The Final Tap

by Amanda Flower

  “Ms. Cambridge, we’ve been expecting you.” He spoke in a dull tone that I swear he picked up from British television. No one in New Hartford spoke like that. He stepped back to let me inside. “They’re in the library. You may go right in.”

  I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and saw I was twenty minutes early. I’d been right in thinking the meeting would be running ahead of schedule.

  I thanked Miles again. I wanted to say I was glad to see him, but I was sure such a statement would only embarrass him. I walked along the polished marble hallway toward the library. The décor of the estate had not changed since Cynthia died. It was an eclectic mix of cultures and colors. Each room was dedicated to Cynthia’s many travels. The kitchen was South American, the solarium was the Caribbean, and the entryway was Grecian. The mix of conflicting styles was another hindrance to the board selling the estate. Who would find this décor appealing? When Cynthia was alive, the mix of cultures and colors had worked because her vibrant personality filled up the place and was the glue that held everything together. Without her, it was just a very expensive hodgepodge of antiques that no one really wanted. If anything, seeing all her treasures—such as the marble bust of some Ancient Greek on a pedestal—only made me miss her more.

  Not surprisingly, the library where the board waited for me was done in a sedate British style. The colors were dark, the furniture made of heavy wood and leather. It reminded me of my imaginings of the professor’s house in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where the Pevensie children stayed. I remembered that in years past, Maxwell Cherry, Cynthia’s late nephew and heir, had considered it his favorite room in the house. It fit his tastes.

  I stepped into the room and found the six board members sitting in a circle of leather straight-back chairs around an enormous round table. A seventh chair in the circle was empty, presumably for me.

  The only one of them to smile at me was Denise Compton. She’d been one of Cynthia’s closest friends, and Cynthia had insisted that she be on the board. I wasn’t sure how Henry Ratcliffe and the others felt about this nepotism. I wouldn’t say that Cynthia didn’t trust the board; she just didn’t leave anything up to chance. She was cautious. I was certain the many stipulations in her will drove Henry nuts. He could walk away if he chose, but that meant that he’d have to leave all of Cynthia’s money behind. He wasn’t going to do that.

  A retired lawyer, Henry had had a very successful practice in New Hartford for nearly forty years before retiring and accepting his position on the Cherry Foundation board of trustees. He’d been handpicked by Maxwell Cherry to be the head of the board, which immediately made me more wary of him. He had to be closing in on seventy years old himself, but he kept his youth intact by spending countless hours on the tennis courts. It showed. He had luxurious silver hair brushed back from his forehead in an elaborate wave that would be absolutely impossible for me to achieve with my own hair even if I wanted to.

  “Ms. Cambridge, please take a seat.” Henry gestured to the other side of the round table. The table looked like it had been pulled out of central casting for a Camelot remake. I glanced at the suit of armor in the corner of the room in case it was Lancelot come to life. It appeared to be antique. It must have cost Cynthia a small fortune.

  Henry folded his hands on the table. “We appreciate you coming here today.”

  “We do,” Denise interjected with a smile.

  Henry pursed his lips and continued. “Ms. Cambridge,” he said in a slight drawl that made me wonder if he affected that accent because he found it to be more lawyerly. “By the goodwill of Cynthia Cherry and her foundation, you have the gift of continuing the good work of Barton Farm with little interruption from the Foundation’s trustees, but you must know that if something unseemly occurs—such as another person dying on the Farm grounds—it has an impact not just on the Farm, but on the Foundation as a whole.”

  “Understood. But technically, Dr. Beeson died at the hospital.” I folded my hands on the table, mimicking his posture.

  “That’s neither here nor there. He was there because he was hired by you with Foundation money. That makes it a Foundation problem. We cannot have another dead person as part of the Foundation’s reputation. We’re still dealing with the after-effects of the death of Maxwell Cherry. We cannot add to that. It would sully the reputation of the entire institution.”

  “I understand that,” I said through gritted teeth. “But I’m afraid I must remind you that the Farm received its money from the Cherry Foundation with no strings attached, except for my agreement to stay on as the director for the next fifteen years.”

  Henry gave me a small smile. “That might have been what you were told by the dearly departed benefactress’s former attorney, but it simply is not true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a clause in the trust that you may or may not have read, which states that the board can audit the Farm’s use of funds if they felt that there was any misuse in spending. Take the hiring of Dr. Beeson for example. It has led to some very poor publicity for the Farm, and by extension, the Foundation.”

  The existence of the clause was news to me, but I did my best not to show it. “Are you saying that hiring Dr. Beeson, a maple sugar expert, is a misuse of funds? There was no way for me to know what was going to happen to him.”

  “That is at the board’s discretion to decide.” Henry showed his teeth, reminding me of a wolf. “You do know that Cynthia liked her checks and balances when it came to the estate. She did everything she could so that one person couldn’t control everything.” There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.

  I bristled. “You can’t take the trust away from me.”

  “No, we cannot,” he said with regret. “But we can limit the way you spend funds, if we choose.”

  That was a threat. There was no question about it.

  I stood up. “Hiring an expert for a program on the Farm is not a misuse of funds.”

  “Ms. Cambridge, can you please have a seat?” Henry’s voice was mild, but I knew not to trust it.

  “I see no reason to,” I said. “In fact, I think our meeting is done here.” I turned toward the door.

  “Is it?” he asked. “It has come to our attention that you added a trailer to the village side of the property so that an employee could live there. Is that not true?”

  Slowly, I pivoted back around to face him.

  “Is that true, Ms. Cambridge?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath. “Yes. My farmhand, Jason Smith, lives on the grounds.”

  “And wouldn’t you consider that a misuse of Farm funds?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I said.

  “Why are you letting him live on the grounds at all?” Denise asked.

  “It’s been a great help to me to have another employee living on the site. He needs to care for the animals. He can run to the barn at a moment’s notice.”

  A man in the corner of the room spoke up for the first time. “Have there been concerns in the barn that would warrant a need for this? Sick animals and the like?”

  “Not as of yet, but in January, a frozen pipe burst in the visitor center,” I said. “Jason was there to help me clean up the mess.”

  “Have there been other times that Jason has come to your aid in the middle of the night?” Henry asked.

  “Of course.”

  “Such as?”

  My mind went blank, completely and utterly blank. I couldn’t think of a single instance.

  “I see,” he said. “So this is the situation. You’ll have to ask your employee to move off of the grounds, or the board will exercise its right to audit all the Farm’s purchases. Understood?”

  My stomach dropped because I knew this was not an idle threat. “Understood,” I said.

  He smiled. “I’m glad to see that we’ve come to an agreement. That wasn�
��t so hard, was it?”

  I closed my eyes for just for a moment to stop myself from saying anything I would regret. The best chance of that was not to see Henry’s smug expression.

  “How did you find out about Jason living in the village?” I asked.

  He folded his hands on the tabletop. “A concerned Farm employee brought it to our attention.”

  Shepley. I knew it. I ground my teeth. Why couldn’t the gardener realize that he endangered not just Jason but the entire Farm when he tattled to the Foundation.

  Denise leaned forward in her chair. “Kelsey, please understand—we aren’t saying any of this to upset you, but we are concerned. I think even you would say our concern wasn’t unfounded. The events of the last year on the Farm grounds have been alarming.”

  I tried to unclench my fists at my side, but my knuckles ached with the effort. “I understand that, but I don’t understand why you’re so against the maple sugaring program and other programs like it. I think you would like to see the Farm be self-sufficient, so that our trust will last far into the future. Barton Farm hosts these events for that purpose.”

  “The Foundation cannot be associated with anything unseemly, such as this latest business with Dr. Conrad Beeson,” Henry said.

  “A man is dead. Maybe he wasn’t a nice man, but he was still a person. Someone out there is sad today because he’s no longer on this earth. She deserves our respect,” I said, thinking of Corrie. She and her father might have been estranged, but I knew she was reeling from his death.

  Henry sat back in his seat with a smile. “Perhaps.”

  And I’d thought Maxwell Cherry was bad.

  “Was there anything else?” I didn’t give them a chance to think of anything. “Thank you for your time,” I said, as if it had been a choice for me to come to this meeting. “I’ll do my best to have the Farm presented in a warmer light.”

  “And you’ll ask Jason to leave,” Henry reminded me.

  “I will talk to him,” I said evasively, promising no more than a conversation.

  Henry looked as if he wanted to say something else, but Denise beat him to it. “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us, Kelsey. We know that you have much to do to prepare for all the events this weekend. You can expect to see some of the board members there. Maybe if we could meet Jason Smith and see where he lives, we can reconsider asking him to leave the grounds.”

  It was a ray of hope for Jason, and I clung to it. “I’d be happy to show all of you every nook and cranny of the Farm. We have nothing to hide, and we want the Cherry Foundation to be as proud of Barton Farm and what we do there as we are.”

  Denise smiled. “Very good. We’re looking forward to it.”

  Henry shot her an irritated look but said nothing. I really didn’t need to have a translation for his look. I knew when a new enemy was made.

  I walked out into the Grecian-inspired corridor and was happy to see that Miles wasn’t waiting for me. I wasn’t about to let my trip to the Cherry Foundation be a complete waste of time, and the best way to do that was to find Conrad Beeson’s wife Sybil.

  twenty-four

  If the Cherry Foundation had still been located in the brick building downtown, I would have known exactly where the administrative office was, but in the rambling Cherry estate, it could be anywhere. I had to find it quickly before the board meeting broke up. The last thing I wanted was for Henry or one of the others to find me creeping around the estate. Miles wouldn’t be much better. I knew that he would love to throw me out the door. Cynthia had always stopped him from doing it before.

  I knew the general layout of the house, and my best guess for the office was where Maxwell Cherry had kept his office. It made the most sense, and I had to move at once if I didn’t want to be caught lurking in the halls.

  Maxwell’s office had been on the second floor in the west wing of the mansion. Yes, the house was large enough to have wings. To lessen my chance of running into a board member, I went through the kitchen and up the servants’ stairs. Although the Foundation had kept Miles on, the rest of the live-in estate staff, such as the cook and housekeeper, had been dismissed soon after Cynthia’s death. I wondered again if they kept Miles on out of respect for his advanced age or if they just liked someone else answering the front door for them.

  The dark stairway opened onto the second floor. The door that I slipped out of was a barely noticeable break in the floor-to-ceiling wooden paneling in the hallway.

  I closed the door behind me and heard laughter coming from the office at the end of the hall. Bingo. I’d picked the right place. As I walked down the corridor, I realized that I might have sent myself on a fool’s errand. Would Beeson’s wife really be at work the day after her husband’s death? I almost turned around right then.

  “The snake lied to me. He’s been lying to me all this time!” a shrill woman’s voice cried. “Here I was, thinking he was making tens of thousands of dollars off of his ridiculous book, and he only made a thousand bucks. All of which he spent on his sugaring operation.” Her voice ran up another octave.

  It appeared that Sybil Beeson was in. I inched down the hallway. The plush carpet muffled my steps. There was a moment of quiet, and then I heard Sybil say, “I just came into the office today to drop off some files. I’m taking the rest of the day off. I’ll call you later.”

  There was some rustling in the office. This was my chance. I knocked on the doorframe and stepped into the room.

  Sybil was a thin woman with a pinched face. She was wearing a sweater dress and knee-high boots. A winter coat hung over her arm, and her cell phone was in her other hand. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  I gave her a bright smile. “I hope so. I’m Kelsey Cambridge. I have a meeting with the board today.”

  She eyed me. “The board is down in the library.”

  “Oh.” I laughed like this was news to me. “I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. The Cherry estate is so huge.”

  She sniffed. “I’m surprised the butler didn’t tell you where to go. He’s always bossing me around.”

  “I didn’t see him on my way up,” I said, which was true. I didn’t add that I’d purposely avoided him.

  She headed toward the door. “Can I show you the way? I was just leaving.”

  I didn’t want Sybil to walk me into the library like I’d just arrived. Henry and the others were suspicious as it was. I didn’t need to give them more reason to question me. I saw a nameplate on her desk that read “Sybil Beeson” and knew it was my opportunity to bring up her husband.

  “You’re Sybil?” I asked.

  She arched one eyebrow at me. “I am.”

  I put on my most sympathetic face. “You’re Conrad’s wife.”

  She scowled. “Did you know my husband?”

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry about your loss,” I said sincerely. “I’m actually here at the Foundation to talk about the accident yesterday.”

  She pointed at me with a sharp fingernail. “You’re the woman from Barton Farm.”

  “I am.”

  She sniffed. “Well, I know why the board called you in then. Henry wasn’t happy about another incident on the Farm.”

  That was putting it mildly.

  “I’m sorry about your husband,” I repeated.

  She smoothed her coat over her arm. “You can save your sympathy, unless you feel pity for me for the mess that he’s left behind for me to clean up.”

  I took a step backward. “Pardon?”

  “Conrad Beeson was the most selfish human on the face of this earth.” She glared at me as if she were daring me to contradict her. “I was doing everything within my power to rid my life of him. It seems someone else felt the same way.”

  She said this with so little feeling that I shivered. “You were divorcing him.”

  She eyed me. “I was t
rying to divorce him. He wasn’t interested in a divorce. Apparently, his first one left a sour taste in his mouth. He was stringing the divorce along and using his book as a weapon against me.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “He lied to me,” she said, repeating the sentiments I’d overheard her telling the person on the phone. “I thought, since he wrote the book while we were married, that I was entitled to half of whatever he made off of it. He and his lawyer disagree.” She gripped her cell phone a little more tightly. “He claimed the book made him rich. He never said numbers, but he hinted at it. I should have known he was lying. He always was a liar. I thought, since he had the decency to die before the divorce was final, that I would receive all that book money he’d been going on and on about. Then what does the accountant tell me? That he made next to nothing on the book. He’d only told me he was making buckets of money so he could draw out the divorce as long as possible. Can you believe that?” She spat the question at me.

  I frowned. I could have told her that a small press that printed local history books wasn’t making anyone rich, but I thought better than to say that. She might fling her cell phone at my head.

  I wondered if Detective Brandon knew about Sybil’s motive, because it was a good one.

  “I’m sorry.” I couldn’t think of anything better to say.

  “I’m sorry too. So sorry.” She straightened her shoulders. “Now, I need to leave. I have an appointment at the funeral home.” Her voice caught, showing me a small crack in her tough exterior. She shook her head as if she realized she’d let her guard down just for a millisecond.

  “Have you spoken with Corrie?” I asked. “I saw Corrie today at Conrad’s sugarhouse.”

  “I’m glad someone has seen her. I’ve called her cell phone a dozen times since I saw her at the hospital during her father’s surgery. The child took off when the doctor told us Conrad died in surgery. I haven’t seen her since. I don’t even know where she slept last night.” Her voice had its icy edge back, and some of the sympathy I’d had for her a moment before evaporated.