A Spirited Gift

I was afraid they might decide not to continue until I left the room. I felt like a kid again, urging them silently to get to the point before my mother found me eavesdropping and ordered me to my room.

“The .22 pistol that killed Matthew Wright and Mayor Foxx is the same weapon that killed Wild Johnny Simpson over at the Blue Whale more than thirty years ago.” Sheriff Riley stopped pacing and glared at the chief and Gramps as if they were at fault.

The gun that killed Wild Johnny Simpson? I couldn’t believe it.

“I thought we knew old Bunk Whitley killed Johnny?” Chief Michaels asked. “Maybe Bunk planted that gun to be found someday. Like now.”

“Any prints on the gun?” Gramps wondered in a hopeful tone.

“Wiped clean,” Scott Randall said as he smiled at me. I smiled back, and he looked away, his face stained red. Tim nudged him with his elbow as a warning not to flirt with me.

“I don’t believe old Bunk came back to kill this Wright fella and his girlfriend,” Sheriff Riley stated like he was saying it for the record. “I’d say old Bunk has bigger fish to fry.”

“But if not him, who?” Gramps demanded. “And how many times are we gonna ask this question about who killed Johnny Simpson?”

Wild Johnny Simpson was a mythical kind of figure in Duck—like Blackbeard or Rafe Masterson. He didn’t start out that way. He seemed to lead a normal kind of life, building a house and marrying Miss Elizabeth Butler.

Then something happened and he vanished, almost never to be seen again. If Kevin hadn’t reopened the Blue Whale, what happened to Johnny might still be a mystery.

Kevin had been showing some of us around when we found Johnny’s long-dead body in one of the top-floor rooms. He’d been shot and left to die—the Blue Whale closed up around him as old Bunk Whitley mysteriously vanished the same night. No one had ever known for sure what happened to either man.

Then I ran into Bunk Whitley on one of the supposed-to-be uninhabited coastal islands. Before he made another mysterious exit, he’d told me he’d left Johnny Simpson in charge of the Blue Whale and would never have hurt him. That left Johnny’s death still a mystery to some—while others, mostly the police, still accepted Bunk as Johnny’s killer.

What Bunk had said made sense to me. He was also the one who told me my father was still alive after years of Gramps, and even my mother, lying to me. I guess I felt like I could trust Bunk to tell the truth about Johnny, since he’d been honest with me about my dad.

Now the gun that had killed Johnny was involved in two more deaths—deaths that had no connection to Johnny or Bunk Whitley.

“We’ll keep bringing it up until we have an answer!” Sheriff Riley banged his fist on the table. “You couldn’t solve this case when you were sheriff, Horace. Now, when this comes out, it’s gonna make us all look like monkeys. We have to figure it out before that happens. Any suggestions?”

I finished the coffee and saw a look pass between Chief Michaels and Gramps. I knew that look. They were thinking about having me hold the gun and see what I could find from it.

It would be an easy answer—if what I saw made sense—and if they could convince Sheriff Riley to go along with the experiment. It wouldn’t be an answer they could take to court, but it might be something that could put them on the right track.

Am I willing to hold something knowing it was used to kill three people? I considered the difficult question even before they asked me. I wanted to help. But the emotional strain would be terrible. Just handling Mary’s perfume bottle had been enough to make me feel the agony she went through for Rafe.

What would it be like handling a weapon that had committed murder? How would I deal with that emotional pain when it was over? It was a terrifying thought.

And I never knew exactly whose emotion I’d be feeling. In this case, it could be the killer’s—or the victim’s.

“Excuse me, gentlemen.” I smiled at all of them and acted as though I didn’t know what the discussion would be about after I’d left the room. I just didn’t want to hear them discuss it—“Dae won’t mind, will you, honey? She’d be glad to help.” Or, “That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard, Horace. We need real facts.”

And I didn’t want to feel pushed into making a decision right away, which I might be if I stayed in the kitchen.

“I’m turning in for the night,” I told them with a calm demeanor I was far from feeling. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Gramps.”

Chapter 39

I wished I hadn’t argued with Kevin. He was the one person I could turn to—the one person whose advice I trusted about these things.

But I couldn’t call him and tell him I wasn’t angry anymore—Oh and by the way I have a problem I need to discuss.