A Timely Vision (13 page)

“I hope you don’t mind that I took credit for finding the hidden drawer,” he said.

“I was a little curious about why you did it. You were the one who told me I should be honest with Agent Walker tomorrow.” I corrected myself: “I mean, today.”

“I know. But it’s my place, and I felt like I should take the responsibility. I can correct it, if you want me to.”

“That’s all right. I guess I’ll have enough to talk about with Agent Walker at our interview.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” He glanced around as the steady breeze stirred the bushes near us. “This place has atmosphere, doesn’t it? Even without finding a thirty-year-old corpse in the inn.”

“He wasn’t thirty,” I corrected. “He had to be in his sixties when he was killed. He would’ve been about the same age as the sisters.”

“That’s not what I meant. We’ll have to wait for the ME to know for sure, but I’d be willing to guess he’s been up there since the Blue Whale closed thirty years ago. He was already almost mummified.”

Thankfully, our exit off the side street and onto Duck Road saved me from having to think about that last comment. We switched partners as we crossed the road and headed for the bar.

It had been a long day, beginning with the purse snatching and ending with yet another homicide for Chief Michaels to investigate. I yawned as we went up the stairs to the boardwalk that led to the bar. I wasn’t looking forward to a drink, instead wishing I were home in bed. It was only a few hours until my interview with Agent Walker. I wanted to be awake for it. I’m not much of a night person.

Someone must’ve heard me because Cody, one of Wild Stallions’ owners, was already closing up. “Sorry. I have to close early. My wife is in labor. Rain check?”

“Of course!” I hoped I didn’t sound as relieved as I felt. “Give Sally my love.”

“Thanks, Dae. We’ll let you know how it turns out.”

We seemed to be at a loss for something to do. We were close to Missing Pieces, so I offered to make coffee at the shop. Shayla wasn’t happy about being denied her rum (she seems to be part pirate), but Kevin and Tim were happy to accept.

Shayla made up for her disappointment by sitting between Kevin and Tim on the brocade sofa, leaving me to make the coffee and haul out the chair from behind the counter for myself. By that time, Tim had already told the story about Miss Elizabeth and Wild Johnny Simpson. I poured four cups of coffee and put cream and sugar on the table. It was almost anticlimactic for me to sit down.

“Wow! What a story!” Shayla laughed and rolled her eyes. “Do you think Miss Elizabeth or Miss Mildred killed Johnny and left him up there at the Blue Whale?”

Tim shrugged. “I guess it could’ve been either one of them if they did it with that little gun. Anybody could handle that.”

“First, one of them would have to have some connection with the owner,” Kevin said.

“If it’s only been thirty years,” I reminded them, “Johnny’s death happened well after the sisters fought over him. I can’t imagine either one of them going up there and killing him.”

“I don’t know,” Tim said. “Those two always had that between them. If Miss Mildred knew Johnny was here, I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Shayla put down her cup and yawned. “As interesting as all of this is, I have to go. I have a bikini wax at seven thirty. I’d hate to mess that up.”

Tim offered to take her home. “I’ve got the car out front. I have to go past your place anyway.”

“Okay.” Shayla glanced at Kevin, no doubt to see if he had any reaction to Tim’s proposal. “I guess I’ll see you two tomorrow.”

“I could take you too, Kevin,” Tim offered as an afterthought.

“No, that’s okay. I’d rather walk. See you later, Shayla.”

Shayla’s disappointment was written on her pretty face. “Yeah. Maybe tomorrow?”

“Maybe.” Kevin showed no sign of remorse at letting her go with Tim.

As Tim and Shayla called out their good-nights, I carried the coffee cups over to the small sink in the back of the shop and began washing them out. Kevin brought the coffeepot over to me. I thanked him, and then my mind immediately leapt to small talk. “I think the Blue Whale will be nice when you finish it.”

“Thanks. I won’t be able to do much until they get done with the investigation. It’s hard to believe that guy was up there all that time and nobody knew.”

“Except the killer.” I took the coffeepot from him.

“That’s true,” he agreed.

“I can’t believe there are two deaths being investigated in Duck at the same time. It will be on everybody’s blog and the topic of conversation for years. That’s the way we are.”

“I like it. I like Duck. I’m sorry I didn’t retire years ago.” He glanced around Missing Pieces. “Can I walk you home?”

“No. That’s okay. I might hang around a while and do some straightening up.” I was lying, of course. I could hardly keep my eyes open. All I wanted to do was lie down and not get up until morning. But I needed him for the interview with Agent Walker, and it didn’t seem right to impose on him anymore. We didn’t know each other
that
well. “Good night, Kevin. I’m glad we found your key, even if it did lead to something terrible.”

He smiled. “It was good that we found him. Someone probably misses him. I guess you
are
good at finding lost things. Good night, Dae.”

I locked the door behind him, stuck my hand in my pocket and remembered the key I’d found on the stairs. It was too late to call him back. I’d have to give it to him later. I took it out and looked at it again in the light. I was right about the size and shape of it. Someone had probably dropped it years ago before the Blue Whale was closed. I knew from the way I’d felt when I picked it up that the key was important. But right now I was tired and couldn’t think about it anymore. I opened the cash register and stashed the key inside.

It had been a very eventful day,
too
eventful. I still hadn’t recovered from finding Miss Elizabeth. I didn’t need the added anxiety of finding another dead person. I turned out the lights and sat down on the old brocade sofa.

I wondered what Johnny Simpson had been doing back in Duck after all those years. Had anyone known he was here? Obviously,
someone
knew. It was likely that person was the one who’d killed him. Could it have been one of the sisters?

I pulled my feet up on the sofa and closed my eyes. Shayla might feel that ghosts weren’t important, but they were more important to me than a lot of the tangible things that went on every day. I
believed
in the afterlife. I’d grown up on stories of ghostly visitations that predicted storms and of spectral lights that led people to safety during pirate raids.

There was one ghost in particular I wanted to see. My mother had died in a car accident as she was crossing the bridge to the mainland thirteen years ago. I was a rebellious twenty-three-year-old at the time who’d wanted to camp out on the beach with a group of hard-drinking bikers.

We’d argued fiercely about it, the end result being one of those not-while-you-live-under-my-roof kind of things. I promised to move out as quickly as possible. She didn’t back down.

She’d gone off without me that day. It was raining hard, and the bridge was wet and slippery. They said she had a blowout and lost control of the car. It pitched over the rail and into the sound. They never found her body, as so often happens in the waters off the Outer Banks.

For the first few months after she died, I hardly slept, waiting for her, torn apart by guilt. I quit college and spent most of my time staring out at the sound. There was unfinished business between us, the hallmark of most ghostly happenings. Every sigh in the eaves, every unusual creak in the old wood, sent me out into the hall looking for her.

I was desperate to apologize and try to make amends. But after six months, I realized it might take something more than waiting around. That’s how I met Shayla. She didn’t have a shop on the boardwalk then. She’d recently moved to Duck and was working out of her home. She tried to contact my mother during a séance. Shayla and I became friends, but there was no message for me from the other side.

Part of me gave up then and reasoned that one unresolved argument wasn’t a big deal. We knew we loved each other. We’d always been close. Talking to her one last time would’ve been great, but it wasn’t necessary.

Part of me
still
believed. Sometimes, in the deep night, when I thought I heard her voice in the wind, I’d sit up for hours, waiting for her. I’d learned most of those island ghost stories from her. She’d come back, if she could. How many times had I repeated those words to myself?
She’d come back, if she could.

I pulled up the blue afghan she’d knitted for me and snuggled down under it, pretending I could still smell her perfume. She’d made this for me on my twelfth birthday. I had many things that she’d given me through the years, but none that I cherished more than this.

It was the death and despair that made me long for her again. Tears slid down my face. I told myself to get up and go home before it got any later. Gramps would be worried. Sitting here crying wasn’t going to make that interview in the morning any better.

I closed my eyes, just for a second, to clear them. I’d get up in a minute and drag myself home. It had been a long day, that’s all.

When I opened them again, it was morning. Don’t ask me how that happened. Sunlight rushed in through the shop windows, blinding me, and someone was pounding on the door. “Dae! Are you in there?”

I wasn’t sure if I was there or not. I recognized Kevin’s voice and sat up straight on the sofa. My face felt pushed in on the right side where I’d been lying against it, and my hair was standing up on my head. Added to that, my clothes were wrinkled and smelled like the old inn. I wasn’t a fit sight for man nor beast, as Gramps frequently says after a long night playing pinochle.

I hoped Kevin would go away, but he kept yelling and pounding. The headache I’d woken up with pounded with him. There was no other way to get rid of him. I was going to have to answer the door.

I tied a blue scarf around my hair on my way to the sink, where I splashed some water in my face. I didn’t have a toothbrush so I used my finger and some water to freshen up my mouth. Finally, I shouted, “I’m coming!
Please
stop yelling.”

He stopped yelling
and
pounding. I opened the shop door and found him standing there in a gray suit and black tie. Gramps was beside him, still wearing his flannel pajamas with the fish on them. I couldn’t imagine a more unlikely duo. It almost made me laugh.

“
There
you are! You promised you wouldn’t sleep here any more.” Gramps rushed toward me. “We’ve looked everywhere for you. I tried calling here a dozen times. You weren’t answering your cell phone. Kevin and I have been scouring Duck for you. Martha Segall assured me that you were attacked and left for dead like Lizzie. I told her to mind her own damn business.”

The story, and the large, coffee-scented bear hug, was almost too much. I swallowed hard and looked past Gramps to Kevin. “You’re out looking for me too?”

“I was
supposed
to meet you at town hall at eight, r emember?”

I suddenly realized what had happened. I glanced at the teapot clock in the shop. It was almost ten thirty. “I fell asleep! What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to go home, take a shower and change clothes,” he said with all the authority his gray suit could muster. “I’ll tell everyone, and we’ll meet you at town hall at eleven. Can you do that?”

“I think so.” My brain was still not functional. Maybe my reasoning was a little fuzzy too, but it occurred to me that there was a
long
time between eight and ten thirty. “You were
late
for the SBI meeting too! Even if I’d been there on time, you’d just be getting there now.”

He nodded. “Guilty as charged. When I went back to the inn last night, I got caught up in looking for other secret places, so I overslept this morning too. Oh well, all’s well that ends well. So . . . are you going to change clothes or not?”

I realized he had the right idea. Kevin hadn’t shown up, but neither had I. I could hardly hold that against him. I glanced at Gramps. “Did you bring the golf cart?”

“You know it. Let’s hop to it, Dae. I don’t think you should keep these men waiting again.”

With a murmur of thanks to Kevin for taking care of contacting Chief Michaels and Agent Walker, I left with Gramps, and we drove down to the house in record time. At least record time for the old golf cart.

I grabbed the black suit I usually reserved for important mayoral duties, then jumped in the shower. There was no time to really fix my hair, so I tied it back in a ponytail, put on the black suit, shoved my feet into black sandals and ran back downstairs again. Gramps held out a piece of toast with orange marmalade and a bottle of water. I took it, said thanks and raced out the door.

It was only ten fifty when I reached my office in town hall. Kevin was there with Chief Michaels and Tim. Agent Walker was absent. I didn’t mind getting there first. I took a deep breath, plastered a polite but apologetic smile on my face and sailed behind my desk.

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry I was delayed.”

“Delayed?”
Chief Michaels demanded. “You’re almost three hours
late
. I hope you have a good story to tell Agent Walker. I don’t want Duck to be the laughingstock of the state.”

“I hardly think a late mayor will cause that, Chief.” I tried to calm him down. “I got caught up doing . . .
inventory
. . . last night and fell asleep in the shop. I don’t know if that’s a good story or not, but it’s what I’ve got.”

While the chief scowled and mumbled, Kevin came up to the front of my desk. “I think you have a little jelly on your mouth,” he whispered, his lips flirting with a smile.

I picked up a tissue from the desk and dabbed at my lips. He nodded when I finished and walked to the corner of the room again. I was beginning to see a pattern in the places he chose to sit and stand. They were always the best vantage point to keep an eye on the room and the door. Maybe something left over from his FBI days?