A Timely Vision

by Joyce; Jim Lavene

  So they weren’t completely sure yet. It seemed unlikely Miss Mildred would have a shovel of any kind that had hair and blood on it, but as long as the proof wasn’t positive, we still had a chance. “I’m going to ask Miss Mildred about Wild Johnny Simpson while I’m at the hospital today,” I told him. “You never know. She might’ve killed him too.”

  His eyes almost bulged out. “You think so? That would be something.”

  “I guess you never know. Someone killed him, right?”

  “Someone sure did. Mind if I step in while you’re talking to her? It could go a long way toward a promotion if I found out who killed Johnny.”

  “I don’t mind, but you know you can’t get promoted until the chief retires. There’s nowhere else to go.”

  “I can rack up a whole lot of points until then,” he reasoned. “Then when the chief retires, people won’t try to look outside Duck for his replacement.”

  “That’s true. And you’ve got a long time to do it. The chief isn’t that old.”

  “True. And his family doesn’t die young, that’s for sure. His father is really old and still living.”

  I was sure I remembered Gramps talking about Chief Michaels’s father. They’d worked together in the sheriff’s office years ago. But I was also sure his father had died before Gramps retired. “I don’t think the chief’s father is old or living, Tim.”

  “Yes, he is. I drove the chief up to Manteo the other day to see him in a rest home. He’s not in the best shape, but he’s definitely not dead.”

  I didn’t say anything else about it since we’d arrived at the hospital. It was probably a communication glitch between Tim and the chief. Not really worth arguing with him.

  Miss Mildred’s room was on the second floor. Tim walked up with me and tapped Officer Scott Randall on the shoulder, startling him out of his sound sleep. I supposed there wasn’t much to keep you awake when you were watching an old woman who probably couldn’t get out of bed.

  “Tim!” Scott stood up and nodded to me. “Mayor O’Donnell. The night was uneventful. No one tried to get in or out of the suspect’s room.”

  “Good.” Tim nodded. “I’ll take over now. Get some breakfast. Report to the chief when you get back to Duck.”

  “Yes, sir!” Scott smiled at me, a shy, sweet smile, then headed for the elevator. He was a quiet young man with dreamy eyes. He’d been a police officer for only a few months. He didn’t seem suited to it. I didn’t expect him to stay.

  I knocked softly at the door, then pushed it open a little when there was no response. “Hello? It’s Dae, Miss Mildred. I’m here to see you. I’ve brought you a few things.”

  “Dae?” a faint voice responded. “Come in. Don’t dawdle there by the door all day.”

  Miss Mildred seemed so much smaller, more fragile, in the big hospital bed. All the color had washed out of her dear old face, leaving only gray lines. Her blue eyes were sunken and had none of their usual fire. I bit my lip to keep from crying at the sight of her hooked up to tubes and machines.

  “How are you doing?” I knew it was a bad beginning, but I was stumped for something witty to say given the circumstances.

  “How do you think I’m doing? I’m in a hospital and people think I killed my sister, which I assure you is completely wrong. The only good thing I can tell you is that I slept all night. I don’t know if that was due to the drugs they gave me or if it was because Lizzie couldn’t find me here.”

  I put the assorted magazines, lip balm, flowers and hand lotion on the bedside table. “At least you got some sleep. They told me you weren’t eating or drinking at home either. You made yourself sick.”

  She made a humphing noise in her throat. “People get sick when they’ve lost the only person left in the world who matters to them. Now that Lizzie’s gone, it’s just me, Dae. You don’t know what that feels like yet. I know you think you do because you lost your mama, but believe me, this is much worse.”

  “I believe you.” I drew up a chair, and noticed Tim hovering at the edge of the room, inside the doorway. “Do you think you could answer a few questions for me?”

  “What kind of questions?” she barked. “I’ve been asked so many questions. I wish people would just let me die.”

  I sat down and covered one of her hands with mine. It was so cold. “You don’t really mean that. I know Miss Elizabeth is gone, but you still have friends.”

  She sniffed and turned her face away from me. “Friends? No one who cares. It was only me and Lizzie. Now it’s just me. How do I go on like that, Dae? There’s nothing left for me but rattling around in that big old house.”

  I tried to divert her by bringing out the goodies I’d brought with me and offering to have Trudy come and do her hair. I knew what it was like to feel as though there was nothing left that mattered. There was nothing anyone could say to make it better.

  Eventually I brought out the chocolate pudding cups that had been near the bottom of the bag. We sat eating them with plastic spoons for several minutes, not really talking, enjoying our pudding. When we were finished, Miss Mildred handed me her empty cup and smiled. “You’ve always been a good girl, Dae. Everyone is proud of you. You make a very good mayor too, especially being a woman and all.”

  I thanked her, setting all the goodies aside and not minding that I was a good mayor considering I was a woman. It was time to say what I’d come to say. I took a deep breath and plunged into it. “Miss Mildred, did you kill your sister?”

  “Don’t be stupid, Dae. I understand what they think. I don’t care. I know I didn’t kill Lizzie. They can think what they will.”

  “It’s not that simple. You could go to jail or a hospital for the rest of your life unless we can prove you didn’t kill Miss Elizabeth.”

  “I don’t know that I care. But if I did, what would I have to do to prove I didn’t kill Lizzie?”

  “You can tell me again how you came to have her purse.”

  “Lizzie brought it to me after she died. She said she needed me to keep it safe. You know how she felt about losing her purse. It was a big worry for her. I told her I would. She left.”

  “Did she walk out the door?”

  “Of course. How else would she get out?” Miss Mildred looked at me like I was the one who was crazy.

  “If she was really a ghost, she could go through the door,” I explained.

  “No self-respecting ghost in Duck would be such a show-off.”

  I heard Tim snicker behind me. Miss Mildred told him he’d always been a problem child who had a hard time keeping his attention on anything. I brought her back to my questions by asking, “What did Miss Elizabeth look like? Was she pale? Covered in sand?”

  “Don’t be vulgar,” she snapped. “My sister would never come to call on me in that manner. She didn’t have a hair out of place. She looked as neat as a pin in her black dress with the pink hearts. You know, I gave her that dress for her birthday three years ago.”

  Only Miss Mildred could conjure up the image of neat ghosts. I felt sure if I were ever lucky enough to see my mother again, she’d be untidy. She had never been a neat person.

  “What about Wild Johnny Simpson?” Tim stepped forward out of the shadows created by the light coming in through the narrow window. “Did you see him when he was here thirty years ago?”

  Miss Mildred looked flustered. “To my knowledge, Johnny never came back after he left Lizzie. That was right after Gary Bentley steered the ferry into shore and wrecked it back in 1945. About the time the war was over.”

  Leave it to someone from Duck to notice that a ferry wrecked before thinking about World War II. I gave Tim a stern frown, but he kept questioning. “Johnny was here at the Blue Whale right before it closed. You didn’t know anything about it?”

  “Even if he had been, why would I know? You’d have to ask Lizzie about that.” Miss Mildred turned her head and closed her eyes. “I’m tired now. Please leave, both of you.”

  To add to her plea for s
olitude, a nurse came in and shooed us out. I told Miss Mildred I’d try to come back again. When I got Tim out in the hall, I gave him a hard time. “What were you doing in there? She’s very fragile. She can’t take that kind of agitation.”

  He shrugged. “I was asking questions about the murder investigation. You were tiptoeing around it like a little cat. We need to get the truth from her.”

  “You think she killed her sister and Wild Johnny?” I thought I said it with sufficient scorn to make him back off. I was wrong.

  “I think it’s possible. You sounded like you did too in the car. Let’s face it, thirty years ago, Miss Mildred was still teaching school. She was capable of killing the man who’d rejected her for her sister. It happens.”

  “Never mind.” I held out my hand, not explaining that I wasn’t serious earlier about Miss Mildred killing Wild Johnny. “I need the keys for the squad car.”

  “I can’t do that, Dae. Only officers of the law can drive that car. I guess you’ll have to stay here with me during my shift.” He grinned and sat down in the chair by Miss Mildred’s door.

  “You forget, Officer Mabry. I’m not only the mayor of Duck, I’m also a fully deputized auxiliary police officer. Hand over the keys. Someone will be here to relieve you later.”

  He fished the keys out of his pocket and reluctantly handed them to me. “I’m glad I’m not in love with you anymore. Shayla isn’t half as contrary.”

  I smiled. I had no words for his defection to my friend. I knew it wouldn’t last. That was probably the worst part about his infatuation with me. He kept dating other women and then using me as a fallback when he broke up with them. It wasn’t very endearing.

  Traffic was building on Duck Road by the time I got back home. The weather was a little overcast, but it wouldn’t be summer if we didn’t have a lot of rain.

  I’d thought about Miss Mildred the whole way back, but I didn’t have any new ideas. I felt certain she believed she’d seen her sister’s ghost. I believed her, but it was unlikely Agent Walker would share that belief.

  What else could’ve happened? I knew she didn’t kill Miss Elizabeth. Whoever killed her knew the sisters enough to torment Miss Mildred and throw her to the police as a suspect. With her health and mental state being so delicate, Miss Mildred couldn’t possibly stand up to that storm. She was already bowed and broken from the winds of fate blowing across her.

  I wanted to tell Kevin what had happened, but he wasn’t answering his cell phone. I had to relieve Gramps at Missing Pieces, so I couldn’t make the detour to the Blue Whale. It would have to wait until later.

  Missing Pieces was packed when I got there. There was a bus full of tourists on the boardwalk, creating a stir in the shops that fronted the sound. Gramps told me he’d already sold a few pieces. “Nothing important,” he said. “Don’t get that thundercloud look on your face. I know what to sell and what not to sell.”

  “It’s not that,” I told him, stepping behind the counter. “I’m not happy at all with my interview with Miss Mildred.”

  “Interview, huh? I thought you were going for a visit.”

  I told him about my plan to find out who really killed Miss Elizabeth and set Miss Mildred free. “I asked Kevin to help me since he has so much experience doing this kind of thing.”

  “Why Kevin and not me?”

  “Because, as much as I love you, anything you find you’d be likely to give to Chief Michaels and Agent Walker. You were the Dare County sheriff for too long.”

  “And you think Kevin won’t do the same thing?” He looked skeptical. “Once a lawman, always a lawman. He can’t help it anymore than I could.”

  “I think he can. I think there’s something in his past that made him give it up.”

  “Since when do you get impressions from people besides finding what they’ve lost?”

  Before I could answer that, a young man came into the shop with a box. He glanced around, then came to the counter. “I’m looking for the owner. I heard she’s interested in unusual items. I have something I’d like to sell her. I found it at the old Blue Whale Inn.”

  Chapter 11

  “I’m Dae O’Donnell. I own Missing Pieces.” I put out my hand to him as I felt the familiar sense of slow motion that meant this was an important find. “This is my grandfather, Horace O’Donnell. I’ll be happy to take a look at what you’ve got.”

  That’s true and not true, really. I hate when things come in that I think might be stolen. There have been plenty of times I wished I could’ve kept things that I knew I shouldn’t keep. But I adhere to a code of ethics, and I never accept things that don’t belong to the person selling them. Unfortunately, this felt like one of those times. Too bad for this young man that the former sheriff was also there to view his discovery.

  “I’m Austin Bray, Betsy Bray’s son.” He shook my hand too quickly for me to get an impression. “This was something some friends and I found a few years back. It used to be popular to hang out down at the Blue Whale because everyone said it was haunted. We were all hoping to see something, you know?”

  I knew that part was true. In high school, my friends and I had done the same thing. It was interesting and creepy at the same time. I asked, “Did you ever see anything?”

  “I don’t know. One time I thought I saw a man in the fog. He was kind of strange looking and his eyes glowed. My friends told me it was a dog, but it spooked me and I never went back again.”

  “Exactly when was it you found this treasure, Austin?” Gramps asked in his old sheriff voice.

  “Let’s see. I’m in my first year of college and that was my sophomore year in high school, so I guess about three years. I saw the thing about the dead guy they found at the inn and decided to bring this here. I don’t want to get in any trouble.”

  Bad place to bring it. “Maybe you should’ve taken it to the police station.”

  “I didn’t steal it, if that’s what you mean. I found it outside on the ground. I kept it in my closet all this time. You can ask my mom. She was threatening to throw it away now that I’ve moved most of my stuff out of the house. I started thinking it might be a bad thing for me to have.”

  “That could be a piece of police evidence,” Gramps agreed. “I don’t know if we should even look at it.”

  But I couldn’t resist. Before he could make me turn the whole thing over to Chief Michaels, I grabbed it from Austin. It was a beautifully hand-carved box, carefully detailed with seashells, gulls and an image of one of the area lighthouses. Though some sand was lodged in the crevices of the design, I could see the workmanship was exquisite.

  “It’s gorgeous!” I studied it despite Gramps’s dark look. When I went to open it, I found that it was locked up tight, but a flash of brilliance made me open the cash register and retrieve the tiny key I’d found at the inn and forgotten to give Kevin.

  The key turned stiffly in the lock. The lid was old and hard to lift, but when I did, music began to play. “It’s absolutely wonderful!”

  Austin looked uncomfortable. “How did you get that key? I tried to open it a few times, but it wouldn’t budge. What song is that playing?”

  “I found the key like you found the box,” I mentioned. “I don’t recognize the song either.”

  “I do,” Gramps said. “ ‘Five foot two, eyes of blue, has anybody seen my gal?’ It was popular back in the day.”

  I turned the box over, then looked at the inside again. It was lined with mother-of-pearl. A small inscription carved into it—“To Lizzie from Johnny. You’ll always be my girl.”

  “What do you think?” Austin eagerly asked. “Worth at least something, right?”

  “I’m sorry, son.” Gramps took the music box from me. “I’m afraid this is part of the police investigation into the murder at the inn. If that turns out not to be the case, you might get it back. I’ll leave word with your mother, if that’s the case.”

  “I’m not going to jail or anything, am I?” He said as he began wri
ting down his name, address and phone number on a piece of paper Gramps had handed him.

  “I don’t think so,” Gramps said without much reassurance. “But next time, don’t go removing things off of private property without permission.”

  Austin seemed a little skittish at this point. I smiled to reassure him. “If it turns out that you get to keep the box, I’d like to buy it from you.”

  I copied his address and phone number since I knew the original would go to the police. Gramps looked at him sternly before he left. I wished I could clean up the music box and listen to it play for a while.

  But Gramps wrapped it up in some newspaper and set it to the side. “Maybe it shows that Johnny was here to see Lizzie. Maybe he thought they could make up after all those years. I guess we’ll never know.”

  “But surely it doesn’t prove Miss Elizabeth killed Johnny either,” I argued. “It seems more like something he didn’t have a chance to give her.”

  “You have a good heart, darlin’.” He kissed my forehead. “But sometimes good people do bad things. It’s the nature of man. Or woman. I’m going to take this down to Chief Michaels. I’ll make sure he knows you’d like it back.”

  The overcast skies gave a gloomy feel to the rest of the day. Of course, it didn’t help that I spent much of my time thinking about Miss Mildred being tested to see if she was competent to stand trial for something she didn’t do. I didn’t care what Gramps said about good people going bad. That wasn’t what had happened here.

  Once it started raining at about three P.M., foot traffic disappeared from the boardwalk. Shayla, Trudy and I had coffee before I went back to Missing Pieces. Anne Maxwell and her daughter were waiting for me. We stepped in out of the rain, and I showed her the racks of clothes I needed her to go through. I left her alone with them while I showed Ginny the toys in back where she could play.

  Kevin came in around five, his Windbreaker soaked. The wind and rain accompanied him in the front door, creating a puddle on the floor, but I was still glad to see him. “Not much going on out here,” he observed. “Too bad it’s so wet. We can’t do any painting today either.”