A Finder's Fee (9 page)

Mrs. Wilson dabbed her eyes with a clean white handkerchief. “Well, we were wondering if Dae would be willing to drive down to Manteo and talk to Randal. You probably don’t remember this, Dae, but I came to you once looking for an overdue library book that I’d lost. The fine was already quite high. You held my hands—you couldn’t have been more than five or six at the time—and you found that book for me. I was so impressed with your gift. Your mother wouldn’t let me give you any money, but I had a sucker in my pocketbook and she let me give you that.”

She was right. I didn’t remember. There had been many such incidents in my childhood. I understood what she was asking. She wanted me to use the same gift that had put her husband in jail to find him innocent of the crime.

Gramps nibbled on a cookie silently, letting me make that decision. I appreciated the gesture, but there was only one answer I could give her.

“Of course I’ll talk to Councilman Wilson. I don’t know for sure that I can help, but I’ll be glad to try.”

W
e worked out the arrangements to go to Manteo
tomorrow. Mrs. Wilson insisted that she’d have someone drive me there and back and pay my expenses, but I’m not a professional psychic like Ann.

I agreed to let her son, Amos, drive me, since our old car didn’t get out much and I would’ve had to line up a ride with someone there and back. I refused to take money for expenses from her. It was a deal-breaker if she wanted my help. She finally agreed.

I knew it wasn’t my fault that the old race car was buried there. It would’ve been found later when they’d started drilling the new geothermal hole, no matter what.

Mad Dog and I had been fierce competitors during the last year. We’d both said some things that weren’t very pleasant. It felt like an unfair way to win by contributing, no matter in how small a way, to my opponent going to jail. Even if he was found innocent in time for the elections, his reputation might be ruined.

Maybe I didn’t feel guilty so much as responsible.

I would’ve helped the family even if the election hadn’t happened. They were part of Duck. And like a lot of people in town, I didn’t want to believe Mad Dog was guilty of killing Lightning Joe Walsh.

Gramps and Mrs. Wilson were still talking about the good old days when I said good-bye and left to go to Missing Pieces. I didn’t take Treasure with me, since he was licking his lips and waiting patiently for a little cream from Gramps when he was finished with his coffee. For a man who’d never wanted a pet, Gramps had sure done a great job of spoiling the cat.

I left the golf cart at home and walked to the Duck Shoppes. A stiff wind had picked up, rattling the bushes and blowing trash along the road. I reminded myself to put in an order for the public works people to do some trash patrol. It was probably coming from people not putting the lids down tight on their trash cans.

The first thing I noticed as I walked into the parking lot was a TV news crew from Virginia Beach. A van was parked outside the coffee shop.

I saw Chris and Jamie talking to two people—one with a microphone and the other with a video camera. It seemed Duck was going to get some attention for the odd murder. The media usually wasn’t interested in us, but I knew the businesses that were still open would be happy to have them there.

I avoided the news crew and scuttled up the stairs to the boardwalk. The freezing wind was fierce coming off the sound. I was glad to slam the shop door on it. I put on the kettle and put away my jacket and bag. It seemed unlikely that there would be any customers on a day like this, but there was always something to do.

La Donna Nelson found me there an hour later cleaning a set of 1886 silver I’d acquired a few weeks before. She was a member of the town council and Chief Michaels’s sister. She and I had always gotten along, frequently agreeing on the issues we faced as a town.

“Just in time for tea.” I put out another cup as she came in shivering. It was my third cup of the morning but who was counting?

The wind was whipping at her ankle-length brown skirt, coat and scarf. Her long grayish brown hair was pulled back from her face with a wide, knitted headband.

“I shouldn’t have put this off for so long.” She closed the door with an extra push. “The weather was better last week, but I was so busy with other things. I’ll take that tea, Dae, thanks.”

We both sat down on the burgundy brocade sofa, our hands wrapped around the warm mugs. I complimented her on the knitted headband. It had a few beads woven into it. She told me her granddaughter, who was taking textile design in college, had made them for a marketing project.

La Donna was there to scrounge up whatever I could spare for the St. Vincent’s Church annual bazaar the following week. I told her I’d find some things for her and bring them over.

Talk, of course, led to Mad Dog and everything that had happened in the last few days.

“I still don’t believe it.” Her eyes were wide with disbelief. “Randal isn’t a killer. It was so long ago—how will they ever be sure what really happened?”

“I don’t know.” I told her what little I knew about his arrest, excluding what I was supposed to keep to myself, according to Chief Michaels. He was her brother. Maybe he’d told her the rest. “I don’t know if they
can
be sure. So far everything is circumstantial. Mad Dog and Joe argued. Mad Dog’s car disappeared. Joe was found dead in Mad Dog’s car. That’s not much.”

“They all like to close these old cases. I know Ronnie does. I’m sure your grandfather was the same. It’s like birthday and Christmas rolled into one.”

“It’s so weird after hearing all those old stories about Mad Dog’s racing career. It didn’t seem real to me, I guess, because it happened before I was born. Looking down in that hole and seeing the number twelve car was like seeing a mermaid or something.”

La Donna frowned. “You’re making me feel really old. Stop now.” She took a sip of tea and gazed across the store. “Lightning Joe Walsh has been a legend for the last forty years, and all this time he’s been down there under the sand, dead.”

We both shivered as the wind whistled by. It was a terrible thing to think he’d been down there with no one knowing.

“Did you ever meet him?” I sipped my tea, trying to get out of that weird, melancholy mood.

“That would be dating me, wouldn’t it?” She smiled. “But yes, I met him. He was dashing and romantic. He’d race onto the track after Mad Dog had beaten all the other drivers. We’d watch for him and clap when we saw him. He was Elvis and all those other faraway celebrities to us.”

“Did you know who he was? It sounded like no one knew his identity.”

“After the first time he came out on the track, we all knew him, and loved him. I was president of his fan club for a while.”

“Sounds to me like you were smitten,” Maggie said with no warning that we were changing places.

I put my hand over my mouth. What would La Donna think?

“Yes, I was. What an odd way to say it, Dae. I think dealing with all these antiques is affecting you.”

I sighed in relief. Another disaster avoided. What part of not making me blurt out her thoughts didn’t Maggie understand?

The tea was gone and La Donna said she had to go too.

“I guess we would’ve found him eventually.” She put on her coat and scarf. “What led you there, Dae? I know you have a gift for finding things. But what made you look there of all places?”

I was struggling with a suitable answer when the shop door burst open again. The two newspeople I’d seen at the coffee shop blew in with the cold breeze.

“We’re looking for Mayor Dae O’Donnell,” the first young man said. “Are either of you her?”

“Are either of you she,” La Donna corrected with a frown. “Grammar, gentlemen, is the stage on which we communicate our lives.”

“Are you . . . she then?” He rephrased his question.

“I’m sorry.” La Donna turned to me. “I hate to leave you like this, but I have to visit five more businesses before I can go home. I’ll see you later.”

The reporter’s feral eyes focused on me. “You must be the mayor.”

“Or not.” I smiled as I put our cups on the tiny counter beside the hot plate. It had to be an exasperating job trying to get reticent people to talk, but I played with them anyway. “That might have been her leaving.”

“You’re the mayor all right.” He urged his partner with the camera forward. “I’m David Engel from Channel Two News. I’m here to talk with you about the race car you found buried underground. What made you dig there for it, Mayor O’Donnell? We understand that’s the site of the new town hall building. How did you know the car would be there?”

The same question La Donna had asked. It was bound to come up. I could only avoid people for so long. Obviously I needed a good stock answer that was general enough to make everybody happy without going into the real reason.

The Channel Two News team wasn’t from Duck, so they didn’t know anything about my gift. I told them I had heard something of historical value to the town might be buried there.

“I wanted to check before the town hall was built. As you can see, I’m very involved with history. I’m a member of the Duck Historical Museum too.”

It was actually a good answer—boring enough to ensure outsiders wouldn’t come to dig up the area, interesting enough to make the camera pan over the whole shop. Maybe enough to bring in a few new customers.

David feigned interest in the shop too. “So you’re a collector and an antique dealer. That explains it.” He nodded to the cameraman who’d stopped filming. “That’s enough extra footage. I’d like to actually interview you, if that’s okay.”

I looked at the camera and the other young man who held it. I’d been on TV a few other times as mayor. It didn’t bother me. “That’s fine.”

“Okay, Tonto.” David laughed. “I’m the Lone Ranger.” He held up his microphone. “We’re ready.”

Once the camera was rolling again, David smiled and explained the basic story of what had happened. “This is Mayor Dae O’Donnell, who was out looking for historical artifacts for her antique shop, Missing Pieces. She actually found what was left of a murder victim buried in an old race car. Did you know the dead man, Mayor?”

“No. Whatever happened to him was forty years ago, before I was born.” I remembered not to look right at the camera, advice I’d been given years ago.

“Building has stopped on the new Duck town hall, Mayor O’Donnell. Still, you felt like it was important to get this car out of the ground. Why was that?”

It seemed obvious to me, but past experience had taught me that reporters many times asked questions with obvious answers. “Well, completing the new town hall couldn’t take priority over the fact that a man had been buried at that site. His family has been looking for him for four decades.”

“A Duck city council member is accused of murdering the man in the car, is that right?”

“Unfortunately, that’s correct.”

“And the accused, Councilman Randal ‘Mad Dog’ Wilson, is also your opponent in a close contest to be the next mayor of Duck. Is that also correct, Madam Mayor?”

I wasn’t sure where he was going, but I had a bad feeling about it. “That’s true but—”

“Finding the car opened the field for you in this election only a short time away. That didn’t have anything to do with you looking for the car, did it?”

There it was. You had to be careful or an interview could bite you in the butt. If this man who wasn’t even from Duck was thinking about me making the vote go in my favor, probably a lot of people in Duck were too.

“I don’t want to win the election this way. Councilman Wilson has always worked hard for Duck. He’s a good man.”

“Still, the guilty must be punished.” He looked at the camera. “There is no statute of limitations for murder, even in a small town that didn’t notice it had happened for a lifetime. Reporting from Duck, NC, this is David Engel, Channel Two News on scene.”

The interview was over and both men thanked me for my time. It was hollow praise since we all knew it had made me look bad.

Maggie’s words spilled out of my mouth. “You two handsome gentlemen should stay for a nice warm cup of tea. And maybe we can find some other things to talk about.”

David looked at his cameraman. “We have to be going now, Mayor. Thanks for the invitation.”

I saw them out of the shop and closed the door behind them. “You know, we talked about this,” I said to Maggie. “You can’t start talking like that. I have to live here.”

“You’re too uppity,” she chastised me. “It’s a wonder you have a man at all. I hate to leave you in these poor circumstances.”

“Yeah, well, quit trying to help.”

I ignored her, hoping I would find time very soon to be rid of her. My life was complicated enough without a flirty, four-hundred-year-old tavern wench trying to hook up with every man we saw.

It was hard to believe everyone thought Mad Dog being accused of murder gave me some kind of edge in the election. They knew nothing about small-town politics. When word got around that I’d found the car, many people who had been planning to vote for me wouldn’t, simply because they’d think it was an unfair advantage.

Part of me felt like I should bow out of the election. It was always going to feel uncomfortable. People would say I only won because Mad Dog was accused of murder. That felt difficult to bear for the next two years.

Mad Dog had used all his little tricks and some underhanded distractions to try to win the election, yet nothing he’d done had equaled this.

But there wasn’t anyone else. The council would have to appoint someone, a person not chosen by the people of Duck, and wait for another election. I didn’t like that idea either.

“Perhaps this is the very reason you should disprove this man’s guilt, if you are able,” Maggie reminded me.

I suppose I agreed. But what if Mad Dog was guilty of murder? What then?