Wilmington, NC 04 - Murder At Wrightsville Beach

the table and withdrew a pen from my shirt pocket. "Let me make some notes, Kelly. Tell me about the house, what you know about its history. The information will help me with the decisions we have to make. We might even apply for a plaque from the Historic Wilmington Foundation."
    "Oh, I'd love to have one of those. Sure. I know more about the family history than mother does. Grandpa Joe was always talking about the old days, and I couldn't help but pick up the details. He had a tendency to repeat himself as he got older."
    "He was actually your great-grandfather, wasn't he?"
    "Yes, my mother's mother's father. That would be my grandmother Peggy whom I never knew. Now she was the queen of high drama if ever there was one, but I'll save that tale of woe for another time."
    "Do you know when he bought this house?" I asked, pen poised.
    "He had it built, Ashley. In nineteen twenty-five. For some ridiculous sum like ten thousand dollars. Can you imagine? It's worth hundreds of thousands now."
    She continued while I made notes. "Grandpa Joe's father was a farmer. He had a big farm not very far from here actually, a hundred acres or so. He had dairy cows and chickens and raised vegetables which he sold. So when Grandpa Joe was young he had the idea to open a grocery store here in town, an outlet for the farm's produce. And it was successful. He and my great-grandmother Marty were already married and their first child, my great-uncle William, had already been born when Grandpa Joe built this house."
    "And he lived in it until he died?"
    "Lived to the ripe old age of ninety-four. I was twenty when he died, and living in New York with my parents, but during high school, I lived here with him. He may have been old but he was as sharp as a tack. Yet he dwelled in the past; it obsessed him. Especially the war. I think the war must have been a challenging and exciting time for this town."
    "And he managed to hold onto this house through the Depression?"
    "Yes, and he held onto the grocery store and the farm too. He always told me that our family survived because people couldn't do without milk and eggs so he was able to sit tight until things got better. Then his father died and left him the farm. The whole family moved out there and worked it. They lived at the old farm house during planting season and harvest. Grandpa Joe would get up at four, do the farm work, supervise the hired hands, then drive into town and run the grocery store all day. He was something!"
    "He was," I agreed. And probably thought nothing of it, I mused. People of his generation did what they had to do and did not complain. "So there was your great-uncle William, and your grandmother Peggy, and their mother Marty, and they all lived and worked on the farm?"
    "Correct. Now William, there's another tragic story." She shook her head. "Between William and Peggy and their problems, then losing his wife Marty when she was in her prime, Grandpa Joe must have hit rock bottom. But he held onto his sanity by devoting himself with a passion to the family he had left and the farm and the store."
    "How does your uncle J.C. fit in?" I asked.
    "J.C. is not really my uncle, he's my great-uncle. He's William's and Peggy's younger brother. About twelve years younger than William. Let's see, Uncle J.C. is only ten years older than mother so that would make him sixty-nine."
    I scribbled on my pad. "He was born in nineteen thirty-six?"
    "Sounds right. The war started in nineteen forty-two and Marty died in nineteen forty-seven. She had become reclusive, staying out at the farm almost full time. All the farm workers had gone off to war so she had a big job on her hands. Grandpa said she worried terribly about William and working the farm seemed to distract her."
    "How sad," I said.
    "Yes it was. You see, William was reported MIA, that's 'missing in action,' then later was reported as taken prisoner. My family has had a lot of grief. You can see it in my mother's face. She's always got that sad glint in her eyes.
    "What saved the farms were the German POWs the government brought to Wilmington. They were a godsend to the farmers. They worked on the farms, helping the farmers. So my great-grandparents had the hands they needed to save the farm. And even though William was a prisoner of the Germans, and strange as it seems, Marty got very attached to those German boys."
    Kelly gave her long silky hair a shake. "Doesn't make sense, but that's what Grandpa Joe told me. He said she