Better Than Gold (3 page)

There was a lot to be said for homegrown Maine boys in today’s world. Maybe Monique should snap him up.

“Ev’ning, Ms. Parker.”

The chief greeted her plain-faced in the doorway of his office and gestured her to a visitor’s chair in front of his desk. That couldn’t be good, either. If he wanted her to sit down before he told her anything, he must be expecting an untoward reaction.

“Thanks for calling me in, Chief.” She wondered if she sounded sober. She hoped so.

As she settled into the chair, she heard the door click shut behind her. Whatever he had to say, Mia was sure she didn’t want to hear. But, let it rip, like a Band-Aid off tender flesh.

That was definitely the wine.

The chief sat down in his chair and placed his hands flat on the old-fashioned green blotter. “I thought you might like an update.”

“Oh.” She bunched her shoulders and then let them sag. “I’m ready, Chief Montcalm. Lay it on me.”

“We’ve removed the body and brought it here to our small crime lab. There was no ID with the body, but we did determine from the clothing remnants the body has been there for a long time.”

She almost stood. “If the body’s gone, can I have my building back now?”

“I’m afraid not. The crypt and the surrounding area will need to be studied.”

He tried to make his words sound kind and conciliatory, but she slumped in her chair.

The chief officially calling it a
crypt
somehow made things seem more creepy or maybe the wine was... She stopped the thought and brought her mind back and tried hard to listen, the way he did when she spoke.

“Since the circumstances are suspicious by nature of the body being in the wall, this has to remain a police matter. I called in the state’s criminal investigation division.”

More people, more time. She dropped her chin to her chest. Of course he called the CID and processing an old skeleton most likely moved slowly through the state system. So they would probably not be there tomorrow. Her brain buzzed with calculations of lost time and the impact delaying the work would have on getting the restaurant open, especially if the state investigators couldn’t get here until, say, Monday.

She might have to cancel the finishing work set up for next week, go bankrupt, move to the poorhouse and let the town of Bailey’s Cove be completely taken over by a population of non-Maine city dwellers seeking to escape on the weekends and for a week or two during the summer.

It wouldn’t be so bad if these people were all lovely friendly people who wanted to visit a great small town and then go quietly away, but there was that ten percent who couldn’t help leaving their mark by damaging what wasn’t theirs. The town council had decided to take things slow and Mia agreed with them. If too many visitors arrived before the town’s infrastructure was upgraded, Bailey’s Cove wouldn’t be able to protect itself and could turn into a place the natives would not recognize.

Then when the tide of visitors ebbed, the town’s two-hundred-year-old structures like Braven’s tavern, Pardee’s Donut shop, the town founder’s home overlooking the town from up on Sea Crest Hill, the boathouse, even the docks would all bear the marks of these visitors. No amount of tourist dollars would make up for that kind of damage. Meanwhile Edwin Beaudin would have packed up and left Pied Piper–like because townsfolk listened to Monique’s granddad.

“Ms. Parker?”

She snapped her gaze up. Two glasses of wine next time and that would be it. She swiped the back of her hand over her forehead.

“I get it. More people, more time. Okay.” But she didn’t get it. She didn’t get how she was going to do this. Her life wouldn’t end but getting back on her feet could take half a lifetime and she’d have to do it away from Bailey’s Cove,
out there
where life had definitely not been good to her. In Boston, where she had completed her college degree, she had been downsized from her job and lost the first love of her life. In Portland, her home state, she’d lost another job and gained a fiancé who eventually left her.

The chief gave her a look that spoke of an apology.

“What now?” she asked. She’d let the chief finish first, then she’d don her rags and go find a bridge to live under.

“Because of the age of the case, the CID expects to be here in two weeks, three at most.”

Mia took a big gulp of panic. The partially demolished wall was the center of everything. Even if she were allowed to demo and build around the wall, the work would come to a disastrous halt by the end of two weeks for sure. “That long?”

“And I can’t let you in the building until they give the okay.”

The big darkness hovering in the background inside her head began to descend over her thoughts. “I can’t go in at all? Not at all?”

“And they’ll need the scene for at least a day or two after they get started.”

She couldn’t help fidgeting in the chair. She’d already spent her savings, dug deep into the bank loan, and the teeny tiny trust fund set up for the historic building’s renovation would evaporate if the project failed.

Her fingernails suddenly looked too long and she had the urge to bite them all off. Something she hadn’t done in over a decade.

“So do you have any idea who that is in the wall?” The chief’s tone was quietly demanding.

She looked up. “Who it is? No. Should I?”

“You’ve done research on the building.”

“I know some of the building’s history, but I have no idea who might be in the wall. Do you?”

Chief Montcalm frowned. “It needs to be considered that this might be the remains of someone from very early in the town’s history.”

She snapped her gaze up to meet his. “How early?”

“I don’t really know anything for sure, but I can ask the CID if they will allow me to call the university. The university might send someone here to check out the site sooner than two or three weeks.”

“Call them!” She huffed out a breath and shrugged. “Sorry, if you call them, I might get those three workers off the street and back on the job sooner. Will the state let the university take over the site?”

He gave her a solemn nod. “If the university is interested, they could send a forensic anthropologist.”

“And the state will agree?” Some of the two-to-three-weeks darkness started to lift.

“An anthropologist would most likely be called in on the case anyway and someone could be here as early as tomorrow, most likely Monday.”

“So, this anthropologist might come and go before the CID could even get here.”

He leaned forward over the top of his big wooden desk. “There is always the chance the anthropologist could be here longer. They like to be thorough, but they would definitely start sooner.”

“And you want my input?” Her wine addled input.

“You have the most at stake and obviously, the sooner I get your input...”

“Call them. Please call and see if they’ll allow the university to send someone.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m feeling very sober now, sir, and I’d be very grateful if you called. The least that might happen is Bailey’s Cove would learn more of its history. More history might mean we could bump up the flow of tourists a bit.” She stopped talking when she realized she was speaking uncensored thoughts. “I’m sorry. If you made the call, I would be grateful.”

“First thing in the morning then.”

The chief might be Mr. Inscrutable, but the little twitch in his temple told her he had more to tell her. “Is there something else?”

“Yes, and I thought it was only fair to warn you so you wouldn’t be caught off guard, and things got out of control.”

She tucked her fingers under her thighs. “Out of control how?”

“I don’t know who the person in your wall is, but I do know this town. I doubt anything less than a forensic analysis will convince them the body hasn’t been in there...for...say...”

She gasped. “...the full two hundred years.”

“See how easy it is to jump there?”

“But what if it is?” Too many thoughts buzzed in her head. “Two hundred years? You don’t think that might be the man himself.”

A glint of a smile showed in Chief Montcalm’s eyes. “It’s best we leave any conjecture out until the university people gather the facts.”

Having a part of Maine’s history in her wall would be radically good for the long-term value of her restaurant, as long as treasure-hunting frenzy, as happened in the past, didn’t tear the town apart first. A murdered man from long ago. So long ago...

“Liam Bailey? In my wall? A town founder? The pirate in my wall?” She quickly put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry, sir. You’re right. It’s so easy to go there.”

CHAPTER THREE

D
ANIEL
DOWNSHIFTED
and turned off the highway onto the road leading to the small town of Bailey’s Cove. Monday morning hadn’t dawned early enough to suit him. Sleep had been nearly impossible since last week when his aunt had died.

Anger was the last thing he expected at her death, but that’s what he got and it hadn’t gone away.

When he had closed his eyes, the nights had been no match for the darkness of these feelings and he paced or put on his athletic shoes and ran on the deserted campus.

Any rational person would do as his aunt suggested, go out and find someone to share a good life with, but it had been four and a half years since he had been a totally rational person.

Today he’d hurried out of his condo and left in the dark for the two-hour drive and his morning appointment with the chief of police in the old coastal town.

He edged his hybrid into the gawker’s pull-out overlooking the small town and got out. Still too early to meet the chief of police, he leaned against the warm hood, arms folded over his chest, and watched the foggy pink dawn progress.

He felt different, indefinably changed since Margaret MacCarey had died, as though he had been perched on the edge of something for these last few years and her death pushed him over into unknown territory.

Even the clothes he now wore were out of his usual style. No open-at-the-throat button-down shirt, no casually unzipped polar fleece vest or even khakis. Just a natty old gray sweater he hadn’t worn for years and a pair of jeans with holes as old as most of the students he taught. Instead of his professorish-type Rockport Walkers, he wore a pair of hand-sewn leather boots his aunt had given him the first time he told her he wanted to become an anthropologist and
to see where people came from
. By now the soles had worn down and were so smooth and thin that he might as well have been wearing moccasins. Someday he’d get them repaired.

He snorted softly. He was so far off the track he had planned to be on by the age of thirty. No tenure in his near future, not even a hint of a major project now or down the road. And here he was in this small coastal town assigned to another, at best, unremarkable cataloging of some small point in the history of Maine. That it was necessary and someone had to do it didn’t make it better.

The anger tried to swell but he took control and brought it back down to a simmer. The university had been and still was being infinitely patient with him, giving him time off when he needed to be with his wife and son and then his aunt.

He was grateful for their kindness.

The cool dawn breeze of early April brushed against his face with a fan of salty moisture. The cold and the town awakening under a mottled shroud of morning mist gave him a feeling of agitated contemplation. Whoever this was found in the wall, he was eager to get started and finished.

His department chair had wisely reassigned Daniel’s classes as of today. “You’ll get a call soon. And pack a bag,” his boss had said last week. “We need to get you out of here for a while.”

He had gotten the call in the form of a succinct voice mail.
“Dr. MacCarey, this is Police Chief Montcalm from Bailey’s Cove. During some remodeling of a building, human remains where found in a wall. Since you have consulted on previous archeological finds in the state of Maine, the head of your department referred me to you, and the state crime lab has authorized you to assess the scene.”

A follow-up phone call had set today’s appointment.

Daniel looked at his watch. Twenty minutes until his appointment with the chief. He might as well spend the time inspecting the site. A look at physical evidence could do more than two days of futile browsing for information about Bailey’s Cove. All he knew was Archibald Fletcher had founded the town in the early 1800s, the population of the coastal town was just over fourteen thousand and the average temperature this time of year got up as high as fifty degrees.

Not very helpful.

He pulled the car out onto the road and coasted down the hill into town. As the road’s descent into town flattened out somewhat, he passed two gas stations, one across the street from the other, and a hardware store with a pair of moose antlers mounted under the peek of the gable. A combination law and accounting office, a few abandoned buildings came next and then, flanked by pine trees, a small but proud-looking old wooden church that now lodged the Bailey’s Cove Museum.

The church and the other buildings to his left had the gray-blue of the foggy harbor as backdrop. The ocean, the livelihood for many Mainers, would appear beyond when more of the fog lifted.

As he continued, the buildings leading to the town center were of varying age, some painted white, some redbrick and one pink tattoo shop. Most of them sat shoulder to shoulder lined up along clean streets that seemed to speak of a town that cared about its appearance. As he entered the middle of the town, one motley brown dog sniffed at something in front of the white-painted wooden building that housed Pardee Jordan’s Best Ever Donuts and then moved next door to investigate the front door of an old wood-and-redbrick tavern called Braven’s.

This was the kind of downtown that might someday support ornate lampposts, brick sidewalks with trees and flowers in planters. None of which would look out of place and all of which might wipe out the true character of the old town.

To Daniel’s right and across the street from Braven’s tavern stood the building he was looking for, an old three-story structure with a white-painted facade.

Chief Montcalm had been correct. The building wasn’t hard to find. It was the only one in the small downtown with police tape crisscrossed over the door. Or it had been crisscrossed. The end of one piece flapped in the morning breeze.

Bay windows flanked the glass-and-wood front door. Five wood-framed windows sat evenly spaced across the span of each of the building’s second and third floors. Benches sat on the sidewalk on either side of the two-stepped stoop.

He parked and got out. With the tape disrupted, the chief must already be there. Good. The sooner he got started, the sooner he’d get to work and then be gone. Going down to Boston and spending time alone seemed like a wise idea right now. Much better than inflicting the surliness he couldn’t seem to shake on a town of unsuspecting people.

He ducked under the remaining police tape and stepped inside the building. The ceiling had been stripped, part of one wall had been torn down. The partially demolished wall divided the large front room from the back area, and was likely the place where the body had been found.

No chief, only silence.

A door on the far left wall probably led to a stairwell, and if this had been a hotel, there was likely a matching stairway in the back room for the staff to use. A single lightbulb hung from the ceiling by a cord, shedding feeble light in the large open space.

There was nothing in this room except an upended orange bucket with loose plaster and a pry bar lying on the floor nearby.

He moved quietly across the open area. On the other side of the wall was another large room with ladders and tools scattered around. Two boxes crossed with police evidence tape sat near one of the ladders, which meant the chief had done as he’d said he would and returned the remains to the scene. This room had the same dim lighting as the other room, and...

Bent over and leaning toward a column of granite that must have been behind the demolished wall was a woman with a flashlight in one hand. Her short blue peacoat hung open and draped over her hunkered form. Her brown hair looked as if it was streaked with honey and fell forward so he couldn’t see her face. What he could see was her peering into a hole that had been knocked in the granite. The hole that had to be the one that had held the skeleton.

Slowly, she reached a hand up as if she was afraid something inside would bite her. What she might do is to contaminate the site. He didn’t need any more of that than had already been done.

“Please, don’t touch that.”

* * *

S
TARTLED
, M
IA
YANKED
her hand back and tried—too fast—to stand up. She lost her balance, flailed her arms in a desperate attempt for control, but stumbled and plopped backward onto the dusty floor, her flashlight skittering out of reach.

From the floor, she said a brief silent thanks that whoever this was, it was not Chief Montcalm.

“Who are you?” She tried to make her words sound like a demand, as if she stood face-to-face with the intruder and wasn’t looking up at him from such a disadvantageous position.

“Daniel MacCarey,” he replied with a speculative expression on his face lit by the harsh light from the ceiling bulb. This had to be the man Chief Montcalm said was coming from the university.

“The chief’s not here yet. You can wait outside,” she said because she didn’t want him to witness the indignity of her having to get up and clean off her butt.

He didn’t respond nor did he go away.

“You’re early.” She worked hard to remain pleasant, because she certainly wasn’t getting any nice back from this guy.

“And you’re tampering with evidence.”

“Old evidence.” She kept her tone even.

“Tampering with a protected archeological site.” When he walked toward her, the bulb hanging from the ceiling spread better light on his face, his scowling face.

Scowl or not, it was a great face. Rugged. Two or three days’ worth of very dark beard growth. Hair a bit too neat for her liking, but tousled by the morning’s wind. Dark brown, almost black eyes, if the light coming from above gave a true indication.

He stopped in front of her, tall and lean, and relaxing his frown he held out his hand.

She studied him a second longer. Warm, comfortable in an old gray sweater and jeans with holes. Shoes of good leather, scuffed on the toes. Monique would like this one. Heck, she liked the look of this one herself, and she didn’t like many.

He frowned again and started to pull his hand away, but she reached out and grabbed hold. His warm palm met hers and his fingers wrapped securely around her hand. Indeed, strong. He pulled her from the floor as if she weighed as little as her twenty-year-old-waif self, not her current self with eight more years of growth. There had to be muscles under those raggedy clothes. Maybe even a six-pack. Ooooh. She hadn’t seen one of those in a while. Maybe she wouldn’t even let Monique meet this one.

...for crying out loud...

She steadied herself, let go and stepped back. This was the guy who could let her get her people back to work, maybe as early as this afternoon, so she gave him her brightest smile and resisted the urge to pat the dust off her butt.

“When the chief told me the university was sending a professor from the anthropology department, I...well...I sort of thought more gray hair and possibly a larger waistline. Guess I should have taken the time to visit the website.” She wanted to wink. Heck, she wanted to wolf whistle. She just smiled harder.

He frowned. “What are you doing in here?”

So much for making light of an awkward situation. “I’m waiting for Chief Montcalm. He should be here anytime now.”

“Waiting with your hand in the hole?”

“Yes. You caught me with—” Deciding not to be part of the let’s-be-grumpy game, she refused to look at his scowling face and softened her tone. “If anyone has reason to be annoyed, it’s the guy in the wall—er—boxes. He’s been waiting a very long time to be discovered.”

“Did you move anything or touch anything?”

Now she looked up at him. “I wanted to. I wanted to tear the whole wall down and put in a dining room, but I’ve been waiting, I think rather patiently, doing everything I possibly could that didn’t involve actually doing the work in here that has to be done. I have a business I’m trying to get up and running.” All right, maybe she would play grumpy.

“And I have to decide whether or not there is historical significance to this site.” He didn’t look very pleased with the prospect.

She eyed him for an
a-ha
moment. “You drew the short straw.” She raised her eyebrows to make the statement a question.

This made his face relax. Made him handsome.

A hint of a smile curled his sharply carved masculine lips. “You’re right. It’s not your fault they sent me to...”

“...a town the world seems to have forgotten?” she finished for him.

“I don’t really mind being here. It looks to be a charming place.”

She tried to gauge his sincerity and couldn’t decide. “It could be a charming town again, will be, if we can make some changes.”

He held out his hand toward her, this time in greeting. “I’m Dr. Daniel MacCarey. I teach anthropology at the university.”

She took his hand readily and shook firmly. His handshake was a genuine palm-to-palm and not the fingertips she often got, and strong.

“Mia Parker. I’m trying my best to help build up Bailey’s Cove, make it, if not a destination, at least a stopping place on the central Maine coast.” She winced as her words came out sounding like the pitch she had given to the town council when she was seeking permission to renovate the historic building.

“Good, the introductions are all finished. We can get started right away.” Chief Montcalm strode into the back room and gave them each a nod of greeting. He shook Mia’s hand and then Dr. MacCarey’s, giving each of them a direct and steady look in the eyes.

Mia held in a grin at seeing Dr. MacCarey stand up a little straighter, pull his shoulders back a bit. The chief had that effect on people.

The dark-blue-uniformed chief stopped at the cardboard boxes containing the remains removed from the hole. She’d seen the contents of the boxes already, at the police station. They gave her the creeps.

“Everything we removed from the site is in these evidence boxes. After the initial incursion...” He stopped and looked at Mia.

“As far as I know—” She held up her hands. “No one has touched a thing since your team took the skeleton and clothing away. I haven’t let my workers back in after they first made the hole and—” she glanced over at Daniel “—no one that I know of has been in the building until I came in this morning.”