A Killer Crop (6 page)

“Yes, the last two of the family were Lula and Nettie Warren, the ones who left it to you. Did you ever explore our genealogy?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “Not really. I wasn’t particularly interested. It’s too bad—I suppose I should have asked the sisters more about their past, and now it’s too late. I was certainly surprised when I heard from their attorney.”

“And you weren’t curious enough to come up and see the house then?”

“That was, what, twenty years ago? It was a busy time. The attorney—I can’t even remember his name, although his firm was still handling the rentals until you moved in—offered to find tenants, and I just said yes. Until you needed a place to go.”

Another minefield that Meg didn’t want to explore at the moment. The circumstances under which she’d lost her job still smarted, even now. “Well, luckily for us, nobody messed with the place much. Most of what I’ve had to do has been basic maintenance, and some systems needed replacing. Like the plumbing—that was kind of urgent. The furnace is pretty shaky, and I don’t know if it will make it through another winter, but I want to see what kind of income I can get from the orchard before I lay out a big chunk for that.”

“Can you actually support yourself this way, Meg?”

Meg checked quickly to see if her mother was being sarcastic, but she appeared to be honestly interested. “To tell the truth, I don’t know. On paper, if everything goes right, after expenses—the short answer is yes. But that’s going to take some luck and a lot of hard work. Talk to me in a few months and I’ll have a better idea.”

“I must say I’m surprised to see you doing something so, um, physical.”

“You mean, rather than using my well-trained financial mind? Mother, I need every skill I’ve got to make this work. It’s a business, and it involves cost estimates and marketing plans and personnel issues. Sure, I get my hands dirty, but it’s a time-honored profession. I know—sometimes I have trouble believing I’m a farmer. If I’d known I was going to end up doing this, I’d have planned my life a bit differently. But I love the challenge, and I’m getting very fond of the town, and the people here. They’ve been great to me.” She hoped having helped to birth the much-needed restaurant went some way toward repaying Granford for welcoming her.

Elizabeth studied her face but didn’t comment. Finally she said, “Walk me through the place, then. When was it built?”

“Around 1760, as far as I can tell. I’ve been going through documents from the Historical Society here ...” The building tour took another half hour. Meg was pleasantly surprised when Elizabeth was willing to visit the barn and outbuildings. She felt a small spurt of pride as she described the construction of the temperature-controlled compartments where she stored her apples.

“How large is the property again?” Elizabeth asked, shading her eyes as she admired the view.

“Fifteen acres in apples, and a few more for the house lot. It was a lot bigger once—over a hundred acres—but parts were sold off over time. I’m also the proud owner of the Great Meadow there—that’s a fancy name for wet-lands, but at least no one will build on it.”

“And these are your goats.” Elizabeth approached their enclosure cautiously. Dorcas and Isabel crowded against the fence, intrigued by the newcomer. “Do they smell?”

“Males do, but these are females.”

Elizabeth turned around to scan the sweep of hill and house and barn. “I had no idea . . .”

“Neither did I when you sent me out here.”

“Poor dear. If I had known what I was getting you into, I probably would have told that lawyer just to sell the place and be done with it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Meg replied, surprising herself. “Maybe I won’t be doing this forever, but I’m enjoying it for now. You’re sure you don’t want to stay, Mother?”

“No, dear. I’d just be in the way here, and frankly, I’d like some time alone. When you’re married, that’s a rare treat. If you can spare some time, maybe we can have lunch or dinner together. At that restaurant you mentioned, perhaps?”

“That would be lovely. I’m sorry I’m not being more hospitable, but I do want to spend some time with you.”
And I do want to know more about Daniel Weston and whatever it is you’re not saying.

“I’m sure we’ll manage something, dear. Now, if you’ll just sketch out directions to get to this B and B, I’ll be on my way, and you can go pick your apples.”

Instructions conveyed, Meg helped her mother load her suitcase—already packed and waiting—into her car and waved her off. She felt both relieved and guilty. Weren’t there any mothers and daughters who could carry on an adult relationship without dancing around innuendos and old hurts? She loved her mother, really she did, but that didn’t mean they got along well. This current mess just underscored the underlying distance between them, and Meg was having real trouble wrapping her mind around the idea of her mother with Daniel Weston. Elizabeth still had not told the whole truth, which would usually have been fine with Meg—except that Daniel was dead and Detective Marcus was sniffing around. That shifted the priorities.

Meg had one more thing to do before she started picking today. She found her cell phone and called Seth.

“Hi, Meg,” he answered in his usual cheery tone. “What’s up?”

“I just packed my mother off to Rachel’s to stay. It was her idea to go somewhere else—she said staying here made her feel guilty that she was taking up my time, and besides, she wanted some space. But I didn’t tell her Rachel was your sister. Does that make me an evil person?”

Seth laughed. “You want Rachel to pump her for information?”

“Look, Rachel is a whole lot better at getting people to open up than I am.”

“Meg, she’s your mother—you’ve got too much history together to be open with each other.”

Meg felt a stab of relief. “You understand! How do you manage with your mother?”

“Easy. She thinks I’m wonderful, end of story. And I think she’s a pretty great lady. Hey, at least your mother is staying in the area for a bit, right? You’ll have a chance to work things out.”

“I’m glad you think so. Talk to you later—the apples are calling me.”

“Go!”

If Meg had had time, she would have felt guilty. Had she driven her mother out of the house? Or was it her mother who wanted to escape from her daughter’s prying questions? Normally they would have trodden carefully, avoiding any conflicts. Unfortunately this time that wasn’t possible. Meg could only hope that Detective Marcus would sort things out quickly and that she and her mother could go back to their usual “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy of ignoring any important issues.

But right now she had the demanding physical work of apple picking to distract her. Whatever idyllic fantasies she had harbored about the dignity of the Noble Farmer had evaporated fast when she actually started working. Still, as she had told her mother, it was honest work, and it needed doing, even if it was nothing more than removing apples from a tree—carefully, of course, to avoid damaging both the apples and the branches—and taking them down the hill to the barn, and then from the barn to the market. It was also sweaty and boring much of the time. On the plus side, it left her time to think while her hands (and legs and back and every muscle she could name) were busy. On the minus side, most of her thoughts kept veering toward her mother.

She and her mother had always had a distant relationship, and Meg had never really understood why. She knew her parents loved her; she had never been neglected or ignored, and her parents had made sure she’d had every opportunity she could wish for. Meg had attended dance classes, art lessons, horseback riding, martial arts classes, and more. She had tried out more than one instrument in the school orchestra, and then in the marching band—and her parents had been in the audience every time she performed. They had taken family vacations, even to Europe. She had had their attention and their affection.

So why the distance? Why did she and her mother dance around each other like polite strangers most of the time? Meg didn’t want a best friend, but she did want some true connection. Meg allowed herself a small spurt of resentment: she had always done what they asked, always been who her parents wanted her to be—performed well in school, had a nice group of appropriate friends. She had never gotten into trouble, never done drugs, never even stayed out past her curfew, for God’s sake! So why was her mother so formal with her? And why, Meg asked herself, had she never tried to break through, now that she was an adult?

“Hey, Meg, watch it—you don’t have to rip the apples off the tree!” Bree’s voice interrupted her internal debate.

“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t paying attention. How’re we doing overall?”

“The Gravensteins are about done, and Raynard and I think we should wait a couple of days for the Paulareds. So we’re good.”

“Does that mean maybe I could take a few hours off?”

“To visit with your mother? Sure, no problem. Maybe I’m overstepping here, but that’s one uptight lady.”

“She is that,” Meg admitted. “There’s something going on, but she won’t tell me what. I keep trying to explain that Detective Marcus is going to ask the same questions. ‘How did you know Daniel Weston? What was your relationship with him?’ But she just brushes me off.”

Bree looked up at Meg, perched on her low ladder. “You think there was something going on?”

Meg shook her head. “I don’t even want to go there. But the more she stonewalls Marcus, the worse it will be.”

“So does Marcus think . . . ?” Bree asked.

“That it was murder? I don’t know. I don’t
want
to know. But the fact that a respected professor turned up dead in a remote farmers’ market just doesn’t seem right, and I’m willing to bet that we’ll be hearing from Marcus again. Does Michael have any news contacts in Amherst?”

Bree snorted. “There is no news in Amherst. Haven’t you noticed? There are hardly any newspapers anymore. But I’ll ask, in case he knows somebody who knows somebody, or something. How about asking Seth?”

“I keep forgetting he went to the college there, although it’s been a while.”

“He’s Seth. He probably has seventeen friends on the staff there.”

“True. But I hate to ask him for anything else—he does so much already.”

“You got that right. But he seems to like to help, and people talk to him. Marcus hasn’t gotten back to your mother?”

“Not that I know of, but she’s over at Rachel’s now. And he has her cell phone number, so he’ll get in touch with her directly if he needs to.”

“What about Art Preston?”

“I don’t think our local chief of police will be in the loop on this one, since Weston died in Amherst, not Granford.” Or had he? Meg didn’t recall Marcus saying specifically
where
Weston had actually died. “Maybe I should touch base with Art, just in case. He couldn’t know any less than I do.”

“Finish this tree, and you can call it a day,” Bree said.

Half an hour later Meg deposited the rest of her day’s assignment of apples in the large bin nearby and went down the hill to the house. Inside it was pleasantly cool, after a day spent in the sun—September nights did help, even if the days remained hot and sunny. She picked up the phone and dialed the number for the police station, identified herself, and asked for Chief Preston.

“Oh, hi, Meg,” the person on the desk replied. “He just walked out of here with Seth Chapin. You want me to buzz him?”

“No, don’t bother. I’ve got Seth’s cell number. Thanks.”

She tried Seth, who answered quickly. “Art and I were thinking of heading over to your place—we figured you’d want hear what little he knows about this Amherst murder. Are you back at the house?” he said.

“Yes, but give me time to grab a shower before you show up, please!”

“No problem. We’ll pick up something to drink along the way.”

When he hung up, Meg dashed for the shower.

 

 

She was downstairs wearing clean clothes, her hair damp, when Art and Seth pulled in. Despite the matters that had led to her introduction to the local chief of police, she counted Art Preston more as a friend than as an officer these days. He in turn was willing to trust her with information that lay outside of what was released to the public—if and when he had any. As a small-town police chief, he wasn’t always included in investigations outside of his jurisdiction, and he and Detective Marcus were not friendly.

“Hey, Meg,” he called out when he saw her at the back door. “We didn’t know what you had, so we brought beer, wine, and a gallon of iced tea.”

“Right now I’m parched, so I’ll go with the tea. Are you off-duty, Art?”

“I am. I’ve got to get home by six or the wife’ll skin me alive, but I knew you’d be calling me sooner or later about this Weston death, so I figured I’d beat you to it. And here we are.”

“Thank you. I just called your office and they said you’d left with Seth. Sit—I’ll get some glasses.”