A Sticky Inheritance: Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  “Only last month. That’s why I remember it so well.”

  Last month was when I first told Uncle Stan I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lawyer anymore, shortly after my disastrous situation with my ex-boyfriend and my first-ever investigation.

  I rubbed my hands up and down my jeans. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a lawyer anymore, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to be a farmer, either. Or a business owner. Or to leave the city for a small tourist town in Michigan.

  Then again, I couldn’t deny the appeal of living in a less complicated place. Uncle Stan made Fair Haven sound like the Garden of Eden.

  I stood up. “Thank you. You’re executor, correct? So you’ll be handling everything to settle the estate?”

  He jumped to his feet and followed me to the door. “I’ll contact you when there’s any paperwork to sign or decisions that need to be made.”

  I must have said goodbye and left the office, but the next thing I clearly remember, I was walking down the street. I probably should have asked him more questions about the specifics of what I’d inherited, but I could call back later, when I’d had time to come to terms with what this meant.

  I changed directions to head for the chief’s office. Technically speaking, if Uncle Stan’s death was reopened and became an active investigation, Chief Wilson shouldn’t tell me any specifics about the case. But I’d frustrated him enough with my mosquito-like questions yesterday that if I showed up in his office, he might tell me a little something simply to get rid of me.

  Thankfully, the chief’s office was also on the way back to my B&B. With all this walking, I didn’t even need a workout.

  I gave my name at the desk and took a seat on the backless metal bench against one wall. I appeared to be the only non-employee in the place, a testament to how quiet this town was, at least in the off-season. Crime probably skyrocketed when tourists flooded back in.

  Even with my jacket still on, the station felt nippy. I swear, people who were raised here must be naturally hot-blooded. If I decided to stay, I’d have to face a Michigan winter.

  I shivered. That was definitely one point in favor of going back home.

  Chief Wilson must have hoped that if he kept me waiting long enough I’d give up. It was a good half hour before someone escorted me back to his office.

  “How can I help you today?” he said as soon as the door closed behind me.

  I’d never heard anyone actually sigh words before, but he managed it somehow.

  I planted myself squarely in the chair in front of his desk and crossed my legs, making sure to show him I was willing to stay as long as it took to accomplish my mission. “I wanted to check in on the results from the beer bottles we discovered yesterday. Were there any fingerprints? Or DNA?”

  Not subtle perhaps, but whatever Chief Wilson’s other flaws might be, he didn’t strike me as a stupid man. If I tried to trick him into answering my questions, he’d figure out immediately what I was doing.

  He speared me with a flat gaze. “You’re an attorney, aren’t you? You know I can’t discuss details with you.”

  So this was once again an open investigation. I did a little fist pump in my mind. “You can at least tell me if the results pointed to a suspect or not. You’d tell a reporter that.”

  “We have no suspects at present.”

  The one question I really wanted an answer to was one he might not budge on. It walked a gray line. “Were Uncle Stan’s prints on the bottles?”

  He pursed his lips. I’d bet my next coffee fix that he was debating with himself about whether it was better to shut me up by giving me a nibble of information or to hold strong and keep my nosy self out of it entirely.

  He pressed his hands palm-down onto his desk. “The bottles were clean of prints.”

  I rocked back in my chair. That resolved any lingering doubts I might have had. And obviously it’d wiped away Chief Wilson’s doubts as well since they’d reopened the investigation. No one who was so drunk he accidentally overdosed would wipe off his beer bottles. Neither would a man about to kill himself. Someone had forced Uncle Stan to drink that beer and had then wiped the bottles clean.

  Chief Wilson raised his pointer finger and targeted it at me. “You get one more question before I kick you out of here, so you’d better make it good. I’m already going to be working late tonight.”

  Despite what the chief might think of me, I wasn’t curious for the sake of being curious. All I cared about was that Uncle Stan received justice. Whoever hurt him deserved to pay. “What’s the police department going to do next to make sure whoever did this is caught?”

  Chief Wilson rubbed a hand over his scalp. His thinning hair stood on end, and for a minute, the chief persona melted away and all I saw was a very tired middle-aged man.

  My stomach twisted a little. I shouldn’t have given him as hard a time as I had. He wasn’t my enemy. He wasn’t the bad guy. He was just a man trying to do his job.

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll be honest with you, Ms. Fitzhenry-Dawes.”

  “Nicole.”

  “Right. Nicole.” He almost smiled at me. It was uncanny. “The circumstances of your uncle’s death mean we know it wasn’t a random crime, but we have no leads and no idea who could have wanted him dead. Stan was respected and well-liked. He’d done more for this town than some people who’d lived here their whole lives. The only person who might have stood to benefit from his death was whoever inherited his estate. I plan to speak with his lawyer tomorrow about the contents of his will.”

  That would be a dead end. “I can save you some time there. I’m his sole heir.”

  “Then unless you want to confess to his murder,” Chief Wilson shook his head and shrugged, “we have nowhere to go from here. We’ll keep the case open on the chance anything turns up, but I’m afraid this one will likely go cold. We simply don’t have enough to go on.”

  Chapter Six

  All I could think about while waiting for Uncle Stan’s funeral to start was how my dad always insisted that the perfect crime didn’t exist. There was always something the perpetrator missed. My dad had been instructing me from a defense perspective, of course, training me to think ahead about what could have been missed and how I could explain it away should the prosecution find it. A good defense attorney was always one step ahead, he said.

  In this case, though, it meant some trail had to exist that I could follow back to Uncle Stan’s killer if I wanted to stay in Fair Haven and hunt for it. Chief Wilson made it clear two days ago that they didn’t have enough evidence to call in outside help, and he didn’t have the manpower to “go poking at rocks just to see what might crawl out.” Based on a brief assessment of the town, I couldn’t see where else he needed those men, but the last thing I wanted to be was a self-righteous city girl. I had to allow that a tourist town probably came with unique issues that local law enforcement worked hard to keep invisible.

  I stood along with everyone else for the first hymn, then Uncle Stan’s pastor gave a eulogy that focused more on Uncle Stan’s faith than on his life—apparently at the request of my uncle himself. Even though I wasn’t a churchgoer, it was comforting to think that Uncle Stan was happy now. If I stayed in Fair Haven, I might even consider attending his church on Sundays. I’d always kind of tuned Uncle Stan out before when he tried to talk to me about his church and his beliefs, but he was one of the most intelligent men I’d ever known, and he clearly thought there was something there worth listening to.

  After the pastor finished, he opened the podium up to anyone who wanted to share a story about Uncle Stan. It was something Mark and Grant both suggested I allow. They said it helped people work through their grief if they could talk about the person they’d lost.

  Story after story about Uncle Stan giving up his Saturday to help someone move, starting a fund to support a family whose child had leukemia, and basically being one of the best men I’d ever known continued until my heart hurt so much I was afraid I might b
e having a heart attack myself. How could the police department not drop everything else to figure out who’d killed him?

  How could I leave when I might be the only person willing to actively hunt for his killer?

  But if I stayed, I stood the very real risk of my parents firing me out of spite. The DC area wasn’t one you could live in for long without a job.

  You don’t need a job immediately, the annoying voice of logic in the back of my mind said. Thanks to Uncle Stan, you have enough money to live off of for a little while at least.

  “Nicole?”

  I jerked and dropped my purse. I must have stared blankly into space during the final hymn, because all around me, people flowed out of the church, heading for their cars. The funeral would continue on to the gravesite and then come back to the church for a luncheon prepared by the church’s bereavement committee.

  Chief Wilson and a woman stood at the end of my pew. The woman had big brown eyes ringed with dark lashes, but the rest of her face was drawn, and a tinge of blue colored her lips. She reminded me of the way a lot of Uncle Stan’s heart patients looked, especially in the latter stages.

  Chief Wilson tilted his head toward the woman. “This is my wife, Fay. She’s not feeling well enough to stay for the rest, but she wanted me to introduce you before we left.”

  I snagged my purse and scrambled to the end of the pew. “Of course.”

  Fay grabbed my hand before I had the chance to offer it and held on with a surprisingly tight grip. “I’m not one for public speaking.” She cast a look back in the direction of the podium. “But I wanted to add to what so many others have said about what a generous man your uncle was.”

  Her grip on my hand tightened, and the emerald ring Uncle Stan gave me on my last birthday twisted on my finger. The setting jammed into the skin of the neighboring finger, sending a little dart of pain, and I cringed.

  Fay must have misinterpreted my reaction because she patted our clasped hands with her other one. “I know it hurts. We’re all going to mourn him. My doctor hasn’t been able to figure out what’s wrong with my heart. Your uncle had devoted a lot of time in the last couple of weeks to researching my case. He gave me hope for a little while.”

  A pang that outweighed the pain in my hand shot through my heart. If she’d pinned her last hopes on Uncle Stan, then his death would be an even bigger blow to her than if she’d lost a friend. “I’m very sorry he wasn’t able to figure out the cause before—”

  She squeezed my hand again and I flinched.

  She let me go. “I won’t make you talk any more right now. But in the next few days, if you need a shoulder, please call me. I’d like to be able to feel like I’ve done something for Stan, and I know he’d be happy to know you weren’t going through this alone.”

  He probably would have. And he probably would have been angrier at my parents than I was for leaving me to come up here by myself. It would feel good to spend an hour or two sharing my memories of Uncle Stan with someone before I left. Once I got home, my parents would likely act as if nothing had changed. My only chance to grieve Uncle Stan would be here in Fair Haven.

  “Thank you.” I gave her a smile that came from my heart. “I might take you up on that.”

  She fished a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse and wrote down her phone number and address. “Any time. I’m not able to work anymore, so I’d enjoy the company too.”

  Mark waved to me from the door, and I said my goodbyes to the Wilsons and joined him. He’d picked me up for the funeral. Without his wife. I thought it would be presumptuous to ask why she hadn’t come, so all I had was speculation about whether she’d had to work, had hated Uncle Stan, was an invalid, or was locked in their house by Mark who was actually a serial killer after all. I didn’t actually believe that last one, but it seemed strange for his wife to not attend, especially when he planned to escort another woman through the day.

  A spatter of freezing rain kept the graveside part of the service short, and the luncheon flew by. I only managed to eat about two bites of pasta salad and half of a ham sandwich because a constant stream of Fair Haven residents came to the table, wanting to express their condolences.

  I don’t know how I managed to make it through without turning into a blubbering mess except that I’d exhausted my supply of tears the night before, after the visitation.

  The stream of people was starting to slow down when Mark’s cell phone rang. He glanced at the number, walked away from the table, and answered. Part way through the conversation he looked back at me. I gave him a smile and he mouthed the word work.

  My stomach tensed. Not only was he my ride home, but I didn’t want to stay here alone. Mark was the closest thing I had to a friend in this town. If he had to go, would it be rude for me to leave, too?

  Mark tucked the phone back into the pocket of his suit and returned to the table.

  “You have to go?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Let me see if I can find you another ride.”

  Chief Wilson had already left, and Grant couldn’t leave. He was technically in charge even though the luncheon was held in the church. That meant any ride Mark found me would be with a stranger. That was only slightly more appealing than walking back to my B&B in the freezing rain in my dress and not-warm-enough-for-Michigan coat.

  He must have read my hesitance on my face because he quickly squeezed my upper arm. “Don’t worry. I have someone in mind.”

  And for a reason outside the realm of common sense, his assurance did make me less concerned. It probably shouldn’t have. I’d been burned before by men who insisted I could trust them and turned out to be liars.

  He was back less than five minutes later with a man in his fifties who looked like he’d swallowed a barrel. If someone tipped him over, I wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back on his feet again without help.

  But he had the warmest smile I’d ever seen.

  “This is Russell Dantry,” Mark said. “He’s the manager of Sugarwood.”

  “So you’re Nikki.” Russell shook his head. “I didn’t expect you to be so grown up. I knew you had to be since Stan said you were a lawyer now, but so many of his stories featured you as a little girl.”

  It was an eerie feeling to have someone know so much about you when you knew nothing about them.

  He gave my hand a good squeeze, much as Fay had done, and I made a mental note to never wear my emerald ring to a funeral again.

  “Stan was my best friend,” he said. “Giving you a ride home is the least I can do.”

  My body was starting to feel like I’d lashed bricks to my wrists and ankles. “Would it be terribly rude to ask for that ride right away?”

  “Not at all. It’ll be hours yet before everyone else clears out of here, and no one expects you to stay the whole time. I’ll pull my truck up front so you don’t have to go all the way through the parking lot in the rain.”

  Another truck. At least I was getting a bit better at maneuvering my way in while wearing a skirt and heels.

  I swallowed back a yawn. “Thanks.”

  Mark gave my shoulder another squeeze and leaned in. “Do you prefer Nikki?”

  His warm breath brushed my ear and sent an entirely inappropriate shiver down my arms. I did prefer Nikki, but only Uncle Stan had ever been brave enough to call me that. My parents insisted that they hadn’t named me Nikki. They’d named me Nicole. “Perhaps.”

  “That’s what I’ll call you then.”

  And then he was gone, leaving a warm spot on my shoulder and a bit of a bruise on my heart. Why was it that I only attracted married men?

  Five minutes later, I nestled into Russ’ truck, with the heater blasting. Based on the way his face resembled a steamed beet, I had to guess he’d turned the temperature up ten degrees higher than he liked it for my sake.

  “How long do you plan to stay in Fair Haven?” Russ asked as he turned onto the street in front of the church.

  “I only have three days left
before I’m due back to work.” I snuggled down into my coat. The warmth seeped into my bones. At last. “Hopefully that gives me enough time to sort through Uncle Stan’s house.”

  “He left the place to you then?”

  There was a strange note in Russ’ voice that I couldn’t quite identify. Maybe the warmth was making me drowsy, or maybe he was better at hiding his emotions than most people were.

  “He did.” I trained my gaze onto the rain streaming in diagonal bands along the window instead of looking over at him, a trick I used to make people feel more comfortable. Reading people was an art form, my mom said. A lawyer needed to know when to make eye contact and when to break it to get the most out of someone. “I’ll need help understanding how Sugarwood works and making decisions about its future. If you’re willing.”

  I peeked back in his direction.

  “’Course, boss.” He said it with a grin, and whatever I thought I’d heard in his voice before was gone. “I’ve been working there since straight out of high school, before Stan ever bought the place. There’s not much I can’t tell you about it.”

  Maybe it’d been concern for Sugarwood’s future and his job that I’d picked up on before. If he’d never worked anyplace else, a sudden change in ownership must be terrifying. How many sugar bushes could there be in the area to manage if I’d turned out to be a jerk?

  The gentle whap-whap of the windshield wipers filled the cab.

  I squirmed a little. Some part of my nature had never been comfortable with extended silences. Not sure what that said about me, but it probably wasn’t good. “So Uncle Stan talked about me a lot?”

  “Nothing embarrassing or private. But he was so proud of you. I almost felt like you were my niece, I knew you so well.” His voice hitched a little. “I’m going to miss him.”