The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

by Sharyn McCrumb

  Nora Bonesteel stood up. "Would you excuse me just a minute?" she said. She walked down the hill a little ways, toward the clump of apple trees just past the vegetable garden. Over near the pond, she could see Morgan Robsart sitting in the green grass with a lapful of apples, the groundhog at his side. Persey was up on her hind legs, holding a shriveled apple between her paws.

  Nora turned back to the grove of trees, and took hold of an apple branch. Tavy Annis was standing amid the new leaves, looking back at her with a pleasant expression, as if he'd dropped by to pay her a call. He was wearing his red flannel jacket, gray work pants, and a baseball cap with fishing flies stuck in the bill.

  "Guess you'll be going up on the ridge now," said Nora, looking out across the waves of mountains rippling on toward the horizon, blue and purple and gray. "You go ahead on. Things are being taken care of here. Godspeed."

  She turned away and went slowly back up the hill to sit in the sun.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sharyn McCrumb is rapidly becoming one of the most acclaimed of American women mystery writers whose work transcends genre. She won the coveted Edgar in 1988 for Bimbos of the Death Sun, and her nationally lauded novel, // Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O, was named a New York Times Notable Book for 1990. It also won the Macavity Award and was a finalist for the Anthony and the Nero. McCrumb's most recent novel is Missing Susan. She lives with her family in Virginia.