The Final Tap (15 page)

“Who told you that?” I managed to say.

“I did,” Laura said, and there was laughter in her voice.

I jumped away from Chase like a bullet out of a reenactor's rifle.

twenty-six

“Laura!” I yelped. “What
are you doing?”

“I told you I'd stop by after school. I would have been here sooner, but I had a senior having a meltdown over her midterm grade in the middle of my classroom. Worse yet, her mother called to chew me out too.” She smiled at Chase. “Nice to see you, Chase.”

“I didn't hear you coming,” I accused her.

“I could tell.” She was grinning from ear to ear. Chase had the same grin on his face. I hated them both for it.

“This isn't what it looks like,” I said.

She shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“I'll let you two chat. I'll see you tomorrow, Kelsey.” Chase winked and walked toward the gate, leaving me alone with Laura, who still had a silly smile on her face.

I folded my arms. “I don't want to hear it.”

“Hear what? I wasn't going to saying anything.” She glanced around. “Where's Hayden?”

“Eddie took him,” I said.

“I thought he didn't go to Eddie's until Saturday.”

“That was the plan.” I sighed. “But Eddie's right—it probably is best for Hayden to be with them tonight. Because of the murder.”

Laura snorted. “They used that as an excuse. You shouldn't have let him take him.”

“It's just one extra night,” I said, as much for my own benefit as for Laura's.

Laura ground her right boot into the slush. I suspected that she imagined it to be Eddie's face. I may have forgiven Eddie for everything that had happened in our past, but my best friend had not. She claimed to have a moral obligation to carry a grudge against him until the day she died.

“One night will turn into two, and then it'll be a week. Before you know it, Hayden will be with them more than he will with you.”

“It's just one weekend,” I insisted. “They can't change the visitation without my agreement or taking me to court.”

“Which they will,” Laura said.

“I don't want it to come to that. It would be so hard on Hayden. It's not a bad thing that Hayden has two parents that love him so much.”

Laura arched her manicured brow. “If this is Eddie's idea—which I doubt.”

“Laura,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Mark my words. Krissie is the one behind all of this, not Eddie. She's putting these ideas into his head. Did he ever want to adjust visitation before their engagement?”

“No, but I can't believe that. Krissie is sweet,” I said. “And Hayden likes her.”

“Hayden likes everyone.” Laura ground her boot deeper into the mud. “I don't trust her. There's something calculating about her sweetness. I hope you watch your back where she's concerned.”

I sighed. “Laura, I think I'd rather talk about Chase than this.” I held up my hand when she opened her mouth to speak. “Please, Laura.”

Her shoulders drooped. “Okay. I'll drop it for now. It's Friday night—let's hit the town.”

I barked a laugh. New Hartford was tiny. There wasn't much town to hit. “I do have an outing that I'd like you to come with me on.”

“What is it?” Her tone was immediately suspicious.

“I need to drop in on Pansy Hooper.”

“Are you crazy? Pansy Hooper hates the Farm, and hates you by extension. Why on earth would you want to talk to her?”

“She or one of her sons might have seen something around the time Beeson was attacked.”

“Then shouldn't Detective Brandon be the one to drop in on her?” Laura studied me.

“I'll tell the detective, just as soon as I talk to Pansy myself.”

“This is a really bad idea,” Laura said. “How much do you want to bet Pansy Hooper meets us at the front door with a shotgun?”

I raised my brow. “Are you saying you won't go with me?”

“No, of course I'll go. I can't let you meet the business end of a shotgun on your own. What kind of best friend would I be if I let that happen?”

I snorted and headed to the gate. “We'll take my car.”

She blew out a breath. “Good. I was afraid you'd say we were going to trek through the woods there.”

“No, I prefer a car.” I glanced over my shoulder. “It's better for a fast getaway.”

“That's so not funny,” she muttered behind me.

The drive to the Hoopers' home took almost as long as it would have taken to walk there by cutting through the woods. But my statement that I wanted to get away from the Hoopers' quickly wasn't said totally in jest. I didn't know how Pansy Hooper would feel about me dropping in on her unannounced like this, although she dropped in on the Farm at all hours with her numerous complaints.

The Hooper home was set off from the road, behind a row of full pine trees. The way they were planted made me think it had been deliberate, to hide the house from passersby. Milton Hooper had been a reclusive man who'd kept to his house. I hadn't met any of the Hoopers until he died and Pansy and her two sons moved into the old homestead. Now I saw them way too much.

I parked in front of the house.

Laura unbuckled her seat belt. “I feel like we should have stopped to buy pepper spray or something to defend ourselves.”

I placed my hand on the door handle. “There's no need for any of that.”

“If you say so.” She got out of the car.

I followed her around the pines trees and up the driveway. The sun was setting, and the tall pines caste an eerie shadow on the
two-story
house. The house paint was peeling. One of the top shutters hung loosely from the siding, and the front gutter had leaves from last fall spilling over its sides.

Laura inched close to me. “If you're ever looking for a candidate for a haunted house, I think you just found it. This place would be perfect.”

“Let me do the talking,” I said.

“What?” She gave me a
mock-hurt
look. “Do you think I'll offend them?”

“Yes.” I walked up the porch steps. The porch light was off; there wasn't a light bulb in the fixture. But a light shone through both of the front windows. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move around the side of the wraparound porch.

Laura must have seen it too because she jumped. “Someone's there,” she hissed. “We're going to die.”

“It was probably a raccoon or squirrel,” I said with a shaky voice.

“Yeah,” she remarked. “If they came in human size.”

I shook my head and knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked harder. Still nothing. Knock. Knock. Knock. “Mrs. Hooper? It's Kelsey Cambridge from Barton Farm. I was told that you wanted to speak to me.”

“I guess she doesn't want to talk to you right now,” Laura said. “Let's go.”

I shot her a look and knocked again.

Laura clutched my arm in a
vise-like
grip.

“Maybe you're right,” I said, after we waited for what seemed like an hour but was more likely two minutes.

Laura yanked on my arm “Great. Let's roll.”

When we were about to leave, the front door was flung open. “What do you want?” Pansy Hooper bellowed.

Laura yelped and almost fell backward down the porch steps. I grabbed her arm and held her up. I cleared my throat. “Mrs. Hooper, I'm Kelsey Cambridge. We've met on several occasions when you visited Barton Farm.”

“I know who you are.” She opened the door wider. She wore a stained sweatshirt and a paisley peasant skirt. Her hair was twisted into a loose bun on the top her head and she glared at me with watery eyes. From her wrinkled skin, I'd guessed she was over sixty, but she might have been younger and the wrinkles were a byproduct of a hard life. I didn't doubt that Pansy Hooper's life had been hard. I didn't know where she'd lived before her father's passing, but it must have been awful if she chose to leave it for her father's old dilapidated house.

I gave her my most neighborly smile. “I'm sorry to drop in on you on a Friday evening like this, but a member of my staff told me that you stopped by yesterday to talk to me about the activities on the Farm. I apologize for not calling on you earlier.”

She sniffed. “It's about time you came over to address the issue. You have no respect for your neighbors. I've tried to be a good neighbor to you, but my patience had worn thin.”

Behind me, Laura made an irritated noise.

Pansy's watery eyes zeroed in on her. “Who are you?”

“Pansy,” I said, still hoping to sound friendly, “this is Laura Fellow. She works at the Farm as well. I asked her to come with me to speak with you.”

“You could have come by yourself.” She held onto the doorframe. “I don't bite.”

The jury was still out on that one, I thought.

“Do you have a moment to talk now?” I asked. “Maybe we can come to some type of understanding.”

She looked me up and down as if giving my question some serious consideration. “You might as well come in.”

I looked at Laura and she widened her eyes. An invitation into the Hooper house wasn't what we'd expected.

Pansy glowered at us. “Well, are you coming or not? If you want to talk, I'm not going to stand in the doorway and let in a draft.”

“Yes, we're coming,” I said quickly and stepped through the doorway.

After a long beat, Laura followed me inside. “Does this feel a little Hansel and Gretel to you? If she eats us, I'll never forgive you.”

“If you're eaten, you won't be able to complain,” I hissed.

“Not funny, Kel.” She held on to my arm as if it were the last lifeboat departing from the Titanic.

Pansy led us into the living room. I tried my best not to stare at the surroundings. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of glass jars all over the room filled with all manners of trinkets, from screws to marbles to buttons.

Apparently I failed in my attempt not to stare, because Pansy said, “My father liked to collect things. I don't know what I'm going to do with all this junk. The boys claim they can sell it online, but neither one of them have done that yet.” She sat on the middle of the old sofa, leaving the one stained arm chair for Laura and me.

“I don't mind standing,” Laura whispered. “It'll give me a head start when she starts cooking.”

I frowned and sat on the edge of the armchair. “What were your concerns about the Farm?” I directed my question to Pansy.

Pansy picked up a coffee mug and sipped from it. “The noise. The racket coming from the Farm is unbearable. My boys and me moved out to my father's house to get away from noise.”

“The Farm has had several new events this winter, but winter is generally our
off-season
. I'm afraid the noise will only become worse in the summer when we're fully operational.”

“You need to do something about it, then.” She held her mug in her hands. “You need to have better control over the noise.”

“That's near to impossible,” I said.

“I can't accept that.”

I suppressed a sigh. “I understand your concern, but the events on the Farm will continue whether you like them or not. The Farm has all the necessary permits for the programs that we hold on the grounds. I imagine that it isn't that different from living near a school or somewhere else where events are held.”

She pointed at me with her coffee mug. “We live here to get away from all of that.”

“There's nothing I can do about the noise. Your father was a neighbor to Barton Farm for nearly fifty years, and he never complained about the noise,” I said.

“My father was half deaf. He wouldn't have heard cannon fire if you'd shot it into his ear.”

I decided it was best not to warn Pansy that there would be cannon fire on the grounds that summer. I would deal with that when the time came. “I see,” I said. “I guess we're at an impasse, then.”

She curled her mug into her chest. “Don't think I won't complain to the town.”

“I wasn't thinking that,” I said mildly.

“Though I may not have to be the one to shut you down, if people keep dying on Farm land.” She paused to sip from her mug. “I saw police over there yesterday. I heard the sirens and the shouts. It wasn't until later that I found out that a man had died.” She clicked her tongue.

“The incident on the Farm yesterday was unfortunate, but I can assure you no one who works for Barton Farm was involved.”

“That's not what I heard.” Pansy smiled. “I heard one of the people working at your farm was the one to do him in. It's that young teacher you got. The boy that's always leading the children around.”

I stiffened. Pansy was surprisingly well informed about all the events on the Farm grounds. I swallowed. “Who told you that?”

“My boys,” she said with a satisfied smile. “They tell me about the news in town. I can't get out much myself. Don't like to. I got everything I need right here. I don't have much use for most people.” She gave me a pointed look.

“I was wondering if I could talk to your boys while I was here, actually,” I said. “Are they home?”

“Why?” she snapped.

“Well,” I began, “they might have seen something yesterday that will help the police find out what happened to Dr. Beeson—that's the man who was killed.”

“My boys and I didn't see anything.” She squinted at me as if trying to come to some sort of decision about me.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Have your boys been on the Farm grounds recently?” I shifted on the arm of the chair, wishing I'd opted to stand like Laura. I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that she was inching further and further away from Pansy on the couch.

“They'd have no reason to go there.” Pansy set her empty coffee mug on the table between two jars of pennies.

Just because they had no reason to be there doesn't mean that they weren't, I thought, but I didn't come right out and say that. I didn't want to push her too far, at least not yet. “Can I talk to one or both of them? I know they spend a lot of time in the woods. They might be able to help.”