Death on the Family Tree by Patricia Sprinkle Read Free Book Online

been made. Was she dark or fair? Lovely or plain? Obviously she had once been the wife or daughter of an important man. Had she peered into a lake as Katharine peered into her mirror, examining her image, wondering if she was still attractive or if her beauty was beginning to fade? As Katharine turned from the mirror, for just an instant she again thought she saw the shadow of a dark-haired woman to one side, but when she stepped back to look, it was a trick of the light.
    Katharine rewrapped the necklace and tucked it with the diary into a small cloth tote bag. As she picked up her purse, she noticed that she had left Aunt Lucy’s peach-pit necklace on the kitchen counter. She scooped it up and dropped it into the bag with the necklace and diary, intending to stop just before she left her property and toss it into the bushes to decay. At least that way, it would be good for something.
    But she forgot to toss it, because she got engrossed in her standard conversation with her father about her car. “A Cadillac is safer than a lot of other cars,” she pointed out, “and an SUV is practical for hauling things around. Besides, Tom picked out this car and brought it home. I’d have bought a Saab, or maybe a Saturn.”
    Her father, as usual, did not reply—perhaps because he’d been dead fifteen years.
    “What should I do with the rest of my life?” she asked the silence.
    It must be break-time in heaven. She still got no reply.

     

    She parked on the lower level of the parking deck and climbed the hill to the brick building that housed the history center’s museum, gift shop, offices, and classrooms.
    “I can’t really tell you a thing about this,” the Curator of Decorative Arts said regretfully a few minutes later. “As you know, we specialize in things connected to Atlanta history. I’d suggest you try Emory’s Carlos Museum. But I’ll tell you what—an Emory history professor is browsing the museum this morning and he said he’d be doing research in the Kenan Center later. He might be able to tell you more than I can. Ask the staff to tell him you want to talk to him when he arrives.”
    Katharine went up the hill to the building that housed the research center, produced her membership card, left everything in a locker except for a note pad and a pencil, pulled open the heavy glass doors, and stepped into another world.

Chapter 4

    The history center library had always been one of her favorite places. In a bustling city, it was an oasis of calm with comfortable reading chairs and soft yellow walls interspersed with large windows looking out on restful green vistas of well-landscaped grounds. On other days she had sat for hours reading Atlanta history for pleasure, with no object in mind. Today she headed straight to the microfilm room, which was separated from the rest of the library by another wall of glass. An elderly woman was scanning one microfilm screen, but did not look up. She had a short silver Afro and skin the color of coffee with lots of milk, and she wore a red cotton top with a flowing cotton skirt in a swirling pattern of reds, blues, and yellows.
    Katharine found the box for 1939, the year of Aunt Sara Claire’s wedding, threaded the machine and moved the film forward to the second week of June. Sure enough, Aunt Sara Claire gloated on Sunday’s bridal page. The article beneath included descriptions of her wedding dress and flowers and a complete list of attendants. One of the men was Carter Everanes.
    Everanes? Was he a cousin of Lucy and Walter?
    Katharine headed to the desk. “Is there a way to trace a man who might be related to the husband of my aunt? My aunt is dead, but I’d like to know if they were related and how.”
    She tensed, waiting for the librarian to ask what right she had to poke around in her aunt’s husband’s past. Nosy was a word that came to mind. But the librarian acted as if it were a normal request—and perhaps where she worked, it was. “You need to