Dae's Christmas Past (22 page)

The man smiled back at me. “Thank you.”

“And God have mercy if our worst fears come to unfold,” Sheriff Riley said before dramatically storming out of the meeting.

There was no more business, so. I closed the meeting. A large number of people were excited about the gambling ship. They flocked into the ante-room where the donuts were still plentiful and the coffee was flowing.

“I’m not sure how I feel about it,” Kevin said when I reached him. He was seated in a chair beside Gramps. “Maybe that’s my law enforcement background warring with my innkeeper’s persona.”

“You only need common sense to see where this is going,” Gramps ranted. “What do people think will happen when a few thousand gamblers show up every month? Obviously crime will skyrocket. I don’t think the benefits to the economy will outweigh the other aspects.”

“Well, it’s done now,” I said. “I’m exhausted. Let’s go home.”

Kevin offered to drive me and Mary Catherine back to our house.

Gramps didn’t want to get in the golf cart with his broken leg. His friend, who’d brought him to the meeting, was still there and would take him home. “I might as well eat some donuts.” He smiled and hugged me. “I really only came to see Dae sworn in again as mayor. I’m proud of you, honey.”

“Thanks, Gramps.”

There were dozens of Duck residents standing around on the boardwalk, talking about the meeting. Some called out good wishes as we walked by going to the parking lot. I saw that Sheriff Riley and Chief Michaels had cornered Mr. Bullard before he could leave. The gambling ship might be on its way to Duck, but it was going to be one of the safest ships they ever ran.

I looked for Dr. Sheffield, but didn’t see him anywhere inside or on the boardwalk.

It was very cold, with the wind blowing off the icy water. Mary Catherine had left Baylor behind and shivered in the night air. “You get used to having that hot-blooded scoundrel around your shoulders all the time. I wish I had him with me now.”

“I’ll turn on the heat in the golf cart,” Kevin volunteered as we went down the stairs.

All the lights were on inside the bookstore and coffee shop in the parking lot. No doubt there were plenty of people debating the merits of allowing the ship in Duck as well as the choice for new council members.

I heard a sound like thunder in the distance. The fine hairs on my arms and neck stood up as the sound came closer.

“Must be a storm on the way.” Kevin took out his keys for the golf cart.

“Not a storm,” I told him. “It’s the horses.”

The windows in nearby shops rattled with the force of the invisible horses passing in the night. The trees and bushes swayed with the pounding of their movements. Mary Catherine grabbed my arm, her hands trembling, and two car alarms went off in the parking lot.

“I can’t see them, but look at the road.” Kevin pointed. “Where are those sparks coming from?”

“The horses’ hooves. They strike the ground with such force that it causes sparks,” I explained, not taking my eyes from the road. “They’re flaming when they first emerge from the fire.”

People came out of the coffee shop to see what was going on. A few others came down the stairs from the boardwalk. The horses continued by in a steady, freight train cacophony.

“What the hell is that, Dae?” Mad Dog asked as he walked into the parking lot.

“Demon horses from Corolla,” I answered him honestly. “They run up and down the roads every night between here and there. I don’t know why.”

“Demon horses?” Martha Segall said. “That’s crazy. Is that what keeps running down my plants and tearing up my yard?”

“Yes.”

“
Bah
. Whoever heard of such a thing?” She walked away, but didn’t try to leave the parking lot to walk down Duck Road to her house. It wasn’t
that
crazy.

Mary Catherine tugged at my sleeve. “What’s that in the middle of the street? I don’t think that’s a demon horse, do you?”

By now the parking lot was full of Duck citizens and visitors. Chief Michaels and Sheriff Riley walked out just as the horses had passed us. The night was so quiet when the horses were gone—not a bird cried from under an eave. No dogs barked.

“What’s that in the road, Sheriff?” Mrs. Euly Stanley asked. She was a frail, older woman with a will of iron who ran the board of directors at the Duck History Museum.

Sheriff Riley strode into the street, followed quickly by two of his deputies.

“Now what?” Chief Michaels asked as he descended the stairs a few moments later. “Don’t tell me we’ve got another horse hit and run.”

“I don’t know,” I told him. “I’m sure Sheriff Riley will let us know in a minute.”

Chief Michaels jogged out to the street. The two men crouched close to what they’d found and then stood up to discuss it.

One of the sheriff’s deputies returned to the parking lot. “Sheriff Riley says everyone here has to stay put for now. Looks like another dead man in the road.”

*

The coffee shop stayed open for people who were trapped there waiting for the county medical examiner to arrive. Mary Catherine, Kevin, and I waited it out in the golf cart so we could see what was going on. Even with the lights from the parking lot around us, it was hard to tell what everyone was doing on the road. Chief Michaels had called Tim to help him. They lit flares, and kept traffic moving around the crime scene.

Our other Duck police officer, Scott Randall, knocked on the plastic that surrounded the sides of the golf cart keeping out most of the cool night air. “Mayor O’Donnell—the chief wants to know if you and Mr. Brickman will help take statements from everyone who was here when the man on the road was found.”

I knew Kevin had been deputized the first year he’d been in Duck. It was helpful to sign people up before emergencies. There were more than a hundred deputized civilians in town. I was one of them, too. I had been since I was eighteen. People expected it from the sheriff’s granddaughter.

“Sure, Scott,” I said. “Who’s that on the road?”

“Sorry, ma’am. The chief told me to keep my mouth shut about that.” Scott was a quiet young man with gentle brown eyes. He seemed less likely to be a police officer than anyone I knew.

“Okay. I don’t want to get you into trouble. We’ll start taking names and getting contact information.”

“Thank you, Mayor.” He nodded to Kevin. “Mr. Brickman.”

“You should’ve held out,” Mary Catherine said. “If you’d said no until he told you what you wanted to know, he would’ve told you.”

“I’m not curious enough to risk losing Scott on the police force,” I explained. “His feelings get hurt really easy.”

Her smile made her look a lot like her cat. “And such a handsome young man.”

I ignored that remark and took two yellow legal pads from my bag that I always brought to town meetings. I handed one to Kevin.

“I’ll start in the coffee shop,” he said. “Maybe that will keep us from getting duplicates. Meet you out here.”

“Sounds good.” I kissed him lightly. “You don’t think I should have been mean to Scott, do you?”

“It would be interesting to know who it is.” He shook his head. “But I like Scott too, and you’re right about him.”

Mary Catherine stayed in the golf cart. Gramps called to find out why I wasn’t home yet. I was glad he’d made it out of the parking lot before the horses, and the dead person. I guessed that automatically laid out a short window of opportunity for whatever had happened on the road. Gramps had only been gone about ten minutes before we’d reached the parking lot.

I went back up to the boardwalk and started telling everyone what had happened. Chris Slayton was also deputized. He took a sheet of paper and started writing down the names of people who were left in the ante-room finishing the donuts. The meeting room was empty, except for Nancy who was cleaning up after the crowd.

“Another dead man on the road?” Her dark brows shot up. “Are we having some kind of crime wave before the gambling ship even gets here?”

“I don’t know yet. This is all the information I have.”

“I’ll just start transcribing my notes from the meeting,” she said with a sigh. “Maybe it will all be over by the time I’m done.”

“I hope so. Thanks, Nancy.”

“Just be careful out there, Dae. Trouble likes to follow you sometimes.”

I told her I’d be fine, and started out on the boardwalk to write more names. I noticed the lights were on at Wild Stallions—probably Cody and his family celebrating. I walked down there to share what had happened and take down their names. It almost seemed redundant since we all knew where they lived and worked.

Cody was nervous after I’d told him about the second dead person on Duck Road. “I hope this isn’t a bad sign,” he said. “We just said it was okay for the gambling ship to come in. I don’t want people to think I’m soft on crime.”

His brother, Reese, who was a few years older, chided him. “Don’t get all paranoid. I’m sure there’s a good explanation for it. And if there’s not, that’s on the police, not you. The gambling ship is gonna be good for all of us, right Dae?”

I really didn’t want to talk about my mixed feelings on the subject, but I thought I had to say something. “I live with the former sheriff, and I’m engaged to an ex-FBI agent. I’m not sure what to say about the gambling ship yet. I’m hoping we can come up with some good plans to keep those bad things from happening in Duck.”

Reece laughed and hugged me. “And that’s why she just won re-election as mayor, folks. It’s not about what goes wrong, Cody. It’s about how you handle it. Just don’t freak out and say something you’ll regret about whatever has happened.”

Cody’s wife was standing beside him. She held his hand, and smiled up at him.

“I’ll try not to say anything” Cody said. “You have what you need, right Dae?”

“Sure. Thanks.”

Cody and Sally’s little girl started crying. The after-the-meeting party was breaking up. I left Wild Stallions to see who else was on the boardwalk.

Mad Dog was still there, of course, seated on a bench spouting his usual rhetoric about the town being run badly. Cole Black and his wife, Molly, were there listening. So was Mark Samson from the Rib Shack and August Grandin.

“And there’s our new mayor,” Mad Dog said as I quickly wrote their names and tried to walk by unnoticed. “I keep wondering if anyone else is ever gonna notice how our murder rate has gone up since she became mayor.”

“Leave the girl alone,” Molly said. “Dae’s done a good job for us. It’s nothing on her that we’ve started having so many new people come in. It’s not like she can close Duck off to the rest of the world.”

I thanked her. “I guess I might as well be the one to tell you that there’s another dead man on Duck Road. I don’t know who it is yet or how he got there. That’s why I’m taking names.”

Mad Dog slapped his thigh. “That’s what I’m talking about. Horses trampling the yards, and killing people in the street. What’s your plan to prevent this from happening again, Madam Mayor?”

“I don’t have one right now. I don’t think anyone does. But if you come up with one, Mr. Wilson, I’m sure everyone will be happy to listen. Goodnight.”

I walked away from the group, but Mark Samson hooted. “I guess she told you, Mad Dog. That girl has some spunk.”

Chris met me at the end of the boardwalk with his list. “We had a good crowd tonight. I counted fifty people. I wish the council would’ve voted to hold off on the gambling ship. Jamie and Phil are excited about the idea—I’m just not sure. I’ve done a lot of research, but I only got those crime statistics tonight. There was no time to check into them.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “You gave the best recommendation you could with the information you had. You advised caution until we knew more about the project. That was all you could do.”

“Thanks, Dae.” He smiled as he handed me his list of names. “I’m glad you’re going to be mayor again for another term. I’m honored to work with you.”

“Wow. I appreciate it. Let’s not get too mushy. I got my Christmas decorations up today. Nothing like Cody and Reece, or even Kevin, but I’m excited about the OBX Christmas plans.”

“Me too. We’re putting the decorations up on the coffee house and bookstore this weekend, if the weather holds. We’re going to put everyone else to shame anyway,” he bragged. “Jamie says we’re gonna win the contest, and that’s that.”

I laughed as I left him there and walked down the boardwalk stairs to meet Kevin in the parking lot. I stopped abruptly when I saw his golf cart with Mary Catherine inside. There were at least fifty cats on the front, sides, and back. I was pretty sure she hadn’t even noticed. She was on her cell phone, and looking out at Duck Road.

“Yeah.” Kevin grinned as we met. “How do animals find her anyway? You think it’s a pheromone thing?”

“I don’t know. I think they sense she can understand them. Maybe they have something to say.”

“Maybe so. I guess we should give these names to Chief Michaels.”

“Good idea.” I linked one arm through his. “We can find out what happened at the same time. He won’t mind. After all, we’re deputized, right?”

“If you say so.”