Til Dirt Do Us Part (A Local Foods Mystery) (20 page)

C
am sat in a lawn chair in a last spot of late-day sunshine outside the chicken enclosure. Preston sat next to her, doing his Sphinx imitation. During the rest of her walk with Pete, they had chatted about non-murder-related topics—movies they liked, his three brothers, her quirky parents, how they’d gotten into their respective professions. They’d kept it light and easy. When they’d parted in the parking area, he said to call him if she learned anything new, and made her promise to be careful.

It had been a pleasant afternoon. The part where she tripped had been particularly nice. But Cam reminded herself of two red-flag points. The first was that she had a date with Jake on Monday night. The second was that Pete was a man on the rebound and he was not yet divorced. It didn’t matter how much she liked that he didn’t whine about his situation and didn’t dwell on it. It was irrelevant at this time to feel a strong attraction to him both physically and intellectually. She needed to be content to be friends with him and to help him on the investigation if she could.

“Hey, Cam!” Ellie’s voice intruded on her thoughts.

Cam turned to look behind her. The teenager rode around the corner of the barn on a bicycle. She was breathing heavily, her cheeks rosy, a smile splitting her face. She pulled to a stop next to Cam’s chair, unclipped the helmet strap under her chin, and hung the helmet on the handlebar.

Cam greeted her. “You look happy.”

“I got my Locavore badge! I wanted to show you.” Ellie dismounted, letting the bike fall to the side. She wore a gray hooded sweatshirt with a yellow GS emblem on the left chest. What looked like a pre-distressed numeral twelve decorated the front of the hoodie, with a small nineteen embedded in the top of the one. The right leg of her skinny jeans was rolled up at the ankle, above a leopard-print sneaker with neon-green laces.

“Congratulations, Ellie. You worked hard for it.”

“We had our troop meeting after school today. I, like, finished the requirements in the summer, but it took this long for the badge to come through.” She rolled her eyes as she dug something out of her pocket. She proffered a plastic sheath holding a colorful cloth patch bordered in orange. “Do you think it’s a radish or a beet?” The reddish orb had its aboveground greenery attached.

“Good question.” Cam peered at the leaves. “I think it’s a beet. A radish would have a lighter-colored root and would taper into it more.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Grab a chair. Unless you have to get home?”

“No. I told my mom I was coming by here. What a killer hill you live on, Cam. This is the first time I’ve ridden my bike all the way up here.”

Cam laughed. “Where’s an attic? At the top of the house. And this is Attic Hill.”

“How are the hens doing?” Ellie knelt by the fence and stuck her finger through one of the openings. Hillary marched over to check out if food might be part of the deal. When she pecked at Ellie’s finger, the girl laughed and withdrew it.

“Her name is Hillary,” Cam said.

Ellie stared at Cam. “Do you mean for Hillary Clinton? Awesome. My mom worked on her campaign for president.”

Cam knew Myrna Kosloski suffered from multiple sclerosis. Being wheelchair bound didn’t let her get out much. But she wasn’t surprised the former surgeon had been active in a political campaign for a strong female candidate, and there was a lot a person could do from a desk and a phone.

“Omigod.” Ellie giggled. “She’s the hens’ fearless leader, right? That is
so
the right name.”

“I thought so, too. I hadn’t realized they were going to have personalities. So how’s high school treating you?” Cam hadn’t had a chance to chat with Ellie since the summer ended.

“Some good, some bad. It was pretty confusing at first. Lockers, seniors. You know. But I’m in advanced math, and I made the cross-country team, which is a bunch of fun kids.”

“Aren’t you on the soccer team, too?”

“That’s the traveling team. It’s with the town, not the school, and it’s only on weekends. Well, we’re supposed to practice every Tuesday. But Coach Molise doesn’t like it when I miss cross-country practice. I guess this’ll be my last year playing soccer. But it’s okay. I love running.”

“I’ll bet you’re fast.” Cam had noticed most of Ellie’s recent growth seemed to be in her legs, which looked longer every week.

“I’m trying to talk up Girl Scouts at school, too. Make it cool, instead of nerdy. I brought a couple of new girls to the meeting today. I think they’re going to join.”

“Would that be a Girl Scout sweatshirt you’re wearing?”

“Totally. See?” She pointed to the small nineteen and the big twelve. “Founded in nineteen twelve. Not a bad design for a nerdy group, right?”

“I like it. So, any boys on the horizon at school?”

“Chill, Cam!” Ellie refastened her fine blond hair in a scrunchie. “Well, there is one kid I kind of like. He’s a junior, so he’s wicked old. But he’s nice. And he doesn’t try to, like, play Mr. Big Man or anything.”

“Name?”

“Vince. His dad is the pig farmer who was at the dinner last week. You know, their farm is where Ms. Burr died. Poor Vince.”

Cam watched Ellie stroke Preston. She had a crush on Vince Fisher.

“Do you ever go to see him at the farm?” This could be worrisome. She didn’t want Ellie anywhere near Howard’s temper.

“Uh, no.” Ellie stretched the negation into three syllables while she wrinkled her brow and raised her eyebrows as only a teen could. “We just, like, get an ice cream after school and talk. Once we rode our bikes to Mill Pond and walked around.”

Cam had had no idea Mill Pond was date central for old and young and everyone in between. The spot of sun they sat in suddenly turned to shadow as the sun sank behind the woods beyond the farm.

Ellie stood. “I have to get home. See you tomorrow. I’ll come early to help, right?”

“I’d love it. Thanks, Ellie. And congratulations again on your badge. You’re great.”

Ellie fastened her helmet and rode off with a wave.

Cam shoved herself up out of the chair and shooed all the hens into their coop. Sunset ate away at the light earlier each day. In a couple of weeks the clocks would change, and they would plunge into the short, dark days of a northern fall. She wondered if the chickens’ internal clocks were linked to the actual sunset or to the same time every day. She guessed she’d find out.

She made sure the coop door was securely fastened and puttered in the barn for a while, setting up the farm table for the next day’s distribution, assessing what still needed to be harvested, putting away tools.

She felt unsettled as she walked to the house. The dusk gathered like a dark dream. While it was great to see Ellie learning, growing, falling in love, even, it made Cam feel all the older. This life she’d taken on, running a farm solo, was a hard one. It was not so different from any other farmer’s the world over, but it varied in every respect from her previous safe, sedentary job as a software engineer with a condo in the city and clean fingernails around the clock.

As Cam unlocked the door to the house, she wondered if she’d ever have a teenaged daughter like Ellie. Was she even cut out to be a mother? Cam’s own mother was sweet but had been as distant as her father. Her only real role model for maternal nurturing had been Great-Aunt Marie. And what man would want a socially unskilled woman like herself? Jake appeared to, but Cam wasn’t sure she wanted him in return. Pete? Maybe, but they would have to get to know each other much better, and he had a few details of his own to work out first.

Cam flicked on the lights and called Preston. When he ran in, she relaxed into relief from tension she hadn’t realized she was holding. She locked the door behind them.

She pushed back her chair two hours later. She’d cut an acorn squash in half and baked it. She had thrown together a quick whole-wheat couscous stuffing with sautéed onions and chopped steamed kale, rosemary, and pine nuts, and had filled the scooped-out halves, topping them with grated sharp cheddar. A few more minutes in the oven, time enough to pour a glass of wine, and it was dinner, with enough left over for several more solitary meals.

She was halfway through both her dinner and reading the
Boston Globe
when the house phone rang.

She greeted Great-Uncle Albert.

“I wanted to tell you I got a ride over to Bev Montgomery’s today,” he said. “We had a long talk, and I think she’s agreed to sell the place. A lady here passed recently, so her room is available.” He laughed. “Death is the only way rooms come open, I’m afraid. At any rate, Bev said she’d take it.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” And maybe in assisted living Bev would also get some of the mental health attention she needed.

“Say, did Preston ever turn up?” Albert asked.

“He’s back.”

“Wonderful, dear.”

“I forgot to tell you last night. I’m sorry. And you might not think it’s so wonderful when you hear where I found him.” She relayed the story of the previous morning.

“Oh, my. Why would Howard keep Preston?”

“Vince said something about his father wanting to wait to give him back so it would look like he had rescued Preston instead of taking him.”

“The whole thing is a shame. Howard Fisher has had his troubles, I must say.”

“He seems to be passing them on to his son, unfortunately. I spoke with Vince after he got out of school yesterday. He said his father beats him regularly.”

“That’s a crime. Has somebody reported him?”

“Detective Pappas said he’d look into it.”

After they’d finished talking, she thought a little harder about why Howard would want to play the nice guy by pretending to find Preston after having kept him nearly starved for a few days. Because he thought Cam was being overly critical of the way he tended his pigs? Or that she was suspicious of him? For what? The murder?

She shook her head. She returned to her dinner and her paper. Maybe she’d call Pete to talk some more when she was done eating. Maybe he was sitting home alone on a Friday night, too.

S
he awoke the next morning with a fleeting dream memory of her feet traversing a frozen lake. When she opened her eyes, the gray light and the sound of dripping eaves through the open window played backdrop to her bare feet outside the covers. Cam groaned as she grabbed for the quilt, curled her feet and head under it, and prayed without hope to get back to sleep. She lay listening to the rain as her feet gradually warmed. She never did call Pete last night. It would have seemed too personal. She didn’t really have anything pressing on the case to talk with him about, after all.

Rain was the worst possible condition for a last-minute harvest. The greens would be sodden. Any fungus on the bean plants would be spread by picking in the rain. Possibly worst of all, she and any volunteers would be soaked and chilled before the first shareholder even arrived. She cast a glance at the clock and groaned. It was already seven o’clock. This was major sleeping in for a farmer, especially on pickup day, but she was both too cold to get out of bed and too reluctant to start the workday.

When she’d warmed up enough, she sat, slid her feet into slippers, and rolled out of bed. She took a deep breath and straightened her back. This was her life right now, like it or not. A hot shower, a bowl of oatmeal, and a mug of French roast later, she suited up in old jeans, an old fleece sweatshirt, wool socks, and rain gear. She ventured forth, Preston at her side. The digital thermometer on the porch read forty-three degrees Fahrenheit. A little below normal for the middle of October, but not unheard of. Preston, with his double layer of fur, was unfazed by the rain. He ambled by her side, paused to sniff the chicken enclosure after she entered it, and headed back to sit under the eaves of the barn.

Cam wasn’t sure how the birds would react to the rain. She opened their door. They wandered out and started pecking, rain or no rain. She realized they would need a cover for their food, so she rummaged in the barn until she came up with a discarded piece of plywood and a couple of boxes to prop it on over the feeder.

She felt completely inadequate with respect to these fowl. She remembered with relief that Alexandra would be there later to pick up her share. Maybe she’d even come early to help harvest. Cam could ask her then what to do about hens and rainy days. Alexandra had also promised to build a covered run with DJ this weekend. It seemed more like the girls needed an entire covered housing complex, but that was definitely not Cam’s area of expertise. And would they build while it was raining?

Grabbing scissors and a big basket, she trudged over to the salad area. She grew the lettuces and tender greens as close to the barn as she could. Woodchucks and rabbits loved to munch nearly mature heads of lettuce right to the ground if they got a chance, and she’d had her share of heartbreak when going out to cut lettuce on market morning, only to find flat green stumps instead.

Earlier in the year, Cam had spent some time researching effective solutions short of poisoning every critter in sight. After the new barn was completed, Cam had set up an area fenced in by a wire that was powered by a small shocking device. The wire ran from the device, mounted inside a corner of a barn window, out to the salad garden. She’d stretched it around the area one foot up off the ground. She’d wrapped the wire around a narrow fiberglass post at four-foot intervals. All she had to do was keep weeds from growing tall enough to lean against the wire so that they wouldn’t short out the electricity.

She’d touched the live wire once so she could understand the effect on the small mammals, not that she was anywhere near their size. The shock was unpleasant but didn’t knock her out or anything. She fervently hoped it would deter the varmints from browsing through some of her most valuable crops. Somehow, possibly from being shocked once, Preston had figured out this area was one to stay away from. She supposed she could have built a permanent wire fence, sinking it into the ground to prevent the critters from digging under it, but then she would be stuck with that size of garden. The electric-wire method was a lot more flexible.

Now Cam stepped carefully over the wire and set to work cutting bunches of mesclun in the rain. It wasn’t a downpour, so the leaves stood mostly erect, and most weren’t lying in the wet soil. She remembered her arugula beds being poisoned last spring. It had taken a while to find the culprit.

She’d filled the capacious market basket and stood to stretch her back when she spied a slight figure in a lime-green rain jacket approaching.

“Now, that’s dedication,” Cam said when Ellie drew near. “Thanks for coming.”

“I said I’d come help. It’s just rain.” Ellie smiled. “It’s what we say in cross-country. We train in anything except lightning. Rain doesn’t hurt you.”

“Well, I’m glad to have you. You didn’t ride your bike in this, I hope.”

“My dad dropped me off.”

“How are your running times, anyway?” Cam asked.

“I’m getting there. I’m only a freshman. But we have this girl, Chelsea, a junior? She might go to states. She’s wicked fast.”

“I actually ran cross-country in high school. It was the only sport I had any interest in.”

“You did?” Ellie’s eyebrows rose.

“Don’t look so surprised. I figured it was a good use of these ostrich legs.” Cam gestured vaguely at her extra-tall rain pants.

“Were you any good?”

“I placed once. I tripped a lot, too. I’m actually too tall to be a great runner. Or at least that was my excuse.” Cam laughed and shook her head.

“You should come to one of our meets sometime.”

Cam gazed at Ellie, thinking of Myrna, who couldn’t possibly navigate the grassy fields or wooded areas where the meets would be sure to start and finish. “I’d like to. Can I find the schedule online?”

Ellie nodded. “On the high school Web page. Click the Sports tab. We’re down at the bottom.” She rolled her eyes. “Of course. So, what’s my first, like, job this morning?”

“Why don’t you take this basket back to the barn and see if you can make it presentable for the shareholders? The greens are pretty wet, but I don’t think they are too dirty. Maybe spread them out in several baskets for an hour or two so the greens will dry out a little. Watch the fence!”

“Got it.” Ellie leaned over the wire, hefted the basket, and headed back the way she’d come. Cam looked around, trying to remember what else she needed to harvest out here. She could set Ellie to cutting herbs when she reemerged. It would have to be a small share this week. Fortunately, the subscribers’ agreement stated that shares would go down to half portions in the fall. She realized with a start that they had only a month left to go for the summer shares. And the winter shares would start in December.
Yikes.
Did she have enough started in the greenhouse to sustain cutting all winter? And could she keep it warm enough?

Cam heaved a sigh as heavy as a peck of carrots. She turned when she heard voices behind her. Ellie and Bobby were walking toward her. Bobby wore a Red Sox cap and had the collar of a canvas jacket, dark with moisture, pulled up around his ears.

“Look who I found,” Ellie said, smiling.

“Did you come out here in the rain to volunteer?” Cam asked Bobby.

He shook his head. He shifted his eyes to Ellie and back to Cam, as if sending Cam a message.

It took her a moment. “Ellie, can you cut herbs next? You know the routine.”

Ellie walked off, nodding.

“What’s up?” Cam faced Bobby.

“They took Sim in for questioning.”

“Oh, no. But I saw Pete yesterday and—”

“Oh, so you’re on a cozy first-name basis with the statie who accused me of murder?” Bobby pulled his mouth down in disgust.

“I thought Detective Pappas had already questioned Sim.” Cam ignored the jab. “Twice.”

“It’s some issue with her alibi. But so what? Same as with me, they can’t possibly have any actual evidence. I’m betting they’ll let her go. I wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“I
thought
you and she were friends. Like I thought you and I were friends. But maybe you’re better friends with old Pete, there.” Bobby’s look changed to one of worry. “If you are, I hope you can convince him to leave Sim alone. She didn’t kill Irene any more than I did.”

Alexandra didn’t show up early to help, but with some degree of scrambling and no small dose of ingenuity, Cam and Ellie managed to assemble enough produce for the shares. Ellie’s father, David, came promptly at noon, picked up the family’s share, and whisked his daughter away to get warm and dry. The rain had finally stopped, a brisk wind moving the front through. Cam could even spy traces of blue in the western sky.

She dashed to the house before anyone else arrived, stripped off every piece of her wet clothing, and pulled on a dry outfit, socks, and work boots. She grabbed a granola bar and munched it as she headed back to the barn. She was in time to greet two customers getting out of their cars.

By two o’clock only half the shareholders had taken their produce. Cam checked the clock on the barn wall. Usually, things were winding down by now. Maybe people were out of town, leaf peeping. She had no idea.

Lucinda walked slowly through the door, hands in her jeans pockets, a cloth bag slung over her shoulder. She didn’t smile at Cam.

“Hey, what’s up?” Cam asked.

Lucinda poked through the salad greens like she wasn’t sure she wanted to take any of them. “You know I said I had to find another cleaning job, now that Irene is gone?”

Cam nodded.

“Then I thought, I got my green card. Maybe now I can be a librarian again, like I was in Brazil. The heck with scrubbing toilets.”

“Absolutely. Did you find something?”

“Nada.” She shook her head. “Nobody wants me. Not even as an aide, a shelver.” She picked up a squash and threw it into the bottom of her bag. The bag slipped off her arm and fell, the squash rolling out and toward the wall of tools. She swore but let it roll.

Cam approached her. “Rotten luck. How many libraries did you talk to?”

“All the ones around here. They don’t like immigrants, I guess. Westbury was actually the most friendly, but they want me to get more training in this country. I have a degree in library science ! But it’s in Portuguese. Not good enough for them.” She spat out the last sentence.

“I’m really sorry, Lucinda. Don’t give up.”

Wes rushed in, carrying Felicity’s market basket. He greeted Cam and set to work. Checking the blackboard where Cam listed all the items and how much to take of each, he threw three leeks into the bottom of the basket, selected a squash, added a bunch of kale, frowning all the while.

“How’s it going, Wes?”

“Good. In a hurry today.” He finished his order, gently laying the salad greens on top. “Felicity is coming home tomorrow. I have some cooking to do.”

Diane Weaver entered the barn. Two men Cam had never seen before flanked her. She walked straight up to Wes. He tried to move around her, but one of the men grasped his arm.

“Wesley Ames,” Diane began. “You are under arrest for growing, selling, and distributing non-medicinal
Cannabis sativa
over the amount of one ounce with the intent of making a profit.”