A Grave Mistake Read online

  Fiona tilted her head to look at it as she shrugged out of her coat. “Is it the same as Eliza’s?”

  “It looks like it.” Jolene set the picture next to the map they’d gotten in the mail as they all filled their plates and sat around the island.

  “See, this part matches, but this part looks like a continuation,” Jolene said around a mouthful of egg.

  “What’s that?” Celeste pointed to a rectangular object on the corner. “It looks like a gravestone.”

  “I think it is.” Jolene slathered butter on a piece of toast and held it out to Celeste, who shook her head.

  “You’re not eating, dear?” Johanna’s eyes clouded with worry. “Are you sick?”

  Celeste laughed and pointed to the take-out bag she’d tossed in the trash. “No, I ate already. My favorite—lobster grilled cheese.

  Morgan screwed up her face. “For breakfast?”

  “Sure. It has all the things you are eating.” Celeste pointed to the various plates on the island. ”Protein, dairy and bread. I got it at the Foot Bridge. That’s when I saw the boat.”

  “Boat?” Johanna, Morgan and Fiona all asked at once.

  “Yeah. A big, black boat was moored in the cove. Odd for this time of year.”

  “I’ll say,” Morgan said.

  “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” Johanna added. “Maybe our dead guy came from there.”

  Celeste pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. There was an old woman in a wheelchair. At least I think she was old.” Celeste couldn’t help but glance at Johanna.

  “Or she could have been a victim of Bly, just like Johanna,” Mateo said. “Do you think Bly might be here?”

  Morgan reached for a piece of bacon. “Hard telling, but someone paranormal is. The dead guy was killed with hot energy.”

  “We should check that boat out,” Jolene said. “But first, we gotta figure out what this map means.”

  “Meow.”

  Their cat, Belladonna, glared at them reproachfully from the doorway as if she was wondering how they dared eat breakfast without her.

  Belladonna sauntered over to the trash barrel, stood on her hind legs and sniffed. Then she stretched to reach her head far enough in so that she could peek inside the bag. After a few seconds, she pulled her head out and slitted her sky-blue eyes at Celeste, clearly annoyed with her for not saving even a morsel of lobster. She then gave the final insult by trotting over to Mateo and sitting adoringly at his feet.

  Mateo broke off a tiny piece of bacon and held it out for the sleek, white cat, who sniffed it thoroughly before gently taking it with her teeth.

  “I don’t think she should be eating bacon.” Jolene frowned at Mateo.

  “She likes it.” Mateo shrugged, then cleared some of their empty plates from the island, putting them in the sink so they could study the maps side by side.

  “If this is Noquitt, I don’t recognize it,” Fiona said.

  “Mew.” Belladonna clawed at Mateo’s pant leg and he tossed her another tiny piece of bacon.

  Jolene turned both maps to face her. “It looks like this is the ocean.” She pointed to the right side.

  Celeste stood and leaned over the island to see what Jolene was pointing at. “Then you must be holding it upside down, because if it’s Noquitt, the ocean would be on the east side.”

  “Merow!”

  “Shush, Belladonna.” Morgan waved at the persistent cat to shoo her out of the room, but the cat stayed, stretching her neck out as if she was trying to see to the top of the island where the plate of bacon was.

  “I don’t know,” Jolene said. “I think the orientation is right. Maybe this isn’t Noquitt.”

  “Meowww!” Belladonna jumped up on to the island. Sliding across the length, she grabbed a piece of bacon in her mouth on the way by. Her claws caught on the photo of the map and sent it fluttering off the side as she leaped off the end of the island. She landed almost silently on the floor and then darted out of the room.

  “Hey, you!” Fiona yelled after the cat amidst laughter from Mateo, Celeste and Jolene.

  Morgan bent down to pick up the printout of the picture she'd taken earlier that morning. The printout had twisted around and lay upside down on the floor. As Morgan reached for the paper, Johanna’s hand shot out and stayed her arm.

  “Wait a minute. I think I know where this is.”

  Chapter Three

  “I don’t know why we can’t just go out to the Finch farm and look around. No one’s lived there for years, since Thaddeus Finch went into the nursing home,” Jolene complained from the backseat of the gray TrailBlazer the girls had recently purchased.

  Fiona half-turned from her position in the passenger seat so she could see Jolene. “That would be trespassing. Mom was right. We need to ask old Mr. Finch’s permission first.”

  “You’re just crabby because Mateo left.” Morgan glanced at Jolene in the rear-view mirror to see her sister's reaction to the good-natured teasing.

  Jolene snorted. “Where did he run off to, anyway? And what brought him here?”

  “Who knows?” Celeste shrugged. “He’s mysterious. But I have to say I don’t think his appearance and a dead body showing up on the same day are coincidence.”

  “Yeah, but if so, why did he leave?” Jolene asked.

  “Good question,” Morgan replied as she pulled into the Fiddlers Rest Nursing Home.

  “I hope Mom is right about the map being the old Finch farm, or this is going to be a huge waste of time. I hear Mr. Finch doesn’t even make sense most of the time.” Jolene held the glass door to the lobby open and motioned for her sisters to precede her. “He might not even know we are here, never mind be aware enough to give us permission to look around his farm.”

  “Can I help you?” a nurse asked from behind the round desk, just inside the carpeted lobby.

  “We’d like to visit Thaddeus Finch,” Morgan said.

  The nurse's brows rose. “Looks like it’s Mr. Finch’s lucky day. He doesn’t usually get so many visitors.”

  “So many?” Jolene asked.

  “Yes, his nephews were here earlier.”

  “Maybe we should come back, then?” Fiona looked at her sisters questioningly.

  “Oh, they’re gone now. I’m sure Mr. Finch would love to see you. He’s in room three-ten.” The aid leaned around the desk and gestured to a hall on the left. “Just take the elevator over there and follow the signs.”

  Thaddeus Finch’s room was bigger than Morgan had expected. It was about fifteen by twenty, painted in a nice gray blue with a hospital bed in the middle, a wooden bureau on one wall, a big television and a large window overlooking the woods in the back of the facility.

  Finch sat in a recliner in the corner. He was a small man, with a mop of bushy, gray hair. A hand-crocheted afghan in shades of orange and green spread across his lap gave Morgan the impression that Thaddeus was cared for by at least one person. Maybe his nephews.

  Fiona tapped on his door, pulling his attention from the television. His gray eyes lit up when he saw the four girls hovering in the doorway.

  “Finally you’re here to give me my bath.” Finch started taking off his shirt, much to Morgan’s dismay.

  “No. No.” She waved her hands. “We’re not here to give you a bath.”

  “No?” Finch’s face collapsed in a disappointed frown. His eyes flitted from one girl to the next, then settled on Celeste. “Are you sure? I always was a sucker for blondes.”

  Celeste ran her hands nervously through her short-cropped, blonde hair. “We’re sure.”

  Finch settled back in his chair. “Why are you here, then?”

  “Now, Mr. Finch, are you being naughty again?” A young woman with strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a severe pony-tail appeared at the door that led to the room's private bath.

  “What?” Thaddeus squinted at her. “Potty? No, I don’t have to go potty.”

  The girl shot an apologetic look at Morgan and her
sisters, then held her hand out. “I’m Wendy, Mr. Finch’s personal health aide.”

  They introduced themselves and then Wendy said, “Don’t mind me. I’ll just straighten up over here.” She turned and headed toward the bedside table, her thick, waist-length hair swishing and flying as if it had a mind of its own.

  “Well, hello there!” Thaddeus said brightly as if he’d just noticed Morgan and her sisters. “What can I do for you lovely girls?”

  “We have a favor to ask. About your farm,” Morgan said.

  Finch smiled. “My farm. Yes. I love that place. Been in the family for generations, you know. Of course, lots of Noquitt homes have.” He stopped, then frowned at them again. “Who did you say you were?”

  “We’re the Blackmoore girls,” Morgan said. “Morgan, Fiona, Jolene and Celeste.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’d recognize you anywhere. I knew your grandma and you girls have the same eyes,” Finch said, referring to the sky-blue eyes, a Blackmoore trait the four girls were lucky enough to have inherited. Finch’s eyes clouded and he looked out the window, then back at the girls. “Are you here to give me a bath?”

  “No,” Morgan said. “We’d like permission to look around your farm.”

  “Oh, well I haven’t checked for eggs yet.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The hen-house. I haven’t been out there yet. But if you girls want to look around go ahead.”

  “Well, that’s okay. We were actually interested to see if there was a family graveyard.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Finch rolled his eyes. “Scary thing to have in your back yard when you’re a kid growing up on a farm. Don’t make a grave mistake, my great-granddaddy used to say. He’s buried there, you know.”

  “Oh, that’s nice.” Jolene jerked her head toward the door in a signal to her sisters that it was time to go.

  “Yep. My grandpa is in there, too, and my daddy. ‘Course I had to get special permission to bury them there.” Finch’s face turned sad. “I wonder if I will be buried with them. Probably not. No one left to get special permission.”

  “What about your nephews?” Morgan asked.

  Finch looked at her, confusion spreading across her face. “Nephews? I don’t have any nephews.”

  Chapter Four

  “I know he said he didn’t have any nephews, but he’s loony tunes. He probably doesn’t remember.” Jolene’s eyes were on her cell phone, her thumbs flying over the letters on the popup keyboard as they picked their way through the overgrown area surrounding the Finch farmhouse. “We can’t just assume his earlier visitors were Bly’s men. I mean, he thought we were there to give him a bath, so I don’t think he’s really in touch with reality.”

  “True. I guess we need to check that out,” Celeste said. “Who are you texting?”

  “Jake. I want to tell him to check out that boat you saw in the cove,” Jolene said, referring to Jake Cooper, ex-Noquitt cop and Jolene’s private investigator boss as well as Fiona’s boyfriend.

  “Good idea.” Fiona’s ears had perked up at the sound of Jake’s name.

  “Which way do we go?” Celeste turned in a slow circle, taking in the large area. The farmhouse with its peeling paint and hanging shutters was dirty from years of neglect. What had once been a front lawn was a mass of tall grass, turned brown for the winter. To the right was a field ringed by a fence dotted with broken boards. Next to it, a barn had fallen down decades ago and lay in a mass of boards and shingles. Beyond that sat another pile of debris, a few pieces of charred wood sticking out from the edges.

  “If Finch does have nephews, it looks like they don’t take very good care of the place,” Morgan observed.

  “I guess Finch didn’t, either. How long has he been in the nursing home?” Celeste asked.

  “I’m not sure, but you know how old people get. They stop taking care of things. This place looks like it’s been going to ruin for thirty years.” Jolene held up her cell phone that showed an old picture of the farm from better days. “But it’s a prime piece of land. Twenty acres edged by the ocean to the east and the woods to the north.”

  Fiona frowned. “If he had nephews, wouldn’t they be keeping it up? It was in his family all these years, it doesn’t make sense it would just be going to ruin.”

  “Lots of young people can't be bothered with keeping a farm running. They probably plan to get rid of it, but can't sell until Thaddeus dies.”

  “Speaking of dying,” Morgan said. “Let’s find this graveyard.”

  They started off toward the back of the farmhouse. The noon sun had warmed the day to the mid-forties, and Celeste took off her gloves and shoved them in her pocket as she walked.

  Beside her, Morgan slowed her pace, her eyes narrowing as she scanned the horizon. Celeste could see her homing in on a spot and the three sisters waited until Morgan pointed to a hill that backed up to a wooded area. “That seems like a likely place.”

  They started toward it at a faster pace now, the shapes of gravestones becoming more visible as they approached.

  The old graveyard sat in a rectangular area built up on the top of the hill. It had a great view of the ocean, which Celeste thought was ironic seeing none of its inhabitants would be able to enjoy it.

  The family plot was large. Ringed by a black iron fence set in a footing of concrete, the area had been built up higher than ground level and the girls ascended three moss covered concrete steps to get inside.

  “Now what?” Jolene asked.

  Morgan shrugged. “I guess we look for a clue.”

  The graveyard turned out to be bigger than it appeared at first. A lot of Finches had been buried there and it was as overgrown as the rest of the farm, which only added to its creepiness. A gigantic, thick old oak tree sat almost dead center, its bare branches spread out several feet in all directions, and Celeste imagined the dark canopy it would create in summer when it was full of leaves. Some of the older slate stones had cracked in half, their tops laying on the ground or leaning up against the remaining part of the stone.

  The girls’ pace slowed as they inspected the stones. Morgan took the lead and when she slowed and put her hand out, the rest of them stopped.

  “What is it?” Celeste’s neck tingled with awareness. Did Morgan sense someone watching them?

  “I thought I saw someone.” Morgan nodded toward the woods.

  Celeste squinted in that direction, but all she saw was tree trunks. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “Maybe it’s his nephews,” Jolene added.

  Morgan shrugged and turned away from the wooded area. “I’m probably just jittery. Let’s keep moving, but stay alert. We don’t want to get surprised in an attack.”

  Celeste turned her attention toward the graves, scanning for anything that might be a clue. The stones themselves were mostly older. She guessed the ones in the back dated to the 1700s when family plots were more common. Two stones near the front were newer and she assumed those belonged to Finch’s father and grandfather.

  The older stones were the most interesting. Some were plain, slate slabs, rounded at the top and chiseled with images of angels, weeping willows and doves. A few of them in white limestone had images in high relief. Celeste paused to run her fingertips over the gritty surface of an angel's wings on one of the stones.

  “So, what exactly are we looking for?” Celeste asked as she studied the stone.

  “Good question.” Jolene looked around. “Got any vibes, Morgan?”

  But Morgan was busy staring at something behind them.

  “Huh?” Morgan spun around to face them.

  “Jeez, you’re making me nervous.” Fiona bent down and scooped up a handful of stones, closing her fist around them for a second then opening it up a little and peeking inside. Celeste could see disappointment on her face, but Fiona closed her fist and kept the stones inside.

  “Do you have any sixth sense about where to look so we can narrow down our search?” Jolene asked.

  “I don’t. I gues
s we should spread out and see if there is a clue on any of the graves.”

  "What about the mausoleum?" Fiona angled her head toward a cement doorway that was lower than the main graveyard and set into a mound of earth on the East side. It was small and not terribly ornate. The giant, iron hinges that held the doors shut, and the fact that it was inside the earth, made entering it a less than appealing prospect.

  Morgan shook her head. "I don't think the clue is in there. Besides, it's clearly locked … and it looks creepy inside."

  "Yeah, let's stick to looking around out here first, then maybe we can look in there." Jolene glanced over at the structure. "That lock looks easy enough to pick."

  “It would help if we knew what kind of clue we were looking for,” Fiona said as the girls started to spread out amongst the graves.

  “No kidding.”

  Celeste immersed herself in looking at the graves, searching for anything that stuck out. What would the clue be? One of the images engraved into the headstone? Some wording in one of the epitaphs? She tuned everything else out while she searched, moving deeper into the cemetery.

  In the back of the cemetery, Celeste could see a couple of chest tombs, their rounded tops making them look like concrete coffins sitting above ground. The stones back here were more ornately carved, as were the tombs.

  A wispy mass swirling from behind one of the stones caught her eye and she sucked in a breath. She recognized the swirling shape … it was a ghost.

  “’Bout time you got here,” the ghost said.

  She shouldn’t have been surprised to find a ghost in a graveyard and it didn’t startle her as much as it might have. Celeste was getting used to seeing ghosts—she’d been seeing them for a while now. Talking to the dead was her special gift.

  “You knew I was coming?” she asked the wispy swirl that was now solidifying into the shape of a man.

  “Of course. I been here a long time with Henry and Red.” The ghost nodded toward one of the ornate chest tombs. This one had a flat top and Celeste noticed two other ghosts sitting around it as if it was a table. They held something in their hands. Cards!