Sandrift: A Lin Hanna Mystery (21 page)

Her first stop
was the coffee shop on the waterfront.
 
She ordered a large mug of dark roast and decided to indulge in a
blueberry muffin while she relaxed a bit.
 
She still wanted to find something extra special for Neal, even though
she had purchased several nice gifts for him earlier.
 
Maybe one of these shops would have
something unique; she pulled the cards she had taken from the dresser out of
her pocket.
 
All of these places
were nearby; she’d spotted them as she drove into the waterfront area.
 
Maybe someone would remember if Dorrie
had been in, even though it was two weeks ago.

Finishing her
coffee, Lin left the shop and headed for the first gallery that happened to be
directly across the street.
 
A
short, rotund man greeted her as she entered.
 
The walls were hung with beautiful watercolors,
mostly of coastal scenes.
 
There
were several display tables containing items that appeared to be antiques,
china figurines and some pottery.
 
The display area at the counter held a nice collection of gold and silver
jewelry.

“May I help you
find something?” the man greeted her with a smile.

“I’m really
mostly browsing,” Lin smiled, “but I am looking for a gift for someone special.
”

“ The nicest
things here are the watercolors,” the man approached her indicating the display
on the main wall of the gallery, “all by local artists, some of them prize
winners.
 
Any of them would offer a
wonderful way to remember this beautiful place.”

“They are
lovely,” Lin replied, while noting that the prices were pretty much out of her
league. “Actually, I really didn’t want to spend quite that much, perhaps some
of the smaller items?”

She looked
through most of the displays without anything really catching her eye.
 
Finally, she decided she should try to
get information and then be on her way.

“Do you happen
to remember a young woman who might have come in a couple of weeks ago,
actually exactly two weeks ago?
 
She
was very attractive, blond…”

The proprietor
was thoughtful. “Actually, I do recall an attractive young woman, it might’ve
been two weeks…she wasn’t really shopping, if I recall.
 
She was asking how long I’d been here,
in business that is, if I owned the shop or just worked here, stuff like that.
 
Apparently she was trying to locate an
old friend.”

“Were you able
to help her?” Lin decided to probe further.

“I’m afraid
not,” the man smiled. “I’ve only lived here for five years, had this shop for
four.
 
I sent her to the Simon
gallery about a block down.
 
Mark Simon
has been in business here a long time.
 
He knows everyone.”

Lin thanked the
gentleman and left.
 
One of the
cards she’d taken from Neal’s stack was from the Simon Gallery as well.
 
She spotted the sign down the street and
headed in that direction.

The Simon
gallery was a large and quite elegant establishment, taking up most of the
block.
 
The sign outside advertised
art and collectibles, including antiques and estate jewelry, and the interior
didn’t disappoint.
 
There were
lovely paintings on the walls; pottery and collectibles were evident in glass
cases and on tables throughout the store.
 
Lin was especially attracted to the beautiful collection of jewelry
displayed under the glass counters that lined two walls. She couldn’t help but
hope that perhaps this was the place where Neal had done some of his shopping
the day he’d been so secretive.
 
She
gravitated to the jewelry area where a middle-aged clerk was busy cleaning some
display cases.

The woman put
aside her cleaning cloth and smiled at Lin, “Please excuse me, we’ve been so
busy with all the holiday shoppers that I haven’t had time to do much
housekeeping here.
 
Is there
something special I could help you with?”

Before Lin
could speak, the bell over the door rang and a group of shoppers entered
together. “Excuse me a moment,” the employee picked up her cleaning stuff and
put it back under the counter.
 
She
turned to a door behind her that seemed to lead to a work area and called to
someone.
 
Lin looked up to see a
tall ,
muscular young man clad in jeans and a sweatshirt
standing in the doorway.
 
It was
obvious he didn’t generally work in the front of the gallery.

“I’ll need you
out here for a few minutes, Mike.
 
Just stand by and try to help those customers if they have any
questions.” The woman returned to Lin shaking her head, “We really are busy
this season.
 
That’s good, but it’s
sometimes hard to cover everything, especially when Mr. Simon can’t be here.”

“I see how busy
you are,” Lin said, “I won’t keep you long.” A tray of beautiful antique
buttons had caught Lin’s eye.
 
They looked
like silver and would be a handsome addition to any nice blazer.
 
She could picture them on Mark’s navy
one—handsome indeed. “I was looking at those buttons, she indicated the
tray, the silver ones.”

“Actually,
they’re pewter, less expensive than silver,” the woman responded as she lifted
the tray to the countertop, “but they polish up just beautifully, and they are
authentic antiques, possibly two hundred years old.
 
We have information about them too.”

The buttons
were expensive, but not totally unreasonable, and Lin was really drawn to
them.
 
They’d be perfect for
Neal.
 
She selected several, enough
for the front and sleeves of the blazer, and asked the clerk if they could be
gift wrapped.”

“Certainly,”
the woman smiled, “I’ll polish them up first.
 
Why don’t you follow me and you can
select a gift box.” Before moving to the rear work area, the clerk approached
the group that was still browsing.
 
She told them she’d be with them shortly, and indicated that they could
ask Mike for help if they wanted to see anything from one of the cases.
 
Meanwhile Mike continued to wait,
somewhat sullenly, on a stool behind the counter.
 

Lin followed
the clerk into the workroom where she found an assortment of gift boxes.
   
She selected a beautiful red
velvet box with a black satin lining that would really show off the buttons.
“This is almost too pretty to wrap,” she handed it to the clerk.

“Yes, but you
want the contents to be a surprise,” she replied.

While the woman
polished the buttons and pinned them to the lining of the box, Lin decided to
see if she could garner any information.

“I’d hoped to
have the chance to speak to Mr. Simon, I understand he has done business here
for a long time.”

“Yes, he’s been
here probably twelve years or more, I’ve been with him for the past eight,” she
offered.
 
“He does a good business,
especially since he added the antique and estate jewelry, I think that’s why he
hired me.
 
His business was really
growing.
 
Fortunately, it’s still
good.”

“I’d like to
talk to him sometime, about an old friend he might know,” Lin said, “When do
you think he’ll be in?”

“ Oh, he should
be back Monday.
 
It’s his wife.
 
She’s, er…she’s not well,” the woman
seemed a bit uncomfortable with this topic. “Sometimes he needs to stay with
her, take her to the doctor, you know how that can be, looking after
someone.
 
He really needs to hire
some help here, someone besides Mike.”

“I could see he
didn’t seem too happy about being out front,” Lin glanced out the door and
observed the young man still sitting glumly on the stool, his bulky torso hunched
uncomfortably.
 
Looking at him she
got a strange feeling; there was something familiar about him but she couldn’t
think what it was.
 
I may’ve seen
him somewhere, she thought, maybe shopping or perhaps at Tim’s bar or some
other restaurant, it could’ve been anywhere.

The clerk had
finished, and the gift was beautifully wrapped.
 
Lin was excited as she placed the
package carefully in her shopping bag.
 
Neal’s going to be surprised, and he’s going to love these she smiled to
herself.

Lin realized
she’d gotten carried away with her shopping and hadn’t asked if the clerk had
seen Dorrie Johnson. “One more quick thing,” she turned to the woman, “then
I’ll get out of your hair.” Lin noticed that Mike had started back to the
workroom, but he stopped when he realized she wasn’t yet ready to leave.
 
She quickly described Dorrie and asked
if the clerk remembered her coming into the shop, but she was disappointed.

“Actually,
Fridays are usually my days off, I only came in today because Mr. Simon needed
to be at home, so I wouldn’t have seen that young woman.
 
Maybe Mr. Simon might remember her; you
can come back next week and ask him.”

“Thank you, I
might do that,” Lin took her purchase and headed for the door.
 
As she was leaving, she heard Mike
actually speak for the first time. “It’s time for my lunch break,” he said
sullenly, “I’ll be back in an hour.”

Lin could
almost feel the impatience in his voice.
 
He’s certainly not a happy camper she thought, at least not today.

It was shortly
after noon when Lin returned to her car with her purchase.
 
She certainly wasn’t hungry, so she
decided to visit the only remaining gallery in the area, the third shop where
Neal had picked up a card.
 
It was a
small spot tucked along the waterfront about three doors down from the coffee
shop.
 
There were some lovely things
on display, but it was a dead end where information was concerned.
 
The young man, who appeared to be the
owner, couldn’t recall having seen Dorrie, and he told Lin that he’d only been
at that location for a couple of years.
 
It appeared that her best bet for information was going to be Mark Simon,
and he wouldn’t be available until next week.
 
Might as well go back home, Lin
thought.
 
Neal should be back soon,
and we can pack and make plans for the weekend.

As she crossed
the street heading back to her car she spotted Mike, the discontented fellow
from the Simon gallery.
 
He was
leaning against one of the decorative streetlights with a cigarette in one hand
and a cell phone pressed to his ear in the other.
 
He displayed the same hulking posture as
he had sitting on the stool at the gallery only now he was wearing a bulky
jacket.

As she arrived
at her car, a light bulb went off in Lin’s head; she knew where she had seen
Mike before.

I can’t be
right Lin thought, as she left the downtown area and headed for the
highway.
 
I never saw a face, and
there must be dozens of tall, broad shouldered men with bulky jackets.
 
I’m just being stupid and silly she told
herself, but she couldn’t shake the gut feeling that Mike was their
prowler.
 
She couldn’t positively
identify him, of course, but she knew that his tall, hulking shape was the same
one she’d seen running across Kate’s yard.
 
Neal would say she was just feeling nervous, Ken Parker would tell her she
couldn’t use hunches and gut feelings to identify someone in court, but Lin
knew she was right, she just knew it.

She’d realized
that she needed to gas up her car if they were going to drive down the banks
tomorrow.
 
Gas was much less
expensive here than in the small towns that dotted the length of the
Banks.
 
She pulled into the QT
station on the outskirts of town and had just begun pumping when an older
model, black pick up truck pulled in and parked in front of the convenience
store.
 
The driver turned to look in
her direction before entering the store; it was Mike.
 
He quickly turned away, pulling the neck
of his jacket up closer as he entered the building.

Lin hurried to
finish getting her
gas,
glad she was using the pay at
the pump feature and didn’t need to enter the store.
 
She managed to complete her transaction
and leave before Mike returned to his vehicle. Proceeding across the Baum
Bridge and up Hwy. 158, she glanced back from time to time to determine if she
were being followed.
 
There was no
sign of the old black pick up so maybe it was just a coincidence; maybe she was
wrong and Mike hadn’t actually followed her to the station; maybe he didn’t
need to follow further because he already knew where she was staying.

Lin resisted
the temptation to stop by the police station and report her concerns, knowing
how they would be received.
 
She
didn’t have any proof at all and couldn’t even say for certain that she’d been
followed, but she was glad to see that Neal had already arrived by the time she
pulled into the parking area under Kate’s house.

Neal was
nowhere to be seen on the main floor.
 
He must be upstairs, Lin thought.
 
She took the opportunity to hide his gift beneath some others toward the
back of the tree before putting her grocery purchases in the kitchen.
 
The stocking stuffers she took upstairs
to hide in a cabinet in the office.

Neal was
showering, and Lin went back downstairs and started a fresh pot of coffee.
 
She felt a little hungry now; she got
out some stuff to make sandwiches.
 
She’d just finished making hers when Neal appeared.
 
“Have you had lunch?” she asked.

“No, not yet,”
he replied, “Everyone wanted to get away early so we worked straight through
the lunch hour.
 
Some of the team
members have three or four hours drive to reach home.”

They took their
food to the porch and let Sparky out while they ate.
 
“This hits the spot,” Neal sighed
savoring his steaming mug of coffee, “how was your morning?”

“Good,” Lin
reported. “I think I’ve finally finished my shopping now.
 
She wanted to tell Neal about Mike and
her feelings about him, but she realized he might worry when he learned she’d
been asking questions about Dorrie, not to mention the fact that she’d gotten
the idea from those business cards he’d left on the dresser.
 
She started to turn the conversation in
another direction but stopped herself short.
 
She wasn’t going to go down that
path.
 
Whatever her relationship
with Neal was or was not going to be, it was going to be based on honesty.
 
She wasn’t going to hide things from
him.
 
They’d already had experience
on that path when they first met and it hadn’t worked for either of them.
 
She poured them each a second cup of
coffee and began to tell him everything she’d done and what she’d learned and
experienced leaving out only the purchase of his special Christmas gift.

Neal listened
attentively without interrupting her.
 
When she finally finished her account, he sat back and took another long
drink from his mug.
 
He seemed to be
reflecting on what she’d told him, trying to sort things out for himself.
 
To her surprise, when he finally spoke it
wasn’t about the account of her morning.

“I’ve been
considering what you learned when you talked to that young fellow at the
Holiday Inn, the one who said Dorrie didn’t seem sick or hung over when he saw
her on Friday.
 
I think I know who
you should share that information with,” Neal was serious, “I realize you don’t
want Ken Parker to think you’re trying to interfere with his case, but I also
think he might not delve into all this himself.
 
I agree with what you said earlier about
him having focused on Billy Thornton in this entire situation.
 
That’s who could use the information
about Dorrie.
 
You need to talk to
Billy Thornton’s attorney, if you can find out whose representing him.”

Lin was shocked.
 
She really hadn’t expected Neal to give
her efforts so much thought, but he was entirely right.
 
The information she’d learned could best
be used to defend Billy.
 
If Dorrie
wasn’t hung over on Friday morning, then Billy hadn’t drugged her the night
before.
 
Whether or not Dorrie had taken
drugs voluntarily became a moot point.
 
Smoking a little pot was likely not sufficient to support charges such
as Parker was contemplating.
 
Lin
smiled at Neal, “Good thinking, you’re entirely right, but how do we find out
who the attorney is?”

“This is really
a small community.
 
Word’s bound to
get around somehow.
 
We’ll find
out.”

“What about
that Mike fellow?
 
I know I can’t
prove anything, but I’m sure that I’m right about him.”

“Same
story, we just give
it some time. Sooner or later, if he
really is following you, we’ll know it.
 
Then we’ll have something to take to the police,” Neal seemed to put
everything into perspective.

Lin smiled at
how reasonable and logical Neal’s thinking was, “Then I think it’s time we
packed for our trip.
 
We need to get
an early start if we’re going to have time to explore the sights on the way down—you’re
going to love the national seashore—it’s the most beautiful, natural
beach on the east coast.”

***

By mid-morning
on Saturday, they were making their way down Hwy 12.
 
This two-lane road traced a path along
the narrow strip of islands between the dunes that lined the beach and the
wetlands that bordered Pamlico Sound.
 
They had stopped for breakfast in Nags Head before leaving and spent a
good hour exploring the area around the Bodie Island Lighthouse that marked the
end of Bodie Island.
 
Bodie was home
to the larger population centers on the Outer Banks—Nags Head, Kitty
Hawk, and Kill Devil Hills where Kate’s home was located.

“I’m familiar
with the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse,” Neal remarked as he stepped back to
photograph the Bodie Island light, but I’ve never heard of this one.”

“There’s
another light farther north at Corolla,” Lin told him, “not to mention Cape
Lookout which is to our south and has its own national seashore.”

“That’s
amazing,” Neal was enjoying being a tourist, “Will we be able to see them all?”

“We can easily
drive up to Corolla from Kate’s,” Lin said, “but Cape Lookout is another trip,
I’m afraid.
 
It’s down near Morehead
City. We’d have to take a two and half hour ferry ride from Ocracoke just to
get to that area and then take another boat out to the light.
 
If we drove down to Morehead or Beaufort
it would be a lot of fun, but it wouldn’t be any faster.”

“Maybe if we
have another free weekend with good weather…” Neal mused. “I really would love
to have more time to explore these places.”

They headed
back to the main road and turned south toward Oregon Inlet.
 
Lin pointed out the large marina where a
large number of fishing boats were anchored.
 
“You might want to check with these
folks about booking a trip when the guys come.
 
There are other places closer to home
too that I’m sure you can call.”

“I meant to
tell you that I did talk to Ben, and he said both he and Brian really wanted to
go fishing, provided the weather cooperates.
 
Maybe I’ll go ahead and book something
next week.
 
We can always cancel if
we have to.” Neal caught sight of the Bonner Bridge ahead, “Wow, look at that,”
he said in amazement.

The Herbert C.
Bonner Bridge was quite a sight, rising high above Oregon Inlet and curving
toward Hatteras Island.
 
It was an
important lifeline for the communities of the island and keeping it open was a
full time job.
 
The shifting sands
of the inlet could block the waterway after a storm, only to have the next
storm threaten to undermine the pilings supporting the roadway.
 
Lin pointed out the sand dredges that
were a constant feature here, working to keep the vital inlet open for the
fishing fleet.
 
The state constantly
worked on this bridge and on Hwy 12 itself as both were regularly closed by
storm damage.

After crossing
the bridge they stopped at a parking area so that Neal could get some
photographs.
 
Lin was walking around
a bit to stretch her legs.
 
As she
circled the parking area, she glanced up toward the bridge.
 
Trailing behind a group of cars she
thought she saw a black truck.
 
The
sun was reflecting off the water and she couldn’t be sure of the color, but it
was definitely an older model truck.
 
She felt a lump form in her throat.
 
Was that Mike?
 
Would he see
them parked here?
 
The truck moved
past the parking area and disappeared down the highway.
 
Lin still couldn’t be sure if it was the
same truck she’d seen Mike driving.
 
It’s probably just someone who lives down here heading back home; she
tried to reassure herself, but she realized she’d not been watching all
morning.
 
I’ll try to be more alert
she thought.

Lin decided
that she wouldn’t mention the suspicious truck to Neal just yet; after all she
could be wrong. She couldn’t swear that it was black, and even if it were, how
many of the folks who lived on this island might drive an old black pick up?
 
She’d keep her eyes open and mention it
if she saw it again and got a better look.

It was only a
short distance to their next stop, Pea Island Wildlife Refuge. “December is a
perfect time to visit,” the ranger at the visitor center told them. “Right now
we have literally thousands of snow geese with more coming every day; the
herons and egrets are also here in large numbers, not to mention all the other
species we see every day.
 
This is
paradise if you like birds.”

They passed a
wonderful hour walking the path and boardwalk that surrounded the pond.
 
Neal used his camera’s zoom lens to good
advantage and got some really good shots.
 
On their way back to the car they stopped to hunt for turtles in the
shallow waters.
 
It was growing
warmer as the morning advanced, and Lin unzipped her fleece jacket.
 
She kept a sharp eye out, but there was
no sign of an old black truck anywhere.
 
Lin gave an inward sigh of relief; her imagination must be working
overtime.

They were planning
to make the four o’clock ferry to Ocracoke, and that gave them plenty of time. They
decided to stop somewhere for lunch before visiting the famous Cape Hatteras
light.
 
Some of the eateries in the
small villages they drove through were already closed for the season, but they
spotted the Good Winds Seafood and Wine Bar where a sign in the window
announced that they were open everyday through New Years.
 
It was a little windy to eat on the
porch, but the restaurant wasn’t crowded, and they were able to snag a window
table with an open view of the sound.
 

“We’re on
vacation,” Neal announced to their server, “how about a half bottle of your
best white wine for starters.”
 
He
glanced at Lin to see if she approved which she certainly did.

She looked at the
appetizer list, “Bring us a seafood sampler to share with it.”

The sampler
provided a few bites of shrimp and crabmeat, along with some fried clams.
 
To top it off, there were four delicate
fried oysters, crisped to perfection.
 
After enjoying the sampler, Neal decided on a plate of the oysters for
his lunch, “I’m sure I’ve never had any so fresh and so perfectly cooked
before, they’re fantastic.”