Bitter Harvest (34 page)

“Hanson.” Art nodded to the young officer. “Hello, Jenn,” Art said with surprising gentleness. “We were worried about you.”

“She turned up at the house maybe fifteen minutes after you went out to search,” Officer Hanson volunteered. “You said I should bring her here, right?”

“That’s fine. John,” Art greeted the other man. “Is everybody okay?” When he received nods all around, Art sat down and said, “Jenn, you want to tell us what this is all about?”

Jenn’s stony expression didn’t change, and she remained mute.

“What were you doing in Meg’s barn?” Art prodded. No response. “Are you responsible for what’s been happening to Meg for the last couple of weeks?”

Donna Taylor spoke, her voice hoarse. “That was me. Jenn didn’t know, before.”

Meg felt a weird mix of emotions: elation that she hadn’t been imagining the whole string of events, horror that her neighbors—whom she didn’t even know—had been harassing her. Before Art could say anything, Meg asked, “Why?”

“You don’t deserve it.” When Meg looked blank, Mrs. Taylor looked as though she wanted to spit. “This place. You have no right to it.”

Meg looked around the group, more and more confused. “What are you talking about? My house? My mother inherited this place. We share the title to it.” Meg glanced at Art, who nodded slightly; apparently he was going to let Mrs. Taylor keep talking.

“John and me, we took care of the old ladies. John was in high school when we started, but he helped out with the outside chores—kept the gardens neat, the lawn mowed. Painted the place, summers. Oh, they paid him, but not near what he could have made somewhere else. Me, I looked after the inside of the house, as much as those old biddies would let me. They hated admitting they were getting old! And, damn, they were cheap! Still wanted to put up preserves every year, and they couldn’t lift more than a couple of jars at a time, so I ended up doing all the work.”

This still wasn’t making sense to Meg. “And you thought they’d leave the place to you?” she guessed.

Mrs. Taylor twisted in her chair to face Meg directly. “Why not? They didn’t have anybody else. They’d outlived everyone, the spiteful old hags. If it hadn’t been for us, the state would have put them in a home somewhere, because they sure as hell couldn’t take care of themselves. And then they died, and the lawyer says they left the whole lot to somebody we’d never heard of. Who never even had the decency to show up for their funerals.”

“That was my mother. But she didn’t even know they’d died! Nobody told her until the will was read.”

“So you say. Then we hoped she’d up and sell the place—I mean, she never showed her face in Granford. What did she want with a run-down farm? I figured I’d make your life miserable and you’d give up and go back to wherever you came from. Stupid, huh?”

Donna was right, Meg realized. Her mother hadn’t bothered to do anything with the farm—she’d just collected the rent for years on end until Meg had decided to move in last year. “You wanted to buy this place?” Meg asked.

John was staring at his mother with fascination. “Ma, you never said anything to me about this! Besides, how could you have bought it?”

Donna turned to her son. “John, I own my place free and clear, and I had some money put by from when your father died. I could have done it. I wanted to, but it never went up for sale. I’ve been waiting ever since.”

“But, Ma, you could have told me,” John protested. “Maybe we could have worked something out, made an offer to the lawyer or something. Why’d you wait so long to say anything?”

“It didn’t matter, when you were in Springfield. And then you started having troubles with your babies, and I didn’t want to bother you with it.”

Finally John sputtered to life. He jumped out of his chair, and the law officers in the room stiffened to alertness. John ignored them and paced back and forth a few times. “Let me get this straight. You wanted this property. You had the money to buy it. But other things got in the way, like . . . the babies dying. So did something change all of a sudden?”

Jenn spoke for the first time. “It started when we lost our insurance, John. When your extension from the job ran out, and we had to go on the state plan.” She turned to Meg. “There was this new drug that looked real promising, but the insurance won’t cover it because it’s still experimental.” She looked again at John. “Your mom thought this was our last chance. She thought if she could make Meg here leave, maybe it would all work out and we could have a chance for something better.”

“You knew about this, Jenn?” John looked like he wanted to cry, trying to process everything at once.

“No, John, not until tonight. She didn’t tell me, honest. And, God help me, I wanted to help. I’m sorry, Meg. You’ve been nice to us. I didn’t mean to do you any harm.”

John seemed to be having trouble processing Jenn’s words.

“You never said anything to me! Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“What, and make you feel worse? I know it’s not your fault you lost your job. I know you’ve done everything you could to find another one. I’m grateful to your mother for taking us in—at least we have a roof over our heads and food to eat. But that won’t make any difference to Eli.” She hugged him tighter, drawing another squawk from him.

“And getting this farm would?” John asked.

“At least you could work it and earn a living! You’d have some self-respect, and maybe we could have a couple of good years before Eli . . .” Jenn swallowed a sob.

Art cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt. Meg, you’ve told me about a number of things that have happened here, but the only serious ones were the accident in the parking lot and the gunshot.”

“Hey, what about my tire?” Bree protested.

“All right, we’ll include that. Donna, were you responsible for those?”

Donna glared at him. “You gonna arrest me?”

“You want to lawyer up?”

“I can’t afford a lawyer, Chief, and you know it.”

“You can have a court-appointed one, if you need one.”

“Bunch of second-raters. Hell, I’ll tell you. The only thing I feel bad about was that problem with Doc Murphy.”

“You were the woman he was arguing with in the parking lot?” Art asked.

Donna nodded. “I followed Meg there. I figured if I bumped her car, did a little damage, nobody there would notice—everybody was bent on getting into the store and getting home again. And I almost pulled it off, except Doc Murphy saw me do it. Damn do-gooder. I knew who he was—he’s been Eli’s doctor for years. I don’t think he recognized me. He was the one told Jenn about that new drug, but there wasn’t the money for it. So he saw me back into the car, and he comes over and tells me I have to report it to someone or other. I hightailed it out of there, but I never heard anything more.”

“He reported you, but it was a couple of days later,” Art said. “And the rifle shot? Was that you?”

“I didn’t hit anyone, did I?”

“Did you use your rifle?”

Donna nodded. “John senior’s old .22. John had it for years. But he taught me how to shoot it, back when we were first married. I’m a pretty fair shot. If I’d wanted to hit somebody, I would have.” She turned to Meg. “I’ll pay you for the window, and the car repairs.”

Art looked at Meg, and she wondered what message he was trying to send. All she knew was that she was confused and tired. It was going to take her a while to make sense of all this. She realized that Art was talking again

“Donna, John, Jenn—look, it’s late. I’m going to trust you all that you aren’t going to pack up and leave town, if I let you go home now. I need to consider what charges, if any, should be brought against you, and I need to talk to Meg about what she wants to do. Will you promise to go home and stay there, so we can sort this out?”

“I’ll make sure they do,” John said. “Meg, Seth, I apologize for whatever trouble we’ve caused you. Now, if you’re willing, I’d like to take my family home.”

Art canvassed the room. “Hanson, you can go. Thanks for your help. John, you take care of your family. I’ll talk to you all tomorrow.” He waited until everyone had cleared out, leaving Meg, Seth, and Bree gathered around the table. Then he dropped heavily into a chair. “Damn, why don’t I ever get simple problems?”

Meg sat, stunned with a kind of secondhand grief. She had done nothing to bring this on herself, and yet she felt guilty. Her mother had put this property out of her mind, cashed the rent checks, and now Meg was paying a price for it. That wasn’t fair. But neither was the bad luck heaped on the Taylors. If she had found herself in the same position, how would she have acted? “Art, does it make a difference if I press charges?”

“Meg, my brain is so addled that I’m not even going to try to answer that. I’ll say, maybe. I think we’ll all be in better shape tomorrow.” He stood up. “Seth, thanks for your help. I’m glad nobody ended up hurt. You all get some rest and we can talk later. I’ll call in anybody who’s still out searching and tell them to go home.”

Seth escorted Art to the door, then shut it firmly after him. He leaned against the doorframe. “I sure didn’t see that one coming. I don’t think John knew anything about what his mother was up to. Which doesn’t mean he won’t feel guilty about it.” He straightened up. “I should go.”

Meg roused herself to ask, “Do you have to?”

“You don’t need protecting anymore, you know.”

“I know. Just stay—please?”

Bree stood up, too. “All right, you old fogies, I’m going to bed.”

“And so are we,” Meg said.

Meg awoke still
exhausted the next morning. Once again Seth was already gone—didn’t the man ever sleep? She reviewed the scene in the kitchen: what an unholy mess. That poor family! In a way she was relieved that the small acts of harassment hadn’t been directed at her personally—it wasn’t like she had antagonized or offended anyone. She’d merely been in the way of Donna Taylor realizing her dream. It wasn’t even a big dream, just a hope of having a decent place for their family, where they could make a modest living and enjoy whatever time they had left with Eli. In a town they regarded as home. But Meg realized that she had the same long history with Granford as they did, except that her family had been absent for a few decades. At what point did one become an outsider? One generation? Several?

No way could she press charges, compounding their misery. She hadn’t lost much compared to what John and Jenn had suffered.

But something still nagged at her. The Taylors had lost two children to this illness she had never heard of. Unity Warren Cox had lost children as well. Were the two events connected, and was there some way to prove it? Apart, of course, from the devastating grief any family would feel as they watched one after another of their children die. If it was in fact a hereditary illness, as Meg had guessed, and Unity Warren had shared it, there was a chance that she carried it, too. Should she be thinking about the risk to her future children, should there be any? That made it pretty personal.

Meg jumped out of bed and headed for the shower. She needed to do some more research.

After breakfast, armed with a fresh mug of coffee, Meg sat down in front of her laptop and thought. What was she looking for? She knew very little about what had happened to the Taylor children, and she wasn’t about to ask John or Jenn for details—that would be cruel. What did she know? It sounded like they had all been born healthy, and then had sickened and died, usually before the age of five. There was no cure, and all four of their children were affected. Meg typed in “Batten Disease,” and when the references came up she started reading.

When she was done with that, she clicked open her genealogy program and started with Violet Cox.

Three hours later Meg realized it was past lunchtime and she hadn’t even heard from Seth. Was he working? Had he talked to John, and had they come to some sort of an agreement? She hated to think that Seth might fire John just because of what his mother had tried to do.