Rotten to the Core (10 page)

“How about noon?”

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

“Michael?” Daphne tugged on his arm. “We should go.”

“Oh. Right, yeah. Let’s grab some food first, okay?” He gave a shy nod to Meg, and he and Daphne moved toward the impromptu buffet. Meg realized that Daphne had said almost nothing during the whole encounter. What was her problem? Just awkward? Overcome with grief? If she was devastated by Jason’s death, it hadn’t hurt her appetite any, Meg noted, watching her fill a paper plate with cheese, bread, and slices of ham and turkey.

She turned to find Christopher at her elbow. “I see you’ve managed to pry a few words out of Michael,” he said.

“Yes. We’re going to meet tomorrow so he can give me his pitch for organic farming. Is that surprising? I thought that was what GreenGrow did.”

“Oh, I do believe he’s just shy. Michael was always overshadowed by Jason. I haven’t had the pleasure of speaking to him for a while—Jason managed to establish himself as the voice of the group and didn’t encourage others to make themselves heard. Perhaps Michael will rise to his full potential now that the way is clear.”

“Was he a disciple?”

“You mean, was he a blind follower of Jason’s? I think not. But if you’re meeting with him, you can get a better sense of his position.” Christopher scanned the crowd, which had not grown. “Well, I suppose I should make my speech and be done with it. You don’t need to stay, unless you wish to.”

Meg shrugged. “You go ahead. I may slip out before you’re done. But thank you for inviting me. You go give Jason a fitting farewell.”

She watched as Christopher made his way to a podium in the corner.

“Friends,” he began, “may I have your attention for a few moments? As you know well, the impetus for this gathering was the unfortunate death of one of our students, Jason Miller. While some of us may have had our differences of opinion with him, he was nonetheless a member of our small community, and we owe it to him to recognize his passing. As his thesis advisor, I must say I admired the sharpness of his mind and his dedication to the pursuit of his beliefs. He was not one to shrink from challenges, and . . .”

Meg tuned out and watched the faces of the others in the room. She thought she saw traces of skepticism on several, as Christopher’s artfully crafted comments blurred the harsh edges of the truth about Jason. She moved quietly toward the open door, stepped into the hall, and was startled to find Detective Marcus standing just outside. Obviously he had been eavesdropping. He nodded to acknowledge her and then walked a few feet away. She followed.

“Detective,” Meg said quietly. “What are you doing here?”

“Ms. Corey,” he responded. “Just doing my duty, following up on a suspicious death. I’m a bit surprised to see you here, under the circumstances.”

Meg lifted her chin. “I’m paying my respects to the man who was found dead on my property.”
And I wanted to see who his friends were.
“What did
you
hope to find?”

He didn’t answer immediately, looking beyond her as people began to drift out of the room. “Miller wasn’t a very popular person, although he was well known in certain circles.”

“With local law enforcement, you mean?”

“No, not really. He was too smart for that kind of trouble. But he did like to push people’s buttons. Can I see you to your car?”

Was he telling her it was time for her to leave? Meg felt a spurt of annoyance, but she had no reason to stay longer. She had accomplished what she came for: to see what Jason’s colleagues looked like. And she had an appointment with one of them the next day. Which she didn’t see any reason to enlighten Detective Marcus about. She smiled up at him. “Why, certainly, Detective. How kind of you.”

The detective waited until they had reached the sidewalk in front of the building before revealing his motive. “Ms. Corey, you didn’t happen to mention that your employee knew the dead man.”

It took Meg a few seconds to work out what he meant. “You mean Bree? I didn’t know they were acquainted when I talked to you. She told me yesterday. Is there a problem with that?”

He ignored her question. “You didn’t mention the pesticide in your barn, either.”

So Seth had told him. “I didn’t know about that, either, until yesterday.”

“There seems to be a lot that you conveniently didn’t know until yesterday.”

Meg fought her impulse to give him a sarcastic answer. “Detective, I’ve been working on the house, and I haven’t had a chance to explore the barn—I was waiting for warmer weather to do that. I have no idea what else might be in there. Since you know about the pesticide, you must also know that it was Seth Chapin who found it, identified it, and disposed of it properly, all before I knew anything about it.”

“So you say, Ms. Corey. Still, it’s a mighty handy coincidence, don’t you think?”

“Do you think Jason Miller came all the way out to my place and went snooping in the barn to find a means to kill himself? Or do you seriously think I used a pesticide from my barn to kill a man I had never met?”

“We have only your word for that. And it’s early days yet. Nice to see you again, Ms. Corey. I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait! Did you ever find Jason’s car?” Meg asked.

Marcus gave her a long look that could hardly be considered friendly. “Parked in Amherst.” He didn’t volunteer any details, but strode off toward his car, leaving Meg standing on the sidewalk, fuming.

How dare he? She had nothing to do with Jason’s death, and it had nothing to do with her. As far as she knew, at least. But the way the coincidences were piling up didn’t make her feel any better, and truthfully, she could see why the detective might have doubts. She sighed. Just what she needed: something else that had to be done immediately. Renovate house, learn how to run an orchard, solve a crime. If it was a crime. So, find out if Jason was murdered,
then
solve the crime. Sure, no problem.

Meg was in a foul mood by the time she let herself in the kitchen door. Then she recalled the battered file boxes Gail had given her, waiting for her in the dining room. Gail had once told her that prior to the untimely death of the hapless victim found in Meg’s septic tank not so long ago—and now, possibly, Jason Miller—the last murder in Granford had occurred in the nineteenth century, so there should be nothing in a heap of old paper to remind her of her current problems.

She noticed that Gail had scrawled a large “#1” on one box, so Meg opened that first. On top she found a note from Gail, some sample entry sheets, and some pairs of white cotton gloves. She opened the note first and read it:

Meg smiled: Gail had been pretty sure of Meg’s help.

Meg looked around her dining room: the central table was bare, and the light fixture over it would provide adequate illumination, although maybe she should put brighter bulbs in. The cord of her laptop would reach the nearest plug. What more did she need? She sat down and put on the gloves, then pulled the first box toward her and fished out a three-inch stack of mismatched documents. An odor of mildew followed. She leafed through them, trying to make some sense of them. Deeds, newspaper clippings, broadsides, letters, maps—there was a little bit of everything here, in no particular order. She looked at one of the sheets Gail had sent and found she was supposed to record the item type, material, date (if known), and a brief summary of the contents.
Might as well start at the beginning, Meg,
she thought, and picked up the first item on her stack.

An hour later she had reduced the pile by less than an inch, although she was getting better at crafting brief descriptions. Meg rolled her stiff neck around and stretched. She was about ready to call it quits for the night, but the next piece of paper on the pile intrigued her. It appeared to be a hand-drawn map, brown ink on what she assumed was rag paper, clearly old and more than a bit fragile. It measured no more than a square foot. She could make out a date scribbled in one corner: 1797. It was in fact a map of the area, at a time when there weren’t many roads in Granford. She studied it, and suddenly it seemed familiar. On a hunch, she opened a search engine on her computer and called up a map program, zeroing in on Granford. Yes! Looking back and forth between the two maps—the one hand drawn, over two hundred years old, the other pixels on a screen—she could see the bare outlines of the old town embedded in the new. There was the town green, which meant . . . Meg traced the roads she knew southward from town, then east. Yes: County Line Road, running along the bottom of the map. And, yes, a row of circles, apparently indicating homes, and next to one, in tiny letters, “Warren.”

And next to that, tiny hand-drawn trees. The orchard, two hundred years ago. Meg reached out a careful gloved finger and laid it on the spot, as if touching it somehow connected past and present. Absurdly, tears pricked her eyes. The longer she looked, the more details she noticed—she could make out the names of the neighbors, and of the roads, although most of the latter were prosaic descriptions like “Road to Muddy Brook.” There, just to the north of the Warrens, lay the Chapin property.

Meg sat back in her chair. Gail had known what she was doing, handing this task to Meg. Here under her hands was history made tangible. Meg knew she was hooked. Too bad she had other things to do, like manage the orchard. And that, as she could see, was an obligation passed down through two centuries—so she had better do it right.

As Meg drove to Amherst for her lunch with Michael, she wondered what she hoped to learn from him. She did want to hear his story about the glories of organic farming, not only to get a sense of GreenGrow’s public position but also to satisfy her own genuine curiosity. All she knew was that organic produce seemed to cost more than the other stuff at the local supermarket. She had no particular preconceptions about it, and she felt obliged to at least consider it among her options. Ultimately, though, what she really wanted was to hear what Michael had to say about Jason, although she wasn’t sure how to steer the conversation that way.

She was also beginning to worry that she hadn’t heard from Bree. Meg didn’t trust Detective Marcus, and he’d been known to be both wrong and pigheaded in the past. She hoped that her new orchard manager would at least let her know if she’d been arrested.

She had seated herself at a wobbly table in the restaurant and was looking over the sticky menu when Michael walked in and dropped into the chair opposite her. “I know who you are,” he said abruptly.

Meg debated for a split second whether she should play dumb and decided there was no point. “I’m the one who found Jason’s body,” she said.

Michael slumped further and shrugged off his coat. “Yeah. You didn’t mention that yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, but I wasn’t sure you’d talk to me if you knew. So I gather you did some checking?”

“Daphne told me. Look, I don’t want to talk about Jason.”

How did Daphne know?
“Michael, I really am interested in organic farming. I’m new to the orchard business, and you know about local conditions and concerns. So let’s just talk about that,” Meg said.
And maybe I can work my way around to Jason later.

“What do you want to know?” Michael picked up the menu and scanned it.

“Look, to be completely honest, all I know about the organic approach is what I read in the papers. It makes you sound like a bunch of crunchy hippies digging your bare toes into the good earth, with a sprinkling of self-righteous yuppies thrown in. Surely there’s more to it?”

Michael snorted in spite of himself. “I hope so. Okay, if you’re serious, I’ll start at the beginning.”

They were interrupted by the appearance of the student waitress, and Michael ordered a sandwich and fries. Meg settled for a sandwich and waited patiently for Michael to begin.

“Okay. GreenGrow sees organic farming as a sustainable alternative to current agricultural practices that put profits ahead of human welfare. At the moment, organic goods tend to be more expensive than nonorganic goods. So it’s kind of a Catch-22: the prices for organic goods won’t go down until organic processes spread on a wider scale, but people won’t buy the higher-price goods that will make it possible for the market to grow.” He looked at Meg to see if she was following.

She was; what he said made sense, in a broad way. “Sounds reasonable. So, I guess I have two questions: one, what does your group propose to do about it? And, two, how does that apply to what I’m doing as an individual grower?”

Michael was warming to his subject. “Well, we believe that organic farming is an environmentally friendly alternative. Do you have any idea of the impact of increasing levels of nitrogen compounds from fertilizer? They’re contributing to global warming! They’re in our watersheds, and that means they contaminate water tables and mess up biological zones at the mouths of our rivers. And they’re not necessary! There are good alternatives—alfalfa or chicken manure, for example.”