Whiskers In The Dark

3

April 7, 2018

Saturday

Rich Shaw, sheriff of Albemarle County, thought golf would help him stop smoking. How he arrived at this conclusion remained a mystery. He was out on Farmington Country Club’s golf course puffing on his Shepheard’s Hotel like a chimney. That was the other problem. He smoked only expensive foreign cigarettes, Dunhill being his other favorite.

Playing with him on a notoriously cool day were Cindy Chandler, Nelson Yarbrough, D.D.S., and Catherine Hanlon, M.D., a physician visiting from New Jersey. None of these people said a word about Rick, who did exhale downwind of everyone.

The greens, tended even throughout winter, proved better than expected. The maintenance of any golf course costs a bundle. An old grand course like Farmington really cost. Like all golfing places, it had been added to over time: driving ranges, more parking, and another back course. Poor people did not play at Farmington, but then, in general, poor people did not play golf.

Despite the cold, all four were glad to be outside. There’s something in the back of a golfer’s mind that if you get out at the first hint of spring, winter will be behind you.

Nelson made par a lot, as did Cindy, whose putter was golden this Saturday. Catherine, a beginner, broke 90, to her excitement and that of the others. A natural athlete, she was determined to master this notoriously difficult game.

Grateful for their sweaters and heavy socks, they finished their game in good humor. Dropping their two carts at the small parking area, the cart garage, they were soon seated at the nineteenth hole, shedding their sweaters, glad for indoor warmth.

They replayed every hole until Nelson changed the subject, asking Rick, “You never found out about the body in St. Luke’s graveyard, did you? The one where I looked at the teeth.”

“A body?” Catherine’s antennae picked up. “In a graveyard, of course.”

Cindy, a hot cup of tea warming her innards, which she needed, told her, “St. Luke’s is the Lutheran church, first one here, and it was built, finally finished, in 1787. You’ve driven by it. It’s the lovely fieldstone with the church in the center, steeple on top, white, and then an arcade on each side with white simple pillars, Doric, I think. And at each end there are two duplicate two-story square buildings that were originally used one side for men’s meetings, another for the women’s. The pastor’s big office is in the men’s. The courtyards are beautiful. There’s the one between the arcades and then there are descending levels and each level is a rectangular courtyard finally ending in the graveyard, surrounded by a stone wall, same stone as the buildings. It’s a sort of terraced effect, but flat with steps between levels. People built things to last back then. It’s in remarkable shape and was the design of a British war prisoner who stayed and married here.” She smiled, looking to Nelson. “Did I get that right?”

“Always do.” He adored Cindy. Everybody did.

“Really? A Lutheran church? I thought they were up in Pennsylvania,” Catherine wondered.

“Well, ours was and remains special, but we even had a Catholic church then and that was very unusual, for the prejudice ran so deep, except in Maryland, of course.” Cindy paused. “I am always curious about these things because I’m Catholic.”

“Me, too.” Catherine felt a kinship with the good golfer.

“Then there was Jefferson. You know I read the Jefferson Bible. Interesting.” Nelson had been the quarterback at UVA in 1959 and a good student to boot. “When you go to Mr. Jefferson’s university, you pay attention to things that might otherwise elude you.”

“Curious.” Rick leaned back in his chair. “Back to the body. Catherine, it is that of an African American woman. She was laid, no casket, on the caskets of Sara and Michael Taylor, the first people to be buried at St. Luke’s. We think, according to the notation in the Bible at church, they perished of tuberculosis. They were buried October 15, 1786, before the church was totally finished. Someone last year kept knocking over their tombstone. And really, that’s about all we know.”

“Vandalism?” Catherine’s eyebrows raised.

“At first that’s what the Reverend, actually the Very Reverend Herbert Jones thought. He’s usually in his office at the church, so he believed this had been done in the night. Really cold nights, I add.” Rick filled her in.

“But Harry, you’ve met Harry,” Cindy added. “She’s in charge of building and grounds. She noticed and she told her husband, the big guy, six foot four, an equine vet. So Fair, her husband, and Ned Tucker, a friend who’s also a member of the church, muscled the tombstone upright. All seemed to be well. It snowed. More snow. No problems. The snow melted and boom, tombstone over again. This time Harry noticed incursions like stabbing marks had been made into the earth. Not true digging but stabbing. That’s the word she used.”

“How strange.” Catherine was intrigued.

“And it was stabbing,” Rick chimed in. “Finally, after fulsome discussion, the grave was opened. Those caskets were as good as the day they were built, but on top, no effort to cross her hands over her chest, had been what I think was dumped, but at any rate, there was a woman’s body. Bones, a scrap of mustard silk fabric. What was shocking was she wore a pearl necklace. Large, large pearls, two long strands, and earrings to match with diamonds surrounding the pearls. We had Keller and George appraise it.” He looked at his audience. “Six hundred thousand dollars if a penny. Can you believe it?”

Keller and George, in operation since 1875, could be relied upon to carefully study antique jewelry. They cleaned it, took photographs from every angle. Called in an expert from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts who came to the same conclusion they had concerning value and approximate age based on design.

“Who was she apart from being rich?” Catherine asked.

“We have no idea. The medical examiner’s office thought she died in the late 1780s. Probably near the time the Taylors were laid to rest. But she didn’t die. Her neck had been snapped cleanly by someone who was powerful and knew what he or she was doing.”

“I checked her teeth.” Nelson looked up as his hamburger arrived. “Little decay. She had eaten some refined sugar but her teeth were better than a lot of what I see today. I’d estimate her age, based on wear, maybe early thirties at the most.”

“The medical examiner came to the same conclusion concerning her age.” Rick smiled as his lunch arrived.

They were all hungry.

“That’s one of the strangest stories I’ve ever heard.” Catherine dug into her Cobb salad, a cool lunch but filling.

“And she was African American.” Cindy, too, thought this quite strange. “Granted, there were rich African Americans as there were rich tribal individuals who owned slaves, too. But wouldn’t you think someone that wealthy would have been reported missing?”

“You’d think,” Catherine responded.

Rick cut his sandwich in half. “We have good records from that time. The constable did his job and with clear handwriting, too. No mention at all.”

“Why didn’t the killer take her jewelry? That could have set someone up for life.” Nelson couldn’t understand that at all.

“No records at St. Luke’s?” Catherine inquired.

“No, and St. Luke’s has fine records kept in a temperature-controlled vault. Every year’s offerings and expenses are noted to the penny. All illnesses are recorded. All deaths and probable causes of death. Births are recorded, as are baptisms. Nothing. Not one iota.” Rick shook his head.

“Well, if she was a businesswoman, someone would have noticed. If she was local or even from as far as Richmond.” Cindy, having seen those pearls at Keller and George in the vault, imagined the wealth that purchased them.

“Herb canvassed the congregation. No one came forward regarding disturbing the grave. Obviously, whoever was fooling around at the Taylors’ grave had some kind of suspicion about the body’s whereabouts and maybe even about the pearls.” Nelson waved to a club member leaving the nineteenth hole. “If they found out, why can’t we?”

“What if she was kept by a wealthy man?” Cindy was practical.

“With six hundred thousand dollars’ worth of pearls plus the diamonds around the earrings! What did she know that we don’t?” Catherine queried and the others laughed.

“There were people of enormous wealth at that time. The Garths, the Selisses. She became a Holloway after her husband was murdered. And there were people like Yancy Grant who had a lot of money but ultimately lost it. Still, I can think of no one who would buy that kind of jewelry for a mistress. We’d know. You can’t hide something like that.” Rick was firm about that. “I mean even Jefferson couldn’t hide, you know?”

“They all tried.” Cindy bit into her sandwich.

“Still do.” Nelson laughed.

“Maybe I should retire from medicine and go into detective work. This is really fascinating.”

“Well, I know one thing,” Rick stated. “She was hated. You don’t kill like that, hide the body, and leave great wealth if you don’t completely hate the victim.”

“Maybe she deserved to be a victim. My mother used to say, ‘Some people need killing.’ Maybe she did something horrible. Women can be bad guys, too,” Cindy stated.

“Equal rights.” Catherine winked.

“I make one prediction.” Rick shrugged. “This is close to home.”