Maple Mayhem (A Sugar Grove Mystery) (11 page)

It was just past noon by the time I got home from Mindy’s. Even though the only body parts Graham had tended to were my lips, I felt a little like I needed to sneak back into the house. After all, I didn’t want to report anything to Celadon. Grandma was in the hall when I opened the door. She took one look at me and shook her head.

“Mindy called and told me about the confrontation with Frank but you look even more worn out than she sounded. You didn’t stay up too late getting into mischief, did you?” Grandma pulled a crumpled tissue from her pocket, spit daintily in its center and reached out to rub my face with it. “Why don’t you take a hot shower and put on some lip balm while your sister and I finish Sunday dinner. We’ve baked a ham.”

“With maple-apricot glaze?” My own spit started to spurt at the thought of it.

“But of course. Don’t be long,” Grandma said. I sprinted up the stairs to the second floor in search of a shower. With their pitch they would never meet code today but the stairs do help to keep my backside in shape. I feel grateful to the original builder every time swimsuit season rolls around. I may not have a lot on top but I don’t have what you wouldn’t want on the bottom either.

My bedroom stood at the end of the long hall. It was the least desirable when we were teenagers because it was the farthest from the bathroom. And it had the most places where the floorboards gave a warning creak when you tried to sneak in late. Back then I tried desperately to trade with one of my siblings but they refused.

Our bathrooms are old. Not harvest gold sinks old or even pink and turquoise tile old. They are indoor-plumbing-is-the-newest-thing old. The second-floor bathroom was actually scouted for a historical-movie set. The toilet flushes with a chain dangling from a box mounted to the wall. The tub is big enough to bathe three children at the same time. Can you guess how I know? Wasting water is a sin. Not enough of a sin to install a low-flow toilet, but enough of one to see no reason not to share the bathwater with someone if you shared the same mud puddle earlier in the day.

The shower is a handheld affair and makes for a bit of a juggle in the winter if you want to keep any hot water aimed at your shivering body while you shave your legs. I usually just give up smooth legs for winter. Not only was it not worth the showering difficulties, it helped keep me warmer when I wasn’t in the shower, too. A real win-win in my book. It was one of the few real upsides to being single in New Hampshire in the winter. No one could be relied on to start my car on a bitter morning or to scrape it after a storm but I didn’t have to take anyone else’s ideas of beauty into account when I made my personal grooming decisions either.

I wrenched on the taps and heard the creaking, groaning, shuddering that contributes to Mom’s belief that the house is haunted. She keeps threatening to invite a team of crack paranormal investigators to come check the place out. I tested the water for temperature and shed my camping attire. I finished scrubbing off whatever had gotten on, then toweled dry and headed to my room for a change of clothes.

As in all the rooms in this end of the house, the ceilings were high and the light streamed through wavy, bubbled-glass windows. My room looked off toward the west and the vegetable garden, now tucked up for winter under a thick layer of shredded maple leaves. This part of the house dated to the 1870s. For around two hundred years, generations of family members put their own unique stamp on the house by adding wings and turrets and conservatories.

By the time my grandparents acquired responsibility for the place, they were all out of ideas for additions and turned to the landscaping and community projects. Which is why so many endowments have sprung up around town. We are always building something, even if it is only a castle in the air or a scholarship fund.

I grabbed my favorite old jeans and paired them with a pullover my grandmother had knit for me when I was twelve. It was a gray fisherman’s sweater with chunky cables and ropey twists separated by swaths of seed stitch. The cuffs were starting to fray but I loved it and was only planning to hang around at home anyway. I fished around in the top drawer for some hand-knit socks to complete the cozy stay-home vibe I was feeling.

Halfway down the hall the smell of the ham tickled its way into my nostrils and hurried my feet. I reached the dining room and started pulling plates from the buffet. Glasses, silverware, and linen napkins were the order of the day. Pizza boxes and thick china were for the kitchen table, and that was nice in its place. But Grandma only allowed one thing on her dining table besides bone china and sparkling crystal and that was a sewing machine if the table in the craft room was too small for the project.

I had just placed the hot plates on the table when Grampa came in carrying the ham, glistening and brown, the crackling outer bits still sizzling from the heat of the oven. Celadon followed with a tea towel filled basket, slices of brownish bread peaking up through a gap in the fabric. My favorite, Grandmadama Bread. This is our family’s version of the New England favorite anadama bread, which is usually made with molasses. We, of course, use maple syrup in its place. Hot from the oven and slathered with rapidly melting butter, there was not much on earth I would rather put in my mouth.

Hunter followed his mother with a platter of glazed parsnips and Spring brought up the rear with the butter dish. I hustled to the kitchen, sure there would be at least two or three more things that needed fetching. Scalloped potatoes wearing a cheesy browned crust on top released their fragrance on the counter. Grandma tucked a serving spoon into the dish and nodded for me to grab them. Within two minutes all available Greenes had been rounded up and Grampa was hard into saying grace.

By the time every far-flung loved one had been brought to mind and every blessing appreciated, the temperature of the cheese on the scalloped potatoes had dropped from boiling magma to something more akin to spring rain. The community should be grateful Grampa never felt the calling to enter the ministry. Once he got rolling the only thing that stopped him was my grandmother’s gentle throat clearing, pitched slightly louder than a ticklish sound you might make at the beginning of allergy season. He’d once kept praying straight through the smoke detector because Grandma was away visiting a sick friend that day. The family joke went that Grampa would pray right through his own funeral.

We had gotten past the grateful words and onto the appreciative actions, full plates all around, when the phone rang. We don’t answer the phone when we are at the table, so no one got up. Grampa doesn’t believe in answering machines. He says anyone who wants to speak to us badly enough will simply try again. Anyone who knows us does just that. My siblings and I have gotten around the issue by having cell phones with voice mail accounts. The phone rang again five minutes later and the caller let it ring thirty times. I counted, so I know.

When the phone sounded again in another five minutes a twitch developed in Grampa’s eye. His hands shook as he reached for the saltshaker. He knows the saltshaker is only there for guests since everything my grandmother cooks is seasoned just the way he likes it. That’s how you could tell he was rattled, reaching for the saltshaker like that.

When it went off a fourth time he jumped up like his knees had never felt the cold of over seventy winters and grumbled his way out of the room. I could hear him stomping in the hall like the caller might get the hint. His telephone manners were not at their best when he lifted the receiver.

“Dani,” he hollered, “it’s for you.” I looked at my plate and at my brother, niece, and nephew tucking into the ham with such intensity there might not be enough for a second helping by the time I got back if the call took longer than a speed-dating session. I stabbed an extra piece and plopped it on my plate, hoping that no one would dare to snatch it within view of Grandma.

I expected Grampa to glare at me when I reached the telephone table in the hall but instead he covered the mouthpiece with his gnarled paw and bent low to my ear.

“It’s Tansey. She’s all het up about some goin’s-on up at her place.” He stretched the receiver toward me. “She said there was a problem and asked for you.” I was baffled. When it came to people in town calling up with emergencies that required a Greene to straighten them out, I was never the one they called. Not even when they needed a babysitter. Why on earth would Tansey want me?

“Is that you, Dani?” Tansey sounded strained and a bit out of breath. I thought fleetingly of her heart.

“Yes. How can I help you?” I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted the answer to that.

“Somebody’s been messing around in my sugarhouse. They’ve left a threatening note. I think you ought to get on over here.”

“Is this about the cooperative?”

“I’d rather you see it for yourself. And hurry up, why don’t you.” She disconnected before I could protest again or even say good-bye. I hurried back to the dining room and faced the curious.

“I’ve got to go. Tansey needs me to look at something at her sugarhouse.”

“Is it something to do with the cooperative?” my sister asked, pausing her fork halfway to her mouth, a succulent bit of ham pronged deliciously in midair.

“I’m afraid so. She’s asking for me to come right away. Please excuse me from the rest of dinner.” I grabbed a piece of the bread to hold me until I could get back.

“I’ll wrap up your plate and stick it in the oven so you can heat it up later.” Grandma pushed back her chair, slid another piece of ham onto my plate, and followed me out of the room with it.

“You’re the best, Grandma.” I pecked her on the cheek.

“I know, dear. But it’s nice to hear it anyway.”

*   *   *

I slid into the driver’s seat of the Clunker and eased down the driveway. The sun was growing dimmer by the minute. Gray clouds scudded in from the west and made the sky look like the batting from an old quilt, dirty white, lumpy, and gaping. I turned left at the end of the drive and made my way as quickly as I thought the old car could go toward the Pringle farm. I was worried about what Tansey had to show me. She had a lot of peculiar qualities but being a worrywart wasn’t one of them.

Tansey sat in a busted web lawn chair in front of her open barn door. A bank of clouds blotted out the sun and made me wish I’d worn a coat. In my rush I just headed out in the sweater I’d been wearing. Tansey rose as I slammed the Clunker’s door and waved her hand to motion me to follow her into the barn. Not even a greeting. For Tansey not to take the opportunity to yak my ear off meant something was definitely up.

On a cloudy, low-light day, the gloom in the barn took some getting used to. At first I could only hear Tansey shuffling around and creaking across the wide, rough barn floorboards. Once I could see, I wished I couldn’t.

“What do you make of that?” Tansey stuck out her sturdy arm, pointing a work-roughened finger at the far wall. Hanging from a rafter, by a noose, was a ratty old straw man that looked like a recycled Halloween decoration. One of Tansey’s floppy gardening hats with the words
Pringle’s All Natural Farm
embroidered onto the crown perched on the dummy’s head. Someone had pinned a note to the dummy by stabbing an awl through a piece of paper and into its plaid flannel shirt. I took a step closer.

“If you don’t want this to be you instead, you’ll stay away from the Greene’s and the cooperative.” I read on the white lined notebook paper. It was written using black wide-tipped marker in all capital letters. The writing was messy, like someone had used their nondominant hand to print it. I felt sick. And a powerful feeling like a bad case of heartburn started bubbling up in my chest. Why was someone so opposed to the cooperative? The idea of anyone creeping into Tansey’s barn and trying to scare her made me feel dizzy with rage.

“I am so sorry, Tansey. I’m sure this scared you.”

“Scared me? No. Made me angrier than a bull with a snout full of cayenne pepper is more like it. I’m so mad I could peel paint with a look.” I gave her the once-over and that did seem to be the case. The tension exuding from her was raw and fiery, not withdrawn. She looked ready to spring into action, not cower in a corner.

“When did you find this?” I asked.

“Just before I called you. I came out here after I was done with my chores in the other barn. I wanted to look at the supplies I might want to order with the cooperative when I saw this thing hanging from that beam. I turned toe and got on the horn to you.”

“Did you come in here last night?”

“Nope. I had no reason to. All the critters are in the main barn, not it here. At this time of year it isn’t a place I go more than once a day at most. In the sugaring season, sure, I’d be here all the time, but not now.”

“So when were you here last?” I wanted to narrow down the time frame when someone could have gotten in without Tansey noticing.

“Before I went to the meat bingo. So early Friday evening it must have been. Maybe around four thirty or five o’clock. I was checking to see if I had left the cordless phone out here ’cause I wanted to call my sister.”