Farmed and Dangerous (5 page)

A
n hour later, dressed and caffeinated, Cam drove toward Pete's house. She'd finished her early morning chores. The chickens were fed and watered and free to go outside. She'd watered the seedlings in the hoop house, grateful that she'd had the water source put deep enough underground that it didn't freeze, although they didn't need much water in the winter, since growth was so slow. Today dawned another one of those clear, cold winter days, but at least with little wind to drive the cold deeper inside. The ten-degree air made her pull her wool scarf closer around her neck under the robin's egg–blue sky.

But now she was about to meet her new boyfriend's difficult ex-wife and bring home a dog she had never met, an even chillier prospect than a morning of shoveling snow. What was she supposed to do with a dog? She'd never owned one, not as a child, not as an adult. Albert and Marie's farm dog, Scout, had been a working dog, kept mostly to ward off foxes and woodchucks. In her view canines were needy animals, always making eye contact and wanting approval.

She pulled on sunglasses when she passed an open field on the left. The sun bounced off the snow cover and into her eyes. She tried to adjust the glasses so she could see better. They'd gotten bent when she sat on them once. Scratches on the lenses also made looking through them resemble peering through a spider web. She supposed she could get new ones at the drugstore. If it ever were a priority for her.

The heater in the old Ford started to warm her feet only minutes before she arrived at Pete's. A shiny SUV sat idling in front of the house, a woman in large square-lensed sunglasses at the wheel. Cam pulled into the driveway and slid out of the cab.

The woman—it had to be Alicia—now stood at the back of the car. Slender and petite in a puffy, pale pink jacket over ironed jeans tucked into snow boots with furry tops, she shoved her shades onto her head and pulled open the rear door. A plastic mat protected the floor of the compartment, and a grate walled the compartment off from the passenger section. A dog crouched with his paws in front of him.

“Come on, Dasha,” the woman said in an impatient tone. “I'm already late.”

Cam walked toward her. “I'm Cam Flaherty. Pete asked me to pick up his dog.”

“
His
dog. Right. I know. He told me.” Alicia looked Cam up and down.

Cam glanced down at her own outfit. Dirt stains on the knees of her jeans. Her winter boots that doubled as work boots, now with flecks of chicken manure and sawdust stuck to them. Her navy blue parka with the rip on the front pocket where it had caught on a nail in the attic once. She was suddenly back in high school, ever the over-tall, gawky geek, being checked out by an immaculately put-together cheerleader.

Alicia turned to the car. She reached in and pulled Dasha by his collar until he jumped out onto the shoveled sidewalk.

“Here he is,” she said out of pursed lips. “Pete couldn't pick Dasha up himself. Nothing ever changes. His precious work is more important than anything else.” She raised the side of her top lip and glanced at Cam, as if she wanted company in bad-mouthing Pete.

Instead, Cam knelt on one knee and extended the back of her hand to Dasha. Ruth had once shown her the correct way to approach a new dog. “Hey, buddy.”

Dasha sniffed her and then butted her hand. His eyes were a pale arctic blue. The white mask around his face contrasted with the dark gray markings elsewhere. His pointed ears stood up straight. He would fit right in pulling a sled over the tundra.

“I have a plane to catch. Key West,” Alicia said. “I can't wait to get out of this cold.” She headed around the front of the car.

Cam stood with her hand on the soft fur on Dasha's head. She was opening her mouth to thank Alicia when she heard the door slam.

“Not a good-bye for you or a thank-you for me. No wonder it didn't work out between her and Pete.” Cam patted Dasha on the head and watched the SUV drive away. “Well, we're off to the farm, big guy. You and Preston are both northern animals. You should recognize each other.”
So far, so good.
He hadn't pushed his snout into her private parts or started barking without ceasing.

Dasha began to bark and didn't stop.
So much for that.

“Hey, be quiet, doggy. I'm your babysitter for today. Get used to it.” Cam was surprised when he instantly quieted.

She led him to the truck and opened the passenger door. He placed his front paws on the seat and jumped in like he'd always been there. She smiled. Unlike Pete's wife, she certainly didn't need a plastic sheet to protect the bench. The vehicle had seen plenty of dirt, and even dog hair, in its long life as a farm truck. She shut the door carefully.

She glanced up at Pete's windows. He was out working. And had been all night long. Which could mean only that Bev had been murdered. Cam would call Albert when she got home. He might have gleaned some information about the death through the grapevine. Or maybe Ellie knew something.

A shiver ran through Cam, and not only from the air temperature. If Bev had been killed, that meant her murderer was walking around, free to kill again.

 

Preston strolled up to the truck after Cam pulled into the barn twenty minutes later. She'd made room in the barn for the Ford before winter descended in earnest. Cleaning snow off a truck after shoveling wasn't her idea of a good time.

“We have company, Preston,” she said, climbing out of the cab. She went around to the other side and opened the door for Dasha, Preston at her heels.

Dasha bounded out. Preston took one look at him and split out the door in a blur of motion. Dasha went after him.

“Dasha, come here.” Cam used what she imagined a good dog-owner voice would be: a low-pitched, firm tone. She patted the side of her leg.

He gazed at her, looked at the door, and then trotted to her side.

“Good dog.” She stroked his head and back. “Now what am I going to do with you? That mom of yours didn't leave me a leash or anything.”

Cam found a plastic food container left over from a farm potluck and rinsed it out. She filled it with water and set it on the floor in the office in a corner of the barn. She'd had her carpenter add the room the summer before, when the barn had to be rebuilt. The room included a small desk and chair, an electric space heater, which she now switched on, and two tables with grow lights hanging above them. She also kept her seeding supplies—flats, seeds, and seed-starting mix—in the office so she could plant seeds in a warm environment and nurture them along until they were ready to go out into the colder hoop house.

The main area of the barn stayed warm enough to work in as long as she kept a coat on, thanks to the radiant heat in the poured slab floor. It was provided by an array of solar panels on the roof and a bank of batteries that stored the solar energy. She once again offered thanks to both the subsidies and the grant she'd received that let her put all that free sunshine to good use.

“Stay here.” She pointed to the water. When he went over and lapped some up, she left, closing the door behind her. She had no idea if he would stay on the property if she let him roam around. He might go after the chickens or chase Preston again. She found a couple of old beach towels in the house and brought them back to the barn, favoring her bruised hip from the day before. Folding the towels into a bed, she set it near the water dish.

“I have to work now.” She patted the towels. “Come and lie down. Dad will be by sometime to get you. He promised.”

Dasha obliged. Then he laid his head on his paws and gazed up at her. Needy but compliant. She could live with that. She stroked his head a few times. “Good boy.”

Shrugging off her parka, she checked the harvest list tacked to the wall by the desk. Pickup day didn't fall until Saturday, but she needed to make sure she had enough to supply the twenty CSA customers, avid locavores, every one of them. This winter she'd gone down to an every-other-week pickup schedule, which took a little of the pressure off. The list for this two-week period included kale, beets, radishes, leeks, lettuce, Asian greens, and Swiss chard for crops she needed to cut or dig. She also had storage potatoes and various squashes to offer.

The most urgent task for this morning was seeding more greens so she'd have a crop to harvest in March. Setting two seventy-two-cell flats on the tables beneath the grow lights, she filled the cells with the lightweight seed-starting soil mix and extracted a bag of hardy romaine lettuce seeds from a cupboard. She wished she'd invested in one of the new vacuum-seeding devices. The job would go much faster, and she wouldn't waste as many of the minuscule germs of life. But the price was prohibitive for an operation of her scale, at least in the winter, when her income was lower.

While she worked, trying to drop only one or two tiny lettuce seeds into each one-inch-diameter cell, she thought about Bev's death. She realized she didn't even know how Bev had died.

“Oscar wasn't so happy with her. But kill a cranky resident?” Cam glanced at Dasha, who watched her every move. “I don't think so.” She continued dropping seeds into the cells. “Frank didn't seem that pleased with her, either. I wonder what that meant. What's your opinion, Dasha?”

He perked up, gave a little bark, then rested his head on his paws again. Preston rarely attended to what she said. Maybe there was something to this dog business, after all.

“I need a dog translator.” Cam smiled at him before she returned her focus to her work. “Bev's death will let Ginger get what she wants, I guess, if she inherits the property. That fertile farmland will turn into chemically treated lawns for McMansions. What a waste.”

Dasha declined to comment. Cam finished her task. Most of the cells had gotten more than two seeds, which meant she'd be thinning and throwing away plantlets in a couple of weeks. She sprinkled a little more of the soil mix on top of each cell and then gently pressed it down with her fingers. The seeds were tiny and barely needed to be covered. She filled her watering can at the sink in the main area of the barn and gingerly watered each flat, glad she'd invested in a high-quality can that sprayed the water from a wide disk with tiny holes so the seeds didn't get swamped. She lowered the rectangular light fixtures that hung from chains until they were suspended only a few inches above the flats and switched on the heating pads under them. The pads provided a low, steady warmth and let the seeds sprout sooner rather than later.

She checked the clock above the desk, her stomach rumbling. The clock read 9:15 a.m. Time for breakfast.

“Come on, doggy. I'll show you the house.”

Dasha sprang to his feet. He looked ready to run off. She grabbed a length of rope and tied it to his collar to serve as a makeshift leash. She carefully switched off the electric space heater and closed the office door behind her.

As they approached the house, a vintage Saab pulled into the drive. Dasha strained toward the car and barked. Cam almost lost hold of the rope.

“Dad's here.” She waved.

As Pete stepped out of the car, Dasha tore loose and bounded toward him, ending in a happy reunion, with much licking on the part of one and much stroking on the part of the other.

“You're just in time for breakfast,” Cam called with a smile.

As he straightened from bending over Dasha, Pete's face looked flat, almost like he was avoiding expressing any kind of feeling.

“I'll come in for a minute.” He approached her, with Dasha close at his side. The dog kept gazing up at Pete and nudging Pete's knee with his head while they walked.

“What's up?” Cam tilted her head.

“Let's go in.” He didn't return her smile.

She gazed at him for a moment before she turned. On the third step her knee felt like it was going to give way. “Ouch.”

“What's wrong?” Pete asked from behind her.

“I twisted it a little while I was skiing yesterday. It's okay.” She led the way indoors after unlocking the door. She stomped her feet on the mat. “Don't worry about taking your boots off. The floor's a mess, anyway.” She walked to the coffee machine, ground a scoop of beans, and started a pot of French roast before turning back to him.

He stood just inside the door. “How has Dasha been?”

“He's a good dog. We've had a fine morning. Better than I expected. I'm not much of a dog person, you know.”

“Oh? You didn't tell me that.”

“He totally looks like he should be pulling a sled in the Iditarod.”

Pete smiled. “He's part Siberian husky and part unknown. He'd never place in a show, but he's stronger for not being a pure bred. Thanks for taking him.” His smile disappeared. “We need to talk.” The lines in his face spoke of a night without sleep and more. Something more.

“Absolutely,” Cam said. “I'm glad to see you. Sit down.”

“I can't stay.”

“Well, if we need to talk, then let's talk sitting down. My feet are tired, and I had a good night's sleep. You appear totally wiped out.” And something more. She pulled out a ladder-back chair and sat at the table.

He sighed, sinking into a chair across from her, but he kept his coat on. Dasha sat on his haunches nearby. Pete absently stroked Dasha's head. He drummed the table with the fingers on his other hand and then stopped. He rubbed his forehead and then folded his arms.

“Tell me what you found at Moran.” Cam reached a hand across the table to him. When he kept his arms folded, she pulled hers back, stung.

“She was murdered,” he said.

“That's awful. How?”