The Witch’s Daughter
A
Cavendish Brown Mystery
Book
1
Ron
D. Voigts
Genre:
Paranormal Mystery
Publisher:
Champagne Book Group
Date
of Publication: March 2, 2015
ISBN:
978-1-77155-176-2
ASIN:
B00U0W28LC
Number
of pages: 219
Word
Count: 72K
Cover
Artist: Ellie Smith
Book
Description:
Investigative
reporter and recent widower, Cavendish Brown, is unemployed and
floundering. Coerced into returning to his childhood home by the
town's eccentric matriarch, Cavendish finds himself involved in
murder, deceit, and a not-so-subtle attempt at matchmaking.
Joined
by Jane, a disturbed psychic, and Alexandra, a young Goth woman with
uncanny abilities, they follow leads into the hills of West Virginia
to catch the killer. A sheriff who shoots first and asks questions
later makes solving the case difficult for the trio. Adding further
complications is an ex-girlfriend with a mob hitman on her trail who
seeks Cavendish’s help.
Immersed
in a never-ending spiral of clues and secrets, he must unlock the
darkness that surrounds the enigmatic Jane, stay ahead of the law,
and come to terms with his own grief.
Excerpt:
I
stood on the spot with the shovel we had found earlier, staring at
the ground where Jane told me to dig. My heart pounded in my chest,
and I considered whether this was a good idea. “If a body is here,
it might have been buried a hundred years ago. People do die and are
buried. It could be sacrilegious to uproot somebody. There are laws
about doing things like that.”
Alex
sat on the chopping block. She took a long draw on her cigarette,
exhaled the smoke and watched it linger in the still air. “I’m
sure whoever it is won’t mind.”
How
stupid would it sound to tell anyone I was out in the woods with a
chain smoking Goth girl and a psychic who could divine the past by
touch, digging up a body? If one was buried here, it may lead to a
story. The headlines would read “Editor, Goth Girl and Psychic Dig
Up Civil War Hero.”
I
took a deep breath and scooped out the first shovel of dirt, paused
and peered in the hole. No body. I dug and tossed a few more spades
full. Nothing. I scooped out more earth, still finding nothing. My
pace became less ginger. Dig. Toss. Dig Toss. Dig. Thud!
Whatever
I hit seemed solid. I worked the shovel more carefully, taking
smaller bites of dirt. Something pale contrasted against the dark
earth. Using the tip of the shovel, I moved aside more ground until I
exposed something long and slender. I’d seen skeletons pictured on
anatomy charts at the doctor’s office and more than a few body
parts while in Afghanistan, doing a stint in the Army, but I was no
expert on bones. “I found a tibia or maybe a femur.”
Alex
tossed her cigarette, ran over to the hole and stared into it. She
knelt down and brushed back dirt with her hand. “It’s a root.”
“Can’t
be.”
She
grabbed it, and what looked like a bone bent as she tugged on it. I
knelt next to her and examined it closer. It sure looked like a root.
Jane,
who had been poking a stick at something in the grass, came over and
pointed to a spot about two feet over. “Dig here. Not there.”
I
repositioned myself and began digging again, wondering how many more
roots I would dig up that looked like bones.
The
air grew heavy, and my clothing damp as I dug. The sounds of the
forest became distant, and all I heard was the shovel striking the
ground and my heart beating. The last time I’d worked up a sweat
digging a hole was boot camp at Fort Jackson. I didn’t like it
then, and my current sentiments were the same. I tossed a shovel full
of dirt and spotted something.
Rather
than shout for Alex and discover I had found another root, I took it
and rubbed the soil away. Definitely this had to be a bone. Picking
through the dirt, I found more bones, like from a chicken.
Alex
came over and looked down into the hole. “Phalanges or
metacarpals.”
Surprised
she’d know the correct names, I stared at her. “Really?”
“I
took an anatomy class in college.”
I
stepped back and let Alex pick around in the hole. She found more
small bones and sorted them on the ground until they began to form
the arrangement of a hand. “I’d say a body is buried there.”
Alex
took the shovel and removed dirt from the excavation. She took her
time and paused occasionally to peer into the hole. Where I was a
bulldozer plowing through the soil, she worked more like a seasoned
archeologist on a dig.
As
a reporter on the Gazette, I often teetered on the fine line
separating legal from criminal. My informants were druggies, boosters
and mechanics. I’d done interviews at crack houses, brothels and
chop shops. When I came to Maiden Falls, I figured those days were
behind me. Things here would be safe, mundane and predictable. Yet,
here I was, digging up a dead body.
Alex
found more small bones and placed them with the first ones. “Hey,
we keep this up we’ll have a complete Mr. Bones in no time.”
A
chill passed through me. This was a Frankenstein movie, and we were
the grave robbers. We’d take the body parts to the mad scientist
and get a bag of coins. Things could not be creepier, and I really
didn’t want to see a dead body, even if the flesh had already gone
to the worms.
We
took turns digging, and I worked more cautiously. Alex did the
detailed stuff like cleaning the dirt off the bones and arranging
them with the others. She named them as she found them. Humerus.
Ulna. Clavicle.
“Were
you pre-med at college?”
“No.”
Jane
sat in the grass nearby and watched. She seemed indifferent about the
body we unearthed, and I speculated what conditions had molded such a
strange being.
“Look
here.” I pulled back a tattered shirt and pointed to a broken rib.
“Looks like someone shot him.”
Alex
looked closer. “Maybe.”
“Do
you have a better explanation?”
The
trauma of seeing exposed human bones no longer seemed as threatening.
I stood back and let Alex continue the exhumation. I feared the
moment when we’d get to the head. A grinning skull with hollow eyes
gave me a chill.
About
the Author:
Originally
from the Midwest, Ron D. Voigts calls North Carolina where he and
wife have a home just off the Neuse River. Ron’s writes dark
mysteries with a supernatural flair, but his reading in more eclectic
tending towards whatever catches his interest. When not writing and
reading, he enjoys watching gritty movies, playing games on the PC,
and cooking gourmet meals.
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