Stitches In Crime Box Sets

Chapter 2

When I texted Mika to tell her what we’d found, she offered to have Mrs. Stephenson, her clerk, watch the store so she could come right over. I was grateful because if we needed to stop the demolition of the house, we only had three days – less than three days – to do it. And something told me we would probably need to stop the demolition.

Neither Mary nor I was willing to do that based on a couple of paragraphs of cryptic journal entries, though. The church had invested a lot of time and money in architectural renderings and site plans for the new addition, and we weren’t going to mess that up for just a hint of a reason. For five years, the members had been donating extra money to add on new Sunday school rooms and a fellowship hall that would allow them to turn the basement room they’d used for gatherings into a youth center. The new kitchen and ADA-accessible bathrooms in the addition would also mean the church could have more weddings and really serve families for funerals. Nope, we had to be sure something merited a pause if we were going to suggest a delay.

After unloading everything into my space at Saul’s construction lot, we shifted the books into my Subaru and then caravanned the few miles east to my farmhouse. The chickens were wandering far and wide in their hunt for the late summer bugs, and I threw them a handful of cracked corn from the lidded steel container I kept by the kitchen door. My small attempts to keep them tame and near home were working, and Sawyer loved picking up our girls and snuggling them close, even after their latest dust bath.

Inside, we put the boxes on the antique trunk I used as a coffee table and set to a crucial piece of business: what we were going to eat. I wasn’t what you’d call a foodie, but after recently switching Sawyer and myself to a mainly vegetarian diet to benefit our health and help our food choices align with ones that were good for our earth, I had gotten much pickier about what I’d eat. Mary didn’t mind that because she was, herself, a true-to-the-bone foodie and an amazing cook, but Mika had a deep affection for sugar and found my decision to eschew bacon a little disturbing.

Still, we were fortunate to live within delivery distance of a couple of great restaurants that served a variety of food, including amazing black bean burgers, so Mary and I decided to splurge and have food brought in. Business had been pretty good for me of late, and now that I was actually able to contribute to Sawyer’s college savings fund, I could stand to go wild by ordering a good meal once in a while.

Our order placed and Mika on her way, Mary and I set up a workstation. She began by pulling a small card table out from the storage building behind my house, and I grabbed the TV tray tables from my closet. Then, we arranged space to spread out and put notebooks and pens on each small table so we could make notes of names and dates as needed. I’d been a historian long enough to know that documenting what we found was crucial if we needed to go back in and find the information again.

I put out a big pitcher of sweet tea and a bag of dark chocolate candy and confirmed that there was plenty of local hard cider in the fridge. It was going to be a long afternoon, and why not enjoy it.

When Mika arrived, we spent a few minutes sorting the journals by start date and then dividing them into three piles before we sat down to enjoy our meal and talk through our plan.

After Mary and I caught Mika up on where we’d found the journals and the little bit we’d read so far, I shared what had been nagging at me since I’d read the first words in that 1908 journal. “Do you think she means literally buried, or is she talking about some sort of cover-up?”

literallyMary nodded. “I was wondering the same thing, and my sense – for what it’s worth – is that she’s talking literally.”

Mika shivered. “Well, that’s not creepy at all,” she whispered as she rubbed her hands over her arms.

“Yeah, that’s my sense, too.” I gathered our empty plates as Mika took the trash to the can. “Guess we need to find out.”

Beverages ready but at a distance from the precious journals, we dove in. I had taken the earliest set of journals since that’s what I’d started reading before. My books dated from 1908 to 1914. Mika had the next span – 1915 to 1921, and Mary took the final set – 1922 through 1928. We had twenty-one volumes between us, seven each, and I figured if we read until we couldn’t any longer, we just might make it through the books by tomorrow evening. I had chosen both sweet tea and cider to fuel my endeavor, and I wasn’t surprised to see my two best friends had done the same. It was going to be a long day.

I picked up where I left off after making a few notes about what I needed to know: who was the writer, where was she based, and what was this secret she was talking about? It didn’t take me long to figure out the second answer. The page in the journal before me read:

When we moved into the manse here next to Bethel, a church member told us what we had to keep to ourselves about our home, and now that secret haunts me. I feel guilty every morning when I wake, and so I spend time here, in the basement, to attend to the truth, to be close and aware, and to record my frustrations in the hopes that someone will remember, some day.

I read that passage aloud to Mika and Mary, and they both gasped. “So she was in the parish house,” Mika said.

“And if she’s going to the basement . . .” Mary’s voice trailed off.

“It sure sounds like she’s talking about something literally buried below,” I finished as I felt the weight of what we might be discovering settle more firmly on my shoulders. This could be a terrible, terrible discovery.

But if I’d learned anything about investigating something hard from my boyfriend and our county sheriff, Santiago Shifflett, it was best to hold back judgment until we had all the facts. So I went back to reading, as did Mika and Mary.

From time to time, we each read passages out loud, and as we went, I made lots of notes. The author was definitely the pastor’s wife, and Mary pulled up the church history on her phone and confirmed that during those years, the pastor had been Rev. Fountain Greene, the founding and longest-standing pastor at Bethel. His wife was named Earnestine, and best we could tell from the contextual clues, she was the author of these journals.

She and her husband had moved into the house in May of 1908, right about the time she’d started writing, and her husband had retired as pastor in 1928, just before the Great Depression descended. So Earnestine’s journals spanned her entire time living in the house.

The author and her tie to the manse clear, we plummeted deep to see what we could find about this secret to which she kept referring. References to it were prolific in the first two journal volumes, but as time passed, Earnestine seemed to make peace – or maybe stop thinking about – whatever had bothered her so much when she moved into the house. Over time, she talked more about the people in the community, births and deaths, marriage troubles and children with difficulties. Everything she wrote was compassionate if sometimes very honest, and the more I read, the more I found myself really liking this woman who told it like it was but didn’t judge people for their poor choices or past pains.

When dinnertime rolled around, I boiled water for pasta, spiced up the jarred spaghetti sauce, and made my quick and easy broiler garlic bread with lots of butter and slices of fresh garlic. Then, I ran out to the garden, harvested the first of the spinach and the lettuce that had managed to survive a Virginia summer without bolting, thanks to a shady garden spot, and mixed up a quick green salad. Then, I called my friends to the table for a break, a bottle of wine, and some sustenance. It didn’t look like any of us were ready to quit, and with only one or two more journals apiece left to do, we might just be able to finish reading tonight.

Mika helped me set the table, but Mary was absolutely engrossed in whatever she was reading. When she didn’t join us after a few minutes, Mika and I picked up all three wine glasses and went back in the living room. The food could wait, and it looked like Beauregard, my gray Maine Coon cat, was content to sleep with his head on Mary’s knee as she continued to read, so our food wasn’t in danger from his sometimes pesky paws.

For a few minutes, Mika and I sipped and watched Mary read, glancing at each other with raised eyebrows more than once. Clearly, Mary was intent on finishing, and neither of us dared interrupt.

Finally, just as I was about to get up to pour more wine, Mary closed the journal she was reading, sat back, and said, “Well, we definitely need to adjust our plans for the addition.”

I studied her face for a minute and formulated about a million questions, but she still seemed to be considering, weighing what she learned, and I knew she’d share when she had a grasp on what Earnestine’s words had revealed. So I sipped what was left in my glass, decided that any more reading I would need to do would have to wait until tomorrow, and felt a bit of pressure ease off. It seemed we had the basic information we needed, if what Mary had learned was as weighty as it seemed, so we could discuss and process a bit before finishing our reading.

After a few more minutes of quiet, Mary said, “There’s a Monacan burial mound underneath the manse.”

I felt my mouth drop open and stared, unblinking, at my friend as I waited for her to say more.

Mary held up the journal. “In 1928, Earnestine couldn’t keep the secret any longer and wrote down all she knew in these pages. Then, she brought up what she knew to the deacons of the church and threatened to go to the newspaper.”

“How did the deacons react?” Mika asked in an awed whisper.

“I don’t know. Her last entry was written just before she went to the meeting.” Mary’s face was strained and her jaw tight.

“What?!” I shouted.

Mary sighed. “There’s nothing more. That’s the last entry.” She opened the journal and held it up. As she flipped the pages, I saw no words, only blank paper. Earnestine hadn’t finished the journal.

“Someone killed her,” Mika said.

I turned to look at my friend and shook my head. “We don’t know that.”

“Well, why else would she stop when she’d kept a journal for twenty-one years?” Mika asked. “What other reason could there be?”

I shook my head again. “I don’t know, but we can’t jump to conclusions.” Dinner forgotten, I grabbed my laptop and opened a genealogy site. I put in the name Earnestine Greene in Octonia, Octonia County, Virginia, and hit search.

It only took a second for the results to return, and I immediately clicked on her death certificate. I scanned the date – August 8, 1928 – and looked at Mary. “What’s the date of that entry?” I whispered.

Mary flipped back two pages. “August 8, 1928.”

I yelped involuntarily and then spun the screen so my friends could see. “She died that day.” Both Mika and Mary groaned as I turned the laptop back to me. “It says the cause of death was head trauma, likely from a fall down the stairs.” I swallowed the baseball in my throat.

“I think that’s pretty clear,” Mary said, “but not proof. She could have been so upset that she tripped and fell. Or just missed a step. I’ve done that.”

I sighed. “Yes, that’s true. But either way, I think we need to call Santiago. Something horrible happened, and we need him to investigate.”

As I told my phone to call my boyfriend, my friends moved the journals back to the boxes, leaving the three that Mika and I still hadn’t read out on the table. Then, Mika fixed us each a plate, put all of them on warm in the oven, and finally got out the other bottle of wine. We were going to need it.

warmI hadn’t needed to say much on the phone to Santiago. I told him we found something in the parish house at the church and asked if he could come over.

His response had been, “Of course you did, and of course I’ll be right over.” This was the fourth time one of my salvaging expeditions had required police involvement, and while I was grateful that I had met Santiago through one of those situations, I hated that now I had to call him for something other than an invitation to sit on the porch and talk.

While we waited for the sheriff, Mika and Mary tidied up the living room and stacked all our notes together to review after we ate, and I texted Sawyer’s dad to see if I could video chat with our son for a minute. My son always pulled me back to a place of perspective, and while I didn’t rely on my son to be my support, tonight, I did want to see his face, to be reminded that he was okay.

His dad readily agreed, as eager as I was on the nights he was with me to have a little support in caring for this wild, rambunctious, amazing little boy. Sawyer and I talked a bit while he splashed like a seal in his kiddie pool. That boy loved water, and it always gave me joy to see him freely doing what he adored. But as usual, his attention span for the phone was limited, and so I said goodnight, feeling good that he was okay. When we hung up, I felt a little more balanced.

By the time Santiago arrived, Mary, Mika, and I were into our first glass of the second bottle of wine, but the alcohol and time together seemed to have steadied us all. So when Santiago sat down with a heaping plate of spaghetti, warm garlic bread, and a salad, we were ready to talk.

Mary explained what she’d read, and I told him what I’d seen in Earnestine’s death certificate. And Mika asked Santiago what he thought had happened to her.

“Her death is certainly suspicious,” he said, “but we can’t jump to any conclusions until we know more.”

Mika laughed. “That’s exactly what Paisley said.”

Santiago squeezed my hand on the table. “You’re learning.”

I smiled. “I am, but between us, we can admit this is in the highly suspicious category, right?”

highlysuspiciousHe rolled his eyes but smiled. “Sure, if that makes you feel better. I’ll even use the phrase ‘highly suspicious’ when I tell Savannah.” Savannah Winslow was Santiago’s deputy, and she had become a friend over the past few months.

“Please do,” I said, trying to keep the tone light. But the situation was too heavy for my efforts, and I gave up. “And what do we do about the possibility that there are Native American graves under the house?”

A collective sigh passed around the table. “I know a professor at UVA. We can talk with him,” Santiago said. “He’ll keep things quiet because he doesn’t want more graves disturbed, but he can also guide us on what to do.”

I nodded. “Okay. Can I come with you when you talk to him? I feel responsible since it was my work that brought all this to light.”

“Sure. Let me reach out to him tonight and see if he might be free tomorrow, okay?” He squeezed my hand again, and I tried to smile.

“That’s good, because I need to tell the deacon board what’s happening ASAP so we can stop the heavy machinery from coming in, if need be. I’d like to be able to give them a recommendation for next steps,” Mary said as she pushed her uneaten spaghetti around her plate.

I looked at my friend, and the sadness of this information and, I suspected, the fact that the church’s hard work to build their much-needed addition would have to be put on hold, maybe permanently, showed on her face. “I’m sorry, Mary.”

Mika reached over and squeezed her shoulders. “Would it be alright with you if I let Saul know that we have a situation – no details – so that his crew is prepared if they aren’t needed Monday?”

Mary looked at Mika and sighed. “Sure. That’s probably wise.”

“And let me also talk to him about his friend who is an architect. Maybe we can work some magic with the plans you already have and find a way to get that addition without disrupting anyone’s eternal rest,” Mika added.

“Okay. But it seems impossible. Our cemetery is on the other side of the church, and we don’t own the lot behind us.” She wrapped her fingers around the back of her neck. “But the Lord can make a way where it seems there is no way.” She smiled over at Mika.

“That’s the attitude,” Santiago said. “I’ll go call Dr. Harmon now.” He looked down at his plate before he stood. “The food was really good, Paisley, just . . .”

None of us had eaten much except the garlic bread. Clearly, we had needed comfort food in the form of carbs and butter. “No worries at all. The chickens will feast well tonight.” That was one of the best perks about these silly birds. They would eat anything, and I never had to waste food.

Just as I was about to scrape the last dish onto mine to carry outside, I felt a fluffy tail wrap around my ankles. “What is it, Beau? Do you think you want some spaghetti?”

He mewled and continued to weave around my legs. “Oh, I see. You want bread.” I dropped a crust onto the floor for him and watched him lick it carefully before picking it up in his front teeth and carrying it to who-knows-where to eat. For a giant cat, he was so persnickety.

The chickens went right to work on the mound of spaghetti, and after I filled their feeder and checked their water, I penned them inside their electric fence so that they’d be safe as the night predators began to come out. I’d close them in their coop at dark, but raccoons sometimes started their hunting raids early.

Back inside, Mary and Mika were quietly loading the dishwasher, and I could hear Santiago on the phone out on the front porch. I took a wet cloth and wiped the table and let myself, for the first time, think about what it might mean to have a burial ground very close to downtown Octonia. People would likely want to either make it a tourist attraction and resent that idea, but given the very little I knew about Monacan burial mounds here in the area, I thought it was probably something the Monacan people themselves would want to keep more quiet. Grave robberies were sadly still common because some folks seemed to be unable to think of Native Americans as people. I’d heard more than one Monacan leader give an interview where they suggested people consider what it would be like if someone opened Grandma’s grave to steal her favorite pearls.

The kitchen clean and the wine still flowing, we three women returned to the living room with our notes. We talked through what we’d learned and saw that, unsurprisingly, many of the families mentioned in Earnestine Greene’s journals were still members at Bethel. Mary recognized many of the people in the journals, too, had even known a few of the folks in their later years. “It’s a family church,” she said. “People have really close ties to it.”

I nodded. In the research I’d done so far on the church, I’d learned that it was founded after a split from another nearby church – something about the practices of baptism. The members of Bethel had built their church on land someone gave them for that purpose.

Mary and I had been wanting to find out who the donor had been, but the church records were oddly silent on the subject. I wondered, out loud, if I could write up some of the church history for my newsletter and see if anyone knew anything.

Mary shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know that most people care about this stuff, and the young people almost certainly don’t,” Mary said with a sigh. “Now, if you can put your story to a good beat . . .” She laughed.

“No one wants to hear Paisley beatbox,” Mika said. “Trust me.”

We then talked about our most embarrassing moments in a conversation spurred by Mika telling Mary about how I had wanted to perform “Rapper’s Delight” at our college talent show but had forgotten both the words and the rhythm on stage. It had been mortifying.

Mary was just about to give us details about the time she flashed an entire highway when Santiago came in. We immediately grew silent and stared at him.

“Dr. Harmon is eager to meet with us bright and early tomorrow, and he’d like to see the journals” – Santiago turned to Mary – “if that’s okay.”

“It’s just fine, of course. This is the one where Earnestine talks about the burial ground, but of course, he can read them all if he’d like.” Mary handed Santiago the leather-bound journal.

“I’ll let him know, but for now, I think this is enough. That said, if you guys want to read the last of these, it might be good to get that done tonight since it’s possible I will need to take these into evidence if we find information about a crime.” Santiago’s face looked strained. This was going to be a huge deal if it turned out that people were buried under the manse and if someone had been killed to keep that a secret.

“Let’s read then, women,” I said and picked up the final journal from my stack while Mika handed Mary one from hers.

“Do you mind if I look at your notes?” Santiago asked. “I need to start getting familiar with the names and facts here.”

I handed him the stack of paper, and then, we all began to r******w that we knew Earnestine’s handwriting and were pretty familiar with the kind of things she wrote about, we made quick work of the remaining three books, only adding a few names and a couple of events to our notes. It was clear that Mary had found the crucial information in her reading, and while the other pieces of data might help once we knew more, for now, we’d done all we could.

“I’m going to call Saul now,” Mika said and stepped into the kitchen.

I looked over at Mary. “You’re welcome to stay here tonight, sleep in Sawyer’s room, come with us in the morning.”

Mary smiled. “Actually, I’d like that, if you don’t mind another tagalong, Santiago.”

“I think that would be really helpful, Mary. You know more about the church history than anyone, and I expect you’ll be able to answer a lot of Dr. Harmon’s questions.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but probably not the crucial one. How could anyone allow a house to be built on the top of a cemetery?”