Free Long Upon the Land by Margaret Maron Page A

Walter Raynesford buried amid several others of his clan, but no Walter Raynesford McIntyre.
      
    The two elderly Mitchell cousins seemed a bit weary when I took my seat and faced them. Indeed, they both looked as if they could use a nap.
    “I went out to the cemetery during my lunch break,” I told them. “It’s a beautiful spot and I can understand how both of you would want it. I guess it would be a comfort to know that would be your final resting place.”
    Both men nodded and started to speak, but I held up my hand. “Who was Edward Guthrie?”
    Blank looks.
    “He died in 1967 and is buried in a Mitchell plot close to your family’s.”
    “Uncle Ned?” asked Wade Mitchell.
    Caleb Mitchell nodded. “He was the son of Grandfather’s sister.”
    “So y’all are kin to Theodore Mitchell?”
    Two more nods. “He was our grandfather’s grandfather.”
    “Who owns that plot where he’s buried?” I asked.
    Shrugs and more blank looks.
    “It seems to me that there are at least two unused spaces in that plot,” I said.
    The cousins looked at each other in dawning comprehension of where I was going.
    “Uncle Ned’s widow remarried and she was buried with her second husband in Cove City,” Caleb Mitchell said slowly. “But didn’t he have a sister?”
    “They moved to Morehead City years ago,” said Wade Mitchell.
    “It seems to me,” I said, “that if this is in your family line and no one’s used it since 1967, whoever owns it might be willing to sell.”
    One of their attorneys said, “If you’ll continue this case, Your Honor, we’ll search the records and find out who the current owner is.”
    “How long would you want?” I asked.
    “A week?” said one.
    The other nodded. “That should give us time to trace the owners.”
    Wade Mitchell turned to his cousin. “You know something? It could turn out that we already own it through Grandfather. He could have inherited it.”
    “Does that mean you’d be willing to go there?” asked Caleb.
    Wade frowned. “No, I meant it would be a good place for you and Jenny.”
    “Like hell!”
    “Gentlemen!” I said in my most authoritarian voice and they subsided but still glared at each other like resentful schoolboys. “This has already taken up too much of the court’s time. I’m willing to continue this matter for another few days, but if you can’t come to an agreement, then I’m going to settle the matter for you.”
    I looked at my calendar and set the court date for the following Monday.
    To get started on my own research, I spent an hour in the Special Collections Room of the library, where a helpful Victor Jones gave me a quick orientation and let me look at an inventory of the cemetery that had been made back in the nineties. There were several McIntyres but no Raynesford McIntyre. Not that I’d really expected to find him that easily. He was probably buried somewhere in Europe, where he died. A whole slew of Raynesfords, though.
    Mr. Jones showed me the Raynesford genealogical records that took up a good six inches of manila folders in a file drawer. Raynesfords had evidently arrived in New Bern shortly after the Revolutionary War and they had flourished and multiplied for a hundred years, then had gradually begun to dwindle until he knew of only two of that name left in town. Josephine Raynesford was an elderly spinster who still lived in the family home a few blocks from the library. Her nephew, another Walter Raynesford, had turned the house into a bed-and-breakfast and gave guided tours for their guests in a shiny black 1956 Cadillac convertible.
    “The name may be almost gone, but I’m pretty sure Raynesfords linger on through the female side.”
    “Is there any way to find out if a Raynesford female married a McIntyre man?” I asked, thinking that if I found some of his relatives, they might could tell me more about this man in Mother’s past.
    “You could search the marriage records, but it’d probably be quicker to