A Touch of Gold

by Joyce Lavene; Jim Lavene

  “I’m not really hungry.”

  He stopped pandering and sighed. “You drive a hard bargain, Ms. O’Donnell. You’re just like your grandmother. Eleanore was a force to be reckoned with. I mourned her passing. She was so young. Is your mother like her?”

  “My mother died a long time ago. I guess the women in my family don’t live long.”

  “What a pity!” He shook his grizzled head. “As to those discrepancies, I’m not responsible for Max Caudle’s death. I can’t even imagine someone firing a cannon in this day and age. What an odd way to kill someone.”

  “And Sam Meacham?”

  “I’m afraid I had something to do with that, but not what you’re thinking. It happened with the best of intentions. I sent Roger to offer Sam someplace to hide until Max’s killer was found. He knew Roger since he’d been on the island with Max. Unfortunately, he took it the wrong way and jumped off the boat I’d sent for him. He had this odd notion that I wanted to kill him.”

  He took a sip of the red wine in his glass. “My men tried to bring him back, but he swam away and they lost him. I heard his body washed up. Terrible thing. I truly meant him no harm.”

  “Mr. Whitley, doesn’t it strike you as odd that your men meant no harm, but they kidnapped me? And they accidentally lost Sam at sea? I think there may be more going on than you think. Maybe you didn’t fire that cannon, but maybe one of your men did.”

  “I don’t believe that’s true. But I’ll tell you what I know and we’ll see what comes of it—if you’ll have lunch with me and share Duck news. There’s a price to be paid for everything. This one isn’t too steep, I think.”

  I agreed to lunch. What choice did I have? Maybe something he said would make sense and I’d be able to take it back to Chief Michaels. I grabbed a peach and cut a slice off with my knife. “All right. I’d like to meet the man who lost Sam at sea.”

  “Of course.” He nodded at the waiter. “Roger has worked for me for years. He’d never kill anyone—unless it was an absolute necessity. And then never without my permission.”

  Roger was summoned to our table, where he repeated the story—almost word for word—that Bunk had told me about Sam’s death being an accident. Both men looked at me, and Bunk asked me if I had any other questions. Only a fool wouldn’t know when they were caught between a cutlass and a dagger. I wasn’t going to get anything useful from them.

  “A lot of bad things happen around you, Mr. Whitley. Like Wild Johnny’s death.”

  “Please call me Bunk.” He stared off for a few seconds and smiled. “Wild Johnny Simpson. I haven’t thought of him in a very long time. I left him at the Blue Whale that night, completely alive, I assure you. He was going to take care of the property for me since the FBI had convinced me to leave town.”

  “The FBI?”

  “No. Not another question until I ask one of mine—what is Kevin Brickman like? I know a little about him. I would, of course, since I sold him the Blue Whale. But that was through my agent. Does he seem like the type to run an inn? I can’t imagine an ex-FBI agent cooking and cleaning.”

  I told him about Kevin and all the work he’d done on the Blue Whale. “He’s even taking in all the historical items for the new museum. I think he makes a good innkeeper. You should try his lasagna sometime.”

  “That’s right. The little museum blew up. Remind me before you leave to give you a handful of coins for the collection. I never got rid of the rest of the gold I found when I was young. There’s not much market for pirate gold, you know.”

  “So the FBI asked you to leave Duck,” I said, reminding him where we were.

  “Yes. They offered me a new name and a place to live for information I gave them about a gang of smugglers working in the area. I was small potatoes compared to them. I took them up on it for a while, but I could never live under the radar that way. I traveled to Europe and around the world a few times. I finally came back here. I want to die close to home, you see. I knew I couldn’t actually live in Duck again—no one would leave me in peace. Being here is very much like being at home.”

  “And you gave Max more recent gold for his wife’s surgery a few years back.”

  “It’s my turn.” He smiled at me like a kid waiting for ice cream. “How’s Millie doing? I hated when I heard Lizzie was killed. Is Millie still the ‘it’ girl she always was? That woman knew how to get under my skin.”

  “I’m not sure about the ‘it’ part, but she’s doing fine. I thought you were in love with Miss Elizabeth, not Miss Mildred.”

  He laughed and I could see something of the ladies’ man he had been all his life. “I loved them both. Never could choose between them.”

  “And the gold for Agnes’s surgery?”

  “You have it all wrong, Mayor. I gave Max gold for my daughter’s open-heart surgery. Max was a good man. He took good care of Agnes—better than I did. I wouldn’t have harmed a hair on his head.”

  Now that was a story I’d never heard before. “Agnes Caudle is your daughter?”

  Pablo served the cheese quiche and fragrant, homemade bread with little flower-shaped pats of butter. Bunk thanked him, then smiled as he buttered some bread and handed it to me. “Wait until you try this. You won’t believe how good it is.”

  I waited impatiently for his answer to my question. The quiche set before me smelled almost as good as the bread.

  “Agnes is my biological daughter. She doesn’t know it. When I heard she and Max were having trouble finding the money for her surgery, I brought him out here and gave him the gold. I wasn’t there for her when she was growing up. Not entirely my fault, but I wanted to do this thing for her.”

  “How can she not know you’re her father?” I knew Floyd Reynolds, Agnes’s father. Did he know Agnes wasn’t his daughter?

  “Agnes’s mother was Adelaide. Beautiful Adelaide. She was my soul mate. She and I were very much in love, but she was married. Back then divorce was a big deal, and Adelaide cared for Floyd and wouldn’t hurt him by leaving. She was a wonderfully kind woman. Could never even stand to kill a spider. She never told her husband that Agnes was my daughter. I trusted Max with that secret. He was the only one besides Adelaide and me who knew.”

  “If Adelaide was married to Floyd, how did she know you were Agnes’s father?”

  “There was a genetic marker. Nothing big. We could’ve done a paternity test, but it didn’t matter. We knew Agnes was my little girl. But Adelaide didn’t trust me to be the kind of father she knew Floyd would be.”

  “And then Adelaide killed herself because of you.”

  He sat up straighter in his wheelchair, shock and disbelief in his lined face. “What are you saying? Adelaide drowned. It was an accident. She didn’t kill herself.”

  “I’m sorry.” I played with my linen napkin. I hadn’t realized it was a secret. “I guess you didn’t know. She took her own life.”

  “How do you know?” His voice was gruff and demanding, the southern gentleman falling away and revealing the darker side of him. “I’ve seen the sheriff’s report. Adelaide had a little too much wine. There was no mention of suicide.”

  I realized I’d said too much. I wasn’t willing to talk to him about my abilities. All this terrific reminiscing about the past and the lives of people I’d only heard about had caused me to let down my guard. Talking about what had happened was one thing—admitting how I knew about Adelaide was another. How did I know what he’d do with that knowledge?

  “Wait!” He laughed. “Of course! You’re Eleanore’s granddaughter. You inherited her gift, didn’t you? You can see things the rest of us can’t. But what brought you to this discovery? If I recall correctly, Eleanore had to be in direct physical contact with a person to learn things about them.”

  That was the first time I’d ever heard it put that way. Had my grandmother been able to do more with her gift than simply help people locate their lost items? I realized this wasn’t the best time or person to ask.

  There re
ally were no secrets in Duck, or apparently outside of Duck, if you’d ever lived there. I gave him a brief idea of how it happened that I tried on one of Adelaide’s old dresses. “She wasn’t out for a swim, drunk or not. She walked out into the ocean, not planning on coming out again. You know that’s what the medical examiner is going to rule about Sam’s death. Everyone thinks that he killed Max and then took his own life out of guilt. We have to let his family know that it isn’t true.”

  “Yes. That’s terribly wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth. I believe Sam was trying to save his life.”

  “You have to tell Chief Michaels or the sheriff what happened.”

  He seemed suddenly out of it, still trapped in the past thinking about Adelaide. “Things never work out exactly the way you plan, Mayor. I wish I could take so much back and change so many things that happened. I can’t, you know.”

  “Maybe not—but you can make this thing right, Bunk. What about Max? You said you keep an eye on things. You knew Agnes needed surgery. Why was Max killed and the museum blown up? Who set the fire that almost killed your daughter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you have some theories since you thought Sam was next. What made you think that?”

  He stared off through the big windows that made a panoramic portrait of his little kingdom. “I do have an idea about why this happened.”

  “And?”

  His gaze came suddenly back to mine with great clarity. “Sam came out here to talk to me once. He came with Max. It was a mistake. There were some things going on at the time. Suffice it to say, it was a matter of being in the wrong place at a very bad time.”

  “Are you saying someone wanted to murder Sam and Max to get back at you?”

  “Not exactly. His target was never Sam or Max. They were collateral damage.”

  “I don’t understand. Can you make that plainer?” My mind was buzzing with all kinds of possibilities.

  Bunk moved back from the table with a touch of the controls on his wheelchair. “I’m saying I think that it’s time you should go back home. It was very pleasant talking with you, Mayor—may I call you Dae? But for the grace of Horace getting there first, this could be a very different conversation. I held your grandmother in very high regard.”

  That threw me off balance. I realized that it was meant to. I was being dismissed as rapidly as I’d been brought here. I hadn’t even finished my quiche. “Now what?” I tried to stay focused despite the eww factor in thinking of Bunk being my grandfather. Although I would have had a very nice bathroom.

  “Now I think I need to speak with Chief Michaels. Do you think you could get him to come back out here with you?”

  I nodded, completely amazed in his turnaround. “Definitely.” I wondered, though, if it would be the sheriff who would need to handle all of this. No matter what, Chief Michaels would be a good start.

  Then that was it. Game over. I was whisked out of the mansion with Nash and Roger faster than an eel can slip out of a net. Bunk was as good as his word, however, and met me at the dock with a red box full of old gold coins like the ones that had been in the museum.

  “It seems a lifetime ago that I found these on the beach. I built the Blue Whale with them.”

  I looked at the gold, then at him. “You know, Max always said he found these.”

  He shrugged. “It never mattered.”

  “Thanks for telling me about all those other things. I feel like I know more about Duck history than I did when I got here.”

  “You had a right to know. Thank you for sharing that information about your remarkable abilities. Use them wisely.” He nodded then added, “How’s your father, by the way? Is he still working his boat or has he moved on?”

  If learning that Agnes was Bunk’s daughter jolted me, a question about my father was like a lightning strike. “My father died before I was born.”

  Bunk grinned. “Did he? It seems we have other history to talk about when you come back, Dae. There are some other things you need to know.”

  Chapter 18

  “My father is alive?” I yelled at him as his wheelchair began to glide away. The boat I stood on was slipping back from the dock. “Who is he?”

  “All in good time,” he shouted as he waved. “I enjoyed our lunch too much not to give you another reason to come back. Bring Horace with you too!”

  My father? He was more a mythological figure than old Bunk Whitley. My mother had always told me that he died before I was born. Theirs was a brief, passionate meeting that had taken place out of the blue—resulting in me. My father died before he even knew I’d been conceived in their one night together. It was a scandal at the time as my mother’s pregnancy began to show and there was no father. Because they were never married, I carried my mother’s name.

  My family weathered the scandal. My mother was very quiet about my father, never mentioning him unless I asked. I didn’t do so very often because I could see the pain it caused her. I never needed him. I had my mother and my grandfather. We were always enough.

  But now, realizing I could have a secret of my own as large as Bunk Whitley being Agnes’s father, I urged the Golden Day faster toward Duck. Only Gramps would know the answer to my questions. I couldn’t imagine any reason for wily old Bunk to lie. He wouldn’t gain anything by saying my father was alive.

  My brain was lit up like a Christmas tree. It was stuffed so full of information, I felt ready to explode. I looked at Roger, who stood at the helm, and wondered what really happened to Sam. Bunk seemed to believe what Roger had told us. But I saw the green-blue ring on his finger and felt again the fear Sam had left on the Segway. I knew I’d have to tell Chief Michaels about everything—not just my meeting with Bunk. There were a lot of questions to be answered.

  I thought about Bunk’s insinuation that knowing he was alive had killed Sam and Max, but not by his hand. He didn’t ask me to keep it quiet that he was out here on the island. Maybe it wouldn’t matter anymore after he talked to the chief.

  One of Duck’s greatest mysteries—what became of old Bunk Whitley—was about to be solved. But it appeared that Bunk was bringing a whole new set of mysteries with him.

  Roger and Nash dropped me off at the Duck docks with the coordinates to find Bunk’s island for the return trip. There was no pleasant chitchat between us while I was on the boat or as they left me. Just as well since I didn’t trust either of them.

  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.