by Wendy Tyson
“He’s waiting for me to fail.”
“Aye, maybe. I kept all your secrets though.”
Megan stood and gave Denver a playful jab. “What secrets do I have?”
“For starters, that you have a thing for the local country vet. A very dashing young man who is about to be made famous by a stunning photo journal of his very interesting country vet life.”
“Is that so? You’re not that far from Philadelphia, Dr. Finn. I wouldn’t call Winsome terribly country. This is no Darrowby.”
“Oh yeah?” Denver joked. “Tell that to Mrs. Kennedy.” He glanced at his watch and stood up, placing the cap back on his head. “I am just now making a house call to check on her cat’s new litter of kittens, after which she—that’s Mrs. Kennedy, not her cat—has invited me to stay for a breakfast of bacon, sausage, and eggs. Wasn’t Dr. Herriot always eating fat-back with his clients?” He smiled. “So there you go, wee lassie. I am quite the country vet.”
Megan laughed. “I should be worried, then.”
“Aye, very worried indeed.”
Sixteen
Megan raised a fist to knock on the door of Road Master Brewery, but before her hand connected, the door swung open and Emily Kuhl pulled her inside. The interior of the building was dark. Emily flipped on a flashlight, and Megan could make out Lily sleeping in a car seat in the corner atop a sheepskin rug.
“The electric company turned off the power for nonpayment,” Emily said. “That means all of Dad’s beer…ruined.” She shook her head. “I thought it couldn’t get any worse, and then…and then I found some stuff in his safe deposit box.”
“Are you okay?”
“It depends on what you mean by okay.” Emily pulled two chairs from the corner and set them up next to one another. She lifted a battery-powered lantern and flipped it on. A soft glow illuminated the center of the cavernous space, casting the rest of the room in shadows. Megan got a better look at Emily in the dim light. Deep bags hollowed out her angular face. Blue spa scrubs hung off her thin frame.
“Sit,” Emily said. “And I’ll explain.”
Megan took a seat across from Emily. She looked around the interior, recognizing the large vats for beer, the cold metal hardware of the brewing business, and the long scarred bar that doubled as a work space for Ted. The bathroom door was ajar, and Megan nodded toward it.
“Have you looked around for intruders?”
“First thing I did.”
Megan swallowed a growing sense of trepidation. “So what’s going on?”
Emily pulled her phone out of her purse. She fooled with it a moment before handing it to Megan. It only took Megan a few seconds to realize what she was seeing.
“Trolls.” She handed the phone back to Emily. “That’s all they are. Sad, lonely people with nothing better to do than leave mean reviews and comments online. The web allows strangers to bask in the safety of cowardly anonymity. Hurtful, Emily—but not meaningful.”
“Only Dad didn’t think they were strangers.” Emily rose and went behind the bar. She pulled out a laptop and scrolled to a page. With a deep breath, she said, “Look at this first.”
It was a series of emails between Ted’s business account and someone named TheJoker777. In each one, The Joker poked fun at Road Master Brewery, calling it subpar, uninspired, and the beer rancid. Ted’s responses began as dismissive, moved to cordial, and ended with irate.
“This person contacted your father through the brewery’s website?”
Emily nodded.
“Why didn’t he simply ignore this jerk?”
“Good question.” Emily switched to a different view. “Maybe this will explain why.”
Megan was looking at another string of emails. This time they were between Ted and someone she recognized—Otto Vance.
“Your dad thought Otto was TheJoker777?” Megan asked. “Why would Otto do something like that?”
“I don’t know. But Dad sure thought he had.”
It looked like Ted had spent quite a bit of time accusing Otto of trolling him online and sending the brewery mean emails. But why would Otto do that? And what made Ted come to that conclusion?
“This just doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless my dad is paranoid. I told you he was desperate to make this business work. He wanted nothing more than to prove himself. When Mom died, I think a lot of people thought he’d failed her.”
“I’m sure no one thought that, Emily.”
She snorted. “Had he made more money, had health insurance, she could have had better treatment options. He always felt like people were looking at him with pity, even scorn. My mom was the one they loved. Dad? He was the quiet loner who let her down.” She smiled, but it evoked only sadness. “A small town can be a great place to live…until it isn’t.”
Megan stared at the screen, at the exchanges between Otto and Ted. She reread the last four. They were short and hardly sweet, but telling.
“Emily, I don’t think in the end your father thought Otto was the one trolling him.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” She bent closer to the screen. “He says, ‘this needs to stop’ to Otto. And he accuses him of being complicit.”
“Complicit implies something larger than one person.”
“A conspiracy?”
“Maybe. Something illegal—something involving more than just Otto.” Megan pointed to a line in the last email. It seemed innocuous at first glance. “See here?”
Emily read the sentence aloud: “‘You must have figured it out by now.’” Emily looked at her questioningly. “Figured what out?”
“I don’t know—I guess that’s the question. Are there any other exchanges between Otto and your dad?”
With a glance at her sleeping daughter, Emily pushed the computer closer to Megan. “I saw these and was afraid to look further. Go for it. Please.”
Megan spent the next half hour reading through Ted’s emails, feeling very much like a snoop. She skipped everything personal, looking for more information on what transpired between Otto and Kuhl. While there was no smoking gun, there was evidence that they planned to meet—and talk.
“Here.” Megan moved back so Emily could get closer to the laptop. “It looks like your dad and Otto met the day before Otto died.” The same day they were arguing at my café, Megan thought.
Emily read the email. It was an innocuous exchange between the two men with the subject line “Oktoberfest,” but it mentioned meeting at the café to discuss the matter further.
“Only your father knows what went down between them.”
“And I have no idea where he is.” Emily rubbed her eyes. “This doesn’t look good for him, does it?”
Megan thought about the events: nasty online reviews, emails, allegations that Otto—his only real Winsome competitor—was part of it, the arguments at the café, Otto’s death, and then Ted’s disappearance. No, it didn’t look good.
“Do I have to turn this over to the police?” Emily asked.
“Not if they haven’t asked. There’s nothing in there to suggest guilt. But you shouldn’t erase or destroy anything in case they do get a warrant. That could be obstruction of justice.”
Emily nodded. “I don’t feel safe at home,” she said after a long minute. “Not with the baby and all.” She looked down at her scrubs. “Last night we slept in my office.”
“You’re welcome to stay at the farm. We have a guest room.”
Emily’s face shone with gratitude.
“Oh, thank you, Megan. We’ll be okay. My dad still has Grandma’s old property across town. The house is rundown, but the plumbing works. I’ll stay there for a few days, get my head straight.”
Megan nodded. “If you change your mind, call.” She paused, listening to the sound of trucks idling at a nearby business. The brewery smelled stuff
y, mildewy. No place for a baby. “And if you do get wind of something more, or if you hear from your dad, please call the police. You can contact Chief Bobby King directly.”
Emily agreed, although her expression remained noncommittal.
“Let’s leave together,” Megan said. “I’d feel better if I knew you and your daughter were safely in your car.”
They walked outside. Emily had taken her father’s business laptop with her. She had the baby under one arm and the laptop and papers under the other. Megan helped her into her car.
“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Megan asked, hearing the lameness of the question even as it left her lips.
Emily answered through the open window. “How can I be? Either my father is guilty of hurting someone and he’s now dead or on the lam, which is unthinkable, or he is in danger, running from someone who wants to hurt him and his business. In either case, I’m terrified.”
Softly, Megan said, “You really need to have this conversation with King. Show him what you found.”
“How can I go to the police? I wouldn’t know what to say. All I have that’s real is a father who left and a bunch of emails that don’t tell us much at all.”
“You’re feeling unsafe. That’s something.”
Emily glanced back at Lily, still sleeping despite her mother’s angst. “I will feel safest at my grandmother’s old house.” She sighed. “If I go to King, he’s liable to jump to the conclusion that my dad is guilty. If there are other suspects, he’ll be focused on Dad instead of them. Leaving Dad in danger.”
Megan nodded. She had a point.
Emily started the car. “I’ll go looking for Dad again after work. He’s the one person who can clear things up.”
Megan pulled out onto Smythe Road a minute after Emily. She’d been listening to the two voicemails from Clover begging her to stop by the café. Alvaro was upset about the quality of the neighboring farm’s goat cheese, and the café had a slew of customers, the first of the tourists arriving for the Oktoberfest celebration and leaf peeping their way around the region.
Megan approached the first and only stoplight between the brewery and the main part of town and slowed to a stop. She saw Emily’s car go through the yellow light. A gray Honda Accord with Jersey plates was behind her, and it too sped up to get through the light. Megan waited and watched, thinking about Emily. Mother deceased, father gone, recently divorced. Now it was her and her daughter against the world. Would be nice if she could at least count on the folks in her hometown. But would they come through?
The light turned green. Smythe Road was straight and flat. Megan was accelerating through the intersection, past a construction crew, when she noticed Emily turn onto a street ahead of her into a neighborhood area. The Honda turned too. Megan pressed harder on the gas pedal, but by the time she reached the spot where Emily had turned, there was no sign of either car and too many avenues down which either could have gone.
Megan pulled over and noted what she could remember about the Honda in her phone. Couldn’t hurt to have the information.
Just in case.
Seventeen
By Wednesday afternoon, Porter and Clay had the barn cleaned out and ready for tables. The yard was mowed and raked, weeds whacked, and most of the remaining beds had been turned over and planted with cover crops or mulched. Three Port-o-Potties were expected to arrive the next morning, and Bibi had purchased bags of Halloween candy and treats for the kids—despite Megan’s admonishments about too much sugar. They each had their assigned roles. Clover would give walking tours, Clay would drive the hay truck, Porter would play security guard, Bibi would see to sales of baked goods, and Megan would sell and manage the vegetables. And the goats and dogs would do what they did best: be adorable.
Despite her trailing annoyance at Ophelia, Megan had to admit things had come together quite nicely. Clay had been pushing for a wood-fired pizza oven in the big barn and a family pizza farm night during the summer. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. Perhaps next year.
She caught Clay in one of the smaller greenhouses, pulling weeds. He smiled when he saw her. She told him her thoughts on the pizza farm and that smile broadened.
“Clover will be excited. We had one at the commune. Alvaro makes amazing wood-fired pizza—if you can convince him to do it.” He stood, wiping hair out of his eyes with the back of a gloved hand. “Speaking of Alvaro, who will be manning the store and café on Saturday while we’re here?”
“I gave Alvaro the morning off. I’m closing the café.”
“The Breakfast Club won’t be happy.”
“I don’t think we’ve seen much of that crowd. Not since Otto.”
Clay cocked his head. “I guess that makes sense. Must be tough on them.” He shook his head. “Speaking of Otto, Lana stopped by to see you yesterday. You weren’t here. I thought maybe she called you afterward.”
“No, I haven’t heard from her. Did she say what she wanted?”
“Only that it was important.”
“Hmm. Okay, thanks.” Megan turned to leave, but thought better of it. She decided to share with Clay the discovery of the knife on Potter Hill and her concern that someone had been watching her from the woods again the other night. As she expected, he was angry.
“Dammit, Megan.” His hands balled into fists, his face turned the color of beets. “Did you tell King?”
“I did.”
“And?”
“What can the police do? It’s not illegal to hike.”
“So he didn’t take it seriously.”
Megan didn’t respond.
Clay gritted his teeth. “I don’t like this.”
“What would constitute ‘this’?”
“All of it. None of it. Otto. The person on Potter Hill.”
Megan weighed what to tell him. She decided to share her concerns about Kuhl and her conversations with Emily. It would help to get another perspective.
Megan told him everything in one big jumble, relieved to be sharing this burden with someone else. She explained the conversation she’d overheard at the café, the missing sweater vest, and the found button. She added Emily’s concerns and the email exchanges between Otto and Kuhl. The red slowly drained from Clay’s face, replaced with a sickly gray.
“Are you okay?” Megan asked him.
Clay looked around the greenhouse. His eyes rested on the doorway. With a resigned sigh, he said, “I need to show you something.”
Megan didn’t like the sudden look of distress on Clay’s face. “What?”
“I may be able to fill in one of the missing puzzle pieces.”
It took Clay twenty minutes to find what he wanted to show her, and that twenty minutes involved sorting through three large garbage bags’ worth of farm detritus from the open house cleanup initiative. He finally pulled a plastic Walmart bag out of the bottom of one of them. It was wet and muddy. He looked inside, grimaced, and opened it for her to see.
She knew immediately what it was. Gray wool material sat balled up the bottom, along with some sodden paper towels. The vest Otto had been wearing the morning he died.
“Where did you find it?”
“In the creek bed. The bag had snagged on a rock.”
The creek bed was tucked inside the woods on the edge of their property. Thinking of the hiker/stalker, Megan said, “So you don’t think someone placed it there purposefully?”
Clay closed the bag. They were by the barn, and Gunther and Sadie were sniffing madly at the garbage bag Clay had just rummaged through. Gunther turned his attention to the Walmart bag. Clay held it up higher, out of the dog’s reach.
“If I had to guess, I’d say no. I think someone tossed it into the creek farther up, where it’s deeper, and it came downstream and caught on the rock.” His frown deepened. “But clearly someone was trying to get rid of it.”
“Is the button missing?” he asked
“It’s compressed and wet in a bag, so I can’t tell. Do you want us to touch it?”
“No. I was hoping it was plainly visible.”
“It’s not. And neither is blood. At least from what I can see.”
“Vance had bled profusely. That could mean it was removed before Vance hit his head. Or maybe you just can’t see the blood—the stream may have washed it out.” King paused and said something to someone in the room with him. When he came back, he barked, “Sit tight, Megan. We’ll be there soon.”
King and the red-haired officer arrived at Washington Acres in record time. King took possession of the bag. Donning gloves, he opened it and laid the vest out on a plastic sheet in the back of his car. As suspected, a button was missing. The right pocket was also ripped. Otherwise, it looked clean of blood, but Megan knew it would be sent to the lab to test for any trace evidence. She also knew the police would have to determine whether a crime had been committed on the farm property, or whether evidence had simply arrived at the farm via the creek.
Megan shared Clay’s theory that the bag had floated downstream and snagged on a boulder in the creek.
“Sounds about right,” King said. “But I’d feel better if we take a look around. We’ll need Clay to show us exactly where he found the bag.” He glanced at Clay. “Can you do that?”
“Sure can.”
The police were done nearly an hour later.
“Nothing,” King said to Megan. She wasn’t surprised. “A forensics team is on the way, just to be sure we didn’t miss something, but I think Clay’s theory is correct. Someone tried to dispose of this by tossing it in the water.”
Megan said, “The fact that the button is gone, the pocket is ripped, and that you found the missing button at the solar farm says Otto likely didn’t discard the sweater himself.”