Read Treasured Legacies (A Mary O'Reilly Paranormal Mystery) for Free Online Page B

get enough money for all of us to do whatever we
wanted to do. I told him I wanted to farm.   Told him that if farming was good enough for his
grandfather and his great-grandfather, it ought to be good enough for him.”
    “What did the other children think?” Mary asked.
    “Abe, my youngest boy, was a farmer, just like me,” he said.
“He wanted to hold on to the land.”
    “And your daughter?”
    “Jessie was siding with Josh,” he said. “She wanted to move
away from Freeport.   She wanted to live
in the big city.   She even had a
boyfriend from Chicago.”
    “So you voted?” Mary asked.
    “Hell no,” he replied. “The land was mine. The boys worked
it and Jessie did the books. I paid them well.   But the land was mine. And no one was going to sell it. Over my dead body.”
    Mary didn’t say a word and watched as Dale realized the
meaning of his words. “My dead body,” he repeated slowly, turning and looking
at Mary. “I got hit in the back of the head. I didn’t bump my head.   When I woke up, someone had locked the
door.   I pounded on it and I screamed,
but no one opened the door. It was a trap.”
    He slowly sunk to the floor and laid his head in his hands.
“Damn it all to hell,” he whispered. “I was murdered.”

Chapter Nine
    Rosie locked the door and they both started to walk down the
porch stairs when a pickup truck pulled into the gravel driveway.   They both waited on the porch until the truck
stopped and the passenger got out.   He
was a short and wiry older man with a John Deere cap resting on his head.   He looked at the two women and tipped the
brim of his hat in their direction.
    “Afternoon,” he said, walking around the front of the truck
and coming to the porch.
    “Hello,” Rosie replied, taking a protective step in front of
Mary. “Can I help you?”
    “Well, that’s kinda what I wanted
to ask you,” he replied. “This here house is empty and I know the owners and,
quite frankly, you ain’t them.”
    Rosie smiled, pulled a card out of her pocket and handed it
to him. “I’m Rosie Wagner,” she explained, “a real estate broker. I’m handling
the sale of Greta Johnson’s home. And this is Mary, she’s interested in the home.”
    “Oh, I see,” he said as he studied the card. “I’m afraid I
have to apologize, ladies. I’m Greta’s neighbor, Sawyer Gartner.   I own the property next door. There’s been some break-ins out here in the country,
especially when folks aren’t home during the day. So I always keep my eyes
open.”
    “Yes, actually Jessie mentioned the break-ins which is why
we didn’t put a For Sale sign out in front of the house, we didn’t want to
advertise that it was empty,” Rosie said. “But it’s nice to know they also have
a concerned neighbor.”
    “Well, the Johnson’s are good people, always have been,” he
said. “And that’s what farmers do; we look out for each other.”
    Mary stepped forward. “Have you always lived next door?” she
asked.
    He nodded. “Yeah, the Johnsons and the Gartners have farmed next to each other for generations. I grew up with Dale.”
    “I agree with Rosie, it’s nice to know there are nice
neighbors around,” Mary said.
    “You won’t find a nicer place to raise a family,” Sawyer
said. “Nothing like room to run.”
    Mary nodded. “You’re right, this place seems ideal.”
    ****
    A little while later, the two women were back in Rosie’s SUV
driving back towards town. “If he really was murdered, then someone in his
family is a murderer,” Rosie exclaimed, as she turned onto Highway 20. “And
they seemed to be such lovely people.”
    “Just because he believes he was murdered, doesn’t necessarily
make it true,” Mary said. “It still could have been just a farming
accident.   There still could be another
reason. But, in order for him to move on, we need to solve the mystery.”
    “A murderer,” Rosie said. “I signed a house contract with a
murderer.   Why they