Defending the Dead (Relatively Dead Mysteries Book 3) by Sheila Connolly Page A

surface until recently, as you well know. I do wonder if there’s some happy medium point between sober and sloshed that might open the door a little more. We could try that.”
    “We could. Or one of us could stay sober and test the other who’s drinking, to observe the changes. And then we trade places, on another day, of course.”
    “Maybe,” Abby agreed, and ate another forkful of her dinner. “What about drugs?”
    “What about them? Have I tried them? Are there some that might be useful in this investigation? Well, if I recall correctly, there were some rather interesting mushrooms, back when I was in college, but most pharmaceuticals didn’t appeal to me, and weed made me stupid, which I didn’t enjoy. It must be more than fifteen years since I experimented with anything.”
    “I understand some things have changed,” Abby said demurely. “Not that I have any firsthand knowledge, of course. I have lived a very sheltered life.”
    “Well, we can table those ideas for later consideration. Will that do?”
    “Fine. I just thought we should think about it. If we’re going to be systematic about this.”
    “I agree. So, what were you working on today?”
    “Mostly I tried pushing the Reed line back. We’ve got our shared Reeds pretty well mapped out, I think, though there were a lot of matrilineal lines I never had a chance to look at. But it’s slow work, and so far I’ve only added one generation and a new surname.”
    “Maybe you’re going at this the wrong way,” Ned suggested.
    “What do you mean?” Abby felt miffed—after all, she’d done more genealogy research than he had, so how could he criticize? She struggled to quash it.
    “If you’re trying to build a trail back to Salem, why not start with the people we know were involved there and work forward?” he suggested.
    Abby said neutrally, “I thought about that and figured that would be cheating. But given how long it’s taking me, you may be right. All that material has been very well researched, and a lot of it is available online. If I dig up that list, then I’ll recognize a name if I stumble over it in the more recent lines. You know, I think I need a corkboard or whiteboard or whatever people are using these days, so I can see all this in front of me and keep it straight.”
    “That’s easy. Just tell me how big. And is there dessert?”
    “Of course. Ice cream. I’m too busy to bake.”
    “Got it. I’ll do the dishes first.”
    Yes, he was a wonderful man. While he was busy, Abby wandered back to her laptop in the formal dining room. She already knew that most of the original sources about the witch trials had been transcribed and posted online, and sure enough, there was a list of those accused, as well as those who did the accusing and the prosecuting. And that was just the official ones. There could have been others who were suspected but never arrested or brought to trial—or officials had gotten so overwhelmed within a short period that the record keeping had gotten sloppy. Still, the entire list wasn’t more than two hundred names. It wasn’t like hunting for a single war criminal among an entire army or something like that. Abby printed the list out. And then Ned appeared bearing two bowls of ice cream, and that put an end to her research for the evening.
     
    • • •
     
    The next morning she felt restless. Some small part of her resented that Ned had a job to go to, one over which he had a lot of control, since it was his company. But that wasn’t fair: he did listen to what she said about what she was working on, and he’d made some good suggestions. She should feel lucky that she had the time to dig into her research, because a lot of people didn’t have that luxury. And she’d better get her derriere in gear, because she didn’t plan to be a lady of leisure forever.
    So, what were the names of the accused at Salem? Or, no, maybe she was starting at the wrong place. Abby, focus! Pick one approach