Picked to Die (An Orchard Mystery)

by Sheila Connolly

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Good night, then. See you in the morning.” Bree shut the door, leaving Meg standing on the top stair.

  Not exactly what she would have called a warm response. Was that lack of enthusiasm coming from Bree or from the pickers? Meg had no idea, but she was going to have that dinner and see what came from it. If it turned out to be a mistake, she wouldn’t have to repeat it, but at least she’d know she’d tried.

  5

  “I can’t believe this all came together so fast, Seth,” Meg said the next morning, watching as heavy trucks rumbled up the church driveway and parked around the Historical Society building. “Yesterday you were just talking about it, and today it’s happening. Did you have to grease any palms? Twist any arms?”

  Seth laughed. “No, not really. I mean, in this business we all do favors for each other, but nothing illegal, immoral, or unethical. Mostly little stuff, like expediting paperwork. This is a relatively small project, so the contractors with a little spare time could fit it in easily. Besides, we all thought that having started the work would make it more interesting to people at the Harvest Festival.”

  “Oh, shoot, is that coming up again?” Meg said. The Granford Harvest Festival and Tag Sale was an annual event that took place on the green. It was an endearing hodgepodge of local vendors, like the family who made their own maple syrup on the north end of town—and tapped the trees around the green as well—and people who had decided to clear out their attics and thought they could sell their “treasures” for a couple of bucks. In general a good time was had by all, as neighbors stopped to chat with each other and buy each other’s junk. Since the Historical Society was just the other side of the green, they usually attracted a fair number of people who otherwise never set foot in the building. This year they would certainly have an interesting story!

  “You sound so excited,” Seth said, with a note of sarcasm. “Yes, it’s next weekend—the one after this one, in the middle of the month. You really didn’t remember?”

  “Nope. I’ve been kind of focused on my apples, in case you haven’t noticed, and I guess I was relying on you to remind me. Which you just did. Or maybe I’m blocking it out—last year my mother was here for it, if you recall.” And things had gone downhill rapidly from there, as she remembered it. No wonder she had tried to forget, though luckily things had all worked out in the end. Was it already a year ago that she had brought her mother along to the event? She made a note to talk to her mother again soon—she’d been remarkably restrained about hounding Meg for a wedding date. “So why do you think that if people see the big hole in the ground, they’ll be more interested in the Historical Society?”

  “Well, the kids, or at least the little boys, will probably think the big trucks are cool—we might have to bring those back just for the event, which would be good advertising for them. And if this works well, it might get some people thinking about adding a basement or expanding what they’ve got. Anyway, if all goes according to plan, the excavation should be done, and the foundation poured by then. Which reminds me, if we have an open construction site in the middle of the Harvest Festival, then I’d better talk to Art Preston about making sure it’s safe. Speak of the devil—hi, Art.”

  “Hey, Seth. Hi, Meg. Long time no see,” said Art Preston, Granford’s chief of police, as he wandered over in their direction. “Did I hear you talking about me?”

  “We were. I was just telling Meg that you’ll need to staff up if we’re going to have a big construction site open right here on the green during Harvest Festival.”

  “Way ahead of you, pal—it’s all set. It’s not like I haven’t been doing this for a while.”

  “But you never had to deal with an open pit and heavy machinery before, did you?” Seth countered. Meg watched in amusement: the two had been friends for years, and it showed.

  “Can’t say that we have, but I’m sure we’ll be able to handle it.”

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Seth asked.

  Art grinned. “I heard you had some big trucks coming over to suck all the dirt out from under that building there. How could I stay away?”

  “This is really just the first pass—you know, to get a sense of what kind of soil is down there. And of course the crew will have to stabilize the building each step of the way. We’d look like idiots if the thing fell down while we were working on it. And, yes, the excavation contractors know all about proper fencing and safeguards. I made sure everybody had the right permits.”

  “I’m just here to keep an eye on ’em.”

  Gail came up behind them, again accompanied by Jeffrey, and greeted everyone. “I know not much is happening today, but I wanted to be here for the start. This is so exciting!”

  “What are you doing here, young man?” Art said with mock severity. “Isn’t this a school day?”

  Jeffrey responded quickly. “It is, sir, but my mom gave me a note so I could watch, too. It’s for a Boy Scout badge project, and Mrs. Selden here knows about it. I’ll be going back over to the school once things get rolling.”

  “I’m just kidding you, son,” Art said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to watch.”

  “Just like you, eh, Art?” Meg said sweetly.

  Gail said impatiently, “Tell me again what’s going to happen, Seth?”

  “These fine gentlemen—sorry, but they don’t happen to have any female employees handling the equipment—will be using an air vacuum excavation system. Essentially they shoot air to break up the soil so it can be sucked up easily. Then they truck the soil away and use it for landfill, if it’s clean enough. What you see there”—Seth pointed—“is the unit. It has a diesel-driven compressor on one end, and they attach the vacuum hose at the other. The dirt goes into a holding tank, and then gets transferred through the hatch on the bottom. They might be done by the end of the day today, or tomorrow at the latest, depending on what they find. The rest of the guys hanging out over there drinking coffee are waiting to insert the bracers and jacks, so this will go in fits and starts. Then they’ll start building the forms for the foundation, starting with extra-deep pads for any support columns. That’ll be done by hand.”

  “Do you think you’ll find any artifacts?” Jeffrey spoke up.

  “A very appropriate question,” Seth answered him. “Actually they’ve got it rigged up so that the soil that’s removed gets dumped onto a screen up at the dump truck over there. That may be where you want to station yourself, so you can watch for anything interesting that may come through. Then the screen is cleared off into the truck and the process starts again.”

  “Is that a safe spot for him?” Art said, tilting his head toward Jeffrey.

  “Sure. Eye and ear protection are required, but this isn’t a very large vacuum excavator, so the pressure isn’t too high. They come a lot bigger, but this is plenty for our needs here. Although, sorry, Jeffrey—you might get kind of dirty. I should have thought to warn you.”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “Bet it’d be a real thrill for the kids at school to see me come in looking grubby. They usually call me ‘Mr. Clean.’ Or sometimes ‘Teflon Jeff.’”

  “Can we get started?” Gail asked, bouncing with anticipation.

  “Let me check in with the crew,” Seth said. He walked toward a knot of people and started talking with someone who appeared to be the crew chief.

  “What’re you doing for the Harvest Festival, Meg?” Gail made small talk, but her eyes never left the construction workers.

  “I’m supposed to do something?” Meg responded, dismayed. She had planned on merely attending—besides, this year she’d be with Seth. Since he knew everybody in town, and they all knew him, no doubt everyone would offer congratulations on their engagement, and probably want to know when the event was going to happen. The two of them really had to come up with a plan sometime soon, but they both led such busy lives, at l
east at the moment. Not the best time to try to fit in a wedding. It made sense to wait until winter, maybe even early spring, when both their schedules would slow down. Seth’s mother, Lydia, understood, thank goodness, but Meg wasn’t as sure about her own mother.

  “You don’t have to, of course. It’s not like you have a business to promote or anything,” Gail said, the twinkle in her eye giving away that she was teasing.

  “Well, it’s not like I usually sell directly to the public,” Meg retorted. “But I guess it might be nice to put in an appearance. Maybe I should put up a table with different apple varieties, and raffle off a basket or two.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Gail said.

  “Will the Historical Society have a table?”

  “Of course. I want to show off our hole in the ground and collect contributions.”

  Seth returned. “Looks like we’re good to go.”

  Gail held up a small camera. “Mind if I take some pictures? This is part of our institutional history, and I’m sure the board will want a record.”

  “Go right ahead,” Seth said to Gail, then pointed Jeffrey to a man standing next to the dump truck a few yards away. “Ask him where you should stand. He’s expecting you,” Seth told the teen. “And he’ll give you a pair of goggles and ear protection and some gloves, because there’ll be pebbles and stuff bouncing around—make sure you wear them. You two can work out some kind of hand signal to use if you see something worth taking a look at and he can tell the guys to stop.”

  “How hard can I look?” Jeffrey asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, how big does it have to be for them to stop? Like, if I see a bowl land in the tray, that’s pretty easy. But what if I see a one-inch shard of something?”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Gail said. “Remember, there may not turn out to be anything to see. As far as we know, this was the first building on this site, so there may not be many artifacts beneath it.”

  “Or there could be a ton of Native American artifacts,” Jeffrey replied cheerfully as he headed off for the dump truck.

  Once the machine with the compressor started up, the noise made conversation challenging. “They’re going to start at this end, in the front,” Seth yelled, “and those guys over there are going to go in and check for progress every couple of feet, at least until things get rolling. And then they’ll start shoring up the building.”

  “Right,” Meg shouted back. She glanced over at Jeffrey, who waved at her. He looked excited.

  One man took hold of what Meg assumed was the vacuum rod and advanced on the building. It looked heavy but not difficult to direct. Seth had told her that a water-driven system was another option, using something much like a large fire hose, but she couldn’t imagine wrestling a torrent of water. Air seemed a lot less messy.

  The sparse shrubbery had been cleared away from the old stone foundation, and some men had dug some preliminary holes, carefully removing the large granite foundation stones, which now lay a few feet behind the building. They didn’t extend very deep, Meg noted, wondering—not for the first time—how this and buildings like it had managed to survive for so long, especially in an area where the ground froze and thawed regularly. The worker stuck the end of the hose rod into the dirt, and the sound changed. Meg thought it sounded like someone was shaking a very large jar of marbles, as dirt and pebbles and who knew what else were sucked up and transported to the waiting truck. At that end the truck driver worked to control the exit hose, directing it toward a large flat tray, which Jeffrey leaned over, oblivious to the flying pebbles hitting his protective eyewear, and sorted through with a gloved hand. He didn’t find anything, so he and the other guy dumped the contents of the tray into the growing pile of excavated debris.

  Every so often, the workers would stop the hose and climb into the expanding hole under the building, and then they’d call over some of the other workers, and they’d all point and poke and confer. Art was still hanging around, no doubt claiming official oversight privileges, and now and then he’d ask Seth a question. The process went on for a while, and Meg began checking her watch. Luckily, today was a light picking day, since she and her crew were waiting for the next batch of apples to ripen, so there was a little breathing room. Not that there weren’t still plenty of things Bree would find for her to be doing back home. And, of course, now there was the pickers’ dinner to prepare for that evening.

  “Is this waiting around normal?” Meg asked Seth, during one of the lulls a while later.

  “More or less. But I’d rather they were careful than fast. You really don’t know what kind of shape a building is in until you get into it, or in this case, under it. You bored?”

  “Not exactly, but I’ve been here over an hour and the hole hasn’t grown a whole lot. I may have seen enough for today. Jeffrey’s still hanging in there. You think he’s really interested, or he’s just enjoying time away from school?”

  “At his age, it’s hard to say. He seems like a good kid, but I’d have to call him kind of a nerd. Although I collected arrowheads and various odds and ends at his age, so who am I to judge? They’re probably still in a box in my attic.” Meg realized she had no idea what average young people were interested in these days. She hadn’t spent much time around teenagers since she was one. Seth’s sister Rachel’s kids were still under high school age, and they had provided most of her recent experience. She remembered her own high school days, particularly senior year, as a messy mixture of anxiety and boredom. She doubted that a lot of younger people cared much about history, even if they lived in colonial homes like hers. They probably just complained that the ceilings were too low and that it was impossible to air-condition them, much less add the wiring necessary for all their electronic devices.

  The hose resumed its racket again, cutting off conversation. Meg was looking away from the site, admiring the view of the green, its stately maples just beginning to turn color, when she heard shouting. She looked first at Jeffrey, who was gesturing wildly and yelling, “Stop,” which she could hear even over the noise of the machinery. Someone cut it off, and then Jeffrey beckoned to anyone and everyone to come over to the truck.

  When they were only a few feet away, he said, “Is this what I think it is?” He pointed to the tray.

  Seth was the first to clamber up into the bed of the truck. He looked down at the tray then shook his head. Then he called over to Art Preston. “Art, I think we have a problem.”

  “Oh no! What is it?” Gail burst out, climbing up toward the truck bed. Seth stopped her with a hand, and kept her still until Art had joined him next to the tray.

  “Crap,” Art said. “I should have known trouble would follow you two. Why are things never simple when you’re around?”

  “What is it?” Meg called out.

  Gail approached tentatively. “Oh, dear. That looks like part of a skull.”

  “It is,” Art said grimly. “Which means it’s time to call in the state police. Sorry, Gail, but for the moment I have to declare this a crime scene.”

  6

  Work came to a standstill as the news of the gruesome discovery spread among the workers and spectators around the Historical Society building. Luckily, having the chief of police on-scene meant that Art Preston had known immediately what to do. He must have the state police on speed dial, Meg reflected. Even to Meg’s inexperienced eye, though, the chunks of skull looked like they had probably been in the ground for a very long time. She wasn’t surprised when Jeffrey asked the same question of Art, who took the time to explain to him that, “Even though it’s pretty likely that this body has been under the building for at least a hundred years, in Massachusetts any unexplained death must be investigated, by law.”

  “That’s interesting,” was all Jeffrey said.

  When Art went off to make the call, Meg walked over to join Gail and Seth next
to the truck, staring at the bone fragments. Jeffrey was still standing on the bed of the truck, looking stunned by his find. “Are you okay?” Meg asked him quietly, concerned that he might feel a bit traumatized.

  But when he turned his attention to her, he looked more excited than upset. “Yeah, sure! Wow, I never expected anything like this! One minute I’m looking at dirt, the next minute I’m looking at, well, something that used to be . . . someone. Really weird.”

  Apparently teenagers are very resilient, Meg thought. “Do you need to call your folks?” she asked.

  “Why would I do that?” He looked perplexed by her question.

  “So they can pick you up?”

  “Why would they need to do that? Anyway, I’ve got my own car,” Jeffrey said. “So what happens next? Do you know?”

  “As Art just said, in Massachusetts, any time a body is found—and I’m guessing we’ll find the rest of the skeleton under there—if the cause of death can’t be determined, the site has to be treated as a crime scene until it can be proven otherwise. Now, with a body this old, they may want a forensic anthropologist to look at it, along with the medical examiner. And then somebody is going to have to excavate the rest of the area very carefully to see if there’s any evidence left after all these years.”

  Gail and Seth had drifted closer to the edge of the partially dug hole, deep in conversation, but now Gail came back toward Meg and Jeffrey. “Gail, how’re you doing?” Meg asked.

  Gail shook her head, clearly frustrated. “I’m trying to figure out how on earth I explain this to the society board. Uh, construction was delayed by the discovery of a skeleton? At least it’s an old one, right?”

  “I’m not the person to ask,” Meg said. “Have you worked with any archaeologist types at the university or somewhere else?”

  Gail shut her eyes for a moment, as if to collect her wandering thoughts, then straightened her back. “I can probably pull up a few names. But won’t the state police do that?”