A Whisker In The Dark

“Well what can you do?” Mom asked. “You can’t hire guards to patrol it.”

Millie pressed her lips together. “And you want to keep up good relations with the townspeople. Don’t want anyone bad mouthing the guesthouse.”

She had a point. If I kicked people off the property they might get angry and take revenge with bad reviews on Yelp. Was there a way I could control the digging and still keep people happy? I wasn’t too worried about the yard since the estate had acres, but most of it was rundown. “I’m going to have to lay out some ground rules. Hopefully the whole town won’t come out. And hopefully they will get tired of digging when nothing is found the first day.”

“What about the Biddefords? They tend to act like they own the place because they used to,” Millie said.

“Yeah they’re going to be a tough crowd to control.” I said wondering how, exactly, I would control them.

Jen’s eyes widened at something over my shoulder and I turned to see Mike making his way toward us. Was the guy everywhere? He swooped over to Millie’s side and dropped a kiss on the top of her head.

“Does your job entail inspecting tents too?” I gestured toward the area around us.

Mike smiled, all boyish charm and dimples. “Nice to see you, too, Sunshine.”

Jen snorted. Mom and Millie looked pointedly from Mike to me. I pretended to ignore all of them.

“I just came by because I knew Aunt Millie would be here and she said she had something for me.”

Millie produced a bag of cookies from her canvas tote bag. “Just baked them this morning.”

Odd, usually she came to the kitchen at the guesthouse to bake. Maybe she was getting used to her own kitchen at the independent living resort where she now resided. She’d claimed the kitchen was too small to do any serious baking, but maybe cookies weren’t that serious in Millie’s book. Truth be told, the thought of Millie not stopping by the guesthouse anymore to bake made me sad. She could be a handful, but I enjoyed her company. Plus, I needed her to keep bailing me out with breakfast dishes so the guests would have appetizing food to eat.

“Did you come from the town offices?” Millie’s words dripped with faux innocence. I knew she had an ulterior motive.

Apparently Mike did too because his gaze narrowed and his hand hesitated as he pulled a chocolate-chip cookie out of the bag. “Yes, why?”

Millie played with the tablecloth avoiding Mike’s eyes. “I was just wondering… you know, because you’re right next to the police station there, if you’ve heard anything further about the skeleton they found earlier this morning?”

Mike tortured her by biting into the cookie and making a show of chewing slowly before answering. “Well, as a matter of fact I did.”

“And…?” my mother and Millie both said, leaning in toward Mike with eager looks.

“Early assessment is that the skeleton was there for almost three hundred years. I guess it’s pretty hard to date exactly, but the medical examiner used to be a forensic anthropologist so he knows old bones.”

“Did they find any more clues inside the wall?” Millie asked.

Mike shook his head. “Nothing but a bunch of plaster. They did identify the ring and they’re pretty sure the skeleton is Jedediah Biddeford based on the ring and an old fracture on his leg.”

“Aha!” My mother straightened and pulled the head of her shovel out of the ground, showing the most animation I’d seen since I’d arrived. “That settles it then. If Jedediah Biddeford really did come back from Europe, then there’s a good chance he brought the treasure back with him. And that treasure is buried somewhere on the property of the Oyster Cove Guesthouse.”

Seven

Nero scanned the activity under the tent at the town common, his intelligent gaze coming to rest on Josie. She was talking to Myron Remington at the Oyster Cove Guesthouse display table. Nero felt sorry for Myron. He knew that many of the townspeople gossiped about him behind his back but then pandered to him in person because he was in control of the money. Try as he might, Nero would never understand the humans’ obsession with money, nor how acquiring it could make them do unspeakable things.

“Hurry up, the gang’s waiting.” Marlowe had trotted ahead, her black-and-orange tail high in the air. They were heading toward the bait wharf at the town dock where they often met with their other feline friends.

The others would have heard about the discovery of the skeleton by now and would want all the juicy details. He hated to tell them that their excitement would be in vain; there was nothing left to decipher after all these years. Hopefully they wouldn’t be too disappointed. Lying around all day in the sun could get boring and he was sure the others were as eager as he was to dig into a good investigation. Then again, judging by the behavior of the guests at the guesthouse, the cats might get that chance sooner than they thought.