5 Murder by Syllabub (15 page)

Cora Lee burst into laughter. “Someone I know just got her mojo back.”

“Cora Lee, hush up.” Mildred reached over and took one of Elizabeth’s hands. “That glass doesn’t have a fingerprint on it, and there’s no poison in the syllabub, either. I’m positive of it. Whoever’s doing all this isn’t that dumb. It’s the key. McMann’s going to pin everything on the key. You’d better tell that to Aaron.”

“What key?” Cora Lee stared at Mildred’s serious face with the same trepidation I felt.

“The one they couldn’t find.”

“Oh, Lord.” Aunt Mary realized what Mildred meant almost before the words were out of her mouth. “The key Monty didn’t have.”

Mildred nodded. “McMann’s decided there are only two ways Monty could have gotten in that house. One is someone opened the door and invited him in. The other is Monty had a key and let himself in. Noah says there were keys in his pocket, but none that fit these houses.”

“So, according to the lieutenant, that leaves only one option. Elizabeth let him in and fed him poison. Logic was never Leo’s strong point.”

“Unfortunately, this time he’s got logic on his side.” I wished I could swallow every word, but it was a fact they had to face. “Monty had to get in somehow and, without a key, Leo could logically surmise someone let him in. Maybe that was true. The murderer let him in, and that has to be someone with a key. Someone who lives here.”

“There’s nothing to prove she did.” Cora Lee’s small mouth was set in a straight line, her eyes narrowed.

“There’s nothing to prove she didn’t, either.” Mildred’s voice was filled with worry and something else. Bitterness. “McMann’s going to do everything in his power to make sure she at least goes to trial, just as he’s going to do everything he can to make sure Noah never gets on the homicide squad.”

All eyes turned toward Elizabeth, whose face was white and pinched. Her hands shook a little as she pushed back her chair and headed for the phone. “Then Aaron had better think of a way to stop him from doing either of those things.”

I
picked my way down the gravel road, muttering a little under my breath. The dogs left the house with me but bounded on ahead, evidently undeterred by the gravel.

I paused for a moment and looked out over the pasture, down toward the river, admiring the view. The lasagna wouldn’t be ready for about an hour and there was nothing for me to do in the house. Aunt Mary and Mildred were talking about recipes, Elizabeth was listening but with only half an ear and Cora Lee
… I wasn’t sure what she was doing, other than sitting, staring and drinking wine. It seemed a perfect time to call Dan. Only, he wasn’t there. Lena, our new weekend dispatcher, told me old man Hartzog had gone missing and everyone was out looking for him. Old man Hartzog went missing on a regular basis. They usually found him walking down the dry riverbed. So, if I couldn’t talk to Dan, I thought I’d look at the barn. Maybe talk to Noah about horses or chickens. Or possibly ghosts. I stopped abruptly. Were those sheep?

“Hi. What are you doing down here?” Noah walked up to the fence, a full pail in each hand. Several white wooly animals waited, not very patiently, in front of a metal trough. They greeted Noah’s approach with loud baaahs.

“Are those sheep?” I walked over closer.

“Leicester Longwools.”

“What?”

Noah laughed. He poured the contents of the pails into the feeder and set them on the ground. The sheep buried their faces in the grain. The noisy baaahs were replaced by the sounds of munching.

“Leicester Longwools. They were bred in England in the eighteenth century for their long fine wool. Some ended up over here. George Washington evidently had some. At least he mentioned them in his farm correspondence. They would have died out if Colonial Williamsburg hadn’t worked to keep the breed going.”

“What are they doing here?”

“The historic area has a space problem, so some of us with acreage help out.”

He reached over the fence and scratched the ears of one of the ewes. She picked her head up, grain dripping from her mouth, let him scratch her ear for a moment and then dropped her head back into the feeder.

“That one’s Beulah. She’s going to lamb in another couple of weeks. Last year she wouldn’t let the lamb get near her. We had to put her up against the wall and force her to let it nurse. One nursing and she was fine. I hope she doesn’t do that again.”

“Do
es that happen often?”

“Sometimes, especially first timers. I’ll bet you came to see the horses. They’re in the other pasture.”

Noah walked back toward the barn. I followed. The barn was old. The boards were weathered, the paint a dusty light gray. Tall doors stood open, sagging on their iron hinges, showing an aisle wide enough for fenced off pens on each side. There was a small room halfway down the barn aisle, a concrete pad directly across from it. A rolled up black hose was attached to a water spigot beside the pad. Noah might be interested in restoring old breeds but he evidently had no interest in dealing with old barns that didn’t feature running water or electricity.

The dirt barn aisle was newly raked, the small pens bedded with fresh straw. No cobwebs hung from the ceiling and no layers of dust clung to the windows. I’d been in houses that weren’t as clean. Hay bales were stacked along one end opposite the pens. A large gray cat lay stretched out along one bale, about halfway up the stack. It surveyed all that went on, much like a lion overseeing his domain. Petal sat on the ground looking up at him.

“Isn’t that cat afraid the dogs will attack?”

Noah laughed. “Not a chance. Lucifer’s taught Petal that barn cats don’t run. They whack.” He paused before a large burlap sack. “Hold on just one minute.” He measured grain into the pails he’d used to feed the sheep.

“What’s this?” I dipped my hand into the sack. I recognized oats. I sniffed the mixture. “Molasses and oranges?”

“Three of our mares are pregnant and they need the vitamins and minerals in this mix.” Noah headed toward the open doors at the far end of the barn. Two red calves in a pen complained loudly as we passed. “I’ll be back. Just keep your shirts on.”

I was so busy looking at the calves I almost tripped over a very red chicken. “Oh.” The chicken said something that didn’t sound like a compliment. “Where did that come from?”

“They roam, eat grubs and worms, pick through the manure, eat up the grain we spill and lay eggs in the hay. Mom’s made nests along the back of the barn and they use them. Helps keep us from getting a rotten egg.”

He smiled. Had he made a joke?

“Are they always that grumpy?”

“Chickens are born grumpy.” Noah nodded toward the hen pecking around the feed sack. “She’s a Red Dorking. The colonials considered them general purpose foul. They laid your breakfast egg in the morning and graced your dinner table that night.”

I stopped and looked at the chicken with different eyes. “That’s awful. The poor things.”

“It beats the life of a commercial chicken. These roam free, have baby chicks, peck around comfortably for their food and have nice warm hay to nest in at night. When it’s their time to go, well, death is quick and painless. Commercial chickens don’t get any of that.”

He picked up his pails and left the barn, me on his heels. Max gave up trying to play with the calves and
came with us. Petal left the cat to join the parade. I glanced back at the Red Dorking. She looked plump and healthy. It made me think of the last whole chicken I’d bought, heavy in the breast but puny in the legs and thighs, its skin an unattractive yellow. Did chickens get jaundice?

Three white heads hung over the pasture fence.

“Hi, guys. Glad to see me?” Noah emptied his pails into three separate red plastic feeders. The horses immediately buried their faces. He laughed, put his buckets on the ground and leaned on the fence to watch them. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

They were. Creamy white coats, large heads with beautiful brown eyes, muscled shoulders, straight legs and big hoo
fs.

“Their feet look like dinner plates.”

Noah nodded. “Try picking one. If they don’t like what you’re doing, they lean on you.”

In my world, picking meant taking fruit off a tree or roses off a bush. “What?”

Noah smiled a little, reached into his back pocket and produced an L-shaped tool. It looked a little like a screwdriver with its top bent over.

“What’s that?”

“A hoof pick. Hoofs have grooves on each side of a V-shaped pad called a frog. They get stuff packed in those grooves—mud, rocks—and can go lame. We use this to clean it out.”

I looked from the hoof pick to the closest horse. Any picking I did would be apricots.

“I suppose the colonists used these horses for a lot of different things?”

“Yep. Horses pulled a plow or buggy, or took a young lady side saddle to visit friends. The breed is American Cream but they called them ‘iron horses.’
 ”

“If they were so versatile, why did they almost die out?” One of the horses lifted her head and blew. I glared at it and wiped off the front of my top. She looked back impassively and returned her head to the feeder.

“Time, mostly. Cars, tractors, trains came. Horses like these weren’t needed and almost disappeared. These guys are part of the Foundation’s breeding program, but the historic area doesn’t have enough room.”

“Like the chickens and the sheep?”

Noah nodded. “Horses need pastures, so I take some of the mares and the foals. They have their babies in the barn and stay here until the foals are weaned. Felicity, she’s my fiancée, loves this program and helps me. When we get married, it’ll be easier.”

Until their first child appeared.
As interesting as all this was, it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.

“See that house down the road there?”
Noah said.

I could just make it out. A two-story house, painted white, with blue shutters on the only window I could see.

“That’s ours. Longos built it soon after the civil war. It’s changed some since then.” He stared down the hill, seemingly lost in thought.

Content to watch the horses, I waited.

Finally he took a deep breath. “We’ve been on this land as long as the Smithwoods, and we’re as tied to it as when we were slaves.” His hand went out to stroke the nose of one of the horses. Uninterested in the conversation, she dropped her head back into the feeder.

I was interested and confused. The bitterness in Noah’s voice was deep. “I don’t understand.”

“No. Of course not.” Another one of the horses lifted its head and blew. Oats and foam splattered on Noah’s shirt. He brushed at it then rubbed the horse’s forehead. “This is Molly. She seems to think stuff like that’s funny.” He dropped his hand and turned toward me. “Do you want to see some of the rest of the place?”

“Oh, yes.” There was plenty of time. The lasagna wouldn’t be ready for another forty minutes or so
; then it had to sit before we could cut it, and Dan wouldn’t be available for who knew how long. “What’s that place over there, with the cone-shaped roof?”

“That’s the dovecote. Lots of the colonists raised them. That white building is the dairy. See the slats up there by the roof? It helps keep it cool, and if you look close you can see where a stream ran under it. They put a crock of butter or a jar of milk in the stream to keep it fresh longer. Stream’s dried up now.”

I walked beside Noah, listening, looking at all the different buildings and marveling at their uses. The smokehouse still had the heavy rafters with large hooks for hanging meat; the blacksmith shop still had a forge and anvil. Was Elizabeth going to use all this again?

I stopped in front of a large iron roller machine. “What’s this?”

“A sorghum crusher.”

“
What is sorghum?”

“It’s a plant with long stems, like sugar cane. They crush it between those rollers then cook it down. It comes out like molasses. The slaves got a certain ration of it. They
’d use it in cooking and pour it over corn meal mush. It was a staple.” Noah stopped and stared at the roller for a moment. “Would you like to see one of the slave cabins? They’re just over there, across the road.”

“
Yes.” They’d looked cute last night, but I bet they didn’t look cute if you had to live in one. Noah turned toward the road and I started to follow.

“Watch where you step.”

“Oh.” I almost stepped in newly turned over earth. A large patch of black clods, just perfect for tripping a person, started right by the road and stretched back toward the barn.

“I didn’t see that.”

“The light’s fading, that’s why. Calvin started it today, but it’s not near ready for planting.”

“Calvin.” I stared at the plowed-up piece of earth. The borders were as exact as if laid out with a ruler. The furrows were sprinkled with what seemed to be a mixture of straw and manure, waiting to be spaded in. “Ah, have you known him long?”

Noah gave a mirthless little laugh and took my elbow. “Are you asking me why we hired someone fresh out of jail?”

Heat warmed my cheeks. Had I really sounded that suspicious? I hadn’t meant to, but Calvin was another loose end. There had to be a reason William wanted to hire him. I nodded. “I guess I am.”

Noah stopped. He dropped my arm as we stepped onto the more level road and ran his arm across his brow. A faint aroma of horse floated toward me.

“Calvin did all of our gardening here for years. He had a great business, did lots of the old plantations and the large estate houses around here. He’s a graduate horticulturist, holds a master’s degree in history and consults with the Colonial Williamsburg people on eighteenth
-century gardens. At least, he did. William and Elizabeth were talking to him about her project before they moved here. He’d already made some drawings of how the grounds should look and what would have grown in the kitchen garden before he went to jail.”

“What happened to him?”

“He’d been drinking more and more, and one day he made two mistakes. First, he decided he was fine to drive home. He rammed into a car, the mayor’s wife’s car. The second mistake was, he hired Monty as his attorney. Might not have gone to jail if he’d gotten someone else.”

The mayor’s wife’s car. I was grinning. It wasn’t funny. The mayor most certainly
hadn’t been amused. “Why was hiring Monty a mistake?”

“Calvin, Monty, Payton Culpepper, they’re all about the same age. They all knew each other, went to high school together. Calvin thought Monty would look out for him. Turned out, Monty was more interested in getting in good with the mayor and didn’t put up much of a defense. Calvin got a year in jail and lost his business. Monty got to have lunch with the mayor. William and Elizabeth vowed they’d hire Calvin back when he got out. That’s one vow Elizabeth’s kept.”

There was more bitterness in that last statement than I wanted to hear. Monty Eslick seemed to have left unhappiness in his wake wherever he went. Noah turned up the road we’d used last night, with me close behind and Max right on our heels. I looked back to see if Petal had joined us, but she was nowhere to be seen. Should I call her? No. She knew her way around here better than I did. We left the road and entered a pathway that led to the row of small houses. The brick was the same as that of the big houses, but there the resemblance ended. The mortar that held the bricks in place oozed out between them, not smooth and almost invisible as in the other houses. There was no glass in these windows; the wooden shutters hanging on iron hinges were the only barriers against the weather. The wind must have whipped vigorously through them in the winter. The stoop was just wide enough for one chair and high enough for a dog to lie under, or a chicken or maybe a small child. The door was solid and the hinges large and crudely hammered. The only lock was a bar that could be dropped into slots on the outside.