Mayor Dae O’Do nnell,
I’m sorry to have to leave so abruptly without seeing you, but my nemesis got wind of our arrangement and decided it wouldn’t do. I fear I can’t tell you more without endangering your life. And that, my dear, won’t do either.
Until we meet again.
Yours faithfully,
Bunk Whitley
“Well it proves he was here.” I frowned and rolled up the paper again.
“The FBI probably already knew he was here,” Kevin said. “Just because they didn’t tell anyone else doesn’t mean they didn’t know.”
“Whoever this guy is, Bunk is really afraid of him.” With good reason, I thought, considering the dead security guards.
“You can only hire so many people to protect you. The fact that whoever did this got so close despite Bunk’s crew of trained professionals—it must’ve really scared him.”
“I suppose so.” Bunk was gone with all the answers. And he’d left us still trying to find the right questions. “Why would someone want to kill him?”
“Who knows?” Kevin shrugged. “A wily old devil like him probably has a hundred people waiting in line to do the job.”
“But this one he couldn’t strike out at.” I told Kevin that I hadn’t seen Roger among the dead. “I think Roger may be the one Bunk couldn’t kill because he cares about him.”
“And why would that be, Mayor O’Donnell?” Agent Walker asked, catching up with us.
“I don’t know exactly. I think whoever did this is related to Bunk. Family, you know?” I thought about what Bunk had said in the sunroom about Max not being the target. “Maybe Agnes was always the target, not Max or Sam. She was at the museum before it exploded too. Maybe Max and Sam got in the way, like Bunk said.”
“You mean the woman he told you was his daughter?”
“Yes. Max knew the truth and he was killed. Bunk said he was worried about Sam. Maybe Sam knew the secret Bunk was trying to hide, even though it was by accident. Someone tried to burn down Agnes’s house with her inside. Maybe it’s all about the gold and who gets it when Bunk dies.”
Walker seemed to think it over but then dismissed the idea. “I don’t buy it. Sorry. Organizations don’t work that way. The spoils go to whoever takes over.”
“I don’t know if you could classify Bunk Whitley as an organization,” I said.
Walker nodded at the cane Kevin still held. “Did that belong to him? We’ll have to take it in as evidence.”
I didn’t volunteer the note. I wasn’t sure it would really make any difference to Walker or the case. But it meant something to me.
Walker told us we’d have to leave the island. They were locking it down for a special SBI forensics team that was coming in to go over everything more thoroughly. I was ready to go anyway. I guessed I’d found what I came for in part, if not everything. Bunk’s quick departure (probably by helicopter—Kevin pointed out the tracks in the sand) left me wanting to know more but with no one to ask.
Since Walker and his men stayed on the island, that left me, Gramps and Kevin going back on the Eleanore together. Kevin conveniently left me and Gramps alone at the helm, probably thinking we should talk about our problem. I decided I was ready if Gramps was.
“It was a long time ago, Dae. I guess I never expected it to come up. Or at least I hoped it wouldn’t. I can’t even figure out how Bunk knew about it. We kept it a secret between us, your mom, your grandmother and me.”
“I think Bunk makes it his business to find out useful secrets. Maybe he thought he could use it against you. You were the Dare County sheriff at the time.”
“Maybe. He probably got it from your father. He’s that kind of man.”
“What kind?”
“The troublemaking kind. He’s been in and out of jail his whole life. I begged your mother to stop seeing him, but she kept sneaking out. Then it was too late. She found out she was pregnant. She couldn’t wait to tell him. She really thought he’d want to settle down with her and the baby.”
“But he didn’t?”
He laughed in a terrible, sad way. “No. He took off for parts unknown. He told your mother to call him when she took care of the problem. She was so far gone over that boy that she almost did it too. Your grandmother found her at an abortion clinic in Elizabeth City and dragged her home by the ear.”
The thump-thump-thump of the engine kept time with my heart. I’d asked for the truth not knowing how awful it might be. My father didn’t want me, and my mother almost got rid of me. My eyes stung with tears that I forced myself to hold back so Gramps would continue the story.
“Then she decided she wanted me?” I asked hopefully.
He glanced up as though to say he was sorry, but there was more. “I’m afraid not, honey. She left to go and find him, to make him change his mind. She was gone when your grandmother suffered a heart attack and passed on. Eleanore died of a broken heart—I don’t care what the doctors said.”
How had they kept all of this from me? I remembered my mother talking about my grandmother so many times yet she never mentioned it. “That’s terrible.”
“Your grandmother was in the ground before your mother came back with you. She’d thought seeing you would change your father. It didn’t. He threw both of you out on the street. Your mother had to beg for bus fare to get back home. When she got back, the two of you were starving—thin as rails and sickly too. You cried all the time. I hated to tell her that her mother was dead, but I had no choice. For a while, I thought it might kill her too. I was scared to death of trying to raise a little girl on my own.”
“Gramps—”
“Never mind, Dae. You didn’t know. But that’s why we never spoke of it. Your mother got better a little at a time, and we went on raising you the best we could. But that’s it in a clamshell. I asked your mother many times when she was going to tell you about your daddy. She always said she was waiting for the right time. Guess it never came.”
Apparently, all the women in my family died abruptly leaving guilt-ridden children behind. Why hadn’t my mother told me? I wasn’t a kid anymore when she’d died. Was she that afraid my father would corrupt me too? Or was it too embarrassing to admit what she’d done?
I scrubbed my eyes with my hands. “I’m sorry, Gramps. You were right. It wasn’t your story to tell. I wish Mom would’ve told me.”
“Me too, honey.” He moved his hand over his face, then looked up to stare out over the Atlantic. “Maybe I should’ve told you sooner. I don’t know. I hate that you had to find out this way. I just didn’t know how to say all that without hurting you. I guess Bunk helped us out with that, huh?”
Things were quiet for a few days after we got back from the island. I organized and reorganized Missing Pieces. I had a few customers too.
I hated to do it, but I sold my African hand mirror to a woman who admired it. Much as I loved it, I knew I would never use it again. Looking at it was a constant reminder of the terrible sorrow I’d felt from it. I couldn’t bring myself to destroy it, and I figured the woman who bought it would never know the mirror’s past. The shop seemed emptier without it, but I knew it was for the best.
After so much excitement, I felt a little disappointed, even bored, getting back to my normal life. There were no late-night visits from Chief Michaels, no puzzles to solve. I even missed the unhappy frowns from Agent Walker. I could only imagine all of them being very busy dissecting the information they’d found on the island.