Better Than Gold

by Mary Brady

  Shame on you, she thought.

  Some of Bailey’s treasure must have made it possible for the pirate to become a land baron, and he didn’t plan on needing the rest of the loot for a long time. He planned to put his and his Rose’s security in the wall, a sort of 1818 safe-deposit box.

  She fluffed her pillow and laid her head back down.

  The next time she sat up, it was seven on the dot. Mia got up, dressed and ran her six-mile run. When she returned she put water on for oatmeal and showered. After a righteous bowl of the hot cereal, she thought of calling Dr. Donovan for an opinion, but Saturday morning was never a good time to call university offices. She’d call on Monday morning at about ten o’clock. Plenty of time for even the slowest Monday morning PhD to be up and on the job—to be able to make the decision whether or not he would be relinquishing control of her site anytime soon.

  She thought of trying to piece the column together, but she decided she’d done enough damage to her cause. She wasn’t going to help them hang a neon sign above her door announcing Pirate Within.

  She settled on accruing ammunition for the fight. She took a tablet and started writing down her proposal list, the things she would request permission to do if they didn’t let her back to do full renovations right away. Maybe tear the rest of the wall down. Surely she could clean the upstairs and basement. Have the finishing completed in the bathrooms and kitchen, have the back deck installed and the new windows. She walked around for an hour, thinking of every item she could. More to barter with if it came to that.

  By the time she was ready to go drinking with her new pals, she had cleaned the windows in both Pirate’s Roost and her house, finished laundry and pinned Monique down about how things had gone with Lenny after they had left her the night before—stupendous—and showered again.

  The bar had around thirty-five patrons when she arrived on foot. All the tables in the place had been taken up with people having a good time and only two bar stools stood unoccupied. Of course, Saturday night would be much more crowded. She shouldn’t have expected less.

  The open bar stools were on the left side of the bottom of the U. She and Edwin Beaudin had sat in those two seats when she had come in the last time. She was disappointed to see Monique’s grandfather missing, but she had said she was coming and here she was.

  “Miss Parker,” Harley Davies called to her from his usual seat at the end where the bar attached to the wall.

  She came around to the end and smiled. “Hi, Mr. Davies.”

  “Hi, yerself,” he said when she stopped near his perch. “Ed said he’d be here by seven-thirty, but that oth-ah seat is saved for you.” Davies pointed across the bar to the two open seats.

  “This is a nice crowd,” she said, gesturing around the room.

  “Unusual. That’s what it is. I guess each one of us told somebody and here they all are. My wife’s over there with Cindy Carmody and Helen Schroeder, oh, and Charlie Finn’s wife, Mattie.”

  “And they all came because...?”

  “Well, because you said you’d be here.”

  “That’s great,” she said, having absolutely no idea what she was calling great. “I’m looking forward to talking to everybody.”

  “You can start with the girls, I mean...” He dipped his big black beard toward his barrel chest. “The ladies.”

  “It’s okay, Harley. I get so confused by what’s politically correct. I can’t even do Halloween right any more.”

  He grinned shyly at her. “Good to see you again, Miss Parker.”

  “See you later.” She waved and moseyed over to the table of women Harley had mentioned.

  They smiled up at her as a group and borrowed an empty chair from another table. Mia sat down and asked them how they were doing.

  Cindy Carmody started off the conversation. “We’re so glad you decided to come and talk with us.”

  “The mayor is out of town for another month and the town council never asked us before what we wanted for Bailey’s Cove. It seems ever since the paper folded we don’t get much in the way of news unless we go down to the bank and read the bulletin board,” Millie Davies said as she smiled with her bright coral lipstick on her sixty-year-old lips. She looked great, ready to have a good time.

  Motion caught her eye and Mia glanced up just in time to see a tall dark-haired man come in the door and turn away. Her heart nearly caught in her throat until she realized the man wasn’t Daniel. Ah-yah, she was so not clear and free of thinking about him.

  Helen Schroeder was speaking and belatedly Mia gave her her attention. “...getting too old to have all the kids and grandkids come and stay with us. Said just the other day, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a nice motel? You know, one of those chains with an indoor pool and all.”

  “Do you think you can get something like that started, Ms. Parker?” Cindy Carmody asked. “I don’t even have kids, but maybe us girls could have a girl’s night, like they do in the movies.”

  “We could treat ourselves to dinner at a nice restaurant and go for a swim,” Millie Davies put in.

  “I guess we have all been dreaming about what kind of things our town could use.” Mattie Finn spoke shyly but smiled brightly when every other woman nodded her head.

  “I can’t tell you ladies how thrilled I am to hear all your enthusiasm about Bailey’s Cove,” Mia said, wishing people in the town had spoken up sooner.

  When Pirate’s Roost opened, she was more sure than she had ever been that the town would support her business.

  Other tables called her over and indicated she should drag her chair. Her phone rang and she stopped the sound without looking at the screen.

  By the time she had made the rounds to the small tables, an entire enterprise of businesses had been suggested for the town. A few, like a couple big-box stores, were out of the question, but a bed-and-breakfast, the motel with an indoor pool, a shop featuring Maine crafts and many others made sense for the necessary growth of the town. Someone even mentioned the starting of a town blog by Shamus she thought.

  Mia was having a wonderfully distracting time. The only table she hadn’t visited was the long one against the far wall, where eleven of Bailey’s Cove’s most experienced townsfolk sat. She got the feeling they had been talking about something private when she approached with her chair.

  They welcomed her and regaled her with stories of Bailey’s Cove. How their grandparents had stood, sat and laid on their bellies watching for submarines during World War II. The times their grandparents shared their catch with each other and bartered with the farmers when the depression took away so many of the jobs. Their parents had told them about such things as the first use of electricity followed by the first radio, washing machine and vacuum cleaner. And they talked about how they raced to launch their boats to safety during the biggest storms, and how each brought in the biggest catch ever. Or, as Sarah O’Brien had put in, had eight kids and lived to tell the tale.

  “And we might have been the last spot in the country to get internet, but even more unbelievable that Shamus here was the first to get in on it,” the longtime boat captain Camden Flynn put in.

  The table of people chuckled and jostled the elderly man.

  “Maybe we should tell her about—” Shamus Willis started but Mr. Flynn stopped him.

  “Oh, Shamus, she’d not be interested in our shuffleboard club,” Mrs. O’Brien interjected as she gave what sounded like a forced chuckle.

  Shamus looked chastised but also a bit rebellious. She wondered what he had truly meant to say.

  When she next scanned the bar she noticed Edwin Beaudin had come in, and there was somebody on the stool next to him.

  Monique turned when Mia tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Hey,” Monique said, “Miss Popular, about time you came and gave us some attention over her
e.”

  “I’m flabbergasted. I had no idea there were so many people so interested in the town’s long-term future.”

  “We’re quite progressive,” Monique said, and her granddad chuckled and took a swig of his beer.

  “Lenny must be working tonight.”

  “And you were nowhere to be found, so here I am.” Monique smiled and offered Mia half her bar stool.

  “When are you meeting him at Mandrel’s?”

  Monique checked the time and grinned. “In thirty-four minutes, with the usual caveat that urgent police calls take priority.”

  Edwin grinned when Monique spoke of Lenny.

  “I see you approve.” Mia put her arm around Mr. Beaudin’s shoulder.

  “Officer Gardner is a fine man, in spite of all the teasing the two of you did when you were growing up.”

  “Edwin, how are things going on O’Connell’s boat?”

  “It’s good to be handling a boat again every day.” He took a sip of his beer. “There’s a problem, though.”

  Monique turned to him. “You didn’t tell me about a problem.”

  “’Cause you’re part of it.”

  “What did I do?” Monique put a hand to her throat and gave a sham look of dismay.

  “Now you got three people, and the lobsta I got for you only has two claws.”

  Mia caught the joke and played along. “I suppose your granddaughter could watch Lenny and I eat the lobster. You must have some little old bottom-feeder you can bring for her.”

  Monique laughed. “I might eat the whole thing myself. Let those without fight over the bottom-feeder.”

  They spent time talking and Mr. Beaudin laughed more times than Mia guessed he’d laughed in a long time. It was almost as if his daughter were still alive and the four of them were together for a summer meal during one of Maine’s long evenings when the sun didn’t set until after 8:00 p.m.

  When it was time for Monique to leave, Mia said goodbye to the groups of townsfolk, told them she’d like to meet with them again—to which they readily agreed and walked with Monique to her car.

  “He’s too happy,” Monique said as they stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  Mia couldn’t help but glance up at Pirate’s Roost. If the lights were on... Her heart sank low and miserable when there was only darkness.

  “What’s wrong with your granddad being happy?” she asked when she was sure she could speak without begging for a hug.

  “It’s like he’s no longer struggling, like he has his mind made up and he’s leaving.”

  “I’m here if he does, and we’ll find a way for you to live with him being gone for a little while.”

  “What if he leaves forever? I can just see what he’s thinking. If I have Lenny, he’s off the hook. He can leave me behind.”

  “I don’t have the answer. I wish I did.” Mia tugged the curls back off her face. She had no answers for anything these days.

  Monique hugged Mia and got in her car to seek refuge in Lenny’s arms.

  By the time Mia started back toward Blueberry Avenue, she was convinced Monique was worrying for nothing. Edwin Beaudin might go to visit his friend, but he’d return satisfied Bailey’s Cove was the best place to live.

  Besides, the recurring notion she got from talking to these people was that they were all watching her and Pirate’s Roost, rooting for her, waiting for her success. Then they would not only support her, they would begin to support each other’s dreams and wishes for the town’s survival and growth.

  As she started up Blueberry Avenue her phone chimed, telling her she had a new text message. She pulled it instinctively from her pocket.

  The text was from the woman who would be her chef when Pirate’s Roost was ready. “Please check your voice mail.”

  Mia did as asked.

  “Mia, I am so sorry. I wanted to speak directly with you, but you didn’t pick up my calls. I have taken another job.”

  Mia stopped cold. Her heart jerked with a painful thud. Her chef had quit. The chef she had searched for until she found the right fit for Pirate’s Roost and the perfect woman to do the job.

  Mia replayed the message because she had stopped listening after taken another job. “I’m moving to Cleveland next week. I just wanted to thank you for having faith in me and I’m sorry things didn’t work out. I love Maine, but I’m going home.”

  Home. Pirates. Terrible secrets. Why were the enemies in her life so complicated?

  The opening date of Pirate’s Roost had been put off three times, and if she had to tell the contractor she wasn’t ready, the fourth would be the death knell. She suddenly saw all the dreams and wishes of the people of Bailey’s Cove crashing and burning.

  She turned and hiked back down Blueberry Avenue.

  Now, she did not care.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DAYLIGHT WOULD SOON break. Daniel left the lab and went for a run instead of calling Mia as he wanted to, as he always wanted to, even though when he did call he got voice mail. She had said it didn’t matter if her heart got broken, but he had seen from the beginning the hurt in her lovely blue eyes. He had been kicking himself for three days since she had gotten in her SUV in that devastating black dress and had driven away from him because he had told her she must, that there was nothing for her with him.

  She believed him this time, and all he had to do now was convince himself to follow what he knew to be the truth. No, that wasn’t all. He planned to be there when Dr. Donovan arrived in his office this morning. If there was any reason to be found in this whole skeleton in the wall scenario, he’d make Dr. Donovan see it and let Mia get her crew back to work. She did not need to keep hearing the same excuses over and over.

  He jogged down the steps and around the building to the path through the campus and to the forest beyond. If he ran hard enough, maybe he could forget for a while.

  The early-morning breeze cooled him and the birds sang to him, but every step he took made him think of Mia Parker. The touch of her hand, the feel of utter completeness when he held her in his arms, listened to her sigh. The hope he felt was like nothing he had ever felt.

  He pounded harder and faster on the running trail as he tried to think of his past, of the reasons he should not want Mia to love him. Each time they came up, they faded and she took their place, her smile, her rare giggle.

  He stopped on the bridge over the river that ran through campus. When he peered down at the water he saw life moving on as it should, but the river remained the same. He could move past the horrors, but they would never change. The reason they happened would not go away. Ever.

  He started running again until he was so tired he wasn’t sure he could go on, and then he turned around and ran back the way he had come, back to the lab where he could shower and meet with his students before he saw Dr. Donovan.

  Daniel entered the lab, hair slicked back with water, dressed in jeans with no major worn parts, a button-down collared shirt and a newer version of his gray old beater sweater.

  The three students were each sitting at a computer terminal calling out changes for something on the screen. “He’s here,” one of them said and the computer screen Daniel could see from the doorway went dark.

  “Dr. MacCarey,” Ms. Vock called.

  “Good morning, everyone. Did you find anything more about the skeleton?”

  “There’s more damage to the bones, but just a broken wrist from childhood. He had already lost two of his teeth when he died,” offered first Ms. Vock and then Mr. Miller.

  He could see in the eagerness in their faces they were dying to show him the computer images.

  “All right, what do you have?”

  Mr. Miller sat down at a computer. “First we took into consideration his height and, based on the size of the cr
ypt, the maximum girth, and based the possible fat deposits in his face on that.”

  “He’s trying to say we think he was probably a bit on the skinny side.” Ms. Diaz brought up an image and turned the computer to face Daniel.

  The stilted computer-generated image of the face looked homogenized enough to resemble a tenth of the male population on the planet, but the image most likely would have been recognizable to the people who knew him. The students had given the man modest whiskers and dark curling hair.

  “And here he is dressed.” The next image showed a standing figure dressed in early American fashion, waistcoat and all.

  “Of course, for completeness we added, per the suggestion of Dr. Mitchell, the walking stick, a three-cornered hat and shoes with large buckles.” Dr. Mitchell was one of the early-America experts Daniel had met at Mrs. Wahl’s house for tea that day. “And a cravat. And the buttons on his clothing.”

  “We think he had twenty-six to twenty-eight buttons, none of which we found on the clothing. Nor, as Ms. Vock implied, did he have a cravat, which was the norm for the day and the manner of dress.”

  “He was wearing his socks, however.”

  “Did men really wear shirts that hung down to their knees that they tucked into their pants?” Mr. Miller squirmed as if trying to imagine tucking a knee-length shirt into his jeans.

  “Did Dr. Mitchell tell you they did?” Daniel asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then it’s true. Know your sources and use them for as much authenticity as possible.”

  “Dr. Mitchell assures us the clothing was upper-class and was made in the early nineteenth century, probably before 1815.”

  “Where can you go now with the investigation?” Daniel asked, and got furrowed brows from two, but Ms. Vock stepped forward. “We can search for images from the era and the area and see if we can find out who the man is? Maybe his descendents would like to know what happened to him.”

  “You’ve all done well.”

  “Wait. Wait. We are so not finished, Dr. MacCarey,” Ms. Diaz said as she made a few keystrokes.