Bones Never Lie (Temperance Brennan, #17)(51)

Set up for what?

In a far corner, partly in shadow, two figures stood talking beside a blue plastic barrel. One was Umpie Rodas. The other was a tall woman with a red knit hat pulled low to her brows. A full-length black coat obscured her shape. Both turned at the sound of our footsteps. Rodas was hatless, and his jacket was unzipped. He may have had on the same red shirt he’d worn in Charlotte. Or maybe he had a collection.

“Glad you made it. Sorry about the weather.”

Ryan and I entered. The shack smelled of smoke, moist earth, and something sweet, like a pancake house on a Sunday morning.

I was right about the lights. There were three, the standard tripod variety often used at crime scenes. The generator was gas-powered, the kind you can buy at any Home Depot.

Rodas made introductions. The woman, Cheri Karras, was with the chief ME’s office in Burlington. Instead of mittens, she wore surgical gloves. So did Rodas.

I felt a knot begin to form in my gut.

Behind Karras, a man in a thick padded jacket was snapping photographs. His breath glowed white each time his flash went off.

I took a quick look around. The floor was hard-packed dirt, filled with a hodgepodge of items. Enormous cauldrons, blackened by fire. An open box containing blue plastic bags. Beside it, dozens of identical boxes, unopened. Circling the walls, rusty buckets, saucepans of differing sizes, screens, juice and milk cartons, five-gallon white plastic tubs stacked to form wobbly five-foot towers.

Crude shelving held wooden boxes filled with small metal implements that had a spike at one end and a downspout opposite. Others held metal hooks. Two drills. An assortment of hammers. A half-dozen coils of blue tubing. Jugs of household bleach.

At the shack’s center, directly below the vented part of the roof, was a three-by-five brick-lined pit with iron bars running between the long sides. On the bars sat a rectangular flat-bottomed metal pan, empty, its interior yellowed by some sort of residue. The bricks and bars were fire-blackened and covered with soot. Ditto the outside of the pan.

I was stumped. But one thing was clear. Whatever the shed’s purpose, cobwebs and grime suggested years of disuse.

“—got word no one was occupying the property, I decided to take a look around, be sure vandals weren’t up to mischief. We get squatters sometimes, folks find an empty summer home, decide to move in for the winter.”

My attention refocused. On Rodas. On Karras. On the ominous blue barrel between them.

“House had been breached, all right. Lock was jimmied. That was my green light. No damage inside, nothing worth stealing, so I took a peek out here.”

“Cabane à sucre.” For some reason, Ryan said it in French.

Of course. The shed was a sugar shack, a place to convert maple sap into syrup.

I eyed the barrel. The knot tightened.

Rodas nodded. “A Quebecer would know, eh?”

Karras’s phone buzzed. Wordlessly, she stepped outside. I watched her as Rodas continued talking. She seemed untroubled. A raccoon in the barrel? Or just another day with death?

“The property’s deeded to Margaux and Martin Corneau. Ten acres, eight of ’em mixed red and sugar maple. Until the late ’80s, the Corneaus ran a small operation, provided ten, twenty gallons a year to an outfit that bottled and sold locally.” Rodas arced an arm at the paraphernalia around us. “The old stuff’s theirs, cauldrons, aluminum buckets and lids. The plastic collection bags and polyethylene tubing, now, that’s something else.”

“Meaning?” Ryan asked.

“Meaning they’re new.”

“Suggesting a more recent operation.”

Rodas nodded, his expression grim. But something else. Excited? Eager?

“By whom?” Ryan asked.

“I’m working on that.”

“What’s in the barrel?” Not trying very hard to hide my impatience.

“We’d best wait for Doc Karras.”

“Where do you buy sugaring equipment?” Ryan asked.

“Anywhere. The barrels are widely used for food storage. The tubing’s multipurpose.”

“The taps and bags?”

“Sugaring supply companies. The capture bags aren’t expensive, maybe forty cents each. Most small producers now prefer them to buckets. Slip the bag over a collar, run the tubing straight in from the tap, empty the sap into a collecting point, toss the bag, repeat until the tree runs dry. Bags are also better at keeping out bugs and debris.”

“Can’t be that many sold.”

“More than you’d think.”

“Can you purchase them online?”

Rodas nodded. “Got someone making calls.”

Karras was still on her phone.

I wrapped my arms around my torso, hands tucked under my armpits for warmth. Cold was rising through the soles of my boots and spreading through my bones. The chill coming from more than the weather.

“That an evaporator?” Ryan chin-cocked the fire pit.

“Yeah. Better than the cauldrons, but still takes a lot of fuel.”

“Seriously?” I snapped. “We’re discussing advances in the art of syrup production?”

“The woodshed’s beside this one.” Rodas ignored my outburst. “Not much left. I suspect the neighbors helped themselves over the years.” Turning to me. “You know much about maple syrup?”