Open House by Pat Welch

To most people, a call in the middle of the night means family trouble. But Helen Black's family disowned her years ago. But the call is indeed from Helen's family. Great Aunt Ruth has passed on, and, inexplicably, left Helen her house.

And so Helen journeys from Berkeley, from partner Frieda, to return to her roots in Mississippi. To look once more into the face of the father who repudiated her. Into the face of the woman who was her childhood sweetheart and is now a cop.

But Helen finds far more than she could ever imagine. A dying grandfather, and small town secrets, one of them contained in the very house that is now hers. She finds murder, and submerged intrigue that harkens all the way back to a deeply stained period of history in the American south.

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From Library Journal
Apprised of a bequest from her great-aunt Ruth, ex-police officer Helen Black returns home to Mississippi for the first time since her father kicked her out 15 years earlier. While looking at the house her great-aunt left her, Helen and local policewoman Beth (Helen's first love) discover a body-related perhaps to a series of racially motivated murders of young black women. Providing too little transition, too few details, lack of depth, and a less than fully formed plot, Welch fails this time to provide her best. Only for series fans.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.