Better Than Gold. Mary Brady
huffed. “She wants to sue us because we can’t get the stains out of her fake Persian rug. How about yours?”
“Nothing special. I have a skeleton.”
“Don’t we all. I told her she should keep the cat out of that room or at least change its food.” Monique continued her thread about one of the dry-cleaning business’s customers.
Mia chuckled. “Mrs. Carmody’s lonely. Maybe she feeds the cat that food so she can haul her rug back in to you. She likes you.”
“She could spill chocolate on one of her wool blazers or something.” Monique paused and then let out a small shriek.
Mia laughed.
“What do you mean you have a skeleton? Of course you have a skeleton, but that’s not what you’re talking about, is it?”
“Turns out there’s a column of granite in that dividing wall in my future dining room.”
“And?”
“And Charlie knocked a hole in the column.”
“And he found a skeleton? A people skeleton?” Monique gasped exaggeratedly. “Who is it? How’d it get there?”
“I don’t know any of that but it looks old. The granite’s a crypt, a tomb, I guess.”
“A tomb?” Monique swallowed loud enough for Mia to hear.
“Weird, huh?” Mia ambled out into the storefront area, lowered herself to sit in the dust and leaned back against the wall letting the sunshine filtering in through the dirty window warm her.
“You win,” Monique said after a thoughtful pause. “I won’t complain any more today. Any idea how he, she, it died? You find a musket ball or a hatchet or anything?”
“I don’t even want to think about how this guy died. It’s all too—”
“Spooky and gross,” Monique said, concisely defining what Mia was feeling.
Mia rubbed at the dust on her forehead. “You probably called for a reason, Monique.”
The sudden close blare of a siren wailed practically at the front door. Mia pushed up and brushed off her butt. “The chief is here.”
“Don’t hang up yet. I called because I wanted you to come over later. Granddad brought us a lobsta.”
“I was planning to work until—”
“Six-thirty. Be here by six-thirty-five.”
“I’ll be there.” Mia would have stayed every night until she couldn’t lift a hand or the pry bar if her friend didn’t look out for her.
“I want all the details tonight. You and the chief have fun, now.”
“Thanks for the dinner invite.”
“Somebody’s gotta keep you alive. We’re depending on you, ya know. Bye.”
Mia said goodbye, wondering if the undertone of melancholy in her friend’s voice was real or coming from her own panicked emotional filter.
A moment later, the police chief and two officers strode in and her three workers came stumbling after. One officer stayed at the front door, the other headed straight for the back of the old stone-and-clapboard building.
Chief Montcalm marched toward her, a purposeful expression on his face. He looked about fifty years old. Steel-gray hair, penetrating dark eyes with salt-and-pepper brows, almost creaseless forehead, nose slightly crooked. Fetching in a middle-aged sort of way and hadn’t changed an iota in his nearly five years he’d been in Bailey’s Cove.
“Ms. Parker?”
Mia straightened. His words felt like a command and she almost saluted, but tucked her curly shoulder-length light brown hair behind her ear instead.
“There’s a skeleton in there.” She pointed at the wall her crew had been demolishing.
The chief nodded as if he judged this source reliable, then gestured toward Stella, Rufus and Charlie. “You three, wait outside on the benches, and don’t be flagging down passersby on Church Street to yammer at them about this.”
The workers’ faces fell in unison and Mia had to keep a smile to herself. She knew each one of them wanted to rocket off to their personal corner of the town to tell anyone who would listen what they had found. She was equally sure the chief didn’t want any more people tramping through here, and the townsfolk of Bailey’s Cove would invite themselves in and do a whole lot of tramping if they thought there was something interesting to see.
“Has anyone touched anything since Charlie’s hammer?”
“Um—er—” He knew. How’d he know? She dipped her chin. “I moved a few pieces of stone so I could get a better look, but nobody touched the bones.”
Chief Montcalm nodded and motioned with one swipe of his hand for her to follow. She hurried after him, grateful he’d deal with this matter decisively, no dithering. That should save time. She’d have everybody back to work, possibly as soon as a few hours.
The chief strode to the hole in the wall, crouched, unclipped the flashlight from his belt and shined the beam in past the skull. After a moment, he stepped back and shook his head.
“What, Chief Montcalm?” Murder? Mayhem? Plague? She stopped her mind from rushing to the wild places.
“I know you’re in a hurry to get this project completed, Ms. Parker, but I’m going to have to delay things until we have all we need from here.”
“I—um. I understand.” What could she say? This was a person in her wall. But how long would the delay be? A couple of hours? All day? She almost shuddered to think of what more work stoppage would do to the opening date. If she missed the first migration of tourists, she might never be able to keep the Roost open. If the Pirate’s Roost didn’t stay open, what would that say about Bailey’s Cove as a place to visit. If the tourists didn’t come, the town would continue to shrink and fade.
The chief stepped over to where she waited. “We can start processing the scene, but I want everybody out of the building while we get to work. We’ll get you and your people back in here as soon as we can.”
“Has the body been here a long time do you think?” Mia asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Most likely a long time because whoever did this used granite and not brick. Brick if it were easily available would have been a lot less work. You probably know this building’s history better than I do.”
She doubted that, but she knew he wanted her take. “The building was first built as a hotel and restaurant in around 1818 by the town’s founder. It has been many things including abandoned for about two decades from the mid 1970s until ’95 then it was a political headquarters. Recently, it was, of course, the yarn and crafts store. I don’t know how long this wall’s been here.”
The chief scribbled as she spoke, and then he looked up and gave her an even gaze. “I suppose we ought to let your crew go soon.”
“Charlie at least. Before he bolts anyway. He found an occupied rat’s nest last week. Took off across Church Street to Braven’s for a beer in the middle of the afternoon and didn’t come back. I had to coax him to work the next day with Pardee Jordan’s donuts. Juvenile, ah-yuh, but that’s Charlie.”
Chief Montcalm lowered his eyebrows. She suspected he already knew everything she was babbling at him about, but he listened anyway. That’s part of what made him a good police chief.
“My people will get statements from all of you,” he said when she shut up. “We’ll check and see if there’s any identification on the body.”
“Do you think there might be? Even if it’s really old?”
“I could see what is probably clothing remnants.