Bought the Farm

by Wendy Meadows

  “Betty,” Mary laughed. “Oh, my dear.” Mary dropped to her knees and looked into Betty’s face, blue syrup dripping down her forehead onto her cheeks. “Are you okay?”

  “I…thought you might like a piece of pie,” Betty explained. She lifted her right hand and pointed to the piece of pie sticking to her hair. “You love blueberry pie.”

  Mary dipped her right finger into the pie and tasted it. “A little heavy on the sugar, but not bad.” She smiled and pulled Betty up to her feet. “Go wash up,” she giggled. “I’m going to drive out to Farmer Griffith’s farm.” The name of Farmer Griffith quickly pushed Mary’s smile away.

  “What’s wrong?” Betty asked, watching Mary’s beautiful smile transform into a frown.

  “Betty,” Mary said in a sad voice, “Farmer Griffith is dead.”

  Betty’s face drained of color. “De…de…dead?” she asked, and before Mary could answer her she fainted.

  “Oh dear. William,” Mary called out, and a young man with a bad limp came hurrying down the hallway wearing his usual straw hat. “Get me a glass of water.”

  William spotted Betty. “Fainted again, huh? What does this make…number four this week?”

  Mary raised her eyes and studied William. William was a good man with a good head on his shoulders, but he was also bitter due to the leg injury he suffered in a car accident. The injury had destroyed his chances of serving in any branch of the military. While most of the men were away fighting a war, he was stuck at home limping around. “Please get me a glass of water.”

  William rubbed his half-shaven face and then rubbed his hands on his white and gray-striped shirt. Even though he was only twenty-three, he felt old and used up. “Sure, Mary, right away.”

  Mary watched William limp off down the stuffy hallway and return with a paper cup full of lukewarm water. “William,” she said in a serious voice as she took the cup of water from his hand, “Farmer Griffith is dead.”

  “Dead?” William exclaimed. “Hey, did that FBI guy tell you that? Sure, why else would a Suit come into a small newspaper dive like this?” William’s face flushed with excitement. “Hey, we have a real tiger’s tail to grab onto here, Mary.”

  Mary leaned Betty’s head up and tipped the glass of water down onto the woman’s thin lips. Betty let out a loud gasp as if she were drowning, spit the water into Mary’s face, and frantically began grabbing for dry land. Mary wiped the spit water from her face and sighed. “Betty…honey…it’s okay…you fainted again.”

  Betty’s panicked eyes slowly opened. When she saw Mary staring down at her, she quit flailing her arms. “Mary?”

  “Yes, honey, it’s me.”

  Betty rotated her eyes and saw William staring at her. “Oh dear…this makes number—”

  “Four,” William answered, shaking his head. “Millie bet me you wouldn’t faint anymore this week. Looks like I just won a free lunch at the diner.”

  “Poor Millie,” Betty moaned. She lifted her hand and felt the sticky pie in her hair. And then her memory came back to her. “Farmer Griffith…dead!” she exclaimed.

  “I’m afraid so,” Mary confirmed. “William, help me get Betty to her feet.” William rolled his eyes and helped Mary. “I’m going to drive out to Farmer Griffith’s farm and talk to Sheriff Mables. In the meantime, you get cleaned up,” she told Betty, “and you,” she pointed at William, “don’t get any funny ideas about becoming a star reporter. This Agent Green fella is serious business.”

  William shoved his hands down into the pockets of the brown pants he was wearing. “Mary,” he complained, “my two brothers are away fighting the Germans. My cousin is dropping bombs from airplanes down on Berlin. And me, what am I doing? I’ll tell you what I’m doing: I’m collecting dust in this one-horse town instead of earning medals. And now we have a real show taking place before our very eyes and you want to put a horse bit into my mouth?”

  Mary patted William’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said in an understanding voice, “I said don’t get any ideas about becoming a star reporter…yet. Give me time to dig up some dirt, okay? We’re all a team. When I find out what’s going on, you’ll be the first one to write up the story.”

  William looked down at his worn shoes. “I’m only good when my backside is planted behind a typewriter.” He raised his eyes. “You’re the boss, Mary. I told you I wouldn’t give you a hard time. John hired me on at this paper after I lost the money I saved to move to Los Angeles…gambling. He took a big chance on me.”

  “That’s because my husband sees a talented reporter in you, William,” Mary explained. “We all know your leg injury has made you bitter and that’s why you gambled your moving money away. I’m aware of the story. You were anxious to plant your feet in Los Angeles and make a name for yourself. But you needed a little more money, so you went down to Old Freddie’s pool hall, slipped into the back room, and lost your money to a bunch of poker sharks. Does that about sum it up?”

  William reached over to Betty and pulled some pie crust out of her hair. “That’s the story of my life,” he said and let out a miserable laugh. “Anxious to make a name for myself and instead I lost nearly every penny stored away in my pocket.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave Pineville,” Betty told William. “You come from a good family. I really like your momma. Wilma cooks the best cornbread in town.”

  “That she does,” William agreed. He looked into Betty’s sweet face. “Come on, Betty. I’ll help you get cleaned up.”

  “I’m going to drive out to Farmer Griffith’s farm and chew Sheriff Mables off,” Mary told Betty and William. She snatched up her purse. “I’ll call you from the farm.”

  Mary rushed outside into the bright day. She ran to the tan 1936 Chevy Slantback parked in front of the paper and hurried into the driver’s seat. She looked around, tried to spot Agent Green, who for all she knew was hiding behind a tree, and then sped away. Twenty minutes later, she raced down a long dirt road running parallel to a lush, beautiful farm sitting under a clear blue sky.

  The farm sat on two hundred twenty acres of land. The Blue Diamond river ran straight through the farm, about seventy-five yards behind the main barn. The local kids who became bored during the summer would venture onto the farm using the river as their means of entrance and steal a watermelon or some fresh tomatoes or sneak to Tom’s Tree (the best-known fishing spot in the county) to try and catch Old Mac, the biggest brim in the state of Tennessee, or so the legend went. Farmer Griffith was usually tolerant of the daring juvenile adventures frequently dragged onto his land—after all, kids would be kids. The only problem was a group of kids decided to turn Farmer Griffith’s main barn into a kind of a secret club and had accidentally burned the barn down. A burned down barn was a lot worse than a stolen watermelon or a few missing tomatoes.

  “And now the poor man is dead,” Mary sighed as she swung her car up a long driveway. A large white farmhouse stood at the end of the driveway, nestled under a beautiful oak tree. To the right of the house stood a burned structure surrounded by fields that once held corn, watermelons, beans, and tomatoes. Now the fields were mostly bare.

  Mary spotted Sheriff Mables’ black and white sheriff’s car parked next to a black 1935 Chevy truck. She parked her car next to the truck, grabbed her purse, and stepped out into a refreshing breeze.

  “Sheriff Mables?” she called out. Her voice carried through the breeze and was tossed out into the open fields like a lonely howl. “Sheriff Mables, it’s Mary Holland from the paper!”

  Mary locked her eyes on the burned structure that was once a strong barn and studied the ruins. Her mind saw a gentle, sweet man walking into a wooden barn carrying a basket of fresh squash or tomatoes, maybe okra, whistling a simple Christian hymn while the smell of fresh hay filled his nose and the beauty of his farm filled his smile. But then Mary turned and focused on the white farmhouse. The house was silent, still—standing like a broken wooden heart in mourning over a dear friend. No longer would the
sound of Farmer Griffith or his wife fill the rooms inside of the house; no longer would the smells of freshly baked biscuits and frying bacon wake up the sleepy house on cold winter mornings. The life within the house was now gone, vanished into a very sad wind that would return to torment the farm from time to time.

  “Mary?” a voice said.

  Mary spun around and saw a man in his early sixties approaching from the burned barn. “Oh, hello, Sheriff,” Mary said, startled. “I guess I let my mind wander off on me.”

  Sheriff Mables took off a brown hat, ran his arm across his forehead, and looked up at the sky. “It’s a warm one. Can’t say I’m looking forward to summer. I never was one for the heat.”

  Mary nodded. It was a well-known fact that Ben Mables could survive in the North Pole living in a straw hut. “Sheriff, a man from the FBI stopped by the paper and informed me that Farmer Griffith—”

  Sheriff Mables held up his right hand. His face was sweaty, and his eyes were upset. “Mary, I don’t need you breathing down my neck right now. Farmer Griffith was a good friend to me…a good friend to this entire community.”

  “Sheriff, I didn’t come here to chase down a story,” Mary confessed. She watched Sheriff Mables take off his hat and rub his thick gray hair and then rub the thin gray beard resting on his face. She liked Sheriff Mables and thought of the man as a father figure. Sheriff Mables was easygoing and kind. The man only barked if someone made him bark, and that was rare. Usually Sheriff Mables strolled around town, chewed the fat with the men down at Andy’s Filling Station, grabbed a grape soda at the drug store, and tended to being a nice person instead of an intimidating law figure—even though he did carry his gun and was known to have used it in the old days quite a few times. “Sheriff, the man from the FBI who came to see me is a man named Agent Green. He had a note with him.”

  Sheriff Mables nodded at the front porch. “Let’s have a sit-down, Mary.”

  Mary walked over a white front porch, climbed the stairs, and sat down in a rocking chair. Sheriff Mables sat down in the chair next to her. “Sheriff, Farmer Griffith was killed, and I intend to find out who killed him,” she confessed. “He left me a desperate message.”

  Sheriff Mables leaned back in the rocking chair where he had rested his body. “Mary,” he said in a troubled voice, “poor Farmer Griffith was killed by a bullet. Whoever killed him did so without mercy.” Sheriff Gables searched the farm with his eyes. “Agent Green and I had a few words, too,” he told Mary. “I was assuming Farmer Griffith was killed by a local…but that isn’t the case. We have a big problem on our hands, Mary…a very big problem.”

  Chapter 2

  Mary placed her purse down on her lap and folded her hands together. She let her eyes walk out onto the land and stroll around. “Farmer Griffith took very good care of his farm. I remember being a little girl and my daddy would bring me here to pick a watermelon when the days were hot and long. Momma would come, too, but she was more interested in the tomatoes. I remember how exciting it was to go watermelon picking with my daddy. And oh,” Mary said with a broken heart, “it was always so wonderful to see Farmer Griffith’s smiling face. He would always have a piece of candy in his pocket and he would give it to me.”

  “He was a good man,” Sheriff Mables agreed. “I’m going to miss him.”

  Mary grew silent. The realization that Farmer Griffith was dead settled into her heart. She felt a tear drop from her eye. “It’s so awful,” she said in a broken voice. “Who would kill such a sweet man?”

  Sheriff Mables looked at Mary. “Mary, if that Agent Green fella chewed your ear enough to make you drive all the way out to this farm, then I have a feeling you know the answer to your question.”

  Mary looked at the white picket fence that walked around the farmhouse. “If the FBI is involved, that tells a whole plateful,” she admitted and slowly let her tears fall. “I feel so sorry for Farmer Griffith. I always thought he would die in his sleep, older than the dirt in that front yard.”

  Sheriff Mables patted Mary’s hand. “There ain’t no shame in crying. I did my share before you arrived.”

  Mary opened her purse and pulled out a pink handkerchief. She wiped at her tears. “Farmer Griffith said the kids who burned down his barn are in danger. That was the message he wrote down on the note.”

  “I wasn’t aware there was a note,” Sheriff Mables told Mary. He slowly folded his arms. “Agent Green was the man who found Farmer Griffith’s body. He used the phone inside to call me. I wasn’t in my office. I was down at the diner having coffee, but you know Heather, she can find you anywhere.”

  “I was wondering who…found Farmer Griffith,” Mary admitted. She felt her mind pull up Agent Green’s face. “Sheriff, it’s not coincidental that Agent Green just happened to come across Farmer Griffith. That man came to his farm searching for someone…or something.”

  Sheriff Mables nodded. “That’s why I haven’t left this farm and driven back to town. I stayed behind after Agent Green left and decided to look around for a bit. Agent Green kinda seemed bothered that I was going to stay behind, but he seemed more interested in being able to drive back into town. I reckon if he hasn’t come back, then that means he isn’t bothered anymore.”

  “Agent Green didn’t show you the note Farmer Griffith wrote me?”

  “No note,” Sheriff Mables confirmed. He looked at Mary. “The kids who burned down the barn are in danger?”

  “That’s what the note Farmer Griffith left me said.” Mary wiped at the last of her tears and put her handkerchief back in her purse and closed it. “Sheriff, you need to talk to the parents of those kids and give them a stern warning to keep a careful eye out for anyone strange that might be lurking about.”

  “I would, Mary,” Sheriff Mables replied in a frustrated voice, “but the only boys Farmer Griffith saw were Mitch Anderson and Chuck Lawson. Those two boys are holding their tongues and won’t tell me who else was in the barn with them. My guess is it was Wayne Weber, Nathan Harnnette, and Brian Matlock. Those five boys have become a real nuisance lately. Why, just last month they broke out a street light. But,” Sheriff Mables said, unfolding his arms, “those boys are barely past eleven years of age. I was a little mischievous, too, when I was that age. Boys eventually get interested in other things and grow up. It’s that puppy stage that’s hard to deal with. I know my old man tore up my hide more times than I can remember because I peed on the floor after being house trained, if you catch my drift.”

  “Do you think Mitch and Chuck will tell you who was with them if they are told their lives are in danger? I’m sure Mr. Anderson and Mr. Lawson will make their boys confess the truth.”

  “Might be worth a shot,” Sheriff Mables told Mary. “But I don’t want to go spooking anyone. We both know Mrs. Anderson is Heather’s cousin. If word gets to Heather that there is a danger in town, why, she’ll have the word out in no time and then we’ll have a panic on our hands.”

  Mary winced. “I sorta asked Heather if she had seen anyone strange in town.”

  Sheriff Mables frowned. “Mary, you of all people?”

  Mary winced again. “I guess it’s too late to say sorry.”

  Sheriff Mables stood up and walked over to the porch railing, shaking his head. “Pineville is a simple town, Mary, with simple folks living in it. But Heather would have folks thinking that Farmer Griffith was some kind of foreign spy in no time.”

  “Well, I am wondering why Farmer Griffith was killed,” Mary confessed.

  “Oh Mary, if apples weren’t red, I’d swear you—”

  “I’m not implying Farmer Griffith was a spy, Sheriff,” Mary told Sheriff Mables. She stood up and walked over to him. “But the question does beg to be asked…why was Farmer Griffith killed? And why is the FBI involved?”

  “I’ve been chewing on that bone ever since Agent Green called me,” Sheriff Mables said. “The only conclusion this old mind of mine can fetch is that Farmer Griffith was killed because he knew or sa
w something he shouldn’t have. But now that you told me he left you a note…maybe it’s those kids that saw something they shouldn’t have.”

  “Maybe it’s both,” Mary suggested.

  “Could be,” Sheriff Mables agreed.

  Mary looked toward the burned barn. “Sheriff, did you find any clues?”

  “Not a one,” Sheriff Mables told Mary. “Of course, that Agent Green fella could have covered up anything he wanted before I arrived. I had Jake come and get Farmer Griffith and didn’t call Phillip out. I gave Jake orders to keep his tongue tied for now. Jake is a good man. He won’t let his tongue slip. But Phillip likes to sit around the barber shop and run his mouth. I’m not implying he’s not a good man, now. I trust Phillip with my life, and I can’t say that about too many fellas…but if apples aren’t red, that man has a loose tongue that he just can’t get a grip on.” Sheriff Mables wiped his forehead. “That Agent Green fella didn’t seem too interested in keeping Farmer Griffith’s death a secret, either.”

  “Not if he came and talked to me,” Mary added. She looked down at her purse. “Sheriff, I…kinda told Betty and William that Farmer Griffith was…dead.”

  “If apples aren’t red, what a morning, what a morning,” Sheriff Mables fussed at Mary. “You’re the wife of John Holland, one of the smartest men I’ve had the honor of meeting. But I’ll be dagblasted if his wife ain’t got a bigger mouth than the local town gossip.”

  Mary made a pained face. “I’ll be more careful from this point forward. I promise. It’s just, well, Betty is my closest friend, and I feel that I can trust William. After all, my husband trusts William.”

  Sheriff Mables looked into Mary’s sweet face and saw a little girl with pigtails asking him for a piece of candy. “I’ve watched you grow up in this town, Mary Holland. I knew your old man for a good many years before the cancer took him. I knew your mother before the angels came and got her. You come from a line of mighty good people. I guess I ain’t got no right to bark at you.”