A Finder's Fee

by Joyce

  I changed my mind about going home right away. We sat in my office at town hall and talked for a while about everything that was going on. Nancy was usually a very laid-back kind of person where problems were concerned. She was a little worried about the election.

  “The best thing you could do is resolve this race car thing with Councilman Wilson,” she advised. “I know that’s asking for a lot in a short time, but it would go a long way in making people feel better about you finding that site.”

  “I know.” I shrugged, feeling overwhelmed. “People think I found it on purpose, but I was looking for something else. I didn’t know the car was there.”

  “Something like what?”

  “Bones. There are remains of an old house from the 1600s. I was trying to get them out before the construction crew started drilling again.”

  She paused in mid–electronic puff then started laughing. “Oh, Dae, you’re always into something surprising. How did you find out about the bones?”

  I explained that it was a history thing and an important find for the town.

  “I’m afraid you’ve run out of time. The police said the construction crew could start working over there again tomorrow. Good thing too. We’ll lose our grant to pay for everything if they don’t get started again soon. I’d hate to see Chris’s face if we have to tell him that.”

  Chapter 14

  Tomorrow!

  Another impossible deadline. How was I going to get the bones out of there by then? I didn’t know if Maggie was gone or not, but I still felt committed to laying her to rest with her lover.

  I couldn’t ask for help again. That had created cataclysmic consequences. This was something I had to do on my own. The hole was already in the ground. It had to be wide and deep to have taken the race car out. Hopefully, Maggie wasn’t too far down from there.

  I didn’t go back into Missing Pieces. It would be too easy to lose myself and let it all go. I brooded about it on the way home, trying to decide what to do and how to do it. I almost walked right into Jake. He’d come to visit, eager to talk about the horse site again.

  We walked toward my house on Duck Road. “I wish you’d come out again,” he said. “I could use a second opinion.”

  He was even talking about hiring two men to help him work on it. They were members of the Wild Horse Society, but for him, even that was a reach.

  “I’d love to come. I can’t right now. I’m swamped with everything going on. Maybe after the election.”

  “Have you had a chance to hold one of the horses without gloves? Is there anything else you can tell me about the site?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I’ve still got them in my bedroom. I promise I’ll look at them.”

  “This is the find of a century, you know it? This is going to stand the whole historical world on its ear. You have to be involved. I need you to touch part of one of the horses, Dae. That could clear up everything. We’d know what was going on before those scientists even realize it.”

  “I know. I have a lot on my plate right now. I promise I’ll do it as soon as the election is over. Okay?”

  He studied my face. “I guess that’ll have to do, won’t it? We’ll keep digging. Call me when you do it.”

  One of his real wild horses was tied to the old birdhouse pole in the yard. He climbed on and clicked his tongue at the horse and was gone.

  “Nice horse,” Gramps said from the front steps. We watched him canter away down Duck Road. “He seems like a nice person, Dae, but I think he’s a little obsessed with this horse thing.”

  “Yeah. I know. He’s excited. He wants this to be something big.” I went inside and changed clothes. The secondhand pants and shirt weren’t going to be warm enough for what I had planned tonight.

  I went back downstairs where Gramps was making dinner for himself and his friends. It was his turn to host the pinochle game.

  “Stay and watch us play pinochle.” He tasted the fish stew he was making. He added salt, like always. “Or you could learn to play.”

  I ate a cheese sandwich and played with Treasure for a while. “Thanks but I have something I have to do.”

  “You seem a little preoccupied. What are you up to tonight?”

  I wasn’t going to explain to him about my mission to get the bones out of the ground before morning. I’d already filled a backpack with a lantern, gloves, two large trash bags and a bottle of water. I planned to collect a sturdier shovel from the toolshed before I left. One way or another, those bones were coming out tonight.

  I couldn’t get the words out. I knew he’d try to stop me.

  “Lots of cleaning and redistributing at the shop.” I didn’t like lying to him. What choice did I have? “It might take me all night.”

  He grunted and changed the subject. “You know, Dae, honey, you’ve done a good job as mayor of Duck. Things change though. We should both be prepared. You could lose the election.”

  “I know.”

  I actually wasn’t sure how that would work. Unless Mad Dog was proven innocent and released from jail, how would he be mayor? The town charter called for the next highest vote getter in an election to take the office. About the only way I could lose was if I helped him and proved he didn’t kill Lightning Joe. Even then, he’d have to win the election.

  Some people might not like it, but I was probably going to be the mayor again, until at least the next election.

  Gramps hugged me. “There’s been a lot of talk. I know it’s not true, and so do your friends. I want you to be prepared for whatever happens.”

  “I am. Whatever happens, it will be okay.”

  “Good. I’m glad you feel that way.” He turned off the pot on the stove that was beginning to smell really delicious. “Any luck with Mad Dog today? Did you see anything?”

  “Not really—except that I don’t think he killed anyone. I can’t prove it yet. Gramps, did you know Lightning Joe was married?”

  “That’s news to me, but I suppose it’s possible. I don’t know a lot about the racing scene back then. I was raised with Randal, so I kept up with his exploits, but that’s about all. Who was he married to?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me so I wouldn’t have to go through records at the county courthouse.”

  “Sorry. That was a long time ago. If I knew back then, I probably forgot. Want me to ask around?”

  “Sure. I’ll see what I can find too. We still have some time to get him back in the election.”

  I left the house soon after. Treasure had reminded me that I’d been gone all day and should have stayed home that night to be with him. I apologized and hoped he understood.

  He had wonderful, expressive body language. It was as though he really knew what I was talking about.

  Or I was imagining it.

  I’d never had a pet before. I’d heard Nancy talk about her bulldog like that. She said he always let her know what he did and didn’t like and swore he had a different bark for each person who visited her.

  Treasure held on to me with his claws until I had to disengage myself from him and hurry to close the door behind me. I hoped he didn’t know something about going out there that I’d missed.

  I waited until I got out on the back porch to put on a pair of tall fishing boots. I collected my shovel and backpack, ready to leave.

  “Are we finally going to get my bones out then?” Maggie pushed forward. “I was wondering if you were trapped in the crystal ball.”

  So much for Shayla’s crazy magic ball.

  I promised her again that I was going to get her bones out of the ground. “I still haven’t heard anything about Thomas’s grave site. I might have to wait to rebury you.”

  “Well, let’s not wait too much longer. Living in you is almost as bad as not living at all. How can you stand all this quiet and working all the time? Why don’t you want
to go out and have some fun?”

  I felt a little like a mental patient, arguing with myself as I got everything together. I reminded Maggie that if I was a party person, I wouldn’t go through all of this to help her. She subsided after that, and we were able to peacefully cohabit the same body again.

  It was cold walking down Duck Road. The rain and wind had calmed down. No one else was out. I kept my head down, my hood pulled over my hair. It wasn’t a long walk down to the site. I spent it going over everything that needed to be done.

  I realized there were still things that could go wrong—like running into some other late-night walker or Tim being on patrol and wanting to talk about Trudy. I knew I would be lucky to find the bones by morning. There was no time to waste and a long night ahead.

  I made it to the construction site in record time. The yellow tents were still up around the spots where they planned to start working again in the morning. That would be helpful. I glanced around before I went inside the tent where we’d found the car.

  I turned on the lantern to get my bearings and was astonished at the size of the hole and how far it went down now. It was at least thirty feet down and another thirty around. I supposed it had to be to get the race car out of the sand. The hole was marked with yellow chalk and orange caution flags, probably to keep people from falling into it.

  How was I going to get down there and back out again?

  This made the dig at Jake’s house look miniscule, and it had taken a ladder to get in and out of that hole. Maybe there was a ladder in one of the other tents. I hated to take the time to look for it but I had no choice.

  A loud, metallic sound—like chains clanging together—made me jump. An emergency ladder rolled out at my feet. I gasped and turned around.

  “Need some help?” Kevin stepped out of the shadows near the tent flap.

  “What are you doing here?” I was happy—and upset—to see him. I couldn’t stop a smile from stealing across my face even though I knew he shouldn’t be there.

  “I heard they were starting work on the project again tomorrow. You didn’t find the bones yet, and you being you, it was easy to figure out where you’d be.”

  “Kevin—”

  “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be here for me if I needed you. You’d be here for all of your friends too. That’s why they were all here for you digging up the car.”

  That warmed me inside despite the cold. “I don’t want you to get in trouble again.”

  “Me either.” He dropped one end of the ladder into the hole. “That’s why we’d better get done fast and not get caught this time.”

  He was there. He had a ladder. What could I say?

  I dropped my shovel down into the hole and began crawling down after it. My backpack held the lantern and trash bags to hold the bones we’d hopefully find this time.

  Kevin had a shovel too, and we worked in companionable silence for a while. We both dug for a few minutes then had to take buckets of sand up to the top to keep the hole from filling up. Luckily, Kevin had thought of those too.

  Maggie directed us to the remains of her house.

  “It’s like watching a puppet show.” Kevin observed me. “Shayla called this afternoon and told me she’d taken care of the witch. I guess it’s not that easy.”

  “I wasn’t sure if Shayla had really done anything when I was at her shop. It looked impressive. Maggie vanished and didn’t come back, but I could still feel her. We have some kind of bond. She’s not a witch and she’s not a ghost. She’s trapped and she’s alone. She had to wait all those years for the right person to put on the necklace. I understand why everyone was so thrown when they felt the power in it. It was Maggie’s love for her young man that trapped those emotions in it. All I have to do is find the bones and then find Thomas’s grave.”

  “But you have no idea where to look.”

  “No. She said there used to be a chapel that burned down. There are still members of her family buried there with some other Duck residents from that time.”

  “You know, I can speak for myself.” Maggie came between Dae and Kevin. “I would know the spot if I saw it. I don’t think I have seen it, but nothing looks the same.”

  Kevin laughed. “I suppose you’d have to expect a lot of change in four hundred years.”

  Maggie moved up close to him and put her (my) hand on his chest. “Some things never change, your lordship. You know what I mean?”

  That was enough for me. We switched places in me. “Let’s dig and get this over with.”

  “Fine with me, your ladyship.” Kevin kept laughing as he dug.

  “I’m glad you think this is funny. Wait until some four-hundred-year-old pirate takes over your body. I’ll be laughing then.”

  “I don’t think anything like that is going to happen to me.” He grinned at me.

  “I never thought it would happen to me either.”

  “Well, I surely never thought it would happen to me, ducks!” Maggie added.

  The sand was dark and wet where we were digging. By that time, we had taken turns passing fifty buckets out of the hole, up and down the ladder.

  I understood why they called those emergency ladders. They were difficult to climb and shouldn’t be used unless there was no other choice. They twisted and turned as I climbed. Kevin had a ladder in each of the upper-floor rooms in case of fire. I hoped no one ever had to use one on the outside of the Blue Whale.

  My back and legs were aching when my shovel hit something that sounded like metal. “I think I found something.”

  “Not another car, I hope.” Kevin leaned on his shovel.

  We dug the sand from around the heavy metal object. It was badly rusted, water and sand taking their toll on it.

  “I think it’s an old iron kettle. We must have found the house, Kevin.”

  Maggie’s voice was choked with excitement. “You’re very close now, Dae. Mayhap this will be the end of it. A maid can get overwrought waiting to be rescued.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told her. “We’re going to get you this time.”

  We located a few more artifacts and carefully wrapped them in pieces of torn tarp as we took them to the surface. I felt terrible that we couldn’t do a full excavation here, as should have been done, but Nancy had been right about the limited time frame. We had to continue working on the town hall project or lose the funding for it. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “Dae—”

  I looked where Kevin was carefully digging only small amounts of sand at a time and saw some pathetic little pieces of bone, darkened and falling apart. It was all we could do to pick them up and get them into the trash bag.

  Maggie was laughing and clapping. I asked if we had all the pieces. It was dark and I wanted to be sure. I didn’t want to have to come down here again.

  “You have most of them,” she whispered. “God, who knew a person would come down to such a small amount.”

  Kevin carefully dug up a few more artifacts—a beautiful plate, a cooking pot and the swing arm that would’ve held it over the fire in the hearth.

  “We must be near the fireplace.” I hoped most of the items were salvageable as I wrapped them.

  There was more here than I’d expected. It might be more than Kevin and I could carry away when we were finished. I hated not to keep everything we found, even though the items weren’t worth much money. I knew time was against us. It was nearly two A.M.

  We dug a few more shovels of sand before using our hands to drag out the rest. We had to be very careful of what was trapped in it.

  Something hard was lodged in front of me and I pulled gently. The light from the lantern gleamed on a skeletal hand. There was a gold ring, the band heavy and wide, set with some jewel I couldn’t identify.

  Maggie was excited. “There it is! My wedding band. Well, it would have been if I
had lived. Death has a way of changing things.”

  “This is an expensive ring.” I examined it carefully. “Thomas must’ve been a very successful sea captain. Was he a pirate, Maggie?”

  “I’ll not be saying. My Thomas was a good man. He tried to take care of me. He was gone when the storm took me. I know it grieved him when he returned and found me gone. I’ve often wondered what happened to him. Did he meet his death at sea, as was his wont?”

  I put the ring into the bag with her bones, glad I was wearing gloves. I didn’t want to experience Maggie’s death with her. It seemed like the best thing to do. I was sure she wanted to be buried with it.

  My business sense told me the ring would bring a hefty price. Gold from that age was purer than in our own time, and that didn’t take into consideration a collector who would love to have something with the background of this ring. I was pretty sure that big stone was a bloodred ruby too.

  I wasn’t a grave robber. Some things shouldn’t be for sale.

  The rest of her bones came easily. Most were in pieces and blackened with time and weather. Finally Maggie confirmed that all of her bones were out of the sand.

  “I feel so light.” She smiled brilliantly. “I am sure I could fly.”

  She pointed to the other side of the pit. “Look yonder to find something not belonging to me or mine that will aid you in your other endeavors.”

  Kevin was already making his way up the ladder with the last of the artifacts. I looked at the side of the pit where Maggie had pointed. I didn’t really expect to find anything of use, maybe some trinket she thought would be valuable. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings by not looking.

  I saw something glint in the dim light about ten feet up from the bottom. I zipped up the backpack and put it on, grabbed the lantern and started up.

  I picked at the metal with my fingers until it fell into my hand. It was a corroded Dare County Deputy Sheriff’s badge.

  Chapter 15

  I didn’t really have time to think about what that might mean. I knew we had to get out of there. We couldn’t be caught again.