Our plans set and a generous check for my first month’s work in hand, we walked over to the church together. I made introductions and then went to see how Sawyer was doing. He and Savannah were watching one of Saul’s crew lift the final section of roof off the building, and my son was enrapt. “Hey Saw,” I said, and he waved in my general direction without taking his eyes off the equipment.

  “He’s having a great time,” Savannah said.

  “I’m so glad,” I said. “No trouble?”

  “No trouble of any sort,” she said as she tousled Sawyer’s hair. Then, a crease formed between her eyes as she looked toward the entrance of the parking lot.

  I followed her gaze and saw a tall, blonde man who looked a little familiar talking with Santiago and Nick Benfer by Santiago’s car. Whatever they were saying looked rather unpleasant, and I took Sawyer’s hand so that Savannah could go over and see what was up. Not for the first time, I wished I had vampire-like hearing so I’d know what was going on.

  But because it was really none of my business and I hadn’t been turned into a vampire, I went back to watching Saul’s crew take the house down. They were about to bulldoze the walls, and it was going to get very destructive very soon. Sawyer was almost vibrating with anticipation.

  Mary came over and joined me, shooting a glance toward the group, which now included Chief Stephenson, standing in the parking lot. “We have got ourselves a mess it seems,” she said quietly.

  “Really? What’s going on?” I asked as I turned away from Sawyer while keeping a tight grip on his hand. The noise of the machinery would block out most of our conversation I hoped.

  “Apparently, that’s Nick Benfer’s brother, and he’s claiming to own this land and saying he doesn’t want the building taken down,” Mary said.

  Just then, Saul pushed his bulldozer into the front of the building and collapsed all four walls in one fell swoop.

  “Too late,” I said as I saw Saul wink at me. That man didn’t miss a beat.

  Mary grinned. “Oops.”

  7

  Her face grew serious, then. “He doesn’t have a claim does he?”

  I shook my head. “Not as far as I can tell. The line of title is very clear. He’d have to be able to prove that something illegal happened in order to have any case.”

  “Okay, good.” She looked back toward the group. “You going over there?”

  Nick Benfer caught my eye and gave me a little head tilt. “I guess so,” I said. “Care to keep me company?”

  She studied the group a minute and then said, “Sure, why not?”

  Saul was coming out of the bulldozer, so I asked him if Sawyer could “help” him for a few minutes.

  The two of us strode toward the group where the tension was so thick it felt like walking through syrup. Well, that could have been the humidity, but it still wasn’t a comfortable moment.

  As soon as I walked up, Santiago introduced me and Mary to Levi Benfer, and I put out my hand to shake it. He returned the gesture and then turned back to Santiago. “You need to stop this. I can get a court order if needed.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” a woman said behind me, and I turned to see Eliza Dixon from DHR walking toward me. “As the legal authority for cemeteries in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we have already registered this as a potential burial site and are working with the Monacan Nation to confirm the burials here.”

  “But I have rightful title to this land,” Levi said.

  “I’m afraid, sir, that we are past the point where that matters. Burial grounds are protected places in Virginia, and given that we are fairly certain human remains lie under this building, we are proceeding.” She turned to me. “Sheriff, please let us know if you need anything further.” She handed Santiago a stack of papers and then winked at me as she walked toward Chief Stephenson and the rest of the Tribal Council.

  Santiago glanced through the papers in his hand. “Looks to be in order. We are proceeding, Mr. Benfer. You are welcome to stay, but I will inform you if, indeed, we do not find burials here. Then, you can take things to court if you’d like.”

  Levi Benfer glared at Santiago and then turned on his heel and stormed back to his car, kicking up a cloud of gravel dust as he went. He looked just like Sawyer when the three-year-old didn’t get his way.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Savannah and Santiago give each other a high five, and Nick grinned. “Nick Benfer,” he said as he extended his hand to Mary. “Nice to meet you.”

  Mary introduced herself and then thanked him for his help. “Mind introducing me to your wife?” She looked over to where Veronica sat with Eliza and Chief Stephenson. “I’d like to thank her, too.”

  “Sure thing,” Nick said.

  “Mind if I join you?” Savannah asked. Soon, the three of them had joined the circle under the trees

  I glanced over to confirm that Sawyer was okay and spotted him next to a tree watching Saul clean up the debris, I turned back to my boyfriend. “Well, that was exciting.”

  Santiago sighed. “I could do with less excitement, honestly.”

  I hugged him quickly and then said, “At least we’re moving forward, right?”

  He nodded.

  “What’s next? I mean after the building is removed.” Saul was making quick work of the debris, and given that two dumpsters had just arrived on the street, it looked like they might have it all cleaned up by the end of the day.

  “As soon as we can schedule it, archeologists are coming out. It’s not likely given that the church dug a basement, but maybe.” He stared as Saul pushed another pile of boards and plaster together.

  I thought about that. “That’s interesting, right? I mean if they dug down into the ground instead of putting the house on piers like my house, wouldn’t they have found bones? Remains of some sort?”

  Santiago turned to look at me. “Probably,” he said with a grim expression.

  I gulped. “So whoever built this house may have known there were people buried here?” My skin crawled with goose bumps. “And they did it anyway?”

  He sighed. “I’m afraid that’s a firm possibility.”

  A round of laughter bubbled up from the circle of people nearby. “Do Chief Stephenson and the other Council members know that?”

  “They’re the ones who suggested it was possible.” He took my hand as I sighed again. “But it’s also possible that there were no burials in the top layers of earth.”

  I squeezed his fingers. “So maybe no one’s body was disturbed?”

  “That’s the hope.”

  At that moment, Sawyer came running over. “Uncle Saul says I can ride with him again. Is that okay, Mama?”

  I looked over at Saul, who nodded. “Sure thing, but you do only what Saul says you can.” He didn’t wait for me to finish and sprinted back as I shouted, “And stay in that seatbelt with Saul.”

  “Let’s go sit down,” Santiago said, and we headed toward our friends under the trees and took two of the remaining camp chairs.

  Mary said, “Nick and Veronica here were just telling us about the restorations they’ve been doing down at BelAirre. Did you know they found and preserved the slave cemetery there?”

  I smiled. “They just told me this morning. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “It was the least we could do,” Veronica said. “And hopefully, Paisley is going to be able to help us find out more about the people buried there.”

  I blushed. “I hope so. I can’t wait to get my hands into those documents.”

  “You have papers?” Santiago asked.

  “Boxes of them, well, trunks really. All in the attic,” Nick said.

  Chief Stephenson winced. “Are they in good shape? We just found a trove of old documents from a tribe member, but they were all disintegrating from the heat.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said with a groan. “You said these were kept in pretty air-tight trunks, though, right?” I turned back to Veronica.

  “Yeah, they’re faded a little, but the pages hold together.” She looked at Nick. “Once Paisley is done reading them, we want to donate them to the Historical Society.”

  I had told them that I expected Xzanthia Nicholas, the historical society director, would be eager to get them and that she’d know just how to preserve them well.

  “Speaking of which,” Nick said, “Why don’t we walk over there and introduce ourselves?”

  I took that as my cue, too, said my goodbyes, and walked over to near where Saul was still working. “You okay with him staying with you while I go catch Mika up?” I asked when he throttled down the machine low enough to hear me.

  “Sure. We’re having fun, aren’t we, Saw?”

  Sawyer nodded and then turned back to the work at hand. As I headed toward the street to walk back to town, Santiago pulled up. “Savannah is staying on site, and I need to go back to the station. Want a lift?”

  Given how much I was already sweating without the walk, I didn’t hesitate and climbed into the passenger seat of his cruiser. “Thanks,” I said.

  “You know I always love extra time with you,” he said as he took my hand, “but I also just realized I never told you about my conversation with Demetrius yesterday.”

  “Oh, right? I forgot. What did he say?” Between tracking down Elijah Morris and the demo today and the new job with the Benfers, I had forgotten all about Cleveland family’s connection here.

  “Honestly, he looked shocked when I told him that his great-great-grandfather had been the one to report Earnestine Greene’s death.” Santiago put on his signal to pull over across from Mika’s store.

  “You thought he was telling the truth?” I asked.

  “I did, but I don’t know that it matters much. Why would that bit of information have ever been passed down?”

  I nodded. “I guess that’s right, unless his ancestor had been the one to kill her.” I stared out the window at the traffic going by. “But then, that’s probably not the kind of story that would be passed down either.”

  “He did tell me that his family had been in the church from the beginning, even back before they had the building and met in a brush arbor,” Santiago said.

  “I didn’t know they were organized that much before the building. Brush arbors were usually used during slavery, when enslaved people wanted to gather for church but didn’t have a building. Many of them continued to be used until congregations could gather the means to build an actual church. “Does he have any—?”

  “That’s why I needed to come back to town,” Santiago said as he interrupted me with a smile. “He has some early church records, and he’s bringing them to the station in a few minutes.”

  “Wow. Does Mary know about them?” I asked, worried that my friend, who was the church’s official historian, might be left out of the loop.

  “She does. There are copies at the church, but Demetrius wanted to keep the originals since they are part of his family history.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Do you think he’d let me look at them?”

  “Already arranged,” Santiago said. “I need to review them first to see if anything relevant to Greene’s murder comes up, but if not, Demetrius said I could let you borrow them to see what you can find with your historian’s eye.”

  I kissed him on the cheek and then opened the car door. “I’ll come your way whenever you call.”

  “Sounds good,” he said as he put the car in drive. “See you later.”

  Even with all the hard things – the dishonored graves, the potential murder, the attempted obstruction by Levi Benfer – I was still excited because digging into historical records and finding stories was one of my favorite things. I adored salvaging physical pieces of history, but it was really the stories that I wanted to save most of all.

  So I practically bounced into Mika’s store at the prospect of having so many great documents to read. “You look chipper,” Mika said.

  I told her about the morning and about the records from the early history of Bethel Church. “I just have to figure out how to get this work done with Sawyer this week. I don’t think I can wait until the weekend to dig in.”

  Mika grinned. “Well, what if you set up your work station here? You and I can keep an eye on Sawyer together, and Mrs. Stephenson will be in a couple of days this week to help, too.”

  “You wouldn’t mind?” I said.

  “Mind?! Are you kidding? I’d love the company, and Sawyer is always so much fun. Besides, I had all my God’s Eyes supplies out, and we didn’t even get to make a single one.” She laughed and pointed toward the back table where I could see a pile of popsicle sticks.

  I smiled. “Well, then, that sounds perfect. I’ll ask Santiago if he can bring the Cleveland papers here and see if I can go pick up some of the Benfers’ things, too.” I frowned. “It’s going to be a lot of paper, you know?”

  “Of course it is. It’ll be awesome. And you can get a sense of what it will be like when you have your real office over at Uncle Saul’s lot.” She moved toward the folding table she used for various projects and picked it up. “I’m setting you up here in the Cozy Nook so that you can spread out.”

  “But what if someone wants to use it?” I felt bad taking up her quiet corner with my mess.

  “Someone does want to use it. You!” She plopped the table down and got a folding chair that she adorned with one of the throw pillows from the upholstered wingbacks nearby. “If someone else wants to sit and knit, they can do that up front. For now, this is your workspace.”

  I laughed. “You’re the best. Lunch is on me for the week.”

  “Sounds good. I want a falafel.” Mika laughed because, of course, the nearest falafel was thirty miles away.

  * * *

  On the way to pick up our sandwiches from the local deli at the grocery store for lunch, I stopped by the church to scoop up Sawyer. He was still fascinated by the goings-on, but now he was helping, too. He and Saul were picking up the last pieces of debris around the edges of the basement.

  “How does it go from here?” I asked Saul after greeting Sawyer with a quick kiss on the cheek.

  “Normally, we’d just get a backhoe and dig out the block, but for obvious reasons, we’re not doing that.” He smiled as someone walked up behind me, and I turned to see Eliza Dixon joining us. “Ms. Dixon has brought in a team of archaeologists, and we’re going to follow their lead for how to take this down, block by block.”

  “Do you think you’ll find any dinosaurs?” Sawyer asked. He and I had watched a show about digging dinosaur bones in Wyoming, and he was very interested in taking part in anything that might give him a huge bone to take home.

  “Not likely, Saw, but I’ll let you know if I we do,” Saul said with a wink. “Deal?”

  “Deal,” Sawyer said as he rubbed his eyes. That gesture said we were getting close to a melt-down moment, and I needed to get some food into his little body.

  “You hungry, Little Man?” I asked.

  “Food is yucky,” he said, a sure sign he was starving.

  “Okay, well, I need to stop and get lunch for Auntie Mika before we go hang out at her store. Will you come help me?” Sawyer was always looking for ways to help.

  “Sure,” he said, his mood brightening a little. “Let’s get her a cupcake.”

  “Okay, sandwiches, potato chips, and cupcakes it is.” I laughed as he sprinted toward the car. Nothing like the promise of unadulterated sugar to get this boy moving.

  The grocery store run went well because I allowed him to pick everything for our lunch. I sure hoped Mika liked ham, cheese, and salami on her sandwich.

  Back at her shop, all of us, even Sawyer, dove into our lunches with abandon. The events of the morning had left us all a little wan and weary, and good food with good people was just what we needed.

  Given that Sawyer seemed to be still pretty low-key, Mika and I set him up in one of the chairs near my new workspace with a blanket and his videos, and I headed out to get some research materials to bring back.

  I hadn’t even made it to the Benfers’ house when Mika texted to say that Saw was sound asleep. I grinned. He would be good for an hour now, and then, heaven help us, he’d be raring to go when he woke up.

  Veronica and Nick met me at the door, and behind them, I saw four archival boxes. My heart skipped a beat with excitement. “You loaded them already? I was all set to dive into decades of dust.”

  Nick laughed. “It was too embarrassing, and besides, I’m not sure our homeowner’s insurance would cover us if you had to be hospitalized for heatstroke up there.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, even though I was a little disappointed I hadn’t gotten to see the trunks the papers had been stored in or what other goodies might lurk in that attic. “See anything particularly interesting as you loaded up?”

  “We wouldn’t know something valuable from a 1904 birthday card, so no,” Veronica said.

  “Actually that birthday card might be worth something, so I see your point,” I grinned. “I’ll let you know what I find as I make sense of it, okay?”

  “Can’t wait,” Veronica said as we each hefted a box and headed to the hatch of my car. I couldn’t wait to get started, but first, I needed to make one more stop. Nick went back for the fourth box and I said my goodbyes.

  Santiago had texted me Demetrius’s address, and so I headed back toward town and stopped in front of a lovely brick ranch with a gorgeous rose garden out front. I wasn’t much into roses myself, too much work, but when they were well-tended, I loved to walk among them and admire the blooms and scent. Demetrius’s flowers were gorgeous, so I took my time as I made my way among them to the front door.

  “Those are lovely,” I said when he answered the doorbell. “You the gardener?”

  He grinned. “I am. It’s a tedious hobby, but one I’ve grown to love. Gives me lots of time to think.”

 

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