
me. I couldn’t leave them during nesting season. Look at the damage done by the storm.”

Agent Walker helped her up. I realized the glint of metal I’d seen was his badge and not his gun, as I’d feared. I fell down on the soft ground, my legs giving out. I didn’t know what to think, but I was glad it was over. I couldn’t have walked another step if I’d tried.

“Are you okay?” Kevin asked, crouching beside me.

“No. Not really. I know this had to be done. I’m glad for Miss Mildred. But I hate that it had to come to this. I’ve known her all my life. This is terrible.”

“Tell me how it happened, Mrs. Harcourt,” Agent Walker coaxed, explaining her legal rights. “I promise it will make you feel better when it’s all out.”

“I couldn’t feel any worse, son,” she admitted. “When I saw Lizzie’s ghost standing next to the bed, I wasn’t a bit afraid of dying. I only wanted it to end.”

She went on to explain that she was frantically trying to save some turtles from high tide the night before the Fourth of July celebration. “I didn’t even notice Lizzie was there. You know how she had that way of standing and watching you, not saying a word. I was using the shovel to mound up some extra sand. I went back with it and hit something solid. I didn’t even realize I’d hit Lizzie in the head until I saw her fall to the ground.”

“You hit her in the head, Mrs. Harcourt, but you didn’t kill her. You should’ve called for help.”