Farmed and Dangerous (6 page)

The expression on his face changed from fatigue to steel. “I'm afraid you've become a person of interest.”

“Me? Why me?” Cam frowned. “I didn't have any beef with Bev. She didn't like me much, but I had no reason to kill her.”

“There are preliminary indications that someone put a fast-acting poison in her dinner—”

“What? Do you believe I put poison in the food?” She stared at him. “But I provided only the raw ingredients. The cook made the meal, assembled the salad. Somebody delivered dinner to Bev. Anybody could have done it. Do you truly think I could actually kill someone?” She pushed her chair back so hard, it fell over as she stood, and then she strode into the kitchen and back. The coffeepot popped and hissed as the coffee finished brewing. Cam was about to pop and hiss, too. How could he accuse her of murder?

“No.” He rapped the table with his fingertips.
Buhdum, buhdum, buhdum.
“But it's my job. I should probably recuse myself from the case entirely. I'm not going to, though. We'll clear you, and that will be that.”

“
Clear
me? I'm innocent!” She swallowed hard.

“Calm down. I know you didn't do it. But I need to back away from our relationship for now.”

“Back away? What are you saying? Not only do you think I killed somebody, but you also don't want to see me anymore. That just stinks.”

“I told you this wouldn't be easy.”

“Then, you were right.” Her face heated up, and her heart pounded in her neck. She rose and poured herself a cup of coffee with a shaky hand. She added a splash of milk, spilling a little, but left the cup on the counter. She faced him, folding her arms. “It's not easy at all.”

“I'm sorry.” He stood. Dasha jumped to his feet, as well. Pete spread his arms, palms up. “I'm sorry, Cam.” He walked toward her, Dasha at his heels, and stopped in front of her.

She tried to avoid meeting his gaze but couldn't. He laid his hand on the side of her face, his palm cool on her hot cheek. She closed her eyes. She opened them when he spoke.

“I've never been in this situation before, Cameron. It's killing me. But I can't see you again romantically until this is resolved.”

She nodded. She opened her mouth to speak. And then closed it, mad and hurt all at the same time.

“I want you to be careful. Whoever killed Bev is still out there.” He cleared his throat. “And I need you to come down to the Westbury station today to be interviewed. I have to be meticulous where you're concerned.” His gaze pleaded with her.

Cam nodded again.

Pete's phone buzzed. He turned, heading for the door, grabbing the phone off his belt and putting it to his ear.

“Pappas. Hold on a second.” He lowered the phone and gazed at Cam. “I'll be at the station by noon. Have to take Dasha home and try to sleep for an hour.” He patted his leg. Dasha started to follow him, then trotted back to Cam and barked.

“Bye, buddy. See you around.” She stroked his head.

He rubbed his head against her hand before he followed Pete out the door.

Cam locked it behind them.
Nice way to start the week.

“W
ouldn't someone else have gotten sick, too? That dinner was served to everybody in the residence, as far as I know.” Cam tried to keep her voice level, but being asked the same questions over and over was getting old. The metal chair in the Westbury police station's interview room hurt her tailbone. She wondered if she should have called a lawyer, after all. She hadn't thought she needed to. She hadn't poisoned anyone. She glanced at the clock. Quarter past two. She'd been here for forty-five minutes already. The room, painted a mustardy yellow, smelled faintly of stale doughnuts and bad coffee.

Detective Ann Jaroncyk cleared her throat. “Let's talk about how long you'd known the deceased, Beverly Montgomery.” Her blond hair stretched into a severe bun, which matched an equally severe blazer and slacks. She tapped something into the iPad on the table between them.

“I met Bev at the Haverhill Farmers' Market last spring. She was the market manager.”

“And her son was killed on your farm, correct?”

“He was.” Cam decided to keep her answers as short as she could, in hopes of getting out of here before nightfall.

The detective checked her notes. “She threatened you with a gun on your property last June.”

“Correct. I managed to take it away from her.”

“And in the fall you removed her chickens?”

“The board of health planned to exterminate them. Bev hadn't been taking care of them. We—”

“Who is
we?
”

“Several volunteers. Alexandra and DJ. Anyway, we picked up the hens. The volunteers built a coop. The birds are healthy now on my farm.”
So much for short answers.
Cam clasped her sweaty palms together in her hands.

“Mrs. Montgomery didn't like that plan.”

“Yes. But those are all reasons Bev might have wanted to get rid of me, not me get rid of her. Right?”

“They are. But we need to ask you. She was also heard accusing you of stealing her customers.”

“Right.”

The detective waited. Cam waited. The detective remained silent. Cam decided to cave first, in the interest of getting out of there.

“Bev farmed traditionally. She grew the usual crops and didn't mind applying pesticides and herbicides. There are customers who want that. I grow the newer Asian greens and other unusual varieties. My farm is in the three-year process of becoming certified organic. If a few of her customers preferred my vegetables . . . Well, that's the free market.”

“Now, about the produce you supplied. How did you handle it after the harvest?”

Cam frowned. “I put it in bins. I brought it over to the Moran Manor kitchen.”

“Do you use chemical sprays? Preservatives of any kind?”

“No. I farm organically. Why would I do that?”

“How do you clean what you pick?”

“With water. Well, some of it. Pumpkins, squashes, potatoes don't get washed. It might lead to rot. I don't wash herbs, either. I just dust any dirt off. As I said, it's all organic.”

“Where did you go when you left Moran Manor yesterday?”

“I returned to my farm.”

“Anyone else there?”

“Nobody you could interview.”

The detective raised her eyebrows.

“Sorry. I'm getting punchy. The only other beings on my farm are the hens and my cat, and I've never heard them speak English.”

Detective Jaroncyk did not even crack a smile. “Did you stay on your property all evening?”

Uh-oh.
Should she say she'd been with Pete? If he hadn't already informed them, this could get him in hot water. The detective watched Cam.

“I ate dinner out. With a friend.”

“And the friend's name would be?”

The heck with him.
She didn't need to protect him. “Pete Pappas.”

“Would that be state police detective Pappas?” The detective glanced over at the uniformed officer sitting in the corner. They exchanged a look.

Cam nodded. Then remembered she'd been instructed to answer verbally for the recording. “It would.”

“Did you spend the night at your house?”

“I did.” Next, she'd ask if Cam had been alone. That would be easy to tell the truth about. It occurred to her that maybe she could barter information in return.

“So how did you figure out what killed Bev?” Cam asked. “Do you analyze stomach contents or something?”

“I'm asking the questions here.” The detective noted something on the iPad. She stood. “That will be all. For now. We'd appreciate it if you stayed in town.”

“I'll be here.” Cam also stood, her rear end doing a little glory dance to be off the unforgiving chair. “I run a farm. It doesn't exactly allow for road trips or tropical vacations.” Babbling again.

The uniformed officer, one Cam hadn't seen before, rose and ushered her to the door. Before she left, she heard the detective formally end the interview for the recording.

Cam hurried down the hall toward the outer door. The walls appeared freshly painted in institutional beige, an improvement from their battered condition last June. She paused at the hallway that led to the cells. Last time she'd visited here, Lucinda had been locked in one of them. Cam hoped she wouldn't be next.

 

Cam stopped by the Westbury Food Mart after she left the police station to pick up a few items. The warm air smelled delectably of fresh baked goods. She browsed the cracker selection in the small local grocery, searching for her favorite rice-flour-and-seed crisps.

“I told you not to touch.” A thin woman slapped her son's hand off a package of cookies at the other end of the aisle. She wore a fashionably styled blue coat and a matching beret on shoulder-length blond hair, but dark patches under her eyes gave her a haunted appearance.

Cam watched the scene. The boy, who seemed about six, burst into tears. A somewhat older girl in a puffy pink coat punched the boy in the arm.

“Yeah, Mom said not to touch,” she said in a taunting tone.

“Don't you be hitting him,” the mother said. She slapped the girl's arm, hard.

“Well,
you
did.” The girl turned her back and grabbed a bag of gingersnaps off the shelf.

“Put those back. Now.” The mother raised her hand at the girl, who obeyed but glowered. The mother glanced down the aisle and caught sight of Cam. She lifted her chin and held Cam's gaze for a moment, then hustled the children toward the registers.

The girl had nailed it. Her mother was modeling behavior she told her children not to follow. Cam watched the children jostle each other while their mother paid for her purchases. A sadness dragged on her heart. As a teenager on one of her summer visits, she'd witnessed an even worse scene right here in the Food Mart. A father had rapped his little son's hand so hard, he broke it. Cam had resolved right then never to hit her own children, whenever she had some. Or assault anybody, for that matter. She knew parenting wasn't easy, but physical violence wasn't the solution to anybody's problems. Ellie's friend Vince had had his share of violence at home before he finally got free of his abusive father. He seemed to have overcome that trauma so far, at least according to Ellie.

 

Cam, watching three of the hens peck in their yard, shivered with her hands deep in her coat pockets. A biting wind sliced at her cheeks. An icy cloud blew over the sun, which already hung low in the sky. She thought about shutting the hens in early for the night. She checked her phone: barely three o'clock. The temperature was dropping fast. She hoped the girls wouldn't freeze inside the coop if the temperature kept dropping, but they seemed to be able to puff out their feathers to insulate themselves. Tiny birds, like chickadees and sparrows, lived outside all winter long, after all. She'd already covered the hoop-house beds, and depending on the temperature tomorrow, she might just leave them covered.

The crunching noise of tires came from the driveway on the other side of the barn. A door slammed, then footsteps approached. Cam's heart raced. She wasn't expecting anyone. She whirled in that direction.

“Wicked cold, isn't it?” a cheery voice called out.

Cam let out a breath. She greeted Alexandra and DJ when they came into view. Alexandra, a recent college graduate living with her parents while she figured out what came next in her life, was a committed locavore, an artist, a whiz at Web design, and lots more. DJ . . . Well, Cam didn't know much about his life. He seemed to be in his mid-twenties and was infinitely talented with animals, carpentry, and good cheer.

Alexandra waved a gloved hand, her flaxen braids trailing out from under a Nordic knit hat with pointed earflaps. Her other hand was linked with DJ's. His scruffy light-brown beard bore ice crystals near his mouth, and his blue eyes looked happy. He held a big bag of chicken feed on his shoulder.

“Thought we'd stop by and see if you need help with the girls.” DJ surveyed the yard. “Everybody else inside?”

“The smart ones are,” Cam said. “As you can see, it's only our dear, dim TopKnot and a couple of her friends who don't possess the sense to go in. Or the brains.”

Alexandra gazed at Cam. “We heard Bev Montgomery died after eating your vegetables. That's bad.”

News traveled fast in a small town. “It's bad, all right. But everybody at the residence ate the same dinner, so my produce didn't kill her, obviously. Or I hope it will become obvious to the police. They had me in there for an hour today, grilling me. I arrived home only a little while ago.”

“That poor lady. Hey, picked you up another bag of organic feed.” DJ raised his eyebrows. “Dude, that stuff is expensive.”

“I know,” Cam said. “I'm losing money on the eggs, even charging six-fifty a dozen. I'm not sure offering organic eggs is worth it.”

“I'll stick it inside the barn.” He detached from Alexandra and carried the bag around the corner of the barn.

“So maybe Bev died from a heart attack.” Alexandra frowned. “She was pretty old.”

“I wish. And she wasn't that old, you know.” Then Cam remembered herself a decade earlier, when she was Alexandra's age. A sixty-five-year-old woman seemed a lot more ancient then than one did now. “Anyway, she didn't have a heart attack. Someone murdered her.”
Oops.
She probably shouldn't talk about what Pete had told her. Too late now.

DJ reappeared. “What did you say?”

“Someone apparently poisoned Bev Montgomery. Murdered her.”

“Oh, Cam. Not again.” Alexandra slung her arm around Cam's shoulder and squeezed. They were nearly the same height. “What's up with you and murderers?”

Cam rolled her eyes. “I'd be happy never to even hear about another murder, let alone one that seems to have a connection to me.”

“That's totally bad news,” DJ said.

“No kidding.” Cam shivered again. “DJ, mind shooing those birdbrains inside? I need to get out of this wind. Can you both join me for a hot toddy in the house?”

They glanced at each other and seemed to exchange a silent message.

“Sure,” Alexandra said.

DJ stepped into the enclosure and made clicking noises at the hens. Cam had called him the Chicken Whisperer when she'd first seen him do that in the fall. He seemed to be able to communicate with them in a way she couldn't. He convinced them to go in and latched the door behind them.

“You guys should take home a dozen eggs.” Cam stepped into the barn and drew an egg carton out of the refrigerator.

Alexandra followed her. “Totally.”

“The production is way down, of course, but I still collect about four dozen eggs a week.”

Alexandra, carrying the eggs, and DJ followed Cam to the house. Once they were inside, Cam put on the teakettle and drew honey and cognac out of the cupboard.

“Have a seat,” she said, waving at the table.

Alexandra pulled out a chair and sat.

Cam brought over a tin. “Oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies, anybody? They're not local, but I make them with whole-wheat flour, and they're relatively healthy.”

DJ shrugged out of his green winter jacket, which sported a six-inch piece of duct tape covering a rip in one sleeve. He helped himself to a cookie and took a bite as he wandered around the room, examining the several pieces of art and the framed pictures decorating the walls. He popped the rest of the cookie in his mouth and picked up the mallets to a small wooden instrument that sat on a bookshelf in the living room. He tapped out a simple melody. The music carried a rich, round tone.

“Nice, isn't it?” Cam said. “My parents brought that from Lesotho.”

“Does it have a special name?” Alexandra asked.

“It does, but I don't remember. It's some kind of xylophone.”

After the teakettle whistled, Cam fixed three toddies with peppermint tea, honey, and lemon, and brought them to the table. She got the cognac and added it to the collection.

“Add your own poison.” She grimaced. “Oh, that didn't sound good, did it?” She poured a couple of glugs of cognac into her mug and set the bottle in the middle of the table. “Anyway, I'm done working for the day.” And she'd be alone tonight. Pete had to do the right thing.

DJ joined them at the table. The young man always seemed upbeat and competent and interested in all kinds of things. She could see why Alexandra wanted to spend time with him.

Alexandra poured a bit of cognac into her own mug and offered the bottle to DJ.