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readily and shook firmly. His handshake was a genuine palm-to-palm and not the fingertips she often got, and strong.
    “Mia Parker. I’m trying my best to help build up Bailey’s Cove, make it, if not a destination, at least a stopping place on the central Maine coast.” She winced as her words came out sounding like the pitch she had given to the town council when she was seeking permission to renovate the historic building.
    “Good, the introductions are all finished. We can get started right away.” Chief Montcalm strode into the back room and gave them each a nod of greeting. He shook Mia’s hand and then Dr. MacCarey’s, giving each of them a direct and steady look in the eyes.
    Mia held in a grin at seeing Dr. MacCarey stand up a little straighter, pull his shoulders back a bit. The chief had that effect on people.
    The dark-blue-uniformed chief stopped at the cardboard boxes containing the remains removed from the hole. She’d seen the contents of the boxes already, at the police station. They gave her the creeps.
    “Everything we removed from the site is in these evidence boxes. After the initial incursion...” He stopped and looked at Mia.
    “As far as I know—” She held up her hands. “No one has touched a thing since your team took the skeleton and clothing away. I haven’t let my workers back in after they first made the hole and—” she glanced over at Daniel “—no one that I know of has been in the building until I came in this morning.”
    Chief Montcalm glanced at her flashlight, its beam shining a spotlight on the door of the back-room stairwell. She walked over, plucked it up and flicked off the beam.
    “Everything seems to be in order,” Dr. MacCarey said as he gave Mia another glance.
    The chief seem satisfied and shifted his gaze to Dr. MacCarey. “Strict crime scene protocol has been followed, so there should be little that would compromise your investigation. Any questions?”
    “Not at the present,” Daniel answered. “I might have some after I check out the site.”
    When the chief glanced at her, Mia shook her head.
    He handed Dr. MacCarey a small portable data-storage device. “This is all the photographs and information we have. I assume you will be taking the boxes of evidence with you when you leave.”
    Dr. MacCarey nodded and pocketed the thumb drive he most likely thought of as quaint, like the rest of the village was going to seem to him. Quaint. Old-fashioned. Out of date. Used up.
    Not if she could help it.
    “Then I’ll leave you to it.” Chief Montcalm secured his hat on his head in preparation to face the wind again. “If you need anything, you have my number.”
    He turned to Mia and said, “Put the tape back in place when you’re finished. The natives are restless and it might help keep them out for a day or two longer.”
    A blink later, the chief’s back, as he was hurrying around the dividing wall, was all there was to be seen of him, and another moment later, the squad car’s engine started up.
    “Succinct sort of guy, isn’t he, Dr. MacCarey?”
    “Direct and to the point, and call me Daniel if you don’t mind.” He studied her as he made the request. “What were you looking for when you were peeking in the hole?”
    She snorted. She had prepared herself for the ax to fall. What he offered instead was curiosity. “Thanks for not ratting me out to the chief.”
    “I would have if I thought you had disturbed anything.”
    “Fair enough.” Was that what she had been doing? Until she had peered into the hole this morning, she had tried not to think about sticking her fingers in where they didn’t belong. “Well, I was—um—looking for treasure I guess.”
    “That would be why Chief Montcalm said the natives are getting restless? Treasure?”
    She wasn’t sure she should tell him the town’s closely guarded obsession. Muddying the waters, when they didn’t need to be mucked up. “Like the chief said last week, the university would