The Final Tap Read online

I wiped my hands on my jeans. “This is about Dr. Beeson, isn’t it?”

  The chief pulled on his gray beard. “I’m afraid it is.”

  “He died,” I said, as sure as I was of my own name.

  Detective Brandon’s narrowed eyes focused on me. “And how would you know that?”

  I frowned. “I found him with a drill in his chest on the other side of the pasture. I saw his injury.”

  “Now, ladies,” Chief Duffy said. “Let’s not start hissing at each other.”

  Both Detective Brandon and I scowled at the comment. At least we agreed on something.

  “You’re right that we’re here about Conrad Beeson,” Chief Duffy said. “Yes, he passed away while in surgery.”

  My shoulders sagged. When I was in the woods holding Dr. Beeson’s hand, I’d told him he would be okay. At the time, I hadn’t really believed it, but his passing had turned me into a liar. It was heartbreaking to hear he’d died. I didn’t particularly care for the man, but any loss of life was tragic. He must have people in his life who would miss him.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said sincerely.

  Detective Brandon appeared skeptical at my comment. Her reaction made me wonder what she and jovial Chase had talked about when they were together. He must have driven her absolutely insane with his constant banter.

  “It’s a shame,” the police chief said. He hooked his thumbs under his duty belt. “It’s even more of a shame now that the county prosecutor has asked for an investigation into the professor’s suspicious death.”

  I swallowed. “He was murdered?”

  “Looks that way. It’s hard to believe he could fall on a drill like that by accident. The medical examiner will make the official call, but we’re treating it as a murder until we hear different. Unfortunately, it might be a tricky call to make since the doctors at the hospital performed surgery on his heart. The medical examiner will have to really look hard to determine where the drill bit entered his chest.”

  I shivered.

  “It’s a real miracle that he didn’t die right there on the spot,” Chief Duffy said.

  Maybe it was because of what I’d gone through last summer, but I was willing to bet Barton Farm that Beeson didn’t just happen to fall on his drill. I debated whether I should share what he’d said. It would muddy the waters, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. I cleared my throat. “Before the EMTs showed up, Dr. Beeson tried to tell me something.”

  “What was that?” The detective leaned forward. All of her attention was zeroed in on me.

  I tried to ignore her close proximity. “He just kept repeating ‘they.’”

  “They who?” Detective Brandon asked before I could even finish.

  I set my irritation aside. “I don’t know.”

  “Did he say anything else? Anything at all?”

  I thought for a moment. “He said, ‘They did.’”

  “They did what?” Detective Brandon snapped.

  I glared at the police detective. I knew she had to ask these questions, but she didn’t have to have such an attitude about it. “I don’t know. That’s all he was able to say before the EMTs arrived.”

  “That’s all you got from him?” Detective Brandon’s tone was accusatory at best.

  I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans and frowned at her. “Chase and the other paramedics were trying to save his life. I didn’t think it was a good time to give the poor man a twenty question quiz.”

  Her eyes flashed when I said Chase’s name, and maybe I mentioned him just to get a rise out of her. I wasn’t above that.

  The police chief rocked back on his heels. “Very interesting. Still doesn’t mean that he was murdered. ‘They did’ could be anyone, and in reference to anything.”

  “There’s something else,” I said, thinking I’d gone this far and might as well share all I knew about the professor’s demise. “There weren’t any tracks leading to where Dr. Beeson had fallen.”

  “What do you mean, there weren’t any tracks?” Detective Brandon asked.

  “Benji and I followed his footprints across the pasture. On the other side of the pasture, his tracks disappeared into the snow. I mean, completely disappeared. Benji even suggested alien abduction as a possible explanation.”

  The detective snorted.

  “But,” I said, “on closer inspection, I saw evidence that the footprints might have been wiped away by someone.”

  “By ‘someone,’ you mean another person,” she said.

  I shrugged. “Or Benji’s aliens.”

  The police chief chuckled. The detective did not.

  “We need to see the scene,” Detective Brandon said.

  “I’ll finish cleaning up,” Alice said from the doorway to the kitchen. I hadn’t even realized she was there. I groaned inwardly. As good a cook as Alice was, she was a horrible gossip. Everything I’d just told the police would be common knowledge at Barton Farm before the end of the day.

  I thanked her before turning to the police officers. “Let’s go.” I nodded to their feet. “It’s a good thing you’re both wearing snow boots. The snow is pretty high in some spots.”

  Outside, the late afternoon sun had chased away the gray skies, and now the temperature was inching its way above freezing. Water dripped from the visitor center’s eaves and gutters in a steady stream, and the breeze held the scent of spring. The weatherman might have been right after all. I crossed my fingers that it would be warm enough for the sap to run for the tree tapping class after all—if there was to be a class. Time was running out to find a replacement for Beeson. It might come down to me teaching the class myself. I was no expert, but I thought I could wing it in a true emergency.

  I didn’t have any time to relish the coming spring as Detective Brandon said, “You were going to show us the scene.”

  “Right,” I said. “It’s this way.” I walked straight ahead toward the split-rail fence that surrounded the pasture and climbed over it. Betty and Mags eyed me and went back to chewing their hay.

  Chief Duffy climbed over the fence with a grunt. It took some effort for a man that size to cross the four foot fence.

  The detective, however, held on to the top rail and stared at the oxen. “What about them?”

  “It’s perfectly safe,” I said. “As long as you don’t charge them, they’ll leave you alone.”

  She frowned and climbed over the fence without another word.

  The officers followed me across the pasture, Detective Brandon taking care to put either the chief or me between herself and the oxen at all times. As much as I wanted to comment on this, I kept my mouth shut. Provoking the detective over her obvious discomfort around livestock wouldn’t win me any brownie points, and I was already in a deep deficit where she was concerned.

  On the opposite side of the pasture, we climbed over the split-rail fence again. “I’m going to have to lay off Mrs. Chief’s fine homemade cookies if I have any hope of getting back in shape for the reenactment season,” Chief Duffy said as he went over the fence.

  Detective Brandon rolled her eyes. I would have loved to know her opinion on her boss’s hobby, but then again, I had a pretty good idea what it was.

  I pointed at the ground. “Be careful where you step. The brush marks began here.”

  “Everything here is trampled,” Detective Brandon said with a sniff. “There’d be no way to find any tracks even if anything was left when you and Benji first arrived.”

  I ignored the implied insult she’d shot my way. “The EMTs were more focused on getting Dr. Beeson to a hospital than worrying about messing up tracks.”

  The detective stared at the ground. “So you and Benji were the only ones who saw brush marks. Officer Sonders said nothing about them.”

  “I forgot to bring them to his attention in all the confusion,” I said.<
br />
  The detective sniffed, as if she doubted my story.

  “We need to talk to your assistant,” Chief Duffy said. “Is she back at the visitor center?”

  I shook my head. “She’s a college student, and she had class late this afternoon. She’s gone for the day. But I can give you her cell phone number if that would help.”

  “It would,” the police chief said. “Show us where you found the professor.”

  I led the pair into the forest. It was an easy path to follow with the many footprints left by the EMTs in the snow. Detective Brandon was right—there was no sign of the brush strokes in the snow. I swallowed as we came upon the bloodstained spot where the professor had lain.

  Crime scene tape was strung from tree to tree around the blood stain. Officer Sonders’ handiwork, I assumed.

  Detective Brandon shoved her hands into the pockets of her thick winter coat. “Because of your revelation about the brushstrokes, we’re going to have to call some of the officers in to search the scene again while it’s still daylight.”

  The police chief nodded.

  As the detective touched the edge of the crime scene tape, Chief Duffy turned to me. “Any idea why Dr. Beeson would be this far from the visitor center?”

  I averted my eyes from the scene. “That’s a good question. Benji and I met with him this morning in the sugar maple grove on the other side of the pasture, not far from my cottage. He was frustrated with the weather.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I’d hired him to teach a tree tapping class here at the Farm. It’s scheduled for tomorrow. He was upset that the trees are still frozen because it’s been so cold. It’s unlikely the sap would have run enough for him to tap trees and impress his students during the presentation.” I cleared my throat. “He was so angry about it that he stomped back to the visitor center without Benji and me. Judy—she runs my ticket office—said he stomped into the building and mumbled something about the red maples on the other side of the pasture before leaving again. My best guess is he came over here to see if these trees were as frozen as the sugar maples in the grove.”

  “We’re going to have to talk to Judy too,” Detective Brandon said, removing her hand from the piece of tape.

  I nodded. “You can talk to any of my employees. We’re all very sorry about what happened to Dr. Beeson and will do whatever we can to help.”

  She shot me a look. “Just as long as you don’t get involved in the investigation.”

  I frowned. I knew she was referring to last summer, when I’d meddled in the police investigation of Maxwell Cherry’s death. But since Detective Brandon had believed that I’d had something to do with that death, she hadn’t left me much choice but to meddle.

  “I want to talk to Gavin Elliot first,” the detective said.

  “Gavin?” I asked. “Why him in particular?”

  She scowled at me as if it was clear I hadn’t listened to her warning about non-involvement. She was right—I hadn’t.

  “What about this?” the chief asked, breaking into my thoughts. He pointed at the tree where a limb had been broken off.

  “I didn’t notice that before.” The missing pine bough had been ripped from the tree.

  Detective Brandon took a small camera from her coat pocket and snapped a picture of the broken limb.

  “It looks fresh,” I said.

  “It is.”

  “The branch, if we can find it, may have been the one used to wipe away the tracks,” I suggested.

  “Possibly,” she conceded. “Of course, it could have happened any time in the last twelve hours. It doesn’t mean that this pine bough is related to Conrad Beeson’s death.”

  I scowled, and Chief Duffy patted my shoulder and smiled.

  six

  Two more police officers joined us in the woods and searched the area under the red maples. One of them was Officer Sonders, who appeared irritated when Detective Brandon questioned how he’d secured the scene that morning.

  Chief Duffy cleared his throat. “You have everything well in hand here, Candy. I’m heading back to the station. You give me a holler if you need anything.”

  The detective nodded and appeared relieved that the chief had turned the investigation over to her.

  He nodded to me. “I’ll be seeing you at the festival this weekend. The boys and I are looking forward to it.” He was one of the Civil War reenactors who would be on the grounds to answer questions. “We should talk next year about having a battle reenactment during the festival. There were some battles fought in the winter.” His eyes sparkled at the idea.

  I suppressed a groan. One Civil War reenactment during the summer was just about as much as I could handle.

  Chief Duffy sauntered off. After he’d disappeared into the trees, Detective Brandon turned to me. “I’d like to question your staff that’s here today, starting with Gavin Elliot.”

  I folded my arms. “You still haven’t told me why you want to talk to Gavin so badly.”

  She stared down at me. What I wouldn’t give for five more inches, so that we would be looking at each other eye-to-eye.

  “Ms. Cambridge,” the detective said, “I do not have to tell you anything. This is my investigation.”

  I sighed. I would get the information out of Gavin after she left. “Fine. He should be in the sugarhouse.”

  She waved me on. “Lead the way.”

  As Detective Brandon and I crossed the pasture, she continued to keep a wary eye on the oxen. Again, I held my tongue. I was pretty proud of myself that I’d been able to keep my mouth shut twice. Now, if we had to cross the pasture a third time, I couldn’t make any promises that I wouldn’t crack a joke.

  Gavin was in the sugarhouse, as I expected. Part of his job that week, other than running the school visits, was to plan for the Farm’s maple syrup production. Since it was the first year we’d done this, we wouldn’t be able to make a lot, but once we could tap the trees, the sap we boiled down into syrup would be bottled and sold in the museum shop.

  Steam rolled out of the open doorway. I knocked on the frame. Gavin looked up from the sugar he was stirring with his wooden paddle. His smile faded when he saw Detective Brandon standing next to me. He leaned the paddle against the edge of the metal trough. “This is about Conrad, isn’t it?”

  I frowned. Gavin had said the man’s name as if he knew him personally.

  Detective Brandon nudged me aside and stepped into the sugarhouse. “Yes. I need to talk to you.”

  I stepped inside the sugarhouse too.

  The detective glared at me over her shoulder. “I need to talk to Mr. Elliot alone.”

  “I’d like Kelsey to stay,” Gavin said.

  Detective Brandon stepped to the side as if she wanted to have a clear view of both of us. “Mr. Elliot, we can talk about it here alone, or we can talk about it down at the station in a tiny windowless room. You have a right to legal counsel, of course. Ms. Cambridge does not fill in for that.”

  I rolled my eyes and was glad that my son wasn’t there to see it. “Detective, please don’t make this more uncomfortable than it has to be. If Gavin wants me here, let me stay. He’s going to tell me everything that happened after you leave anyway.”

  Gavin nodded. “I will.”

  “Fine. I don’t have all day.” The detective focused on Gavin. “Is it true that you threatened to kill Dr. Conrad Beeson?”

  “Wh—?” I began.

  Gavin stared at the top of his work boots. “I did, and I was sorry I said it the moment it came out of my mouth.”

  The corner of Detective Brandon’s mouth turned up. I wouldn’t call it even the beginning of a smile. It was more like a twitch, a small indication that she had her prey in her sights. “And why did you threaten him?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt him.” Gavin braced his hand on the ricke
ty table for support. It wobbled but held. “You have to believe that.”

  “You threatened him. I don’t have to ‘believe’ anything.”

  Gavin’s shoulders drooped. “I’m not proud of that.”

  She inclined her head. “So please answer my question.”

  “I said it because Conrad stole from my family. I was angry, and it just came out. I didn’t really mean it. I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth.”

  “If you were angry enough to wish someone dead, maybe you were angry enough to carry out that threat.”

  Gavin looked from the detective to me. “Conrad is dead?”

  We both nodded.

  His face paled. “Poor Corrie.”

  “Who’s Corrie?” The detective’s voice was sharp.

  “Conrad’s daughter.”

  The detective nodded. “I’ll need to talk to her too.”

  Gavin’s brow creased. “Corrie would never hurt her father. They didn’t have the world’s best relationship, but I know she would never do that.”

  “I need to talk to her because she is probably the next of kin.” Detective Brandon studied Gavin. “Are you implying that she might have reason to want her father dead?”

  The color drained from Gavin’s face. “N—no.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Do you know Corrie well?”

  He blushed. “Well enough.”

  So Gavin knew not only Dr. Beeson, but also his daughter, and this was the first time I was hearing about it? Why hadn’t he mentioned all this when I’d told the staff that I’d hired Beeson to take over the tree tapping class?

  I could almost hear the police detective tuck this latest information into the back of her brain. “So tell me,” she said. “What were the circumstances in which you made your threat?”

  Gavin’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “I was at a Sap and Spile meeting, and we had a disagreement.”

  Both the detective and I blinked at him. “A what?” I asked.

  He sighed. “A Sap and Spile meeting.” Then he blushed. “It’s sort of a maple sugaring club. We meet twice a week during February and March in the shelter house in the park.”