Farmed and Dangerous (11 page)

“H
ere goes,” Ruth said twenty minutes later in the church's reception hall. “Wish me luck.” She headed in Frank's direction.

Cam sipped from a plastic cup of sherry. She surveyed the spacious room that adjoined the sanctuary. Most of those who had come to pay their respects to Bev had adjourned to the reception. Finger sandwiches, a raw vegetable platter, cookies, cider, and an urn of coffee sat on a long table. Many had opted instead for the small plastic cups of sherry a young man offered from a tray. Bev's children stood in a row, greeting the guests. A poster board featuring a collage of pictures leaned on an easel near the door.

In her peripheral vision, she caught sight of a familiar figure. She turned her head. Sure enough, Pete was walking toward her, carrying a cup of coffee.

“I didn't see you in the service,” she said. He came close enough to touch. She kept her hands to herself, even as her conflicted heart reached out.

“I stood in the rear. I'm working, as you can imagine.” He wore a dark suit with a pale green tie. Although his clothes were clean and pressed, his face showed the stress of the past few days.

“Getting anywhere?” Even though Cam had seen Pete every day this week, a rush of longing swept through her. She clenched her fists to tamp it down, deny it.

“Not anywhere good. You look nice,” he said, but his gaze was on Frank and Ruth.

Cam gazed in the same direction. The couple stood close and talked intently, heads leaning in. She couldn't hear any raised voices or see any angry gestures.

“See any other murder suspects?” Cam asked.

“It's possible.” Pete put his hands in his pockets, scanning the area.

Cam followed his eyes. Oscar, in a dark sweater over a white shirt and a brightly colored tie, talked with Jim Cooper in a corner. Oscar glanced toward Pete and then turned his back. Pete might suspect Oscar. She had, herself, after all. Ellie had said he'd delivered Bev's meal to her room. Her last supper, as it turned out. She had opened her mouth to ask Pete when Richard ambled toward them.

“Farmer Cam, lovely to see you again,” he boomed. “Who's your gentleman companion here?” He smiled and winked. He wore the same turquoise vest he had when Cam saw him at Moran Manor, this time with a tweed jacket and black slacks.

“This is Pete Pappas. State police detective Pappas, actually. Pete, Richard Broadhurst.”

Richard kept on his broad smile while he shook Pete's hand. Richard stood only an inch or two taller than Pete, but he projected a much larger profile, and his meaty farmer's hand definitely dwarfed Pete's.

“Mr. Broadhurst.” Pete extracted his hand. “I believe my office has been trying to contact you in recent days.”

“Oh? Have I done something that needs detecting?” Richard raised his eyebrows nearly into his hairline.

“It's in the matter of Mrs. Montgomery's death. You haven't been responding to your messages.”

“Lost the damn cell phone somewhere. And I canceled my landline a couple of years ago. No longer necessary these days. So am I a person of interest? That sounds exciting.”

“I wouldn't be so sure. I understand you were in negotiations to purchase Bev's farm.”

Cam could tell Pete was struggling to keep irritation out of his voice.

“Purely a business deal. Nothing suspect about it, I assure you,” Richard said. “I need to go and speak with Ginger and her brothers. Those poor children.” He shook his head with a sorrowful expression on his face and headed for the end of the reception line. He launched into another aria, this time singing more softly than when he sang in the Moran Manor lobby.

“Those poor children, my ass,” Pete said, watching him go. “Excuse my French, but that man is a load of hogwash.”

“He's a bit over the top, I agree,” Cam said. “Do you think he was telling the truth about losing his cell phone? I can't imagine someone with a business not having a working cell phone. It puts you back in the Stone Age.”

Pete was opening his mouth to speak when Felicity materialized at Cam's side.

“Oh, Cam, I've been trying to find you.” She sounded breathless.

Cam introduced Felicity and Pete, and Pete greeted Felicity.

“What's up?” Cam frowned. Felicity didn't appear her usual calm, beaming self.

“I told you my father believes he saw something. He's getting more adamant about it. Could you come by and talk to him sometime soon? That would set his mind at ease.”

“Felicity's father lives at Moran Manor,” Cam said to Pete.

Pete glanced from one to the other. “He thinks he saw something connected to Bev's death?” He took his turn frowning. “And you didn't tell me, Cam?” He folded his arms.

Cam sighed. “Felicity mentioned it to me, what? Yesterday?”

Felicity nodded. “And he has Alzheimer's disease, so he might be entirely unreliable.” She smiled, but the look was a faint, worried echo of the expression Cam usually saw on her face.

“I'll need to interview him,” Pete said.

“Would it be all right if Pete and I talked to him together?” Cam glanced at Pete. “You can be kind of scary on your own, you know.”

“Why not?” Felicity said.

Pete's nostrils flared. “Who's running this investigation, anyway? I've asked you to keep out of it, Cameron.”

Cam opened her mouth. And then shut it. Now wasn't the time to get into an argument with him.

“My father feels comfortable with Cam,” Felicity said. “He might not talk to you on his own.”

“Fine, then.”

Cam checked the time on her phone. “After I pay my respects, I'm heading over to the hospital to see how Albert is. I should be able to be at Moran by two o'clock. Meet you there?” She looked at Pete.

“It's a date,” he said. “In a manner of speaking,” he rushed to add.

“I'll get in the reception line with you,” Felicity said.

As the two women waited to greet Ginger and her brothers, Cam saw Pete head in Oscar's direction. That looked like trouble. Trouble she was happy not to be part of.

Cam had one hand on the door of her truck in the church parking lot when Ruth hailed her. Cam waited until she came closer. “How'd it go?” she asked.

Ruth leaned on the truck, next to Cam. She folded her arms over her red wool coat and stared into the snowy woods across the road.

“He's lost it. He sounded pretty rational in the service, except for calling his militia group a ‘club,' ” Ruth said. “But to me during the reception? He ranted on about starting a new life, about making amends. He wasn't making much sense. His so-called amends didn't include apologizing to his daughters for leaving them, I noticed.”

“He's even skinnier than he used to be.”

“Yeah. And he split as soon as he could.” Ruth shook her head slowly, a sad look on her face. “I guess it's time to file for divorce. I don't know what I was waiting for.”

“Hang in there, girlfriend.” Cam slung an arm around Ruth's shoulders and squeezed. They were nearly the same height, although Ruth carried a lot more padding on her big-boned frame. She'd always said it gave her more credibility in a department where she was the only woman. The guys could see that she wouldn't be easy to push around physically, and she definitely wasn't a pushover emotionally, either.

“Thanks.” Ruth smiled with a pull to her mouth. “I always do, don't I?”

“And let me know when you're good for that glass of wine,” Cam said. She detached herself and fished in her bag for her keys.

“Let me check with my mom, see if she can take the girls this weekend. How does Sunday sound?”

“Good, I think. I'm heading over now to visit Albert in the hospital. Did you hear what happened to him?”

Ruth nodded. “Detective Pappas doesn't seem to know yet if someone hit him or if he fell.”

“Yeah, the doctor didn't know, either. But when I called this morning, they said he was doing well. I hope he'll be able to talk about what happened soon.”

“I need to go home and get ready for work. Pulled second shift this week. I don't know what I'd do without Mom's babysitting services.” She blew out the sigh of a single mother. “Give Albert a kiss for me, will you?”

Cam said she would. They exchanged a hug, and Ruth headed for her car. Cam climbed into the Ford and started the engine. She sat for a moment, letting the engine warm and giving her brain time to process everything. So Pete's team had been trying to reach Richard.
Interesting.
But of course they would, since he and Bev had been talking about a financial transaction. And if Richard hadn't lost his phone, why would he lie about it?

F
inding Albert became a scavenger hunt. After Cam left the church, she drove to the hospital.

She rounded the corner into Albert's hospital room, hoping to see him sitting up and feeling like his old self. She stopped short. The bed lay empty and appeared freshly made. Nothing occupied the bed tray, and no machines clicked or buzzed. Where had Albert gone? Had he had a relapse? Maybe they'd moved him to intensive care. She felt a welling of emotion. He had to be all right. They'd said just this morning he was improving.

She made her way to the nurses' station. “Excuse me. Where did Albert St. Pierre go?”

“And you are?” A nurse in hot pink scrubs gazed up from the desk.

“I'm his great-niece.”

“Ah.” She checked a monitor. “He's gone home.”

“Home?” Cam gaped.

The nurse swiveled on her chair to paperwork on the opposite desk. “Where he lives.”

So they'd released him already. Cam drove to Moran Manor and went straight up to Albert's room. Which showed no sign of his presence. Another neatly made bed, no lights, no laptop humming on the tidy desk. The white windowsill still bore traces of a dark dust, which, Cam thought, must be fingerprint powder. Where was he?

She reversed direction, headed down the stairs to the reception desk, and asked for him. The middle-aged man on duty directed her to go downstairs.

“What's downstairs? I am downstairs.”

“He's in the care unit. Downstairs.” He pointed her to the elevator.

She waited for the elevator, which seemed to take a year to arrive. She could ask the man what the care unit was, but she was too anxious to see Uncle Albert. She tapped her hand on her thigh on the ride down. The elevator opened to a counter labeled
SKILLED NURSING
. Now she remembered Uncle Albert talking about this area.

“Is Albert St. Pierre here?” she asked. Only a distant whine of television programs emitting from a couple of the rooms disturbed the quiet. An older woman in a green flowered top, whose name tag read
JUNEY
, stood behind the counter. She wore dozens of braids, which were pulled back with a green scarf.

She nodded. “He's in room six. And none too happy about it,” she said in a Caribbean accent. When she shook her head, the beads at the ends of her braids clicked with the motion.

Cam headed in the direction the woman had indicated. “Uncle Albert?” she called, poking her head into the room.

“I'm here, consarn it.” He sat in a wheelchair near the window, with a blanket covering his lap. He wore pajamas and a robe, and a book lay open on the blanket.

“You look much better.” She approached him, smiling, and perched on the end of the bed next to him. “They let you out so soon.”

“Yeah, rush around here and there. My head hurts, I'll tell you that much.”

“Sorry to hear that. You hit your head pretty hard yesterday morning.”

“No, it was last week.” He started to move his head and then winced. “That's why I can't understand why they won't let me go upstairs to my own room.”

He thinks he fell last week?
She patted his hand, the age spots standing out among ropy veins. “I'm sure they'll get you out of here soon. I bet they want to keep an eye on you for a few more days. Make sure you're steady.”

“I don't know about that.”

“Do you remember what happened? When you hit your head?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. He gazed out the window for a moment and then back at her. “Well, I almost remember, and then it's gone. I'd been reading and . . . and then . . .” He searched an empty memory. “And then I have no idea what happened.”

“It'll come back to you.” Cam smiled again. She hoped the memory would return, and soon.

“Can you ask Juney out there to take those cats out of here?” He gestured to a plastic bag hanging from a cupboard handle near the door. “They've been fighting in that bag all day.”

“Cats?” Cam glanced at the bag. It held something, but the bag was not moving. She was willing to bet it held socks and underwear brought down from Albert's room. One hundred percent inanimate.

“Oh, they've been making quite the racket.”

Cam swallowed. “I'll tell her.”

He chuckled. “She's kind of cranky. Go easy on her.”

“Yoo-hoo,” a voice called out. Marilyn moved into the room, leaning on her walker, a high-class model that featured brake levers, a bright yellow plastic flower tied to one of the handles, and a seat in the front. “How's my main squeeze?” She cocked her head and smiled at Albert.

“A lot better now that I can see your beautiful face.” Albert beamed. “Come sit down.”

Cam stood and made room for Marilyn, who locked the wheels on the walker and then slowly moved around to the front and sank into the seat.

“Hello, Cam. How's he doing?” Today she wore a red sweatshirt embroidered with flowers.

“A lot better than when he was in the hospital,” Cam said.

“I'm ‘he,' and I can answer for myself, thank you very much.” Albert frowned at Cam. “I wish they'd let me get back to my own place.”

“I'm sure they will soon. Listen, I'll let you two visit. I have to talk to someone upstairs. I'll stop down here again before I leave, all right?”

He nodded. He reached for Marilyn's hand, eyes only for her. But before Cam entered the hallway, he called out, “Don't forget to tell Juney about the cats.”

Cam found the stairway and slowly climbed to the second floor. She hoped Albert would regain his faculties once he returned to his own familiar surroundings. It was odd that he made sense most of the time. But the business about believing he'd hit his head last week instead of yesterday, and about complaining about the party at the hospital and the cats fighting in a bag—that stuff seemed like hallucinations.

For now, she needed to figure out what had happened to him. Emerging into the second-floor hallway, she checked the time on her phone. Residents might be in their rooms at this time. She had an appointment to meet Pete and Felicity at two, but a few minutes remained until then.

She walked down to Albert's room and then backtracked one room. She didn't recognize the name above the memory box on the wall outside the room. She knocked on the door, anyway. No one answered.

She moved to the door beyond Albert's, which stood ajar. She hadn't met this resident, either. She rapped on the doorjamb.

A woman's voice called out, “Come in.”

Cam pushed open the door to a room arranged in the mirror image of Albert's. A woman in a pink fleece top sat in an easy chair facing a television set. Her hands were busy crocheting with variegated yarn in the blue-green spectrum.

Cam introduced herself, saying she was related to Albert. “I'm sorry for bothering you, but I wondered if you might have seen anyone out of place in the hall yesterday morning, before lunchtime.”

“You're Albert's great-niece, then?” The woman turned her head toward Cam. “I'm Belinda Colby.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“I heard Albert took a fall. How is he?”

“He's downstairs in skilled nursing now. He's much better. I'm sure he'll be back up here before long.”

“Good. He's a lovely gentleman. Reminds me of my late husband, Ralph.”

Belinda still hadn't answered Cam's question. She tried again. “I'm trying to find out if anyone visited Albert yesterday, before his accident. Did you happen to see anyone?”

“Oh, no, dear.” Belinda's laugh was a peal of bells. “I'm blind, you see.” Her hands kept working in unison on the project in her lap.

Cam realized Belinda, in fact, wasn't looking at her crocheting.

“And I'm a bit hard of hearing, don't you know, so I usually have my television turned up.”

Cam's heart sank, but she thanked the woman and left.

She tried two more rooms. One resident said in a shaky voice that he'd been downstairs, playing bingo. The other door stood open, but the room held no occupant. It smelled of cleaning products, though. She hadn't thought of asking the housekeeping help. She shook her head at her own cluelessness. She glanced to her left, down the hallway, and then to her right. At the end, where it took a turn, she spied the edge of a cleaning cart.
Perfect.
She headed in that direction.

The sound of a vacuum came from a doorway. Cam knocked and stepped in. A young woman in dark blue pants and a matching polo shirt continued vacuuming near the far window. Cam moved farther into the room.

“Excuse me,” she said, trying to be heard over the noise.

The woman whirled. The wand hit a chair, and the vacuum fell silent. She placed her hand over her heart.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you,” Cam said.

The woman pulled out her earbuds. “No problem. Can I help you?” She had a broad face and high cheekbones. Her dark blond hair streaked back into a ponytail.

“I'm Albert St. Pierre's great-niece.”

The woman smiled and nodded. “Albert. Very nice man.” Her smile turned to a frown. “How's he doing?”

“He's much better. He's in skilled nursing.”

“Downstairs.”

“That's right. I wondered if you saw anyone near his room yesterday morning. Somebody who didn't belong there.”

The woman's eyes widened. She shook her head, fast. “Nothing. Nobody.”

“Are you sure? Had someone—”

“Excuse me.” She stuck the earbuds in again, switched on the vacuum, and turned away from Cam, pressing the wand back and forth on the carpet with excessive force.

Cam stared at her for a moment before leaving the room. She walked away, the sound of the machine echoing in her ears, masking the truth.