Page 19 of Dirty Valentine (A J.J. Graves Mystery #17)
If Richard Blackwood’s office had been designed to impress, Margaret Randolph’s was designed for serious scholarship.
Every available surface was covered with books, papers, and research materials.
Bookshelves lined three walls from floor to ceiling, packed so tightly that some volumes were stacked horizontally on top of others.
Her desk was buried under towers of student papers, historical documents in protective sleeves, and what appeared to be several archaeological catalogs.
Margaret herself commanded the space behind her desk with the confident bearing of someone accustomed to being taken seriously.
She was an attractive woman in her mid-thirties, with shoulder-length auburn hair that caught the light from her windows and intelligent green eyes that assessed us with calculating intensity.
Her sleeveless black blouse revealed toned, athletic arms that spoke of someone who spent time in the field as well as the library, and she wore dark slacks that looked both professional and practical.
This was no ivory tower academic who’d never gotten her hands dirty. Everything about her suggested competence, physical capability, and the kind of sharp intelligence that didn’t suffer fools gladly.
But it was her hands that caught my attention—long, elegant fingers stained with what looked like ink from documents, the nails cut short and practical. These were hands that spent their time carefully handling historical artifacts and turning the pages of ancient books.
“You look like cops,” she said sardonically. “Can I assume you’re here about Thomas?”
“Sheriff Lawson,” Jack said, introducing himself. “And Dr. Graves. She’s the coroner for the county.”
Margaret nodded. “I can’t say I haven’t been expecting you.”
“Have you?” Jack asked, settling into one of the two student chairs that faced her desk. I took the other, noting how the springs were worn and the upholstery had faded to an indeterminate beige.
“Of course. Thomas’s murder is the talk of the entire history department.
We’re colleagues and friends. We sit on boards together and have done research together.
And our departments compete for grants and funding, so we’re rivals as well.
I assumed as soon as you spoke to his wife that I’d be the next person on your list.” She resumed her seat, her hands folding neatly on her desk.
“Thomas was a brilliant researcher, but a terrible communicator. And his interpersonal skills weren’t that great either. ”
“We were told you threatened him at the historical society meeting,” I said.
Margaret’s composed expression didn’t change, but I saw her hands tighten slightly. “I wouldn’t characterize it as a threat. I was concerned about the implications of his research. And like I said, Thomas’s interpersonal skills lacked at times.”
“Were you concerned enough to follow him to the parking lot and tell him terrible accidents happen to people who dig in the wrong places?” Jack’s voice was deceptively mild.
“I won’t deny I was angry. And I may have been…
overly emphatic in expressing my concerns,” Margaret admitted, her academic precision making each word sound carefully weighed.
“But Thomas wasn’t acting like himself. He was more distracted than usual.
More driven, more focused. To the point he was rude and evasive.
Nothing mattered but his research, and he didn’t give a damn who he steamrolled in the process.
He was talking about publishing theories that could destroy innocent people’s lives based on incomplete evidence. ”
“What kind of incomplete evidence?” I asked.
Margaret leaned back in her chair, studying us through her wire-rimmed glasses.
“Thomas was an excellent field archaeologist, but he wasn’t trained in documentary analysis.
He found some unmarked graves and immediately jumped to conclusions about murder and conspiracy.
But there are dozens of perfectly innocent explanations for unmarked burials in Colonial America. ”
“Such as?”
“Poverty, illness, religious differences, family disputes.” She ticked off the possibilities on her stained fingers. “Colonial record-keeping was sporadic at best, especially during times of conflict or disease. The absence of official records doesn’t necessarily indicate criminal activity.”
“But you’d reviewed his evidence yourself?” Jack asked.
“Thomas shared some of his findings with me, yes. We’d collaborated on several projects over the years.” Something flickered across her face—an emotion I couldn’t quite read. “He valued my expertise in Colonial documentation.”
“And what did you think of what he’d found?”
Margaret was quiet for a long moment, her gaze studying something beyond our shoulders. When she finally spoke, her voice was softer, more thoughtful.
“I thought Thomas had stumbled onto something significant, but not necessarily something criminal. The discrepancies in the land grant records are real—I verified that myself. But Colonial property law was incredibly complex, and there were legal mechanisms for transferring land that might seem suspicious to modern eyes but were perfectly legitimate at the time.”
“Legal mechanisms like what?” I asked.
“Debt settlements, marriage contracts, military service grants, royal pardons.” She was warming to her subject now, the way academics did when they got to discuss their area of expertise.
“When Bridget Ashworth was executed for witchcraft, her property would have been subject to forfeiture to the Crown, even though she had a husband and a daughter.
“Legend says that Bridget knew her time was coming to an end and she had her husband sneak away in the night with her daughter and head north to save their lives. There is no record of them after that date, so we can only assume that names were changed and they started life over. Once the Ashworth property was forfeited to the Crown, it would have then been distributed to other colonists. So that doesn’t necessarily mean theft.
It could have been entirely legal under Colonial law. ”
“But Thomas didn’t think so,” Jack said.
“No, he didn’t.” Margaret’s voice carried a note of sadness.
“Thomas was convinced there was a conspiracy, that Bridget Ashworth had been deliberately targeted for her land. He’d found what he believed was evidence of coordinated testimony against her, witnesses who all had financial incentives to see her convicted. ”
“What kind of evidence?”
“Depositions, witness statements, property assessments.” Margaret reached into a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder that looked like it had seen better days. “He shared copies of some documents with me, asked for my opinion on their authenticity.”
She spread several photocopied pages across her desk, and I leaned forward to study them. The writing was in the careful script of Colonial clerks, but the ink had faded to brown with age and some sections were barely legible.
“These are depositions from Bridget Ashworth’s trial,” Margaret explained, pointing to one of the documents. “Thomas found them in the courthouse archives, misfiled in a box of tax records. What caught his attention was the pattern of testimony.”
“Pattern?” Jack asked.
“Every single witness who testified against Bridget Ashworth either owned property adjacent to hers or had recently applied for land grants that would be more valuable if her property were available for distribution.” Margaret’s finger traced across the faded names.
“Jonathan Blackwood, Ezekiel Morton, Joseph Hughes, Rachel Mills—they all stood to gain financially from her death.”
I felt a chill run down my spine as she named the same families whose graves had been marked around Thomas’s body. Except there was one name missing. The Lawson name wasn’t part of Thomas’s research, even though Richard Blackwood had said it was.
“And they all testified against her?” I asked.
“They all claimed to have witnessed her practicing witchcraft. Cursing livestock, flying through the air, consorting with the devil.” Margaret’s voice carried the skepticism of someone who’d spent years studying the realities of Colonial life.
“The testimony reads like a coordinated effort to build a case for conviction.”
“You think Thomas was right?” I asked. “That Bridget Ashworth was murdered for her land?”
“It’s impossible to know for sure,” she said. “But I think Thomas was asking the right questions. But he didn’t have the hard evidence to publish in academic circles. At least as far as I know.”
“You warned him off the research,” Jack said. “Threatened him. Told him to leave it alone.”
“Because I was scared,” Margaret admitted, her academic composure finally cracking.
“Not of the historical implications, but of the current ones. If Thomas was right, if there really was a coordinated conspiracy to steal Bridget Ashworth’s land, then the families who benefited are still living on that stolen property.
Still profiting from it. And people will kill to protect that kind of wealth. ”
The admission hung in the air between us like smoke from a funeral pyre. Margaret had just confirmed what we’d suspected—Thomas’s murder was connected to his research, and the stakes were higher than just historical reputation.
“We came across Thomas’s appointment book,” I said. “In the past ten months or so, he went from writing everything down in the book meticulously, names, dates, details, to only using initials.”
“Yes, he mentioned a couple of times that he thought someone had gone through his office, and he said once that he felt like someone was following him. He got more and more paranoid over these last couple of months. I just chalked it up to being overworked, stress, marital problems, funding problems…you name it and Thomas was dealing with it.”
“Marital problems?” Jack asked.