Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

  “I will.” Charlie was a developer himself, and Mabel had gotten off on the wrong foot with him, assuming he’d befriended first her aunt and then her in order to get his hands on Stinkin’ Stuff Farm to develop it. Fortunately, he hadn’t held her rudeness against her as far as she could tell. He definitely wouldn’t do anything to hurt her aunt’s legacy, since they’d truly been good friends before her untimely death. “If Charlie says the buyer isn’t a developer, will you be okay with the sale?”

  “I know it’s what you want”—Emily’s disappointment showed in her face—“and I’ll try to be happy for you. But I don’t want you to leave. I think you’ll be good for the farm and the town, and they’ll be good for you. It just feels right to me.”

  “But I don’t know what I’m doing when it comes to growing things.”

  “You could rent out the fields if you wanted to,” Emily said. “You need to open yourself to all the possibilities of the universe. You’re just stuck in a rut that leads back to Maine. It’s not where you belong though. You don’t have friends there, people who care about you, like you have here.”

  “I have my home in Maine,” Mabel said. “And Jeff Wright. He’s a friend as well as my lawyer. And I’ll be taking Pixie with me for companionship.”

  Emily grunted skeptically. “Still, that’s not a lot of ties. You have a home here, too, and more than one friend. And a dozen cats.”

  Mabel looked around the green and gold, pineapple-themed kitchen. “This is my aunt’s home, not mine.”

  “You could make it yours,” Emily suggested. “Some paint, new wallpaper and fresh curtains, and it would be totally different.”

  Mabel didn’t want different. She liked the reliability of things that didn’t change, surroundings that were familiar. Then she could concentrate on her work without distractions. “I already have a home that doesn’t need paint or wallpaper or fresh curtains.”

  Emily sighed. “All right. But I still don’t think you should be in such a rush to sell the farm. Or make any big life decisions. Things are always unsettled between the fall equinox and the winter solstice, and it doesn’t take much to throw your life forces out of balance. You should wait until January before you do anything you can’t easily undo.”

  “Nothing’s final until my attorney has had a chance to review the agreement and give me his opinion,” Mabel said, although she hoped she and Pixie would be settled comfortably back in Maine by January at the very latest. “He won’t let me do anything foolish.”

  Emily jumped up from the table and carried her empty glass over to the sink. She turned to lean against the counter. “I know you rely on your attorney and have for a long time, but you need to ask yourself if he’s got your best interests at heart in this matter. It’s convenient for him if you return to Maine. But it’s not necessarily good for you. You belong here. On the farm. Where Peggy always dreamed of you carrying on her work.”

  Mabel knew that wasn’t true. Her aunt had only wanted Mabel to be happy, and had known that they didn’t share the love of farming, with its early mornings, physical labor, and too many people stopping by. Still, Mabel felt a small pang of guilt. Not enough to change her mind about selling the farm, just enough to keep her motivated to protect her aunt’s legacy by ensuring the land would continue to be a successful small farm.

  To keep from upsetting Emily, Mabel changed the subject. “Rory should be here soon, and I bet she’ll have projects to keep you busy if you really need a distraction. She said she’d be picking up the butternut squashes allocated for this week’s CSA deliveries. You’re welcome to join us loading them up if you want.”

  “Might as well,” Emily said. “A little hard work might help me forget how much I miss my husband. And how I’ll be missing you too before long.”

  * * * *

  Rory’s truck pulled up just as Mabel and Emily were approaching the barn. Rory backed as close as she could get to the barn doors before parking. She leaned out of the driver’s side window. “Hi, Emily. What are you two up to?”

  “Just waiting for you,” Mabel said.

  Rory turned off the engine and climbed out of the truck. Emily put a hand on Rory’s arm. “Brace yourself. Mabel’s got some bad news for you.”

  “Oh?”

  Mabel didn’t know how Emily knew about the fallout from last night’s encounter, but gossip did travel fast in a small town. “Yes. Graham told the mayor about what happened last night. It sounds like he’s serious about getting criminal charges filed against us.”

  “That wasn’t the bad news I meant,” Emily muttered. “You’ve got to tell her about why the mayor was here this morning.”

  Mabel pretended not to hear her, and Rory apparently really didn’t hear her, since she’d gone around the back of the truck to drop the tailgate.

  Rory waved her hand dismissively. “I already knew about the threats, and it won’t be a problem.”

  “What about your husband?” Mabel asked. “Won’t it cause him trouble if his wife is arrested?”

  “I won’t be arrested, and Joe can take care of himself.” Rory grabbed a stack of plastic crates to be filled with squash, and Emily hurried over to get a second stack. “Besides, everyone in town knows that Graham has been… unreliable lately. Half the time, he’s fine, and the other half, no one knows what he’s talking about. I’m sure last night was one of the confused periods. He’ll be better today, probably forget that last night even happened.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Mabel said. “Danny told me he tried to talk Graham out of pressing charges, but didn’t think he was successful.”

  “Danny couldn’t talk a cat out of going for a swim,” Rory said. “But don’t worry, Graham will come to his senses eventually.”

  “That might be too late.” Retractions never made their way around the grapevine the way the initial scandal did. There were still some people back in Maine who thought Mabel’s parents had died in some sort of murder-suicide pact instead of a fluke accident.

  “It will be fine.” Rory headed into the barn with her crates, but from behind her, Emily shook her head at Mabel.

  “It won’t be fine.” Emily could be a little superstitious and illogical about some things, but she was good at reading people, especially someone she knew as well as she did Rory. “I think Graham may have completely broken with reality recently, and he’s never going to have any more lucid moments. There’s a rumor going around that Graham’s been telling people that rhubarb leaves are going to be the new kale. A super-food that will cure everything that ails them.”

  “What’s so bad about that?” Mabel asked, following the other women into the barn with the final stack of crates. “Nutritionists say we should eat more green leafy vegetables.”

  “But not rhubarb.” Emily dropped her crates next to where the squash was stored. “Their leaves are highly toxic.”

  “I wonder if Graham decided to see if he could change that with his breeding program,” Rory said. “Perhaps he thought he’d created a variety that has edible leaves, and he’s been testing the theory on himself, and it’s made him crazy. That would explain a lot about his recent behavior.”

  “He’s too smart to take that kind of risk.” Emily turned to Mabel. “You’d have liked him if you met him before he got quite so out of touch with reality. You should see how detailed his records are for his breeding program. You could have bonded over your shared love of spreadsheets.”

  “Much as I love spreadsheets,” Mabel said, “I’m not going to risk getting attacked in order to view them. Graham had a knife with him last night.”

  “Of course he did,” Rory said. “It was a gardening knife. I carry one myself more often than not, and you’re not afraid of me. Graham’s harmless. Really.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Emily said. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone physically, but that doesn’t make him harmles
s. He can use the law and his status as a lawyer as deadly weapons against people. If he does get criminal charges filed, it would hurt Rory’s reputation. Possibly scare off some of the CSA’s customers too. People don’t like to buy from criminals.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Rory insisted, but she didn’t sound as confident as she usually did.

  And Emily was frowning. She was better at reading people than Mabel was, so if she wasn’t convinced by Rory’s nonchalance either, then there really was a problem.

  It was Mabel’s fault that Rory was in trouble. Aunt Peggy wouldn’t have let Rory take the blame for something that had been done for the benefit of Stinkin’ Stuff Farm, and neither would Mabel. She’d have to go talk to Graham. Perhaps if she apologized, he would drop his plans to get charges filed against them. Or she could offer to plead guilty to some misdemeanor, if he’d just leave Rory out of it.

  She wasn’t good at talking to strangers, but someone had to protect Rory. Jeff Wright would do a better job of it—almost anyone would be better at confronting a stranger than Mabel was—but he still hadn’t returned her call and as he would have said, time was of the essence. In any event, it would be better done in person than long-distance by phone.

  The memory of the knife at Graham’s waist made her anxious, but she couldn’t let her fear stop her. Emily had agreed with Rory that he wasn’t likely to be physically violent, just legally troublesome.

  It wasn’t like she’d be going there completely unprepared. She’d be ready to dial 911 if necessary, and she’d tell him she’d set her phone to record their conversation. Surely he wasn’t so lost to reason that he would attack her when he knew he was being recorded.

  Chapter 4

  Mabel slowed as her GPS told her Graham’s home was only a few hundred feet away on her left. At least, she hoped that was his home. She’d tried calling his law office to talk to him there, but the receptionist had said he was taking the day off. He wasn’t at the courthouse either, despite having claimed he’d planned to be there early in the morning. According to his receptionist, the local court didn’t have a session on Mondays.

  Mabel hadn’t dared wait another day to talk to him, for fear it would be too late to prevent him from taking legal action against Rory, so she’d searched the internet for his home address. It would have been quicker and easier if she could have asked Rory, who would definitely know where he lived, but that hadn’t been an option. Rory’s willingness to ask people to help each other didn’t seem to extend to asking for help for herself, so she would have tried to talk Mabel out of confronting Graham. Fortunately, finding information online was one of Mabel’s skills, and she’d quickly found his home address in a directory of New England plant breeders.

  She drove around a curve and caught sight of a farmhouse that had to be her destination. It looked a great deal like her Aunt Peggy’s—white, two-storied, and with several additions that weren’t particularly well integrated into the architecture. Unlike her aunt’s house, however, this one was in rough shape. It desperately needed a coat of paint, some of the front porch steps looked rotten, and the front yard’s landscaping had gone native.

  The rustic stone wall that ran the length of the property’s front yard was overgrown with weeds, hardly the sign of a conscientious farmer. She recalled Rory mentioning that the rhubarb plot was small and located in the back yard, which Mabel couldn’t see from the main street, so maybe Graham spent all his time and energy out there instead of on curb appeal.

  The farmhouse was on a corner lot, with a rustic stone wall along the frontage. Its unkempt condition was in marked contrast with the property on the opposite corner on the same side of the street, where the matching stone wall was lined with daylilies instead of weeds, and the lawn around it was neatly mowed. That other lot also featured an elegant wooden sign that marked the road as the entrance to the Robinson Woods subdivision. The houses, for as far as Mabel could see, were bland and oversized colonial-style homes that were much newer than Graham’s antique farmhouse, probably no more than ten years old. They were also in pristine condition with perfectly manicured lawns, small trees, and neatly pruned bushes.

  Mabel turned left into the subdivision, looking for Graham’s driveway, since there wasn’t one in the front yard. She found it, but it was short—a greenhouse took up much of the side yard between the house and the driveway—and the paved space was completely filled with an SUV, a lawn tractor, and a pickup that looked like the one Graham had been driving the night before. She had to be in the right place, and, judging by the packed driveway, it looked like he was home. She made a U-turn to park on the street near the foot of the driveway.

  Mabel turned off the engine, but didn’t get out of her Mini Cooper. Her brain was telling her this was a mistake. She should leave, Graham was dangerous and unpredictable, and she wasn’t any good at being nice to people.

  She gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath. She had to do this. She owed it to Rory. She reminded herself of all the reasons why she was perfectly safe. Everyone said that Graham wasn’t violent. And he hadn’t actually gotten his knife out of the sheath during the confrontation the night before. All he’d done was yell and be unreasonable. If he did that today, she could just leave.

  Still, she hesitated, trying to convince herself that talking to him could wait until the next day when she could visit him at his law office. He wouldn’t have any reason to carry a knife with him there. But she couldn’t wait that long, not if he might get charges filed first thing the next morning before she could talk to him. She had to act while she still had a chance to protect Rory’s reputation.

  Mabel climbed out of the Mini Cooper, and as she did, a tall, blonde woman in an expensive-looking beige skirt suit appeared from behind an eight-foot fence that separated Graham’s back yard from the side of his neighbor’s property. The roof of the abutting house, another one of the massive modern pseudo-colonials, was visible beyond the fence.

  The woman was carrying a compact video camera as she stalked toward Mabel. She stayed to the outermost edge of the sidewalk as if to avoid any possibility of contact with the overgrown, eight-foot-high hedge that hid Graham’s back yard from view. It did need pruning, but the branches only stuck out an inch or two at the most, not the two feet of space that she kept between her and the greenery.

  If the woman lived next door, she might know if Graham was home. “Hello,” Mabel said.

  The woman raised the video camera to eye level and began recording. She pointed it first toward where Mabel’s Mini Cooper was and then back to Mabel. “You can’t park there.”

  Mabel obviously could park there, since she’d just done it. “I didn’t see any no parking signs.”

  The woman continued recording the conversation. “It’s against the homeowners’ association rules. Visitors have to park entirely on the resident’s property, not on the street.”

  Mabel gestured at the completely filled driveway. “There’s no room.”

  “It’s still against the rules to park on the street. Your car is blocking an entire lane, so I could have your car towed for interfering with the free flow of traffic.”

  “There isn’t any traffic for me to block, and I promise I won’t be long,” Mabel said. “I just need to talk to Graham briefly. Do you know if he’s home?”

  The woman pushed something on the video camera, presumably to stop the recording, and lowered it to her side. “Why would you want to talk to him? He’s crazy.”

  “We had a bit of an argument last night, and I want to apologize before the situation gets blown out of proportion.”

  The woman shook her head. “Once he’s upset, there’s no point in trying to make amends. He never listens to reason. I should know. I’m Lena Shaw, and I’ve been living next door to him for eight years now. I’m also the president of the homeowners’ association. I haven’t been able to get him to follow any of our rules
.”

  “I guess you can’t exactly have his house towed away.”

  Lena shook her head irritably as if she’d once considered trying exactly that. “I can’t even fine him. Technically, he’s not subject to the HOA rules. He used to own all the land around here, and when he sold off most of it to a developer, he made sure to exclude his place from the rules.”

  “Then why the video camera?” Mabel asked.

  “He may not be subject to HOA rules, but he still has to follow town health and safety regulations.” Lena gestured at the overgrown hedges. “Just look at that mess. Some of the branches are obstructing the sidewalk. I came out to gather proof, and then I saw your illegally parked car.”

  The hedges were messy, but it was a stretch to suggest that they would prevent people from using the sidewalk safely. It was pretty clear though that Lena was as unlikely to listen to reason as she claimed Graham was.

  Lena continued, “The rest of the property is even worse. The rusty vehicles in his driveway are an eyesore, the front yard is a jungle, and the front porch steps are a clear danger to anyone visiting the property.”

  Judging by the lack of a visible path through the front yard’s weeds to the front porch, Mabel thought it was unlikely Graham had any visitors who used that entrance. Presumably the back door that he used for himself was in better condition.

  “What about the yard behind the house?” Mabel asked. “I’m told he breeds rhubarb there. He must keep that in good shape.”

  “He does,” Lena said. “That’s why I know he could do better with the rest of the property if he wanted to. He’s just refusing to maintain the visible areas to spite me.”

  “At least I’ll be safe if I stick to his back yard then.”

  “If you’re absolutely determined to talk to him, you’ll probably find him in the greenhouse,” Lena said. “That’s where he always is. Probably because his living quarters are as unhealthy as the front yard. All he cares about is those stupid plants. Who likes rhubarb anyway?”