A Timely Vision

It was too hard. I’d known these women all my life. Tears were sliding down my cheeks. I hiccupped on a sob, and she stared at me. “You haven’t lost the watch, have you, Dae?”

I was about to blurt out the whole thing when the chief put his hand on Miss Mildred’s shoulder. “Your sister is dead, Millie. We think she might be the victim of foul play. Let’s call someone from the church to come over.”

She glanced back and forth between us, a slow frown puckering her forehead. “What are you saying, Ronnie? Did you find Mama’s watch or not?”

I tried to keep my voice from cracking, but it didn’t work. “It was where I saw it. Miss Elizabeth had it on her arm. I don’t know if the water damaged it or not.”

She nodded, smiling again. “Maybe you could have Barney over at the jewelry store take a look at it before you bring it back. I knew I could count on you, Dae. You’ve always had the gift.”

The chief and I glanced at each other again. Neither one of us seemed to know what else to say. He told Miss Mildred to have a nice day and awkwardly patted her shoulder. She smiled at us, and we left her rocking in her chair. Using her kitchen phone, I called the deacon at her church and explained what had happened. He arrived at the house less than ten minutes later.

“I didn’t like the way she sounded,” the chief said as we walked out to his car.

“It’ll sink in on her,” I assured him.

“I hope so. She scared me. I don’t mind admitting it. I’d hate to see her taken out of her home. She might not be able to live alone anymore after this. I’ve seen it happen with folks her age.”

We climbed into the car and headed back to my house, weaving around fallen tree branches and patio furniture that had been swept into the street by the storm. I looked out the side window at the ocean. There were still some whitecaps, but the surf was mostly calm and the tide level was back where it belonged. “She knows what we were saying. She’s not crazy or senile. She couldn’t take it all in, but she’ll be fine.”

“In the meantime, we’ve had a murder.” He shook his head. “Those SBI boys are gonna come down here and tear up our community.”

“If they find out who killed Miss Elizabeth, I guess it’ll be worth it.”

The storm had caused substantial damage up and down the Outer Banks. Duck was hard hit, but we’d seen worse. As soon as it passed, everyone was out cleaning up the mess and putting the town back together. It was a way of life for us. This coast wasn’t called the Cape of Storms for nothing.

I was lucky there was no real damage to Missing Pieces. Rain had come in through a broken window in the back storage room, but the water hadn’t reached anything of value. Gramps and I used a wet-dry vac and a mop to clean it up. The power came on shortly after we’d left Miss Mildred’s house. I was glad she had that much anyway.

Everyone was devastated by the news of Miss Elizabeth’s death. After the weekend, I sat in the town hall listening to people talk about it as they waited for the town meeting to begin. It had been the topic of conversation on everyone’s lips for the past two days. No one could believe anyone in Duck would hurt Miss Elizabeth. But there were always outsiders here. The same tourists who provided so much of our livelihood came from across the world. There was no way of knowing anything about them.

“I heard she was robbed and raped,” Althea from the library in Manteo whispered loudly to Trudy. “She didn’t have her purse on her. No one’s found it either.”

I didn’t tell her that Chief Michaels said it didn’t look like robbery at all. Whoever attacked Miss Elizabeth had left her mother’s expensive watch on her arm when he or she had buried her. That wasn’t like a robbery. It was true they hadn’t found her purse. But the ocean could’ve taken that away before we got there.

“Did you hear anything about Miss Elizabeth being raped?” Trudy asked me after Althea had moved on to have the same conversation with Mary Lou on the other side of the town meeting room.

“No. I haven’t heard anything other than what Chief Michaels announced two days ago. I think he’s waiting for the medical examiner’s report before he releases any more information. Althea’s only speculating—she doesn’t know anything for sure.” As I spoke, I kept one eye on the rapidly growing group entering town hall for our monthly meeting. This large of a crowd was unusual. Normally only a handful of residents showed up. No doubt it was a sign of how worried everyone was about what had happened to Miss Elizabeth. With no real answers, the whole town was on edge.

I was on edge too, worried about who’d do such a terrible thing, of course, but also heartsick because I was the one who’d found her buried in the sand. My gift led me to her. The idea of that frightened me.

Since the storm, I’d spent some time sitting alone in the dark, wondering whether this was the start of something far worse than being a finder of lost things. I didn’t want to find dead bodies. I hoped never to see another corpse outside of a funeral home.

There was no one I could talk to about it. According to my mother, my grandmother had been able to find things when she was young, but she had died before I was born. Though my mother had never had the gift, she’d understood it, and her unique perspective had helped me as I grew. But she was gone too—thirteen years this past April. It was only Gramps and me.

I knew Gramps understood about finding things, but I was having a hard time working up to explaining exactly what had happened at the beach during the storm. I’d hoped to make peace with it in my own mind before talking to him. I didn’t want to burden him with the information. He’d been there for me through some terrible dark places. I was old enough now to figure this out for myself.

Chapter 4

The other members of the Duck Town Council were all in place around the big, U-shaped table before I sat down. There weren’t enough chairs to accommodate the crowd of people who’d gathered for the meeting, so many were standing at the back of the room. One of them was Kevin. I waved to him through the crowd. He didn’t wave back, but he nodded and smiled.

I took the gavel that had been donated by the League of Women Voters and brought the room to order. Everyone quieted for the Pledge of Allegiance and the reading of last month’s minutes. Then we came to the public forum part of the agenda where citizens were allowed to speak.

“What are we doing about finding Miss Elizabeth’s killer?” Mark Samson, owner of the Rib Shack, called out.

The room erupted with loud chatter. I banged my gavel, but no one paid any attention. The whole town seemed to be talking at the same time, demanding answers I knew the chief didn’t have. The other council members looked worried and kept sneaking furtive glances toward the door, as though they wanted to leave. Nancy calmly typed all of it into her laptop.

“Someone is out there stalking people in Duck,” yelled out Carter Hatley, owner of Game World. “What are we going to do about it?”

I got to my feet. If the gavel wasn’t going to do any good, maybe yelling back would. “The chief is doing everything he can,” I explained loudly. “The SBI is here investigating. I know you all are upset. I understand your anger and frustration. But coming in here and disrupting the town meeting won’t help.”

I noticed as I spoke that a few strangers with TV cameras were sneaking into the back of the meeting room. I guessed I’d see myself on TV later that night.

“Mayor, this is bad for business,” Carter yelled back. “We need an answer now. We can’t afford to wait.”

“You can’t afford to wait? Mr. Hatley, with all due respect, you didn’t lose a loved one. How do you think Miss Mildred feels about now? She’s been wronged more than anyone in this room. You’re worried about business? She lost her only sister. I think you should sit down and think about that.”

I wasn’t sure my reprimand would work, but Carter finally nodded and sat back down. No one could’ve been more surprised than me. The rest of the group followed his lead, and the meeting progressed as it should after that. The council cut the proceedings short, recessing until the following week when we all hoped things would be