Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

  “You don’t understand,” Sandy said. “The plants are mine. Graham owed me that much.”

  Sandy was right about one thing—Mabel didn’t understand why the woman was so upset. “If you’re worried that I’m not doing the right things for the plants, I’d be glad to hear any advice you might have.”

  “Growing rhubarb is not that difficult,” Sandy said in exasperation. “Water the seedlings that are dry and drain the soggy ones. And make sure the greenhouse doesn’t overheat on sunny days.”

  “That’s pretty much what I’m already doing. You don’t have to worry about the plants’ well-being, and I’m not going to charge for my time. Once Rob Robinson’s position as the estate’s representative is made official, you can make your case to him about the plants you think you’re owed.”

  “And the rest of the contents of the greenhouse?” Sandy asked. “How are you protecting that?”

  She couldn’t mean the dirt and the trays and benches, Mabel thought. They could take care of themselves and no one—not even Sandy—would have any interest in them. She had to mean Graham’s breeding records.

  “If you’re wondering about Graham’s journals getting stolen or damaged, you don’t have to.” Mabel forced herself not to look at the Mini Cooper where the journals had been transferred from Terry’s backpack into a canvas bag that now sat on the passenger seat. The doors were locked, but in Sandy’s current state, that might not be enough to stop her from trying to get at them. Mabel didn’t want to have to physically restrain Sandy from breaking into the car. The professor might be tiny, but she was fueled with righteous indignation at the moment. “They’ve been put in storage for safekeeping.”

  “You could give them to me,” Sandy said, her tone softening. “They’d be more secure at the university than here on the farm.”

  “They’re fine where they are.” That wasn’t entirely true, but as soon as Sandy left, Mabel was driving them to the office of her local lawyer, Quon Liang. “Once it’s decided who they belong to, they’ll be released to that person.”

  “But that could take months,” Sandy whined like a teenager. “So much wasted time when I could be moving forward with Graham’s research. It’s what he would have wanted.”

  Mabel didn’t believe Sandy’s supposed concern for Graham’s wishes. It was far more likely that she wanted to get her hands on the journals for her own selfish reasons. If Graham really had made some breakthrough in his breeding program, Sandy could use that information to advance her career at the university. But only if she knew which plants were part of that new development, and how it had been accomplished.

  “I thought his research wasn’t rigorous enough to be of any use to you.”

  “Considering how little work has been done on rhubarb, any little bit of information is like water to a desert,” Sandy said. “There might be some small nugget of useful information. But only a trained professional like me would be able to spot it.”

  That didn’t sound terribly urgent, Mabel thought. If that was true, Sandy wouldn’t be in such a rush to get the journals. After all, what were the odds that another breeder would announce a breakthrough in the next couple of weeks before ownership of the journals could be determined? No, Mabel thought the only reason for urgency was that Sandy was less interested in the breeding notes and more interested in the more personal comments that Graham mixed in with his agricultural information. Sandy might be worried that there was something in them that implicated her in Graham’s death.

  “Reading the journals is going to have to wait, no matter what,” Mabel said. “They’re encrypted.”

  Sandy barely paused before saying, “There must be someone in the math department at the university who can decode it for me.”

  “I’m sure they could,” Mabel said. “As soon as the estate decides what to do with them.”

  Sandy sighed in apparent defeat. For the moment, at least. “If you change your mind, let me know. I’d be glad to pick them up if you decide they’ll be safer at the university. Or you could stop by my trial field with them. While you’re there, you could see what a real breeding program looks like.”

  “I’d enjoy that,” Mabel said. Not that she’d ever hand the journals over to Sandy without proper authorization. But she would like to see a larger field of rhubarb than what was in Graham’s back yard, now that she’d decided she was definitely adding the crop to the farm.

  But first she had to get the older journals safely into the hands of her lawyer.

  * * * *

  Mabel walked Sandy out to her car, not so much to be polite, but to make sure the professor didn’t notice the canvas bag filled with journals in the passenger seat of the Mini Cooper. As soon as the woman was out of sight around a curve in the driveway, Mabel opened the driver’s-side car door to go to her lawyer’s office. Pixie’s muffled screech from inside the house warned that either Sandy had turned around and was coming back or some other visitor was on the way.

  Mabel shut the door with a sigh. She never had any visitors in Maine, and that was how she liked it. Once they moved back there, Pixie would never have any reason to yowl again.

  Charlie’s truck appeared a moment later. Some visitors were acceptable, she decided.

  Mabel waited for Charlie to park beside her car. He climbed out and said, “I’ve got some more information on Graham’s client, Sam Trent.”

  “Why didn’t you just text me?”

  “It’s too impersonal,” he said. “I like visiting the farm. And you.”

  “Me?” Mabel still wasn’t entirely sure Emily was right that he was interested in her.

  “Yes, you,” Charlie said. “Apparently I crave being taken down a peg occasionally, and you’re good at it.”

  “I never mean to insult you.”

  “Could have fooled me,” he said lightly. “I’m reasonably sure you intended to make me feel guilty about being a developer when we first met.”

  “Okay, I did mean that,” Mabel said. “But I didn’t realize you were a good-guy developer back then. I thought you were like one I’d run into back in Maine, and you wanted to destroy all the work Aunt Peggy had put into her farm.”

  “I’ll chalk your insults up to the grief over your aunt then.”

  “It wasn’t grief exactly,” Mabel said. “I loved her, but didn’t know her that well, so it was mostly guilt I was feeling. I should have spent more time with her.”

  “True,” he said. “But you’re doing the right thing now, taking care of her farm. I heard about the fire in the barn. That could have been bad if you weren’t here.”

  “Some other owner could oversee the farm just as well as I could.” Mabel shrugged. “Better actually. I didn’t even know how to use the fire extinguisher.”

  “You bring other good qualities to the farm. You care about it more than almost anyone else would.”

  “A real farmer would care and know what to do with the place.”

  “All right, all right.” Charlie raised his hands in surrender. “I give up. I told Rory it wouldn’t work, trying to appeal to your emotions to get you to stay in West Slocum.”

  “So you’ll help me find a buyer who’s not a developer?”

  “I’m not willing to go quite that far, but I won’t interfere with a sale.”

  “That’s fair,” Mabel said. “So what did you find out about Trent?”

  “If I tell you,” he said, “you have to promise to stay away from him. Leave investigating him to the police. Trent’s dangerous.”

  “I know,” Mabel said. “He definitely has a temper, even if he tries to hide it.”

  “He lies too. He said he wasn’t all that upset any more about the divorce,” Charlie said. “And he may have learned to say the right words, but it’s unlikely he’s really over it. I talked to his ex-wife, and she had to get a restraining order against him before the divor
ce was final. He kept harassing her, claiming they’d still be together if it weren’t for Graham. When they first separated, he was just depressed, but toward the end, he got violent every time there was a setback in his attempts to get Graham punished. He never hit her, but she thought it was just a matter of time.”

  “He might have come to accept the end of the marriage later,” Mabel said. “Especially after he got a new job. He said it was better than the one he’d had working for his ex’s family business.”

  “That’s not the impression the ex had,” Charlie said. “Apparently Trent has visitation rights with their dog, so she still sees him a couple of times a month. The last time he was at her place was a week ago, and as she was bringing the dog to the door, she heard him talking on his cell phone. She didn’t know who was on the other end, but Trent was complaining bitterly about what Graham had cost him. His marriage, his job, and even most of the time with his dog.”

  “He’s definitely a solid suspect in Graham’s murder,” Mabel said. “But it’s all just speculation. Not enough to get the detectives to do anything.”

  “There’s more,” Charlie said. “His ex confirmed that Graham really did make a big mistake in handling Trent’s case. She’d had no idea about her husband’s infidelity, and she’d been close to reconciling when her lawyer told her what Graham had revealed. She never understood why Graham had made such a stupid mistake, but I think it might have been an early indicator that he was having some mental glitches. Back then, the issues might have been occasional, so he could hide them, but it got a lot worse before he died.”

  “So he could have ruined another client’s case more recently, and that’s what got him killed.”

  Charlie nodded.

  “If you’re right, then I’ve got no chance of figuring out who killed Graham. Not without his client files, and I’ll never get them.”

  He nodded again, and didn’t look particularly unhappy about it.

  “Unless the killer isn’t one of Graham’s clients,” Mabel said. “I can still look into that possibility. I’ll also let the detectives know what the ex told you, in case they think Trent had gotten over the anger. I was just on my way to deliver some of Graham’s journals to my lawyer for safekeeping. I can stop by the police station while I’m in town.”

  “You’re not just texting the information? Should I be jealous that there’s someone you want to see in person at the police station?”

  “No,” Mabel said. “I’d text if I could, but I don’t have a mobile number for O’Connor, and even if I did, I’m pretty sure he’d just ignore the message. I need to be there in person to make sure he doesn’t dismiss the information out of hand.”

  “Ah, so even a hermit like you believes that sometimes an in-person interaction is better than a virtual one.”

  “You make hermit sound like an insult.”

  “No more so than developer.”

  He had a point. “I don’t hold your career against you any longer.”

  “Then I can accept that you’re not a people person,” he said. “As long as you make an exception for me.”

  “I will,” she promised. “For as long as I live here in West Slocum, at least. Just don’t expect me to stay forever.”

  “I don’t expect it,” Charlie said. “But I can hope.”

  Chapter 18

  Quon Liang worked out of a small Victorian house that must have been converted into office space some forty years earlier—a decade before he was even born—and as far as Mabel could tell, it had never been redecorated since then. Quon might not have been able to afford to make any purely cosmetic changes, between paying law school loans and whatever debt he’d incurred to purchase the practice from an older attorney who’d been forced into early retirement due to a debilitating stroke. Quon’s investment was likely to pay off now that he was the only lawyer left in West Slocum after the death of Graham Winthrop.

  The parking lot behind the building was empty except for the boring white sedan in the far corner, which Mabel recognized as belonging to Quon. It might not look like a typical lawyer’s vehicle, but it suited Quon. He and his car were both reliable and reasonably priced. She knew, because while Jeff Wright hadn’t rendered a verdict specifically on the car, he had checked out and approved the young attorney when Mabel had needed someone to probate her aunt’s estate.

  Mabel opened the passenger door of her Mini Cooper to get the canvas bag full of journals. Before she could retrieve them, Thomas Porter’s distinctive purple SUV came to a screeching halt beside her.

  He jumped out, saying, “We need to talk.”

  “No, we don’t.” She turned her back on him and bent to grab the bag on the seat.

  “Hey,” he said. “You can’t just ignore me.”

  “I can ignore anything if I’m focusing on something else.” Mabel straightened and pushed the door shut. “It’s my superpower.”

  Porter grabbed her shoulder, and Mabel lost her own grip on the bag. His touch had been light, so she was able to jerk away from him. She’d never liked being touched casually, not even by friends, and he definitely wasn’t a friend. His touch was an assault.

  She spun to face him, placing her back against her car. She felt trapped, but at least he couldn’t sneak up on her again. “Don’t touch me. Ever.”

  He raised his hands in false surrender. “I just wanted to get your attention.”

  “You’ve got as much of it as you’re ever going to have,” she said, getting her phone out of the barn jacket’s roomy pocket. “Now go away.”

  “Look,” Porter said. “We got off on the wrong foot. I just wanted to apologize.”

  “What is it with people who don’t know how to send a text?” she muttered irritably.

  He blinked. “So if I texted you an apology, we could talk?”

  “No,” Mabel said, preparing to dial 911. The police station was just a block away, so it wouldn’t take long for them to arrive. “There’s no point in talking. I’m not selling the farm to you or any other developer. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

  “You’re being unreasonable.”

  “Yes, I am,” Mabel said. “I’m allowed. My lawyer told me so.”

  Porter flicked a glance at the sign on the building, which gave away Mabel’s destination. “Whoever you’re getting advice from, he can’t be anything but a country bumpkin. You should talk to a real lawyer.”

  “I did,” Mabel said, stretching the truth. Years ago, Jeff Wright had told her she could be unreasonable with anyone except him, and he’d back her up. “Quon Liang is only one of my lawyers.”

  “They’re all just in it for themselves anyway,” Porter said, changing tactics. “I’m trying to make your life better. I saw you visiting that dead guy’s property. Is that what you want? A place with a greenhouse? I could help you get it if you sell the bigger farm to me. Those greenhouses are solid, and I could fix up the residence if you want. All part of the deal.”

  “You’ve been stalking me.” He’d done more than just follow her, Mabel realized. He couldn’t have known there was a second greenhouse unless he’d been inside the first one. The smaller one wasn’t visible from the street or even from the entrance to the first greenhouse. “And you’ve been trespassing on Graham’s property.”

  “Just doing what had to be done,” Porter said. “Persistence is part of being a businessman.”

  “Not taking no for an answer is also what gets successful businessmen subjected to restraining orders.” Without looking away from Porter, Mabel bent her knees and reached behind her to grab the handles of the canvas bag filled with Graham’s journals. She straightened and said, “I’m going inside to see my lawyer right now, and I’m absolutely sure, country bumpkin or not, he’ll know how to get a restraining order against you. And then I’m heading down the street to the police station to report both your stalking and your tres
passing.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous—” Porter began, but she cut him off.

  “I already told you I’m allowed to be ridiculous if I want to,” Mabel said. “And when it comes to you and anything related to my aunt’s farm, ridiculous is just the start. If you don’t leave me alone, I’m prepared to become as crazy as Graham Winthrop was. And I won’t have to eat rhubarb leaves to get there.”

  Mabel turned her back on him, but not before she caught a glimpse of how confused he looked. Good. Confusing people was another of her superpowers.

  * * * *

  Quon Liang hadn’t been in his office, having walked over to a client’s office for a meeting, but his personal assistant had accepted the bag full of journals and promised to put it in their safe, pending instructions from a duly authorized estate representative.

  Porter’s purple SUV wasn’t in the parking lot any longer, so Mabel collected her Mini Cooper and drove to the police station. O’Connor seemed considerably more pleased to see Mabel than she’d expected. That couldn’t be good. He might try to hug her.

  Mabel kept her distance.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” O’Connor asked.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I know police stations have a reputation for bad coffee, but ours is really good.” His nervous laughter undermined his claim.

  “I don’t drink coffee,” Mabel said. “And I don’t expect to be here that long.”

  “I could get you tea instead,” he said as he led her down a hallway to where he’d said they could have a nice quiet chat.

  She didn’t want either a nice, quiet chat or a beverage. She just wanted to alert him to Thomas Porter’s behavior and also what she’d heard from Charlie about Sam Trent’s motive for killing Graham.

  “No, thanks.”

  “What about a soda?”

  She shook her head.

  “Water then. Everyone drinks water.”