Buried Trust, page 26
part #5 of A Turst Mystery Series
Kingsley smiled her appreciation. “Times like this I wish we could complete what we start. Have I thanked you enough for supporting my ridiculous project?”
He grinned back at her. “Dessert was delicious.”
* * * * *
Kingsley dreamed she was scribing messages in fluent cursive, reminiscent of earlier times when ladies prided themselves on their perfect penmanship and eloquent poetry. She dipped her pen in the ink bottle, letting the excess drip before committing her inspiration to paper. Kingsley couldn’t remember her dreamer’s prayer and so inserted something familiar. Our Father, Who art in heaven…
Something awakened her, and she felt drawn from her bed. Trancelike, she eased the familiar route toward the room dimly lit by moonlight that cascaded through the western window, throwing ghostly silhouettes of the ancient maple tree’s branches on the southern wall. She felt drawn into the empty space by a presence. She obeyed. Step by step she approached the X but sensed that it had moved. She was coaxed, instead, toward the northern wall and halted three feet short of the edge by something other than her own will. She paused. Waited. And the cold enveloped and rattled her. She looked down and saw—something. But the image was blurred.
“Kingsley? Where are you? Are you all right?’
Instantly awake, she realized she must have been sleepwalking. “Just restless. Needed to check on—everything,” she attempted, with no plausible reason for what she was doing, prowling the house as the clock in the foyer bonged twice. She made a brief stop in the bathroom, as if that had been the reason, then crawled back into bed.
“You okay?” he asked in a sleepy murmur.
“Yes.” Answer enough. She tried to reconstruct her strange dream, but as with all dreams, its essence evaporated like mist. Something about the X having moved, with an increased message of urgency. Her last image as sleep overcame her was of a little girl in a white muslin dress, sitting on the floor of the murder room.
* * * * *
Kingsley’s eyes flew open, an image clear in her mind. She had dreamed or noticed something. She grabbed her glasses and, shoving them onto her face, eyed the clock. Four-thirty. Not even dawn. Even the robins hadn’t sounded their first chirp, which signaled every other bird to erupt in a competitive chorus. Todd, lying on his right side, slept like a log. If she hadn’t seen his body rise and fall, he would have looked dead.
Wide awake, she slipped from the room, knotting her ratty old robe against the drafts, the floors chilly under her bare feet. She glanced through Billy’s open bedroom door. Empty. She shuttered, experiencing a trigger of that terrible timeframe when Billy was their lost angel. How long had it taken to brave his room, dreading he’d never return?
She smiled. Billy was with his grammy and papa in the special room where her mother had let him paint his own mural. He’d still be asleep with a pile of stuffed animals, his worn lop-eared bunny and black wedding bear tucked in his arms. Pesto, the family’s cat, might be curled at the end of his bed. Task at hand, she scolded herself.
Entering the murder room, she groped for the light and flicked the switch. A lamp, set on a box, blazed with 100 unshaded watts. First, she scanned the floor and then, armed with the penlight Todd’d left on the sill, studied every inch of the floorboards. There! Why hadn’t either of them noticed the irregularity? What should have been the sixth board spanning the southern to the northern wall had been installed in two pieces. The juncture was so perfect, so smudged with age and wear, that it seemed to disappear and would have been under the bed, abutting the northern wall.
On hands and knees, she slid her fingers around the edges. Just like the other boards, the little gap along its length was a sixteenth of an inch wide. Maybe, when installed, the wood had been green and had shrunk over the years? She shined a light in the crack, but all she could see was accumulated dirt. That board, she rejoiced, simply did not belong.
She slipped into the bathroom and from the hamper retrieved her dirty coveralls and yesterday’s socks. She dressed. On tiptoe, she closed their bedroom door and shut herself into the murder room. The incongruous board couldn’t be more than four feet in length. She fell upon it, compelling her newfound skills to wrench it from its moorings and expose what secrets lay beneath.
So intent was she on her work that she didn’t hear Todd enter the room until he was bending over her. She jumped. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just couldn’t wait. I think I found the ghost’s secret.” As she wiggled and pulled the nail closest to the wall, it lifted as if it hadn’t been anchored at all. Todd repositioned the lamp beside her on the floor. Both gazed at what had lain hidden—a number of papers, some folded like the original, and some in packets that formed makeshift envelopes.
“Let me get a gift box from our Christmas supplies on the third floor,” Todd offered.
“Why don’t I make coffee, you get dressed, then we’ll examine these artifacts downstairs.”
Chapter 31
Kingsley took a cleansing breath, internalizing the gravity of what they’d discovered. Arrayed on the kitchen table were several tri-folded pages, just like the one they’d previously found. She opened the first one with gloved hands and trepidation.
“Read it to me,” Todd said, although he was bent over her shoulder. “I can’t read that tiny script.”
“This one is a list of women’s names followed by numbers. Maybe their ages?
“Abigail 34. Barbury 13. Betsy 18. Catherine 17. Ceceiliax 20. Charlotte 28. Coffey 45. Hany 17. The second paper includes—Lucy 17. M.A. 16. Mitilde 17. Patty 4. Phibe 16. Rebecca 5.
“Two were just little girls. It goes on,
“Ruth 60. Susan 9 months. Just an infant! Venus 19. Ruth 40.”
“All women and little girls,” Todd said. “Do you suppose they were runaway slaves on the underground railroad?”
“The next page looks like men’s names—Except for Scipio 8 months, they’re all Anglicized. If they were slaves, they’ve been stripped of their African names. I wonder what’s in the little parcels?”
With tremendous care, Kingsley unfolded the first one and gasped at its contents. “Hair. Little snippets of curly black hair, tied together with what looks like embroidery floss—the kind young ladies used for samplers that were part of their finishing school curriculum. Each has a scrap of paper with initials.”
“Do they correspond with the lists of women and men?”
“There weren’t any last names—just firsts—and they probably aren’t even theirs. But the floss might be color-coded—navy for men, pale blue for boys, red for women, and pink for little girls. Maybe we can match them up.”
“Kingsley, wait. We’d better contact Amos. This is his family’s history. We should tell him what we’ve found, ask him to come at his earliest convenience, and turn it over to him.”
“I’ll take a leap of faith that his Krick ancestors sheltered runaway slaves on their journey to freedom. They came and went through that sliver of a break in the cellar wall. Amos mentioned the remains of decrepit partitions, like rooms, but unfit for human habitation.”
“Unless you were a fugitive family on the run needing shelter. The family could sneak them the food and clothing they needed.”
“That was dangerous, considering that bounty hunters, who would kidnap any black person for ransom claiming they were runaway slaves, tracked someone to this house, and murdered the couple who sheltered them. Let’s call Amos. Right now. And ask him to book a flight to Harrisburg and we’ll pick him up.”
Kingsley held up her finger in a hold-the-phone motion. “There’s two more papers.” She opened it. “It’s just a torn scrap with a childlike scrawl. It says—‘Jesus luvs’. Whoever wrote this was a believer. And the other is a crude line drawing that looks like a map, an X in the middle beside what must be a creek.
* * * * *
Amos Krick and his friend Cecilia took the first flight that connected in Pittsburgh to Harrisburg. He said to her, “The Hennings insist that of course you are welcome, and they’ll be disappointed if you don’t stay with them. There’s lots of room—her parents are keeping their son.”
“This could be the end of a very long journey,” Cecilia said. “Ancestry websites can take you only so far, and of course I know my family was kidnapped in Africa in the early 1800s. But whatever became of them can’t be calculated forward. I’ve thought about a DNA database, but…” She trailed off, then added. “I’m determined to learn what happened to my family.”
Amos threw their overnight bags into the rental car and plugged the coordinates into the GPS. Within an hour they arrived at the old Krick family farm, which was blazing with floodlights and lamps in the windows. For a minute he gazed at the beautiful structure, overwhelmed with memories. Kingsley’s photos hardly did it justice. “Come on,” he urged. “You’ve come nearly two hundred years to find answers.”
* * * * *
“I don’t know where we should begin,” Kingsley said, sweeping the pair into the house. Amos, she’d recognize anywhere from the photos he’d shared through his earliest childhood. The woman, his dear family friend, had a link to the house as evidenced by her dark complexion and the story she had begun by email and was anxious to continue. After a quick tour, they settled into the living room where Kingsley laid out their find on the trunk with gloved hands. She let them draw their own conclusions. “Amos, I think you should take all of this home. They’re your family’s history and an important clue to the murder.”
She turned to Cecelia. “The passage of these people through this house would have happened in the 1800s before the murder. If the people listed on these pages made it to freedom, their descendants may be alive. I doubt that DNA evidence survives that long, but if you look at the hair samples with a magnifying glass, you’ll see it was pulled, not cut. Maybe, even if the family had scissors, they hoped attached skin had special significance. They might have feared their existence might never be discovered, but they did not want to be forgotten.”
Cecilia stared at the array of hair samples, tears in her eyes. “I don’t know if Amos told you. I’m a genetic scientist. Humans of all races are 99.9% genetically identical. That tiny extra sub-percentage is cosmetic. Cosmetic! Consider the atrocities that still persist based on people’s appearance. But I’m not going to dwell on that. If you’ll trust me with this treasure, I’ll research all the names on that list and the corresponding samples. It might produce a glorious reunion, if not for me, for others.”
“Amos, did you bring the pieces of the embroidery snippets from the backside of your old family sampler?”
“I did.” With great care, they compared Amos’s samples with the hair bindings.
“Maybe Cecilia can match the initials with the hair samples and the names.” Kingsley added, “and the last paper—the list of ships’ names and the dates of their passages. That might provide their ports of origin and final destination.”
After carefully re-packaging the documents and samples for transport, Kingsley showed them to their rooms, Cecilia being the best fit for Billy’s bed, and Amos happy to sleep in his grandparents’ old room. While circling through the upstairs, Kingsley raised the question. “Would you like to see the murder room? We’ve used it as a guest room, but we’re the first to do so since the murders. It’s empty now. We set the floorboards aside where we found the papers.” They agreed.
“Then why don’t I leave you alone to explore. Take your time, and then join us in the kitchen for something to eat.”
* * * * *
With Billy at his grandparents and Cecilia still sleeping, Kingsley and Amos shared pre-dawn coffee while swapping tales so important to both. “I’d like to find the old family cemetery.”
“Do you remember its location? We never had a surveyor set pins. We assumed our land ended where the cornfields begin. I’m afraid I haven’t noticed any markers or stones in logical alignment, but I wasn’t looking.”
“Why don’t we take the path to the right of the barn? Back in the day, the farm was several hundred acres, but the family sold sections when they needed money. Your Amish neighbor, to your west, owns part of it now, and an investor bought the land to your east, which changed hands again recently. Guess the new owner lets the crop farmer continue as he had for decades.”
Amos, choosing to drive, took the dirt road beyond the barn, which crossed a one-lane bridge that bisected the farmers’ crops. “That lane and this part of the cornfield belongs to your property.”
Kingsley jerked to attention. “Are you sure? We didn’t know that. As long as we had a clear title, and knowing it was seven acres more or less, we didn’t hire a surveyor to place pins. Guess we should do that.”
“Correct. Because, without your permission—which was a gentleman’s handshake years ago—the crop farmer can’t access his parcel. It’s landlocked. And I’m guessing the cemetery is unintentionally buried in his cornfield.” He squinted in all directions, ultimately focusing on the roof of the barn above them high on the hill.
“Creek’s a lot closer to your house than in the old days. I never came back here while settling the estate and wasn’t doing any of the labor myself. There wasn’t time—my practice, my family, the distance—seems odd that I didn’t.”
“Is your aunt buried here?”
“No. She was cremated and buried beside her husband in their family’s church columbarium in Michigan. To the best of my recollection, nobody’s been buried in the old cemetery for a century and a half. Kids grew, went away to school, married, and scattered where their work or the military took them.” He studied the terrain, then the position of the early morning sun. “That way. Over there.”
Kingsley stubbed her toe on the edge of a rock that was nearly buried in silt. “Got something,” she called, as Amos peered at the soil and began darting through the rows, laughing with delight.
Pulling his phone from his pocket he called to her. “Stand right there. I think that’s the corner of the cemetery.” He began snapping photos, using her as a marker, and stones that, while worn with age and exposure, were similar in dimensions. He bent to one, lovingly removing the dirt.
“Amos? Remember we spoke of your family coming here for a family reunion? Let’s do it this Labor Day weekend. Have your folks arrive Saturday, then Sunday afternoon we’ll have a treasure hunt for the old markers. Between now and then, you can email your families’ historians for their support.”
“I don’t know, Kingsley. That’s awfully nice of you, but it sounds like an imposition and a lot of work for you.”
“Nonsense. Growing up, my father’s extended family had just such events. Kids—small through teens—slept under a big tent. We grilled, had bonfires, smores, sang camp songs, the whole bit, and even distant cousins made lifetime friendships. We don’t need a tent—we have the barn. Go home and talk it up, and I’ll sketch out the details.”
“It sounds—wonderful. And maybe we could tell family stories around the campfire.”
“Even about the room?”
“The timeframe will give us the incentive to finish our research over the summer.”
Kingsley and Amos took a last look around, then returned to the kitchen where Cecilia sipped coffee in her bathrobe. “What are your travel plans?”
Cecilia said, “I’m seizing the opportunity to attend a two-day conference in Pittsburgh, Amos will visit old friends, then we’ll fly back to Michigan together.”
Later, as their visitors’ rental car eased down the lane on route to Harrisburg’s Middleburg Airport, Kingsley waved and uttered an exhausted sigh. In the blink of an eye, they’d be home in Michigan, half a country away. Kingsley couldn’t explain what she felt but it bordered on bereavement. She wandered aimlessly from room to room, ending up in the library. Todd removed his reading glasses and smiled. “You done good, kid. Come here.” He pushed back his chair and patted his lap. She snuggled into his embrace.
Still, she felt something was missing. If there had been a lingering spirit—trapped in between one world and the next—it needed to be released. A benediction.
After all these years, even if luminal proved positive for human blood, it was decades too degraded for DNA testing. Some stains would belong to the murdered couple, but might another person have died in that room? His or her body buried in secret to hide this stop on the underground railroad? She’d ask her priest if he’d ever conducted such a blessing, even though she did not believe in ghosts.
* * * * *
“Why did the surveyors set up their equipment over there?” Kingsley asked Todd as they watched the professionals working beyond their driveway.
“Amos was right. We do need to know our physical boundaries, which was not the responsibility of the title insurance company. I’d assumed our land was bordered by everyone’s cornfields. Guess it’s just like the suburbs where people set up their swing sets in undeveloped lots until one day the builder shows up with a bulldozer. I’ve asked the men to set pins every one hundred feet. We can tie fluorescent tape around them and cement them into the ground.”
“You don’t suppose we own part of our neighbor’s barn, do you?”
Todd laughed. “If that’s the case, we’ll need to deed that portion over to him. God knows we don’t need it for cows.”
“Cows? No. Maybe alpacas. I could knit beautiful sweaters and scarves with their luxurious fleece.”
Todd rolled his eyes, shaking his head. “As if you’d have time…”
The surveyor in charge approached them, documents in hand. “We’re finished. If you’ll walk with me, I’ll show you the markers. Some are a bit hard to spot. You’ll need to clear some vegetation if you’re planning to secure them, which I recommend. You do not want to pay us again when some fool pulls the pins to make mowing easier.”
