Recap: Failed scholar and reluctant detective Hayden McTeague has discovered a skeleton in the walls of the house of a 19th century sea captain. Could the Captain’s widow have had something to do with the death? McTeague is on a commercial/historical adventure that he hopes will save his career and marriage. What else will he find lurking in the old house—and in the Cape Cod village of Basil’s Cove?
This is a recap of Part 1 of ‘The Widow Chase.’ You can read the full Part 1 here.
The Widow Chase - Part 2
Poverty and obscurity take a toll on a writer who has tasted success. Speaking for myself, I would gladly endure the first fate to avoid the second. I wasn’t so sure about my wife. In any case, it looked like neither of us would have to choose. It was five in the afternoon and I was on my third bourbon. Shelly was getting her first look at the remains.
“It appears to be an adult male, aged about thirty,” I said.
“It looks like a bunch of old bones.”
“There may have been blunt force trauma to the head.”
“How can you tell?
“I have skills you don’t know about.”
She gave me a coy poke. “It’s smaller than it looked in the picture.”
She was dressed smartly for the office in a white blouse and floral skirt. I noticed that the skirt was rumpled in back, from a long day of bookkeeping. Part of an evening, too. For reasons of the fiscal calendar she’d had to work late. The spring sun had fallen behind the church, and the old house glowed in the dusk. We had yet to turn on the electricity.
I too was disheveled. I had cleaned up back at the condo after my morning of demolition and my afternoon of scholarship, but the lure was strong and I’d returned to the scene of the crime to talk to my agent and wait for my wife. I’d even swung the sledge a few times in my chinos, but all I’d managed to do was punch a random hole or two. If there was more to be found, I would need to be systematic and properly attired. The old plaster was tough stuff.
“Frank Barnes thinks he can sell this concept,” I said.
“Good for you, Hayden.”
“Good for us.” I slipped an arm around my wife’s still-slender waist. She allowed it. We hadn’t been intimate in a long time. “Frank’s getting ahead of himself, the way he likes to do. Talking nonsense about movie deals and TV series.”
“It’s not impossible,” Shelly said. “I like that show where the couple flips houses. You watched it with me, remember? I could do that.” My yellow safety helmet sat on the floor beside the remains and she put it on. A little plaster dust fell from the bowl of the helmet into her hair. She didn’t notice or didn’t care. “How do I look?” she said, and struck a pose.
“Sexy as hell.”
“You’re not so bad yourself. Lose a few pounds around the middle and comb it over. You remind me a little of the guy on the flipper show. Except he’s not a distinguished writer.”
“Once and future,” I said. Usually I am modest and circumspect about matters of talent and career, but the bourbon was dissolving barriers. “Of course, I have to write the book first.” I ran a hand over the wrinkled back of Shelly’s skirt. She brushed it away.
“Go write your book,” she said.
“It’s too late for writing. But I have an idea.”
I set my glass down on the dusty floor and picked up a duffle I’d brought from the condo. From it I took a sleeping bag and pillow and laid them out like a nest, next to the skeleton, and sat down in it. “Join me.”
She remained standing. “Your text said you found something else.”
“Not in the walls. In the archives.” I patted the nylon of the sleeping bag. “Come closer and I’ll tell you all about it.”
She sat primly and let me take her hand. I offered a summary of my afternoon at the records office, careful to include all I’d found there, even the nosy clerk. She listened with a rapt attention that was unusual for her. Then she said: “So you think there’s another one in there.”
“It’s a definite possibility.”
“This is working out better than I hoped.”
“It was your idea, Shelly. But let’s not forget there’s sadness in the story. That’s what will give the book its heart.”
“Yes, of course.” But she said it in a perfunctory way. Her gaze as she looked out the dirty window, where the clouds above the steeple were turning lavender, was distant and abstract. “Maybe try that wall next?”
“That’s an outside wall. The building could fall down.”
“No it won’t. Just go slow and be careful to leave the studs intact. If it was me burying bodies, that’s where I’d put one.”
“How’d you get so smart about murder—and houses?” I asked admiringly. I noticed her blouse too had turned lavender. I also saw that the collar was misaligned. “You missed a button,” I said.
I reached out to fix the problem. This first required unbuttoning, and when she realized I was unbuttoning everything, she stood again and stepped away, nearly tripping over the large femur.
“You’re drunk, Hayden. You’ve been drinking way too much and it’s starting to get old. You can stay here next to your—your buddy. I’m going home.”
She did, and I poured more bourbon. From my makeshift bed I sadly watched the village grow dark and raised the glass to my drinking companion, Captain Chase, or whoever it was lying beside me.
~:~
The Basil’s Cove Historical Society occupies a tiny shingled building that was once a blacksmith’s forge. I had passed a busy week and had questions I hoped might be answered there. The volunteer behind the desk was the man from the records office.
“Hello again,” I said.
“The famous author,” said Crumbly, not without deference.
There was nothing unusual about us meeting again in this way. We year-round residents get to know each other or, at a minimum, recognize each other, and many of us wear several hats. Oddly, I had never met or seen Crumbly until this week.
“I believe I can satisfy your curiosity,” I said. “I’ll need to satisfy it, if you’re going to help me.” When he pretended to be puzzled, I reminded him that he had looked over my shoulder in the records office before I requested a private room.
“Apologies. I’ve always been interested in history.”
“Have you?” I said. I had heard this countless times. I asked him, by way of small talk, how long he had been a volunteer at the Society.
“I’m new here, actually.”
This didn’t surprise me. For some reason he didn’t strike me as the volunteering type. “You’re new in town, too, if I’m not mistaken,” I said.
“Within the last year.”
“What brings you to Basil’s Cove?”
Instead of answering, he recited mechanically, “Would you like to hear about the village blacksmith?”
“I’d like to hear about the Widow Chase.”
He seemed unsurprised by my request. “Of course,” he said with bureaucratic efficiency. “You bought the Chase house.”
“Word gets around.”
“Real estate transactions are recorded, naturally. And word does get around—around the office. They say that’s an important historical property.”
“It’s turning out to be.” I was intentionally vague and told him nothing of my discoveries. There had been by this time more than one. I may not have been much for building, but it turned out that I had a knack for destroying. I’d gone at the exterior wall Shelly had suggested; long ago I had learned not to question her intuition. Inside an hour another partial skeleton was crudely assembled on the floor beside the captain. I texted her another photo. I told no one else. I especially didn’t want my overeager agent to know, not yet.
Crumbly asked me how he could help.
“Prudence Bronte, which is how she was legally known at her death, lived in this town for eighty-five years,” I explained. “I’m wondering if the Society might have any artifacts of hers. I would be particularly interested in letters.”
“Bronte,” he mused, chin in hand. “Spelled like the sisters?”
“Like the sisters.”
Crumbly’s chin, like the rest of his face, was a pleasant, angular, ruddy object. He was also one of those fortunate men with indestructible hair. To counteract my envy, I said, “We historians call them primary sources. I would be able to infer a great deal about my subject from even the smallest item or bit of writing. The name in the records will likely be Prudence Chase. She was known around town in those days as the Widow Chase, even though she had at least two other names after the sea captain’s.”
By this time he was out of the worn Windsor chair and rummaging in a file cabinet. “Understood,” he said brightly. “We’re always happy to help a historian with his work.”
There was something false about his enthusiasm, as there had been in the records office when he insisted on carrying the boxes of paper. It was too sudden, or too strong, not at all like the spontaneous effusions of my agent.
“You keep old correspondence in there?” I asked.
“This is just a catalog. Anything of value would be in storage.”
“In this building?”
“No. The Society has warehouse space on Chatham Road. People will us attics full of things all the time. You would be amazed what we have over there. Here it is. And you’re half-right. It’s filed under Bronte, not Chase. There are some household goods listed. China, two silver candlesticks, a quilt for the Centennial Exhibition—that was in 1876, in Philadelphia. Apparently her work represented Basil’s Cove. No letters, unfortunately. Would you like to see the quilt?”
“No.”
“The household items?”
“No.”
“Wait, here’s something. ‘Steamer trunk, locked, contents not inventoried.’ Would that interest you?”
“Very much.”
I filled out a form and was told the Society would be in touch when my request was ready. Crumbly waived the ten dollar fee in light of, as he put it, my professional standing in the community.
The following morning I found the third set of remains.
To be continued…
I'm hooked. Great writing. I need to digest this part before moving on. Looking forward to part 3. Mr. Shapiro, if you're new to his fiction, is a New England hidden treasure. He deserves more recognition.
Really enjoying this. I feel like I am there.