Crops and Robbers (13 page)

Before we said our good-byes, I said, “Betsy, where are your glasses?”

The mellow noise of the restaurant buzzed around us. There was a steady hum of conversation and laughter, but it still wasn’t loud. I focused on Betsy’s perplexed look, and I imagined the noises quieting as I waited for her to speak.

“Uh, right here I think,” she said as she reached under the podium. “They help me read. Do you need to look at something?” She held them out to me.

“No, thanks. Why haven’t I seen you wearing them tonight? You’ve been looking at the seating chart, menus, the papers in your office. Why haven’t you been wearing them?”

Betsy glanced at Ian and then back at me. “That’s an odd question. Why do you ask?”

“Long story. I’m just curious.” I tried to look at the glasses as she held them. Were they the same ones she’d worn yesterday? They looked the same, but she could have more than one pair. For some reason, the second Sam found the piece of glass, the images of Betsy, glasses on and glasses off, came to my mind. Violence had occurred at my house. It was conceivable that glasses could be broken in a scuffle. Maybe Betsy had been there and she’d been part of the violence, even though she looked no worse for the wear.

“I’m wearing my contacts. I don’t need my glasses when I wear them,” she said, though impatience lined her voice.

“Why are they here then?”

“My eyes get tired and I take my contacts out sometimes.”

“Why weren’t you wearing contacts when you visited the market yesterday morning?”

Betsy sighed. “My eyes were tired. We were up early. I stay up late—working and then winding down. Anything else?”

She probably wished she hadn’t given us cake.

I looked at Ian, who smiled uncomfortably. It was time to go.

“No, thank you again, Betsy.”

We turned to leave.

It was too bad we didn’t watch Betsy as she beelined it back to her office. We might have been able to guess that it took her approximately thirty seconds to know what Ian and I had been up to.

We should have known that we’d have to eventually answer for our curiosity and thievery.

As it was, we briefly discussed both the small piece of paper and the list but couldn’t come up with a reasonable explanation for either. The comments and the handwriting from the note matched those on the main list, but knowing that didn’t help.

We were tired and our minds were too busy processing the events of the past couple days. We decided to look at the papers later, after we both were better rested and not so full of cake.

“Oh, no, I would rather you washed the tomatoes before you eat
them,” Viola Gardner said to a young man named Max. Max was twelve, brilliant, and loved tomatoes. His short blond hair was stick-straight and highlighted his intelligent green eyes and big smile. I liked him even if he did sneak tomatoes.

The morning was perfect. The temperature was still low enough to be able to breathe, and the garden was glorious in greens, reds, and some yellows. There were a total of six kids this morning, ranging from twelve down to nine years old. It was a good group and the perfect size. Jake was busy working in his restaurant, so that left me, Bo, and Viola to work with the kids. We could have handled more than six, but I liked the smaller number.

There was always work to do on my crops, but they were mostly in a holding pattern at the moment. My sanity was strongly tied to the work I did with my plants and in my kitchen. The community garden had provided a perfect supplement to my peaceful outside time.

I got to play in the dirt; I learned about other plants, specifically onions; I got to interact with kids who were developing a love of farming or at least gardening; I got to know the softer parental side of Bo; and I got to hang out with Viola, who could take over the world, if she wanted to.

“Becca Robins,” she said after gently scolding Max, “come over here and talk to me right this minute.”

“Sure,” I said as I stood. I wiped my knees and then took off my gloves as I followed her to the corner of the garden.

The space was probably thirty feet wide by a hundred feet long and extended back from Jake’s own garden. He used every product he grew, but there was never enough of anything to totally sustain the restaurant. He didn’t have the time to make his own garden bigger, so he had to buy produce from other farmers. He never used anything from the community garden. Those items were strictly for the food bank or the kids’ families.

Viola, Jake’s aunt, walked slowly but with purpose. She was a small woman, but she’d yet to meet a deeply rooted weed she couldn’t yank out of the ground with one big tug.

She always wore baby blue polyester pants that she insisted were the most comfortable thing she owned. She topped off the ensemble with frilly pastel-colored blouses and a wide-brimmed straw hat. Most of the time, the hat folded down on the sides, but sometimes, and usually when she was in the middle of a conversation, the front would flop down and completely cover her wrinkled and quirky face. Viola never smiled, but she was always happy. Her mouth never turned up at the corners, but it was in a perpetual state of slant. Her nose was long and crooked, but never unattractive. And her eyes were two different colors, though there was always debate as to which two colors they were on any given day.

Viola was somewhere in her eighties, but I didn’t know where and thought it rude to ask. Despite her slow gait, she moved steadily, carrying a cane with three legs that unfolded and had a pull-down seat. When she reached the corner of the garden, she pulled down the seat and maneuvered it into place. She sat and faced me but looked over my shoulder.

“Bo, would you get those stinkers out of the lettuce, please?” she said. Two of the younger boys thought it was appropriate to play tag in the lettuce.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

She inspected the progress over my shoulder. When she seemed pleased, she focused her attention on me.

“Becca, tell me what in tarnation is going on. Your mother is in jail for killing Joan Ashworth? I don’t understand.”

Viola’s voice wasn’t as demanding as I knew it could be. She felt genuine concern, not just curiosity.

I gave her a quick overview of what had happened. She listened intently, her different colored eyes on my blue ones the whole time.

Finally, she shook her head slowly when I’d finished. “So sad, so wrong. Becca, it sounds like your mother was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“The only evidence points to her, too,” I said, swallowing hard.

“And I could sell you some swampland if circumstances presented themselves correctly. I’m sure your mother didn’t kill Joan. Have the police looked at her son, Nobel, yet?”

I blinked. “You know Nobel?”

“I know of him. I’ve heard stories over the years. He’s odd, a loner, and always concocting some sort of something. He likes to make up recipes, but I hear he’s worked with lethal combinations, too.”

“Lethal? Like what?” I knew Viola had all her faculties, but I suddenly wondered about her imagination.

Viola rubbed at her chin. “I remember hearing something about arsenic.”

“Arsenic? In what connotation?”

“There were rumors he was trying to poison some customers. This was a long time ago and I don’t think anything came of it, but it’s something the police should know about.”

“I’ll let them know today. Can you tell me any more details?”

“There was some fuss. I think there was a newspaper article, but the fuss died down quickly.”

“Newspaper article?”

“Yes, in the
Monson Gazette
, I believe. Oh, darn, I can’t remember the details, but part of the fuss was Joan’s doing. Of course, she would protect her son, but she put a stop to further articles. I don’t know how she did it, power of the press and all, but she managed it.” She looked over my shoulder again. “You know who would know more—Bo’s mother, Miriam. They were friends. Until they weren’t friends. I think maybe it was Nobel’s troubles that ended the friendship.”

“Was that when the restaurant association quit buying onions from Bo’s family farm?”

Viola nodded. “I think it was. Oh, I’m almost sure it was. Ask Bo. No, I have a better idea. Go talk to Miriam. Bo!”

“Yes’m?” he said as one boy with red hair hung from his extended arm and a blond boy was trying to jump up to grab onto the other extended arm.

“You’ll take Becca to your mom’s house after lunch to talk to Miriam, all right?”

“Sure, Becca’s always welcome.”

I watched this communication and didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable. Bo would do whatever Viola asked him to do. We all would do whatever Viola asked us to do. And I would love to learn more about the person who might have worked with lethal concoctions. This added a whole new layer to the investigation.

However, I was simply more curious than anything else. I didn’t know how Joan’s death would have anything to do with Nobel’s sketchy past, but it was something worth looking at. There would be no threat in visiting Miriam; it’d be a safe thing to do.

“Very good,” Viola said. “Now, let’s show the young’uns how to pull up the onions.”

Viola folded her chair and called the kids to attention. They hurried to gather around and listen as she explained the harvesting process for onions. Even though Bo was the onion expert, he just listened as she explained that the best time to pick onions was when their necks were tight and their scales were dry. She told them never to freeze onions but keep them at room temperature. They’ll start to spoil after a good four months, so for something that’s harvested from the ground, they stick around a long time.

We played in the dirt for a couple more hours, showing the kids what to do to keep the plants healthy organically. We talked about root systems and how far apart to plant different types of seeds. I was always surprised at how closely the kids listened to what we said. They didn’t sit still well, but even with all the fidgeting, I could witness a love of land taking shape in each and every one of them. It was almost as satisfying as my real job.

Jake brought out some trays of mini sandwiches for lunch. That was one of the best perks of working at the garden: Jake fed us lunch.

I’d planned on visiting my parents after the morning at the garden, but plans to visit Bo’s mother suddenly came first. I called them to ask if they needed lunch. When they said that Allison had already brought them salads from home, I let them know that some other things had come up but I’d stop by later. They understood and seemed to be in good moods. I also called Allison to see if her research had turned up anything important, but she said she was still searching.

After wrapping up at the garden, I followed Bo to his family’s onion farm, which was about ten miles past my own. I glanced at my property as I drove by. Everything looked fine, but I did feel sorry for Hobbit. I bet she missed the front porch, but she was still under dog-sitter supervision.

The Staffords’ onion farm might have been one of the most picturesque farms I’d ever seen. The main house sat back from the state highway, but only slightly. It was a white colonial two-story with four tall columns across the front. It looked old, but not in a run-down way. Tall trees filled the front yard, which widened as it got closer to the highway. Where there weren’t trees, there was thick green grass that looked like it had been trimmed all around, including at the point where the lawn met the gravel shoulder.

Directly to the left of the house was a huge rose garden. Rosebushes of every color and size filled the space. I’d never seen so many roses in my life. The onion fields were in rows behind the house and the rose garden. The rows stretched off into the distance and out of sight, and even though the colors alternated between the green of well-cultivated crops and the deep brown of harvested dirt, for some reason the never-ending paths reminded me of the yellow brick road.

There was a red barn behind the house and on the opposite side of the rose garden. An antique-looking tractor sat next to the barn. I wondered if the tractor was still in use or merely decoration. Whatever the case, its green paint wasn’t chipped.

I pulled into the driveway and parked behind Bo. He got out of his truck and walked to mine.

Before we’d started spending time together at the community garden, I thought Bo was just a big, gruff guy, but I soon realized his gruffness was a cover for his shyness. Since we’d been around each other so much more, he seemed to have relaxed around me and now smiled frequently. And the change in his personality when he was at his farm was even more pronounced. He was on his turf and completely at ease and comfortable.

“This is where I grew up, Becca,” he said as I got out of the truck. “My dad died a long time ago, but my mom still lives here and I work here, but I live about a mile that way”—he pointed—“with my family. I don’t have much land, but Mom’s giving me this farm when she dies.”