Mary Brady - Better Than Gold

“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

DANIEL 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.