The Last Of Their Line

by Robin Hazard Ray

About the Author: Robin Hazard Ray's short mystery fiction has twice earned Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Award of Sisters in Crime New England. Her new murder mystery, “The Strangers’ Tomb” is set in Cambridge’s historic Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Excerpt

Like many disasters in the life of Sumner Bascomb, this one began with a letter.

As superintendent of Mount Auburn Cemetery, Boston’s leading burial ground, Bascomb was used to getting odd letters. This one, he noted, bore a postage stamp that was a generation old. Its message was inked with an old-school quill pen in a shaky hand.

April 14, 1857

To Whom It May Concern,

I wish to purchase from Mount Auburn Cemetery a family lot of whatever size will accommodate 24 or more persons. This may be effected at once, as the location of said plot within the cemetery and the cost thereof are immaterial. My attorney, J. Jessup, at the firm of P—, J—, and F—has authority to disburse the necessary funds.

Furthermore, I instruct the officials of the cemetery to arrange for the immediate disinterment of my family from the Burying Ground adjacent to Trinity Church in Boston [here he gave the name and address of the sexton], and their re-interment in the new plot.

As space will be at a premium, I direct that the remains be removed from their coffins, which have likely deteriorated, and assembled by family group in ten new caskets that I have ordered from the firm of Gibb Brothers, in Arlington. The sexton will have a list of the interred and their relations, but to avoid any error I enclose an outline of the family tree, specifying who belongs with whom.

Yours etc.

Thos. Damon

Chestnut Street, Boston

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