A Whisker in the Dark

by Leighann Dobbs

  He headed toward the carriage house, glancing behind him as if to make sure no one had followed.

  Did Bob know something about the treasure that the others didn’t? How would they go about locating Jed’s cache, I wondered? How would they know where to dig? Were they just going to randomly dig holes? Or did they have a plan in mind?

  I ladled the batter into two loaf pans. It looked good. I bent down and sniffed. And it smelled good. The real test would be if it tasted good. Only one way to find out. I opened the oven and shoved them inside.

  No sooner had I finished that when a loud knock on the front door echoed through the house. I brushed the flour off my hands and rushed to the front. I had no idea who it could be since the door was unlocked during the day and the guests just walked in. Maybe it was a tourist wanting to check out the place to rent a room at a later date.

  I’m sure I didn’t hide my disappointment very well when I opened the door to reveal that it was Sheriff Chamberlain. Nevertheless, I invited him into the foyer.

  “Hey, Josie, I just wanted to come and retrieve the police tape and markers from the crime scene.”

  “You’re done with your investigation?” I asked as I led him toward the west wing.

  “Yep, done as we’re gonna be.” Seth spread his hands. “I mean, what’s to investigate?”

  I unlocked the door and we proceeded over to the area where the skeleton had been found. Sheriff Chamberlain pulled the crime-scene tape off the edges of the wall and picked up the yellow crime-scene markers.

  “So you’re not going to go figure out who killed him?” I asked. I know the guy was killed a long time ago, but it didn’t seem right not to bring his killer to justice, even if we couldn’t arrest them and bring them to trial.

  Seth leveled a look at me. “Josie. There would be no suspects to interrogate. We’re not even sure who the victim was though it probably was Jedediah. We researched his whereabouts. We know he went to Europe and supposedly never came back but his death was never recorded over there either.”

  “Did they record deaths back then?”

  What if Jed had fallen into the sea on the way back or something? Surely someone had written something down? But if it wasn’t Jed in the wall, then who was it?

  Seth shrugged. “They did record deaths back then, but if he died alone somewhere and they didn’t know who he was, his name wouldn’t be on any death certificates, so…” Seth shrugged and let his voice trail off.

  “I guess you have a point. There’s not much to go on after all this time, but you’d think his relatives would want closure.”

  “So far not one of them have come to me for it,” Seth said. “I mean, it’s not like any of them actually knew the guy and I don’t want to take up valuable police resources on an investigation that no one cares about.”

  What else did the police have to do? There wasn’t much crime in Oyster Cove. But given the way the Biddefords were acting about the treasure and the fact that the whole town had bought shovels, a police presence might be needed in my very own backyard in the not-too-distant future.

  I glanced out the window, my brow furrowing as I saw a form in the shrubbery. A form with a shovel. Thankfully it wasn’t dead. Paula lay curled up under the azalea bush like an innocent child—if innocent children passed out from drinking and hugged shovels in their sleep. As I watched, her nose twitched—that’s how I knew she was alive.

  “Yeah I guess they’re pretty far removed. So that’s it then? Case closed?” I asked.

  Seth put the last of the police equipment into a bag and turned to the door. “Yep. The room is officially cleared and you can start working in here again.”

  Good thing I’d given Ed the rest of the day off. He’d resisted going home, puttering around the grounds instead, but I knew he hadn’t started in the conservatory yet. This way I could just have him continue in the ballroom. I’d told him he needn’t stay but I kept seeing him around and whenever I asked him why he hadn’t left he simply said he was tending to “this and that”. I guess he felt guilty about going home since I’d given him the day off with pay. Call me an old softy but I knew he was supplementing his social-security income and I didn’t want him to miss a day’s pay just because someone had shoved a body inside my wall three centuries ago.

  My phone chirped, and I pulled it out of my pocket. A bright spot in the day! It was my daughter Emma. I couldn’t help but smile. Emma lived halfway across the country and I didn’t get to see her often, so her phone calls were like balm for my soul. I loved hearing stories about her job. She’d recently started working at the FBI, so I figured she would get a kick out of the skeleton story.

  “Gram told me you found another dead body,” Emma said as soon as I answered the phone.

  Leave it to my mother to spread distorted news as fast as she could. Emma and my mom were close, and that was a good thing, except sometimes they were a little too close. I didn’t mind so much except my mother tended to be overly dramatic and sometimes she exaggerated when she passed on information to Emma.

  “Well it wasn’t exactly a body, at least it hasn’t been for quite some time.” I didn’t want Emma to worry. Or think that I was some kind of weird murderer attractor.

  “Gram was a little vague.” The tone of concern in Emma’s voice squeezed my heart. It was sweet that she was worried, but it was my job to worry about her, not the other way around. That would come much later in life if I turned out like my mother, I hasten to add. “Turns out there was a skeleton buried in the wall here. Sheriff Chamberlain says he’s been dead almost three hundred years.”

  “No kidding. Gram said something about treasure, too.” Emma’s concern turned to excitement. That’s good, it meant she wouldn’t be worried about me.

  “Apparently there was some curse about the treasure and now the whole town is going crazy thinking they are going to find it in the yard here.”

  “Oh, that sounds messy. What about the investigation?” Emma asked. She’d always been interested in investigations, so it was no surprise when she’d gone to college to study criminology and then jumped at the FBI’s job offer upon graduation. Who knew her mother would end up with a dead body and an old skeleton in her guesthouse? Maybe the abundance of homicides would make her want to move to town. We could use her help if dead bodies continued to crop up.

  “There won’t be one. Sheriff Chamberlain pointed out that there are no suspects still alive and no one to arrest. They aren’t even a hundred-percent sure who the victim is.”

  “Hmm… still seems like one should get to the bottom of what happened. Maybe he should send it to a forensic anthropologist or something and have them look into it. I could hook him up, but there’s probably a backlog.”

  “I could mention it to him. No one here seems interested in it though. Not even the dead guy’s family.”

  “Oh, right. They’re staying at the guesthouse. Were they upset?”

  “Hardly. More like excited once they concluded the discovery of the skeleton meant his treasure could still be buried outside.” I peered out the window to see if any digging had started. Thankfully not yet. Paula was still asleep in the shrub.

  “So things are going good otherwise?”

  “Fabulous.”

  “And Uncle Tommy’s friend, Mike? How are things going with him?” Emma’s voice held a hint of mischief and hopefulness.

  That must have been my mother exaggerating again. “He hasn’t written me up for any building code violations yet.”

  “Gram implied he might be inspecting more than just the guesthouse…”

  “Gram implies a lot of things that are not correct. There’s nothing going on.” I put that to rest as soon as possible. The last thing I needed was my daughter digging into my love life. Or lack thereof.

  “Well if there was, I think that would be great. I mean, I love Dad and everything, but you deserve to be happy.”

  “Thanks, honey, I’m glad you feel that way.” At least if I ever did
start dating, Emma wouldn’t be one of those adult children who protested their mother ever being with anyone but their father. It made me wonder how she felt about Clive’s many lady friends. A pang of jealousy surfaced. Did Emma like them? Then again, how could she get to know any of them? His bedroom had a revolving door. I assumed Clive still liked to have several on reserve just like he had when we were married.

  I started toward the foyer. The Biddefords had agreed to keep the shovels in the carriage house, but I wanted to make sure the entranceway stayed clear and clean. I didn’t want any prospective guests thinking I ran a dirty show here. The shovels were all gone, but clumps of dirt remained. I’d have to clean those up, Lord knew Flora wouldn’t do it.

  “So how are things with you?” I asked to move the conversation away from me and Mike.

  “Fabulous…” Emma proceeded to tell me about what was going on in her life while I got the broom and dustpan out of the pantry. I was glad that she was settling in to her adult life. She was healthy, had friends and a good social life and was happy at work. It was all a mother could ask. Now, if I could just get my mother to stop worrying her about dead bodies and getting her hopes up about romantic prospects, things would be great.

  As I cleaned up the mess, I mused about how quickly Flora had trained me to do pretty much everything on my own. Honestly, I had wondered more than once if I should keep her on. But she was a great-grandmother on social security. She needed the money. Besides, Millie had said that Flora had provided decades of loyal service to the guesthouse and that counted for something. And she did do some of the cleaning. Besides, the dirt was easy to clean up, just a few swoops into the dustpan and it was gone.

  I heard a door open upstairs and glanced through the railing to the hallway out of habit. The front foyer was large and had a grand staircase that opened to a gallery hallway that looked down on the foyer. I saw Flora’s orthopedic shoes coming out of the middle room.

  Surprise, surprise, she’d actually been cleaning the rooms!

  Not wanting to disturb Flora if she was in a room-cleaning mood, I started back toward the pantry with my dustpan full of dirt.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  I spun around to see that Arlene had snuck up on me. She had a sour look on her face. I half expected to see a shovel clutched in her hands but they were empty. The smell of Chanel No. 5 wafted around her so strongly it almost gave me an asthma attack.

  “Can I help you?” I asked, stepping back out of range of her perfume.

  She made a face. “Well, I certainly hope so. The accommodations… our room… it’s deplorable!”

  “How so?” I thought the rooms at the Oyster Cove Guesthouse were quite nice. They were loaded with antiques, decorated in lovely colors with wallpaper and rugs suitable to the time-period and had been all redone less than five years prior.

  “Our room hasn’t been cleaned. We’d appreciate it if you could send up the maid. I don’t believe she’s been in there since we arrived.” Arlene made a big production out of sneezing. “I’m allergic to dirt and soot you know.”

  Maybe she should back off on the perfume dousing. I was willing to bet that was what was making her sneeze. But I knew better than to argue with the guests. The customer was always right. Besides, I’d just seen Flora come out of her room so I was sure it would be at least a little bit cleaner when she went back.

  “I’ll have it cleaned right away.” Sometimes it was beneficial to let guests think they’d bossed you around.

  She huffed and turned to leave, practically bowling over Doris.

  “What are you doing?” Doris looked at her suspiciously. “Are you pumping Josie for information on likely places where the treasure might be buried?”

  Arlene looked her mother-in-law up and down. No love lost there, I sensed. “Hardly. I’m just trying to get our room cleaned. I doubt there even is any treasure.”

  “Ha! Then you don’t need to dig for it.” Doris watched Arlene walk away then turned to me. “Say, you wouldn’t have happened to find anything like an old map or any indication in the house of where the treasure could be?”

  “No.” Hadn’t Millie mentioned an old book about the history of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse that she wanted for the table at the town celebration? Might that have some clue? Not that I believed in the treasure, but it might be worthwhile to browse through it. Of course, I wasn’t going to mention that to Doris.

  “Dang. Well, if you think of anything speak up.”

  “Oh, I will.”

  Movement outside caught my eye and I glanced out the narrow window beside the door where Bob was rushing by with a shovel.

  “Those darn nincompoops. I told him to wait until dark,” Doris said.

  “Dark? Then how would you see what you’re digging?” I asked.

  “Headlamps.”

  “Speaking of digging, I want to make sure there’re not a lot of holes in the ground. I don’t want a liability issue.”

  “Oh no, don’t worry. We’re gonna fill them in just like we said. And we’ll put the shovels in the carriage house and wipe our feet so we don’t track dirt in.”

  “I hope you will.” I showed her the dirt in the dustpan. “You’ve already tracked quite a bit in. And I still think it might be smarter to dig in daylight.”

  Doris shook her head. “Nah. If they did that, then each one would see where the other one was digging.”

  “You mean they’d steal the treasure from each other?”

  Doris sighed. “Sadly, I think they would. I mean, they are my children and I love them, but they have their faults.”

  “All kids do.”

  “I made them make a pact that we’d share the treasure but I’m not so sure they’ll stick to it. They haven’t played nice together since they were toddlers. Take the cheese-sculpture business, for example. My husband Barney and I built that up from nothing. We started off whittling Wisconsin cheddar and ended with sculpting masterpieces of Gruyère.”

  I nodded with empathy even though I wanted to get back to the kitchen and throw away the dustpan full of dirt I was holding.

  “Once Barney was gone, the kids took over. Big mistake. Turns out that when you inherit a business you don’t take as much care as when you build it up. You don’t work as hard. I’m afraid things are going downhill.” Doris flopped into a chair and I suddenly felt sorry for her.

  As if proving her point, Bob’s voice wafted down from above. He was arguing with someone, but we couldn’t make out exactly what he was saying or who he was arguing with.

  “See what I mean?” Doris pointed up.

  “Well, siblings always fight and hopefully things will pick up with the business,” I assured her, for lack of anything better to say.

  “If we found the treasure it sure would. ’Course, I doubt any of my kids would actually use the money for the business.” Her eyes turned steely. “But I would. In fact, I’d do just about anything to get some extra cash flow to save it. Barney would have wanted that.”

  If the treasure actually belongs to you, I thought. Again, I didn’t see the point of voicing that opinion. No sense in pissing off paying guests over something that was unlikely to happen.

  She sighed and pushed up from the chair. “Anyway, I don’t know how those kids turned out all wrong. I tried my best.” Doris made a face, her eyes crinkling and her nose twitching as she sniffed. “What’s that smell? Is something burning in the kitchen?”

  Nine

  I rushed back to the kitchen to see smoke billowing from the oven. Luckily I had the presence of mind to grab some oven mitts before ripping open the door. I used the mitts to fan the smoke away from my face as I bent down to inspect my loaf cakes that now resembled shrunken dried-out old leather. I pulled them out and slapped both on the counter, then waved frantically and prayed the sprinkler system the previous town building inspector had made me put in didn’t go off and soak everything.

  I rushed over to open the back door to let out some of the smoke. I
t was getting dark and I could barely make out the moonlit ocean and the silhouette of the Smugglers Bay Inn beyond the tiny little lights that danced over my yard like fireflies. Except they weren’t fireflies. They were little flashlights in the hands of the people digging up the yard.

  And it was a lot more than just the Biddefords.

  I squinted into the night. Who was out there? My mom, for one. I saw her by the old oak tree jabbing her shovel into the earth. Leave it to Mom, that was probably a good spot for buried treasure. Didn’t pirates always bury their treasure under a tree?

  Doris Biddeford was now out there too, digging in the mound of the hill we thought was an old bottle dump. Another good location.

  But the number of flashlights indicated there were a lot more than just my mom and the Biddefords digging. Just how many people were out there?

  I stepped on to the stairs and a shadowy figure ran by my feet. Nero. He darted over to the old rose arbor and started digging. Apparently even the cats wanted in on the treasure hunt.

  Darn! Was that a light bobbing over from the Smugglers Bay Inn? Even Stella was getting in on this crazy treasure hunt. And was that figure around the edge of the property Myron Remington? The town’s richest banker wanted a chance at buried treasure, too.

  What was wrong with people? More interested in treasure than finding out who had killed Jedediah Biddeford or how he ended up in the wall? And how had he ended up in there? Had he really brought treasure back and then someone killed him for it? And if so, wouldn’t that person have taken the treasure? All these people were on a fool’s errand. No treasure existed in my yard, I was sure of it. But maybe I should go out and dig, too… just in case.

  I considered it for a second until a whiff of burned peanut-butter-banana bread reminded me that I had more important things to do. I needed to mix up another batch of batter and get it in the oven and figure out what to cook for breakfast the next morning. I didn’t have time to go on any treasure hunts.