The Buzzard Table by Margaret Maron Page B

leaves.
    Although she could discuss blood spatter patterns and blunt trauma wounds knowledgeably, Sigrid Harald was, as a rule, oblivious to nature and its cycles. She knew that the sun and the moon rose in the east and set in the west and that water usually flowed downhill, that winter required heavier clothing than summer, that daylight lengthened in the spring and shortened in the fall, ergo the nuisance of daylight saving time. If pressed, she could distinguish a rose from a daisy and a fir tree from an oak, and she could even recognize magnolias because one grew in her grandmother’s front yard. Its branches spread out from the base of the trunk and continued upward for sixty feet. She knew that the thick leathery leaves stayed green year round and were made into wreaths and garlands at Christmastime, even though the huge white blossoms of summer were unsuitable for indoor bouquets.
    As far as she was concerned a more intimate knowledge of nature seemed superfluous. Anything else could be Googled. Wasn’t that what the Internet was for?
    But she was very much aware of her mother’s deepening sadness as Grandmother Lattimore’s condition deteriorated day by day; so when Anne remarked on the beauty of a bare-twigged tree silhouetted against the winter sky, she was willing to keep the conversational ball rolling. “Is that an oak or a maple?”
    “Oak,” said Anne, who could even distinguish the pines, which all looked alike to Sigrid.
    “What about those?” Sigrid asked when they passed a group of trees shrouded in gray, dead-looking vines. “Grapevines or poison oak?”
    “Neither. That’s kudzu. Did I forward you that picture that someone sent me last summer? The vine that went up a light pole and then leafed out at the top and along the wires on either side?”
    “The one they said looked like Christ on the cross?”
    “That’s the one.”
    Sigrid smiled. “I guess if they can see the head of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich, why not on a power pole?”
    “Don’t laugh. This is our heritage,” Anne said. “And speaking of our heritage…”
    She slowed and turned into the drive of a large white house, then came to a stop as soon as the car was off the pavement. The driveway continued on past tall magnolias and ancient oaks and curved up to a set of tall fluted columns that ended in Doric scrolls.
    “Tara?” Sigrid asked dryly.
    “Gilead,” her mother answered. “Your grandmother could say when our Gilberts branched off from the ones who inherited the place. I think it was her grandfather who was the younger son. He got money while his brother got Gilead, back before the Civil War.”
    “Who owns it now?”
    “Kate Bryant’s adopted daughter.”
    “Really? How did that happen?”
    “It’s a long and complicated story and I forget most of the details. Get Kate to tell you if you’re interested. * Short version: Mary Pat’s mother was a Gilbert and the house was falling to pieces when she married a man with a ton of money. He restored it as a wedding present.”
    “Some present,” Sigrid said.
    * See Bloody Kin .
    “Both died before Mary Pat was four,” Anne said sadly. “Kate was the child’s closest relative through the father’s side, which is why she was given custody. Everything’s in trust for the little girl, including Gilead.”
    “Poor kid,” Sigrid said.
    Anne shook her head in wry amusement. “Not everyone considers a large inheritance a burden, honey.”
    She backed out of the drive onto the road again, drove about a hundred feet, then turned left into a rough dirt lane that cut through fields green with winter rye.
    “Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Sigrid asked as they bumped over the rutted track.
    “Sorry, but this is the only way I know how to get to the Ferrabee place.”
    The lane dipped down past a boxy wooden structure and Anne explained that they were now on Kate’s farm. “This used to be a packhouse, but Kate’s converted it into a