It was a spring day when Darcy and Flora went to Goshen Cemetery. It was a little later than it is now–May, in fact. It would soon be time for the annual Decoration Day at the Cemetery and Flora, being on the Cemetery Board, wanted to make sure everything was in readiness.
Birds sang, the sun felt warm, although there may have been an underlying chill in the air and the sky, just to the west, had a strange, yellowish cast to it, there was nothing about the lovely day that even hinted of the horror that waited. Darcy and her mother Flora went about being sure trash was picked up, grass had been mowed, and Goshen Cemetery was as welcoming as this sad place could ever be.
Darcy smiled as Flora walked among the graves, remembering this one or that one–friends she had known or people who had settled Ventris County years ago, bringing the small town of Levi into existence. Neither woman was expecting the sudden and unbelievable sight that lay in the oldest part of the graveyard–a pile of brush, which certainly looked out of place, but not as unthinkable as the object on top of the brush.
A body! A dead body lay on top of a stack of limbs and dirt, only partially covered. One shock led to another as Flora discovered the poor person treated so callously was her old friend Ben, quite dead. As if this were not enough, the sky above them had darkened and ominous thunder rumbled through the clouds. A smattering of rain, a strange stillness, as if heaven held its breath, then the wind came.
Darcy and Flora battled their way through the storm to Goshen’s small, stone chapel, fearing that one of Oklahoma’s deadly tornadoes was bearing down on them.
One shock leads to another as The Cemetery Club begins on a note of tension which doesn’t let up throughout this first cozy mystery by Blanche Day Manos and Barbara Burgess. A mystery that’ll keep you up at night.
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