Town in a Maple Madness

by B. B. Haywood

  Certainly not Neil. She didn’t have to think twice before she ruled him out—despite the fact that he drove a red car. It just wasn’t something he would do. It was too out of character for him. He was one of the most honest and generous people she knew—though she could understand why the Milbrights were suspicious of him. The two farms were, after all, competitors of a sort. She’d heard grumbles before from the Milbrights, who thought Neil was siphoning off some of their potential profits by running his own sugar shack just a few miles from theirs.

  But if not Neil, then who? Who would be so desperate to steal someone else’s sap? And for what purpose? Was money the real motivation—or was there some other reason behind the taps?

  It could have been done by someone completely random, she thought—a vagrant, a transient, or, as she’d told the Milbrights, just some teenage kids out on a lark.

  But what it if had been something more? Something deliberate? An act committed with some specific purpose in mind?

  As she drove toward town, her gaze swept the surrounding landscape. She half expected the alleged sap thief to step out of the woods lining the road right in front of her, conveniently carrying a bucket of sap. Caught red-handed—or sticky-handed. It would, at the very least, be a quick resolution to this new mystery. But, of course, as she drove on, that didn’t happen.

  She sighed. She was already letting her imagination run away with her—never a good thing, especially in these circumstances. But she felt conflicted, uncertain of what to do.

  At least, she thought with a swell of hope as she stared out the windshield, the weather was improving. The past week or two had been cold, damp, and overcast, but the day was clearing and the air was drying out, thanks to a southerly wind. Billowy, fast-moving clouds swept across the sky in front of her, paralleling the coast. She had the side window cracked open, and the air blowing into the cabin felt almost balmy, though it was barely above forty degrees. The snow was mostly gone, except for lingering patches way back in the woods, and the ground was warming, giving off that unmistakable fresh scent of early spring.

  All in all, typical for late March, and not a bad day at all.

  Ideal, in fact, for the community event she was headed to this morning. It was taking place at the old warehouse, dock, and boatbuilding complex along the English River, a run-down collection of creaky, century-old buildings commonly known as Warehouse Row, close to Cape Willington’s downtown business district. The village leaders were unveiling a new facility today, dubbed the English River Community Center, just in time for the upcoming weekend’s festivities. It was located in an old reclaimed and remodeled warehouse, and was part of a larger community project called River Walk, an extension of the already existing Ocean Walk, a winding bench- and flower-lined gravel pathway that began at the lighthouse and meandered southward along the oceanfront to the Lobster Shack, a popular tourist destination. In addition to the just-completed community center renovation, long-term plans called for new shops, restaurants, and art galleries in the warehouse and marina area, which had been rechristened River Walk Plaza. It was an attempt to revitalize that area of the village, and was one of the most buzzed-about topics of the year.

  Candy didn’t want to miss the community center’s big reveal, which was scheduled to take place at eleven, just a short time from now.

  Things were happening in town. A big crowd was expected for the unveiling. She’d planned to meet her friend Maggie Wolfsburger there. She knew she should head in that direction.

  But she was torn.

  She couldn’t get the illegal tree tapper out of her mind. For one thing, the timing seemed so odd, just days before a community-wide maple-related event this weekend. And the location of the taps didn’t make sense. Everyone in town knew about Hutch Milbright’s reputation for having a short fuse and going after those he thought had wronged him or Ginny. Why would someone risk tapping trees on his land, knowing what he was capable of? If you’re going to tap trees illegally, why not do it someplace else, on a farm where the owner wasn’t quite so unpredictable—at Neil’s place, for instance? If someone had tapped his trees, he might not have even noticed, or cared much if he did. His commercial operation was much more low-key than the Milbrights’, who relied a lot on maple syrup sales for their annual income.

  So why would someone purposely steal their sap and rile them up like that?

  The more she thought about it, the more something smelled fishy to her.

  As she came to a stop at an intersection with the southern branch of the Coastal Loop, she checked her watch. Ten twenty. Forty minutes until the unveiling of the new community center down at the warehouses. Not too far away. No more than ten minutes from here.

  She had thirty minutes to spare. Enough time to make a quick stop, if she hurried.

  She looked first one direction, then the other, before turning the steering wheel to the right, away from town, and toward Crawford’s Berry Farm.

  Might as well nip this thing in the bud as quickly as she could.

  THREE

  That was the plan, at least. But when she pulled into the unpaved parking area in front of the house at Crawford’s Berry Farm, climbed out of the Jeep, and looked around, she realized her hope for a quick resolution was in jeopardy, as there was no one around to talk to.

  Neil Crawford was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his big shaggy dog, Random, who certainly would have greeted her with enthusiasm if he’d been in the general vicinity.

  Their absence wasn’t unusual, especially at this time of year. They were often off in the woods beyond the far edge of the strawberry fields, collecting sap, gathering the last of the season’s firewood, or just out chasing squirrels and cracking off the remaining ice crusts along the banks of meandering streams and from around big wet boulders.

  It was probably something like that, Candy mused as she walked toward the farmhouse. She climbed onto the porch and rapped on the front door, but wasn’t surprised when no one answered. Neil wasn’t the type of guy to hang around the house on a day like this, with the weather improving. He’d be out somewhere on the property, taking care of one project or another. There was always work to be done around a farm, no matter the time of year.

  Hands tucked into the front pockets of her yellow fleece jacket, which she’d left mostly unzipped today, Candy climbed down off the porch and walked around the side of the house. Her gaze promptly swung left, toward the maple sugaring shack at one side of the fields.

  The sugar shack had one specific purpose—to turn the sap of sugar maple trees into syrup. A small, wood-framed, rustic building half tucked into the woods, it looked as if it had been on this land for a century or more, like something from a Rockwell painting or a Currier and Ives print. But Neil had helped build it himself, only a few decades earlier, along with his father, older brother, and other members of the Crawford family not too long after they bought the place, when Neil was in high school. They’d been upgrading the sugar shack ever since, and Neil had continued the practice after his father’s unexpected death a few years earlier. The shack housed an evaporator as well as various large pots and pans, skimmers and scoopers, worktables and shelving, a place to stack buckets, an area for filtering and bottling the sap, pot holders, ladles, a few chairs, and the general detritus that gathers around a work area.

  It didn’t look like it was in operation today. The door was closed, and no curls of smoke sprouted from the upper cupola at the center of the building. So Neil wasn’t in there boiling sap right now. He might be out collecting it, though. The tractor and the sap-collecting cart it pulled, usually parked along one side of the sugar shack, were gone, she noticed.

  Her gaze shifted out across the stubby strawberry fields toward the far tree line. So Neil and Random were out in the woods somewhere, probably collecting sap. She studied the landscape, searching for any signs of them. She had a vague idea where Neil’s tapped sugar maple t
rees were located, but there were several clusters of them in various directions. It would take her an hour or more to search for Neil and Random in those woods—something she didn’t have time for right now.

  Instead, she pulled out her phone and tried to call Neil. But as she suspected, he didn’t pick up. He rarely carried his phone with him when he was working in the fields or walking back in the woods, leaving it on the counter in the kitchen or on a windowsill in the living room to buzz happily away, unanswered. She waited for it to ring a few times and ended the call without leaving a message.

  She held her breath for several moments and listened intently, hoping to catch the low rattling hum of the tractor’s motor, or just the vibrations of it echoing through the woods. She thought she heard a distant rumble a time or two, carried on the wind, and maybe even a few barks, but it was hard to determine from which direction the sounds had come. The wind seemed to keep shifting around, mixing everything up. And, she thought, it could just be the typical sounds of nature. It was hard to tell.

  On a last-ditch effort she held up a hand to her mouth, called out to them loudly several times, and turned an ear toward the woods. But there was no response. The sounds she’d heard earlier were gone. If Neil and Random were out there, they were moving away from her, deeper into the woods. They could be gone for a while.

  She considered leaving a note but decided to just call Neil later on. He was usually back at his house around lunchtime. She’d give him a buzz then, or maybe swing by again sometime in the afternoon.

  As she walked back toward her Jeep, she passed Neil’s red Saab wagon, parked near the barn, and couldn’t help pausing to take a quick look at it. It was, after all, implicated in an alleged theft. It bore checking out. But she didn’t want to seem like she was snooping. She was just being thorough, she told herself. And she was curious. She might find something that would prove the Milbrights wrong—or, at least, hopefully not right.

  The wagon was essentially Neil’s work vehicle, just as Candy’s Jeep was for her. On quick inspection, glancing through the windows, she found that it was filled with all the expected items—bags of sand, tire chains and snow shovels, jackets and snow boots, and various crates and boxes of stuff. And tools of all kinds. But no drill, as far as she could see. That, at least, gave her a moment of relief.

  She checked outside the vehicle, around the wheel wells and down on the undercarriage, but saw no excessive splatters or dried dirt patterns that might indicate Neil had driven recently on the muddy road behind the Milbrights’ place. Nothing that was out of the norm. Like her, he drove on dirt or muddy roads all the time. He often took the Saab back into the strawberry fields. There was no real way to determine whether he’d been on that back road yesterday, and she saw nothing specific to indicate that he indeed had.

  Again, a brief feeling of relief. At least there was nothing obvious to connect Neil to the activity of which he’d been accused.

  In fact, now that she thought about it, she wondered if she’d have been able to broach the subject with Neil even if he was here. The whole thing suddenly seemed far-fetched—the idea that Neil would have tapped the Milbrights’ maple trees, for whatever reason. There must be some other explanation. Or it was just some sort of mistake.

  Still, she knew she couldn’t completely dismiss the Milbrights’ concerns—not right now, at least, not until she learned more. If what they’d told her was true, and she was convinced Neil had nothing to do with it, then someone else must have tapped those trees—someone who possibly drove a red vehicle. Someone who might have been out on that road yesterday. Someone who might know what was going on.

  She’d been gazing absently out toward the fields and woods, but at this last thought she turned back toward Neil’s Saab wagon. It was an old vehicle. The red paint job had faded quite a bit over the years. There was some rust around the wheel wells. It wasn’t the type of car that stood out in a crowd, or in a forest. That was for sure. It probably hadn’t been washed in years. Would it even be noticeable out on a back dirt road, seen through the trees? More than likely, it would blend into the landscape like a deer.

  So, if she assumed that it hadn’t been Neil in his Saab, then who could it have been?

  Who else around town drove a red vehicle?

  It was an intriguing question, and got her mind working in a different direction.

  Right off the top of her head, she could think of several people who fit the bill.

  Mick Rilke, a local landscaper, for one. She’d talked to him just a couple of weeks ago, when he’d given her pointers for driving on muddy roads. He’d made her laugh. When they’d talked, he’d been in his red snowplow truck, which he drove during the winter season. As a landscaper, he’d certainly know something about tapping trees.

  Anita Weller, a teacher at the village’s elementary school, drove a red Volkswagen Beetle, Candy remembered, and Paige Booker, who worked at Hatch’s Garden Center, darted around in a small red hatchback. Paige had always been helpful and knowledgeable, and respectful of plants. Not the type of person to illegally tap maple trees—though she’d probably have some knowledge about those sorts of things, just like Mick did.

  And there were others who could be involved, Candy thought. Wanda Boyle, managing editor of the Cape Crier, drove a big SUV, which was maroon in color but could be mistaken for a red vehicle. With its big tires and big engine, it could easily navigate that muddy back road. And local gift shop owner Malcolm Stevens Randolph tooled around town in a small red sports car—when the weather was decent, which it hadn’t been recently. He tended to keep his vehicle spotless. She couldn’t imagine him driving on anything but a paved road, unless absolutely necessary.

  There were undoubtedly others, but those were all she could recall at the moment. As she turned and started toward her Jeep, she went back over the list in her mind.

  Mick Rilke. An interesting character—and definitely a possible suspect. He was a big man and a hard worker who always got the job done and treated people fairly, but he also could be gruff at times, and overly boisterous at others. During her limited encounters with him, though, she’d always found him to be quite personable and humorous.

  Mick, she knew, owned two trucks. During late spring, throughout the summer, and into the fall, he usually drove his gray landscaping truck, which was a fixture around town. But when the weather grew colder, he switched to his seasonal job, plowing snow for homeowners and private businesses. For that, he used an old red pickup he’d bought a few years back. By changing vehicles, he didn’t have to detach the plow and restock his truck for his summer job as the weather warmed, and do the opposite in the fall.

  A snowplow truck like Mick’s, she thought, was often equipped with chains, though those were installed mostly during blizzards and ice storms. She doubted he currently had the chains on. But, like Wanda, he easily could have navigated the muddy road behind the Milbrights’ place in his truck.

  Could he have tapped those trees? It was certainly a possibility. He probably had all the right equipment, though you didn’t need much more than a drill, a hammer, a few stainless steel or plastic spiles, and a bunch of buckets. He was usually all over town. He could have ventured onto that back road, and onto the Milbrights’ property, at just about any time, and no one would have ever known or seen him.

  But for what purpose? Mick could be a little over the top at times, but she’d never thought of him as a troublemaker. Why would he go onto someone else’s land and tap their maple trees?

  It was a question she could ask about any of the others around town who drove red vehicles, all of whom seemed increasingly unlikely to have anything to do with this alleged theft. Wanda Boyle, for instance, was not the type of person to go hiking through the woods, though she camped out occasionally with her family. Anita Weller? Paige Booker? Malcolm in his little red sports car?

  Candy shook her head. She couldn’t pictur
e any of them back in the woods, illegally tapping trees.

  She’d reached the Jeep and was just about to jump into the driver’s seat when her cell phone buzzed in her back pocket. She pulled it out and checked the screen.

  It was a call from Maggie Wolfsburger, her best friend. Formerly known as Maggie Tremont, she’d married Herr Georg Wolfsburger, proprietor of the Black Forest Bakery, in a memorable ceremony out at Blueberry Acres last year. Now many around town had taken to calling her Frau Maggie, though Candy still called her friend by the abbreviated nickname she’d used for years.

  “Hey, Mags, what’s up?” Candy asked.

  Maggie sounded oddly breathless. “I’m so glad I got hold of you. Where are you? I don’t see you around. Are you here? You’re missing it!”

  Maggie, she knew, was at the new community center, where they were supposed to meet. Candy glanced at her watch. Ten forty-five. The event was scheduled for eleven. She still had time.

  “Missing what? The ceremony hasn’t started yet, has it?” Using her other hand, she pulled car keys out of her front pocket and, climbing into the vehicle, inserted a key into the ignition and started the engine.

  “No, that’s not it.” Maggie paused, her voice trailing off as she was momentarily distracted by someone who had shouted nearby. Candy heard the shout through the phone.

  “What’s going on there?” she asked as she pulled the driver’s side door closed, snapped her seat belt into place, and pulled the gearshift lever into drive. She feathered the gas pedal and swung the Jeep around in a wide arc.

  “It’s chaos here,” Maggie said, her attention back on the conversation. “You won’t believe it.”

  “Why? What won’t I believe?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, after all we’ve been through in this town, but it’s happened again,” Maggie said, and in a rush of words, she added, “It’s Mick Rilke. That landscaper guy? He’s the one this time. At least, that’s what they’re saying.”