Town in a Maple Madness

by B. B. Haywood

  Candy studied the buildings. Mick’s workshop. Where he’d spent a lot of time.

  She’d never been in there.

  “Do you mind if I have a look around inside?” she asked.

  Jean made a face. “The police have already checked it out. They hauled off a few things, like his computer, as I said, and probably some of his business books and papers. I’m not sure what’s left. Do you think they might have missed something?”

  “I don’t know,” Candy said. “Let’s go have a look.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  They went out to Mick’s workshop together, into the rustling mid-afternoon, with Velvet leading the way.

  Even though it was just a short trip across the driveway and yard, it took Jean a while to get herself ready. It was starting to cool off outside, the temperature dropping back into the upper thirties, so she scrounged around in her bedroom for a sweater, but she couldn’t decide which one to wear. Candy could hear her muttering to herself, comparing colors and styles, and caught the impression that the woman was stalling. Perhaps she wasn’t ready to look around her deceased husband’s workshop—which made perfect sense. Candy was about to volunteer to proceed alone, but Jean finally appeared, wearing a brave face and a ragged old light green wool sweater with a large collar she could fold up around the back of her neck. “It’s comforting,” she said looking down at the sweater. “Reminds me of the old days.”

  The breeze had indeed picked up, just as the forecast had predicted. The windbreak of trees dispersed some of it, along with the slanting sunlight, but it still buffeted them at times in quick bursts, tugging at their clothes, tossing about their hair. Jean ducked down into her sweater and made little sounds of annoyance in the back of her throat as she hurried along in quick steps.

  As they passed the barn, Candy peered inside. It was used primarily for parking and storage, rather than anything typically farm related. She noticed Mick’s other truck—his gray summer landscaping vehicle—parked to one side, along with a small lawn tractor and a detached red metal cart, bags of dirt and loam stacked high, pallets of stone and brick and fencing, lawn mowers and edgers, hoses and garden tools. Rows of empty black plastic pots and buckets of various sizes waited to be filled. Mick had been in the midst of preparing for the upcoming busy season when his life had been snuffed out.

  As they moved on, Candy saw a small greenhouse and garden space behind the barn, on the other side of the connecting breezeway, which led to the low-roofed, single-story workshop and office, painted white like the barn. The door to the workshop was closed tight, the windows dark. Jean stopped before it and fetched a small brass key from the top of the wood frame above the door. “Never locked it much,” she said. “Mick always kept it open, day and night, so he could dash in and out whenever he wanted. But the police insisted that I lock it up now, considering what’s happened.”

  She turned the key in the knob, pushed open the door, and returned the key to its hiding place before standing aside. “You first,” she said, doing her best to disguise her trepidation, “if that’s okay.”

  “Sure.” Candy patted her supportively on the shoulder, peered into the gloom, and stepped across the threshold.

  She stopped a few feet inside, again letting her eyes adjust to the dimmer light, as she’d done in the main house. Jean shuffled inside behind her, and an instant later Velvet dashed into the place, nose to the floor, zigzagging back and forth. She quickly disappeared from view, into the far area of the shop.

  “We get critters in here sometimes,” Jean explained as she flicked on the overhead lights. “Voles and field mice, mostly. Red squirrels in the winter.” They heard a clatter toward the back of the shop. “She’s on the hunt. Sounds like she might have cornered something. I’d better go have a look.”

  As Jean wandered off toward the right in search of her dog, Candy moved to the center of the shop, where she stopped and surveyed the place.

  It must have been fairly organized in here at one time, but it was obvious the police had been through the place. Items were scattered about, pieces of furniture were askew, and stacks of old boxes looked like they’d been moved, examined, and hastily restacked. Drawers in a trio of ancient filing cabinets, wedged together in one corner, were half-opened, the dusty files inside fingered and in disarray. A nearby metal desk also had open drawers, with some of the contents piled on the desktop. The desk chair was pushed to one side. Piles of newspapers and magazines had tumbled over and spilled across the floor. Mementos and keepsakes on cheap metal shelves had been rearranged or toppled over. In the opposite corner, a small lounge area, with an overstuffed chair, black futon, and wooden coffee table made from old crates, looked largely untouched, though some recent reading material, along with abandoned coffee cups, plates, saucers, and even a few beer cans, were scattered across the tabletop.

  She saw no actual workshop or benches in this part of the building. Those must be in the back section, where Velvet and Jean had headed. This was more of an office and lounge area for Mick.

  Other than the typical disarray of a police search, Candy noticed nothing unusual or particularly interesting at first glance. If there was some clue here, some evidence that pointed toward what had happened to Mick, it would take closer inspection to find it. And, of course, she had no idea what the police might have found and already carted away. The computers were gone, as Jean had said, and other electronic items, so for the time being, those were out of reach.

  She started moving around the shop, her gaze running over the items she saw, searching for anything that stood out. She stepped forward or crouched when something of interest caught her eye, digging through papers and bills, and paying particular attention to Mick’s scattered notes, many written on small slips of paper or sticky pads. Most were dates and appointments, phone numbers and first names, streets and addresses. She saw some names she recognized, others she did not, but most looked old and crinkled, the noted dates and times apparently long past. Again, she imagined the police had looked through these and considered them of little interest.

  She moved on, her gaze focusing tightly on the photos, pictures, and posters Mick had hung on the walls around his shop. He’d apparently been a collector of sorts, something she hadn’t known about him. Rather than collect movie posters or some such thing, though, he seemed to favor Cape Willington memorabilia. She saw old street signs, Maine license plates, political materials, and black-and-white photos of the town’s historic buildings. She also noticed awards and recognition plaques, snapshots of him and his buddies, and the usual humorous tavern signs with various slogans and sayings.

  Definitely a man cave.

  She looked around for a wall calendar. That might give her a clue as to his recent activities. But she saw none, only a rectangular space that was paler than the rest of the wall, where it had no doubt hung. The police had taken that as well.

  She spotted the phone on the desk, a landline by the looks of it. She stepped over toward it, eyeing the desktop for a notebook, address book, Rolodex, or to-do list. Again, nada.

  Hmm, she thought, the police had been thorough. They hadn’t left much behind.

  She spent several more minutes surveying the place, as she heard Velvet and Jean banging around, but in the end she came up empty.

  Maybe there just wasn’t anything else to be found.

  She was about to give up when a splotch of color caught her eye. It was just on the periphery of her vision, an anomaly in a mostly dull, dusty place. She turned her head, her eyes searching.

  There it was, a mark of sorts on one of the posters on the wall.

  Not a poster, she realized a moment later. A map. An old one, stylized with a sort of fifties or sixties design. Its colors were faded now, and it was a bit frayed around the edges. But there was a mark on it, in red, brighter in color than the surrounding text and images.

  She approached the map slowly, h
er gaze wandering around it, from side to side and corner to corner. It was obviously some sort of tourism marketing map from half a century ago. It showed a few of the highlights around the cape, including the opera house, the Lightkeeper’s Inn, Town Park, the library, and the marine and warehouse district along the river.

  The red mark was high on the map, up along the northern leg of the river, near the intersection of the Coastal Loop with Route 1, far out of town.

  Candy squinted at the mark. It was a hand-drawn X in red ink, circled several times, with a line of writing next to it, at a crooked angle. It looked as if it had been written hastily. Just a few words scribbled down, but they gave her a jolt.

  VIP 5 DIG.

  TWENTY-TWO

  For what seemed like the longest time, but was surely only a few seconds, Candy stared at the message on the map. Her heart fluttered as she wondered what it meant. Or if it meant anything at all.

  But of course it does, she realized as she thought it through. It was too obvious to be coincidental. Her eyes flicked over the handwritten message again.

  VIP 5 DIG.

  DIG. The same initials she’d seen on the license plate of the purple van that had tried to run her down an hour and a half earlier. Mick had written those initials on the map in his workshop. That seemed to tie him to the van in some way. But how? He couldn’t have been driving today on that back road. So who had been behind the wheel?

  Maybe, she thought, the answer was right there in front of her, in the rest of the message, the VIP and the 5. It appeared Mick had written the message as a reminder to himself. Had he planned to meet someone, a VIP—a very important person, apparently—at that spot along the river, marked on the map with an X? But who specifically? And when was the meeting supposed to take place?

  That was the question, she knew. Had the meeting already happened, or was it yet to occur?

  How old was the message itself? When had it been written? The ink appeared to be fairly fresh. Could it have been written in the past few days? Certainly. In the last few weeks? Of course. Sometime in the last few months, or even years? Not out of the question.

  Problem was, the message was hard to date. It could be a few days, or a few months, old. Something about it, though, made her feel it was recent. Maybe the way the overhead light reflected off the letters. It made them look new.

  VIP 5 DIG.

  She wondered what that number meant, tucked there in the middle. Had Mick been planning to meet five VIPs? Was it some sort of community thing?

  She thought of the group photo she’d seen inside the Rilkes’ house, the one that showed Mick standing with a group of people in front of the community center. Mason Flint. Carol McKaskie. Tillie Shaw, Elvira Tremble, Cotton Colby, and a few others. Certainly those people were among the village’s VIPs.

  So what did it mean, assuming the message was recent?

  She leaned in closer for a better look, focusing on the VIP, bringing up her finger to trace the lettering—and was startled when a voice spoke behind her.

  “Find something?”

  Candy jumped and backed away from the map quickly, turning deftly on her feet as she did so. “Oh, Jean, hi! There you are. I was wondering where you’d gotten to. I was just . . . well, I was just”—she pointed over her shoulder toward the map—“admiring your husband’s choice of décor.”

  “Oh, that old thing.” Jean waved a dismissive hand and looked behind her before she fell into a chair. “He found that at a yard sale somewhere, I think. Same with all this old stuff. Junk, most of it. But this was his place. He was happy out here. He could do whatever he wanted with it.”

  “Yes, I see that,” Candy said, glancing around the office before returning her attention to the map. “Does it have any significance?”

  Jean scrunched up her face. “Other than being an old map of Cape Willington? Not that I know of.”

  “What about some of these markings?” Candy pointed. “Like this writing up here near the top?”

  “What writing?” Jean squinted at the map from her chair.

  “This here.” Candy indicated the red X and the three words written in capital letters. “See? It says VIP 5 DIG.” She turned toward Jean. “A strange message, don’t you think? I wonder what it could mean.”

  Jean planted her elbows on the chair’s side arms and leaned forward. Her mouth worked as she studied the map. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “He was always scribbling down things like that, little messages to himself. It all had to do with his clients and such.”

  “And this message in particular doesn’t ring a bell?”

  Jean leaned back and shrugged. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you much about it. I don’t come in here that often, to be honest. It’s Mick’s place—or was his place.”

  “Did he say anything about a job he had along the river—or someone he might be meeting there? Maybe a local VIP?”

  At these questions, Jean suddenly looked exhausted. “If Mick wrote that, he didn’t tell me about it or what it meant. Like I said, we didn’t talk much about those things. I didn’t keep track of his schedule or who he might be meeting with. He knew a lot of people. He’s been in this town a long time.”

  Candy had more questions, but sensed it was time to give the other woman a break. She was obviously drained, both emotionally and physically. She needed to rest. So, instead, Candy reached into her back pocket and withdrew her phone. She took a few quick snapshots of the map, zeroing in on the red X and the writing next to it. Then she turned and took a few additional photos of the workshop itself, of anything she thought might be of even remote interest. She studied the map a final time, to fix the location of the red mark in her mind, as she slipped the phone into her pocket and turned back to Jean. “Okay,” she said, “I think I’m done in here.”

  “So you’ll look into this for me?” Jean asked as she rose wearily from the chair. “See if you can figure out who killed my husband?”

  Candy nodded. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told Mason Flint a little while ago. I’ll do what I can.”

  Jean seemed satisfied with the answer. “That’s all I ask.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  Five minutes later, Candy was back out in her Jeep, headed north along the river in search of an X on a map.

  She drove with her hands firmly on the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead, as recent events and discoveries whirled through her mind. A lot had happened since she’d received the phone call from Ginny Milbright that morning. It had been only seven hours ago, she thought, working back in her mind through the day, and so much had happened since then. She’d been going on an almost pure adrenaline rush ever since, bouncing around from place to place and, among other things, almost getting run over by a purple van.

  Now here she was, at half past four in the afternoon, with only a couple of hours of daylight left, still running around, headed off in another direction, like a pinball hit by a series of flippers, chasing down another obscure clue. On her own. When she had other things she should be doing right now.

  She found herself glancing repeatedly at the digital clock on the dash. Each time she did so, she coaxed the Jeep faster a notch or so. She sensed an urgency, the press of time. She was missing the setup activities in Town Park. She’d promised to help with the pancake operation at the community center. She had chores to do at home, chickens to check, paperwork to finish. She wanted to get out and walk the property around Blueberry Acres, start spring cleanup.

  She wanted to find out where Neil and Random had gotten to. She wanted to figure out who had tried to run her over, and who had rolled Mick Rilke’s body into the river, wrapped in a fishing net.

  Her thoughts returned to that red mark on the map. According to the admittedly limited information she’d heard, Mick’s body had been launched into the river from somewhere upstream.

  Did X mark the spot? C
ould she have just stumbled onto the scene of Mick’s murder? The idea made her pulse quicken, but at the same time she didn’t want to speculate too much. It could be nothing more than a coincidence.

  But it was too coincidental, and she sensed she was onto something. She felt it in her bones.

  Traffic was moderate, and perhaps even a little heavier than expected for this time of year, with long lines of cars backed up behind slower vehicles—a delivery truck at first and then, a little farther on, a tractor pulling some type of motorized farm equipment. But eventually the way opened up before her, and she couldn’t help goosing the pedal another increment.

  Fifteen miles an hour over the speed limit, she hurtled northward.

  Not too far out of town, she zipped past the turnoff to the riverside cabin belonging to Judicious F. P. Bosworth, the town’s local recluse, philosopher, and sometime mystic. She hadn’t seen Judicious in a while, since he’d been in self-imposed hibernation for the winter. But she wondered if it might be worth paying him a visit. He lived along the river. Maybe he had heard or seen something that could be useful. Maybe he knew who owned a purple van with a license plate that read RIP DIG.

  She put that on her to-do list, and drove on.

  She continued for ten or twelve minutes without paying much attention to where she was going. The closer she came to Route 1, though, the more she focused her attention on her surroundings. Her eyes swept back and forth across the road in front of her in a methodical fashion, like the Terminator’s in the search for John Connor. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for. In fact, she had no idea. She was chasing an obscure mark on an old map, indicating a place unknown. Who knew if it was approachable from the main road, or even which side of the road it might be on? Or what signage might point out the spot to her? Or whether it was identifiable in any way? More than likely it was hidden away somewhere, nondescript and isolated. She was looking for a residence, perhaps, or a commercial building of some sort, or even a beat-up old garage. At the very least, a narrow side road, a bent-over mailbox, a rusted gate, or perhaps a stone wall. Anything that might catch her attention, spark an association.