Mulch Ado about Murder

by Edith Maxwell

  “How do you think she died?” Cam asked. She cocked her head. It had gone quiet outside. Seeing emergency vehicles must have stunned the demonstrators into silence.

  The paramedic glanced at Chief Frost.

  Ruth cleared her throat. “Not really your business, Cam.” Her brown eyes were kind but firm.

  “Did you have any grievances with the victim, Ms. Flaherty?” Frost asked.

  “No! Not at all.” Did he think she had hurt Nicole? What a ridiculous idea. “We were working together. I was growing seedlings for her. She could count on good organic stock, and I received a little extra cash at a time in the year when I need it. Like now. But I didn’t know her, really.”

  “She pay you promptly?” Frost asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see anyone in here? Anybody leaving before you came in?”

  “I didn’t see anyone in here. Except Nicole. But as I arrived, a man passed me in the parking lot. He looked upset about something. I didn’t recognize him at all.”

  “Describe him,” Ruth said.

  “Slight, dark haired. Green shirt. Haunted eyes.”

  Chief Frost raised his eyebrows. “Haunted?”

  “I don’t know. It was an expression on his face, in his eyes. Like he’d seen something bad.”

  “Or done something bad, more likely.” The chief, who towered over Cam and Ruth by a good six inches, nodded. “We’ll need a more thorough statement from you later, but you can go ahead and leave now.”

  “But sir,” Ruth began. She glanced at Cam and back at her superior. “She found the body. Doesn’t that mean . . .”

  Cam knew Ruth well enough to know that she was questioning the chief. When it came to regulations versus friendship, for Ruth regulations won every time, and Cam respected her for that.

  “Heck, we know Cam. She’s been through this drill before, and it’s not like we don’t know where to find her. She can go,” he said gruffly. He narrowed his eyes at Cam. “By the way, you know any of those ladies walking around with signs out there?”

  Rats. Cam cleared her throat. “The short one with the long gray braid is Felicity Slavin. The one with her hair pulled back is Deb Flaherty. I don’t know the names of the other two.”

  “This Deb any relation?” Frost asked, his eyebrows raised.

  Cam nodded slowly. “She’s my mom.”

  Chapter 3

  Cam followed the EMTs out of the greenhouse. The pair headed for the ambulance and drove away, sirens quiet, lights unlit. Cam hurried toward the clump of women on the sidewalk in front of the greenhouse. A fresh breeze ruffling Cam’s short red hair was a relief after the warm humidity of the greenhouse, but the afternoon sun was still high and she had to shield her eyes with her hand.

  “Cam, what’s going on?” Felicity folded her hands in front of her chest, worry etched on her face. She wore an Indian print tunic in her signature colors of purple and turquoise.

  “Police cars? Ambulance? At first we thought they were coming for us,” Cam’s mom said, her light blue shirt bringing out the blue in her eyes, eyes exactly like Cam’s. She hurried to Cam’s side but stopped short of actually touching her. Deb was shorter than Cam by a few inches and, despite being a lifelong academic, moved with the athleticism of her earlier days as a college soccer star.

  “I think you’d better end your protest, ladies.” Cam gazed at the group, her eyes moving from one to the next. She skipped over her mom and ended on Felicity. “Go home and put your signs away.”

  “We have every right to demonstrate, Cameron,” Deb said, lifting her chin. “We’ve stayed on the sidewalk.” She held a neatly lettered cardboard sign high. It read DON’T DILUTE ORGANIC. SAY NO TO SOIL-FREE HYDROPONICS.

  A passing car tooted its horn, whether in solidarity or disagreement Cam couldn’t tell.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” Cam said.

  “What do you mean?” her mother asked.

  “Nicole’s dead,” Cam nearly whispered.

  The collective intake of breath was sharp and fast.

  Felicity reached out and touched Cam’s arm. “Did you, is she . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Yes, I found her. She’s in the greenhouse. She’s dead.” The words were harsh, final, almost cruel. But that was the reality this afternoon.

  “The poor thing,” Felicity said, bringing her other hand to her mouth. “And poor you, finding another body.”

  The other two women looked at each other. One shook her head, her mouth pulled down and her eyes dark. “We didn’t agree with Ms. Kingsbury. But we didn’t wish her dead.”

  “Of course not,” Cam said.

  Deb blinked. “How did she die?”

  “I don’t know.” It figured that her mom would go straight to the cause and bypass feelings altogether.

  “But it wasn’t murder, was it?” Felicity asked, eyes wide. She’d been involved with Cam’s farm since the beginning and knew of Cam’s connection with more than one murder in the past year.

  “I don’t know.” Cam turned her head to take in the greenhouse. Its new pointed-arch supports were unbent and strong, the plastic still clean and stretched taut, the wood end walls secure. Unlike the owner’s life. She looked back at the women. “But just in case, I sure hope none of you was in there alone with Nicole today.”

  Deb blinked again. Felicity opened her mouth, but when Ruth emerged from the greenhouse door, Felicity shut it again. Ruth glanced around. She made her way with deliberate steps to the group.

  “Hey, Felicity.” Ruth nodded at the diminutive woman, whom she’d met at Cam’s farm. “Ladies, I’m going to need to speak with each of you.” She pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. “Names and addresses, please?” She surveyed the group, focusing on Deb. “Ma’am?”

  Ruth must not realize she was Cam’s mom, and her mom probably had never met Ruth. When Cam’s parents dropped her at Albert and Marie’s farm every summer from when she was six right through high school, they never stayed long. They were always headed out on anthropological research junkets to various far-flung parts of the world. Cam had talked about Ruth to her parents in the past, though. Not that they’d listened.

  “Mom, this is Officer Ruth Dodge. My friend Ruth. Ruthie, Professor Debra Flaherty. My mother.”

  “Nice to meet you, Professor.” Ruth smiled and extended her hand.

  Deb shook it. She’d taught Cam a few things, and among them was that women should always have a good, strong handshake. “Pleased to meet you at last, Officer. Sorry it had to be under these circumstances.”

  Cam groaned inwardly. A dig at her, she was sure. But when was she supposed to have introduced them? And it was just like her mother to not ask Ruth to call her Deb instead of Professor.

  “Are your vehicles parked in this lot?” Ruth gestured to the lot behind the greenhouse, which it shared with the office building to their left.

  “No,” Felicity said. “We all parked across the street.”

  “I need to speak with each of you privately before you leave.” Ruth tilted her head at the Westbury Police SUV parked in the greenhouse lot. “Professor Flaherty, let’s begin with you. If you don’t mind?” She gestured with her arm toward the vehicle in a way that left no room for argumentation.

  Deb pursed her lips but followed Ruth to the passenger door.

  Felicity stared after them.

  “What?” Cam murmured to her, turning Felicity away from the other women.

  “Your mom was in the greenhouse for a while this morning,” she murmured. “She said she thought she could reason with Nicole. Get her to close the operation.”

  “Really?” Cam asked. This was very bad news. Mom, perhaps the last person who saw Nicole alive, and for a contentious reason? Not good.

  “Yeah. I told her that was absurd. Nicole put a lot of money, time, and energy into this place. Why would she give it up?”

  It was Cam’s turn to stare at Felicity. “Then why in the world are you out here protest
ing? Isn’t that exactly what you hoped would happen, that Nicole would give up the business?”

  Felicity wrinkled her nose. “I was hoping she’d convert to a regular organic greenhouse, with plants grown in soil. She could have, you know. She already has the structure.”

  “Maybe,” Cam said. “It’s too late now, though. Too late for anything.”

  * * *

  Cam’s truck clattered along Bachelor Street. She rolled down the windows and luxuriated in a few moments of solitude with spring wind in her hair, the aroma of cut grass in her nostrils, and nobody to talk to. She was getting better at hanging out with people, but a classic introvert like her needed solo periods in which to recharge. She’d had almost zero time to herself since her mother and father had arrived last week. And they weren’t due to leave until after Memorial Day, which was still four days from now. Moments alone also freed up her brain to think.

  She breathed in the calm and energy of the fresh air and tried to breathe out how it had felt to find Nicole dead, letting go of the negative. She inhaled the good, exhaled the bad, over and over. It all sounded reasonable when her yoga teacher said things like that. Right now? Those feelings and that negativity weren’t going anywhere. Her underlying sadness at seeing Nicole dead and her worries about her own mother refused to be vanquished.

  Cam thought more about the dark-haired guy she’d seen in the parking lot. Who was he? Maybe he was Nicole’s ex. She tried to remember anything else about him. Pale. Maybe about five eight. He’d worn a green shirt. But what was the other thing about him she couldn’t quite remember? Had he killed Nicole? She shuddered involuntarily. He’d seen her. She’d seen him.

  Cam’s mom had been alone in the greenhouse with Nicole. If the police determined the death wasn’t due to natural causes, Mom could be in deep trouble. That was a pretty big “if,” though. Nicole could have had an underlying health problem. Cam had heard of a woman in her forties dying in her sleep of a brain aneurysm. Heart attacks happened at any age, didn’t they? Or maybe Nicole had experienced an allergic reaction triggered by one of the chemicals in the slurry. And why was she holding a set of rosary beads? Cam wasn’t a bit religious. Had Nicole been praying for success in her business? Or a better love life? Unhappily her prayers hadn’t worked out for her.

  Bobby. He’d just lost a cousin, one he seemed close to. It might take a while for word to get to him, especially as he lived across the river in the town of Merrimac. Cam pulled to the side of the road and sent him a text.

  Got a minute to talk?

  She waited a few moments but he didn’t reply, so she resumed driving. He would know if Nicole had children who would mourn for her, siblings, parents. Cam couldn’t remember if he’d ever told her exactly how he and Nicole were related, if they were true first cousins or some other permutation of family connection and had just simplified the relationship to the word “cousin,” as many did. Of course, if Nicole’s death was murder, then she had at least one enemy out here somewhere, too.

  Turning onto Attic Hill Road, Cam coaxed the Ford up the steep hill toward her farm. She was sure her mother hadn’t killed Nicole. Debra Greaney Flaherty was governed by logic. If in some alternate universe she turned out to be a murderer, her crimes would be planned and plotted to the tiniest detail. No unpremeditated passion killing for her. Cam had always thought her mom was the least emotional person she knew, and Cam’s upbringing had reflected that.

  She’d always known she had a safe, stable home and two parents committed to each other and to her. But in their house there’d been no sitting on laps, no good night hugs, no tears at parting, even when they were about to be separated for two months and Cam’s permanent front teeth hadn’t come in yet. That is, her parents hadn’t shed tears. Cam herself had cried plenty of her own. Thank goodness for Albert and Marie. Warm, low-key, and fun, they’d offered unconditional love, an unstructured summer, and an education in nature and living creatures without a single lesson. Thinking of Albert reminded Cam that she and her parents were due to have dinner with him tonight over at Moran Manor, his assisted living residence.

  She took another deep breath in and let it out. She couldn’t solve her mom’s problems. Cam had enough of her own. And now she was headed home to her father, to whom she had reluctantly assigned a couple of farm tasks just because he’d insisted he could help. Who knew what this least handy of men had wrought in her absence?

  A Baltimore oriole warbled its rich song as Cam slowed to turn into the long farm driveway at 8 Attic Hill Road. The sound brought a smile to her lips, despite what she’d just been through. Every year at this time the brilliant orange and black birds returned and began wooing their mates. Petty human grievances, up to and including murder, didn’t faze them. “It’s spring,” the flash of color seemed to say as it flew in front of her, “and you can’t stop me.” If only her own spring were so uncomplicated.

  Chapter 4

  Not again. Cam stared at the fence in back of the hoophouse. Marie had always planted sweet peas in that spot. Last year Cam had planted a crop of early pole beans along the fence, but they had been mistakenly—or maliciously—pulled up by a volunteer. She’d decided to revert to sweet peas. People need food for the soul as well as for the body, and Cam’s love for those sweet-scented, delicate flowers came from her great-aunt. Marie had been dead four years now. Cam still missed her, and smelling sweet peas would be both a comfort and a reminder of her competent, nurturing relative. The tender vines had been a foot tall when she left this afternoon, their tendrils already licking around the pickets. Now she saw nothing but rich, dark soil at the base of the fence.

  Cam closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her forehead. Daddy. She should have told him to stay in the house.

  “Hey, sweetie, how’d I do?” His voice called from over her shoulder.

  She opened her eyes and turned to face her tall father hurrying in her direction. He was gawkier even than Cam, if that was possible. Neither of them possessed her mother’s fluid grace.

  “Um, Daddy?”

  “See, I pulled up all those weeds for you.” William Flaherty beamed. His buckwheat-colored hair, which he’d pushed straight back from his high brow, lay in sweaty strands on the back of his neck.

  “Those weren’t weeds.” She shut her eyes for a moment. Her father was a brilliant scholar without a speck of common sense. She opened her eyes again and tried on a smile to cushion her words. “Those were flowers I’d planted. Did I ask you to weed that fence?”

  “Well, no. But I finished the stuff you asked me to do. I was just trying to help.” The pleasure disappeared from his face.

  Now she felt bad for being harsh. Cam had asked her father to weed the potato field and had clearly pointed out the dark green rounded leaves, which looked very different from the grassy weeds sprouting around them. What she’d neglected to say was, “Don’t do anything else!” Well, it was still early enough to plant new sweet peas, although they were much fonder of cool weather than of warm. And this spring was proving to be extra warm and dry so far.

  She took another look at her father. He wore his usual khaki trousers, except these had had a pair of scissors taken to them, and not very evenly, either. His skinny legs emerged pale from a midthigh cut and ended in black socks pulled halfway up his calves. At least he owned a pair of sneakers and wasn’t wearing black dress shoes.

  “Daddy, did you just make those shorts?”

  “Why, yes. It’s awfully hot here.” He looked down at his handiwork, which slanted from right to left on one leg and the opposite on the other. “And I figured if I was going to be working on the farm, I’d better get comfortable.”

  Cam couldn’t help laughing. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Where’s your mother?” he asked. “She still out with those new friends of hers?”

  Oh. How much should she tell him? “I expect she’ll be home soon. She, um, well . . .”

  “Did she go and get herself in trouble again?” he asked
.

  “Again?” What was he talking about?

  “She’s been quite the activist these last few years.”

  “Really? She was never like that before.” Prior to Cam leaving for college, that is. While Cam was growing up, her mother had been completely absorbed in her teaching and her research. When Cam had needed cookies for a school event, her mom bought sweets at the store. She’d told Cam to make her own Halloween costumes. She’d sometimes attended Cam’s track meets, and had always supported her academic endeavors. But she’d been more of a devoted professor than a devoted mother, and definitely hadn’t become involved in anything political.

  “She loves to join demonstrations for causes she believes in.” Rather than sounding peeved, her father’s voice held a note of pride. “She’s gotten quite passionate.” His cheeks colored.

  Uh-oh. Let’s not go there, Daddy. She cleared her throat. “When I was in the hydroponics greenhouse today, I found the owner dead.”

  “Dead?” William looked suitably shocked.

  “Yes. Nicole Kingsbury, the owner whose business Mom and the others were demonstrating against.”

  “That’s just terrible. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a dead person in this country.”

  “You’ve seen them elsewhere?” Preston, her cat and farm companion, ambled up. Cam leaned down to pet his luxuriant Norwegian Forest Cat fur.

  “Well, of course, Cameron. Your mother and I are quite well known in certain circles for our research into cultural customs of death and dying.”

  “Really?” She saw her parents rarely in recent years and didn’t remember a single conversation about that research.

  “Yes, indeed.” Her father’s stomach growled audibly. “We’re having dinner with Albert and his lady friend Marilyn tonight, I think you said.” William raised his eyebrows.

  So much for talking about research. Or death. “That’s right. Anyway, the reason Mom’s not here is because the police wanted to question her. But I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”