All That Glitters

by Mary Brady

  Addy jumped. A cold nose had put itself in her hand and scared her nearly to death. The nose was attached to a sleek brown dog that looked up at her as if he knew what her life was like.

  “Hello, boy,” she said as she stopped and ran her hand across the top of his head. He pressed against her thigh as if to tell her to hang in there and things would be all right. She felt a sob clog her throat.

  “Yeah, doggy. My life is a mess. Thanks for understanding.”

  A car stopped on the street and the driver leaned over to roll down the passenger window to speak to Addy.

  “Going my way?” the woman asked.

  The driver was a stunning blonde. The kind who could shun makeup even for a black tie event because she didn’t need any.

  Addy turned to say goodbye to the brown dog, but he was gone, trotting up the street.

  She turned back to the woman in the car. “I’m looking for the—”

  “Three Sisters. I’m Christina Talbot and not a single other car is going to stop for you because you are an ‘outsidah causin’ trouble.’” The woman laughed and reached across the seat to push the door open for her.

  Addy climbed into the sleek gray car and closed the door.

  “Don’t worry about them. They shunned me for a month and all I did was move away for a couple of years and then come back.”

  “They might have good reason to shun me. And thanks for the ride.”

  “Pitch in as if you are trying to save your own grandmother’s house and they’ll love you soon enough.”

  “You know I’m a journalist and you know I’m here for a story on Zachary Hale.”

  “Good man. He should have married me when he had the chance. Too late now.”

  Addy jerked her gaze away from the gorgeous woman and stared out the window down Church Street.

  “Ah, so it’s like that.”

  “It isn’t. It’s... It’s...”

  Christina put her hand on Addy’s arm. “Not to worry. The opportunity for Zach to marry me came when I was six and he was fourteen. I thought I’d make the prettiest bride and why wouldn’t he say yes. Alas, he asked another woman to homecoming.”

  She made a sharp right onto Treacher Avenue and stopped about halfway down to the docks. Addy had already been on Treacher Avenue once before, the day she’d arrived in town.

  “Meet Cora, Dora and Rose.” Christina pointed first to the slightly larger middle house and then to the houses flanking Cora. The gorgeously painted Three Sisters had stood tall against the storm.

  “They’re wonderful.”

  “Thanks.” Christina beamed. “And welcome. Go in and pick any room upstairs in Cora.”

  “Are you not coming in?”

  “At the bottom of the hill is Kimi Applegate’s pottery shop. It was almost blown down and she needs help salvaging what’s left. Her husband was Freddy Applegate and he’s gone, died in Afghanistan.”

  The world was a small place, Addy thought. “Can I help?”

  Christina looked Addy up and down.

  “There are some extra clothes and shoes in the back closet of the reception hall, boots if the shoes don’t work for yah. And pick out anything warm you can find.”

  With that she was off. No exchange of phone numbers. No “I’ll see you at dinnertime” or any indication when she would return. Addy decided whether or not this town liked her, she liked it.

  Inside the lovely home, Addy found herself in a reception hall that ran from the front to the back of the house. The hall was spacious enough that it had a matching pair of chandeliers and a fireplace. The paint was a muted blue color and the portraits on the wall were oil paintings of the harbor.

  Addy smiled. Plugged into an outlet were several power strips with all sorts of mobile devices attached, including one rechargeable razor.

  Addy dashed upstairs and dropped her laptop on the bed covered by an old-fashioned chenille spread with pink roses and green leaves. The dark blond oak of the furniture stopped her abruptly.

  Like sandy-blond.

  She wanted to stop and think about Zach but refused to go that way. From the downstairs closet, she quickly picked out a few warm items. Soon wearing faux-fur-lined boots and a quilted jacket she was ready to work. With friends in the town she might get background information like no one from the outside world would have.

  And by lending a hand she might not feel like such an opportunist.

  Across the street and down a few buildings sat a damaged yarn shop. Two women carried large boxes of yarn to the curb and set them beside a hand drawn sign that said FREE. One of the women poked the other and the pair of them stared at her.

  Addy waved and hurried on, not waiting to see if the women returned the wave.

  The hike down the hill was short; the entire time she could see the place where she first met Zach. She could imagine him looking like a fisherman, see the red hurricane flags flapping and feel the rain pelting them all.

  The boats had already been lifted upright and secured. Only the outline of the shed gave a clue there had been a building where Zach had parked his SUV. What was left of the structure was scattered in chunks and splinters on the pavement.

  The wind blew briskly as she arrived at the ruins of the potter’s studio.

  “Hi,” Addy said to a petite woman with straight black hair. “I’m here to help.”

  The woman greeted her with surprise.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Only by reputation if at all. I’m Adriana Bonacorda, Addy.”

  “Ah, the reporter.” The smaller woman grinned.

  “That’d be me.”

  “I’m Kimi Applegate. I was the owner here. And I welcome your help, Addy.”

  As they spoke, a pickup truck of stout produce boxes arrived at what was left of Potter’s Paradise.

  The driver leaped out and helped the two of them unload the empty boxes, several bags of newspapers, a pot of coffee, two ceramic cups and a paper bag.

  “Good luck, Kimi. I gotta go help Mia at the Roost next,” the big man with the baseball cap called as he leaped back into the cab of the truck and sped off.

  “Goodbye, George,” she called after him.

  A waving baseball cap shot out the window and then pulled back in as he continued up Treacher Avenue toward where the Pirate’s Roost restaurant sat at the top of the hill.

  “I hope you like your coffee black.”

  “I like it all ways.” Addy remembered the rich black in Afghanistan and the milky pale her sister made. Didn’t matter, she drank it. “I just like some better than others.”

  Kimi laughed in such a charming way.

  The two of them worked solidly together and time passed quickly. Over the sandwiches George had brought in the brown paper bag, Kimi talked and Addy memorized.

  Turned out, Kimi wasn’t from Bailey’s Cove.

  “You must have a story to tell,” Addy prompted.

  Kimi stopped and examined Addy as if trying to discern a motive.

  “Sorry,” Addy said, “I am first and I suppose always a journalist.”

  “Be careful about poking some of the old sea dogs around here. Some of them can get pretty snarly. I do have a story. I met my husband in London. When he first brought me back here, there was quite a bit of staring. Then a man in town did some— Well, Freddy called it ‘butt kicking’ and, anyway, the man told a few of the loud ones, I was a person just like them and because I was Mrs. Freddy Applegate, they should honor and thank me.” She stopped and blushed.

  “Wow, I’d like to meet that man who did that for you.”

  She laughed again and Addy wondered where this woman got the courage to laugh so much when her husband was gone and her means of making a living had been reduced to a freestanding kiln and pots
strewn about.

  “Your wish is about to be granted.”

  Kimi put the pot she was wrapping into the nearly full box and hurried over to the squad car that had stopped with a crunching of gravel a few yards away.

  The man at the wheel hopped out and stood by the door of the car. Addy got the feeling Kimi would have run over and put her arms around his neck if he would let her.

  He didn’t look much like the kind of man who got hugged, at least not in public. He stood straight and tall. He was probably five-ten, but he seemed six foot three. His salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed neatly and combed a bit to the side, very cosmopolitan like. She’d bet he didn’t hale from these parts, either.

  “Chief Montcalm,” Kimi said as she dragged Addy by the arm toward the man, “this is Addy Bonacorda.”

  He shifted his uniform hat from both hands to one and reached out to her. His firm handshake lingered a moment, gauging her, and she knew he had come to see her, not Kimi.

  “Addy, this is our police chief.” The chief gave her a stern look and Kimi stepped forward. “Addy’s assisting with the cleanup of my shop.”

  “I’d like to have a conversation with you, Ms. Bonacorda. If I may.”

  She followed the chief and got into the squad as he held the door for her. He didn’t get in, but went over to speak with Kimi. She looked fretfully at Addy, nodded a few times, and smiled wanly.

  Then the chief strode to the car and got in. Addy had thought they would share their few words in the squad car, but the chief apparently had other ideas as he put the car in gear and backed away from Kimi’s shop without a word.

  She had time to glance out at Kimi who gave her an encouraging smile. What did she need courage for?

  Addy’s mind started taking inventory. Had she done anything that would interest the law? The chief put her in the front seat with him, so that should mean something unless they transported all criminals in the front seat.

  Ridiculous.

  She folded her hands in her lap. When the chief didn’t speak at all, Addy realized this was a game of wait and see. See what she’d confess as he drove along Church Street.

  Zach—did he do something, say something, file charges against her for trespassing or a crime she didn’t know she committed?

  Ridiculous, again.

  As they drove silently down Church Street Addy could see both the charm and the devastation in the town. The redbrick buildings that looked a hundred years old held up well, like the one with “Morrison and Morrison” spelled out in poured concrete above the door. Across the street a strip mall with a taco store and a dry cleaner’s and a few other businesses had been nearly flattened.

  In the next area of town, the buildings were more modern, but not so modern as to fail to show wear. They seemed like they were from the nineteen forties or fifties. The police and fire stations and the city hall sat side by side. At the other end of the block was a clinic with many cars in the lot and an ambulance at its emergency bay with its lights still flashing. Across the street from the police station was Mandrel’s Café, the town diner where workers were setting up outdoor grills. They were also unloading a truck that said O’Brien’s Grocery on the side. A quickly scrawled sign said simply FOOD.

  As the chief parked his squad in front of the police station, it had become a war of wills with her not asking why she was here and his not telling her. Maybe she’d end up behind bars without so much as an accusation.

  He leaped from the car and she was certain he would have opened her door if she hadn’t popped it open herself. Instead, he waited for her to clear the door before he closed it firmly without slamming it.

  He held out a hand for her to precede him and she did, into the small art-deco lobby, finished in gleaming wood. Across the way sat a auburn haired woman behind glass.

  “Hello, Chief.” The woman greeted the man with a professional smile that told her nothing, but greeted Addy with a look that broadcast Public Enemy Number One.

  Clever of the police chief. First he made Kimi tentative and then he brought her in so this woman could glare at her and make her quake in her boots. Too bad, Chief, she thought, these aren’t my boots.

  “Melissa, I’ll be in my office,” he said to the woman who looked at him and then at Addy and smiled all satisfied, like the cat that just ate the canary.

  Small-town law. She’d run amok with more than one sheriff who thought their power was bigger than the next guy’s, police chiefs whose version of law went to the highest bidder. One tribal chief in the Amazon had made her his wife without her knowing she was getting married and then tried to keep her captive. She got out of that one by miming that she was already pregnant. He hadn’t seen that as a boon to his position and turned her out of a village on the river without a boat. She’d waited two days with only four breakfast bars and a gourd half full of questionable water before a boatload of tourists came along and gave her a lift.

  He could do that. This chief could take her out to the police barricades and abandon her to find her way back to Boston.

  “Right in here,” he said as he gestured for her to go ahead of him down a corridor. They came to an open door with Bruce Montcalm, Chief of Police, Village of Bailey’s Cove written in three lines.

  She glanced inside the sparse office and doubted the wordy door was his idea.

  She took hold of the chair nearest the door, adjusted it so he’d have to turn his chair or turn his head to look at her. He was not the only one who could play the nonverbal signals game. To beat that he would have to stand over her, but there was no dignity to be had by looking uncomfortable in one’s own office.

  He went around the desk and sat down. He might have even nodded slightly in acknowledgment as he swiveled his chair in her direction.

  “Chief Montcalm, I’d like to know why I’m here.”

  The chief folded his hands on top of his desk and stared at her without malice.

  She sat back and folded her hands in her lap, when what she truly wanted to do was to look back and see how close the door was, and what the chances were of her getting her chair outside to jam under the knob to slow his pursuit.

  She took in a breath and raised her hands palms out. “I give up. This chair is too heavy for me to drag out the door and it doesn’t take much imagination to guess you could leap over your desk, nothing but air.”

  His expression did not change. “I brought you here because I wanted to express my deep concern that you might stir this town up.”

  “Stir it up?”

  “The town is broken at this moment.”

  “On the record, sir, I’d like to hear about that.”

  “For the record, the burden the folk will bear is to rebuild, with their own hands. The coffers of Bailey’s Cove will not hold up under this onslaught even if they do and even with the aid the government is about to offer.”

  “All right, I hear you saying there is too much damage for the town to recover from.”

  He gave a single nod.

  “And you brought me here because I can make it better—” she paused and waited and when she got no response “—or worse.”

  The nod came again.

  Zach had told her everything she needed to know under the bond of “off the record.” She would free him of the mess if she could, but she could not. Her career, her livelihood depended on her finding an angle sensational enough to keep the readers happy, or at least her editor. “I don’t yet know what I’m going to write about Mr. Hale. The world believes him to be a crook, but there is no real evidence he has done anything wrong.

  “When the blockade is lifted,” she continued, “reporters, photographers and camera trucks will descend on the town and snatch up the scoop on the country’s latest financial fat rat. If that happens, if I lose the exclusive that Zachary Hale is not to blame, I migh
t as well start my new career—motel maid in Toronto or dishwasher in Wisconsin. Worthy jobs and I’m grateful someone does them, but they are not why I got a degree in journalism.”

  A warm feeling flooded her. She believed. When under pressure, she truly believed in Zach’s innocence. Since he was innocent, the two of them could...

  The chief sat, still waiting.

  “Mr. Hale was kind enough to let me stay at the mansion on Sea Crest Hill during the storm. He takes very good care of the place. I can see that it was a lovely home at one time.”

  “This is not about Mr. Hale.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “NOT ABOUT MR. HALE.”

  Addy sat opposite Chief Montcalm attempting to grasp what the subtext must be. “There is no other reason I’m in Bailey’s Cove than to get an interview with Zachary Hale and to get a bit of background about the town where he grew up. What I’m here for is all about Mr. Hale.”

  Obviously the waiting chief was still wanting her to admit to something.

  “What else do you know about the town of Bailey’s Cove?”

  A tack. If you couldn’t get the answer you need, go at it from another angle.

  “Yeah, a fair amount. I know that the mansion on Sea Crest Hill and Mr. Hale’s family are deeply imbedded in the town’s history.”

  “Go on.”

  “Established by the pirate. There’s a child attributed to the pirate. Mr. Hale has half cousins, so to speak, in town in the form of the pirate’s love child’s descendants.”

  There wasn’t anything shocking anymore about the liaison of the pirate and his Colleen Rose. They should have been born today. Their life could have been just fine. Was Zach the pirate and she Colleen Fletcher?

  She shuffled around in her brain looking for the thing she was supposed to be admitting.

  “I met a brown dog on the street. He didn’t seem to be a stray. Told me he understood things about me. Said I’d be just fine. Oh, wait. Did I really say that out loud? Sorry. He didn’t tell me anything. Sorry.”

  When she clamped her mouth shut she was surprised and relieved to note the chief wasn’t even looking at her as if she were crazy.