A Touch of Gold

by Joyce Lavene; Jim Lavene

  “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

  Kevin 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 woul
d 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.”

  “It’s not like anyone would blame you for wanting to keep the gold,” I told her. “It’s legally yours. You should keep it.”

  “That’s the problem,” Agnes admitted. “That’s why we’re out here at night. I’m not exactly sure it is legal, Dae. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”

  “You’ve had it for years, Mom,” Celia said. “I’m sure there’s some statute about possession of something even if it’s illegal.”

  “Nope.” Kevin returned and added, “If you got this gold illegally, even if you’ve had it a few years, it’s still illegal. But I think I found the safe. Bring those shovels over here.”

  They gave up all pretense at not eagerly anticipating finding the gold. We hurried with the shovels and flashlights to the area Kevin said we’d find the safe.

  I began to realize as we stood around talking that Celia and Vicky hadn’t known there was any gold until Agnes mentioned it after the fire. She and Max had kept it a secret from them. Now the two girls wanted their share.

  I wondered, as Kevin had said, about the gold and if it was illegal. Had Bunk obtained it through illegal means or through investing over the years? I didn’t know much about investing, having never been able to invest much. But I knew a little something about the laws of salvage, courtesy of my Banker heritage.

  If Bunk had originally started his fortune by finding the pirate gold on the beach, the gold that had been in the museum, that was legal. Agnes was entitled to the gold she had if Bunk obtained it legally.

  The beams from the flashlights illuminated the terrible devastation left behind by the fire. Some portions of walls were still standing like ghostly reminders of what had been. Otherwise everything from the structure of the house to its contents had crumbled into one giant heap of debris. I wasn’t sure how Kevin had managed to locate anything in this mess.

  “It should be right here,” he said as he pushed aside a large part of what looked to be charred flooring. He kept moving through pieces of plasterboard, chunks of wood and furniture remnants that had dropped to the bottom of the house. I recognized what was left of an old cabinet, now smashed and singed, that Max had purchased one sunny Saturday at a nearby antique show. I’d been there with him, looking for things for Missing Pieces.

  Both Agnes and the girls were eager to assist Kevin as they pushed aside lumps of unknown materials with their hands and shovels. It took a while, but eventually I could tell we were standing in the basement area (one of the few basements in Duck). The washer and dryer were filthy but not melted, at least as far as I could see.

  The acrid smell of burned house began to envelop us. Everyone was coughing, but we continued moving toward our destination.

  “How much farther?” Celia finally whined as Agnes took Vicky’s shovel so she could have a break.

  “These things are designed so that the weight drops them through the burning floor,” Kevin explained. “From the location of the safe, this is where it should have fallen.”

  Every once in a while as we worked, we’d hear a crunch or crash as the debris resettled in response to our work with the shovels. When Vicky had been gone awhile, Kevin took Celia’s place so she could go and look for her sister. Both girls finally came back, Celia muttering that Vicky’s new boyfriend always called at bad times.

  Kevin’s shovel finally hit something hard and solid, the chink of metal against metal resounding in the still night. Everyone paused while he dug out some of the ashcovered material around it. In the small flashlight beam, a dull silver face with numbers appeared out of the debris.

&
nbsp; “There it is!” Agnes declared moving closer to Kevin. “We found it!”

  “I hope you remember the combination,” Celia said to her.

  “Of course she does.” Vicky nudged her hard with her elbow.

  They cleared away some pieces of wet, dirty fabric that may have once been drapes. The safe seemed fairly large to me. Not the size of a bank vault, but much larger than the bread-box-size safe I had at home for important papers. This was more like a refrigerator. Was there that much gold?

  Agnes got down on her hands and knees in front of the safe and blew on her cold fingers for warmth. The wind suddenly picked up, whistling around us like Rafe Masterson’s pirate ghost riding the night wind, watching us dig for gold.

  Two turns to the left. I couldn’t see the numbers, though I imagined Kevin could since he held the flashlight for Agnes. Two turns to the right and the safe door opened. I could see a small amount of gold gleaming from inside. Cold and exhaustion made me hope there wasn’t more in there than what I could see with my flashlight.

  “Well, thanks for your help.” Celia began at once trying to push me and Kevin away from the find. “I think we can handle it from here. If we need you again, we’ll call.”

  “If that thing is filled with gold, I think you might need some help transporting it,” Kevin said. “Chances are your car isn’t going to hold that kind of weight.”

  We all looked at the small Toyota hybrid Agnes had driven there. He was probably right. They’d been lucky to fit all three of them in the car. If there was enough gold to get excited about, it wasn’t going anywhere in that vehicle.

  “You mean you’ll take it back in your truck?” Agnes asked Kevin.

  “What’s the fee?” Vicky demanded in a shrill voice. “No one does anything for nothing.”

  Agnes hushed her daughter. “Quiet, both of you. You’re talking to the man who has been letting us live rent free in his home since the fire. Both of you get down here and start walking this gold over to the truck. I want to hear apologies and thank-yous from both of you while you’re doing it.”