No Farm, No Foul (Farmer's Daughter Mystery)

by Peg Cochran

Bert dumped the pile of clean clothes on the table, and the scent of fabric softener wafted over toward Shelby. “Then she’ll know how it feels.”

  Shelby folded her arms across her chest. Bert was right—as usual. Shelby remembered saying the same thing to her mother the time her mother wouldn’t let her ride to school in a car with Bill, since he’d only gotten his license the day before. “Do you think I should go after her? See if she’s okay.”

  “She’s fine. Probably having a good cry. She’ll get over it.”

  “Jodi Walker seems to think the attraction is all on Amelia’s side.” Shelby got up, took a pan from the cupboard, and filled it with water. “She practically made it sound as if Amelia was out to seduce her precious son.” She turned the burner on under the pan and retrieved a box of tea bags from the cabinet.

  Bert snorted. “I’m sure the young man is perfectly safe, if not perfectly innocent.”

  Shelby turned around and leaned against the counter. “Prudence accused Ned of TPing the rectory. Jodi insisted it wasn’t true.”

  “She’d hardly admit it in any case, would she?” Bert plucked her purse from the hook by the back door.

  “So maybe Prudence wasn’t lying about that.” Shelby drummed her fingers on the table. “But even so, it would have made Jodi furious when Prudence reported it to the school and Ned was suspended from the soccer team.”

  “Mad enough to kill?” Bert paused in the doorway, her purse swinging from the crook of her arm.

  Shelby shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Bert left and Shelby rummaged around in the refrigerator. Suddenly she was starving. Bert had given Billy the last of the hot dogs and had opened a can of beans. Shelby found the remainder of the beans, got a fork from the drawer, and began forking them up. Dear Reader, what would you think of me if you could see me now? I blog about homemade foods, vegetables fresh from the garden, and pies made with organic fruit, and here I am, eating beans out of a can. Please don’t judge me.

  Shelby felt a momentary pang of guilt. She really should see if Amelia wanted anything to eat. Maybe she’d already eaten at Ned’s? At any rate, if Amelia was capable of sneaking around with a boy, she was more than old enough to make herself a sandwich.

  Shelby finished the beans, rinsed out the tin, and tossed it in the recycling bin.

  Bitsy and Jenkins came to the back door barking furiously, their black noses poking at the worn screen, which Shelby had painstakingly mended time and time again.

  “What is it?” she asked as she opened the door to let them in.

  By now Shelby spoke their language. She could recognize their barks for I’m hungry, I need to go out—stat, let’s play, and someone’s at the door. This was their someone’s at the door bark.

  As if on cue, Shelby heard someone rap on the wooden frame of the screen door at the front of the house. It was in marginally better repair than the one at the back, since they didn’t use it nearly as much.

  “Matt!” Shelby said when she saw his figure through the screen. She threw open the door while simultaneously sticking out a leg in an attempt to keep the dogs from knocking Matt to the ground.

  “Don’t worry. I love dogs,” he said as Bitsy jumped up and put her paws on his shoulders.

  “Sorry to barge in on you like this, but I had some time this afternoon and wondered if you’d like to get started on painting the mudroom.” He gestured toward the door. “I’ve got some old clothes and my painting stuff in the car.”

  “Oh,” Shelby said, feeling weariness wash over her.

  Before she could say anything further, Matt put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re tired. I can see it on your face. We can do it another time.”

  Shelby couldn’t help smiling. How perceptive Matt was.

  “Won’t you come in, though? I’m making some iced tea.”

  Matt wiped a hand across the back of his neck. “Sounds great. It’s another scorcher today.”

  Shelby led him out to the kitchen. She looked around the room quickly—too bad she’d told Bert to leave the clean laundry on the table, but at least there was nothing too embarrassing in the pile.

  Matt didn’t seem to notice as he took a seat and stretched out his legs.

  Shelby poured the brewed tea over ice in two tall glasses and brought them to the table.

  “This looks great.” Matt took a big gulp before setting his glass back down on the table. “Lovett is still buzzing over Prudence’s murder. Almost every customer who comes in the store has something to say about it.”

  “What are they saying?” Shelby eased her shoes off under the table. Her feet were probably dirty, but somehow she didn’t think Matt would care.

  “Everyone has their own opinion—Daniel did it because he was tired of being henpecked, someone at church was responsible because Prudence had made their life miserable, it was a neighbor who Prudence had offended, and so on and so forth.” He sighed.

  “Hopefully the police will solve the case soon, and this will all be over.”

  “I hope so.” Matt ran his finger down the condensation on his glass, leaving a watery trail. “It might have been someone who wasn’t at the potluck initially.”

  “What do you mean?” Shelby stopped with her glass halfway to her mouth.

  Matt let out a puff of air. “I remember hearing Prudence on her cell phone. I don’t know who she was talking to, but it was a woman. I could hear the voice of the party on the other end quite clearly, even though I couldn’t distinguish the words. And she was furious about something—whether it was at Prudence or not, I’m afraid I can’t say.”

  “That’s interesting.”

  Shelby had a flashback to the potluck. She remembered Prudence pulling her cell phone from her pocket and walking off. There was something else, but at the moment it escaped her, which was unfortunate, because she had the feeling it was important.

  There were stomping noises overhead and both Shelby and Matt looked up. Amelia, Shelby thought, voicing her displeasure. She made a concerted effort to ignore the noise.

  Matt finished his iced tea. “Guess I’d better get going.” He stood up.

  “I’ll be up for painting soon, I promise. It’s been a rough couple of days—dealing with Prudence’s death, some mildew on my lettuce”—Shelby pointed toward the ceiling—“and my daughter.”

  “No problem. Let me know when you’re ready.” Matt lingered for a moment at the front door, before putting a hand on Shelby’s arm. “Be careful, okay?”

  Shelby watched as Matt got into his car and backed down the driveway.

  Shelby spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden weeding. The feel of the earth between her fingers usually soothed her, but today she was having trouble relaxing and letting go of the stress of the day. She kept glancing back toward the house to see if Amelia might have appeared. How long would she hold a grudge? Shelby feared this would not be over any time soon.

  As she pulled weeds, she began to doubt herself. Had she done the right thing in bringing Amelia home from Ned’s house? Was there really anything wrong in the two being together—especially if Jodi was right, and Ned was more interested in friendship than a romance?

  She was still thinking about it when Bitsy and Jenkins came zooming past her, headed for the front of the house. As usual, Jenkins was in the lead despite his shorter legs. If there was mischief to be had, Jenkins was the one who would find it and bring Bitsy along for the ride.

  Shelby got up from where she’d been kneeling in the dirt. Her knees gave a bit of a creak and she wondered, was she getting old and rickety already? She hoped not—she still had many years to go before Billy and Amelia were ready to be released into the world on their own. She had this vision of a mother bird pushing its babies out of the nest and wondered how the bird managed to get up the courage. She’d keep her children wrapped in cotton wool until t
hey were thirty if that was possible.

  Jenkins and Bitsy kept up their barking. It was definitely their someone’s here barking. Shelby wiped her hands on her cutoffs as she made her way around to the front of the house. She was surprised to see Frank’s pickup truck in the driveway. He must have washed it, because the splatters of mud and dried dirt were gone and while it didn’t quite shine, the paint having dulled with age, it was looking a lot more shipshape than previously.

  Frank was headed toward the front steps when Shelby called to him. He spun around and a crooked smile lit up his face. Once again, Shelby was struck by how much he looked like Bill, and for a brief second her instinct was to run to him.

  Frank walked over to where Shelby was standing. He took his hands out of his pockets and pushed his cap back on his forehead.

  He jerked a thumb toward the road. “I was passing and thought I’d look in and make sure you were okay.”

  His face flushed, as if he was embarrassed, and Shelby was momentarily taken aback.

  He grinned. “I guess you’re just fine.”

  Shelby wanted to wail that she wasn’t fine—not at all. She didn’t know what to do with Amelia, finding that butternut squash hanging on her porch still gave her the shivers, and she was bone tired from trying to make a go of things all by herself. But she didn’t. She invited Frank in for a cold drink instead.

  He didn’t hesitate but followed Shelby around to the back of the house.

  “Has there been any progress on . . . the case?” Shelby asked as they walked through the mudroom.

  Frank let out a gusty sigh and scratched the back of his neck. “Not much, no. There were so many people around and the scene was heavily trampled before we got here.”

  Shelby retrieved the pitcher of iced tea she’d put in the refrigerator after Matt left and poured them each a glass.

  They sat across the table from each other in silence for several minutes. Shelby had the sense there was something she needed to ask Frank—something to do with the case—but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Was it related to what Matt had told her? She thought back to their conversation and within seconds the answer came to her. She jerked abruptly and nearly knocked over her glass. Frank looked at her quizzically. She would have to word this carefully so as not to alert him to the fact that she was snooping.

  “Do you happen to know if a cell phone was found on Prudence’s body after she was . . . killed?”

  Frank looked momentarily surprised by the question. He frowned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he said finally. “We did. We traced the calls, but none of the people she phoned that day were at the potluck.”

  “Do you still have the phone?”

  Frank shook his head. “There was no need to keep it and Reverend Mather needed it—he didn’t have one of his own—he and Prudence shared it. Along with a landline, of course. I guess clergymen aren’t paid any better than civil servants.” He tilted his chair back. “Why?”

  Shelby played with a loose thread on the hem of her T-shirt, winding it around and around her finger. “No reason. Just wondering.”

  Frank didn’t look convinced, and Shelby was relieved when he didn’t ask any further questions.

  “How’s Nancy?” Shelby said to change the subject.

  Frank frowned. “Don’t know. She’s gone to visit her mother in Ohio.” He fiddled with a bright blue LEGO piece Billy had left on the table.

  Shelby looked him in the eye. “Are you two having trouble?”

  Frank’s shoulders slumped. He wiped a hand over his face. Shelby could hear the scratchy sound as he ran his palm over his two-day growth of beard. She remembered the feeling of Bill’s cheek against hers when he’d gone a day or two without a shave and had to close her eyes for a moment at the stab of unexpected pain.

  When she opened them, Frank was looking down at the table, seemingly intent on Billy’s LEGO piece. “She wants a trial separation,” he mumbled.

  Shelby couldn’t believe it. Bill had been best man in their wedding and Amelia the flower girl. It seemed like yesterday.

  Frank turned the LEGO piece over and over without looking at Shelby. “I guess she knew I’d always really been in love with someone else.”

  Shelby sat in stunned silence while Frank drained his iced tea and pushed back his chair. It made a screech as it scraped across the linoleum floor.

  “I think I’d better be going.”

  Shelby let him out the front door, closed it, and leaned against it. Frank couldn’t be . . . it wasn’t possible, Shelby thought, her mind whirling. Had she led him on in any way? His resemblance to Bill nearly always caught her unawares—maybe he’d picked up on a signal she hadn’t meant to send.

  Shelby looked into the living room at her sagging couch. She had to fight the urge to fling herself down on it, kick her feet, and howl.

  22

  Dear Reader,

  When you live, work, and depend on a farm for your livelihood, you also become dependent on Mother Nature. She can be fickle at times—giving you endless days of sunny weather when the ground is already dry and cracking from lack of water. Or rain for days on end, when your crops nearly drown from the abundance of water, and mold and mildew become problems. Any early or late frost can kill delicate seedlings or bring the growing season to an abrupt end.

  Shelby took a basket from the kitchen cupboard and went out to the garden. Clouds were rolling in and it looked as if it would rain—although whether it would be a mere shower or a real storm, she couldn’t tell. The one predictable thing about the weather so close to the lake was that it was unpredictable.

  She made her way along a row of bell pepper plants. There were still a lot of green ones, but a good many of them had already ripened to a brilliant red. Shelby picked several and placed them in her basket. The herb garden was next. She scanned the row of basil plants—the one on the end looked near to flowering, which meant she needed to cut it back right away. She snipped off the top, savoring the sweet and spicy scent, and added the sprigs to her basket.

  Jake had brought her a container of cream that morning, and she planned on baking the peppers in some of the cream and then sprinkling them with strips of basil. Dear Reader, don’t worry—I’ll be sharing the recipe on my blog . . . soon.

  Shelby’s cell phone dinged with a message as she was setting her basket down on the table. She pulled it from her pocket and glanced at the screen. The message made no sense—at least to her. She glanced at the number but didn’t recognize it. Someone had misdialed. Did you call it misdialing when you were sending a text? Shelby wondered. If not, then what?

  Thinking about phones brought Prudence’s cell phone to mind. Matt had said it sounded as if the person on the other end was angry. At Prudence? At something Prudence said? Shelby closed her eyes for a moment, thinking back to the potluck. She remembered Prudence pulling her cell phone from her pocket, but there was something else—something that had seemed odd at the time.

  She was slicing the peppers for dinner when she remembered the rest of that scene. Shelby and Prudence had been talking when they were approached by Grace Swanson. Grace was with her new husband, Alan, and had started to introduce him. Shelby had said hello, but Prudence had murmured her apologies before taking off, pulling her cell phone from the pocket of her capris as she walked. Even at the time, Shelby had found it odd—Prudence was normally almost excessively polite, especially with members of St. Andrews.

  Shelby sharpened her knife, light flashing off the blade as she swooshed it up and down the long metal sharpener. She began to cut the basil into thin ribbons, or what was known as a chiffonade. She would sprinkle these on top of the peppers.

  Half her mind was on her cooking, but half was still focused on the murder. She wondered who it was Prudence had called right before she was murdered. Wallace? But Matt had said the voice was female, so that w
asn’t possible. If only she could find out. It might be completely irrelevant, but then it might hold the key to the solution.

  Shelby arranged the peppers in the baking dish—she’d already peeled off their skins by blistering them over an open flame and then encasing the peppers in a plastic bag for ten minutes. When she removed the peppers, the skins slipped right off.

  Shelby placed the last pepper in the casserole dish, poured the heavy cream over the top, and sprinkled it all with the strips of basil. She was opening the oven door when she stopped abruptly. Frank had told her that Prudence’s cell phone had been returned to Daniel. Would it be possible to find out from the record on the phone who it was that Prudence had dialed the afternoon of the potluck?

  Shelby felt stirrings of excitement. She had a strong feeling she was on her way to solving the case. She put the peppers in the oven and checked the temperature.

  What excuse could she use for dropping in on Daniel? And what story could she tell him about wanting to see Prudence’s phone? She could tell him the truth, of course. It might backfire, but she would have to take her chances.

  Shelby paced back and forth in front of her stove. She could take Daniel some food—although his freezer was already stuffed with enough casseroles to last for several months. Flowers? He probably already had enough of those after the funeral.

  She would have to show up on his doorstep and bluntly tell him what she was after. She was certain Daniel was as anxious as anyone else to find the murderer.

  Shelby rushed through dinner—hardly saying anything when Billy did little more than dash his hands under running water before sitting down. Amelia, unsurprisingly, continued to give Shelby the cold shoulder, but she barely noticed—which she suspected was frustrating Amelia to no end.

  She even let them have ice cream for dessert with no arguments. Billy gave a huge whoop and immediately grabbed the container from the freezer as if he was afraid Shelby would change her mind. Amelia gave her a strange look but other than that did not respond—although she did help herself to two scoops.