“I know,” I said as the first fat raindrop hit the windshield.
The Duck Museum of History was a plain little building that had been donated to the Duck Historical Society a few years back. It was actually an old store that had once sold gas, chips, Pepsis and sunglasses. Max Caudle was the museum director. He’d held that position since I was in school, probably because no one else wanted it.
Outside the blue, three-room building, a large statue of a duck stood beside a statue of a horse. The display also included two rusted cannons legend said had washed up on Duck’s shore back in the 1700s. Several cannonballs were stuck in concrete around them.
Inside, the old museum was cool and musty smelling. The light was too dim to really see everything the historical society had managed to piece together down through the years. I was proud of this little place anyway. It represented the heritage of everyone who had been born here. From pirates to wild horses, all of it was part of our past.
“Mayor O’Donnell!” Max greeted us at the door. “It’s so good to see you.”
Max was a short, stout man with curly brown hair and ruddy skin. He always looked as though he’d been out in the sun too long, despite the bookish quality the glasses perched on the end of his nose gave him. His face matched his always-present red suspenders. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him wear anything except sandals on his feet.
“Please, Max, call me Dae. Otherwise I have to start calling you Mr. Caudle again like when I was in school.” I smiled at him, then turned to Kevin. “This is Kevin Brickman. He’s new to Duck.”
“That’s right.” Max stepped up to shake Kevin’s hand. “The man who bought the old Blue Whale. Nice to meet you. If you find anything old you don’t want over there, be sure to send it my way.”
Kevin smiled. “I’m looking for Bunk Whitley right now. I was hoping you could help me.”
“Haven’t run across him yet, eh?” Max laughed at his own joke. “I have the old Gazette microfiche in back if you’d like to look through that. It’s kind of funny. We have a lock of Blackbeard’s hair and the masthead from a clipper that went down off the coast in 1809. But I haven’t seen hide nor hair of old Bunk. There’s a lot he could answer for if someone found him.”
Max took us in the back to what had probably been a storeroom at one time. There was a very small table with the microfiche machine on it. Yellowed copies of the Gazette decorated the walls. “Let me get you another chair,” he offered. “We don’t usually have so many people in here at one time!”
Kevin sat down at the machine, and I took the side chair. Max went to find cold tea and maybe a leftover cookie or two. His wife, Agnes, ran the Beach Bakery and was always generous with samples.
I sat there and watched as the old pages flipped by on the screen. They were hard to read in some places. I squinted to recognize an old photo of Gramps taken after he’d caught a thief who’d held up stores in several Outer Banks towns.
“Pay dirt,” Kevin said after about twenty minutes. “Look at this. I think we found old Bunk.”
It was Bunk Whitley. At least the caption under the picture said so. I wouldn’t have recognized him from some of the other pictures I’d seen of him. In this photo, he looked to be in his late twenties. Two beautiful young women in bathing suits were standing on either side of him. I squinted at the writing and read out loud, “Bunk Whitley, owner of the Blue Whale Inn, had a difficult choice to make for the crown of Miss Duck. Pictured with him are Miss Elizabeth Butler (left) and Miss Mildred Butler, both of Duck. Miss Elizabeth Butler won the crown of Miss Duck.”
Chapter 16
“So Bunk Whitley was the mysterious pageant judge that fateful day in Duck.” I told Kevin the old story that had cost such long-lasting pain between the two sisters.
“Well it sounds like Miss Mildred had something to complain about. Between that and Wild Johnny Simpson, it’s surprising the sisters spoke at all.” He read the rest of the Gazette page on the microfiche. “That’s all that’s here about him.”
Kevin kept moving forward with an eye for articles about Bunk. The newspaper was liberally sprinkled with them. Bunk was a member of every group in town. He attended all of the charity and society events in Duck and was apparently known for being a hearty diner. He seemed to be at the openings of every restaurant in the area.
“I think I wouldn’t have had a chance if he’d been here to run for mayor.”
Kevin agreed. “He was definitely the Duck man about town. Maybe that’s why the Blue Whale is in such bad repair now. He never stayed home to keep up with maintenance.”
“How are things coming along?” Max came back into the little room and looked around. “You know, it’s a small place, and I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation about Bunk. He was a larger-than-life type of personality. He dominated the town for a few years. Never married. No one to inherit the old inn, which is why it sat around empty for so long. People said he never got over losing Miss Elizabeth to Wild Johnny Simpson.”
“Sounds like that could be a motive for murder.” Kevin smiled at me.
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” Max told us. “I’ve heard when Johnny came back to beg his bride’s forgiveness, it was like the Fourth of July around here. Fireworks! Bunk was courting Miss Elizabeth at the time, and suddenly, Johnny shows up. Bunk didn’t like it.”
“How long ago was that, Max?” I asked him.
“About the same time Bunk went missing. No one ever knew what happened to him. There was a massive manhunt. Dae, your grandfather would know more about it. I don’t know if anyone ever saw Johnny again after that either. Miss Elizabeth was still a handsome woman, even in her sixties. You can probably find some pictures there. The Gazette loved the drama.”
Kevin finally found that timeframe, back in the late 1970s. Max was right. There were plenty of pictures of Miss Elizabeth with Bunk. “I don’t see any pictures of Johnny here.”
“Wild Johnny didn’t like the limelight like Bunk. Some people said he stayed to himself because of things he’d done after he left Duck. I think the Gazette photographer liked Bunk better.”
I sat down and stared at the old newspapers on the walls. It was hard enough to think through what could’ve happened to Miss Elizabeth. A thirty-year-old murder was too much of a strain. “You said you knew Bunk, Max. Do you think he could’ve killed Johnny and then left town to keep anyone from finding out?”
Max shrugged, dislodging the red suspenders on his shoulders. “It doesn’t seem like him. There would’ve been so much drama in a good murder trial. I think he’d have preferred it. But who knows how a man will react until he’s faced with those circumstances? One thing’s for sure—if Bunk ran away because he killed Wild Johnny, he wasted his time. He could’ve lived with Miss Elizabeth for the last thirty years. Maybe if he had, she’d still be alive.”
The sad tale of Bunk, Miss Elizabeth and Wild Johnny left me feeling blue as we said good-bye to Max and headed toward Elizabeth City in the rain. A heavy fog had moved in over the sound, obscuring the bridge linking the Outer Banks and the mainland. The only way to know the truck was still traveling on the bridge was the sure sound of the tires on the concrete.
Elizabeth City was a long drive from Duck but not as long as the drive to Greenville, where Luke said Miss Mildred would be transferred eventually. The rain and fog weren’t as dismal as my thoughts on that matter. I’d begun to feel helpless against the weight of the world crushing down on Miss Mildred.