Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

  Lena snapped, “Well, you’d better figure out who his heirs are, and let them know that they need to do something about this property before someone gets hurt.” After a brief pause, Lena added, “Before someone else gets hurt, I mean.”

  “That’s not really my job,” Danny said.

  Lena raised her eyebrows. “Then why did I donate to your campaign last election? You promised me you’d work in the best interest of the town.”

  “I do that. Always. But”—he waved one arm in the direction of the emergency and police vehicles—“there’s still a limit to what I can do. I can’t do the detective’s job or be a private investigator who finds long-lost heirs.”

  Lena huffed her exasperation. “Maybe not, but you’d better make yourself useful if you expect me or anyone else to support your next campaign.”

  “I’m always working for this town,” Danny insisted.

  “Don’t get me started,” Lena said. “You start your days early enough, speed-walking around town before the residents are even awake, but then you spend the rest of the day studying the town’s archives for historical tidbits that don’t do anything to help present-day people.”

  “That’s not fair. I have lots of meetings, and I’m always on call. For things like this.” He waved at the various emergency vehicles in the road.

  “Just sitting through a meeting and pretending to listen won’t help this situation,” Lena said. “At the very least, you should have a serious talk with this young detective to make sure he does his job properly. He was extremely rude to me, you know. He laughed at everything I had to say. That’s no way to get to the bottom of things quickly.”

  “I will talk to him,” Danny said, obviously glad to have an excuse to end the conversation. He took the detective’s arm. “I’ll do it right now, if you’ll excuse us so we can do this in private. We’ll just go on over to the cruiser.”

  “Of course.” Lena made a shooing motion toward the two men.

  Uh-oh, Mabel thought. Now she was the only one for Lena to complain to. Probably about moving the Mini Cooper.

  To head her off, Mabel tried to steer the conversation to something more productive. “What do you think will happen to Graham’s rhubarb breeding program now? He may not have maintained the outside of his property very well, but he was amazingly conscientious about caring for his plants.”

  “It hardly matters,” Lena said. “If it were up to me, I’d bulldoze everything. Getting rid of the house would make the whole subdivision so much more attractive. I may have to do just that.”

  “What if someone else buys the property to live in?”

  Lena shrugged. “They’ll still probably bulldoze everything so they can start fresh.”

  It was probably for the best, Mabel thought, looking at the poor state of the farmhouse and front yard. The greenhouse might be sold and transported for use elsewhere though. According to the assessors’ map she’d found online when she was looking up Graham’s address, the property was only an acre and a half, and that was pretty small for any kind of sustainable commercial growing. Her aunt’s farm was barely profitable with about ten acres in cultivation.

  Graham’s property wasn’t worth saving as a farm, but the rhubarb plants and seeds were another matter. Mabel hadn’t known Graham well, but she’d seen how well he’d cared for his plants. He would have been heartbroken by the wanton destruction of all of the hard work that must have gone into the neat rows of rhubarb seedlings. It was immediately obvious that Graham had put a lot of time and energy into his breeding program. There might even be a real breakthrough for the species stored in his records or seedlings.

  Maybe there was another rhubarb breeder or farmer who would continue the work or at least buy the plants, separate from the land and buildings. Rory or Emily would know if there were any likely buyers. She’d ask them as soon as O’Connor let her go home.

  * * * *

  The state police detective kept everyone waiting for two hours, and then called to tell O’Connor that Mabel could leave without any further questioning as long as she promised not to leave town until further notice. She’d agreed, since even in the best-case scenario, it would be another week before ownership of the farm could be transferred, and in the meantime, she’d get Jeff Wright to talk to the detectives about lifting the restriction on her travel.

  On her way home, she stopped at the home repair store to pick up packing boxes. Back at Stinkin’ Stuff Farm, she carried them up to her aunt’s room, but the sight of all the clutter there was overwhelming. She decided it could wait and instead went out to the barn where, inspired by Graham’s organization of his greenhouse, she dug out the labels her aunt had used in the past and made sure all the shelves of garlic stock were marked so that their contents could be identified at a glance, without checking the individual mesh bags. She’d also added the recommended planting dates and projected harvest dates to the labels. That way, the farm’s buyer—whether it was Thomas Porter or someone else—would have all the information he’d need to keep the farm successful. Her handwriting wasn’t as precise as Graham’s or her aunt’s—Mabel was just relieved she could still write by hand after doing everything on a keyboard pretty much since the day she got her first laptop—but it was legible enough.

  That task completed, Mabel started over to the farmhouse, so she could begin sorting its much more extensive contents to decide what to keep and what to get rid of before the sale of the property. On the way, she noticed a friendly black-and-white tuxedo cat, a regular resident of the barn, in the driveway, rolling on the ground in a bid for attention, and paused to pet him.

  He made her think of the tortoiseshell cat she’d seen racing out of Graham’s greenhouse. She wondered if it was feral like most of the other cats who lived in the barn or if it was Graham’s pet. She wasn’t at all confident that O’Connor would follow through on making sure it was cared for, and if it was left to Lena Shaw, the poor creature wouldn’t stand a chance. Perhaps Mabel should ask the high school student she’d hired to feed and water her barn cats every morning to go out and check on Graham’s cat.

  It struck her that the barn-cat-feeder would likely lose her job when the farm was sold. Paying someone to do such simple work only made sense for a night owl like Mabel. She’d quickly learned that cats whose crack-of-dawn breakfast was delayed were even noisier than early-morning birds were, and hiring a cat-feeder had been cheaper than fully soundproofing her bedroom, especially since she wouldn’t be staying long enough to justify the construction costs. Most farmers were morning people, and feeding the cats only took a few minutes, making the employee an unnecessary expense.

  That was something else she needed to ask Rory and Emily about. They might know where the cat-feeder could get another part-time job when the one at Stinkin’ Stuff Farm ended.

  She gave the tuxie a final pat. On her way back to the kitchen entrance, she heard a faint feline screech from inside the farmhouse. She stopped to wait for whoever the Pixie alarm was indicating had entered the driveway. She wasn’t expecting anyone, but she’d grown cautiously accustomed to people dropping in unannounced.

  A moment later, the pickup belonging to Charlie Durbin came into sight and then parked outside the barn, next to Aunt Peggy’s truck.

  She couldn’t imagine what he might want. They weren’t exactly best friends, but she had at least stopped thinking of him as an evil developer. He was a property developer, just not a particularly evil one, stooping to lies and deceit to make deals. She hadn’t trusted him at first, but he’d been a true friend to Aunt Peggy, helping to make sure the farm didn’t fail after her death by helping Mabel bring in the recent garlic crop when it was at risk of being ruined by bad weather.

  Her initial distrust hadn’t been solely because of his work as a developer. In her experience, whenever men who were as good-looking as he was were nice to her, it was generally because they wanted fr
ee help on an idea for an app they were sure would be wildly successful, even though they didn’t know anything about apps or entrepreneurship.

  It was still possible he wanted something from her. He was definitely the best-looking man she’d ever met—over six feet tall and muscular in a natural way, from physical work, rather than from a gym. He had brown hair that was just long and thick enough to get noticeable creases where his hard hat’s inner straps had flattened it. At the moment, he was wearing his usual jeans and a blue sport shirt with his company’s logo embroidered on the left upper chest. He often wore a blazer, especially if he was meeting with vendors or prospective purchasers of his homes, but he’d skipped it today.

  As soon as Charlie emerged from the pickup, he said, “I heard about this morning. You should call your lawyer.”

  “I already did, but he isn’t returning my calls. Must be in the middle of a trial or on vacation or something.” Although, as time passed, that wasn’t a completely satisfactory explanation for his silence. He usually texted ahead of time to let her know if he’d be incommunicado for more than a day. Still, she trusted him to respond as soon as he could. “There’s no real rush for him to review the purchase and sale agreement. It can wait a few days.”

  “What purchase and sale agreement?”

  “The one for the farm,” Mabel said. “I figured you’d have heard about it by now. The mayor was certainly excited about the deal, and I assume you interact with him regularly, when it comes to getting building permits and the like.”

  He shook his head. “No one said anything to me. I must be losing my connection to the grapevine. Have you told Rory? She’s convinced you’re not really going to sell.”

  “Not yet.” It hadn’t come up while they were loading the squashes for the CSA this morning. And Mabel hadn’t gone looking for an opening. She wanted to wait until the deal was official before having what she knew would be a difficult conversation, especially since Emily seemed willing to hold off on spilling the beans to Rory until Mabel was ready. “I haven’t signed anything yet and won’t until my lawyer reviews the contract. All I did was agree to the basic terms, and there’s no guarantee the deal will ever be finalized. If it does, though, it could happen fast. Closing next week, because the buyer is paying cash.”

  “Interesting.” Charlie folded his arms and leaned against the driver’s side door. “Not many farmers these days have land-acquisition money ready at hand. It’s part of why developers can often buy farms more easily than farmers can. We can pay more, and even pay cash from a line of credit if speed is what the seller cares about.”

  “Emily said it was odd too. But I think she’s just looking for reasons to discourage me from selling. She thinks the buyer might actually be a developer and not a farmer like he claims. His name is Thomas Porter. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of him?”

  “I don’t recognize the name, but I’ll ask around,” Charlie said. “But I’m not done talking about your lawyer yet. I meant you should call him about Graham’s murder. That can’t wait.”

  “He doesn’t need to do anything about that,” Mabel said. “Although I would like to know how I can go about making sure Graham’s seeds and plants don’t get destroyed. I was planning to ask my lawyer how the probate process will work, but there’s no major rush on that either.”

  “There’s a bigger legal issue for you to worry about than the probate process,” Charlie said. “As the person who found the body, you’re going to be a suspect in the murder.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Mabel said. “I didn’t even know Graham. Not really.”

  “I heard you had an argument with him the night before.”

  “Sounds like you’re still pretty well connected to the grapevine.”

  “And so are the cops. They’re going to hear about the argument too.”

  “It wasn’t a big deal,” Mabel said. “And I didn’t care that he got the mulch in the end. I’d been telling Rory we could get it somewhere else even before Graham showed up.”

  “Then why’d you go see him today? The police are going to assume it was to continue the argument.”

  “If there was going to be an ongoing serious argument over the mulch, I’d have sicced Jeff Wright on Graham instead of confronting him myself,” Mabel said. “I only went because I couldn’t wait for Jeff to get back to me, because I was afraid Graham was going to get criminal charges filed against Rory for trespassing. She was with me when we ran into Graham. And you know how bad it would look for the wife of a police officer to be charged with a crime. I went to see if I could talk him into letting the matter drop if I promised to let him have all the mulch he wanted without any interference from me.”

  Charlie nodded. “That makes sense. Did you tell anyone before you went?”

  “No,” Mabel said. “You know Rory. She would have insisted she could take care of herself, and that it wouldn’t matter all that much if the charges were filed.”

  “Still, it would have been better if someone could confirm what you were doing there.”

  “I talked to Lena Shaw right before I went into the greenhouse,” Mabel said. “She knew why I was there. Would that help?”

  Charlie shook his head. “Probably not. She never listens to anyone about anything, so she won’t even remember what you told her unless it was something that violated the subdivision’s rules.”

  “I did park illegally,” Mabel said. “That’s not inconsistent with my going there to kill someone though. Especially since Lena seems to think breach of the HOA rules is almost as bad as murder.”

  “That’s the other thing about Lena speaking on your behalf,” Charlie said. “No one would pay her any attention, because she’s taught them to ignore her. She complains to anyone who will listen about all sorts of trivial matters, acting as if, like you say, they were as big a deal as murder is.”

  “Still,” Mabel said. “I’m sure the whole matter will all be resolved without involving her or me. There can’t possibly be any evidence against me. All I did was find the body. I don’t know for sure how he died, but it looked like he’d eaten a bunch of rhubarb leaves. If someone forced him to do that, and it’s what killed him, I couldn’t possibly have done it. He was a lot bigger than I am. And he had a knife to defend himself. All he had to do was show it to me last night, and I ran away.”

  “I still think you should talk to a lawyer.” Charlie took his phone out of the back pocket of his jeans. “If not the one in Maine, then someone here.”

  “I’ll mention it to Jeff when he returns my call,” Mabel said.

  “Good.” Charlie glanced at his phone and then back up at Mabel again. “Sorry. I just stopped by to make sure you were okay, and now I’ve got to go. I’ll look into this Thomas Porter person for you, see if any of my contractors knows him.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Charlie climbed into the truck and drove off, Mabel realized she was going to miss him when she got back to Maine. She’d known she’d miss Rory and Emily and her field hands from the local university, and even the girl who fed the barn cats. But Charlie? She hadn’t expected that.

  Chapter 6

  After Charlie left, Mabel began looking through the contents of the farmhouse to get a better idea of exactly how much there was to get rid of or offer to the buyer. She started in the kitchen, where Pixie sat on the windowsill over the sink and occasionally meowed for attention, which came as welcome invitations to take a break from digging through all of the clutter.

  She’d just finished the last of the kitchen cabinets when she received a text from her boss, Phil Reed. Interested in hot new project?

  Mabel was looking forward to getting back to her usual work, and it was nice to know her boss was anxious to have her back earlier than the six months she’d estimated for her leave of absence, but she needed a little more time to wrap up the sale of the farm before taking on a new work ch
allenge. It helped to know Phil wasn’t likely to fire her if she turned down this offer. He’d always been as flexible as possible with her work assignments, since she’d been a reliable employee, and he knew that she could earn more as a freelancer if he pushed her too hard and she quit. The relationship was generally good for both of them, since she gladly gave up any extra money she could earn on her own in return for her boss dealing with all the work she was no good at, like selling their services and being nice to clients even when they asked for impossible things in their apps.

  Not yet, she responded. Might be able to do it next month

  When next month? Big new contract. Really need you

  I’ll let you know. Can’t commit yet

  There was no further response, so Mabel started for her aunt’s home office to see what needed to be dealt with in there. Halfway there, Pixie yowled a warning that someone had entered the driveway. Had Rory heard about the possible sale of the farm and come to talk Mabel out of it?

  Might as well get it over with, she thought. She gave Pixie a pat on the way through the kitchen and headed outside. A white van marked with the West Slocum town seal had pulled up next to the barn. The animal control officer—a man in his fifties, at least six and a half feet tall, with intensely red hair—climbed out of the van. She’d met Chris Vance a few months earlier, when he’d convinced her to give Pixie a home after other volunteers had given up trying to get the cat to stop her persistent yowling at traffic.

  Vance made his way to the back of the van. “I got her for you.”

  “Got who?”