A Touch of Gold

shipping process. It was kind of drab and unexciting except for a dead mouse someone had found in the box of gloves before it was sealed.

When it was over, I put my hand on Kevin’s arm with all the insecurity of someone grasping a hot poker. But there was nothing. I tightened my hold on him. Still nothing. This was good. I could manage this way.

“Look, I’m taking you home right now.” His voice sounded tough, the way I imagined he might’ve sounded when he’d worked for the FBI before coming to Duck. “You’re not all right. If you fall over out here and we have to take you back to the hospital, what will that prove?”

I smiled my big, bright mayor’s smile at him. It’s the one I had practiced to use when I took office. “It’s okay now, Kevin. Really. I had a bad minute there, but I’m fine now.”

He stared me down, but I didn’t blink. It really was better . . . with the gloves on. Maybe this would give me a chance to get over this new ability or at least learn not to let it take over my life.

“Okay,” he said, giving in. “But if you look at me again like that, I won’t be responsible for my actions.”

I caught my breath. “Like what?”

“Like there’s nothing in your eyes. I’ve only seen that kind of blankness once. That person had lost her mind.”

That was a sobering thought. I didn’t respond to his promised threat. Instead, I started walking across what remained of Duck’s history, and Kevin kept pace with me.

Cailey and the new arson investigator were already giving Gramps the lowdown on what they knew so far. We went through the whole round of Cailey asking me how I was and if I should be there. Duck Police Chief Ronnie Michaels joined us, and Cailey introduced Brad Spitzer, the Dare County arson investigator.

“Brad, this is Dae O’Donnell, the mayor of Duck,” Cailey said. “She was here at the time of the blast yesterday.”

“Mayor O’Donnell.” Brad held out his hand. He was a very ordinary-looking man: brown hair, brown eyes, no distinguishing features. He had a touch of gray at his temples that probably put him in his forties. He was only about as tall as me, not muscular, but medium build.

“Mr. Spitzer.” I acknowledged him, forgoing the handshake he offered. I didn’t know how far I could push the insulating quality of the gloves.

“I know you’re not feeling quite right yet, Mayor,” Chief Michaels said in his usual abrupt manner. He always reminded me of an old marine drill sergeant with his flat-top haircut and immaculate police uniform.

There was an awkward moment as Brad put his hand back at his side after I declined to shake it. Chief Michaels humphed and cleared his throat. “I think I should debrief you as soon as possible. You may have seen something important and not realized it. When you’re feeling better, that is.”

“I’d like to be there as well, Chief,” Brad added. “It would save us a lot of time on the investigation if all of us knew what the mayor saw yesterday before she was injured.”

Cailey agreed this was an excellent idea. Great! I really needed to think about an audience wanting to hear how I was thrown into the road and left with an odd backlash that made me able to glimpse how everything in the world was manufactured and shipped to stores and warehouses.

“Sure,” I said, hoping they wouldn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm. I raised as much of a smile as I could muster.

No one said anything for a few seconds. I could feel them all looking at me and wondering if something was wrong that hadn’t been made right by my brief hospital stay.

I knew I had to say something or I’d end up going home without any information and all of this would have been for nothing. “So, what do we know so far?”

Cailey blinked a few times, adjusted her helmet and looked at Gramps before she said, “Dae, maybe we should talk about this later, honey.”

Sometimes it’s hard when your fellow town officials remember when you learned to ride a bicycle. It’s not that they don’t respect me, but they get this protective, parental attitude that drives me crazy. I had to assert myself. I was the mayor of Duck, and I deserved answers. “I’d like to know what you have so far,” I told her. “I’m sure you’ll have more later and we’ll talk again. But I need some answers for our citizens right now.”

I could see my tone reassured them a little. Cailey took out her notes, hastily scribbled in a tiny, sooty notebook. “We found some human remains that we assume belong to Max. We can’t find any record of him having had an X-ray in the past that we could use for comparison. We won’t know for sure until the DNA tests are finished.”

“That could take a while since we’ll have to send it to the state lab,” Brad explained. “It could be weeks before we know for sure.”

Chief Michaels agreed. “Depends how far they’re backed up right now.”

I swallowed hard on their objective details of Max’s death and held a little tighter to Kevin’s arm. “What do we know for sure right now?”

Brad cleared his throat. I thought for a minute he might be a little irritated by my demand. But he resumed his smile and nodded toward where the museum building had been. “If you’d like to come this way, Mayor, we’ll take a look at the epicenter of the blast.”

We followed Brad as a group even though I felt sure Chief Michaels and Cailey had already been given this information. Everyone was careful to walk around or over debris waiting to be collected by the firefighters. There were pieces of chairs and tables, shattered glass from the showcases that had once held Duck’s treasured past, and an old microfiche machine that had essentially melted as if it was made of wax.

A few things seemed to have been left intact—one of the old cannons, some musket balls, the anchor from the Helena, a ship that went down off the coast in the early 1900s.

I noticed two firemen carefully bagging a charred tennis shoe and thought about Max dying here. I fought back tears, reminding myself that I could cry later. I was pretty sure the whole group would cheerfully drive me back to the hospital in Kill Devil Hills if I became emotional.

“We believe this is where the actual blast occurred,” Brad explained, pointing to an area right outside of where the building had been. The old concrete was now blackened and buckled. “You can see the concussion marks here. We think this is where the cannonball hit the large propane gas tank that fed the stove in the museum.”

“Cannonball?” Gramps, Chief Michaels and I asked at the same time. Kevin looked surprised but didn’t say anything.

Brad nodded, a bewildered expression on his face as though he hadn’t considered until now that we would all think this was odd. “There’s no doubt about it. We have the pieces of the ball right over here.”

“But there were dozens of cannonballs in the museum,” Chief Michaels said. “It probably got in the way of what really blew this place up. A cannonball couldn’t lob in here and cause an explosion. Anybody seen any pirate ships that might be attacking Duck?”

Chief Michaels was obviously making a joke, but Gramps looked serious. “Are you saying a cannonball was dropped or thrown into the propane tank?”

“No, sir.” Brad cleared his throat. “I’m saying a cannonball was fired into the propane from a few hundreds yards away.” He looked to the south of the museum site. “Maybe from that hill over there. There’s a residue on the surviving pieces of the cannonball suggesting it was fired from a device.”

“You mean a cannon?” I pitched in.

“Exactly, Mayor,” he concluded. “It would take that kind of firepower to make the gas tank explode.”

“I don’t want to second-guess you, son.” Chief Michaels looked at Brad and Cailey. “But are you sure about this? Isn’t it possible the tank blew up because of the fire and whatever caused the explosion? Have you checked this out, Ms. Fargo?”

Cailey shrugged, almost apologetically. “I know it sounds unbelievable, Chief, but I agree with Brad’s assessment. We won’t know absolutely until the tests come back from the lab. For right now, this is our working hypothesis.”

I was having a hard time believing it too. Or maybe I didn’t want to believe it. How was I going to tell people that a cannonball had been blasted into the museum? “Chief Michaels, has anyone been up there yet to look for a cannon?”

“No, Mayor,” he answered smartly. “This is the first I’ve heard of it. But I promise we’ll look into it.” He got on his radio as he walked away from the group, probably calling for a few of Duck’s finest to come and take a look.