Bitter Harvest by Sheila Connolly Page B

elderly sisters she had met years ago, who had left the house and land to her mother, their distant niece. Back through their parents and grandparents, to Eli Warren the carpenter, whom Seth said had been responsible for some substantial remodeling in the house in the nineteenth century, to his father (also Eli), and his father Stephen, and finally his father, likewise Stephen, who had built the house. Eli the younger had been the head of household in the years around 1800, with his wife Orpha—interesting name, that—and their three children. That gave Meg a place to start.
    But there were no Coxes on this chart. Meg riffled through the other papers and found no reference to any other Coxes, in any time period. So much for the easy route. Maybe a daughter? But Eli the elder had had only one daughter, according to what her mother had found, and she had married a Dickinson. Now Meg was stuck. She would have to go at identifying Violet Cox by some other route, and that would take some more research.
    Her thinking was interrupted by Max, who began barking frantically and pawing at the closed door to the kitchen. “You can’t be that hungry, Max. You need to go out?”
    In reply Max whined and turned in circles, watching her.
    “Okay, okay, I’ll take you out.” Meg pulled open the door to the kitchen, and Max rushed past her to stand by the outer door, quivering with eagerness. “Hang on, pal—I have to put on boots and a coat and all that stuff.” He watched her pull on outer garments, whining. In a corner of her mind Meg noted that this was not his usual “I gotta go” behavior—he seemed peculiarly anxious. Since she wasn’t the one who usually walked him, she wasn’t prepared when she opened the door and he rushed past her, almost knocking her down. “Max, wait!” she said, afraid he’d head for the road, or escape altogether.
    To her surprise he didn’t bolt, but waded purposefully through the snow that all but covered his head, toward the back of the house. Meg followed as best she could. Seth hadn’t shoveled here—why would he?—and it wasn’t easy going, but Max seemed very determined. When she made it around the back of the shed, she found Max turning in circles again beneath the back window of one of the rooms on the west side of the house—one of the ones she never used. She didn’t understand what had gotten him so excited, until she looked down and saw footprints—human footprints, made by someone wearing what she now recognized as snowshoes. She looked around quickly and didn’t see anyone moving. But the footprints lead both toward and away from the house, toward the back of the property and into the woods. She followed them with her eyes as far as she could see, but there was no point in actually trying to track them—she’d never make it through the thigh-deep snow. Could it have been Seth who made them? But why would he have been at the back of the house? There was only one set of doggy-prints, from Max’s recent headlong dash. No, Seth hadn’t walked him here. It must have been someone else.
    But who? And why?
    Max, frustrated, trotted back to the cleared part of the driveway and laid his signature on a snowdrift, then turned back to her expectantly. Time to go in, she guessed. Still, why would anyone be lurking around the back of her house? Suddenly she was glad that Max was there. He was large, and he could be loud, even though in reality he wouldn’t hurt a mouse.
    She whistled to get his attention, then opened the door for him to go into the kitchen. She followed more slowly—and made sure to lock the door behind her.

9
    Back inside, Meg made the rounds of her windows, making sure that they all were latched. That wasn’t saying much, since most of the windows were held shut by antique latches, and the sashes were so loose that anyone could slip a knife in and shift a latch. It hadn’t troubled her before, mainly because although her house was relatively isolated from