Golden Malicious (Apple Orchard Mystery) (3 page)

Ouch
. She hadn’t worn shoes suitable for hiking, and somehow a pebble had worked its way inside one shoe. “Seth?” she called out. “I’m going to sit for a moment and get this rock out of my shoe. Don’t go too far, okay?”

He stopped for a moment to look back at her. “You all right?”

“Of course I am. It’s just something in my shoe. I’ll only be a minute. You go ahead.”

“Okay—I won’t be far. You’ll hear us talking from here.” He turned and followed the faint path at a faster clip.

Meg looked around to find somewhere to sit—a handy log or flat rock. There was nothing near the path, but maybe ten feet away the land rose slightly, and a dead tree had fallen along the ridge. She made her way up to it and sat down with relief, untying and pulling off her shoe and shaking out a small piece of gravel, before replacing the shoe and tying the laces tightly. Then she leaned back, her hands on either side, and listened. Birds. Distant voices, male—Seth and Jonas, most likely. She couldn’t see them from where she sat, but she wasn’t concerned. She was only a couple of miles from home, not lost in a primeval forest.

As she sat, she noticed a large insect a few feet away, lying on the log with its feet in the air. Dead, obviously. It wasn’t anything she recognized, and she would have remembered. It was unusual looking; it had to be two inches long, mottled black and white, with antennae as long at its body. She shifted a couple of feet farther away—irrational, she knew, since the creature was clearly dead.

What was that smell? It smelled like something had died.
Well, it’s the woods—what do you expect, Meg?
There were coyotes around here, and hawks, and probably other predators she couldn’t name. She was pretty sure they killed smaller animals. Hadn’t someone seen bears in the county? She wouldn’t welcome meeting one of them out here.

The odor managed to interfere with her enjoyment of nature. Meg stood up and dusted off the seat of her pants, taking a last look around. The odor was definitely coming from the far side of the low ridge, away from the path, and it was clearly something rotting. She scanned the ground, through the thick underbrush.

Nothing to be seen . . . except a human hand, protruding from the brush.

Whoever was attached to it was obviously dead. Meg sat back down heavily on the log, since her legs didn’t seem to be holding her.

Not again.

The woods were as still and lovely as they had been the minute before, but Meg was not fooled. Now there was a body. She was not going to look any more closely; there was no need to make sure whoever it had been was dead. The mottled discoloration of the fingers, not to mention the ragged patches where something had nibbled on the unexpected treat, took care of that question.

It depressed her that she knew the right procedures. The basics: don’t disturb the scene, and notify someone in authority as soon as possible. Well, the first one she’d follow, but she couldn’t bring herself to deal with the second. Instead, Meg chose to sit, facing away from whoever it was. This was not her body. It had nothing to do with her. Seth would come back any minute—let him handle it. Thank goodness he hadn’t decided to bring his Golden Retriever Max along. Max would have been thrilled by Meg’s find, and probably would have wallowed in it. How do you rid a dog of the odor of decomp? Tomato juice? Or did that work only for skunk odor? Her mind was jumping all over the place.

After a few more minutes Seth did indeed appear, followed by a man about his age who must be Jonas Nash. When Seth came within a few feet of her, he said quickly, “What’s wrong?”

Meg felt a hysterical urge to make him guess, but that would simply delay the inevitable. “There’s a body. Back there.” She pointed behind her without turning.

Seth gave her a searching look, then peered past her. “Damn, you’re right.”

“Who is it?” Jonas shoved his way past Seth to get a better view. Seth blocked him from going closer with an arm across his chest.

“No way to tell from here.” He glanced at Meg. “Would you believe I have the state police on speed dial?”

Meg smiled faintly but said nothing.

“Are you all right, Meg?” When she nodded, Seth laid a hand on her shoulder briefly, without saying anything more, then walked away a few paces to make the phone call that had to be made.

That left Meg alone with Jonas Nash. She stood up and held out her hand. “Hi. I’m Meg Corey, if Seth hasn’t told you, and I assume you’re Jonas Nash and these are your woods?”

Jonas shook, with a rueful smile. “Correct on both counts. It’s nice to meet you, although the circumstances could be better.”

“Are you missing anyone? Like an employee or a relative?” Meg asked.

“I don’t think so. For my own sake, I’m hoping this is a stranger who wandered into the park and happened to die of natural causes—heart attack, stroke, who knows? It would still be a terrible shame, of course, but I hope it’s not much more complicated than that.”

Meg nodded. “Me too.”

Seth returned, stuffing his cell phone in his shirt pocket. “The state police are on their way. Maybe we should meet them at the parking area?”

“You mean, get away from here? Good idea,” Jonas said heartily. “We can head off anyone else who shows up looking for a good picnic spot.”

“You go ahead. We’ll be along in a minute,” Seth said.

Jonas looked at them for a moment, then said, “Right.” He turned and strode off the way they had come.

Seth offered Meg a hand, then pulled her up into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. Neither of us had anything to do with this. This is just our usual bad karma following us around. But thank you for worrying.” Reluctant to withdraw from Seth’s reassuring embrace, Meg reflected that it was nice to have someone who worried about how she felt. She was still getting used to that.

“We should go join Jonas. It shouldn’t take Detective Marcus more than twenty minutes to get here.”

“Seems long to me, although I’ll be happy to get away from the body. Him. Funny how a person goes from being human to being a thing when he’s dead,” Meg mused. “You don’t think Jonas had anything to do with this?”

“I can’t see why he would. I don’t know him well, but he’s always seemed like a good guy. But you know as well as I do that we’ve both been wrong about things like that in the past. It is Nash land, after all—although if he’d wanted to hide a body, no doubt he knows of much better places to do it, where it wouldn’t be found for a long time.”

“Maybe he wanted it to be found. It’s not that far off the path.”

“Hey, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Right now the only fact we have is that there is a body lying maybe twenty feet from where we stand.”

Meg backed away and brushed down her shorts. “We’d better go face the music. I hope this doesn’t spill over into tomorrow, or Bree will be seriously annoyed.”

In the parking area they all waited silently until Detective William Marcus’s state police car arrived from Northampton. He parked at the end of the lot, closest to where the access lane entered, and climbed out. Another officer emerged from the passenger seat. Marcus surveyed the scene and finally focused on Meg, Seth, and Jonas Nash. He shook his head.

“Why am I not surprised?” he said, when he was in earshot.

“Hello, Detective,” Meg said, her tone resigned. “Maybe you should simply hire me as a bloodhound for homicides in your jurisdiction. I seem to have a knack for finding bodies.”

“Meg, Seth,” said Detective Marcus by way of a greeting. “And this is?” He looked at Jonas.

Jonas stepped forward and extended his hand. “I’m Jonas Nash—I run Nash Lumber. My family owns this property.”

“I thought the name sounded familiar. Meg, you found the body?” When Meg nodded, Marcus went on, “Before we go take a look, tell me what happened.”

Meg recited what little there was to tell. She had arrived, followed Seth and Jonas, stopped to remove the stone from her shoe, then smelled the rotting body. No, she had not gone any closer, much less disturbed the body. To be strictly accurate, she didn’t know if there actually was a body; all she had seen was the hand.

Marcus nodded without comment. “So you have no idea who it is or how this person died. Seth, you didn’t notice anything?”

“Nope, I was looking for Jonas. We’d planned to meet this morning, and one of his employees at the sawmill said he was here.”

“What about you, Nash?”

“No. But if it was downwind, I wouldn’t have smelled anything. I certainly didn’t see anything on my way in.”

Marcus checked his watch. “The forensic team said they’d be here as soon as possible, and we’ve got a few hours of light left. Show me where he is. I suppose there’s no point in keeping off the path?”

“You mean, in terms of preserving evidence?” Jonas asked, surprised. “Probably not. Plenty of people come this way. Animals, too, like deer.”

“Figures,” Marcus said. “Show us the way.”

Meg let Jonas lead the way. After all, it was his property. When they reached the point closest to the log where Meg had sat, she pointed. “If you go stand by that log there, you’ll see the hand.”

“Stay here,” Marcus ordered. He studied the scene for a moment, then walked off at an angle so he could approach the body obliquely. He was out of sight beyond the ridge for a few minutes, then returned with a wallet in his latex-gloved hand. “Name’s David Clapp, from Easthampton. That ring any bells?”

Meg and Seth looked at each other, and they all came up blank. “Doesn’t mean anything to me,” Seth said, “but I didn’t look at his face.” Meg felt obscurely relieved that it wasn’t a neighbor.

Marcus turned to Jonas. “Nash, what about you? Is he an employee?”

Jonas looked shaken. “Not at the moment, but he used to be, until a year or two ago. Nowadays we contract out for the lumbering, unless we’re harvesting trees specifically for the sawmill. He’s from one of the logging teams. I’ve seen him now and then, since he left the sawmill.”

“You two part on good terms?” Marcus asked.

“Well, he wasn’t happy to be let go, but he understood why—we just couldn’t afford to keep all the staff on. It made more sense to bring in a crew on an as-needed basis. No hard feelings.”

“Get me the name of your logging contractor, and I’ll check with him,” Marcus said.

“No problem,” Jonas answered.

From where they stood they could hear the sound of another vehicle arriving, and then the sound of multiple voices. Marcus led them back to the parking area and greeted the forensic team, pointing down the path. Then he said, “I’ll take it from here. Nash, I want you to stay, since you know the property. Seth, Meg—you might as well go on home. I know where to find you.”

“Thanks,” Seth said. “Jonas, I’ll call you tomorrow about that lumber.”

Jonas nodded, then turned and followed Marcus and his crew back into the woods, leaving Meg and Seth standing alone in the parking lot. “Home?” Meg asked hopefully.

“I guess,” Seth said. “It doesn’t look like I’m going to get much more done for Donald’s house today. Sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Seth, you are not responsible for every corpse in Granford, and neither am I. You were here on legitimate business, and you wanted to show me the sawmill. We didn’t know this guy, but I’m sure Detective Marcus will figure something out, and it won’t involve us. So let’s go home and sit and contemplate our mortality—or our lousy luck—and then I’ll make you dinner. That work for you?”

Seth smiled reluctantly. “This was supposed to be your day off. You want to cook?”

“Yes, I do,” Meg said firmly. “I find it relaxing. If you insist on feeling guilty, then you can peel or chop—or better yet, wash the dishes. We can eat outside, since it’s so nice. You can go get Max and bring him over. I’ll talk to the goats. And we can pretend it’s just an ordinary day, okay?”

They drove home quietly, as Meg mentally reviewed the contents of her refrigerator. Why was it she never found time to go to the market? If it weren’t for needing cat food, she would probably subsist on dry cereal. But an apple orchard was a demanding creature, and it refused to wait for ordinary human things.

Bree’s car was still in the driveway when they arrived at Meg’s house, but Bree was coming out the kitchen door when they pulled in. “There you are!” Bree called out. “I left you a note in the kitchen—I’m headed over to Michael’s.” As she came closer, Bree noticed Meg and Seth’s shared expression. “What? Something happen? You two all right?”

“I found another body,” Meg said.

“You’re kidding me!” Bree’s glance shifted between Meg and Seth. “You’re not? Jeez, Meg, what is it with you and bodies?”

“Bree, it seems that the only way I can avoid it is to never leave the house. Sorry,” Meg said, laughing ruefully.

“Right. Maybe I shouldn’t spend so much time near you—it could be dangerous. What happened?”

“We don’t know yet,” Seth answered her. “We know the man’s name, but Meg didn’t recognize it. It sounds kind of familiar to me—he’s from Easthampton, but maybe he’s been involved in some Granford activities. Jonas Nash is the guy who owns the property where the body was found, and he said the guy used to work for him, but not currently. And that is all we know for the moment.”

“Huh. Well, I’m off now. Don’t wait up.” With that, Bree headed for her car, and a minute later she pulled out of the driveway, leaving Meg and Seth standing indecisively in the driveway.

“Are you going to go get Max?” Meg asked.

“I guess. Can I bring back anything?”

“Don’t go out of your way. If something in your fridge is calling to you, bring it along.”

“Will do.” Seth set off on foot up the hill toward his own house.

Meg let herself in the back door. Lolly appeared from the front of the house, anticipating dinner. “You could at least suck up to me a little, cat,” Meg said, as she dished canned food onto a plate. That task accomplished, she turned her attention to people food and tried to push thoughts of her grisly discovery in the woods out of her head. It was a sad coincidence that she had found the body, but she had no responsibility to do anything about this death. Let the professionals handle it.

So here she was, with an evening free to spend alone with Seth. Funny, that was happening more and more often, usually here at her place, while Bree spent time with her sometime boyfriend Michael in Amherst. Of course, since Seth’s business office was behind her house, it was easy for him to come over after he was done for the day. Now that the weather was dependable and the days were long, he was busy, in and out most of the days. When he was working from his office he often brought Max with him, and taking the energetic dog across the fields for a walk was a nice break for both of them.

It had been interesting to see the “bones” of Donald’s house. It was like seeing an x-ray version of her own home—the skeleton beneath the skin. Of course, it was painful to see the damage to a building that had survived over two hundred years of New England winters and witnessed much of Granford’s history, but builders then had put up sturdy houses, and Seth had said there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed. And he was so excited about being a part of the restoration.

A few minutes later, as Meg was washing lettuce, Max appeared in the driveway, dragging Seth after him. Meg went to the door to let them in. “Lolly’s already had her dinner, so Max can join us for a bit. What’s that?” She pointed to a bag that Seth was carrying.

“It’s a whole chicken I forgot I had. I thought maybe we could grill it outside?”