Poisoned Ground

by Sandra Parshall

“No, not a thing,” Winter said.

  “Have you seen any strangers in the area?”

  The women’s eyes darted from their hands to the wall beyond Tom’s head, and sideways at the yard framed in the window. Then, at the same instant, they all focused on Tom and shook their heads no.

  Their synchronized movements struck him as creepy. He was beginning to see why kids concocted weird stories about them.

  “But that’s not necessarily meaningful,” Spring said. “If someone approached the Kelly farm from the opposite direction, he wouldn’t have passed our place, and we wouldn’t have seen him.”

  Tom glanced at the window. He could see the roof of Hollinger’s house in the distance. Beyond that lay the Kelly farm. “With the leaves down, can you see Lincoln and Marie’s house from your second floor windows?”

  Winter’s eyebrows went up. “We don’t spend our time spying on the neighbors.”

  “Like hell you don’t. Come on, spill it. “What’s been going on over there lately?”

  “Well…” Winter patted the knot of white hair at the back of her head and pushed a stray strand into place. “I did happen to glance that way this morning. Not at the Kelly house, but at the fence between the properties. Lincoln and Jacob Hollinger were standing there, and they were gesticulating vigorously. I could only assume they were yelling at each other over that blessed fence. I noticed that Lincoln had knocked it down again.”

  Brandon sat forward in his chair, and Tom told him with a nod to jump in.

  “What time was that?” Brandon asked.

  “Oh, it was early. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock.”

  Summer sighed. “Our father should never have sold either of them a square inch of his land all those years ago. If he’d known it would come to this…” Her voice trailed off.

  “And things have been considerably worse between those two since the Packard company started waving money around,” Spring said. “Figuratively speaking. I guess they’re waving contracts around, with promises of big money.”

  “Did any of you see which of them ended the argument today?” Tom asked. “Which man walked away first?”

  They all appeared reluctant, but after a hesitation Winter answered, “Jake did. In fact, Lincoln appeared to continue shouting at him as he walked off, but Jake wasn’t drawn back into the argument.”

  Tom wasn’t impressed. If the sisters were telling the truth, Hollinger had lied about being at his lumber mill all morning. He might have returned home after the argument, stewed over it for a while, then grabbed a gun and gone back to finish his fight with Lincoln once and for all. “Has Hollinger been pressuring the Kellys to sell their farm to Packard?”

  For a second none of the women spoke. Winter slid a sidelong glance at her sisters before she answered. “Apparently so. We only know what Marie told us. It was upsetting Lincoln terribly, she said. In his mental state—you must know he suffered from Alzheimer’s—he simply couldn’t cope with the thought of leaving his home.”

  “How do you feel about your neighbors selling land that used to belong to your family? The Kelly farm, Hollinger’s place, the Richardson land, that all used to belong to your parents, right? Are you planning to sell your own place to Packard?”

  All three took on identical expressions of distress—furrowed brows, faces screwed up as if they were in pain.

  “That’s such a contentious issue,” Spring said. “I wish it had never come up. Who could ever have imagined that a huge development company would want to put a luxury resort here? In Mason County, of all places.”

  “We’re not even handy to the interstate,” Summer added.

  Winter’s lips twisted in a cold smile. “That’s the point, I suppose. It would be a retreat from the rest of the world. But with all the conveniences of that world, of course. For wealthy people who can’t imagine living a day without their e-mail and smartphones and cable television.”

  “They want to put the lodge where Joanna McKendrick’s house is,” Tom said.

  “Oh, we know,” Spring said. “Isn’t it awful? Poor Joanna is just beside herself, and who can blame her? Especially with Robert McClure badgering her. He can be such a vile man sometimes.”

  The other women murmured agreement.

  “I guess you’re not considering selling, then,” Tom said.

  “Well…” Winter glanced at her sisters.

  “You are selling?” Tom had expected the Joneses to be Joanna’s allies in blocking the project.

  “Now slow down, Thomas,” Winter said. “We are uncommitted at this point. This is our home, we’ve lived here all our lives, and we’re naturally reluctant to leave it. On the other hand, we have been offered a princely sum for the land, and frankly, that money would make us quite comfortable in our declining years, especially when we develop the inevitable health problems. So, we are not committed one way or the other, but we are considering the offer—keeping in mind the changes the development would bring to the county.”

  “Changes for the worse,” Summer said, a hard note in her soft voice. “This is the countryside. Bringing in a lot of outsiders would destroy its essential character.”

  Winter snapped, “Its essential character is that of a depressed place where unemployment is twice the national average.”

  “Some of us see the beauty of the hills,” Summer said.

  “Yes, and those beautiful hills tower over people so poor they’re hardly surviving.”

  Summer emitted a barely audible sigh, and her lips formed a humorless smile. “Of course my sister is correct, as always.”

  Winter acknowledged her sister’s acquiescence with a little nod and her own tight smile, then fixed her gaze on Tom. “A man I taught when he was a teenager came to me not long ago and asked if I knew how he could go about selling an organ. At first I thought he was talking about a musical instrument. But no. He’d heard that people could get by with one kidney and that only a fraction of the liver has to be transplanted. He believed he could make enough money by selling his internal organs to keep his family fed and housed for a year.”

  Tom didn’t doubt this account. He’d heard worse. “What did you tell him?”

  “The truth, of course. I told him that organ donation programs won’t pay for body parts. They have to be donated. I didn’t mention the black market. I didn’t want to see him go on a quest for a broker. In any case, you know as well as I do that Mason County is in dire need of jobs and an overall economic boost.”

  “So you’re in favor of selling your land.” Tom gestured at Winter, then at Summer. “And you’re not.”

  “I didn’t say I wanted to sell,” Winter said. “I haven’t made up my mind. In any case, the three of us will make a joint decision, because we own the land equally. We may have our differences from time to time, but we stand together.”

  “Tom,” Spring said, “I’m sure you’ve considered that Lincoln and Marie might have been killed because they wouldn’t sell their land. That would be a very strong motive, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would. But it’s also possible somebody had a personal motive to kill them. Aside from Jake Hollinger, do you know anybody who was holding a grudge or had a major problem with the Kellys?”

  Summer spoke up, her voice tentative. “What about… Have you been in their house yet? Throughout it, I mean. Have you—”

  “My sister,” Winter broke in, “is trying to ask if you’ve found the marijuana yet.”

  Now it was Tom and Brandon’s turn to exchange a glance. Maybe, Tom thought, Dennis was right about the police being the only people in the county who didn’t know about the pot. “Yes, we’ve found the marijuana. Was it common knowledge that they were growing it?”

  “Oh, not common knowledge,” Spring said. “Semi-common, perhaps.”

  “All right.” Tom’s impatience was getting the better of him, turn
ing his voice brusque. “You brought it up, so what about it? You think the murders are drug-related? Do you know who they sold the stuff to?”

  “Oh, my goodness.” Spring gave a little laugh and fluttered a hand. “How would we know anything about drug-dealing?”

  “You need to tell me everything you know, and tell me now.”

  Another silent three-way consultation followed. After a moment, Winter cleared her throat and spoke. “They grew it for medicinal purposes only. Lincoln used to drive it out of the county to sell it. I don’t know where. But his health was deteriorating, his memory and coordination were impaired, and he stopped driving months ago. Since then, we’ve seen an unusual number of vehicles coming and going over there. When we happen to be driving past.”

  Or looking out your upstairs windows, Tom thought. “You just said you haven’t seen any strange people or cars over there.”

  “You wanted to know if we’ve seen them in the last few days,” Spring pointed out, as if correcting a student’s misstatement. “And we haven’t. Not this week.”

  Tom felt like growling at them. “Describe the vehicles you’ve seen.”

  In a perfectly synchronized movement, the three women all shrugged. “I’m afraid we can’t tell the difference between one vehicle and another,” Winter said.

  “I do remember a black one,” Summer offered. “And perhaps a blue one? I can’t really be sure. I believe they had Virginia license plates. The plates were white, in any case.”

  “Can you describe any strangers you saw over there? The drivers of the vehicles?”

  “They were all men,” Winter said, her tone decisive.

  The other sisters nodded.

  “As to their ages or appearance,” Winter went on, “I’m afraid we can’t be of any help. We saw them from a distance, after all.”

  “Oh, wait.” Summer looked suddenly animated. “There was a woman who visited the Kellys frequently, and she usually left with something in a bag or box. I believe you know her. She’s a Melungeon woman. Her granddaughter works for Dr. Goddard.”

  “Holly?” Brandon exclaimed. “You’re saying Holly’s grandmother—”

  Tom held up a hand to stop the deputy. Brandon and Holly were engaged, planning a Christmas wedding, and he couldn’t be objective about Holly’s grandmother. “Are you sure it was Mrs. Turner you saw? And she left with packages?”

  Winter waved away the questions. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, the woman wasn’t buying marijuana. She’s an old friend of Marie’s. Marie always sent her home with some fresh eggs, and fresh corn too when it was in season. That’s all it was.”

  Brandon slumped back in his chair in obvious relief.

  Further questioning led nowhere. The Joneses insisted they had nothing more to tell the police.

  Back in the car, Brandon dug into the bag of brownies Summer had given him and Tom to take with them.

  “Don’t eat all of those,” Tom said. “Rachel likes brownies. I want to save one or two for her.”

  “I’m hungry.” Brandon talked around the lump in one cheek. “If I don’t eat some of these I’m gonna start gnawing on the car’s upholstery.”

  “What did you think of the sisters?”

  Brandon swallowed before he spoke. “They just rambled all over the place, didn’t they? Like little old ladies that’re getting fuzzy in the head. Except they’re just as sharp as you and me. My guess is, they know something they don’t want to tell us about.”

  “Yeah, I got that feeling, too.” Frustration beat like a drum in Tom’s chest. The sisters had steered them every which way except toward the truth. But he had no idea what the truth was or how to get to it.

  Chapter Ten

  Last stop: Tavia Richardson’s place. Tom pulled his cruiser into the asphalt driveway, and he and Brandon bounced in their seats as the tires hit holes and cracks in the pavement. Killing the engine, Tom frowned at the sad mess of a house.

  “Looks abandoned,” Brandon said.

  “I doubt she’s done anything to it since her husband died.” White siding had dulled to gray. The front gutter hung lose, at an angle guaranteed to allow rain cascading from the roof to fall behind it rather than into it. At the edge of the weedy front yard garden, a red finch pecked at a coneflower seed head. The plant stalk bounced up and down with the nervous movements of the little bird.

  Before long, Tom thought, Jake Hollinger’s house would look like this. Both of them were more than ready to move on.

  Tavia Richardson pushed open the screen door and stepped onto the porch. As Tom and Brandon approached, she stuck her hands into her jeans pockets and cocked her head. A widow in her early sixties with four adult children, she looked many years younger. Her hair, dark without a single gray strand, formed a tousled cap that emphasized her delicate features, long neck, and high cheekbones. Her jeans and long-sleeved t-shirt hugged the curves of a slender body that could have belonged to a woman in her thirties.

  “Let me guess,” she said in a voice that always surprised Tom with its deep huskiness. “You boys want to know if I heard the shots and if I saw anything suspicious. The answer’s no, and no.”

  Everything she said in that voice sounded teasing, seductive. Clearing his throat, Tom glanced around. Her property was separated from the Kellys’ by many acres and a few rolling hills that would have blocked the sound of the gunshots. “How are you doing, Mrs. Richardson?”

  “Oops, I skipped the social niceties and went straight to the bloodshed, didn’t I? I’m very well, thank you, Sheriff. And congratulations, by the way, on both your election and your marriage. How are you and Dr. Goddard liking married life?”

  “Thanks. We’re very happy.”

  Her smile had a mocking quirk to it. “That’s so sweet.”

  Tom doubted she was trying to be offensive. She had plenty to be bitter about in the marriage department and probably didn’t give a damn if others knew it. “Have you talked to either of the Kellys lately?”

  “Just to say hello at the bakery…” She nodded at Brandon. “The Connollys’ bakery, and the supermarket. I can’t offer you any clues that will solve the case for you, I’m afraid. I assume they were murdered by somebody who lives around here.” She hunched her slight shoulders and gave a mock shiver. “We have a killer among us. Ouch.”

  “You think it’s a joke?” Tom said.

  Now her smile twisted into a condescending smirk. “Life is a joke, Sheriff. God knows what the punch line will turn out to be.” She laughed. “God knows. And he’s not telling.”

  Tom was beginning to wonder if she’d been drinking. “I’ve heard that Jake Hollinger was pressuring them to sell their land to Packard. Have you talked to them about it?”

  “What would be the point? They’re adamant. Were adamant. They wouldn’t leave their scrubby little farm unless it was feet first. I guess somebody decided to call their bluff.”

  “You couldn’t have been happy about them standing in the way of your plans.”

  “My plans?” Tavia gave a halfhearted little laugh, followed by a sigh. “I learned long ago not to make a lot of plans for the future. Especially not the kind that depend on other people cooperating. Yes, I’d love to unload this place. I’ve been trying to find a buyer since Ron died, but what use would anybody have for it? Nobody farms for a living anymore, and even if they wanted to, there’s not enough land here to make a profit. The money Packard’s offering… That money would be a real windfall. But I’m not counting on it.”

  “Because they won’t buy your place unless they can get everybody else’s, too.”

  “Exactly.” Tavia leaned against one of the posts at the top of the steps and pushed her fingers through her head of curls. “I’ve just been watching and waiting. But I always figured it would fall through because Joanna won’t sell. Why should she? She’s probably the only person left in this county
who’s making a living on her own property.”

  “Have you talked to her about it? Tried to persuade her to sell?”

  “Who am I to tell her what to do with her land? I know plenty of other people have been after her about it, though.”

  “Were people after the Kellys to sell, too?”

  She shrugged, her shoulder bones showing in sharp relief under the t-shirt fabric. “I’m sure they were. There’s a lot of money involved. At least people think so. I’ve been hearing crazy talk that makes Packard’s plans sound like the Second Coming.”

  “You don’t think it would work out?” Brandon asked. “The jobs and everything?”

  “What if they build it and it’s a bust?” Tavia spoke in a speculative tone that didn’t demand an answer. “They might never attract all those rich vacationers they’re counting on. If I had a lot of money, this backwater sure as hell wouldn’t be my idea of a fun getaway.”

  “But that wouldn’t matter, would it,” Tom said, “if you and Jake got your money and got out? You could leave Mason County behind forever.”

  For the first time Tavia looked cagey, withdrawing behind a wary expression. “I don’t speak for Jake. He doesn’t speak for me.”

  “I thought you two were pretty close. I got the impression you want to cash in your land so you can move away and start over together.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted in amusement. “Oh, that’s your impression, is it?”

  “Are you saying it’s not true?”

  She pushed away from the post. “I’m not saying anything. I wish I could help you, Tom, but I don’t see any way I can.”

  “All right. By the way, are you going to the community meeting with the Packard people tomorrow?”

  “Oh, you bet. I wouldn’t miss that show for the world.”

  Chapter Eleven

  A chorus of barks and yelps erupted from the dog pens behind the house when Holly and Rachel parked their cars at the end of the driveway and slammed the doors behind them. In this quiet country setting, the residents of the Blue Ridge Animal Sanctuary picked up every sound, and they always reacted to the arrival of vehicles. Rachel had dropped Billy Bob off at home before following Holly out here. His time with the Kellys’ overwrought dog was enough excitement for one day.