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

  Cam clicked off the set. Her own farm hadn’t gotten dragged too far into the affair. But she was willing to bet customers wouldn’t be clamoring to eat pork from Howard Fisher’s farm now.

  Cam arose a few minutes after sunrise the next morning. She had knocked off work too early the day before and needed to bring in the rest of the harvest before the first subscribers arrived at noon. She put the coffee on, flicked on the radio, and powered up the computer. The local radio news said nothing about Bobby showing up or about Irene’s murder other than “No arrest has been made in the case.” She checked the news online and didn’t learn anything new. She printed out her harvest list before locking the door.

  She trudged to the barn, wearing her work sweater. The day would warm up later, but for now the dawn air was cool, despite the sunshine slanting over the neighbor’s field. She sighed. Farming solo was a big job. When it weighed heavily on her, she imagined being in a partnership with a man who might be her lover and her fellow grower in one package. That she might find such an ideal person seemed like a fantasy at this point. Maybe she should break down and hire a farmhand instead.

  With a start she realized she hadn’t even given a thought to Jake yesterday. He’d been jealous at the dinner event, despite their series of very enjoyable dates over the summer. Cam had done nothing to provoke his ire. He imagined flirtation where there was none, at least not on her part. Or was there? Bobby was certainly cute. Competent. Fit. Smart.

  Cam questioned again the wisdom of being entangled romantically with Jake. She relied on him to buy and promote her organic produce. The orders she delivered to the restaurant made a big difference to her business’s bottom line. She couldn’t afford to lose Jake as a customer, and she usually enjoyed his company. She sighed again, grabbed her field scissors and a basket, and headed out through grass wet with dew to cut three dozen bunches of greens.

  Back in her kitchen at ten thirty, Cam popped a last bite of toast in her mouth and took her second cup of coffee out of the microwave. She had an hour and a half to finish up before the subscribers arrived. She sat at the computer to check the two recipes she planned to print for them, a little extra bonus she threw in every week. It particularly helped the customers who weren’t accustomed to cooking a surfeit of fresh vegetables. This week she had typed up a recipe for stuffed baked kabocha squash with rosemary and shallots. Jake had agreed to share his recipe for the sweet potato empanada appetizer from the farm-to-table event, so she’d transcribed that, too. Luckily, she’d written it down a couple of days before the dinner. If she’d asked him after the dinner, he might not have been so forthcoming.

  “Crud,” Cam said. Rosemary. She hadn’t cut the bouquets of herbs yet. Well, that was an easy job. A lot easier than being friendly and sociable to her subscribers for the three-hour window during which they drifted in to collect their weekly assortment of roots, fruits, and greens. Being chatty seemed to be a requirement of the job of a farmer with regular customers. While it was getting a little easier for Cam since she’d started, she still preferred to be alone with either a collection of software bugs or an infestation of asparagus beetles.

  She hurried out the door with the sheaf of papers. She got halfway to the barn, dashed back to lock the door, and hurried to the table inside the barn where she’d already set up most of the week’s offerings.

  “Cam, want some help?” Ellie popped around the corner of the barn. The petite girl wore a red-striped soccer jersey, short glossy black shorts, and black and red socks pulled up over knee pads, with a black fleece thrown over her shoulders. “My dad dropped me off early so I could give you a hand. We won our second game. I even scored a goal.”

  “Nice job. Sure, I could use some help. Can you cut rosemary, parsley, thyme, and sage? You know the drill. Three dozen bunches. The trug is a good basket for that.”

  “Sweet.” Ellie sauntered over to grab scissors and the flat basket with a handle from the back of the barn. “Hey, I heard that Irene lady was killed. That’s wicked bad.”

  Cam agreed.

  “Did they, like, catch anybody yet?” A shadow passed over the teen’s cheery, chatty mood.

  “As of earlier this morning there was no arrest. I feel bad for Mr. Fisher. They found her on his farm.” Cam glanced at Ellie’s worried look. “I’m sure there’s nothing to be afraid of. It had to be someone with a grudge against Ms. Burr.”

  Ellie nodded. “I bet you’re glad it didn’t happen here. Again.”

  Cam agreed, then exclaimed, “I forgot the Brussels sprouts! See you back here.” She grabbed a pair of long-handled loppers and hauled the cart out back. They had an hour until customers arrived, but cutting the thick stalks could be tough.

  The three-foot-tall plants with their orbs clustered on them like alien eyes grew in the field farthest back toward the woods. She should leave them to sweeten up as the weather grew colder, but the shares were a bit scant this week. As she recalled, she’d planted enough for several weeks of harvest, anyway.

  Cam bent over the first plant and lopped off the inch-thick woody stem right above the ground. She let it fall away and moved on to the next one. She was about to cut it when a small green cabbage worm fell onto her wrist.

  Cam swore as she dropped the tool. She knocked the worm to the ground and smashed it with her boot. If cabbage moths had infested her crop with their larvae, no one would want to eat the sprouts. She examined the rest of the plant. A few leaves showed holes, but most of it looked fine, and the sprouts themselves didn’t display evidence of being eaten away. She quickly strode down the row. The plants at the far end showed more worm damage, so she pulled four up by their roots and threw them as far as she could into the border of the woods.

  She checked her watch. Resuming lopping, Cam counted as she went until she’d cut enough stalks. She gathered up an armful and started toward the cart.

  “Cam,” a voice called in a loud whisper.

  Cam dropped the stalks where she stood. She looked around her with quick moves of her head. It wasn’t Ellie’s voice. She couldn’t see anyone. Her heart thumped as her skin prickled with cold fear.

  “I’m here,” the voice went on. “Here,” it urged.

  She grabbed the loppers. The voice came from the woods, from near where she’d tossed the infested plants. There was something familiar about it.

  “Who’s there?” Her voice barely emerged. She tried again, and this time it rang clear. She trained her eyes on the spot where she thought the person was hiding.

  A head leaned out from behind a thick maple. Bobby Burr’s head.

  Cam closed her eyes for a moment and let the threat subside in her body. She opened them and walked toward him until they were face-to-face.

  “What are you doing here? Why are you back there?” She took a close look at him. A brown pine needle stuck out of his black hair. He was dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt. His face bore a smudge of dirt. It was his eyes that alarmed her. They looked like he had seen the abyss.

  “Are you all right?” Cam asked.

  He didn’t speak. His eyes darted around the field in front of him.

  “You heard Irene was killed, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, Cam, I heard.” He kept his voice low and urgent. “I also heard the police are looking for me.”

  “Well, sure. You’re her stepson. So you talk to them. You didn’t kill her, right?”

  He shook his head at a funereal pace.

  “So? Come to the house. You look like you could use a cup of coffee, maybe some breakfast.”

  “No! I can’t. You don’t understand.”

  “Make me understand.”

  “It’s complicated.” Bobby stared at the trees. “After the dinner, Irene and I—”

  “Cam?” Ellie’s voice called out from a distance. “Subscribers are here.”

  Cam looked over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see Ellie. “Be right there,” she called in return. She started to speak to Bobby as she turned back. But he
wasn’t there. He was running, crashing through the brush, disappearing back into the woods.

  “Bobby, wait! Let’s talk.” Cam started after him, but he didn’t slow and soon was out of sight. She pulled to a halt, wishing she could help him. However, she had a business to run. Still, as she returned to the sprouts, she wished he’d finished telling her what had happened between him and Irene after the dinner. And wondered if she should tell Pappas she’d seen him.

  Chapter 6

  About 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.