“Uh, um, first, thank you all for coming. Now I guess what we need to do is gather all the information from various sources and figure out what all this stuff means.”
Alice Mudd, all four foot nine inches or so of her, took a step forward. Her ninety years on this earth had not softened her but had instead sharpened her tongue. She never pulled any punches and Natalie could see from her posture and her expression, something big was about to come out of her mouth now.
“I’ll tell you what all this stuff means,” Alice began, spittle flying. “Your beloved Axtell family who you all praise for their contributions to our community since the founding of Mudville are a bunch of liars and thieves!”
Her accusation broke the silence. The volume of the various conversations, debates and what looked like one near fight rose to an absolute din.
Natalie glanced around and tried to decide who to approach first. Alice, who was now ranting animatedly to Agnes and Harper. Or the two older male ghosts about to come to blows. She didn’t know their names but the situation begged the question, could a spirit be knocked out by a punch? Curiosity had her wanting to find out even as Gabe strode over to get in between the two as they argued.
The reaction of the livings and the dead proved one thing—the Axtells vs the Mudds was one controversial, hotly contested topic. And she wasn’t mad about that.
There had to be something there at the crux of it all. With any luck it would be the nail in Professor Lionel Graves’s professional coffin. And Natalie would be the one holding the hammer.
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.”
