The Final Tap (12 page)

twenty-one

For the past twenty-four
hours, I hadn't been a big fan of drills, power or otherwise. I considered all drills to be enemies, especially those so close to running me through. Slowly, I turned around.

“What are you doing here?” A girl close to Gavin's age held the drill in the air like it was a gun. I didn't know if she planned to drill Gavin and me or just throw it at us. I guessed that she hadn't made up her mind yet, and we'd need to start talking before she did.

Gavin held up his hands. “Corrie, calm down.”

The girl looked to be on the chubby side, but that could have been her heavy down coat. She had a full face and piercing green eyes lined in black eyeliner. Those eyes were currently glaring at Gavin for all they were worth. “What are you doing here, Gavin?”

“What are
you
doing here, Corrie?” he countered. “I've never known you to take any interest in maple sugaring.”

“What do you know about my interests, Gavin Elliot?” She scowled.

Gavin glared. “Put the drill down before you hurt yourself. You're the last person on earth who should have access to power tools.”

She lowered the drill. “I can boil maple sugar as easily as you or anyone in Sap and Spile can. It's not brain surgery. Are you here to collect the park's sap now that my father is dead?”

I lowered my hands. “You're Dr. Beeson's daughter?”

She dropped the drill to her side, but I noticed that her finger stayed on the trigger. I would continue to keep my distance. “So what if I am?” she spat. “Who is this with you, Gavin? Your new girlfriend? It's nice to know that you can move on so quickly.”

The top of Gavin's ears turned bright red. “She's my boss, Cor. Kelsey Cambridge, the director of Barton Farm. You've heard me talk about her before.”

I glanced from Gavin to Corrie and back again. Slowly, my
maple-sugar
-filled brain put the pieces together. They were a couple, or at least they had been. But given the tone of the conversation, they weren't anymore, and the breakup was still fresh for both of them. “You two know each other?” I asked.

Corrie redirected her glare from Gavin's face to mine. I had to say, I wasn't one hundred percent comfortable under her inspection. “We've known each other since we were children.”

Gavin cleared his throat. “We dated for a little while.”

Corrie lifted her drill into attack position. “Since when is four years ‘a little while'? You always have to qualify everything. Like you qualified why you dumped me.”

I took two tiny steps backward.

“I couldn't stay with you after you sided with your father,” Gavin said. “You know how much he hurt my family. We've been maple sugaring here on this land for generations, and he swooped in and stole it out from under us. Do you agree with what he did?”

Corrie shook her drill at him. “You can't ask me to choose between you and my father.”

She had a point. I'd refuse to do that too. Now it was starting to make sense why Gavin had been so reluctant to come over and check out his old sugaring site. I gave my director of education a sideways glance. He could have warned me about this possible complication, just as he could have warned me that Sap and Spile was a
men-only
club. I wondered what else my employee wasn't telling me.

Gavin's ears turned that much redder. “I didn't expect you to be here, Corrie. What are you doing here?”

She scowled at him. “What does it look like I'm doing? I'm finishing what my father started.”

Gavin looked as if he wanted to say something but stopped himself.

This conversation wasn't going well with Gavin in the lead. “Corrie,” I began. “I asked Gavin to bring me here to see your father's sugaring operation. I hadn't realized it was so close to the Farm. I wondered if maybe he was heading this direction when he fell.”

She turned her attention to me again but didn't lower her drill. “I wondered the same thing. That's why I came here to check it out. I found it in full sugaring operation—his sap barrel was already collecting sap. He set things up so that the moment the sap began to run, he could start syrup production right away. I knew if I didn't boil it, all his hard work of tapping and piping the trees would go to waste.”

“Did you find anything unusual when you arrived? Other than the fact that the trees had started to run?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No. Everything was in order. It's as if Dad stepped out for an hour or two and fully intended to return.” Her voice caught.

Gavin folded his arms across his chest, as if he didn't trust them to be loose.

It was like the Capulets and the Montagues of maple syrup. All it needed was a dramatic death scene. Seeing how Corrie had yet to relinquish the drill, that still might happen.

“Corrie,” I said. “Do you care if I take a look around the sugarhouse? There might be something here that will tell us what your father was up to before he came to Barton Farm.”

“That lady detective was here with another officer early this morning. She searched the entire place and asked me, like, a hundred questions, like I was a suspect. I'm the one whose father just died. You'd think she would remember that and show some compassion.”

“Detective Brandon can come off a little brusque, but she's just doing her job,” I said, surprising myself by coming to the detective's defense.

Corrie scowled as if she didn't agree. “If you promise not to touch anything, I can show you around.” She narrowed her gaze at Gavin. “That goes especially for you.” She pointed a finger at him. “And I don't want to hear a word out of you that this used to be your place. It belongs to the state, and New Hartford can grant the new maple sugaring rights to whoever they want.”

Gavin opened and closed his mouth as if he wanted to say something. In the end, he remained silent.

Gavin and I followed Corrie off of the path and into the trees. Ahead I could see a gray and weathered sugarhouse. The smell of maple syrup was strong, and white smoke billowed out of the chimney. Plastic tubing ran from tree to tree, causing a spiderweb effect in the forest. I knew the tubing was more efficient than the old galvanized metal pails that we used at the Farm, but it certainly took the charm out of maple sugaring.

“Hey!” Corrie yelled. “Hey!” Then she took off at a run.

Gavin raced after her, and Tiffin and I followed too. I had an image of a masked killer running through the trees.

Corrie waved her arms and shook her fist at a tree. “You do that again, I'm going to barbecue you.”

I looked up. It was a squirrel. The creature peered over the tree limb and I could have sworn I saw a smile on his whiskered face.

Gavin held up a piece of tubing. It was bitten all the way through.

“I just replaced this length of tubing this morning, in this very same spot.” Corrie looked like she was close to tears.

“I can fix it for you,” Gavin said. “It won't take long.”

“I don't want your help,” she snapped.

Gavin dropped the piece of gnawed tubing like it was an electric wire.

Overhead, the squirrel chattered. I looked up. He'd brought friends. Two other squirrels on neighboring limbs stared at the tubing below with a glint in their eyes. I didn't hold out much hope that Corrie's maple sugaring operation would stay intact.

She flopped onto the forest floor in tears, then sat
crossed-legged
and cried.

Gavin and I looked at each other.

“Help her,” I mouthed at him.

“You help her,” he mouthed back. “She hates me, and you're a mom.”

It seemed kind of low for Gavin to play the mom card on me.

I knelt beside Corrie and wrapped my arm around her. She turned and buried her face into my shoulder. Gavin hovered a few feet away.

“Gavin,” I said. “Why don't you get whatever it is that you need to fix the tubing?”

Corrie looked up. “I said that I don't want his help.”

“I know, but I have a feeling that you're fighting a losing battle with those squirrels. You might as well have Gavin replace the tubing at least once.”

“Fine,” she murmured and wiped at her eyes.

I nodded at Gavin. He hesitated for just a moment and then melted into the trees without a word. Tiffin galloped after him.

Corrie straightened up and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have lost my head over that stupid squirrel. It's not like it doesn't happen all the time. One of the biggest problems in tree tapping is squirrels eating through the tubing. It comes with the territory.”

I scooted a few inches away from her to better see her face. “Have you always helped your father with maple sugaring?”

“No, I didn't want anything to do with it.” She paused. “My dad wasn't the easiest person in the world to get along with. He was super critical and selfish and generally a terrible guy.” She covered her mouth. “I shouldn't say that about him now that he's dead.”

I dropped my arm from her shoulders and sat back on my heels. The damp earth seeped through my jeans, but I ignored it. “Then why are you here?”

“I don't know exactly. I came to the sugarhouse after the police told me what happened. I'm not sure why I did. When I got here, I saw that sugaring was going on and felt like I had to finish it. It was like I owed that to him. I don't think it was for him as much as for me. I wanted to close the book on the sugaring and never think about it again.” She glanced into the limbs of the maple tree above. “I just didn't know that I would have so many complications.”

“Is Gavin a complication?”

She sighed. “Yes. I never should have been dating him in the first place. I didn't even like him when we started going out, but I knew my father would hate it …”

“So you agreed to date Gavin to make your father mad.”

She nodded. “At least at first. But then I started to really like him—until he dumped me over the stupid maple sugar. I hate maple sugar.”

“Why did you side with your father over it, if you were estranged?”

“Gavin and his father were blowing it way out of proportion. Gavin's dad went crazy after he lost the tapping rights to the park. He filed all sorts of injunctions with the town and even took his case to the county.” She paused. “Gavin didn't think for a moment how much worse he was making it for my family. Everything Gavin and his father did to stop my father only made him more furious and determined to fight them. You can't know how obsessed my father was with sugaring. It was like his religion.”

I thought back to the pledge to syrup that the Sap and Spile members had made when I was there. The same thought had struck me at the time.

“What happened when Webber Elliot filed all those injunctions?” I asked. “Did the town government do anything to stop your father's sugaring operation?”

“They did nothing. Mr. Elliot just ended up wasting his time. I told Gavin that, and he dumped me. He told me I had to pick a side. When I told him that I couldn't betray my father no matter how awful he is, he dumped me.”

I winced. I remembered being that young and passionate about a conviction. Some of that mellows away with age, but I had a feeling this wouldn't be the case when it came to Gavin and his family's sugaring heritage. Instead of sharing these dark thoughts, though, I sighed and said, “Gavin might come around.”

“I don't care if he does. I'm done with all of it.” Corrie stood up and brushed leaves from her clothes. “It's just maple sugar. It's not worth killing over, right?”

“Right,” I said, but apparently at least one person disagreed.

twenty-two

I stood. “You know
what I think?” I asked her.

Corrie looked at me. “No, what?”

“I think you should let all of this go. It's not your job to worry about your father's maple sugar. If it goes bad, so be it.”

She bit her lip. “You think so? It was his life's work. Should I just let it spoil in the barrel? That's what my mother would have done.”

“Where's your mother now?”

“Kentucky, I think. I'm not sure. My parents divorced a long
time ago.”

My heart went out to the girl.

“I don't think I can let it go. I don't think I can do that,” she said.

Gavin came back just then with a new length of fresh tubing. “You can't do what?” he asked her.

Corrie cleared her throat. “Gavin, you win. It's all yours. I'm
done
.” She said “done” with so much force that I knew she was speaking about more than the maple sugar. She turned and headed to the path that led out of the park.

“You're leaving now?” Gavin called after her.

She didn't even break her stride.

Gavin turned to me. “What did you say to her?”

I folded my arm. “I told her that she didn't have to take care of the sugarhouse if she didn't want to.”

Gavin held up the piece of plastic tubing. “And now I have to do
it.”

I shook my head. “No, not if you don't want to either. No one has to do any of it. No one will die if the trees aren't tapped.” I winced. “Sorry. Poor choice of words, but you know what I mean.”

Gavin threw up his hands. “We can't let all this maple sugar go to waste. That would be a tragedy.”

“If you're so worried about it, I'm sure someone from Sap and Spile would jump at the chance to do it,” I said in my most reasonable tone.

Gavin sighed. “Of course I'll do it.”

“Great!” I smiled and headed toward the sugarhouse.

He walked after me, still holding the piece of tubing. “Where are you going?”

“To do what I came here to do.”

I stepped into the sugarhouse. The ceiling was low, like the ceilings in many of the buildings back on the Farm. The floor was concrete, and there wasn't much to the room. Most of it was taken up with a long boiling trough. Steam rolled off the top as water from the maple sugar evaporated. At the other end of the trough there was a brick chimney. A black cast iron door was closed over the fire. A pile of firewood sat nearby at the ready to keep the fire going.

As the maple syrup was created, it fed into the end of the trough and was kept separate from the sap, just like at the sugarhouse on Barton Farm. In fact, I could see that this sugarhouse's
set-up
was identical to ours, with the exception of the use of tubing on the trees—which wouldn't be historically accurate on the Farm. It made sense, of course, since this operation had been set up by Gavin's family, and Gavin had designed the sugarhouse on the Farm.

A large wooden paddle sat on the only piece of furniture in the room, a table that looked like it had been in use since the nineteenth century. Beside the paddle was a hydrometer. That was it. This was a small,
labor-intensive
operation.

Gavin stepped into the doorway, blocking the light. “What are you looking for?”

I let my shoulders droop. “I was hoping that I'd know when I saw it, but I don't spot anything out of the ordinary here, do you?”

He shook his head. “Other than Corrie, but now she's gone.” His voice held an accusatory tone.

“I think you could mend that relationship, Gavin.” I paused. “If you wanted to.”

He pressed his mouth into a thin line.

I patted his arm as I walked out of the sugarhouse. “I need to return to the Farm to get ready for my meeting with the Foundation.”

“I'm going to stay here and check the rest of the tubing.” He sighed as if he found the task daunting.

I nodded and whistled for Tiffin. I headed back to the Farm, more confused about Beeson's death than ever.

I made a quick stop at my cottage to change for the meeting at the Foundation; the board frowned on
Farm-appropriate
clothing like jeans, polo shirts, and work boots. By the time I reached the visitor center, Judy was locking up.

She turned her key in the door that led to the gift shop and moved to secure the front doors. “Tomorrow will be a big day for the Farm.”

I sighed. “I hope so. To be honest, I'm starting to regret the Maple Sugar Festival. The main events haven't even started and it's already a disaster.”

She dropped her keys into the pocket of her khaki skirt. “It's not your fault if Dr. Beeson got himself killed. From everything I've heard about him, he was an unlikable man and a prime candidate to be murdered.”

I blinked at her. “Everything that you've heard about him? Have you been talking to Gavin?”

She frowned. “Did Gavin know Dr. Beeson?”

“They were in the same maple sugar club.”

She blinked. “They have clubs for maple sugar?”

“It appears so. Who were you talking to?”

“Dr. Beeson's wife, of course. She and I used to work at the same accounting firm. We're both doing other things now, but I called her yesterday after the news. I wanted to offer my condolences.

“Beeson's wife?” I blinked. Hadn't Corrie said that her parents were divorced? “I thought he was divorced.”

“Almost. They were in the middle of it when Beeson died.”

“But doesn't his wife live in Kentucky?”

“Oh, you must be thinking of his first wife. I think Sybil mentioned that Conrad's first wife lived near Louisville or Lexington. I don't know. I get those two cities confused.”

“Sybil is his second wife?”

She nodded and lowered her voice even though it was clear we were the only two people in the visitor center. “Sybil lives right here in New Hartford. In fact, she and Dr. Beeson were still living in the same house even though they were barely speaking to each other. It has been a very contentious divorce, or at least that was the impression I got when I called.”

“She told you all that over the phone?”

“Oh yes,” Judy said. “She was quite chatty and told me all about it. To be honest, her frankness caught me by surprise, but I think I caught her right after she heard the news from the police and she was just dying to talk to someone.”

I wondered if Sybil would still be as forthcoming with me. “Do you know where I can find her?”

Judy smoothed her khaki skirt. “Oh, I thought you would know her since she works for the Cherry Foundation.”

Chase knocked on the visitor center's locked front door and peered in through the glass.

Judy frowned. “What's he doing here?”

“I asked him to come. He's going to watch Hayden.” I paused. “I've been summoned to a meeting at the Cherry Foundation.”

“That sounds ominous,” Judy said, but she was watching Chase.

“Very,” I agreed.

There was a pause, and Chase knocked again. She headed to the front door, I knew with the intention of letting Chase into the building.

I placed a hand on her arm to stop her. “Can you tell me what Sybil does for the Cherry Foundation?”

Judy shook her head. “I don't know exactly. She works in the office.”

I was no longer dreading my meeting at the Foundation. In fact, it might just be the visit that would lead me to Beeson's killer.

Chase knocked on the door's glass window this time, and Judy hurried away from me. “I should let him in. You know I would have been willing to wait for Hayden's bus if I didn't have to pick up my grandchildren in Akron.”

I smiled. “I know, Judy. Hayden and Chase will be fine.”

She looked at me with raised eyebrows. Great, it appeared everyone on the Farm was getting the wrong idea about Chase and me.

She hurried over to the door and opened it.

Chase waltzed into the visitor center. “I thought you were going to leave me out in the cold all day.” He directed his comment at me, but his characteristic smile took a bite out of his words.

“Chase, I'm glad you're here,” I said. “All I need you to do is meet Hayden's bus at the driveway entrance on Maple Grove Lane. I've already called the school and told them you'll be meeting him in my place.”

“I'm happy to be of service in any way that I can,” Chase said, still with the grin on his face.

Judy looked back and forth between us like she was trying to sort out our dynamic in her head. “Oh!” she yelped as she looked down at her watch. “Is that the time? I'd better go pick up my grandkids.”

After Judy ran out the door, I said, “Please don't give my staff the wrong impression.”

Chase grinned. “What impression would that be?”