Til Dirt Do Us Part (A Local Foods Mystery) (16 page)

D
espite a clear sky, temperatures threatening November towered over the morning. Cam awoke with a headache and a sore body. Still, work called. She threw on a jacket and a knit cap before she let the chickens out. She watered the seedlings and returned to the house for a second cup of coffee and to warm up a little. A car horn beeped from the driveway. Startled, she checked the clock. It wasn’t even eight.
Right.
Howard had said he’d bring the car by early, and he was a farmer, too. She stuck her wallet and phone in her jacket pockets and grabbed her keys.

She climbed into the passenger seat of the fifteen-year-old car, a beat-up Jeep Wrangler, and greeted Howard.

He nodded without making eye contact as he turned the vehicle around and headed out.

“How are things at the farm?” Cam asked. “I saw Vince at the fair. Did he win for that big pig he was grooming?”

Howard’s mouth turned down in a scowl. “No. Judges are prejudiced. Gave the ribbons to those rich kids down to Hamilton. What do they know about raising swine?”

“Too bad. Vince sounded pretty hopeful when I talked to him. How did he take it?”

“What don’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“My garlic braids didn’t win, either. They disqualified me for something they didn’t even include in the rules.”

Howard nodded like this news did not surprise him.

Several minutes later they turned into the Fisher farm. Howard left the car pointed toward the road with the engine running. He ambled toward the back of the farm.

“Thanks for the favor,” Cam called as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’ll get it back to you as soon as I can.”

Howard raised a hand and disappeared into the barn. Cam was about to drive away when she spied the edge of a large animal carrier almost out of sight on the wraparound porch of the house. It was of green and gray plastic, with vents and a handle on the top. Cam’s heart raced. It looked a lot like the carrier she took Preston to the vet in. She threw the Jeep back into neutral and pulled up the emergency brake but left the engine running.

Barely able to keep herself from running, she strode to the porch. She rounded the corner. When she was a few yards from the carrier, she whispered, “Preston!” but heard no response. She glanced at the house windows but didn’t see anyone looking out.

As the morning light slanted across the porch, it angled through the slits on the sides of the carrier. Cam’s heart turned to ice. She couldn’t see a furry shape. It must be empty. It must be their own cat’s carrier, or maybe that of a small dog. She heard the tiniest of sounds. She took the side stairs in two steps. She bent over and peered into the carrier.

Preston lay flat on the bottom. He barely cracked an eyelid at her. She didn’t know if he was sick or drugged or starved. Or all three.

A loud crack sounded behind her. She flinched even as she whipped her head around. Her heart thudded in her throat. Was Howard back with his rifle? She let out a breath. It was just a branch that had crashed down from the old maple. She turned back to Preston.

She lifted the carrier and ran back to the vehicle. She set the carrier on the passenger seat and closed the door firmly but as quietly as she could. She looked around. As far as she could tell, no one watched. She didn’t trust herself to go after Howard and confront him. She had to get Preston to safety. She climbed in the driver’s seat and drove off, spinning gravel as she went.

She kept driving until she was back in a more populated area of town. She pulled over at a wide spot and killed the engine. Anger and questions roiled in her from head to toe. Her hands shook as she unlatched the door to the carrier. In Howard’s own car.

“You’re going to be okay, Mr. P.” Cam reached in and stroked his head and back again and again. He finally opened both eyes and mewed, lifting his head a few inches. He laid it down again and closed his eyes.

Now what? She hated having to drive Howard’s car, but she had to get Preston to a veterinarian. She couldn’t very well take him back to his old vet in Cambridge, but she hadn’t yet taken him to an animal doctor since she’d moved to Westbury a little over a year ago. Albert and Marie had had a dog and must have used a local vet, but the dog was long gone and their vet might be, too. Cam snapped her fingers. Ruth had a cat. She must know of someone. Cam pressed Ruth’s number on her cell.

When Ruth picked up, Cam asked her about a vet.

“Why? Is Preston all right?”

“No. I hadn’t seen him since Tuesday morning. Today Howard Fisher loaned me his Jeep—”

“What? Why’d he lend you a car?”

“I don’t really know. But it solved my problem of the truck being in the shop, and I thought he was being neighborly.”

“Okay. How does this relate to Preston being sick?”

“After I dropped Howard at his farm, I caught sight of an animal carrier that looked a lot like Preston’s. It was almost out of sight on the porch of the farmhouse. I checked, and Preston was in it. But he’s sick or drugged or something. I think Howard must have kidnapped him!” Cam heard the anguish in her voice.

“Now, Cam, why would he kidnap a cat? You just said he was being friendly by offering his car to you.”

“I know.”

“There’s probably a good explanation. Like Preston wandered over there through the woods and they didn’t know whose cat he was.”

“Maybe. It’s true, our properties abut way at the back. But why would he put him in a carrier?” Cam didn’t believe Preston had strayed so far for a minute, but now wasn’t the time to argue. “I have to get him to a vet, and I don’t know of a good one. Who do you take your cat to?”

Ruth told her to call Mill Pond Animal Hospital. “They’ve only been open a year, but I like them a lot. Particularly Dr. Melissa. It’s Thursday. She’s probably in today. They’re on Main Street, on the right. On the way up the hill to the pond as you head out of town.”

Cam thanked her. “Hey, any idea when I can get my truck back? Do you know if Sim has shown up?”

“The staties haven’t exactly cleared Simone of suspicion for the murder, you know.”

“Really? Why not?”

“You know she was seen arguing with Irene, don’t you?”

Cam was silent for a moment. “I saw them, actually.” “Anyway, we checked your brake lines. They were definitely cut. You were right.”

Well, yeah.
“I have to get the Ford back. I don’t feel comfortable keeping Howard’s Jeep a minute longer than I have to.”

“Let me check with the chief. We took pictures and all. Maybe you can convince Sim to get back to her job.”

Cam agreed to try, after she got Preston looked at, and disconnected. What a mess. She decided to drive to the animal hospital instead of calling ahead. Preston was an emergency. They’d have to treat him. She gave him one last stroke, trying to keep her ire from transmitting to the poor fellow. Even if Ruth’s idea was correct, who would leave a beautiful animal languishing in a cage? Had it been Howard? Or someone else in his family? Cam was determined to find out.

At the animal hospital, Dr. Melissa, a congenial woman with a dark braid hanging down her back, took a sample of Preston’s blood and said she’d check it for drugs. She also confirmed that it was Preston, not that Cam had any doubt, by scanning the identifying chip Cam had had a vet insert after she’d gotten him from the shelter as a kitten.

“His heart sounds fine,” the doctor said. She squirted a dose of a nutritional supplement into his mouth and stroked his throat to make him swallow. She offered him a small dish of water, which he lapped up.

“I don’t think he’s sick, but he is certainly dehydrated and hungry, and possibly drugged.”

As the vet examined Preston, Cam took a closer look at the carrier. It wasn’t Preston’s, after all. It didn’t have the Merrimac River Feline Rescue Society sticker on top that his did, and it was missing the scrap of lamb’s fleece she kept inside, which had been a kind of blankie for him when she’d adopted him as a kitten.

By the time Cam walked out with him, Preston had regained some energy. As she drove home from the animal hospital, Cam thought longingly of walking along Mill Pond to the boulder on its edge where she liked to sit and think. But getting Preston back to familiar surroundings and nutrition was more important right now. She reminded herself to make time for the pond, though. It was a place that restored her like almost nowhere else.

Cam brought the carrier into her house and set it on the table. She opened the door and petted Preston. He purred as she ran her hand through his white ruff. He pushed himself up and stepped daintily out of the carrier onto the table. She picked him up and set him on the floor in front of his food and water dishes. When he looked up, asking to be petted while he ate, Cam knew he was going to be all right.

She stroked him and paced into the kitchen and back. The crunch of Preston eating was sweet music, but it didn’t help her know where to start getting on with her life now that he was safe. She felt like a blizzard of complications and obligations threatened to bury her and suffocate her. She needed to confront Howard about Preston. She needed to get her truck back and find out if Sim had been at the fair. She needed to do all the work a farm demanded: harvesting, weeding, nurturing. She needed to make a delivery to Jake. And if she could figure out who killed Irene, that would be good, too. But how could she get any of it done? And which to tackle first?

A faint buzzing started up in her right ear. She stopped moving. When this had happened in the past, she’d heard Great-Aunt Marie’s voice in her mind. This time was no different.

Cammie, you can do whatever you put your mind to.

Cam pictured the tiny woman standing in her violet-flowered dress at the kitchen counter, making out a list in her precise, flowing handwriting. Sometimes Marie would laugh as she wrote. She’d look over at Cam having a snack at the table and say, “Well, bless me. I already hung the clothes on the line this morning. I might as well add it to my list so I can cross it off.” And she would do just that.

Cam knew what she had to do first. Having a list in hand had quieted her mind since she was a child. She used to mimic her great-aunt by making her own to-do list, even when the only items on it were “Read book. Eat lunch. Play.”

Pencil and paper in hand, she set to work. Several minutes later she added one final item at the end. There. Now to start crossing them off.

C
am drove the Jeep to Sim’s shop and turned into the parking lot. The garage door was closed, but her motorcycle sat out front. Cam opened the reception door, glad to find it unlocked. The room was empty. She stuck her head into the garage itself.

“Sim?”

“I’m over here.” The voice came from the far corner.

Cam walked over to where the mechanic perched, cross-legged, on the workbench. “What’s going on?”

Sim’s face was pale, and her black hair stuck up in spikes that looked inadvertent, not styled. She looked at first surprised to see Cam. Then her face hardened.

“I’m depressed,” she muttered. “Bobby’s out, but they still think he killed Irene.”

“Hey, at least he’s free. And he’s working, which is more than you’re doing.”

“So what?” She turned her face away from Cam.

“I really need you to fix my cut brake lines so I can start using my truck again.” Cam planted herself in Sim’s path so Sim would have to meet her eyes. “Somebody tampered with them. That’s why I couldn’t stop in Middleford. I thought you were going to look at them yesterday, but you didn’t seem to be at the shop all day. Where were you?”

Sim shook her head. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance. I had some business come up. How did you find out they were cut?”

Cam reddened. “I found your hidden key and let myself in and checked for myself.” At Sim’s look of anger, Cam rushed on. “I tried all day to reach you. I needed to know the cause of my accident. And the police saw my flashlight, and they dropped in, too.” It had been a touch more confrontational than dropping in, but Sim didn’t need to know that.

“Yeah, I got a message from the chief. I didn’t call him back.”

“Ruth Dodge told me this morning the police are done checking the truck. You’re free to work on it. You must have other jobs waiting, too, right?”

“I do.” Sim looked back at Cam. “I guess you’re right. I’m not going to get Bobby’s name cleared by sitting here in a funk. That’s the justice system’s job.”

Cam raised her eyebrows as Pete Pappas appeared in the doorway from the reception area. “Speaking of the justice system.”

Sim whirled. “Not him again!” Her eyes narrowed.

Again?
Cam wondered how many times Sim had already spoken with Pappas.

Pappas called a greeting to them. “Just the two I was hoping to find,” he added with a broad smile.

“Good morning, Pete.” Cam smiled back. “This is perfect. You are on my list to call.” Calling him had in fact been the final item Cam had added to her list an hour earlier.

Sim cast Cam the kind of look you give a person in the grocery store who keeps talking to herself. The kind of look that shouted, “You’re nuts! Wanting to talk to a detective is worse than skinning your knuckles on a hot manifold.”

The way Cam figured it, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain by talking with Pappas about progress in the murder case. Plus, he was kind of cute. But she wondered why Sim didn’t want to talk with him. Surely she wasn’t a credible suspect for the murder. Or was she?

“Ms. Koyama, you’ve been hard to locate lately. You apparently were not at your shop all day yesterday or half of Tuesday.”

Cam noticed Pappas again looked somewhat more put together today than he had last Friday on the farm. It struck her it had been an entire week since the dinner on her farm. And the murder. He must be getting a lot of pressure to solve it.

“I’m self-employed. I can work when I want to. Is that a crime?” Sim stuck hands on hips and lifted her chin.

“I wanted to follow up on a couple of details regarding your whereabouts after the dinner last week.” He checked a small notebook in his hand. “You said you went to visit your sister in Amesbury and spent the night there after dropping Bobby Burr off at his home. Correct?”

Sim nodded without speaking. Cam didn’t even know she had a sister. But really, she didn’t know much about Sim at all.

“We checked the number.” His voice softened. “The woman who answered said she is not your sister. She said you weren’t with her that night.”

Cam gazed at Sim. What had she been thinking, to lie to the police?

Sim turned her head to the left with a sharp movement and to the right. She opened her mouth for a moment. She looked at Cam, her eyes pleading something Cam couldn’t read. She took a deep breath and let it out.

“Yeah. I just said that so you wouldn’t be on my case.”

“Where were you really?” Pappas leaned against the doorjamb.

“I was by myself at home.”

“You went straight home after the dinner?”

“I dropped Bobby off at his house, and, yes, I went straight home. I practiced for an hour and went to bed.”

“Practiced?”

“I play the drums in a band. So I practiced. Played my drums.”

“Could a neighbor have heard you?” Pappas asked.

She shook her head. “I use a practice set. It basically doesn’t make noise. It’s pads hooked up to an app. I can listen to it amplified on headphones, but it doesn’t bother anybody else.” She pursed her lips.

“You argued with Irene Burr at the dinner.”

“And who didn’t? Look, she was a jerk of the highest order. But I didn’t kill her!”

Pappas checked his watch. “I have to run. We’ll be talking again.” As he walked away, he called, “See you, Cameron.”

Cam touched Sim’s arm. “Why don’t you work? It’ll take your mind off all of this. And I do need my truck, you know.”

Sim nodded. “I guess.”