Squatter's Rights Read online

  WHO’S BURIED IN THE BACKYARD?

  Julia Reagan’s dying wish sends her daughter to Maryland’s Eastern Shore to save a decaying mansion and deal with angry relatives who never left the little town on the Chesapeake Bay. But before she can buy the first can of paint, Grace stumbles into a grave, a murder, and tantalizing clues to the one question she’s never been able to answer: What happened to her father?

  Grace leaves Washington and her hard earned law practice to take on a new life in Mallard Bay. She’ll renovate Delaney House, sell it, and start over somewhere - anywhere - that isn’t the Eastern Shore. She’d rather avoid those angry relatives, but no such luck. A handsome contractor complicates things, too, but it’s the murder investigation that will change her life. The body buried in the backyard isn’t the only mystery in Grace’s new house, and what she doesn’t know could kill her.

  If you like a good murder with family drama and historical events that won’t stay in the past, you’ll love Squatter’s Rights.

  Old lies. Old loves. Old Murder.

  Welcome to the Eastern Shore!

  Squatter’s Rights

  An Eastern Shore Mystery

  Cheril Thomas

  Also by Cheril Thomas

  The Eastern Shore Mysteries

  Squatter’s Rights

  A Commission on Murder

  Bad Intent

  For Charlene Janice McMahan

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  May 22, 1952

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  October 2, 1952

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  October 19, 1952

  November 1, 1952

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  February 20, 1953

  April 2, 1953

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  January 3, 1955

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  February 8, 1956

  June 5, 1958

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  December 25, 1959

  March 14, 1960

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  July 1, 1960

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  November 1, 1973

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  June 28, 1961

  Before You Go

  Up Next in Mallard Bay

  A Commission on Murder

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  AUGUST 1960

  Ford Delaney leaned heavily on the shovel and tried to slow his breathing. It would be ironic if he keeled over into the grave he’d just dug. He looked up through the leaf canopy of the small patch of woods, and the normalcy of the stars in the moonless sky calmed him a little.

  “It’s a dog,” he whispered, as if saying the words made it so. “Only a damned dog.”

  The body in the pit didn’t look like a dog, though, and Ford knew it.

  What was he going to tell Emma? The thought of his wife made his heart race. Her image stayed with him as he began to shovel dirt back into the hole, moving faster and faster as the grave filled.

  Get moving! Get the job done! Ford’s personal motto, spouted in boardrooms, Rotary meetings and into the faces of under-performing subordinates, raced around his head. Stick with the plan and get the job done! Ford tormented himself with a running monolog of his own trite slogans as he shoveled, his self-loathing driving him into a frenzy.

  The shovel hit hard ground. Startled from his mental self-flagellation, Ford stared at the slight mound of loose soil that covered his secret. A bit of tidying up and it wasn’t a grave anymore, only a disturbed area in the woods behind his house.

  Maybe it would be all right.

  A sharp pain lanced through his left shoulder. Not now, he whispered as he grabbed a sturdy pine tree and struggled to stay upright. Another pain shot down his arm.

  No! Not here. Let me finish.

  Please.

  Chapter One

  September 2016

  The bathtub in the parlor was a bad sign. The old claw-foot model lay upside down under a ragged hole in the ceiling as if belly-up in defeat. Strips of broken lathing, plaster chunks and a liberal icing of grayish mud covered the room.

  “I don’t know how this happened,” Cyrus Mosley said.

  His immediate denial told Grace all she needed to know about the wizened lawyer. An attorney herself, Grace didn’t hold many illusions about the legal profession. She’d pegged Mosley for a fool from the get-go.

  Reality broke through her irritation and her stomach went queasy with nerves. This was her house. Her tub. Her broken water pipe that was still dripping.

  “Well, you should know,” she snapped. "You’re the estate’s agent.”

  “Pardon?” Mosley cupped a hand behind his right ear as if he couldn’t possibly have heard her correctly.

  Mosley wasn’t just old in years; he was ancient in manner and appearance. He wore 80s-era golfing attire and what was left of his hair was sculpted into a tall, white half-pompadour. A pair of bushy white brows and thin, bloodless lips rounded out his cartoonish appearance. Grace wanted to tear into him, but he looked like any moment could be his last.

  Not that she was in great shape herself. The last six months had been rough. And while she’d expected the 200-year-old house she’d bought, sight unseen, would need renovating, she hadn’t expected a tub in the living room under a collapsed ceiling. Or the Crypt Keeper as the seller’s agent.

  “This situation, Mr. Mosley. This damage is not acceptable. Your firm is responsible for the house.” She paused to see if the short sentences sunk in. A faint scratching noise caused them both to jump and move back from the pile of rubble. “I see you heard that fine,” she added.

  Mosley nodded and took another step back. At least he had on shoes, Grace thought as she moved to a relatively clear corner of the room. Mosley’s Bally loafers trumped her sandals for rodent kicking.

  Apparently satisfied they weren’t in imminent danger, Mosley said, “I was expecting you next week. The cleaners I’ve hired start this afternoon.”

  “Cleaners? You’ll need more than a week and more than cleaning to put this place into the shape I was expecting. What happened here?”

  Mosley’s eyes narrowed. “As you know, Grace, there are many issues at play here. Many, shall we say, complications to be handled. Anything can happen in tense family situations.”

  As you know, Grace. Complications. Family.

  She sighed. “How long have you known?”

  Mosley smiled and looked pleased with himself. “You were clever. Your grandmother was so surprised with the substantial earnest money deposit she didn’
t ask for many details. Cash is always an excellent distraction.” He gave her a rueful smile and shook his head. “By the time I checked the background of O’Hara Properties, the contract was finalized and the sale had to go forward.”

  “Had to? You mean it wouldn’t have if you had known I was the buyer?”

  “Your grandmother was emphatic about moving Delaney House out of her family’s hands.”

  Grace gave herself a mental back pat. O’Hara Properties had been created for the sole purpose of protecting her identity while she purchased her mother’s childhood home. “Does anyone else know I own the property?”

  “Your uncle, his wife, your cousins. My staff. Confidentiality was not an issue from our end and not required by your, pardon, by O’Hara Properties’ contract.”

  The scratching noise came again, louder. Mosley moved uncomfortably close to her. She smelled mothballs, an improvement over the rot and decay that permeated the house, but still unpleasant.

  This wasn’t a courtroom and she didn’t have to do the macho, toe-to-toe lawyer thing. She moved away from him, closer to the doorway. “Anyone else?” she asked.

  “If you mean did your grandmother know you ended up with the house, no. She went downhill rapidly after the contract was signed and was in a coma for the last week of her life. She never knew you were finally coming home to Mallard Bay.”

  “This isn’t my home, Mr. Mosley.”

  “Cyrus, please.”

  “I haven’t come home, Mr. Mosley. I bought this property as an investment. I’ll renovate and sell it.” His shocked look was satisfying, so she added, “It was one of my mother’s last wishes and, with any luck, I’ll turn a profit.”

  Screeeek…

  This time they both moved for the doorway.

  “Help me!” The scream seemed to come from everywhere at once. “I’m blind! Help me!”

  Grace yelled at Mosley to call 911, ran back into the center of the room and dropped to her knees in the muck that covered the floor around the inverted tub.

  “I can hear you!” she shouted. The scratches turned into banging. "Stop, stop! Be still. Help is coming.” She heard Mosley giving directions and instructions to the emergency dispatcher.

  “No!” he shouted. “Under! A person trapped under a tub!”

  Chapter Two

  “You own this house?” The police officer used the same tone he might in inquiring if she ran a cock-fighting operation.

  “Barely,” Grace answered. “This is the first time I’ve been here.”

  “So you’re an absentee landlord?” If possible, he sounded even more disgusted. The stocky man with light blond hair streaked gray with plaster mud wore a double chevron on his uniform sleeve. Grace hoped he wasn’t the officer in charge.

  Cyrus Mosley had disappeared leaving Grace to answer all the emergency responders’ questions with variations of “I don’t know.”

  Her anger flared anew at the memory of the lawyer’s parting words. When the firemen lifted the tub off the still screeching victim, Mosley had taken one look at the injured man and said, “I have to make a call.” Then he was gone, moving faster than she’d have thought possible for someone so old.

  She realized the officer was staring at her, waiting for an answer.

  “No, I’m not a landlord, absentee or otherwise. I’m a property owner whose house has been vandalized.”

  He dismissed her with a quick sideways look and took a form from his metal notebook, clipped it to the front and started writing. “Town records list Emma Delaney as the owner of the house. You Emma Delaney?” he asked.

  “No,” Grace drew it out. She felt sure from his tone he knew she wasn’t. “I’m Grace Reagan. Emma Delaney is deceased. I recently bought the house. And you are?”

  “Corporal Banks,” he said. “Care to explain how this happened?”

  “I just got here with the estate attorney about an hour ago. He was giving me a tour of the house when the screaming started.”

  On cue, the injured man started wailing again.

  “Who is he? Will he be alright?”

  Banks finished what he was writing before answering her. “It would take more than a falling tub to take him out. Who is the attorney?”

  “Cyrus Mosley.”

  Banks winced and Grace immediately felt better. Maybe she’d get some pity if nothing else in the way of cooperation from the corporal.

  “Take me home! Take me hoooome!”

  Banks and Grace turned to see the tub victim trying to sit up. A paramedic eased him back down, only to be rewarded with an ineffective swat from his patient.

  “Cut it out, Winnie,” the paramedic said as he deftly secured restraining straps over the injured man’s arms and torso.

  “Do you know who he is?” Grace asked.

  Banks turned back to her. “You really don’t know him?”

  “I don’t know anybody except Cyrus Mosley.”

  Once again the mention of Mosley’s name brought a scowl. “You don’t know your own tenant?”

  “Tenant! He isn’t a tenant. This house is supposed to be empty! And intact.”

  A squeal and a string of curses sent Banks to help the paramedics with their combative patient. Only the threat of handcuffs and the jail’s infirmary restored order. While Banks escorted the paramedics and the plaster-covered man to the ambulance, Grace took the opportunity to escape to the front steps and fresh air.

  The show had attracted onlookers. Grace was wondering exactly what kind of rabbit hole she’d fallen into when a tall, broad-shouldered man broke away from the knot of people who’d congregated on the lawn. As he jogged toward her, he called out, "Ms. Reagan? I’m Bryce Cutter. Cyrus Mosley sent me.”

  His smile lit up wide brown eyes and showcased an amazing set of dimples. Grace had to hand it to Mosley. He might have bugged out on her, but he’d sent a handsome replacement.

  “He said you’d need some help,” Cutter said. “He hired my firm to do some work here. My partner and the crew are on their way, but I’m thinking maybe I should call and turn them around?”

  “Good idea. At least until tomorrow.” As Grace filled Cutter in, she saw Banks leave the ambulance and walk their way. His scowl deepened at the sight of Bryce Cutter.

  "Hiya, Aidan,” Cutter said, giving Banks a nod. "Mosley said the place needed work, looks like he wasn’t kidding. What happened here?”

  “Criminal neglect,” Banks said. “Ceiling collapsed nearly killing the tenant.”

  Grace said, “I told you he isn’t a tenant! No one had authority to be in the house except Cyrus Mosley.”

  Cutter stepped between Grace and the officer. “Look, Aidan. You know Winnie, what he’s like. Cyrus sent me in case you, or Ms. Reagan,” he added with a nod to Grace, “needed help. He’s rounding up Winnie’s parents and getting them to the hospital. I’ll check on the boy and be right back.” Cutter started to move past Banks toward the ambulance but Banks grabbed his arm. Grace could almost smell the flare of testosterone as the two men glared at each other. They were both big, but Cutter was taller and the undercurrent said he had the upper hand.

  Banks said, “You need to leave and I mean now.”

  “Hands off, Aidan.” Bryce Cutter’s voice was low but effective. Banks released his arm.

  Impatient with both men, Grace said, “I want to know what’s happening. Is that man going to be okay?”

  “He’ll live.” Banks gave Cutter a last glare before turning to face Grace. “Since you have no standing here, this is the end of our conversation until you produce documentation showing you’re the legitimate owner of this property. At which time,” he raised his voice to cut off her protest, “we will discuss whether or not charges will be brought against you for endangering the public by the fostering of an attractive nuisance, namely, an unsecured condemned building.”

  “It was locked and it isn’t condemned!”

  “It will be when I file this,” Banks ripped the top sheet off the form and
held the paper up.

  Grace couldn’t read the print from where she stood, but she didn’t think it was good news.

  Banks handed her the clipboard and a pen. “I’m declaring the house to be unsafe and a crime scene.”

  “Crime scene! What crime?”

  “The tub didn’t just flip upside down and neatly cover the victim,” Banks said.

  “Oh, come on, Aidan,” Cutter broke in. “It’s Winnie! Anything could have happened. This isn’t a crime. Ask him what happened when he’s sober.”

  Banks ignored him. “No one is allowed in here until my investigation is complete. Which won’t happen anytime soon, I assure you.” He pointed to the form in Grace’s hand. “Sign the bottom line where it says you claim ownership and understand you are barred from the property until it’s released by both the Mallard Bay Police Department and the town’s Codes Enforcement Officer.”