Drawing on the Past by Cynthia Raleigh

Author:Cynthia Raleigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: murder, mystery, historical, illinois, genealogy, harrisburg, eldorado, familytree, shawneetown, caveinrock
Publisher: Cynthia Raleigh

Chapter 21

October 15, 2016, Early afternoon

Perri didn’t feel quite as eager to revisit Gold Hill as she had been to see the McCade house. Even with Nick beside her, the fear she had felt Wednesday night in the old burial ground hadn’t completely faded away and it put a damper on the prospect of exploring it.

After Nick had parked the Jeep at the edge of the cemetery, they climbed out into the brisk shade of the old trees leaning protectively over the graves. Armed with her camera around her neck, a notebook, and pen, Perri told Nick she was looking for any stone with the name McCade. “If you can’t read it, or it even looks like it could be McCade, let me know and I’ll bring the foil and brush over and we’ll see if we can read it.”

She glanced over the stones and said, “Normally, I’d say let’s each walk every other row, but the stones aren’t exactly in orderly rows anymore. Let’s divide it in half from here,” she walked to a gap between two front stones, “back to that cluster of honeysuckle by the tree line. That ok?”

Nick agreed. “Let’s get started.”

Nick, now on Perri’s right, turned to the right to start on that side, but Perri quickly trotted past him and said, “I’ll take this side.” Seeing Nick’s quizzical look, she answered, “I already saw a couple of these stones when I walked up, so I’ll just go ahead and do these.” Nick didn’t look completely convinced, but turned and started on the opposite side.

Perri knelt in front of the first stone and pulled back the periwinkle vine growing over the corner. She hazarded a glance at Nick to make sure he wasn’t going to ask her about it again, but he was kneeling down and was busy pulling long grass away from a stone on the opposite side. She didn’t want to draw his attention by immediately darting back to the spot where she’d fallen in the hole, but tried to get a glimpse of it from where she was. She couldn’t tell if the hole was still there, but the tools were obviously gone.

Perri was wrapping foil around an unreadable stone when a ballpoint pen suddenly floated into her vision and hovered in front of her eyes. As she finished securing the foil behind the stone, she didn’t look up but asked, “What’s that for?”

Nick replied, “Found it.”

“You found a pen? Ok.” She smoothed the foil over the front of the stone with one hand.

“Yeah, it was on the ground right over there.” Nick pointed to an area midway down the first row, an area with no grass and where now-dry mud was churned up in one spot. “Funny.”

“It’s funny?”

The pen rotated in front of her eyes until the printed insignia of the nurse staffing agency Perri worked for was visible. She sighed a hopefully inaudible sigh and sat back on her heels, reaching up with one hand to snatch the pen away from Nick, but he pulled it away too quickly and said, “Uh uh.

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