Fatal Frost (Dewberry Farm Mysteries Book 2)

by Karen MacInerney

  I took a step toward the sorter, wondering if there might be some clue to the identity of Krystal’s boyfriend. “You okay?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m fine,” I said, and took another step. No sooner had the words left my mouth than my foot plunged through the floor in a burst of splintered wood.

  I said a few colorful words and pulled my foot out as Quinn fussed from the door. “I knew this was a bad idea,” she said as I inspected my leg. I had a few deep scratches on the back of my calf, and my ankle was twisted, but nothing was broken.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, giving the hole a wide berth and limping toward the mail sorter. The floor held the rest of the way, thankfully, and I was able to look through the wad of damp papers that had been jammed into the plastic bin.

  Magazines, bills—she was a bit behind on the electric bill, it appeared—but nothing from a boyfriend. There was a big manila envelope, though, addressed to someone named James Smythe on Skalicky Road. Krystal’s mystery boyfriend? I wondered, lifting the flap on the envelope and teasing out the damp papers inside. Stuck together was a stack of certificates of authenticity for gold dollars minted in 1862, all signed by a numismatist—which I presumed meant some kind of coin expert—named Kenneth Graham. The envelope was postmarked in Houston.

  “Looks like Krystal may have found something after all,” I called to Quinn.

  “What did you find?”

  “Certificates of authenticity for Civil War–era coins,” I said. I tucked all of the certificates except for one back into the envelope and slid it back into the mail sorter.

  “Huh. So maybe she did find treasure,” Quinn said.

  I was about to make my way back to the front door when a crumpled ball of damp paper on the counter in front of the mail sorter caught my eye.

  The ink had run on most of the page, but a few words were visible: “Wages of sin,” “out of wedlock,” and “Your mother would be ashamed of you” were quite legible.

  “Quinn,” I called, scanning the blurred page. “I think someone from that church sent Krystal a nasty letter.”

  “Can I see it?” she asked.

  “Here it is,” I said, avoiding the hole in the floor as I tiptoed back to the front door and handed it to her.

  She paled as she looked at it. “I got one of these, too,” she said as she turned the page over.

  “What?”

  “A nasty anonymous letter,” she told me.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “It was embarrassing,” she said, her face flushing. “The handwriting’s the same, though.”

  “Did you keep it?”

  “No,” she said. “But I remember what it said. All kinds of terrible things about Peter and me, and how we were . . . well, living in sin. Which is ridiculous; we’ve barely started seeing each other. But it felt very invasive.” She shivered.

  “Do you think it’s possible that whoever wrote this might have killed Krystal?”

  “I sure hope not,” Quinn said. “I don’t want to be on the list of next victims.”

  I looked down at the damp letter. “I should probably put this back.”

  “Probably,” she said.

  “I’m going to take a picture, though.”

  “This place creeps me out,” Quinn said as I snapped a shot of the letter.

  “Me too.” I tiptoed back through the house and returned the letter to the counter in front of the mail sorter, then did one more brief scan of the interior, looking for anything I might have missed. There was no sign of a dog bowl or leash, I noticed—although it was possible it had burned in the fire. A few minutes later, I followed Quinn down the front steps.

  Together, we walked around to the back of the house, peering at the holes in the ground, which had been dug in regular increments along a series of lines. A wooden shed stood a short ways away from the house.

  “Maybe she hid something in there,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” Quinn said, sounding doubtful. We walked over to the shed together; the door was ajar. “I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Somehow I think she’d put a lock on it if there were anything of value inside.”

  I pulled the shed door open and peered inside. There was a tangle of old farm equipment: rusted machinery, faded garden hoses, and empty bags of fertilizer were heaped in a pile in the middle of the bowed floor. Leaning up against the plywood wall by the door was a shovel, its blade coated in fresh-looking dirt.

  “No treasure, but I’m guessing this was what she was digging with.”

  “If she was the one digging,” Quinn said. “It could have been Buster.”

  “Good point.” I still needed to talk to him and warn him off my land, I thought to myself. I wanted to ask him about the certificates I’d found in Krystal’s house, too.

  We closed the shed door and surveyed the property again. “Not much here, is there?”

  “Mary Jane told me the remains of an old homestead are back behind the house somewhere. I’m curious to see them. You think we can find them?” I asked, squinting toward the back of the property.

  “There’s a path here,” Quinn said, pointing to a depression in the grass. “Let’s go find out.”

  Together, we followed the groove in the winter-bleached grass into the woods. We’d gone about fifty yards when we reached a clearing next to Dewberry Creek. A pile of weathered, broken wood that must once have been a barn was at the far end of the clearing; closer to us was a square of foundation stones. I recognized clumps of iris plants under a gnarled oak tree that must have been young when the house was built. I thought of the hands that must have planted them . . . how long ago? A hundred years? Longer?

  “It’s a little spooky back here.” Quinn hugged herself as I examined irises’ gray-green leaves; I might check with Mary Jane and see if it was okay to transplant a few to Dewberry Farm. “And somebody’s been digging,” Quinn added as she walked around the foundation.

  “Could be the same person who whacked me over the head,” I told her, looking at the holes in the ground. “But why dig at my place if he’d already found gold here?

  “Maybe he thinks there’s more,” she said, poking at one of the piles with her foot. “Most of the holes seem to be around this tree,” she said, touching the rough bark of an ancient oak on the other side of the foundation.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to a strange marking on the bark.

  “Some kind of symbol,” she said. “It looks like an arrow.”

  I walked over and traced the carving on the gnarled bark; whoever had made the mark had made it a long time ago. “I wonder if whoever is digging thought that was a marker of sorts?”

  “Maybe there is something to that old treasure legend,” Quinn mused.

  “One symbol and a bunch of holes doesn’t mean it’s true,” I reminded her. “But it’s definitely worth investigating.” Together, we walked around the old foundation, but the holes just looked like . . . holes.

  Quinn took another look around and sighed. “It’s depressing, actually. Let’s get out of here.”

  Where are your parents?” Quinn asked as we sat down to tea in my kitchen a little while later. After our trip to Krystal’s, she’d decided to come back to the farm with me to warm up and visit the goats.

  “I guess they’re out taking another trip down memory lane,” I said. “Since I’m never here these days, it’s probably a good idea.”

  “Are you glad they’re in town?”

  “I am,” I said. “It’ll be good to have them here for Christmas. It’s a little tense with my mom, though; she never wanted me to buy the place, and hasn’t let go of that.”

  “Don’t listen to her. I’m glad you’re here.”

  “Thanks,” I said, smiling at her and reaching for one of the gingersnap cookies I’d laid out on a plate.

  We were quiet for a moment, listening to the wind as it swirled around the house. Chuck was stretched out on the rug in front of the wood stove. I took another sip of my te
a, thankful for the cozy farmhouse, but still disturbed by the burned-out house we’d visited that afternoon. “I wish we could figure out who Krystal was seeing.”

  “I know,” Quinn said, reaching for a cookie. “Whoever wrote that nasty letter might know.”

  I snagged another cookie. The gingersnaps were my grandmother’s recipe; they were sweet and spicy, perfect for a cold gray afternoon. Sitting in the familiar, warm kitchen where I’d spent so many childhood mornings, I could almost sense my grandmother’s benevolent presence.

  “I wish we could find out who gave her that necklace,” Quinn said. “It looked expensive. I got the impression she wouldn’t have been able to afford it on her own.”

  “The tag on it said it was five hundred dollars,” I said. “It wasn’t cheap.” I took another bite of cookie and thought back to Krystal’s body. “She wasn’t wearing it when I found her,” I said.

  Quinn paused with a cookie halfway to her mouth. “Really? She wore it all the time. Couldn’t keep her fingers off of it.”

  I shook my head. “She didn’t have a necklace on. I’m sure of it. Then again, maybe she’d taken it off to take a shower or something.”

  “Or maybe whoever killed her—or burned the house down—stole it,” Quinn suggested. “But why leave a defenseless dog? This whole thing is weird.” She finished her cookie and took a sip of tea. “Speaking of weird, I had a random thought,” Quinn said. “What if Krystal wrote the poison-pen letters, and someone killed her because of them?”

  “You mean she wrote, but didn’t send, the one I found?” I asked, pulling up the picture I’d taken of the crumpled page.

  “I can’t read the salutation,” Quinn said, looking at my phone. “Can you?”

  I peered at the screen. Quinn was right; it was a blur. “Do you have anything with Krystal’s handwriting on it?” I asked.

  “She filled out an application, but I probably threw it out. I’ll check, but we might have to go back and look through the house again to see if we can find anything with her writing on it,” she said, and shivered. “I feel like whoever wrote the one I got was jealous of Peter, somehow. But Krystal had a boyfriend, so why would she be jealous of me?”

  “Teena Marburger has a crush on Peter,” I pointed out. Teena, the local teenager with a psychic streak, had been enamored of the young farmer since he came to Buttercup, and had not been happy when he started seeing Quinn.

  “I doubt Teena would write poison-pen letters,” Quinn said. “Besides, if she’s jealous about Peter, why send a letter to Krystal? I’m the one dating Peter.” She sighed. “I just wish I could figure out why someone would want to kill her; she was such a nice young woman.”

  “What do you know about the Word of the Lord Church?”

  “I’ve met the pastor—Vince Matheson. Good-looking guy, very charismatic. I think half his membership consists of love-starved pensioners.”

  “I met a few of them at the Blue Onion,” I told her. “Wanda Karp and Ethel.”

  “Ethel?” she asked. “She just moved to town a few years ago. Her last name means ‘happy’ in German, but it doesn’t seem to be working for her.”

  “She and Wanda seemed pretty close,” I said. “I saw Ben O’Neill looking at properties with Faith Zapalac, too. I wonder what he’s up to?”

  “Our mayoral wannabe and our local real estate shyster,” Quinn groaned. “Just what Buttercup doesn’t need. Did you talk with them at all?”

  “I didn’t get a chance,” I said.

  “He’s been a big supporter of the church. If he made a big donation, that would explain how Matheson built that new building so fast,” Quinn said, finishing off her tea.

  “Why would he donate to the church?”

  “To get the church’s support,” she said. “He’s going after Mayor Niederberger’s seat, after all.”

  “I think we should pay the church a visit,” I said. “Maybe we’ll run into someone who can tell us about Brittany, too.”

  “I can’t today . . . I’ve got to go to the market.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “Two o’clock? You’re on.”

  I’d visit Krystal’s Uncle Buster by myself, I decided—but didn’t tell Quinn.

  She ate the last of the crumbs as Chuck watched, salivating. “Sorry, buddy,” she said, then turned to me. “You think he’ll like Pip?”

  “Pip?” I grinned. “You’ve already named her?”

  She gave me a sheepish smile. “I want to, but it worries me that I don’t have all the room you do,” she said, glancing out the window at the long rows of my garden.

  “She could always come and romp here,” I suggested. “Or at Peter’s,” I added. “How’s that going, anyway?”

  She flushed a little bit, and her smile told me everything I needed to know. “He’s amazing,” she said. “I can’t believe I ever wasted my time with Jed. Peter’s kind, he cooks, he’s handsome . . .” She bit her lip. “Of course, Edna down at the Red and White was teasing me about robbing the cradle the other day.”

  “He’s only, what . . . five years younger than you?”

  “Seven,” she corrected me, blushing a little bit deeper.

  “So what?” I asked.

  “It’s just . . . I don’t know,” she said, shrugging.

  “Silly is what it is. To worry about it, I mean.”

  Before Quinn could answer, the phone rang. It was Tobias.

  “Hey,” I said, feeling a thrill at the sound of his voice, then a rush of insecurity. “We stopped by the hospital,” I told him. “I was sorry we missed you.”

  “I hear Quinn is thinking of adopting the puppy,” he said.

  “We were just talking about that,” I said. “She’s going to name her Pip.”

  “Great name,” he said.

  “I think so, too,” I said, then took a deep breath. “I met Mindy while we were there,” I said, glancing at Quinn, whose eyes had gotten wide.

  There was a long silence. “Mindy?”

  Before he could say more, Quinn sucked in her breath. “Lucy!” She was standing at the window.

  “Hang on,” I told Tobias, and turned to Quinn. “What?”

  “The goats are halfway done with your broccoli patch.”

  It took twenty minutes and half a loaf of vánočka to round up the goats. I was thinking of Tobias and our unfinished conversation the entire time.

  “How did they get out?” Quinn asked as I finally closed the gate behind Hot Lips, who was smacking her lips and looking at me with a hopeful expression.

  “I don’t know,” I said, scanning the perimeter of the fence. Everything looked intact to me. “Thank goodness you saw them when you did,” I said.

  “Maybe the broccoli will grow back,” Quinn said, although she didn’t sound convinced.

  “At least they didn’t get to the lettuce,” I said. “Good thing I put the row cover on it.”

  “I guess that’s positive thinking,” Quinn said, walking the fence line with me. “Ah,” she said, reaching down and touching a loose wire. “Here it is.”

  “How did that happen?”

  “Looks like someone managed to detach it from the fence post,” she said, glancing over at the goats, who were nosing their food trough.

  “Probably Hot Lips,” I said.

  “Let’s get this fixed. Got a staple gun?”

  As she stood guard, I hustled back to the barn and grabbed the staple gun. Quinn pounded a half-dozen staples in, just to be sure, and together we checked the rest of the fencing while Blossom looked on with interest. She seemed a bit disappointed to have missed out on the fun.

  “Peter warned me,” I said, surveying the repaired fence, then wincing as I took in the damaged broccoli patch. “I just hope I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew.”

  “Are you going to call Tobias?” she asked as we walked back to the house together.

  “Do you think I should?”

  “It’s better to talk about it than l
et it fester,” she said.

  “You’re probably right,” I said. I pulled off my boots and set them by the back door, then went inside and picked up the phone, dialing the familiar number and trying to keep my heart from racing.

  Jon answered the phone. “Buttercup Veterinary Hospital, can I help you?”

  “Is Dr. Brandt in?”

  “He’s with a patient,” he said. “Can I take a message?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll try back later.”

  “Why didn’t you leave a message?” Quinn asked as I hung up the phone.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I just . . .” I took a deep breath. “It’s because I know they’re having dinner together.”

  “I get it,” she said, walking over and giving me a squeeze. “I’m sure it will work out, Lucy.”

  I hoped she was right.

  Quinn had just left when the phone rang again. I hurried to pick it up, hoping it was Tobias, but it was Fannie Pfeffer of Fannie’s Antiques.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I looked out the window. Two cardinals were at the feeder, and a cool breeze was making the row cover ripple like water.

  “I heard you’re looking into Krystal Jenkins’s death,” she said.

  “I am,” I said. “I know Molly Kramer didn’t do it.”

  “Me too,” she said. “I’m glad someone’s looking into it. Pardon my saying it, but Rooster Kocurek couldn’t find his derriere with both hands.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” I said.

  “Anyway,” she said, “Remember how I told you Buster Jenkins called about some coins?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I’m calling because he showed up with two Confederate-era gold coins today, and I thought you should know.”

  “Where did he get them?” I asked, gripping the phone.

  “He says he dug them up behind his house,” she said. “As if I didn’t know he’s been sniffing around on every property lining Dewberry Creek for years.”

  “I think he was on my land the other night,” I said.

  “Maybe that’s where he found the coins he brought in,” she suggested.