A Timely Vision (5 page)

“Where are you going to look first?”

“Why? Are you afraid I can’t take care of myself too?”

“No. Remember me? I’m the one who suggested your little rebellion.”

“Why are you here then?”

“You know your way around. You were the first to report that Miss Elizabeth was gone. I thought you might be the one to find her.”

His idea had some merit. “I thought I’d try looking around those new houses being built close to where you live. Maybe the storm came up, and she ducked inside one of those for shelter.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

I didn’t have time to question why he’d chosen to go with me instead of the groups of officers. I focused on finding Miss Elizabeth and tried not to think about him walking alongside me. The fact that I had to
try
to ignore him made me even more aware of him.

Once we got past the protected area between the businesses and the houses that made up downtown, the wind was stronger and louder. It battered us with gale force, making talking impossible. I hated to think of frail Miss Elizabeth out in this storm. I hoped she was somewhere with a friend the chief had missed in his initial search. The sisters didn’t have any relatives that I knew of. Neither of them had children.

I glanced over the dunes covered with various plants and prickly shrubs. Mary Lou Harcourt’s little group was down by the turtle nesting area. The tide was rushing in with a fierce vengeance to reach the shore. Already the water was crashing close to where the turtle eggs were hidden in the sand.

Mary Lou waved to me, the relieved smile on her face telling me she thought we’d come to help her save the eggs. With the wind and the surf banging between us, there was no way to make myself understood. I yelled, but she kept beckoning to me. I couldn’t walk off without telling her why I couldn’t help.

“I have to go down there.” Kevin leaned closer to hear what I’d said, and I yelled it again. “I have to tell her about Miss Elizabeth.”

I could see by the look on his face that he didn’t understand. I tried yelling again and this time, he yelled back. “Why?”

“I can’t just walk away. I have to explain.”

He shrugged and followed me down the well-worn path between the sea oats. The town had planted them there years ago to prevent beach erosion. The huge plants whipped at us in the wind. I could see the sand shifting from the rough water. Each year the town had to work to keep Duck’s shoreline intact. It was a never-ending task. Someday, people said, Duck would be gone, lost under the gray Atlantic and Currituck Sound. But not on my watch.

Mary Lou had two other older ladies with her. I thought they were members of the Ladies’ Sewing Circle who made the quilts that were auctioned off at Christmas. They were all throwing themselves across the area where the turtles had laid their eggs in the moonlight a month past.

“Thank goodness you’re here!” Mary Lou hugged me. She was soaked despite her poncho and vinyl pants. “We can’t protect them. The sea is going to wash them away.”

“We can’t stay,” I told her. “I’m sorry, but we’re looking for Miss Elizabeth. You haven’t seen her, have you?”

“No, I haven’t. But the eggs . . .”

“Everyone is out searching for her.” I felt bad about having to desert Mary Lou. I wanted to help the turtles too, but Miss Elizabeth needed my help more. “We’ll come back if we find her.”

I could see she wasn’t happy with my decision, but it was the only thing to do. I smiled again and turned to walk back up the path the way we’d come. Kevin had moved to the right of me, and I took a step forward. The rain and wind had shifted the usually solid sand into a gooey mess that caught at my foot and tugged hard.

I pitched forward, face-first, into the sea oats. A few of the sharp leaves scratched my cheek and chin. I guess I must’ve closed my eyes as I fell because when I opened them, it wasn’t sea oats that I saw. It was Miss Elizabeth’s fragile wrist, with her mother’s watch on it, half buried in the sand.

I scrambled out of the sand and sea oats, breathing hard. I didn’t need my psychic sense or the police to tell me that Miss Elizabeth was dead. I looked around at Mary Lou and her friends trying to save the turtle eggs from the incoming surf, which was already lapping at my feet. If the tide rose much higher, it would wash Miss Elizabeth’s body out to sea. I had to stop that from happening.

I glanced at Kevin. He was trying to help me up. How would he react if I asked him to help me move the body? I had no doubt Mary Lou and the turtle savers would lose it if I asked for their help. I was going to have to take my chances with Kevin. Maybe if he had some kind of police training, as I’d considered earlier, he’d be okay.

“I need your help,” I yelled at him against the mind-numbing crash of the waves and shriek of the wind.

“What?” he yelled back at me.

I moved closer to him and cupped my hands. “I found Miss Elizabeth. I need your help to move her.”

I could tell by the expression on his lean face that he understood me that time. I tried to smile encouragingly, tried to stay calm. I was a public official, after all. People expected it of me. Inside, my heart was jumping up and down while a terrible pain squeezed my chest. I was already crying. It was hard not to panic and run screaming up the hill back to town.

He leaned closer, gray eyes serious. “Where is she?”

I pointed to the sea oats. “I saw her when I fell. I’m afraid the water will take her if we don’t do something. I don’t want to think what would happen if I tell the others.”

“Show me where.”

We both got down on our knees and I looked around in the sea oats again until I found her wrist. Her arm was sticking out of the sand, but the rest of her was nowhere to be seen.
Someone buried her here
. There could be no doubt of it. If it hadn’t been for the storm pushing at the sand that made up the dunes, we might never have found her.

I put my head down and prayed for the strength I needed. I looked at Kevin’s face, very near my own. He was focused on the body. He looked calm, not squeamish or ready to panic.

“You’re right,” he acknowledged. “We have to get her out of here. The crime scene is damaged beyond repair anyway. It’ll be better than losing the body.”

Of all the things he might’ve said,
that
wasn’t what I’d expected to hear. It cemented my position on his law-enforcement training. “We have to put her in something. We can’t take her out of here like this.”

“I don’t know if we have time.” He’d already started using his hands to move the sand away from the rest of Miss Elizabeth’s body. I could see she was wearing her favorite black dress with the little pink embroidered hearts on it.

The reality of it hit me like a rock. First the pink rhinestone heart pin I’d found, half buried in the sand on the other side of the island. Now, this.
This is what I saw when I tried to help Miss Mildred find her watch.
I’d seen the watch on her sister’s arm with the black dress behind it. I felt lightheaded and nauseated. The very idea that I’d found a watch on a dead woman’s arm was unbearable.

“Are you all right?” Kevin looked intently into my face. He’d stopped moving the sand and put his hand on my arm. “Take a deep breath. You look like you’re going to faint. Put your head down.”

And I’d been worried about
him
! I put my head down and took a deep breath. There wasn’t time for me to panic. Everything else had to wait until we could move Miss Elizabeth. The water was still rising toward the dunes. “We should call someone. This is too much for us to do alone.”

“Look at the water. There’s no time.” He began throwing the sand away from the body, revealing more of her dress and legs.

I caught a glimpse of one of the Fourth of July banners being blown by the wind. “Let me grab that sign. We can wrap her in it.”

I ran up the path, which by now was mostly underwater. Mary Lou and her friends had their arms full of turtle eggs and were trying to get off the beach. It was just as well they were leaving. I didn’t know if the banner would cover all of Miss Elizabeth or not.

I pushed against the wind and took out my cell phone. But there was no service. Why was it that there was never service when you
really
needed it? I continued across the parking lot where visitors could find free beach access, chasing the red, white and blue banner. I finally grabbed it with both hands and then fell on it so it couldn’t blow away again. Still struggling against the wind, I scrunched the banner into a ball and hurried back to where I’d left Kevin.

But he was already coming out of the sea oats with Miss Elizabeth in his arms. Her poor, dead face had a look of terror on it that I’d hoped never to see outside a movie theater. There was a large red gash in her forehead.
Is that what killed her?
Who could do such a terrible thing?

“Put her down,” I screamed at Kevin. “We have to wrap her in this. I don’t want everyone to see her this way.”

“We have to get away from the beach,” he yelled back. “Bring the banner. We’ll do it over here in the parking lot.”

I’d never been hysterical, but I could feel a torrent of wild emotions flooding through me, like the ocean flooding the beach. I wanted to scream and rip at my hair. My hands shook as I fought to maintain my self-control.
Hold on for Miss Elizabeth’s sake
. I’d have to fall apart later. It couldn’t be right now.

I put the banner down in the parking lot and tried to hold it in place long enough for Kevin to lay Miss Elizabeth on it. It was an almost impossible task as the wind kept threatening to rip it from my hands.

He finally put her wet, sandy body down. The banner would barely cover her face this way. I looked at him, not knowing what to do next. I’d run out of ideas.

He stripped off his poncho and tenderly laid it over Miss Elizabeth’s face. If I hadn’t already been sobbing at the time, I would have broken down at that gesture of human understanding. I wanted to say thank you, but there wasn’t time. The water was coming up fast toward the parking lot. My gratitude would have to wait, along with all of my questions.

He stooped down and lifted Miss Elizabeth again. The rain was coming down so hard we could barely see as we crossed the street. Water was ankle deep on the blacktop and was punctuated by floating debris that was washing away with the storm.

I kept glancing at Miss Elizabeth’s arm sticking out from under the poncho and the banner. It was her watch arm, a dread reminder of what I’d seen from her sister. I couldn’t think about what that meant right now. Instead, I focused on pushing myself forward as Kevin and I slogged through the water. Finally, we reached Duck Road. We crossed the empty street and walked up the ramp to town hall. Every shop, every home, was shuttered against the storm.
At least no one would see her this way.

I kicked open the door when we reached the office. Despite the overhang that protected the shops, rain propelled us inside, out of the storm. Nancy got up from her desk, took one look at Kevin and sat back down. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the terrible burden he held.

He dropped to his knees and put Miss Elizabeth on the green and white tile floor we’d had installed last year. I could see he was exhausted. In normal conditions, it was a short walk from the ocean-side beach to the sound. These conditions had been anything but normal or easy.

“There’s no phone service—at least I don’t have any,” I told him. “I tried to call Chief Michaels from my cell. We need to get the medical examiner out here. Maybe the State Bureau of Investigation too. I can’t even remember the last time someone was killed here.”

“I have the radio,” Nancy said. “I could call the chief.”

Kevin and I both looked at her. She hadn’t moved from her place at the computer. “It would be good for you to call the chief,” he replied.

“All right.” She blinked a few times before pressing the button on the radio. “What should I tell him?”

“Tell him to come back to town hall,” I said. “Tell everyone else to go home. We don’t need the whole town here for this. Try to call the medical examiner and the sheriff too.”

“She hasn’t been dead long.” Kevin wiped sand and saltwater from his face. “She was wearing this dress when I saw her leave Tuesday morning.”

“You have some experience with this kind of thing, don’t you?”

The pain I’d seen earlier in his eyes intensified. “Yeah. Too much experience.”

He didn’t seem like he wanted to say anything else about it. I didn’t want to push him. “Thanks for your help. I’m glad you were there with me.” I didn’t even try to stop the tears from coursing down my cheeks. I was a wreck, covered with sand and salt, my hair plastered to my head and eyes red from crying. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

His eyes narrowed on my face. “You
knew
it was her.”

“I did. I was looking for the watch.” I nodded toward her arm. “It really belongs to her sister. I was helping her find it.”