Maple Mayhem (A Sugar Grove Mystery) (22 page)

“How did you expect to move enough syrup to make it worth the risk without attracting attention?” Unless their foot traffic was a lot heavier than ours I couldn’t imagine how what he was doing could have paid off.

“I set up an agreement with a major restaurant chain a year or so ago. I’ve been selling it to them in bulk ever since.”

“And they didn’t ask any questions?”

“No, Dani. Unlike you, they knew when to stop asking questions.” Which only brought another one to mind. One I really didn’t want the answer to but couldn’t keep from asking.

“Did you kill Frank?” I felt queasy and dizzy enough that I was almost glad to be lashed to something more stable than myself. Phoebe’s eyes opened wide just in time to hear the answer.

“It couldn’t be helped. He caught me in his sugarhouse starting to sabotage the place.”

“Why would you sabotage Frank’s if he wasn’t going to join the cooperative?”

“Because I hated his guts for all the harassment I’ve had to endure from him all these years. He showed up at every single board meeting I was a member of for as long as he lived in Sugar Grove. That man made a hobby out of giving me grief. So I figured, if I was damaging properties of people I liked, why wouldn’t I go ahead and throw Frank in for good measure. Besides, damaging his place might have made people even more unsure about joining if they weren’t absolutely positive about where the danger was coming from.”

“So you decided to kill him?”

“I couldn’t let him live anymore than I can let the two of you. What he knew would have led straight back to investigating my property and I would have been out of business and in prison instead. And now, I need to get my boxes and get on the road before Nicole gets home. She hates it when I’m late for dinner.”

“You wouldn’t really just leave us here like this.” I tried to sound convincing instead of terrified and whiny but I don’t think I quite managed it. I felt my voice sliding and cracking as the words slipped out and even with my ankles tied, my knees were knocking like I was a one-woman band with a tambourine strapped between them.

“You’re right, I almost forgot something.” Kenneth started patting down my jacket and I suddenly worried he was a dirty old man in addition to all his other faults. In response to a jingling he reached into my pocket and pulled out the keys to the Clunker. “You must have parked at Jill’s if you were checking her trees. I’ll need to get rid of that sorry excuse for a car if I don’t want anyone to find you. But don’t worry, I’ve got a couple of places in mind to stash it.” He patted the top of my head, grabbed his boxes, and left. I heard the metal door clanging shut and then nothing but the sound of Phoebe starting to sob.

“It’s okay, Phoebe. We’ll get out of here.” I tried using my babysitting voice, the one I use with Hunter and Spring when they stub their toes or pinch their fingers in a kitchen drawer. It didn’t seem to work as well on Phoebe as it did on the kids. I would have scootched my chair closer to hers but just like always, my feet didn’t even come close to reaching the floor.

“No, we won’t.”

“Someone is bound to come looking for us. We just need to wait it out.” And try not to think about the need to use the bathroom. My bladder isn’t any bigger than the rest of me. I’m like a toy dog that way.

“It won’t matter if they do. This is a survival bunker and it’s meant not to be found. Frank built it secretly more than ten years ago and no one has ever got wind of it.” That explained all the food and water and other supplies.

“But surely it shows? Or someone can hear us if we yell loudly enough.” I started singing again. Phoebe yelled even above my racket.

“It’s soundproofed and the whole place is hidden under the brush entirely if you just cover it over with the branches we keep piled up nearby.”

*   *   *

“Cut branches should dry out and leave this place exposed after a while.”

“It’s winter. You know how long a wreath stays fresh-looking on a door in this kind of weather. The same can be said for hemlock boughs.”

“But eventually they’ll wither.”

“And so will we. You and I will have died of thirst long before this place is easy to spot. If we’re lucky, someday they’ll find our bodies.” Phoebe began to sob again. “We’re going to die completely surrounded by survival supplies. How ironic is that?”

“If it’s so hard to find this place, how did Kenneth do it?”

“He told me he saw it the night he was out girdling Jill’s trees. I left the brush pulled away and the outer doors open when I ran back to the house to get something. I wasn’t here and he checked it out and left.”

“But why would he put his stuff in here?”

“I guess he had the stuff in the back of his SUV when he drove up here to vandalize the sugarhouse. He wanted to get his things back so he remembered this place and he left them here for safekeeping. I guess he thought either they would go unnoticed or someone would call the police and they would find their way back to him in the end.”

“So he was here checking up on them since you didn’t call the police?”

“Exactly. I came in and found him in here. He hit me on the head. I was sort of stunned, I guess, and he took advantage of that in order to tie me up. I kept drifting in and out of consciousness as he kept coming back and forth for his boxes and yelling at me for being here and forcing him to hurt me.”

“Was today the first time you noticed Kenneth’s boxes?”

“No. I spotted them when I was here yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you call Mitch?”

“Because people would be even more inclined to think Frank was the vandal. And this proved to me he wasn’t. Besides, I couldn’t let Mitch see this place.”

“Why not? It’s a little kooky but it isn’t anything to be ashamed of. I bet Mitch would actually think it was pretty interesting.”

“He does.”

“If he doesn’t know about it, how can he think it’s interesting?” I looked around trying to think what she could mean. In the dim light from the flashlight Kenneth had been gentlemanly enough to leave, my eyes made out a vintage New Hampshire vanity license plate with the word
GEEZER
from Backwoods Bruce’s videos. “Wait a minute, was Frank Backwoods Bruce?” Phoebe shook her head.

“No, he wasn’t.”

“You are. That’s where all your money has been coming from.”

“That’s me. When I first came up with the idea for the videos, I thought Frank would be the star of the show. It turned out he got completely tongue-tied. We even tried disguising his appearance and using a voice changer. I thought anonymity might put him at ease. Eventually, we decided since Frank had already taught me everything he knew about the woods and survival skills, maybe I could host it instead. We didn’t think most of the viewers would be as willing to listen to advice from a young person, and a young woman at that.”

“And you already had been trying to disguise Frank so why not try it on yourself.”

“That’s right. I realized I loved being in front of the camera and the videos went viral. Before long, Backwoods Bruce was a huge hit and we had sponsors and advertisers streaming in.”

“Is that what you and Frank were arguing about Friday when I drove up to accuse him of vandalizing the Midget?”

“It was. He wanted me to stop disguising myself and to let everyone know who Backwoods Bruce really was. I told him we couldn’t risk it. I loved my job and didn’t want to lose it because viewers wouldn’t take me seriously. Besides, I didn’t want Mitch to know.”

“But I bet Mitch would think it was a turn-on to find out he was dating a celebrity.”

“I don’t think he’d understand me pretending to be a man.”

“I think you might be underestimating him.”

“He’s always going on about how pretty he thinks I am and how much I make him feel like a gentleman,” Phoebe said.

“You know things didn’t work out between Mitch and me.”

“Everyone in town knows about that.” Phoebe was right. Everyone in several surrounding towns probably knew about it, too.

“So you know I don’t always have a lot of good things to say about him.”

“I’ve never heard you say anything good about him. Even when you were dating him.”

“I guess you’re right. But one thing I can say is that he isn’t a sexist. If he respects something, he respects it and it wouldn’t matter to him whether an expert at something he was interested in was a man or a woman. Knowing Mitch, I think he’d find the whole thing pretty hot.”

“I don’t know. He likes my long hair and my lip gloss. He loves it when I wear heels.”

“And he loves hunting, fishing, and running all over God’s creation on a snowmobile. If he thought you were not only someone who would share his love of those pastimes but could teach him a thing or two, I think he’d be overjoyed.”

“Really?”

“I wouldn’t steer you wrong. And I think it would be a lot better to risk it than to leave him wondering if you killed Frank. As much as he likes you and wants to invest in your relationship that is going to be a hard thing to get past.”

“I’m afraid my sponsors and advertisers will stop ordering ads on the program and the blog if they know I’m a woman.”

“Think about it. Your viewership is bound to increase if you go on camera and let everyone know who you are. Everyone loves a big reveal. The guys who watched for the tips will keep coming. Guys who like to watch pretty women will start coming. Women who are proud of you for making it in a man’s world will start watching. You’ll attract an even larger viewership once word gets out Bruce is really a woman and advertisers love that. It’ll be the best thing that could happen.”

“It doesn’t matter though, does it? We aren’t going to get out of here.” Phoebe pulled up in her arms and kicked with her legs. I tried the same. Over the course of the next couple of hours I managed to shout myself hoarse and Phoebe just got really quiet and withdrawn. I had a lot of time to think about roads not taken and words unspoken. I wished I had been nicer to Knowlton. I wished I had time to be closer to my sister. I wanted to get married and maybe have a cute baby of my own like Cyan. I wished I could tell my mother I believed her psychic shenanigans.

Which got me to thinking about how my mother’s shenanigans were not always as silly as they seemed. I tried to remember our phone conversation. Something about the dark and never giving up as long as there was light. That even a flicker of light was like a knife through the darkness and would lead back to love. So what did it mean? Just thinking about it made me angry. If things beyond our regular senses wish to be taken seriously, they ought to actually make sense instead of mucking around with all the flowery language and fluffy imagery.

“This is ridiculous. Phoebe, you’re an experienced survivalist. What should we do?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t.” I thought she was going to start to cry again. With the way she was making a habit of weeping she was going to die of dehydration before the night was out.

“What would Backwoods Bruce do? Come on, think.”

“Bruce is imaginary. This situation is real.”

“But the principle is the same, right? I mean, Frank would have taught you some strategies for Bruce to share.” Phoebe stopped crying and sniffed.

“Evaluate all the things in your environment. Take an inventory of anything and everything available. The odds of survival in any situation increase with your ability to adapt and think creatively.”

“So what have we got?” I looked around.

“We’ve got chairs and sheets and we’re both wearing clothes,” Phoebe said. “There’s the flashlight and a bunch of supplies we can’t get to while we’re tied up.”

“The flashlight. It looks old.”

“Everything in here except the food and water is old. Frank didn’t believe in buying new if you could reuse something you already had or someone else was getting rid of. Why do you think we have so much junk lying around the place?”

“Could it be old enough that the lens is made of glass?”

“Absolutely.”

“Can you use your feet to drag yourself over to the table and grab it? If you can, I think I have an idea.” I explained the plan and Phoebe nodded and began the slow process of hauling her chair, inch by inch, to the table. The sound of the chair legs scrapping the concrete floor was as least as unpleasant as my singing but within a few minutes she had gotten there.

“Now what?”

“Can you reach it?” I kept hoping I had figured out what my mother had been talking about. Broken lights and knives in the dark. I still wasn’t sure about the heart-shaped card. I held my breath while Phoebe stretched her slim fingers out. I heard a little grunt that probably got squeezed out of her by some of the skin on her arms rubbing off on the sheet ties.

“Ten years of piano lessons,” Phoebe said managing the impossible. “I never thought I’d be glad I took them. Now what?”

“Can you keep ahold of the flashlight and drag yourself next to me? I’d take a turn with the moving but my feet don’t reach the floor.” Phoebe nodded and started back toward me. Within just a few minutes, by working together, we had managed to unscrew the top and to get the glass lens out of the flashlight. Phoebe rapped the lens against the arm of her chair and broke off a jagged bit, exposing a sharp edge.

“I’ll saw you out first,” I said holding the bit of glass gingerly between my thumb and index finger. “Tell me once I’ve broken through to the fleshy bits. I can’t see very well.”

It took some doing but before what seemed like too long I had freed her nearest arm. She took over with the untying and sooner than I thought possible Phoebe and I were both on our feet and stumbling. I’d like to say we ran triumphantly for the stairs but the truth is our legs were stiff from all the sitting. We tripped and limped to the stairwell and staggered up, hesitating near the double doors at the top.

I couldn’t speak for Phoebe but I was scared. Scared Kenneth was still up there waiting for some reason. Scared Beau had gotten loose once more. Scared the ghost of Frank would saunter up and clap us both on the back for a situation well survived. But a desire for freedom and, even more important, a bathroom won out and we shoved the doors open together.

Dusk was gathering, the temperature was falling, and I heard a throat being cleared. Knowlton stepped out from around the corner of the bunker like he had been waiting around for paint to dry.

“See, there you go again, spoiling everything,” Knowlton said, crossing his arms across his puffy down-filled jacket.

“Knowlton, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“I followed you here from Jill’s place.” That didn’t explain why he had left us in the bunker.

“Why didn’t you come see what was keeping us?”

“Well, I stood outside listening and watching after you went in. Then Mr. Shaw went in and I listened even more carefully. Mother always says I should mind my manners around Mr. Shaw and his wife.” Knowlton paused for dramatic effect before continuing. “I heard him threatening you and arguing. I hightailed it and dove for cover before he got back to the top of the stairs.”

“Why didn’t you come down and rescue us? We thought we were going to die down there.” Phoebe was yelling now. Mild-mannered Phoebe had completely lost it. She thought she had the strength and she tried to haul off and deck him. Fortunately for Knowlton, the adrenaline had robbed her of normal muscular capacity and instead of connecting with his jawline she knocked herself off balance and sagged to the ground.

“I thought if I waited long enough, you would get really worried and think of me as even more of a hero.” Knowlton shook his head at her then turned toward me. “I thought you’d be grateful.”

“You thought wrong. A gentleman would never have left us in such a predicament in order to inflate his importance.” I was working myself up, too. Usually, I made a point not to give etiquette lessons. I left that sort of thing to Celadon and occasionally Grandma. But I found myself beginning to need a lesson of my own as the pitch of my voice started raising up into the echolocation territory and my fists were aimed toward Knowlton’s face.