A Haunting Dream (A Missing Pieces Mystery) (10 page)

Chapter 11

B
y seven p.m., the town hall meeting room was
packed, as always. There might be only 586 full-time residents in Duck, but they were all interested in what went on and wanted to know how and why things happened.

The problem was that town hall was very small—two offices and the meeting room that could hold about a hundred people, and then only if they were squished in like sardines. We needed more room to grow, but money was tight.

I’d sat through a lot of meetings about grants and loans to build a new town hall without breaking our budget. Nothing had materialized yet—but when I saw the twinkle in our town manager’s eyes, I had a feeling that was about to change.

“Good evening, Mayor,” Chris Slayton said to me. He held a large roll of plans under his arm. He was an energetic man in his late thirties who was always coming up with new ideas for Duck. He wasn’t from here, but we were lucky to have him and his experience.

“I think you must have some good news for us,” I said as I took my place behind my nameplate and gavel.

“You’ll have to wait and be surprised.”

I was glad to see he was wearing a Duck T-shirt with his sport coat and pants. We almost looked like twins, with our similar height and our brown hair. It gave the appearance of a conspiracy between us, both of us showing our Duck side.

With people standing in the outer offices, peeking in, I banged my gavel to bring the council meeting to order.

The finance committee, planning and zoning board, and waste management department gave their usual reports. Chief Michaels wasn’t there to present his monthly update on police activities, but Officer Randall did an excellent job filling in. As usual, there’d been a few break-ins and thefts of big-ticket items like flat-screen TVs and boats. Most of those incidences had occurred at the houses that sat empty during the off-season while their owners stayed on the mainland.

Officer Randall went quickly through Chuck’s death, only mentioning the homicide in the barest terms. I knew the chief had briefed him. There would be plenty of questions from citizens during the public-comment portion of the meeting. Surprisingly, the audience waited patiently without any outbursts until we got to that part of the agenda.

Just before the line of questioners could begin asking about what had happened to Chuck and where the police were with the investigation, Mad Dog requested a five-minute recess. I’d noticed him looking around as though he were upset about something. He’d been suspiciously quiet throughout the beginning of the meeting, then restless during the next part.

“What’s wrong with him?” Nancy whispered. She sat beside me at the council table taping the minutes of the meeting and taking notes for her write-up.

“You’re asking the wrong person,” I muttered back. “I don’t understand most of what he does.”

But a few minutes later, when Mad Dog returned wearing the same Duck T-shirt Chris and I had on, it was easy to understand what had been bothering him tonight. Obviously he’d been upset that Chris and I were wearing the T-shirts. He’d excused himself to put one on in place of his usual shirt and tie.

“Good grief!” Nancy chuckled so just the two of us could hear. “Is he for real?” There was some muttering and a couple of cackles from the audience, then we got on with the rest of the town’s business.

Most of the questions and concerns from our citizen speakers had to do with Chuck’s death and how it affected them. Two people said they didn’t feel safe in Duck anymore and wanted to know what the police were going to do about it. Officer Randall answered their questions the best he could, never showing impatience or irritation with them. The chief wouldn’t have been so calm.

Most of the residents just wanted to have their concerns heard, especially the older residents. Twenty years ago, when I was growing up, there was no such thing as a murder in Duck. There were the occasional thefts and a few fishermen who went missing. But no terrible crime like murder ever happened in Duck. People were proud of that.

I didn’t know what to say—except that growth had a price. The police did their best, but with twenty-five thousand people living here during the summer, bad things could happen. Not that I was sure the person who’d killed Chuck—and probably kidnapped Betsy—had come from outside the town.

Unfortunately, even if we wanted to, we couldn’t just shut down Duck and keep the place to ourselves. We were going to have to find ways to deal with change.

Two older ladies—Mrs. Fitzsimmons and Mrs. Daniels—were concerned that there was no library in Duck. They had to go to Corolla, a few miles up the road, to get books at the library. They wanted to know when Duck was going to get a library.

Mad Dog rolled to his feet, pulling down hard on his T-shirt, which was about a size too small.

It was time for him to do some grandstanding. He told the ladies it was a shame that they had to use the library in Corolla, and if they’d vote for him for mayor, he’d see that a library was opened in Duck. “It’s high time,” he pronounced with a
humphing
sound. “Someone should’ve done something about it long ago. Duck residents aren’t second-class citizens!”

I saw librarian Althea Hinson roll her eyes. We all knew the county library system had barely enough money to maintain its current branches. If someone would’ve called Mad Dog on his campaign promise, he would’ve looked silly.

But the two older ladies simpered and smiled at him and thanked him for his time. There was no hope for situations like these, and I refused to lie to people just to get their vote. Maybe I’d be sorry later, but I didn’t want that kind of lie coming back on me six months after the election. Sometimes things just didn’t work the way you wanted them to. I couldn’t produce a Duck library any more than I could guarantee all the fresh produce people wanted at the stores in January!

Finally, it was Chris’s turn to give his report. I was so glad, I almost thanked him when I announced it.

He had a slideshow presentation that went along with his bundle of maps and pictures. “I’ve found a way for the town to build a new public building that will give us more room to conduct town business,” he began, excitement in his face and voice. “And I believe we can throw in a new feature that will not only be exciting for residents and tourists, but will also add the vital function of taking some of the foot traffic off of Duck Road.”

This was more for residents, since all of us on the council had seen the presentation many times before. Contracts and project plans had already been formalized. We were just waiting for the go-ahead on the money.

It was a long presentation, showing where the funds to build the new town hall would come from. The building would be erected on town property that was part of Duck Municipal Park. The proposal was to create a boardwalk that would link the park, town hall, the Duck Shoppes and most of the commercial property in town. Chris reminded everyone that the North Carolina Department of Transportation had rejected the idea of pedestrian crosswalks across Duck Road.

“In the winter when there aren’t so many people, it’s not a big deal,” he said. “But when we’re full of twenty-five thousand people in the summer, it becomes a major hazard getting all those people up and down safely.”

I noticed that Mad Dog’s eyes were slowly closing as he rested his head on his hand, pretending to be listening. When the audience burst into spontaneous applause after the presentation, he jerked his head up, startled.

“Well,” I announced after the audience had quieted, “I think we’re all in favor of this plan already. All we have to do is vote to accept the money for the project. Would you like to vote on that, Council?”

Of course, having seen the residents’ enthusiasm for the project, the council members voted unanimously in favor of it. Everyone seemed delighted.

The meeting was over soon after Chris’s presentation. I was glad to see that he was immediately swallowed up by residents of Duck who loved his ideas. Mad Dog pushed his way through the crowd and stood close to Chris as though the project was his idea too.

I noticed a professional photographer taking picture after picture of Mad Dog. Maybe my opponent even had a campaign manager too. He was really serious about winning the election.

“You need to get down there,” Councilwoman La Donna Nelson pointed out to me. “He’s going to hog up all the glory.”

La Donna was Chief Michaels’s sister. With her flowing gray-white hair and bright blue eyes, she could not have looked, or been, more different from her brother. La Donna was an artist who had a strong voice for keeping Duck small and under control. She’d begun the first drive to incorporate when the big stores started pounding on Duck’s back door.

“He can take all the pictures he likes, but what’s he going to do with them?” I asked. “I don’t see a newspaper reporter or anyone from a TV station.”

“He could send them to the media, Dae. Don’t be so sure of the fact that he’ll be ignored. And don’t take it for granted that he won’t beat you. I want to see him retire from Duck government next year—not take your place.”

I realized she was probably right. I didn’t really consider Mad Dog a threat, but I probably should. He’d lived here longer than I had, was probably better known because of his glory days and definitely had a bigger mouth.

But jumping in on the group congratulating Chris didn’t seem like the appropriate time to shine either. “I’ll do something later.”

She gathered up her folder and briefcase. “Don’t wait too long. Maybe you should be holding press conferences about the dead man and his missing daughter. That could get some attention.”

“Attention from whom?” I asked, but she uttered a few more words of wisdom and was gone. And what would I say? I wasn’t sure I could purposely use that as a campaign strategy. First of all, it could backfire, with Mad Dog accusing me again of being soft on crime. Second, I could be thought of as insensitive.

That wasn’t me. I’d have to think of something else. Maybe I could bake brownies for the whole town and give everyone an antique.

That sounded worse than doing nothing. La Donna was right. I needed a strategy.

I was getting ready to leave when Officer Randall stopped me. “The chief would like to have a word, Mayor, if you have a few moments.”

“Of course. Where is he?”

“He’s at the station, ma’am. With the FBI.”

Chapter 12

“T
he FBI?” I asked as we walked out of the meeting
room together. Most of the citizens still wanted to stand around and talk. We had to excuse ourselves all the way to the door on the boardwalk.

“Yes, ma’am. We found out earlier this evening that the little girl isn’t with her mother in Richmond. It looks as though you may be right and she might be in harm’s way.”

I glanced back at all the excited Duck residents. Too bad I couldn’t parlay his words about me being right into a campaign slogan. “Thanks for telling me.”

He nodded a little awkwardly, holding the patrol car door for me to get in. We drove down to the Duck Fire and Rescue Building, which housed both the police and volunteer fire departments. It made sense to situate both groups at a single location, since they complemented each other in many cases. Also, though the two forces had a massive number of volunteers, each employed only a few paid professionals.

I was surprised to see so many cars in the parking lot. Usually only two were here at this time of night—one for the fire department, one for the police.

But that was nothing compared to the changes inside. Dozens of laptops were set up on several tables. Groups of men and women in dark suits hovered around them like bees after honey. Phones were ringing, and large boards full of diagrams and pictures were propped up on desks.

“Come this way, Mayor.” Officer Randall led the way to the chief’s office. He knocked once on the closed door (I’d never seen the chief’s door closed before), and the chief called for us to come in.

As soon as I saw the weeping woman in the corner, I knew she was Betsy’s mother. The chief was sitting behind his desk, scowling, while another man paced the floor with a cell phone to his ear. Yet another man sat opposite the chief, watching his pacing colleague.

“I hope you were able to make it through the meeting,” the chief said. “I called Scott and let him know what happened. Bad enough I couldn’t be there. I didn’t want to interrupt everything. Did he do a good job?”

“He was great. People were worried, but I think he put their minds at ease. As much as anyone could right now.”

I sat down in the nearest empty chair, next to the man already sitting. He nodded absently and introduced himself. “Agent Dawson, ma’am.” He was an FBI agent specially flown in from Richmond because he had experience finding missing children.

Ignoring the interruption, the chief went on. “That’s good. That’s very good,” he said. “I don’t know how much Scott told you about what’s going on here—”

“I’m sure he didn’t say anything he shouldn’t.”

“Of course.” The chief looked at the man on the cell phone, who was still pacing the floor, and stood up. “Let’s find another room to talk.”

There were only so many other rooms in the building. Frustrated with finding every nook and cranny full of people, the chief opened the door to the break room and we went in there.

“I’m sorry about this mess, Mayor. I was hoping not to drag you into this any further, but we just learned that Chuck Sparks
was
killed in the Harris Teeter parking lot. We found traces of blood that we believe belonged to him. That makes you a witness, in a manner of speaking.”

“I understand.”
He’s trying to protect me.
And here I was angry at being cut out of the investigation. You never knew what people were thinking. “What can I do?”

“Well, it seems the mother, the former Mrs. Sparks, left her daughter with Chuck about two weeks ago. She was moving from Raleigh to Richmond for a new job and was uncertain of where she was staying. She’d planned to come back and get the girl when she was settled.”

“So that’s why none of us knew anything about Betsy,” I said. “If she’d been here a little longer, everyone would’ve known her.”

“Exactly. That leads us to believe, as you said at the house today, that the people who killed Chuck could have the girl. There haven’t been any ransom demands—at least not to the mother. It’s still early days, although the FBI likes to get involved in these cases during the first few hours. No reason to panic yet.”

“But whoever killed Chuck might not have known about Betsy’s mother. They might’ve been as surprised as us that he had a daughter.”

“That’s true. But we can’t assume anything. At this point, we’re working on the theory that she’s alive and with the people who killed Chuck.”

“I believe she’s alive, Chief. I’ve seen her.” I explained again about my vision of where she was being kept.

“And that
could
be accurate,” he admitted. “But the best way to find her is probably to find the people who killed Chuck. If she’s alive, they’ll know where she is.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Well, I was thinking that since your vision of Chuck being killed at Harris Teeter was accurate, you might be able to recall some other details about the assailants.”

I thought back to the vision I’d had from the medallion. I couldn’t see the person who killed Chuck—just the store and the burgundy Lincoln. “I’m sorry,” I told him after I explained what I’d seen. “That’s all there is. Betsy was sitting on the same car in the first vision I had about her.”

“Let’s take a look at the DMV files and see if that’s Chuck’s car. Last time I saw him, he was driving a baby blue BMW—but you know how those real estate people like to change cars.”

We went back into his office. The man on the phone was sitting down now in the chair I had vacated, nervously drumming his fingers on the chief’s desk with Agent Dawson beside him. “This is a bad time to disappear, Chief Michaels,” he said. “We need to get all of our ducks in a row.”

“That’s exactly what I was trying to do, Agent Kowalski,” the chief explained. “This is Mayor Dae O’Donnell, the
gifted
woman I was telling you about.”

Before I could shake his hand, Betsy’s mother ran over to us and all but threw herself on me. “I’m Melinda Lafferty, Betsy’s mother. Have you talked to her? Have you seen her recently? Is she still alive? Please tell me she’s still alive.”

“As far as I know, she’s still alive,” I blurted out, wishing I could take it back when I saw the look of relief on her tearstained face. How much worse was it going to be for this poor woman if Betsy was dead now? It had been hours since my vision of her from the doll. I felt like she was alive, but I knew I could be wrong.

“Thank God! And thank you!” She hugged me and sobbed into my shoulder.

Agent Kowalski quickly asked Agent Dawson to lead Melinda back to her seat in the corner. He stuck out his hand and introduced himself. “I’m Agent Pat Kowalski, Mayor O’Donnell. I’m in charge on this case. I’ve heard you are very talented in this area—finding lost things. I hope you’ll be willing to work with us to find this little girl.”

Agent Kowalski was tall and very thin. He looked as though he’d recently lost weight—his suit was too big for him and hung badly. Even as he was speaking to me, he was kind of shaking his arm and leg. I thought he might have a nervous twitch. He asked me to sit down again and couldn’t seem to stop shaking his leg.

“I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Would you be willing to meet one of our sketch artists and help him come up with a face?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I didn’t see the killer’s face.”

He briefly looked surprised. “Okay. I probably don’t understand your process. What
did
you see? Can you find a way to express what you
saw
so we can use it to find the girl?”

I told him about the Lincoln. Besides Betsy and Chuck, that was all I’d seen. I was sure he didn’t want a picture of dead Chuck. I didn’t mention that part either.

“Okay. Okay. We can work with that,” he rattled off in his nervous manner.

Tim came in and winked at me as he handed the chief a note.

“Well, this confirms it.” The chief read the note. “DMV has only one car registered to Chuck Sparks—a light blue BMW. I guess the Lincoln doesn’t belong to him.”

Was it my imagination or did the chief look annoyed because I didn’t have better information to share with the FBI? Was he embarrassed that I didn’t know more?

“But it might belong to the killer.” Agent Kowalski studied me as he gnawed on his lower lip. “How would you feel about being hypnotized, Mayor O’Donnell? We might get something from that. Sometimes it helps nonprofessional psychics to wrap it up better. Maybe there’s something more that you saw and didn’t realize was important.”

He made some awful air quotes with his fingers when he said “saw.”

“I don’t think so. I’m not exactly sure how my process works either, but I’m sure some other visions will come to me. They always do.”

“Okay. I understand. That’s fine. We can work with that.”

I glared at Chief Michaels, wondering if he knew what Agent Kowalski had been planning on putting me through. I wished at that point that he’d change his mind again and decide he didn’t want me to be involved. I was beginning to feel like a lab rat.

Another agent peeked his head through the door. “There’s someone to see you out here, Kowalski.”

“See me? What does that mean? I’m not ‘seeing’ anyone right now. This isn’t a social—hello!” Kowalski left the room abruptly.

I looked through the blinds and saw Ann and Kevin. Agent Kowalski was shaking Kevin’s hand. He greeted Ann with a hug. She caught my eye, and I looked away.

“Who is it?” the chief asked behind me. “That’s Brickman—who is she?”

“His fiancée,” I answered, hoping my words didn’t sound as tight as they felt.

He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. I was surprised when he patted me on the shoulder.

Agent Kowalski came striding back into the office, a big grin on his face. “You’re fortunate, Ms. Lafferty. This is Ann Porter, one of the finest psychics who ever worked for the FBI. We were at Quantico together. It was a terrible blow for us to lose her. But she’s willing to be a private consultant on this case. And this is Kevin Brickman. He was an agent too before he decided to quit and make lasagna full-time.” Kowalski patted Kevin heartily on the back. “We’re gonna find your little girl.”

Melinda brightened considerably, wiped her eyes, and tried to stop crying. “Thank you. Bless you all for being here.”

Agent Kowalski spoke to the other agent in the room while Melinda eyed Ann and Kevin with a mixture of hope and desperation. Agent Dawson, apparently Kowalski’s aide, came close to me and said, “If you’ll come with me, Ms. O’Donnell, I’ll have someone take you home. I don’t think we’ll have need of your services after all. Thanks for coming in.”

His tone was so smooth—so rote—I knew he’d said it many times before. “That’s fine,” I said, trying not to look at Ann or Kevin. They were the experts. I felt awkward and unwanted. I couldn’t even tell them what the killer had looked like in my dream.

I left the office. Scott was waiting for me, hat in hand. “I’ll take you home, if you like, ma’am.”

Considering it was late and a long walk home from the station, I agreed. I could only hope this meant that dead Chuck and Betsy would start showing up in Ann’s dreams and visions—or whatever her
process
was.

It was mean and a little spiteful of me, but I was tired and that was how I felt.

Scott dropped me off in the driveway, and I entered the house as quietly as I could. I knew Gramps would probably be in bed by then.

To my surprise, he was asleep on the recliner and the little black kitten I’d left locked in my room was curled up in a ball, asleep on his lap.

I shook him awake. “What’s this? I thought you hated pets.”

Gramps looked down at his lap. “The thing kept howling up there, Dae. I couldn’t hear the TV. I let him out and he was quiet. I don’t know what he’s doing on me.”

But he didn’t throw the kitten down either, I noticed.

“How’d the meeting go? Mad Dog give you a hard time?”

I told him about Mad Dog’s Duck T-shirt and the new town hall. We talked about the boardwalk idea—then I told him about the unexpected turn of events that had taken place after the meeting.

“You’re best out of it anyway, with the FBI involved,” he said. “They play hardball, Dae. Let Ronnie handle it.”

“You’re right. I have plenty to do campaigning against Mad Dog and running Missing Pieces. I’m sure they’ll find Betsy without me. After all, they have the best psychic in the FBI helping them.” I leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Good night. What are we going to call the kitten?”