thirteen

After leaving Jason to his animals in the barn, I headed for the visitor center. I still had over an hour before Stroud arrived for the tree tapping class. Two buses of school children would arrive at about the same time, and I needed to have my wits about me to make sure everyone went in the right direction.

It was still hard for me to believe that the Maple Sugar Festival was finally here, kicking off with the tree tapping class. It had taken months of planning. By late Sunday afternoon, it would all be over. I sighed. Or would it? With Beeson’s death, I felt like I would be talking about maple sugar for many weeks to come.

My radio crackled at my hip. “Kelsey, are you there? Over,” Benji said. She loved to end radio conversations with “over.”

I removed the radio from my hip. “I’m here, Benji. What’s up?”

There was a pause, and I waited and waited. Finally, I said, “Benji, what is up?”

“You didn’t say ‘over,’” she complained. “How do I know you’ve finished speaking if you don’t say ‘over’?”

I groaned. “Can you just tell me what’s going on?”

There was a pronounced pause when Benji didn’t say a word.

“Over,” I said grudgingly.

“Sure!” she said as if she’d won the lottery. “Shepley’s here at the visitor center. He had a few choice words to say about the Maple Sugar Festival.”

“Of course he did,” I muttered.

“And he wants to talk to you.”

“What about?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the thought. “Over.”

“I don’t know. He refused to tell me,” she said. There was a little bit of hurt in her voice. Before I’d promoted her to my assistant, Benji had had a good relationship with the ornery gardener. More than anyone, she’d been able to carry on a normal conversation with him. That had seemed to change when she was promoted. It was almost as if Shepley felt that she’d sold out by leaving her post at the brick pit and taking a job in Farm management. I knew that Benji would never admit it, but it hurt her that Shepley now treated her like he did the rest of us.

“Okay, I’m on my way.” I clipped the radio back onto my belt and increased my pace.

When I stepped into the visitor center, I found Shepley pacing back and forth near the door. I knew something was up right away. He never came into the visitor center, not even for mandatory staff meetings. He thought that the rules and directions I gave the rest of the staff didn’t apply to him.

Judy nodded in his direction when she met my gaze. She was in the process of counting out tickets for the pancake breakfasts. Pre-sales had been strong, so much so that I’d hired a few extra cooks from a temp agency so that we would be able to keep up with the demand for pancakes.

Shepley tapped his foot. “What took you so long?” he snapped.

“Hello to you too, Shepley.”

He curled his lip into a sneer. The gardener was a small man, close to my own height of five two. His long gray ponytail was tied back with a piece of garden twine. The white scar cutting across his left cheek, which had never been explained, stood out more than usual with his face beet-red in anger. “You shouldn’t keep me waiting when such a violation has happened.”

“I didn’t know a violation was part of the story,” I said. “You didn’t tell Benji your reason for wanting to talk to me this morning. I don’t have much time before our maple sugar expert arrives, but you can tell me now.”

“You’re going to want to make time for this. It’s a top priority.”

I removed my hat and could feel the aura of static electricity floating around my head as hair escaped from my standard long French braid. “Please just get on with it, Shepley.”

He glared at me and said, “I want to know what you’re going to do about the damage to my garden.”

“Damage?” I asked. Now he had my full attention. “What damage? I walk the grounds every day and haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary on the village side.”

“Then your observation skills are severely lacking. Someone has broken into my garden and trampled it. Trampled it!” He shook with anger.

“What?” I cried.

He nodded as if I’d finally given him the reaction that he’d been looking for. “Yes. Someone has broken into the garden and stomped every bed I have.”

“At least it’s winter and nothing is in bloom,” I said to myself.

Shepley heard me. “It’s still no good for the plants. The crocuses are sprouting.”

“Will they be all right?” I asked.

“I think so, but this makes me very uneasy as spring approaches. I will not have all the bulbs that I planted one by one last fall be trampled to death this spring. We have that fence around the garden to keep the deer out, but it seems that some two-legged cretin has broken in instead.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a deer? Perhaps the gate was left open.” Even as I said this, I knew that Shepley would take offense to it, but it was a question that had to be asked.

“I would never leave the gate open.” He eyed me. “Did you leave it open? You and I are the only ones with a key.”

“No. I peek through the fence on my daily rounds, but I never go in.” Maybe the damage was in the back, which would be why I hadn’t noticed it. “Why don’t you show me now.”

Benji slid into the lobby and saw me standing with Shepley. She pulled up short.

“Do you need something, Benji? Shepley and I are headed to the gardens. It appears there was some damage overnight.”

“What kind of damage?” she asked.

Shepley pointedly ignored her, and I suppressed a sigh at his childishness. “Someone stomped through the garden. Would you like to come along?”

She looked at Shepley’s stony face and shook her head. “I’ll stay here. There are just a few things that I need to mark off our list for the weekend and we’ll be good to go. The classroom is all set up for the tree tapping class.”

“Thanks, Benji. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

She gave me a small smile, but she watched Shepley, who refused to meet her eyes. I sighed. I would have to deal with the rift between them at some point, but it would have to wait. The Maple Sugar Festival and a murder were about my quota of what I could handle at the moment. I motioned to the door. “Let’s go, Shepley.”

Shepley and I walked in silence down the pebbled path. As the snow melted, the path became muddy. I hoped that it would be mostly dried out by Saturday morning when the festival was in full swing. If not, mud would be tracked into all of the buildings.

I was just happy for the silence. It gave me time to wonder what I was going to do about Dr. Beeson’s death. I knew Detective Brandon wanted me to leave it be, but I wasn’t sure I could do that. Who would stab a man like that with a drill? It was just too gruesome for words.

As we crossed Maple Grove Lane, Shepley pointed at the barn. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t that boy you allow to live on Farm property who trampled my plants.”

“Jason would never do that. Barton Farm is his home,” I said, coming to my farmhand’s defense.

“Oh, I know it’s his home.” Shepley picked up his pace as we entered the green, and I had to increase my speed to keep up with him.

The gardener looked over his shoulder. “If there was decent oversight of the Farm by the Cherry Foundation, he would never have been allowed to live on the grounds in the first place.”

I came up alongside of him. “Shepley, if that were the case, you would have been fired a long time ago. The Cherry Foundation would never put up with you for as long as I have.”

He scowled but didn’t argue with me. Maybe because he knew it was the truth.

The gardens came into view. A five-foot-high split-rail fence lined with chicken wire surrounded the main garden. Even at a distance, I could see that the damage was extensive. As upsetting as that was, I was happy to see that the much smaller medicinal garden next to it appeared untouched. A seven-foot-high iron fence surrounded that garden to keep intruders out. Many of the plants inside were poisonous. We grew them on the Farm because the Barton family had had a similar garden to treat aliments on the same spot. Mrs. Barton used many plants and herbs from that garden to treat ill children and neighbors. However, because of the contents, it needed to be under lock and key. We had an incident last summer when someone with malicious intent broke into the medicinal garden. Because of that, it was padlocked twice. I wasn’t going to allow anyone to use the Farm’s plants to hurt anyone else again.

Shepley unlocked the gate to the main garden, and it swung open.

“Was the gate locked when you found the mess?” I asked as we stepped inside.

He nodded. “It was locked up tight.”

I frowned. That could mean that someone from the Farm had gone in. Shepley and I had keys, yet there was also a spare key in my office. I kept my office locked, but Benji had a key to my office and could access all of the keys … but she would never have done this.

I examined the damage. It looked like someone had done the Irish jig up and down the rows of plants, twice. I again felt relief that it was in the middle of winter. Had someone walked in the garden like that in the middle of the summer, it would be truly devastating to the Farm. Our heirloom gardens, which only had plants in keeping with what could readily be available and used in gardens during the Civil War, were one of the Farm’s great showpieces. Shepley’s gifted hand with plants was the only reason I kept him around.

Shepley watched me. “What are you going to do about this?” he shouted. “No one, absolutely no one, should come into my garden without my permission.”

“Shepley, I don’t know who may have entered the garden, but I need to remind you that the garden is technically the property of Barton Farm. It’s not your personal space.”

He ignored my last comment. As far as he was concerned, the garden was his and there was nothing I could say that would convince him otherwise.

“Listen, I can see why you’re upset,” I said. “This is upsetting to me too. You’ve put a lot of hard work into the garden to make it the envy of the county.”

He nodded, as if mollified. “And see the crocuses. Some of them won’t recover their spring growth because of this.” He pointed to thin green leaves peeking out of the snow. Some were stomped beyond recognition.

I shook my head. “The first thing we need to do is secure the garden. Go to the hardware store and buy a new padlock for the gate. Then, if someone has a key, at least it will give them pause.” I sighed. “This could just be a practical joke by local kids with no plans to return. The fence is only five feet high.” The Hooper boys immediately came to mind.

“We should put barbed wire on the top. That’ll keep the cretins out.”

I frowned. I didn’t like that suggestion. There were too many children on the grounds during the summer. I didn’t want any of them getting hurt by a barbed-wire fence. There were enough ways to get hurt on the Farm as it was without adding to the list. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“And you think a new padlock is?” Shepley asked. “Is that all you’re going to do about it? It’s vandalism. Someone should be held responsible.”

I didn’t argue with him on that point.

“Are you going to call the authorities?” he continued.

I wondered about calling Chief Duffy. He would brush it off as kids, just like I’d tried to. But I thought Detective Brandon might take it a little more seriously, especially if it could be tied to Dr. Beeson’s death. “I’ll talk to Detective Brandon about it.”

“When?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure. “As soon as I can. The tree tapping class is today, and I really should get back to the visitor center so I can meet with the new instructor.” It was the best answer I could give him. My eyes swept over the garden again. “Shepley, do you see that?”

“What?” he barked.

“There’s a clear footprint in the snow.” I took a couple of steps closer to it. “You’re right. This definitely wasn’t done by any deer.”

Shepley walked over to me and stared at the spot. It was a boot print, and the shoe size was much larger than mine. It was most likely from a man, but I couldn’t completely rule out a tall woman either.

“Now will you call the police?”

I sighed and removed my cell phone from my pocket.