“You’re danged—you’re right there was. Pardon my rough talk. I don’t get guests often, and never ladies. Daniel Fisher was a miserable, mean-hearted excuse for a man. I wouldn’t waste powder or shot on him. If I wanted him dead, I know a lot of ways to make it look like an accident.”
Rachel felt an unease come over her again, but she forged ahead, unwilling to let Chuck know that he unsettled her. “Actually, initially, the police thought it was an accident. Then determined it wasn’t.”
“What changed their mind?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” She looked up at him. “So . . . you disliked Daniel.”
“Hated his guts. Always sneaking onto my land and shooting my deer. Told him to stay out. Always pressing for what wasn’t his. Greedy scum. Amish clothes don’t make a decent man, begging your pardon.” He bit into the homemade pastry and closed his eyes. “Best cinnamon bun I think I’ve ever tasted,” he pronounced. “A man could die happy after two or three of these.”
Rachel watched him enjoy the treat. “I believe that Daniel Fisher thought the land was his.”
“None of that he lived on was his. Come to them by his wife’s dead father. Not an acre in Daniel’s name.”
“I mean that the Studer family believed that the old orchard where Daniel died was part of their farm.”
Chuck spooned a measure of honey into his tea. His voice, when he spoke, was easy, but his narrowed dark eyes were hard. “You want to talk about land trouble? My people have had land trouble for the last couple hundred years. When the English and the Germans came, they thought this land was theirs for the taking. But Shawnee and Lenape and other tribes have lived and died here for thousands of years.”
Rachel listened, drinking her tea.
“I have solid title to this section of the mountain, granted by old charter from Billy Penn’s son, a deed to more than six hundred acres. Legal enough to win a half dozen courtroom challenges. My great-great-grandmother had sense enough to marry a Scotsman so the land technically went to a white man.”
“Then why does Daniel’s family think the land is theirs?”
He shrugged. “Greedy, like I said. Trouble with the Studers didn’t start until Daniel married the daughter. Before that, Alma’s husband and some of his family hunted the orchard, but they knew it wasn’t theirs. That tree stand where Daniel died was well inside my property line. Had he been where he was supposed to be, maybe he’d be alive today.”
“Isn’t your property fenced in?”
Baker scoffed. “That twelve-foot fence? Around six hundred acres? Not likely. I may be crazy, but I’m not a fool. That’s just for show. I never caught Daniel at the gate. He always sneaked in. I tried talking to him. Made it clear I didn’t want him or anyone else hunting on my property. But he wasn’t much for reasoning. Had a temper, that one.”
She thought about all the nice things people had had to say about Daniel at the funeral and the initial impression of him they had given. Then she thought about the things she had learned since and she wondered if you could ever really know someone. She cleared her throat. “Did you see Daniel the day he died? Maybe you were out hunting, it being opening day of deer season, and ran into him?” She tried to make it sound casual. “On your property, maybe?”
“I know what you’re asking.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t see him that day when he was out hunting. Had I seen him, I’d have run him off. But I couldn’t have seen him while I was out hunting because I’m no hunter.”
She looked at him across the table. “You aren’t?”
“Was before Afghanistan. No more. Seen enough shooting. Killing. More than enough. I keep the guns to guard this land against intruders. I’ve got no use for hunting. I don’t eat meat.”
The man was full of surprises. “You’re a vegetarian?” she asked.
That half-smile softened his rough face. “You could say that. I like my eggs of a morning, and I do love an occasional fish fillet. But the deer and bear and smaller creatures, they’re safe on my land. At least they are if I can keep men like Fisher out.” He cupped his hands around his mug and inhaled the scent of his tea. “Hunting is pretty fierce in this part of the state. I look after my deer, put out salt blocks, see they have fresh water when the temperature drops. The world can be a dangerous place, Rachel, but this . . .” He waved a hand. “This is my sanctuary and maybe theirs, too.”
Chapter 10
As Rachel pushed a shopping cart through the automatic doors of Wagler’s Grocery, she mulled over her meeting the previous day with Chuck Baker. Despite his oddity, she couldn’t help liking the man. But she knew she couldn’t allow personal feelings to interfere with finding the truth about what happened to Daniel. She also knew something she’d had to learn the hard way: that not everyone told the truth.
She’d been annoyed with herself that she hadn’t asked the one question she should have asked Chuck, and that was who he thought shot Daniel. He told her she was welcome to come back again to talk, and she intended to do so. She could ask him then. Before she talked to him again, though, she knew she needed the facts behind the land dispute. That had involved a trip to the county office to see who actually owned the land in question.
Like most old property deeds, ownership had been contested multiple times, but once it had temporarily passed out of Baker hands. The very helpful clerk there had found a break in ownership in the 1930s, which was later restored to the Baker family.
Apparently, the Bakers had fallen behind in taxes on an orchard and hay meadow during the Great Depression, and one
