Better Than Gold (2 page)

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. Something to identify the remains could be in there. What’s left of the clothing will at least give us a more accurate time frame.”

A man in paper coveralls entered burdened with equipment, presumably to record the scene and gather clues. Chief Montcalm turned to face Mia. “I’m gonna have you wait out on the porch with the others.”

“But I thought I’d stay and...”

Another of his crisp gestures and she turned to join the others on the porch.

* * *

I
N
A
DIMLY
lit room in St. Elizabeth’s Manor nursing home in Portland, Maine, Daniel MacCarey pulled the chair up to the bedside of his elderly aunt. “I’m here, Aunt Margaret.”

He took her delicate hand in his and pressed softly.

The quiet sounds of evening at the nursing home clanked and moaned as his great-aunt Margaret breathed softly. Her eyes fluttered open and then closed.

The flowers he had brought to brighten her room three days ago were beginning to fade. The faint smell from the lilies lingered in the air the way her Chantilly perfume had in her stately old home long after he had moved her to St. Elizabeth’s. He had wanted someone to be with her all day and not just on Sunday afternoons, holidays and the rare evenings when he could get there to visit her before she fell asleep.

The nurse had called him an hour ago to come. “She says it’s time.”

The call hadn’t been a surprise. Margaret Irene MacCarey was ninety-two. Three weeks ago she started looking tired, stopped attending activities with the other residents, eventually stopped leaving her room. A few days ago, they wanted to move her to the acute-care facility, but she had insisted they call for the hospice service to take over her care.

No one had argued.

“I’m sorry, I have to go, Daniel.”

Margaret’s feathery words came so softly he thought at first he had imagined them, until he saw her eyes open, a faint smile settled on her delicate features.

He brushed his fingertips across the back of her hand. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

She closed her eyes and when she didn’t open them, Daniel found himself hoping for more time with her. He patted her hand.

She turned her hand over to squeeze his. “Scare you, did I?”

“You’ve been scaring me since I was a boy. Why should today be any different?”

Slowly, her eyelids lifted again. “You’ll be fine, Daniel.”

“Of course I will.” His only living blood relative was about to let go of his hand for the last time. He leaned forward in his chair and repeated for both their sakes, “Of course I will.”

“Funny. It never occurred to me until it was way too late—” she paused and took a breath “—that when I left, you might end up the last of us. Alone.”

She breathed quietly for a minute and then continued. “I’m sorry. I always had your dad and then I had you. Couldn’t you just find a woman who doesn’t want children? Or even a man, for goodness sake.”

“You’re so progressive for such an old lady, Aunt Margaret.”

“I’m serious about you finding somebody.” She squeezed his hand again. “And I have to try one more time. Just because you won’t be having any more children doesn’t mean there isn’t somebody out there who doesn’t want to spend the rest of her life with you.”

“I’ve got my work.”

“You’ve got classrooms full of those transient college students.” Her voice was weakening, becoming more breathy.

“I’ve got many things in the works,” he said.

“You are so nice to try to let me leave in comfort.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re all I’ve got left to do. I’ve finished everything else.” Her voice came out raspy and halting.

“Don’t worry about me,” he repeated.

“I’ve no worry left in me. I just see things more clearly these days.” She paused and her gaze drifted to a photo on the shelf attached to the wall beyond the foot of her bed. The framed picture of a soldier with his arm around a beautiful young woman had kept vigil over his aunt for as long as Daniel could remember. The young woman was Margaret MacCarey in the 1940s with her fiancé, before an enemy bullet had immortalized the soldier at age twenty-four.

Margaret had lived a very long time with the pain of a broken heart in her eyes and sometimes, when she thought he wouldn’t notice, on her face. Loving that much when it was futile and hadn’t been good for him, either.

“So what they say about hindsight must be true.”

She turned her head slowly to look at him. “Hathaway left me when I was almost twenty-two and it wasn’t until a couple decades ago that I realized I wouldn’t have had to find another love of my life. I could have been happy enough with a substitute, as long as the man loved me. I would have had a companion. You could have had a cousin or two. That is my only real regret.”

The words came more and more slowly and Daniel found himself leaning closer and closer to hear them.

“Promise me and promise yourself, you will pursue your dream.”

“I promise, Aunt Margaret and I will love you always,” he whispered in the quiet left when she stopped speaking and barely breathed.

“Hathaway.” Her eyes drifted closed and a moment later her breathing stopped.

Daniel had no doubt the man who had won and kept Margaret MacCarey’s heart had just come and taken her hand to lead her away to eternal happiness and peace.

He smiled and swiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. She had always been a great lady. He’d miss her.

Daniel leaned back in the chair. In the quiet, he clenched and unclenched his fists. Several emotions fluttered in and out. Most seemed natural and even expected when a loved one passed, but the appearance of anger took him by surprise. He wasn’t angry with his great-aunt Margaret, or fate, or even himself. The dark feelings were just inexplicably there.

He looked up to see the nurse in the doorway. She took a few seconds to gather that Margaret MacCarey had passed and came quietly into the room.

Gently she placed fingers on his aunt’s wrist. “Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I am.” He would be soon, after this knot in his gut went away.

“We loved her here, you know.”

He nodded slowly. “Everybody loved Margaret MacCarey.” He spoke carefully. This nurse did not deserve to feel his anger.

“You can stay as long as you like.”

“Thank you. The arrangements are all made.” He gave her a smile. “She saw to that. Said all she and I had to do was show up.”

“Sounds like our Margaret. I’ll make the phone calls to get things started. You let me know if you need anything. Oh, wait. I have something for you.” She reached into her pocket. “Miss MacCarey said you wouldn’t know anything about this. Insisted when I came on shift that I keep it for you because she was going to be leaving. She said it would be up to you whether or not you kept the secret.” The nurse shrugged and handed him a small worn velvet pouch tied with tattered ribbons.

“Secret?”

“She didn’t explain and I figured you’d know.” She glanced at Margaret’s quiet form. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you.” He held the lavender velvet pouch for a moment. His aunt was always full of charm and warmth, but there was always a mysterious side to her, things she would almost say before stopping. He had assumed it had to be something about Hathaway. Now he wasn’t so sure.

“Put on the call light if you need anything,” the nurse said as she laid a hand on his forearm and then left him alone holding his aunt’s last secret.

After another moment, he untied the frayed ribbon holding the small pouch closed. Inside was a note.

My dear, Daniel, you will be getting a package from my attorney in the near future. Please, promise me you will live a long and fulfilling life as I did. Even in the darkest night, all is not lost.

Love,

Your Aunt Margaret

He upended the pouch into the palm of his hand and out fell a ring, a woman’s ring, gold with a large pale blue stone surrounded by diamonds.

Lustrous, expensive, the kind Great-Aunt Margaret would have happily worn, yet he had never seen the ring before this moment.

CHAPTER TWO

“Y
OU
’
RE
LATE
.”

At 6:42 p.m. Mia shed her old wool coat and shook the rain off on the porch to keep the hardwood floor of Monique Beaudin’s foyer dry. The expression on her friend’s delicate, oval face said worried friend, no trace of anger. That would be Monique, the M to her M. Mia wasn’t sure she had ever truly seen her angry.

“Hey.” Mia stepped inside and toed off her shoes. “I thought if I hung around, Chief Montcalm would eventually let me back in.”

Monique raised her naturally perfect dark blond brows.

“Well, he didn’t,” Mia continued as she tucked her damp hair behind her ears. “He had a couple of his people put that yellow police tape across the doors and they all gave me the stink eye as if they thought I was going to break into my own place as soon as they drove away.”

“So, did you?”

“I would have, but Chief Montcalm scares the bejeebers out of me.”

“Well, relax.” Monique took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, accompanying the breath with flowing hand movements.

“I wish I could relax, turn it off like you do. I wish I could.”

“Practice. Practice and maybe a nice glass of sauvignon blanc will lighten the mood.”

“What makes you think my mood needs lightening?” Mia stiffened her shoulders as if miffed, and then slouched.

Monique bubbled out a laugh and led the way to her neat, frilly living room. “Sit. You need it. I’ll drop dinner into the pot and I’ve got everything else ready.”

By the time they were finished drinking their second glass of wine, lobster shells and remnants of Monique’s handmade bread lay strewn on the serving tray between them.

To pay the lobster its due and because they were both starving, most of the meal passed in silence broken by such things as “Oh, this is so wonderful” and the cracking of shells.

“So are they going to let you back in soon?” Monique asked as she placed her neatly folded napkin on the table.

“I hope so. Every hour the police lock me out, the more pitifully behind I get. I need my crew back in there tomorrow to have the place ready by next Monday because the finishing crew is due to start.” Mia sat forward with her elbows on her knees. “What if all this is for nothing?”

“What do you mean?”

“What if we’re too late to build the town up, to make a difference. Building Pirate’s Cove will bring in a few tourists, but it’s only a start. We need more motels and shops, even more restaurants. And it wouldn’t hurt to have some boating business, sightseeing or something like that. If Pirate’s Roost fails, especially before I get a good start, will the rest give up?”

“Funny you should mention boating.” When Monique sank back against the cushions of the navy couch, Mia realized the usual spark in her friend’s bubbly personality seemed to be dim tonight. It hadn’t been her imagination earlier on the phone. “What’s going on?”

Monique let out a sigh that sounded like defeat. “I hate to bring it up because it’s like an old broken record in my life.”

“I’ll get my Victrola,” Mia said. “Come on out with it.”

“Well, when Granddad stopped by to leave our dinner—” Monique gestured toward the remains on the table. “He told me he was moving south, before the snow flies next fall. Says too much of the town has gone so he might as well go, too.”

Mia leaned forward, put her stockinged feet on the floor and clutched a frilly chartreuse throw pillow to her chest.

“What happened this time?” The threat Edwin Beaudin, a longtime widower, had been making since Monique’s mother had died two years ago weighed heavily on his granddaughter.

“There’s a for-sale sign on the Calvins’ lobster boat. You can guess how it went after he saw that. Says he might as well give up
bee-un ah Main-ah
.” Monique used her grandfather’s heavy Maine accent. “I don’t know what I’ll do if he goes. I wish I still had Mom. He’d stay for her.”

Mia’s heart ached, but...” Maybe you and I will have to make him stay.”

“You know my granddad. He’s more stubborn than you are.”

“That’s what I’m depending on.”

“You have an idea?” Monique’s expression brightened and so did Mia’s heart.

“I have a skeleton, and a crew that needs a nanny. What if he still felt like he was a necessary part of the Bailey’s Cove community?” When Edwin Beaudin lost first his wife and then his daughter, he lost the will to battle the elements, pollution, poachers and the competition for the ever-dwindling supply of fish and lobster. “And I need the shoulder of a big strong man to lean on.”

“You?” Monique laughed out loud. “Need a shoulder to lean on?”

“I’m glad I’m so amusing.”

“Well, you’re so ‘I can do it myself’ that I never thought I’d ever...ever...ever hear you say those words. Lean on someone, especially a man and especially after Rory.”

“I’d like to think I’ve forgiven myself for agreeing to marry a guy who would give me a ring he paid for with my money and have the guts to ask for it back when he changed his mind.”

“I’m sure you think you have, honey, but trust me, you still don’t lean on anyone for anything.”

“I lean on you.”

“That’s because I feed you.”

“There is that.” Mia put her elbows on her knees again. “But besides fishing or hauling in a big
lobsta
for his granddaughter and her friend, what does Edwin Beaudin like better than to rescue someone?”

“Nothing. He’s been rescuing me my whole life.” Monique’s big blue eyes opened wider in dawning comprehension.

“Do you think he’d be interested in supervising those three workers for me, keeping Charlie out of the bar? I can’t pay him much up front, but as a former boat captain, he can keep a crew in line.”

“He might.”

Mia felt some of the same tentative hope she heard in Monique’s voice.

Monique’s shoulders sagged again.

“What?”

“Granddad’s right about so many of the old-timers leaving. What if he’s right about getting out of town, building a life of some kind away from here? What if it is time to give up?”

“Giving up on Bailey’s Cove means, giving up our hometown having a place in Maine’s heritage. All we’d have left are the fading memories. No one would care or, after a while, even remember the folks who worked so hard to make this a viable town, your ancestors and mine. At least half the people in Bailey’s Cove have a relative who settled somewhere around here.”

“But do you think it’s worth it to beat yourself up to get the restaurant finished? Wouldn’t it be easier to leave it all behind?”

“I’ve been out there in the world and there is truly no place like home. No place like home.” She clicked her stockinged heels together. “And I plan on fighting for it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“And I know for sure my workers need an overseer because I can’t be there every minute. Finding a skeleton in the wall is not going to make them work more diligently. If it’s okay with you, I’ll ask your granddad.”

“He’ll clamor to help you, at least for a while.”

“For a while is good enough for now. A Mainer stays in Maine unless there is a really compelling reason to leave. He’s a
Main-ah
right through to his salty old core.”

Monique pushed up from the chair and carried the tray to the kitchen. “I should be reassured by that, ’cause it’s hard to imagine him on a golf course or a beach somewhere under a palm tree with an umbrella drink in his hand.”

Monique returned with a bowl of grapes glistening with water and another bottle of wine. After pouring them each another glass, she plopped down on the couch and brushed her flowing blond locks back with the crook of her arm. “Why do I have to lose everybody in my life?”

“I came back.”

“You did, and I love you for that.” Monique held a grape in her mouth, making her cheek puff out. “Do you think Pirate’s Cove will make enough of a difference?”

“A small one.” One of the things Mia loved about Monique was her friend’s penchant for asking the hard questions. “But we have to start, to invest time and sweat equity somewhere, to regrow our town. I’d say money, but right now it’s the bank in Portland’s money, not mine.”

“Do you suppose the police’ll call you tonight with any news?”

“I don’t know what the procedure is. I don’t know if they’ll call me at all. If they don’t, the chief will get a new desk ornament. Me.”

“You’re such a toughie.” Monique plucked another grape from the bowl and ate it.

“And you’re such a girly-girl.” To make her point, Mia tossed a pillow with a beaded pink ruffle at her friend.

“What do you suppose will happen with the bones?”

“I don’t know. I guess they have to determine how old they are before anything is decided. I just hope they get them out of my wall quickly.”

Monique hugged the pillow and grinned. “I know what we need to take our minds off everything else.”

Mia waved both hands in the air. “No. No. Not your favorite subject.”

“Men!” Monique said and then gave an exaggerated sigh.

“Ha!” Mia leaned back and put her head against the crocheted doily draped over the back of the matching mauve chair. “Men. Had ’em, don’t need ’em.”

“You got robbed. That rat Rory should still be here.”

“Yes. I did and he should. But since I had it all and lost it—twice—”

“I wonder—” Monique put a finger to her chin “—if you’d still say
that
if another good man came along and rang your bell.”

“I’d ring his bell right back and send him from whence he came.”

“Whence?”

Mia expelled an unenthusiastic huff. “I’m fine just the way I am. Maybe if I want a man, I’ll go after Chief Montcalm.”

“He’s gotta be your dad’s age.”

“What about Rufus’s baby brother? He’s neither attached nor too old.”

“He just left for college, so that’d make you a cradle robber.”

Mia slapped the knee of the clean jeans she’d put on after her shower. “Well, that about exhausts the supply of men here in the Bailey’s Cove area. I think that’s why I moved back here. I wanted a peaceful life.”

Monique snorted. “So, that seems to be going really well.”

“Skeleton aside, in a few short weeks, I’m going to have the best restaurant for a hundred miles. I’ll have tourists clamoring for a meal as they head north and then again when they head south and I’ll have a nice cozy mortgage and a nice fat business loan to keep me warm.”

“You’ll get the chance to work even more hours in a day than you do now. You’ll have even more employees to keep on their toes, and more—”

Monique’s front doorbell gave its usual unenthusiastic
dong-dong.

“Am I being saved by the bell?” Mia asked.

“That’s gotta be for you,” Monique said without any indication that she intended to get up. “Granddad’s already safely perched on his barstool for the evening and you’re here. That’s the entire list of people who might want to talk to me this late on a Tuesday night.”

“Won’t be for me, either. They’d have called me if they’d wanted me.” Mia patted the pocket where she kept her phone. The pocket was empty. “Or not. My phone’s in my work jeans.”

“How’d they find you here?”

“Because my social life is so grand as to have a total of three options, the Pirate’s Roost, my house or yours, and maybe because my kiwi-green SUV is parked in your driveway.”

“And is likely to be there all night because you drink like a fish.” Monique gave her a twitchy-faced smile and the bell rang again.

“
Your
doorbell is ringing.” Mia smirked.

“You’re closer.” Monique tossed the pillow back.

“I guess since you provided the lobster dinner, I can answer your bell.”

Mia got up, successfully taking a sip of wine as she went, and opened the door to find Officer Lenny Gardner on the stoop. One more for the short list of bachelors in Bailey’s Cove. She looked him up and down. How could they have forgotten fastidious Lenny? Everybody in town knew he would take either of them as his wife, and having grown up with him, neither of them wanted a man that badly. But the boy had certainly grown up to be a well-built man.

“Hey, Lenny.”

“Chief wants to talk to you,” said the police officer who did everything he could to make himself attractive, including aftershave and a smartly pressed uniform and, holy cow, he must lift pickup trucks at the gym. The ploy might even work if he weren’t so bossy.

“What did he find out?”

The cop eyeballed the wineglass in her hand. “I’ll drive you.”

She looked at the glass and then at him.

He shifted his gaze over her shoulder at Monique, who had come up behind her, and the expression on his face said her small ash-blond friend was Lenny’s first choice.

“I’ll drive you there and back,” he promised when he turned his attention back to Mia, this time with the pursed lips of judgment. “We can’t have you endangering the townsfolk.”

She stifled a two-and-a-half-glass-of-wine grin, but she couldn’t deny that he might be right.

Monique poked her in the back. When Mia turned, her friend tilted her head toward Lenny as if to ask, what about him?

Mia handed over the glass, made a deranged face and mouthed, “For you.”

Monique made a “call me” sign with her pinky and thumb. Mia nodded, grabbed her coat from the hook behind the door and followed Lenny to the squad. The chill in the night air sobered her a bit.

Be good to me, Chief, she thought.

“Lenny, what did the chief find out?” she asked once they were in the squad and he couldn’t dodge the question as easily this time.

“If Chief Montcalm wanted me to tell you, I’d have told you.”

That couldn’t be good. “No hints?”

Lenny kept his gaze straight ahead, both hands on the wheel and didn’t comment. When they arrived at the police station, he escorted her inside with a hand in the middle of her back. If she hadn’t known him long enough to have seen him tinkle in the sandbox when they were four, she might have pointed out just how politically incorrect that old-fashioned gesture was. For all she did not like about Lenny, he wasn’t a chauvinist. He meant the gesture in the same polite and helpful way he would if she were his grandmother.