Tangled Roots

by Marcia Talley

  Contents

  Cover

  Recent Titles by Marcia Talley

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Recent Titles by Marcia Talley

  The Hannah Ives Mysteries

  SING IT TO HER BONES

  UNBREATHED MEMORIES

  OCCASION OF REVENGE

  IN DEATH’S SHADOW

  THIS ENEMY TOWN

  THROUGH THE DARKNESS

  DEAD MAN DANCING *

  WITHOUT A GRAVE *

  ALL THINGS UNDYING *

  A QUIET DEATH *

  THE LAST REFUGE *

  DARK PASSAGE *

  TOMORROW’S VENGEANCE *

  DAUGHTER OF ASHES *

  FOOTPRINTS TO MURDER *

  MILE HIGH MURDER *

  * available from Severn House

  TANGLED ROOTS

  Marcia Talley

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  This eBook edition first published in 2019 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2019 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  Copyright © 2019 by Marcia Talley.

  The right of Marcia Talley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8882-2 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-600-5 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0217-8 (e-book)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This ebook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  GENEALOGY (from the Gr. γènos, family, and λσγos, theory), a pedigree or list of ancestors, or the study of family history.

  — Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Vol. 11, Cambridge, England, 1910, p. 573.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My research for Tangled Roots began with the obvious first step: I spat into a test tube and sent it off for DNA testing. I spent the weeks before the results came in constructing my family tree on a popular genealogy website and soon, like Hannah, found myself sucked, head-first, down a rabbit hole. Now, nearly a year later, I’ve reconnected with a long-lost cousin (Hello, Ellen!), discovered that a first cousin in fact wasn’t, learned how my great-grandmother actually died, confirmed family legend that I’m directly related to John Hart the Signer, and visited a cemetery not far from the King Arthur Flour Company in rural Vermont where generations of my family lie buried. Some of these genealogical adventures inevitably wove themselves into the fabric of this book.

  Although writing is a solitary business, it often takes a family to make a novel.

  I’m particularly indebted to my Native American friends who listened patiently, answered countless questions and trusted me to get it right. If I failed, it’s my fault, not theirs.

  Thanks to my sister, Deborah Kelchner, who helped build our family tree and whose passion for genealogy rivals my own.

  A shout-out to my long-time friend, Linda Sprenkle, who knows my characters almost as well as I do. You were totally right about Georgina.

  And to my friend and colleague, Sujata Massey, for sharing her neighborhood and favorite restaurants.

  Kudos to James A. Earl, whose winning bid at an auction to benefit the Annapolis Opera Company earned him the right to appear as an artist in this book. Since Jim is an accomplished artist, no acting on his part was required.

  I’m grateful to Tim Keane, winner of a character auction benefitting Lyme Elementary School in Lyme, New Hampshire, where my grandchildren go to school. In real life, Tim runs a biotech firm producing antibodies for cancer research. He’s moonlighting as an attorney in this book.

  For ‘tough love’ I appreciate my partners in crime Mary Ellen Hughes, Becky Hutchison, Debbi Mack, Sherriel Mattingly, Penny Petersen, Beth Schmeltzer and Bonnie Settle of the Annapolis Writers’ Group who read every word, sometimes more than once.

  Hugs to Kate Charles and Deborah Crombie, dearest friends, confidantes and advisors, who keep me grounded. Your ‘two-cents’ are always worth a hundred bucks.

  And, as always, to Vicky Bijur.

  ONE

  It started with a phone call. Doesn’t it always?

  Although my cell phone was resting face down on the patio table within easy reach, vibrating noisily against the glass, I almost didn’t pick up. My hands were encased in rubber gloves while I smoothed marine varnish over the sun-bleached teak of our deck chairs. I could tell by the ringtone, however, that Georgina was on the line. I knew from experience that she’d keep dialing my number until I silenced the chimes either by switching the phone into airplane mode or chucking it into the rhododendrons. So, I caved.

  I dunked the paintbrush into a yogurt tub filled with paint thinner, peeled off the gloves and used a damp pinky finger to accept the call.

  ‘Hey,’ I said as I leaned over the table and stabbed the speaker button. ‘What’s up?’

  I hadn’t heard from my baby sister in two or three weeks. It’s probably not nice to say, but Georgina usually called only when she wanted something. I braced myself.

  ‘Did you ever send in that DNA test kit I gave you?’

  Georgina had been dabbling in genealogy lately, exploring the Alexander family tree. How she found the time between caring for four school-age children and Scott, her high-maintenance, self-employed CPA husband, I couldn’t imagine.

  ‘Not yet. Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why I even bothered to give it to you, Hannah,’
she huffed.

  ‘I’m sorry, sis. It slipped my mind, is all. I’ll get to it soon, I promise,’ I said as I puzzled over where I’d put the damn packet. At a family picnic a couple of months before, Georgina had given me and our older sister, Ruth, each a test kit. At the time, she’d seemed eager – with Scott egging her on – to join the Daughters of the American Revolution which required tracing our forefathers (and mothers, Ruth had been quick to remind her!) in an unbroken line back to 1776.

  ‘How hard can it be to spit into a tube?’ Georgina sighed in exasperation. ‘And postage paid?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologized again. ‘Is it important?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ my sister said, sounding cautious. ‘It’s just that I think they might have made some sort of mistake when they tested mine.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The English and Scottish roots I expected,’ she continued. ‘There was a smattering of Scandinavian and Iberian Peninsula that didn’t surprise me, the Vikings and the Romans, you know,’ she rattled on, ‘but according to Gen-Tree …’ She paused. ‘Are you sitting down?’

  ‘Don’t build me a clock, Georgina. Just tell me what time it is!’

  ‘Gen-Tree says I’m twenty-five percent Native American.’

  I reached for a chair I hadn’t yet painted and sat. How could my fair, green-eyed, red-headed sister, and by extension Ruth and I …?

  The Alexanders, I knew, emigrated to Virginia from the Scottish Highlands sometime in the mid-eighteenth century, and our mother’s family, the Smiths, descended from frugal, Puritan stock, going back – Grandmother Smith always claimed – to 1630 and the Winthrop Fleet. My husband, Paul, used to tease that this explained my propensity to rinse out and reuse Ziploc bags.

  ‘That’s nuts,’ I said, after catching my breath. ‘It’s probably a mistake. Got contaminated, or your sample mixed up in the lab with somebody else’s.’

  ‘That’s what Scott thought,’ Georgina said.

  ‘Call them,’ I suggested. ‘Ask them to re-do it.’

  ‘I did, Hannah, and they’re sending me another test kit for free, but it’ll take weeks and weeks to get the results! That’s why I was hoping you’d sent yours in. I mean, we should be the same, right?’

  ‘As far as I know. Have you checked with Ruth?’

  ‘She flat-out refused to do it. Hutch said he had serious privacy concerns about those testing companies.’

  Ruth’s husband was an attorney. He always agonized over the fine print.

  Frankly, I thought it’d be rather cool to have Native American blood, but I didn’t see how that could be possible. Twenty-five percent? I did the math.

  If that were the case, one of our four grandparents would have to have been a full-blooded Indian. I’d known my grandparents on both sides – they’d lived well into their eighties. A long-ago Alexander had migrated from Virginia to southern Maryland where he married a sixteen-year-old Catholic girl related to George Calvert, the first Baron Baltimore. I’d forgotten the fellow’s name, but the couple prospered, growing tobacco on a Chesapeake County farm not far away from the one now owned by my husband’s sister, Connie. She raised cows down there, though, not tobacco.

  Stephen and Charlotte Smith had been farmers, too, on a two-hundred-acre spread near Norwich in rural Vermont, now home to a Christmas tree farm run by one of my second cousins. A cemetery not far from the King Arthur Flour Company was chock-full of our relatives. A wedding photograph still sits on my living room mantel: Grandpa Smith, string bean tall, his sandy hair sticking out in tufts from beneath a broad-brimmed hat. Grandma, diminutive, deceptively frail, her peach-colored hair in full bloom around her face.

  ‘Hannah? Are you still there?’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was just trying to wrap my head around all this. Honestly, I don’t recall any one of our grandparents having Native American features, but I’m not sure what I’d be looking for.’

  ‘Maybe Mom or Dad was adopted,’ Georgina cut in. ‘Or maybe …’ She paused dramatically. ‘Maybe there were shenanigans.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘Let’s wait until our tests come back, OK?’

  She giggled. ‘OK. Thanks for putting up with me, Hannah.’

  Georgina could be a handful, that was certainly true, but it wouldn’t help to agree with her. As I watched the varnish in the open paint can start to skim over, I tried to remember where I’d put the darn test kit. Under the bathroom sink?

  ‘Hey!’ Georgina was saying when I tuned in again. ‘You’re much better with computers than I am, Hannah. How ’bout I set you up as co-editor on Gen-Tree.com? You can check out the information I’ve entered so far. Do a bit of poking around.’

  ‘Sounds like fun,’ I said truthfully. I’d seen the ads for Gen-Tree on television. Click on one ancestry hint – a flapping pennant icon – then another and another, leading back to – potentially – Adam and Eve. It could end up being more addictive than playing Words With Friends. ‘Maybe there’ll be horse thieves in the family, or moonshiners,’ I mused.

  ‘Then again,’ Georgina said, ‘they could all be totally boring. Like accountants.’

  After we said goodbye, I capped the paint can, cleaned the paintbrush with turpentine and trotted upstairs to shower. The Gen-Tree test kit was, as I suspected, under the bathroom sink. After I dried myself off, I put on a fresh top and a clean pair of shorts, grabbed the kit and padded barefoot down to our basement office. I sat down at the computer. While I waited for it to power up, I opened up the packet and read the instructions.

  Activate the fifteen-digit code. Check.

  Agree that I can’t sue the company for DNA results I didn’t like. OK.

  Receive emails from our business partners? I don’t think so.

  Health reports? You bet.

  I also agreed, in spite of the vagueness of the wording, to allow my DNA to be used for projects to ‘better understand the human species’. Why not, I reasoned. It’s the closest I’ll probably get to doing scientific research.

  When I got to the section about DNA matching, I called Georgina back.

  ‘When you sent in your sample, did you sign up for the DNA matching service?’ I asked.

  ‘Gosh, no. Scott had a fit when I mentioned it. He even made me check the box instructing them to destroy my sample after they tested it.’ She paused, then said slyly, ‘But that wouldn’t prevent you from signing up for it.’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said as I checked the box that would allow Gen-Tree to match me up, DNA-wise, with potential relatives in their database, unsurprised to hear that Scott had kicked up a fuss. My brother-in-law left claw marks on the road as his family dragged him into the digital age. He used email in his work now, but still didn’t ‘do’ Facebook or Twitter and had only reluctantly allowed his children to join the scary new world of social media.

  Recently, a serial killer had been tracked down by matching DNA left at a crime scene to distant cousins registered in GEDcom, a public genealogy database. I hadn’t murdered anyone recently, so adding my DNA to the pool didn’t seem a particularly risky decision.

  You were instructed to wait an hour without eating, drinking or smoking before taking the test. I figured the meatloaf sandwich I’d had for lunch was long off my breath, so I obediently spit – and spit and spit and spit – into the tube they provided. When the spit reached a black line, I screwed down a cap containing a blue liquid preservative and shook it for the required five seconds. That done, I slid the tube into a little bag, and the bag into a small, postage-paid box.

  Ten minutes later, I intercepted the mailman as he strolled from house to house down Prince George Street. I traded the box for a packet of bills and advertising flyers. ‘Take good care of that,’ I said.

  He scrutinized the mailing label. ‘There’s a lot of this going around.’

  I grinned. ‘We could compare notes. Maybe we’ll turn out to be fifth cousins.’

  ‘My wife found out she has a German half-sister,’ the mail
man commented as he tucked my precious cargo into a side pocket on his pouch. ‘Seems Daddy was a naughty boy while stationed with the Air Force in Ramstein. It’s a good thing he’s already dead, or Mary’s mother would have killed him.’

  ‘I doubt there’ll be any surprises,’ I said with a smile. ‘My family’s so conventional they could have starred in a fifties sitcom sponsored by Walt Disney.’

  ‘Well, good luck,’ he said, touching the brim on his cap.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said over my shoulder as I returned to the house.

  According to Gen-Tree.com, it would be at least six weeks before my test results would be ready. In the meantime, I decided to sit down, roll up my sleeves and see what I could discover by exploring their database.

  TWO

  I spent the remainder of the afternoon in the basement office, fleshing out the Alexander family tree started online by my sister, Georgina. I was new to genealogical research, but I immediately ran into what must be every genealogist’s nightmare: a relative bearing the last name of Smith.

  We had a Zebulon in the family woodpile, and a great-grandfather married to a woman named Azubah, but otherwise ordinary Johns, Marys, Sarahs and Abrahams appeared in biblical abundance throughout New England, and Mother herself was just plain Lois Mary.

  As I explored the Gen-Tree database further, half the population of Vermont seemed to be Smiths, including Joseph Smith, of magic spectacles, golden tablets and Angel Moroni fame. The founder of Mormonism turned out to be, when I clicked down to it, my sixth cousin several times removed, depending on how one calculates those things.

  As far as Smiths in my direct line were concerned, however, the closest Native American connection I could find happened on July 18, 1694 during King William’s War. On that day, several hundred Abenaki Indians led by two French priests, massacred nearly everyone in my ancestors’ village on the Oyster River near present-day Durham, New Hampshire. ‘Just think,’ I said to Paul, who had been hovering behind me for twenty minutes, kibitzing, insisting that I open intriguing Family Story documents and read them. ‘If eight-year-old Mary hadn’t scooted out the back door and hid in the woods while her family was being scalped, I wouldn’t be here today.’