Deadly Row to Hoe (3 page)

Four

“Go away.” Erin’s voice
was faint but firm.

“Erin?”

A few beats of quiet, then her voice came again, louder this time. She’d moved closer. “Sophie Mae?”

“Yeah. Can I come in?”

After several moments the door opened a crack. One gray eye peered at me through the opening. “Did she send you to talk to me?”

“If you mean your mother, nope.”

The eye blinked, bright with the thoughts that swirled in her precocious mind. Then she stepped back and opened the door. I walked into her bedroom, and the latch snicked closed behind me as she shut it again. At the foot of the bed Brodie, Erin’s Pembroke Welsh corgi, raised his graying muzzle. He sniffed a few times, decided I didn’t have anything interesting to eat and went back to sleep. On the desk I spied the leather-bound, blank book I’d given Erin for her birthday in May. All summer she’d filled the pages with her fantasy novel. Needless to say, I was anxious to read it when it was finished.

If it was finished. Her attention did tend to drift from one interest to another.

Crossing my arms across my chest and leaning against the wall next to her overflowing bookcase, I considered her. She was practically my adopted daughter, since I’d lived with them since she was five. Still, I wasn’t her mother, and right now that seemed like
a good thing. Not because I didn’t love her to death, but because—
at the moment at least—I wasn’t “the enemy.”

Dark curls now grown down to her shoulders framed almond-shaped eyes, a slightly turned-up nose and pixie-bow lips which often opened into a wide grin. She wasn’t grinning now, though. Suspicion lingered in her gaze as she sat down on the bed, her slight frame barely disturbing the log cabin quilt covering it. A smudge of glittery eye shadow and pink spots of blush on her cheeks betrayed part of her activities with Clarissa Turner that afternoon.

Looking beyond the makeup remnants, I realized with a shock that Erin Bly was going to be a stunningly beautiful woman. Given how she took after her mother, that shouldn’t have surprised me. And Meghan was a clever bear, too, but Erin had something else going on, a liveliness that danced behind her pupils and a sharper wit that was beginning to manifest as she got older. It would make her a formidable adult.

A formidable teenager, too. I managed to contain my sigh at the thought.

“So how come you took off without telling anyone?” I asked in a casual tone.

“I don’t know why everyone’s making such a big deal about it.” Her lower lip crept out.

I grinned at her. “Really?”

“Yeah!”

Raising my eyebrows, I waited.

Her nostrils flared, and she tried to stare me down. I blinked
and waited, knowing full well that she understood why her mother
had been so upset. Finally her gaze dropped to the floor, and one shoulder bobbed up and down in a half shrug.

“I didn’t want to worry anyone, but I’m not a little kid anymore.” Her chin rose in defiance. “I’m twelve, Sophie Mae! I shouldn’t have to ask permission for every little thing.”

“If I’d left, I would have told someone,” I said. “And I’m thirty-eight.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“You get why your mom kind of freaked out.”

She got up and looked out the window at the urban chicken coop
in the backyard. “Yeah, I guess so.” Turning back, she put her hands on her hips. “But she didn’t have to embarrass me like that.”

“What did she do?”

“Came barreling into the Pie Shop looking like Pig Pen—worse
even—and started yelling. Clarissa must think she’s nuts.”

I doubted that Meghan gave a hoot what Miss Clarissa thought.

“We tried to explain, but she wouldn’t listen.”

“You were meeting some boys downtown?”

“No! Well, maybe Clarissa planned to, but I didn’t know anything about it. I just wanted to get some ice cream.”

“Hmm. And maybe con your mom into getting you a cell phone by presenting her with a practical situation where it would have been useful?”

She stared at me like a startled rabbit, then a you-caught-me grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. She scowled it down. “That’s just weird, Sophie Mae.”

“Uh, huh. At any rate, it sounds like a whole pile of miscommunication. Maybe you should apologize to your mom.”

“What for? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Yes, you did. And so did Clarissa. And you know it.”

She glared at me.

“You know I’m right. And your mom is having a pretty crappy day. Did she tell you what happened at the farm?”

Erin shook her head.

“She found a body in the compost pile.” I figured Erin was going
to find out anyway, and she’d handled our previous run-ins with mayhem pretty well.

Curiosity replaced her ire. “Like … a person?”

Slowly, I nodded my head.

Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding!”

“Nope. So lighten up and come help with dinner. Barr’s working tonight, but I think Kelly’s coming over.” Her mother’s boyfriend had become one of Erin’s favorite people since he moved to Cadyville.

She pressed her lips together, thinking. “Okay.”

I opened her bedroom door, and she followed me down the hallway. Brodie jumped down from the bed and followed, his toenails clicking on the hardwood floor. Upon entering the kitchen the first words out of Erin’s mouth were, “So was the dead person a man or a woman?”

Meghan whirled from where she was working at the counter, her eyes widening at me in a silent question.

“I figured it wasn’t exactly a secret.” I almost managed to keep the defensiveness out of my voice.

The front door opened, and a voice called out, “Hello! Anyone home?” Thank goodness, Kelly had arrived just in time to distract my friend from my child-rearing faux pas.

“In here,” we chorused.

Moments later he came around the corner, stopping in the open doorway. He was a couple inches taller than my five-foot-six, and olive skin tanned darker by the summer sun stretched over high cheekbones. His dark hair and eyes reflected a tribal bloodline in his genealogy, and his full lips parted in a smile when he saw Meghan. He stepped in and swooped her into a big hug.

“You okay?” he murmured into her hair.

Silent, she nodded against his shoulder. Erin and I exchanged a glance.

“Come on,” I said. “You can get today’s eggs while I pull a few more scallions for the salad.”

As we left I heard Kelly say, “So how is it you found her instead of Sophie Mae?”

_____

According to their CSA pamphlet, Tom and Allie Turner had moved
to Cadyville with a dream of starting a farm that would produce enough vegetables to feed 100 families for the summer. Members paid a flat fee and shared in the harvest—and risks—of the organic farm. The growing season in the Pacific Northwest is pretty long and frosts are light, so “summer” turns out to be about half
the year if you grow the right things—with a cold frame and a little
luck with the weather you can grow some kind of fresh vegetable almost year-round. The frequent rains were the worst problem, promoting powdery mildew and even rotting root vegetables left in the ground. But Tom had grown up on a farm in the area and knew what he was doing. Allie was no slouch either. Eventually they hoped to offer fresh vegetables year-round.

For an additional fee their farm members could get eggs each week, and plans were in the works to offer pasture-raised poultry and pork in the next few years. Since our backyard hens provided enough eggs for us and a couple of neighbors, we didn’t need the Turners’ eggs, and in truth we had four small raised beds where we had grown our own vegetables for years. But while we had a few plants of this and that, we couldn’t grow enough of most things to put up for the winter in addition to providing our daily
needs. We had already been investigating a local pea patch to
augment our growing space in May when one of my teenaged
employees, Cyan Waters, met Allie Turner at the Thursday night Farmers Market in downtown Cadyville. She was selling Winding Road Bath Products, and Allie was selling the first of the vegetables from the farm.

Meghan and I had found the solution to our problem. We worked on the farm about the same amount of time we would have put in on a pea-patch garden and paid half the amount of non-working CSA members while netting more variety and abundance than we ever could have produced on our own. Plus, Tom and Allie allowed us to buy overages and seconds at a steep discount. Between the big freezer now sitting in the corner of my basement workroom and the pantry off the kitchen already beginning to fill with home-canned tomato products, pickles, and fruit, we would have enough tasty goodness to last until it would be time to start putting up the gardens all over again.

Eggs and scallions in hand, Erin and I returned to the kitchen. Kelly sat at the butcher block table sipping a nut brown ale, Meghan across from him with what I guessed was a much-needed glass of white wine.

He looked up when we came in. “Hey, you two. You ran out before I could say hello.”

“You seemed kind of busy,” Erin said.

He laughed and even Meghan smiled. She put her arm out in invitation to her daughter and raised her eyebrows.

Erin hesitated, then moved into her embrace. “I’m still mad at you.”

Her mother gave her a squeeze. “That’s okay. I’m still mad at you, too.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” I said, pouring a finger of Laphroaig into the bottom of a jelly jar and taking a sip. It wended its way down my throat, smoke and fire, and I sighed.

Kelly leaned his elbow on the table and propped his chin on his palm. “Meghan told me they don’t know who the woman is.”

The “woman.” Not the “dead woman.” I glanced at Erin. She’d stilled, willing herself invisible so we’d talk in front of her.

“I’m sure they’ll figure it out.” I opened a kitchen drawer, removed a long-handled lighter and held it out to Kelly. “You’re practically family now. Why don’t you go start the grill?”

Five

Opening all the basement
windows to the evening, I breathed in the rapidly cooling air as the sun approached the horizon. This had been my workspace ever since I started Winding Road Bath Products with a simple line of homemade, cold-processed soap. After my first husband, Mike Reynolds, died, Meghan had invited me to come live with her in Cadyville. Only after she’d asked had I realized how much I needed companionship. Lord knew she was not only one of my favorite people in the world, but we had a history of living together in circumstances far less ideal than her Victorian-style house. We’d been roommates at the University of Washington for four years.

So I’d quit my mid-level administrative position in the Lake Washington School District and moved thirty miles north, taking a job in a small bookstore. After Winding Road took off, I was able to quit and devote all of my time to my very own business. It was a lot of work, and always more of a risk than holding out my hand for a paycheck come Friday, but it was worth it. I loved being my own boss, working at home, and having flexibility in my schedule.

Of course that meant long hours, especially in the early years. Now late nights had become rarer. Since Barr was still at the cop
shop tonight, I’d planned to pack up the orders for UPS after
dinner, but when I came downstairs I discovered that my uber-
efficient helpers, Cyan and Kalie, had already done most of the work. I finished up, set the boxes by the back door to put out in the morning, and considered what else I could accomplish that evening.

It looked like some basic soap making was in order.

I donned a long white apron and placed rubber gloves and a pair of dorky chemistry goggles on the central work island. The radio on the counter by the stove played Emmylou Harris at low volume as I measured oils into a large pot and set a low flame under them. Then I donned the gloves and goggles and weighed out a portion of sodium hydroxide crystals—good, old-fashioned lye. When I added water to the lye in the big bowl attached to the industrial bread mixer, it reacted by chemically heating the liquid. A drift of unpleasant-smelling steam curled up, and I backed to the stove to check the temperature of the oils. I opened a bottle of basil essential oil and inhaled the spicy licorice scent, wiping away all traces of the hot lye.

While the oils had to heat up, the lye had to cool down. For the basic lavender-and-basil scented soap I was making this evening, I wanted the oils at 100° and the lye at 85° when I poured the oils into the mixer. There the beaters would combine them thoroughly, and the process of saponification would begin.

“You look like a mad scientist.”

I whirled to find Kelly standing at the bottom of the narrow staircase leading down from the kitchen.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.” I waved him over and stripped off the gloves and goggles.

He slid onto a stool at the end of the island and quirked an eyebrow. “Is all that really necessary?”

“The safety equipment? Not everyone uses it, but I have two young employees. I want them to be safe, and it doesn’t hurt for me to follow the same rules.”

“You are careful, aren’t you.” Something in the way he said that held significance beyond handling dangerous chemicals.

I cocked my head to one side and waited.

“I’m only saying you aren’t exactly … reckless.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I tried not to bristle as I remembered a few times I’d been more reckless than I should have. Sneaking out to see who was in the car watching our house. Searching a stranger’s house for murder evidence. Even stealing Meghan’s keys so I could go through a dead man’s office, looking for a murder motive. But truthfully, most of the times I’d been in real danger hadn’t been a result of my recklessness, but of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

So maybe Kelly was right.

Except I’d been in those wrong places because of my own curiosity. Kind of made one ponder the fate of certain cats.

“I mean you aren’t stupid,” he said.

“Gee, thanks.”

He held up his palms. “Aren’t you wondering about the woman you and Meghan found in the compost pile today?”

“Of course I am.”

“But not enough to do anything about it.”

Crossing my arms over my chest, I narrowed my eyes. “My husband is a police detective. I hardly think he needs my help.”

“Doesn’t sound like that’s true. In fact, from what Meghan told me, it sounds like his boss is interested in having you help.”

“Listen, I know you love detecting,” I said. “It’s what you do for a living, and from what I understand, you’re pretty good at it. Maybe you should help the police, if you’re so sure they need it.”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t do what you can do. You know people in this community, Sophie Mae. You can talk to them and get them to talk to you.”

“What’s the matter with you? Isn’t it clear that I don’t want to do that anymore?”

“I don’t believe you.”

I took a deep breath, stirred the pot on the stove and tested the temperature. Almost ninety degrees.

“Barr and I want to have a baby. I can’t go gallivanting around, poking my nose into other people’s business if I have a baby.”

His lips turned up. “Ah. That’s different than not wanting to get involved. That’s you not being reckless.”

I threw up my hands. “Okay. Have it your way. You’re right. I’m a fuddy duddy. Some people call that being responsible.”

“Are you pregnant?”

I stared at him. “What? No. Not yet.” Not that it was any of his business, really.

“So if you were to help discover the identity of the dead woman buried under several feet of dirt, you wouldn’t be harming your child.”

“But, Kelly—”

“Your not-even-conceived child.”

“You are such a, such a …
man
!”

He laughed. “I hope so.” He slid off the stool and strode to the stairs. Turned back and met my eye. “You have a natural talent for finding things out. If I had an agency, I’d hire you in a heartbeat. You’re good at tracking down the truth, and you do it for the best reason—you want to help people.”

I felt the skin tighten across my face in reaction to his words.

“And face it, Sophie Mae—you enjoy it, too. Plenty of private investigators are also parents.”

He turned to go up the stairs.

“Does Meghan know you’re down here?”

Over his shoulder he said, “She’s playing Clue with Erin. I need to get back.”

I listened to his footsteps clump up to the kitchen, and the door opened and shut. Dang it. Meghan would throw a fit if she knew her beau was encouraging me. Still, I had to admit I was flattered that someone who investigated crime professionally thought I had a talent for it.

And he was right. I had enjoyed being involved in Barr’s cases—as well as a couple of deaths that would have slipped under the radar as either suicide or accident if I hadn’t followed up on my gut feelings. Figuring out whodunit was satisfying, though the process was often frustrating. But it appealed to my sense of justice, making things tidy in the world.

I loved my life. It was full and satisfying, and only seemed to be getting better and better. And part of that was because it had been occasionally punctuated by the excitement of a murder investigation. But I could still get that vicariously through Barr, right?

Maybe.

Besides, if Barr didn’t get some help, he’d be working so many hours there wouldn’t be any time at all for making babies.

I sighed and took the temperature of the lye, then pulled the thermometer out of my pocket and took my own.

98.1°.