Rain is falling on Friday, and fieldwork has been postponed until Monday. In the afternoon, Meghan sits in her lab, reading the Virginia Suburban Daily. Despite the threat of a lawsuit, Faulkner’s story is on the front page, and the headline would catch anyone’s eye—Body Found at Wyndham Thicket B&B. Read the full post »

The next morning, Meghan is in her lab when Jackson Carter stops by. He looks at the skeleton laid out on a table and bows his head. Meghan recognizes the prayer and stands by quietly.

“Miss Evelyn called last night,” he says. “She wants to know when the, pardon the expression, Indian can go to a museum.”

“You’d better sit down, Mr. Carter, while I show you what we found.” Read the full post »

After dinner and chores, Meghan and her family settle in for the evening. John watches his one hour of television in the living room while Meghan and Rick discreetly monitor his shows from the kitchen. Rick reads the Washington Post, and Meghan opens the browser on her tablet to research the flask’s hallmarks.

She’s met with “Bailey’s Border Collies,” a nearby breeder’s website.

“Oh, subtle, guys, real subtle. Who’s idea was this?”

Rick’s lips twitch. “Come on, Megs, they’re great dogs. And they’re small.”

“Have you seen them in action? They never stop moving.”

“John would have a blast with one, throwing Frisbees and running all over the yard.”

Meghan sets down her tablet. “Yard? What yard? Ours is barely big enough for your grill. We live in a townhouse, remember?”

Rick pulls his chair next to Meghan’s and types an address into the browser. “What if we bought a single-family house?”

“Are you serious? In this area? Have you seen the prices?”

“They won’t get any lower. We talk about this and never do it. John’ll be married with his own kids before we know it. We grew up with our own houses with dogs and yards. Shouldn’t he have the same? Besides, we can afford it.”

He shows Meghan the screen, which now features a home for sale with a local realtor. “This one’s just a few blocks away. He wouldn’t have to change schools, and his friends would still be close. And it’s got a fenced yard. Why don’t we take a look?”

Meghan stares at the web page for a few moments and then watches the slide show. It’s a four-bedroom home, fifteen years old, and nicely decorated. Then she looks at the asking price.

“Five hundred thousand?” she whispers. “Are you serious?”

“We can afford it. We’re not in grad school anymore, and this isn’t Wisconsin. Houses cost this much out here. We’ve been good about saving and paying off this one. Between the sale of this place and dipping into savings, we could put down forty percent on a house like that. And as of today, it won’t take long to rebuild our savings.”

“As of today? What do you mean—Oh, my God. You got the promotion.”

Rick’s smile lights the room. “You’re looking at the new Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Mid-Atlantic region. We can do this, Megs.”

Meghan leans over and kisses him. “You deserve it. You’ve done so much for the company.”

“So we can start looking for a new house?”

Meghan nods.

“I knew you’d say yes. I already called the listing agent. We’ve got an appointment to look at this one tomorrow after dinner.”

***

After Rick’s news, it’s hard for Meghan to concentrate on her research. But her curiosity about the mysterious “J Kent” won’t wait. She pulls out the flask and looks at the hallmarks on its base. The piece is sterling with the crowned leopard showing its London origins. This type of stamped “S” was used in 1773. The initials, however, could belong to several silversmiths, and Meghan can’t be sure who made the piece. But that’s not important. Now she knows “J Kent” was buried no earlier than 1773.

She turns to a genealogy site for a search on “J Kent.” Too many results. Irene said he was an adult male with no obvious signs of hard labor. Say he was at least twenty and no older than fifty, she thinks. If he was any older, Irene would have seen it on the bones and said something in the field.

The dates narrow the possibilities, but “J” could represent too many names—John, Joseph, James—all common in Virginia. She searches for online histories of the county and finds one. Browsing through the pages, Meghan finds many references to Evelyn’s Walker ancestors, but none to any Kents. That trail is a dead end.

Expand the search, she thinks and looks for histories of adjoining counties. This time, an entry in a book published in 1894 catches her eye.

Our discussion of local lore and legends would not be complete without mention of a mysterious event during the tumultuous years of the American Revolution. Josiah Kent, a true patriot, had but recently moved to the county when “the shot heard round the world” was fired on the North Bridge at Concord.

A merchant by trade who traveled frequently to London on his schooner, Hunter’s Delight, Kent obtained a letter of marque from the Continental Congress and turned to privateering, successfully raiding a number of British merchant ships in the Caribbean until 1779. In May of that year, he returned to Virginia with a cargo of liberated fine goods and plans to restock his vessel for another run.

While returning from an overland business trip to Fredericksburg, Mr. Kent disappeared. Local authorities determined that he was last seen near Oak Grove. It is believed he fell the unfortunate victim of highwaymen while returning to his home. It is rumored that his spirit haunts the woods between Oak Grove and his abode at Fair Weather plantation.

A few minutes later, Meghan has pinpointed the location of Kent’s former plantation. Lying midway between it and Oak Grove is Wyndham Thicket Farm.

Meghan pushes aside her tablet and rubs her face. An image of Frank Sloma taunting Evelyn at the manor fills her mind’s eye and triggers a memory of Evelyn’s words. “Yesterday at high tea I heard him telling that horrible story of Abraham Walker being a secret Tory.”

Crap, she thinks. What the hell do I tell Evelyn?

I hope you’ll stay tuned for Part 9 next Tuesday.

New to the Meghan Bode Mysteries? You can catch up with her first complete story and the previous installments of Buried Deeds with this link.

“Is that what I think it is?” Irene asks.

“A flask,” Meghan replies. “And I think it’s real silver, not plated. Let me switch with you.”

After Irene crawls away from the skeleton, Meghan takes her place, wedging herself between the cellar wall and the burial pit. She has to resist the urge to lift the flask for a closer look.

“There’s a loupe in the toolbox. Can you hand it to me?”

She brushes more dirt away and, when Irene returns, peers through the magnifier.

“It’s definitely silver. I can see the hallmarks on the base. They’re English. We should be able to get the maker and year.”

Irene whistles. “This is no slave, Meghan. Who is he?”

“I have no clue. All those old stories that Evelyn hates so much talk about slaves or mistresses. Not wealthy white men. He is white, isn’t he?”

“We can’t be sure until I do some metrics in the lab. And even then, we’re dealing with probabilities, not certainties.”

Meghan nods. “I know. But I also know slaves didn’t have silver flasks. And there weren’t many free blacks around here before the Civil War.”

She checks her watch. “Come on, let’s get this wrapped up today. I want to look up those hallmarks tonight.”

The two women pick up their pace. Not so fast that the work becomes sloppy. But twenty years of experience helps. By three o’clock, they’ve documented the excavation and are packing up the bones and artifacts.

Meghan forces herself to bag the buttons and buckles first. Up close, she sees they’re also silver. Whoever this man was, he had money. How did he end up in a cellar? she wonders. She’s just ready to lift the flask when Irene inhales sharply.

“Oh, wow. Look at this.”

“What have you got?” Meghan asks.

“Only the cause of death.”

“What? Let me see.”

Irene has lifted the skull from the ground. The hole just above the right ear is now visible.

“No exit wound,” Irene says. “The ball should still be in the skull.”

“Ball? You think it’s from a musket and not a rifle?”

“Yeah, the bone fractures are more in line with a musket ball than a rifle bullet.”

Meghan stands and stares into the nearby woods, thinking. Her dream project, excavating a colonial plantation with nearly unlimited private funding, is turning into a nightmare. Are the legends true? One of Evelyn’s revered ancestors is really a murderer? This can’t end well, she thinks.

A flash of light in the trees pulls her from her thoughts. She blinks, and sees another glint. The setting sun must be reflecting off something metal or glass in the trees.

“What about the flask?”

Irene’s question pulls Meghan back to the cellar. She kneels down again and removes the finely etched container. She grabs her ever-ready water bottle and rinses the dirt away.

“How lucky can we get?” she asks.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s engraved. ‘J Kent.’”

“Who are the Kents?”

“Heck if I know. But now I’ve got a name to go with the body. And when I check those hallmarks, I’ll have a date. Guess who’s doing some historic research tonight.”

Irene laughs. “What did we do before the Internet?”

“A lot of driving to dusty courthouses and the Library of Virginia. And I’ll probably end up there again. But at least I can get a head start from home.”

“Let me know what you find. Maybe we can solve a mystery no one even knew existed.”

As they and the students load the trucks for the drive back to campus, Meghan takes a last look at the site. Another flash of reflected light catches her attention.

What’s causing that? she wonders before climbing into the driver’s seat.

I hope you’ll stay tuned for Part 8 next Tuesday.

New to the Meghan Bode Mysteries? You can catch up with her first complete story and the previous installments of Buried Deeds with this link.

Meghan and her crew find themselves back at Wyndham Thicket Farm in mid-January as classes resume. Evelyn had been right. A few well-placed phone calls from her husband had fast-tracked the burial excavation permit—and removed the public notice requirement. Evelyn didn’t want anyone to know about the skeleton until she knew who it was.

Joining Meghan is Irene Kristoff, the university’s physical anthropologist. After clearing away the protective soil and plastic from the burial pit, the students are sent to work on other features while the two women excavate the skeleton. Meghan can sit on the ground while working on her side of the body, but Irene has to lie on her side, wedged between the cellar wall and one side of the feature.

“So you told the coroner and landowner this is from the 1800s or earlier,” Irene says. “Do you really think it could be Native American?”

“No, but I didn’t want to say anything more definite until we had a better look. I had my fingers crossed they wouldn’t ‘follow the yellow brick road,’ so to speak.”

“I’m surprised McVay didn’t catch on. He should’ve known the misplaced bricks mean someone dug through them to bury the body.”

“Maybe he didn’t think much about it once he knew it wasn’t a modern criminal case. And thank heaven Evelyn and Douglas are on vacation for another week. It gives me some time to figure out what the hell to tell them. I’ve got a bad feeling those old stories about a murdered slave or mistress aren’t legends after all.”

Irene eases herself away from the work to stretch her back. “We’ll know before long if it’s a male or female. Whoever it is, someone buried them quick. This pit was just big enough to fit the body.”

Meghan nods silently and stands to get the blood flowing in her legs again. She’s barely recovered from last fall’s excavation of a teenage boy murdered in the 1940s. No one shoves a loved one into a hole in the woods or the cellar, she thinks. And why am I the one who’s uncovering them now? Of all the plantations in Virginia, why did this body have to be here? If this dates to the Walkers’ time, Evelyn will be crushed.

The two women return to their work. By noon, the upper part of the skeleton is exposed. The body lies in a roughly fetal position on its right side.

“An adult male,” Irene says. “The left wisdom teeth are fully erupted, all the epiphyses are fused, and the bones are really robust.”

“Well, that rules out the mistress,” Meghan says. “So we’re looking at an African-American man?”

Irene studies the visible part of the body. “I’m not sure. The skull is narrower and the teeth smaller than I’d expect. But I can’t rule out an African-American mother and Caucasian father. He could still be a slave.”

“Evelyn will not want to hear this,” Meghan says, setting aside her trowel to rub her neck. “Unless….”

“Unless what?”

“Maybe it was the Tarletons and not the Walkers. The Tarletons bought the place in 1868. Maybe one of them killed somebody and buried him in the old house before they filled in the cellar.”

“Possible,” Irene says, sitting up to break for lunch. “It would’ve been easier then. I mean, if someone did it while this house was occupied, how much room did they have to work? This floor’s only what, a meter below the ground surface? You’d be digging the grave on your knees and bumping your head on the ceiling.”

“Not necessarily. The cellar’s not complete. It should be two or three feet deeper. But there’s been a lot of erosion, and I’d bet when the Tarletons tore down this house, they took down the upper bricks so they wouldn’t interfere with plowing. We’ve found some lying on the floor.”

“We need some diagnostic artifacts to find out. Think we’ll find any?”

“God, I hope so,” Meghan says. “Knowing my luck with this project, whoever buried him stripped him first.”

***

Meghan doesn’t ignore her students over lunch. She checks their work and notes while munching on an apple and trail mix. She’s pleased to hear them talking about the spring term’s courses and not speculating about the mystery burial.

In the distance, a dog barks. Meghan smiles. While Evelyn and Douglas vacation in the Caribbean, Maisy and Chess are spending the time at a luxury kennel. She won’t be tripping over their tennis balls or getting a faceful of fur as they stick their noses in her excavations. Her son, John, hasn’t picked the best time to ask for a puppy. Of course, husband Rick wants one, too, and Meghan’s outnumbered.

Nothing bigger than a cocker spaniel, she thinks. Absolutely no Irish Setters. Or anything drooling. Or high maintenance. Especially since I’ll be the one who ends up taking care of it.

After the break, Meghan and Irene return to the skeleton. It’s not long before Meghan’s worst fears are laid to rest.

“I’ve got some buttons,” she tells Irene. “And they look like silver.”

“Would a slave have silver buttons?”

“Not likely. Maybe they’re just silver-plated. I’ll take a closer look when we finish documenting them.”

“It’s funny, Meghan, I’m not seeing any obvious signs of manual labor. There’s no arthritic lipping on the vertebrae. And even though the bones are robust, they don’t show overly pronounced muscle attachments.”

“Maybe he wasn’t very old? Twenties?”

“Possible. And if he was a house slave, he wouldn’t have done as much heavy work as the field hands.”

“That would fit with silver-plated buttons. If he was a coachman or interacted with the family and guests, he’d be well-dressed.”

“But why did he end up buried in the—oh, hang on, what’s this?”

“What?” Meghan asks, peering across the body.

“It’s something metal. Near the right hip. What is it?”

Meghan wishes she had done her morning stretches as she reaches over the skeleton to clear away the loose dirt. The object takes shape beneath her brush.

“Whoa,” she says. “This changes everything.”

I hope you’ll stay tuned for Part 7 next Tuesday.

New to the Meghan Bode Mysteries? You can catch up with her first complete story and the previous installments of Buried Deeds with this link.