Farmed and Dangerous (14 page)

She shook off thoughts of her restless night and checked the seedling flats. The newly planted seeds were already sprouting in their warm beds. Maybe setting up the seed-starting station in the barn had been a bad idea, though. The tiny plants would want warmer air than fifty-five, but keeping the electric space heater running around the clock wasn't safe. She always found something new to learn about farming, which was a science experiment in action, with Cam as the lab technician. Or the mad scientist. A shame some of the experimental results ended up being failures.

She watered the flats gently and then sat at the desk. She'd scheduled this Saturday as winter share pickup day. She examined the list of what would go into the shares on Saturday. It still seemed a little scant, even with the addition of a ball of fresh mozzarella to each shareholder's portion. The share would be similar to what she'd brought to Moran Manor for the dinner. The cost of which she doubted Cooper would reimburse her, and she had no payback to expect in the future, either. She could offer winter squashes, greens, leeks, the ubiquitous kale, rutabagas, parsnips, and carrots. Onions and garlic. She'd run out of the Corey farm apples she'd bought in the fall, and Meg had said she couldn't supply any more bushels this winter.

What else could she add? She'd met a maple farmer last summer whose syrup production wasn't far north into New Hampshire. What had the woman's name been? It'd sounded like a man's name. Ronny? Benny? No, she was named Dani. Dani Greene. She'd been about a foot shorter than Cam, but they had shared a bottle of wine at a farmers' market potluck and had swapped farming stories. Cam might be able to wangle a wholesale price from her on a bottle of syrup for each share. She found Dani's e-mail on her cell and sent her a message.

Cam's gaze fell on the phone list tacked above the desk. It'd been Albert's list of contacts: seed companies, a soil amendment supplier, fellow farmers, even a small-engine mechanic for when the tiller broke down. Richard Broadhurst's name topped the column labeled
FARMERS
. He lived right here in Westbury. He might give her a bulk price on stored apples, and she could include a pound or two for each subscriber. If she kept buying products from other farms, her bottom line was going to suffer. But if she didn't satisfy her customers, who'd paid a premium price for their winter shares, she'd lose them. She had considered this financial balancing act when she acquired the farm, and had known it was risky. She had decided to take the plunge, anyway. Albert had alluded to the hard work she could expect when he gave her the farm, but he hadn't touched much on the costs. Of course, he had farmed conventionally and had never considered trying to keep crops going all winter long.

She squared her mental shoulders. She was smart. She would find a way to make it all work. She tapped Richard's number into her cell and saved it. She was about to call him when she pulled her finger away from the phone. Even early rising farmers didn't call each other before eight in the morning.

She switched off the space heater and headed out to get some work done. Peering into the coop, she saw that the new hens appeared to have retained their feathers and were settling in like part of the flock.
Good.
She opened the coop's small door. The weather was not quite as frigid as this morning, and the sky was the color of a slate roof. She sniffed. Snow was on its way.

The largest of the new chickens pushed out onto the ramp leading down into the yard. The hen lifted her head and straightened her body. She let out a full-throated “Er-er er-errrr.”

Cam stared. That she was a he. Those people had left her a rooster. It,
he,
must be the one they'd named Ruffles. Ruffles was the only non-female name on the list in the note they'd left—well, the only name human females didn't normally go by—but what a silly thing to call a rooster. She peered at him. His comb stood a little taller than those of the hens, and his wattle was larger as well. She hadn't planned on acquiring a rooster and didn't want one. DJ had said males were pushy and noisy, although he'd also mentioned that they could help keep the hens in order and protect them against predators.

She supposed she could sell the eggs for a higher price now that they would be both organic and fertilized. Or she could slaughter the fellow. Except she had no idea how to go about that. Did one simply sharpen the old ax and chop his head off like in the cartoons about Thanksgiving turkeys? She sighed. For today, at least, good old Ruffles there would enjoy the run of the yard.

T
he wind turbine on the hill above Richard's farmhouse spun lazily against the metallic sky, a stark contrast with the stylized sunny valley full of trees and the close-up of a smiling, winking apple on the sign reading
CIDER VALLEY FARM
.

Cam had left Richard a message at eight. Even though he hadn't responded, she had driven over to the orchard at nine, anyway, and had pulled into the open parking area in front of the house. The space had been poorly plowed, with icy ruts and hillocks of snow mixed in with bare spots of gravel. He could be outside or in his barn, working, doing whatever orchardists did in the dead of winter. This was her first visit to the farm. The house perched on the side of the hill. The Greek Revival style of the white farmhouse hinted at origins in the mid-1800s, but an addition that stuck out from the right side had clearly been built recently. White housewrap covered the new section, and each window still bore its manufacturer's sticker. Richard should have put on the siding before winter hit. It must be cold in there. But if he had a gambling habit, he might have run out of funds to finish off the project.

A barn with a corrugated metal roof sat to the side of the house. A rusty tractor stuck out of the snow next to an old refrigerator with rounded corners and no door. Down the hill in front of the house and barn stretched acres of bare-branched apple trees in the eponymous valley.

She climbed out of the cab of the Ford and called his name. They'd never talked about their personal lives, except for him telling the story about his former career as an international opera singer. She wondered if Hannah and her mother had lived here at the farm, or if Richard had maintained the farmhouse while living at Hannah's mother's place.

When she knocked on the door, no one emerged from the house. Cam couldn't see a doorbell. She wandered toward the barn, whose wide sliding door stood closed. She hauled it open, fighting with the rust and the grit in the tracks, which prevented it from sliding smoothly. The overcast sky didn't lend much light to the inside, but she glimpsed rows of wooden apple crates four feet square stacked on top of each other, a small battered forklift, and a heavy door with a cooler-type handle off to one side, likely a walk-in cooler for the apples. The space appeared tidy and tickled her nose with the smell of apples and sawdust, but she didn't see a soul until a yellow cat streaked past and out the door.

“Richard? It's Cam Flaherty,” she called. “You in there?”

When only silence answered, she pulled the door mostly shut, leaving it open a few inches so the cat could make its way in again. She gazed down the hill toward the orchard itself. A figure in red moved between the rows. Richard must be out there pruning or something. She pulled her hat a little lower on her head and stuck her hands in her pockets. She walked across the parking area toward the trees. A car started somewhere on the other side of the house. An engine revved. A black sedan streaked with road salt emerged. It picked up speed, spinning gravel. The car headed straight for Cam.

“Hey!” Cam yelled. She took a quick step back. Her front foot slid on a patch of ice. She fell backward on one of the mounds of snow, landing on her rear. Her heart raced.

The car kept coming. She tried to push herself up but slipped again. She waved her arms in front of her. Surely the driver would see her. Surely he would stop. The vehicle blasted straight at her. She tried to scramble out of the way, but she had run out of time.

Heat off the engine warmed her face before the car swerved away from her at the last second. It tore down the drive toward the road. Cam stared at the license plate and said the combination of numbers and letters aloud a couple of times. The car also bore a bumper sticker with the word
Jewelers
on it, but Cam didn't get a chance to catch more than that. She'd seen that car before somewhere. She pulled one glove off with her teeth, extracted her phone from her pocket, and tapped the license plate number into a notes app before she forgot it.

She hoisted herself off the ground and leaned down to retrieve her keys from where she'd dropped them next to the mound she'd tripped on. She took a deep breath and started toward the orchard all over again. When she got within shouting distance, she started to hear singing. That had to be Richard working.

“Yo, Richard,” she called. “It's me, Cam Flaherty.” She waved.

From halfway up a ladder leaning against a tree, he glanced up the hill and motioned her toward him. When she approached a minute later, he climbed down, holding what looked like a small chain saw on the end of a pole. He greeted her, then set the tool on the ground and tugged his gloves off. He pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket. He extended it toward Cam.

“Smoke?”

“No thanks.”

He lit a cigarette. “What's new?” he asked after inhaling and breathing out the smoke with his chin tilted toward the sky. A navy blue watch cap sat on top of his large head, and wiry salt-and-pepper hair waved out from beneath the sides of the hat. Above a straggly gray beard his cheeks were pink from the cold. His work-stained red jacket resembled Cam's own work coat: mended, frayed around the edges.

“I'm all right, thank goodness,” Cam answered. “Somebody almost ran me down when I started walking into the orchard. Up there in front of the barn.” She pointed. “I thought I was dead meat.”

He grimaced. “That must have been—” He caught himself and closed his mouth, exhaling. He continued, “It was, uh, my friend. Sorry about that.” He frowned.

“He seemed to be in a crazy big hurry.”

Richard nodded. He said nothing else.

“And you?” Cam asked. “What are you working on out here in the middle of January?”

“Pruning, pruning, pruning. Has to be done before the buds form.”

Sure enough, small branches littered the ground under the trees in one direction from where they stood, and the shapes of the trees were more open, cleaner.

“Is that really a chain saw?” She pointed to the tool.

“Yup, cordless pole saw. Makes the work go way faster than using loppers and pruners. So, what brings a beautiful woman like you out on such a gray day?” He lifted his eyebrows, drawing on the cigarette, and then blew smoke out the side of his mouth.

“Don't be ridiculous. It does look like snow, though, doesn't it? And it tastes like it.”

He gazed at the sky and sniffed. “Should start around midday, I'd say.”

“I came by because I wondered if you have any storage apples I could buy at a wholesale price. I need to pad out my winter shares, or the subscribers will start complaining.”

“Any particular varieties you're wanting?”

“I don't know much about apples. I've heard of Baldwins. And I love to eat Macouns in the fall. What do you have?”

“Let me give you some Spartans,” Richard said. “They're great keepers and have the most marvelous flavor. An antique variety.”

“That sounds great. And the locavores will be happy.”

“Can't get much more local than five miles distant from your farm.”

“Your apples aren't certified organic, are they?”

He shook his head. “I follow organic practices, as much as I can. But I am a CNG.”

“What?”

“Certified natural grower.”

“A new term.”

“It's a much smaller certifying agency than the USDA, which is a bloody bureaucratic nightmare for a libertarian like me. Certified naturally growing farms are peer evaluated. My customers are satisfied. They don't care about a USDA sticker on their fruit.”

“I'll check it out.” Cam suspected the fees were lower and the standards might be, as well. “Do they allow woodchuck bombs? I had a terrible time with those critters last summer.”

“They do. But I have a better solution.” He lifted his arms, with one extended in front of him, palm up, and the closer hand in a trigger configuration. “Blammo.”

“You shoot them?” A shudder went through her. Woodchucks were extremely destructive, but the thought of taking a gun to one horrified her.

“You bet. I trained as a sharpshooter a long time ago. I blast their little heads off. Pop them off, one, two, three.” He winked at her. “Say, I heard you changed your farm's name back to Attic Hill?” He took a drag on his smoke.

“I did. The name Produce Plus Plus turned out to be really annoying. And I had to explain it all the time.” She shrugged.

“Such explanation being?”

“Well, as my volunteer Lucinda put it, the name represented vegetables, plus local, plus community, or something like that. I used to write software, and the language we wrote in was C plus plus.” She folded her arms. “Anyway, Attic Hill Farm is a better name, and it means something to the community because of my great-uncle. So do you have time to get me a few bushels of those Spartans?”

“About time I took a break and warmed up these old pegs. After you, my dear.” He bowed with a courtly gesture.

As they trudged up the hill, Cam said, “Looks like you didn't complete your addition.”

“Oh, that. I ran out of time before the fall, and then I didn't have a minute to spare. We had the best crop ever this year. Conditions were perfect.”

“Must be cold in that part of the house.”

“I'm not using it at present. It's not finished on the inside, either, so I closed it off.”

“It was such a good season. Have you thought about hiring somebody to complete the job?”

“Oh, no.” He spread his hands expansively. “I do all my own work.”

“So, awful news from Moran Manor. Bev Montgomery dead, and then another woman died, too.”

Richard gave her a sharp glance. “Of the same cause?”

“No idea. Pure coincidence, I'm sure. What I'm trying to figure out is, of all the people who didn't get along with Bev, why somebody would go so far as to kill her.”

“An extreme measure, certainly. But surely that is the purview of the police, your detective Pappas and his cronies, isn't it?”

“Of course,” Cam said. “But since somebody in the state police seems to believe I might have poisoned Bev myself, which of course I didn't, I have a vested interest in figuring out who did.”

He nodded.

“I heard that Bev planned to sell you her land.” Cam glanced at him while they walked. “That deal must be off now.”

“It's early days yet.” He waved a hand of dismissal in the air. “I've been trying to get hold of her daughter, Ginger, but she doesn't return my calls.” He increased his stride and kept his gaze on the barn ahead.

But Richard had told Pete he'd lost his phone. He must have either found it or bought a new one.