“What did he do?” Mike asked.
“You have to understand that Mr. Lang is a very keen observer of people.” Sara paused. “The truth is that he’s a Peeping Tom. No one’s been able to prove it, but we all know it’s true. If you cross him, he tells you secrets about yourself and what you’re doing that you don’t want people to know about.”
“So what did he do about the plum man?”
“I didn’t see it but I was told that at the next class assembly at a high school in Williamsburg, they were treated to a slide show of the man kissing the principal’s wife. And they were wearing very little clothing.”
Mike couldn’t help chuckling. “Let me guess. Your mother investigated the jam.”
“Oh, yes! It contained white rum, which was against the rules. Mr. Lang also said the fruit had been stolen from his trees, but that couldn’t be proven.”
“It would be interesting to know if when Lang was sneaking around whether he was looking at pretty girls or spying in general.” Mike thought that if the old man was snooping, he might have seen something useful.
“I’ve never heard it said that he watches girls dressing. I think he does as much listening as he does looking. Mother says he has no life of his own, so he watches other people’s lives.”
“And no one in this town has done anything about him?”
“The Langs are part of the place and we know to keep our curtains drawn.”
“Doors left unlocked but windows covered,” Mike said, shaking his head. “What else has he done?”
“One time some man was determined to get the McDowells to lease Merlin’s Farm to him. Ramsey’s dad said he could have it if he could get Mr. Lang out. The poor man didn’t know that Uncle Benjamin was joking. My mother refused to tell me the details of what Mr. Lang exposed about the man, but he resigned his position at William and Mary, and moved to Maine.”
Sara paused. “But, to be fair, Mr. Lang’s done some good too. When I was a teenager, a little girl ran away from home, and Mr. Lang not only knew where she was but why she’d run away. After she was found and was able to talk, a neighbor was put in jail.”
“Interesting,” Mike said. “Has no one tried to spy on him?”
“Sure. Luke and Ramsey dedicated a lot of their childhood to trying to see what Mr. Lang was up to. They used to hide in the bushes around Merlin’s Farm and try to watch him, but except for one time, he always found them.”
“Lang didn’t hurt anyone, did he?” Mike asked sharply, thinking about the traps.
“He knew better than to do that. He shouted at everybody who came near—and his dogs were great at guarding. All the kids said Mr. Lang was part bat, that he could hear and see in the dark.”
“His senses probably are better, since he spends so much time alone.”
“Are all the things you know about him from your grandmother?” When Mike nodded, she added, “Since she loved the farm and Brewster Lang lived there, maybe they were sweet on each other.”
Mike snorted. “Grans said she used to laugh about the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. But she told Tess and me that if she owned the place, he would be her servant boy.”
“Boy? Are you sure she called him that? Weren’t they the same age?”
Mike was pulling under what he’d dubbed the Virgin Tree, only this time he made sure his car couldn’t be seen from the road. “My grandmother told the same stories over and over, so there are some things I know for sure. Tess and I grew up hearing of the ingratitude and conniving of every person in this town. Lang was just fifteen when my grandmother left Edilean; she was twenty-two. She liked to tell Tess and me that she’d someday return to Merlin’s Farm and Lang would wait on her, that he’d be her butler. She always thought of him as a boy and not of her class. In her mind, he never grew older than fifteen. You think you can walk through fields in that getup?”
He was referring to Sara’s pale yellow cotton dress and her strappy Italian sandals.
“You would have been disappointed if I’d worn a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.”
“They would have been more suitable for traipsing about an old farm.”
She looked at him.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I would have been weeping with regret.” He didn’t smile but the dimple in his cheek showed. “Follow me and do whatever I tell you to.”
“Always do,” she murmured, and laughed at Mike’s groan.
He went the same way he had the first time he’d seen the farm and was doubly careful not to make a path. Once, he put his arms under Sara’s and swung her over a muddy place. But when she was on a dry surface, he kept his arm around her.
“I can walk the rest of the way,” she said.