by Wendy Tyson
“You okay to drive your truck?” King asked. “I can give you a ride.”
Megan nodded. Her truck was barely drivable, but she’d get it home. One way or another, she wanted to go home. She’d had enough of the police for one day.
“It took courage to slam into the car that way, to chase him down,” King said. “He may sue you for assault with a vehicle, but it’s a suit you can defend.”
Megan understood she might have some legal battles on her hands, but what else was she going to do? Let him take her friend? Let him come after her and Bibi? Not after what he’d done to Thana and Elliot.
Megan said, “Did you find Elliot’s stuff in Steve’s vehicle?”
“We found drugs and paintings in the car, some of which are now ruined. The Dartville PD picked up the Mullers and they had some of Elliot’s things too. Your paintings weren’t in the lot, Megan. They may have been sold. You can make an insurance claim. They should be worth some good money.”
Megan thought of the portrait, of her face on that older woman’s body. Had Thana wished things would have turned out differently? That the two of them could have accepted each other’s foibles and remained friends? Perhaps. That’s what she’d choose to believe.
On the way out, Clover asked her if she’d ever spoken to Clay. Megan sighed. “No, I never called him back. Been kind of busy.”
“He found something in your yard.”
That startled her. “What did he find?” Please don’t let it be a body.
“Under that small hill by the big oak. A trunk of some sort. I think he wants to explain himself.”
“Well, I’ll be.” Megan knew what that probably was. She stepped on the gas, pushing her wounded beast of a truck as fast as it would go.
By the time Megan and Clover reached Washington Acres, news of their exploits had spread. Besides the usual crowd—Bibi, Eddie, Sylvia, Clay, and Porter—Megan found Merry Chance, Roger Becker, her Aunt Sarah, and Alvaro and Maria at the house. Emily was holding down things at the store, and Alvaro had made the executive decision to close the café for the remainder of the day.
Alvaro was the first to greet her. He pulled her close, hugged her tight, and then let go. No words. Over his shoulder, Megan saw Maria smile.
Bibi had reacted to the situation as Bibi always did—with food. The kitchen and dining rooms were loud and crowded, with platters of lunch meat, rolls, and baked goods on every flat surface not reachable by the dogs.
Clay accosted her in the dining room. “You need to come up to the barn.”
“Not now, Clay,” Megan glanced around. “Not with everyone here?”
“Why?”
“I want this to be private.”
Almost two years ago, Megan found the historical letter that mentioned treasure on the property. She hadn’t looked for it, hadn’t really believed it was real. Now that it was, she wanted to savor the moment. She wanted to share it with Bibi and Clay and Porter and her family, no one else.
“Let’s toast, then,” Clay said. “To feisty chicks who drive trucks and to senior centers.”
Megan laughed. They clinked juice glasses. “And to friendships that come in all shapes and sizes.”
Thirty-Six
Clay lifted the chest from the ground and placed it on the white sheet. It was rusty and disintegrating, the lock just a flimsy remnant of its former self. Clay clipped the lock with wire cutters and looked around at the small crowd that had gathered. Gray skies remained, and Megan was hoping for more rain that evening. For now, though, the earlier storms had broken the humidity and the evening air was pleasant.
“Do it,” Bibi said. “I’ll be in my grave by the time we see what’s in there.”
Megan lifted the lid. She stared, disbelieving, and saw similar looks of awe on the faces around her.
“Go ahead, run your hands through it.”
Megan did. The gold coins felt cool and grimy and substantial.
“There could be six figures in there,” Clay said.
“Maybe not that much, but a small fortune.” Sylvia’s eyes were wide. “Enough to help you with this farm.”
“And to think, all those times I sent you to play at the old oak, you were playing on gold. This would have made your grandfather’s life much different.” Bibi paused. “Different, but not necessarily better.”
Megan was thinking of the original owners of this gold, Paul and Elizabeth Caldbeck. Of the woman who buried it hoping her husband would return. Clearly it never happened. Did the family ever reunite? She supposed she’d never know.
“Can you help me bring it inside?” Megan asked Clay.
“Sure.”
They took pictures, then stored the chest in Megan’s closet. Megan tossed and turned that night, thinking about the gold and friendship, and the vagaries of fate.
When she woke, she knew what to do with the money.
“We need to get it appraised, of course, but there should be more than enough for the business,” Megan said. “I did some research and under Pennsylvania law, we’re the rightful owners. I’ll verify that with a local lawyer. Assuming I’m right, I want to make a donation to New Beginnings, to help them continue the work that they do. But other than that, it’s yours. Well, it’s my father’s.”
Sylvia regarded her with a mixture of awe and disbelief. “You would do this for him?”
“Yes.”
“He will never know. You understand that?” Sylvia leaned toward her, her gaze piercing. “He will have no idea of the sacrifice you are making for him.”
“I understand.”
They were sitting in the sewing room, looking at old photos of Eddie and Charlotte and young Megan. Sylvia held a photo of Eddie in her hand. He wore pleated brown trousers and a plaid shirt. A hat fell over one eye. “He was dapper even then.”
Megan smiled. “He was, wasn’t he?”
Sylvia was difficult and demanding and petty, but she clearly loved Eddie—and saw something in him no one else had. Perhaps her father had found his forever match after all.
Eddie and Sylvia left that evening, after a Bibi-style bonfire celebration. Megan retired for the night at nine, tired and oddly content. It’d been an eventful three weeks, but she was going to Scotland soon and she’d see Denver. Something to look forward to.
Her phone buzzed at four, waking her up. Megan glanced at the screen expecting to see Denver’s number. He’d texted her, all right: I’M HERE. LET ME IN.
She ran down the steps two at a time. Denver stood in the doorway wearing a dimpled grin, his arms outstretched. Megan flew into his embrace.
“I was going to surprise you,” she said, elated. “I purchased a ticket to Scotland.”
“Oh, yeah? How about that?” Denver kissed her. He picked her up and carried her up the stairs, toward her room. “I missed you. And when I heard what was happening back here, I knew I needed to come.”
“I’m fine. But I’m so happy to see you.” Megan kissed him, long and hard.
Denver paused at the top of the stairs. “We can still go to Scotland,” he whispered. “Perhaps Bonnie would like to join us.”
“You just want her to cook,” Megan said, laughing. She kissed him again. His face was scruffy and warm and smelled like home.
“No more haggis for this Scotsman. Bonnie Birch is crossing the Atlantic. Dolores and Bonnie can fight it out.”
Thirty-Seven
The letter came two months later, after the gold had been counted and appraised and given away.
Megan had taken the taxes from the bounty, sent a piece of the treasure to New Beginnings to start a scholarship fund, and with Bibi’s blessing, had wired the remainder to Sylvia for her father’s business. The letter that arrived not long after the wire was sent was from her father. Megan opened it in the privacy of her bedroom.
The note was s
hort. Sylvia had told Eddie about the payment to the clothing boutique. She’d confessed that the money had come from selling the treasure on the farm. He appreciated the gesture by both of them, but the money was for Megan. He was wiring it back.
Buy the Marshall House, Megan, he wrote. You should have enough. Next time we visit, we want to stay in the new inn.
Megan saved the letter.
Later that night, she reopened it, thinking of Maria and Alvaro and Ray and Thana and Denver and her. Perhaps each person did have someone out there who could balance their weaknesses and buoy their strengths. A significant other. A friend. A grandmother. Did it matter who the person was? She didn’t think so.
Buy the Marshall House, Megan.
Perhaps she would.
THE END
(Book #4)
RIPE FOR VENGEANCE
A Greenhouse Mystery #5
Wendy Tyson
Copyright
RIPE FOR VENGEANCE
A Greenhouse Mystery
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | July 2019
Henery Press, LLC
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2019 by Wendy Tyson
Author photograph by Ian Pickarski
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-491-1
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-492-8
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-493-5
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-494-2
Printed in the United States of America
For Sue.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, I’m grateful for my family, for Frances Black of Literary Counsel, and for everyone at Henery Press. Special thanks to Stephanie Wollman, my dial-a-nurse-practitioner, for her endless patience with my endless medical questions.
One
June in Winsome held the promise of the seasons. Lawns were green, not yet flecked with the brown that would invade during late summer, when too little rain and too much heat plagued the area. Perennial gardens were starting to bloom, their foliage vibrant and full, and vegetable gardens were alive with waving fronds of garlic scapes and neat rainbow rows of lettuces, cabbages, kale, and tiny green tomatoes. If hope were a season, it would be spring, and to Megan Sawyer, lawyer-turned-organic-farmer, nothing embodied spring like early June on Washington Acres farm.
But as Megan dunked fragile heads of butter lettuce in ice cold water, it was dread she felt, not hope. Megan and Dr. “Denver” Finn, Winsome’s handsome veterinarian and Megan’s boyfriend, had arranged to meet for lunch, but he got hung up on a mysterious emergency. Denver had been unusually cryptic on the phone the first time he called, and to make matters worse, Megan heard sirens in the background. Her mind wandered to barn fires and other tragedies. Unwilling to let her imagination get too far afield, she focused on the tender green leaves before her.
Megan surveyed the farm. From her perch outside the barn, she could see Clay Hand, her farm manager, weeding down by the tomato beds, his long, lean back stretched over the maturing plants. Brian “Brick” Porter, her farm hand, was mending the back side of the largest greenhouse, a white t-shirt tied around his head to ward off the sun’s rays and soak up sweat. And although she couldn’t see them, she heard the hammers and drills of the construction team she’d hired to start renovations on the old Marshall place, the historic but derelict house next door that would eventually become an inn and workshop.
All was right with the world. Except deep down, Megan knew it wasn’t.
When Denver finally called at 2:12, she jumped at the sound of the phone. “Hi,” she said warily.
“Well, Megs, I think I need ye. I’ll explain when you get here. Will you please bring the truck—with the cap on it?” Denver had been born in Scotland, and although he’d lived in the United States for his adult life, his brogue became more pronounced when he was tired or upset.
“Is anyone hurt?”
“No, not exactly. Look, I have Bobby next to me and he needs help. Just come. We can discuss it when you get here.”
Bobby was Bobby King, Winsome’s young Chief of Police. Bobby showed up wherever there was trouble. This meant there was trouble, which didn’t do much to calm Megan’s agitated nerves. “Where’s here, Denver?”
“Mimi’s Warehouse and Storage.”
Megan dragged the cooler of water into the barn and closed the door so that she could hear Denver better against the backdrop of the construction next door. “The self-storage place?”
“Right. Mimi’s, on the right about a mile from Canal Street. And bring some cool water too. A nice big jug of it. And some old blankets. And maybe some apple slices.”
The truck? Water? Blankets? “Did you find a dog?”
“No, Megs. We found a pig.”
“I’ve named her Camilla, after my great-aunt, who was a pig farmer back in Scotland.” Denver’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “She’s a sassy one, but sweet. Just take it slow.”
Megan peered into the storage unit, which had been blocked by a tall gate, the kind you’d use to corral a busy toddler. Inside the five-by-five space were bales of hay and a small, young pig. The pig’s skin was pink with splotches of dark gray that shown through a light coat of bristly white hair. The piglet lay on her side, eyes closed, snoring lightly. She appeared to be in good health.
“There’s no food or water in here.”
Denver nodded. “Aye, which is part of my concern. The unit is pretty clean, and Camilla seems as healthy as a…well, pig. Still, if she’d stayed here long under these conditions, things would be grim.”
“Camilla. I like it.” Megan turned toward Denver. “It’s a climate-controlled unit?”
“It is. Still a little warm.”
Megan stared at the pig, who was still sleeping despite the audience. Megan shook her head. “Why would a pig be in a storage unit?”
“Exactly what we want to know.” It was Bobby who answered. He leaned his tall, heavy-set frame against a wall. “This is illegal and against the rules of the unit. Management called animal control and the police. I called Denver here.”
“Because you’re a softy.” Megan smiled.
“Because I’m practical. No use wasting animal control’s time on a pet pig when Denver was just passing through this side of town.”
Denver looked at him quizzically, about to protest, but Bobby held up a hand. “We all know what animal control would do.”
Megan nodded. Maybe a shelter, if one would take a pig. Or she’d be given to a farm or sanctuary farm—maybe. Or put to sleep. Megan watched Winsome’s young police chief with renewed affection. His girlfriend, Megan’s shop clerk and friend, Clover Hand, had recently become a vegan, and Megan figured her pro-animal stance may have had something to do with this compassionate act.
“Can she stay with you?” Denver’s eyes were soft and blue and full of empathy, and Megan knew there was no way she could refuse.
“Of course. We already have two dogs, a dozen chickens, and two goats, so we definitely need a foster pig named Camilla to round things out.” Megan watched the pig sleep. “Who rented the unit?”
King glanced behind him at a man so tall and lean and quiet he blended into the shadows. The man stepped forward and Megan noticed a pressed green shirt with the storage business name em
blazoned on the pocket, a set of lock cutters in one hand. He was young, mid-twenties, tops, and wore the earnest expression of someone trying hard to do a good job despite the ridiculousness of what he’s been faced with.
The man reached his hand out and Megan shook it. “Assistant Manager, second shift. Happy to meet you. I’m the one who found the pig.”
“Followed the crumbs,” King said approvingly.
The manager nodded. “In a way. Saw dried corn kernels in the elevator. No food of any kind allowed in here. Attracts rodents and bugs, both no-nos. Figured someone was keeping grain, some kind of animal feed business. Checked around, saw a larger pile of corn near this unit. When I pressed my ear against the wall, I heard squealing. Called the person listed on the unit’s lease, and when I didn’t get an answer, I cut the lock.” The man looked very proud of himself. He turned toward King. “Still can’t reach the lessor. Tried six times. Whoever it is has no voicemail set up.”
“Who’s leasing the unit?” Megan asked King. “Someone we know?”
“Man named Saul Bones.”
Megan raised her eyebrows, her glance bouncing between King and Denver. “Saul Bones. As in—”
“Saw bones.” Denver’s mouth set in a grim line. “Right.”
A sick joke or a real name? Megan wondered. Before she could ask the questions that had queued up in her mind, King said, “Looking him up back at the station. He hasn’t really done anything that warrants serious concern, but this is odd.” King shrugged. “Figured we’d check him out.”
Camilla had awakened. After standing on her hind legs to get a good look at these strangers, the little pig started running top speed around her cell, butting her head against the gate, squealing madly.
“She’s hungry,” Denver said. “Shall I load her into the truck? I’ll follow you over and we can get her settled in the barn.”