Til Dirt Do Us Part (A Local Foods Mystery) (5 page)

A
bout half the subscribers had dropped by to pick up their shares when Wes Ames entered the barn, carrying the market basket Felicity usually had in hand. Cam was in the middle of explaining how to roast winter squash to Diane Weaver, a subscriber who had signed up in midsummer, when she saw Preston sidle up to Wes. The cat reared up and rubbed his head against Wes’s knee.

Wes quickly looked down with widened nostrils and curled lip. “Get away.” He swatted at Preston with the basket.

“Hey, be nice!” Cam called. What did he have against the sweetest cat in the Northeast?

Preston stared at Wes for a moment before beelining it for the door.

Cam cleared her throat and continued speaking with Diane. Wes approached them and tapped Cam on the shoulder.

“Just one minute, Wes,” Cam said before finishing her explanation. Anybody who would swat at a cat could just wait.

Diane, dressed in black jeans and a cream-colored Costa Rica T-shirt, thanked her. “I wanted to tell you that my daughter and I put up twenty-two jars of tomato sauce last month. It was my first time canning anything.” She beamed.

“That’s great.” Cam’s mouth ached from smiling for the past two hours. Would she ever get used to schmoozing?

“I’m going to take a little walk around the fields, if you don’t mind. It’s so satisfying to see where my dinner is growing.”

Cam assured her it was fine. Diane cast an odd look at Wes as she hefted her two cloth bags stuffed with produce. Cam turned to Wes. He glared at Diane’s retreating form. Cam groaned inwardly. The last thing she needed was conflict between her customers. Or any conflict, when it came right down to it.

“What did you need, Wes?”

He started, glancing at Cam. “Oh. I heard Irene Burr died. Was murdered, is what they’re saying.”

“Yes, it’s very sad news.” Cam sniffed. She thought she detected the unmistakable aroma of marijuana.

“Did they arrest anybody yet?”

Everybody seemed to think Cam knew more than any other resident of the town.

“I don’t know. I’ve been working all day. As of last night, they hadn’t.” She didn’t see any reason to let Wes know Detective Pappas had been to the farm, asking questions.

“Looks like we don’t lose our town hall to some museum, after all.” A satisfied look on his face, Wes folded his arms.

“Wes! A woman lost her life—a person from this town—and you’re thinking about town property?”

A customer bagging greens turned at Cam’s raised voice.

“Well, it’s an important issue around here.” Wes gestured with a broad sweep of his arm. “But you’re right. I should have kept my mouth shut.”

Cam opened hers and shut it again. She thought she’d gotten to know Wes a bit over the summer. He was a tall, aging hippie who doted on and cooked for his wife. He also harbored a bit of paranoia about the police. But his reaction to Irene’s death shook Cam.

The ding of a bicycle bell rang out, followed by Alexandra striding into the barn, blond braids swinging, eyes shining, bags swinging from one hand.

“You wouldn’t believe what I just heard!”

Cam’s heart sank. She hoped the news would not be Bobby being arrested or someone else dying, or anything else disastrous.
Let it not be more bad news.

A customer selecting squash spoke up. “Did they catch that lady’s killer?”

Alexandra threw her hands in the air, suddenly the focus of everyone’s attention. “How would I know? I’m all about chickens. Cam, remember last month I told you I thought you should get some chickens?”

Cam nodded vaguely as she let out a breath of relief.

“I heard of a farm that’s going to lose its chickens because they were neglected. We can have them for free. We can rescue them.” Her zeal lit up the air with a brilliance impossible to miss. “My friend DJ and I can pick them up tomorrow.”

Even as she foresaw a myriad of problems, Cam couldn’t help smiling.

“Let’s take it off-line, Alexandra, okay? It could work, but we’ll need to discuss it a little more.”

The young woman nodded. “I’ll help you build the coop. I’ve been studying the whole chicken deal. You know you can temporarily pen them around raspberry bushes, and it’s a perfect symbiotic relationship. The bushes shade the chickens and give them bugs to eat, and the hens keep the soil weed free and aerated. You really can’t lose.”

“We’ll sit down and work it out. Just not right now, all right?”

Alexandra agreed and set about assembling her share.

“Hey, what happened to the fish shares?” Wes asked Alexandra. Earlier in the year Cam had agreed to let her farm be a pickup site for a community-supported fishery as long as it was at the same time as her shareholder pickup. Cam hadn’t signed up. With everything else happening, she hadn’t realized the fish truck was missing today.

“You got an e-mail survey,” Alexandra said. “Not enough people wanted to renew their shares or bothered responding, so we’re off the distribution route. It’s our loss.”

Wes, carrying a full basket, left without saying good-bye a few moments later. Cam fluffed up the herb bundles in their jar of water and straightened a bunch of flowers in the bucket on the floor. She consolidated the remaining pile of squash and made sure the greens looked fresh and sufficient. She wandered into the sunshine outside the wide door and lowered herself onto the solid bench facing the back of the farm. She closed her eyes for just a moment, inhaling the aroma of still-fresh wood, a whiff of drying herbs, the scent of chrysanthemums warmed by the sun.

“You are doing a splendid job out there.”

Cam’s eyes flew open. Diane Weaver sat on the bench next to her.

“Sorry. I must have dozed off. What did you say?”

“I said the fields look great.” Diane gestured toward the back of the property.

“Well, they looked a lot better in late June, but thanks. The weeds have been getting away from me lately.” Cam wrinkled her nose.

“I thought I saw someone back in the woods. Do you have a neighbor who hikes around in there?”

Bobby.
“A neighbor,” Cam lied. “Right.” Had he been looking for her again?

“About Wes Ames.” Diane half turned on the bench to face Cam. “Have you known him long?”

“Since last spring. Why?”

“Just curious. I’ve heard him speak up around town about the Old Town Hall. Did you know he’s the volunteer maintenance person for the building? The town loves it because they don’t have to pay anybody.”

“He sure seems adamant about keeping the old building as town property,” Cam said, waving good-bye to a shareholder.

Diane nodded. “Do you have any idea why he’s so set on that?”

“He speaks of it like a town treasure, which I’m sure it is.” Cam stood. “I should get back inside and do my happy farmer routine.” She grimaced. “That didn’t sound too nice, did it?”

“Hey, I’m an introvert by nature, too.” Diane rose, said good-bye, and walked off.

Alexandra emerged from the barn door. A cell phone held high in the air, she turned in several directions until she spied Cam, then rushed toward her.

“Call for you on your cell. It was ringing, so I picked it up. I didn’t know if you left it inside on purpose, but—”

“Thanks.” Cam reached for the phone, but it dropped in transit, stirring up a miniature mushroom cloud of dry dirt where it fell. It stopped ringing.

“Crap. Sorry, dude.” Alexandra reached for it and retrieved it from the dirt. She handed it to Cam.

The display was dark. She pressed a few buttons, tried to turn the power off or on, rubbed it on her shorts. No response.

“That might have been the last straw for this old girl,” Cam said. “It’s a first-generation smart phone. They don’t live forever.”

“Put it in a bag of rice in the freezer. Sometimes that revives them.” Alexandra looked hopeful as only an idealistic twentysomething could.

“I think that’s for when they get wet, isn’t it? The rice draws out the moisture.”

“Whatever. Anyway, I’m all set with my share. When can we talk about the chickens? It’s pretty urgent. They needed rescuing, like, last week.” She set fists on hips.

“Oh, boy. I was hoping to relax a little tomorrow. But I admit, hens would be a great addition to the farm. Everybody seems to want local eggs. Your idea of fencing them around the raspberries is good, too, at least during the day. Can you wait until the last customer picks up? Then we’ll open a beer and go through the issues.”

“Righteous.” Alexandra thumbed her own smart phone and looked up. “I’ll bring up the pictures for you.”

Cam silently echoed the younger woman’s “Whatever.”

By the time the last shareholder had straggled in, collected his share, and left, it was almost three o’clock. Cam proffered a glass of local beer to Alexandra and motioned her to a lawn chair. Grasping her own glass, she lowered herself into a matching chair under the old sugar maple in the yard. Sure enough, the day had warmed to the high seventies with the Indian summer sunshine. Most of the leaves had turned a brilliant red, and a scattering of them decorated the grass under the tree.

“Cheers.” The two women clinked glasses and sipped in silence for a moment.

“So give me the scoop about the chickens that need to be rescued.” Cam hoped it wasn’t a crazy scheme. She liked Alexandra and her enthusiasm for all things local. Plus, she was a strong, dedicated volunteer. Cam didn’t want to lose her.

Alexandra leaned in. “I’m active in an underground rescue league.” She looked around and lowered her voice. “That’s how I knew about Howard Fisher mistreating his pigs. And last night I got a text alert about a farmer who’s been busted for neglecting her chickens. Penning them up, starving them. The health inspector wants to destroy the birds, but it looks like our group can save them. Are you in?”

Cam sat back in her chair. She took another cool sip before she responded. “I really admire your tender heart, and I would love to have chickens on the farm. Everybody always wants to know when I’ll have local eggs. But how do we know we can save the hens? Does your group do it legally?”

“Don’t worry. It’s legal. We have it under control.”

“Are the birds diseased?” Cam wrinkled her nose. “And do abused hens ever lay eggs again after they get happy, or whatever their tiny brains understand as happiness? I wonder if you’ve thought about these issues.”

“Well, they aren’t diseased. If they were, they’d have to be put down. Like I said, we can pick them up tomorrow.”

“Who’s
we?
”

“Me, DJ—he’s a dude who works on urban farming issues—my sister, and a couple others. And from what DJ says, hens usually recover really well once they’re well nourished and protected.”

“And we’ll have to build a coop. That’s going to cost something.” Cam felt tired even considering the new venture. “How many birds are we talking, anyway? Ten or a hundred?”

“I think there are three or four dozen. You’ll need a covered run, too, so they won’t be picked off by hawks and stuff. But I told you, we have a team, and we’re going to do all the work.”

“It’s a lot to take on. I’m kind of overwhelmed by my workload even without chickens.”

Alexandra stood. “Are you in or not? These poor hens are going to die. Do you want their deaths on your head?” Hands on hips, she fixed Cam with a look that wasn’t hostile, but it certainly challenged Cam to answer.

“As long as you build the coop, find the food, and tell me how to take care of them, yes, I’m in.” Cam also stood. “Are you in for spending the day tomorrow building whatever our rescue fowl need?”

The younger woman beamed as she nodded.

“And will you go home right now and research what they eat? I need you to take the lead on this project.”

“You bet. I’ll borrow a car and pick up whatever the Agway down in Middleford has in stock for feed. Then we can figure out the most cost-effective place to order more from.” She reached out and wrapped her arms around Cam and then released her. “Thanks! I know you won’t regret it.” Alexandra hoisted her pack of produce onto her back and headed for her bicycle.

“Wait a sec. What local farmer is neglecting fowl, anyway?” Cam asked.

Alexandra paused for a moment and turned. “Bev Montgomery. Not good news, I know.”

Cam frowned in dismay. The mother of the man murdered in Cam’s hoop house earlier in the year was a troubled woman, but Cam wouldn’t have thought she’d be so hard-hearted as to starve a collection of chickens.

After Alexandra cycled away, Cam wandered out behind the barn. She had to figure out the best place to locate the chicken coop. Probably near the barn, so it would be easy to get to their feed. She’d need to install a small refrigerator in the barn to keep the eggs cool, too. Wait. Several dozen chickens? She might need a full-size fridge. She realized she had no idea how many eggs a few dozen hens would lay once they were healthy.

Even if Alexandra was positive this venture would work, Cam wasn’t so sure she should be taking on so much extra work. She’d been invited to share a guest table at the thriving Newburyport Farmers’ Market the next day as a trial run. The Tuesday market in Haverhill had started out the year as a bustling enterprise, but by the fall customer interest had dwindled. Some of the farmers had stopped coming, so then even fewer customers showed up. Cam didn’t know if it was the fault of Bev Montgomery, who was the market manager. Cam relied on a heavily traveled market day to bring in cash throughout the season. She might have to switch to the Sunday market instead. Bev wasn’t going to like hearing that Cam was both getting her hens and withdrawing from the market.

What the guest table also meant was that her day wasn’t over yet. She pulled her phone out and tried it. Grateful to see it working again, she checked to see who had called her when the phone dropped earlier. A message was from Lucinda, who said she’d be happy to come back and work for a couple of hours. There was one problem solved.

S
hadows were long by the time the two women called it a day. Cam would cut and bag salad greens, as well as herbs, early in the morning, before heading to the market’s opening at nine. She and Lucinda had loaded the truck with several bushels of squash. Leeks poked their pointy leaves out of a bucket of water in the barn. Buckets of kale and chard also stood ready, as did a basket of cured garlic. A flat box held berry boxes of Cam’s prize gold cherry tomatoes.

They’d even picked a half bushel of what Cam would advertise as “Organic Sauce Apples.” The fruit from the one antique tree on the property was mottled and dimpled, but it had a deep, old-fashioned flavor that made Cam want to wear a long skirt and have her beau take her riding in a surrey. She reminded herself once again to ask Albert if he knew what the apple variety was.

She thanked Lucinda for coming as they sat on the bench outside the barn. “Kind of nuts to do a market the day after pickup day, isn’t it?”

“You planted enough stuff, so you’ll be okay. I’ve been to the Newburyport market. It’s pretty amazing. Besides the produce, they got cheese makers, bread, wine, even live music. All local. And lots of customers, too. Feels kind of like a festival.”

Cam’s thoughts turned to Bobby popping out of the trees this morning and disappearing back into them.

“Can I ask you something?” Cam said. “You housecleaned for Irene.” She described the threatening note the tent guy had found the day before. “I’m thinking it has to be either for Irene or from her, right? Do you have any idea, you know, from being in her house, what that might have been about?”

Lucinda’s laugh was a peal of bells. “Seriously? I think she had a good heart, but she didn’t know how to get along with people. Everybody seemed to do the wrong thing in her eyes. I was the only one she wasn’t mean to.”

“Why?”

Lucinda raised both hands. “I didn’t let her push me around, I guess. She told me once I reminded her of her younger sister.”

“Maybe that was it.”

“I guess. But you shoulda heard some of the stuff she said about other people.” She shook her head. “Whoa.”

“Like what?”

“Like Bobby was a weasel, that he wanted her money without working for it.”

“I overheard something like that at the dinner. After she said it, he even suggested that maybe Irene had killed his father.”

“Yeah, she was always going on about that. She said, ‘Poor dear Zebulon, bless his heart.’ ” Lucinda had switched into a perfect imitation of Irene’s clear Boston Brahmin pronunciation. “ ‘He died of natural causes, and that Bobby shouldn’t soil his memory. ’ ” Lucinda snorted.

“But Bobby is such a talented carpenter. Look at this.” Cam gestured to the barn. “Why would she even want him working for her? And doing what? Selling textiles?”

“Irene was about seventy. I think she saw her own death coming. She didn’t have any children of her own. She built up the business by herself, and I think she wanted to leave it to somebody. But Bobby’s not the right one.”

“Who else did she mention when you were around her?” Cam asked.

“She had some kind of relationship with Fisher, the pig guy. I don’t know what it was. I overheard her talking about money to somebody named Howard once, and another time his truck was driving away when I arrived.”

“She probably bought pork from him.”

“Yeah.”

“I overheard Irene mention her real son. Did she ever talk about him?”

“No. But that Sim girl? The mechanic?” Lucinda wrinkled her nose. “Irene needed her to fix the Jaguar, but she was always ragging on Sim. Irene would pick up the car and call Sim once she got home, yelling that there was a scratch on the door or a bit of dirt on the floor mat. Once Irene gave me a ride home. We stopped by Sim’s shop, and Irene chewed her out. ‘Don’t you know this is a nineteen ninety Jaguar?’ ” Lucinda again imitated Irene’s patrician diction. She shook her head. “No wonder somebody killed her.”

After Lucinda left, Cam fixed herself a quick omelet with sautéed leeks, a bit of chopped rosemary, and the end of a piece of Brie. As she ate it with sourdough toast and washed it down with a glass of red wine, she reflected that sometime soon she could be making omelets with eggs from her own hens. An intriguing thought.

The temperature was falling. She went around closing windows, making sure they were all locked, before pulling on a thick sweater. She was beat, and tomorrow’s alarm would ring early. She sat at the computer and pulled up her e-mail to find a new one from her former colleague, fellow geek, and friend Tina, which read, Call me! So she did.

They chatted for a few minutes. Cam answered Tina’s questions about the murder, which she’d seen described on television, including the reference to Cam’s farm.

“So I got laid off last week,” Tina said. “ ‘Reduction in force.’ ”

“You’re their best coder. They’re idiots to do that. But you won’t have any trouble finding something else, I’ll bet.”

“It’s an occupational hazard of working in high tech. Anyway, I have some feelers out.” Tina laughed. “And for sure, I’m not taking up farming instead.”

“Hey, it’s working for me. Of course, having a great-uncle who offered me his farm right after I was laid off last year did help.”

“I’ve been meaning to say something about that goofy farm name you chose. You take a perfectly good name, Attic Hill Farm, and change it to Produce Plus Plus? That’s crazy stuff, Cam.”

“I know, but now I’m stuck with it.”

“Are you sure? You know we haven’t even coded in C++ since you left. It’s C Sharp now.”

Cam groaned. “Great. Maybe I’ll change it back to Attic Hill. I never did get around to getting a sign made for the road, and business cards are cheap.” Cam snapped her head to the right. There was a soft rapping on the glass of her back door. She checked the time. Seven o’clock.

“Hey, I gotta run,” Cam said. “Somebody’s here.”

“Hot date on a Saturday night?”

The rapping sounded again.

Cam called out, “Just a minute,” in the general direction of the door. “Not a chance,” she said to Tina. “I don’t know who it is, actually.” They said their good-byes, promising to get together soon, and disconnected.

Cam walked to the door and pulled aside the white lace curtain, another of Great-Aunt Marie’s touches Cam hadn’t seen any reason to change.

Nobody was there. But someone had stood near the house recently. The motion-detector floodlight illuminated the back porch and the brick patio beyond it. She unlocked the window next to the door and opened it slowly. She stuck her head out and looked both ways. She couldn’t see a soul.

“Hello?” she called out into the cool darkness beyond the pool of light. No answer.

Cam closed and locked the window. Maybe it had been Bobby, coming back to ask for help. Why hadn’t he stayed? He might have thought she had guests because she was talking on the phone. Who else would be rapping on her door if not him? She shuddered and shot the dead bolt.