Did I trust Bunk? Probably not, although he had a quality about him that made him believable. I had no doubt that Agnes was his daughter and that he hadn’t killed Max. I wasn’t so sure about Sam. Maybe Bunk hadn’t done the deed personally, but he might be responsible anyway.
It was only three thirty when we got back. The skies were still heavily overcast, which made it look and feel much later. I couldn’t wait to share all of my information with someone. Too bad my cell phone was still at home. I wouldn’t leave it behind again. Next time I didn’t want to talk to someone, I just wouldn’t answer the phone.
I felt like Professor Challenger coming back from the Lost World. I wasn’t sure where to start. The issue resolved itself when I spotted Tim Mabry as I reached Duck Road. I waved to him, and he did a sharp U-turn right in the middle of the road while flipping on his siren and lights.
That answered my question about whether or not anyone had missed me.
“Dae!” He jumped out of the police car and hugged me. “Are you hurt? Where have you been? We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Your grandfather was frantic. The chief couldn’t officially tell us to start searching for you because you haven’t been gone long enough, but we’ve all been searching anyway.”
“I’m fine. I feel kind of stupid that I left my cell phone at home, but otherwise, I’m okay. Where’s the chief now, Tim?”
“I think he’s at town hall talking to Nancy. Your grandfather and Brickman are probably there too. You know how everyone likes to make town hall their command center.”
“Great. Let’s go there.”
“Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you need to go to the hospital first?”
“I’m really okay, Tim. And I don’t want to tell this story more than once, at least not right now. Maybe you could radio ahead and tell them we’re on our way.” That seemed ridiculous given the short distance we had to go, but it made him happy.
After Tim sent word ahead, he kept trying to weasel the information out of me. “You know you can tell me anything, right? We were almost married before Brickman came into the picture. And don’t bother denying that the two of you are a couple now. I live here too. Everyone knows.”
“We were never almost married. We’ve been friends for a long time. I didn’t plan on denying that Kevin and I are together. You still have to wait.”
He was content with that—probably because it took only another two minutes to reach the Duck Shoppes and town hall. Any longer than that and he would probably have had another go at it. Considering his line of work, Tim liked to talk a little too much.
Gramps and Kevin were already in the parking lot waiting for me. Chief Michaels was on his way down the stairs from the boardwalk. Nancy was still upstairs, but she was waving and sniffling. There were going to be a lot of explanations necessary on too many different levels.
“Dae!” Gramps got to me first (Kevin hung back and let him take the lead). “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick. We all have. You’d better have a good explanation for this, young lady! Not only going off without telling anyone but leaving your cell phone at home. What were you thinking?”
He hugged me a little tighter than usual, and I hugged him back tearfully. I couldn’t help but notice all the interested eyes watching us. The parking lot wasn’t the best place for our reunion. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. But I have some really important information and some questions for you.”
“I hope some of that important information is worth my men’s time. They’ve all been out looking for you half the day, Mayor.” Chief Michaels glared at me as he reached the side of the police car where I was still half in and half out.
“I think you’ll find it is,” I told him. “I’m sorry you were worried about me.”
“I found her by the docks on Duck Road.” Tim cut in, adding his part of the story as though it had great significance. “I offered to take her to the hospital in case she needed female help.” He cleared his throat and nodded to convey his concerns.
The parking lot was starting to fill up around us and not with shoppers. “Can we take this inside?” I got all the way out of the car and closed the door. “Someone will call the TV station if we keep standing out here.”
Tim laughed. “Not that they’d come without another explosion and murder.”
The chief gave him a stern look of disapproval. “That’s disrespectful, Officer Mabry.”
“Sorry, Chief. I wasn’t thinking.” Tim hung his head.
“Doesn’t surprise me, boy.”
I shivered in the cold fog—Gramps, Tim and Kevin scrambled to offer me their jackets. While I was impressed at their chivalry, I took Gramps’s jacket with a smile at Kevin. He didn’t smile back. Yet another fence to mend.
We all walked upstairs together, me in the middle like some captured fugitive they were worried would disappear again. Nancy hugged me and offered me what I really needed—a cup of hot coffee. She came into my office, notebook in hand. There were already chairs set up to accommodate everyone.
I set the red box full of pirate gold on my big desk and sat down. No one had noticed or asked me about it. I decided not to mention it because it was part of another story for a later time.
With all my personal items around me, I felt better than I had since I left Duck that morning. This place, like Missing Pieces and my home, had become a safe haven for me. Yet another reason to run a good campaign against Mad Dog Wilson for my job as mayor.
Chief Michaels cleared his throat in an exaggerated manner. He approached me and leaned in close. “You don’t need any female help, do you, Mayor?”
I assumed this was his way of asking me if I’d been molested. I guessed he and Tim found it hard to say the word “rape.” “I’m fine, Chief,” I assured him. “Please sit down and let me tell you what happened.”
I took a deep breath and started from the beginning—the explosion at the museum. The chief needed to know the background to understand how I’d ended up where I was—and where I’d been—today. No one interrupted as I told my story, with an emphasis on Roger and the ring I’d seen on his finger.
I left out the part about my father. I felt that was between me and Gramps right now. It wasn’t really pertinent to everything else.
Chief Michaels was the first person to react. He got to his feet and stared out the window behind me at the Currituck Sound. “I knew some of that. The part about the FBI getting Bunk out of here. I didn’t know he’d come back. I sure didn’t know Agnes was his daughter.”
“But you can understand why Bunk gave the gold to Max for her. He wanted to save her life,” I explained.
He snorted as he turned around. “Yeah. If you can believe a word out of his mouth. He’s done everything wrong a person can do—smuggling, theft, fraud, illegal bootleg—I don’t know why we’d think he couldn’t murder someone.”
“He wants to talk to you. I think he knows what happened to Max. He might be protecting someone.”
“You mean like his missing son or something?” Tim added with a loud guffaw.
The chief glared at him. “Bunk’s coming here?”
“No,” I answered. “He wants you to come out there with me.”
“I don’t know.” Chief Michaels sat back down. “He probably has something up his sleeve besides the truth. I think he’s hoodwinked you, Mayor.”
“Then why did he let me leave? He could’ve dumped me out in the ocean and no one would have known until I washed up like Sam.”
“Well, there’s no way to go out there today. The sheriff needs to be in on this. Maybe the FBI too, for that matter. I need to talk with them, and we’ll see what turns up.”