A Corpse for Yew (2 page)

One thing was for sure: She had to find a polite, well-mannered way to get herself out of the historical group with its petty jealousies and problems. She had more important things to do. She had a life her mother’s intrusion had disrupted. She was probably needed at the Potting Shed, her garden shop in Center City. But her cell phone, miserable, traitorous wretch that it was, hadn’t rung in over an hour. Next time, she’d tell her assistant, Selena, to call her.

Peggy rehearsed over and over what she was going to say to get herself away from her mother for at least an hour. She decided she’d lie, if needed, and tell her that Selena had called, and she had to leave right away. She’d have to call someone to come and get her, since she’d made the mistake of coming out with the group in the museum van. But she wasn’t above that, or lying, to get out of this mess, although a fifty-plus daughter shouldn’t have to lie to her mother anymore.

“Grab this bucket, Margaret.” Lilla shoved a yellow plastic container toward her daughter. “You can at least do
that
. Jonathon will take care of handling the bones and such that we find. You probably aren’t trained for that, are you?”

Peggy snatched the yellow container. She wouldn’t have said if she’d trained twenty years for the job. “No, Mom. I’m a forensic botanist. We look at living matter on bones only if we have to. And I hate to tell you this, but Selena just called from the Potting Shed. I have to go back. Something’s wrong with a shipment, and she needs me.”

It wasn’t
too
big a lie, really, Peggy soothed her conscience. Selena
was
having problems with her boyfriend. She pushed aside a low-hanging muscadine vine as she inched through the heavy mud. A trickle of the spring-fed creek still ran under the mud, keeping it moist, making walking through the stuff even more difficult.

“They’ll get along without you,” her mother said. “We need you here. Have you ever seen such a mess?”

Peggy looked around. The worst drought North Carolina had ever seen had brought lake levels down so low that piers stood five feet above dirt where water had once been. Boats were dry-docked. People who lived in expensive lake houses tried to decide if they should get out before it got worse.

Already many cities in the Piedmont, including Charlotte, were down to less than a three-months’ supply of water. The governor and city officials had declared states of emergency, restricting people to lower water consumption and raising the price of the water they used. The governor had challenged the populace to emulate his twenty-six-second showers in the face of the calamity.

Brown grass and dirty cars had become badges of heroism in the area as people did without, trying to wait out the drought. Those with green lawns who secretly watered at night paid the price with stiff penalties such as having their water service interrupted. Stores were emptied of low-flow showerheads, and residents put bricks in their toilet tanks to use less water per flush.

The local wildlife and fish were suffering as well, as the lakes and other water resources dried up in the baking-hot fall sun. Sweltering temperatures added to the problem, causing evaporation and massive fish kills. Deer migrated into the city to find shelter when the leaves fell from the dry trees, and frogs and other amphibians retreated into an early hibernation away from the parched topsoil.

But Peggy thought the strangest thing she’d seen was Lake Whitley. The hundred-acre lake, created by damming Little Whitley Creek, had completely dried up. Besides the expected pieces of old boats and lost fishing poles where the bottom of the lake had been, there were almost a hundred graves.

“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Jonathon Underwood was standing beside Peggy as the ladies of the group—Jonathon was the only man present—argued over who was going to take photos of the find. “Who would’ve thought we’d ever see this village again?”

“Or these graves.” Peggy looked up at him. Jonathon was well over six feet. She moved her foot away from a chest cavity separated from the head and arms. “Why didn’t they move the graves before they dammed the creek?”

“They did move some of them, actually,” he told her. “These were the ones left behind. The state charged the relatives of the dead with collecting them and making sure they were moved to higher ground. These people didn’t have any family left to take care of them. Most of the graves are from the early 1800s. As you can imagine, many of their relatives had moved away from the village or died by the early 1900s, when this happened.”

Peggy had met Jonathon only that morning when they all set out together for the dry lake. He was a sober, serious man with gentle brown eyes and a boyish mop of brown hair. He was the director of the Mecklenburg County History Museum, and was far more patient with her mother and the other ladies than she’d ever be. “Did you know this was under the lake all these years?”

“Oh, yes. There are maps of the village. You can see over there where the town hall stood.” He pointed to what was left of the structure, little more than four partial stone walls. “And over there is where the school was. Whitley Village was one of the first towns in this area to have its own academy. Teachers came here from across the state to train in their profession, then went on to other schools.”

There was even less of the impressive academy left. The gray stones were nearly buried in the mud and debris that had covered them for more than a century. “If this place was so important, why did they cover it up? Why not move it?”

“People were eager for the wealth that electricity would bring to the area.” Jonathon shrugged his shoulders beneath a green T-shirt. “In comparison, history and schooling didn’t mean very much.”

“So now you reap what you can find out here.” Peggy looked at the scattered bones and upended wooden coffins that filled the mud around them. “What will happen to the bones?”

“Your mother and the other ladies will make sure they get a proper burial. Mrs. Waynewright is cataloging the bones as we take them out.” He waved to the senior member of the historical society, cheerfully referred to by the other members as the Iron Matron. She didn’t wave back. She was seated on the heavy moss that covered the sides of the lake, a large ledger in her lap. “Most of the graves that were moved earlier are located in a cemetery over there in the woods. These new remains will be added to that cemetery.” Jonathon looked at Peggy across the top of his wire-rimmed glasses. “Did I hear you say you’re trained as a forensic botanist?”

“Yes, she is.” Lilla stepped into the conversation. “She taught botany at Queens University for many years. Her specialty is botanical poisons. Now she helps the police and the sheriff’s office investigate crimes. Except when she’s running that little garden shop of hers.”

“You’re very accomplished.” Jonathon grinned. “I took the six-week course in Raleigh and sometimes work with the police as a forensic historian.”

“Really?” Peggy’s mother slipped her hand through his arm. “You’re very accomplished as well, Jonathon. Just what does a forensic historian do?”

“Well, it’s similar to being a forensic botanist,” he explained. “I help discover and sort historical evidence the police can use from a crime scene. I imagine I get a lot fewer calls than Dr. Lee. There aren’t many crimes that involve historical artifacts.”

“Please, call her Peggy.” Lilla smiled and patted his arm. “She’s a very good cook, too. And she lives in an estate on Queens Road. It’s not actually hers. It belongs to her late husband’s family, but she can live there as long as she likes. Where do you live, Jonathon?”

Peggy felt the slight bubbling of her temper turn into a full boil.
What was she doing?
It was obvious. Only her mother would think of setting her up with a man she’d barely met!

Her phone actually started ringing in the pocket of her jeans.
Finally!
Grateful for the reprieve, Peggy passed the yellow bucket to her mother and pushed through the bone-littered mud to a rock, where she sat down. “Please tell me something horrible has happened and I have to come home.”

“Sounds like you’re having a good time with your mother.” Steve’s voice was edged with humor that Peggy didn’t share.

“That’s easy for you to say,” she told her lover. (She refused to think of him as her boyfriend. It was undignified.) “I’m standing knee-deep in mud full of human bones while the Shamrock Historical Society tries to sort skulls from femurs. How’s your day going?”

“As well as can be expected with a malignant mole on a Yorkie and bad canines on a collie. It’d be going a lot better if we’d slept in the same bed last night. My house is empty without you.”

Her heart softened toward his bad attempt at humor. “I’m sorry. I wish I could just come out and tell them. But I can’t.”

“But you’re working up to it.”

She acknowledged his hopeful tone, imagining his face as he spoke, thinking how much she loved looking into his eyes. Peggy pulled herself back before she began acting even more like a love-struck teenager and reminded herself that her hyperjudgmental mother was standing less than ten feet away.

“I am,” she promised. It was a lie, but she didn’t think he could tell the difference from her voice.

“Because this can go on only so long,” he continued.

“Are you threatening to break up with me because I can’t tell my parents we’re sleeping together?” She laughed, the humor of the situation hitting her funny bone. “If so, maybe we could sneak out tonight. You could pick me up at the end of the block and we could go to Lovers’ Lane.”

“I’m glad this is making you laugh. I hope you’re laughing when I announce our engagement to your family next Tuesday night at dinner.”

She sobered at once. “You wouldn’t! You know how my family feels about proper mourning. They’d be very upset.” She was putting it mildly. As her mother had just reminded her that morning, no Cranshaw woman had ever mourned her husband for less than five years. It just wasn’t done.

“Give me an option or I pop the question.”

“Give me a little more time.”

“Peggy, it’s been a month already. I’m too old to sneak around somebody’s parents. Let’s think of some way to take care of the problem.”

“I will. I promise.” She hoped she sounded more sincere than she felt. She might be fifty-three years old, a botanist, and a mother herself, but when it came to confronting her parents with unpleasant news, it was like she was still seventeen.

“What do you mean you’re in mud filled with human bones?” Steve asked, as though suddenly realizing what she’d said.

“I’ll tell you when I see you.” She saw Jonathon and her mother headed her way. “I’ll talk to you later. Love you.” Peggy closed her cell phone like a naughty schoolgirl and looked up at them with a smile.

“I hope everything’s all right.” Jonathon looked worried. “I appreciate your help today, Peggy. I know you have a lot to do without helping us find what’s left of Whitley Village.”

“I was explaining about the Potting Shed and everything else you do.” Lilla smiled in a way that let her daughter know she was working on her behalf. “Jonathon has five cats.”

“Really? That’s interesting.” Peggy knew her mother was probably telling Jonathon her whole life story, from winning 4-H ribbons to opening her store. She couldn’t convince her that she and Steve had a serious relationship. Lilla was always looking for new suitors for her daughter. It might not be right to get married again just yet, but her mother was looking toward the future.

“Yes.” Jonathon took his wallet out of the back pocket of his khaki cargo shorts. “They’re my pride and joy.”

“Margaret named her dog Shakespeare. I’m not really sure why.” Lilla turned to Peggy. “Weren’t you thinking about changing his name to something more doglike?”

“No. I wasn’t.” Peggy smiled at Jonathon to keep from strangling her mother. It had always been this way between them. She’d vaguely thought this historical thing might bring them closer together, now that Lilla was living a few miles away. But she was beginning to think it might drive another wedge between them. Sometimes she wondered how this woman could be her mother.

“I think Shakespeare is a fine name.” Jonathon put away his cat pictures. “I enjoy plays and poetry, too.”

Peggy didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to encourage him along the romantic path her mother had no doubt sent him. He was probably half her age. She could just imagine her words:
She’s alone like you, Jonathon. I’m sure the two of you would have so much in common
.

It ended up that she didn’t have to say anything. Geneva Curtis screamed and fell backward into the mud. “Everybody come here! You won’t believe this!”

Mrs. Waynewright got to her feet quickly, quite spry for her age, to see what was happening while the rest of the group slogged toward Geneva, who was trying to get out of the gooey mess she’d fallen into. They gathered around her, grasping her arms, the thick mud creating suction that popped as it released her. She would’ve fallen forward if it wasn’t for Annabelle Ainsley and Lilla holding her up.

“What is it, Geneva?” The president, Dorothy Myrick, looked around where they were standing, her fists on her ample hips. “Please don’t tell me you saw a snake again.”

“I didn’t see a snake this time,” Geneva assured her in a loud voice. “Although a water moccasin is nothing to fool around with.”

“There are no water moccasins in this area,” Mrs. Waynewright yelled from the shore. “That was probably just a plain old water snake. I’m sure it was more frightened of you than you were of it.”

“I doubt it.” Geneva’s thick black curls shook as she disagreed. “But that’s not why I screamed. Take a look over there.”

“That’s the old post office.” Jonathon looked at his map of the village. “One of the few relics we have from Whitley is the post office sign.”

“That may be. But there’s something in there.” Geneva’s dark eyes were large and frightened on her chocolate brown face.