The Final Reveille: A Living History Museum Mystery Page 11

  “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow,” Eddie said. He and Krissie climbed in the SUV and drove away. I waved at Hayden as they went, but he was too busy with his action figures to pay any attention to me.

  Dad wrapped his arm around me. “I hate to see the squirt go, but this is for the best. You don’t really want him to be exposed to the investigation, and if there is some crazed reenactor running around killing people, it’s best to have the boy as far away from that as possible.”

  “You’re right.”

  My father pulled on the end of his beard. “Is it just me or is that Krissie too nice? There’s something artificial about her. As an actor, I’m a student of human nature, and I can tell when people are playing a part. She’s not doing a very good job of it either. I certainly wouldn’t cast her in anything.”

  “I thought it was just me because she…” I trailed off.

  Dad’s brow knit together. “Because she’s going to marry Eddie?”

  I shrugged. The answer was obvious and didn’t need a response. “Maybe she was nervous. I mean, I would be pretty nervous about meeting my fiancé’s ex-wife, especially if the marriage ended on as bad of terms as ours did.”

  “You’re giving her too much benefit of the doubt.”

  “Can you give someone too much of that?”

  “Sure you can.” He paused. “You know, Kelsey, it wouldn’t hurt you go out on a date now and again. I’m not saying you should get remarried, but go out and have some fun. You spend all your time worrying about Hayden, me, and this farm.”

  “I like worrying about Hayden, you, and Barton Farm.”

  “I know you do, but there is more to your life than being a mom and daughter, and working.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that. First Laura and now my father? What was wrong with being single? I had Hayden. He was all I needed. I sighed because I knew both of them only said this because they loved me and wanted me to be happy. Maybe I had been happier before the divorce, before I knew about the cheating, but I didn’t have the weight of Barton Farm on my shoulders then either. The responsibility contributed to my overall stress, but I refused to give it up until I was forced out. In the two years since I had become director, I had come to love the Farm and fell more in love with history than ever before.

  “Just think about what I said.” Dad tweaked my right ear like he had when I was little girl. “Now, that Hayden’s gone, I’m going to head back to the cottage for a bit to practice my lines.” He grinned. “Hamlet, can you hear me? Bahhhaha!”

  I chuckled. Dad’s ability to make me laugh was one thing that I could count on.

  Tiffin sighed and followed me back into the visitor center. He was always blue when his boy was away. I glanced down at him. “I miss him too, Tiff.”

  Ashland ran up to me, dodging Abraham Lincoln as she went.

  “Careful there, dear lady. Don’t you know that we are at war?”

  She ignored him. “Kelsey.” She waved at me.

  I walked over to her. “Ashland, slow down. What’s wrong?”

  She took a deep breath. “I did what you asked me to. I researched the nonprofits that the Cherry Foundation supports in the county: there are seven of them.”

  “Seven?” I had hoped that there weren’t that many.

  She nodded, still out of breath. “I emailed you the list.”

  I removed my cell phone from my pocket and saw that I did in fact have a new email from her. It came in the middle of the battle, which explained why I hadn’t hear my phone ping when it arrived. “It’s a start.” I scrolled through the names. Barton Farm was one of the seven, so that took the list down the six. Maxwell wouldn’t remove money from a children’s hospital; that would make him look bad, and Maxwell had been all about appearances. So I knocked another off of the list. That left me with five. Five wasn’t too bad. However, with the reenactment going on, I didn’t know how I could be driving all over Summit County looking for these organizations and questioning people about Maxwell. Right away I knew a couple of them would have no interest in the reenactment.

  “I found something else,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You asked me to cross-reference it with the reenactors. I’m working on that. There are a lot of them, and I haven’t found anything so far. I am about halfway through the all names on the Union and Confederate lists.” She chewed on her lip.

  “Ashland, spit it out,” I ordered.

  “I took a break from all the reenactors and cross-referenced the Farm employees with the organization list, and I found a connection.”

  “What?” I asked. “A connection other than the Farm itself?”

  She nodded. “Number three on the list.”

  “New Hartford Beautification Committee?” I asked.

  “Right.” She paused. “Shepley is on the committee. In fact, he’s the head of it.”

  seventeen

  A beautification project was just the sort of organization that Maxwell would find a waste of money. “I need to talk to Shepley.”

  “I thought you would say that. Should we tell the detective and chief?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to involve Shepley if it really looks like he had nothing to do with this. If I see any evidence that he knows anything, I’ll tell the detective. Let’s go.”

  She hesitated. “You want me to go with you?”

  “Of course. Now, come on.”

  We walked across the grounds and despite my nervousness about having a second confrontation with Shepley in one day, I smiled when I saw a group of reenactor children teaching visiting kids how to play with a hoop and walk on stilts. The modern kids’ parents snapped photograph after photograph. Good. I hoped they shared those photos with friends and family, so that we would attract even more visitors to the Farm.

  As we passed the brickyard, I could not help but look. The area was blocked off with crime scene tape, and there still was a tech there taking samples from the mud in the pit. If they already knew Maxwell’s cause of death, I wondered what the hoped to find in the mud pit.

  Ashland shielded her eyes from the brick pit. My assistant clearly didn’t have the stomach for murder.

  We walked through the rows of vegetables in Shepley’s main garden. Next to it, near the edge of the forest, was his pride and joy: his medicinal garden. A six-foot-high iron fence encircled it. Shepley had started it two years ago with a grant from the state of Ohio. The purpose of the garden was to show the flowers and herbs pioneers used for medicine in nineteenth century. Many farmers like Jebidiah Barton had such gardens because until the area was settled and civilized, they did not have a local drugstore close by and sometimes there wasn’t even a doctor. However, science had since learned that many of the plants can also kill a person if not taken in the right way, which is why the iron gate to the medicinal garden was locked when Shepley was not tending to it.

  Inside the garden, Shepley yanked dandelions and other weeds from around wilted lily of the valley leaves. By this time of year, the tiny bell-shaped flowers had come and gone. He separated the dandelions from the other weeds. He always said they were good for salad; I took his word for it. Bent over his work, Shepley’s back appeared even more humped in shape. I winced. It must have been painful for him, but I had never heard him complain—at least, I had never heard him complain about aches and pains. There were many other things about the Farm he complained about.

  Shepley straightened up. “What do you want?”

  “You really shouldn’t greet your supervisor like that,” Ashland murmured, but it was loud enough for Shepley to hear.

  I glanced at her in surprise. Maybe this weekend would make her grow some backbone.

  Shepley snorted and resumed weeding.

  I stepped forward. “We need to talk to you about Maxwell.”

  “Why would I want to talk ab
out that rat?” Shepley dropped a handful of leaves and stems into his bushel basket. It was half full. “The man is scum.”

  “Do you think that because he planned to remove funding from the New Hartford Beautification Committee?”

  A dandelion dropped from his hand. “What do you know about that?” He scooped up the dandelion.

  “I know that you have an initiative to bring more native plants back into the town.” I paused. “And I know Cynthia signed on to support it with Cherry Foundation money. If Maxwell removed funding, the initiative wouldn’t be able to go forward. Unless you have another source of funding I’m not aware of.”

  The gardener spat tobacco juice an inch from my shoe. “Sounds to me that you know all you need to know. Now leave me alone with my plants.”

  There was no tobacco use allowed on the grounds, but I chose to ignore it because I wanted information. “How did Maxwell feel about Cherry Foundation money going to your group?”

  Still bent over, Shepley pulled the bushel basket farther down the garden row. He stopped in front of a huge lavender plant. “How do you think the little weasel thought about it?”

  “He didn’t like it,” Ashland said.

  The gardener snorted. “No, he didn’t like it. In fact, he told me that he was going to stop it. He had no respect for plants. I can’t deal with a man like that.”

  “When did he tell you this?” I asked.

  He shoved the wad of tobacco into his left cheek with his tongue and looked like a black-toothed chipmunk. “The swine told me about it just yesterday.”

  I wrinkled my brow. That night Maxwell was dead. “I was with Cynthia and Maxwell the entire time they were on the grounds. I never saw you.”

  “You weren’t with them the entire time. I was inside of the church when he, Ms. Cynthia, and some girl came inside. I was just trying to catch my breath and get out of the sun for a spell. The church is a nice place to do that. It’s peaceful. Typically tourists respect it and don’t speak too loudly inside.

  “While Cynthia and the girl admired the church, Maxwell pulled me aside and told me his plans. I would have decked him right there if Ms. Cynthia hadn’t been in the room. He must have known that too.” He held a weed so tightly in his hand that it bent in half under the pressure of his grasp. “I had planned to talk to Cynthia sometime when Maxwell wasn’t around and tell her what her nephew planned. Maybe that would change her mind and make her leave her money to someone better, not that I know who that might be. Whoever killed Maxwell did me a favor because now I won’t have to do that. I’d buy him a beer if I knew who he was.” He spat a string of tobacco over the basket. “Can you believe he called some of my herbs weeds? He’s the weed as far as I’m concerned.” He ended his speech by calling Maxwell a foul name I had never heard before. Working with Shepley had certainly expanded my vocabulary.

  “Where were you last night?” I asked.

  He narrowed his eyes so small that they were just dark lines on his face, Mr. Magoo style. “I don’t have to answer your questions about my whereabouts after work hours.”

  “You’ll have to answer Detective Brandon’s questions.”

  “Send her over here and make her ask me, but I have nothing more to say to you.”

  “Okay, I will,” I promised.

  Ashland hurried after me when I stomped from the medicinal garden and out through the larger garden as well. “Are you really going to tell the detective about Shepley?”

  I slowed my pace. “I might the next time I see her.”

  “Do you think he did it?”

  My shoulders drooped. “No. It’s too hard for me to believe Shepley would keep it a secret. He would be too proud of himself over it.”

  “That’s what I think too.”

  “Was he the only Farm employee with a connection to one of the Cherry Foundation’s nonprofits?” I asked.

  “The only one I found so far. I’m still working on the list.”

  I gave her a sidelong glance. “If I didn’t know better, I would say you were enjoying this.”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I wouldn’t enjoy someone dying.”

  I patted her arm. “Relax. I meant you’re enjoying the research into the crime.”

  She relaxed. “I guess I am. It’s very interesting to see everything the Cherry Foundation supports.”

  I agreed. “There’s something else I need you to look into for me.”

  “Sure,” she said eagerly. “What is it?”

  “Jason,” I said as we passed the barn.

  “Barn Boy?” Her brow shot up.

  I frowned. “Yes, and please don’t call him that.”

  “I’m sorry.” She hung her head.

  “I think he’s been living at the Farm. I’m worried about him. Can you pull his personnel file? I want to confirm his home address.”

  “Living at the Farm? Is he allowed to do that?”

  I shook my head. “I think he’s been squatting in the barn. The question is why. First, I want to make sure he’s okay, then I will try to convince him to sleep somewhere else.”

  “Do you think something’s wrong at his home?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to share my fears with Ashland, not until I knew all that facts about Jason’s home life.

  “Was he here last night?” she asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, and he heard a scream in the middle of the night close to one in the morning.”

  Ashland froze. “He did?” She shivered. “How terrible.”

  “It must have been Maxwell.” I chewed on my lip. “Just before he died.”

  “He must have been terrified. Did he go out and investigate the scream?”

  I shook my head as we crossed the street and stepped onto the pebbled path on the other side. “No. He assumed that it was a couple of reenactors causing trouble, and he didn’t have the nerve to face them.”

  “Well, it was probably smart that he didn’t approach them. He could be dead now too.” She made a note in her notebook.

  It was my turn to shiver at the thought of what might have happened to Jason.

  “I’ll pull his personnel file,” she said. “I’ll do it right now.”

  “Great. I’m going to leave the Farm for a bit.”

  She stopped midstride. “Where are you going?”

  “On an errand,” I said. “I should be back in an hour.”

  eighteen

  All day I had felt a need to go visit Cynthia, but fear that I would intrude on her grief made me wait. I knew that she would have her house staff with her, but who else was visiting her and giving her comfort during this time? As far as I knew, Maxwell was her only family. After Ashland ran back to the visitor center to hunt for Jason’s personnel file, I went in search of Laura.

  I found her eating cornbread with Chase Wyatt in the Union camp. I turned to go before she spotted me, but I was too slow.

  “Kel, over here!” she called.

  Reluctantly, I joined them.

  With a smile, Chase held up a square cast-iron pan to me. “Cornbread?”

  “No, thank you,” I said curtly.

  He shrugged and cut out another hunk for himself.

  “Chase and I were having a nice visit, and I told him all about you,” Laura said.

  My face grew hot. “Laura, can I talk to you?” I nodded to Chase. “Enjoy your cornbread.”

  His smile broadened. “Oh, I will. I make the best cornbread in camp. I don’t usually share it, but then again, I don’t usually get nice company like Laura.”

  Laura stood from the camp stool and brushed cornbread crumbs from her skirt before following me away from Chase.

  When we were out of earshot, I hissed, “What were you doing with him?”

  “I wanted to check him out before I encouraged you to go out with him. A
s your best friend, that’s my job.”

  I looked heavenward. “I appreciate your concern, but really it’s not your job. It’s not anyone’s job.”

  She shrugged. “I made it mine.” She paused. “He’s a really nice guy, Kel. I think you should date him after this whole murder investigation is over.”

  Oh right, we still have the little issue of a murder that has to come before my love life.

  I threw up my hands. “Laura, what makes you think that he wants to go out with me?”

  “Oh, I know he does. I can tell. He was very interested in you and asked a lot of questions.”

  I started in the direction of the visitor center. “That just means he wants information—information he can feed his uncle the police chief, so he can get whatever supposed heat from the investigation off of himself and onto me.”

  She shook his head. “He seemed genuine.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever he may feel about me is a moot point. I’m not interested. Besides, he could be married. Sometimes reenactors remove their wedding rings, either because their character wasn’t married or because he didn’t have a wedding band.”

  She grinned. “So you noticed he’s not wearing a wedding ring.”

  I scowled.

  “For your information, he’s not married. I asked. Don’t worry, I asked all the pertinent questions. He lives in New Hartford. Has been engaged once but never married. Doesn’t have any kids. He’s been an EMT for the town for over ten years.”

  I groaned. “I’m over this conversation. Can we talk about something else?”

  She shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Can you be in charge for a bit? I’m going to visit Cynthia.”

  Her face fell. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’ll be all right. I don’t know if she’ll be up for to too many visitors. I don’t even know if she will be up to seeing me.”

  “Where’s Ashland? Shouldn’t she be in charge while you’re gone?”

  “Technically,” I smiled, “she is. But you know that any one of those reenactors could push her over. I need someone tougher to take care of things while I am away. I won’t be gone long.”