Deadly Row to Hoe (6 page)

Ten

After lunch one of
Meghan’s regular clients showed up. I didn’t know his name, but he was a big, hairy guy I’d seen several times before. I spent a few hours helping Cyan and Kalie finish up the foot scrub, then set them to packing more orders into boxes while I inventoried my supplies and made lists of items to order. At a bit before three o’clock we were finished with the Winding Road tasks for the day and began planning the next day’s work. It felt like a luxury, not having to put in twelve hours before feeling like I was finally on top of things.

It also worked out well because CSA members would be stopping by to pick up their shares at Turner Farm starting at four o’clock and continue to straggle in until seven. I planned to get there early and stay late.

“Do you want to come with me?” I asked Meghan. Big hairy guy had left, and she was wiping flour off the counter. Two loaves of bread rose under a clean dish towel on the table. “It’ll be the perfect opportunity to see everyone.”

She shook her head. “I’ll leave that to you.”

“Sure?”

“I’ve still got one more client coming in, and then a pile of blueberries to freeze.”

Guilt arrowed through me. “You’ve been doing more than your fair share lately. Wait to prep the berries, and I’ll help tonight. Or tomorrow.” Or when I could get to it.

But she waved away my protestation. “The workload around here always works out in the end. Besides, I’ve had enough of looking at that poor woman’s photo for a while and don’t envy you having to show it around even more.”

“I’ll go with you,” Erin piped up.

“No, you won’t,” her mother said. “I’ll need some help making dinner.”

“Mo … ommm,” was the whining response.

“If you’re old enough to wear eye shadow, you’re old enough to mix up the rub for the baby-back ribs. Get out the kosher salt, chili powder, thyme, and brown sugar to start.”

“Geesh,” Erin grumbled as she went to the cupboard and began pulling out spices. “I’m not even going to wear eye shadow any more. Cyan told me my eyes are prettier without any distraction.”

Now why hadn’t I thought of that? I grinned at Meghan.

She made a face back. “Grab a few extra summer squash, okay? I want to make up a bunch of zucchini bread to freeze.”

“Sure.” I slung my tote bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. “See you later.”

_____

The bumper of Tom Turner’s stepside Chevy was snugged up to the side of the farm stand. As I pulled my old Land Rover in beside it, he nodded to me and hefted a crate of glossy purple eggplants to his shoulder. Another crate of multi-colored peppers sat in the bed of the truck.

The shutters on the front of the small stand were open, and tilted wooden bins displayed the surplus vegetables available to the public. The Turners didn’t have time or manpower to have someone waiting on the infrequent customers, so they relied on the honor system for the few hours per day it was open to the public. People took what they wanted and left their payment in the wide-mouthed Mason jar. So far that had worked out well, a gratifying testament to the good nature of most folks.

He carried the eggplants inside as I grabbed the file folder with the photos and opened my driver’s door.

“Hey, Tom.”

He placed the last one in a bin. “Hey, Sophie Mae. You’re here early.”

“And I’ll be sticking around for a while. We have an updated picture of the woman Meghan found yesterday, and I want to show it—and the original—to the farm members, see if anyone recognizes her.”

He frowned. “Let me see.” He held out his hand.

I gave him the picture, and watched his face carefully. Was that a flicker of recognition? Or was I just making that up?

“Do you know her?” I pushed.

“She looks different here.” He looked up at me. “Different than the photo your husband showed us last night, I mean.”

“That’s the idea.”

His eyes searched my face, but I didn’t offer more of an explanation. He returned both renditions of the bird lady. “Sorry. I can’t help you.” Abrupt.

Or wouldn’t help me. Curiouser and curiouser. Barr definitely needed to follow up with Mr. Turner. “Is your wife around?”

“She’s at the house.” His words were clipped.

“How about Hallie and Nate?”

He shrugged. “Hallie took Clarissa shopping at that mall in Lynnwood. God knows what they’ll come home with this time. Nate’s around here someplace. I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

“Thanks. Anything you need me to do while I’m hanging out?”

Tom considered. “Well, the popcorn needs to be picked sooner than later, so it can dry out of the weather. You could get started on that. Take the yard cart out to the field, and we’ll store the ears in the back of the farm stand here.”

Oh, wow. Homegrown popcorn. An image arose of sitting in the living room with Barr and Erin, Meghan and Kelly, eating from a huge bowl of warm, fluffy kernels loaded with butter and sprinkled with salt. Throw in the wind howling outside, an apple-wood fire crackling on the hearth, and a big jigsaw puzzle, and it sounded pretty much like my idea of heaven.

“Sounds good!” I grabbed a couple of canvas shopping bags from the back of the Rover and walked around to the distribution shed.

Volunteers took turns harvesting the farm produce on Tuesday mornings before pickup and then arranging it so members could drop by and help themselves. The double, barn-style doors at the end of the small building were wide open to let in light and air. The dusty pile of burlap bags I’d perched on to take my temperature the day before—was it really only yesterday?—now bulged with freshly picked goodies. They sat on the floor and lay open on the rustic tables that ran around the perimeter. Two scales nestled between the bags so people could measure out the vegetables offered by weight. A dry erase board on the back wall listed what was available for each member’s share that week.

9 tomatoes

3 bell peppers

1 acorn squash

6 ears corn

½ pound raspberries

1 pound green or wax beans

1 cucumber

1 eggplant

1 head lettuce

1 oz. parsley

2 oz. basil

As much kale and zucchini as you can stand

We hadn’t eaten much kale before participating in the CSA, so it had been a challenge to know what to do with all of it. Kale, it turned out, grew really well in the Pacific Northwest, and there was always some left over after everyone had picked up their
share. So far we’d tried it in soup and stir-fries, cooked it in
peanut sauce with Thai basil for a tasty side dish, and even added it to hummus. But my favorite way to eat kale so far was kale chips. Dressed with a little oil and kosher salt and then baked all crispy in the oven, they were pretty darn awesome. Not homemade potato chip awesome, mind you, but close.

As for the zucchini, everyone in the house was already a fan, even Barr. We never seemed to get as many as we wanted from the one start we planted each year in our small backyard garden. That might sound crazy, but cool, damp northwest summers don’t always make for the best summer squash. So we were glad to take some overages. Besides Meghan’s zucchini bread, it was necessary for good ratatouille and minestrone soup, great added to frittatas and fritters, grilled in big rounds and doused with mustard, or sliced thin and sautéed in brown butter with basil. My dad had even passed on his recipe for zucchini Carpaccio.

Each week there seemed to be a glut of something new at the farm. Lately, the pole beans had been going crazy. As long as I was going to be hanging around, I would try to trade the lettuce and parsley from our share for more green beans, and see if there were any left at the end. We had plenty of salad makings in our backyard garden, but extra beans could be pickled or frozen. All part of the plan to stock up for the winter. Soon we’d be getting root vegetables like beets, carrots, parsnips, and turnips in the share, and we already had a plan for a makeshift root cellar—bins of sand in a cool crawl space—to keep them fresh for months.

I loaded up the bags, leaving the items I hoped to trade in the distribution shed, grabbed some extra zucchini for Meghan’s bread and some extra kale to make more of those strangely yummy chips, and hauled everything out to the Rover. As I shut my door, Tom climbed into his truck and started the engine.

I went over and leaned into the window opening. “Barr mentioned Nate was gone last night.”

He nodded. “Went to a movie.”

“Who was his date?”

One shoulder lifted and dropped. “Guess you’d have to ask him.”

I smiled ruefully. My guess was Daphne Sparks. I’d seen how they clung to each other in the wake of the bird lady’s discovery.

A car I didn’t recognize pulled into the parking lot. A young girl gazed at me through the window as a stout woman got out. “I’ll be right back,” the woman said to her, grabbing a basket from the back seat and striding toward the distribution shed. I waved goodbye to Tom and trailed along after her.

“Excuse me,” I said from the doorway.

Her eyes flicked to the list on the dry erase board, and she reached for a dimple-skinned cucumber. “Yes?” She grabbed the eggplant next, sparing me an impatient glance.

I held out the photos. “Do you recognize this woman?”

Her gaze raked across them before returning to the share list. “Never seen her. Why?”

“We’re just trying to identify her.”

She stopped and turned, finally curious. “Why? Who is she?”

“No one seems to know. She was found … nearby. Deceased. She might have had some kind of connection to the farm.”

“She’s dead? Good Lord! Let me see that again.”

I handed her the pictures.

“Where did they find her? Is this her sister? Were there two of them? Are you with the police? How did she die? How come I didn’t hear about this on the news?” The questions came fast, and her voice got louder with each one until she sounded smack dab on the edge of hysteria.

I chose to answer the last one and duck the rest. “No doubt it will be in the
Cadyville Eye
tomorrow. Are you sure you don’t know who she is?”

She shook her head with real regret. “Gosh. No. Sorry.”

As she left, Allie passed her in the doorway. Her face was pinched with distress, but she seemed a little less vague than when I’d left yesterday. The shock of a dead body in the compost had worn off, but now an aura of deep anxiety surrounded her.

“Tom said you have another picture to show me,” she said.

“I do.” I held it out. “How are you doing with all this?”

Allie grimaced. “Awful. I’m glad Hallie took Clarissa out. I don’t think I’m very good at hiding how worried I am.”

“It’ll all work out,” I said.

She looked me straight in the eye. “Thanks for your kindness. Really. But you can’t know that. You just can’t. We put everything we have into this farm. If it goes under, we won’t have anything left.” Tears threatened, but she swallowed and clenched her jaw. “Doesn’t do any good to think like that, though. I have to have faith.”

“Faith is good,” I said, feeling a little lame.

“It sure is. And a lot of that faith rests on your husband’s ability to find out why that woman was killed, and who did it. Barr has to fix the reputation of Turner Farm.”

That was a lot to ask. I didn’t say that, though, only nodded. “First he has to know who she was.”

Her hands were shaking as she looked at the updated bird lady. She stood in the light of the doorway and looked at it for a really long time before giving a single, abrupt shake of her head. “I don’t know her. I wish I did, but I don’t.” Her voice was tight. “We haven’t gotten to know that many people. We spend all our time keeping things going here.”

“It’s okay,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She covered it with her own hand and hung her head. We stood there for a long moment.

Finally, she swallowed audibly. “Okay. I have to get back to work. Thank you, Sophie Mae.”

Allie trudged back toward the farmhouse, and I watched her go. Something was off here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Maybe it was only the fear of losing everything they’d worked for.

Everything is a lot.

Eleven

I made mental notes
of what to tell Barr as I tracked down the yard cart as Tom had suggested and pulled it out to the nearby field of popcorn. Arnold Ziffel tried to follow, but I explained he wasn’t allowed in the corn field and shut the gate in his face. Soon more cars arrived, so I returned to the distribution shed to quiz more members about the bird lady. It was fun to meet some new people and see old friends, but no one seemed to know who she was. Most really tried to be helpful, though a couple got kind of pale, and one roundly chastised me for showing the pictures at all. I would have felt better about the whole thing if the two different pictures didn’t cause more confusion than anything else. I silently berated myself for wasting Meghan and Bette’s time earlier in the day. Not to mention my own. All that silliness about me being good at finding things out must have gone to my head.

I didn’t advertise that the body had been found about a hundred yards away at the bottom of the Turners’ compost pile, but my discretion went out the window when Jake Beagle showed up with his booming voice and big personality.

Fortunately about half the members had already come and gone by that time, but he began regaling the few still loading up on vegetables with details from the day before. They’d already denied knowing who she was, and it didn’t seem right to keep gossiping about the details of the body’s unearthing. I also felt protective of the Turners and their farm—even more so after talking with Allie. The CSA might not be able to withstand a bad reputation just as it was getting off the ground. Never mind that the town newspaper would give plenty of details about where she’d been found. At least it only came out once a week.

“Um. Jake,” I interrupted.

“What? You were here.” He laughed. “Well, of course
you
were here!”

“Take a look.” I shook the pictures in his face, hoping to distract him.

“What’s this? Oh, this is what Felicia was talking about last night.”

I remembered Barr had told me Jake’s wife had seen the autopsy photo. “You weren’t home, then?”

“My week at the Walk-In Clinic.” He fished a pair of reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and peered at both versions of the bird lady. “Well, now.”

My heartbeat quickened.

“Why are these so different?”

“Meghan remembered her from four or five years ago. So we made a few alterations to match her memory.”

“Huh.” Mr. Gossip seemed at a loss for words.

“Do you know her?” I prompted for the umpteenth time.

He snapped his fingers, and I jumped. “Patient. I bet she came to see me for some malady or other. Must have been a while ago, though. You know, I’m not so great with names, but I never forget a face.”

I tried to hide the irritation that always surfaced when I heard someone brag about that. Faces without names weren’t much good in the best of circumstances.

Jake left soon after, and I found myself alone in the dusty shed. I straightened the scales, tidied the piles of vegetables, and folded a few empty bags. In between showing the photos, I’d haggled for more green beans, so I took them out to the Rover. The sky had grown overcast, cooling the late summer afternoon significantly.
A vee formation of Canada geese honked their way south overhead,
and I paused to breathe in the scent of growing things.

A little after six o’clock, I emptied the second load of popcorn into the small storeroom behind the farm stand. Straightening, I saw a plume of dust on the road and then the sporty red Camaro that caused it. It pulled into the driveway of the Turners’ house at the edge of the farthest field. Hallie and Clarissa removed a shopping bag from the trunk and took it inside.

I debated whether to go talk to Allie’s sister and track down Nate while I was at it. Only a half dozen people still had to pick up their shares, and I sure hadn’t had much luck so far. My phone rang, and I hauled it out of my pocket.

It was Barr. “How’s it going?”

“Crappy. Dull. Lonely. You got my message about your victim being interested in birds?” I asked.

“Yeah, thanks. That’s progress at least, and now I’ve got someone going through missing person reports looking for a female ornithologist in her mid-to-late twenties. Lonely? Isn’t there anyone else there at the farm?”

“I saw Hallie pull up to the house, and Tom and Allie are here. Nate, too, though I haven’t seen him yet.”

“When I agreed to your plan I thought there’d be lots of people around. I don’t like you being there by yourself.”

“I hear something outside.” I craned my head and looked out the door. “It’s Bette, on her bike. Feel better?”

“Hmm.”

“Listen, I left you a copy of the picture she updated—or backdated, really—on our bed. Are you going home soon?”

“Soon enough. How’s your temperature?”

I swore. “I forgot to bring the thermometer today.” So much for tracking my basal body temperature.

“Well, either way I’ll see you later. If you know what I mean.”

Oh, yes. I knew what he meant.

Bette was already in the distribution shed when I returned, her lower lip clamped between her teeth as she carefully weighed out her portion of basil.

“I see a caprese salad in our future,” I said by way of greeting from the doorway. “How about you?”

She looked up, startled. Then she smiled. “Maybe I could buy some of your homemade mozzarella?”

“Oh, I think we could work out a trade of some kind. Listen, would you do me a favor?”

A now-what? look crossed her face.

I laughed. “Don’t worry. Nothing like earlier. I was just wondering if you could stick around for a few minutes while I run up to the house. And if any other members come in ask them to wait for me? I’m trying to make sure everyone gets a look at both of those pictures.”

“So no one’s identified your mystery woman?” She quickly counted out tomatoes and placed them carefully in her bike pannier, on top of the acorn squash.

I shook my head.

“Well, I’d love to stick around and help, but I’m afraid I’m meeting a friend for dinner. I’m late as it is. Sorry, Sophie Mae.” She topped the tomatoes with the herbs, and, looking harried, gave me an apologetic wave and rushed out to fasten the pack onto her cruiser.

Fine. I found the marker Allie used to list the share particulars and added a note on the bottom of the dry erase board.
Must talk with all members. Please wait. Be right back.

But about halfway to the farmhouse, another car pulled in. I turned around and retraced my steps down the dirt road as Daphne Sparks got out of her Jetta. She waved when she saw me and went inside. When I walked in she was standing with her hands on her hips, looking at the sign.

“Hi, Sophie Mae!” She gestured toward my note. “Any idea what that’s all about?”

She was tall, in her early twenties, with straight, blue-black hair
and bright green eyes. I wasn’t surprised she’d joined the Turners’ venture, as she was finishing up her horticulture studies at Evergreen Community College, and I knew for a fact she had a special affinity for plants, especially herbs.

The hope that I’d really discover the bird lady’s identity had given way to simple stubbornness. I removed the photos from the envelope and laid them in a clear space next to the peppers. “This is what it’s about. You know the woman we found yesterday? These are pictures of her. I’m trying to find out if any of the CSA members recognize either one of them.” By now my rote words tumbled out without much expectation.

Hesitantly, she approached. “Do I have to look?”

“Well, I can’t make you. But if you know her, wouldn’t you want to help find her killer?”

She blanched. “Killer?”

“It looks like it. But the police don’t even know who she is.”

Another few beats, then she took another step toward me. “Okay. I’ll look. But karma will catch up with whoever did that to her. You know that, right?”

Karma might be a bitch, but I was too impatient to wait for her.

“Oh, my God.”

I held my breath.

“You need to show these to Nate.” She held up both pictures.

“Who is she?” I asked, trying to remain calm.

Daphne shook her head. “I could be wrong—I never saw her up close. But Nate will know for sure.”