Red Delicious Death (2 page)

“No, not unless you’re opening up the hive. You should be fine. This is a second-year hive—it has two tiers, and the frames hang inside the tiers. That’s where the bees build the wax chambers.” He carefully lifted the lid off the box, and then pulled out a vertical frame. A few bees, annoyed, flew away, but otherwise there was little activity. Meg could make out the yellow of the wax, and the deeper gold of what must be honey in a good number of the cells. And, she realized, even from where she stood, she could hear a constant low humming. How had she missed the sound of all those bees?

“Do you collect the honey?” Meg asked Carl.

“I do, and I sell it, too—though I can let you have it, if you want, for a fair price.”

“I’ll think about it. But if you’ve got buyers lined up, that’s okay.”

“Thanks. But later you might like to watch how I harvest the honey, if you’ve never seen it before.”

Nope, Meg had never seen a honey harvest. It was only one of a long list of agricultural events she had managed to miss during her previous career as a banker in Boston. She was catching up fast, out of necessity: the orchard she had inherited was supposed to provide her with a steady income, now that the banking job had gone away. “I’d like that. You said I have fifteen hives?”

Carl carefully replaced the honey-filled frame in the hive, and closed the top again. “Yup. One per acre is the standard. Sometimes we can go with fewer—depends on what else is around you, what other pollinators you’ve got.” He led the way to the next box, some fifty feet away.

As they approached, Meg could read the change in Carl’s body language. If he’d been a cat, his ears would have pricked up. Then she noticed the silence—this time there was no hum coming from the hive. And when Carl lifted off the lid, nothing moved.

He stared sadly into the silent hive. “They were fine just a couple of weeks ago.”

“So we got through pollination all right?”

“I think so. I hope so. Listen, this really isn’t your problem. The contract says you get fifteen healthy hives, and if some of these have crashed, I’ll need to replace them. But it’s getting harder and harder to find healthy hives, and it takes a while to start up new ones.”

“What do you mean, it’s getting harder? What’s happening to the bees?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows what’s killing them off, not even the guys over at the university. Best guess, it’s a virus or something that’s been passed around from country to country, but we don’t know how it spreads from hive to hive, why it takes some and not others. And without knowing that, we don’t know how to stop it either.” He shook his head. “I’ll have to see what I’ve got to replace this hive for you. Sorry, Meg.”

“Hey, don’t apologize—it’s not your fault, is it?” Meg made a mental note to ask Christopher or Bree Stewart, her new orchard manager, about this whole bee death phenomenon. She’d heard it mentioned in the class she had audited at the university this spring, but she hadn’t expected to witness it up close.

Carl glumly surveyed the rest of the orchard. “No, I guess not. Most people around here have had problems with it. Look, you don’t have to stick around for all of these. I’ll take care of swapping the rest of ’em out.”

“Thank you, Carl—I’ll let you handle it.”

Carl sighed. “No problem. Good to meet you, Meg.”

“Same here,” Meg said. “I hope you find that most of them are all right.”

“So do I,” Carl said mournfully.

As she made her way down the hill, Meg could hear her phone ringing through the open windows. It was nice, after the long New England winter and grudging spring, to finally be able to air out the house, let it breathe. The phone had stopped by the time she let herself in the front door, but when she checked her messages, she saw her friend Lauren’s name on the missed call log. Lauren still worked at the bank that had nudged Meg out the prior year, in what seemed to Meg like a different universe. She called Lauren back.

“Hey, farm girl!” Lauren’s cheerful voice greeted her. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, fine.” Meg wasn’t about to mention the dead bees, which would mean nothing to city girl Lauren. “When are you coming out to see the place? Better hurry, or I’ll make you pick apples for your keep.”

“Promises, promises. Listen, I called because I’ve got kind of an odd request.”

“Okay, what?”

“I know these people—I mean, they’re not exactly friends, but sort of friends of friends, if you know what I mean?” Lauren was apparently in a talkative mood, so Meg tucked the phone under her chin and searched through her refrigerator for something cold to drink as her friend went on. “Anyway, they both graduated from a cooking school in Rhode Island—Providence, I think—and they got married right after, and they’ve been working in Boston for a couple of years and now they want to open a restaurant.”

“I hope you’ve told them they’re crazy? From everything I’ve heard, it’s not easy, and most restaurants go broke in the first year.” And those were the statistics in a strong economy—who knew what the odds were now? “Do they have money? Or someone backing them?”

“So they say—apparently one of their daddies is footing the bills. And they claim that they’ve studied the financial side of the business, so they know what they’re getting into.”

Meg suppressed a snort. Like anybody knew what they were getting into with a new venture—just look at her.

Lauren was still talking. “They knew they didn’t have a prayer in Boston, between the cost and the competition, so they decided to look at other areas, and they really like the Pioneer Valley—that’s what you call your neck of the woods, right? Did I mention they’re into local foods? Anyway, they’ve done some looking around there, but I think they were kind of shocked by how expensive space was in Amherst and Northampton.”

Meg settled herself in her chair, and her cat, Lolly, immediately jumped into her lap. Meg rubbed her head idly. “From what I’ve seen, there are a lot of pretty intense foodies there, too, so lots of competition. Well, good luck to them. But why are you calling me?” Meg could sense a request for a favor coming.

“I’m getting there. I remembered that you lived out there in the country, and I wondered if you had any ideas about a good place in the area to set up a new restaurant.”

Meg suppressed a laugh. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times she had eaten in a real restaurant since she had moved to western Massachusetts. “Lauren, I’ve been here less than six months, and I don’t know a whole lot about the restaurant scene. But . . .” Meg stopped as an idea sprouted. “What about here in Granford?”

“What about it? I thought it was a flyspeck of a place.”

“It’s small, but it’s an easy drive to both Amherst and Northampton, where the foodies lurk, and there’s no competition in town. And I know there
are
a lot of farmers around, so they’d have suppliers on hand.”

“Interesting idea. I can run it by them. What kind of sites might be available?”

“I can’t tell you offhand, but I know a real estate agent in town who’d love to help.” Frances Clark had hoped to sell Meg’s property, and since Meg had decided to stay rather than sell, she felt an obscure obligation to help her would-be real estate agent out. “You want me to call her?”

“Sure. Of course, the kids will have to see the place, do some homework, but it’s a start.”

“The kids?”

Lauren sighed. “Between you and me, they seem awfully young, even though they’ve got to be close to twenty-five.”

“And we’re ancient, right?” Not quite a decade older.

“Some days it feels like it. Anyway, I knew you’d have some good ideas. Let me talk to them, and you talk to your real estate person, and we’ll see if we can get them all together.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Thanks, Meg. Oh, by the way, they want to open by September first.”

Meg choked on her drink. “You’re kidding! That’s less than three months away!”

“I know. I told you they were young. They’ll find out fast enough. Oh, hey, how’s that plumber guy of yours?”

“Seth? You’ll have to come see for yourself. He’s moving his office into my backyard.” Seth lived just over the hill, on land the Chapin family had owned for centuries. He had gone into the family plumbing business, but recently he had decided to follow his true passion, renovating old homes. Since the building that had housed the original plumbing business had been razed to accommodate the new shopping center on the highway through town, Meg had offered to let Seth take over some of the space in her outbuildings that she hadn’t planned to use. She thought she was getting the better deal: with the problems that plagued her eighteenth-century colonial house, it was handy to have a plumber on the premises. Meg hadn’t decided whether the fact that she and Seth had a . . . something blossoming between them made his constant presence a plus or a minus.

“That’s pretty convenient. Okay, let me check my calendar and I’ll see when I can break loose. And I’ll send the kids out your way. Talk soon!” Lauren hung up.

Meg sat, stroking Lolly, turning over what Lauren had told her. Granford really could use some decent food, although she had no idea what kind of menu these young chefs would be considering. Local foods sounded like a promising concept, and had been getting good media buzz. And there were probably plenty of providers around who would be happy to get the business. But whatever kind of food the fledgling chefs offered, they’d have to be able to attract people from outside of town, because Granford’s population of thirteen hundred or so would not keep a restaurant in business very long.

Well, one step at a time. First they would need a location. Meg dislodged a protesting Lolly and retrieved her phone book so she could call Frances.

Frances answered on the first ring—not surprising, considering the abysmal state of the local real estate market. “Hi, Meg! You ready to sell?”

Meg laughed. “No, not yet. I’m just getting to know the orchard. But I’ve got a possible lead for you. A friend just told me about a couple of chefs who want to open a restaurant, and I gather they can’t afford Amherst and Northampton. Do you know of any places in town here that might work?”

Frances snapped into business mode. “Square footage? Seating capacity? How much build-out expense can they handle?”

Meg laughed again. “Hey, I don’t know! I just heard about this. Let’s assume they’re not looking for a fast-food joint on the highway, but something more upscale, to compete with the fancier places in the bigger local towns. Anything promising along those lines?”

“Let me think about it, but I’ll bet I can come up with some possibilities. When are they looking to do this?”

“Immediately or sooner. My friend says they want to be up and running by fall.”

Frances gave a short bark of laughter. “Yeah, right—in their dreams. But who am I to discourage them? If they buy the building, it’s their problem. Let me check my listings.”

“Terrific.”

As Meg hung up, she realized she felt quite pleased with herself. She had done a good deed for her friend Lauren; she had given Frances a lead on some potential business; and she might just have helped score a decent restaurant for Granford. Not bad work, for under half an hour. And maybe Seth could help with the build-out, since he was a plumber; and he could help with zoning and licensing requirements, since he was a town selectman. Better and better.

She stood up, dislodging the cat. “Well, Lolly, I guess I’d better get back to work.”

Meg had known Brian and Nicole Czarnecki for two hours and didn’t know whether to pat them on their heads or strangle them. Short and comfortably rounded, Nicole’s dark curls danced around her face, which telegraphed every emotion she felt—and there were many. She would have been a disaster in a poker game. Brian—taller, broader, and definitely quieter—followed his wife with what looked like sincere adoration. They seemed to communicate almost telepathically, with a quick exchange of glances or a passing touch.

Lauren had warned Meg that the chefs were young, but she hadn’t mentioned that they were extremely sure of themselves, and predictably naive. They had shiny new degrees from a prestigious culinary academy, a couple of years of cooking experience under their belts, and they were certain that they knew all they needed to about fitting out and running a restaurant. Right. But it was hard to squash Nicole’s obvious enthusiasm, and Meg found she didn’t have the heart to try. It was too hard not to like them.

Meg knew making this sale was important to Frances. A single woman maybe ten years older than Meg, Frances supported herself with her real estate sales, and they had been few and far between lately. Frances had lined up four sites for their inspection. The first three had been flops across the board, and Meg had been reminded of Goldilocks: one had been too big, one had been too small, but so far nothing had been “just right.” Meg wasn’t really sure how she had been roped into accompanying them; she had called Lauren as soon as Frances had lined up some viewings, and somehow Lauren had told the baby chefs that Meg was going to show them around the neighborhood. As if she knew much, after a scant six months. But she thought she should be polite to potential neighbors, and she wanted them to see Granford in a good light, mainly for selfish reasons: she really did want a restaurant in town. At least Granford was looking pretty these days, in the first full flush of summer. The sloping green at the heart of town was lush with grass, and the white church rose strong and true against the blue June sky. From this distance you couldn’t tell it needed a coat of paint—badly.