Dead on the Vine

by Elle Brooke White

  That started another round of snickering and guffawing.

  “I bet that he already knows.” Charlotte was finally able to get control to speak. “After my almighty upbraiding, I’m sure that Annabel went ‘wee-wee-weeping’ all the way home! And let’s not forget the bill I left for him. They’re probably plotting their revenge as we speak.”

  This time there was no controlling the roars of laughter. Charlotte watched Horse make an attempt to say “wee,” and even Mrs. Robinson, who had returned from her duties and joined Horse for dinner, had a bemused look on her face. Or so Charlotte assumed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Once dinner was cleaned up, everyone headed off for bed. They would have an early start in the morning.

  “Goodnight, my BFF,” Charlotte said, giving Diane a hug. “I can’t tell you how special it is to have you by my side with all of this. I don’t know what I’d do without you and Beau.”

  “Funny you say that, because my dear brother and I feel the same way about you. We talked about it the other day. Life would be so much easier for you if you got out from under this farm and moved in with me. I’ve got plenty of room, and then we could see you everyday!”

  “Where is this coming from? I thought you loved it here. You said that it was so peaceful.” Charlotte couldn’t believe Diane.

  “I did, but it sure isn’t now. There’s hostility around every corner of the place. Someone may have tried to kill you in the cellar, and when that didn’t work, tried to drown you in the lake. There are people coming out of the woodwork plotting to take the farm away from you. And now that we suspect that Marcus was one of those people, it shows that someone wants it bad enough to kill for it. This is just not a safe place for you, Charlotte, I know that it’s hard to hear, but it’s time for you to move to safer ground. Beau agrees.”

  “Wow—I don’t know what to say. And after such a beautiful day and evening. I suggest that you go to bed unless you are too afraid to stay the night. And I’ve got some thinking of my own to do.”

  “Charlotte, don’t be this way. We love you and we’re worried about you.”

  “I can take care of myself, Diane. I always have. Come on, Horse, you’re going to take the first watch.”

  Charlotte stormed off to her room, visibly shaking with anger and more than a little fear.

  “Just when I’m getting control of this farm and getting close to solving the murder, Diane has to plant seeds of doubt and get negative,” Charlotte said to Horse as she discarded her clothes and donned a nightshirt.

  Horse listened intently and was the first to climb up the hope chest and then onto the bed.

  He’s had a long day too. Right now I just want to hug my sweet Horse and have sweet dreams.

  She set her alarm and turned out the lights. Charlotte was asleep as her head hit the pillow.

  * * *

  She was startled awake by the sounds of clomping on the outside patio’s Spanish paver tiles. She opened her eyes and waited for them to adjust to the dark. Charlotte looked over at Horse for his reaction, but he was sound asleep. Then she heard the sound of a snort. She could see the shadow of a large figure standing on the patio outside her French doors. Charlotte reached for the lamp switch, and just before she found it, she saw the unmistakable orange glow of someone smoking a cigarette. Charlotte let out a whimper and then heard sounds of horse hooves galloping away.

  Wade.

  She gripped the sheets and listened for what might come next. She fought exhaustion and considered getting up and going to investigate, but everyone had worked so hard today, and she didn’t want to wake them. Wade was long gone. There was continued silence from outside, if you discounted the rhythmic showy love song of chirping male crickets. The first night Charlotte had gone to bed on the farm, she’d had trouble tuning them out.

  Ah, my cricket friends, I’m not sure that I could fall asleep without you now.

  Then Horse jumped up and began a loud squealing in the pitch-black room. Charlotte scrambled to find the switch for the bedside lamp. The lamp’s dim bulb cast just enough light as she watched Horse slide another antique suitcase over to the ones he’d placed under the patio door handle.

  “Horse, what are you doing?”

  He gave her a wide-eyed look of pure terror and then climbed up the suitcases and attempted to turn the door handle. But Charlotte remembered locking it just before she went to sleep.

  Wade.

  The sounds and images of the horse and rider outside on the patio came rushing back to her, sending a fresh chill up her spine.

  Horse jumped up and down angrily on the top case, in frustration at not being able to open the door.

  It was then that Charlotte smelled the smoke.

  She grabbed a sweatshirt, threw on some shorts, and dashed to the patio door.

  Once she unlocked the French doors and stepped out back, she could see that the produce trucks were on fire. The Santa Ana winds were blowing the flames directly toward the barn.

  “Oh dear God, no!” Charlotte yelled. “Diane and Beau, wake up!”

  Before Charlotte could stop him, she saw Horse racing toward the livestock. Charlotte slipped on a pair of rubber boots that she spotted sitting outside the doors. They were too big but would have to do. Holding each boot by its top, she broke into a squatting run and followed Horse down to the paddock.

  There was an acrid, vinegary smell to the air as tomatoes broiled and plastic baskets melted. Charlotte remembered from a briefing for an ad for a fire alarm company that fire requires three things to survive: heat, fuel, and oxygen. And as soon as all the produce burned, the fire would go searching for fuel and certainly find the barn.

  When Charlotte reached the paddock, she saw Samuel battling the fire with a hose. He’d covered his nose and mouth with a red bandana to protect his lungs, and when he saw Charlotte, he moved toward her.

  “Here—put this on to help with the smoke,” he said, giving her his bandana. “And keep working the hose. I’m going to try to push these trucks away from the barn,” he shouted over the roar of flames licking the wooden truck bed dry.

  “But what if the fire hits the gas tank? The whole thing could explode!”

  “Hopefully that won’t happen,” Samuel yelled, his voice getting hoarse. He got into the cab of the first truck and must have put it in neutral, because Charlotte saw it start to roll.

  Joe rushed up and started pushing from the back as Charlotte continued dousing the flames around him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Alice grab another hose and go to work.

  I wonder where Beau and Diane are. They must have woken up, with all this noise and smoke.

  “The barn!” Alice shouted.

  Charlotte watched embers float onto the barn roof just as she had predicted, and redirected the water.

  The geese had woken up and were flying in formation—trying to shift the winds away from the barn, Charlotte guessed. She heard Horse let out loud, warning, growling oinks as he stood outside the barn doors.

  “Don’t you go in there, Horse!” Charlotte screamed as the little pig looked over his shoulder at her. She saw that he was torn between obeying her and running in to help save his friends. In the end, he resorted to more grunts and yelps, and, sure enough, the goats were the first to peek their heads out of the barn doors. The fire and the smell of whoever had set it must have scared them from coming out earlier.

  Following close behind them was Pele. Charlotte assumed that he had let himself out of his stall.

  “The fire’s out on the trucks, but the produce is gone, and we’ll have to rebuild the beds. We won’t know about the motors until we try to turn the engines, but I don’t want to do that until we’re sure that there are no live embers floating around.” Samuel looked tired and defeated; his eyes were red, and his face was streaked with smoke.

  “We’d better check the barn and make sure that there’s nothing in the rafters that could spark,” Joe said, looking about the same as Samuel.
“I see you two got the animals out to safety.”

  “We didn’t do it—Horse got them to come out!” Alice declared.

  “Well, I’ll be darned.” Joe smiled and shook his head, marveling at the pig.

  “Any chance that this fire was due to the strong winds tonight?” Alice asked Samuel.

  He shook his head. “The wind didn’t help, but we could smell gasoline all over the trucks. This was deliberately set.”

  “I was afraid of that, and I have a suspicion that Wade had something to do with it.” Charlotte felt a tear drop down her cheek. She coughed and pretended that it was from the smoke.

  “Oh my good Lord, is everybody okay?” Beau shouted, racing toward them in lime-green pajamas.

  “Charlotte!” Diane screamed. We called the fire department—they should be here in a couple of minutes. Are you hurt?”

  “You’d better call Chief Goodacre,” Samuel whispered to Charlotte before heading to the barn.

  After telling Beau and Diane what happened, she sent them back up to the farmhouse to wait for the fire department. Apparently, Beau was in pain from the day’s picking. He’d said it totally knocked him out. Diane was watching a cooking show on her tablet, and with her earphones in, she hadn’t heard a thing.

  Charlotte couldn’t help but wonder if it was a coincidence that the fire had happened after Beau and Diane showed up. Just like the murder. Then there was Wade, showing up on horseback just before the fire. She remembered smelling a cigarette and wondered if he’d used it to ignite the fire.

  Charlotte would need to check for horse hoof prints on the patio and in the dirt outside her bedroom window. And try to locate a cigarette butt. No one on the farm smoked, so it could hopefully be traced back to Wade. She walked up the hill with purpose, Horse at her heels.

  Then, of course, there were Serge and Annabel. If they were grudge-holding types, which they surely were, then they certainly had motive for setting the produce on fire. This was savage even for them, but to keep their hands clean, they might have assigned Wade the task. Diane was right when she’d said earlier that the threat of danger had been brought to a whole new level. People and animals could have died.

  Charlotte questioned whether this was the work of Marcus’s killer. It showed the same kind of anger. She needed to refine the list of suspects and find proof. Suddenly, the need to find the murderer was critical, before someone else died.

  Back in her room, Charlotte found her phone and dialed the chief’s number.

  Chapter Eighteen

  There wasn’t much for the firemen to do once they arrived, but they walked the area in a grid pattern, checking for hot spots and embers. They explained that one little hotspot could spark a fire that could destroy the barn and the farmhouse. A couple of them collected evidence from the burnt trucks but pretty much confirmed on the spot that the fire had been intentionally set with a gasoline accelerant.

  Charlotte watched Theresa make her way down the hill. She almost didn’t recognize the chief in plain clothes—it was the middle of the night after all.

  “Arson, is it boys?” Goodacre asked the firefighters.

  “Almost certainly,” he answered her.

  “Where’s Samuel? He nearby?” This time she posed the question to Charlotte.

  “Yes, I think he and Joe are in the barn.”

  “Let’s go find them.” The chief didn’t wait for a reply and instead traversed the paddock with purpose. Charlotte and Horse quickly trailed behind her.

  “There you are, Samuel. You keep gasoline around here for the tractors?”

  “Hello, Chief, thanks for coming.” The sadness in Samuel’s eyes was palpable. “I moved all the gas cans away from the barn and the animals after last year’s devastating fire. They’re down by my cabin, and I even built a crate so that I can keep them locked up. Just in case someone needs a fill-up and gets careless.”

  “That’s good to hear. Lead the way. We need to check to see if anyone broke into that crate. I’m desperate for some shred of evidence. Come with us, Charlotte. You said over the phone that you had several important discoveries to share with me.” The chief was in charge.

  Charlotte looked back at Diane and Beau talking to a firefighter. The fear in their faces seemed genuine. She would know: she’d watched their expressions nearly all her life, and often words were simply extraneous.

  “They look to be all here, and the crate’s intact,” Samuel said when they’d arrived at the spot. He illuminated it with the flashlight that he still held from searching for embers. “Why don’t we go in my cabin to talk? It’s the middle of summer, but the mist from the sea air always seems to bless us with cool nights in Little Acorn.”

  Charlotte knew that to be true. She was about to see Samuel’s inner sanctum for the first time, but she tried to hide her curiosity.

  “There’s a small living area. Seat yourselves on the sofa, and I can pull over a chair from the kitchen. I don’t really have guests in here,” Samuel told them, once inside.

  The place had a pitched roof that made the small space seem airy. On one wall was a stone fireplace with a dark oak mantle, similar to the wood that she’d seen in the cellar and just as old. One of the first things to strike Charlotte was that the place was so tidy and clean that you could eat off the floor. Samuel was never unkempt, but given the nature of his work, she wasn’t expecting this level of care.

  The wall opposite the fireplace contained built-in, floor-to-ceiling wood bookcases, filled so that there wasn’t even space for a field mouse to nap. Charlotte tried not to be nosy but couldn’t resist scanning some of the book titles. Many were leather-bound classics.

  “Your great-uncle gave most of these to me. You remember what a great teacher he was? I’ve read almost all of them by now. I think that Steinbeck is my favorite,” Samuel explained, catching Charlotte examining the shelves. He turned the chair that he’d brought into the tiny living room backward, straddled it, and rested his arms on the ladder back.

  “Okay, Charlotte, why don’t you lay your cards out on the table?” the chief suggested.

  Almost an hour later, Charlotte had told the chief about the run-in with Annabel, Serge’s thievery, the doctored books, and the invoice she’d given him. She finished with the accident in the lake basin and the incident in the root cellar.

  “It sounds like you’ve been through the mill, Charlotte.” The chief shook her head. “I’ll get my team out in the morning to inspect the trucks and see if they can pull any evidence, but I’m not optimistic. And I need to leave with the accounting books that you say Serge forged.”

  Charlotte nodded. “There’s more. Maybe.” Charlotte hung her head down, not knowing whether the next thing she was about to tell them was true or not.

  “Go on, honey—it’s just us here,” the chief said, and gave Samuel a look that said this was to be between the two of them.

  “With everything that has gone on the last two days and me being dead tired from the harvest today, I just can’t be sure if this happened or it was a dream.” Charlotte couched what she was about to say next, and then she told them about the horse and Wade. “I was going to check for hoof prints when I got back to my room, but after I called you, the fire trucks arrived, and I ran out to join them.”

  Samuel grabbed his flashlight off the side table and raced out of the cabin.

  Charlotte stood, about to follow him, but the chief caught her wrist.

  “Let him go. He and Wade have a long history, but I believe that Samuel is an honest man. If the prints are there, he’ll preserve them. If they aren’t, he won’t try to create them.” The chief patted the sofa, indicating for Charlotte to sit back down. “I’ll check with the arson inspectors to see if they found any cigarette butts.”

  “Now, after I leave here, I’m going to go get in my uniform and surprise the Andersens with a visit. Find out just where they’ve been tonight and if anyone can corroborate their stories,” the chief announced, looking at her watch.r />
  “I have a list of some of Serge’s other accounts. Samuel and Joe were going to check with them and see if they’d noticed anything odd with their books,” Charlotte offered.

  “How’d you get a hold—never mind; don’t tell me. Just get me the list, and my department will follow up with everyone. Oh, and I got a call from the lab today, with a ‘sort of’ result on your uncle’s paternity testing. I’m afraid it’s not good news.”

  “A ‘sort of’ result?” Charlotte sighed.

  “That’s how he put it. Even though the root was attached to the hair sample we gave the lab, he said that it had deteriorated enough to compromise the test. Remember the sixty-percent accuracy rate they quoted us?”

  Charlotte dropped her head and nodded slowly.

  “Now the lab says any test results wouldn’t be more than twenty-percent accurate.”

  “So that throws the whole ‘piece-of-the-pie’-as-motive theory right out the window.” Charlotte closed her eyes in an effort to dull the throbbing in her head.

  “Not necessarily. Right now, only three parties know this: you, me, and the lab.”

  Charlotte looked at the chief and nodded.

  Unless Marcus knew—or thought he knew—his heritage and told someone in Little Acorn …

  “I wonder what’s taking Samuel so long. He should be back by now,” Charlotte worried aloud.

  Yes he should, the chief thought.

  Suddenly they both got up and raced out of the cabin as well. When they reached the portion of the patio outside Charlotte’s bedroom Chief Goodacre turned on her penlight and pointed it down on the grass that edged up to the patio. The light revealed that the ground was indented in numerous places by the hooves of an animal.

  “I stand corrected. My first order of business is going to be finding Wade Avery. Hopefully before Samuel does!”

  The chief ran off to her car, leaving Charlotte and Horse staring at the prints that were becoming clearer with the sun peeking its head above the horizon.