Sowed to Death

by Peg Cochran

  “Are you going to send them back?”

  “That’s the thing.” Shelby bit her lower lip. “They’ve already paid me for the endorsement. It would mean sending the money back as well.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  There was a rustling sound and Shelby was aware of Kelly turning around in her chair to face her.

  “Shelby McDonald, I haven’t known you this long to not be absolutely certain of what you’re going to do. You’d never be able to live with yourself if you promoted those pots and pans on your blog, knowing that they’re shoddy merchandise. You know you’re going to send them back.”

  Shelby rocked back and forth in her chair, hoping the rhythm would soothe her.

  “Of course you’re right. I don’t know why I’m even wasting time thinking about it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s one problem solved, then.” Kelly laughed.

  “I wish this murder case were as easily solved.”

  Shelby told Kelly about what had happened at church that night.

  “What I wouldn’t give to have seen that,” Kelly squealed. “What a sight! Our self-effacing pastor being fought over by two women.” Kelly paused. “Do you think Tonya was the one who put the pepper on that pie, ruining poor Jenny Hubbard’s chances of winning the contest?”

  “I don’t know,” Shelby admitted. “I would have said it seemed out of character from the very little I’ve seen of Tonya. But after tonight—I’m not so sure. I wonder, however, whether it was done to skew the contest or to create a diversion—which it certainly managed to do.”

  “If it was meant to create a diversion, and Tonya was the one who did it, then that would make Tonya a suspect in Zeke’s murder.” Kelly started rocking again. “And what reason would she have for killing him?”

  “Apparently she blamed Zeke for his wife’s death.”

  “It would help if we knew more about Tonya. I don’t know much about her. Do you?” Kelly slurped up the last of her iced tea.

  “No. I’ve seen her in church and that’s about all. The first time I ever spoke to her was at the county fair.”

  “She brings her cat to the clinic for its shots. I know she moved here from Allenvale. She said her grandmother died and left Tonya her house here in Lovett. She said it was too good to pass up.”

  “Does she have a job?”

  “She works at the car wash back in Allenvale. At least she used to. I took the truck there once. It was covered in mud and I was too bone-tired to wash it myself.” Kelly turned around in her chair and hung her long legs over the arm.

  They rocked in silence for a moment. Shelby was tempted to tell Kelly about her encounter with Frank but for some reason she was hesitant.

  Maybe it was because she felt ashamed by the incident—although she hadn’t done anything wrong. Or had she?

  If she hadn’t, then why was she feeling so guilty about it?

  She needed to move on—from Bill’s ghost and from the feelings Frank stirred in her.

  She decided that the next time—if—Matt asked her out, she would say yes.

  13

  Dear Reader,

  Some of you have asked about the bay leaf wreath I am making for the St. Andrews Christmas bazaar auction. Unfortunately, I can’t grow enough bay leaves to make a number of them—the trees don’t winter in Michigan, so I have to keep the plants small enough to bring inside when the weather turns cold. In a warm climate, the trees can grow to thirty feet tall!

  Bay leaves are thought to have numerous medicinal properties, such as being antiseptic, antiviral, and antioxidant. They are also full of vitamins.

  The Greeks and Romans believed that the bay leaf symbolized wisdom, peace, and protection. I don’t know about you, but I could certainly do with all three of those.

  Making the wreath takes quite a long time, but I’m happy to do it for St. Andrews. I’m afraid I can’t put very much in the collection plate on Sundays—sometimes not much more than a handful of coins—so this is my way of contributing. The wreath usually fetches an astonishing sum of money at the Christmas bazaar’s silent auction.

  Shelby finished typing her blog entry and looked at the clock on the kitchen wall. Almost bedtime. She yawned and stretched her arms overhead. The house was quiet—the children asleep upstairs and both dogs curled up under the table at her feet.

  She checked her e-mail and answered a couple of messages, spent a few minutes posting an update on her professional Facebook page and trolling through her personal feed. She came upon a post courtesy of the Lovett County Fair—a picture of the tractor pull. She clicked on it and went to the county’s Facebook page.

  There were dozens of pictures from the fair—she even discovered one of Billy accepting his red ribbon in the horse competition. She clicked SHARE and posted that one to her own timeline.

  She scrolled a little further and came upon a picture of Mrs. Willoughby announcing the winner of the pie contest. The caption read, Tonya Perry wins the annual Lovett County Fair pie competition with her rhubarb pie.

  Shelby’s eye strayed to the comments underneath the picture. Most congratulated Tonya on her win but one was different. Very different. Shelby’s eyebrows rose as she read it.

  You’ve never been a winner, Tonya Perry, because you’re a loser. You said it was an accident but everyone knows it wasn’t. I hope you get what you deserve. And soon.

  What on earth did that mean? Shelby wondered. Someone obviously had it in for Tonya. And what did they mean by you said it was an accident?

  The commenter’s profile picture was not of themself but of a tuxedo cat, and the person’s name was B. J. Price. Man or woman? Probably female, Shelby decided based on the picture of the cat.

  She clicked on the name and was taken to B. J. Price’s page. Her timeline was filled with more pictures of cats, cartoons, and links to recipes. Shelby was pleased to see a link to her own blog, The Farmer’s Daughter, and her recipe for meat loaf.

  She skimmed the About section and discovered that B. J. Price worked at a hair salon in Allenvale—the Hair Boutique. Shelby’s hand unconsciously went to her own tangle of curls.

  It was high time she had a haircut, wasn’t it?

  • • •

  Shelby felt guilty as she left for Allenvale the next morning. She had plenty of chores to keep her busy on the farm—there was really no need to go gallivanting off to Allenvale for a couple of hours. The specter of Jake being charged with murder drove her on, though, and soon she was passing the WELCOME TO ALLENVALE sign.

  Allenvale was bigger than Lovett, with a main street lined with mom-and-pop shops. The Hair Boutique was sandwiched between a hardware store and a butcher advertising locally made venison sausages.

  Shelby had called first thing in the morning to request an appointment with B. J. Price for a trim. The shop was empty when Shelby arrived. A woman with dyed blond hair in an elaborate updo was leaning on the reception desk, idly turning the pages of a fashion magazine. She looked up when Shelby entered.

  Life had left its mark on her face, which was pinched and hard, with eyebrows plucked thin and a carefully outlined mouth. She glanced up as Shelby walked toward the desk.

  “I have an appointment with B. J. Price.”

  “That would be me.” B. J. slapped closed the magazine she’d been reading. “This way.”

  She led Shelby over to a row of three sinks. “What are we doing today?”

  “A trim?”

  “Okay.”

  After a quick and efficient shampoo, B. J. took Shelby over to one of the salon’s three stations. Pictures of children around Billy’s age were tucked into the frame of the mirror.

  “Are those yours?” Shelby asked.

  B. J.’s face relaxed. “Yes.” She pointed
a long French-manicured nail at a photo of three dark-haired children.

  “That’s Alexa—she’s ten. And that’s her brother, Garth, who’s eight, and Garth’s twin, Madison.”

  “A lovely family.”

  “Thanks.”

  B. J. began pulling a comb through Shelby’s hair.

  She frowned. “Your ends are awfully split. How about we take a good inch off? You’ll still have plenty of length.”

  “Sounds fine to me.”

  B. J. sectioned Shelby’s hair and put the upper layer in clips.

  “I haven’t seen you in here before, have I?” B. J. made the first few snips, the hair clippings falling onto Shelby’s shoulders. “You from Allenvale?”

  “No, Lovett, actually.”

  B. J. stopped scissoring abruptly. “Did you hear about the murder?”

  “Yes, I did.” Shelby decided not to say anything about actually having been at the fair when it happened.

  “Things like that don’t normally happen around here.” B. J. reached for a spray bottle of water and spritzed Shelby’s hair. “And the woman that won the pie contest, Tonya Perry, used to live here in Allenvale. We were in high school together.”

  “Really?” Shelby managed to look reasonably surprised, but B. J. was concentrating on trimming the back of Shelby’s hair and probably wasn’t even looking.

  “Tonya and I used to be friends until—” B. J. put her head down and appeared to be concentrating on cutting the sides of Shelby’s hair.

  “Did something happen?” Shelby asked gently.

  B. J. put her scissors down on the counter and looked at Shelby’s reflection in the mirror.

  “Tonya and I were friends but I was best friends with Emily. Emily was real smart—not like me. I went to vocational school to become a hairdresser, but Emily was going to go to college—she was that smart.”

  B. J. picked up her scissors again and continued trimming Shelby’s hair.

  “Emily won a scholarship and all. Her family didn’t have much money, so college seemed like nothing more than a dream to her even though all the teachers and her guidance counselor were begging her to apply. But winning that scholarship made it look like her dream had a chance of becoming a reality.”

  Shelby made a comforting noise, not wanting to say anything that might stem the flow of B. J.’s reminiscences.

  “John Allen—he’s the owner of a plant here in Allenvale that makes some kind of plastic molds; don’t ask me what they’re used for—but his family founded Allenvale back in the 1920s. They made a ton of money. He wanted to give back to the community so he created this scholarship for a worthy graduating senior from Allenvale High. And that’s what Emily won.”

  Shelby was beginning to wonder if this story had anything to do with Tonya, and if so, did it have any bearing on Zeke’s murder? Was she wasting her time here?

  “But then Emily died.”

  Shelby sat up a little straighter in her chair. She hadn’t expected that.

  “Emily died?”

  B. J. nodded. “Everyone said it was an accident but I don’t believe that for one single minute.”

  “Why not? How did Emily die?”

  “She and Tonya went swimming. There’s this lake—it’s not much more than a pond, really. It used to be a quarry back in the old days. Emily was a good swimmer—she was on the swim team at Allenvale High and she worked as a lifeguard during the summer. But somehow she managed to drown.”

  “Oh.”

  “I can tell you don’t believe it, either,” B. J. said, pulling open a drawer and removing a blow-dryer. “Tonya said Emily must have hit her head or something, because she dove into the water and never came back up again. Tonya said she tried to save her but the water was too murky for her to be able to see. She said she couldn’t find Emily.” B. J. turned Shelby’s chair around and looked her in the eyes. “With Emily dead that scholarship ended up going to Tonya instead. Don’t you think that’s just a little suspicious?”

  • • •

  Shelby left the Hair Boutique with her hair neat and trimmed and in very becoming soft waves. She thought of taking a selfie—her hair would never look like this again, certainly not after she’d spent a couple of hours weeding in the garden—but that seemed way too indulgent. She’d leave the selfies for reality television stars and teenage girls.

  Shelby had asked B. J. if she knew where Tonya had gone to college and B. J. had said Tonya had been accepted at Allen State University. That meant she’d have been able to live at home and save on room-and-board fees.

  B. J. didn’t know if Tonya had graduated or even what she’d majored in. She’d lost track of Tonya after high school. B. J. had never been able to get over the feeling that Tonya had had something to do with her best friend Emily’s death.

  Obviously Tonya had done well in school if she’d been in second place for that scholarship, Shelby thought as she drove back to Lovett. She wondered how Tonya had ended up working in a dead-end job in a car wash if she’d been such a promising student.

  Shelby had enjoyed school herself, but in the end a degree in political science hadn’t opened a great number of career doors, and while she’d enjoyed working in Chicago before coming back to the farm, she hadn’t exactly given up a spot in the corner office to do so.

  And she loved what she was doing. Her life was full—her children, her friends, family, and animals, her church and the beauty that was Love Blossom Farm.

  The only thing missing was . . . a mate. She pushed the thought from her mind as she pulled into the driveway of the farm. No time to think about that now—she had to get ready for the farmers’ market.

  The farmers’ market was winding down, given that it was almost halfway through September, but Shelby still had crops to sell: herbs, lettuce, leeks, kale, peppers, spinach, and zucchini—if everyone hadn’t already had their fill of zucchini. She’d passed a farm stand on her way back to Lovett that had a sign out that read FREE ZUCCHINI—HELP YOURSELF. The vegetable was hardy, easy to grow, and usually abundant by the end of the summer.

  Bert’s car was in the driveway when Shelby arrived back at the farm. She noticed the dent in the fender as she pulled up alongside it. She wondered if Bert had ever found out who had caused it.

  “Well, would you look at that?” Bert said when Shelby walked in the back door.

  She twirled a hand over her head to indicate Shelby’s new hairdo. Bert was standing at the counter, putting together bunches of herbs—basil, thyme, sage, and chives—for Shelby to sell at the farmers’ market.

  Shelby was embarrassed by the attention—she rarely gave more than a passing thought to her appearance. As far as she was concerned, the only thing that counted was cleanliness.

  “You must have a hot date tonight,” Bert said, tying a piece of string around a bundle of chives.

  “Yes. A hot date with my favorite television show.”

  “That’s a shame. You look wonderful. You should go out somewhere and show off.”

  “Where? The Dixie Bar and Grill?”

  Bert snorted. There’s a nice Italian place over in Allenvale.”

  “Lucia’s?”

  Bert nodded.

  “You’re forgetting one thing,” Shelby said, opening the refrigerator and pulling out a pitcher of lemonade.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t have anyone to go with.”

  “Ask one of those boyfriends of yours.”

  This time Shelby was the one who snorted. “What boyfriends?”

  “Those two lovesick puppies who are always mooning over you.”

  “Don’t you think it would be awfully forward of me to ask them out? I’ve always been told that a lady waits to be asked out.” Shelby retrieved a glass from the cupboard and poured herself some lemonade.

  “Not according
to that feminist—what’s her name? Gloria something?”

  Shelby plucked a handful of herbs from the basket on the counter and began dividing them into bundles. They were both silent for a moment.

  “I heard that your brother-in-law’s divorce is final,” Bert said.

  Shelby froze with a piece of string halfway around a batch of sage. Was Bert’s remark simply a random thought that had crossed her mind at that particular moment or did she mean for it to be part of their conversation about boyfriends?

  Shelby didn’t know. And she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know, either.

  14

  Dear Reader,

  If there isn’t a farmers’ market near you, have you ever considered joining a CSA? A CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, guarantees you receive fruits and vegetables at their peak of freshness.

  A CSA will introduce you to new varieties of produce you might not have thought of trying before. My children will eat almost anything that comes off a tree or a vine or out of the ground because we’ve grown it ourselves. Your children might react the same to a box of produce from “your” farm. And you will be putting the very freshest ingredients on the table for your family to enjoy.

  Shelby’s was the last truck to pull onto the empty field on the left just before Lovett Diner. Most of the farmers already had their stalls set up—Shelby was late.

  She quickly backed her truck into the spot behind her allotted space and began setting up her stall. She had a canopy she normally placed over it to keep the worst of the sun off of her, but this time she didn’t want to make the extra effort. She began unloading her crates of vegetables and fresh herbs, and it wasn’t long before she was drenched in perspiration even though the temperature hovered around a very comfortable seventy-eight degrees.

  Her first customers appeared before she even finished getting her stall ready.