Free Mary Jane's Grave by Stacy Dittrich Page A

your time,” Coop said wearily, “but, hey, you’re the ace. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
    “Nothing right now,” I said, looking down at my watch. “I’m going to run over to the library to see what I can find out. Keep after the lab about those test results and call me if anything comes up.”
    Coop could be right, I thought. Maybe the history of the grave had nothing to do with the murder. But right now it was all I could come up with, and it felt better than twiddling my thumbs.
    When I arrived at the library, I asked the librarian to find me everything she had on Mary Jane Hendrickson. She gave me an odd look and led me to the media resource room.
    “Everybody comes here around the same time every year to read about her, and I’ll tell you what I tell all of them. You’ll be surprised at how unexciting she really was.”
    I sat down at the large wooden table in the center of the tiny room. Edna, the librarian, was a big woman with short, dark hair and glasses, and her bulk made it hard for her to maneuver between the table and the shelves.
    However, she managed to grab album after album of news stories and threw them on the table. Each one produced a loud whack! as it landed in front of me.
    “Everything you need should be in those,” she said finally, dusting herself off. She pointed at the albums. “If there’s something you can’t find, it might be on microfiche. Let me know so I can get it for you.” She eyed me over the rims of her glasses. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
    “No, thank you very much.” I smiled as she shuffled off to her post at the front desk.
    Suddenly, she turned back around and peered at me more closely. “Say, aren’t you that policewoman I read about in the papers and saw on TV?”
    “Yes, I probably am.” I waited.
    “Hmm, I thought so.” She raised her eyebrows and walked out the door.
    I shrugged and proceeded to attack the files. I ended up spending hours sorting through the news articles. The librarian was right about one thing—Mary Jane Hendrickson certainly seemed to have lived a boring life. Actually, there wasn’t much written about her personal life, but there were stacks of articles about her legend. It was when I was reading her obituary that something caught my attention.
    Mary Jane Hendrickson had been born in 1825 and died in 1898. The obituary said she had left behind a sixteen-year-old daughter, Madeline. I’m not much of a mathematician, but I could clearly add and subtract.
    According to the dates, Mary Jane would have been fifty-seven years old when she gave birth to her daughter. I don’t know of any fifty-seven-year-old woman outside the Guinness Book of World Records who’d had a baby at that age now, let alone in the 1800s. There had been no mention of Madeline being adopted, but I’m sure that possibility existed. For some reason, though, I had my doubts that she was the product of an adoption.
    I checked again. No, it wasn’t a misprint. Mary Jane had died at age seventy- three. I set the obituary aside, deduced that Mary Jane was Superwoman and continued my research.
    I noticed it was dark outside, and I groaned when I looked at my watch. I had been there more than three hours. Michael probably wasn’t home yet, either. I knew he was out meeting with federal prosecutors in Cleveland to prepare for their upcoming trial.
    The kids were with our babysitter, so I called home to do a quick check on everybody. Selina said that Michael had called about forty- five minutes earlier and was on his way home. I told her I’d be there in about an hour.
    Once I had gotten through all the articles, I looked at my handwritten notes. Mary Jane Hendrickson had lived on the property where Mt. Olive Cemetery now stood. She had married Joseph Hendrickson, but he died of smallpox in 1897. For the most part, Mary Jane had cleaned houses for a living, mainly for her sister and brother- in- law, Sophia and Samuel Secrist. I