A Timely Vision (6 page)

I couldn’t explain it any better at the moment. I didn’t have time, as it turned out. Chief Michaels and his officers swept through the door. He was followed by the Dare County sheriff and an EMS team. I didn’t want to be there to see anything they might do to Miss Elizabeth, but I couldn’t quite follow Nancy’s lead and run out of the office.

“I think I noticed the coffee shop was still open when we walked past,” Kevin said. “I don’t know about you, but I could use something hot to drink.”

It was a lifeline and I took it. I felt guilty doing so, as though as the mayor, maybe I should stay where I was, with the chief and the EMTs, but I convinced myself that I would only be in the way. I’d done as much as I could to help Miss Elizabeth. At least for now.

By the time Kevin and I left town hall, the storm had abated somewhat, as storms always do. They come up fast and change everything, then the sun shines and people try to figure out what to do next.

I soon found myself sitting across from a man I barely knew, drinking a hot mocha with shaking hands while I dripped all over the floor. I waved at Phil, the owner of the Coffee House and Bookstore. I couldn’t summon a return smile even though that’s what the mayor is
supposed
to do.

“You’ve never found a dead body before,” Kevin guessed.

He knows about me. Gramps must have told him.
“No. I find lost
things
, not
people
. I’m sure it was the watch. It led me to her.”

“That could be a valuable service to anyone in law enforcement.” He sipped his double-shot latte. “Have you ever done that kind of work?”

“
No!
I do what I can for friends and neighbors when they lose their car keys or their rings. I don’t hire out, if that’s what you mean.”

He nodded. “Sorry. I was wondering. Your grandfather mentioned it when I met him. I’m missing a key for a room upstairs at the inn. He said you might be able to find it.”

“That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Why you were looking at me so funny when we met. Why you waited for me to look for Miss Elizabeth.”

“I suppose so. You seemed like the most likely person to find her since you find lost things. I’m sorry it happened that way.”

“At least we found her.” I dared a glance at him. “What do you think happened to her?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I guess it’s my turn. Chief Michaels spoke very highly of you, but you aren’t from Duck. You didn’t freak out when we found Miss Elizabeth. Were you a police officer in D.C.?”

“FBI. For twelve years. I think someone hit her in the head with an edged weapon, maybe a shovel. Then they buried her. It might’ve been a perfect crime except that someone asked you to find that watch.”

I took a deep breath, fighting back a sudden wave of nausea. “I’m glad this doesn’t usually happen to me. I like finding things for people, but I’d have to give it up if the things I found came attached to dead people all the time. Is that why you gave up the FBI? Too much death?”

I could tell I’d crossed an invisible line. His face became shuttered, and he sat back in his chair, engrossed in drinking his coffee. It was one of those too-early-in-the-friendship kind of things. He obviously wasn’t ready to talk about it yet.

“Anyway,” I continued when he didn’t respond, “I’d be glad to help you find the key you’re looking for. I only have a couple of rules I work with.”

“Such as?”

“What I’m looking for has to belong to the person who asks me to look for it. You wouldn’t
believe
how many people have asked me to look for things that don’t belong to them.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.” He smiled a little and put his coffee cup on the table again. “And the other rule?”

“It’s not illegal. In high school, a friend of mine asked me to find his lost marijuana stash. I made up that rule for him.”

“Another wise rule.” Kevin defrosted a little more. “How does it work? Is it like a séance or something?”

“Nothing like that. It’s really very simple.” I was about to explain that we could do it sitting right there in the coffee shop when Chief Michaels came in and told me he needed my help.

The chief nodded to Kevin and then spoke to me. “I’d like you to come with me when I talk to Millie. You seem to get along real well with her. I think she’d like to have you there representing the town and all.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe we can look for the key when you’re not so busy.” Kevin got up from his chair and handed me a business card. “Just give me a call. Let me know if there’s anything I can do, Chief.”

 

I wanted to be with Miss Mildred when Chief Michaels told her about her sister. I really did. But I almost chickened out when I went home to change out of my dirty, wet clothes. It would be so easy to stay here. I took a look at myself in the mirror, though, and knew I couldn’t back out. My pink T-shirt had the Duck emblem on it, a big yellow duck holding a sailboat. I had to go for the town and the sisters.

The chief and I drove in silence over the drenched, sand-covered road to Miss Mildred’s home. Her house was every bit as large and interesting as her sister’s home, but there were dozens of tinkling fountains here. Both women had done all right for themselves, mostly through marriage. I didn’t want to speculate on how Wild Johnny Simpson had made his money. No one did. Now, despite their wealth and standing in the community, one of them was alone.

The chief nodded to me (I think sort of asking if I was ready), then knocked on the door. Miss Mildred greeted us with a sweet smile. “I hope you’ve come to tell me the power will be back on soon. You know, Dae, this doesn’t look very good for you as mayor. That wasn’t even much of a storm and already my lights have been out for hours.”

“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’ll try to light a fire under the power company.”

“I think we should sit down, Millie.” Chief Michaels took her arm and helped her to a chair with a crochet-covered back.

“Why?” She stared at him as though she
knew
, her lower lip already trembling.

“The mayor found your sister a little while ago,” he explained.

“Oh good! May I have Mama’s watch back now?”

It was too hard. I’d known these women all my life. Tears were sliding down my cheeks. I hiccupped on a sob, and she stared at me. “You haven’t lost the watch, have you, Dae?”

I was about to blurt out the whole thing when the chief put his hand on Miss Mildred’s shoulder. “Your sister is dead, Millie. We think she might be the victim of foul play. Let’s call someone from the church to come over.”

She glanced back and forth between us, a slow frown puckering her forehead. “What are you saying, Ronnie? Did you find Mama’s watch or not?”

I tried to keep my voice from cracking, but it didn’t work. “It was where I saw it. Miss Elizabeth had it on her arm. I don’t know if the water damaged it or not.”

She nodded, smiling again. “Maybe you could have Barney over at the jewelry store take a look at it before you bring it back. I
knew
I could count on you, Dae. You’ve always had the gift.”

The chief and I glanced at each other again. Neither one of us seemed to know what else to say. He told Miss Mildred to have a nice day and awkwardly patted her shoulder. She smiled at us, and we left her rocking in her chair. Using her kitchen phone, I called the deacon at her church and explained what had happened. He arrived at the house less than ten minutes later.

“I didn’t like the way she sounded,” the chief said as we walked out to his car.

“It’ll sink in on her,” I assured him.

“I hope so. She scared me. I don’t mind admitting it. I’d hate to see her taken out of her home. She might not be able to live alone anymore after this. I’ve seen it happen with folks her age.”

We climbed into the car and headed back to my house, weaving around fallen tree branches and patio furniture that had been swept into the street by the storm. I looked out the side window at the ocean. There were still some whitecaps, but the surf was mostly calm and the tide level was back where it belonged. “She knows what we were saying. She’s not crazy or senile. She couldn’t take it all in, but she’ll be fine.”

“In the meantime, we’ve had a murder.” He shook his head. “Those SBI boys are gonna come down here and tear up our community.”

“If they find out who killed Miss Elizabeth, I guess it’ll be worth it.”

 

The storm had caused substantial damage up and down the Outer Banks. Duck was hard hit, but we’d seen worse. As soon as it passed, everyone was out cleaning up the mess and putting the town back together. It was a way of life for us. This coast wasn’t called the Cape of Storms for nothing.

I was lucky there was no real damage to Missing Pieces. Rain had come in through a broken window in the back storage room, but the water hadn’t reached anything of value. Gramps and I used a wet-dry vac and a mop to clean it up. The power came on shortly after we’d left Miss Mildred’s house. I was glad she had that much anyway.

Everyone was devastated by the news of Miss Elizabeth’s death. After the weekend, I sat in the town hall listening to people talk about it as they waited for the town meeting to begin. It had been the topic of conversation on everyone’s lips for the past two days. No one could believe anyone in Duck would hurt Miss Elizabeth. But there were always outsiders here. The same tourists who provided so much of our livelihood came from across the world. There was no way of knowing anything about them.

“I heard she was robbed and raped,” Althea from the library in Manteo whispered loudly to Trudy. “She didn’t have her purse on her. No one’s found it either.”

I didn’t tell her that Chief Michaels said it didn’t look like robbery at all. Whoever attacked Miss Elizabeth had left her mother’s expensive watch on her arm when he or she had buried her. That wasn’t like a robbery. It was true they hadn’t found her purse. But the ocean could’ve taken that away before we got there.

“Did you hear anything about Miss Elizabeth being raped?” Trudy asked me after Althea had moved on to have the same conversation with Mary Lou on the other side of the town meeting room.

“No. I haven’t heard anything other than what Chief Michaels announced two days ago. I think he’s waiting for the medical examiner’s report before he releases any more information. Althea’s only speculating—she doesn’t know anything for sure.” As I spoke, I kept one eye on the rapidly growing group entering town hall for our monthly meeting. This large of a crowd was unusual. Normally only a handful of residents showed up. No doubt it was a sign of how worried everyone was about what had happened to Miss Elizabeth. With no real answers, the whole town was on edge.

I was on edge too, worried about who’d do such a terrible thing, of course, but also heartsick because I was the one who’d found her buried in the sand. My gift led me to her. The idea of that frightened me.

Since the storm, I’d spent some time sitting alone in the dark, wondering whether this was the start of something far worse than being a finder of lost things. I didn’t want to find dead bodies. I hoped never to see another corpse outside of a funeral home.

There was no one I could talk to about it. According to my mother, my grandmother had been able to find things when she was young, but she had died before I was born. Though my mother had never had the gift, she’d understood it, and her unique perspective had helped me as I grew. But she was gone too—thirteen years this past April. It was only Gramps and me.

I
knew
Gramps understood about finding things, but I was having a hard time working up to explaining exactly what had happened at the beach during the storm. I’d hoped to make peace with it in my own mind before talking to him. I didn’t want to burden him with the information. He’d been there for me through some terrible dark places. I was old enough now to figure this out for myself.

The other members of the Duck Town Council were all in place around the big, U-shaped table before I sat down. There weren’t enough chairs to accommodate the crowd of people who’d gathered for the meeting, so many were standing at the back of the room. One of them was Kevin. I waved to him through the crowd. He didn’t wave back, but he nodded and smiled.

I took the gavel that had been donated by the League of Women Voters and brought the room to order. Everyone quieted for the Pledge of Allegiance and the reading of last month’s minutes. Then we came to the public forum part of the agenda where citizens were allowed to speak.

“What are we doing about finding Miss Elizabeth’s killer?” Mark Samson, owner of the Rib Shack, called out.

The room erupted with loud chatter. I banged my gavel, but no one paid any attention. The whole town seemed to be talking at the same time, demanding answers I knew the chief didn’t have. The other council members looked worried and kept sneaking furtive glances toward the door, as though they wanted to leave. Nancy calmly typed all of it into her laptop.