by Hillary Avis
Chapter 22
I kept the gas pedal almost to the floor for most of the drive up Briggs Road, stomping the clutch to take the hairpin turns and then hitting the gas again as soon as I could do it without tipping the Suburban. This car couldn’t beat Eli’s Interceptor on a straight stretch of highway, but I sure could beat him at this kind of driving. He was a full half-mile behind me by the time I pulled down the narrow driveway to the Spences’ log cabin.
Mike Spence and his twin brother Bob had lived there since birth; the cabin had been built by a Spence ancestor back when Briggs Road was more of a deer trail than anything else. Everyone referred to it as Mike’s house, probably because he was the more outgoing brother, the one who went to town to collect gas for the chainsaw and milk for the fridge. Bob was more of a homebody, but both were the kind of men who lived off the land, shooting deer and collecting mushrooms in the woods that surrounded their home. The outside of their log cabin was studded with the antlers of their hunting spoils.
A figured flashed in briefly in the front window, but I waited until Eli parked beside me to get out of the car. Eli pushed open his door, looking a little green around the gills.
“I’ll write you a reckless driving ticket later,” he said.
My mood suddenly improved by a factor of three or four. I pressed my lips together to keep from giggling. “Did you have trouble keeping up?”
He growled and, slamming his door shut, marched toward the front door. I tagged behind him, taking a little guilty pleasure in the rear view of Eli’s impressive physique. Even if I didn’t want to buy, window-shopping wasn’t against the rules, was it? A moment later, the figure inside the cabin peered out the window at us again and then opened the front door just as Eli was about to knock.
“Well, I’ll be. The law has finally made it to Briggs Road,” Mike Spence drawled, leaning outside. A small, wiry man, he still looked the same as he had when he’d help my dad clear brush out of our back forty. Same tanned, leathery face, same deep lines around his eyes that spoke of a man who laughed more than he cried. He’d seemed like an old man to me back then, but here he was, forty-odd years later just as wrinkled, gray, and spry. I had a feeling if I challenged him to a tree-climbing contest, he’d beat me. “You here to lock up Bob?”
Eli glanced at me, bewildered. “Why, what did Bob do?”
Mike’s face nearly cracked in half, his grin was so wide. “Nothin’. I was just pulling your leg. Although sometimes his cooking is criminal. He burned the toast again this morning. Can you smell it?” He sucked in a deep draft of morning air through his nose.
Eli chuckled and slapped him on the shoulder. “No laws against bad cooking—at least, not that I’m aware!”
“Well, there should be,” Mike said, glancing back into the house. “Hear that, Bob? There should be!”
“I heard you.” Bob’s doleful voice filtered out to the porch. He was definitely the Eeyore to Mike’s Tigger. “Maybe ask him what he wants instead of horsing around. Don’t waste the man’s time.”
“There’s a lady, too,” Mike said sourly, as if my presence was some kind of retort to Bob’s criticism.
“I’m Leona Davis—my dad was Bud Landers.” I stuck out my hand and Mike grasped it in his hard, calloused paw, nodding.
“Oh, yes, I remember those yellow curls chasing Bud’s chickens all over tarnation.” His eyes misted over and he brushed them with the back of his hand. “I was sorry to hear about your folks, real sorry. They’ve been gone a while now, haven’t they? You still living at their place?”
I shook my head, swallowing away the wash of grief at the mention of my parents. “We sold it about ten years ago. I just moved into the Chapman farm. Actually, that’s why I’m here. I wanted to ask you—any chance I could borrow your power trencher? Walt Sutherland said you and Bob had one, and I need to dig a foundation for my new chicken coop.”
Mike’s face didn’t change at the mention of Walt’s name. He clearly hadn’t heard the news of Walt’s death. “Oh, sure, sure. Bob! Get the trencher out of the shed, would you? Bud’s girl needs to borrow it.” Inside, Bob grumbled, but I heard the sound of a chair scraping back and then the back door slammed.
“Thanks. I’ll keep you in eggs in the spring, once my girls are laying,” I promised. “They’ll go great with your burned toast.”
“Happy to help. You tell Walt to stop loaning out my stuff, though!” Mike flashed me a tobacco-stained smile and winked.
“Actually, Walt’s why I’m here,” Eli said, stepping forward. “I hate to be the one to tell you, but he’s dead, Mike. He was killed yesterday.”
The color drained from Mike’s face and he sagged against the doorframe. “Killed, you say? Was it some kind of accident?”
Eli grimaced slightly. I guess even a sheriff doesn’t get used to delivering bad news. “I’m afraid not. I’m looking for any information about troubles he might have been having. Figured you knew him well so you might have some leads.”
Mike shook his head, his eyes downcast. “I wouldn’t say I knew him well. I’m not sure anyone knew him well except his wife.”
“I thought he played poker with you every week!” I blurted out.
Mike shifted where he stood, his expression suddenly wary. “Well, sure. Bob and I run a regular game on Friday nights. But it’s not a stitch-and-bitch circle, it’s five-card stud. We don’t chitchat, we play cards. Walt’s been playing with us—oh, I don’t know, it’s got to be forty years now.”
Forty years of weekly get-togethers and he didn’t know Walt very well? Men.
“Who all plays with you?” Eli asked, his voice a whole lot more patient than I felt.
Mike grunted. “People come and go. We try to keep it small. Me, Bob, Walt, and then whoever. Zeke, Sherm. Some others who’ve passed away or moved away.”
Eli’s ears perked up at the names, and he slid a small notebook out of his shirt pocket and flipped it open to jot them down. “So that’s Zeke Jones and Sherman Dice?”
“Don’t know anybody else by those names, no.” Mike Spence’s goodwill was clearly evaporating. “Can’t recall the others over the years off the top of my head.”
“Do you guys take attendance at your games? Maybe you have a list somewhere of people who have played up here?”
Mike snorted so hard he choked. “Not a chance. And even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. More than one fellow has used a weekly poker game as an alibi for time spent away from the missus.” He winked at us. “Sorry, kids.”
My heart stilled at his mention of wives as I thought of Anne Sutherland alone in her quiet farmhouse. I knew Eli didn’t think Joe and Walt’s deaths were necessarily connected, but could it be more than a coincidence that Joe’s murder took place on a poker night, the perfect excuse for Walt to be out of the house?
“Did Walt ever use the game as an alibi?” I asked, keeping my voice as light and innocent as possible.
“Naw. He took his cards real serious. Rarely missed a game unless he was ill or out of cash. Gosh, I still can’t believe that old goat is gone.” He shook his head.
“Did he ever leave the table to get more money and then not come back?” I pressed. “I’m thinking twenty years ago or so?”
Mike squinted at me. “You’ve got a lot of faith in the memory of an old man. I can’t say I recall a time when Walt went on tilt and didn’t finish out the night. Course if I did, I wouldn’t tell you that, either.”
The gravel scraped behind us and I turned to see Bob, Mike’s identical but more somber and pale double, pausing near the tailgate of the Suburban with the power trencher in tow. The body of it was bright yellow and it looked for all the world like a rototiller with a chainsaw attached to the front. I swallowed hard. If I was going to run my farm by myself, I was going to have to master intimidating equipment like that, I reminded myself.
“Pop the back,” Bob said gruffly. “I got my hands full here.”
I jogged over and opened the rear
doors, and he and Mike heaved the power tool inside with the affection of men who love their tools more than anything. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll take good care of it.”
“Welcome.” Bob gave a noncommittal nod.
After Bob and Mike had both disappeared back inside the cabin, Eli and I stood by our cars as the sun slipped behind a cloud.
“Got me some leads,” he said, thwacking his notebook before putting it back in his pocket and clicking his pen triumphantly.
“Got me some trenches to dig.” I mimicked his tone. “I guess here’s where we part ways. You going to write me that ticket?”
“Thanks for reminding me.” He clicked the pen and filled out the top sheet of his ticket booklet before ripping it off and handing it to me with a flourish.
I waited until he was out of sight down the driveway before I looked at the damage. He’d filled it out this time. I scanned past my name, address, offense—reckless speeding—to the ticket value.
It was his dang phone number again.
Motherclucker.
Chapter 23
I took the Briggs Road switchbacks more slowly on the way home; for some reason downhill always feels more dangerous, like when you have a crush on someone and instead of holding back, you just let yourself fall head over heels, dignity be damned. Well, I wasn’t about to give into that feeling, so I crept down the hill to the highway like a little old lady who’d forgotten her glasses.
When I finally pulled the Suburban into my driveway, I was so distracted by my daydreaming that I almost crashed into the red truck that was parked in my spot next to the house. Rusty Chapman hopped out, waving his hands apologetically and making a cranking motion. I rolled down the window a crack to hear what he had to say.
“Sorry! I should have pulled up further. Old habits die hard.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I eased my car around the tailgate of his truck and parked on the other side. Before I could even get the window up, he was at my door, opening it for me. I was immediately suspicious—chivalry was not a word in Rusty’s vocabulary. Anyway, I could open my own feather-fluffing door.
“What’re you doing here?” Maybe not my most gracious approach. I rephrased. “What brings you to the old farm?”
“Well, I was watching the team work.” Rusty nodded toward the van and the excavation site where half the forensics team was swarming, his red curls bobbing. “Looks like they’re making quite a mess. I was thinking you might need some help getting things cleared up.”
I followed his gaze to the future site of my dream coop. The enormous pile of dirt that the forensics team was sifting through for pieces of Joe loomed next to the hole where he’d been exhumed—a hole that had grown from person-size to roughly elephant-size. Equipment was everywhere, including the lights, cameras, sifters, makeshift workstations, and dozens of digging tools. If they were planning to finish their work and pack everything up by tomorrow, it was pretty clear they weren’t going to fill in the hole before they left.
But Rusty wasn’t here to watch the forensics team—he couldn’t have known that the team would finish tomorrow because I’d only known about it for an hour or two myself! And he wouldn’t have known that they’d leave a mess, either. He had some other motive for his visit—checking up on “his” farm, probably. I narrowed my eyes. “What’s the real reason? I know it wasn’t about Mount Dirtpile over there. You couldn’t have known about that until you got here.”
He sighed. “OK, you’re right. But Ruth told me—”
“Of course, Ruth. Wait, how did she know?”
“Ruth told me that Stef told her that you got your chicks in this morning and the hatchery gave you extras. She figured you might need a hand getting things set up for them, so I came over,” he explained patiently. “To help.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart. I don’t buy it.”
He grimaced. “OK. The truth. I’ve been working for Walt over at his place, but now that he’s gone...well. I could use a paycheck, if you’re hiring.”
Now that was the real story. Rusty sensed my vulnerability as a single woman running a farm for the first time and figured he could squeeze a few bucks out of the deal, pluck the fruit of my ignorance. If I didn’t have a gaping hole in my yard, I might even be mad about it. “Fine. They’re going to finish up tomorrow morning. Once the van is gone, you can level the dirt for me. But the timeclock doesn’t start until they leave!”
“OK.” He nodded absentmindedly, staring at something over my shoulder, and stepped around me to pluck an apple off the tree nearest to the house. He took a bite and spat the piece into the hydrangea bush by the porch, then handed me the bitten apple.
I was hungry, but not that hungry. I handed it back. “No thanks, I’m good.”
He grinned at me and proffered the apple again. “Don’t eat it; it’s still too sour anyway. But look”—he pointed to the missing chunk—“the seeds are browning, there’s hardly any green in the flesh near the peel. That’s how you know the apples are almost ready.”
I took the apple and turned it in my hand, studying it. I never would have noticed those things—or even thought to check. I looked up at Rusty and the acres of orchard that stretched out behind him. It was only a piece of paper that said I was their owner. The trees were fifty years old if they were a day and had been nurtured by generations of Chapmans. No wonder Rusty felt responsible for the place even though his family didn’t live here anymore. I’d forgotten that he wasn’t just a handyman here—he was an expert.
“After you fill in the hole, I’d appreciate your advice about the apples. Maybe I can hire you as an orchard consultant?”
He laughed, wrinkling his upturned nose. “Consultant sounds a little too fancy a word for someone who’s going to tell you to pick the apples when they’re ripe.”
“There’s more to it than that and you know it. I could muddle through with internet searches and library books, or you could come show me the way you’ve always done it. The right way. I don’t have a ton of money right now.” That was an understatement, I reflected. I hoped the harvest itself would pay his wages; the only lines I had in the budget until spring were groceries, property taxes, and chicken feed. “But I will scrounge up enough to pay you for your expertise.”
He ducked his head, looking pleased. “I’m no expert, but I’ll do what I can. First piece of advice is free. Don’t try to sell this year’s harvest.”
My mouth fell open. “What?!”
He met my eyes earnestly. “They’re too small and scabbed. You’ll waste a lot of time trying to find a buyer. I’d juice ’em if they were mine—”
“Well, they’re not!” I snapped, panic rising in my chest. “I have to sell them whole; I can’t afford to hire a pressing crew. Heck, I can’t hire you if I don’t sell the apples. And I can’t sell the apples if I don’t hire you. I’m kind of stuck here!”
He rubbed his forehead as though I’d given him a migraine. “Why are you ladies always so difficult? It’s like no matter what I say, you don’t believe—”
“Oh, here we go! Suddenly you’re not my employee, you’re my boss!” I put my hands on my hips and leaned in, whatever guilt I felt about purchasing the farm evaporating in an instant. “What ‘ladies’ are being difficult, Rusty? Your sister, who lets you live in her backyard for free? Me, the person who just offered you a job when you needed one? Grow up!” My voice rose in volume until I was nearly shouting. By the end of my outburst, I realized that even Blake and his forensics team had stopped their work to stare at me.
“I was just trying to say—” Rusty broke off as my purse began chiming—or more accurately, my phone inside my purse began chiming. I recognized the tone; it was my baby chick alarm.
“I have to go check on the birds,” I said. “Just. Please. Let’s not make this about ladies getting you down. You can shovel that manure elsewhere. I just need you to shovel dirt, OK?”
“OK,” Rusty mumbled, his cheeks flaming. He glanced up at t
he forensics crew, who seemed to remember they were in a rush to finish and resumed their activity, loading the last of the garbage bags into the back of the van. Then he asked meekly, “Do you really want me to use a shovel? That’s a lot of dirt. It’d be faster to use a trac—”
“Tractor’s broken. Shovel’s been taken in as evidence. Do you have your own you can bring?”
Rusty took a step back and swallowed. “Evidence of what?”
“Joe’s murder, obviously,” I said. “I found it when I was cleaning out the barn. It had what looked like dried blood on the handle. Eli thinks he was probably killed with it.”
Rusty seemed shaken by the news. “I thought we sold all the tools.”
“I’m sure you sold the good ones. This one was pretty decrepit and hidden in the back corner behind a bunch of junk. In any case, it’s gone now—so either you have tools you can bring or you’re digging with your hands.”
Rusty licked his lips and gave a nervous laugh. “Guess I better fix the tractor today, then. Is that in your budget, boss?”
I grinned at him over my shoulder, feeling slightly sheepish that I’d lost my temper earlier. “Well, a new tractor sure isn’t. You can give it a shot, but don’t spend too much time on a lost cause, if you know what I mean.”
He followed me inside the barn and located the dusty tractor, then began shoving aside boxes and tools so he could access all sides. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It won’t start. If I knew what was wrong with it, I would have fixed it. Don’t you know? Watch the car,” I added, nodding toward my tarped Porsche as I passed on the way to the brooder.
“I’ve got no idea.” He shook his head, surprising me. “We sold off the good tractor when Granddad passed. That’s the one I used the most. This one was kind of the backup tractor. It’s a good make, though—worth fixing. It’ll get you through a few years at least. First off, it needs fresh gas. You got any?”
“Mhm.” I motioned toward a gas can on the workbench as I checked the food and water in the brooder, only half-listening to Rusty ramble on about tractor models. The chicks had already managed to dirty the water, so I emptied it out and refilled it, adding a scoop of electrolytes to help rehydrate them after the stressful shipping process.