Chapter 27 - The Ledger of the Damned
The inside of Maeve Miller’s house smelled of dried lavender, paraffin wax, and ancient woodsmoke.
She set three steaming mugs of black tea on the heavy oak trestle table, moving with an economy of motion that defied her ninety-two years. She didn't offer us sugar, nor did she apologize for the shotgun leaning within arm's reach against the grandfather clock.
On the center of the table lay the contents of our satchel alongside a thick, leather-bound volume Maeve had hauled from the base of her cedar wardrobe: Donald Miller's original 1967 field notebook.
"Look here, Abigail," Maeve said, her crooked, arthritic finger tracing a hand-drawn topographical map in Donald's notebook. "Look at the river bend."
I leaned over the yellowed pages. Donald’s penmanship was crisp, mechanical, the work of a seasoned surveyor. At the curve of the Pigeon River, just downstream from where the current mill stood, Donald had marked a cluster of survey pins in red ink, with a notation beside them: *Northern corner post set at granite ledge. Raymond Vance claimed boundary is four hundred yards south. He is attempting to swallow the lower timber stand. Threatened me at the grader today.*
Beside that notebook, Ellis smoothed out Sanford Vance’s deathbed confession. The dates matched. The names matched. Even the specific threats matched Donald’s private journal down to the day and hour.
"This is the chain of title," Ellis said, his voice ringing with grim certainty. "The entire deed transfer Raymond executed after Donald died was predicated on a signature from Donald's estate. But Donald’s estate was never probated! Raymond forged Maeve’s signature as Donald’s administrator!"
"He didn't forge it alone," Maeve said, her voice dropping into a register of icy venom. "Harlan Greer paid a notary in Hastings ten dollars to stamp the deed in the basement of the county courthouse after hours. I went to the state troopers three weeks after Donald’s funeral. The trooper took my report, folded it in two, and put it in Raymond Vance’s pocket right in front of my face."
"That stops tomorrow," I said, gripping the edge of the oak table. "Greer told us they’re filing for eminent domain in the morning to seize the mill under the state highway project. They want to bulldoze the foundation before anyone can excavate the flume."
"They want to bulldoze the wheel," Maeve said, leaning forward, her old eyes burning like cobalt coals. "Because Donald isn't buried in St. Jude’s cemetery, child."
May you like
I froze. Ellis looked up, his face draining of color. "What did you say, Aunt Maeve?"
"They gave me a closed pine casket filled with river gravel," Maeve whispered, tears finally pooling in the deep wrinkles of her weathered cheeks. "The coroner was Raymond’s cousin. They told me Donald's body was too mangled by the water wheel to view. But two days before they buried that empty box, Mack Turner’s father came to this back door in the middle of the night. He was weeping. He told me Raymond and Harlan had mixed four bags of quick-setting Portland cement and poured it into the stone crib beneath the north sluice gate."
