Deadly Row to Hoe

by Cricket McRae

  I met Barr in the door to my office/storeroom. “That didn’t take long.”

  “That’s because no one is home at the farm.”

  My eyebrows rose. “I sure got the impression Nate, at least, was expecting you. Maybe he thought you’d talk to him tomorrow?”

  Irritation flickered across his face. “Looks like I’ll have to make the trip again.” Then he grinned. “But maybe it’s not so bad that I got home early.”

  I grinned back. “Are you thinking about a little dessert?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And I’m not talking about apple strudel, either.”

  _____

  I slept hard and awoke refreshed shortly after dawn. No bad dreams—no dreams at all that I remembered. Apparently taking action had helped to assuage my horror over how Darla Klick had died.

  A detail I hadn’t shared with Nate or Daphne the night before.

  Stretching like a cat, I turned toward the bedroom window. A hint of bright blue peeked around the edge of the curtain, and the sounds of chickens clucking contentedly to one another drifted in. Beside me, Barr stirred, and then he had his arm wrapped around me and was pulling me toward him.

  “Feel like a little reprise?” he murmured in my ear.

  I turned in his arms. “Someone’s making up for lost time.”

  “Just trying to be efficient, is all.”

  “Well, by all means, then. In the name of efficiency and all.”

  _____

  An hour later I slipped a spatula under the potatoes browning on the stove. A few more minutes and they’d be perfect. A plate of sausages warmed in the oven, and I cracked eggs into a bowl of freshly snipped chives. Barr sat at the table sipping coffee.

  I’d tried out the thermometer again before coming downstairs. 98.1°. My basal body temp chart might be flat lined, but I didn’t care. I smiled over at my husband.

  Meghan shuffled in, tying her bathrobe and yawning. A sleepy-looking Kelly followed right behind her, wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. I raised my eyebrows and looked at my husband, who mirrored my expression, then ducked his head and took another sip of coffee.

  “Good morning, you two.” I grabbed three more eggs to add to the mix. The shells were differing shades of light green and blue, so I knew the Araucana hens, Molly and Emma, had laid them.

  “Morning,” they mumbled in unison.

  “You’re up bright and early. Sit down. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”

  Soon we were digging in and making small talk, no one mentioning the elephant in the room. Meghan and Kelly had dated for well over a year, he’d uprooted his entire life and relocated to Cadyville so they could be together, and he spent nearly every evening at our house like one of the family. Yet to the best of my knowledge he’d never spent the whole night.

  To the best of my knowledge. Just wait until I got Meghan alone.

  “Any more interviews today?” I asked Barr.

  He shook his head. “I’m going out to the farm first thing to talk to Nate.”

  “Fancy that. I was planning to head out there, too.”

  Meghan shot me a look.

  “To finish a job I started for Tom yesterday,” I said. “He wants the popcorn picked and stored so it can dry, and it’s supposed to rain tonight.”

  Everyone at the table looked skeptical. Too bad.

  Kelly looked at his watch and suddenly stood. “Oh! I’ve got to go. Gotta surveillance gig down in Seattle.”

  Meghan looked unhappy. He noticed and leaned down, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her on the neck. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you later.” And he was out the door.

  Meeting my housemate’s eyes, I gestured toward Barr with my chin. “Welcome to the wait-and-worry club. You just have to trust that they’ll be okay.”

  She pointed at me. “Thanks to you, I’ve been a member of that club for a long time.”

  Erin came in before I could respond. “Did I hear Kelly?”

  Barr pushed back from the table. “I’ll see you all later. Bye, hon.”

  “Bye,” I said, but I followed him out to the hallway. Meghan was on her own.

  Fifteen

  I parked the Rover and got out. Though not yet eight o’clock, the sun had begun to warm the fields, and the air smelled of green leaves and rich earth. Barr hadn’t arrived yet, no doubt snagged by station business. Pulling on a pair of gloves, I made my leisurely way to the tool shed. It was unlocked as always, and the garden cart sat right where I’d left it the night before.

  I tugged it outside and down the path to the popcorn field. The thick rubber wheels bounced over rocks, making the removable slatted sides rattle in their moorings. The tower of compost rose in my peripheral vision to my left. I found myself veering toward it, cart still in tow. I stopped outside the police tape, one end of which now flapped lazily in the breeze.

  Unlike where I’d grown up in northern Colorado, August mornings and evenings in the Pacific Northwest were almost always crisp. Today was no exception, and the moist heat of decay wisped up from the pile. I could tell someone had given the whole thing a good toss since we’d discovered Darla. Was that a result of simple farm efficiency, or had the police been involved? It hadn’t occurred to me until now that there might be someone else in there, but the possibility had no doubt crossed Barr’s radar. I shuddered at the thought. In this case, no news was definitely good news.

  I closed my eyes and tried to picture what the pile had looked like before Meghan and I had started digging up Darla. Had there been any indication she’d been moved there? Drag marks? Wheel tracks? Foot prints? Why hadn’t I paid more attention?

  Oh. Right. Dead person. Very distracting. Still, I should have been more observant.

  Even if I couldn’t remember anything specific it didn’t mean Darla hadn’t been killed elsewhere and transported to the burial site. Between the digging and the emergency personnel, the area had been thoroughly messed up with footprints.

  Not to mention hoof and chicken prints.

  Several red hens pecked and scratched at the newly turned earth. Another reveled in a dust bath, fluffing her feathers and preening. Arnold Ziffel, the young pig Meghan had shooed away from her gruesome discovery two days earlier, came running up to me, grunting like, well, like a pig. He nosed me, begging for scritchin’s. I obliged with a good rub between his ears. He followed me back to the path, trotting behind the cart until I shut the gate to the fields and left him behind. A single pig could do serious damage to the limited crops if he got the chance.

  Wind sighed through the cornstalks, and crows called from beyond my view despite the stuffed scarecrow with the battered straw hat that towered at the edge of the patch. A whiff of manure drifted by as I worked my way down a row of popcorn. I snapped off the ripe ears and gently placed them in the cart while thinking about what I’d learned last night. Nate knew Darla Klick from way back, and they’d been in contact since she moved to Cadyville. But he’d been circumspect about how they’d fallen out of touch in the first place, his eyes darting to the left as he remembered something he hadn’t shared. Was it because his girlfriend was sitting right beside him? Had he and Darla been more than friends? Or did it have to do with her going off the deep end as Allie described? She’d said something about an accident everyone blamed Darla’s dissolution on—and come to think of it, Daphne had referenced a “sad story” Nate had related to her. Were they both talking about the same thing?

  Nate had a lot more questions to answer. I could hardly wait to hear what he’d tell Barr.

  And then there was Daphne. She knew of Darla, and seemed to believe Nate about the whole friends-only thing. She didn’t come across at all like crazy Hallie.

  And what about Hallie? She’d seen Darla go into Nate’s trailer. Did she really think he was cheating on his girlfriend? Or would Hallie see it as more cheating on her? Was she really that unstable?

  Remembering the look on her face as she exited Nate’s trailer, I had to admit
it was possible.

  And then there were Tom and Allie Turner. Once I’d confronted her with the lie, Allie had opened up rather quickly. Was an untoward advance on her husband at least a decade earlier enough for her to kill Darla? That seemed a stretch. But maybe the advance had been more than that. After all, Allie had already lied, so I had to take whatever she said now with a grain of salt.

  A flurry of black wings exploded out of the corn in front of me. My heart bucked, and I squeaked in surprise.

  Dang crows. Sheesh.

  Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I reached for another ear.

  What about Tom? Had he lied, as Allie had said, just to protect the farm? I remembered his reaction when we’d first found Darla had been simple disbelief. This is some kind of joke, right? I didn’t know him that well, but I knew others who tried to deal with unpleasantness by simply wishing it away.

  On the other hand, he could have suspected his wife had killed her and had lied to protect her.

  Why on earth had I thought that finding out the bird lady’s identity would simplify matters?

  Ear-by-ear I filled the cart to the top. Mr. Ziffel had lost interest and wandered away from the gate by the time I returned to the farm stand. Barr’s department car was parked next to the Rover now. No sign of him, though. My eyes and ears on high alert for any sign of activity, I unloaded the popcorn and spread it to dry. Two more full loads should do it, for a total of five, including the two I’d picked between talking to the other CSA members the afternoon before.

  If Barr wasn’t done talking to Nate by then I’d just have to come up with some other excuse to hang around the farm.

  Not wanting to miss talking to my husband, I picked as fast as I could now. Finishing one row, I turned down the next. The cart snagged on something, and I gave it a hard yank, trusting its rugged construction. I certainly didn’t expect it to upend, dumping all the popcorn on the ground.

  “Darn it!” Hands on hips, I surveyed the damage. Took a deep, calming breath.

  The cart looked fine, the corn unbruised. I righted it and scanned the ground to see what had caused the problem.

  Oh, no.

  No, no, no, no.

  I covered my eyes with both hands. See no evil. But when I dropped them, the boot was still sticking out from between the stalks of corn.

  At least Meghan could rest easy, because the bodies were back to cropping up on my watch. This time the boot had the Wolverine logo on the side, and it definitely didn’t belong to a woman. It looked more like a work boot than a hiking boot, solid and heavy. Gently pushing apart the corn stalks revealed a denim-clad leg, then two pockets and the telltale straps of overalls criss-crossed over a green flannel shirt.

  And above that, a brown ponytail stained with blood.

  Oh, no.

  Oh, Nate.

  Sixteen

  “Sophie Mae! Are you out here?” It was my husband. Nice timing.

  “Over here,” I croaked, then tried again. “Barr! Hurry!”

  He came around the corner of the corn patch. His eyes lit up when he saw me, which made me feel a little better. “Nate still isn’t back. Tom and Allie say he didn’t show up at the farm house for breakfast this …” he trailed off as he neared.

  I nodded and rubbed both my eyes. “Yeah.”

  “Sophie Mae?” His voice held warning.

  I sighed and pointed down at the boot.

  He walked around the pile of spilled corn and stopped. Pulled apart the stalks like I had. Turned and looked at me.

  “Well. Hell.”

  Barr pushed his way in and knelt by the body. Pressing the tips of his fingers on Nate’s neck seemed an almost perfunctory gesture. Then he paused, staring at the ground, and his eyes widened.

  Looking up at me, he said, “He’s still alive.”

  _____

  First came the flashing lights and sirens. Then the well-oiled activities of the paramedics as they stabilized Nate’s neck and moved him onto a collapsible gurney. A police prowler roared down the dirt drive, parked with a spray of gravel, and Sergeant Zahn sprang out. Immediately, he began to quiz Tom and Allie. I was too far away to hear either questions or answers, but they shook their heads and held up their palms, the very pictures of bewilderment. Barr gave me a quick squeeze before going to check in with the crime scene officers.

  I stood out of the way in the door of the distribution shed and watched. Allie started to cry, and Tom put his arm around her shoulders. Could one of them have gone after Nate? It was possible he knew more about the encounter between Darla and Tom than either of the Turners wanted him to relate. On the other hand, if the discovery of a murder victim in their compost pile was bad, a second attack only made things worse for their CSA dream.

  Finished with the Turners for the moment, Zahn walked over and stopped in front of me. He raised one eyebrow. “Really?”

  I looked at the sky, silently invoking patience. “Hey, at least he’s not dead.”

  “For now. Someone hit him pretty hard. Looks like they used a shovel.”

  “Just like Darla Klick. Did you find it?”

  “Not yet. Listen, you’re not some twisted serial killer who goes around offing people just so she can find the bodies, are you?”

  I glared at him. “That’s not funny.”

  “Sorry.” He still appeared amused, though.

  “Not one little, stinking bit funny.”

  “Okay, okay. Tell me what happened.”

  Well, that was easy. “I was picking corn. The cart ran into Nate’s foot and turned over.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Barr came looking for me right after that. You know everything else.”

  He passed a hand through his hair. “I wish that were true.”

  “At least you know who the Jane Doe is. Did you find any family?”

  Zahn nodded. “Her parents in Arlington and an older brother in Mount Vernon, but they already knew she was dead.”

  “What! How could they?”

  “Nate Snow went to see the parents last night after you talked with him. They said he wanted them to hear it from a friend instead of some stranger in a uniform. He knew Ms. Klick had been staying with them between work assignments.”

  “That’s probably where he was when Barr came out here to talk to him,” I breathed. “But where was everyone else last night?”

  “The Turners said they all went out to eat. Something about an accident in the kitchen.”

  The burned dinner, partly my fault for insisting on staying outside to question Allie. I wondered if Clarissa had enjoyed her restaurant meal with her fresh manicure.

  “Then when did this—” I made a sweeping gesture from the popcorn field to the ambulance. “—all happen?”

  “Obviously after Nate got back from Arlington and before you started picking corn. We’ll know more soon.”

  “All right. What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” All trace of amusement had vanished from Zahn’s demeanor.

  “But you said—”

  “Someone is going around hitting people in the head with a shovel. We have no idea who, no idea why, and no idea how he picks his victims.”

  I shivered.

  Zahn continued. “You should stay away from here until we get it all figured out. I’ve already told Tom and Allie to stick close to each other and stay watchful, since they refuse to leave.”

  “Well, of course they wouldn’t leave their own farm.”

  “Tom told me the volunteers who were coming in today canceled,” Zahn said.

  “The Cadyville Eye hit the streets this morning, so the word’s out about the murder,” I said. “People are scared, and this attack on Nate isn’t going to help.”

  “Murder’s not good for business,” he agreed.

  Hallie’s bright red Camaro pulled up just as they were loading Nate into the ambulance. She stomped on the brake, sliding on the gravel, and boiled out of the driver’s side almost b
efore the car had stopped. A white-faced Clarissa gazed out the passenger window with wide eyes.

  “What happened? Who is that?” Hallie demanded.

  Tom touched her arm, but she pushed him away. Running to the gurney, she grabbed Nate’s shoulders. Unconscious, he couldn’t even fight her off.

  “Ma’am! Please!” Two paramedics held her back.

  Allie ran up and put both arms around her sister. She spoke in a low voice. Hallie’s features turned to stone as tears streaked down Allie’s face. Tom urged them toward the house. As they slowly walked away, he came back and opened Hallie’s passenger door.

  “Come on, honey.”

  Clarissa got out slowly. “Who died this time?” Gone was the attitude and sass.

  Tom’s voice was soft. “Nobody. But Nate’s hurt. They’re going to take him to the hospital.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  I watched her father consider and then decide. “We don’t know yet. He’s hurt pretty bad.”

  She bit her lip, every inch a little girl, and he folded her into his long arms. After a few moments, they moved off toward the house together.

  I turned to Barr. “I told you Hallie was kind of a nutcase about Nate, but I might not have conveyed how crazy she was acting last night. Yelling and screaming. Daphne says she’s horribly jealous, even though she and Nate didn’t have a very long relationship and it was over a year ago.”

  “Almost sounds like your old stalker.”

  I waved my hand. “Oh, he wasn’t crazy. He was just lonely and young and awkward. A little therapy fixed him right up.” Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. But in a short amount of time my erstwhile stalker had matured considerably and was now attending the University of Oregon in Eugene. “Do you think Hallie could have done this? Hit him in a fit of rage?”

  Barr gave me that look that said I was asking him to jump to conclusions before he was ready to even dip a toe into speculation.

  “If she saw Darla around here she might have killed her out of jealousy, too.”