Free The Corpse in Oozak's Pond by Charlotte MacLeod

saying he couldn’t,” Helen had to agree, “but you must admit, Belial’s verses weren’t the sort young ladies could copy into their albums.”
    “Belial was a man ahead of his time.”
    “He was usually about three jumps ahead of some irate husband carrying a shotgun, too.”
    “So he was. Damn, I wish old Hilda Horsefall hadn’t moved to Sweden. She’d know how many of Belial’s bastard begets passed on the family genes and which of their children favor the Bugginses as much as that bearded enigma on Goulson’s mortuary slab does. Maybe Mrs. Lomax can tell. “
    “She might tell me, but she’d never tell you,” said Helen. “She’s much too delicate in the sensibilities to discuss such things with a man she isn’t married to. The problem is, she’ll know why I’m asking, and she’ll tie it straight up with the Minks. Mrs. Lomax wouldn’t breathe a word that might hurt Purvis and Sephy.”
    “Gad! The schism is widening faster than you can shake a stick at it,” Shandy groaned.
    “You can’t shake a stick at a schism, dear. At least I suppose you could, but I can’t see what you’d accomplish if you did. Were you planning to walk me back up to the library, or shall I try to make it on my own?”
    “Why? Do you feel a swoon coming on?”
    “I suppose that means you’d rather get back to Goulson’s and hang out with the medical examiner.”
    “Wouldn’t you rather I hung out with him than hung from Svenson’s paws as a bleeding pulp?”
    “Oh, all right, if you’re squeamish about getting mangled. I’ll see if I can find anything about Oozak’s Pond among Balaclava’s personal records, but there’s an awful lot to get through. I must say this lawsuit sounds totally spurious to me, Peter. Ichabod was Balaclava’s nephew, you know.”
    “You said Dalbert was Balaclava’s nephew.”
    “There were four nephews. Dalbert was the only son of Balaclava’s sister, Druella, who married Fortitude Lumpkin and founded Lumpkin Corners. Ichabod, Corydon, and Belial were sons of Balaclava’s brother, Abelard, the horse trader. Abelard built that house where Trevelyan and Beatrice lived as a wedding present for Ichabod when he married Prudence Plover in 1831. Prudence was said to be a little weak in the head, though that may have been only because she had no more sense than to marry Ichabod.”
    “Who never amounted to much.”
    “Right. Corydon, on the other hand, took over his father’s horse-trading business and did very well at it, when he wasn’t being visited by an attack of the muse. Belial got disinherited for reasons too numerous to mention but didn’t care because he had his own sources of income.”
    “And could always find a bed for the night.”
    “Don’t digress. I don’t know how we got started on nephews. What I meant to say was that Balaclava Buggins was a sensible, dedicated man. He taught school before he was sixteen, he farmed, he lived what he preached. He truly believed in earning his bread by the sweat of his brow and training young people to be good farmers and good citizens. He knew perfectly well the only way he could reach them was by setting an example worth following. Does that sound like the kind of man who’d go around making reckless bets?”
    “Not to me, but I doubt if you’re going to sell an unsupported argument to the Bugginses’ lawyers. Or to Miss Minerva Mink.”
    “Miss Mink? What does she have to do with the lawsuit?”
    “Good question. She claims to have been bilked of her patrimony and maybe also of her matrimony by her handsome cousin Algernon and is determined not to let Persephone make a similar mistake. Miss Mink doesn’t talk as if she carried much clout among the Bugginses, but one never knows. Come on, I’ll walk you back to the library before I go to Goulson’s.”

Chapter 7
    “SO WHAT’S THE VERDICT?” Shandy asked.
    “Interesting,” said the medical examiner. “With all respect to the doctor who made out the death