A Finder's Fee (16 page)

Kevin carefully dug up a few more artifacts—a beautiful plate, a cooking pot and the swing arm that would’ve held it over the fire in the hearth.

“We must be near the fireplace.” I hoped most of the items were salvageable as I wrapped them.

There was more here than I’d expected. It might be more than Kevin and I could carry away when we were finished. I hated not to keep everything we found, even though the items weren’t worth much money. I knew time was against us. It was nearly two
A.M.

We dug a few more shovels of sand before using our hands to drag out the rest. We had to be very careful of what was trapped in it.

Something hard was lodged in front of me and I pulled gently. The light from the lantern gleamed on a skeletal hand. There was a gold ring, the band heavy and wide, set with some jewel I couldn’t identify.

Maggie was excited. “There it is! My wedding band. Well, it would have been if I had lived. Death has a way of changing things.”

“This is an expensive ring.” I examined it carefully. “Thomas must’ve been a very successful sea captain. Was he a pirate, Maggie?”

“I’ll not be saying. My Thomas was a good man. He tried to take care of me. He was gone when the storm took me. I know it grieved him when he returned and found me gone. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Did he meet his death at sea, as was his wont?”

I put the ring into the bag with her bones, glad I was wearing gloves. I didn’t want to experience Maggie’s death with her. It seemed like the best thing to do. I was sure she wanted to be buried with it.

My business sense told me the ring would bring a hefty price. Gold from that age was purer than in our own time, and that didn’t take into consideration a collector who would love to have something with the background of this ring. I was pretty sure that big stone was a bloodred ruby too.

I wasn’t a grave robber. Some things shouldn’t be for sale.

The rest of her bones came easily. Most were in pieces and blackened with time and weather. Finally Maggie confirmed that all of her bones were out of the sand.

“I feel so light.” She smiled brilliantly. “I am sure I could fly.”

She pointed to the other side of the pit. “Look yonder to find something not belonging to me or mine that will aid you in your other endeavors.”

Kevin was already making his way up the ladder with the last of the artifacts. I looked at the side of the pit where Maggie had pointed. I didn’t really expect to find anything of use, maybe some trinket she thought would be valuable. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by not looking.

I saw something glint in the dim light about ten feet up from the bottom. I zipped up the backpack and put it on, grabbed the lantern and started up.

I picked at the metal with my fingers until it fell into my hand. It was a corroded Dare County Deputy Sheriff’s badge.

I
didn’t really have time to think about what that might
mean. I knew we had to get out of there. We couldn’t be caught again.

Luckily, Kevin had also brought his golf cart. We loaded everything into it and got away from the site by four
A.M.
It was still dark, and raining again, but I was able to breathe a sigh of relief to have found the bones and gotten away cleanly.

Kevin sped toward the Blue Whale. My house might have been closer, but I knew this wasn’t something Gramps should find out about. There wasn’t enough time to have been out of trouble to be back in it again.

I wanted to feel as light as Maggie, knowing her bones were safe from the rest of the town hall construction. The sheriff deputy’s badge in my pocket worried me. I had all those feelings of finding something important when I took it from the site—time felt slowed down and I was a little light-headed. This was something that mattered.

Of course anyone
could
have lost it. I knew that better than most people. I’d found some incredible things all over the Outer Banks since I was a child. A deputy sheriff could have lost his badge too.

Except that it was at the site where we found Lightning Joe’s remains
.

If the police had found it there, they wouldn’t have thought it was a coincidence. Underneath my optimism, neither did I. This could put a whole different spin on what had happened to Joe.

I showed it to Kevin after we’d brought all the items from the cart and stashed them inside the Blue Whale. The rain started falling heavier, and I listened as the old inn creaked and groaned under its onslaught. So many lives had passed through these rooms in the more than one hundred years the inn had been open. Sometimes it was as though I could feel them all around me.

Kevin turned the badge over and examined it. “Let’s get it cleaned up and have some breakfast before we jump into anything else. Have you touched it yet?”

“No.” I still had my gloves on from the dig. “I didn’t want to be at the site any longer than we had to be.”

“Good thinking.” He yawned. “I’ll make a planner out of you yet.”

He looked exhausted, probably a lot like me. There was sand in his hair, all over his face and on his clothes. Probably a lot like me too.

I knew the badge would wait to reveal its secrets for a little while longer. I quelled my impatience. I hoped it would lead me to some answers about Joe. Morning was coming, and I was no closer to solving that mystery before the election.

I showered and washed my hair until I thought the sand was gone. I found one of Kevin’s shirts and some shorts I’d left there over the summer. My legs were chilly, but I planned to wash and dry my clothes before I left.

The TV was on with the morning news when I went into the kitchen where Kevin was making breakfast for us. The smell of coffee was like perfume. The weather forecast was over, and the news anchor from Portsmouth, Virginia, was talking about Duck.

“Forty years ago, stock car racer Lightning Joe Walsh disappeared. He was found recently in Duck, North Carolina, right before a combative election for mayor is about to end. One of the candidates, present mayor Dae O’Donnell, found the remains of Joe Walsh while the challenger, Councilman Randal ‘Mad Dog’ Wilson, has been charged with Walsh’s murder.”

“So that’s what Lightning Joe looked like.” I put orange juice and glasses on the table in the corner of the kitchen.

Kevin put two bagels in the toaster. “I guess I thought you knew all about Joe, since he’s from around here.”

There was a picture on the screen of a tall, thin, serious-looking young man with a head full of curly black hair. He was holding a trophy in one hand and had an arm around a pretty girl in red short-shorts.

“La Donna told me he was popular with the girls.” I poured two cups of coffee and put out cream and sugar. “I’ve seen pictures of Mad Dog when he was young. He wasn’t good-looking like Lightning Joe.”

“Joe got a better nickname too.”

I saw the picture of myself from the stunted interview at the shop. There was also a picture of my campaign ad on the water tower.

Kevin brought the two bagels over, open-faced and covered with a cheese and egg mixture. I got silverware and napkins, suddenly hungry when faced with food. The sun was coming in through the kitchen window as we sat down to eat.

“What’s your next step on the Mad Dog thing?” Kevin asked as he cut his bagel. “Touching the race car, right?”

“I was thinking about that. The car is in the Duck impound lot. It won’t be too hard to get in. I think Tim will help without expecting anything in return.” I told him about Tim and Trudy.

“Sounds like a plan.” Kevin sipped his coffee. “You know the thing I don’t get—why did the killer put Joe in Mad Dog’s car? Was that symbolic? And where’s Joe’s car?”

“I don’t know. I can’t imagine anyone around here killing someone in a symbolic way. It was probably an accident. Why put him in a car at all? It had to be hard to dig that hole and bury it. Easier to bury a body.”

He smiled. “You should know. Maybe the killer was trying to keep the body from being found. The sand moves and drifts. Maybe the killer thought the car would keep that from happening with his victim. What was there before the park?”

“Nothing, as far as I know. I rode past there every day on my way to school. Someone said there was an old general store there once, maybe in the 1800s. I don’t remember seeing pictures of it. We got the land for Duck Municipal Park really cheap because there was nothing there.”

The eggs and bagels had looked good at first. I was too nervous, too worried to eat. I thought I’d be exhausted after being up all night digging sand. My shoulders and arms were sore and my blisters had blisters, but otherwise I felt wired to an electric current.

It was the sheriff’s badge in my pocket. I had to force myself to look at Kevin as we talked. I kept stealing glances at my pocket. My fingers itched to touch the badge even though it scared me to consider it. I kept thinking about what Chief Michaels had said about Gramps signing off on those missing person’s complaints from Joe’s sister.

“You might as well go ahead and touch it.” Kevin was prosaic about it. “Want me to clean it off a little first? I don’t think we’ll be ruining any fingerprints or DNA after all those years being buried in the sand.”

I realized that I’d stopped looking at him altogether and was staring at the bulge in my pocket where the badge was.

“Sorry. I get a little obsessed.”

“I know. You might see the crime when you touch it.”

“In a way, that would be a relief.”

“I suppose so.” He took my hand and pulled me gently to my feet then wrapped his arms around me. “You should get some sleep before you do this. You could give yourself a chance to get over being possessed by a witch before you try to save Mad Dog.”

“I wish I could.” I took full advantage of his warm body against mine and held him tightly. “My time is running out for this too.”

“Mad Dog isn’t going anywhere, Dae.” He kissed my ear and neck. “You have a lot of time before he even goes to trial.”

“I don’t have that much time to save my reputation and get him back into the race. I have to prove it wasn’t him before the election. People already think I found the car on purpose to wreck Mad Dog’s name. Who wants a mayor who would do something like that?”

“Dae.” He kissed me for a long time then raised his head. “There might not be enough time. Mad Dog could be guilty. People in Duck love you. There may be a few who will think that you did it on purpose, but you won’t be able to change their minds even if you prove he’s innocent.”

“Maybe. I have to try.”

“Not right now, though.” Maggie scooted in between us. “It’s been such a long time since someone held me. Could we try the kiss again too?”

“That’s enough, Maggie.” I didn’t want to share Kevin with her.

“This is really complicated.” Kevin let me go. “I’ll clean off the badge. You try to ground yourself, Dae.”

I waited, trying not to be impatient, as he cleaned the badge. I took some deep breaths and tried to prepare for what I might see. The whole thing filled me with such dread, I wanted to bury the badge again and forget I’d found it. It was too late for regrets.

“Okay.” Kevin dried the badge and put it in front of me on the table. “I can’t make out the last number on it. The first three look like 111. I’m here if you need me.”

I looked at the badge but couldn’t tell what the last number was either. Gramps’s deputy badge had started with 111, but so had many others, no doubt.

Gramps wouldn’t have been sheriff yet when this badge was lost with the number twelve race car. A tidal wave of fear fell inside of me. Before I could drown in it, I grabbed the badge in my ungloved hands and closed my eyes.

Instantly I was propelled into a warm summer evening. I could hear the frogs and the buzzing of the gnats flying around. From somewhere, water lapped against a shore.

It was that time of evening when it wasn’t quite dark but the light was fading fast. I looked around for any clues to where I was. All I could see was a Pure gasoline sign and an old storefront with people going in and out.

A sheriff’s car, large and brown, like Gramps and other deputies had driven during that time, was parked near the gas pumps. It was a Ford Galaxie with a large red light sitting squarely on top.

The car on the other side of the pump was black and had badly painted streaks of lightning on it. The number twenty-three was emblazoned beside a name and slogan—
Lightning Joe Walsh—faster than lightning
.

I recognized Joe from his pictures on TV. He was standing with a streetlamp shining into his face. He was filling the car with gas as he waved at people who hailed him.

I heard a car door slam and saw the deputy get out of the car. Where the streetlamp illuminated Joe’s face, it hid the deputy’s. I could only see him from an angle as he walked up to Joe and said, “I won’t tell you again to leave her alone, son.”

“Good. Don’t bother. There’s nothing you can do about it,
old
man.”

A quick move brought the deputy’s fist into Joe’s jaw. The race driver hit the ground and the gas nozzle fell beside him, gas flowing everywhere. The odor of it was pungent in the night air.

“Leave her alone, Joe. You’ve got plenty of others. Don’t bother her again, you hear me?”

Joe got up right away and put the nozzle back on the pump. Even in the dim light, I could see a large bruise forming on his jaw.

I took a deep breath and I was back in Kevin’s kitchen. His gray blue gaze was fastened worriedly on my face.

I felt cold all over. My hands were shaking. “I saw a Dare County sheriff’s deputy fighting with Lightning Joe. I couldn’t tell who he was, but he was angry enough to kill Joe.”