Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
“Here’s what we have so far…” Harper began the following week, notebook in hand.
That it had taken a week for them to distill all of the available information gleaned from the documents and ghost interviews meant there were a lot of notes scribbled in that notebook.
Harper stood in the front of the meeting room packed with both living and non-living and Natalie was more than grateful that her friend had agreed to take the lead in the presentation.
This whole situation—proving herself not only right but legitimate in the face of the professor’s belittling adversary and false accusation—had been stressful enough. Natalie didn’t need the added angst of public speaking.
Reading from the extensive notes she had, Harper continued, “Peter Mudd was one of the early settlers of village, acquiring multiple plots of land back before Mudville had been incorporated as an actual village.
“In those years before and just after the American Revolution, property changed hands among those early settlers, being sold and resold. County and town lines were redrawn. Not to mention that without modern equipment, survey marks mentioned on a document from 1796 were things like, ‘beginning near Aaron Axtell’s house at a stake, thence running a northwesterly course to a pine tree marked H; then to a pine tree marked with a blaze’. ”
A murmur rose among the audience as the oldest in the room nodded and reminisced about their own memories of surveys, and the youngest expressed their shock over such things being included on legal documents.
“Some land deals,” Harper said in a much louder voice, quieting the cross conversations.
“Particularly deals between the founding families, were contingent upon use and improvements made, leading to what amounted to trades and deals with ambiguous records. Not surprisingly, disputes arose amid contested claims.”
Harper glanced up.
She made eye contact with Alice before saying, “A plot that had once belonged to Alice’s family was among the contested claims.”
Alice nodded her gray head once in acknowledgment. “Told you so.”
Yes, she had. And from Natalie’s ghost council meeting the other night they’d gleaned more proof. That Peter Mudd had land dealings with William Fitch, who later sold the holdings, which he seemingly did not have the right to sell, to Aaron Axtell.
This led to a dispute of rightful ownership which ended up with the Axtells in court against the Mudds. According to the Mudds, Fitch had illegally sold the land. But as far as the Axtells were concerned, they had legally purchased it. And, as they say, possession was nine-tenths of the law.
Without clear records, and with the member of the Fitch family who had sold the property long dead and his ancestors no longer living in the region, ownership remained with the Axtells.
The evidence was good, but it didn’t feel like enough to put good old Lionel Graves’s research in the grave once and for all.
“Natalie.”
She’d been so deep in her own head, plotting her revenge against Graves the moment she had enough ammunition, that Gabe’s voice had her jumping.
He was there next to her, but of course she hadn’t heard him before he spoke. He was always silently sneaking up on her. One of the perils of having ghost friends, she supposed. They were incredibly light on their feet.
“Yes, Gabe,” she whispered as Harper continued her presentation in the front of the room.
“He did it,” Gabe said, his scowl matching the angry cross of his arms.
“Who did what?” Natalie asked.
“Liam. There’s a new one in the lab.”
“Cadaver?” she guessed.
“Spirit,” Gabe answered. “And wait until you meet him. He is by far the most obnoxious, condescending, snooty, entitled, ridiculous, old…”
As Gabe ran out of descriptors, and finished his sentence with a frustrated groan, Natalie laughed. “He sounds exactly like that windbag Graves from my Salem panel.”
“If it isn’t Miss Natalie Chase. Well, well, well, we meet again.”
That voice.
That horrible voice that was the stuff of her nightmares ever since the moment they’d met in Salem.
Natalie spun to see the man himself, Professor Lionel Graves, standing half in and half out of the wall of the meeting room.
“There’s your boyfriend’s new addition to the lab now.” Gabe let out a snort. “Have fun. I’m going back to the lab to torture Liam for a while to punish him for bringing this new ass here.”
Natalie stood, though she didn’t know how she remained upright after this shock. She didn’t even have the words to ask Gabe to please not torture Liam.
The surprise of seeing him, Professor Lionel Know-it-All Graves, here and as a ghost had her legs feeling weak.
“You’re…” She swallowed, then tried again. “You’re dead.”
He let out a condescending ha before saying, “Can’t pull one over on you, can I, Miss Chase?”
“H—how?” she asked.
“I wish I knew.” For the first time the man looked sincere.
Vulnerable even until he zeroed in his stare on her and said, “But you could find out. I am famous, after all. Perhaps if I knew the cause, I could move on to the great beyond. Even as apparently inept as your research skills are, it shouldn’t be too difficult to acquire that information. Even for you.”