A Tine to Live, a Tine to Die Read online

  “Has he always been part of the group?”

  Ruth shook her head. “Not when we got married. As far as I know, I mean. We’ve just kind of slid apart since then, though. I don’t really have a handle on how it happened, Cammie. I guess I’ve been so busy with my own career. That and the girls.”

  “You didn’t take his last name. Did that bother him?”

  Ruth nodded with a fierce motion. “You bet. What made it worse was that we had daughters. We’d agreed to give sons Frank’s last name, Jackson, and to give girls mine. When the twins were born, though, he wasn’t very happy about the decision.”

  “What does Frank do for work?”

  “He’s a carpenter. He’s a very skilled cabinetmaker, but lately he’s just been working on houses with another guy. Who I think is also in the militia.” Ruth shook her head. “He’s not bringing in much money, either.”

  “Lucinda told me the militia is very anti-immigrant. Do you share those views?”

  Ruth snorted. “Of course not. I almost wish they’d do something illegal so we could break them up.”

  Something illegal would mean Ruth might have to arrest her own husband. Cam picked up a handful of sand and let it stream slowly through her fingers. “That disk I found in my hoop house. The PM must be for Patriotic Militia.”

  Ruth nodded. “I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “Were there fingerprints on it?”

  “I haven’t heard. Pappas is keeping a lot to himself.”

  “If Mike was a member, maybe he just dropped it in the hoop house. Right?”

  “Could be.” Ruth sat up straight and crossed her legs. She dusted the sand and talk of militias from her hands. “How about lunch? How does Greek salad sound?”

  “Excellent. All I ate today was toast and peanut butter.”

  “And we have a fine red wine to wash lunch down with. Speaking of illegal.” She glanced around and clicked her tongue. “I don’t see any authorities, do you?”

  “Not a one.”

  “I’m warning you, it’s a nonlocal salad.” Ruth held up her hands. “Don’t shoot me!”

  Cam laughed. She’d had enough with serious talk for today. “Forget those locavores. I love their business, but they take themselves a little too seriously.”

  Ruth handed Cam a plastic container and a fork, then unscrewed the top of a wine bottle and poured red wine into two red plastic beer cups. She took another salad and fork out of her pack and put the bottle back in.

  “Here’s to old friends.” Cam held the cup up.

  Ruth tapped it with her own. “Friendship all the way.”

  The ocean sparkled, the sun shone, and the company excelled. In the back of Cam’s mind, though, thoughts of murder never left. She wondered if Frank was the killer, or somebody else in the militia. But Mike had also been in the militia. Frank wouldn’t have had cause to kill him. Would he?

  Cam shook her head, as if to shake those thoughts out and let them vanish on the breeze. She was on the beach with a good friend on a lovely afternoon. That should be enough. For now.

  Glancing at her watch, Cam rang the bell of The Market’s back door again. It was already five o’clock, later than she had planned. The beach lunch and walk had stretched out, and the time had gotten away from her.

  “There you are.” Jake had opened the door. He held it, frowning at Cam. “I thought you’d be here earlier.”

  “I did too. Sorry, Jake. I have your berries, though.” Sun and wind still warmed her cheeks, and sand crunched between her toes.

  “I thought I was going to be making a reduction with them a couple of hours ago.” He folded his arms.

  “I hope I didn’t ruin your menu for the evening.” This was the first time Cam had seen Jake upset with her, instead of his usual smiling and flirting self. A man that big being mad was a little intimidating. “I was walking on the beach with a friend. And then the traffic leaving the beach was horrendous. Do you want the berries?”

  He sighed. “Of course I do.” He propped open the restaurant door with a nearby concrete block.

  Cam led the way to the truck, glad she’d laid the boxes of berries in her big cooler with cold packs. They wouldn’t have fared well sitting in a hot truck for hours in the beach parking lot. Jake hoisted the cooler and carried it into the kitchen.

  “Are you eating here tonight?” Jake asked as he unloaded the boxes.

  Cam stretched and yawned. “No, I don’t think so. I had a late lunch. . . .”

  “On the beach. With your friend.” Jake turned to Cam. “What’s his name?” His gaze was level and somber.

  Cam returned the look. “His name?”

  Jake turned away again. “Maybe we’d better cancel that dinner for tomorrow night, Cameron.”

  “What?” Cam was speechless, or almost. Then it hit her. She laughed. “Who do you think I was on the beach with?” The man was jealous. She couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m sure I don’t know, and it’s none of my business. You show up late. Your cheeks are all rosy. I just assume you were on a date.”

  Cam reached for Jake’s arm. “Listen. I was walking with my old friend Ruth Dodge. My cheeks are rosy because it was sunny and windy and I forgot to reapply sunscreen. And I want to cook dinner for you tomorrow. All right?” She tugged on his sleeve until he faced her. “Okay?”

  He nodded, the little crinkly lines around his eyes back again. “I’ll be there. And, Cam?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m just a regular old stupid male.” He raised his eyebrows in a sheepish look.

  “It’s cool, Jake. I’m going to head home. See you tomorrow at six?”

  “Six.”

  As Cam drove home, though, she wondered if it was cool, after all. Was Jake just being a stupid male, and should she be flattered by his jealousy? Or maybe she just shouldn’t mix work with pleasure. Cam didn’t need any more complications in her life. But life wasn’t simple. That much she knew.

  She climbed the back steps of her house to find Preston waiting on the landing. He posed like the Sphinx next to the flowering shrub with its dainty pink blossoms and gracefully bowed branches.

  “Hey, Mr. P. What’s up? Didn’t want to use the cat door?” She leaned down to pet him. “Well, come on in the people door. I know I’m spoiling you, but why the heck not? That’s what I say.” Cam unlocked the door and let them both in. She left the inner door open so the breeze could blow through the screen door, but she made sure to lock it. Not that an old wood-framed screen door would keep anybody out who wanted to get in. It was hard to imagine anyone forcing their way in on such a lovely summer afternoon, though.

  The message light on the phone was blinking. Cam dialed the message number and listened. It was Detective Pappas, asking her to call. He sounded impatient and said he had also called her cell. Cam dug her cell phone out of her bag. Sure enough, the little message icon had appeared on the screen. It must have been while she was on the beach. She’d left her bag and phone locked in the truck.

  She dialed Pappas’s number, but it was his turn not to pick up, so she left a message that she was returning his call. She topped up Preston’s food and refilled his water bowl. He turned his large eyes up to her and mewed. She petted him a few strokes while he ate. Such a funny cat.

  After Cam stowed the salmon fillet she’d picked up on the way home in the fridge, she wandered into the living room with the Sunday paper. The end-of-day sun slanted on the old floorboards like a splash of amber paint. She stretched out on the couch and began, as she had since childhood, with the comics.

  Cam started awake. It was dark. Disoriented, she rubbed her eyes and sat up. The newspaper slid from her lap onto the floor with a gentle whoosh. She glanced into the kitchen, where the LED on the stove shone its blue-green time into the dimness. Eight thirty. She must have needed to catch up on sleep.

  Cam switched on the lamp and retrieved the jumbled sections of paper. The Metro-North section was on top. She straightened it o
ut. The second headline down on the right caught her eye.

  POLICE STYMIED IN FARM MURDER.

  Cam groaned. Now it was the Farm Murder, and the story shouted out to the greater Boston area that hers was the farm. She read on.

  “Well, at least they say I’m cooperating.” Cam snorted. “Of course I’m cooperating!” But you haven’t solved it, she reminded herself. She threw the section on the floor and got up. She was about to hit the computer when she realized how hungry she was. The lunch on the beach had been a long time ago.

  She fixed herself a grilled ham and cheese and took it to the computer table with a glass of milk. She checked her e-mail. Alexandra had written, with a subject line of “Web site up and running. Please check.” Cam smiled. She clicked the link in the message, which was attached to Alexandra’s name, and there it was. Produce Plus Plus Farm. The young woman had done a stellar job. Cam clicked through the pages, jotting down a few notes about minor things for Alexandra to fix.

  She opened the file she’d named Find The Killer. Her spreadsheet stared at her. Was there anything new she could add since Saturday? Sure. Frank was definitely in the militia. And it looked like Bev was, too. Cam tapped in the information. What else? She hadn’t added the disk in the hoop house and its connection with the Patriotic Militia, so that went in, too.

  She couldn’t think of anything else to add. She ran her script. The graphic display now had a connection between the Patriotic Militia and her hoop house. But if the connection had a relationship to the killer, the screen wasn’t saying. She leaned back in the chair with her hands behind her head, trying to remember what Lucinda had said. An important person in the area was also undocumented, and maybe Mike had been blackmailing him or threatening to go public with the information. Cam didn’t know who it could be, though. She hadn’t been around long enough to know the important people in town. And would an important person go so far as to kill Mike to keep him quiet? According to Lucinda and Ruth, that wouldn’t work, since there were plenty of others in the group who also knew.

  Cam saved the files and shut down the computer. No way of solving this tonight, that was certain. She was surprised Pappas hadn’t returned her call. Maybe the guy actually had a life. Too bad it didn’t include actually solving murders.

  Chapter 14

  Cam worked hard all Monday morning to make up for taking the afternoon off the day before. It was sticky again today. She found herself stopping frequently to wipe her forehead with the sleeve of her T-shirt. The leaves on the trees were still. No breeze buffered the brunt of the sun.

  The season was picking up. The farm had had regular rains mixed in with lots of sun and long days. Plants loved this weather, even today’s heat and humidity, and it showed. All plants loved it. Cam grunted as she hauled a garden cart full of weeds to the compost pile. Weeds sprouted and grew even faster than the crops.

  She took a shade break at the desk in the back of the barn, where she kept her planting and harvesting record book. It was Albert’s system, but it was a good one, albeit being on paper and not in digital form. She planned to enter everything into her farming software next winter, when she had time. For now, there was nothing wrong with a good old ledger book. She checked her planting schedule and hoped those beans she’d ordered would come in the day’s mail. It wouldn’t do to get behind schedule on an item as popular as skinny green beans.

  As Cam went back outside, she thought about Stuart Wilson and how oddly he’d acted last week. Getting all in a huff on Volunteer Day, when Cam had gotten upset with him about destroying the beans, even though her reaction might have been a bit too strong. Getting drunk at the festival and harassing Alexandra about her sister. And even acting strange when Cam had asked him about Lucinda on Saturday. She shook her head. It really wasn’t her problem. If he showed up on Wednesday again, she’d make sure she kept an eye on him.

  When Cam popped into the house for a late lunch break, she checked her voice mail. A message from one of her subscribers dismayed her.

  “We’ve decided to cancel our subscription because of the recent difficulties,” the woman’s voice stated with an apologetic tinge. “We’d appreciate having our share price returned, but understand that we’re past the reimbursement period. We just don’t feel safe having an association with your farm any longer.”

  Cam slammed her fist on the desk. Down to twenty-eight subscriptions. She couldn’t afford to reimburse these people—she’d already spent the money. The murder was taking its toll on her business.

  Ellie arrived right on time for her locavore badge session. All day Cam had found herself looking forward to working with the girl again. Cam, just coming out of the barn with a basket, waved at the SUV as David turned and drove down the driveway.

  “How’s it going, kiddo?” Cam said without thinking and then realized saying “kiddo” made her sound like an old lady, or worse, like her father.

  “Meh.”

  “Meh? What’s going on?” Ellie was not the sunny self Cam had seen in their previous encounters. “Why don’t you tell me while we head out back?”

  “I don’t know. This kid at school? Jason? He’s always talking about, like, illegal aliens and stuff. Like immigrants are from other planets.” Ellie kicked a stick in the path.

  So anti-immigration prejudice had filtered down to the eighth grade. No surprise, really. Cam waited.

  “So I go, ‘Immigrants are people, too.’ And he’s all, like, ‘Dirty Polack.’ ” Ellie looked up at Cam, frowning. “What’s up with that, right? It’s, like, unless he’s Native American himself, his relatives who came here were immigrants, too.”

  “Correct. What do your teachers say?”

  “Oh, this is lunchroom stuff. He wouldn’t dare say it in history class. Mr. Fitz would have his . . . I mean, he’d, you know, get in trouble.”

  “Is your family Polish?”

  “Yeah. My dad’s first generation. He came over to work with his uncle in construction and then, like, just stayed. My mom’s family’s Polish, too, but they’ve been here for a while. Her name is Dabrowski. Mom and Dad used to live in Chicago. You know, before me.”

  Cam remembered being fourteen. It had seemed like time before she had existed was time before reality. “How about we tie up tomatoes today? You can almost see them grow, they’re going up so fast. I’ll show you how to prune them to two leaders.”

  “What’s a tomato leader?” Ellie looked puzzled, but at least she didn’t look down in the dumps anymore.

  “This kind of tomato, called an indeterminate, keeps growing and bears fruit as long as it can. Here in northern Massachusetts, that means until the frost in the fall. We get more fruit—”

  “Don’t you mean tomatoes?”

  Cam laughed. “Well, sure. We just refer to them as bearing fruit. And, actually, a tomato is a fruit, botanically, because it has seeds. I think the definition is ‘a flowering ovary.’ I know people commonly think of fruit as sweet and vegetables as not sweet, but botany is different. Ask your science teacher sometime.”

  “I will. So peppers and eggplants and cucumbers, they’re all fruit?”

  Cam nodded. “And squash and beans, too.”

  “Solid.”

  “Anyway, if we prune the tomato plants to just two stalks—that’s what a leader is—we get a bigger yield than if we let every growing tip take off. It’s neater and easier to harvest, too, rather than having them sprawl all over the ground.”

  “Wow. Wait’ll I tell Ashley.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  Ellie nodded. “She wants to be a food scientist. She’s in Scouts, too. Can I bring her with me next week?”

  “If she’ll work, I’ll take her.”

  Cam showed Ellie what to do, handing her a pair of scissors and the string. They worked side by side in silence, snipping off tips that weren’t the leaders, tying the unruly tops to their stakes.

  “I’m glad you stood up to that boy,” Cam said. “What was his name? James?”
>
  “Jason.” Ellie sat back on her heels. “He even said he’d heard my dad was illegal. I told him no possible way that was true. But he said his dad was in a, like, militia, and they knew who around here was illegal. He said Daddy was going to be in trouble, that they were going to make him go back.”

  Another militia member. “What did your dad say?”

  Ellie frowned. “I didn’t tell him. He’s been kind of funny lately. Sort of, you know, like he’s thinking about something important. Jason’s lying. Why should I bother Dad about that?”

  David Kosloski was a well-established businessman in town, with his own construction firm. He was married to an American. He couldn’t be here illegally. Could he?

  Cam checked the timer. Two more minutes for the pie. She checked her list. The baby mixed greens sat ready in the three-wood Costa Rican salad bowl her parents had given her, violets scattered over the top. The salmon fillet was marinating in her special soy-ginger-lime mix. The strawberry-rhubarb pie was almost done. She’d boil water for pasta at the last moment, while she grilled the salmon. She planned to toss the gemelli with pesto frozen from last summer and top it with freshly grated Parmesan. A simple and delicious dinner. No way could she compete with Jake’s expertise, so why try?

  When the timer dinged, Cam pulled the pie out of the oven and let it rest, glad she’d thought to buy rhubarb from Green Spring Farm on her way home the day before. She stirred sugar into sour cream and spooned it carefully on top. She tried to steady her hand when she noticed it shaking. Sure, she was a little nervous. Not only was tonight a date with a man she liked, but it was a dinner for a chef.

  “That’s why I’m producing only dishes I know I can do well, right, Preston?” Cam slid the pie back in the oven and set the timer for seven minutes as Preston rubbed his head against her knee. She glanced at the table. A simple white cloth, the bucket of carnations, Marie’s rose china, pink cloth napkins under the silver, a bottle of Mill River Winery Naked Chardonnay in a chilled wine cooler. Oops. Candles. Cam rummaged in the hutch until she found two glass candlesticks and two red candles. Oh, well, they matched the color scheme close enough. She set them up and checked the time. Six o’clock. Jake should be here any minute.