Farmed and Dangerous

by Edith Maxwell

  Cam greeted the girl. “Working again?”

  “Yeah. Hey, I saw your great-uncle in the common room a little while ago. He’s about to start a game.”

  Cam entered the big, sunny space to see the woman who had been doing needlepoint the day before sitting across a table from Albert, with a Scrabble board in the middle.

  “Cameron, join us in a game,” Albert called. “Have you met Marilyn Muller?” He introduced Cam to the woman.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Marilyn.” Cam shook Marilyn’s hand, which was knobby with arthritis.

  “I’m happy to meet a relative of Albert’s. Will you play?” Marilyn gestured at the board, one of the deluxe models that sat on a turntable and had little ridges around the squares so the tiles didn’t slip out of place.

  Cam checked the big analog wall clock. “Sure. I’d love to.” She sat.

  “What brings you over again so soon?” Albert asked. He rearranged the tiles on his rack.

  “For the dinner I’m supplying the produce for, remember? But I kind of fell into a stream while I skied in the woods this morning, and then my binding broke. I had to really hustle to get everything picked and assembled.”

  “Marilyn, Cameron here took over my farm, and she grew all the vegetables for tonight’s dinner. I’m sure it will be fine, my dear,” he said to Cam.

  “I certainly hope so.”

  “You look like you might benefit from an adult beverage. Since it’s Sunday afternoon, they set out the happy hour supplies early.” He pointed to the sideboard, where bottles of red and white wines stood ready to be poured. A tray of wineglasses sat near a jug of cider, and snack-sized bags of chips and nuts nestled in a big bowl. “Help yourself, and also bring over a glass of white for me.”

  “Marilyn, would you like one?” Cam glanced at the woman.

  “Oh, no, not at all. I’ll take a glass of the apple cider, though, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “I’ll get that for you.” Cam noticed a red walker standing behind Marilyn’s chair. She delivered the cider and the white wine to the table, and returned to pour a glass of red for herself. She grabbed a few bags of snacks, too. The little touches, like early happy hour and real glasses instead of plastic cups, set Moran Manor apart from some other facilities.

  They played and chatted for two hours. Cam refilled their drinks once and munched on the snacks, since she’d missed lunch.

  Marilyn tried a couple of bluffs on them.

  “Blimpy.” She smiled, with a twinkle in her eyes. “You know, when you feel kind of bloated, you feel blimpy.” But she also seemed to possess the contents of the entire Scrabble dictionary in her head, using a two-letter word like jo and combining it with a “triple word score” space and an existing word to soar ahead on the score sheet.

  Albert was no slouch at the game, either. He and Marilyn bantered like old friends, or maybe their interaction had become more than that, Cam realized. Good for him. Marie had passed away three years earlier. He deserved a new romance in his life.

  Oscar pushed a resident in a wheelchair into the room and deposited him in front of the television, which played a black-and-white movie at low volume. From the man’s closed eyes, it didn’t seem like he would care one way or the other. Oscar stopped by the Scrabble game on his way out.

  “Nice board.”

  Albert greeted him. “Do you play?”

  “My children’s school uses it in the after-school program to help kids with their English reading and spelling skills.” He leaned down, pointed to something on Albert’s rack, and whispered in his ear.

  “Young man, I thank you.” Albert winked at him and rubbed his hands together before Oscar strolled away.

  This was a different side of Oscar than what Cam had seen in the kitchen. She was losing miserably and didn’t care. Her worries about the dinner were melting away, too. The game was down to the last tiles when Cam spied Frank Jackson through the wide doorway. He stood at the reception desk a few yards away, even thinner than the last time Cam had seen him. Frank was the estranged husband of Cam’s childhood friend, Ruth Dodge, and the father of their twin daughters. He’d gotten so deep into the activities of the Patriotic Militia that he’d left Ruth and the girls the previous summer. Ruth, an officer in the local police force, hadn’t heard from him since, and she’d said nobody had seen him around town. Cam would have to tell her he’d shown up here.

  “I need to talk to Bev Montgomery.” His voice resonated in the high-ceilinged lobby.

  Heads in the common room turned in that direction. Albert raised his eyebrows but kept his gaze on the board. It was his turn to play, and his score hovered only a few points away from beating Marilyn’s.

  The receptionist said something Cam couldn’t make out.

  “Just give me her room number.”

  The receptionist spoke again. She shook her head, then picked up the phone on the desk.

  Frank stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. He paced back and forth in front of the desk. His straggly ponytail hung over a wool pea coat, and his boots left tracks of snow on the carpet.

  The director emerged from his office. Jim Cooper working on a Sunday?

  “Frank.” Jim extended his hand, his hearty greeting extending to where Cam sat. “We love the picture.” He waved his other hand at a large sepia-toned photograph behind the receptionist’s desk.

  Frank pulled his hand out of his pocket and shook with Jim. “Thanks. Doing them keeps me sane.” He seemed to calm down in Jim’s presence.

  “I’d buy one in each season if you can produce them.”

  “Shouldn’t be a problem. You know, I use real film. And a darkroom. Makes me old-fashioned, but I believe it makes a better picture.”

  Cam hadn’t ever taken a close look at the picture and reminded herself to check it out when she left.

  Albert nudged Cam’s elbow and pointed to the Scrabble board. “Your turn, dear.”

  Cam was studying her tiles when Ellie sauntered over. She leaned over Cam’s shoulder.

  “You’re in bad shape.” Ellie pointed at Cam’s tiles.

  “Don’t I know it.” Cam added an s to bottle for a pitiful score of nine. She glanced up to see Bev stomping down the stairs.

  “What are you doing here?” Bev glared at Frank.

  “We need to—”

  “No, we don’t.” She turned to go.

  Frank reached for her arm. She shook him off, but he leaned toward her. He put his hand between his mouth and her ear and said something. Bev’s eyes widened. She cast a quick glance around. When she saw Cam watching, she scowled but returned her gaze to Frank.

  “All right. But only for a minute.” She headed for the stairs. Frank followed close behind.

  “Who’s that dude?” Ellie asked in a low voice.

  “Frank Jackson. You remember Ruth Dodge, right? It’s her husband. Sort of.” Seeing Frank with Bev flooded Cam’s brain with memories from the preceding spring. Most of them not very nice ones.

  “Bingo, and out,” Marilyn declared.

  Cam looked back at the board. Marilyn had played all seven of her remaining tiles, spelling braised.

  “That’s ten, plus eight, plus fifty for the bingo.”

  Cam picked up the bag of tiles and jiggled it. Empty. Albert groaned, but the sound held a hint of delight at his friend’s triumph.

  He took the last sip of his wine. “Congratulations, my dear. How many wins in a row is that?”

  “I shouldn’t keep track.” Her blue eyes smiled under long, curly lashes. “But since you ask, eight since we started playing. You won the first three, don’t forget.” Marilyn’s round cheeks pinkened. Cam would have to ask Albert sometime why she needed the walker.

  “You did that like butter, Mrs. Muller.” Ellie nodded and gave a thumbs-up gesture to Marilyn.

  “Thank you, young lady.”

  Cam’s phone buzzed in her bag. She retrieved it and checked the new text message. “Oh, no.”

>   “What’s wrong?” Albert’s forehead creased.

  Cam pushed her chair back and stood. “I have a dinner date, and I lost track of time. Good thing he asked me to pick up a bottle of wine.” She glanced at the time on the phone. “I’ll barely have time to get home and put the chickens in for the night.”

  “Off you go, then.”

  “This was really fun. I very much enjoyed meeting you, Marilyn.” Touching Marilyn’s shoulder, Cam leaned down to give Albert a kiss.

  “We’ll do it again,” Marilyn said.

  Albert nodded with a smile. He covered Marilyn’s hand with his own.

  “See you, Ellie,” Cam called, walking out of the room.

  Should she pop into the kitchen and see how the meal preparation was going? No, she needed to get home and then to Pete’s, and she didn’t imagine Rosemary would appreciate the visit, anyway. On her way, she paused at the receptionist’s desk to sign out and then remembered she’d brought the vegetables in through the back door to the kitchen. She glanced up at the framed picture, a striking photograph of Moran Manor in the fall. Leaves in different shades clung to the trees, and pots of mums lined the walkway. The yellowy-brown sepia tint gave the picture a timeless feel, despite showing the residence’s modern ramp railings and double-hung windows. If Frank had created this, he had real talent. Ruth had never mentioned her husband’s photography.

  She headed for the front door. She was about to reach for the handle when the door began to swing open, so she stepped away.

  “Excuse me.” Ginger Montgomery sailed in with a rush of cold air, nearly whacking Cam with the door. The beret perched on Ginger’s head matched her white quilted jacket. “I’m going up to see my mother,” she told the receptionist in an imperious tone and swept up the stairs. The scent she wore trailed behind her.

  Cam could only imagine the fireworks that might be shooting out of Bev’s room in a minute. She imagined the pyrotechnic combination of Bev, Frank, and Ginger could be downright lethal.

  Chapter 5

  “You should have seen that silly hen,” Cam said to Pete an hour later. She perched on a stool at the island in his kitchen and watched his smooth-skinned hands chop vegetables. “TopKnot just stood there in the cold. The true definition of a pea brain.” She‘d been only a few minutes late, since the farm lay between Moran Manor and Pete’s apartment in nearby Newburyport. She’d raced through a quick shower at home, too, since she hadn’t had time earlier.

  “I have my mother’s recipe for avgolemono. Lemon chicken soup would work just as well with a frozen chicken—”

  “Pete Pappas.” Cam shook her finger at him. “Don’t you even consider cooking poor, stupid TopKnot.” She sipped the red wine he’d poured into a wide-bowled glass for her.

  “Just saying.” He waved the knife he held in the air with a wicked smile.

  “What’s on the menu for tonight?”

  “Nonlocal lamb chops. My special Greek nonlocal eggplant-tomato bake and nonlocal potatoes.” He frowned playfully. “Can you manage to eat it?”

  “Of course I can. I don’t really care if it’s local or not. I know several of my customers go a little, shall we say, overboard in wanting to eat only local foods. But, hey, if they want it, I’ll grow it. Whatever helps the bottom line.”

  Pete nodded.

  “Speaking of that, the president of the Locavore Club came by to help me today,” Cam said.

  “Lucinda?”

  Cam nodded. “Her new job is great for her, but she misses working on the farm.” Pete and Lucinda had had a run-in the previous June, but they’d come to a wary peace since then.

  “And how are things over at the Manor? You said you were providing dinner ingredients.”

  “I did. They should be eating the dinner right now.” She filled him in on Bev’s adjustment to communal living, or lack of it. “She’s still pretty mad at me about the hens and what she describes as me stealing her customers.” She took another sip of wine. “And Frank Jackson dropped by to see Bev today. She didn’t appear overly happy to see him.”

  Pete’s heavy dark eyebrows went up. “That’s very interesting. I wonder where he’s living these days.”

  “No idea. Last time I talked with Ruth, she didn’t know, either.”

  Pete slid a casserole into the oven and set a timer. He picked up his own glass of wine and came around the island. A pink oxford shirt warmed his Mediterranean coloring, and he appeared more relaxed than Cam had ever seen him, the skin around his deep brown eyes not showing the tension it often did.

  “Thirty minutes. Come sit on the couch with me.” He put his free arm around her and leaned in for a long kiss.

  When they came up for air, Cam said, “What did you say about a couch?” She slid off her stool. Her five feet eleven made her two inches taller than Pete. He didn’t seem to mind at all, and neither did she. Jake stood half a foot taller than her, and while she’d liked that aspect of their relationship—she rarely found a man she physically looked up to—the rest of her dealings with Jake had been so stormy, she couldn’t handle it.

  They made their way to the sofa, which faced a bay window. The kitchen and living room occupied a single space in the apartment Pete had moved into last summer, after his marriage had ended. A framed photograph on the wall portrayed a sunny, whitewashed Greek village on a hillside above the sea. The houses wore blue doors and shutters. An herb garden filled one of the yards. Cam could almost taste the olives and the freshly caught fish grilled with rosemary and oregano. Pete sat next to her, and Cam laid her hand on the soft fabric of his faded jeans.

  “Guess what?” Pete poked her gently in the ribs with his elbow.

  Cam shook her head. “Surprise me.”

  “I get Dasha for a week, starting tomorrow. Alicia has to go out of town.” His smile reflected sadness. “I’m at peace with being divorced—I don’t miss being married to Alicia at all. But I miss that dog something awful.”

  “Remind me what kind of dog it is.”

  “He’s sort of a Siberian mutt. His markings and build are mostly like a husky’s. He’s smart and clean, but one of his parents must have been another breed, because his coloring isn’t typical and he’s shorter than most.”

  “You should have gotten custody of him. I thought you said your ex doesn’t even like dogs.”

  He nodded. “She pulled a power trip. I told you, I didn’t want to fight her about anything. That’s why she’s in our lovely house and I’m in this little rental apartment.”

  “It’s big enough for you, isn’t it?” Cam squeezed his hand. “It’s a lovely place.” The wide pine floors shone, and early-twentieth-century woodwork lined the doorways and windows. A graceful arched doorway led to a small hall, off of which lay the bathroom and the single bedroom. It was the top half of a ninety-year-old house that sat at the end of a dead-end road in Newburyport, which made for quiet surroundings.

  “It’s fine for now.” He gazed out the window, into the darkness.

  The timer dinged. Pete moved to the kitchen. He took the casserole and another dish out of the oven and put something else in, changing the oven setting. He set the small table with blue place mats and napkins and added silverware and plates.

  “Let me help.”

  “Sure. Bring the wine to the table and light the candles. And then sit down.” He placed the two dishes from the oven on cork trivets. He removed a broiler pan from the oven and brought over a plate heaped with small lamb chops, then sank into the chair across from her.

  “This looks wonderful.” Cam inhaled the aromas of the meal. “And it smells like Greece must.”

  Pete served her a portion of the eggplant casserole, with tomatoes oozing juice and melted feta cheese on the top, along with a heaping spoonful of scalloped potatoes and a lamb chop.

  She cut a bite of lamb and savored it. “Oh, my, Detective. What did you do to make this so delicious?”

  “Olive oil—the real stuff—plus lemon juice, salt, and oregano. Br
oiled.” He smiled. “The best meat is next to the bone, you know. I get these from the butcher down in Rowley.”

  “So the meat is local, after all.”

  He smiled. “Could be. I didn’t ask.”

  “We can save the bones for Dasha. Will he like them?”

  “You don’t know much about dogs, do you? Bones like that can splinter and kill a dog.”

  “You’re right. I don’t.” Cam had never had a dog, but any dog so dear to Pete’s heart as this one was an animal she might as well get to know. She only hoped Dasha didn’t habitually jump up and stick his nose in one’s crotch.

  They ate and talked for some minutes. The candles bathed the table in a glow as soft as fresh snow. When they’d finished, Cam started to stand to clear the table, but Pete put his hand up.

  “I’m doing all the work tonight. You just sit there and look beautiful.” He winked at her.

  She wasn’t sure she quite qualified as beautiful, but she looked as good as she ever had. Fresh air and honest physical work were a much better beauty treatment than sitting in a cubicle all day, every day.

  He cleared the dishes and brought out two pieces of baklava. It oozed honey and bits of walnuts from a flaky crust.

  “I love this,” Cam said.

  “Not homemade, but I get it from Iris’s Greek bakery in Ashford. It’s almost like my mother used to make.”

  She was biting into her portion when a staticky sound came from the hallway. Pete turned his head sharply.

  “The police scanner. I need to check that.” He rose and disappeared down the hall. He returned a minute later, carrying a black device that reminded Cam of an old walkie-talkie. A thick antenna stuck out of the top, along with a knob. He set it on the table and fiddled with the knob before sitting.

  More static erupted, and then a tinny voice.

  “Unattended death, code seventy-nine. Repeat. Unattended death of elderly resident, code seventy-nine.”

  Pete frowned. He drummed the table with his fingers.

  The voice continued. “Location, Forty-four Maple Way, Westbury. Car thirty-two, come in, please. EMT, come in, please.”