Farmed and Dangerous Read online

  “Let me check my social calendar.” A split second later, she continued. “Why, I do happen to be free. What time do you want me?”

  Pete let a beat go by. When he spoke, his husky voice sent a zing through her. “I want you right now, Cameron Flaherty.”

  Cam didn’t respond for a moment. All of a sudden her legs were made of Jell-O. Sinking into a chair, she cleared her throat. “It’s entirely mutual,” she murmured.

  A rattle of static came through from Pete’s end. He swore. “Hang on,” he said in a terse tone.

  The line went quiet. Cam waited. She mused on how her life had changed since summer. She’d ended her budding romance with Jake Ericsson, the chef at The Market restaurant. His constant jealousy and fits of temper had proved too unsettling for her. And then he’d traveled back to Sweden to wait until his undocumented immigration status cleared. Meanwhile, an attraction between Cam and state police detective Pete Pappas had blossomed. Cam had helped him with information about the murder that took place after her farm-to-table dinner. They hadn’t acted on their feelings, though, until the investigation was finished. Pete came back on the line. “Sorry, Cam. Have to go. See you at five tomorrow.”

  Cam was about to agree when the call was disconnected. She sighed. Did she really want a romantic relationship with a law enforcement officer? Well, she’d jumped in with both feet and with her eyes open for now.

  Cam retrieved her sunglasses from the truck the next morning. The eight o’clock sun lit up every crystal in the fresh snow, and the sky was a perfect blue. She tromped out in her cross-country ski boots to the chickens, stamping the snow flat in their yard before opening the door. She scattered a couple of handfuls of cracked corn on the flattened snow. They hated to tread on loose snow. She didn’t blame them, with those skinny feet and legs.

  “Come on out, girls. You need the fresh air.” She made the clicking noise she’d learned from DJ, who seemed to be able to communicate directly with these fowl.

  TopKnot popped out, followed by Hillary, the hen that tended to boss the others around. Their funny, gargling voices delighted Cam, as always. The others hopped down the ramp and pecked at the corn.

  She uncovered the low tunnels inside the hoop house so the greens underneath wouldn’t burn up from too much heat, and returned to the barn to grab her ten-year-old skis and poles. A fresh snow on a clear, sunny day shouldn’t be wasted. She needed to get all the food ready for the dinner, but she had time for an hour’s ski. She’d already created a trail in the woods behind the farm. The skiing should be easy with a few new inches of snow in the ruts to glide on. She clicked the toes of her boots into the bindings of the long, narrow skis, adjusted her mittened hands in the loops at the tops of the poles, and set out along the open field on the left side of the property. Taking long gliding strides, her arms swinging with the poles, she filled her lungs with the clean air, which tasted almost metallic from the cold.

  The fields and beds of her farm looked like a giant hand had tucked them into pristine white blankets. The fence posts supporting her new grapevine stuck up out of the snow, as did the knobby stalks of the remaining Brussels sprouts plants, which she’d never gotten around to harvesting. A few wizened brown apples still clung to the bare branches of the two antique-variety apple trees that had been there forever. A hawk caught an updraft in a kettle of warm air and spiraled lazily.

  She skied off her land into the woods along a wide path that connected with the back of an adjacent farm. Here no wind stirred the tall firs, and quiet reigned, except for the crunch of skis on snow. She thought about what she’d read on the Internet the night before. She’d awoken feeling uneasy about the caregiver Oscar. It worried her that someone with a temper like his was working with the sometimes fragile elderly. He had blemishes in his past, she’d discovered after searching for his name. From a police log column and a court report entry she’d learned he had been arrested for assault once, but the charges had been dismissed. On the other hand, he seemed to be active in the Eritrean immigrant community. He served on a committee that sponsored English classes for new arrivals and on an advisory board at what had to be his children’s elementary school in Lynn, a somewhat beleaguered city on the coast north of Boston. It was a bit of a drive up here to Westbury, but he probably couldn’t afford to live in this increasingly affluent community. And consequently, maybe Moran paid more than similar places in Lynn.

  She shook off the thought of Oscar’s temper. Surely a business dealing in the care of the old wouldn’t hire someone who would be a danger to them. Would they?

  As she navigated down a gentle slope, an odd shape on a bare branch high above her head caught her eye. She slowed to glance up. An owl perched on the branch. A big owl. She smiled to herself. She’d heard the hoo-hoohoohoo-hoo-OO-hoo of the great horned owl at twilight. She felt privileged to see—

  Cam cried out at a crunching sound. The crust of snow broke through into the icy water of a small stream that wound through the woods. Cam’s right ski caught and twisted sideways. She fell onto her right hip, landing on a stump that stuck up out of the snow. Her other ski jutted off at an odd angle, twisting her left knee into a configuration God hadn’t designed it for. With the new snow, she must have missed the path where it curved over the stream on a wide fallen log.

  She swore. Her right foot and her entire right ski sat in the water. Maneuvering her pole to click the boot out of the binding, she kept missing the right position and leverage. Having extra-long legs didn’t help in this predicament, and neither did the lack of automatic-release bindings on cross-country skis. She aimed the pole at the left binding and succeeded in freeing that boot, which let her straighten her knee. It throbbed, and she hoped she hadn’t seriously damaged it. She poked at the right binding again until it gave way, then grabbed a branch and dragged herself to standing on the slope next to the stream.

  Her cell phone rang in her pocket. Sheesh. Cam bit her right mitten and dragged it off her hand. She glanced at the caller ID. Jake? She connected the call.

  “Jake? Where are you?”

  “At home in Uppsala. I miss you.”

  Cam squeezed her eyes shut for a second. She reopened them. “I hope you’re well. But I can’t talk right now.”

  “I suppose you’re busy with your cop.” His voice sounded sad even from thousands of miles away.

  “No, I’m actually out skiing in the woods. By myself. But I just fell into a stream. And my foot is cold, so I have to go. I’ll call you another time.”

  “Take care, Cam. Go get warm.” He disconnected.

  Cam sighed. She glanced at the time before she stuck the phone in her pocket and pulled her mitten back on. Jake had been sweet to her much of the time. He excelled as a chef. They had a strong attraction to each other. But a volatile temper and unpredictable reactions were not what she wanted from a partner. She hoped he could get over her.

  But right now, if she didn’t return to the farm and get changed, she’d never get all the food together and delivered to Moran Manor in time. She used a pole to lift the ski out of the water. She lined both up on the path toward home and clicked her boot into the left binding. She put the toe of her right boot into the binding, her toes numbing in the ice water that had seeped inside, but the boot wouldn’t click in. First the ski slipped on the snow. Then she realized stream water had frozen inside the binding. She scraped it out with the pole’s tip and tried again. The boot would not attach.

  She swore again. What a time for her old bindings to give way. She had to get back home. She clicked the left binding open, releasing her boot, and hoisted the skis and poles on her shoulder. Heading for home, she tramped along the trail, in the tracks, her right foot barely sensate, her feet sinking into the path with each step. Which ruined the ski tracks, but it couldn’t be helped. The snow next to the path was so deep, it would mean even more exertion.

  When she cleared the woods, she paused to catch her breath. A nearly silent whoosh sounded above her, and s
he caught a shadow moving on the snow. She darted her gaze to the sky. The great horned owl flew along the border of the trees, its powerful wings beating slowly, quietly. A mouse struggled, the last movements of its life, in the predator’s powerful talons.

  Chapter 3

  Cam glanced at the clock on her kitchen wall when she made it back to the house. Eleven o’clock. She pressed Lucinda DaSilva’s number. “If you could come over right away to help me, I’ll owe you big-time.” She disconnected after Lucinda said she would be over. Less than three hours to harvest several of the ingredients, pull together the rest from storage, and deliver it all to the cook at Moran Manor.

  She pulled off her pants and socks, despite still feeling sweaty from the exertion of the hike home. Her foot was red from the ice water, so she rubbed it with bare hands until it regained feeling. At least it didn’t show the yellow-white color of frostbite. Her knee ached a bit, and her hip would have a big bruise on it tomorrow, but overall the health inventory was positive. She donned dry pants, thick wool socks, and her snow boots, then downed a glass of water and grabbed a muffin. The combination of the exercise and the fresh, cold air had worked its usual magic. She felt calm and energized, like she could meet whatever the world brought, even falling into a creek and breaking a binding.

  As she headed for the barn, an old blue Civic pulled into the drive. Lucinda climbed out, wearing a yellow down jacket, jeans, and sturdy boots.

  “Fazendeira,” Lucinda called out, using the Portuguese word for farmer, her nickname for Cam. “I’m here.”

  “Thanks for coming.” Cam set her hands on her hips and smiled at the Brazilian, her friend and favorite volunteer. “You’re rescuing me.”

  Lucinda waved a hand encased in a rainbow-striped glove. “Now that I got a job as a librarian, I miss working on the farm.”

  “I’m glad you’re not cleaning houses anymore, but I miss working with you, too. How’s the job going?”

  “Those private school teenagers think they’re a little bit entitled. But they’re smart, mostly, and the headmaster likes what I’m doing. So far.” She pulled a multicolored knit hat a little farther down on her mass of black curls. “What’s the chore list for today? I can give you two hours, until I have to go in and work Sunday study hall.”

  Cam explained the Moran Manor dinner. “Help me cut greens in the hoop house, and we can talk while we work.”

  “Lead the way.”

  The two women grabbed scissors and baskets in the barn and trudged to the hoop house. Cam carefully shut the door behind them. The three-foot-wide beds of greens stretched in front of them the full length of the structure. Bright green baby arugula, reddish-green kale, dark green mâche, each row with knee-high mini hoops placed every couple of feet. The bunched-up white row cover ran down the middle. The small electric motor that blew air between the layers of plastic overhead hummed. The air smelled damp and earthy, and Cam welcomed the warmer temperature now that her sweat was drying and chilling her.

  As they stooped to cut, Cam told Lucinda about falling into the stream. “That frigid water about did me in.”

  “This skiing thing? I don’t get it. Where I come from, we like to be real warm. We don’t have any snow in Brazil, except on the high plateaus way in the south.”

  “Well, I love it. You can’t beat it for exercise, and the woods are quiet and beautiful, covered in snow.”

  “Until the ice gives way under it, you mean.” Lucinda held a finger up. “Hey, I saw a news article about an herbicide last week. I’ve been doing a bit of research in the library when it’s not busy.”

  “The one about G-Phos? I heard a bit on the news but never got around to reading the paper that day.”

  Lucinda nodded. “Conventional farms use it to kill weeds.” She straightened and stretched. “The main chemical is glyphosate. There’s studies that show it causes Alzheimer’s disease and other old-people problems. It looks like it’s responsible for killing all those honeybees lately, too.”

  “That’s the reason I farm organically. I have lots of reasons, actually, but that’s one of them.” Cam worked in silence for a moment. “Can you imagine? You work trying to grow food for people, and instead you’re poisoning them. And yourself.”

  “That’s why I eat local food. I can see what the farmer’s putting on it. I can buy something labeled organic from California, but I have no idea how it was grown.”

  Cam frowned and stopped cutting.

  “What?” Lucinda asked.

  “Mr. Slavin. You know, Felicity’s father. He has Alzheimer’s. And he had a career as a landscaper. I bet he sprayed a ton of that stuff in his lifetime.”

  “Bad news.” Lucinda shook her head. “The study said they have a blood test for it.”

  “I wonder if Felicity knows. I’d much rather have a few weeds than add that kind of chemical to my soil and body.”

  “You know what they say. Weeds are only a plant you don’t want.”

  It took an hour to cut the greens in the hoop house, even with Lucinda’s help. They had to bend over and cut carefully, and Cam’s back ached before they were done. They moved on to the leeks. Even though she’d loosened them in their beds and mulched them heavily before the ground froze, they were difficult to get out intact. When they got to the rosemary, half of it was frozen, despite the mini hoop house she’d erected over the perennial herb bed so she could continue to cut during the cold months.

  Two hours later calm and energized no longer described Cam. She’d worked too hard, too fast, on top of the skiing and slogging through the snow on foot. Her head pounded, and her hands ached from the cold. Lots of farm tasks didn’t mesh well with wearing gloves, like using scissors to cut greens. She’d cut the tips off of a pair of gloves, but it meant the ends of her fingers stayed chilled. A lot rode on this dinner going well, and she worried the amount of food she’d gathered wouldn’t be sufficient for Moran Manor. She hadn’t stored as many squash in the root cellar as she had thought, but what she had would have to suffice.

  She loaded everything into the rear of the truck. Getting that used cap to cover the bed of the old Ford had turned out to be a brilliant business decision. No snow clogged the bed of the truck, and whatever she hauled didn’t blow around when she drove.

  She headed to the house. She didn’t have time for a shower, but she could at least wash up and swap these work clothes for a fresh set. First, she checked her list for the dinner. As a former geek, she was grateful for possessing the organization gene. Root crops: check. Greens: check. Herbs: check. Onions and garlic: check. Oh. The frozen goods. She headed for the chest freezer in the basement and brought up a cooler packed with bags of frozen kale, a pint of her own pesto, and a bag holding two bright orange habanero peppers. She loaded it into the truck, then dashed into the house to change. She’d barely get there in time.

  Chapter 4

  “About time.”

  Cam glanced up as she set a carton of acorn squash on the counter of the Moran Manor kitchen.

  The cook folded her arms. “I’m Rosemary. We spoke on the phone.” A white chef’s uniform encased her robust figure, and a floppy white toque mostly tamed her blond hair.

  “Nice to meet you in person.” Cam smiled, trying to squash the butterflies in her stomach. What if the chef didn’t approve of the quality of the vegetables? Or didn’t deem the stew recipe appropriate?

  Rosemary watched Cam set out the produce on the stainless-steel island. Besides the squash, which Rosemary planned to stuff and bake, Cam lifted a bag of leeks. She added a box of parsnips, carrots, and potatoes for the hearty stew. The onions and garlic went next to them, along with several big bags of cold-hardy salad greens. Cam left the basket of apples from a neighboring farm on the floor.

  “How does it look?” Cam stroked the round ridges on one of the nearly black squashes. “The frozen stuff is in this cooler.” She pointed.

  “Should be all right. Though they won’t like those dark green greens. Old peopl
e are kind of particular about their salads.” She pulled her mouth and raised one eyebrow.

  “That’s the easiest kind to grow in the winter.”

  “I expect half of those’ll come right back, untouched. But, hey, we compost here.”

  “You do?”

  “Your great-uncle pushed it through. I didn’t much like it at first, but now, well, it’s a better use than throwing food in the trash. Saves the facility money, as well.”

  Cam nodded. “Here’s the stew recipe I proposed.” She extracted a couple of sheets of paper from her bag and slid them across the island to Rosemary. “And the one for the apple-almond cake.”

  The cook pulled reading glasses out of a pocket in her apron. She perused the recipes. “Pesto?”

  “I brought a pint. It adds nice flavor and also thickens the stew a bit.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “That cake recipe is delicious.” Cam checked the cloth bag at her feet. “Oh, I almost forgot the herbs.” She extracted rubber-banded bunches of rosemary and sage and laid them on the island. She frowned at the rosemary. Freezing hadn’t treated it well. She hoped it retained its flavor.

  Rosemary scrubbed her hands at a deep stainless-steel sink and then pulled on a pair of thin gloves of the type medical personnel used. Without turning, she said, “I’ll let you know how it goes.”

  “Thanks.” Clearly dismissed, Cam grabbed her bag and left the kitchen. She stood in the open hallway for a moment, glad to be done with that encounter. Adding a contract with the Manor for the summer would increase her workload, but it would also be a guaranteed income. If this dinner succeeded, she could expect more financial stability, always a benefit for a small farmer. But then she’d need to hire someone to help her.

  The reception desk in the lobby was to her left; the stairway up to Albert’s room, to her right. Cam couldn’t decide if she should pop up for a visit or just go home and collapse. Ellie came bounding down the stairs.