by Carol Culver
“He was a critic. That was his job,” Barton said.
“I understand what a critic does,” I said stiffly. “But his reviews were all completely wrong. Not just mine. I invited him in for another shot at my pies but he never showed up. Now if you’ll excuse me. I’m sorry for your loss and everything, but …”
“Is that the police station?” he asked pointing to the building across the street with the logo and the huge sign. I wanted to say, “No, it’s a pancake house, why don’t you stop in for a short stack,” but I’ve never been very good at sarcasm.
“Yes, it is,” I said.
“I have a beef with the police chief. It’s been days since my brother’s murder and I understand there have been no arrests yet. On behalf of the Barr family I demand an answer.”
“Did he leave any dependents?” I asked.
“Fortunately no,” Barton said. “Unless you mean me. Our uncle preceded Heath in death by only a few months. What a terrible burden. First burying Uncle Otto and now Heath. I’m the only one left.”
“But you said on behalf of the Barr family,” I reminded him.
“That’s essentially me,” he admitted.
“How sad,” I said. “You’re an only child now.” Of course I’d been an only child all my life and I’d done all right.
“What’s really sad is that I have the feeling no one cares about my brother. What are the police doing?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’m sure the chief is doing his best.” I should have just shut up. Sam wouldn’t expect me to stand up for him, so why bother? Now if I was his deputy I’d have a different attitude. “This is a small town,” I continued. “We’re not used to murder. I say that as a concerned citizen and an innocent bystander. I myself have nothing to do with the police. I don’t think the station is open on Saturday night.” I realized that if I really had nothing to do with the police then I wouldn’t know or care if it was open on Saturday night.
“I would think Saturday night is just the time when most crimes are committed,” Barton Barr said with a smug I-told-you-so look.
“Not in Crystal Cove, they aren’t,” I said. How I wished I had left two minutes before this man accosted me. If his brother Heath was half as annoying, I could understand the urge to kill him. I couldn’t seem to get away from this Barton’s narrow-eyed gaze. His grip on my open window frame unnerved me. I was afraid to leave and afraid to stay.
Barton stood up straight and looked across the street, assessing his chances of finding the chief in, I supposed.
“Why don’t you go over and knock on the door?” I suggested. “If you really want to see if the chief’s in.”
“I’ll tell him you sent me,” he said.
“You do that.” Now was my chance. I turned the key in the ignition and sped down the street as fast as I could. When I looked in my rearview mirror he was gone. I was afraid when Barton found that Sam wasn’t there at the station, he’d follow me and ask more questions I had no answers for. But after a few minutes on the open road when he didn’t show up, I started to relax.
The trip out of town toward the foothills had a calming effect on me. I needed it. Not that I lived in a big city—Crystal Cove was the epitome of small-town friendly and folksiness. But the wide open countryside was another matter. I tried to put Heath Barr out of my mind but I tried to decide if Heath’s brother was devastated about his death or not. Maybe Barton just wanted to find out if his brother had left him anything. I could have told him not to get his hopes up since the guy didn’t even have a paying job.
However he felt, Barton’s arrival on the scene could mean trouble. Not for me but for Sam. Never mind. Sam was a big boy and could handle a simpleton brother who accused him of dragging his feet in this murder investigation better than I could.
An hour later I saw the sign for “Foggy Meadow Farm the home of Honeybrook Cheese—Hand-made, Hand-crafted, Hand-held.” The sun was still fairly high in the sky which made the greenery on the other side of the white fences look all the more lush. We don’t have rain in California in the summer, so they must have deep wells or spend a fortune on water so their animals could graze. However they did it, the place looked like a picture postcard. Cows and goats grazed on one side of the road and sheep on the other as I drove slowly toward the white frame farmhouse.
There were signs along the way, welcoming guests with balloons, so I knew I was at the right place. Especially when I saw Jacques waving to me from the front porch of the house.
“You found us,” he said with a big Gallic smile on his face. Maybe he was French after all. Who else would kiss his guest on both cheeks as he did after I parked my car. Then he gave me a squeeze that could have been Gallic or just definitely bold and somewhat flattering.
“Hanna,” he said with a long look at me and my dress, “you look absolument ravissante.”
I was glad I’d not only dressed for the occasion, but also that I’d taken French at Crystal Cove High School, and I’d curled my hair and did what I could with my makeup. I’d called Kate before I left just so she’d know I wasn’t sitting at home another Saturday night reading cookbooks. She was thrilled to hear about Jacques’ party and said if she’d been told in advance she would have come by to do my makeup.
“Come up to the house,” Jacques said, taking the pie I’d brought out of my hands. “This looks mahhvelous.”
“This is all yours?” I asked, looking around at the house, the outbuildings, the pastures, and the animals.
“Not really. Actually none of it is mine. I’m farm-sitting for the Dolan family,” he explained. “So I’m here for the summer taking care of the place.”
“What about the cheese making?”
“The cheese was made last year or last season. It’s aging now. I told them I don’t do cheese except for eating and cooking with it. But all I have to do here is turn the wheels and keep the temperature even. And sell. That’s my thing. I love the sales part of it. The market and the people. Most of them.”
“I saw your demo of the torpedo sandwiches.”
“Pretty good, wasn’t it?” he said, his eyes sparkling in what I imagined to be a continental sexy way. “I sold out that day. What can I say? I’m a social person. I know what you’re thinking. Why be a farm-sitter and bury myself in the country if I love company? Well, it beats working in a factory. Especially when I score a nice place like this one. Otherwise farming is a big fat bore. And lonely. Not that I’m always alone out here, they’ve got sheep shearers and veterinarians coming and going. What I do is oversee the place. I’m good at that. Giving orders and seeing the big picture.”
He wasn’t modest, that was for sure, but that’s not how he’d gotten this farm-sitting job or any others. He’d had to sell himself. What was so surprising was how involved he was in our local politics and crime scene, considering. “The Dolans will have to give you a bonus,” I suggested. “The way you’re looking after their interests. A lot of other farm-sitters would have just ignored that know-it-all and his food review and simply brushed it off. But you were right in there fighting for them. I hope they realize what a prize they’ve got.”
“Now you’re making me blush,” Jacques said. Actually his face did look a little red. “You’re right. I take a personal interest in the farm. I may not have a farm of my own, but one day I hope I will. I may not make cheese either, but I understand the mind of a farmer wherever and whoever he is, especially an artisan who makes blue-ribbon cheeses. I take pride in my work. Like you do.”
I could only nod in agreement. He’d obviously thought it all out. Then it was time to change the subject before we both got emotional.
“You don’t use a vet named Marty Holloway, do you? I think he only deals with pets.”
“I think his name is on my list of emergency numbers. So far there hasn’t been an emergency with the dog or the cats. Why? Do you have a sick pet?”
“No, but his wife sells caramels at the Food Fair. Maybe you’ve seen her
. The thing is she wasn’t at the booth today. He was and he’s a terrible salesman.” And a rather unpleasant guy to boot. How did Nina put up with him?
“Some people have it and some don’t,” he said. “You do.”
“Wait, you haven’t even been to my booth.”
“I came by, but you were so busy you didn’t see me.”
I was pleased to hear what he said. I always felt I wasn’t as good as Grannie, but then I’m still a novice.
“Enough talk of work. You’re here to have a good time and forget about those morons who bothered us today. I guarantee they won’t be back next Saturday,” Jacques said.
“How do you know?”
“I took care of it.”
“But how?”
“I called and left an anonymous message at the county board of health about rats spotted at the supermarket in San Pedro,” Jacques said, referring to the nearby town where some of our residents shopped. “Now the suits should have something big to worry about besides the Food Fair’s scales and our food sample contamination. Yes, that’s what they nailed me for. Not any more. Everyone’s afraid of bubonic plague, or they should be. With rats in the county who gives a rat’s ass about a few minor violations at the Food Fair?”
San Pedro had a new shopping center thirty miles north of us. We locals had all been afraid of their taking business away from us when they opened last fall, but none of us had resorted to out and out lies.
“But, is that fair?”
“Fair? Is it fair to pick on poor farmers and artisans trying to serve the public with the fruits and vegetables they’ve raised?”
“No, but I hope they didn’t recognize your French accent on the phone,” I said.
“I didn’t have one,” he said with a cockney twang.
I gasped and he laughed.
“No worries, I can be discreet. I’m a man of a thousand voices and almost that many careers. I didn’t leave a trail behind me,” he said. “Keep moving, that’s my motto. One of the benefits of being temporary. I’ll be gone before they’re on to me. And I won’t leave a forwarding address. You know our home-town cop wouldn’t allow any vendor to cheat. Even when there’s a murderer on the loose. He’s there to protect us and our customers. Or he was until the asshole got murdered. Now he’s got bigger fish to fry. I hope he gets what he’s after.”
“Who, the police chief or Heath, the food critic?”
“The cop. Heath deserved what he got, if you ask me. That’s what I told the police chief. I felt sorry for him with so much on his plate and the whole town looking over his shoulder, so I invited him to the party.”
“Who, the police chief or Heath?” I asked.
Jacques laughed. “Come around back of the house. We’re having drinks around the pool.”
“Pool on a dairy farm?”
“Oh, sweetheart, I only work at the best places. What’s California in the summer without a pool? My job is to check the pH in the morning and the pool boy comes once a week. I know the drill. You should have seen my place in the Outback. Of course sometimes I hit a rough patch like when I got stuck one summer in Ireland. The ad for the farm sitter said beaches and a river for fishing. Sounded good, right? But the beaches were miles away, cold and frigid, the river’d been fished out by the locals who didn’t appreciate my horning in. They weren’t fond of the folks I was sitting for either.”
“How did you get out of it?” I asked.
“No way out. Had to put in my time. I had my reputation to think of. Once a farm-sitter gets a bad rep nobody wants him on their place.”
“Is that where you’re from, Ireland? I thought you were French, Jacques,” I said.
“I’m from nowhere and everywhere,” he said, tilting his cowboy hat back to reveal his tanned features and a shock of streaked, bleached hair across his forehead.
He took my arm and led me up the rise toward the house. “Did you bring your suit?” he asked when a large pool came into view surrounded by women in dresses and men in casual shirts and jeans. It was all so beautiful, so well-cared for, so rich and lush. I hadn’t expected to find this scene way out here.
I shook my head. Who would bring a swimsuit to a dairy farm? “I didn’t know you had a pool. You are living the California dream.”
“That’s the idea,” he said. “Never mind the suit. In a few hours we’ll all be, how do you say … skinny dipping.”
I smiled nervously. I’m no prude, but skinny dipping with a bunch of strangers?
“It’s not like we’re strangers,” Jacques said, as if he’d read my mind. “I mean we’re all in the same boat, don’t you agree?”
“Some might say we’re up the creek with no canoe. It means …” I didn’t get a chance to explain how the saying applied to a situation where a group of former strangers were now bound together as murder suspects. Maybe it was just as well. Jacques was waving to a guy who’d just gotten out of a shiny new black BMW and was walking toward us.
“And who is this lovely creature?” the guy asked Jacques with a nod in my direction. “She’s a cut above your usual breezy.”
I didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. I’d never been referred to as a breezy before. I must have looked puzzled, because Jacques put his arm around my shoulder and explained. “Breezy is a cross between a broad and easy.”
“I’m neither,” I said. Better to set the record straight right now.
“Hanna, meet my mate Geoffrey.”
Again I was confused. Was Geoffrey actually Jacques’ partner? Or was it “mate” as in friend in Australia? This time no one explained.
“Hanna works the farm market with me,” Jacques said. “She sells pies. Like the one in this box here she brought.”
“You made it yourself?” Jacques’ tall, attractive friend, Geoffrey, asked. In his ripped jeans, famous name T-shirt, and leather sandals, he looked like an interesting guy, around my age, but how did I know for sure? When there’s a murderer on the loose in your town, it’s not a bad idea to suspend judgment, of strangers or even your friends.
I nodded and took the pie box out of Jacques’ hands. I tipped the cover so they could see the brown flaky crust with the red sour cherry juice oozing from it.
“Whoa,” Geoffrey said, his eyes alight. “Why didn’t you tell me you invited a babe who could bake? Is she the one who …”
“No,” Jacques said curtly. “Bring your suit, Geoff?”
“Do I need one?”
Jacques assured him he didn’t and the water was fine.
I listened to the two of them banter for a few minutes as we made our way to the party scene around the pool. Jacques had his arm around my shoulders. I couldn’t help being flattered. Especially when the first person I saw was Lurline. Not surprisingly she was dressed to kill in low-rise skin-tight white jeans. Her midriff was bare and she wore an electric blue stretch tank top and high heels. To top it off I saw a huge tray of little cupcakes on a table on the patio. Who do you think brought those?
Not surprisingly Lurline was surrounded by a group of men. If I hadn’t made my entrance in my best dress with Jacques I would have felt old and dumpy next to her. But he had a way of making me and probably every other woman he knew feel young, sexy, and desirable.
It was best that I ignore Lurline for the moment. Fortunately Jacques introduced me to various people, then when some of the other vendors arrived I seized the chance to talk to Tammy and Lindsey, who’d brought their husbands. They’d also brought a couple of baguettes from their bread booth, which went really well with some of the exotic cheeses on the buffet table by the pool. Which all went extremely well with some wine that a good-looking young guy behind a portable bar was pouring. A couple of inflatable rafts floated in the pool. Some cool jazz music floated out from the house on large speakers. I hadn’t been to a party like this for years, maybe never, that combined a working country farm atmosphere with sophisticated music, food, and drinks. That Jacques really knew how to throw a party.
/> “What a life Jacques has,” Lindsey said to me as Tammy went off with her husband to see the milking machines. I watched her go, remembering she was still on my long list of suspects. Maybe I’d talk to her later, though what would I say? I knew perfectly well how she felt about Heath’s demise.
I admired Lindsey’s Palazzo pants and a gauzy see-through shirt. Holding a glass of local dark red Pinot Noir, she looked like an ad for California wine in a slick magazine.
“Makes you want to be a farm-sitter too, doesn’t it?” I asked.
“You didn’t fall for that line, did you?” Lindsey said. “He’s more than that, Hanna.”
“Yes, he’s a great salesman and a cook as well.”
“That’s not what I meant.” She lowered her voice. “Haven’t you heard? He’s in the Witness Protection Program of course.”
I’ve never thought Lindsey was the brightest crayon in the box, but being raised by Grannie to be polite, I didn’t gasp and tell her she was obviously crazy. I just nodded as if I agreed. On the other hand, was Lindsey capable of making up a story like that? Of course it was possible the story was true, which would explain Jacques’ peripatetic lifestyle, hopping from farm to farm. But instead of working for the farm-sitting placement agency, he was placed by the FBI. Just in case it was true I decided to follow through and see if she could back up her story.
“So what’s his background? How did he get to be in the program? He must have done something. Was he in a gang or did he work for the mob? Does he know something that puts him in danger?” I asked.
Lindsey’s mouth was full of a wedge of the prize-winning triple cream cheese I’d seen on the buffet table so she couldn’t answer right away.
What I really wanted to know was how she knew this. If she was out blabbing to me about his identity, didn’t that mean his cover was blown and he’d have to move on?
Just as I’d considered the possibility, Lindsey put her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell anyone I told you,” she said.
“I won’t,” I promised. “But how did you find out?”
“He told me,” she said.