Free Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron

could give one cousin both plots and order him to pay his cousin the full value of the other, or I could order them to sell both plots and split the money.
    From the passion they had displayed, though, I knew that none of those options would satisfy both. It reminded me of a case I’d had over in Asheboro a few years back where two divorcing attorneys both wanted to keep possession of the office they shared. I might have to go the same route with these two.
    I thought of our family graveyard out at the homeplace. Right now the fence surrounds enough space for all of Daddy’s twelve children and their spouses, but what if there weren’t? How would I feel to know that I’d be cut off from my family for all eternity? With the cheerful innocence of a ten-year-old, Cal had already picked out a corner for the three of us, but there’s no way his whole generation of cousins could fit in as well. If the land stays in the family, the fence could be moved to take in another quarter acre or two. But if the farm’s been sold and divided and developed by the time death comes for them? Would some of them be sitting in a future courtroom passionately arguing for the right to join their forebears?
    By the clock over the rear doors, it was now 11:30.
    “We’ll recess for lunch,” I told them, “and I’ll give my ruling at one.”
    The bailiff gave me directions to the cemetery and recommended that I stop by a café called The Country Biscuit for the best shrimp salad sandwiches in town. They added a go-cup of strong iced tea to the bag and I drove over to Cedar Grove Cemetery, where I parked in front of the main entrance. Heavy black iron gates were supported by columns of marlstone thick with petrified seashells. Just inside the gates was an informational plaque that gave a bit of the history and marked the resting places of New Bern’s more important citizens. Caleb Bradham, the pharmacist who invented Pepsi, was pictured, but no Mitchells. Using the map one of the cousins had brought to court, I did locate the disputed plot just east of the central square.
    Crushed oyster shells lined the drives and huge ancient cedars draped in curtains of Spanish moss offered welcome shade as I walked past grave markers that ranged from simple clean stones to weeping angels and somber saints. Disintegrating granite tablets were engraved with lines of overly sentimental poetry and after two hundred years, many were illegible.
    I hear your death knell o’er and o’er—Good-bye, good-bye forever more.
    On a stone that dated back to the yellow fever days: Weep for an infant too young to weep much / When death removed this mother .
    Except for slightly newer headstones and an angel that looked rather amused, the Mitchell plot was much like the others, bounded by a low brick wall and shaded by one of those ubiquitous cedars. The whole cemetery seemed deserted except for a caretaker mowing grass at the far end, and I enjoyed the peace as I sat on the wall to eat my sandwich.
    After reading all the names on the stones inside this enclosure, my eyes drifted over to surrounding plots. To my surprise—although it shouldn’t have surprised me, given that it had been mentioned in court—I noticed the Mitchell name on an older monument two plots away. Still munching on my sandwich, I walked over to read the names and dates. The earliest was 1803. Theodore Mitchell and his beloved wife Amelia. The latest was a plain flat stone for an Edward Guthrie, who died in 1967. The black iron fence seemed to mark off the same amount of space as the disputed plot, yet it held only seven graves if I could trust the tombstones.
    I was walking back to my car, considering possibilities, when a stone near the path jumped out at me: Raynesford . That was the name Aunt Zell and I had tried to remember! The name of the man who’d given Mother that cigarette lighter. The stone was behind a fence too high for me to step over and I had to go around to the gate. I found a