Secrets of Harmony Grove (33 page)

“That’s weird,” I said.

“I know.”

I thought about Grandpa Abe and my earlier fear that he had created those pockets of pesticide as protection for the diamonds. I shared my theory with Georgia now, but before I had even finished she was shaking her head back and forth.

“No, babe, you don’t have to worry about that. Grandpa didn’t have anything to do with this. These holes were dug recently. The Hazmat guys said probably within the last few days, but certainly since the last time it rained. They said it was fortunate we found them when we did, because rain would have dissolved the powder and caused some serious problems. Even as old as it is, that stuff is still real toxic, and it would have made one heck of a poison mud stew.”

Looking out toward the grove, I tried to picture what she was saying. Like a minefield, it was almost as if those pockets of powder had been put there as traps, waiting to catch someone when they least expected it. Rain would have eventually washed the powder away, but in the meantime would only have served to exacerbate the problem.

Georgia and I were interrupted when a call came through that she was needed at Burl Newton’s place right away. Wanting to see what was happening, I offered to show her the nearest path, a shortcut that would lead from where we were standing in my backyard through the thick brush to the Newtons’ chicken farm. We walked quickly, moving single file where the brush was thick, and emerged directly behind the Newtons’ house. From there, we turned left and cut across the scruffy backyard toward the cluster of officers who seemed to have gathered around one of the old henhouses.

Charlie was there, and when he spotted us walking toward him, he grinned, saying that it looked as though we had finally hit pay dirt.

Apparently, one of the technicians who had been gathering fecal samples to test for coccidiosis had stumbled across an old trunk hidden underneath some raised nesting boxes. Inside of the truck was an entire collection of cockfighting paraphernalia. Whether that equipment had played a part in Troy’s injury or not, even possessing that stuff was against the law. By the time we arrived, Burl Newton was already in handcuffs and being led toward a police car, though he wasn’t going quietly.

“If I’da known that stuff was hid inside there, why would I have given you permission to open up that trunk in the first place?” he was demanding. “I’m tellin’ you, that stuff belonged to my daddy, not me! I’ve never even seen it before!”

The man sounded desperate, and though the thought of cockfighting turned my stomach, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him at the moment. If he was telling the truth, then his situation now was similar to Emory’s, with both men in the position of having to pay the price for old things left behind by their fathers, illegal things that until now had gone unnoticed by the sons or the law.

Burl had always come across to me as a shifty and secretive man, one who tended to made me feel uncomfortable for no real reason. But after our conversation earlier today and learning about his kindnesses toward Emory both now and in the past, I was more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt in this situation. As I watched him being forced into the back of the police car and driven away, I offered up a little prayer on his behalf, asking that above all else God would help each person involved with this investigation find the truth behind every question, every confusing element, and every lie.

As Georgia stepped in to handle the paperwork involved with this new find, I watched and listened as a technician rattled off a quick description of some of the items inside: clippers and tools, syringes and medicine, scales, chains and leashes, knives, electrical tape, and more.

“Wait a minute, what do we have here?” the tech said, carefully pulling from the trunk with his gloved hand a curved, jagged blade about three inches long. It was shaped like a scythe, and I couldn’t help but think that it looked like a miniature version of the tool that the grim reaper was always pictured carrying in his hands.

One of the officials in the crowd explained that in cockfighting, blades like that were actually taped to the gamecocks’ ankles, pointing back and upwards, like spurs on a pair of cowboy boots.

“When roosters fight, they kick, and those blades do a lot of damage,” he said.

“Yeah, they don’t call it a blood sport for nothing,” another added, looking
around at each of us in turn. When his eyes met mine, he seemed startled, his head jerking slightly back, his eyes widening for an instant and then darting suspiciously away. Immediately, he whispered something to the man next to him, and then they both looked straight at me, their expressions a mixture of what looked like incredulity and anger.

I didn’t know what this was about, but given that they were both some sort of government officials, I had the sudden, sickening feeling that I had just come face-to-face with two of the people who had been investigating me.

Almost immediately after spotting me, the two men turned away and strode quickly toward a cluster of cars parked near the house. Wanting to know who they were and what was going on, I thought about going after them and demanding an explanation. But then I hesitated, thinking that the longer this investigation of theirs remained hush-hush and in the background, the longer I was still free to move around and remain privy to all that was going on. Thanks to my lawyer’s inquiries, the AG’s office knew that I knew they were investigating me, and yet nothing official had happened yet, no interrogation or notification or anything. For some reason they had thus far chosen to remain silent. Because of that, I realized confronting them now could very well make matters worse for me, not better.

Instead, I turned my attention to Rip and Charlie, who were conversing about the case nearby.

“I’m thinking the blade in the trunk there is gonna test positive for that cock-a-doodle-osis stuff,” Charlie said. “Even better if it has Burl’s fingerprints on it and the vic’s blood as well. ’Cause then it would be case closed, and we’d have Burl Newton not just for possession of cockfighting paraphernalia but also for the murder of Troy Griffin.”

“Wouldn’t be a sure thing, Charlie. Don’t forget, Griffin died of drowning possibly caused by the poison, not from the cut in his leg,” Rip said, giving me a wink and a smile when he realized I was there and listening in on
their conversation. “Whoever cut him and whoever poisoned him could be two different people.”

“Cut, poison, same difference, sort of,” Charlie replied. “At least some good physical evidence could link Burl to the scene of the crime. Then it would all be downhill from there.”

We all watched as one of the technicians backed up a van from the gravel driveway and toward us across the grass between the chicken coops.

I asked both men if Burl had an alibi for yesterday afternoon and evening.

“Well, yeah, sort of,” Charlie replied, explaining that Burl had walked to a neighbor’s house around 5:00 for a barbecue and had stayed until police showed up last night around 11:00, when they were notifying everyone along the street about a possible wild animal on the loose.

“Were those times verified by the neighbor?” I asked.

“From what I understand, there were about six or seven guys there, and they’d already gone through a couple cases of beer by the time our men arrived. Every one of those guys gave a time they had come, verified by the homeowner and each other, but I wouldn’t exactly count their information as a hundred percent reliable. Most of ’em were drunk as skunks.”

Recalling the timetable Mike had constructed, I knew the cut in Troy’s leg had happened at some point after he hung up on me at 5:30 and before he died, which was 6:10 at the earliest and 6:30 at the latest. If Burl was telling the truth, he couldn’t have been around to inflict the wound, though of course the timing regarding the poison left a lot more leeway than that.

“Almost there,” Georgia said loudly, directing the van as it inched closer to the heavy trunk.

I moved out of the way as I thought about Charlie’s comments. Had Burl killed Troy? The two men knew each other, having met during the renovation. But that had made them barely more than acquaintances, certainly not friends—or enemies, for that matter. If Burl had killed Troy, then why? I decided to ask Charlie if he had a theory for a motive to go along with his belief in Burl as the murderer.

“Look around you. Poverty’s a great motivator—especially if ol’ Troy was out there diamond hunting, like you said. I bet he dug up those diamonds,
and Burl saw the whole thing and just snapped. Wanted that ice for himself and killed to get it.”

“Will you guys be searching Burl’s house to look for diamonds?” I asked, wondering if his theory could possibly be correct.

“Not right away. Probably not till we get some evidence back from the lab that will justify a warrant.”

Could Burl have killed from greed? Certainly, he was poor, much poorer than I had realized if his home and property were any indication. Every building, including the house, was sagging and peeling and so ramshackle that it looked as if the next strong wind would take the whole place down. That was odd, considering that Burl was a handyman and had the skills to fix things up. The only explanation for this state of disrepair was that he couldn’t afford the materials he needed to get the job done.

Then again, maybe Burl was just lazy. Goodness knows, he was an incredibly slow worker, so maybe he just hadn’t gotten around yet to all of the repairs that needed doing. During the renovation of the B and B, Burl had come over to ask us for work several times, but we were already using a top-notch team of Amish carpenters and didn’t need him. Still he persisted, so just to be nice my father had finally hired him to do a single task, one that should have taken a day at most. Four days later, Burl finally finished. All my dad could say to me once Burl was paid and gone was thank goodness we had agreed on a rate that was by the job, not the hour. Now that I saw how very poor the man was, my mind was flipping back and forth between feeling bad for not using him more back then, even if he was slow, and being glad we hadn’t, just in case he was a murderer.

“Well, whatever you say, my money’s on the Amish farmer next door,” Rip told us, obviously forgetting that the Amish farmer next door was my cousin.

“Careful, Rip,” I said evenly. “That’s my family you’re talking about.”

He didn’t seem embarassed but instead held up both hands and said, “Sorry, but one of his emus has been having stomach problems, which according to the tech wouldn’t be unusual if it was infected with that particular parasite.”

“So you’d base a murder charge on a case of the runs?” Charlie teased.

“Not murder,” Rip countered, “more like an accident, at least regarding the cut, if not the poison. This morning some of the boys found an animal print in a muddy spot along the creek in the grove, one that could be a match for the bigger emu. If it is, that would mean the animal had been loose out there last night and could have attacked the victim.”

“And maybe breathe fire too,” Charlie added, eyes rolling as the three of us watched the trunk get loaded into the van.

“Could an emu inflict that kind of damage?” I asked Rip, feeling anxious for my cousins. Jonah and Liesl couldn’t be held responsible if Troy had unknowingly unlatched their emu cage and set one of the large birds free and then got hurt by it, could they?

Worse, officials didn’t actually suspect Jonah of some sort of foul play, did they?