“What did you throw at the cottage?” I asked, taking care to keep my voice level.
Now, in the light, I could see Scott’s face clearly. “Who said we threw anything?”
“Something hit the side of the cottage,” I snapped.
Shaun brushed his long bangs out of his eyes. “Maybe it was some sort of animal, like a deer?”
“I bet it was a raccoon,” Scott said. “They’re always making a racket over at our place.”
“Could be. Or maybe an opossum,” Shaun said thoughtfully. He gave me an appraising look. “Those can be vicious.”
I gripped the doorknob and willed myself to relax. “What are you two doing here? The Farm is closed. You shouldn’t be here.”
“This is all part of the park,” Scott said. “Aren’t we allowed in a public park?”
“Not after dark. The park closes at dusk, not to mention that Barton Farm is no more a part of the park than your home is. It’s private property.”
“We just thought we’d drop in for a neighborly visit,” Shaun said. “We need to chat.”
“We can chat in the morning. It’s late.”
Tiffin, growling at my feet, agreed with me.
Scott took a step back. “Your dog better not bite me.”
“Then don’t come any closer. He’ll take a chunk out of you if he has to,” I said, even though I knew Tiffin would never bite anyone.
Shaun glared at me. “We heard that you were on our land today. You can’t be coming around upsetting our mom like you did.”
His brother nodded. “She told us you said we were causing trouble on Barton Farm.”
“Aren’t you?” I challenged.
“If we were the ones causing trouble, you wouldn’t have to wonder. You’d know it.” Scott smirked.
“It’s pointless to talk about this,” I said. “I know you’re the ones who trampled Shepley’s garden. Just go home.”
Scott laughed. “You’re too little to make us do anything that we don’t want.”
“Get out of here before I call the police,” I snapped.
Shaun took a step toward me. “Do you think the police can do anything about it? They’d have to prove we were here, and they can’t.”
His brother nodded. “You have even more people wandering around your precious Farm when you don’t know it. We aren’t your problem.”
A chill ran down my back. “Like who?”
“A killer,” Scott said in a matter-of-fact tone.
I shivered. This was my chance to find out if the boys had seen anything yesterday, which was why I’d gone to their house in the first place. Now I might get an answer if I could tolerate them for a few more minutes.
“Did you see something?” I asked them.
“We always see something,” Shaun said. “There’s not much that happens around here that we miss. We know all about your maple sugaring and the people coming and going.”
“What did you see?” I wanted to get the boys back on track with the murder.
“Just cause we know something doesn’t mean we have to tell you. We don’t owe you anything,” Scott said in a sullen tone.
“If you tell me, I won’t press charges for the vandalism.”
They laughed as if that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Clearly the Hooper boys didn’t consider vandalism charges as much of a threat.
“Did you have something to do with Dr. Beeson’s death? Is that why you won’t say anything?” I asked, refusing to give up.
Scott glared at me. “You aren’t going to pin that on us. We don’t have anything to do with a murder. We don’t do that.”
“That’s right,” his brother agreed.
“Prove it, then, by telling me what you know.”
“It’s not that easy.” Scott punched his brother in the arm.
“Ow.” Shaun winced.
“Let’s go,” Scott said to his brother. “I’m bored with this.”
Shaun looked at me. “Stay away from our home. You’re not wanted.” With that, they both turned to go.
“I would,” I called after them, “if you would return the favor!”
The pair disappeared into the trees. I waited under the porch light until I couldn’t hear them moving through the forest anymore.
I stepped back into the house and closed the door. I turned the bolt to locked and leaned against the door, taking a few gulping breaths. The Hooper boys were delinquents but harmless. At least I’d always thought so. Now I wasn’t as sure.
Tiffin looked up at me with concerned brown eyes. Frankie was even back from burying Hayden’s toy in his litter box. He stood on the back of the couch with his striped back arched in Halloween cat pose.
I knew that I needed to call the police. The Hooper boys had seen something the day Beeson was attacked.
There was a pound on the door and I jumped across the room. “Who’s there?”
“Kelsey?” a tentative voice said through the door.
Tiffin barked at the door, but the edge he’d had earlier was gone.
I unlocked the door and opened it. “Jason?”
Jason stood in front of me. His eyes were twice there normal size. “I heard yelling and came over to make sure you were okay.”
I blinked at him. Jason running to my rescue was more than I would expect from my reclusive farmhand. “Come in from the cold.” I stepped back.
He shuffled into the cottage and looked around like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself now that he was inside my home. It was his first time being there. Although Hayden and I had invited him to dinner many times, he’d always refused.
“Have a seat on the couch.” I pointed to the sofa.” You’re shivering. I’ll make some tea to warm you up.”
Frankie glared at him with his one good eye and, to my amazement, began to purr. I blinked at the cat. Jason walked over to him and stroked his back. Frankie’s purrs increased tenfold.
“If I didn’t already know that you have a special way with animals, I would now. Frankie hates everyone except for my son.” I paused. “And I guess you.”
Jason sat on the edge of the couch. Frankie leapt onto the cushion and sat next to him. He didn’t jump into his lap, but he did snuggle up next to Jason’s leg. I stood there with my mouth hanging open. Still in wonderment, I turned to make the tea.
I set the kettle to boil and waited. As I did, I mulled over my options. Now that Jason was here, I was less inclined to call the police about what had just happened. If there was a police report about the Hooper boys, it would give Eddie more ammunition to change the custody agreement. He could claim that I didn’t have Hayden in a safe environment. Barton Farm had been perfectly safe before Milton Hooper’s descendants had moved into his old home.
Jason seemed to be fine with the quiet. Unlike many people, he never felt the need to fill the empty air with idle talk. I usually did, but not when Jason was around. It was too much of a fight to get him to answer back, so I only spoke when I was in need of important information.
The kettle whistled, and I poured the hot water over the tea bags in two waiting mugs. I carried the mugs back to the living room and held one out. Frankie growled deep in his throat as I handed Jason the mug.
Jason made a clicking sound with his tongue and the cat went back to purring. I sat in the armchair across the couch. “You really have a way with animals. How did you do that?”
“I’m not a threat,” he said.
“I’m not a threat either.” I cradled my mug in my hands. “I feed him and clean his litter box. I would pet him if he let me.”
Jason shook his head. “Frankie wants respect. Some cats—just like people—need that. Do you respect Frankie or tolerate him? I bet if you started looking at him differently, he would come around.”
I raised my eyebrows. I’d
never expected such deep thoughts from my usually silent farmhand. I wished Laura and Benji were around to hear it. Then they would know there was more to Jason than just being a loner.
He changed the subject. “Was someone here?” He held the mug of tea in one hand and scratched Frankie behind the ear with the other.
“Scott and Shaun Hooper. They were just being loud. I don’t think they hurt anything.”
Jason stared into his tea. “I should have come as soon as I heard the noise. I was in the barn, checking the animals one final time before I went to my trailer for the night, when I heard shouts coming from this side of the street.”
It was a miracle that Jason had tried to come to my rescue. When faced with a decision, his inclination had always been flight rather than fight, at least up until now.
He stared into his tea. “I didn’t want what happened to that man, Dr. Beeson, to happen to you,” he said with an air of embarrassment. “I keep thinking maybe I could have helped him too.”
“But you told me that you didn’t hear anything the day Dr. Beeson was attacked.”
Jason wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I know that’s what I told you, but it was untrue. I heard some yelling that morning.”
“You did?” I asked.
“I was on this side of Maple Grove Lane when the professor fell.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
“Were you checking on the oxen?” It was the only reason I could think of why Jason would cross the street while guests were at the Farm.
He shook his head.
“Or the team of horses pulling the sleigh?”
He shook his head again and managed a small “no.”
“Then what?” I was trying to be patient, but I felt like I had to pry information out of him with a crowbar.
“I was looking for Scott and Shaun Hooper. I was in the barn and saw them run across the street into the trees north of the pasture. I just knew they were up to no good.” He paused. “So I decided to follow them.”
“You followed them?” This was hard to believe.
He met my gaze for the first time. “I knew you would be busy with the school visits coming. I never thought they would kill someone.”
I grew very still. “You saw them kill Dr. Beeson?”
He shook his head. “No. But right after I stepped into the forest, I heard them come crashing back in my direction. I jumped behind a bush so they wouldn’t see me. They were running so fast you would have thought they’d seen one of the Farm’s ghosts.”
“The Farm doesn’t have ghosts,” I said automatically, considering everything Jason had said. This had been a long speech for him, so I waited a few moments before asking the questions on the tip of my tongue. “Why didn’t you tell me this when I visited you at the barn this morning?”
He wrapped both hands around his mug. He’d yet to take a sip from it. “I wanted to, but I thought the boys would be careful and stay away from the Farm. I never expected them to come back that night. I knew when they trampled Shepley’s garden that they must be dumber than anyone thought. Wouldn’t they want to lie low if they’d killed someone? I just wanted them to leave the Farm alone.”
“Jason, a man is dead. This is a case where the Farm is not more important than finding the person responsible for a murder.” Even as I said this, I knew I was guilty of putting the Farm ahead of finding Dr. Beeson’s killer. In fact, if I was honest with myself, my entire motivation for trying to find out what happened was the Farm—not just clearing Gavin’s name. I wanted to have someone else to blame so that the Farm wasn’t in any way liable.
“I didn’t want to talk to the police. Not like last summer.”
“The police just want to find out what happened to Dr. Beeson,” I said.
“The detective doesn’t like me.” Jason said this with so much confidence, I didn’t have the heart to lie and tell him he was wrong.
“I don’t think there are many people that Detective Brandon truly likes. She’s just doing her job. She doesn’t have to like anyone to do it,” I said.
“I don’t want to draw attention. Things go bad when I draw attention.”
“What do you mean?”
He frowned and started petting Frankie again. The tiger cat kicked up his purring.
Before I’d let Jason move in the trailer on the Farm grounds, I’d told him he had to tell me his story. After some time, he had told me that he’d gone into foster care at the age of seven and bounced around from house to house until he was eighteen. None of the homes had stuck. My heart broke for him. He hadn’t been much older than Hayden when he’d entered the system. It made me physically ill to think of my son in that situation. Eddie and I were fighting over our son, and here was Jason, who presumably no one wanted, but who somehow retained a sweet, quiet way that I came to appreciate more every day.
“I didn’t want to lose my home,” Jason said. “The trailer, the Farm, is my first real home.”
My stomach fell down to my shoes as I remembered my conversation that afternoon with Henry and the other Cherry Foundation board members.
Jason stood. “I’m glad you’re okay. You and Hayden—you’re the only family I have.”
His comment was so sincere, it only made me feel worse. I had to find a way to keep the trailer on the grounds. I set my mug on the coffee table, stood, and took Jason’s still-full mug and placed it next to mine.
He headed for the front door. “Thank you, Kelsey.”
“For what?”
“Everything.” He gave Frankie one final pat. “Good night.” With that he strode out the front door, tracking mud back across my floor.
As soon as the door closed, Frankie stopped purring and hissed at me.
“I thought you were turning over a new leaf,” I commented.
He turned tail and gave me an unpleasant view of his back end before running upstairs to his lair under Hayden’s bed.
twenty-eight
I can’t say I slept much that night. I tensed at every noise the old cottage made and every sound from outside. When you live in the woods there are many noises: hoots from owls, deer crashing through the brush, and the late winter wind whistling through the trees. It’s easy to be spooked. I’d never been frightened in the cottage before, not even last summer when there’d been a killer on the Farm during the Civil War Reenactment. Now, I was nervous, and I hated it. I hated it that the Hooper boys and whoever killed Dr. Beeson had robbed me of the peace that the cottage had always given me.
I knew I should have called Detective Brandon as soon as Jason left, but it was already late. I soothed my guilt by promising myself that I’d call her in the morning.
At some point, I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up in a jolt when my alarm went off at six. It was Saturday, the first full day of the Maple Sugar Festival, and there was so much to do before the visitors started arriving for our nine a.m. opening time.
Tiffin was asleep on the floor beside my bed as always, but to my surprise, I found Frankie curled up at the foot of the bed. He glared at me with his one good eye.
“Were you protecting me, Frankie?” Maybe the visit from Jason, the cat whisperer, had worked wonders on Frankie after all.
The one-eyed cat hissed and jumped off the bed as if offended by the very idea.
Then again, maybe not.
I didn’t have time to worry about Frankie and his poor manners. I had to get going as quickly as possible and check everything over before the visitors arrived. Benji and the rest of the staff would be arriving within the hour. I threw back the covers and headed for the bathroom.
Thirty minutes later, Tiffin and I were out the door. I scanned the yard as I went. The only evidence that anyone had been in the yard the night before were footprints in the thawing ground. I would call Detective Brandon and tell her about the evening’s adventure just as soon as I ch
ecked the grounds and made sure that everyone was ready for the festival. I knew I was just making excuses, and the longer I put the call off the more annoyed the detective would be with me for not calling earlier.
Tiffin and I headed down the pebbled path through the maple grove to the visitor center. Tiffin placed his nose to the ground like a bloodhound, then suddenly lifted it and took off down the path.
“Now what?” I muttered as I ran after him.
It didn’t take me long to realize what Tiffin was worked up over. In the maple grove, it was obvious. All the pails were knocked off the trees. Sap dripped from the spiles in the sugar maple trunks and fell to the thawing ground.
The sugarhouse door swung on its hinges. I ran inside to see that the table had been overturned, and Gavin’s vials of maple syrup, which he showed to visitors to illustrate the difference in color among the grades of syrup, were smashed on the floor.
Tiffin tried to get around me to go into the room.
“No, Tiff, back. You could cut your paw on the glass.”
He whimpered and stepped back.
I couldn’t put off my call to Detective Brandon any longer. Something had to be done about those Hooper brothers, because I knew they were behind this. I removed my cell phone from my pocket and dialed a number that unfortunately I knew by heart.
Despite the early hour, the detective answered her phone on the first ring.
“Detective? It’s Kelsey Cambridge.”
“I know that from the caller ID. What do you need, Ms. Cambridge?”
If nothing else, the detective had great bedside manner, I thought sarcastically.
“I need to report more vandalism on the Farm, and I know who did it.” I went on to tell her about my discovery, my visit from the Hooper boys the night before, and my suspicions about them.
The Final Tap Page 18