Squatter's Rights

by Cheril Thomas

  McNamara smiled reassuringly at her earnest defense of her father. “It would be easier if he would give us a sample, but we can get the information another way.” He removed two stoppered tubes from his coat pocket. “I need to get a sample from both of you. If our victim’s DNA has markers that match one of you, then she’s related in some way. But if she matches both of you, she’s a Delaney.”

  “How did she die?” Grace asked.

  “Head trauma.”

  “Maybe it was an accident, then,” Niki said. “Maybe there was a family graveyard and Gran just didn’t tell us. She hid a lot of stuff, you know. Grace even found a secret room the State Police missed.”

  McNamara turned to Grace. “Is that true?”

  “Yes. It was easy to miss.” Without giving herself time to think about what she was doing, she lied. “It was just another closet, clothes and shoes. Some furniture, not much. All old. You’re welcome to come go through it.” The letters sitting at the bottom of her tote bag called her name.

  “A secret room,” McNamara repeated. “Where?”

  She told him about the back wall of the main bathroom.

  “And you went through everything?”

  “Only enough to get an idea of what’s there.” And to find the letters.

  “Please keep the workers off the second floor and don’t go back until I tell you,” McNamara said. “I’ll get some people back in there today if I can. I won’t hold you up any longer than I have to.”

  “Chief Mac!” Niki’s voice caught. “You’re going to go through Gran’s clothes? Whatever happened out there in the woods didn’t involve her. She was just crazy. I mean, really crazy. Mental. Not crazy like a killer. You can’t let people think she could have murdered someone.” Tears trickled down her face. “Please don’t do that.”

  “I’m sorry, Niki,” McNamara said gently. “This is a homicide investigation. I can’t control much and I can’t stop rumors.”

  Grace fetched a box of tissues. When Niki had pulled herself together, she said, “Will the State Police do anything to Dad for not cooperating?”

  “I won’t need him to if I can get samples from you two.”

  “Have you talked to Avril Oxley?” Grace asked.

  McNamara finished swabbing the inside of Niki’s cheek before answering. “Yes,” he said. “Have you?"

  “Yes.” Grace saw Niki was looking at her quizzically. “I’m sorry, Niki, I should have told you sooner, but with everything that’s happened, I forgot. When Avril was here, she told me her sister went missing sometime in the late fifties or sixties. She didn’t give me an exact date.” Grace gave them the rest of Avril’s story.

  Niki was outraged anew. “Are you saying Avril thinks her sister, this Audrey, was murdered and buried in the woods? That’s insane!”

  “Avril didn’t say anything about murder,” Grace said.

  “So, it wasn’t murder - our grandparents just buried their friend in the backyard and didn’t tell her family? Avril can’t believe that. You can’t let her say it!”

  “Slow down a bit,” McNamara said. “Your grandparents may not have known anything about it. They could have been out of town when the woman was buried and not noticed the disturbance to the woods when they returned.” McNamara finished sealing the swab he’d used to take Grace’s sample and stood. “We’re close and your DNA will help. I’ll ask you two not to share Miss Oxley’s theory. The fewer people who know, the better. For the moment, anyway.”

  Niki asked if he’d told her father.

  With a glance at Grace, McNamara said to Niki, “He shared your feelings. I asked him to stay away from Miss Oxley. She’s old, Niki. She sounds tough and acts tougher, but she's old and she firmly believes this is her sister. We all need to respect her fear and the grief that will come if she’s right.”

  Niki’s chin came up and her eyes narrowed. “Dad’s right this time, Chief. Avril has no right to go around saying our family was involved with her sister. She has no right-”

  “Stop it,” McNamara’s voice was icy. “Now. Listen to me and hear me. The Delaneys didn’t corner the market on suffering. Don’t make Avril’s misery worse. Rise above it and leave her alone.”

  Niki covered her face with her hands and her shoulders shook.

  “You’re testing Avril, too?” Grace asked, breaking the awkward silence.

  “Yes,” McNamara said. “Only the three of you for now. If the Delaneys and Oxleys are preliminarily ruled out, we’ll expand our search. Full DNA testing takes time, so we’re already checking databases of missing people from that era, but the information cataloged online is thin and hasn’t turned up anything. Dental records from that period are long gone, so it’s slow work, I’m afraid.”

  She’d give him the letters as soon as she read them, Grace decided. A couple of days wouldn’t matter to Audrey’s sister, but Grace was tired of waiting.

  The letters she’d read back in Washington gave a view of her mother’s family that changed Grace’s life. What would this visit to the past do to her?

  Laid side by side in chronological order, the letters from Emma’s jewelry box formed a square four wide by three deep and covered the center of Grace’s bed. Most were in a graceful, neat handwriting she soon came to associate with Emma Delaney. Emma and her mother, Ingrid, had produced letters that spanned nearly twenty years. Grace picked up the oldest one first.

  She read slowly and took notes, identifying each letter and its contents, treating each page as evidence in a legal case. Which, she reasoned, they well could be. Three hours later she called Lee McNamara and made an appointment to meet him the next morning. She would give him everything she’d uncovered but first she wanted to talk to Niki.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "What do you mean, what happened to him? Grandfather died, of course. You don’t see him hanging around, do you?” Niki was still irritable.

  The afternoon and early evening had slipped away while Grace had studied the letters. Once she had her questions, she’d been so intent on getting answers she hadn’t realized she’d stopped Niki on her way to bed. Now they were squared off in the upstairs hallway and Grace was wishing she’d left the conversation until morning. “I meant, how did he die?"

  “Why do you want to know? Why is this coming up now?”

  Grace didn’t want to tell her about Emma’s letters and the frustrating details they omitted. “I just realized I didn’t know.”

  Niki narrowed her eyes at the weak explanation.

  “Is there some reason you don’t want to tell me?” Grace added, hoping to forestall any more questions about her sudden curiosity.

  “He committed suicide,” Niki said in a flat tone. “Shot himself out in the woods behind the house. We don’t talk about it.”

  It was what she’d suspected after reading the letter in which Emma talked about funeral details, but it was still a shock to hear Niki’s words. “Why?” was all she could think to say.

  “Who knows? We sure don’t. It was ages ago.” Letting out an exasperated sigh, Niki said, “I can see where you’ll go with this. Chief Mac has put all kinds of ideas in your head, but you can just forget about our family being involved with a murder. I know this is all new to you, but really. You can’t think that of us.”

  “I just wish someone had told me. Do you think Chief McNamara knows?”

  Red patches bloomed on Niki’s neck and cheeks as she leaned in closer to Grace. “Ford Delaney, our grandfather, was the president of Mallard Bay Bank and Trust - the very bank we all still use now. He was on half a dozen boards and heavily involved in state-level politics. He also had a problem with depression and it eventually got the better of him. Daddy and Tony were young and your mother was only a baby. Gran loved Grandfather - anyone can see that by the way she grieved. He had a lot to live for, but I guess not enough because he shot himself. Okay? We don’t talk about it; so don’t bring it up again. Not to Chief Mac, and especially not to my father. Do. Not.”
<
br />   With a short jab at the air with her index finger, Niki stalked off.

  Emma had never used the word ‘suicide’ in her letters to her mother, even though the inference was easy to make from her wording. Grace hadn’t meant to upset Niki but now she had confirmation. Ford Delaney had committed suicide in 1961 - the general time frame the medical examiner set for the death of the woman in the grave. A hell of a coincidence, Grace thought.

  When she turned her phone on, she saw there’d been two more calls from David. Since she was already in an emotional turmoil, Grace decided she might as well confront him, too. He answered her call on the first ring.

  “Are you all right?” His voice was tense with anger.

  “You sound like I shouldn’t be. What’s wrong?”

  “I couldn’t get you and no one knew where you were.”

  She pictured him, still in the office, shoes, jacket and tie off, a carton of carryout Thai nearly buried under the paper he’d generated during the day. It was after nine, so the bottle of Jack Daniels would be front and center, having made its appearance when the largest corner office of Farquar, Mitchum and Stoltzfus transitioned from work to what passed for a home life in David’s world.

  Grace said, “You fired me. It would be in bad taste to keep showing up.”

  “You could have answered the damn phone!”

  Her palms started to itch. After their first big fight, she’d gone through half a tube of cortisone cream before she realized it wouldn’t cure the rash that was David.

  “I’m not doing this.” She kept her voice low so it wouldn’t shake. “Tell me what you want or I’m hanging up.”

  “The very generous severance I gave you means you do take my calls. You left some unhappy clients here, Grace, and you owe them, even if you don’t think you owe me.”

  Now the base of her neck felt warm. The rash would be there soon. “What do you want?” She pushed each word out and then bit her tongue.

  “We have a problem with the Collins property. The rezoning fell through and the contract buyers are backing out unless we come up with a solution, fast.”

  She waited. Rezoning was iffy in the best of cases and this one had been a long shot from the outset. But Collins was David’s client, not hers.

  When she didn’t respond, he said, “You left a few things here.”

  There was silky, wheedling tone she’d expected.

  He took her silence for encouragement. “I could drive over, bring you your stuff and we could talk. You could give me some insight on the best way to handle the appeal.”

  David Farquar needed her advice on a circuit court appeal only slightly more than he needed advice on breathing. What he wanted was Grace, but she knew better than to get her hopes up. David was lonely and lazy in his personal relationships. She knew he missed having his girlfriend only steps away from his office, 24/7. It was unusual for him to offer to drive to her, though.

  “And if you wanted to come into DC, it would save time.” Bingo. Nothing had changed. David’s needs still came first. “Grace? Listen, let’s meet at -”

  “No.”

  Her mother had said David would marry Grace if she’d bring the minister to the office after hours and agree to live alone the eight hours a day she wasn’t working. When he’d missed Julia’s funeral for a new client meeting, Grace wondered how she could have been so stupid for so long.

  “David,” she forced herself to soften her words. “I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t want to argue. What I want is to move on. You were generous with money and I was generous with my sweat equity over the past decade. What you call severance was only a fraction of the value of the partnership I was due.”

  “We’re not getting into that again.”

  “No, we aren’t,” she agreed. “I’m going to hang up, but I want you to remember this: I think you’re amazing. I learned a lot from you and only some of it pertained to the law. The most important thing I learned is I don’t want to be like you. I want a real life and someone to share it with. That’s never going to be you, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t love you. It just means I don’t anymore.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath, and Grace knew he’d finally heard her. She touched the red dot on the screen, ended the call and cut the last tie to her old life.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Aidan Banks was on desk duty at the police station the next morning and he wasn’t happy to see her. Grace thought if he’d been a dog, there’d have been a warning growl, maybe an air-snap. She had to wait for the Chief and it was tempting to call Banks out, ask him what his problem was, but the truth was, she didn’t care. She had enough turmoil to handle without digging around for more.

  After an uncomfortable few minutes, McNamara appeared and ushered her into his office. He shut the door behind them, blocking Banks’ glowering presence, much to Grace’s relief. The letters and Ford Delaney’s suicide were depressing enough on a rainy fall morning.

  The chief’s office was a tiny room tucked between the reception area and a one-person cell. Grace decided the police station could be set down in 1960 without changing anything except the electronics. It felt like the right place to discuss the Delaneys.

  “I’d heard about it of course,” McNamara said when she’d explained why she’d come. “Ford Delaney’s suicide came to mind as soon as I read the coroner’s report on the remains. I’ve done some reading in the Star Democrat’s morgue. The society page and obituaries as well as the front pages. Fortunately, it was a weekly edition back in the fifties and sixties.” He eyed the letters Grace stacked on his desk. “You read all of these?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I have copies, but I’ll want these originals back when you’re through.”

  He nodded. “You take anything else out of that room?”

  “No.” It was all she could do not to add ‘sir’. The expression on McNamara’s face said she didn’t want to waste his time.

  He said, “I’ll need an affidavit from you detailing what you saw and did in the room.”

  Grace hoped she could tell the story without sounding foolish. There were scratching noises, the wall moved and I don’t remember how I got into the hall.

  “Problem?”

  “Not at all.” I’ve got nothing but problems, she wanted to say.

  “Good. So tell me what’s in these.” McNamara’s desk was metal, old and battered, its surface clean except for Emma Delaney’s letters. “I’m assuming you’ve found something besides recipes and family news?”

  “Delaney family news might solve your murder, Chief.”

  “Is that so? Which one of these envelopes holds the answers?”

  “You’ll want to read all of them to get a sense of the relationship between Emma and Ford Delaney. But it’s the last half dozen or so that get to the heart of the matter. They confirm Emma and Ford were friends - good friends - with Avril’s half-sister.”

  “So you believe these letters prove the woman in the grave is Audrey Oxley?”

  “No. But I won’t be surprised if the DNA tests prove it.”

  “Any clues to the murderer’s identity?”

  “Plenty, but they go in several directions. It could have been Emma or Ford, or someone in Audrey’s family.”

  He gave a ‘come on’ wiggle of his fingers. “Or?”

  “Or maybe Cyrus Mosley. They were engaged.” She was still grappling with the idea of the manipulative old attorney in a love affair gone wrong.

  McNamara nodded. “You’ve been busy.”

  “Did Avril tell you about Mosley? Have you talked to him?”

  “This is a small town, Ms. Reagan. Less than five hundred people on the census. Did you know that?”

  Grace shook her head, frustrated by the change of subject.

  “Of course, it can actually hit two thousand occupants when everyone who owns property in Mallard Bay shows up at once. That’s true of most of the coastal areas of the Eastern Shore. Come Heres have bought up most of
the historic properties and good waterfront in this area, mostly for vacation or retirement homes.”

  “But not Delaney House,” Grace said, trying to follow his ramblings.

  “Delaneys were Come Heres a hundred years ago.” He laughed at her surprise. “You thought they built that palace? Old Winston the First bought in the late eighteen hundreds. He sold off a good portion of the property to finance the restoration of the house and renamed the place after himself. His son, the second Winston, managed to hang onto it during the Depression and Winston the Third came out of WWII rolling in money from war contracts. Industrial nylon, if I recall correctly.”

  “They teach Delaney lineage in school around here?”

  McNamara leaned back in his swivel chair, tilting it until the front wheels lifted and the back bumped the cinderblock wall behind him. Grace hoped he wasn’t settling in for another narrative on the bygone days in Mallard Bay.

  “My family’s been here since the tadpole stage. We’ve been fortunate enough to hang onto the family home. My cousin owns it and I have the house my father was born in. We’re luckier than most.”

  “Sounds like you may know people who were here during the time of the murder,” she guessed.

  “You aren’t enjoying my history lesson?” McNamara smiled. “You lawyers. No wandering off topic allowed.”

  “I’m sitting in a police station and have just given you possible evidence in a murder case. I’m hoping everything you say is relevant to the here and now.”

  He sat upright again, his chair wheels hitting the ground with popping noise that made her jump. “Well, then, let me be direct, Ms. Reagan. In a case this old, how I get to the truth is as important to me as solving the crime.”

  “You’re going to have to work on your definition of ‘direct’, Chief.”

  “No one I’ve talked to who was alive and here during the period we believe the murder was committed remembers anything useful. A few local people remember Audrey Oxley’s disappearance, but mainly because she was Cyrus Mosley’s fiancé. Mosley himself added some color to the story, but nothing helpful. For all I know, the girl ran away, found a new life and is a great-grandmother by now.”