Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

  It had already been four days since the murder with no arrest, so Mabel had to wonder about their definition of “in due course.” Jeff Wright had frequently told her that the legal system, including law enforcement, had a more leisurely view of time than most people did, but surely in the context of a murder, there would be pressure to move quickly. The delay in making an arrest suggested to Mabel that the investigation wasn’t going well.

  “I understand,” Mabel said. “I’m not here to get you into any trouble. I’ve got something O’Connor and Cross might be interested in.”

  She showed the young man the journal and explained that it had belonged to Graham, that it was encrypted, but that she’d left the key to translating it inside the book, and O’Connor had her contact info if he had any questions. The officer politely insisted on taking her phone number and address again, and then promised to pass the book along to the detectives as soon as they returned.

  On the way back to the car, Mabel’s phone pinged with a text from the agriculture student, Terry Earley. He had classes until one o’clock, but he could help at the greenhouse after that if she could pick him up at the university. The only other commitment she had that day was a meeting at three o’clock at the farm that Emily had arranged with Betty Comstock, the woman who made jam for the farmers’ market. It shouldn’t take more than two hours to get Terry, take care of the rhubarb, and then get back to the farm, so she texted back that she’d pick him up as soon as his classes ended.

  She had about ninety minutes before she needed to leave to get Terry. It was too little time to make it worth her while to go back to the farm and dispose of the fire-retardant-covered garlic that had been left to cool overnight, but she could squeeze in a visit to Rob Robinson if he was in his office. This time, she was able to call ahead and confirm with his assistant that he was there and had a few minutes to talk to her.

  The assistant let her into the private office where Rob Robinson was on the phone, but he gestured for her to take a seat across the desk from him.

  He hung up a moment later. “I’ve been making the final arrangements for Graham all morning. The aftermath of a death is more complicated than I ever realized. Graham took care of everything when my sister died, and my parents had pre-arranged everything for themselves, so I never had to deal with funeral homes before. Or all the other details. I was just talking to a tow company to pick up Graham’s vehicles and put them in storage so there will be one less thing for his neighbor to complain about.”

  Robinson seemed truly overwhelmed, and a bit irritated by how much work he had to do for Graham, not like someone who was benefiting from the death of his brother-in-law.

  “I’m sorry,” Mabel said.

  “I don’t have time for this. I’m up for a promotion, and it’s like Graham is once again sabotaging my life, even from the grave.” Robinson wiped his hand over his face and emerged with a half-hearted smile. “Anyway. That’s not your problem. So what can I do for you today?”

  “Before I spend too much time on the rhubarb plants, I want to be sure you’ll be able to sell them to me eventually. The police won’t tell me anything, but I was wondering if you’d heard about whether they’ve found a will.”

  “They called about half an hour ago to say they had what seemed to be the most recent will, although it’s more than ten years old,” Robinson said. “They read the relevant sections to me, and it’s the same one I have a copy of, naming me the estate’s personal representative, but leaving everything to my kids. So you can rest easy about the plants. I’ll make sure you get whatever you want from the greenhouse. I thought about it after you left, and I realized the only thing worse than the mess Graham made of his life because of his obsession with his breeding program would be if the fruits of his work were wasted, so it was all for nothing.”

  “You still may not have any say in who gets the plants if there are creditors who claim all of the assets.”

  “I’m probably his biggest creditor,” Robinson said. “I paid for the greenhouses, and Graham signed a promissory note and mortgage to me, with my kids’ assent as the beneficiaries of the trust. He hadn’t paid much on it in years, so the balance is probably more than his assets are worth by now.”

  If there was a mortgage, Rob Robinson could have foreclosed and forced a sale of the property during Graham’s lifetime. At least, Mabel thought he could have. Normally, she’d have asked Jeff Wright, but that wasn’t an option right now.

  “Why didn’t you foreclose when he stopped paying?” Mabel asked. “Then you wouldn’t have had to deal with him any longer.”

  “I threatened to foreclose plenty of times, and he’d make one payment, but that was all for the next year or two until I pressured him again.” Robinson smiled ruefully. “I’ve got a business reputation for being tough, but it’s different with family, even an in-law. He knew I wouldn’t foreclose on him, because it would feel too much like betraying my sister. I didn’t really need the money, just wanted to use the leverage to make him see reality. When the threats of foreclosure didn’t work, I even considered having him hospitalized for observation of his mental status. Now I wish I’d done it. I could have been appointed his guardian and made sure he was taken care of.”

  If everything Robinson said was true, and he seemed sincere, he really didn’t have a motive for killing his brother-in-law. At least not a financial one. He wouldn’t have needed to commit murder in order to control or inherit the assets. If Robinson had killed his brother-in-law, it had to have been for more personal reasons.

  “If you had become his guardian, he might still be alive.”

  “Trust me, I know,” he said. “I realized it in the middle of last night and didn’t sleep much after that. My only consolation is that he’d have hated me for it and wouldn’t have considered his life worth living if he couldn’t pursue his breeding program. It would have been like losing his wife all over again for him.”

  “So who do you think killed him?”

  “That’s the other thing that kept me awake last night,” he said. “Usually I sleep like a baby, but I couldn’t stop thinking about who could have hated him that much. I mean, he could be annoying, but enough to make someone kill him? I don’t think so. Even in his most delusional moments, he usually knew when he was pushing too hard and he’d back down. And I can’t see who would benefit from his death. My kids don’t need the house, assuming it isn’t sold to pay his debts. They’re in college, and I don’t expect them to come back to live in West Slocum after they graduate. So despite what my sister was hoping, I expect the property will be sold now and not kept in the family for future generations.”

  “The police seem to be focused on Graham’s clients as potential suspects.”

  “That’s as likely as any other theory,” Robinson said. “The only other person I could think of last night was Sandy Faitakis. She’s an academic with an interest in rhubarb. And an even greater interest in vodka. Graham told me she’d been making a nuisance of herself, trying to get him to sell her the hybrids he was developing, so who knows what she might have done while under the influence.”

  “How bad is her drinking problem?”

  “I don’t know her personally, but I remember Graham showing me a newspaper article about her being arrested for driving drunk six or seven years ago. It was quite a scandal, what with her being a professor and all. She’s expected to be a good role model for her students or she could lose her job. The university apparently decided to give her a second chance. She was ordered to undergo counseling, and she must have done it since she’s still employed, but alcoholics frequently relapse.”

  Maybe Robinson was onto something. If Sandy had a serious drinking problem, and she was as obsessed with her breeding program as Graham had been, she might well have gone on an all-night bender, culminating with an alcohol-fueled plan to make a final offer for the plants while Graham did his early-morning cho
res in the greenhouse. Then they’d argued, and with her inhibitions suppressed by the alcohol, she’d become enraged and killed him with his own knife. He’d been stabbed from behind, with no obvious signs of a struggle, so being female and smaller than her victim wouldn’t be as limiting as if it had been a frontal attack.

  The scenario even explained the rhubarb leaves in Graham’s mouth. Initially Mabel had thought that Graham had eaten them voluntarily as part of his theory that they were healthy, but if he’d been killed because of the rhubarb, and the killer hadn’t been thinking too clearly, then it made sense that the killer might have angrily thrown them at him after Graham died. A warped kind of sense, at least, the kind that would appeal to a person whose mind was clouded by alcohol.

  * * * *

  Mabel left Robinson’s office thinking she needed to find out more about Sandy Faitakis and her possible drinking problem. Maybe Terry Earley would know something about it from university gossip.

  Terry brought up the subject of Sandy Faitakis without any nudging as soon as he’d lowered his tall, skinny self and his laptop backpack into the Mini Cooper and clicked the seatbelt into place. “I stopped in to see Professor Faitakis after class,” he said in his British accent. “I’d heard she was trying to breed the perfect rhubarb variety, and I thought she could give me a few pointers on rhubarb cultivation.”

  “I met her the other day, but she wasn’t particularly helpful,” Mabel said. “How well do you know her?”

  “Not at all really,” Terry admitted. “Just what’s in her bio on the university’s website. It mentions her work with rhubarb. I’ve never actually taken a class with her and I don’t know anyone who has.”

  “What did she tell you?”

  He shrugged. “She kinda brushed me off. I explained that I’d be helping out at Graham’s greenhouse and didn’t know much about rhubarb so I could use some advice. She said she was too busy to give me a comprehensive lecture, and she’d never been inside Graham’s greenhouse, so she really didn’t know enough about what he was working on to pinpoint what I needed to know.”

  Mabel had gotten the impression from Rob Robinson that Sandy had been to Graham’s property several times to try to get him to sell to her, but perhaps those conversations had happened somewhere else, possibly his law office, rather than at his home.

  “I appreciate your trying to help,” Mabel said. “I’m sure we can muddle along on our own with some help from Google.”

  “It’s strange though.” Terry fidgeted with the zipper of his backpack. “Students talk about professors all the time, and everyone knows who on the faculty is too busy with their research to care about their students and spend time with them, even on extracurricular matters. I’d never heard that she was one of the unavailable ones.”

  “She may have just been having a bad day.”

  “I suppose,” Terry said. “I still think it’s weird how she wouldn’t help at all. I mean, most of the faculty like to talk about their research, at least in general terms, not the confidential stuff. And they hardly ever get the chance to talk about it to an eager audience instead of a student who’s kind of required to listen even when they’re not interested, so I figured if I asked for the basics of rhubarb cultivation, she’d be happy to share her passion for it.”

  “She could just have been busy and you caught her at a bad time.”

  “I don’t think that was it,” Terry said, giving the backpack’s poor zipper a strenuous tug for emphasis. “I don’t care how busy I am, if you ask me about my interest in diversification as the key to small farm prosperity, I’m going to drop everything else I need to do and tell you far, far more than you ever wanted to know about it. Worst-case scenario, if I really don’t have time, I’m going to give you a list of at least ten resources you absolutely, positively have to read right away and then I’d make sure I had your contact info so I could follow up with you later and grill you on your reading.”

  Mabel would do the same thing, she thought, except about app development, not agriculture. “Did Sandy give you any advice at all?”

  “She just told me I shouldn’t get too attached to Graham’s plants, because I wouldn’t be able to keep them.” Terry gave the zipper another irritated tug. “Like she was my mother, telling me I couldn’t adopt a puppy or something.”

  “I’d let you adopt some of the plants if you do get attached to them,” Mabel assured him. “Graham’s brother-in-law will decide who gets them, and he’s promised I can have whatever I want from the greenhouse. And unlike Sandy, I’m willing to share.”

  “She doesn’t think you’ll be able to buy any of them from the estate,” Terry said. “She told me there was some sort of agreement already in place between her and Graham, but she shut the door in my face before I could get any details.”

  “I don’t think she really wants the plants all that much, or at least not the bulk of them,” Mabel said as she turned onto Graham’s street. “She might be interested in a few specific seedlings, but for the most part, I got the impression she was mostly interested in Graham’s journals. He kept really detailed records on his work.”

  Terry nodded. “That sounds about right. For a breeder, data can be worth more than gold or even compost.”

  That reminded Mabel she needed to figure out what to do about replacing the yard waste they’d planned to use to mulch the garlic, but had abandoned because of Graham. Rory might have some ideas. She’d probably want to go to some other pesticide-free neighborhoods to collect their lawn clippings and leaves, now that they didn’t have to worry about Graham’s interference, but Mabel didn’t think that was wise. There was too much risk that the late-night activity would bring them to the police’s attention, and they’d think Mabel—or, even worse, Rory—had committed murder in order to have free access to the best composting mulch materials.

  Mabel parked in front of Graham’s house, out of sight of the neighbor, where there was no risk of being towed. Terry left his backpack in the car and followed her along the sidewalk.

  “I really appreciate your coming out here with me,” Mabel said. “If you’ve got some time available over the next few weeks, I’d like to hire you to stop by here and check on things for me.”

  “I can always use the cash, and I’d love to learn more about an amateur breeder’s work. My mornings are taken up with classes, starting early, but my afternoon commitments can be moved around pretty easily.”

  “Perfect.” Mabel paused at the foot of the driveway that was still completely filled with Graham’s vehicles. Robinson probably hadn’t been in as much of a rush to have them towed away as Lena would have been if she’d had the chance. “If you come here without me, make sure to park where I did, not inside the subdivision or the homeowners’ association will tow your truck.”

  “Good luck with that,” Terry said with a laugh. “My truck is so old, none of the tow companies will touch it for fear of it crumbling into bits and them getting blamed for it. Some of the reason I need the extra work is to get the brakes looked at.”

  “As long as I own the farm, you’ve got part-time work whenever you want it,” Mabel said. “That may be longer than I’d like, but at least I can help you out a bit in the meantime. I thought I had a buyer, but he turned out to be a developer, and I’m not going to let anyone dig up my aunt’s legacy.”

  “It’s hard to come up with the money to buy a farm these days, especially a small one, since so few of them actually turn a profit,” Terry said. “It’s why I’m so interested in diversification on farms. Your aunt did some of that, but there’s more that could be done with the property.”

  “Aunt Peggy talked about the importance of diversification in her journal,” Mabel said. “Did you inspire her?”

  “I wish I could claim responsibility, but I never met her.”

  “I’ll show you her journal sometime, and we can talk about what you think would
improve the farm’s value if you wouldn’t mind.” Mabel led the way up the driveway to the greenhouse. She unlocked the door and propped it open, pushing aside a length of sidewall support that had tumbled down from the pile of rusty and bent metal pieces. “I’m thinking about adding a field of rhubarb with Graham’s seedlings.”

  “That would be great,” Terry said eagerly. “I’d have to research the rhubarb market, but that would probably be a good next step. The only thing I know for starters is that it’s harvested earlier than either the garlic or the squash you’ve already got in place, so that would make it a good fit.”

  Mabel knew that spreading out the peak work was good for diversification, but until she sold the farm, it also meant more weeks when she’d be completely absorbed in agricultural chores, with no time left for her real job, the one she was as passionate about as Terry was about farming. “My boss is going to fire me if I can’t get back to work fairly soon.”

  “You could always hire a manager,” Terry said. “There are people who’d love to own a farm but can’t scrape together the money or financing for the land. Managing someone else’s property is the next best thing to owning the place, especially if there’s an option to buy down the road.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Mabel said. “After I know for sure that I’ll be able to buy Graham’s plants.” And not be locked up in jail.

  Chapter 16

  It took about an hour to get the greenhouse plants watered, and then Mabel forced herself to walk past where Graham’s body had lain, to go out that door with Terry and wander through the beds in the back yard to see if there were any obvious problems there. The plants looked sickly to Mabel, but Terry said they were sending all their energy into the roots for overwintering. That meant she’d have to wait until the spring to transplant the seedlings in the greenhouse to her farm. Rhubarb transplanted in the fall would waste too much energy on adjusting to the new location and not survive the winter.