The Final Reveille: A Living History Museum Mystery (6 page)

Ten

At the end of
the pebbled path, where it met the pavement on Maple Grove Lane, another police officer stood guard. I hoped his steely presence would be enough of a deterrent for both the reenactors and the tourists, but I knew how curious the tourists could be. People were constantly trying to get a look behind the scenes in areas of the Farm that were supposed to be off-limits to guests. If the officer couldn't be there all day, I would set one of my seasonals on the job.

I started across the street.

“Ma'am? You can't go over there,” the young officer said.

I hated being ma'med, even if I was a mother. “I'm Kelsey Cambridge, director of Barton Farm. I was told there was an issue with my gardener.”

The officer had to be six-three, over a foot taller than me. I couldn't have seemed like much of a threat. “Oh,” he said, stepping back. “I'm supposed to let you through. The chief said so.”

I nodded and marched across the street.

I slowed as I stepped onto the pebbled path on the other side of the pavement and saw all of the commotion around the brickyard. The medical examiner stood by the ambulance taking notes. Apparently he had the ability to tune out distraction while he worked, because Shepley stood the length of a volleyball court away in front Barton House yelling at Ashland.

My assistant teetered back and forth on her feet, shaking her head, but she didn't even try to argue back.

“I have every right to check on my bees!” the gardener cried. “You can't keep me from them because Maxwell Cherry was dumb enough to get stung.”

Barton Farm's gardener was a small man with a slight hump on his back that was put there from years and years of bending over flowerbeds. A long gray ponytail tied back with a piece of garden twine hung down between his shoulder blades. Red suspenders over his Farm polo held up his jeans. A mysterious scar crossed his left cheek from the edge of his nose to his ear, giving him a piratelike quality. In my imagination, he was one of Captain Hook's men and got into a sword fight with Peter Pan. Shepley was tiny but fierce. I bet Peter Pan needed extra pixie dust to escape him.

Two police officers stood nearby, and neither of them looked like they were going to come to Ashland's rescue.

“What's going on here?” I asked.

Ashland visibly relaxed when I appeared. “Kelsey, thank you for coming. Shepley is upset—”

“Damn right, I'm upset. These Neanderthals won't let me around the side of the house to check on my bees.”

One of the officers twitched at being called a Neanderthal, but still neither said anything. The headache that had begun to form across the street started to pulse behind my right eye.

Ashland cringed. She was way out of her depth when it came to Shepley.
Don't send a girl to do a woman's job,
I thought.

Shepley pointed at the police with a dirt-encrusted fingernail. “You have no respect for this property. If you don't move out of my way, I'm going to push you over.”

One of the two large officers folded his arms and glared down his nose at Shepley. “I'd like to see you try.”

Shepley took a step forward as if he were ready to step up to the challenge. He was half the size of the policeman. Ashland kept rocking back and forth in her sneakers, which looked like clown shoes at the end of her spindly legs.

“Shepley,” I began.

Shepley turned his dirty fingernail on me. “This is all your fault.” His eyes were barely visible slits from squinting into the sun. Shepley would never be so weak as to wear sunglasses or sunscreen to protect his eyes and skin.

I scowled in return. Like many of the problems at the Farm, I had inherited Shepley. He was a talented gardener, perhaps the best in the county, but he was impossible to get along with. As long as he was alone with his plants, all was fine. If he had to make human contact, look out.

In front of Barton House, summer flowers bloomed in a small garden. Shepley's main garden was on the other side of the village, and it boasted even more flowers and rows and rows of vegetables. In this smaller bed, daisies, snapdragons, and irises bopped their heavy heads in the light breeze. Dozens of bees buzzed around us. I swallowed at the image of Maxwell's swollen feet and hoped that I would someday be able to erase it from my memory completely.

One of the officers swatted at a bee.

“What are you doing?” Shepley bellowed. “Don't hit one of my bees. Do you know how precious honeybees are? That they are in decline?”

The officer blinked.

Chief Duffy joined us. Still in his gray Confederate trousers and
sixteen-button frock coat, he chewed on a stick. “Shepley's right,” he told his officer. “The bees are in danger. No swatting.”

The officer licked his lips. “I don't want to get stung, sir, especially since these bees killed the victim.”

Shepley's eyes narrowed. “Are you allergic to bees?”

The officer shook his head.

“Then you have nothing worry about. That guy died because he had a bee allergy.”

The chief removed the stick from his mouth. “You knew that Maxwell had an allergy?”

The gardener sucked on his teeth. “Everyone working on the Farm did. The man had a hissy fit when he was buzzed yesterday afternoon. A grown man squealing in the middle of the village gets attention.”

I hadn't realized so many members of my staff had witnessed Maxwell's bee dance. I couldn't decide if it was good or bad news that more people knew about Maxwell's allergy.

Chief Duffy nodded at this. Not for the first time, I wished I knew what the police chief was thinking. As harmless as he appeared in his reenactor uniform, I was beginning to recognize the chief was a shrewd man.

“Now, Shepley,” the New Hartford chief of police said. “We have an investigation going on into the death of one of your colleagues. To best solve the case, we can't have people walking around the village unsupervised until we've processed and secured the scene. Since your bees were the perpetrators, that puts your hives off limits.”

“Maxwell Cherry wasn't my colleague,” Shepley spat. “The man was a lowlife with no respect for nature or for history. He shouldn't even be able to walk these grounds. He spoils them with his twenty-first-century materialism.”

The chief pointed his stick at him. “That's quite an impassioned speech.”

Shepley squinted at him. “I'm not going to leave my garden. I have too much to do. Do you think these plants tend themselves? I don't care if you'd tell me the president was shot dead in my hollyhocks. I must tend to my garden.”

Duffy removed a gold pocket watch from the pocket of his coat and checked the time. “I see we're not making much progress here, and I, frankly, don't have the time to argue with you. The day is warming up more by the second and we need to get the body to the morgue. So I'll let you into your precious gardens if, and only if, one of deputies stays with you. But the bees are still off-limits.”

Shepley sneered. “If that's the way it has to be, then fine.” He pointed a crooked finger at the two officers in his way. “Now move.”

The deputies parted, and Shepley swore as he stomped back onto the green toward the main garden, which was about a football field away from Barton House. Adjoining the main garden, the iron fence around Shepley's prized medicinal garden loomed. He turned and said over his shoulder, “I'd say the bees did us a service offing Maxwell Cherry. The man didn't even recycle,” he said, as though this was a grave observation of Maxwell's character.

“Shepley, please don't make this worse than it already is,” I called.

He glared at me. “I won't forget this. We were just fine until you came along and wanted to change everything. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have all these reenactors here this weekend, trampling my flowerbeds and killing people.”

Shepley was wrong. The Farm wasn't “just fine” before I became director. The number of guests each year was steadily falling, and the Farm would have gone under without Cynthia's generosity. The previous director, who had been in the post for nearly thirty years, saw no reason to change anything about Farm operations. What visitors expected thirty years ago and what they were willing to pay for in today's world of multimedia overload did not match up. Unfortunately, not all of my employees were on board with my plans. Shepley was one of the old guard who thought it was enough to sit back and wait for the tourists to come to us.

Self-sufficiency was my ultimate goal for the Farm. I didn't want us to dependent on Cynthia's money.
And for good reason
, I realized as I thought of Maxwell's threat. I grimaced. Maxwell was about to take the money away before he died. No wonder I looked like such an enticing suspect to the chief.

I placed my hands on my hips. “Maxwell's death has nothing to do with the reenactment, Shepley.”

“How would you know?” he spat.

I
didn't
know. It was wishful thinking on my part, but the encounter I'd witnessed yesterday between Wesley Mayes and Maxwell over Portia didn't gel with my theory. Had the handsome reenactor been so enraged over Portia's engagement to Maxwell that he murdered his rival?

Shepley picked up his garden trowel, which was lying at the foot of a sunflower, and stomped away. One of the deputies hurried after him.

The chief sighed. “He won't be away from his bees for too much longer. The medical examiner is almost done processing the scene. You may even be able open up this side of the grounds by late afternoon.”

“That's good news, Chief. Thank you.” I glanced around and noticed that Ashland had disappeared at some point during my argument with Shepley. Also absent was Detective Brandon. I turned toward the crime scene and didn't see her standing with the medical examiner and the other officers. I didn't like not knowing where the detective was. My instincts told me to be wary of her.

Chief Duffy hiked up his trousers. “I forgot to mention this when I spoke to you earlier, but I'd advise you not to leave the township.”

I licked my lips. “Because I'm a suspect.”

He rolled the stick to the other side of his mouth. “Yep. I suppose I don't have to really order you to stick around since you live here and all.”

“Do you have any other suspects?”

“Sure do. I never put all my eggs in one basket, even if that basket is looking really, really good for committing the crime.”

I frowned. “I have another suspect who you might not know about.”

He arched an eyebrow at me. “Trying to spread out the suspicion?”

“Of course.” I folded my arms.

He smiled at my honesty. I went on to tell him about the argument that I witnessed between Maxwell and Wesley.

“That does sound promising, but I know Wesley. He's a fine reenactor. He knows his buttons. Not every reenactor can recognize the right buttons for the uniform. Wesley can.”

“I don't think buttons should automatically release someone from suspicion of murder.”

“No, I suppose not.” He sighed as if this was a major failing of our modern society. “But he's a good one, for a Union man. I've even had him in my regiment from time to time when we were low on Confederates. I can't believe he would do such a thing. He's tentative on the battlefield and doesn't have the will to attack like some of my other soldiers do. But I'll certainly talk to him. It seems that I need to pay a visit to the fiancée, Portia, too.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand. “Has Cynthia been told?”

He nodded. “I'm afraid so. I sent one of my officers to her home to tell her because I couldn't leave the scene and I didn't want her to find out through the rumor mill. My officer used to take piano lessons from her as a child. I thought it was a good choice to have someone she knew break the news.”

“And how is she?”

He shook his head. “Officer Parker said that her maid took her straight to bed. It's been quite a shock. The maid told Parker that Cynthia's health has been failing in the recent months.”

I swallowed.
Which is why she was preparing to turn over her foundation to Maxwell.
As much as I disliked Maxwell, my heart ached for Cynthia. She was one of the most cheerful and kind people I knew. While others may hide their fortunes away in the turbulent economy, she shared it and supported local arts and community. When she did pass away, it would be a great loss to the entire town of New Hartford.

“If the village reopens this afternoon, does that mean the Blue and Gray Ball can still be held?”

The ball was planned to be held Sunday evening. The Farm had rented large white tents, which would be set up where we now stood, in the center of the village green. The tents themselves had cost me a small fortune and then there was the period decorations and food. It wasn't easy to find a caterer who was willing to make mid-nineteenth-century fare, and the one who'd agreed wasn't cheap. Just asking the question made my stomach turn. If the ball was cancelled, it could ruin the Farm. Tickets were $75 a pop. And we expected a hundred guests at the event, in addition to the reenactors who had paid extra for the event and the Farm staff who were invited. I guessed that there would be between 300 and 325 people attendance.

The chief dropped his chew stick on the ground. “The ball has to go on. My wife has been talking about it for weeks. It's the first interest that she's shown in my hobby. She bought a hoop skirt!”

I shoulders sagged with relief. “I'm glad.”

He pointed a finger at me. “I will have this case tied up by tomorrow afternoon. Because even though I like you, Kelsey, all my money is on you having done it. If I can, I'll wait to arrest you until after the ball.”

I wondered if I should say thank you for that kindness.

Eleven

The medical examiner called
for Chief Duffy. The chief tipped his hat to me and walked over to his colleague. A few feet away from them, a crime scene tech held a dead bee up in the sunlight to examine it. He tilted it back and forth in his tweezers before dropping it in a small plastic evidence bag. Beyond the brickyard, I had a clear view of the barn. Jason disappeared around the side of it. I quickly looked away. I didn't want to bring any of the officers' attention to Jason; he wasn't supposed to be in the village.

I walked along the pebbled path and made like I was going to cross the street. Taking a quick look over my shoulder to make sure that no one was watching me, I veered right toward the barn. I ducked through the break in the split-rail fence.

The Farm's two oxen, Betty and Mags, who hadn't yet been moved to the far pasture for the day, stared at me as I dashed toward the barn door. They weren't used to having anyone other than Jason in their space. Although the girls were known for being gentle, I didn't linger to find out how they viewed my visit.

I jogged up the dirt ramp into the barn, pausing just inside the doorway to let my eyes adjust. There was no electricity. Jason worked by sunlight and battery-powered lanterns when he needed extra light. “Jason?” I whispered. I sidestepped what looked like a dropping from one of the oxen.

Miss Muffins, our head barn cat, yowled at me and wove in and out of my legs. Many times I wished that Hayden had fallen in love with this lovely calico and asked us to take her home instead of Frankie, the terror of the Western Reserve.

I bent to scratch her behind the ear. When I straightened, I whispered again, “Jason?”

Barn Boy materialized out of the shadows of a stall. He moved silently. Many of the seasonal staff complained that Jason was creepy because of how stealthily he moved and because he rarely spoke, even when asked a direct question. Laura joked that he had been raised in the middle of the park by wolves. I told her that she was ridiculous. Besides, there hadn't been wolves living in Ohio for generations.

Jason waited and watched me. His movements were tentative around people, even me, and Hayden and I were the closest thing to human friends he had. Around the livestock he was different. I had witnessed him approach a bucking horse with a steady hand and firm stride, yet he tiptoed toward me like he expected a lashing. Jason didn't trust most people. Many times, I wondered what had happened to him when he was a child that made him so skittish. But I knew asking him would be a waste. He wouldn't answer me if I did.

“Are they gone?” he whispered finally.

Miss Muffins pranced over to him. He bent over, picked her up, and cradled her in his arms. The cat purred, sharing in the comfort Jason found by holding her.

“Is who gone?” I stepped farther into the barn, wanting to be able to read Jason's expressions, but he stood in the shadows.

“The police.” His voice was scratchy from underuse. “They were in here about an hour ago. I hid in the hayloft.”

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“I—I didn't want to talk to them. I have nothing to say.” He placed Miss Muffins on a hay bale and picked up a bucket of horse feed.

“A man died in the brick pit last night.”

He carried the bucket to the horse stall. “I know.”

“The police will want to ask you what you might have seen.” I paused. “And they'll ask you to leave the barn. The chief doesn't want anyone on this side of the road until the village is reopened.”

“I can't leave my barn.” He said it like Shepley defending his garden, but Jason's proclamation was more earnest, as if he were physically unable to leave the barn and animals. “They won't want to know what I know.”

My skin prickled. “What do you know?”

He poured the bucket of feed into a feed bag hanging just inside the horse stall. Scarlet, the Farm's mare, rubbed her nose into his palm before burying her head into her feed bag.

“Jason, did you sleep here last night?” I asked. I knew the teenager sometimes slept in the barn when one of the animals was sick, but now I wondered if it was a more regular thing.

He hung the bucket from a nail on the stall's outer wall.

I perched on the hay bale next to Miss Muffins. Even though I was half a foot shorter than Jason, I thought I might look less intimidating if I sat. “Were you here last night?”

He nodded. This conversation was going great. I bit my tongue to hold back the urge to reprimand him for not answering my questions directly. That would only make him close down more.

I set Miss Muffins in my lap, and the small cat curled up into a purring ball of fur. I stroke her back for a couple of seconds before I asked, “Did you see anything?”

He picked up a garden hose to fill water buckets for the animals. “No, but I heard something.”

I barely heard his whisper over the sound of rushing water. “What?”

He released the nozzle. “I heard a scream.”

My pulse quickened. “And?”

“And that was all.” He picked up one of the buckets. “I figured that it was one of the Civil War people. I didn't want to go out there and see them.” He wouldn't meet my eyes. “That's why I stayed last night. I knew the animals would be scared with all the noise coming from the reenactment camps.”

My heart sank. Jason had
had the perfect opportunity to witness the murder and clear my name, but he hid instead. I couldn't blame him. In his place I would assume any no
ise came from the reenactors too, although I would have investigated because I'm naturally nosey.

“What time would you say you heard the scream?”

“It was close to one in the morning. It woke Miss Muffins and me up. It woke up Scarlet and the oxen too. It took a little while for all the animals to calm down.”

“Was it just one scream?”

“Yes, only one.”

“Did you make out any conversation? Any other noise at all?”

He shook his head. “I thought I imagined it, like it was a dream, but when I saw the animals were awake and agitated, I knew I hadn't dreamed it at all.”

“Did you notice anything else strange?” I asked.

“No. Miss Muffins and I didn't venture out to see what was going on. The scream was short, which made me think that it was one the reenactors loose in the village. I didn't want to face them.”

How I wished that he had. But then again, what if Jason had seen the killer? Would he be here today to talk about what he'd heard?

“Kelsey, please don't tell the police what I told you,” he begged, meeting my eyes for the first time since our conversation began. His eyes were bright green. The same shade as Miss Muffins's.

I frowned. “Why not?”

“I don't want to talk to them, the police.” He started to shake. “I can't talk to them. I can't.”

Miss Muffins jumped from my lap, and I got up from the hay bale. “Jason, are you okay?”

He ignored my question. “Can you promise?”

I bit the inside of my cheek and found myself saying, “All right. I won't tell them right away, but if I have no choice, I will.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

“Now, you have to go home,” I said.

“Home?” he murmured, like that was a foreign concept.

My brow knit together. “Yes. The police don't want any visitors or staff in the village. It might not be for very long. The chief just told me that the village might reopen as early as this afternoon. You can come back then.”

“But the animals—”

“Finish feeding them and then go, but if you don't want the police to know that you've been here, you'd better sneak away through the woods and come out the other side of the grounds near the battlefield.”

“I don't want to go home.”

“Then go somewhere else,” I said. “It won't be long. Or you can stay and help on the other side of the road with the reenactment. We can always use an extra set of hands.”

Jason shivered. “I'll find someplace else to go.”

I wasn't surprised at his reaction. I knew the threat of having to socialize with strangers would be far worse to Jason than vacating the grounds for few hours.

He nodded. “I'll leave just as soon as I finish the feeding.”

“Good,” I said, wondering all the while at Jason's strange reaction to the word
home
. I made a mental note to check his personnel file to see where he lived. Now that I thought about it, it seemed that Jason was always at the Farm no matter the time, day or night.

I turned to go. When I stepped out of the barn, I ran right into Chase Wyatt. I bounced off his chest, and he grabbed me before I fell backward through the barn's open door. He pulled me toward him, but I put my hands out and pushed myself away.

“What are you doing in here?” I demanded.

“I'm looking for you.”

“Me? Why? And you can let me go now.” I tried to pull my arms from his grasp and resisted the strong urge to kick him in the shin or higher.

His face flashed red. “Oh, I'm sorry.” He dropped his hands. “I need to talk to you.”

I tugged at end of my braid and found it still intact. “Is this about the reenactment?” I looked him up and down. “I see you're back in your medic uniform.”

His blush deepened. “Preparing for battle, as it were.”

I started down the path that led from the barn to the road crossing. I wanted to get Chase away from the barn and Jason as soon as possible. “The reenactment battle will happen on schedule if that's your concern. Only the village is closed this morning. The chief believes that it will reopen this afternoon.”

“It's not about the reenactment or the village. At least not exactly.”

I kept walking, and he caught up with me in one stride. Curse my short legs.

“I want to help,” he said.

“If you want to help with the reenactment other than being a soldier playing dead, we always welcome volunteers and can put you to work. There is a lot to do to keep this event running smoothly. I'm sure my assistant Ashland has a number of places you can pitch in.”

“No,” he said. Now he was walking backward, so that he could look me in the eye as he talked. “I want to help you find out who killed Maxwell.”

“I don't have time for this.” I increased my pace, which made him walk more quickly.

The heel of his boot caught on a root, and he toppled backward flat on his back. “Oooph!”

I stepped over him and kept going.

Chase scrambled to his feet. He brushed off dirt and possible ox manure—not that I would tell him that—from his uniform as he galloped to catch up with me. “I heard the chief tell you that you were the number-one suspect. I can help you with that.”

I turned onto the pebbled path and nodded at the officer watching the road as I crossed. When Chase and I reached the other side, I said, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He stepped closer to me. So close that I could smell the coffee on his breath and campfire on his clothes. “Yours isn't the only reputation and career at risk here.”

I pulled up short, which made him stumble a few steps. I arched one eyebrow at him; it was a maneuver that used to drive my ex-husband over the edge. By the scowl on his face, it had the same effect on Chase. “Really?”

“I want to help you and myself.”

“Yourself?” I asked. Behind him I saw the brigades lining up with their commanding officers. The lieutenants gave orders and rallied the men—and some women dressed as privates—for the ba
ttle. Both Southern and Northern infantrymen saluted their superiors. If it hadn't been for the occasional Farm employee driving by on a golf cart, I would have believed that we really had stepped back into 1863, moments before a scrimmag
e.

“Yes, I'm a suspect too.” He searched my eyes with his chocolate ones. My eyes were also brown, but they were closer to tree bark in color. “You have to know that,” he said.

“I don't know that. I thought your uncle, the chief, was certain that you could do no wrong.”

Chase grimaced. “He may have said that, but I know he'll change his mind when he learns about my past with Maxwell.”

“Perhaps it's not the chief you're worried about,” I said, arching my eyebrow for a second time. “Maybe it's Detective Brandon.”

He wrinkled his nose. “What did she say?”

“What do you think she said?”

He gave a sideways smile. “That she wished that I was in the first Confederate line in Pickett's march in Gettysburg.”

I folded my arms. “Oh, and why is that?”

His smile grew broader. “Candy and I have a history.”

“I bet.” I started walking again.

He grabbed my arm and jerked my body backward. “Listen to me, Kelsey. We can help each other.”

I gritted my teeth. “You had better let go of my arm or I'm going to break your hand. I'm small but you don't want to mess with me.”

He looked down at his hand as if surprised to see it wrapped around my forearm. He dropped his hold of me.

I rubbed the place where he grabbed me. I could practically feel a bruise forming.

“I'm sorry.” His brow knit together. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” I lied, holding my chin up. “Why do you need my help?”

“Because this is your turf.”

“That's how I can help you; how can you help me? Because so far this is sounding pretty one-sided in your favor, and that doesn't work for me.”

He sig
hed. “I know the reenactors. This isn't my first reenactment. My uncle has been dragging me to these events since I was in middle school. As a reenactor, I can move through the camps and ask questions without raising suspicions. Everyone is going to be t
alking about Maxwell's death, so if I ask some subtle questions, they'll think I'm just making conversation and passing time. Just like in real war, the time sitting around between real battles can get pretty boring.”