Town in a Maple Madness

by B. B. Haywood

  Candy had spent a few minutes with Neil in his room before they’d taken him away for his tests, and as she listened to the gurney clatter down the long, bustling hallway, she thought about how his eyes had fluttered open and closed as she stood beside him just moments before. He’d obviously recognized her, but he’d still been groggy, only half-awake. Looking into his gray-green eyes, holding her hand gently against the side of his bearded face, she leaned in close as she told him Random was safe, and that Finn was covering for him at the berry farm, cranking up the sap-boiling operation, and that she was headed there next, but she wanted to check up on him first. He hadn’t said much in return, but she could tell he understood her from the trace of a smile on his bluish lips. With his eyes closed, he’d reached up tentatively with a callused hand and placed it over hers, so she could feel its warmth against her skin.

  She’d felt it then, something new, something deep within her heart, or maybe somewhere just behind her heart, an awakening of emotions she hadn’t quite felt about Neil before. She realized, with some surprise, how much she really cared for him, and how close they’d become over the past few years. She realized how much he and Random meant in her life right now. And she realized how much she’d miss him, and how devastated she’d be, if he were suddenly gone from her life.

  “It wasn’t hard to track down the ownership of that knife you found, since it was well documented,” the chief continued, breaking into her reverie, “but I guess you know that already.” He checked his watch. “We’ve dispatched a couple of officers to pick up Hutch for questioning. Should be happening right about now.”

  Candy wasn’t surprised to hear this information. In fact, she wouldn’t have been shocked if the police had arrested Hutch outright and hauled him off to jail in cuffs. They had the presumed murder weapon in their possession. They knew who owned it. Hutch’s fingerprints were probably all over it. They had the evidence they needed. Case closed, right?

  But, for some reason she couldn’t explain, she didn’t believe it was that simple. Something about the whole thing bugged her. That’s why she’d asked Chief Durr if he had a few minutes to talk. So now, in a low voice, her brow furrowed in concern, she said, “But do you really think Hutch could have done something like this?”

  For a moment, the chief’s carefully constructed granite expression broke, and Candy thought she saw the real person behind his facade. “Honestly, Ms. Holliday, I’ve learned to reserve my judgment in situations like this, when it involves someone I’ve known for years, and who’s been an upstanding member of our community for as long as I’ve been here. Of course, you and I are both aware of what certain people are capable of around this town, based on what’s happened in the past. So, at this point, your guess is as good as mine. We’ll see what Hutch has to say. I’m headed back to the station right now to talk to him.”

  But Candy wasn’t ready to let the chief go, not just yet. She was still trying to mentally deal with the ramifications of what she’d learned this morning.

  “What about the sap?” she asked, thinking back to her encounter yesterday morning with Hutch and Ginny.

  “What about it?”

  Candy knew her time with the chief was limited, so she spoke quickly. “Well, we know Hutch had a beef with Neil over this stolen sap issue, right? Maybe that’s what started this whole thing. Maybe it caused Hutch to attack Neil, drive him over to that boathouse, dump him inside, and lock up Random in a metal shed. Maybe he thought it was a good way to send a message.”

  “A fairly convoluted message,” the chief said, “but we’re taking everything into consideration.”

  Candy held up a finger, her eyes darting back and forth as she thought. “On the other hand, if Hutch did kidnap Neil—or kill Mick Rilke with that knife of his—why would he draw attention to it? Why leave the knife right there beside Neil, essentially giving himself away? Who would make a dumb mistake like that? If it really was the murder weapon, why not bury it? Or just throw it into the river? It doesn’t make any sense. And,” she continued, the look in her eyes growing more intense, “why ask me to get involved like I did, so I could find a trail that leads right back to him? Why not keep a low profile? Why not keep himself out of the whole thing? Why would he bring attention to himself like that? It doesn’t seem logical, does it?”

  The chief looked slightly agitated as he reached up to scratch his head. “We don’t have all the answers right now, Ms. Holliday. It’s an ongoing investigation, as I’m sure you know.”

  “I do,” Candy said agreeably, purposely dialing back her intensity. But she still had a few questions on her mind. “Have you found out who the boathouse belongs to?”

  “Again, we’re working on that. We have a crime scene van out there right now. I’m not ready to discuss more than that at the moment.”

  “Have you talked to Ginny Milbright about any of this?” Candy asked.

  “About what, specifically?”

  “Well, maybe she has answers to some of this. She’s probably aware of her husband’s whereabouts over the past twenty-four hours or so. From what I’ve heard, he’s just been out at the farm, getting ready for today’s maple sugaring operation.”

  “Your point?”

  She shrugged, as if it was obvious. “Maybe Hutch has an alibi. Maybe it’s that simple. Maybe he never left Sugar Hill Farm. Maybe he couldn’t have traveled to the boathouse, because he was at his own place the entire time.”

  “We’re checking into that, of course.”

  She changed course again. “What about Mick Rilke?”

  As Candy’s questioning continued, the chief’s tone had grown more stern, and now he crossed his arms in an exaggerated motion. “What about him?”

  Candy noted his defensive posture but plunged ahead anyway. “Could Mick’s death be linked somehow to the stolen sap? Or what he was doing at that boathouse?”

  The chief sighed visibly. “As I said, this is an ongoing investigation. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details of it right now. But we’re working on it, and I guarantee you we’ll get to the bottom of it all, sooner rather than later.”

  The two of them fell into an uneasy silence then as a nurse walked briskly past, her sneakers squeaking on the buffed floor tiles. As they waited for her to walk out of earshot, Officer Molly Prospect of the Cape Willington Police Department rounded the corner and approached them, checking her watch. “He’s going to be in there for another half hour or so,” she told the chief, after giving Candy a brief nod in greeting. “Then they have a couple of other tests they want to run on him, which should take another hour or two after that. So I’m estimating it could be around noon or even a little later before I get a chance to talk to him.”

  The chief nodded his acknowledgement.

  “Did they say anything about his condition?” Candy asked. She’d known Officer Prospect for a number of years and had been personally interviewed by her a number of times regarding other murder cases in town.

  “Nothing specific, Candy, just that he’s stable. They’ll know more in a couple of hours, but I think he’s going to be okay. He got dinged up a little, but they don’t think it’s anything life threatening.”

  “Thank goodness,” Candy said, holding a hand to her chest and breathing a little easier at this information.

  “I’ll keep an eye on him, make sure he’s doing okay,” Officer Prospect continued. “I know he doesn’t have any family around here . . . anymore. He’s with the doctors and nurses now, and they’re taking good care of him. As soon as they tell me more, I’ll text you and let you know.”

  “Thank you,” Candy said. She knew she had to get moving, back to Neil’s berry farm to help out Finn with the maple sugaring operation, but she also hesitated to leave Neil here by himself. However, she felt a little better knowing Molly Prospect would be keeping an eye on him. She trusted Molly as much as she trusted anyone in town. �
�You’ll let me know as soon as you hear something?”

  “As soon as I know.” Molly nodded to confirm her statement.

  “I think that’s my cue,” the chief said, swiveling back toward Candy. “But before I go, Ms. Holliday, let me make one thing perfectly clear: While I certainly appreciate all of your contributions up to this point, I want to assure you that the CWPD can take over from here. I’m certain you have other things to do around town today, right?”

  “Right, Chief.”

  He gave her a long, hard stare before he nodded. “Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Officer Prospect, would you walk out with me? I have a few things I need to go over with you.”

  He tipped his hat, turned on his heels, and started away. His footsteps echoed down the corridor at a quick pace, with Molly Prospect hurrying to keep up with him.

  Moments later, Candy stood by herself with her back literally against the wall. She let out a slow, deep breath. It had been a long day so far. And she was just getting started.

  With some effort, she launched herself away from the wall and followed the chief and Officer Prospect down the corridor and out of the building, her mind working as she went.

  Everything that had happened over the past twenty-four hours was connected, she thought. It must be. It had to be. The unexpected call yesterday morning, the stolen sap, the disappearance of Neil and Random, the discovery of Mick Rilke’s body in the river near the new community center, the attack of the old purple van with license plates that read RIP DIG, the call from Jean, the map, and the boathouse where she’d found Neil and his dog—it was all too much to be unrelated, to be coincidental. There had to be pattern here, a thread that linked all of these seemingly random pieces. She just had to find that thread, and figure out how to unravel it all.

  And she would do that, as soon as she could. For the moment, however, other places and duties called to her.

  Random was waiting anxiously for her in the Jeep. She’d tried to dissuade him from coming along with her to the hospital, but it had been no use. When she’d opened the driver’s side door back at the farm, he had leaped into the vehicle, where he’d parked himself in the passenger seat and refused to budge. The expression on his face was priceless. He was worried, and he knew where she was going. He had no intention of letting her drive away without him. She’d finally relented and let him ride along.

  Now, as she approached the Jeep, she could see his nose poking out of the top of the driver’s side window, sniffing at the air as he watched her. When she stopped beside the door to greet him, he was standing on the driver’s seat, his big tail wagging vigorously back and forth, making his whole body move.

  “Hey there,” she said, petting him on his protruding nose and muzzle. “How are you doing? You okay? Neil’s going to be just fine, I promise. Now back up a little bit there, buddy, so I can get in.”

  Once she’d settled into the driver’s seat and closed the door behind her, he practically attacked her, sniffing her frantically all over. “I know, you smell Neil on me, don’t you?” she said, and she let him snuffle at her hands, then ruffled his fur behind his neck and shoulders to get him to settle down. “He’s just going to need a little longer to get better. But don’t you worry about a thing. Dad and I will take good care of you until Neil’s back home, okay?”

  She pulled a set of keys from her pocket and started up the engine. “Speaking of home, why don’t we pay a visit to your farm and see what’s going on, shall we?”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Three hours later, at a little past one in the afternoon, Candy finally had a chance to sit down, catch her breath, and give her legs and her back a break.

  She’d been on her feet from the moment she stepped out of the Jeep at Crawford’s Berry Farm. The place was busy—and a bit chaotic. Certainly disorganized. Cars were scattered everywhere on the property, parked randomly at different angles, blocking one another in some spots. Visitors milled around aimlessly in the parking area and up through the still-dormant strawberry fields, uncertain of where to go or what to do. Some were circling the farm’s two hoophouses or wandering through the barn, while others were idly sitting on Neil’s porch, as if his private home, empty at the moment, were a bed-and-breakfast, or a restaurant about to open. She wondered if they were expecting pancakes to be delivered to them. Or maybe they just wanted to use the bathroom. No one had put out any signs to guide visitors to the sugar shack, or set out the folding tables, or the jars of maple syrup Neil had put aside for sale this weekend, hoping to goose the farm’s revenue stream a little. Candy herself had helped Neil box up those bottles in early March, in anticipation of this event. The syrup was from one of the earlier batches of sap Neil had boiled. The dozens of eight- and twelve-ounce bottles sported a new label, which Candy had helped Neil design over the winter. The boxes of bottles were still sitting in the corner of the barn, right where she’d left them.

  At least the sugar shack was up and running, which seemed to make everything else bearable. Just catching the sweet scent of the sap in the air was enough to adjust her attitude in a positive direction.

  Given his own limited knowledge of boiling sap, Finn had called in a buddy of his, a person known only as Hawthorne, to help out in the sugar shack. Hawthorne sported a long gray ponytail, extensive facial hair, and arm tattoos, and showed off yellow teeth when he smiled. But despite his somewhat ragged appearance, he was a quick, efficient worker and seemed to know what he was doing.

  “He’s an engineer,” Finn had told her as he’d introduced the two of them that morning, soon after Candy’s arrival at the farm. “Well, he used to be an engineer. I guess he’s a sort of backwoodsman now, right, Hawthorne?”

  In reply, their resident engineer and backwoodsman had simply said, “Sure.”

  “Hawthorne was at the rescheduled community center grand-opening ceremony this morning,” Finn noted, as if he were a proud parent. “You were impressed with the festivities, weren’t you, Hawthorne?”

  “Sure was.”

  “Sorry I missed it,” Candy said, genuinely interested to hear Hawthorne’s impression of the event. “So tell me what happened. Lots of people there? What was the general mood like? I suppose you heard from the regular speakers, like Carol McKaskie and Mason Flint and Tillie Shaw, people like that?”

  “Yup.”

  “Anything interesting stick out in your mind?” Candy pressed. “Anything I missed that you think I should know about? Maybe something one of the speakers said, or something you heard from someone in the crowd?”

  “Nope.”

  Candy had shielded her eyes against the southern sun, studying this newcomer. “A man of few words,” she said. “I like that. So, Hawthorne, is that your first name or your last?”

  “It sure is,” he said.

  “No, I mean, is Hawthorne your first or last name?”

  “It’s both,” said Finn, “as far as anyone knows. Right, Hawthorne?”

  “Sure is.”

  “Hawthorne used to help out Neil’s dad, years ago when they were expanding the berry farm,” Finn informed Candy. “I think he helped put in that grove of cherry trees over there, didn’t you, Hawthorne?”

  “I guess so.”

  And so it went. Hawthorne was apparently a poet who didn’t know much poetry, and a world traveler who couldn’t remember where he’d been. But he knew his sap, and he knew his way around the boiling equipment, and he didn’t seem to mind hauling buckets of raw sap and arms of firewood back and forth, so Candy had no complaints. In fact, she was grateful for his help, because she had other things to do.

  The first half hour had been a little rough, as she’d tried to get all the cars reparked in a roped-off area along the edge of the trees, get signs posted, and get the growing crowds of visitors organized into groups for ten-minute tours of the sugar shack. She ran those herself, serving as the hostess,
walking quickly, motioning a lot with her hands, and talking until her voice started to go hoarse. She also, with the voluntary help of one of their visitors named George from Michigan, got the folding tables set up, and located a metal box she could use as a till. The handmade signs she and Neil had created together, with pricing and payment information, were still in a large manila envelope on a wooden shelf in the barn, along with a few office supplies she thought she might need, and she was off and running with maple syrup sales, to which the visitors responded happily. The bottles sold fast, and the till box filled steadily, which would be good news to Neil.

  In the absence of his master, Random played a willing host. He greeted the guests as they came and said good-bye to them as they went off to their cars or tour buses. He wagged his tail a lot. He went trouncing off through the berry fields with the kids. He took breaks in the shade near the sugar shack and drank copious amounts of water from his big bowl in the barn. He dutifully did his part to keep things running smoothly.

  By Candy’s guess, they’d had several hundred visitors come through the place that morning, and they’d sold more than three hundred dollars’ worth of syrup—a good day, she thought, and it was still going on.

  But around midday the crowds began to thin, as the tourists headed back into town for lunch, and as they continued to clear out into the early afternoon, she finally had time to take a few minutes’ rest, settle into a lawn chair in front of the barn, and pull out her phone.

  There were quite a few e-mails, texts, and phone messages for her to go through. Apparently she was a person in demand. Everyone from Maggie to Wanda Boyle to Tillie Shaw to her father had contacted her, checking up on her, wondering how she was doing, and asking if there was any news about Neil.