The Grayson house was a little isolated, but there were
neighbors within a few hundred feet from it.  The ones
that were old enough to remember the fire remembered
very little about the Grayson family.  They were always
secretive even before the fire.  One elderly lady at one of
the houses mentioned a family named Jones used to live
in a house fairly close to the Graysons.  She remembered:
“Their house was so run down, they finally just moved
out.  Some of them are now living out near Midway.  
Farmers used that old house as a corncrib for their cattle
feed until one day it just fell down in a storm.  Gerald
Jones, that’s his name.  He was about the same age as the
girls that were killed in the fire.”  I did find Gerald Jones
in the phonebook.  So I went to pay the gentleman a visit.


Mr. Jones was very nice.  He invited me in and offered me
a soft drink.  I accepted since I figured this would help
break the ice.  I asked him to tell me what he knew about
the Graysons and the fire.  Mr. Jones went on: “Our
family used to live right beside the Graysons.  Doris
Grayson was a pretty girl who was in my grade, but a
different class at school.  Then her cousin, Greg Grayson,
came to live with them.  His parents had been killed in an
automobile accident several years before the fire, and the
Graysons were his only kin.  He was a grade ahead of
Doris and me.  There was something weird about that boy;
he used to scare me.  Still does, for that matter.  I tried to
make friends with Doris, but she just didn’t want anything
to do with me.  She didn’t have any other friends at
school.  I always wondered why she wouldn’t want me as a
friend.  She appeared be aggravated with me, so I didn’t
pursue the matter.  She seemed to be a different girl on
some days.  She wouldn’t remember things people had
talked to her about on the previous day.  She seemed to be
hiding something.  Then on the night of the fire, they
found two girls.”


Mr. Jones continued: “I figured that the other girl was a
twin to Doris.  I used to refer to her as ‘Daisy’.  I surmised
they alternated going to school so both could get an
education.  I mentioned this possibility to my father who
became very angry.  He said that was nonsense, and if I
started talking like that, people would think our whole
family was crazy and disrespectable toward the deceased.  
He said if he ever heard that again I would get the worse
whipping of my life.  My father was not one to make idle
boasts.  He meant every word of what he said.  He ruled
our family with an iron fist, but if you did what he said,
you were okay.  Actually my father was a good religious
man; he was just real strict.”


Then I said: “Mr. Jones, how did you pull off that caper at
the cemetery last night?”  He responded: “You liked that,
did you?  I had to get your attention.  I know you used to
live in Rockingham back just before this time, and that
you are working on a book.  I figured if I could get an
outsider, like you, interested; we might make some
headway.  I’ve often thought of going to the sheriff or the
police and tell them what I have festering inside me.  But
they would think I was nuts.  I figured you would have
some way to find out about things.  I would’ve liked to
have hired a private investigator, but do you have any idea
how expensive they are?  I think that cousin Greg was the
culprit.  He was weird back then, and he’s weird today.  
But I don’t know how to tie him in with the fire.  He was
the only one who escaped the fire with no harm.  Mrs.
Gladys Grayson, the girl’s mother, had some minor burns,
but he had nothing.  Old man Norman Grayson had died
back during the War, World War II to be exact.  He died
just a few months before Doris was born according to my
mother.  He was much older than his wife.  Oh, by the
way, those were my two granddaughters.  One of my sons
rents an apartment near your boarding house.  He has a
bad habit of listening in on people’s cell phone
conversations with his scanner.  That’s how we knew you
were going to be at the graveyard last night.”  I thanked
Mr. Jones for the information and for the entertainment
at the cemetery.  I now had a plot, but what was the
motive?  I asked John and Caroline to have dinner with
me that evening at the same restaurant so we could hash
out the new information.  


They both showed up for dinner.  Caroline gave me some
bad news.  It seems Mr. Davenport published an article
that I claimed to have seen two ghosts at the Eastside
Cemetery.  That will make life difficult for me, as people
will now think I’m a Looney-tune.  Plus it may deny total
credit of the story for Caroline.  That’s tough since she’s
put in a lot of work on this story.  Despite the setback, the
three of us went to work with what we had.  I reviewed my
conversation with Mr. Gerald Jones and the other
neighbors with them.   


John said: “Why would someone deny the birth of a twin?  
Mr. Greg Grayson has lived in that house as a recluse for
the past fifty years.  How does he fit in?”  Then I
responded that as far as the neighbors knew, Mr. Greg
Grayson never had a job, never went to work, but always
seemed to have all the money he needed.  The question is:
how does Mr. Grayson make a living?  That is a fairly nice
house, but not one that would house the wealthy.  Did Mr.
Greg Grayson inherit some money?  Had Doris not died in
the fire, would she have inherited the money instead?”  
Then Caroline inserted this thought: “We need to go to
the Courthouse and look at the probate records of both
Mrs. Grayson and her husband, Mr. Norman Grayson.  
They keep public records forever, you know?”  So we
finished our dinner, and agreed to meet again tomorrow
morning at the courthouse.  They serve pretty good food
at the restaurants here in Rockingham.  John said: “I
wonder how they make any money?”  I quickly replied:
“They charge you a lot more for the evening meal than for
the noon meal, even if you eat the exact same thing both
times.”   


Reporters really know what they are doing and how to
research things.  Caroline’s hunch was correct.  In Mr.
Norman Grayson’s (Doris’ father) will was an unusual
provision.  He was over thirty years older than his wife,
Mrs. Gladys Grayson.  He was dying of heart failure as he
reworded his will in his own handwriting.  He knew his
wife was a expecting a child, and he must have been very
jealous of her love.  He did have a small fortune of about
one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars, which
would have the spending power about eight times than
much in today’s money.  He left a provision that in order
for his wife to inherit his money, she could not get
remarried or have more than one child until fifteen years
after his death.  They must have had a prenuptial
agreement; otherwise, a man has to leave at least the
house and half his estate to his wife.  In the birth
announcement for Doris, the paper said she was delivered
by a midwife at the home of the mother.  So how did
Gladys hide the second child from the midwife?  Maybe
Gladys ran her off after the first birth.  So how much time
has to elapse between the first birth, and the second birth
of a twin?  And can the mother control this to a certain
extent?  It is more logical that Gladys bribed the midwife
into silence.  At the probate of Gladys’ estate in the mid
1960’s, everything went to Greg Grayson since he was the
only living kin, as Gladys died intestate (without a will).  
So Mr. Jones’ hypothesis seemed to hold water so far.


Now we have a motive for Mr. Greg Grayson to start the
fire that burned his two cousins to death.  But if Mr. Greg
Grayson escaped the fire, why didn’t Doris and her sister
“Daisy” survive the fire.  Could Mr. Grayson have drugged
them?  You couldn’t go out and buy illegal drugs back
then as easily as you can today.  Ms. Gladys Grayson was
in ill health most of the time since her husband died.  
Could she have had some medicine such as sleeping pills
that Greg could have used to make his cousins sleep
through a house fire?  If that were so, there would still be
traces of this drug in the corpses.  So off we went to see
the County Corner.


This meeting didn’t go well at all.  First, he laughed and
asked me if I had seen any more ghosts lately.  Then when
we did finally ask him if the bodies could be exhumed and
autopsied, he laughed at us again and said: “You can’t just
go around digging up dead people on a fool theory.  You
have to have evidence.  Also, you would have to have the
permission of the next of kin, which in this case would be
Mr. Greg Grayson.  In any event, after all this time, you
would need a court order to exhume bodies even with the
next of kin’s consent.”


We gathered on a bench outside the courthouse to collect
our thoughts.  Then Caroline said: “Let’s go see old Judge
Coventry.  He’s been helpful to me in the past.  He will at
least tell us what we have to provide in the form of
evidence.”  John responded: “That coroner may be
protecting his father who was also the county coroner
before him.  He wouldn’t want to allow something that
might show his father as incompetent.”


So we went back into the Courthouse to see Judge
Coventry.  Caroline was right about him in two respects.  
One, he was old.  Second, he was nice and helpful.  He
listened to our story.  He responded that we would need
some evidence before we could exhume a body.  We
pointed out that DNA testing today could determine if the
two girls were twins or at least sisters.  He said as he
turned back to his work: “Bring me some evidence.  There
is no statute of limitations on murder.”


To be continued...