The skies over Agony Hill were gray and thick with clouds, the air hot and close. Warren got out of the car and stood there for a moment as a weak breeze pushed the humid day around, then died away. The smell of smoke was still strong alongside the tang of animals and manure that rose from the barnyard. Somewhere in the distance, a cow bellowed and a dog barked. No one came out so he went up onto the porch and knocked at the door. He could hear voices inside but no one came so he knocked again, louder, and called out, “Hello? Mrs. Weber?”
Suddenly the door opened and she was standing there, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. He heard the laughter of children from inside the house. Her hair was messy and there were smudges of dirt on her face and long streaks of wetness down the front of her apron. She had been washing dishes, he thought.
“I’m so sorry to bother you,” he said. “You must have heard about the fire last night at the camp at the end of the road. Is it okay if I come in and ask you and your children some questions?”
She looked scared, but nodded, and stood aside so he could come into the house. It was cooler in here, and he followed her through a messy room littered with stacks of books and papers, tools, old bottles, and cardboard boxes filled with strange assortments of dishes and knickknacks. A contraption Warren took to be a spinning wheel sat at one end of the room, a basket filled with fluffy wool next to it. Warren remembered that David Williamson had said she sold yarn.
The kitchen was at the rear of the house, a large room with a table and chairs against the back wall and a huge stone sink. A wood cookstove took up one corner of the room and was the source of the hot, close air and the reason for the open windows. There was no electric stove. The boys seemed to fill the room; the oldest one, a teenager who was whittling a piece of wood into something that looked like a doll, was sitting at the table and he looked up, his eyes worried and suspicious. He was old enough to feel a sense of responsibility to protect the family. It would be a hard life for him from here on out, Warren thought.
Sylvie Weber stopped to tousle his hair, reassuring him before she went back to the stove where she had two large pots steaming. With a pair of long-handled tongs, she retrieved a glass jar from one of them. The air smelled of sugar and berries. The other boys were playing with some marbles on the floor. Warren saw what Barbara Falconer meant about them looking different. There was something feral about these boys; they seemed of a different time in their patched and too-large clothes, their strange, ragged haircuts. The second-youngest boy had what looked like bloodstains all over his dingy white T-shirt. Berry stains, Warren realized, seeing a bowl on the counter.
“We’re making jam,” Sylvie Weber said, explaining the mess of production. “There were so many berries and they don’t … well, they don’t wait for you, do they?”
Warren nodded and sat down at the table. “I’m sorry, can you tell me the names of all of the boys, just so I make sure I have it right?” He winked at the boy sitting closest to him on the floor and said, “I wouldn’t want to mix you up with one of your brothers, would I?”
The boy, not realizing it was a joke, shook his head solemnly. “What’s your name?” Warren asked him.
He whispered, “Andrew Charles Weber, sir.” Warren wrote it down. The kid at least pronounced it the American way.
“And how old are you?”
“Twelve.” He was a startlingly good-looking kid, with his mother’s blue eyes and exactingly regular features, high cheekbones, and thick dark hair that came down below his ears.
“Tell me your brothers’ names and their ages, if you would.”
Andrew looked to his mother and she nodded. He said, “Scott is fourteen.” He pointed to the boy at the table. “Louis is six, Daniel is two.” Warren glanced at Sylvie Weber. She couldn’t be more than his age—thirty this year. She must have had the oldest one when she was a teenager herself.
“Thank you, Andrew. Or is it Andy?” He smiled down at the boy, trying to convey that he was a friend, but the boy still looked terrified. “Andy’s all right?” The boy nodded.
“Did you all hear there was a fire last night at a hunting camp down at the end of your road here?” he asked all of them.
“I heard the trucks going by,” Sylvie Weber said. “In the morning, we could smell the smoke and Scott drove the truck down to see.”
Scott looked up from his whittling. He had a prominent chin and broad face that wasn’t as classically handsome as his brother’s, but Warren thought he saw kindness and humility in it. His darker blue eyes were guileless when he said, “Tried to go see. They wouldn’t let me through. Do they know what happened?”
“We don’t know exactly. The fire may have been an accident, but … You haven’t seen anyone around, have you, anyone strange in the woods, anyone who seemed out of place?”
He happened to be looking at Andy’s face and surprise flashed across the boy’s eyes. Warren was sure he was about to say something when his mother cut in quickly, “No, we haven’t seen anyone.”
Warren studied her face before she turned back to the stove. Had she been too quick to cut in, as if she wanted to prevent the boy from saying something? He wasn’t sure. “What about you boys? Have you seen anyone around your farm, or in the woods?” He met Andy’s eyes, but the boy looked away and stayed silent. His brothers were quiet too, the little one clutching his mother’s leg now and hiding his face behind her apron.
Sylvie Weber went back to the jars on the counter, plunging them into the huge pot of hot soapy water and swishing them around before taking them out and lining them up on the counter. “I’m sorry, Mr. Warren. I don’t think we saw anything at all.”
He watched her, sure she was lying to him now. But what to do about it?
“Mrs. Weber, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you and Andy. Just you two. Would it be possible for the other boys to…” He raised his eyebrows meaningfully but she just stared at him, not understanding. So he went on, awkwardly, “Could they leave us alone for a moment?”
The eldest boy, Scott, was the one who caught his meaning. “I’ll take them out to check for the kittens again, Ma,” he said. The younger boys followed Scott out the side door. He closed the door quietly behind them.
Andy looked up at him, then down at his hands. Sylvie Weber stood in front of the stove, wary, her eyes fearful.
“Andy, are you sure you haven’t seen anything strange around lately, perhaps someone who shouldn’t be on Agony Hill, someone you didn’t recognize? I know that everything must be so confusing right now, with the fire here and with … your father’s death. Maybe you forgot when I first asked you.”
The boy didn’t look up. “No,” he said. “Nothing like that.”
“Are you certain? You know how important it is that you are always honest with a person like me, a police officer, don’t you?”
Andy nodded, still not looking up. Warren waited a long moment and then he said, “Okay, why don’t you join your brothers. I’ll talk to your mother now.” The boy, shoulders hunched, stood and glanced back at Sylvie before scuttling out of the house.
Once they heard the door close, Sylvie went back to her work at the stove.
Warren considered how to approach her. If he said right up front that he thought the boy was lying, she was likely to close up and not give him anything. So he decided to start with the brother. “Mrs. Weber, I need to ask you about your husband’s brother, Victor Weber. My understanding from when I was here yesterday was that you had never met him. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” she said after a long moment. “Hugh didn’t talk to his family. I think they … didn’t like him marrying me and they didn’t like him living here. Living the way we live, I guess you’d say. I don’t know. When his father died, we didn’t go to the funeral. I would have.” She turned around and smiled shyly. “I would have liked to go to New York, to see it. But Hugh didn’t want to. He said he was always a disappointment to them and he might as well keep on disappointing them.”
“Do you know that he is in town?” he asked her.
She had focused on the steaming pot again when she said, “Well, Mr. Williamson called at the Uptons’ to say I should come down to his office at two today. That Hugh’s brother was here and that he wanted to talk to us about Hugh’s will.” She had a thermometer clipped to the side of the pot and she unclipped it and turned it toward the light to read it. “The message was that I should call Mr. Williamson if I minded Hugh’s brother being there.”
Warren waited. “And do you?”
“Do I what?” She licked a finger and then wiped jam from the glass-covered thermometer.
“Mind him being there?”
She turned, perplexed. “I don’t think so. Mr. Williamson said that it would be helpful to have us both there.”
Warren watched her scoop some jam from the pot with a spoon and let it run off back into the pot. “Do you have a ride down to town? I’d be happy to drive you. Mr. Williamson has asked me to be available, since your brother-in-law seemed quite upset when he stopped by the office yesterday.”
“About Hugh?” She turned, holding an empty jar in a pair of metal tongs and looking confused. “They weren’t very close. Hugh hated Victor. He complained about him all the time, about how he was a tool of the forces of capitalism.” There was a small edge of sarcasm to the words that made him think she had not been completely blind to her husband’s flaws.
“I think he was curious about the will. Did your husband ever explain it all to you? What would happen to his property and, uh, assets, if he should die?”
She shook her head, then turned to look at him. “Will we have to move? I never even thought of that. I didn’t … Oh.” She lifted the thermometer again and whatever she saw on it made her forget what she’d been saying. With the tongs, she took three more steaming jars from the pot and put them on the towel spread out on the table. Then she used a ladle to take the sweet-smelling ruby jam from the other pot and pour it through a funnel into the jars. Quickly, she took lids out of the large pot and put them on the jars, then flipped the jars upside down next to a long row of them on a towel. “Do you think we’ll have to move?” she asked when she was done. “How does it work when someone … dies?”
He didn’t sugarcoat it. He didn’t think he would be doing her any favors by lying to her. “Mrs. Weber, even if the farm is left to you in your husband’s will, you would need money for its upkeep, for things like the electricity and for groceries and property taxes.”
She nodded, worried now, and he felt a flash of guilt at introducing the idea of them being turned out. Better she faced up to it, though.
He didn’t know what else to say, so he just stood up and told her he wanted to see if there was any evidence related to the investigation into the fire at the camp. “I’m going to go for a little walk in your woods, if that’s okay. I’ll check in with you when I get back and then I can take you down to Mr. Williamson’s office. At about a quarter to two.”
She nodded, focused on her task again but newly preoccupied. It was very hot in the kitchen now, the steam from the pots on the big stove doing its work. They were both sweating and Warren rolled up his sleeves, embarrassed by the large circles beneath his arms.
He let himself out and walked around the side of the farmhouse toward the cleared pastureland and the woods beyond. Now that he’d seen the map of Agony Hill, he saw how the wedge of land behind the hunting camp doubled back, abutting the Webers’ farm back in the dense woods behind their fields. He skirted the fence line, keeping an eye on the cows who were standing quietly and watching him. He didn’t think any of them were bulls, but he wanted to be sure. When he got to the end of the field, he was able to hop over a low stone wall and then he was in the woods.
It was immediately cool beneath the trees and he walked due south, toward what he imagined was the back of the camp parcel. Once he found it, he’d retrace the supposed arsonist’s path and then walk back toward the Webers’ along the most logical route.
The woods were thicker than he’d thought they would be and though he’d left his suit jacket behind in the car, he could feel his shirt and tie and trousers getting snagged by twigs and brambles. He should have worn dungarees for this job. Next time he’d know.
It took him twenty minutes of careful walking between the trees before he saw the remains of the camp. One car—the fire marshal’s, he assumed—sat in the drive. Warren walked up the hillside, following the path he’d taken last night and stopping at the spot where he’d tripped. The hill crested here and he could see a path through the low brambles and weeds growing along the hillside. He advanced carefully, walking to the side of the path so as to preserve any evidence and scanning the route the man had taken for cigarette butts or anything else he might have dropped. The path disappeared once it hit the tree line and Warren started jogging, looking for the easiest way through the trees. Their arsonist would have been scared, and he would have taken the route that would have meant the least ducking and jumping over stumps.
He kept going, unsure now of where he was and where the Webers’ farm was, but he was seized with a desire to press on, as though he was suddenly in the man’s head and knew exactly where he’d gone. A barely visible path drew him through the woods, toward the sound of water in the distance.
As he went, the rushing sound became louder and after a few minutes of almost jogging, he came out by a sort of pond. Except it wasn’t a pond but a large, hollowed-out pool where a waterfall passed over a wall of rocks and fell dramatically, lingering long enough to form an area deep enough for bathing, before making its way into the brook where it disappeared down into the trees again.
It was a paradise, a fairyland, the sort of place where you might expect to see a water nymph sunning herself on a rock.
It looked so cool and inviting that Warren, who was now sweating from his run through the woods, couldn’t help himself. He stepped carefully onto the rocks and bent down to fill his hands with the cold water, splashing it on his face and drinking as much as he could take.
When he stood up again, he’d somehow lost his bearings.
Had he come from this direction or that one? When he looked into the woods, everything looked the same, green and sun-dappled.
Something about the pool disoriented him; oddly, his watch had stopped and he had no idea how much time had passed, and instead of going carefully, he ran up into the woods, seeking high ground so he could see where he was, could look for the Webers’ barns. But every time he thought he’d reached a high spot, there was another one beyond it that was even higher.
Within minutes, he was completely and hopelessly lost. He walked aimlessly, trying to mark the way he’d come with stones dropped on the forest floor, like Hansel and Gretel, but they disappeared on the ground when he tried to find them again. Low-hanging branches scratched his face and arms. The trees grew thickly and they all looked the same, the trunks sometimes wound around each other to form strange, embracing shapes.
He could feel panic starting to grow. Surely, if he didn’t come out, someone would come looking for him. But who? Tommy might go to his house tomorrow if he didn’t show up at the barracks, but by then he would have spent the whole day and night in the woods. Would Sylvie Weber come to look for him if he didn’t come back to drive her to town? Somehow he thought not.
“Get ahold of yourself, Warren,” he said out loud. This was Vermont, not Wyoming. A few miles’ walk in any direction would bring him to a farm. Surely it would?
And then he heard it, the low whine of a tractor. He followed the sound for a few minutes and came out at the edge of a field. A tractor was slowly crossing it at the other end. One of the boys was driving it. He was right behind the Webers’ house.
Relief poured through him and he burst out onto the field, wanting to shout to someone that he was okay, that he would survive, but of course that was ridiculous. No one even knew that a drama had played out in the woods in which he’d imagined himself lost forever. The boy didn’t even see him.
He walked quickly back to the house and this time, he found Sylvie Weber alone on the porch, a large bowl of beans on the table in front of her. She was snapping the ends off and throwing them onto the grass, where a few chickens were quickly gobbling them.
She looked up in surprise. “Are you all right?” His face was scratched, his clothes wet in the front.
“I must look a bit terrifying,” he said. “I’m fine. I got turned around. It sounds ridiculous, but I thought I was lost in the woods.”
She smiled. She had changed her clothes—she was now wearing a sleeveless dress in golden yellow—and brushed her hair. “That happened to me when I first came here,” she said. “You can always follow the brook, though. Just walk along and you’ll either come out at the river or the road.”
But he’d thought of something when he was in the woods, thinking about all of the intersecting brooks and fields and property lines.
He studied her as she watched the chickens. “How did your husband get along with the farmers down at the bottom of Agony Hill? I saw on the map that your fields abut the other farms. That must have made for conflict sometimes.”
A small frown touched her lips. “It did,” she said. “Hugh didn’t know how to make friends very well. He didn’t really understand how to get along with people. Mr. Spaulding was always complaining about our pigs running loose and instead of apologizing, Hugh went to war with him over it.” She gestured vaguely. “Mr. Spaulding wanted to buy our back field and Hugh couldn’t just say no. He took it personally. I don’t … I tried to explain. It was because he was from New York, I think. From the city. He had different ways.”
Something occurred to Warren then. People in town must have already understood what Warren had understood before in the kitchen: Hugh Weber may have left the farm to his young wife—Warren would know that soon enough—but surely she would put it up for sale within months. Her boys weren’t old enough to keep it going on their own. As he’d told her, she would have to come up with tax payments and money for animal feed and insurance. Hugh Weber’s death might benefit one of those farmers. You’d only have to wait for Sylvie Weber to sell the farm. Desperate, she might take a price that was far less than what it would be worth otherwise.
“What did he do?” he asked her.
“Oh, he just yelled at Mr. Spaulding, told him he was insulting us, that sort of thing. Threats.” She shook her head as though it had all been a silly joke.
“What about the other farm down there?”
“Mr. Hatchett wanted to buy it too, but he knew how to handle Hugh. He just sent a letter and then stayed quiet.” A tiny smile turned up the corners of her mouth.
Warren felt a passing buzz of curiosity. At some point he would find out about these relationships. But for now, they needed to get to the meeting.
He thought of something else then, though. “How did he find this place? Originally, I mean. If he was from New York City?”
She looked up. “It was before I met him, but he said he came to live on a farm with some other people. They were all connected to a man Hugh always referred to as the Prophet. His real name was Jeffrey.” Warren’s face must have shown his surprise because she smiled a little and said quickly, “It was just Hugh’s joke, calling him the Prophet. This man had a farm and they were going to create a peaceful community there, but Hugh didn’t get along with him. He said Jeffrey wanted to tell everyone what to do. And he took money from Hugh. He got angry if I asked about it. That’s how he found out about this place, though, because the farm, Jeffrey’s farm, was in Bethany. I don’t know where exactly.”
Warren checked his watch. He’d see if Pinky knew anything about this Jeffrey character. But now they had to get back down to town. “Shall we go?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m ready,” she said, standing up. She was holding something behind her back. “I got lost once when I was a little girl. You know, I thought I’d never find my way home again. I was terrified. When I found home again, I tried to explain that I’d been through … something. I tried to tell them, but I’d only been gone an hour or two. I felt like I’d gone away to the land of eternal youth, though, like I’d been gone years and years there, but back home it was only a short time. No one understood. Here, take this home with you. It’s very good, raspberry. Keep it upside down for a little while, to make sure it seals, though.” She had been holding a jar of jam and now she handed it to him. It was still warm, the quilted shape of the glass catching the sunlight and refracting it onto his hand. “When you eat it, you’ll be going back in time to today.”
Flustered by the kindness, unsure if he should take it, he stammered out a thank-you. She picked up a basket that had balls of yarn in it, and followed him to the car. When she settled into the seat next to him, the basket at her feet, he was surprised to find that she was wearing perfume, something delicate and expensive-smelling that reminded him of citrus groves.
He thought about trying to make conversation, but he wasn’t sure what to say, and he felt oddly self-conscious about saying something banal, so they drove in silence all the way back to town.