The Final Reveille: A Living History Museum Mystery (14 page)

“What is the deal with the two of you?”

He didn't say anything for a couple of beats. “She's my ex-girlfriend.”

“I guessed that much, but why does she hate you so much?”

He shrugged. “I broke it off.”

“Why did you do that?” I heard myself ask even though it was a deeply personal question, one I had no right to ask an acquaintance, which Chase certainly was and would most likely always remain.

“We grew apart and wanted different things. We were about to get engaged and had the talk about kids. She doesn't want any; I love kids. I knew if I married her I would be okay with that for a few years, but I would eventually resent her if I didn't have children. I didn't want it to come to that, so I ended it.”

“I didn't expect such an honest answer.”

He grinned. “I'm a pretty honest guy. You'd know that if you'd let me help you find out what happened to Maxwell.”

“I don't know.”

“I hope that I proved here that I can be helpful.”

“I don't know that Wesley would have been that forthcoming with me,” I admitted. “I saw him earlier today when he was sober, and he barely said a word about Portia.”

“So you admit that I was helpful.”

“I guess so.” I shrugged.

“Are we a team?”

I chewed on lip. Maybe Chase was right, maybe I did need his help getting down to the bottom of Maxwell's death. He could get closer to the reenactors than I could, but could I trust him? This wasn't a game. My freedom and possibly the custody of Hayden were at stake.

He held out his hand. “Let's shake on it.”

I stared at his hand for a long moment.

“Come on. It won't hurt.”

I shook his hand, and he held mine much longer than anyone making a pact would have.

“Are you going to tell me why you're asking about Jamie Houck?” Chase asked.

I frowned.

Twenty-one

The morning after the
conversation with Wesley, I wanted to see the property that Maxwell planned to save with Cynthia's fortune, and I wanted to do it without Chase. I'd agreed to work with him to solve Maxwell's murder, but I didn't have to tell him everything. Since I was keeping secrets, I could only assume he was too.

Vacant lots, empty homes, and struggling cash advance businesses dotted Kale Road. Several fast food restaurants languished on the street, but there was little else.

I rolled to a stop next to the largest vacant lot. An eight-foot-high chain-link fence surrounded the three acres. When I was a child, there had been two rundown apartment complexes there. They were eventually condemned because of asbestos in the buildings. They stood on the property until four years ago, when they were knocked down and the land was cleared.

I turned and drove down the side street. There was the gate entrance. The gate stood wide open. The lock was cut and dangled from the chain link. Maybe someone planned to rob the construction site. It seemed to me the only thing you could make off easily with was a rock or a pocketful of dirt. I drove through the open gate. The grounds looked like the surface of the moon. Ten- and twelve-foot-high piles of dirt and rubble were scattered haphazardly around a bulldozer, which appeared not to have moved in months.

It was hard to believe a mall would be successful in such a place and on such a forgotten street. It would have to take a strong will and a lot of money to make it happen. I had to respect Maxwell for wanting to bring construction here to revitalize a struggling part of the town. What a gamble it must have been.

As I sat surveying the bleak scenery, a black sedan with tinted windows pulled up alongside my car. The driver's-side window powered down. The man behind the wheel wore an Oxford shirt and sunglasses tinted the same dark shade as his windows. “Can I help you?”

The no trespassing sign was clearly visible on the fence. Crud. I shouldn't have even turned into here.

“Sorry,” I said. “I was just turning around.”

“Nobody is supposed to be in here.”

“I know, I'm sorry.”

“You shouldn't be here. This is a construction site.”

“The gate was open, and I needed to go back the way I came. I thought this was a quick and easy place to turn around. Again, I'm sorry. I'll be on my way.”

A look of annoyance passed over his face. “One of our demo guys must have left it open. I will have to report it.”

“Is this your property?”

He removed his sunglasses for a better look at me. “I'm the foreman.”

“Is construction starting again on the property?” I said, trying to act casual. “I live nearby and would love a mall so close to home.”

His face relaxed. “Do me a favor and tell your councilman that. Maybe then I can get my permits.”

“Did the town council shut down the work site?” I smiled. “I'm sorry, that was an intrusive question.”

“That was part of it. There were bigger reasons the job site shut down.” He gritted his teeth. “Much bigger. We thought that all that was behind us. Construction was about to start on Monday. Now, I don't know. Things have changed.”

“That's too bad. Do you mean Maxwell Cherry's death?”

“What?” he snapped. “Who are you exactly?”

“Oh, I'm Kelsey,” I said, hoping that I wouldn't regret giving him my real name. “What did you say your name was?”

“I didn't, and it shouldn't matter to you if you were really here to turn your car around. How do you know Maxwell?”

“I don't know him well. His aunt is a friend. I visited her after I heard the news.”

H
e nodded. “Cynthia is a good lady, much better than the rest of us.” He said this like it was significant. Did he not consider himself a good person? “I think our conversation is over, and I will ask you leave. N
ow.”

I started my car. “Sure.” I waved as if we were old friends. “It was nice to see you.”

I could feel the man's eyes through my rear window as I pulled out onto the side street.

As a drove out of the fence, I passed a police car. Detective Candy Brandon was in the driver seat, and she saw me.

My heart rate picked up. I hadn't technically done anything wrong. Okay, I trespassed on the construction site, but I was there with the foreman.

But Detective Brandon wouldn't see it that way. By now, she must know the construction site's connection to Maxwell Cherry, and seeing me having a conversation with his foreman just made me a whole lot more suspicious in her eyes.

As if to prove my point, I saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I wasn't speeding. I didn't have a taillight out. I was a murder suspect.

Detective Brandon rolled her cruiser to a stop behind me and got out of the car. She took her time walking up to my window. She wanted to make me nervous.

I powered the window down and waited.

She leaned on the roof of my car.

“Something wrong, detective?” I asked.

“I have to say I was surprised to see you at Maxwell Cherry's construction site this morning.”

Her face was so close to me, I could see the freckles on her nose. I bet she hated those freckles. They made her cute. Detective Brandon wasn't someone to relish being considered cute. She would consider it a liability.

“Errands,” I said, gesturing to the groceries in the back seat of my car. “I
wanted to get my shopping done before the Farm opened this morning. We have two battles today, and tomorrow is the Blue and Gray Ball.” I smiled. “I know the chief will be there since he's a reenactor, but will you be attending the ball? Consider yourself invited. Just keep in mind, nineteenth-century ball attire is requir
ed.”

She frowned. “I can't say I have ball attire that would work for any century.”

I opened my mouth again, but she interrupted me. “Who were you talking to at the job site?”

I ran my hand over the steering wheel. “The job's foreman. He just happened to drive up when I was turning around.”

“Am I supposed to believe that?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because it is true.”

She pursed her lips. “I will check your story out with the foreman.”

“I'm sure you will.”

“I hope you're not playing detective.”

“Whatever would give you that idea?” I asked.

She pushed off the car and folded her arms. “Take my advice: leave the investigating up to the police.”

“You got it,” I lied.

She frowned. “I have another piece of advice for you too. Stay away from Chase Wyatt. He's trouble.”

I dropped my hands to my lap. “Why would you talk to me about Chase?”

“I've seen you two speaking at the Farm. The guy is slick and he'll be able to make you believe what he wants.” She squinted as a cloud moved out of the way of the sun.

“Is that what he did to you? Did he make you believe something?” I asked before I could stop myself. As soon as the question was out of my mouth I regretted it.
Way to go, Kel. You just made her hate you more.

She glared at me so hard that all of the cuteness I saw earlier in her face disappeared. “I know him. I'm sure he promised you all kinds of things. Don't believe him or you will be sorry.”

Sorry because of Chase or sorry because of you?
I wasn't brave enough to ask.

She turned to go. “You leave the Farm again, you tell me.”

I snorted as she walked back to her car. Like I was going to tell her every time I left the Farm. Not happening.

In her car, Detective Brandon gunned her engine and sped in front of me. Her cruiser disappeared around a corner.

I didn't head straight back to the Farm. There was another address that I wanted to check on first. As I drove, I kept an eye on my rearview mirror. I half expected to find Detective Brandon had doubled back around to follow me. She either wasn't following me or she was so good at it that I didn't see her.

I pulled into one of the fast food parking lots and idled. I picked up the personnel file that Ashland had pulled for me the day before. The tab read
Jason Smith
. I opened the file and skimmed his ap
plication. It was sparse. I hired him when I saw him work with the animals at the county fair. I had a gut instinct that he was the right one for the job. I had little else to go on other than a two-year vocational degree in animal husbandry. He was also the only one who was willing to take the dismal pay I was able to offer. I typed his home address into my GPS on the d
ashboard.

“Address not found,” the automatic voice said.

I frowned and typed in the address again.

“Address not found.”

The address on Jason's application didn't exist, at least as far as some satellite orbiting the Earth was concerned. Maybe it was new construction or something and just not in the GPS yet. But I knew that wasn't true because Jason's application was two years old.

The application said that Jason lived on Route 15. I knew where that was, so at least I could get close enough to where his home should be to confirm my suspicions. I told the GPS to find a store near Route 15. It came up with a drugstore. It was a start.

I ran my hands back and forth over the steering wheel. I shouldn't be away from the Farm in the middle of the reenactment. Too much could go wrong when I wasn't there. But then again, if I didn't find out who killed Maxwell, the Farm was doomed anyway.

I turned onto Route 15. The drugstore came and went. Beyond it there were three car dealerships. The businesses fell away. There were no houses, duplexes, or apartment buildings on the street. Unless Jason lived on the top floor of one of the car dealerships, I could not see how he lived there at all. That didn't add up anyway because the dealerships had a different number of digits than the house number he'd written down.

Time to face facts. Jason didn't live on Route 15. Jason lived in the barn on Barton Farm. The question was, what was I going to do about it? Since his application was two years old, it proved that he had been lying about his living situation for at least that long and maybe living at the Farm just as long.

Hayden and I lived on the Farm grounds too. How had Jason been able to avoid me after hours for all these years? I knew the barn was in the village on the other side of the road, but still, Hayden and I would often go for walks in the village after hours.

My shoulders drooped. How long had this young man needed a place to live and hide?

Twenty-two

I got back to
the Farm just as the first cannon fire broke out for the morning battle.
Boom
! The blast reverberated through
the valley.

“Kelsey,” Benji waved at me when I stepped onto the grounds.

“How's it going?” I asked.

She frowned. “Not good. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. My brickyard is still closed, and the cop the chief put over there told me that it will remain closed for the rest of the weekend. I can't even get my supplies and move my brickmaking talk somewhere else. Who wants to hear about brickmaking without a demo? This is such a pain.”

“Well, the circumstances were unexpected,” I trailed off.

She knocked one of her many braids over her shoulder. “They got the dead guy out. What more do they need? The bees did it. I'm real sorry about that, but I have a job to do.”

Ten yards from us, a whoop went up from the battlefield as the Rebels made a run at the Union soldiers. The Union line hid behind the hay bales made to look like trenches—I wouldn't allow the reenactors to dig up my pasture land for real trenches.

She threw up her arms. “What am I supposed to do?”

“I'll let it be your choice. You can either work in the visitor center directing people and handing out Farm maps, or you can join one of the other crafters.”

“I guess I can go to candle making. But that is so boring.” She pretended to hold a dip stick in her hand. “Dip. Drip. Dip. Drip. Yawn.”

I smiled. “You'll survive. It won't be forever,” I reassured her.

“I'll head there now.”

I held up my hand. “Wait a second. I wanted to talk to you anyway. Before you left work on Thursday, what was the state of the brickyard?”

“Do you think I left it a mess or something? Because I've worked here seven summers, and I always take care of my station.” She folded her arm across her chest.

“Relax.” I rolled my eyes. “I'm not accusing you of that. I'm just curious to hear what everything looked like before I found Maxwell's dead body in the pit the next morning.”

“Oh, well, it was normal I guess. I put all the supplies in the cupboard underneath the station like I always do.

I nodded.

“And I checked the mud for any bees or signs of bees. I didn't find any and covered the pit with the tarp.” She took a breath. “I guess it's weird that he died from a bee sting when I'm sure there weren't any bees there.” She shrugged.
“I mean, did a whole colony wait until I left to move in? I wouldn't think worker bees were that smart.”

I wrinkled my brow. That was an interesting problem. “You were stung the morning before.”

“I was, but Shepley stopped over and got all the bees out.”

“Shepley?” I asked. My problem gardener seemed to be coming up in a lot in conversations about Maxwell's death. “How did he rem
ove them?”

“He used a smoker. I didn't watch too closely. I was about twenty yards away, waiting outside the Barton House. I didn't want to be stung again.”

“And you didn't see any bees later in the day?

“A few came back, so Shepley came over and smoked for them again. After I got stung early that morning, I was really paranoid about them and would check the mud every chance I got. I didn't see any more after that.”

Shepley. I needed to talk to Shepley.

Everything about Maxwell's death was more complicated than I could have ever imagined. Killed by bees, yes, but only after being injected with insulin and dumped into a pit that should have been bee-free. Killed in the middle of the night with hundreds of people nearby and yet not seen. His murder was either committed by someone completely disorganized or completely brilliant.

More yells rang out as the Rebels made their retreat. They had won Friday's battle, but Saturday belonged to the North.

The medics and a select number of privates on both sides went into the field to collect their fake dead. Automatically my eyes searched for Chase. Two days ago, I wouldn't have been able to pick him out from far away. Today, I recognized him immediately by the blond hair peeking out from under his kepi and from his self-assured movements when checking on the fallen members of his regiment. While others checked the bodies strewn on the ground with timidity, he did so with confidence. Checking on someone's health was something that he did every day.

Chase knelt by one of the bodies that was in the very middle of the field. He shook the body's shoulder. It didn't move. Whoever was playing the part was committed to staying in character. Chase forcefully opened his medical bag. He leaned over the man's mouth and blew air into the body.

This wasn't right. Something wasn't right. I had never seen CPR performed at a reenactment. In fact, mouth to mouth recitation wasn't even known of during the Civil War. A reenactor would not try to bring a fake dead person back that way.

Privates from both sides began to crowd around Chase and the body on the ground. I took a few more steps toward the fence that separated Maple Grove Lane from the battlefield.

“Mommy.” A little girl pulled on her mother's sleeve. “What's wrong with that man?”

Her mother patted her head. “It's all part of the acting. Why don't we go into the visitor center and get some ice cream?” She turned her daughter so that she could no longer see the field.

“Okay!” her daughter cried, the body in the middle of the field forgotten with the promise of an early morning ice cream.

I appreciated that the mother lied to her daughter and used ice cream as a bribe. I would have done the same if Hayden were standing next to me. I bit the inside of my lip. Where
was
Hayden? They should be here by now. I hoped Eddie had the good sense to distract him from the drama playing out in the middle of the field.

One of the reenactors on the field was speaking into a cell phone.

“Mom, that guy has a cell phone. They aren't supposed to have those,” an annoyed teenager said. “That guy is cheating.”

That was all the confirmation I needed. I climbed over the split-rail fence. As soon as my feet hit the grass, I ran toward Chase and the man. I pushed reenactors aside.

“Move, please! What's going on?”

Chase was still in middle of giving mouth-to-mouth to the soldier on the ground. He wore blue. He was a Union man. When Chase compressed the soldier's chest, I saw the man's face. It was Wesley.

“Come on, buddy,” Chase said as he pumped. “Come on. Breathe.”

Wesley's features were fluid, as if they could slide right off his face. I had seen the same effect on my mother right after she stopped breathing. Wesley wasn't coming back. He was dead. I placed my small hand on Chase's broad shoulder. The rough wool of his uniform felt harsh against my palm. Underneath the fabric, his muscles twitched with every compression of Wesley's chest.

“Chase,” I whispered. “Chase, he's gone.”

Chase shook his head and kept up with the CPR. He wouldn't give up on Wesley even if all hope was lost. Wesley's eyes remained closed. But I knew Wesley Mayes was dead, and he told me he didn't kill M
axwell Cherry. He may not have, but whoever committed that murder had struck again.