Page 121 of The Dead Come to Stay
“Hate to be the one,” Green said. “But you got a call from the superintendent.”
MacAdams rolled his neck. “Whatnow?”
“Honestly, he didn’t say. Only that you were wanted.” She lifted a punch cup. “Benefits of being chief, eh?”
***
MacAdams wasn’t chief. Or not exactly. Then again.
The trouble with looking at old cases was that the lightglanced off things differently at distance. Most especially the cases dealing with Admiral Clapham, father of his and Green’s old boss. It started with a revisit of Abington Arms guest list and their promise of being “discreet.” There had been a few odd cases involving clients there; loose ends, bits that didn’t marry up. Two gun safes with historical pieces had been emptied over a weekend. A robbery, but no real investigation. Labeled an isolated incident. Except it wasn’t. In another housebreaking, it was jewelry that went missing and a farm hand had been detained; then all charges were dropped, not another word spoken. Insurance fraud? Or ways of dodging taxes? It was hard to say, yet the threads kept running back to the hotel and, MacAdams suspected, to the admiral. He went hunting a little deeper—but bottomed out against closed files and permissions requests from other stations. A detective chief inspector could only do so much. But a chief, now. That might open doors. Especially doors some might like to leave closed.
So, in between sewing up the Burnhope case and a few local bust-ups, he’d been working on his résumé and application for the superintendent. MacAdams stepped away from the merry-making to make the call back. He’d positioned himself between two headstones, facing south for signal. It rang. And rang. And gave him the perfunctory “party is not available, leave a message.”
“It’s James MacAdams, returning your call—” he started.
“Hello, Detective.”
It hadn’t come from the other line, but behind him. He turned to see a woman. Not any woman. Cora Clapham, as though thinking of the admiral had somehow conjured his old boss into being. She wore a sleeveless blouse in pale green, but stood with the same straight-backed ferocity as she might in full military dress.
“Surprised?” she asked.
“I... am. When did you get in?”
“Last week. Been living in the estate house.” She sighed and uncrossed her arms. “It needs work before I put it on the market. I heard from the gardener about thehomecoming.I take it proper channels were followed for that burial?”
They were. MacAdams didn’t feel like he owed that detail, however.
“How long will you be in town?” he asked instead. But Cora knew how to be evasive, too.
“You were ringing Superintendent Bradford,” she said. “I’m the reason he phoned for you, I’m guessing. I left Southampton.” She smiled at him, broadly. “As I understand you are yet without a chief.”
If Jo was there, she’d have read a great deal on MacAdams’s face. He wished she was, suddenly, and that she could translate.
“You. Are the new chief?” MacAdams asked. She half turned to face the party just beyond.
“New old chief, yes. I have come home. We can’t run from our problems, can we? Even when those problems are our fathers.” She smiled. “You have gone from strength to strength, what with this Burnhope case.”
MacAdams was still processing the news and not taking it very kindly.
“Thank you. It’s still processing. There will be charges brought against a local art collector when we’re through, as well.” He paused. “It’s not often the great and the good are forced to pay for their sins.”
Cora turned back to face him. “Not often. But not never. You’ve ended up on higher radars than the super, too. Antique trades and human trafficking. I’m not surprised you didn’t take the chief job yourself.”
“But you’re not.”
“No. You know where you shine, James. Where you’re best.So do I.” She walked away, but not toward the tents. She was going, he knew, to her father’s burial plot.
“Welcome back,” he said, without much feeling, and long after she was out of earshot. Then he returned to the homecoming that mattered.
Jo was waiting.
*****
