The Bethany Green was the shape of an almond, a large grassy expanse that must once have been used for public grazing. Now, it held some benches and some trees Warren thought must be cherry or apple, lovingly pruned, and a large covered gazebo like the ones he’d seen in many a small New England town. Warren’s house, and Mrs. Bellows’s, sat at the northern end of the almond, on the west side. As you traveled south, you passed a few more houses, and then the imposing structure of the library, a white marble building with graceful white columns and large windows. On the other side was a string of lovely houses, one white, one yellow, one blue, another white, that reminded Warren of laundry hanging on a line. All had colorful and well-tended gardens out front. At the very center of the almond was the wide façade of Collers’ Store. Warren had been in once for staples and had found the experience overwhelming. Everywhere he’d looked there had been things for sale. A huge wheel of cheddar cheese sat under a glass dome on the counter. Glass canisters in the large display case held a dizzying array of candy: lemon drops, chocolate babies, licorice, gumballs. The shelves were laden with many different kinds of canned and dry goods and as you went deeper into the deceptively simple-looking building, you walked through sections containing clothing, footwear, ammunition, tools, and children’s toys and games.
Past Collers’ was the drugstore, the Universalist church, and then at the southern end of the green, the Bethany Inn. The inn occupied nearly an acre of land and its columns and large green sign gave it an air of permanency and elegance. Past the inn were more houses and offices, including Dr. Falconer’s office and an insurance agency, and finally, the huge, white-columned Congregational church, almost directly across the green from Warren’s house.
Surveying the center of his new hometown, Warren once again had the thought he’d had when he first drove into town: that he had stepped back in time.
The offices of the Bethany Register, he’d been told, were on the second floor of the drugstore, up a narrow flight of stairs reached from behind the long lunch counter. It took Warren some time to ascertain this and by the time he understood that the white-hatted middle-aged man frying burgers who was waving vaguely at a door behind him really did mean for Warren to come behind the counter and go through the door, he feared that he might no longer be welcome at the counter the next time he entered. The man’s face was suffused with frustration as he yelled, “Through there! Up the stairs!”
There were stenciled letters on the door at the top of the stairs, at the end of a short hallway. Warren knocked and when no one answered, he turned the doorknob and went in.
He had the immediate sense of having stepped into an alternate dimension. It didn’t make architectural sense that there would be this cavernous space on top of the small drugstore building, but here it was, filled with people and stacks of papers and two rows of huge slanted boards at which three men stood arranging slips of paper covered with typing. The young woman sitting at the desk closest to the door looked up at him and said, “Ads are back there.” She was perhaps twenty, with bright red hair that made him think of Pinky; she was wearing a clashing orange blouse and skirt and she had a pencil behind one ear.
“No, I … I don’t want to buy an ad. My name is Franklin Warren. I’m the new detective at the state police barracks and I’m looking into the fire up on Agony Hill. I’d like to see some old copies of the paper, if I can.”
That had her attention. She stood up and called out, “Fred!” and a guy about Warren’s age, fair, balding, and bespectacled, wearing a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled all the way up to his biceps, emerged from the din and walked over. Warren described what he wanted while the red-haired girl listened intently.
“Detective Warren,” the man said. “It’s nice to meet you. Welcome to Bethany. I heard you were living at the vicarage. Tragic case, isn’t it, the fire? First thing I thought of was whether he was aping that farmer. That the direction you’re thinking too?” The man’s blue eyes were too alert behind the spectacles, too probing. Warren told himself to watch his words around this newspaperman.
“Sorry,” he said. “What was your name?”
“Fred Fielder,” the man said. “I run the paper here.”
“Well, Mr. Fielder, I can’t tell you what we’re thinking and to be fair, we don’t know much at this point. That’s why I’d like to see his letters. From what I hear he was a particularly active correspondent?”
“You can say that again!” Fielder laughed. “Hugh Weber was an obsessive. I’m going to make your job easy for you. I had a file of the letters, because there were so many of them and because I fully expected that one day someone like you was going to come and knock on my door. Though to be honest, I thought it would be him burning someone else’s barn down. Follow me.”
He led the way to a tiny office and pointed to a wooden swivel chair set opposite a desk completely covered in piles of papers and magazines and books. “Sit there. I’ll be right back.” Warren did a quick scan of the framed newspapers on the walls. All seemed to be the front pages of the Register from historically significant dates. The one over Fred Fielder’s desk had a headline reading “Ground Broken on Vermont Portion of Interstate 91.”
“Here it is,” Fielder said, dropping a thick cardboard folder on the desk in front of Warren. “Have a look through. It won’t take you long to get a feel for it. I’ve got to get back to layout—we go to press tomorrow—but you’re welcome to have a read.”
Warren hesitated over the folder, trying to shake off the feeling he ought to put on a pair of cloth gloves to handle what could be evidence before remembering how many hands had touched these letters since they’d left Hugh Weber’s hands. It was what he’d written that mattered.
The earliest letter was from 1959, a short screed decrying “Progress at any cost” and went on to conclude that “those who say the coming of the interstate will bring new life to Vermont may be dismayed to find in the end that the ‘old life’ is worth preserving.”
They continued on like that for a few years as ground was broken and as Warren imagined that the construction was creeping ever closer to Bethany. Weber seemed to have written a letter every week—sometimes about the interstate, sometimes about other issues, including calling for the redistribution of all property taxes in town according to need. His argument was convoluted, though; Warren couldn’t figure out if he was a communist or was speaking against the communists. Maybe it was both.
Then, a year ago, he started writing more frequently, clearly in response to the farmer’s act of suicidal protest. “This brave man has spoken,” one letter read. “He has spoken for a way of life that is fading. He has spoken for his God-given right to his land and home. He has spoken for the men and women of this great state, who remember a time when it was not for the federal government to control our destinies, but for ourselves.”
And then, two months ago, the final letter in the file.
“Yesterday, as I made hay on my farm, I heard the sounds of the beastly machines chewing at the earth over the hills, destroying it, gouging it, killing it, all in the name of progress. I thought of that brave neighbor of ours, of his last thoughts that fateful night, of his hope that he could stop the rampaging machines. I understand his action, gentleman, and I revere it for it is but one strike against that monster called ‘Progress.’”
Warren read it again. There was something unhinged about the letter. It was nearly a suicide note. He closed the file with an air of finality. It seemed pretty clear what had happened here.
“That helping you at all?” Fielder asked from behind him, sticking his head in the door.
Warren stood up. “Very much so,” he said.
Fielder smiled. “Glad I could be of assistance. Now maybe you can help me. Is there anything on that Armstrong fellow, the one from Washington, DC, who bought a cottage out on Downers Road and got shot during a burglary?”
His tone had shifted so quickly that Warren wasn’t prepared. “I’m sorry … I don’t…”
Fielder watched him carefully. “Thought Tommy Johnson might have put you onto it. Seems like a case that could use a dose of real professionalism.”
Warren recovered himself. He was going to have to watch out for this newspaperman. “We have no comment at this time, Mr. Fielder.” He picked up the file folder. “Okay if I take these with me? I’ll need to get copies made and we’ll have them back to you as soon as possible.”
Fielder nodded. “Sure thing. He’s not going to complain anyway. The fire’s put an end to that, at least.” Warren was momentarily shocked, but Fielder didn’t seem inclined to apologize.
The lawyer’s office was around the other side of the green, almost back to Warren’s house, and he had to pass the doctor’s office to get there. He decided to eschew efficiency, though, and do the lawyer first. Mrs. Bellows’s comments about the Weber family possibly having money had been interesting to Warren. He wanted to know more.
David Williamson practiced law out of a neatly kept beige Victorian with a sign out front reading DAVID WILLIAMSON, ESQ. Warren pushed open the door on the porch and went into a small lobby with a few chairs placed around a coffee table. When he introduced himself to the receptionist, a woman of forty or fifty with precisely curled black hair, she told him that Mr. Williamson was with a client, but that he could sit down and wait. He settled into one of the hard chairs and leafed through the copies of Vermont Life magazine stacked on the table. He was halfway through an article about maple sugaring when the door opened and a man in a three-piece suit came aggressively through the door and let it slam behind him. “I want to see David Williamson,” he announced to the secretary.
He was not from Bethany. Warren knew that as soon as he opened his mouth.
He was not from Boston. Warren knew that too.
He was from New York. Warren perked up in his chair.
“He’s busy, sir. I’m sorry,” the receptionist said.
“I don’t care if he’s busy! I want to talk to him!”
“Sir, may I ask your name and—”
“Victor Weber.” He pronounced it in the American style. “My brother burned himself alive day before yesterday and I want to know what his will says. I have that right as his executor and as a beneficiary. Where’s Mr. Williamson?” Warren watched his face for a few moments before he stood up and put a hand out. The man was furious, right on the edge of violence, but even more than that, he was terrified, Warren thought, his face pale, his eyes lined and anxious.
“Mr. Weber,” Warren said. “If you could calm down, please.”
“Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?”
“You’ve just announced it to everyone within a two-mile radius,” Warren said with a small smile, trying the defuse the situation.
“I won’t calm down. I want Mr. Williamson to give me my brother’s will!”
“I’m a police officer. I’d like you to calm down.” Warren took a step toward him and Victor Weber dropped his shoulders and retreated.
“I just need to talk to Mr. Williamson,” he said in a smaller voice.
The secretary must have had some secret way of alerting Mr. Williamson because a few seconds later a man came out into the lobby, looking flustered. “What’s this all about?” he asked. He was trim, middle-aged, with a precise moustache and a snowy-white dress shirt and green tie. Warren recognized him as the chief of the volunteer fire department who had been spraying down the barn when Warren and Tommy had arrived at the scene of the fire.
“My brother was Hugh Weber and I want to know about the will,” Victor Weber said, glancing at Warren and staying where he was. “Last I knew I am the executor, so it’s my right.”
The moustache twitched and David Williamson hesitated before saying, “Now, Mr. Weber, there is a process to be followed and I need to speak with your brother’s widow. We’ll have to—”
“Are you denying that I am the named executor?” He was agitated again, throwing his hands into the air and striding toward Williamson, whose eyes widened. “I demand you produce the will right now, Mr. Williamson!” His face was very red and he seemed not to be in control of himself.
Warren knew the signs of someone in great psychological distress. Whether it was grief or something else that was causing it, he couldn’t say. But people were dangerous when they were overcome like this. He let the man see the weapon in his belt holster and said again, “Mr. Weber. I’m an armed law officer and I will bring you in if you don’t calm down and act like an adult. I’m very sorry for your loss, but you can’t come in here and cause a disturbance.”
Weber’s eyes flashed and he forced himself to step back.
“When will you be reading my brother’s will?” he asked in a tight and constrained voice that barely disguised his raw fury. “I will be staying at the inn until this is sorted out.”
Williamson, understanding that there was no immediate danger now, seemed to relax and said, “I don’t think we’ll have a public reading, Mr. Weber. That’s only for detective novels. But as the executor, you will have access, of course, and will be responsible for handling your brother’s affairs. I would be happy to go over the probate process with you and to be helpful in any way I can.”
“When?” Weber threw the words out. “I have business to get back to in the city. I can’t lose any more time than I already have.”
“I will contact you once I’ve examined the will and consulted with Mrs. Weber but I would imagine we could do it tomorrow,” Williamson said.
“Yes, you can leave a message for me at the inn.” He started to say something else then, but apparently thought better of it and nodded to Warren before stalking out of the lobby.
There was a long silence and then the secretary said, “Well,” in a deadpan tone before going back to her work.
“I’d like to thank you, uh, Officer…” Williamson’s shoulders slumped and he removed a neatly folded handkerchief from his pocket and ran it over his forehead, which was now glistening with perspiration.
“Franklin Warren,” Warren said, putting out a hand for him to shake. “I’m the new detective out of the state police barracks. I saw you up at the fire yesterday. You must be Mr. Williamson.”
“Yes, I’m awful glad you were here to talk him down. I’d heard he and his brother were alike in temperament. I had no idea quite how much. You here to see me?”
“I am, if you have a minute to talk.”
“Sure, come on in.”
Williamson’s office was neat and unremarkable, though Warren found little touches here and there that told him he wasn’t in Boston. One wall was decorated with a stuffed deer head. A bright orange wool jacket hung on a coatrack in one corner, and in front of the small woodstove on one wall, a pair of high leather gum boots sat, as if waiting for their time to come.
“Chief Longwell told me the state police had a new detective coming to work out of the barracks. Tommy Johnson threw you right into it, didn’t he?”
Warren smiled. “I suppose. I gather this sort of thing isn’t a regular occurrence?”
Williamson snorted. “No, thankfully. I assume you want to know about his will?”
“Well, yes. I also wanted to get a sense of Hugh Weber from you. Had you been his lawyer long?”
Williamson considered that. “Ever since he bought the Hickson place fifteen years ago. He needed someone to do the transfer of the deed. He didn’t like me much—he didn’t like anyone much—but he came back a few times for some different … legal matters.”
“Like his will?” Warren said it quickly but the lawyer was too sharp.
“That’s right. I imagine I’ll have to tell you all about that at some point, but I need to speak to someone in New York first and out of respect to Mrs. Weber, I’d like to tell her about it before I tell you. And of course, Mr. Weber—the other Mr. Weber—has access as the executor.”
Warren hesitated, then said, “Yes, but Mr. Williamson, I wonder if I could ask you a favor. I’d like to see both Mrs. Weber’s and Mr. Weber’s reactions to whatever is in the will. For the investigation, you understand. Would you consent to telling them about it while I’m present tomorrow?” He winked. “Just like in the detective stories?”
Williamson looked up, a little gleam of mischief in his eyes. “Aha, I see. I suppose that would be okay, if it’s okay with her, that is. It might be good to have you on hand to manage Mr. Weber and I could use the investigation as the excuse for why you’re here.”
Warren inclined his head in thanks. “Exactly. So, what was he like? Hugh Weber?”
“You just got a good taste of him. Imagine that man out there, only with longer hair and dressed in dungarees and boots so old they have holes in them. Back-to-the-land type, always going on about the evils of capitalism and the modern world. He moved up here from New York to ‘live simply,’ he told me when he bought the place. He paid cash for it and said he wanted to feed his family with the fruits of his labor. From the look of that crew, he wasn’t feeding ’em much.”
“Do they make any money from the farm?”
“Not much,” Williamson said. “They sold lambs, I gather, and bits and pieces here and there. Vegetables in the summer. Milk to the neighbors. They sugared and sold syrup at Collers’ Store. I think she may have sold cakes and some yarn and things sometimes, but they weren’t making much. You know, I’m glad we were able to save some of that barn for her. It’s down to that boy, I’d say. He must have driven like a bat out of hell to get to a phone.”
“If Mr. Weber’s brother’s temperament is any indication, it seems like he must have had a lot of enemies in town.” Warren kept his voice neutral. “Lots of people in town who might have had reason to do him harm?”
Williamson shrugged. “Enemies is a strong word, Mr. Warren. He wasn’t much liked, but that’s different from someone having a reason to kill him. I thought he set himself on fire?”
“He probably did,” Warren said. “But I need to do my due diligence. You know how it is. I know you can’t tell me the details of the will yet, but is there anything about it that is out of the ordinary?”
Williamson’s eyes widened. “You mean, did it give anyone incentive to kill him?”
Warren tried to convey that this was just between them. “I suppose that is what I mean.”
Williamson thought about that for a moment. “I’d rather wait until tomorrow,” he said finally. “There are a few things I need to understand first about the legal situation. But I would be very surprised if this was anything other than Hugh Weber making a gesture while three sheets to the wind.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’m sure you’ve heard this from others, but he liked to drink.”
“I’ve gotten that sense,” Warren said. “Did he fight or cause problems when he was drinking? Maybe he made someone mad.”
“He wasn’t a violent man,” Williamson said. “It was more that he was annoying, if you see what I mean. Always spouting off about politics or how everyone but him was ignorant or backward. That sort of thing.”
“So he fought with words rather than fists?” Warren asked, thinking of the file of letters.
“That’s it exactly. He wasn’t a regular at the tavern over there at the inn, but about once a month he’d go in and get good and sloshed.”
Warren wrote that down. He’d need more information about these monthly benders.
He thanked Williamson and said he’d see him the next day. He was almost out the door when he thought of one more question.
“Mr. Williamson, what do you know about the marriage? Do you think he was ever violent there?”
Williamson considered that. “I wouldn’t say so, but, well, who really knows? They lived up there and they came down sometimes, but I don’t think there’s a person in Bethany who really knew what went on up there on Agony Hill.”