“Maybe he was trying to warn both of you. Rick because of the arsenic. You because of your mom.” The car abruptly slowed, as though its driver had a sudden revelation. “And maybe Hank too.”
“Hank?”
“It’s possible. He was always at H & P’s, right? Mr. Dickerson might very well have gone there to talk to him about the uranium and the drilling permits. Tell him all his secrets before he died. Maybe Hank was privy to some of them already. Maybe he even played a part in persuading Mr. Dickerson to rescind his request for the drilling permits. It’s hard to say for certain, but I think it’s clear Hank knew something.”
“He must have,” Daisy agreed. “Otherwise he never would have been at Fox Hollow. And before the crash, Hank hadn’t been in a single accident with his bike. He was probably one of the safest motorcyclists in the history of motorcycling.”
“You can lock your doors, bolt your windows, and slap on a suit of armor,” Ethan replied gravely, “but none of that’s going to help you if somebody with a lot of money at stake is afraid you’re going to start talking and lose them that money.”
She winced. “And now they’re focused on my momma.”
Reaching over, he put his hand on her thigh. “Don’t worry, Daisy. I won’t let anyone hurt your mom. Or you.”
It was a sweet promise. Protective and reassuring. Daisy found herself smiling. Not from Ethan’s kind words, but from her own ludicrousness. Her momma was lying unconscious in the hospital thanks to some big-city folks who intended on making a fortune by turning her childhood home into a toxic pit while poisoning a good portion of Virginia and North Carolina in the process. Except instead of thinking about what she could do to stop them, she was fixated on the fingers caressing her leg. And she liked them. She liked them so much and she was in such desperate need of comfort and escape, Daisy was seriously tempted to tell Ethan to make a U-turn on Highway 40, head to her room at the Tosh Inn, and spend the rest of the night with him forgetting everything else.
The only problem with that idea was everything else wouldn’t allow itself to be forgotten. The moment she put her hand on his, Ethan’s phone buzzed.
“Damn,” he muttered. “Lousy timing.”
Daisy started to withdraw her hand, but his fingers grabbed hers.
“Daisy—”
She checked the screen. “It’s your office.”
“Really lousy timing.” With a sigh, Ethan released his hold on her. “Did they send the plat map?”
“I think so, but we just lost the signal.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Keep driving. Eventually we’ll hit a good spot.” Daisy could see the bridge over the creek not too far away. “We’re almost at Fox Hollow. We can pull in there. It usually gets a pretty strong signal.”
She unsnapped her seat belt in preparation for getting out and opening the big red metal gate, but when they swung into the driveway, she discovered that the gate was already open. Ethan stopped the car anyway.
“Shouldn’t it be closed?” he asked her.
“I was wondering that myself.”
He took the phone from her. After a few seconds of fiddling, Ethan tossed it on the seat. “The signal’s still too weak.”
“Let’s try closer to the house,” she said. “It’s higher.”
They traveled down the long broad drive in silence. Daisy kept thinking about the gate. Why was it open? With some anxiety, she waited for the car to reach the top of the ridge. She wasn’t quite sure what to expect on the other side. Would someone be there digging up Fox Hollow? Ethan had explained to her that exploratory drilling permits were just what they sounded like. The holder of the permits could drill in various locations and test the deposits for their precise uranium content.
Her breath caught in her throat as the house appeared. It stood alone and untouched on its kingly rise. No drilling equipment sat nearby. No humongous holes marred the garden. Nor was there any sign of any big-city folks. There was a truck sitting in the pebbly circle at the front of the house, however. It was Rick’s pickup. The driver’s side door was wide open. Rick wasn’t in sight.
Ethan frowned at the vehicle.
Daisy was too happy to worry about the truck. “At least they haven’t started drilling yet.”
“Maybe they have and maybe they haven’t. We won’t know until we take a look at that plat map.”
He pulled behind Rick’s pickup. Daisy immediately climbed out of the car, but Ethan hesitated. She turned to him questioningly.
“That truck.” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s Rick’s.”
“I know. Only the last time we were here he had it parked behind the barn.”
Daisy called Rick’s name and waited for an answer. There was none. She tried again, louder. Still no response.
Ethan went on shaking his head. “I really don’t like that truck there.”
“Rick’s probably in the house or barn and can’t hear me.”
With a dubious expression, Ethan picked up his phone. He grumbled a curse. “Stupid technology. Never available when you actually need it.”
“The porch is the best spot for a signal. The left side porch,” Daisy corrected herself hastily. The right side porch presumably still had the pair of canning jars filled with arsenic-laden moonshine sitting on it.
Ethan shut off the car and followed her toward the left side porch. As she headed up the stairs, Daisy made a cursory inspection of the back garden and the path leading to the tobacco barn, but she didn’t see Rick anywhere.
“Finally!” Ethan exclaimed, grinning at the phone. “Success!”
With a weary smile, Daisy sank down on the aged porch swing. Waiting for him to examine the plat map, she watched the sun slip beneath the horizon in a deep red ball of flame. The mountains in the distance reflected its light like a row of fiery volcanos, and the ponds scattered throughout the meadows glowed like pools of molten lava. In contrast, the land closer to her was already growing dark. The trees lining the creek and the cemetery on the opposite bank were gray and hazy.
Ethan grunted.
“Any luck?” she asked him. “Does it show the permits?”
“It does. My office highlighted the area in yellow. Except the whole thing is tiny.” He squinted at the screen. “I’ve managed to find Highway 40, but I can’t line up the road with the property. And there’s an FPC on here. What’s an FPC?”
“FPC?” Daisy’s brow furrowed.
“Here. You take a look.” Ethan handed her the phone. “Maybe you can decipher it. You know Chalk Level better than I do.”
She studied the plat map. It was small and hard to read, especially with the gradually diminishing daylight. Like Ethan, she found Highway 40 without much difficulty. Then came the tricky part—finding Fox Hollow. Daisy turned the screen several times until she finally got her directions straight. North. South. East. West. There was the mobile home park and the Round Pond Baptist Church. Head west. The pastor’s house and the playing field. Head farther west. The next big piece of land should be Fox Hollow. And there it was. The plat map was so detailed, even the driveway was shown. At its far end lay the farmhouse, followed by the old tobacco barn that Rick was now using for his whiskey business.
“And?” Ethan glanced at her from the porch railing, where he was admiring the view.
“I’ve got Fox Hollow,” she said.
“You do? Good! Now do you see the area highlighted in yellow? That’s where the permits are for.”
The area highlighted in yellow. Daisy looked at it. It was west of the driveway and west of the house and west of the tobacco barn. It was also west of something labeled FPC. What was FPC?
Ethan stifled a yawn. “It’s been a long day.”
Daisy blinked at the map, then she figured it out. FPC was Frying Pan Creek.
“All this fresh air is making me tired.” He yawned again. “And hungry.”
She went on blinking at the map. The highli
ghted area was west of Frying Pan Creek. That meant it was across the creek. The exploratory drilling permits were for the other side of the creek.
“You know what I’ve got a taste for—”
The phone fell from her fingers and clattered to the porch floor. Daisy stared at it in stunned disbelief, as though it had suddenly come to life in her palm and whispered the answer to a very perplexing riddle.
“Burger,” she whispered back.
CHAPTER
26
“A burger? No,” Ethan said, “I’ve got the taste for—”
“Not burger,” Daisy cut him off. “Berger.”
“Huh?”
She dropped her head into her hands and groaned. “Oh, it makes so much sense now. How could I not have realized it before?”
He took a step toward her. “What makes sense now? What did you realize?”
“He wasn’t saying burger. He was saying Berger.”
“What?”
“Not a burger, like a hamburger you eat. But Berger as a name. A surname. A proper noun.”
Daisy looked up and found Ethan frowning at her.
“Do you remember how I told you when old man Dickerson came into the diner on the morning he died he ordered a burger?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I was wrong. He wasn’t asking for a burger. He wasn’t asking me for anything. He was telling me something. Fred didn’t want breakfast. He wanted to tell me why he’d been poisoned.”
Ethan stared at her just as she had stared at the phone a minute earlier.
“At first”—Daisy drew a shaky breath—“I thought it was just bad luck and poor timing that Fred happened to stumble into H & P’s and collapse there. After we learned how he died, we were all thinking he was trying to warn Rick about the bad ’shine. But now I see it had nothing to do with Rick. Or Hank neither. It was me. Fred came to the diner because of me.”
“Because you know somebody named Berger?”
“I’m a Berger. Or partially so at least. But my momma’s a true Berger. Berger is her maiden name. Lucy Berger Hale.”
“And that’s something Mr. Dickerson would have known?”
“Without a doubt. Until the forfeiture and Rick Balsam came along, Fox Hollow was in the Berger family for generations. Everybody in Pittsylvania County knows that.”
Ethan’s frown returned.
Daisy responded with a mournful smile. “Fred thought I’d be the one who’d understand, and I should have. I should have understood right away. I should have put it together in a snap. But I didn’t. It all happened so fast. And I got distracted when I found out Rick had bought the property. I didn’t really think about what Fred had said—or why he said it—or that he said it to me.”
“It was one word.” Ethan shrugged.
“But it was an important word. A word that should have had special significance to me.” She sighed. “Maybe Hank figured it out. He didn’t need the plat map like I did. Maybe he realized what those big-city folks wanted, and they killed him because of it.”
“Do you think that’s why he came here? To tell Rick about the uranium, so he wouldn’t sell Fox Hollow to them?”
“Hank may have come here to tell Rick about the uranium, but not to stop him from selling Fox Hollow.”
“How do you know that?”
Daisy glanced at the phone still lying on the porch floor. “Because those big-city folks don’t want to buy Fox Hollow.”
Ethan squinted at her. “But the uranium is under Fox Hollow. And we know they want the uranium. They’ve been killing people to get it. You do remember the exploratory drilling permits?”
“Of course I remember them. Except the permits aren’t for Fox Hollow.”
“They’re most definitely for Fox Hollow. It says Chalk Level right on them. I saw it with my own eyes.”
“Chalk Level, yes. Fox Hollow, no.”
“I’m confused.” Ethan shook his head.
“I was confused too,” Daisy said. “Until I saw that plat map. Then it all became clear. And I’m pretty sure for a long time those big-city folks were even more confused than us. That’s why they were asking so many questions about Fred and Rick and Fox Hollow. They weren’t trying to figure out who owned this land.” She pointed at the ground below them. “They were trying to figure out who owned that land.” She raised her arm straight ahead.
Ethan followed her outstretched finger. “The creek?”
“The other side of the creek.”
“Isn’t that the cemetery over there?”
“It is. The old Berger family cemetery.”
His mouth opened, but no words came out.
Daisy lowered her hand. “It was the forfeiture. That was the problem. Before it, everybody knew my family owned Fox Hollow and the cemetery next door, which was logical considering the names carved into the tombstones. But afterward, nobody knew anything. The property records didn’t say what had happened, so it was just a big guess. And the natural assumption was if Fox Hollow was forfeit, the cemetery was forfeit right along with it. Only it wasn’t. The cemetery was never in my daddy’s name. He wasn’t a Berger. The cemetery was always only in my momma’s name. Fox Hollow was different. After they married, it became my daddy’s too.”
“Son of a bitch,” Ethan muttered.
“You were right,” she went on. “Nothing funny did happen with the forfeiture. There was no missing piece. The land was there the whole time. And my momma owned it the whole time. We were all just thinking about the wrong piece of land. All of us except for those big-city folks. They knew it was the cemetery they wanted. It had the uranium, and it needed the permits. The only issue was finding out who it belonged to after the forfeiture dust settled. They did a good job of narrowing it down. When it wasn’t Fred—and it wasn’t Rick—only my momma was left. And they sent Bobby after her.”
“So that’s what your mom was talking about when she told Bobby she wouldn’t sell her land.”
Daisy nodded. “My momma wouldn’t ever sell the cemetery. Uranium or no uranium. The world could be coming to an end. The stars could be raining down from the heavens. She’d never let it leave the family. It’s her heritage—and my heritage too. Our kin have been laid to rest there for hundreds of years. We had a great uncle, Jacob Berger, who was chief wagoner in the American Revolutionary War. Born December 21, 1745. Died January 25, 1837. I can show you his grave and dozens more like it. All with the name Berger. That’s why I can assure you without the slightest reservation there is no way in this lifetime those big-city folks will lay one dirty, money-grubbing finger on that property. My momma wouldn’t allow anyone to desecrate the family name by poisoning babies and their parents in this county—or the state—or any other state. Not with the good lord as her witness.”
A lengthy silence followed. Ethan sat down next to her on the porch swing. It creaked gently beneath them. Daisy watched the shadows crawl from the cemetery to the creek to the farmhouse as the last remnant of rosy glow from the sun faded away.
“Do you think they’re over there?” she asked Ethan after a while.
“I don’t know. I was wondering that myself. I don’t see any lights or hear any machinery. But they do have the permits. They could be doing something. And your friend Zeke at the roadhouse told us they were going for burgers. I have to assume that meant they were planning on heading to the Berger cemetery at some point.”
“I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Tomorrow I’ll look into what we can do about those permits. Without the real landowner’s permission, I don’t think they’re still valid. But I’m not sure how that works exactly. And considering what they did to Hank and Mr. Dickerson, I doubt those big-city folks are going to just walk away and give up without a fight.”
Daisy shivered. Ethan wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
“You don’t have to worry about them,” he said. “Not anymore. I’ll call my boss and your sheriff. Together we’ll take care of them.”
<
br /> She leaned against his chest. The swing moved with the rising night breeze. It was a clear evening. The moon was a bright crescent shimmering high above the creek. Frying Pan Creek. Such a silly name. She had no clue where it came from. A century or two ago somebody had probably used the creek for washing the grease from their skillet and it just stuck. But as silly as the name seemed, the creek was now of great importance. It divided Chalk Level. Fox Hollow from the Berger family cemetery. Rick’s land from her momma’s land. Corn whiskey from uranium deposits.
Ethan’s arm tightened against her body as the darkness spread over them like a soft mist. It was quiet on the porch. And so very peaceful. Daisy remembered how as a little girl she used to sit on the swing with her daddy counting fireflies before bed. She had planned on sitting there with her own children one day. But that dream was gone. The house was lost. She would never sit on the porch again. This was the last time. At least she wasn’t alone. It was nice being close to someone. She hadn’t realized before quite how much she missed it. She could feel Ethan’s heart beating into her back. She hoped that Rick wouldn’t suddenly appear. Then she’d have to explain. The plat map. The exploratory drilling permits. And Ethan. She would have to explain sitting with Ethan on Rick’s swing—on Rick’s porch—at Rick’s house.
Frogs burped. Whip-poor-wills called. Cicadas buzzed. It was such a hypnotic refrain that Daisy barely noticed the shout off in the distance. It sounded like Rick. Was Rick shouting? Then came the explosion.
CHAPTER
27
She ran. As the scarlet plume of fire hurtled into the sky, Daisy forgot the cicadas and the porch swing. The only thing that she could think about was the blazing cloud ahead of her. And Rick. She had heard his voice just before the explosion. He was somewhere in the middle of it. She had already lost her daddy and Matt’s daddy. She couldn’t lose another person to the flames.
“Daisy!”
It was Ethan. He was calling after her. Maybe he was running after her too. She didn’t know, and she didn’t really care. She couldn’t worry about Ethan. Not at that moment. Not when he was perfectly fine and Rick very possibly wasn’t.
Murder and Moonshine: A Mystery Page 23
