Chapter Two       -Church registers of births, baptisms, marriages and deaths, school records, military records, land grant maps, cemetery records and headstones, organizational memberships, tax and census record...

Author’s Notes Chapter One Genealogy: the piecing together the puzzle of ancestors. Or completely reinventing them, if necessary.     .      Kate Thornton felt her face turn as red as the wallet that wasn’t in her tote bag. Digging through the contents, she dumped her address book, two lipsticks, and a hair-brush on the counter, displacing the fried pork rinds and Copenhagen snuff.  Her cell-phone chirped as she added it to the pile. &ldqu...

Chapter Six My eyes blinked as they grew accustomed to the diminished light. The body didn’t move; the chest didn’t rise and fall with slow shallow breaths; no pulse throbbed in the artery at the base of the neck. I sidled closer and reached out to shake her shoulder. “Lady, lady, are you all right?” Remembered from a CPR class taken years before. The woman looked familiar, maybe a much older version of Kay Hollowell, with the same cheekbones, but more wrinkles, more sagging skin on her face ...

Synopsis: Shadows in the Moss: A Liberty Oak Mystery Brittan Lee Hayworth has been waiting forty years to hear from her best friend, Beth Ann Hamilton. Missing since 1963, Beth Ann Hamilton was presumed dead in the same tragic accident that killed Brittan Lee’s father and the young black civil activist, Ebon Johnson. Johnson had been accused of kidnapping the two girls and Brittan Lee’s father died trying to save them. The town mourned the loss of the mayor and Beth Ann; and blamed Brittan Le...

For almost forty years, pianist Brittan Lee Hayworth lived in a self-imposed exile from her childhood hometown. When her long-lost best friend resurfaces, literally and figuratively- in the rusted hulk of a 1958 Chevy Bel-Air dredged from the bottom of Liberty River, Brittan Lee must return to Georgia to say good-bye to her friend and put to rest the demons of her childhood. In Shadows in the Moss: A Liberty Oak Mystery, the characters drive the story , set on the Georgia coast. It will appe...

Chapter Four The children laughed when I fell backwards and landed on my rump. “Kelvin, is your grammy sick?” I asked as the other children helped me up. “No ma’am, she just old,” he said, a tear starting to make its way out of his left eye. “She real old. She say she ready, but she can’t die yet.” I dug in my pockets and found a tissue. “Honey, what can I do to help her? Is she in the hospital?” “She’s visiting my sister in Vidalia.” I lost my balance and fell over again, startled by the adu...

Chapter Three Mama’s parlor clock chimed twice as my cell phone chirped a reminder note. “Mama?” I headed towards the kitchen where I suspected Mama and Trulee would be planning supper. Mama designed the kitchen in her new house for cooking, baking and entertaining her family. A six-burner cooktop with a built-in grill held center-stage in the granite work island. Double ovens gleamed from the built-in honey pine cabinets. She and Trulee loved trying out new ways for cooking anything. “Mama,...

Chapter Two The fried chicken, pimento cheese sandwiches and pound cakes that every southern woman brings to the grieving family competed for space on the dining room table with the miniature quiches, stuffed mushrooms and baked Brie provided by the caterer. Mama offered to host the post-funeral gathering as had Michael’s father, my brother, Jack, since Vicky’s family was relatively new to Liberty. The Hollowells insisted it was their place to hold the traditional reception. I watched Jack as...

The First Baptist Church Childrens’ Choir turned panicked eyes toward my niece, Vicky as her sobs filled the sanctuary becoming louder and louder as her grief escaped. Without warning, she tore herself away from her parents’ arms, pushed aside the wreathes draped with baby blue sashes and threw herself over the tiny white casket in the front of the church aisle, almost knocking it to the floor. “Brittan Lee! Brittan Lee! Play something!” My best friend, Tansy, who also happened to be the choi...