Once Buried

“That’s ol’ Rags’s house,” Belt said.

As they approached, Riley saw that it was covered with plastic bags and blankets. Here behind the rise, it was safely out of reach whenever the tide was high. The wigwam was surrounded by blankets covered with what looked like a crazy assortment of objects.

Riley said to Belt, “Tell me about this Rags Tucker character. Doesn’t Belle Terre have rules against vagrancy?”

Belt chuckled a little.

He said, “Well, yeah, but Rags isn’t exactly your typical vagrant. He’s colorful, and people like him, visitors especially. And he’s not a suspect, believe me. He’s the most harmless guy in the world.”

Belt pointed to the things out on the blanket.

“He’s got kind of a goofy business going with all that stuff he’s got. He picks up junk off the beach, and people come around to buy stuff, or to exchange stuff they don’t want anymore. Mostly it’s just an excuse for folks to hang around and talk to him. He does this all summer, for as long as the weather here is comfortable. He manages to put together enough money to rent a cheap little apartment in Sattler for the winter. Then when the weather’s good again, he comes back here.”

As they got nearer, Riley could see the objects more clearly. It really was a bizarre collection that included driftwood, conch shells, and other natural objects, but also old toasters, broken TVs, old lamps, and other items that visitors had undoubtedly brought for him.

When they got to the edge of the outstretched blankets, Belt called out, “Hey, Rags. I wonder if we could talk to you some more.”

A raspy voice answered from inside the wigwam.

“I told you before, I didn’t see anybody. Haven’t you caught the creep yet? I sure don’t like the idea of a killer on my beach. I’d have already told you if I knew anything.”

Riley stepped toward the wigwam and called out, “Rags, I need to talk to you.”

“Who’re you?”

“FBI. I’m wondering if maybe you’d run across a large sand timer. You know, like an hourglass.”

There was no reply for a few moments. Then a hand inside the wigwam pulled aside a sheet that covered the opening.

Inside was a scrawny man sitting cross-legged, his big eyes staring at her.

And sitting right in front of him was a huge sand timer.

Chapter Eight

The man in the wigwam just stared up at Riley with wide gray eyes. Riley’s attention snapped back and forth from the vagrant to the big sand timer in front of him. She found it hard to decide which was the most startling.

Rags Tucker had long grayish hair and a beard that hung down to his waist. His tattered, loosely fitting clothes suited his name.

Naturally she wondered…

Is this guy a suspect?

She found that hard to believe. His limbs were thin and spindly, and he seemed hardly robust enough to have carried out either one of these arduous murders. He fairly exuded a sense of harmlessness.

Riley also suspected that his scruffy appearance was something of a pose. He didn’t smell bad, at least from where she stood, and his clothes looked clean in spite of all their wear and tear.

As for the sand timer, it looked much like the one they’d found back near the path. It was more than two feet tall, with wavy ridges carved on the top and three skillfully carved rods holding the frame together.

It wasn’t identical to the other one, though. For one thing, the wood wasn’t as dark – more of a reddish brown. Although the carved patterns were similar, they didn’t look like exact replicas of the designs they’d seen on the first sand timer.

But those small variations weren’t the most important differences between the two.

The greatest contrast was in the sand that marked passing time. In the timer that Bill had found among the trees, all of the sand was in the bottom globe. But in this timer, most of the sand was still in the top globe.

This sand was in motion, trickling slowly into the globe below.

Riley felt sure of one thing – that the killer had meant them to find this timer, as surely as he’d meant them to find the other one.

Tucker finally spoke. “How’d you know I had it?” he asked Riley.

Riley produced her badge.

“I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind,” she said in a non-threatening voice. “How did you get it?”

Tucker shrugged.

“It was a gift,” he said.

“From whom?” Riley asked.

“From the gods, maybe. It dropped from the sky, the best I can figure. When I first looked outside this morning, I saw it right away, over there on the blankets with my other stuff. I brought it inside and went back to sleep. Then I woke up again, and I’ve been just sitting here watching it for a while.”

He stared hard at the sand timer.

“I’ve never watched time actually pass before,” he said. “It’s a unique experience. Sort of feels like time is passing slowly and fast at the same time. And there’s a feeling of inevitability about it. You can’t turn back time, as they say.”

Riley asked Tucker, “Was the sand running like this when you found it, or did you turn it over?”

“I kept it just like it was,” Tucker said. “Do you think I’d dare change the flow of time? I don’t mess with cosmic matters like that. I’m not that stupid.”

No, he’s not stupid at all, Riley thought.

She felt that she was beginning to understand Rags Tucker better with each bit of their conversation. This addled and ragged beachcomber persona of his was carefully cultivated for the entertainment of visitors. He’d turned himself into a local attraction here at Belle Terre. And from what Chief Belt had told her about him, Riley knew that he made a modest living at it. He had established himself as a local fixture and gained unspoken permission to live exactly where he wanted to be.

Rags Tucker was here to entertain and to be entertained.

It dawned on Riley that this was a delicate situation.

She needed to get that sand timer away from him. She wanted to do that quickly and without raising a fuss about it.

But would he be willing to give it to her?

Although she knew the laws about search and seizure perfectly well, she wasn’t at all sure about how they applied to a vagrant living in a wigwam on public property.

She’d much rather take care of this without getting a warrant. But she had to proceed carefully.

She told Tucker, “We think it may have been left here by whoever committed the two murders.”