A Touch of Gold mpm-2 Page 10

  “Maybe,” I halfheartedly agreed. “If I saw the chief and could convince him to hold my hand, I could probably pick something up from him. That’s not likely to happen.”

  “Chief Michaels believes in your gift,” he said. “He might be willing.”

  “He might be if he didn’t think I was trying to figure out his case for him. The chief is kind of funny about that. And Corolla’s police chief is even worse. Gramps said he’s got a mind like a steel trap that’s permanently closed.”

  Kevin laughed. “Sounds like a lot of people I used to work with.”

  I thought about his partner, Ann, but didn’t say anything. There might be a time for us to talk about her and their relationship, but this wasn’t it. What we had together was too new. It would be like taking someone to meet your parents right after flirting with them for the first time.

  Corolla was bigger than Duck, with many more businesses, homes and, of course, the lighthouse. Max always felt cheated that Duck didn’t have a historic lighthouse. On the other hand, Duck had a pirate curse, so that kind of made up for it.

  The lighthouse sat in the middle of historic Corolla Village. Since 1875, it had warned sailors of dangerous waters. Kevin and I got out of the truck and looked at it. Unfortunately, it didn’t warn unwary investigators of possible dangers coming from behind.

  The unmistakable sound of a shotgun getting ready to fire was followed by a gruff voice. “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

  Chapter 9

  I put up my hands in the air in what might’ve been a comical fashion had there not been a shotgun pointed at me, and turned to face the man holding the weapon. It was Mr. Artiz, the Corolla lighthouse keeper. “Hi there. Remember me? Dae O’Donnell? I’ve been here lots of times with Sam and Max.”

  He squinted one eye and looked me up and down. “So you are.” He pointed the gun at Kevin, who didn’t have his hands held high. “Who’s he?”

  “Kevin Brickman, sir.” He put out his hand toward Mr. Artiz. “I’m here with Dae. We’re looking for Sam.”

  Mr. Artiz put down the gun. He wore a red cap on his grizzled head. “Join the crowd. So’s everyone else.”

  “You mean the police?” I asked, calmer now that a gun wasn’t pointed at me.

  “I guess. One or two of them said who they were with. The others didn’t. That’s why I brought old Betsy out here with me.”

  “I understand,” I said, although I didn’t. “Would you mind if we have a look around?”

  “You might as well. There can’t be much in there that they haven’t looked at.”

  Each lighthouse in the Outer Banks is painted a different color or pattern. The Currituck Beach lighthouse, as it’s known, is the only red brick lighthouse on the East Coast. It still flashes at twenty-second intervals to warn of shallow water.

  The lighthouse and the keeper’s home at its base aren’t technically a part of the museum, but both are open to the public. I knew Sam and Mr. Artiz had been friends forever. I wasn’t surprised when he followed us into the museum.

  “I haven’t seen Sam since the day after your museum blew up,” the old caretaker told us. “What a terrible thing that was. I hope you find out what happened.” He walked us back to Sam’s office at the side of the Corolla museum, which was much larger than Duck’s had been. “The place looks like a hurricane hit it, I’ll tell you that much, Dae.”

  He was right. There were papers, boxes and photos scattered everywhere from the desk to the dusty file cabinets and the floor. But no sign of Sam.

  “Do the police think something like that could happen here?” he asked me. “Is that why they’re making such a fuss?”

  I glanced at Kevin, who shrugged. I interpreted that to mean I should go for it. “The police think Sam killed Max by blowing him up in the Duck museum,” I told him. I couldn’t say it any plainer than that.

  “That’s crazy talk! Sam and Max were like brothers.”

  “Brothers who argued violently all the time,” Kevin reminded him.

  “Maybe they argued, but they wouldn’t hurt each other. The police are climbing up the wrong mast.” He looked around the office. “You think Sam left quick once he heard?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I was hoping I could figure that out.”

  “Well, you take your time. I don’t know if the police or those other fellas left anything useful behind in this mess. But you’re welcome to it if they did. Say hello to Horace for me.”

  “You don’t have any idea who the other fellas were?” Kevin asked. “Were they wearing uniforms? Could they have been with the sheriff’s department?”

  Mr. Artiz shrugged his bony shoulders beneath a blue overall. “I never seen them before. They didn’t introduce themselves.”

  He left us alone in the maelstrom that was Sam’s office. I didn’t know where to start. Everything was such a mess. How would we ever find something useful that might lead us to Sam?

  “What kind of things did Sam do outside the office?” Kevin started sorting through the papers on a chair.

  “He liked to fish. I remember hearing him and Gramps talk about that a lot. He chartered Gramps’s boat once. Otherwise I don’t know. Everything I know about him was through seeing him with Max or Max telling me things about him.”

  I looked around the room, letting my eyes play on everything without focusing too hard on any of it. I was thinking about the way I’d found the gold coin in Kevin’s cellar last night. Maybe there was something here, however remote, that could lead us to Sam.

  It occurred to me as I swept the room that everything seemed to be out of place except for one item—a horse statue on one of the old file cabinets. Once I saw it, I couldn’t look away. My gaze was constantly drawn back to it.

  I wished I could go out and grab the lightkeeper’s hands to find out where Sam was, but I suspected the link between them wouldn’t be strong enough. A person had to have a strong desire to find something in order for me to see it in their head. That meant there was only one thing left to do.

  As I continued looking at the horse figure, I was conscious of Kevin moving around the room, trying to help. I slowly removed one of my gloves and reached for the little statue, ignoring its place of origin and other nonproductive impressions.

  Salt air. Waves crashing on the northern Currituck Beach. The sounds of horses. A man shaking hands with Sam.

  “I know where he is!” I was pleased that the contact might make some difference. And that I hadn’t ended up on the floor.

  Kevin looked at the statue in my hand. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so. Maybe the impression wasn’t as forceful as touching pirate gold that people have died for. This little horse has probably been sold in every gift shop in the Outer Banks, although it wasn’t made in China.”

  He smiled. “Where do you think he is?”

  “With the mustangs.”

  The wild Spanish mustangs were a must-see for every tourist who came to the Outer Banks. Like the lighthouses, they were a legacy of our past that seemed to endlessly fascinate people.

  Unlike the lighthouses, the mustangs didn’t stay in one place. For those willing to pay ridiculously high prices, tour companies guaranteed that visitors would see the horses, but it didn’t necessarily work out that way.

  The mustangs were said to be descendants of Spanish horses that had made it to shore following a sixteenth-century shipwreck. They roamed the Outer Banks freely for centuries, providing working partners for the Bankers, until development came and the horses became endangered. Now they were managed and taken care of, but never tamed.

  “Sam could be anywhere along thirty miles of coastline,” I explained to Kevin.

  “We could ask around. See if one of the tour guides took him out.”

  “He knows the area too well to ask for help.”

  “Tell me what you saw.”

  I told him about Sam shaking hands with a man who was close to the horses and the
beach. “But that could be anywhere.”

  “Would he be likely to hike out there?”

  “Probably not.” I smiled. “He’s as physically challenged as Max. Neither one of them ever walked where they could drive. But as far as I know, he doesn’t have an SUV or a Jeep. A regular car would have a hard time going in to look for the horses.”

  “How else could he get there?”

  “Maybe he got a ride from someone. Maybe Mr. Artiz knows who that could be.”

  We went to find him. He was sitting on the lighthouse stairs, cleaning his shotgun. He glanced up and frowned when he saw us coming. “Now what?”

  “How would Sam go out to see the horses?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. How does anyone get out there?”

  “Does he know anyone with an SUV or some other four-wheeler?” Kevin asked with a little more authority in his voice.

  It didn’t matter. “I don’t keep tabs on Sam.”

  “Thanks anyway.” Either he didn’t know or he didn’t want to say.

  As Kevin and I began walking away, the lighthouse keeper called out, “Could be one of those mall-cop things, like in the movies.”

  “Mall-cop thing?” Kevin wondered aloud.

  “Segway!” I knew exactly what he meant. “I saw the ads for them on TV. Thanks, Mr. Artiz!”

  We got back in Kevin’s truck. He was still mystified. I explained. “They’re those tall motorized scooters you balance on. I’ll show you. There’s a place out here that rents them.”

  We parked at the outfitters place, and I rented two Segways, complete with helmets and maps to the wild horses. The man at the front counter kept trying to sell us a guide until I told him I’d been out plenty of times to see the mustangs. “Have you rented one of these recently to Sam Meacham?”

  He glanced at his book of rentals. There weren’t many on the page since it was a slow time of the year. “Yeah, sure. He was here a few days ago. He was taking a man out to see the horses, like you, Mayor O’Donnell.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “I recognize your name from your driver’s license and credit card. I heard it on the news report about the museum exploding. Hope that doesn’t happen here. Do you think it really was the pirate ghost?”

  “Of course not!” I told him. “Thanks.”

  “What did the man with Meacham look like?” Kevin asked the outfitter.

  “I don’t know.” He thought back. “Medium height. Maybe brown hair. He had a two-way radio. Could be a highway worker.”

  “Thanks.”

  “If you see them, tell them I need the Segways back. Normally I’d call the police, but it’s Sam and everything. But I still need them back.”

  The Segways were a lot easier to balance on than I’d thought they’d be. In no time, we were both up and going down the hard-packed sand at the edge of the beach.

  The air was fresh and cool, drawing large groups of people to the beach. Huge kites were flying across the whitecaps on the water. One man with a large, purple kite was actually having trouble keeping his feet on the sand. The wind picked him up again and again, threatening to take him out to sea. Finally, two more people joined him to help hold the kite. There was a reason Orville and Wilbur Wright came down here from Ohio to fly their airplane.

  There were heavy bushes and some squat trees where the path wandered. At times I couldn’t see the water. The steady hum of the Segway motors and the whirr of the wide tires ate up the distance down the coast.

  We stopped near a small group of mustangs—a mare, a stallion and a colt standing on the beach. A group of tourists were snapping pictures while the horses posed calmly for them.

  “I hope there are more horses than these,” Kevin remarked. “I don’t see Sam here.”

  “There are a lot of horses out here. I’m hoping we’ll run into some of the Wild Horse Preservation Society that manages the herd. One of them might know Sam.”

  He nodded and we got back on our Segways. From that point on, it was as common to see the horses as it was to see the statues of them that littered the Outer Banks. Large groups of them gathered to munch on the grass between the sand dunes and sea oats. Young stallions bucked and played with one another. A mare nursed her colt. It was inspiring to see them living so free.

  I pointed to one of the Wild Horse trailers near the old life station, and we slowed our Segways again. “Not a bad way to travel,” Kevin said.

  “It’s fast anyway.” I didn’t want to mention that I felt gritty all over from the sand flying up as we moved. “Let’s check in with them.”

  A burly man in a green sweater who was smoking a pipe greeted us at the trailer with a hearty handshake. He introduced himself as Tom Watts, one of the local Wild Horse workers.

  “I’m looking for Sam Meacham from the Corolla Historical Museum,” I said when I could get my hand back. “Have you seen him?”

  “Of course! He was here yesterday. He was taking his friend around to see the horses.”

  “Medium height, brown hair?” Kevin guessed.

  “That’s right. I can’t recall his name. He was in a hurry. Sometimes people have to be patient. The horses aren’t here for our amusement even though it may seem like that to some.”

  “Any idea which way they went?” I asked him.

  “I told them we had a group of people from the mainland down here doing a study on the horses. They’re about two miles up from here. Sam went that way with his friend.”

  “Thanks.” I made the mistake of shaking his hand again.

  As we went back to our Segways, Kevin said he was glad the descriptions of the man with Sam matched. “Is that what you saw when you were holding the horse statue?”

  “I really only saw them shaking hands.” I shrugged. “The other man was wearing some kind of ring with an unusual design. I couldn’t tell you what right now, but I’d know it if I saw it again. I know that’s not very helpful.”

  “It’s all we’ve got right now. You’ve managed to track Sam this far, which is more than the police could do.”

  We roamed the trails for another few hours, but it was getting late. We hadn’t seen many horses and couldn’t find the group Tom had told us about. We were about to turn back when we both noticed a Segway parked in a heavy thicket.

  Thrilled that we’d found it, I got off of my scooter quickly, but Kevin held me back. “Let’s take it easy here. We don’t know what’s going on.”

  It was very quiet at this far end of the island. There was only one Segway and no sign of Sam or his friend. Kevin searched through the thicket and further up along the path, but found nothing.

  “It could belong to someone else,” I suggested, looking around, probably not as efficiently as him.

  “There doesn’t seem to be any sign of a struggle or any problem. Just to be on the safe side, let’s call in the serial number and see if it matches up to what the outfitter in Corolla has listed for Sam.”

  It was a good idea, but of course, there was no cell phone signal. We tried his phone and mine. Both spent all their time searching for service.

  “It’s no use. We can’t find out like this.” Kevin put his cell phone away.

  “There’s another way.”

  “I know what you mean, Dae. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. There’s no way of knowing what you might see.”

  I took off one glove and approached the scooter. I agreed with Kevin that the Segway might show me something I wouldn’t like to see. On the other hand, it might reveal something important. We were too far from Tom Watts’s trailer to go back and see if he had some adequate form of communication. And I had to be back in Duck for the town meeting or the chief would get kind of riled.

  “This might be the only way to know where Sam is. I think that’s important enough to take a chance. If I fall on the ground again, just leave me there. I’ll get up eventually.”

  He came to stand behind me and slid his arms around my waist. “How about if we prepare for that probl
em and I won’t let you fall. Be careful, Dae. If there’s something you see that doesn’t look right, get out.”

  “Do you think something has happened to Sam?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve had a bad feeling about this since we saw his office at the museum. And finding only one Segway isn’t a good sign.”

  “You could’ve said something.”

  “I’m not intuitive.” He shrugged. “I’d rather let you lead the way.”

  “As long as you’re my backup, that’s fine.” I smiled at him and we briefly kissed before I put out my hand and grasped the handle on the scooter.

  Running. Lungs burning. Fear, terrible fear. Blackness. Nothing.

  I pulled away from it, gasping, but in better control than I had been with Adelaide’s dress.

  “All right?” Kevin asked, his arms around me. “What did you see?”

  “I’m fine.” I moved away from him, staring back at the scooter. “Sam was here. Someone was chasing him. He thought his life was in danger. He ran until he couldn’t run anymore. That’s all I could see. I think something terrible happened to him out here. We have to tell someone.”

  “All right. We’ll have to go back to the trailer and call for help. If the cell phones won’t work there, I noticed a ham radio antenna. We could use that.”

  “That means calling the Corolla police.” I grabbed my scooter. “Chief Michaels isn’t going to like this.”

  “Dae O’Donnell.” Corolla Police Chief Walt Peabody got off his ATV and walked toward us, removing his sunglasses as he came. He was a lean, hard man whose pale gray uniform matched the frigid gray of his eyes. In the lifetime I had known him, first as an officer (he gave me my first speeding ticket) and then as the chief, I had never seen him smile. “You can’t cause enough trouble in Duck. You have to come down here.”

  Sam and Max weren’t the only ones in Duck and Corolla with competition issues. Chief Michaels and Chief Peabody never had a good word for each other. They could be equally as uncivil with residents they felt overstepped their bounds.

  “Chief, I’m not here to cause any trouble. I’m sure you know that Sam is missing—”