The Cemetery Club (Darcy & Flora Cozy Mystery Book 1) (20 page)

Chapter 27

Birds sang in the thickets
and a soft breeze brought the mysterious, elusive fragrance of the river. The
sun felt warm on my shoulders. This lovely day stood out in sharp contrast to
that day two weeks earlier when Mom and I started out in a thunderstorm to
Fayetteville and wound up running for our lives. That terrible day marked an
ending and a beginning. It answered the question of who killed three people and
tried to kill two more, and it was the beginning of what I felt to be a new era
in my life. I came back to my hometown of Levi like a wounded child running to
its mother. My broken heart needed to mend and, in the strangest way, I felt
that healing had begun. Grief over Jake’s death was part of the past and I
found myself looking forward to the future.

A vagrant breeze lifted my
bangs off my forehead. The scar from the rearview mirror faded more each day.
Dr. McCauley said that in time it would disappear. Maybe emotional wounds were
like that. They grew fainter with time; that was a blessing.

My mother broke into my
reverie. “Look at it, Darcy. Who would ever guess what lies beneath the surface?”
Mom and I stood beside an indentation in the earth in Ben’s pasture.

“No one would guess,” I
said, “except those of us who know.”

Silently kneeling on the
grass, she placed a bouquet of field flowers on the ground. I laid some daisies
beside them. “For you, Ben,” I said. “May you rest in peace.”

Mom wiped her eyes. “Hammer
too, Darcy. I hope he found some sort of peace. What a poor, tormented soul he
must have been.”

Strange that these two, the
elder and younger Ventris, now shared a grave for eternity. Somehow, it seemed
fitting, as if Ben’s goodness might mitigate some of Hammer’s evil.

Closing my eyes, I rejoiced
once again at the simple pleasure of feeling the sun’s warmth on my face. Under
the serene beauty of this Oklahoma woodland, my mother and I experienced terror
like we never could have imagined. I seemed unable to get enough fresh air,
grass, bird song, and the joy of being alive.

Mom looked out across the
hills. “I’m glad I had the cellar filled in,” she said. “It was unsafe after
the explosion. Besides, it was an entryway to a grave.”

“Jasper’s booby trap pretty
much took care of the cave and everything in it. The way he had placed the
explosive, the whole roof of the cavern collapsed and the tunnel just sort of
folded in upon itself.”

Slowly, Mom got to her feet.
“What do you think Grant will do about Jasper?”

I stood up too. “Jasper may
not have actually broken any laws except for . . . well, he did steal
that dynamite, and I guess he may have had had evil intent when he rigged up
the explosive to go off if anyone touched the wire. Of course, the explosion
resulted in Hammer’s death and, technically, Jasper caused it, but that could
be construed as self-defense, seems to me.”

“I imagine Grant will do his
best to keep Jasper out of jail,” Mom mused. “After all, what purpose would it
serve to lock him up?”

We were walking back toward
Mom’s Toyota which was parked in Ben’s driveway. “It wouldn’t serve any purpose
that I can see and would surely make him and Pat miserable. I still don’t
understand how we kept from setting off that explosion. We must have been a
hair’s breadth away from touching the trip wire.”

“The Lord was taking care of
us, Darcy,” Mom said softly. “Don’t you know that by now?”

Smiling at her, I said,
“Yes, I believe I do. Before we go back home, do you feel strong enough to walk
down to the creek?”

Mom stopped short, put her
hands on her hips, and gazed at me. “I’m surprised that you want to go back
there. Are you talking about that little ledge that marks the entrance to the
tunnel and the gold?”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t want
to climb the bluff again; I just want to look at it.”

Turning around, we headed in
the opposite direction. It took only a few minutes to leave the grassy pasture
and scramble down the rocky incline to the creek. Once again, water flowed
through the channel. Grant took a court order to the rancher who had diverted
the stream and told him to get rid of his dam.

Sitting down on a sun-warmed
gray boulder, I looked up at the bluff that hid the back door to Ben’s treasure
trove.

“The ledge that jutted out
over the tunnel is gone,” I said. “Rocks and boulders have slid over it and
completely hidden it. I can’t see even a trace of the ledge nor the opening to
the tunnel.”

Mom lifted her shoulders. “I
guess the explosion did that. Nobody could ever find that hole again, Darcy.
It’s covered by tons of rocks.”

“Are you ever going to open
it back up?” I asked. “There’s an awful lot of gold under that hill.”

She shook her head. “I doubt
that I ever do anything more to this hillside. As far as I’m concerned, we are
better off with the gold being buried with Ben and Hammer. I don’t want any
part of it. Ben didn’t want the gold’s hiding place exposed and I almost feel
that it is cursed. It has certainly brought a lot of trouble.”

Remembering the feeling I
had when I held the beautifully wrought butterfly in my hand, I understood what
she meant. The lure of gold could take over a person’s life.

“There’s a lot of people who
know there’s gold back in here somewhere. Do you think a thing like that can be
kept secret? As soon
as the good citizens of
Ventris County realize you own all this and that
legend of lost treasure
is revived, you won’t have a moment’s peace,” I said.

“It wasn’t mentioned in the
newspaper story about the explosion. Maybe people will just think it’s gossip
and interest will die down if we keep our mouths shut. Grant sure isn’t going
to say anything. By the way, Darcy, he isn’t too happy with us, you know.”

I grinned. “That’s an
understatement. I’ve told him I’m sorry that I didn’t keep him posted on what
was going on with us. And I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me for lying and for
shooting that awful Ray Drake or Cub or whoever he is.”

“But Darcy,” Mom said, “you
didn’t have a choice. He was going to kill us.”

“I know, but more than that
was the way I felt when I shot that horrible man. I hated him, Mom. Maybe I
shot him because I hated him, not because I feared for our lives. I don’t
know.”

Mom patted my knee. “You did
what you had to do. The Lord knows your heart better than you do.”

Looking up at the ruined
bluff, I said, “Well, yes, but I wish my heart had purer motives. Remember what
Emma James said about temptation hitting us when we are weak? I had felt
criticism toward Ben at the thought that he might have had a relationship with
Hammer’s mother, but I guess I was feeling a little superior, a little ‘holier
than thou.’ I discovered I could actually shoot another human being, and that
emotion I felt—the hatred—is what I needed to have forgiven.”

Something on the ground
glittered in the sunlight and I bent to pick it up. The gold circlet that
nestled in my palm was a larger edition of Mom’s ring. I stared at it for a
moment, then gently opened her hand and laid the ring in it.

She gasped. “Why, Darcy!
This is Ben’s ring.”

“Yes,” I said. “Hammer must
have lost it when he and Drake were chasing us.”

She closed her fingers
around the ring and held it against her face. “I’ll keep it with mine in the
recipe box,” she said.

Blinking tears from my eyes,
I gazed at these hills surrounding us. They had witnessed much through the
centuries. If they could talk,
what stories
they would tell of love, heroism, frailties, greed, and hope.
And one
day, perhaps the story of Ben and Hammer and the gold, and even Mom and I,
would become part of the folklore for future generations.

At last, Mom spoke quietly.
“I’ve been thinking about what Hammer said there in the cellar, about feeling
unloved and being resentful. I’ve been thinking about Ben’s farm and how it
could be turned into a home for children who need fathers and mothers to care
for them. Maybe the farm could be a place where orphans learn about work and
honesty and God’s love. The farm is a good place, Darcy. There’s the creek for
fishing and swimming, there’s wood to chop for the fireplace, and Ben had a
wonderful orchard back behind his house.”

I grinned at her. “So you’re
planning on making something good come out of all that has happened.” I should
have known that Flora Tucker would not want to profit from Ben’s estate.

“Does that sound all right
to you?” Mom asked.

Nodding, I said, “It most
certainly sounds wonderful.”

A movement above me caught
my eye and I looked up as a great owl swooped through the air and landed on the
low branch of a sycamore. Cocking its head toward us, it called softly.

My breath caught in my
throat. Why had this shy, nocturnal bird lit so close? As I gazed, it lifted
its wings as if pronouncing a benediction, then flew silently into the woods,
through a dark canopy of trees, and out of sight.

I felt blessed. Tragedy had
touched the lives of my mother and me, but God had brought us through. Getting
to my feet, I reached down a hand to Mom.

“Do you know what I’d like
now, above all else?” I asked.

“No, Darcy Tucker Campbell,
what would you like above all else?” Mom teased.

“I’d like a cup of your
famous brew, perked in that old yellow coffeepot, so strong that a spoon could
stand alone in it. I want to sit at your dining table with the sunlight coming
through your west window and think of nothing else in the whole world except
that you make the best caffeine in all of Ventris County.”

“Only in the county? Who
else in Oklahoma can brew a better cup?” she asked.

Laughing,
I said, “Nobody, Mom. Nobody else in the whole Sooner
state.”

— The End —

About the Authors

It may seem
strange to some that a mild-mannered kindergarten teacher would become an
author of cozy mysteries, but it’s actually a good fit. A teacher is a word
craft. So is a writer. A teacher wants the efforts of her labor to have a
positive outcome. So does a writer. A teacher prays and hopes that each student
has a positive take-away from her work. A writer hopes that for her readers
too. A teacher would like each of the children in her classroom to achieve a
satisfying life. Although she can’t control that, as a writer she can control
the way her books conclude!

A native Oklahoman, Blanche has a
deep familiarity with the Sooner state, so it’s the logical setting for her
books. Her Cherokee heritage and feeling at home in the rural settings of
Oklahoma are vividly woven into the background fabric of her books. Her other
published cozies include
Grave Shift
and
Best Left Buried
, books two
and three on the Flora/Darcy Series, co-authored by Barbara Burgess.

Come visit her website at
www.blanchedaymanos.com/

Barbara Burgess is a retired trial
court administrator who says she found many good story ideas in the courtroom.
One of those ideas evolved into her first suspense novel,
Lethal Justice
, published
in 2010. She also co-authored
The Cemetery Club
, a mystery
novel based on Cherokee history. Her father was half Cherokee and she says much
of her family history involves Cherokee legend and beliefs similar to those
found in
Grave Shift
. She has also written short fiction for
Woman’s World
and Alfred
Hitchcock’s
Mystery Magazine
and freelanced for several Arkansas
newspapers.