The Cemetery Club (Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Blanche Day Manos

Picking up my glass of iced tea, I pressed it against my hot forehead.

  “Unbelievable,” I whispered. “Mom, Ben’s will states that in the event anything happens to both him and Skye, you are heir to everything he owns.”

  “I know,” she whispered weakly.

  Pouring her a glass of sweet tea, I said, “It’s too much to take in, especially while we are dealing with Skye’s and Ben’s deaths. Let’s look at the map. Maybe you can recognize some landmarks. I can’t.”

  The paper on which the map was drawn was so old that it was yellow and brittle. The edges crumbled under my touch. Tiny holes and spots pockmarked it.

  “I guess those symbols are trees.” I pointed to some triangles with stems. “And I suppose these lumpy things could be rocks. That squiggly line is the river, maybe?”

  Turning to Mom, I said, “This county is full of trees and rocks. As well as the river, several creeks run through. This map is a puzzle to me. If anyone is smart enough to decipher it, he deserves the gold!”

  “Wait, wait,” Mom said, pointing at one edge of the old document. “See those letters and numbers at the top? That looks like a land description. Run back and get my mother’s abstract to her land. It’s in my cedar chest.”

  For years I had tried to persuade my mother to rent a safety deposit box but she put her trust in the security of that cedar chest. Finding the old abstract, I brought it to her. She opened it, scanned the land description of Granny Grace’s acres and then compared them with the faded symbols on the map.

  Her eyes shone as she looked at me. “I know where this area is. It joins my mother’s land.”

  “Do you know what that means? The gold must be somewhere just over the line between Ben’s farm and Granny’s.” I swallowed half my glass of tea.

  She pointed to the squiggly line. “I don’t think that line is the Ventris River. I think it’s that little creek between our land and Ben’s.”

  “The creek where I saw Jasper noodling,” I said.

  Mom turned the map around. “And this extra big triangle must represent an extra-large tree; maybe one of those sycamores.”

  “Yes, but which one? There are lots of tall sycamores along the creek.

  Other faded markings on the ancient paper seemed to be written with the Cherokee syllabary. To decipher them, we’d need an expert in the Cherokee language.

  My head began to ache and my mother rubbed her eyes. “Let’s take a break,” I said. “We can look at this again after lunch.”

  Going to the stove, I began ladling beans into a brown crockery bowl. “We are going to have to find this gold, whether we want to or not,” I said.

  Mom pulled a pan of crusty cornbread from the oven. “You’re right. Until the gold is found and turned over to the sheriff, that killer is going to be a menace. Maybe after he knows that he can’t get his hands on Ben’s treasure, we’ll be safe.”

  “And, maybe Grant will nab him,” I said, sitting down at the table.

  Nobody bakes cornbread like my mother. I buttered a slab and took a bite.

  “An alternative to searching for the gold would be to hop a plane to some place far away,” I mused.

  My mother evidently had changed her mind about taking a trip. “When I let a petty crook run me out of my home, I’ll be ready to meet my Maker.”

  “Poor choice of words, Mom, but I know what you mean. We really must do our best to find that gold. Maybe in finding it we’ll also bring Ben’s killer to justice.”

  She nodded. “To me, that’s far more important than the gold.”

  We studied the map for an hour after lunch but were no closer to guessing what it meant. At last, I rubbed my aching back and stood up. “I’m taking a break from this thing and going to my computer. Hopefully, writing down the order of recent events will help me think more clearly.”

  My mother nodded, but kept gazing at the enigmatic map.

  Putting my glass of tea on the floor beside me, I sat down at the computer and typed:

  First Event: Ben Ventris’s death, disappearance, and finding the missing finger

  Second Event: Ray Drake’s visit. Drake had lied to us about being an FBI agent; instead, he was part of a bloodthirsty Chicago mob, but how would he know about Ben’s gold? Chicago was a long way from Levi.

  Third Shocker: Someone shot at me while I was on my grandmother’s land. I remembered the bitter taste of fear and my heart catapulting into my throat.

  Shivering, I wrote: The Fourth Occurrence: finding the body of Jason Allred. Who had gotten to the antique shop ahead of us? Had Allred told the murderer about the gold? If the killer had been looking for the gold medallion, he tore up the whole shop without finding it.

  Fifth: Someone tried to break into Mom’s house. Neither she nor I had slept well since that night. Mom was evidently a target but why would the murderer want her out of the way? Judging from my close encounter with the shooter, I was a target too.

  Again, I wished that Ben had not involved my mother in any of this mystery about hidden gold and sending her a map. Not that the map would do us much good, because we had no idea what it meant. Whether the killer knew about Ben’s will or the map, he would probably guess that Ben had confided in her because of their friendship.

  This last murder was, to me, even more horrifying: Shocker Number Six: Patricia Harris found Skye Ventris’s body in the creek in back of Goshen Cemetery.

  Now Jasper was missing and if the rumors flying around town were correct, so was Tom Bill. Gossip had it that Jasper may have killed both Skye and Tom Bill but I didn’t think so. To my way of thinking, Tom Bill decided it was wise for him to get out of Dodge until Jasper calmed down; however, I could be wrong.

  As I stared at the list, I realized something else. Mom and I discovered the first and second murder victims; Patricia Harris found the third one. Mom and Pat both served on the Goshen Cemetery board. Adding to the weirdness was the fact that both Skye and Ben had, in all probability, been killed elsewhere then their bodies taken to Goshen. Allred was left in his shop in Oklahoma City, but the Ventris murders pivoted around a cemetery. This must be significant, but how?

  Finishing my glass of tea, I stared at the computer screen without reaching any conclusions. There was one thing I could do to make my mother and me a bit safer. I’d call the only home security business in Levi.

  Les Cooper of Watchful Eyes Security assured me that he would come as soon as he could. Since the murders, everybody in town either wanted a security system or a dog. I figured that the electronic watchdog would require less upkeep.

  “Can’t you come tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Sorry, Miss Darcy. I can’t do that. But I’ll get you all fixed up before the week is done. That much, I can promise.”

  I returned to the computer—that wonder device. How had I ever managed without it?

  Googling “Dahlonega gold” and the “state of Georgia” led me deep into American history. The California gold rush is something every schoolchild learns about, but significant amounts were also mined in northern Georgia. According to one website, Hernando De Soto first visited North Georgia in 1540 because he had heard rumors of gold. Indians who lived along the Chattahoochee River discovered it. Who knew how many years that occurred before De Soto?

  By the time the soft spring dusk shaded into night, I felt that I could sleep even if a whole carload of bad guys were camped outside. I had gone over and over my list of events, and before I turned off the computer I sent out emails to eight colleagues at my Dallas newspaper. I asked whether anyone had any knowledge of legends concerning gold brought into Oklahoma from the east.

  Newspaper folk are an odd bunch. There’s a lot of pushing and shoving for a good story, but when one of them sends out a call for help, they will come through. Hopefully, I’d get at least one good lead and maybe somebody would be well-versed in the Cherokee language and could decipher that map of Ben’s.

  My search for information would wait until tomorrow. There was quit
e a bit of cornbread left from noon. Mom still slept upstairs, so instead of waking her, I heated the cornbread, poured a glass of milk, and sat down to a bedtime snack. Hopefully, tomorrow would hold some answers. Surely it was time for at least a few pieces of the puzzle to start falling into place. I felt as if I were lost in the woods and every turn I made only led me farther in.

  Chapter 13

  Lying in bed that night with the breeze fanning my face, I began to relax. The cool air felt as soothing as my mother’s hand when I was a child, sick with a fever. Sighing, I burrowed into my pillow. In younger years, I would repeat Bible verses before going to sleep. What had happened through the years that made me feel God was far away? When my dad died, it hurt terribly, but Mom was there as a buffer between me and death. When Jake died, there was no buffer and the finality hit me head on. Jake had been my rock and he was gone. Would I ever find the peace and trust that I once felt?

  I would try, once again, to remember a favorite Scripture. Closing my eyes, I whispered the beginning of Psalm 27: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?”

  Who, indeed, Lord? I thought drowsily, if You are with me?

  Sleep vanished as a sound penetrated my consciousness. I sat bolt upright. What had awakened me? My bedroom curtain moved as a breeze blew through. Had the wind knocked something off my dresser?

  Throwing back the sheets, I padded to the window. The full moon lit the front yard, making it almost as bright as day and throwing long shadows of trees and bushes across the grass. An owl disengaged itself from the moon-silvered oak and flew silently away. Owls are night birds, and sometimes they fly into yards, so there was nothing unusual about seeing it. Maybe it hooted and that was the sound that woke me.

  Something, however, felt wrong. Could this be the same owl I heard before our near break-in? Had it adopted Mom and me and taken upon itself the job of guarding us?

  As I gazed at the shadows in the yard, one of them moved. This shadow was large and upright. A man stepped out from behind the oak. As if I were watching an old, silent movie, a smaller figure appeared, walking toward the man, her housecoat flapping in the breeze. Mom! That was my mother, alone and unprotected in the middle of the night, closing in on a stalker who had trespassed into the yard!

  Panic urged me down the stairs, shoe-less, with not even a robe around my pajamas. Yanking open the front door, I dashed toward those two moonlit figures.

  “Mom!” I yelled. “Get away from him!”

  My mother turned toward me and spoke in a quiet voice. “It’s all right, Darcy. This is Jasper Harris. I think he is hungry and needs to come inside for a sandwich.”

  Five minutes later, I sat across from Jasper at the kitchen table, watching him wolf down bread and cheese, a slab of apple pie, and a glass of milk.

  Mom put a cup of coffee in front of me before sitting down. We must have made a strange tableau: two silent women staring at this young giant, his elbows keeping his chin off the table. The only sounds in the kitchen were Jasper chewing and then his satisfied, “Ahh” as he drained the glass of milk and pushed back his plate.

  He grinned. “Thanks, Miss Flora.”

  Mom patted his hand. “I remember when I taught you in Bible School. You were always the best eater at refreshment time.”

  I could stand the charade no longer. “Is it just me or does anyone consider this situation to be a tad odd? If it doesn’t hurt your feelings, Jasper, will you kindly tell me what you were doing skulking around our yard at one o’clock in the morning?”

  Fear shone in Jasper’s eyes. He squirmed in his chair.

  “Now, now, Darcy,” soothed Mom. “Did you know that everyone in town is worried about you, young man?” She smiled at our visitor. “Maybe you would like to tell us where you’ve been. If you are in trouble, Darcy and I will do our best to help you.”

  I set my mug onto the table with a bang. “We will?”

  To my dismay, Jasper’s mouth crumpled like a child’s. Tears ran down his face. “You was always nice to Ma and me, Miss Flora. You and Ben treated us real good. I ain’t never forgot that. Ben even brought us groceries once when Ma’s check was late. It hurt me that somebody killed good ol’ Ben and left him out there in that pile of sticks and rocks and even cut off his finger.”

  The sound of the old wind-up clock over the sink seemed as loud as a snare drum. Outside the kitchen window, the wind made little skirling sounds as it blew around the corner. I opened my mouth but no words came out. Mom’s eyes sent me a message. She wanted me to let her ask the questions. We must not alarm our guest who, after delivering such astounding news, seemed poised to get up from his chair and disappear into the darkness.

  Leaning toward Jasper, Mom said, matter-of-factly, “So you saw Ben in that pile of dirt and sticks at the cemetery. You saw that his finger was missing.”

  Jasper nodded. “Ben had helped us and I wanted to help him. I couldn’t leave him out in the storm, now could I?”

  Numbly, I shook my head.

  Jasper nodded and looked down at his empty plate. “So, I took him off to a place where he can sleep and nobody will bother him.”

  Faintly, Mom said, “You wanted to give him a decent burial. Of course you did.”

  “I didn’t bury him exactly,” Jasper confided, “but Ben is where he’d want to be.”

  Ignoring my mother’s warning look, I said, “What do you mean, you didn’t bury him exactly?”

  Jasper’s face settled into stubborn lines. He scooted his chair away from the table. “I ain’t sayin’ anything more. Where Ben is, that’s my business. I know he’d want to be there and that’s all that matters. Nobody knows where he is except me. The owl and me. We’re the only two knowin’ Ben’s whereabouts and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”

  This thing about owls was beginning to get under my skin. “Do you mean that owl that was in the tree where you were hiding tonight, Jasper? Is he your pet?”

  Jasper looked smug. “That’s for me to know,” he muttered.

  Mom quickly rose and poured Jasper another glass of milk. “And what about Tom Bill? Do you know where he is?”

  “Ol’ Tom Bill? Why, no. Is he gone somewhere?”

  Mom shrugged. “He probably is just on a little trip,” she said. “Maybe he’ll turn up soon.”

  I leaned toward Jasper and tried to speak as gently as Mom had. “Where were you Saturday night? Did you come to our house then?”

  Jasper looked at me pityingly. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Then I go walking. I just walk, no place in particular. Saturday night I was in the woods behind your house and I saw somebody right up against your house. I was slipping up on him, keeping an eye on him. I couldn’t figure out why anybody would come around at that time of night. He snuck around and climbed up on your porch. I was just about to collar him when that ol’ donkey brayed! Ain’t never heard anything so awful in all my life. I guess it scared him ’cause he ran off. I watched for a while longer to make sure he wasn’t comin’ back.”

  If Jasper could be believed, he wasn’t our intruder that night. Mom said the Lord kept us safe. Not only had He caused the donkey to bray, He had sent Jasper to guard us.

  Shifting in my chair, I said, “Getting back to Ben, Jasper. It’s important that you tell Sheriff Hendley where you put him. Do you know anything about Skye Ventris? You know she’s dead too, don’t you?”

  Jasper’s eyes widened. “No! No way am I goin’ to talk to the law. They’d think I killed Ben and Skye too. They’d lock me up. Uh-uh. Nobody’s going to lock me up and nobody’s going to find me or Ben neither!”

  Jasper shoved back his chair and bolted out the back door.

  I ran after him. “Wait! Wait! Jasper, you’ve got to tell us. You won’t have to talk to Grant.”

  Mom shook her head. “He’s gone, Darcy.”

  Locking the door, I returned to my chair. “Yes, he’s gone back to hiding. But Mom, at least now we know how Ben disappeared from the cemetery. And Jas
per is big enough that he could have moved Ben by himself.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to not see an image of a frightened boy who, in spite of the lightning and rain, cared enough about his friend to move him out of the storm. Jasper had meant to do a good thing, but he had only complicated this mystery and perhaps brought trouble upon himself.

  Gazing at Mom, I asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get a full night’s sleep?

  Sighing, Mom said, “I can only hope. Somehow, it’s reassuring to know that somewhere out there, Jasper is keeping an eye on things. We don’t need a security system, Darcy. We’ve got the Lord and Jasper Harris.”

  Chapter 14

  Somewhere during the rest of that dream-riddled night, I reached an inescapable conclusion: Ben’s hidden treasure was the reason for all these bad things happening, and Mom and I had no choice but to find it—the sooner the better. If we turned it over to the authorities, surely we’d be rid of anyone who had evil designs upon our lives.

  Peering at the bleary dial of my bedside clock, I decided that I might as well use these early morning hours to work on my article for The Dallas Morning News. My editor would be calling to ask why I hadn’t emailed him the story. Since Ben’s death, everything, including writing, had been pushed to the back burner. Not only did I feel I could write about the impact of rural technology, I felt very well qualified to do an article for the American Medical Association, titled, “Sleeplessness and Finding Dead People Speeds Up the Aging Process.”

  Stumbling down to the kitchen, I measured coffee and water into the yellow pot and turned it on. As I waited for that first perfect cup, I went to my computer. Within seconds, information flashed onto the screen concerning Georgia gold. I learned that the dome of Atlanta’s capital was gilded in gold leaf. That was most surely due to the first gold rush, in Georgia.

  I continued reading, finding that no significant gold mining goes on in Georgia today.

  The only reference I found to explain the greenish cast of Dahlonega gold was speculation from a geologist who said that although it is impossible to duplicate conditions Mother Nature originally planned for northern Georgia, he believed that veins of gold crisscrossed veins of silver when the two were forming. These two metals mixed with clay and humus, which may have caused the unusual shade of yellow in that particular gold.