Better Than Gold. Mary Brady

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.

      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