Twenty-five

Laura stepped beside me. “Kel, what’s wrong?”

I didn’t want to share my suspicions with her that it was a Farm employee who murdered Maxwell. If I said it aloud, then it might be true, and as much as I loved and trusted Laura, I knew that she had a tendency to let things slip.

The arrival of Chase and his uncle saved me from answering. They were still both in their uniforms from the field. A smudge of dirt marred Chase’s cheek. He frowned. “What’s going on, Kelsey?”

I told them both about the honeycomb missing from Shepley’s hive and about honeybees versus mud daubers. As I spoke, neither man reacted.

“What?” I asked.

The chief chuckled. “You must think this is our first rodeo. We knew about the honeycomb. The medical examiner caught onto that right away. He found the pieces of honeycomb. There wasn’t much, just shreds of it, but I guess you have to know the different kinds of bugs in his line of work. Me, I can’t tell a fly from a ladybug. Since there were only tiny pieces of the honeycomb left, we suspect most of it had been removed after Maxwell was stung.”

I swallowed. That would mean whoever did this waited and watched Maxwell get stung and then removed the honeycomb. It was too horrible for words. And here I was thinking I was sharing this monumental break in the case and they already knew about it.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

His face clouded. “There was no reason to tell you.”

My jaw twitched. “Did you know?” I asked Chase.

He looked away. There was my answer.

Laura clicked her tongue. “Not cool, Chase. Now she’ll never like you.”

Chase stared at Laura and then blushed. I couldn’t believe that she was making junior high jokes at a time like this.

The one thing that I had learned for certain about this conversation was that my partnership, or whatever it had been, with Chase was over. From here on out, I was going to solve this case in spite of him and his police chief uncle.

Chief Duffy beamed. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The case is closed.”

“You found the killer?” Laura asked.

“Sure did.” He removed a plastic bag from the pocket of his Confederate coat. “Got the confession right here.”

“Who did it?” Laura was asking the questions. I was too shocked to speak.

“Wesley,” Chase answered.

My eyes flicked over to him. “I don’t believe you.”

“Read it for yourself.” He handed me a piece of paper in a clear plastic envelope.

It was dated the day before.

Dear Portia my love,

I am sorry for what I have done and what I will do. I know you are hurting because of my actions and my choices. For all his faults, Maxwell did not deserve the end he received. Please forgive me and remember what I do next is to make all of this easier on you. I have forgiven you.

All my love forever,

Wesley

Laura took the letter from my hand and read it. “Whoa.”

I turned to Chase. “But we saw him last night. He gave us no clues he planned to do this.”

“He was drunk and depressed. That can make a man stop thinking straight.”

“But—”

“I know it’s hard for you to believe, Kelsey,” the police chief said. “But those are the facts. It’s good news for you and for the Farm. You’re off the hook.”

Off the hook? Okay. So why didn’t I feel better about it? Because a hurting young man was dead. Whether it was by his hand or someone else’s, it didn’t matter; he was still dead.

Laura handed the chief back the piece of paper. “He doesn’t really come out and say that he killed Maxwell in that letter. Just that he’s sorry.”

The chief shrugged. “We’ll have our psych guys look it over from the county crime lab, but sometimes confessions aren’t verbatim.”

Laura frowned.

“How did he die?” I asked. “Chase said that he stopped breathing before he hit his head on the rock on the battlefield.”

“He poisoned himself.” The chief slipped the letter back into his pocket. “At least that’s what the medical examiner believes. We won’t know exactly what he used as poison until we get the toxicology report.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw Wesley taking swig after swing from that brown jug. Chase and I had assumed that it was liquor. Had he been poisoning himself the entire time? “The cider he was drinking last night,” I said.

Chase nodded. “We already recovered the jug. The medical examiner is taking it to his lab for comparison.”

“But you dumped the contents out into the grass.” My tone was accusatory, but I could not help it.

His brow furrowed. “I did. I didn’t even suspect that there was anything else in there other than hard cider.”

“Where did you find the letter?” I asked.

Chase answered this time. “It was sitting in the middle of his pillow on his mat like it was waiting for us.”

I started for the road without another word. All I wanted at that moment was to see my son. I hadn’t seen Hayden all day. Instead I had wasted my time wrapped up in this murder, and it came to nothing, other than a young man dead.

I heard running footsteps coming up behind me. “Kelsey!” Chase ran around me and jogged backward in front of me.

“Get out of my way, Chase.”

“Let me explain.”

I stepped around him and looked both ways before crossing the street.

“My uncle told me not to tell you about the bees.”

“Great. You respect your elders. That’s one point in your favor, but you are still running a deficit.”

“I’m sorry. But we can still—”

“What does it matter now? Wesley did it, right?” I glared at him. “You believe that?”

“There’s the letter—”

“Laura’s right. It’s not a real confession. This doesn’t feel right.”

“It’s enough to end the case. Don’t you want that?”

“Not if it’s not true!”

“You are—”

“Dear lady, is this soldier bothering you?” Walt Whitman asked, stroking his long white Santa Claus beard.

Chase grabbed at my hand, but I shifted away from his grasp.

“Dear boy,” Walt snapped. “That is no way to handle a lady.” He took Chase by the arm. “Perhaps you would like to listen to my poetry to calm yourself. Have you heard of Leaves of Grass? I have always found that poetry gives me clarity. In 1862, when I was working in the hospital as a nurse, I found that a few lines of my verse soothed the men in their pain. You are one of the lucky ones not to have been injured in battle. We pray that there aren’t any more casualties, but this war will go on for many more months, I’m afraid.”

“Kelsey,” Chase said, ignoring Walt’s speech.

I kept walking. As far as I was concerned, Walt could have him. Yanking my radio from my belt, I radioed Ashland.

“Yes, Kelsey,” she said, sounding more confident than I had ever heard her.

“Do you know if Eddie brought Hayden to the reenactment today?”

“He did,” she said over the radio. “They arrived late, about an hour ago.”

“Where are they?”

“I just saw them in the candle maker’s shed.”

I thanked her and ended the transmission.