Murder Most Fowl (7 page)

“Me, I eat everything.” Cam held up a hand when Katie started to speak. “But I try to mostly eat meat from Tender-crop Farm, so I know it was raised running around in the fresh air and treated well.” She glanced at Katie. “And Laitinen's chicken, of course.”

“Look, I said I was sorry.” Katie's nostrils flared. “You don't have to keep rubbing it in.” She wrenched open the truck door and slid out.

Cam leaned across the seat. “I need to call Detective Pappas. He'll want to know where you are. I'll see you in there.” The door slammed on her last word.

By the time Cam got into the small grocery store, she spied Katie's hat heading toward the wine aisle. Good. They both could use a glass, although if Katie had to talk with Pete soon, maybe that wasn't the best of ideas. He'd thanked her for the call and said he'd be over as soon as he finished up something.

Cam grabbed a basket and ambled toward the aisle that held pasta and jars of sauce. She added several of each to her basket, a packet of chocolate cookies from one aisle over, and then headed for the cheese section, picking up a block of Romano for grating, and ricotta and pregrated mozzarella just to have around. That was plenty for a simple, quick supper.

When she reached the checkout line, Katie had already paid for a bottle of red, and the steel-haired cashier was sliding it into a narrow paper bag. Katie looked around the woman behind her in line at Cam. “Okay?”

Cam laughed as she set the contents of her basket onto the rolling checkout belt. “We're both over twenty-one.” She could caution her about not overindulging once they got home. Cam was digging in her bag for her wallet when the woman standing in between Katie and Cam spoke to Katie.

“I heard you were with that vandalism group last night up at Laitinens'. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, young lady.”

The cashier stood with her hand on Cam's box of spaghetti and pursed her lips, nodding.

“Them are good folks, and now Wayne's dead,” the woman continued. “What, did you kill him off? Wasn't enough to try to freeze all them hens?”

Katie stared. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Turning, she rushed out the door.

The customer muttered to the cashier about liberals and no-good young people as she swiped her card with more force than was necessary. Cam kept her own mouth shut, as well. It wouldn't do any good to argue with her. Nobody was going to change that woman's mind. Besides, Cam agreed with her about the vandalism. She waited as her own purchases were rung up. She paid and made her way out.

Outside the temperature had indeed plummeted as the sun made its descent, forecasting a night with the mercury dipping below freezing. Katie stood at the back of Cam's truck talking with Greta. And by the looks of it, Greta wasn't a bit happy, her finger pointed at Katie's chest.
Uh-oh
. And what was Greta doing out shopping the night her husband had been killed?

“That Detective Pappas thinks you killed my husband. Either you or one of your crazy friends.” She glanced at Cam. “What are you doing driving a murderer around?”

“A murderer? What's going on in this town?” Katie asked. “I didn't kill Mr. Laitinen.” She shook her head, hard. “I wouldn't do that. He was a nice man. I don't even kill animals to eat. Why would I—”

“You'll have to ask Pappas that.” Greta whirled and stalked toward the store. She called back to Katie, “I'm warning you. Don't you ever go near my property again or you might end up the dead one.”

C
am latched the door of the coop after making sure Ruffles and all the hens were safely inside. She'd left Katie and her glass of wine waiting for the pasta water to boil as Katie spoke with Alexandra. Maybe they could have a calming dinner before Pete showed up. As Cam walked toward the farmhouse, with Dasha poking around the yard, the full Worm Moon lifted its bright, cold head above the trees. The Worm Moon was the name the Algonquins had taught the colonists for the month when the soil softened and worms began to come alive. With tonight's temperatures chilling the ground, though, Cam expected the worms were going to remain in hiding for a few more days. New Englanders preferred to call the first full moon in March the Sap Moon because it heralded the movement of the maple sap in the trees' veins.

Dasha barked and trotted to the driveway, and the crunch of gravel made Cam turn her head. The motion detector light outside her back door sprang to life, illuminating Pete's old Saab. So they wouldn't be having a quiet dinner first, after all.

When Pete climbed out, Cam called, “Yo, Detective.”

He glanced over at her with a smile. “My favorite farmer.” Dasha ran up for a pet, and Cam walked up to Pete, too.

She'd opened her mouth to speak when the farmhouse door opened.

“Cam?” Katie called, holding the screen door open with one hand, wineglass in the other. “The water's . . .” She stared at Pete.

He lifted a hand. “Nice to see you, Ms. Magnusson.”

The screen door slammed as Katie clattered down the steps. “I heard you want to talk to me, Detective. I was part of the vandalism, but I did not kill Mr. Laitinen.” Her voice was calm as she raised her chin.

Pete scratched between his eyebrows. “Can we go inside?”

“Of course,” Cam said.

Katie turned and strode back to the house. Pete shut the door to his car and followed Cam toward the steps, Dasha at his side, then reached out and touched her arm after the door closed behind Katie. Cam turned toward him.

“You couldn't have known we were looking for Katie,” he said in a quiet voice. “Why did you even go looking for her? I never told you we wanted to question her.”

“Alexandra called and told me. It occurred to me that, loving animals as much as she does, Katie might be over at Randall Farm. She'd talked about the llamas last fall when she was here helping build my chicken coop.”

“Thanks for calling about Katie.”

Cam shivered and gazed at the warm light from the kitchen windows pushing out into the darkening night. “Want some pasta?”

 

When Pete and Cam walked into the kitchen, Dasha eagerly at Pete's side, Katie was stirring the pasta in the big pot. Without turning, she said, “I put in the whole box, in case he's hungry.” A pot of sauce simmered on a smaller burner, and she'd set the farm table in the eating area with three place mats, plates, and silverware.

Cam raised her eyebrows at Pete.

Sighing again, he said, “I am hungry. Very.” He drummed his fingers on the countertop next to him. “Okay, I'll eat. But I do need to bring you in for questioning, Ms. Magnusson, and we're not going to do it over dinner.”

“I understand,” Katie said. “Got a colander, Cam?”

Cam showed her where it was. “I suppose you're working, so no wine?” Cam asked Pete.

He shook his head. “Would love a cup of coffee, though.”

Cam and Katie busied themselves getting dinner on the table for a few minutes as Pete retreated to the living room with Dasha. Cam started a pot of coffee, then rummaged in the refrigerator until she pulled out a small jar.

“I'll stir some of last summer's pesto into the sauce,” she said. “The little cheese grater is in that drawer,” she told Katie, pointing.

A couple of minutes later, Katie set the wide shallow dish full of steaming spaghetti topped with pestoed tomato sauce in the middle of the table while Cam put a chunk of Romano on the table and poured herself a glass of wine.

“Soup's on, Pete.” She grabbed a big spoon and the pasta server from the kitchen and served up the mix onto each plate, then passed around the cheese.

Katie sat and grated in silence, Pete taking the chair opposite her. Cam sank into the chair at the end and sipped her wine. She glanced at Pete, who had delivered a forkful of pasta to his mouth. For several minutes, the only sounds were forks on china, chewing, and swallowing.

“Katie, how long have you been hanging out with the llamas?” Cam asked. There had to be something neutral they all could talk about.

Katie's face brightened. “Every chance I get. They are so not like people. They simply sit and chew, and walk around. I feel like I can communicate with them.”

“I have trouble communicating with people, myself,” Cam said.

“You don't feel any need to open their gate and let them out into the wild?” Pete asked.

That wasn't fair. He'd said no questioning during dinner.

Katie tilted her head to the side before she answered. “No.” She gazed at Pete with her mouth set in a determined expression.

Cam racked her brain for what other safe topic she could bring up, since that one had clearly bombed. “What do you do for work, Katie?” she finally asked.

“I'm an assistant for Judith Patterson. A flunky, more so. She works from home and needs somebody to be her secretary. But I also pick up her cleaning and such.” She shrugged. “It's a part-time job. She pays me well for my afternoons, but it's not my life's work or anything.”

“What's her profession?” Pete asked.

“She's a consultant, does something with finance. She only goes into Boston once a week.”

“Did you ever hear her talking about wanting to buy part of Wayne and Greta's land for her daughter's horse?” Cam glanced at Pete before she looked at Katie.

“For sure. She was wicked focused on that. Said Greta wanted to sell but Wayne didn't.” Katie pushed her half-finished plate away. Her wineglass still held half its contents, too. “Thanks for dinner, Cam. I guess I'm ready when you are, Detective.”

Pete made fast work of the rest of his pasta. “Thanks from me, too. Didn't expect to get a hot home-cooked meal tonight,” he said. “A delicious one, too. Now, happen to have a travel mug I can borrow?” Dasha barked as Pete stood. He leaned down to stroke the dog's head. “You're going to stay here, boy, if it's okay with Cam.”

“You know it is.” She stood, and a minute later brought him a mug full of black coffee with a lid firmly screwed on. She moved to Katie's side near the door, where Katie was buttoning up her coat.

“Are you okay to do this alone?” Cam spoke in a low voice. “Do you want me to come, or to call Alexandra again?”

Katie looked down. “You're right. I'll call my sister. But I didn't kill him. I'm sure I'll be home soon.”

“Does she need a lawyer, Pete?” Cam asked.

“It's up to her.”

Katie pulled her knit hat on, tugging it down over her ears, and glanced up. “I'm going to leave my bike here, if that's okay.”

“Of course.”

Katie set her jaw and faced the door. “Let's get this over with.”

 

Cam puttered around the kitchen, spooning the uneaten pasta into a small container, storing the cheese. She poured herself another glass of wine and sipped it in between washing plates, pots, and silverware. Albert and Marie had never gotten around to installing a dishwasher. Living alone, Cam didn't see the need for one, either.

But her thoughts were elsewhere as her hands worked in the warm soapy water. On Katie being questioned. Pete couldn't think she had motive to actually murder Wayne, could he? Cam also mused at Greta's anger, seemingly at the world. Cam could have mentioned the bag and Greta's assertion that it was thyroid medicine to Pete while he was here, but she hadn't wanted to talk about that in front of Katie. She pulled out her phone and texted him about it.

Cam's mind jumped to Judith pressuring the Laitinens to sell, and the couple not being in agreement about the decision. And then there was Paul Underwood driving away from the farm yesterday in a huff. He was also the one who found Wayne's body this morning. Why had he gone back?

After she wiped down the counters, Cam dried her hands and fed Preston and Dasha, then took Dasha out on a leash until he'd done his business. Back inside, she took her wine to her laptop on the desk tucked in a corner of the living room. She found the digital world a comfort, a familiar, logical place to hang out. And, often, to find answers. She'd already struck out trying to discover anything about Paul's younger life. She did a search on Judith Patterson, but all seemed to be as it was. A divorced single mother with a high-powered job. Nothing there.

Greta Laitinen was next. Greta Carlson Laitinen, apparently. A search for Greta Carlson yielded a notice about graduating Phi Beta Kappa with honors in biology from Wellesley College. Wow. The chicken farmer's wife had brains. Cam stared at a picture of a much younger Greta in gown and mortarboard beaming next to Wayne. Had her dreams been dashed? Maybe they'd started a family a little sooner than they'd intended and Greta hadn't seen her way clear to pursuing her own career. Working as an aide in the library wouldn't be much of a challenge for a star biologist, and resentment often led to anger.

Cam thought of the cylindrical object Dasha had uncovered. How to describe it? She typed, “canister three inches” and hit Enter. Nope. She got “kitchen canisters” and “three-inch gun ordnance.” The thing had been more like a cartridge, but those results yielded cartridges for guns and printers. It looked a bit like a shotgun shell, but slimmer. She changed the size to four inches, but nothing looked like the cylinder Dasha had dug up. She sat back and sipped her wine.

Preston wandered over and rubbed against her leg while Cam spent a few minutes checking her e-mail and the farm's Web site. She hadn't posted to the blog in a couple of weeks, but March wasn't much of a news month in the life of a New England farm. She'd take pictures tomorrow of the pruning. She checked the time in the corner of the screen. Nine o'clock and time to curl up with an old movie. She'd figure out that cylinder later. Or let Pete do it. It was his job, after all, not hers.

“Come on, Preston.” Cam curled up on the couch with her wine, Preston jumped up to join her, and she switched on the television and selected a movie. The TV was one appliance she had definitely upgraded when she moved in, bringing her flat screen with her from Cambridge. Dasha trotted over and settled on the floor next to the couch. The familiar images of
Casablanca
calmed her. It had been a rough couple of days, and she deserved an hour and a half of escaping into the world of the last century.

She'd been enjoying the movie for a while when a white-tuxedoed Humphrey Bogart lit a cigarette. Cam sat up straight and startled Preston, who leapt to the floor.

A cigarette. Bogart smoked a traditional cigarette. But the cylinder Dasha had found was an e-cigarette cartridge. Like the one Judith Patterson had been smoking in the restaurant last night.