Cam had to smile. Ruffles, despite his name, was such a guy. She didn’t know if a fowl version of testosterone ran through roosters, but they sure had something that made them act differently from the hens. At least today he wasn’t on the attack.
She drained her coffee mug and set it on the bench outside the barn. She shoveled a path from the barn to the hoop house and started on the path to the driveway. She’d made it nearly to the drive when a loud engine noise interrupted the crunching of the shovel and made her lift her head. A big red pickup with a yellow snowplow fixed to the front had pulled in behind her Ford. The truck reversed and came forward again. This wasn’t her plow guy’s truck.
“Who the heck is that?” Cam said aloud. Someone about to ram her truck? But why? Her heart began to race. While she watched, though, she realized that the driver wasn’t malevolent at all. He was plowing out her driveway. Whoever sat behind the wheel deftly pushed snow to the sides of the drive and cleared the few feet between the road and the Ford. The plower then edged by the side of Cam’s truck and cleared the rest of the driveway, banking the snow on the far side, where the perennial garden was now buried under not two, but four feet of snow. The driver wore a dark watch cap, but Cam couldn’t discern the person’s identity. When the truck made one more forward pass, Cam waved.
The driver rolled the window down. “Thought you might need a little help out here,” a woman’s voice said.
“Sim,” Cam said with a smile. Her plower was none other than Simone Koyama, the local mechanic who serviced Cam’s truck. Not a “he” at all. Cam trudged toward her. “Thanks. My usual guy probably won’t get here for hours.”
Sim winked. “Didn’t think you had a plow attachment for that old rattletrap of yours. Actually, your buddy Pete called and asked if I could help out.” The sunlight glinted off the silver rings in her nostril and right eyebrow.
“He did?”
“Yeah. I do this for extra cash, anyway, in the winter. When business is slow at the shop.”
“Let me pay you, then.” Cam started to turn toward the house.
“Forget about it. You helped me out last fall, remember?”
Cam wasn’t sure she’d call it helping out, but when Sim had gotten somewhat over-involved after their friend Bobby was accused of murder, Cam had tried to talk her down.
“Go get your keys. I’ll push you out of your rut and then plow where you got stuck,” Sim said.
“Great idea.” Cam hurried to the house. Two minutes later her truck had made it well up into the driveway. Cam climbed out and watched Sim clear the rest of the area.
“Gotta run,” the mechanic called, sticking her head out her window. “Lots more driveways on my list. You take care. Let’s grab a beer one of these days.”
“For sure. Thanks so much, Sim.” Cam raised her hand in farewell.
She resumed shoveling the path. The smell of truck exhaust mingled for a minute with the scent of fresh snow and then dissipated. She wished she could click into her skis and head out into the woods on the virgin powder that now coated her ski trails. But first she needed to wait for Dasha and tell Pete more about the night. And get to cutting, pulling, and assembling the shares. Dani hadn’t returned her e-mail, so she supposed there wouldn’t be any maple syrup for tomorrow. Perhaps she could arrange a few dozen bottles for the next pickup day in two weeks. She hoped she wouldn’t go broke paying for it. And then she remembered her broken ski binding. No skiing today.
A beep sounded. Pete pulled up in a dark blue car that looked a lot like a police cruiser, except without the markings or the lights. He parked behind the Ford. Dasha bounded out and nearly knocked Cam over with his greeting. Pete followed at a more sedate pace. He opened his arms to Cam. They stood for a moment in an embrace, not moving, not speaking. Cam closed her eyes and inhaled the delicious smell behind his ear.
When he pushed away, she let her arms drop. “Coffee?”
He nodded. “First this.” He laid a gloved hand on each side of her head and pulled her in for a long kiss.
“Mmm,” Cam said. “I’ve missed that.”
“How about a rain date for more of the same?” Pete squeezed her hand and held on to it while they walked to the house. “Unfortunately, I’m already late to work. I can’t stay long.”
“Thanks for calling Sim. She did an amazing job, and it took her only a few minutes. My plow guy gets really backed up.”
“You can get a contract with Sim instead, you know.”
“Maybe I should. I wish I didn’t have to pay anybody, but otherwise I’d either have to shovel it out or buy a snowblower. Winter’s tough on a farmer’s bank account, at least a snowy winter like this one.”
In the kitchen, she poured him a mug of coffee and gave it to him black. “What’s that car you’re driving?”
He nodded, shrugging out of his wool coat. “It’s an official unmarked car. Change in policy. No personal cars while we’re on duty.” He sat at the table, drumming his fingers. His sport coat fell open.
Cam spied his shoulder holster. “That looks like a different gun, too.”
“New service revolver, updated courtesy of the commonwealth.” He drew Dasha’s leash out of his pocket and laid it on the table. “I don’t want to forget to leave you this.”
“Thanks.” Cam set a bowl of water on the floor for Dasha before joining Pete at the table with her own mug. “So I was out shoveling with Oscar this morning. He said Moran Manor is only a couple of years old and it has a bunch of building issues already. I even saw a big crack in the wall. Do you know if Ginger was the builder?”
“Don’t know. I can check into it.”
“I saw in the paper last night that the poison was cyanide. You knew that, right?”
Pete nodded again. “I wish they hadn’t published it, but the news got away from us.”
“And you’re investigating legal uses for it?”
“We are,” he said slowly. “It sounds like you have been, too. What did you discover?”
“One use is for developing film. Did I tell you about Frank Jackson and the sepia photograph?”
“No.” Pete glanced sharply at her. “What picture?”
“It’s on the wall behind the reception desk at Moran. It’s an artistic portrayal of the residence in the fall. I overheard Jim Cooper and Frank talking about it. Frank said he uses actual film, not a digital camera. And develops it himself. Jim wanted to commission him to do one in each season.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Pete Pappas. Look at me. Were we talking at all this week?”
“Some.” His tone was defensive. “We talked about the case some.”
“Anyway, I read last night—while I was snowed in with no cell reception, I remind you—first about the cyanide and then about its use in film developing. And now I’m telling you about Frank’s photograph.” She reached for his hand.
“Any idea where Jackson is living?”
“No. I told Ruth I’d seen him, though, and we both saw her talk to him after Bev’s service, remember? She might have found out by now. If not, she needs to know. He must owe her a bunch of child support.”
Pete glanced at the wall clock. He stood and drained his mug. “I’m sorry, Cam. I need to go. I’ve been saying ‘I’m sorry’ a lot lately.” He pulled a wry smile. “Soon I won’t have to.”
“You mean—”
He held a hand up. “Soon I won’t have to. At least on this case.” He leaned down for another kiss, then straightened. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”
Dasha jumped up. Tail wagging furiously, he gazed at Pete, then at Cam, then at Pete again.
“Sit, Dasha. I’ll be back for you later.” Pete slipped back into his coat, stepped outside, and, with a longing glance over his shoulder at Cam, closed the door with a soft click.
Chapter 30
In the hoop house a few minutes later, Cam uncovered the beds, leaving the row cover running in a long pile down the mid
dle. With this kind of sun, and a warmer day, the greens could fry from the heat if she kept them covered. That last bed in the rear might even make it, after all. Lettuce had hearty roots. The rest of the crops had survived the cold snap and appeared healthy. Time to start cutting and digging for tomorrow’s shares.
In the barn Cam walked to the back wall to collect scissors, her pitchfork, and a basket. She’d left Dasha in the house, after he and Preston had warily accepted each other’s presence. She passed the entrance to the root cellar and kept on going. What if she’d been trapped down there for a couple of days? She wondered if she’d ever figure out who had locked her in. It had to be the murderer. Who else would want her out of commission? But the police hadn’t found any clues in the barn as to the person’s identity. Perhaps they hadn’t searched well enough. She retrieved a large flashlight from the office.
Feeling just a touch like Nancy Drew, Cam knelt near the doors to the root cellar. She ran the light over every square inch. She wasn’t sure what she hoped to find. A scrap of cloth caught on a screw, a dropped pencil on the ground, anything that might lead to the person who’d obviously lain in wait and then shut her in.
She sat back on her heels. Lain in wait. Where would the person have waited? Must have walked in from the road, because she hadn’t heard a vehicle come or go. Must have come in from her neighbor Tully’s field. Hidden inside the barn. A creepy thought. But she had enough equipment and dark corners in here that someone could have easily sequestered himself. Or herself. Hiding like that was such a risk, though. Cam would not try to understand the criminal brain, but she couldn’t imagine hiding herself in order to hurt someone.
She was about to hoist herself up when the light in her hand flashed on a burst of color. She leaned over one of the bulkhead doors. Snagged on a splinter of wood were a few red threads. Her heart beat faster. This could lead to finding her attacker. “What would Nancy do?” she said aloud and then laughed. Now she was letting her actions be governed by a teenage detective. A fictional teenage detective. The Case of the Red Threads. She shook her head, and a giggle escaped. Nancy or not, she’d learned enough by now to leave the threads in place for the experts, but she wondered how the team had missed finding the clue.
A day’s work still stretched ahead of her. She pressed Ruth’s number, and when she didn’t answer, she left her a message. Gathering her tools, she slid the barn door closed behind her to resume work where she’d left off. She trudged along the shoveled path to the hoop house, with three-foot-high snowy berms on either side. Do I now need to start locking the barn as well as the house when I’m not in it? What a pain that would be. But whoever had trapped her in the root cellar could return and wait for her again.
Cam didn’t make it back to the house until one o’clock. Working in the cold and her lack of sleep from the night on a Moran Manor couch made her yearn to take a hot shower and curl up under a blanket for the rest of the day. She’d made a lot of progress in the past couple of hours, but she wasn’t done yet. That plan would have to wait.
Dasha was whining at the door when she got there. Also, a box with a note on top sat on the stoop. The Wolf Meadow Farm logo was printed on the side.
“Hang on, buddy,” she called to Dasha. Luca must have looked for her in the barn and not found her. She grabbed the leash out of the house and clipped it onto Dasha’s collar. Hoisting the box, she walked Dasha first to the barn to deposit the cheese, figuring it would stay cold enough, and then let the dog prowl around the property. He left yellow marks in the snow here and there. So different from most cats, who didn’t feel the need to establish their territory in the same way, unless they were unneutered males. Which Preston was definitely not.
Under a tree close to Tully’s field, Dasha set his legs and, looking up, barked over and over again. Cam craned her neck to see what had alerted him.
And then whispered, “Wow.” Way up on a branch sat another owl. This one loomed large and mostly white. A snowy owl. It would be unusual for the bird to be this far inland, ten miles from the coast. But she’d read in an article in the Daily News that the breed was abundant this year and that there had been other sightings inland, near bodies of water. Her farm wasn’t that far from the Merrimack River, after all.
The owl turned its yellow, catlike eyes down on her and Dasha. The round white head remained motionless for several moments. And then it flew. Its broad wings beat silently with grace as it headed north over her house and toward the river.
“How about lunch, Dasha?” Cam said, smiling. Seeing the beautiful bird felt like a good omen. Not that she really believed in such things. But all the turmoil and worry of the week had melted away at the sight of this graceful wild creature. Life would get back to normal. She’d do her work, visit Albert, drink wine with Ruth. And she’d be able to spend time with Pete again. She nudged Dasha toward the house.
Inside, she shed her cold-weather gear. She fixed a peanut butter sandwich and heated up water in the microwave for a cup of tea. As she waited, she glanced at her wall calendar. What had she written in for tonight? It read, “Lou. Six thirty.” She squeezed her eyes shut and cursed. Bad timing. Pete had said he would call her later. He was going to come by and get Dasha. He was finally free to see her. And she had a date with another man. A nice, intelligent, friendly man. But this was super, extra intensely bad timing. Her brand-new good mood careened into the compost bucket.
Preston bumped his head against her knee. Cam opened her eyes. The date with Lou was still on the calendar. She reached down to pet Preston. She should cancel the outing with Lou. On such late notice, though? Claiming illness was kind of lame. Just fessing up would be the right thing to do. And the hardest, at least for her.
“What should I do, Mr. P.?” The microwave dinged that the minute was up. She threw an English Breakfast tea bag into the cup and stirred it down while munching on her sandwich. She wandered over to the computer. Avoidance would work for a little while. Bringing up her “Moran Affair” file, she stared at it. Was there anything new she could add?
Sure. Cyanide was the murder weapon. It was used in ant poison, film developing, salt de-caking, jewelry making, even seed germination. She’d meant to mention Rosemary’s earring business to Pete but hadn’t. She decided she needed to set up a spreadsheet, with column headings of Motive, Opportunity, and Evidence, and rows populated with the names of the people involved: Frank. Ginger. Richard. Rosemary. Oscar. Surely Pete and his team already had this. On a huge whiteboard, if TV crime shows had even a shred of realism. Her wide monitor would have to suffice.
She glanced at her phone. It whispered, “Call Lou.”
She brought her gaze back to the monitor. Motive. Well, that was the reason for the names, so she could easily fill it in. Except for Rosemary. The cook had no reason to wish Bev dead. Did she? For that matter, Richard probably didn’t, either, unless there was a way he’d benefit from Bev’s death that Cam didn’t know about. Frank wanted money from Bev, but the way he’d threatened her made it sound like someone else would be the killer. But who? Ginger? The thought of someone killing her own mother gave Cam the creeps. Oscar had had an opportunity, since he’d delivered the trays. Cam had grown to like him. She hoped he wasn’t a killer.
Leaning back in her chair, she avoided the call she knew she had to make for just a little longer and examined the screen. Richard and Rosemary. Both of them were trying to hide the fact that they were together. Alexandra had said she didn’t know if Richard and Hannah’s mother were divorced. That would be a reason to hide another relationship, for sure.
Oh, and the red threads. Ruth hadn’t called her back. She added a section to her spreadsheet titled Unsolved Clues. Were there others? Nicholas thinking he had seen an Indian in the hall was a little dubious, but it also could be real. And what about—
Cam stared at the phone again. She took a deep breath and grabbed the phone before she lost her nerve.
“Lou, this is Cam Flaherty,” she said when he picked
up. “About tonight . . .”
“I was just going to call you,” he said in a creaky voice. “I’ve come down with a bad head cold. I can’t make it tonight, after all. I’m really sorry.”
Cam told him she hoped he felt better soon, he said he’d call her next week, and they disconnected. She smiled. Saved by the bell, almost literally.
Chapter 31
Cam slid the barn door shut behind her and switched on the light. She set down the basket of parsnips and carrots she’d just dug from their low tunnel inside the hoop house. Drawing off a glove, she checked the time on her phone. At four thirty it was almost completely dark outside, despite the lengthening days. She frowned at the phone display. Pete still hadn’t called. She only hoped that meant progress in the case. She yearned for their life together to return to normal.
She put the glove on again and surveyed the harvest on the makeshift table, a long board resting on sawhorses. Richard’s apples, enough for a couple of pounds for each member. The parsnips and carrots, their whites and oranges making a pretty mix. A big pale green kohlrabi for each. Red Swiss chard and curly dark green kale. Potatoes, beets, lettuce. The balls of cheese. She would cut Asian greens tomorrow morning, before the shareholders arrived. And she planned to include a butternut squash in each share. She grimaced. The squash still sat in the root cellar. She didn’t much feel like venturing down there alone. Which should be ridiculous. She was a farmer, and this was her barn, her root cellar.
Given the recent events, it wasn’t ridiculous. But she didn’t have to be completely alone. Dasha needed another walk by now, anyway. Cam strode to the house and clipped on his leash. He yipped his excitement and flew down the back stairs.
“Hang on, buddy,” Cam said, laughing and struggling to keep hold of the leash. They explored the yard together. After he’d done his business, Cam guided him to the barn, shutting the door after them. She let him off the leash. He busied himself investigating all the corners and smells of a working barn, while she opened the root cellar doors. This time the lights came on.
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