A Spirited Gift (30 page)

“Dae, will you put on another pot of coffee?” Gramps asked when he saw me, a frown furrowing his forehead beneath his old fishing hat. He looked like he'd just come in from fishing on the
Eleanore
.

I knew that meant it was going to be a long night. Sometimes they went through three or four pots.

Tim Mabry nodded to me but kept a low profile. Even more than Gramps's expression, the fact that Tim didn't flirt with me indicated a serious subject was being bounced around the kitchen table. Fresh donuts were present, but no one was eating—another bad sign.

Sheriff Riley was walking around the room, his hand resting on his gun as he spoke. “This affects all of us, Horace,” he said. “That's why we're here. Two and two don't always make four.”

“In this case, I'd say they have no choice,” Chief Michaels said. “We had the gun and bullets tested twice. This is ballistics' final report. There's no doubt about it.”

I measured the coffee carefully, taking my time, wishing they'd get on with it. Usually I didn't want to hear their discussions, but tonight was different. I could feel it in the clipped sound of their voices and tense body language. Something else bad had happened.

I was afraid they might decide not to continue until I left the room. I felt like a kid again, urging them silently to get to the point before my mother found me eavesdropping and ordered me to my room.

“The .22 pistol that killed Matthew Wright and Mayor Foxx is the same weapon that killed Wild Johnny Simpson over at the Blue Whale more than thirty years ago.” Sheriff Riley stopped pacing and glared at the chief and Gramps as if they were at fault.

The gun that killed Wild Johnny Simpson?
I couldn't believe it.

“I thought we knew old Bunk Whitley killed Johnny?” Chief Michaels asked. “Maybe Bunk planted that gun to be found someday. Like now.”

“Any prints on the gun?” Gramps wondered in a hopeful tone.

“Wiped clean,” Scott Randall said as he smiled at me. I smiled back, and he looked away, his face stained red. Tim nudged him with his elbow as a warning not to flirt with me.

“I don't believe old Bunk came back to kill this Wright fella and his girlfriend,” Sheriff Riley stated like he was saying it for the record. “I'd say old Bunk has bigger fish to fry.”

“But if not him, who?” Gramps demanded. “And how many times are we gonna ask this question about who killed Johnny Simpson?”

Wild Johnny Simpson was a mythical kind of figure in Duck—like Blackbeard or Rafe Masterson. He didn't start out that way. He seemed to lead a normal kind of life, building a house and marrying Miss Elizabeth Butler.

Then something happened and he vanished, almost never to be seen again. If Kevin hadn't reopened the Blue Whale, what happened to Johnny might still be a mystery.

Kevin had been showing some of us around when we found Johnny's long-dead body in one of the top-floor rooms. He'd been shot and left to die—the Blue Whale closed up around him as old Bunk Whitley mysteriously vanished the same night. No one had ever known for sure what happened to either man.

Then I ran into Bunk Whitley on one of the supposed-to-be uninhabited coastal islands. Before he made another mysterious exit, he'd told me he'd left Johnny Simpson in charge of the Blue Whale and would never have hurt him. That left Johnny's death still a mystery to some—while others, mostly the police, still accepted Bunk as Johnny's killer.

What Bunk had said made sense to me. He was also the one who told me my father was still alive after years of Gramps, and even my mother, lying to me. I guess I felt like I could trust Bunk to tell the truth about Johnny, since he'd been honest with me about my dad.

Now the gun that had killed Johnny was involved in two more deaths—deaths that had no connection to Johnny or Bunk Whitley.

“We'll keep bringing it up until we have an answer!” Sheriff Riley banged his fist on the table. “You couldn't solve this case when you were sheriff, Horace. Now, when this comes out, it's gonna make us all look like monkeys. We have to figure it out before that happens. Any suggestions?”

I finished the coffee and saw a look pass between Chief Michaels and Gramps.
I knew that look.
They were thinking about having me hold the gun and see what I could find from it.

It would be an easy answer—if what I saw made sense—and if they could convince Sheriff Riley to go along with the experiment. It wouldn't be an answer they could take to court, but it might be something that could put them on the right track.

Am I willing to hold something knowing it was used to kill three people?
I considered the difficult question even before they asked me. I wanted to help. But the emotional strain would be terrible. Just handling Mary's perfume bottle had been enough to make me feel the agony she went through for Rafe.

What would it be like handling a weapon that had committed murder? How would I deal with
that
emotional pain when it was over? It was a terrifying thought.

And I never knew exactly whose emotion I'd be feeling. In this case, it could be the killer's—or the victim's.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” I smiled at all of them and acted as though I didn't know what the discussion would be about after I'd left the room. I just didn't want to hear them discuss it
—“Dae won't mind, will you, honey? She'd be glad to help.”
Or, “
That's the craziest thing I've ever heard, Horace. We need real facts.”

And I didn't want to feel pushed into making a decision right away, which I might be if I stayed in the kitchen.

“I'm turning in for the night,” I told them with a calm demeanor I was far from feeling. “I'll see you tomorrow, Gramps.”

Chapter 39

I wished I hadn't argued with Kevin. He was the one person I could turn to—the one person whose advice I trusted about these things.

But I couldn't call him and tell him I wasn't angry anymore—
Oh and by the way I have a problem I need to discuss
.

I went up to the widow's walk and sat there looking out at the perfect night sky. When I was young, I would've gone to Gramps and we could've talked about this. But not anymore.

Not that my innocent gift of helping people find things ever had such serious consequences when I was young. I used to help Miss Elizabeth Simpson find her car keys, which she managed to misplace every week. Or I helped Cailey Fargo find her missing earrings. People in Duck loved my gift and enjoyed using it as much as I did. It was one of the perks of living here, I thought.

But now life was more complicated. The adult me understood that though Gramps loved me, he'd expect me to use my gift for the betterment of the community—even if there were personal costs. People sacrificed for the greater good sometimes—like his suggestion that I should give up my relationship with Kevin to be mayor again.

I understood his point of view, although I didn't necessarily agree with it. Every police officer was willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Many times those sacrifices included their families, marriages, even their lives. Why would Gramps even hesitate to volunteer my services, when it might only make me uncomfortable?

I knew I couldn't talk to Shayla or Trudy about this either. Shayla would balance my chakras and tell me to make my own choices. And though Trudy had been my friend since childhood, she'd never been comfortable with my gift. I couldn't ask her to help me with this.

“Feels like standing on the bow of my ship,” Rafe said, appearing on the cast-iron rails that surrounded the widow's walk on the roof. “Aye, you could look out and see forever. That was true freedom—true happiness.”

“That you lost when the British destroyed your ship.” I was glad to be diverted from worrying about Gramps asking me in the morning to hold the gun.

“Damn fools!” he yelled, causing some bats to change course. “They thought they'd killed me. They thought they could find my treasure. But I was too smart for them.”

“So the story I dreamed about you was true. You buried your treasure, killed your sailors and sent that poor cabin boy to swim away from the island. No wonder they called you a scourge.”

“That was me,” he admitted. “But allow that a man may change. Death and destruction—even plunder—gets old as the bones ache in the night and the body wears. I made my peace with what I'd done. God blessed me with a woman who loved me, despite my sins, and two fine sons. I was happy for a time—at least until the magistrate hanged me.”

“Rafe—I'm so sorry about Mary and your sons.” I hoped he wasn't going to break down again as he had during the day. I didn't think I could hold it together if he did.

He frowned and took out his cutlass, making some stabs at the night sky. “ 'Twas what I deserved, no doubt. But she deserved better.”

We didn't speak for a few long minutes as he walked along the edge of the metal rail around me. Then he said, “You know, you remind me of her.”

“Me?”

“Aye. Pluck to the backbone. She never took nothing off of me. Told me what she thought, she did. But with a loving heart and a beautiful smile.”

“Thank you.” I thought again about the beautiful, sad woman in the mirror who'd tolerated the magistrate's hand at her breast for the sake of her husband and sons. I didn't mind the comparison.

“Don't let them make you do anything ye don't want to do,” he spat out. “They need you, my girl. You don't need them. Make them pay—or tell them to go away.”

I was amazed at his understanding of the situation without one word of explanation. “How do you know?”

“Bah! I'm not an imbecile. I know what you can do. I saw the greedy looks on their faces. It doesn't matter if you're a pirate or a king. Those looks are on everyone's faces who want their way. They need yer aid in this investigation. They don't care about what happens as long as they win the plunder. It's all the same—my time and yours.”

He had summed it up remarkably well. I wasn't sure I could be as fast to turn down what would surely be presented as my duty, but I was glad he comprehended. The two of us up on this lonely rooftop had found a way of understanding each other despite the centuries (and so many other things) between us.

“I appreciate that. I know you're right. I don't know if I can just say no. I want Sandi Foxx's killer to be found. That might not happen without me.”

“The hell with that,” he roared. “That girl is dead. Finding her killer won't bring her back. You think on that, girl. Think about what ye will give up to do this thing. You can only lose so many pieces of yourself before there's nothing left.”

And with those pirate words of wisdom, I was alone again.

He was right about losing myself. It was what I feared most from this part of my gift that took me into other people's emotions. I could handle most of the day-to-day things—towels manufactured at a sweat shop in China, cars that had been used for smuggling. But things like the perfume bottle, and probably the gun that had killed Sandi, were more difficult. The effects from objects like those were hard to recover from. The strong emotional undercurrents sometimes dragged me down like the cold Atlantic and didn't want to let go.

I smiled thinking that Rafe was probably a good source of wisdom when it came to losing pieces of yourself. Wasn't that what happened to him? Mary and his children had redeemed him, given him a lineage and legacy that he wouldn't have had if he'd died on his ship at the hands of the British.

But I wasn't a pirate, and I'd been brought up with a strong sense of right and wrong, duty and honor. I didn't know if I could look the other way when the time came.

I went back down the secret stairs that led from the widow's walk to my bedroom. Even though I was used to Rafe popping in and out now, I took a step back and gasped as a figure separated itself from the shadows in my room. “Kevin?”

He put his arms around me and we kissed in the darkness. “I missed you. I don't ever want to argue with you again.”

I felt the same, but I wasn't necessarily ready to let it go. “Is that something like an apology?”

“It's whatever you want it to be. Do you feel like walking?”

Gramps was already in bed—probably having ended the discussion with the sheriff and the chief by volunteering my help with the gun. Kevin and I slipped out the front door without disturbing him and started down the dark, wet street.

“I know you were supposed to call me,” he began. “But I waited all day and you didn't call.”

“I was busy with the Weather Channel thing and everything else.” I told him about what happened at the museum with the perfume bottle. “But I'm sorry I didn't call. You were right. I should've admitted that my father stole from me. I just believe that anyone could be desperate enough to do it.”