The Final Reveille: A Living History Museum Mystery

by Amanda Flower

  “Kelsey,” Benji waved at me when I stepped onto the grounds.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  She frowned. “Not good. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. My brickyard is still closed, and the cop the chief put over there told me that it will remain closed for the rest of the weekend. I can’t even get my supplies and move my brickmaking talk somewhere else. Who wants to hear about brickmaking without a demo? This is such a pain.”

  “Well, the circumstances were unexpected,” I trailed off.

  She knocked one of her many braids over her shoulder. “They got the dead guy out. What more do they need? The bees did it. I’m real sorry about that, but I have a job to do.”

  Ten yards from us, a whoop went up from the battlefield as the Rebels made a run at the Union soldiers. The Union line hid behind the hay bales made to look like trenches—I wouldn’t allow the reenactors to dig up my pasture land for real trenches.

  She threw up her arms. “What am I supposed to do?”

  “I’ll let it be your choice. You can either work in the visitor center directing people and handing out Farm maps, or you can join one of the other crafters.”

  “I guess I can go to candle making. But that is so boring.” She pretended to hold a dip stick in her hand. “Dip. Drip. Dip. Drip. Yawn.”

  I smiled. “You’ll survive. It won’t be forever,” I reassured her.

  “I’ll head there now.”

  I held up my hand. “Wait a second. I wanted to talk to you anyway. Before you left work on Thursday, what was the state of the brickyard?”

  “Do you think I left it a mess or something? Because I’ve worked here seven summers, and I always take care of my station.” She folded her arm across her chest.

  “Relax.” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not accusing you of that. I’m just curious to hear what everything looked like before I found Maxwell’s dead body in the pit the next morning.”

  “Oh, well, it was normal I guess. I put all the supplies in the cupboard underneath the station like I always do.

  I nodded.

  “And I checked the mud for any bees or signs of bees. I didn’t find any and covered the pit with the tarp.” She took a breath. “I guess it’s weird that he died from a bee sting when I’m sure there weren’t any bees there.” She shrugged. “I mean, did a whole colony wait until I left to move in? I wouldn’t think worker bees were that smart.”

  I wrinkled my brow. That was an interesting problem. “You were stung the morning before.”

  “I was, but Shepley stopped over and got all the bees out.”

  “Shepley?” I asked. My problem gardener seemed to be coming up in a lot in conversations about Maxwell’s death. “How did he remove them?”

  “He used a smoker. I didn’t watch too closely. I was about twenty yards away, waiting outside the Barton House. I didn’t want to be stung again.”

  “And you didn’t see any bees later in the day?

  “A few came back, so Shepley came over and smoked for them again. After I got stung early that morning, I was really paranoid about them and would check the mud every chance I got. I didn’t see any more after that.”

  Shepley. I needed to talk to Shepley.

  Everything about Maxwell’s death was more complicated than I could have ever imagined. Killed by bees, yes, but only after being injected with insulin and dumped into a pit that should have been bee-free. Killed in the middle of the night with hundreds of people nearby and yet not seen. His murder was either committed by someone completely disorganized or completely brilliant.

  More yells rang out as the Rebels made their retreat. They had won Friday’s battle, but Saturday belonged to the North.

  The medics and a select number of privates on both sides went into the field to collect their fake dead. Automatically my eyes searched for Chase. Two days ago, I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out from far away. Today, I recognized him immediately by the blond hair peeking out from under his kepi and from his self-assured movements when checking on the fallen members of his regiment. While others checked the bodies strewn on the ground with timidity, he did so with confidence. Checking on someone’s health was something that he did every day.

  Chase knelt by one of the bodies that was in the very middle of the field. He shook the body’s shoulder. It didn’t move. Whoever was playing the part was committed to staying in character. Chase forcefully opened his medical bag. He leaned over the man’s mouth and blew air into the body.

  This wasn’t right. Something wasn’t right. I had never seen CPR performed at a reenactment. In fact, mouth to mouth recitation wasn’t even known of during the Civil War. A reenactor would not try to bring a fake dead person back that way.

  Privates from both sides began to crowd around Chase and the body on the ground. I took a few more steps toward the fence that separated Maple Grove Lane from the battlefield.

  “Mommy.” A little girl pulled on her mother’s sleeve. “What’s wrong with that man?”

  Her mother patted her head. “It’s all part of the acting. Why don’t we go into the visitor center and get some ice cream?” She turned her daughter so that she could no longer see the field.

  “Okay!” her daughter cried, the body in the middle of the field forgotten with the promise of an early morning ice cream.

  I appreciated that the mother lied to her daughter and used ice cream as a bribe. I would have done the same if Hayden were standing next to me. I bit the inside of my lip. Where was Hayden? They should be here by now. I hoped Eddie had the good sense to distract him from the drama playing out in the middle of the field.

  One of the reenactors on the field was speaking into a cell phone.

  “Mom, that guy has a cell phone. They aren’t supposed to have those,” an annoyed teenager said. “That guy is cheating.”

  That was all the confirmation I needed. I climbed over the split-rail fence. As soon as my feet hit the grass, I ran toward Chase and the man. I pushed reenactors aside.

  “Move, please! What’s going on?”

  Chase was still in middle of giving mouth-to-mouth to the soldier on the ground. He wore blue. He was a Union man. When Chase compressed the soldier’s chest, I saw the man’s face. It was Wesley.

  “Come on, buddy,” Chase said as he pumped. “Come on. Breathe.”

  Wesley’s features were fluid, as if they could slide right off his face. I had seen the same effect on my mother right after she stopped breathing. Wesley wasn’t coming back. He was dead. I placed my small hand on Chase’s broad shoulder. The rough wool of his uniform felt harsh against my palm. Underneath the fabric, his muscles twitched with every compression of Wesley’s chest.

  “Chase,” I whispered. “Chase, he’s gone.”

  Chase shook his head and kept up with the CPR. He wouldn’t give up on Wesley even if all hope was lost. Wesley’s eyes remained closed. But I knew Wesley Mayes was dead, and he told me he didn’t kill Maxwell Cherry. He may not have, but whoever committed that murder had struck again.

  Twenty-three

  Behind us, I heard the wail of an ambulance. “Listen,” I told the reenactors. “I don’t want the visitors, especially the children, to see this. If you guys could stand in a line and block the public’s view of Wesley, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  They fell into a line that would have made Generals Grant and Lee proud. All stood erect, shoulder to shoulder. Occasionally, I saw a tear fall from an eye. Wesley had been a member of their community, their friend. He had told Chase and me that he had been a reenactor since he was a child, a legacy that apparently followed his parents’ love of the Civil War.

  Portia came to mind. How would she feel to have another man that she loved—if it could be believed that she loved Maxwell—dead? Then again, did this make Portia the most likely killer? Did she terminate men who were no longer
of use to her, or did she believe Wesley murdered her fiancé out of jealousy and revenge?

  Another line I had heard my father recite many times from Hamlet came to mind. “So art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.”

  I shook my head. Portia wasn’t even on the battlefield or on the Farm grounds. How could she be responsible for this?

  “How did he die?” I whispered.

  A Confederate soldier to my right answered me. “He just seemed to have stopped breathing. When he fell, he hit his head on this rock.” He pointed at the large rock sticking half out of the ground. It was a boulder, which had been too heavy to move when the field had been turned into a pasture land for the cows and oxen or a battlefield for the reenactors.

  “So it was an accident?”

  On the ground, pumping Wesley’s chest, Chase shook his head. “Seems a little too coincidental for my taste.”

  “Mine too.”

  Chief Duffy hurried over. “I was in the commode when I got the news and got here just as quick as I could. What’s happened?”

  The Confederate soldier saluted. “It’s Wesley Mayes, sir. He fell and hit his head on the rock there.”

  “Terrible accident. It doesn’t happen often, but I have heard about other reenactors dying in freak accidents like this. It’s the first time for it to happen in one of my battles.”

  “I don’t know if it was an accident, Chief,” Chase said and kept pumping the fallen man’s chest. “Hitting his head on the rock could certainly knock him out cold, but that wouldn’t be the reason he would stop breathing.”

  “You think he died before he hit the rock?” the chief asked.

  “He stopped breathing before he hit the rock. I don’t know how long it would take him to die.” He glanced behind him at the infantrymen blocking the public’s view.

  Chief Duffy scanned the men. “Did anyone see Mayes fall?”

  “I did,” said the young Confederate private who had spoken to me. He had terrible acne and his hair was plastered to his face with sweat. “He fell with the first assault.”

  “That means that he was lying on the field for at least half an hour,” I said.

  “He could have been struggling most of that time,” Chase said. “Since we thought he was pretending to be dead, we didn’t take any notice.”

  “Excuse me,” a breathy female voice said.

  Infantrymen stepped aside, and my assistant appeared. She gasped when she saw Wesley lying dead on the grass. Behind her, EMTs and police in uniform pushed through the line. Chase stood up and let another EMT take over pumping Wesley’s chest.

  “Wyatt,” one of the EMTs said. “You look sharp in the getup. I’m sure the ladies are fainting dead away when they see you.” His eyes slid to me.

  Chase’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t reply.

  A second EMT kicked the first in the shin. “Shut up. Wyatt, can you tell us what’s going on here?”

  While Chase repeated the details of Wesley’s condition, I pulled Ashland aside.

  Ashland paled. “It’s just so horrible, too horrible for words.”

  I snapped my fingers in her face. “Pay attention. We have a serious situation.”

  She shook her head. “Right. What do you want me to do?”

  “First, make an announcement that there has been an accident and we request that visitors stay out of the EMTs’ and police officers’ way.”

  She made a note in her tiny notepad.

  “Then, I want you to gather together twenty or thirty reenactors. Have them go to the village and play their parts out there. Ask them to talk about the war. Hopefully most of the crowd will follow them. Have Abraham Lincoln give his speech, and send Walt Whitman over too. He can recite Leaves of Grass beginning to end if need be. I won’t even be a stickler about the version.”

  “Where will we hold the speeches?”

  I thought for a moment. “The steps of the church will be perfect. Call Benji up to help you. She should be in candle making by now, but she’s been looking for something more exciting to do since her brickyard is closed.”

  Ashland looked at me with awe. “Kelsey, how are you able to make plans like this so fast?”

  The hero worship on her face made me uncomfortable. “Out of necessity. Now go.”

  I returned to the chief’s side. He and Chase were arguing.

  “The reenactment will stay open,” the chief said. “There is only one day left.”

  Chase ran his hand through his hair. “Do you want someone else to get hurt?”

  “Of course not,” his uncle said.

  The EMT lifted the stretcher to take Wesley off of the field. I knew it was a lost effort. From the EMTs’ faces, they knew it too. But they weren’t going to give up. It was their job not to give up.

  The police chief poked one of his officers holding a camera. “Parker, go with them and take photos of the wound on the back from every angle in case if this turns out to be foul play.”

  Chase threw up his hands. “If this turns out to be foul play?”

  “Relax, my boy,” Chief Duffy said to his nephew.

  As relieved as I was for the finances of the Farm to hear the chief say the Farm would remain open, I wasn’t positive it was a good idea either. Maybe we should count our losses and get out while there were only two dead bodies to account for.

  “Sir,” Chase said, “I don’t think it’s wise to keep the reenactment open.”

  “What does Kelsey think?” Chief Duffy squished his bushy eyebrows together. “This is her show. I will follow her lead.”

  Both men turned to me.

  I watched the EMTs lift Wesley over the fence and through the crowd. He was so young, just a couple years out of college. It seemed like such as terrible waste, but if we canceled the reenactment, I would never be able to reimburse all the Blue and Gray Ball ticket sales. It was too late to get my deposits back from the caterer, or for the tent, table, and chair rentals. More importantly, a killer would get away. Wesley and Maxwell deserved justice. So did Cynthia.

  “I think we need to finish out the weekend. If we ask the reenactors to cross the street, most of the tourists will follow, which will give you time to search the field or whatever else you need to do. Lincoln and Whitman can recite speeches and poetry on the church steps.”

  The chief smiled. “Excellent plan.”

  Chase shook his head and walked away. I’d disappointed him and, surprisingly, I felt worse about that than anything else.

  Twenty minutes later we learned that Wesley was pronounced dead at the hospital.

  Twenty-four

  My plan worked. Between Honest Abe and Walt Whitman, most of the tourists crossed the street into the village to listen to the speeches and mingle with the reenactors. Those who didn’t listen to the two great men speak walked through the houses and other buildings in the village. My first-person interpreters had never been so inundated with visitors in their careers, but they handled it beautifully.

  I had to admit Ashland took charge of the situation and made it seem like this was the plan for the day all along. In addition to Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman, she convinced some of the reenactor children to play an early version of baseball on the far edge of the village near Shepley’s garden. As long as no one hit a baseball through one of the original wavy glass windows on any of the buildings, all would be well.

  Shepley was the only person in the village not pleased with the turn of events. Dozens of visitors walked through his flowers and raised beds admiring his work. All the while the gardener stood at the entrance, a pitchfork in his hand, looking like a cross between the Hunchback of Notre Dame and an avenging scarecrow.

  Wisely, the visitors gave him a wide berth when they entered and exited the garden.

  “Shepley, can we talk?” I asked.

  “What are all these pe
ople doing over here? You told me that most of the folks would stay on that side of the road. Then all of the sudden it was like Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. They just kept coming.”

  I adjusted my radio on my hip. “There was an incident during the reenactment.”

  He snorted. “An incident? You seem to be having a lot of those, Ms. Director. One of the reenactors kicked the bucket, I already heard.”

  I winced. If Shepley knew that Wesley died, then most of the visitors must have known too. Hopefully, they’d just assume it was heat stroke. One known murder on the grounds was more than enough.

  “Do you want to talk about the dead guy? Because I don’t know anything about that. I bet you regret this Civil War thing now. Problems happen when someone gets too big for her britches.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you about the reenactment. I spoke with Benji a little while ago.”

  The hard lines on the gardener’s face softened. Benji was the one person on the Farm he didn’t gripe about. It may be because she, like Shepley, would rather play in the dirt than interact with other people.

  “She said that you got the bees out her brick pit for her on Thursday.”

  He yanked his pitchfork out of the ground. “They weren’t bees.”

  “I saw her foot; she was stung.”

  “Yes, but she wasn’t stung by a bee. She was stung by a wasp. A mud dauber. Bees wouldn’t bury themselves that deep into the mud where she wouldn’t see them until she stomped them.”

  “Why was everyone calling them bees?”

  He jabbed the pitchfork into the grass a few inches from its original spot. “City slickers don’t know the difference. Honey bees are valuable. Mud daubers are pests.”

  “How did you get rid of them?”

  “I used the smoker to relax them and scraped away their mud tubers. They were at the south corner of the brick pit. I shot it with some insecticide for good measure after the second smoking. I hate to use the stuff, but it’s really the only way to deter them.”