Town in a Maple Madness

by B. B. Haywood

  Ginny took the knife and returned it to its spot, then pointed to another, an ivory-handled folding knife. “This here,” she said, “once belonged to a security agent who worked for one of the steamship lines that ran side-wheelers up and down the rivers and bays around here. And, of course”—she pointed to an empty spot in the case—“you know about this one.”

  She looked over at Candy. “It’s the one that’s missing, of course. The knife that once belonged to Silas Sykes. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about him over the years.” Her gaze hardened. “I hear you dug up a treasure chest belonging to Silas Sykes a few years back, you and your father and Neil Crawford, right?”

  Candy had to admit the other woman was correct. “Yes, that’s true.”

  “So your boyfriend must have had an interest in items belonging to Silas, right?”

  “My boyfriend?” Candy gave her a confused look. “He’s not my boyfriend, but . . . I’m not quite sure—” She paused, her brow wrinkling, and she felt a twitching on her spine. “I’m not quite sure what you’re saying.”

  “I’m saying,” Ginny said, as she reached up to unlatch the glass top and gently lower it back into place, “that Neil was over here a few weeks ago. Hutch brought him down here, to see his collection. We haven’t had much contact with Neil over the years, you know, despite the fact that we’re sort of in the same business. Not sure why. He just likes to keep to himself, we figured. But he stopped by every once in a while. He came over here a few weeks ago to talk about the Maple Madness Weekend and the sugar shack operations and how we were going to coordinate everything and things like that. We were all cordial enough. As we were talking, Hutch offered to show Neil his collection, like I said. As you can imagine, Neil was fairly attracted to that knife belonging to Silas Sykes.”

  “Attracted to it?” Candy asked. That didn’t quite sound like the Neil she knew.

  “He paid it a lot of attention, sure,” Ginny continued. “And it makes sense. He’s got a connection of sorts to Silas. That property of his once belonged to the Sykes family—or, at least, Silas used to squat on it. Got burned out at one time, so I’ve heard. Anyway, that knife held a lot of interest for Neil. That’s why, when it went missing, we thought we knew right away who took it.”

  “Neil?” Candy was caught by surprise. “You think he stole it? From Hutch? I’d heard it was missing but—” She paused, thinking. “So when did this happen?”

  “Like I said, a few weeks ago.”

  “Did you report it to the police?”

  “We did not,” Ginny said. “We wanted to keep it between ourselves. We didn’t want to bring the police into it—at least not right away. But, well, of course, the whole thing has escalated now, hasn’t it?”

  Candy felt her chest tightening. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s clear enough what happened, isn’t it?” said Ginny, almost impatiently. “Neil Crawford stole that blade from Hutch’s case and used it to kill Mick Rilke.”

  Candy was shocked by this accusation. “But why would he do that?” she asked, her voice squeaking a little as she spoke.

  Ginny’s eyes drilled into her. “I don’t know. You’re the one going up there, aren’t you, to the hospital, to see him, right? Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  FORTY-ONE

  Half an hour later, as Candy drove westward on Route 1, those words still echoed in her mind.

  “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  How exactly would she do that? she wondered. How could she possibly frame such a question? Neil, did you murder Mick Rilke with an antique knife you stole from Hutch Milbright’s display case in the basement? The very idea seemed ludicrous, inconceivable. And yet, it made sense in a certain way. The knife had been found next to Neil in the boathouse. He certainly could have handled it at some point, and left his fingerprints on it. Allegedly it was the murder weapon. But had he stabbed Mick Rilke in the back with it?

  Candy couldn’t imagine such a scenario.

  But she also couldn’t completely rule it out, which bothered her more than she cared to admit.

  After Ginny’s bombshell, the two of them had walked back up the basement stairs, across the kitchen, and outside. Candy didn’t speak much; she barely knew what to say. But Ginny continued to support her husband, and pressed her accusations of Neil.

  “So you see,” she’d said as they walked down off the porch and started across the driveway toward the Jeep, “Hutch couldn’t have done it. He didn’t have the knife in his possession. Neil had it.”

  “Do you have any real evidence of that?” Candy had asked, finally finding her voice. “Did you see Neil take it from the case?”

  Ginny admitted she had not. “I wasn’t down there with them at the time, and Hutch didn’t see him take it. That’s why we didn’t go to the police right away. But no one else has been down there since—just Hutch and me, of course. Neil’s the only one who could have taken it. And it seems obvious, given his connection to Silas Sykes, doesn’t it? And the fact that the knife was found right beside him in that boathouse, where you came across him?”

  Candy had to admit it did make sense, at least on the surface, but she had a hard time hiding the distress she felt. “Did you talk to Neil about this?”

  “Of course we did. Hutch called him and asked him if he knew anything about it. Your boyfriend played dumb, of course. Said he didn’t know what we were talking about. That’s what caused some of the bad blood between him and Hutch over the past few weeks. You know what happened then.”

  “You think this has something to do with the stolen sap?”

  Ginny had never answered, and the question had hung in the air as the final tour bus arrived, jouncing up the lane and chugging to a stop near the barn. As the passengers began to disembark, Ginny had a few final words for Candy, before she went off to greet her newest visitors. “You’d better find out what he’s up to,” she’d said, “and then you’d better contact the police with what you know.” And with a final nod of her head, Ginny had set off toward the newest arrivals.

  Candy had barely said good-bye, her mind deep in thought as she absently made her way toward the Jeep. She’d been looking down as she walked, her gaze unfocused, but she’d suddenly had the presence of mind to notice that Ginny had left behind a fairly clean set of bootprints as she walked away. Candy had stopped dead in her tracks, staring down at the prints, studying them. But she quickly knew the patterns left by Ginny’s boots didn’t match any of those she’d seen out in the woods over the past couple of days. No blocky designs in geometric shapes, no wavy patterns, no concentric circles.

  It left her even more confused. If not Ginny, then who had been back in those woods with Hutch? Who left the other sets of bootprints?

  Now, as she drove westward along Route 1 toward the hospital, Candy looked over at Random, who was sitting up in the seat next to her, keeping a watchful eye on her as well as on the road ahead. He seemed to sense her mood, and gave her a series of apprehensive looks. She reached over to rub him behind the ears and pat his neck. “Don’t you worry,” she said in a comforting tone. “We’ll figure out what’s going on. I promise.”

  Her words seemed to reassure him as they hurtled down the road, following the sun west.

  But his good mood didn’t last long. Once again, when they reached the hospital, she had to leave him behind in the Jeep, a difficult task. Being so cooped up was becoming uncomfortable for him, she knew, and she felt his eagerness to see Neil, as well as the simple need to stretch his legs. She considered talking to the nurses, or even asking one of them to watch him, but knew he wouldn’t be welcome inside. “I promise I’ll be as quick as I can,” she told him, “and I’ll bring you something to eat. And then we’ll find a place where you can run around a little.”

  She made a mental note to check in the back to see if she had a leash with her, then hurried into
the building.

  She found Neil resting comfortably in his room. His head of usually untamed brown hair, which could grow curly as the humidity increased, remained corralled by the bandages he wore, but his familiar bearded face had some of its color back, especially in his high cheekbones and broad forehead. His lips were a little dry and swollen, and his eyelids were still darkened by the blow he’d received, but overall he looked like he’d improved since she’d seen him earlier in the day.

  His eyes were closed and his hands folded flat on his stomach, but as she breezed into his room and came to a stop at his bedside, breathing a little quickly due to her brisk walk into the place, he winked open an eye and smiled weakly.

  “There you are,” he said, reaching out a long-fingered hand in greeting. “I heard your sneakers coming down the hallway. It’s really good to see you.”

  Candy took his hand in hers. It felt rough, warm, and reassuring. With her other hand she rearranged the sheets around him. “It’s good to see you too, stranger. You’re looking better.”

  “I’m feeling better,” he said, raising his other hand to probe the bandages a little, “though my head still throbs. But they’ve been taking good care of me. They gave me something that put me out for a while. Speaking of which, I heard you sat up with me half the night.”

  “I was here for a few hours,” she admitted, “until they kicked me out.”

  That drew a chuckle from him. “Well, thank you for doing that. And for watching Random. How’s he doing?”

  “Just fine. Being brave like the rest of us. He’s waiting out in the Jeep. I wish I could bring him inside to see you. He’s terribly worried, you know.”

  “I’m sure he is,” Neil said, with a catch in his throat, “and I’ve been worried about him. But I know he’s in good hands, if you and Doc are taking care of him. He hasn’t been too much trouble, has he?”

  “Actually, quite the opposite. Believe it or not, he’s been helping out with the investigation. That nose of his has been pretty useful lately.”

  Neil seemed amused by the thought. “He’s a good tracker, that’s for sure. But usually he’s out chasing squirrels.”

  “Oh, he’s been doing that, too,” Candy said, smiling, “and greeting visitors at the berry farm all day, playing the perfect host. But he’s also been chasing down suspicious footprints in the woods, and tire tracks out behind your property.”

  Neil’s expression changed, becoming more serious. “You’ve been doing some detective work, haven’t you?” he said, sitting up a little in bed. “What have you found out?”

  Candy hesitated only a moment, wondering if this was the right time to discuss these things, but decided it was as good a time as any, and plunged on. “Well, a lot,” she said, and quickly she told him all that had happened since the previous morning, starting with her meeting with Hutch and Ginny, her encounter with the purple van, and her trip to the boathouse, and continuing to this afternoon, including Wanda Boyle’s impromptu visit to the berry farm, and the disappearance of Random, and how she’d gone looking for him in the woods and found the tractor, the tapped trees, and the trail of footprints. And how Random had discovered the dual sets of tire tracks on the dirt road behind the farm.

  “It looks like there were two vehicles parked back there,” Candy said, and Neil nodded, his gaze becoming more focused as she went on. He listened with growing interest as she told him about her visit to Sugar Hill Farm just a little while ago, and her conversation with Ginny Milbright, and her uneasy trip into the basement, where she’d viewed Hutch’s collection, which was missing an antique knife that once belonged to Silas Sykes—the same one found beside Neil in the boathouse.

  “Ah, yes, the knife,” Neil said, his voice a bit hoarse due to his injury and some of the procedures he’d endured during the day. “The police asked me about that. I told them I did see it a few weeks ago, down in Hutch’s basement, when he took me down there to show me his collection. And, as Ginny said, I was pretty fascinated by it, to be honest, since it once belonged to Silas Sykes—because, as you know, my family has some history with that guy. But I didn’t take the knife. She’s wrong about that part. Hutch said it went missing after my visit. He called me a few days later and asked if I knew what happened to it. I told him no—same thing I told the police, though I don’t know if they believe me. But I never saw that knife again after that day in their basement. I still haven’t, since I was, you know, unconscious when you found me.”

  As he spoke these last few words, a look of gratitude flashed through his eyes. His gaze shifted to her, and she saw something in them she hadn’t seen before. “By the way, I want to thank you for doing that—finding me like that. It was very, well, Nancy Drew of you.”

  “Nancy Drew?” Candy gave him an amused look, and Neil smiled.

  “As you can imagine,” he continued, turning serious again, “I’m pretty glad you came along when you did. I’m not sure what would have happened if you hadn’t found me.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It was just dumb luck, really.”

  But he wouldn’t accept that explanation. “No, it wasn’t,” he said earnestly. “You, well, you rescued me. You might have saved my life.”

  Candy attempted to brush aside the comment. “I’m just glad I found you when I did, and that we got you to the hospital, and that you’re okay.”

  “Me too,” he said softly.

  They were silent for a few moments after that, looking into each other’s eyes, exchanging unspoken feelings they both felt but weren’t quite ready to address just yet.

  The period of silence stretched longer than both of them expected, and they could almost hear each other’s hearts beating, until the myriad hospital sounds intruded in the background. Candy finally pressed her lips together. Her whole mouth felt dry for some reason. “Well,” she said, “if it’s any consolation, I believe you. About the knife, I mean. I know you didn’t take it.”

  “That makes one,” Neil said, and he smiled again, though he looked weary. “Now I just have to convince the police, the Milbrights, and the rest of the town.”

  She put her other hand on top of his reassuringly. “I’ll tell you the same thing I just told Random on the way here. Don’t worry. We’ll figure it out,” she said with true determination. “Somehow that knife got from Hutch’s basement to that boathouse. We just have to figure out who put it there—and who used it to kill Mick.”

  “Mick,” Neil echoed, his voice suddenly sounding distant. “So what everyone’s been saying about him is true? He’s really dead?”

  Candy nodded. “Yes, it’s true. I’m sorry.”

  “But it doesn’t make any sense,” Neil said, sounding confused and a little angry. “It just doesn’t seem real.”

  “No, it doesn’t. I think I stumbled upon the exact spot where it happened. The strange part is, it was right outside the boathouse where I found you. Someone bound him up and dragged him into the river. His body was found floating downstream, near the docks and warehouses, yesterday morning, right before the grand opening of the community center was supposed to take place.”

  “Right, the grand opening,” Neil said, as if suddenly remembering. “I was supposed to go to that thing, I think, but I never made it. I got waylaid in the woods.” Her rubbed the back of his head again, though this time more for show than because of the injury itself.

  Candy hesitated a moment before she asked curiously, “Do you remember what happened to you? In those woods?”

  “Some of it,” he admitted, though he looked uncertain.

  “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Well, again, the police asked me that,” he said, “and it took me a little while to put it all together in my head. I don’t recall all of it, and a lot of it is still fuzzy, but I do remember driving the tractor out into the woods with Random. I remember the time of day, and how the sky look
ed, and what the weather was like. And how the trees looked. We’re nearing the end of the season. We should have bud break in another few weeks. But the trees are still producing okay. I checked them all out and emptied the tanks along the way. But when I got beyond the ridge, something started to feel strange in the woods. It wasn’t hard to figure out what it was.”

  “You noticed the tapped trees,” Candy said.

  His nod was subtle. “I spotted them right away. There was just something different about them. I knew they’d been tampered with. So I stopped the tractor and went to check them out. I found those footprints you mentioned. There were two sets, just like you said. So I followed them, just like you did. And that’s when I realized Random had disappeared.”

  “He tends to do that.”

  Neil nodded. “He does. He’s sort of a free spirit, like me. I guess I need to have a talk with him about that. Anyway, I followed the footprints through the woods for a while. And then . . . I saw one of them.”

  “Who? One of the sap thieves?”

  “I think so, yeah. He was headed toward the back of the property, carrying a couple of buckets with him. I wondered what he was doing in my woods.”

  “Do you know who it was?”

  “I do,” Neil said, surprisingly. “I followed him for a while without being seen, and circled around to his right. I finally caught up close enough to get a good look at this face.”

  The strawberry farmer took a deep breath and gave her an almost apologetic look as he continued. “I know this won’t help my case, and I’m probably incriminating myself in some way by saying this—giving myself a motivation for his murder, to be specific—but it was Mick Rilke.”

  FORTY-TWO

  Candy could barely prevent herself from gasping. “You mean he’s the one who’s been doing all this?”

  “At least part of it, yes.” Neil let out a breath of air and shook his head. “Much as it pains me to say this, I believe he’s the one who tapped my trees and stole my sap.”