A Timely Vision (9 page)

“Aren’t you going to call him back?” Shayla demanded. “The next man might not offer you so much. I wonder what
my
house is worth.”

Conversation lagged after that. The pie was gone and the coffee was cold. It wasn’t long before Shayla convinced Kevin to take her out for that drink. He asked politely if Gramps and I would like to come. Both of us said no, and I waved good-bye to them from the front door.

“They make a nice couple.” Gramps came up behind me and waved too.

“You think so?”

“If you aren’t interested in him, I do. Any chance you might be interested in him?”

“I don’t think so. He’s okay, I guess. For an outsider.”

“I can’t believe you’re so prejudiced, Dae. I know we didn’t raise you to be that way.”

“He might decide to move back to D.C. someday.” I closed the front door and turned off the outside light.

Gramps let out a grunt as he pushed himself back in his recliner. “You know how to ruin an old man’s fun, don’t you?”

 

I sneaked out of the house early the next morning. Gramps didn’t have a charter, so he’d stayed up late and was sleeping in. It was nice escaping without eating breakfast. He’s kind of a good-breakfast nut. I love him, but sometimes our lives clash a little.

Duck is beautiful early in the morning. It’s the one time the town resembles the way it was when I was growing up. When I was in my twenties, the place went through a kind of growth spurt, like people suddenly discovered Duck was here. Since then, it has to be cold for there to be any peace and quiet. Except in the mornings. Combine that peace and quiet with a good cup of coffee and the morning paper, and I was in heaven. There was always a little town gossip too. I liked that with my coffee.

Some of the other shopkeepers said good morning to me as we passed on the boardwalk overlooking the sound. A few joggers were out, along with some hungry seagulls scavenging for food. I settled on a bench, ready to sip my coffee and enjoy that lazy, satisfying feeling that comes from sitting on the boardwalk, watching people go by.

My mood was shattered when I opened the paper and took a good look at the front page. In broad headlines, Miss Elizabeth’s death became public property. It seemed wrong somehow to share all the intimate details of the tragedy with strangers. How did reporters find out she was wearing that black dress with the little pink hearts?

I half expected to see a picture of her body being carried to the medical examiner’s office. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. The paper ran a much younger shot of her from when she was crowned Miss Duck seventy years ago. I glanced at the caption. The photo was courtesy of the Duck Historical Museum and Max Caudle.

I could tell from the growing heat of the sun and the crowd beginning to build that it was time to open Missing Pieces. But my heart wasn’t in it today. My mind was too preoccupied with thoughts of Miss Elizabeth. What had happened to her out there, alone in the dunes? Imagination can be a terrible thing.

I was so caught up in thinking about the tragedy that I completely neglected Chief Michaels’s number-one rule for keeping safe: Be aware. I’d even gone to his safety refresher course over the winter, yet still I wasn’t keeping track of my surroundings.

As I opened the door to the shop, someone brushed by me, knocking me against the side of the building and grabbing my purse at the same time. It took me an instant to realize what had happened. I looked up to see the purse snatcher running down the boardwalk toward the parking lot. “Hey! You can’t do that!”

I couldn’t remember whether the chief had said you were or weren’t supposed to chase someone who took your purse. It was my first thought, though, and before I knew it, my feet were following. I ran after him, taking a shortcut through the midsection of the Duck Shoppes to head him off. I kept yelling, hoping someone might stop him before my lungs exploded. I hadn’t run anywhere for a long time.

The thief was tall and thin, kind of scruffy looking from the back. He looked familiar, and I suddenly realized he was the young man who’d asked me about a job on the Fourth of July. He must’ve been setting me up. And if someone didn’t do something to help me stop him, he was going to get away with my purse.

I yelled again and tried to speed up. He was passing the Coffee House, and I saw him run around the back of the Dumpster on the side. Was he trying to hide or trying to double back to confuse me?

I had my answer a second later as he ran out from behind the Dumpster and headed back in the direction from which we’d come. There was a small runoff ditch beside the parking lot that he plowed through, water splashing everywhere as I followed him back to the blacktop. I was closer now because I’d waited for him to make his move, but he was still faster than me. I was going to lose him and with him, my credit cards, driver’s license and a very expensive tube of my favorite lipstick. Lucky my keys had been in my hand to open the door.

We kept running through the parking lot. I wasn’t sure which way he’d turn. One way went up to the boardwalk again and the other way went right down into the sound. He might lose me in the gathering crowds starting to shop. If he ran down into the water, I had him.

Then something amazing happened. Tim Mabry jumped down from the boardwalk right on top of the purse snatcher. The boy crumpled under his weight. Suddenly everyone noticed what was going on and took an interest. Where were they when I was trying to save my property?

“You need this boy for something?” Tim grinned as he hauled the young man to his feet.

“H-he . . . stole . . . my . . . p-purse.” I tried to catch my breath, but couldn’t seem to get enough air into my poor lungs. I leaned against the side of the stairs with a dozen people staring down on us.

“Purse snatcher, huh?” Tim yanked my purse from the thief’s hands. “You know, we may have to have a little talk about where you were Fourth of July. We have a purse missing that might be part of an important murder case.”

“Should you tell him that?” I wondered, gratefully accepting my purse from him. “Won’t that mess up the investigation?”

“I don’t think that’s a problem, Mayor. You don’t worry your pretty head about it. We’ll take care of everything.”

His tone set my teeth on edge as it always did, but I couldn’t complain. He’d stopped the purse snatcher and rescued my lipstick. I knew what was coming next, and I accepted it graciously. When he asked me out for dinner, I said yes. How could I say no even though I knew another marriage proposal waited for me after the last course?

Tim handcuffed the young man and then led him to his police car parked on the far side of the lot. As I watched him put the purse snatcher in the backseat and then climb into the driver’s seat, I thought about how desperate the young man had to be to steal my purse. I was far from looking like someone who had money. Maybe everyone had turned him down for a job, and stealing was his only recourse.

“I’d like to weigh in on that,” Trudy said after I’d told her about the incident later that morning. “You’re going to have to suck it up and testify against that little weasel. He could’ve hurt you when he took your purse. Don’t feel sorry for him.”

We were in Missing Pieces, and I was watching my customers pick things up and put them back down. “No one starts out bad. He was desperate. I could see that in his face.”

“Maybe. But everyone’s desperate at one time or another. It doesn’t give them the right to steal. And I heard what Tim said. He thinks that boy could be involved in Miss Elizabeth’s death. How can you even think about his motives?”

I had already heard that speech from Gramps and Shayla earlier. News traveled fast in Duck. By eleven A.M. everyone had heard the story, and by noon had added their own embellishments. The young man had become a large, muscular brute who’d picked me up and slammed me against the wall. He’d left me there to die, taking my purse and most of the money from the cash register in Missing Pieces. That’s the way small-town gossip works.

Nothing they said changed my mind. I still felt sorry for the young man. And I felt a little guilty that I hadn’t given him some kind of job when he’d asked me. It might’ve made a difference.

Trudy finally got tired of trying to convince me she was right. She had a client under the hairdryer and left a few minutes later. Despite the crowd of shoppers around the boardwalk, the day was slow for me. Souvenirs and beach clothes seemed to be moving a lot faster than treasures.

But there was one astute shopper who was looking at a garnet necklace I’d bought from an old woman in Wilmington one winter. It was one of my special finds. The research I’d done on it pointed to its owner having been the wife of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. My fingers had tingled when I had touched it. The garnet was good and the chain was old gold, but the real value lay in its ownership.

The woman, her white hair piled high on her head, sunglasses hanging around her neck, pointed to it in the glass case. “What’s that?”

I held my breath, then slowly let it out. “It’s a necklace that once belonged to Sarah Knox Taylor Davis.”

“But what is it? Is it a ruby?”

“No. It’s a garnet.”

The woman smacked her gum a few more times and scratched her arm where her sunburn was peeling. “Is that like a ruby?”

“No. It’s completely different.”

“So who’s this Davis woman? Does she live around here?”

This was painful. I didn’t want this woman to buy my garnet necklace. “She’s dead. She’s been dead for a long time. There’s a jeweler right up the road. I’m sure he has some nice rubies you can look at.”

Smack. Smack. Smack.
“Naw. I think I want this one. How much is it?”

I quoted her an awful,
outrageous
price. “I can’t let it go for less than that.”

“That’s crazy! I’ll give you a hundred dollars. That’s what I’ve got. Do you gift wrap?”

Since I’d quoted her five
thousand
dollars, I laughed. “I’m sorry. You can’t have it.”

She looked at me as if she thought she’d misunderstood. “You
can’t
be serious. That piece of junk isn’t even worth a hundred. You can’t make that much here in a day.”

We both surveyed the empty shop. “That’s not the point. I told you the price. I won’t take less.”

“I am so out of here. You’re crazy, you know?”

Watching her leave, her pencil-thin legs wobbling on high-heeled sandals, I agreed. She was the closest thing to a real sale I’d had that day. I had sold a few trinkets I’d gotten at the Presbyterian church rummage sale last spring but nothing of any great value. A few people came in for their UPS packages and dropped a few off. Not much to live on.

As I was about to call it a day at four P.M., Kevin came through the door and stopped to admire the place. “Wow! You really have a lot of junk.”

“Some of that is very good junk,” I told him. “Some of it is even very expensive junk.”

“Sorry. I didn’t come to make you angry. I have a warning.”

“That sounds ominous.” I gravitated toward the burgundy sofa in the middle of the shop.

“Well, since you haven’t done anything wrong, it won’t be a big deal. The SBI had me come in this morning to talk about finding Miss Elizabeth and about
you
.”

“What about me?” I scooted over so he could sit down on the sofa. “I told Chief Michaels everything I know.”

He shrugged, and I noticed the Blue Whale Inn T-shirt he was wearing. “It’s standard procedure. If I were investigating this case, I’d bring you in too.”

“Should I say anything about finding Miss Mildred’s watch?”

“That’s up to you.” He glanced toward a painting of a dog running up the seashore. “Hey! I like that. It might look good in my lobby.”

“In other words, you already
told
them I find things.”

“I didn’t have to. They talked to Chief Michaels, and he filled them in. It was really only a matter of time anyway. I couldn’t deny I knew you were psychic. How much for the painting?”

A little annoyed that I’d be in a defensive position when they talked to me, I rolled my eyes and answered, “Fifteen thousand dollars.”

He smiled, then looked at the painting again. “For real?”

“How much do you think my privacy is worth?”

“Look, Dae, everyone here knows about you. It might be a little more uncomfortable for you talking to the SBI with them knowing you’re psychic, but it will be fine. I’d be happy to tag along and help out if—”

“Great! What time do they want to see me?”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

“But I’ll feel so much better with you there. I’d call my lawyer, but he’s working off a DUI picking up trash on the roads. What time did you say?”

“I don’t know. Chief Michaels might come for you. Or he’ll call. I don’t know which.”

I took out my cell phone. “I’ll call you then. Thanks for volunteering.”

“Sure. So how much for the painting?”

We settled on three hundred dollars. I was only asking four hundred. It wasn’t one of my special finds, but I was glad to see how much Kevin liked it. I’d know if it was a pity purchase (to make up for his talking about me to the SBI) if I didn’t see it hanging in the Blue Whale lobby.

“Thanks. You made my lackluster sales day much better.” I nodded at his T-shirt. “I like the color and the new design on that. I’d be glad to sell some of them here if you like. I have a community board over there too where you could give out information.”

“That would be great! Speaking of the Blue Whale, when can I expect you to come over and help me find my key?”

I thought about it. I could’ve done it right there in the shop on the brocade sofa. But I had never been in the Blue Whale. I was barely six years old when it closed. I thought this would be a good excuse for a tour. “I can come anytime. I was about to close up for the day.”