Ninth Grave

by Kathi Daley

  “I guess I’ll try the beef-dip sandwich,” Trish said. “I haven’t had one in ages.”

  Georgia went up to the counter, wrote down the order for our table, and slipped it to Velma. Then she grabbed three glasses, filled them with water, and brought them to us. The sole waitress on shift that day waved at Georgia to acknowledge that she’d noticed that she had taken care of things herself. That was one of the things I loved about Holiday Bay: Folks pitched in when necessary and no one seemed to mind.

  “So, how many people are you trying to meet during this family roots trip of yours?” I asked after we’d all settled in to wait for our food.

  “I have seven on my list. I live in Philadelphia, but both my mother’s family, as well as my father’s, are from New England. I know most of the aunts, uncles, and cousins who are still alive, of course. This trip is to find additional information on the ones who came before. I have my lineage traced back to Nicolas Chesterton on my mother’s side. As far as I can tell, he came to the colonies in the mid-1600s. He lived in Jamestown and had seven sons. In fact, one of the most interesting things I found was that the Chesterton line consisted mostly of sons until William Chesterton, who had three daughters.”

  “William Chesterton had brothers whose offspring carried on the Chesterton name?” Georgia asked.

  Trish nodded. “He had two brothers.”

  She went on to name the brothers and their offspring. While I found it fascinating, Trish was throwing way too many names around for me to make sense of them, so I let my attention wander. Georgia seemed better able to keep up with all the names, but I felt like I would need a list to keep track. One of the bits of information Trish had stored in her memory that I did find fascinating was that one of the uncles many times removed had been named John. John had eleven sons, all of whom were named John too. I wondered how that might work, but Trish informed me that all the sons had different middle names, so she assumed that the sons went by those.

  After we finished lunch, we headed back to the mansion so Trish could pick up her car. She had plans to visit both the newspaper and the museum, and Georgia and I had a whole hive of worker bees coming by to help put the finishing touches on the float for the Easter parade, so we didn’t tag along. Lonnie had built a masterpiece with the help of his artistic wife, Lacy and our neighbors, Tanner Peyton and his sister, Nikki. He’d been working for weeks on a replica of the inn, all fixed up and ready to receive guests. In addition to those helpers, we were expecting Chief of Police Colt Wilder, Velma, when she was finished at the diner for the day, and Velma’s friend, Charlee Weaver.

  I suggested to Georgia that she grill some burgers and buy a couple of bags of chips to serve to everyone when they arrived. Of course, once Georgia got hold of the idea, burgers on the grill translated into ribs and chicken, baked Texan beans, potato, green, and fruit salads, and fresh, flaky grilled bread. I’m not sure how Georgia got all that food prepared so quickly, but by the time Colt rolled onto the drive on his motorcycle, the meat was on the grill and everything else was ready to eat.

  “I’m not sure I would have gone with quite so much food,” Colt said later that afternoon after everyone had arrived. “I’m afraid we’ll all end up in a food coma and no one will have the energy to work on the float.”

  “I agree, but you know Georgia; when I suggested hamburgers and potato chips, she almost had a heart attack. I think we’ll be fine, though. There isn’t a lot left to do on the float. We finished the structure as well as the basic landscaping last weekend. We wanted to add an Easter feel to the inn and garden, so we plan to build a large Easter Bunny who will sit on a chair in the gazebo, and then we’ll add Easter eggs to the lawn. I think Lacy and Georgia have everything made; it just needs to be assembled.”

  Colt yawned. “That’s good. After the long day I’ve had, I could use an early night.”

  “Long day?” I asked.

  “I spent a good part of the day moving my furniture into my new house. I still have to move the small stuff and most of the boxes, but I got a good start. I hoped to finish up tomorrow, but I got a call about human remains that were found in an unmarked grave about two hours north of here. It was late to make the drive today, so I am heading out in the morning. Local law enforcement have the remains in their morgue, so there wasn’t a lot of urgency to making the trip today.

  “Why are you responding to a call so far north?”

  “I think the body could be connected to a case I looked in to a while back when the victim turned out to be alive.”

  I raised a brow. “Alive?”

  “It’s kind of a long story,” Colt warned.

  “I have time.”

  He took a sip of his beer and then sat down on one of the patio chairs we’d set out. I sat down next to him.

  “About three years ago, I received a call in the middle of the night from a woman named Erica Kurtzpatrick. She claimed to have witnessed her neighbor, Peter Slavin, stab his wife, Lora, in the throat. I responded to the call, but when I knocked on the Slavins’ door, no one answered. Because I had reason to believe that a murder may have been committed on the property, I let myself in. A quick tour of the interior of the home didn’t provide evidence to support the vicious attack the neighbor swore she had witnessed, and while I carefully searched the whole place, I was unable to find even a drop of blood.”

  “Was there evidence of a struggle?” I asked.

  “No. Likewise, there was no evidence of forced entry, and it didn’t appear as if anything had been disturbed. It was the early hours of the morning by that point, so I waited to see if Peter Slavin would return to the house. When he hadn’t come back by the morning, I tracked him down through his employer, who informed me that he had been attending a conference in Atlanta for several days. I called Slavin and confirmed that he had been at the conference all week. I asked him about the whereabouts of his wife and he said she had been out of town visiting a friend while he was in Atlanta. I called the cell number he provided and Mrs. Slavin answered. I informed her about the reason for my call and she agreed to a brief interview via video chat to confirm that she was indeed alive and kicking.”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I had zero evidence of foul play in the house and the supposed victim looked to be very much alive, so I dropped the case.”

  “And the neighbor?”

  “I shared with her the information I had tracked down, including that I had spoken to Mrs. Slavin. Despite the evidence that she was very much alive, Erica Kurtzpatrick swore that she wasn’t crazy and had seen what she said she had.”

  “Did you consider that while the wife was alive, the neighbor might have seen someone else being murdered?”

  “It did cross my mind, but the evidence didn’t support that conclusion.”

  “Okay, so why do you think the body that was found today is related to that case?”

  “This body was that of a female wrapped in a large blue area rug. The victim had been stabbed in the throat and the victim wore pink nylon pajamas. When I spoke to Erica Kurtzpatrick three years ago, she told me that she saw her neighbor, Peter Slavin, walk into the dining room where his wife, Lora, was standing and stabbed her in the throat. When I took the report, Erica told me that she’d noticed that Lora was wearing the same pink nylon pajamas she’d seen her in on other occasions, and when I explained that I had searched the place and hadn’t found a body or even any blood, she told me that Lora had a large blue area rug in the dining room and that, based on what she saw, Lora would have been standing on that rug when she was stabbed. She reasoned that the rug would have soaked up any blood that would have resulted from the stab wound and that it was likely that Peter had disposed of the rug at the same time he disposed of the body.”

  I raised a brow. “So how were you able to speak to Mrs. Slavin if she had, in fact, been murdered?”

  “That is exactly the question I hope to answer.”

  Books by Kathi Daley

  Co
me for the murder, stay for the romance.

  Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery:

  Halloween Hijinks

  The Trouble With Turkeys

  Christmas Crazy

  Cupid’s Curse

  Big Bunny Bump-off

  Beach Blanket Barbie

  Maui Madness

  Derby Divas

  Haunted Hamlet

  Turkeys, Tuxes, and Tabbies

  Christmas Cozy

  Alaskan Alliance

  Matrimony Meltdown

  Soul Surrender

  Heavenly Honeymoon

  Hopscotch Homicide

  Ghostly Graveyard

  Santa Sleuth

  Shamrock Shenanigans

  Kitten Kaboodle

  Costume Catastrophe

  Candy Cane Caper

  Holiday Hangover

  Easter Escapade

  Camp Carter

  Trick or Treason

  Reindeer Roundup

  Hippity Hoppity Homicide

  Firework Fiasco

  Henderson House

  Holiday Hostage

  Lunacy Lake

  Celtic Christmas – Coming 2019

  Zimmerman Academy The New Normal

  Zimmerman Academy New Beginnings

  Ashton Falls Cozy Cookbook

  Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mysteries:

  Pumpkins in Paradise

  Snowmen in Paradise

  Bikinis in Paradise

  Christmas in Paradise

  Puppies in Paradise

  Halloween in Paradise

  Treasure in Paradise

  Fireworks in Paradise

  Beaches in Paradise

  Thanksgiving in Paradise – Fall 2019

  Whales and Tails Cozy Mystery:

  Romeow and Juliet

  The Mad Catter

  Grimm’s Furry Tail

  Much Ado About Felines

  Legend of Tabby Hollow

  Cat of Christmas Past

  A Tale of Two Tabbies

  The Great Catsby

  Count Catula

  The Cat of Christmas Present

  A Winter’s Tail

  The Taming of the Tabby

  Frankencat

  The Cat of Christmas Future

  Farewell to Felines

  A Whisker in Time

  The Catsgiving Feast

  A Whale of a Tail – July 2019

  Writers’ Retreat Mystery:

  First Case

  Second Look

  Third Strike

  Fourth Victim

  Fifth Night

  Sixth Cabin

  Seventh Chapter

  Eighth Witness

  Ninth Grave

  Rescue Alaska Mystery:

  Finding Justice

  Finding Answers

  Finding Courage

  Finding Christmas

  Finding Shelter – Fall 2019

  A Tess and Tilly Mystery:

  The Christmas Letter

  The Valentine Mystery

  The Mother’s Day Mishap

  The Halloween House

  The Thanksgiving Trip

  The Saint Paddy’s Promise

  The Halloween Haunting – Fall 2019

  The Inn at Holiday Bay:

  Boxes in the Basement

  Letters in the Library

  Message in the Mantel

  Answers in the Attic – June 2019

  Family Ties:

  The Hathaway Sisters

  Harper

  Harlow

  Hayden – Summer 2019

  Haunting by the Sea:

  Homecoming by the Sea

  Secrets by the Sea

  Missing by the Sea

  Betrayal by the Sea

  Thanksgiving by the Sea – Fall 2019

  Christmas by the Sea – December 2019

  Sand and Sea Hawaiian Mystery:

  Murder at Dolphin Bay

  Murder at Sunrise Beach

  Murder at the Witching Hour

  Murder at Christmas

  Murder at Turtle Cove

  Murder at Water’s Edge

  Murder at Midnight

  Murder at Pope Investigations – Summer 2019

  Seacliff High Mystery:

  The Secret

  The Curse

  The Relic

  The Conspiracy

  The Grudge

  The Shadow

  The Haunting

  Road to Christmas Romance:

  Road to Christmas Past

  USA Today best-selling author Kathi Daley lives in beautiful Lake Tahoe with her husband Ken. When she isn’t writing, she likes spending time hiking the miles of desolate trails surrounding her home. She has authored more than seventy-five books in eight series, including Zoe Donovan Cozy Mysteries, Whales and Tails Island Mysteries, Sand and Sea Hawaiian Mysteries, Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Series, Writers’ Retreat Southern Seashore Mysteries, Rescue Alaska Paranormal Mysteries, and Seacliff High Teen Mysteries. Find out more about her books at www.kathidaley.com

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