A Touch of Gold (31 page)

My back, arms and legs were killing me, but I’d been careful and wore gloves so as not to have any incidents with these objects. There were a few things I knew I was glad not to touch—a noose left over from the last man hanged in Duck, a blunderbuss and some knives that were of questionable origin. I didn’t think those were only rust stains I saw on them.

“Nice to have your lobby back?” I asked Kevin after everything had been moved.

“Sure, but business is slow right now anyway. It was a good time to do it even if the circumstances weren’t anything anyone wanted.”

“What will happen now about Max and Sam?” I asked him, sitting down on the old high-backed circle chair in the center of the lobby.

He shrugged. “I guess it will depend on what they find on the island. Maybe Bunk Whitley killed Sam and Max. Case closed.”

“Old Bunk Whitley kill someone?” Mrs. Pearl Dabbs, one of the town’s wealthiest and oldest citizens, not to mention a charter member of the historical society, caught the last of our conversation. “I’m sure he never killed anyone in his life. He was a lover, not a killer.”

Chapter 21

K
evin and I exchanged looks. Neither one of us wanted to get into that discussion, but it seemed as though we had no choice.

“I let Bunk escort me a few places after my husband died,” Mrs. Dabbs explained. “He was always courteous, polite and the perfect gentleman. Of course, that was after his wife’s tragic death in Europe that summer. I can’t remember what killed her, but I know it was something terrible like an avalanche or something.”

“Bunk was married?” I asked as she sat beside me. She was tall and thin, always wore carefully creased slacks. She reminded me of Katharine Hepburn.

“Yes, he was. They had a child together. His wife wasn’t from Duck, you see. He brought her home, from Paris I think, but I’m not sure about that. She did have some kind of accent. She was very beautiful, as you can imagine. I can’t think that Bunk would court anyone who wasn’t. He always had to have the best of the best.”

“How long ago was that, Mrs. Dabbs?” Kevin joined in. It was like trying to look away from a bad car wreck. Discussing Bunk Whitley might not get us anywhere, but he was fascinating.

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “Probably in the late sixties or early seventies. You know, Bunk would be so happy you finally reopened this old place, Kevin. If he were alive, he’d probably come here every night with a different woman on his arm. I can tell you I’d be proud to be one of them.”

“Thanks.”

“Did Bunk have a son or a daughter?” I had to ask.

She frowned as she tried to recall the answer. “A son, I think. But I’m not sure. The child was sickly, you see, and he didn’t stay here long. Bunk sent him to a boarding school after his wife passed. Or at least that’s what I heard. Of course, if it involved Bunk, there were always plenty of rumors.”

I followed Kevin to the huge kitchen as a few other members of the Duck Historical Society came to claim Mrs. Dabbs’s attention. “So Bunk has a son we didn’t know about and a daughter we know about.”

“A daughter that doesn’t know she’s his daughter.”

“Well now if we find Bunk’s son, we could use his DNA to check Agnes’s DNA and we’d know for sure if she was related to Bunk.”

“Which doesn’t really make any difference.” He changed his dirty apron for a clean white one. “Although it might advance your theory about Bunk protecting the person who killed Max and the possibility that the murderer was really trying to get to Agnes because he doesn’t want to share his father’s money.”

I sat on a tall stool at the stainless steel countertop as Kevin began chopping some scallions and dicing some eggplant. He had another dinner booked for tomorrow night—a party of thirty people coming in from the mainland. “I don’t know. Agent Walker said whatever money Bunk has wouldn’t just pass to his heirs. Even if he has a son, that blows my theory.”

“Agent Walker could be wrong,” he said as he chopped. “Or this whole thing is about the gold. I told you people do crazy things for gold. Maybe all of Bunk’s assets are in gold of one form or another.”

“It wouldn’t travel well.”

“True. Which advances
my
theory that Bunk will be back. The gold has to be on the island somewhere.”

“Except for whatever amount he gave Agnes. Not that we know how much that was.”

“She must’ve hidden it somewhere if it’s a substantial amount. I helped her move in here and I didn’t see anything like that.”

I tapped my fingernails on the metal surface, and he immediately handed me a cutting board and a knife. “Sorry.” I smiled. “What’s this?”

“Portobello mushrooms. Chop.”

“Which would mean Bunk could be running from his own son who killed the security guards at the island. I’m sure now that it’s Roger. He probably killed Max too. He might be the one who torched Agnes’s house. Maybe he was looking for the gold as well as trying to get her out of the way.”

“It’s possible. He might’ve used the promise of the gold to hire some people to do the job. Unless Bunk’s son is a mercenary, it’s unlikely he could go in and take out that many trained guards.”

“Maybe he
is
a mercenary. He was working as Bunk’s trained thug. Who knows where he learned how to do that.”

He put the eggplant in a bowl and added some marinade as he changed the subject. “Have you tried to contact your father yet?”

“No. Not exactly.” I chopped the mushrooms a little harder. “I looked him up in the phone book. No such listing.”

“Step two?”

“I don’t know yet. I’m not in any hurry to find him. He certainly hasn’t wanted to see me.”

Kevin didn’t dispute that idea. “I could probably find him for you, if you want. If he has a record, he’s in a computer file somewhere.”

“I know. I thought about asking you. I’d be uncomfortable asking Gramps to look him up. I’m not sure yet. But I appreciate the offer.”

“Okay. Done with those mushrooms?”

When Kevin was finished in the kitchen, we sat in the bar area for a long time drinking a good red muscadine wine. He told me about a few of his FBI cases, and I told him stories about Duck’s history. Maybe not exactly a fair trade, but he seemed to enjoy the stories. I thought he probably played down some of his FBI stories and accused him of hiding the good parts. He laughed and said people had romanticized ideas about FBI and CIA agents.

It was dark and cold, but the rain had stopped by the time I was ready to go home. I was glad I’d accepted his offer of a ride anyway. The wind was still blowing fiercely across the island. Not a fit night for anyone to be out.

“I hope you don’t mind that I need to stop at the ABC store for brandy. I thought I got some with my shipment this week, but I guess they forgot it.” He opened the doors on the truck, then got behind the steering wheel. “It’s hard to make peaches with brandy sauce without the brandy.”

“Sure. I think I can wait that long to get home.”

“I’m glad you and Horace have made up. I know it was hard.”

“A little. What’s harder is imagining him not saying anything about my father all these years. He can hardly stand not telling me what he got me for Christmas. I guess you never know.”

“He was motivated.” He pulled the truck around the circle drive and into the street. “People can be surprising when they have something to hide.”

“How can you know so much bad stuff about people in general and still want to hang around them?” It seemed to me like it would be easier to go out on an island like Bunk’s and never see anyone again. “When you’ve seen people at their worst, like you and Gramps have, what makes you able to see the good in them?”

“We probably don’t really see any good. We just aren’t surprised by the bad anymore.”

“Really? So all you see when you look at me is the bad things I’ve done and that I’m about to do.”

He laughed. “Not exactly. I think most people in law enforcement are realists—they know people can be liars, thieves and killers. They don’t care anymore. It happens and you deal with it.”

“I guess that’s why I’d never be involved in law enforcement. I don’t think that attitude would suit me.”

We went to the ABC store in Duck at Wee Winks Square, but they were sold out of the kind of brandy Kevin was looking for. We got back in the truck to drive down to Kitty Hawk in search of brandy for peaches.

The road was empty. People were probably inside their warm houses watching something on TV instead of braving the dark night. I probably would’ve been home in my pajamas, wrapped in a blanket, watching some romantic movie. But it was more fun being with Kevin. The truck was warm, and all I had to do was get in and out. The evening would be over soon enough.

On our way out of Duck, we drove down the street where Max and Agnes’s house had been. An old streetlight still stood at the bottom of the driveway. It served only to point out that the house was gone, eerily illuminating the burned-out remains.

But there was also a light coming from the rubble.

“Did you see that?” I asked Kevin as we passed it.

“What?”

“A light of some kind at Max and Agnes’s house. It looked like it was moving around the pile of debris left from the fire.”

He glanced at his rearview mirror. “Could be junk collectors.”

“Or someone else who knows Agnes has gold hidden in the house. Like you said, she didn’t bring it to the Blue Whale with her. Where else would it be?”

He slowed down and made a U-turn to go back to the house. “Maybe you should call 911.”

“Why bother them when we could scare them off?”

“You mean we could catch whoever killed Max and burned the house because they came back for the gold, right?”

“No! I’m not thinking about that at all,” I said adamently, although what he said was true.

“That’s what I was talking about.” He parked on the side of the road. “Everyone lies.”

“Like you don’t care anything about finding out who killed Max.”

“I’m curious,” he agreed. “But I left my gun at home, and my karate is a little rusty.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.” I laughed. “If a big smile and running fast will make a difference.”

There was a car pulled behind the big pile of wood, bricks and furniture. “That’s Agnes’s car,” Kevin said. “I guess she changed her mind about wanting the gold.”

“Or she’s here for some other reason. It’s her place. Maybe she’s trying to find something she can salvage.”

“Yeah. In the middle of the night. I told you, gold makes people crazy.”

We didn’t exactly sneak up, but Agnes shrieked when she saw us, and Celia and Vicky both took threatening stances with their shovels.

“Oh! It’s only you.” Agnes put her hand to her heart. Both girls lowered their shovels. “What are you doing out here?”

“We could ask you the same thing,” I said. “We saw the lights and thought someone was trying to steal what was left.”

“That’s not the case,” Celia said sharply. “So you can leave now.”

“You might need some help if you’re trying to get the rest of the gold out of there.” Kevin didn’t bother mincing his words.

“Gold?” All three women started laughing in a terrible fake way. “We’re not looking for gold. What gives you that idea?”

“Look,” I told them, “Agnes already told me there was gold left in the house the day it burned down. She said I could have all of it because she didn’t want it anymore. I think she said it was cursed.”

Both daughters turned on their mother. “What were you talking about, Mom? Why did you say that to Dae? You know there’s no gold out here.”

Vicky laughed again. “She was talking out of her head. We’re looking for family heirlooms that may have survived the fire. We were embarrassed to do it during the day when everyone could see us.”

While the other two women agreed with her and started that awful laughing again, Kevin cut them off by saying, “Did you keep it in a fireproof safe? Was it upstairs or in the basement? You can make this go a lot faster if you’ll be honest about it.”

Vicky, Agnes and Celia blinked their eyes like three owls caught in the woods.

“Really, I don’t want the gold,” I added to convince them. “Let’s just get it out of here. I’m freezing.”

Finally convinced that we didn’t want to steal the gold, Agnes told us the safe had been upstairs in the bedroom. She showed Kevin about where the bedroom had been before the fire. He walked around with a flashlight while we watched him.

“Mom really didn’t want the gold anymore, if it makes you feel any better,” Celia whispered. “She really thought it killed Dad and caused the house to catch on fire.”

“Has anyone said what caused the fire yet?” I asked her.

Agnes answered, “That nice arson investigator from Manteo told me someone dumped kerosene in the bottom of the house. He said they’d be investigating. That’s the last I heard. That’s why I decided to get the gold out.”