Town in a Maple Madness

by B. B. Haywood

  “Hey, how’s it going?” he said as she approached, and looking down, he added, “Hey, Random, how are you, buddy?” He looked back up at Candy. “So how’s Neil doing? You see him at the hospital?”

  “Yes, I did. He’s doing fine, but . . . Finn, what are you doing here? I thought you were out at the Crawford farm. Didn’t Artie call you?”

  “He might have,” Finn said, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Battery ran out this afternoon. Haven’t had a chance to recharge it yet.”

  “But we thought you were going to stay out at the farm and keep an eye on the place.”

  “I was going to,” he said, and his smile wavered as he heard the edge of concern in her tone, “but somebody relieved me. Is everything okay?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “About Ginny?”

  “Ginny Milbright? Oh, sure, I heard. She’s over there now, keeping an eye on the place. Tell you the truth, Hawthorne and I appreciated the break. We’ve both been out there all day, you know, in that hot sugar shack. That Boyle kid was there for a while but had to leave early, so we lost his help, but we got the whole thing shut down okay, and the crowds cleared out. There were still a few stragglers hanging around the place, but Ginny stopped by and said she’d keep an eye on everything if we wanted to take a break and check out the festivities in town.” His smile returned. “Even said she might fire up the boiling operation and run one more batch through. Just to help us out, you know.”

  Candy gave him a look of disbelief. “You mean she’s not here?”

  “Where?”

  “Here!” Candy squeaked, losing control of her voice. “At Town Park?”

  Finn looked around and shrugged. “No, like I just said, she’s over at the Crawford farm, firing up the place. That’s what she said. She was going to fire up the place.”

  “Oh my God,” Candy said.

  And when Finn turned back toward her, his smile was suddenly gone.

  FIFTY-TWO

  She looked around desperately. “Where are you parked?”

  Confused by this sudden change in the conversation, Finn pointed behind him, toward the lighthouse. “Over by the museum. I . . . Why, what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  She looked back over her shoulder, at the early-evening sky toward the southwest, and thought she detected a faint glow there. She hoped it was just her imagination—and that she wasn’t too late.

  “Find my father,” she said, turning back to Finn, talking with urgency now. “Or Tillie Shaw. Tell them what you just told me. Tell them to send the police and a fire truck over to Crawford’s Berry Farm, right away.”

  Finn looked shocked. “You don’t mean—”

  “I hope I’m wrong,” Candy said. “Find them, and tell them. There’s no time to lose.”

  “And what about you? Where are you going?”

  She didn’t answer him. She and Random were already moving.

  As they started back up the street, Candy suddenly regretted the fact that she’d left her phone with Judicious, though it had seemed like a good idea at the time. And she regretted even more the fact that Finn’s phone had died. She was out of touch now, at the most critical moment, with no way to contact anyone. She considered stopping one of the pedestrians she passed and asking if she could borrow their phone, but ultimately decided she had no time even for that. They had to move. They had to get out to Neil’s place as fast as possible.

  So they quickened their pace, half running the rest of the way up the sidewalk, to the intersection with Main Street. There they jogged to their left, crossed the street, and headed down the town’s main thoroughfare, past Duffy’s Main Street Diner and Zeke’s General Store and the Black Forest Bakery, until they reached the Jeep parked down near the Pine Cone Bookstore. She already had her keys out of her pocket and unlocked the passenger-side door first, letting Random leap up inside before she closed the door, ran around the front end, and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  Minutes later, they were once again barreling along the road, this time on the southern leg of the Coastal Loop, which ran past a residential area and the elementary school before it took them out of town.

  This road wasn’t as busy as the Loop’s northern leg, since it ran in a more westerly direction, out along the cape’s southern and western coastlines, past loosely spaced homes and garages, and woods, fields, and agricultural land beyond that. They quickly passed the turnoff to Blueberry Acres on their right, but she kept driving straight ahead. Crawford’s Berry Farm was another mile or so farther on, along a northwesterly curve of the coastline.

  Minutes later, they were pulling into the dirt lane at the berry farm. After all the traffic it had received during the day, the lane was a bit of a mess, as Candy expected. Ruts were deep and the mud was treacherous in places. It would need work in the morning, another layer of soil and gravel to make it passable. They’d have to call the town’s maintenance crew and ask for some assistance. But there wasn’t time to worry about that now. Her only thought was that she had to save Neil’s farm, so she gunned the engine and plowed on through.

  But as they came around a bend and she could see beyond the trees, her heart sank, for she knew they were already too late.

  The darkening sky was all lit up. It looked like the place was ablaze.

  In the beams of the Jeep’s headlights, she saw the old white Ford Explorer now. It was pulled up beside Neil’s barn, parked askew, its nose toward the barn and its tail out in the driveway. Ginny had made no attempt to hide it. Maybe she knew the end was near, and she just wanted to take something with her before she was hauled off to jail.

  Apparently that “something” was Neil’s farm.

  As they drew closer and Candy finally could make out what was happening up ahead, she had a brief sense of relief. The fire, she realized, hadn’t taken Neil’s house, or the barn. It seemed to be concentrated farther back on his property, back in the darkness of the fields and woods.

  “The sugar shack,” she breathed, saying the words out loud.

  Ginny had set fire to Neil’s maple sugar shack—the one he had helped build when he was a teenager living here with his family.

  Her eyes never left the blaze in front of her as she pulled the Jeep to an abrupt stop near the white Explorer and shut off the engine. Even before she had a chance to pull the keys out of the ignition and unbelt herself, Random was in her lap, pushing at the driver’s side door with his head, looking for a way out. She had no choice but to open the door for him. The moment she pulled the handle, he shoved the door open farther and leaped out, making a quick escape.

  “Random!” she called after him, but he was already gone, racing up through the strawberry fields toward the burning sugar shack. He was quickly lost in the darkness, beyond the reach of the headlights and spotlights. She could hear him barking frantically as he went.

  She always kept two flashlights in the Jeep, a larger one in the glove box and a smaller one in the center console bin. She took both with her. She had no weapon, though, not even a golf club or a baseball bat. The best she could manage was a long-handled plastic ice scraper she found behind the front seats. But it was better than nothing, so she took that in one hand, the larger flashlight in the other, and tucked the small flashlight into a back pocket.

  As she stepped out of the vehicle, she saw several people standing around, watching the fire. Looking right, she noticed there were a few cars still sitting in the designated parking area. Visitors, she thought. Stragglers who hadn’t left the farm yet, still milling around, enjoying the bucolic setting.

  Time to get them out of here.

  “The farm is closed down for the night,” she told the first couple she came to. “Pass the word, would you please? It’s not safe. We need to get everyone out of here and back to town.”

&nb
sp; While the visitors began to head to their cars, some reluctantly, Candy flicked on the flashlight and started off between the house and barn at a half jog, up through the strawberry fields toward the burning sugar shack.

  As she drew closer she saw that, like the garage earlier, it was nearly consumed in flames. They crackled and popped as they reached into the sky, wriggling like whips, throwing fiery sparks and dark smoke into the night air. The roof was engulfed, the sides of the building near collapse. The flames had spread to several trees close to the shack, and had ignited a nearby pile of firewood as well. Fortunately, Neil’s tractor wasn’t parked in its usual spot next to the shack—it was still out in the woods, where it had been abandoned a couple of days earlier. But most of the sap collection buckets, which had been piled up along one wall, were gone, as were all the other tools and equipment Neil had gathered over the years for the boiling operation.

  Candy stood in the middle of the fields in shock, watching the place burn down. She only hoped no one had been inside.

  For a few moments, she didn’t know what to do. There was no way to save it. She had no hose out here, no water. No way to douse the flames. Besides, the heat was too intense. She couldn’t get close to the building if she wanted to. Her only hope now was that the fire didn’t spread to the other buildings.

  She heard barks then, quick and urgent. She twisted around, trying to locate the source.

  They were coming from the barn, she realized.

  Leaving the sugar shack to burn out on its own, she took off at a brisk pace, back the way she’d come, careful of her footing as she headed down through the dark strawberry fields. She held the flashlight in front of her, aimed down, as she walked between the rows, feeling the soft, boggy earth under her feet. Ahead, the barn was lit up by spotlights at its four corners, but there was only limited lighting inside, she knew, just a few lightbulbs hanging from an open wire strung through the beams. Most of the visitors had left. The parking area was almost empty. She saw no one around the barn.

  She wasn’t sure who or what she’d find inside, so she slowed as she approached. She’d have to be careful, she knew, so she hoisted the plastic ice scraper in a menacing fashion as she angled cautiously to the right side, coming around the corner of the building and entering through the open double doors.

  The place was dimly lit, but she’d been in here many times before and knew her way around. Random was barking frantically in the opposite back corner. It sounded as if he had someone cornered there.

  She heard a voice then, spoken by a shadow wedged back into the corner, apparently talking to the dog in soothing tones, trying to get him to quiet down. Candy turned her flashlight in that direction, and shined it directly into the face of Ginny Milbright.

  FIFTY-THREE

  She was dressed all in black, including a black sweatshirt, zipped up tight, with the hood pulled low over her head. But now, caught in the beam of the flashlight, she reached up and brushed the hood back from her head.

  Her hair was a mess, stringy and unwashed. Her face was pale and drawn, streaked with sweat despite the coolness of the evening. She held in one black-gloved hand a long tree limb that she’d obviously used as a firebrand. Though it was now extinguished, its tip, singed black, still glowed. She held it out in front of her, ready to use it as a weapon against Random if she had to.

  The dog, however, was not attacking her, but rather it appeared he simply was trying to keep her contained, as if she were a goat or sheep. He stood back from her a short distance, his four paws planted widely apart, ready to spring forward if necessary. He held his head and nose still, his eyes zeroed in on her. He was like a hunting dog that had tracked down its prey, and was waiting expectantly to see what it did.

  Candy took a few steps closer, and Ginny brandished the firebrand. For a fleeting moment, Candy saw humor in the fact that both of them were similarly equipped, with essentially worthless weapons. At least it would be a fair duel, if it came to that.

  “Ginny, what are you doing here?” she asked, keeping her voice low and even, so as not to provoke the other woman.

  It didn’t work. Ginny responded with a barely controlled sneer. “Call off your dog and we’ll talk.”

  Candy looked from Ginny to Random and back again. “He remembers, doesn’t he?” she said after a moment. “What happened to him and Neil?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think,” Candy continued, pointing out into the darkness, “he remembers what happened back in those woods a couple of days ago—how he found you back there stealing sap from Neil’s trees, and how you ambushed Neil, and then kidnapped the both of them. He remembers how you locked him in the shed at Gully’s Boathouse. And he remembers your scent. He smelled it in those woods today, and he picked it up again over at the Pooley place, just a little while ago.”

  For the moment, Ginny decided to play dumb. “I don’t know where you came up with that story,” she said in a defensive tone, “but you’re wrong. I was never at any of those places.”

  “But you were,” Candy said. “I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Let me take a look at your boots.”

  Ginny stiffened. “My boots? What about them?”

  “You’ve changed them, haven’t you? Since this afternoon, when I was at your place?”

  Instinctively, Ginny looked down. “How did you? . . .” But then it dawned on her. “The footprints.”

  “That’s right, the footprints.” Candy shined the flashlight down toward Ginny’s feet. “You wear big boots,” she said, “like those you have on now, with blocky geometric patterns on the bottoms, I’m guessing. I’ve seen those patterns in a few places recently—in your woods over at Sugar Hill Farm, for instance, and out in Neil’s woods. You get around, don’t you? At first, I assumed they were Hutch’s prints, the bigger ones. But they weren’t, were they? They were yours.”

  Ginny grunted. “Hutch has small feet,” she admitted. “It’s a sore spot with him.”

  “And I saw those same prints at the Pooley cabin, where you locked me in the garage. That’s when I put it all together. That’s your family’s place, isn’t it?” Candy said, reasoning it out. “You inherited it when your father, Russ, passed away. I’m surprised you were so willing to destroy it like that.”

  Ginny glared at her. She worked her mouth oddly and squinted her eyes, and started to say something, but then huffed, as if she’d changed her mind. “How did you get out of that garage anyway? I thought I had it all sealed up with you inside.”

  “I managed to escape, with Random’s help. You should be glad I did. Otherwise, you’d be responsible for two murders.”

  Ginny shrugged stiffly. “It makes no difference at this point. The damage is done.”

  “And you couldn’t help returning to the scene of the crime, could you?” Candy pointed out. “So what made you show up when you did? How did you know I was there?”

  “I didn’t,” Ginny admitted, “but I’ve been keeping an eye on the place. I figured someone might come snooping around sooner or later. I knew the evidence was parked in that garage, and I was still trying to figure out how and where to move those vehicles. When I spotted your Jeep parked out on the road, I knew you were there. It wasn’t hard to figure out you were hiding in the garage. I knew what you’d found. Then I heard your phone beep, so I made my move.”

  Both women were silent for a moment. Ginny shifted, as if she was thinking of making a dash for it, but Random growled and shifted also, and Ginny pressed farther back into the corner.

  “Call him off,” she said.

  “Not yet.” Candy knew she didn’t have much time, and her mind was working as she tried to put the pieces together. “So how was Mick involved in this?” she asked after a few moments. “Were the two of you working together?”

  Ginny rolled her eyes. �
�Isn’t it obvious? I thought you were some sort of great detective.”

  Candy agreed with the other woman, at least on one of those points. “I guess it is obvious. You two were the ones who tapped Neil’s trees, weren’t you? You and Mick, working together. Neil spotted the two of you while you were back in his woods and recognized Mick. But before he could do anything about it, you came up behind him and knocked him out, probably with a branch like the one you’re holding right now.”

  “It was a little thicker,” Ginny admitted, “with a little more punch. I thought I might have hit him too hard at first. Killed him.” She paused, and her tone hardened. “That was my first mistake, I guess. Maybe I just should have ended it right there, and left his body in the woods for someone else to find.”

  “But you didn’t, did you? You loaded Neil and Random into Mick’s red truck. What was your plan at that point? What were you going to do with him?”

  Apparently resigned to the fact that she’d been found out, Ginny shook her head and hesitated, as if she was struggling to remember all that had happened that day. “We didn’t know. It got . . . crazy,” she said finally, her voice falling almost to a whisper. “We heard his tractor coming through the trees and thought we could get away in time, but that damned dog came after us.” She raised the firebrand and pointed it at Random, who tensed. “He knew me, of course. We were neighbors. We’d run into each other before. But when he found us, I couldn’t calm him down. I tried to shoo him away, but he wouldn’t go. And then Neil spotted Mick, and I had to do something.”

  She paused again, and licked her lips before she continued. “When Neil went down, I tried to restrain the dog, but he got wild on me. Mick got a little wild too. He was worried about Neil, wanted to take him to the hospital. But I convinced him to throw Neil in the back of the truck and toss a tarp over him. I told him we should drive to the boathouse, until we figured out what to do. I knew no one would be there. That place has been vacant for years, practically abandoned, ever since Doug Gulliver passed away. Doug and my dad were best friends, you know. They even co-owned that purple van, which was our river van—both families, all of us jammed in there whenever we went canoeing or hiking or exploring.”