Dae's Christmas Past (12 page)

“Someone has to direct this traffic.” Gramps put on his reflective, orange vest. “I guess that’s gonna be me.”

He stomped off toward the street, muttering about Chief Michaels not leaving one of the Duck officers for emergencies while he was chasing Jake. I had a sudden premonition about what would happen next, but I wasn’t fast enough to stop it.

An older Cadillac came steaming down Duck Road. I saw it coming and yelled out a warning to Gramps, but he was so busy directing traffic coming from the opposite direction and he didn’t hear me.

The driver of the Cadillac never stopped or swerved. He hit one of the onlooker’s cars that were parked on the narrow road. The car spun sideways and hit Gramps. The Cadillac finally stopped after hitting another car and a golf cart.

“Oh my God!” Nancy yelled.

Chris’s precarious position on the water tower was forgotten as everyone ran into the street to see what they could do to help.

I reached Gramps first. He was conscious, but his leg was broken. I called an ambulance that would take a while to reach us. I had to get him out of the street.

“Cody? Can you help me move Gramps?” I asked him.

He yelled for his brother. “Reece? Come help us.”

Reece had been mesmerized by the drama on the water tower. He ran across the street and helped us move Gramps to his golf cart. “Let’s elevate that leg,” he said. “It doesn’t look too bad.”

“Thanks.” Gramps’s voice was shaky. “What’s next?”

“Don’t ask.” I glanced back, but man in animal skins was gone. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve had a broken leg before, Dae. Don’t baby me. At least the bone isn’t sticking out of my leg like last time.”

I had to agree with that. “Stay put. Don’t make things worse.”

Mary Catherine and Barney Thompson from the Sand Dollar jewelry store were checking on the driver in the Cadillac.

“I think he had a heart attack,” Barney said. “We need help.”

I got Reece and Cody to help us move the man out of the car. We laid him on a blanket that had been in Gramps’s golf cart.

“We have to get these cars off the road before it happens again,” I decided. “Does anyone have the number for Dalton’s Towing? It’s in Southern Shores, but I think that’s the closest service to us.”

“I have it,” Phil De Angelo from the coffeehouse said. “He just picked up a car for me last week. Want me to give him a call?”

“Sure. Thanks.” It was good to delegate, I reminded myself. I’d learned that at my training seminar on being a mayor when I first took office. “In the meantime, we need someone on each side of this directing traffic away.”

Cody and Reece volunteered. “Where should we send them, Dae?” Cody asked. “It’s a two-lane road.”

“Back where they came from,” I said. “Better angry drivers than injured ones.”

As we were trying to get everything in order on the ground, the team on top of the water tower was beginning to pull Chris up. It wasn’t easy. Chris kept bumping up against the metal with every tug on the rope.

“Good thing he’s got a hard head. I hope he’s going to be okay.” Jamie’s hands were pressed tightly together. “He’s always got to go that extra mile to impress everyone.”

“He does a great job.” I hugged her. “He’ll be fine. Just try not to hit him with something when they get him down.”

She laughed, but wiped a worried tear from her eye. I walked back to the golf cart. Mary Catherine was sitting with Gramps.

“Everything okay here for now?” I asked.

“If you call having a broken leg and feeling like an idiot okay, things are peachy,” he grumbled.

“It could’ve been much worse,” Mary Catherine reminded him. As she spoke, two small terns landed on the golf cart roof.

“They follow you everywhere, don’t they?” I asked.

“Yes. I’m always easy to spot in a crowd. I’m the one with birds or fish jumping at me.”

Gramps laughed. “I remember you used to be good to take along on a fishing trip.”

“Until I figured out that you were using me as bait to bring the big fish in closer,” she scolded. “I was angry at you for a while after that.”

“I saw the man in the animal skins again.” I explained to Gramps what had happened earlier at town hall. “I hope he’s not responsible for this.”

“How could he be?” Mary Catherine asked. “You said he doesn’t even speak our language.”

“Next time, hold him for Chief Michaels,” Gramps said. “Maybe he could get some information from him.”

I agreed, but I knew I wouldn’t do it. I tried to avoid situations like that with Chief Michaels. If he ever decided I was completely crazy, I couldn’t help Duck anymore.

Sheriff Riley pulled up with a deputy’s car behind him. He checked out the mess on Duck Road and put his men to work. It wasn’t long before one lane of traffic was moving freely to allow cars through the intersection.

No one left the area. More visitors and residents came to see what all the fuss was about. Sheriff Riley’s deputies wouldn’t allow them to park on the side of the road so they drove to the Duck Shoppes’ parking lot and walked down.

They were making progress with Chris too. He was very close to the walkway around the top of the water tower. When Kevin and Luke reached down to help him over the rail, there was a loud cheer from everyone above and below. Chris waved and blew Jamie a kiss. The firefighters and public works guys helped him hang the Duck Christmas banner before they left. There was applause from everyone.

Dalton pulled up and began moving cars out of the way with his tow truck. The ambulance arrived and took the Cadillac driver to the hospital. Gramps refused to wait for an ambulance and instead asked me to take him to the emergency room at Kill Devil Hills.

Mary Catherine offered to stay and keep Missing Pieces open for me. Kevin came down from the water tower and said he’d drive me and Gramps to the hospital.

Gramps complained that he wanted to take our old car to the clinic. But it hadn’t been started in months, so I told him we were riding with Kevin. He didn’t like riding in Kevin’s pickup, but it would have to do.

After getting him settled in, I went through the driver’s side and sat in the middle on the bench seat. I could tell Gramps was in pain, despite his stoic manner. He never complained no matter how badly he was hurt. It made it difficult to decide exactly how bad it was. I always just assumed it was worse than he let on, and went from there.

“What happened in the street?” Kevin asked as we started toward Kill Devil Hills.

I explained the accident, and that I’d seen the man in the animal skins again. “He said there would be trouble.”

Kevin shrugged as he kept his eyes on the road. “I could make prophecies like that too. Like weather predictions—if you say it’s going to rain enough times—it’s bound to rain. Are you sure he’s real?”

“I’m not sure, except that Mary Catherine’s crow saw him too. Maybe it’s possible that he’s still part of the vision from the stone horse. I wish it would go away.”

“Maybe it’s your subconscious warning you that bad things are going to happen,” Gramps suggested.

“I don’t think it needs to do that,” I retorted. “It pretty clear.”

“I talked with the sheriff,” Kevin said. “No sign of Jake yet. I told him he was at town hall earlier. Chief Palo brought together a group of citizens in Corolla to look for him. She also temporarily closed the excavation site.”

“I wonder why she did that.” Gramps shook his head. “I don’t see how that will make the situation any better.”

“Me either,” I agreed. “But maybe she’s afraid people will come looking for the ghost horses.”

Kevin shook his head. “That doesn’t seem very likely.”

“Then you don’t understand people,” I told him. “They do crazy things when they get scared.”

“That’s true,” he agreed.

We were barely out of Duck when I saw someone stumbling down the road. Even though I couldn’t make out his face, I knew who it was. “Stop, Kevin! There’s Jake.”

Jake was in worse shape than Gramps. His clothes were all but ripped from him. He had large deep scratches all over his arms and legs as though he’d been beaten with something.

I pushed his blond hair back from his face. His cowboy hat and boots were gone. “Jake, it’s me—Dae. Everyone’s been looking for you. What happened?”

His eyes cleared for a moment and his dirty hand touched my face. “Dae? I’m so sorry. It didn’t help at all. I was too late. It’s all over.”

Then he started talking out of his head again. The primary thrust of his words involved the demon horses. He even spoke of seeing men wearing animal skins dancing around a fire. He’d seen what I’d seen in my vision. I didn’t know how, but that must have been why he’d come to town hall earlier.

“I think we should call Chief Michaels and the sheriff,” Kevin said.

“He’s hurt,” I told him. “He needs medical attention first and then we can call everyone.”

“They can see to his problems.” Kevin got to his feet. “I’m done with him. I can’t believe you’re not.”

I didn’t get up from the place I’d been kneeling beside Jake. “He needs help, not the police. What happened to me wasn’t illegal.”

“It should be, and killing Tom was,” he reminded me. “Come on, Dae. I’m not saying we should leave him on the road—although I think that’s what he deserves. We’ll wait until someone else gets here.”

“We don’t know that he killed Tom, and we’re headed to the clinic anyway. Let’s just put him the back of the truck and bring him with us. We don’t know how long it will take for someone else to get out here.”

He sighed, and opened the tailgate. “Okay. But we call the police on the way to the clinic, right?”

I smiled and hugged him. “Right. Thanks.”

Jake wasn’t a big man but he was heavy. His arms and legs flailed around—it was all we could do to get him into the pickup. Kevin offered to knock him out so he’d keep still. I wouldn’t let him do it.

I decided to ride in the back with him. Kevin didn’t like it, but he got in the truck, pulled out his phone, and started driving.

The hodgepodge of words coming from Jake meant nothing. I tried to bring him around but he was delirious and probably running a fever. I hoped his wounds weren’t infected.

Something had been wrong with him at the Blue Whale, and again at town hall. That wasn’t the Jake I knew. Maybe he’d been poisoned or drugged. A doctor would be able to tell with a blood test. I hoped he’d be all right. He was only trying to protect his land. He’d never wanted the publicity for having found the horse cult statues.

I was sorry he’d found anything out there at all, though I was as interested at first as he was. Not everything that was lost needed to be found.

Chief Michaels, with Duck officers behind him, arrived at the hospital a few minutes after we did. They walked up quickly as we were trying to get Gramps out at the patient drop-off.

“Where’d you find Burleson?” Chief Michaels abruptly asked us.

“He was out on the road,” I told him. “He’s sick. He needs a doctor.”

“We’ll get him a doctor after he answers a few questions.”

“He’s not even coherent,” I argued. “And a doctor might be able to tell you what’s wrong with him. He’s not a suspect yet in Tom’s murder, only a person of interest. Let him see the doctor and then question him. You don’t want him to come back later and say you questioned him under duress, right?”

Chief Michaels glared at me. “All right. But one of us stays with him at all times. Now, if you’re done protecting this man you hardly know, let’s get Horace out of the truck and inside. Okay?”

I was glad when Gramps was on a stretcher and in the emergency room. They took him immediately for an x-ray, which gave me a chance to check on Jake.

He was being examined in a small room that was heavily guarded by the three Duck police officers. It seemed like overkill to me, but they’d agreed to let him see the doctor first so I wasn’t complaining.

“Have they said what’s wrong with him yet?” I asked.

Chief Michaels was seated in a green plastic chair at the door. “Not yet. It will probably be a while. Did he say anything to you about what happened to Tom?”

“If he did, I couldn’t understand him. Nothing he said made any sense.”

His gaze was angry and suspicious. “You know that as the mayor of Duck you’re obligated to tell us anything that could help solve the murder case.”

“I know the medical examiner isn’t even finished with the autopsy so we don’t really know for sure what happened to Tom. I’d tell you if Jake said anything important, although it would be hearsay so it wouldn’t do you any good anyway.”

He shook out his newspaper with a pained expression on his face. “Save me from the public trying to tell me how to do my job!”

It was perfect timing for Kevin to return with a cardboard holder filled with cups of coffee.

“Chief, I think you take yours black.” He gave the first cup to Chief Michaels. “I’m only guessing about yours, Tim and Scott—I brought it with cream and sugar. Dae, plenty of milk and sugar. Anybody have any information yet?”

We thanked Kevin for the coffees and told him there was nothing yet. The door opened behind Chief Michaels and the doctor tried to get out of the exam room.