A Timely Vision

Gramps went out to check on Mary Lou, and Kevin helped me clear the table. I tried to get him to take the rest of the food home with him, but he said he already had too much in the kitchen at the Blue Whale. “You know, if you want to back out of our deal to help me with this, I’ll understand. It looks like it might be more complicated than either of us thought at the beginning.”

“You can’t get out of painting that easy.” He grinned as he put the rest of the tea in the fridge. “It’s okay, Dae. I’m not giving up on it yet. There’s no such thing as an uncomplicated murder case. I knew what I was getting into before I agreed to help.”

We went to sit outside on the front steps so we wouldn’t bother Gramps and Mary Lou in back. “You know, everyone is speculating about why you left the FBI,” I told him when the dark had closed around us and I couldn’t make out his face. I’d wanted to ask him this for a while but had felt I didn’t know him well enough. I was also worried it might be painful for him to explain.

“I know. Everyone in a small town like Duck feels like they have to know everything about everyone. I knew it would be that way before I came. I can handle it.”

As far as answers were concerned, that wasn’t the one I was looking for. It would be rude to ask him outright why he’d left his career and moved to Duck. I tried another tack. “I know you said you didn’t miss it.”

“I didn’t say that exactly,” he corrected. “You don’t do something like that for years without missing some parts of it.”

Another vague answer that didn’t satisfy my curiosity. “Well, I’m glad you’re here to help with this, Kevin.” Obviously he wasn’t going to tell me about his past.

“Because otherwise you’d be having this conversation with Tim, right?”

“No! You couldn’t pry Tim away from the chief with a big crowbar! I wouldn’t ask him to help me with this. He’d be too distracted.”

“But not because he might ask you to marry him again?”

What did I hear in his voice? Was Kevin trying to get information from me about the past as well? I could imagine only one reason he might be interested. My heart beat a little faster until I squashed the idea. He wasn’t interested in me romantically. This was all leading somewhere else. I wasn’t his type.

“No. He does that from time to time, like I told you. He was the first boy I ever kissed. Maybe I was the first girl he ever kissed. But until one of us settles on someone else, I think that’s the way it’ll be between us. You must’ve had someone like that when you were in school.”

He laughed. “My dad sent me to a military academy when I was thirteen. It was all male at that time. I didn’t kiss a girl until I was almost eighteen. And I never saw her again.”

“I’m sure Shayla and Tim won’t last long. She’ll be interested in you again shortly. If not, there are plenty of unmarried women looking for new men. You’ll end up with someone.”

“Yeah. Someone who doesn’t mind that I’m going to have to work on the Blue Whale for the rest of my life to keep it together long enough to pay off the mortgage. Someone who likes lasagna, even leftover lasagna, and who doesn’t mind that Bunk Whitley is probably buried somewhere inside the inn.”

We both laughed at that, then said good night. It was going to be a long day tomorrow trying to figure out what to do to help Miss Mildred. “I’ll let you know what I find out from Chuck,” I promised.

“I’ll do the same when I know something,” he said. “Be careful, Dae. There’s a lot of money at stake, and someone may have already died for it. If that’s true, whoever killed Miss Elizabeth won’t hesitate to kill again.”

“I don’t think anyone would risk killing the granddaughter of the retired sheriff and the current mayor of Duck,” I joked.

He took my hand and stood close to me on the stairs. “Don’t underestimate your opponent. If you’re going to investigate something like this, that’s one of the first rules.”

“All right. I’ll be careful.” My voice was a little fluttery when I answered. I hoped I wasn’t about to make a fool of myself with Kevin.

“Good night then. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

I watched him walk down the dark path to his truck and drive away, staring until I couldn’t see the taillights anymore. Kevin Brickman had a way about him. I liked it. I liked him. But I wasn’t so sure anything more could come of those feelings.

Chuck Sparks had set up an office in a one-room space inside one of the rental buildings on Duck Road. There was a small sign on the door that read “Island Realty.” In the background of the name was the logo of his mother’s award medallion.

As I opened the door to his office, I hoped that the medallion would help remind him he owed me a favor. It was barely nine A.M., but frigid air-conditioning whooshed out at me. Some people don’t acclimate well to warm weather. Either Chuck was one of those people, or his air conditioner was broken.