“What makes you think I have time to go shopping?” Paul turned on her angrily. “If you’d shop properly you’d have money left over.”
Anna saw Jared staring at his father from the hall doorway. He then ran to his mother and tried to climb on her lap. Anna was discouraged to see that, even at his young age, he had already learned to fear his father’s bad moods.
Paul walked out and slammed the door.
An afternoon of respite, Anna thought. She wouldn’t have to worry about him coming home until supper, if then. He’d been known to head for the bar for a few drinks after a hard day of watching animals being bought and sold.
The door opened again and Paul stuck in his head. “Don’t forget my chicken,” he said.
When he was finally gone Anna roused herself out of the chair and cleaned the dirty dishes off the table. As she trudged in the hot sun to the garage for a hatchet she thought about Nick’s new wife and what she had said to her when she first saw her. Maybe she should invite her over one day soon and tell her all about the man she had just married.
She went to the chicken pen and opened the gate. She entered the yard where the chickens clucked and scratched at the ground. They had bought chicks in the spring and they were now big enough for eating. She reached down and grabbed the legs of one of the larger ones. She pushed open the gate and carried the chicken upside down to the piece of wood used as a chopping block. The chicken squawked and flapped its wings as if it sensed its impending death. She held the chicken so its head was on the block, and lifting the axe above her, brought it down, neatly severing the head from the body.
“There you lucky bird,” she said. “Your miserable life is over.” She let it go and watched its wings whack the ground as its legs launched the body first in one direction then another. It flopped and thrust in the throes of the death dance before lodging against the fence.
Chapter 15
The next morning Elizabeth went with Jared to the dining room for breakfast. Although she was taking the day off from travelling she did want to learn more about the B&B.
The dining room was large with ten tables. Did that mean they had ten rooms to rent? If so, the place was more like a hotel than a cozy, intimate home where you could spend time with your hosts.
Most of the tables were full. Jared directed Elizabeth to the buffet table in the centre of the room. It had a spread like she had never seen at a B&B. Sausages, bacon, ham, three different egg dishes, homemade hash browns, pancakes, toast, waffles, muffins.
“Wow,” Elizabeth said, amazed. “Was it like this yesterday?”
“No,” Jared said, picking up a plate and setting it on his lap. “Today they have a conference taking place in their meeting room.”
“I wondered about all the tables.” Elizabeth loaded up her plate and followed Jared to a table with three chairs. He pushed himself into the fourth spot.
“So, did you take a look around the building?” Elizabeth asked, as they ate.
“A bit. Their ground floor has the kitchen, dining room, meeting room, a gift shop, and my bedroom. Brandon said that the upstairs is all bedrooms, including his parents and his.”
So it wasn’t like a hotel. They’d just diversified.
Once they were finished, Elizabeth said she wanted to look at the gift shop. It was small but full of locally produced items, like wind chimes, stained glass ornaments, paintings, and wooden toys. It was also on the honour system. There was no sales person or cash register. A sign stated that if you wished to purchase something, just leave a note at the front counter. The item would be wrapped and given to you at the time of your check out and the price included on your bill. What a different way of doing things, she thought, making a note to include this in her article.
On their way to Jared’s van Elizabeth saw Brandon snipping some protruding branches from the elephant tree. “I have to ask him about those trees,” Elizabeth said to Jared. She headed over to him, Chevy at her heels. Jared wheeled beside her.
“Hi, Brandon,” Elizabeth said. “Those are quite the shapes. Did your parents do them?”
Brandon stopped his cutting. “No, actually there was a guy in southern Alberta who had been working on them in his yard for years. Then he died and his family sold the property. The new owners offered them for sale and Dad bought them. It took quite a bit of work to get them dug up and transplanted here.”
“How long have you had them?” Jared asked.
“About three years.” Brandon returned to his trimming.
“Well, I don’t feel so bad. I grew up in the area and I was wondering why I hadn’t heard of them before.”
“What can you tell me about the house?” Elizabeth asked. “Is it an old barn or was it built new to look like a barn?”
“Half and half,” Brandon replied. “It was built as a barn by my grandfather in the nineteen fifties. As it began to fall apart he just left it. When Mom and Dad bought five acres with the house and barn off him they began to restore the barn, thinking it would make an unusual B&B.”
“And it does,” Elizabeth agreed. She looked around the property. “Where is the house?”
“Well, really it was an older mobile home so they just sold it to a farmer who’s using it as a bunk house for his hired help.”
That answered all her questions.
In the van Elizabeth pulled out the list of names Jared had given her. Jared used his cell to phone the number for Nick Thompson and Sarah Munter and received the okay to visit.
At their farm Elizabeth climbed out of the van and waited while Jared unloaded himself. The morning was already getting warm. She watched a very large woman in a red dress and a tall, slim man come out of the house. They descended the steps, she slowly and holding the rail.
“Hello, you must be Elizabeth Oliver,” the woman said, holding out one hand. In the other she carried a small towel. “I’m Sarah Munter and this is my husband, Nick Thompson.”
Elizabeth shook his hand while Sarah looked down at Jared. “Hello, Jared. It’s so good to see you again.”
“Ms. Munter,” Jared said. “Mr. Thompson.”
“Call us Sarah and Nick,” she said. “We’re all adults now.”
“We have a gazebo around back where we can talk,” Nick said.
Elizabeth and Jared followed the couple into the back yard. Jared had to work hard to move the wheelchair in the grass but Elizabeth didn’t offer to help. If he needed it he would ask.
The air smelled of fresh mowed grass. There was a tall elm and a weeping willow in the yard and a hedge of lilac bushes blocked off the area from the barn and sheds.
The floor of the gazebo was even with the ground and there were two doorways opposite each other. Sarah and Nick settled on one bench while Elizabeth took the one across from them. Jared stopped just inside the doorway.
“So do you want to tell us what this is all about,” Sarah said to Jared. “On the phone you mentioned it had to do with your mother and it was important. I must admit that you have our curiosity aroused.”
Jared took his time. Elizabeth had to bite her tongue not to say something.
“I’m not really convinced that my mother committed suicide,” Jared said.
Nick looked startled then glanced at Sarah. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she was blushing or if it was the heat.
“It was ruled a suicide,” Sarah said. “The police concluded she threw herself down the well.”
Jared took the photograph out of his pocket and handed it to Nick. Sarah grabbed it instead. “I received this in the mail a while ago,” Jared said.
Sarah looked at it while Nick craned his neck to see. “That’s your mother’s grave,” she said. “I always thought it was awful of Paul to have put that on her marker.”
“Turn it over,” Jared said.
Elizabeth watched their reactions. This was where she had expected them to be shocked but instead Nick’s face tightened while Sarah’s remained impassive.
“That’s all you’ve
got?” Sarah asked dismissively, as she handed the photograph back to Jared. “I don’t see how you can base your opinion on three words taped to that.”
Jared looked down at the words. He touched them with his fingers.
“If that person knew this was true he or she would have gone to the police,” Sarah continued. “If you want my opinion I think someone is playing a not-very-funny joke on you.”
“Can you tell us something about Anna?” Elizabeth asked. She sensed Jared’s disappointment that they weren’t taking this seriously and decided to conduct the questioning until he recovered. “Maybe how you met her, how long you knew her.”
Sarah laughed. “I remember our first meeting well. Her words to me were. ‘Get away from here! Move back to the city!’ When I just stood and stared at her she hissed at me. ‘I mean it. Get out.’”
“Why did she say that to you?” Jared looked up.
Sarah shrugged. “I asked her that when we met at a community dance about two months later and she said that she was just trying to protect me.”
“Protect you from what?”
“From learning the hard way how tough farming can be on a city girl.”
“When did she tell you to leave?” Elizabeth asked.
“My third week here. We’d just come back from buying groceries when Paul and Anna drove up.” She looked at Jared. “You were with them and she was pregnant. They didn’t get out of the truck. Paul started talking to Nick so I went around to introduce myself. But I didn’t get a chance to say anything. She just had time to give me that warning and they drove away. It wasn’t until after they left that Nick told me who they were.”
“So you had just moved here,” Elizabeth said. “Where did you come from?”
“I was born and raised in Regina.” She didn’t give Elizabeth time to ask anything more. It seemed she had a story to tell. “I met Nick at a party put on by one of my college friends. He was a friend of her older brother. He was twenty-seven and a tall, lean, farm boy who had been working in the city. We dated all winter and on my twenty-first birthday he asked me to marry him.”
Elizabeth noticed that Nick was taking furtive glances at Jared. It upset her that able bodied people stared at physically challenged people like they were an oddity.
“So, how did you end up here?” Jared asked. He looked at Nick but Sarah seemed to be the one who did the talking in the family.
“Soon after we announced our engagement, Nick inherited the farm.” Sarah wiped the sweat off her face with the towel then continued. “I expected him to sell it but he wanted to move back and become a farmer. Until then, our plans had been centered around living in the city. I must admit I was hesitant at the idea of moving away from my family and my life and so suggested that we have a long engagement while he decided if he wanted to farm. But Nick assured me that I would love living on the farm that had been in his family for three generations and because I loved Nick...” Here she looked at Nick but Elizabeth did not see love in her eyes. “I finally agreed to a wedding in late June. After that, we saw little of each other. Nick quit his job and moved to here, where he worked the fields and started to put in the crop.”
Sarah stopped for a breath. She looked at Nick again and saw him glance at Jared. She turned back to Jared and Elizabeth. “Would you like some iced tea or lemonade?” she asked.
“Thank you, that would be nice,” Elizabeth said. The morning was getting hotter.
Jared nodded.
“Nick, get us some lemonade.”
Elizabeth saw the glare Nick gave Sarah before getting up and heading to the house.
“Can you tell us about some of Anna’s neighbours?” Elizabeth asked. She slapped at a mosquito on her arm.
“The farm you passed as you came from the highway is where Ben and Meredith lived,” Sarah said, wiping her face again. “Now you want to talk about a murder, there was one. Ben was killed by Christine, who was married to Wayne and they lived further down this road.”
“When did that happen?” Elizabeth asked. It was obvious that Sarah liked to talk. They could probably learn a lot from her if they were patient.
“It was the winter before Anna died, or was murdered,” she corrected, although Elizabeth noticed she didn’t sound convinced.
“I didn’t know it was that close to Mom’s death,” Jared said.
“It was,” Sarah confirmed
“Two unnatural deaths in this community in such a short time,” Elizabeth said, astounded.
“Not only community, but the two people who died lived within two kilometres of each other.”
“Wasn’t that a little suspicious?” Elizabeth asked. She knew she would certainly think so.
“There was some talk but the police never thought they were connected. That was mainly because Ben was killed in Redwater.”
“Why there?”
“Because Christine had left Wayne and was living in town.”
“Did you think there was a link between the two deaths?”
Sarah shrugged her shoulders. “I couldn’t see one.”
“Why not?” It didn’t take much to keep her talking.
“Well, Ben was dead and as far as I know, Christine had no reason to kill Anna.”
“Were Christine and Anna friends?”
“Not that I know of. You’ve got to remember that I had just moved here. I didn’t know anyone.”
“Why did Christine kill Ben?” Elizabeth remembered Jared saying something about them seeing each other.
“It sounds that they were having an affair and she wanted to end it.”
“So she killed him?” Did Sarah notice that she was the one asking the questions instead of Jared? She hoped he would step into the conversation soon or Sarah might start to wonder why.
“I guess he was terrorizing her and she used the knife to protect herself.”
“Did she go to jail?”
Sarah shook her head. “The jury believed her story and let her go.”
“What was her story?” It didn’t sound like Sarah believed it.
“That she’d stabbed him once and then was hit on the head by someone else who finished him off by stabbing him the other four times.”
“Where is she now?” Maybe they should talk to her.
“She lives in Edmonton.”
Nick returned with a tray of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade in time to hear the last of the conversation. “Who were you talking about?” he asked, as he handed each of them a glass and poured the lemonade.
“Christine,” Sarah answered him curtly then continued. “Wayne still lives on the farm but has become a hermit. He only goes to town for the mail and groceries. Other than that he just milks his cows and puts up hay.”
“How well did you get to know Anna?” Elizabeth asked.
“Not very. We only had a couple of months before she died.”
They sipped their lemonade in silence. Elizabeth tried to think of something else to ask but she drew a blank. “So, you obviously grew to like the farm,” she finally said.
“Well, I got off to a rocky start.” Sarah smiled, but there was a touch of bitterness to her voice. “And being from the city I was certainly told about it. Right, Nick?”
Nick didn’t answer her.
“I couldn’t do anything right. I didn’t know how to make scrambled eggs the right way. I was a farm woman so therefore I wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. I was supposed to raise a large garden. I was supposed to know how to milk cows. My life was not easy.”
Her statement left an awkward silence. Elizabeth wasn’t sure if she should agree with her or not. Either way it may offend one of them.
“I’m sure it was hard to adjust to a new way of life,” Elizabeth said. She’d run out of questions. She looked at Jared wondering if he had anything to ask.
“Thank you for seeing us,” he said.
Elizabeth stood and also thanked them.
“Feel free to come and talk again,” Sarah said.
&nb
sp; “I’m sorry,” Jared said, as they drove away. “I just couldn’t think of anything to ask once Sarah basically told me my idea was stupid.”
“That’s okay,” Elizabeth said. “It isn’t easy but I’m sure you’ll catch on.”
“So, what did you think?”
“It sounds like they believe your mom killed herself.”
Jared nodded.
“They don’t seem like a happy couple, do they?” Elizabeth said.
“I got the impression that she doesn’t love Nick anymore and yet she’s still on the farm with him.”
“Let’s grab something to eat and then go see Meredith,” Elizabeth said.
* * * *
Anna’s Story
“I’m leaving,” Willy said, entering the kitchen with a back pack.
“Leaving?” Anna asked looking up from rolling the pyrogy dough on the table. “Going where?”
“I’m going to stay with friends in town.”
“Why?”
“To get away from you,” he said, harshly.
Anna slowly sank into a chair. She wasn’t sure if she was glad or not. He did do a lot around here but she was tired of his anger. She got enough from Paul, she didn’t need it from Willy, too.
“Your father won’t be happy.”
“He hasn’t been happy since you moved here.”
“Where are you staying?”
“I’m not telling you.
“Are you going now?”
“Yes, while Dad’s gone.”
“Where are you going, Willy?” Jared asked, coming into the kitchen.
“I’m going far away.”
“Can I come, too?”
“You’re too young,” Willy said, bending down to give him a hug. “But you can come when you get bigger,” he added quickly, when he saw the crestfallen face.
“I’ll be big soon.”
“Yes, you will.” Willy stood.
Anna was touched by Willy’s treatment of Jared. Although he hated her he did seem to care about his half-brother.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know it would turn out like this.”
“You should be leaving, not me,” Willy said, stalking out of the house.
The Travelling Detective: Boxed Set Page 37