The sun was setting over the gentle, rolling hills when I pulled into my long driveway. As always, I felt a deep sense of home as I drove up to the little yellow farmhouse that had been part of my life since I could remember. And hoped it would continue to be.
I headed inside and said hi to Chuck, then pulled on a jacket—the temperature was dropping as the sun dipped toward the horizon—before heading out to check on everything and everyone. Gidget, Hot Lips, Priscilla and Carrot were nosing at the fence, hoping for treats, and Blossom and Peony were checking—as usual—the perimeter. Blossom had acquired a taste for the geraniums on the Town Square, and was always looking for a way to escape. The geraniums of summer were long gone, having been replaced with bright yellow chrysanthemums and big pumpkins, but I couldn't tell her that.
I fed everyone a few treats—Chuck had visited the rosebush and promptly headed back inside where it was warm—and went to retrieve the bucket, then remembered I still had an old pump I'd picked up at a garage sale in Houston hidden somewhere in the barn. I detoured to the barn, digging through the boxes I'd stacked in an empty stall, until I found it. It wasn't strong, but I didn't want to spend the money on a bigger one if I didn't have to. After a bit of jury-rigging—I clipped the hose to the pump, dropped it into the stock tank, and ran a very long extension cord to the house—I managed to get a trickle of somewhat sludgy water and spent the next hour moving up and down the rows, trying not to smash the seedlings with the hose and hoping Ethan was as good as his word.
As I walked up and down the rows, parceling out water to my rather limp lettuce and broccoli seedlings, I thought about what Ethan had told me about Bug and his mystery woman from Houston. I was sure Rooster knew about her. So why slap Serafine in jail so fast? Sure, they'd had an argument over the mead cauldron, but wouldn't zapping someone with an electric cattle prod indicate more of a motive? I hoped Opal could give me a lead to follow up on. If nothing else, I was guessing the mysterious Evelyn could tell me more about Bug than anyone in Buttercup. Except possibly Aimee, who was being rather cagey about things, considering her sister was in jail for murder.
So far, we had at least one viable suspect: Evelyn from Houston. And, potentially, Bug's brother Mitch, although I knew next to nothing about their relationship, much less what he might have stood to gain from killing his brother. And Aimee was mixed in there somehow, too. I thought back to our visit to the ranch; it had definitely been her car, and her voice had been familiar. I didn't think I'd been mistaken. But what about? I'm sure if the two were an item, he'd know at least something about it, but I doubted he'd want to talk to me. He didn't seem to want us around; I had the feeling he was hiding something.
I looked over at the old homestead, thinking of all the secrets people keep—and wondered what secrets the little house might be keeping. What had that noise been the other night, anyway? I finished watering the row and walked back to the stock tank, carefully dragging the hose so as not to crush any baby plants. There was only six inches of water left in the tank; if Ethan didn't come tomorrow, my goose— or at least my broccoli—was cooked.
I coiled the hose next to the tank and walked back down to the little house, feeling a little frisson of unease as I got closer. What had that noise been last night?
The house was quite small: two rooms flanking a hallway that led from front to back in the downstairs, with a loft that stretched the length of the house upstairs. If I ever found the money to pay for it, I was hoping to use it as a rental.
It was going to take some work, though; and if the place was haunted, I wasn't sure how many return guests I'd get.
I walked around the house first, studying it yet again for signs of a loose board or shutter, but there was nothing I could see. The wind had died down; the air was still, and the only sounds were the distant bleating of the goats and the haunting call of a whippoorwill from the direction of the dry creek. As I rounded the front of the house, I paused, listening, then took a step onto the front porch.
The wood bowed and creaked beneath me, and I quickly moved to a slightly sounder-looking board, then tiptoed to the front door, praying the whole house wouldn't cave in around me. If it survived the weight of both Tobias and Peter, I told myself, I should be okay.
The door opened with a creak, and after a moment's hesitation, I stepped into the dusty interior.
The inside of the house was dim, the light of the setting sun feeble as it passed through the dirty windows. The wood boards in the hallway were worn, and for a moment I had the fleeting sensation that I could feel all the lives that had passed through the little house. Whose hand had painted the delicate blue stencils at the tops of the walls? Was it the vanished girl’s mother, trying to make her house a home? Had she also sewed curtains for the windows? Was one of the rooms a kitchen? There was no fireplace; had she followed the tradition of having a separate kitchen outside, to keep the heat out in the summer and cut the risk of fire?
I shivered again at the thought of fire. At least the wind had died down; that was a help. I took a step into the room to the left, reaching up to touch the bottom of one of the stenciled patterns; I could see the brush strokes. How long ago had she painted it? I wondered. I knew it was a she. What were her dreams? I thought about my own life. I'd considered having children, but my ex wasn't exactly the paternal type, and things with Tobias were still... forming. We'd never thought about children. What would it be like to have children waking up in the upstairs of my grandmother's house?
Too soon to think about that, I told myself, swatting the thought away and taking a step back toward the hallway, expecting the banging to start at any minute. It didn't; if there was a ghost, he or she must be napping. I hoped that would continue.
I took a few deep breaths and then inspected the narrow, rickety staircase to the second floor. Without thinking about it too much, I grabbed the banister and gingerly stepped onto the first tread. It bowed, but didn't break, and I made it up four more—high enough to peek into the loft area.
Whatever had been in the loft had been taken out before the house was moved; the area was empty. There was no sign of anything that could have made the noise I'd heard. I waited for another few minutes, both hoping for and dreading a recurrence, but there was nothing but the sound of the goats in the distance; the whippoorwill seemed to have moved on.
I was about to give up and head back down the steps when something caught my eye. On the top step, something gleamed in the fading light. I reached for it, but it was too far.
Saying a little prayer to my beleaguered guardian angel—if she hadn't long ago quit in despair—I took another two tentative steps up the narrow staircase, praying the treads wouldn't collapse under me. I stifled a sneeze at the dust I was inhaling as I reached for the source of the gleam.
It was a gold chain. I tugged at it, but it didn't come. It appeared to be caught between the boards of the steps. I took another step, saying another little prayer, and examined the top step. The riser appeared to have come loose from the tread. I curled my fingers around the edge of it and gave a gentle tug. It moved about an inch. I pulled a little harder, and the old wood released, exposing a small cavity.
The gold chain was the end of a necklace that had been tucked in behind the step. I loosened the chain from where it was caught, and tugged gently. A dusty cameo slid into the dim light. I picked it up, brushing the grime from the ivory-colored face. Whose had it been... and why was it hidden behind the riser? Cradling the cameo in my hand, I peered into the dark cavity, wondering if anything else was hidden. I was in luck; there was a small leather-bound book. I gently removed it from its hiding place and opened it, but the words were written in a flowery, hard-to-read script in a language I didn't understand—German, from the looks of it. I leafed through the old book, which was only half-full—a diary?—and looked to see if there was anything else in the cavity.
There was. It was a rusty knife, and it looked like it was caked with dried blood.
11
"Hello?" I called. I'm not sure why. Maybe I figured if this was what the ghost wanted me to find, it might answer.
It didn't, but I still didn't feel like hanging around.
I gathered what I'd found—except for the knife, which I decided I didn't want to take with me—and hurried down the stairs, praying the treads would hold but too anxious to be out of the house to go any slower. I burst through the front door and took a deep breath of the clean, dust-free air, shaking myself as if that would dispel the eerie feeling. It didn't work.
Once I'd caught my breath, I walked around the outside of the house again, looking for a loose board, a flapping piece of metal roof—anything that could have explained the noises we'd heard the other night. There was nothing, though, and no wind today, anyway. With the diary and the cameo in my hands, I turned toward the house, still feeling spooked.
I had just made myself a cup of tea to steady my nerves when I heard the sound of tires on the dirt driveway. I looked through the window; it was my friend Molly. She'd been in Dallas for her sister's fiftieth birthday party; she must have just gotten back.
"I leave for a week, and everything goes to heck!" my friend said as she got out of her truck and headed to the front porch. She wore a blue sweater and faded boot-cut jeans. Her graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and her brown eyes crinkled into a smile when she saw me.
"I'm so glad you're home," I said. "How was your trip?"
"It was good," she said. "But I'm happy to be back. I think I'm allergic to Dallas."
"I'm not a big fan of it, either," I replied, giving her a hug. "I was just having a cup of tea; come join me."
"I'd love to! It's much quieter here than at home; I missed everyone, but they can be pretty chaotic."
"I can't believe they let you get away," I told her. Molly lived on an active farm with four kids, her husband, a dog, and lots of livestock.
"The house is a mess; I walked in, then told them I was coming to visit you and they had two hours to get it squared away."
I laughed. "What are the odds they'll do it?"
"It won't be perfect, but there are so many dirty dishes they've started eating cereal out of coffee mugs. I told them they at least had to get the kitchen cleared up and the clothes off the living-room floor."
"Maybe I'm glad I don't have kids after all," I said.
"It makes it a lot easier to keep the house straight," she agreed, glancing around at my relatively tidy kitchen. "But fill me in on the news. I hear Bug got bitten by a bug."
"He did," I said as I poured her a cup of tea and sat down across from her at my big pine table. "And Serafine's in the town jail."
"I heard that, too," she said. "I can't imagine Serafine hurting anyone... she's one of the most empathetic people I know."
"She was pretty angry at Bug," I said. "And she's very protective of animals."
"That's true," Molly conceded. "Do you think she did it?"
"I don't, actually. I think Rooster's just being lazy."
"What I don't understand is, if he died of a bee sting, how could it be murder?"
"I think someone messed with his EpiPen," I told her. "And snuck bees into his truck to make sure he got stung."
"Do you think it might have been Serafine? She's got beehives, after all."
"She did have a big showdown with Bug at the Witches' Ball... and she burned his cup after he was done with it. I told him about the cone of paper with the dead bee in it—it was in the front seat of his truck—but Rooster ignored me. I think his theory is that she put bee venom in the cup and somehow managed to sabotage his EpiPen, too."
"So, you're thinking someone else did it, and then put the bees in the truck to make sure he had to use it?"
"It's a theory." I took a sip of tea and put my cup down. "I just realized the twist of paper almost had to be put in the truck after Bug parked and got out. Mitch was in the passenger seat; if the paper was there before, he would have crushed it by sitting on it."
"So someone at the Witches' Ball put the bees in the truck. It could have been anyone; there are hives on the property."
"There are," I said. "If we can get Rooster to listen to us, it might clear Serafine. If she was at the cauldron the whole time, that is; we had a card reading done, so I wasn't watching."
"But lots of people were. There were tons of witnesses." She took a sip of her tea. "Someone might have seen someone near his truck in the parking lot, too. It's hard to do anything in Buttercup without someone noticing."
"It's worth asking around," I said, feeling more hopeful. "Also, Ethan Schenk down at the fire station told me a woman from Houston hit Bug in the family jewels with an electric cattle prod a day or two before he died. Ethan was one of the first responders; Rooster knew about it, too."
She cringed. "Ouch!"
"Totally," I agreed. "If you're willing to go after someone with a cattle prod, you've clearly got a beef with them."
"Do you know who it is?"
"I have a first name. I'm hoping Opal can tell me the rest; she wasn't at the sheriff's office when I drove by this evening."
"Poor Serafine," Molly said.
"I know. I may swing by with a few paperbacks for her tomorrow. I got her hooked up with an attorney; hopefully, she'll be out soon on bail."
"Hopefully." She sighed. "For a small town, there seems to be a whole lot going on."
"I know. My well ran dry this week, I can't find a dowser, and that old house I got talked into moving here seems to be haunted."
"Haunted?"
I told her about the weird banging noises, and then showed her the diary and the cameo I'd found hidden behind the riser. "There was a rusty knife, too, but I left it behind."
"Gross," she said.
"Even though it's probably been there for a hundred years or more, it looks like there's blood on it."
She wrinkled her nose and picked up the small book. "No wonder the place is haunted, if there's a bloody knife hidden in it. I heard they found someone murdered on the front porch back in the eighteen hundreds... maybe you found the murder weapon."
"That's a cheerful thought."
She leafed through the small, leather-bound book. "Looks like a diary. What language is this in?"
"I think it's German."
"I think so, too," she said. "But the script is really hard to read. There's a date here, though..." She pointed to the top of the page.
"Looks like 1839," I said. "That's pretty close to the time of Ilse's disappearance. Is there a name in it?"
"No," she said, turning to the first page. "At least not in the front."
"I'll bet Maria can read it. I'll have to take it to her to see what she thinks. But I'm having serious second thoughts about moving the house to the farm."
"I'm sure it will be fine once you get it renovated."
"If," I said. "I told you, my well ran dry this week; I've got to pay for that first."
She looked over at the counter, where I had four jugs of drinking water. "Oh, no, Lucy... I'm so sorry. I wondered why you had water jugs... What are you going to do?"
I told her about Lenny's visit. "The dowser died, and I think Lenny's been dodging me ever since. I'm hoping Ethan down at the fire department will refill my stock tanks today, but I've got to come up with a longer-term solution. Do you know any dowsers?"
"Not offhand, but I'll ask around," she told me. As she took another sip of her tea, which she'd barely touched, her phone buzzed. She rolled her eyes as she glanced at it. "Apparently, they're ready for me to come home," she announced, turning the phone so that I could see it. "They even texted me a picture of the kitchen."
"Not too bad," I said. "I'll bet they didn't wipe the counters down, though."
"I know," she said. "What's up with that? Anyway," she said, standing up, "I guess I should head back. Why don't you come over for dinner sometime this week?"
"I'd love to," I said, giving her a hug. "I'm glad you're back."
"Me t
oo," she said. “Sounds like it’s been a rough couple of days here.”
"Maybe things will turn around now that you're back."
"Here's hoping," she said, giving me a hug. "Let me know what you find out about that diary," she said.
"If Maria can’t decipher it, I’ve got to find someone who speaks German. But first, I've got a few other things to take care of."
"Never a dull moment, is there?"
"If only," I said with a rueful smile.
* * *
Molly had only been gone a few minutes when I heard a truck coming up the driveway. I glanced out the window; it was the pumper truck, with Ethan in the driver's seat.
"The reinforcements have arrived," I informed Chuck, who looked up at me and cocked his head to one side. I threw on a sweatshirt and headed out to meet Ethan. "Thanks so much for coming out!" I called as I stepped off the front porch. He'd stopped the truck and was surveying the stock tank closest to the driveway. The goats were eyeing him with interest, probably hoping he had snacks in his pockets.
"Is this the one you want filled?" he asked.
"Both would be better, but if you can only do this one, that would be great," I said. "Need any help?"
"Let's get the hose over to the tank. I'll start it going, and you let me know when it's full."
"Thanks," I said. Together, we put the hose end into the tank, and I watched as he headed back to the truck and started the pump. It didn't take long for the tank to fill. Unfortunately, I knew it also wouldn't take long for the tank to empty.
"Any rain in the forecast yet?" I asked once he'd turned off the water and we were putting the hose back onto the truck.
"Not that I've seen," he said. "There are supposed to be high winds in a couple of days, though. We're all a little nervous about that." He turned to look at my little house. "You should probably cut back some of those trees," he advised me a second time.
"I know," I said. "But the shade is awfully nice in the summer."
He shook his head, then turned to the subject I suspected was on his mind. "Find out anything else about what happened to Bug?"
Deadly Brew: A Dewberry Farm Mystery Page 10
