“So what is it then?” he pursued, his brows knit together.
“What is what?” she returned elusively.
“What’s wrong? Something is obviously bothering you. And it started the moment we hit Highway 40.”
Ethan was dang perceptive. Too perceptive for Daisy’s comfort. So unless she wanted him to uncover all that she preferred to keep hidden, she would have to do a better job of controlling—or at least concealing—her emotions. She took another deep breath to steady her nerves.
“In about a mile we’ll go over a creek. Then you should slow down.”
As she said it, Daisy silently thanked him for driving so fast. The quicker they got there, the quicker they could leave again.
He nodded, and to her relief didn’t press the subject of her agitation any further.
“You can see the bridge up ahead. Just after it on the right is a strip of gravel. You should pull over there.”
She looked down as they crossed the creek. The water level was high for the middle of summer. At the center it was knee-deep and flowing briskly.
When they reached the other side, Ethan turned off the road as Daisy had instructed. She climbed out of the car and started up the weedy hill that bordered the gravel. Ethan followed her. With a final few scrambling steps, she made it to the top and stopped.
“Okey-dokey,” she said.
Slowly Ethan turned in a circle. “Okey-dokey?” he echoed, perplexed.
“This is it,” Daisy told him. “This is what you wanted.”
“We’re standing in the middle of a cemetery.”
“We’re standing in the middle of Chalk Level.”
CHAPTER
12
“Chalk Level?” Ethan repeated.
“Chalk Level,” Daisy confirmed.
His gaze narrowed. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
“I’m not kidding.”
With an unhappy sigh, he folded his arms across his chest. “So I guess I was right to be paranoid.”
She frowned.
“Don’t play the fool, Daisy. It doesn’t suit you.”
“I—”
“Are you really going to pretend that you don’t understand me?” Ethan cut her off. “That when I said I was looking for Chalk Level, you thought I meant a couple of ancient tombstones scattered on a grassy knoll next to a babbling brook?”
“It’s not a brook,” she corrected him. “It’s a creek.”
He shot her a blazing look and started down the weedy slope back toward the road.
“This is Chalk Level,” Daisy insisted.
Ethan kept on walking.
“It’s Chalk Level,” she called after him.
“If you want a ride back to the inn,” he said brusquely, “you’ve got about ten seconds to get into the car.”
“But—”
“Get in the goddam car, Daisy!”
Daisy certainly didn’t take kindly to being ordered about or shouted at, but it did occur to her quickly enough that aside from her feet, Ethan was her only guaranteed form of transportation. Pride or not, she wasn’t eager to possibly spend the next several hours trudging to the inn in the blistering Virginia sun.
“I don’t know why you’re all in a huff,” she grumbled, stumbling down the slope behind him. “I did what you asked.”
“I asked you to take me to Chalk Level, not Hillbilly-ville.”
That really ruffled Daisy’s feathers.
“I took you to Chalk Level,” she snapped. “I can’t help it if you’re too dumb to realize that.”
Ethan climbed inside the car and angrily slammed the door. Daisy did the same. He turned to her with clenched teeth.
“You must seriously hate the ATF to go this far,” he seethed. “To make up a place out in the middle of nowhere. No wonder you didn’t want me using the GPS.”
“I didn’t make up anything,” she shot back. “And when you tried the GPS yesterday, where did it take you? Probably pretty near to here, didn’t it?”
His mouth opened, but no words came out.
“That’s what I thought,” Daisy said smugly.
“I did cross Highway 40,” Ethan mused.
“That’s because Highway 40 runs straight through Chalk Level.”
He squinted at her. “But my file said the deceased lived in Chalk Level.”
“Surely.”
“Then where’s his house? Where did he eat and sleep? Because I highly doubt he was drinking from the creek or making a bed out of the grass and gravestones.”
Daisy snorted with derision. “You really are dumb, aren’t you? Chalk Level isn’t a golf club or subdivision. It’s a town.”
“Of course I know it’s a town!” Ethan threw up his hands in frustration. “But if this is Chalk Level, why don’t I see any people or homes or stores or traffic?”
She shook her head at him. “Not all rural towns have a bustling center with a quaint little Main Street running in between the post office and grocery store. Some are just areas and communities. Unincorporated parts of a county. Chalk Level is one of those. And the hill we were standing on a moment ago is smack dab in the heart of it.”
For a long minute Ethan just looked at her. Daisy smiled. Sometimes it was awfully fun to be right, especially with big-city know-it-alls.
“Is it nearby?” he asked, almost sheepishly.
“Fred Dickerson’s place?”
He nodded.
“On the other side of the creek.”
“I don’t have an address,” Ethan said. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to—”
“I’ll show you.”
He started the car and pulled back onto the road the way they had come.
“Fox Hollow will be on the left,” Daisy told him. “It’s the only driveway. You can’t miss it.”
Ethan frowned. “Fox Hollow?”
Her heart thudded hard in her chest. Now she would have to explain, at least somewhat.
“Is that another town?”
“No.” Daisy pushed down the thick knot that welled up in her throat. “Fox Hollow is the name of a property. It’s an old farm with a house and outbuildings. It’s part of Chalk Level. Fox Hollow and the cemetery are the two biggest tracts of land in Chalk Level. They make up nearly all of it. There are also about a dozen little parcels scattered around the edges. A few have a trailer or single-wide on them, but most are vacant.”
“Oh.” Ethan nodded. “I understand now. So that’s why all I had for Mr. Dickerson’s residence was Chalk Level.”
“Fox Hollow does have a street address.” She spoke wistfully, remembering how as a little girl she used to love racing her daddy up the dusty drive to the big gray mailbox painted with cardinals and holly berries. “But I don’t think Fred used it much.”
“He had a post office box instead?”
Daisy shrugged. “I doubt it. I don’t know why he would have needed one. He was a recluse for years.”
“A recluse?” Ethan glanced at her with keen eyes. “How so? Did he live off the land? Was he often seen digging around Dumpsters?”
She laughed. “You’ve attended too many seminars on fugitives hiding out in the mountains. Old man Dickerson wasn’t running from the law or setting up some wacky compound waiting for the end of the world. He just liked to be alone. That’s pretty common around here. I would bet it’s pretty common everywhere. So if by living off the land you mean he grew his own lettuce and potatoes, then yes, he lived off the land. But I never heard of poor Fred diving into a Dumpster. Have you seen the Dumpsters in Pittsylvania County? The one we have at the diner is so big, I’m not sure if you jumped into it you could ever get back out again.”
“Me personally? You don’t think I could get back out again?”
“Not without messing up those purdy shoes of yours.”
Ethan snorted in amusement. “But you wouldn’t have any trouble? Half my size and you’d climb out no problem?”
“We country girls are scrappy,” Daisy answ
ered with a grin.
“And we ATF boys are—”
He stopped, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. Her grin vanished, and Daisy shrunk to the far corner of her seat as though she were trying to put as much distance as possible between herself and a nasty little tick.
There was a weighty pause, then Ethan said, “Won’t you just tell me?”
She knotted her hands together in grim silence.
“I don’t know what went wrong.” His voice was appealingly kind. “I can’t even begin to guess.”
Daisy watched the blood drain from her knuckles.
“But if you won’t explain what happened and why you dislike the bureau so much, then there’s no way for me to try to fix it.”
There was no fixing it. It was over. It had been over long ago. Time had marched on and wasn’t reversible. Daisy knew that even if Ethan didn’t. She might have screamed it at him at the top of her lungs, but instead she saw the big gray mailbox painted with cardinals and holly berries.
“You’re about to miss it,” she said flatly.
He slammed on the brakes and swung into a pebbly driveway. The car stopped.
“Uh—” Ethan eyed a large red metal gate that barred their path. “What about that?”
“I’ll get it.” Daisy started to climb out.
“Are you sure you can open it?”
She blinked at him. “It’s a farm gate, not a high-tech bank safe.”
“But are you sure you should open it?”
“Worried about being shot for trespassing?”
Not waiting for his answer, Daisy walked to the gate, pulled up the center post, flipped the latch, and pushed back both sides. She waved to him.
“Drive through and I’ll close it behind you.”
Ethan did as she directed. When she had shut the gate and climbed back inside the car, he turned to her.
“Am I wrong in assuming you’ve done that before?”
“Nope.”
“So you know this place well?”
“Yup.”
“How well exactly?”
How well did she know Fox Hollow? Daisy chuckled to herself. It was a silly question. How well did a bat know the cave that it flew out of every night or a sea turtle know the beach that it swam back to summer after summer? She could see the changes. That was what mattered. The driveway was getting low in spots and needed a refill of pebbles. Several of the bluebird houses that were nailed to the fence posts had to be cleaned out and repaired. The boxwoods along the border could have used a good pruning.
She replied lightly, “I know it well enough to tell you the house isn’t visible from the road. You have to go over the ridge.”
Ethan drove slowly down the long broad drive. Daisy looked at the fields on both sides. Sheriff Lowell was right. They were all grown over. Old man Dickerson hadn’t planted there for at least a season or two.
“Speaking of trespassing,” Ethan asked her after a while, “you don’t actually think there’s a chance someone would object to us coming out here without an appointment, do you?”
“I believe it’s perfectly safe for you to keep your sidearms holstered,” Daisy drawled. Silently she added, “At least until Rick and Bobby decide to leave their beat-up old trailers in the backwoods and move to beautiful Fox Hollow along with all of their crazy signs, dogs, and the entire Balsam arsenal.”
“I would have called first,” Ethan went on, “but I don’t have a number.”
“I already told you. Fred was a recluse. He didn’t need a phone.”
“But wouldn’t his family have wanted a way to contact him? Even just in case of an emergency?”
“If he had any family, I never saw them.”
“No family?” Ethan raised a curious eyebrow. “No family at all?”
“Of course he had some family at some time,” Daisy responded with a tinge of irritation. “He obviously wouldn’t have been on this earth without them. But that doesn’t mean he remained in touch with them. At his age his parents would have been long gone. And I don’t remember ever hearing about a wife or children. I have no clue as to siblings or cousins. You’d know better than I would.”
“Why do you think that?”
“You said before you had a file, didn’t ya? If it listed where the deceased lived, then didn’t it also list the whereabouts of the deceased’s kinfolk?”
“Kinfolk!” Ethan chortled. “God, I love the way you talk!”
Her cheeks flamed with a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
“Don’t get mad. It’s a compliment.”
Compliment or not, Special Agent Kinney was lucky they weren’t standing near an open well at that moment, because Daisy would have been more than a little tempted to push him into it.
He was wise enough to stifle his laugh, although the remnants of a grin remained. “Well, Mr. Dickerson may have been estranged from his family, but somebody in that family sure must be glad to have been related to him, because they just inherited one heck of a property. Is it as big as it appears?”
“Two hundred acres,” she answered quietly. “Two hundred really nice acres.”
“They look it. I’m guessing they’re pretty valuable as far as rural farmland goes.”
“Not to Fred’s family.”
Ethan glanced at her in surprise. “How come?”
Daisy would have explained that old man Dickerson hadn’t ever owned Fox Hollow, that apparently he hadn’t even had a legal lease for the last six months at least, but just then they reached the top of the ridge. A purple haze of mountains appeared. Thick stands of pea-green pine. Rolling meadows dotted with cattle. Ponds glinting silver in the sun. It was a magnificent vista. She loved it. But most of all Daisy loved the house.
There wasn’t anything the least bit glossy or modern about it. It was a sprawling three-story farmhouse dating to the late 1700s. The paint was bright white with burnt orange trim. The windows on the two lower floors were tall, reaching nearly from the ceiling to the ground. And the entire length of the porch railing was carved with delicate leaves and vines. It sat on the very top of a rise, surrounded by century-old rosebushes and rhododendrons, surveying its grand domain like a king in his gilded castle.
Ethan was impressed. “I’ll say one thing for Mr. Dickerson. He knew how to pick a place to live. I’d consider being a recluse too if I could wake up every morning to that view. It’s fantastic. They should put it on the cover of a travel magazine. And the house. That old monster must have some great history. Probably for a long time the most important family in the area called this home.”
Daisy replied with a melancholy sigh. Fox Hollow was indeed historic. She could have rattled off an entire brochure’s worth of notable names and dates from Virginia’s past. Except to her the most important family was her own, and it no longer had a home.
The car pulled into the pebbly circle at the front of the house and stopped next to a chipped stone birdbath that had toppled over onto its side. Ethan shut off the engine, stepped out, and admired the view once more.
“I bet this is a good spot for watching sunsets.”
“Especially from the swing on the left side porch,” Daisy muttered under her breath.
“What was that?”
She didn’t repeat it. Instead she said, “What now?”
Turning from the hypnotic purple haze of the mountains, Ethan scanned the rest of the property. “Do you see any corn?”
The question surprised her. “Corn?”
“Maybe around back.”
With quick strides he headed toward the rear of the house. Daisy had to hurry to keep up.
“Corn?” she asked him once more.
“They certainly didn’t send me all the way out here in search of giant dandelions,” Ethan responded dryly as they waded through an unruly patch of weeds.
The wheels in Daisy’s brain clicked. Corn. In her dual excitement and sorrow at returning to Fox Hollow after such a long absence, she had almost fo
rgotten who she was there with. Of course Special Agent Kinney from the ATF was looking for corn. It made perfect sense. He had come to investigate Fred’s death. A death that was evidently connected to alcohol, which in all likelihood meant moonshine, which no doubt old man Dickerson had cooked up from corn.
“Well, there it is.” Ethan halted and pointed.
On the other side of the empty brick patio. Past the former vegetable garden that was now no more than a haphazard assemblage of bowed trellises and warped wire cages without the accompanying snap peas or tomatoes. Beyond the unkempt beds of towering yellow sunflowers and creamy pink daylilies, there stood an unmistakable patch of corn. The plot was sizeable, much larger than one man could ever consume with butter and salt, knife and fork over the span of a year. And it was a healthy well-tended plot. The rows were even and clean. The plants were green, watered, and shoulder-high.
“What’s that?” Ethan’s focus shifted to a pitch-black and ochre-red building just to the right of the corn.
It was a perfectly square structure made of tar-smeared timber and clay chinking. There were no windows and only a single door. The roof was rusty metal with a narrow stovepipe sticking out of one corner.
“That’s a tobacco barn,” Daisy said.
Ethan’s brow furrowed. “A tobacco barn?”
“Every older farm around here has one. Back when tobacco used to rule the world, that’s where they hung the leaves to dry after harvest. You can see them all over the county and half the state. In the middle of pastures. On the sides of highways. Intersections were even made around them. A lot have collapsed by now from too many winters and a general lack of care. But some are still standing and can even be used, like to store hay bales or extra machinery. Wait a minute…” Daisy paused and wrinkled her nose. “Why am I telling you this? Shouldn’t you already know? I thought you handled tobacco. Isn’t it part of your official title?”
“Technically.” Ethan shrugged. “We don’t do much with it anymore. That’s mostly the Tax and Trade Bureau now. They handle all the labeling and permits for both alcohol and tobacco. I’m oversimplifying here, but they’re more administrative in the office and we’re more enforcement in the field.”
Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery Page 11
