A Tine To Live, A Tine To Die Part 15

Cam started awake. It was dark. Disoriented, she rubbed her eyes and sat up. The newspaper slid from her lap onto the floor with a gentle whoosh. She glanced into the kitchen, where the LED on the stove shone its blue-green time into the dimness. Eight thirty. She must have needed to catch up on sleep.

Cam switched on the lamp and retrieved the jumbled sections of paper. The Metro-North section was on top. She straightened it out. The second headline down on the right caught her eye.

POLICE STYMIED IN FARM MURDER.

Cam groaned. Now it was the Farm Murder, and the story shouted out to the greater Boston area that hers was the farm. She read on.

"Well, at least they say I'm cooperating." Cam snorted. "Of course I'm cooperating!" But you haven't solved it, she reminded herself. She threw the section on the floor and got up. She was about to hit the computer when she realized how hungry she was. The lunch on the beach had been a long time ago.

She fixed herself a grilled ham and cheese and took it to the computer table with a gla.s.s of milk. She checked her e-mail. Alexandra had written, with a subject line of "Web site up and running. Please check." Cam smiled. She clicked the link in the message, which was attached to Alexandra's name, and there it was. Produce Plus Plus Farm. The young woman had done a stellar job. Cam clicked through the pages, jotting down a few notes about minor things for Alexandra to fix.

She opened the file she'd named Find The Killer. Her spreadsheet stared at her. Was there anything new she could add since Sat.u.r.day? Sure. Frank was definitely in the militia. And it looked like Bev was, too. Cam tapped in the information. What else? She hadn't added the disk in the hoop house and its connection with the Patriotic Militia, so that went in, too.

She couldn't think of anything else to add. She ran her script. The graphic display now had a connection between the Patriotic Militia and her hoop house. But if the connection had a relationship to the killer, the screen wasn't saying. She leaned back in the chair with her hands behind her head, trying to remember what Lucinda had said. An important person in the area was also undoc.u.mented, and maybe Mike had been blackmailing him or threatening to go public with the information. Cam didn't know who it could be, though. She hadn't been around long enough to know the important people in town. And would an important person go so far as to kill Mike to keep him quiet? According to Lucinda and Ruth, that wouldn't work, since there were plenty of others in the group who also knew.

Cam saved the files and shut down the computer. No way of solving this tonight, that was certain. She was surprised Pappas hadn't returned her call. Maybe the guy actually had a life. Too bad it didn't include actually solving murders.

Chapter 14.

Cam worked hard all Monday morning to make up for taking the afternoon off the day before. It was sticky again today. She found herself stopping frequently to wipe her forehead with the sleeve of her T-shirt. The leaves on the trees were still. No breeze buffered the brunt of the sun.

The season was picking up. The farm had had regular rains mixed in with lots of sun and long days. Plants loved this weather, even today's heat and humidity, and it showed. All plants loved it. Cam grunted as she hauled a garden cart full of weeds to the compost pile. Weeds sprouted and grew even faster than the crops.

She took a shade break at the desk in the back of the barn, where she kept her planting and harvesting record book. It was Albert's system, but it was a good one, albeit being on paper and not in digital form. She planned to enter everything into her farming software next winter, when she had time. For now, there was nothing wrong with a good old ledger book. She checked her planting schedule and hoped those beans she'd ordered would come in the day's mail. It wouldn't do to get behind schedule on an item as popular as skinny green beans.

As Cam went back outside, she thought about Stuart Wilson and how oddly he'd acted last week. Getting all in a huff on Volunteer Day, when Cam had gotten upset with him about destroying the beans, even though her reaction might have been a bit too strong. Getting drunk at the festival and hara.s.sing Alexandra about her sister. And even acting strange when Cam had asked him about Lucinda on Sat.u.r.day. She shook her head. It really wasn't her problem. If he showed up on Wednesday again, she'd make sure she kept an eye on him.

When Cam popped into the house for a late lunch break, she checked her voice mail. A message from one of her subscribers dismayed her.

"We've decided to cancel our subscription because of the recent difficulties," the woman's voice stated with an apologetic tinge. "We'd appreciate having our share price returned, but understand that we're past the reimburs.e.m.e.nt period. We just don't feel safe having an a.s.sociation with your farm any longer."

Cam slammed her fist on the desk. Down to twenty-eight subscriptions. She couldn't afford to reimburse these people-she'd already spent the money. The murder was taking its toll on her business.

Ellie arrived right on time for her locavore badge session. All day Cam had found herself looking forward to working with the girl again. Cam, just coming out of the barn with a basket, waved at the SUV as David turned and drove down the driveway.

"How's it going, kiddo?" Cam said without thinking and then realized saying "kiddo" made her sound like an old lady, or worse, like her father.

"Meh."

"Meh? What's going on?" Ellie was not the sunny self Cam had seen in their previous encounters. "Why don't you tell me while we head out back?"

"I don't know. This kid at school? Jason? He's always talking about, like, illegal aliens and stuff. Like immigrants are from other planets." Ellie kicked a stick in the path.

So anti-immigration prejudice had filtered down to the eighth grade. No surprise, really. Cam waited.

"So I go, 'Immigrants are people, too.' And he's all, like, 'Dirty Polack.' " Ellie looked up at Cam, frowning. "What's up with that, right? It's, like, unless he's Native American himself, his relatives who came here were immigrants, too."

"Correct. What do your teachers say?"

"Oh, this is lunchroom stuff. He wouldn't dare say it in history cla.s.s. Mr. Fitz would have his . . . I mean, he'd, you know, get in trouble."

"Is your family Polish?"

"Yeah. My dad's first generation. He came over to work with his uncle in construction and then, like, just stayed. My mom's family's Polish, too, but they've been here for a while. Her name is Dabrowski. Mom and Dad used to live in Chicago. You know, before me."

Cam remembered being fourteen. It had seemed like time before she had existed was time before reality. "How about we tie up tomatoes today? You can almost see them grow, they're going up so fast. I'll show you how to prune them to two leaders."

"What's a tomato leader?" Ellie looked puzzled, but at least she didn't look down in the dumps anymore.

"This kind of tomato, called an indeterminate, keeps growing and bears fruit as long as it can. Here in northern Ma.s.sachusetts, that means until the frost in the fall. We get more fruit-"

"Don't you mean tomatoes?"

Cam laughed. "Well, sure. We just refer to them as bearing fruit. And, actually, a tomato is a fruit, botanically, because it has seeds. I think the definition is 'a flowering ovary.' I know people commonly think of fruit as sweet and vegetables as not sweet, but botany is different. Ask your science teacher sometime."

"I will. So peppers and eggplants and cuc.u.mbers, they're all fruit?"

Cam nodded. "And squash and beans, too."

"Solid."

"Anyway, if we prune the tomato plants to just two stalks-that's what a leader is-we get a bigger yield than if we let every growing tip take off. It's neater and easier to harvest, too, rather than having them sprawl all over the ground."

"Wow. Wait'll I tell Ashley."

"Friend of yours?"

Ellie nodded. "She wants to be a food scientist. She's in Scouts, too. Can I bring her with me next week?"

"If she'll work, I'll take her."

Cam showed Ellie what to do, handing her a pair of scissors and the string. They worked side by side in silence, snipping off tips that weren't the leaders, tying the unruly tops to their stakes.

"I'm glad you stood up to that boy," Cam said. "What was his name? James?"

"Jason." Ellie sat back on her heels. "He even said he'd heard my dad was illegal. I told him no possible way that was true. But he said his dad was in a, like, militia, and they knew who around here was illegal. He said Daddy was going to be in trouble, that they were going to make him go back."

Another militia member. "What did your dad say?"

Ellie frowned. "I didn't tell him. He's been kind of funny lately. Sort of, you know, like he's thinking about something important. Jason's lying. Why should I bother Dad about that?"

David Kosloski was a well-established businessman in town, with his own construction firm. He was married to an American. He couldn't be here illegally. Could he?

Cam checked the timer. Two more minutes for the pie. She checked her list. The baby mixed greens sat ready in the three-wood Costa Rican salad bowl her parents had given her, violets scattered over the top. The salmon fillet was marinating in her special soy-ginger-lime mix. The strawberry-rhubarb pie was almost done. She'd boil water for pasta at the last moment, while she grilled the salmon. She planned to toss the gemelli with pesto frozen from last summer and top it with freshly grated Parmesan. A simple and delicious dinner. No way could she compete with Jake's expertise, so why try?

When the timer dinged, Cam pulled the pie out of the oven and let it rest, glad she'd thought to buy rhubarb from Green Spring Farm on her way home the day before. She stirred sugar into sour cream and spooned it carefully on top. She tried to steady her hand when she noticed it shaking. Sure, she was a little nervous. Not only was tonight a date with a man she liked, but it was a dinner for a chef.

"That's why I'm producing only dishes I know I can do well, right, Preston?" Cam slid the pie back in the oven and set the timer for seven minutes as Preston rubbed his head against her knee. She glanced at the table. A simple white cloth, the bucket of carnations, Marie's rose china, pink cloth napkins under the silver, a bottle of Mill River Winery Naked Chardonnay in a chilled wine cooler. Oops. Candles. Cam rummaged in the hutch until she found two gla.s.s candlesticks and two red candles. Oh, well, they matched the color scheme close enough. She set them up and checked the time. Six o'clock. Jake should be here any minute.

Striding into the living room, Cam smoothed down a stray lock of hair as she checked her appearance once more in the tall oval mirror. She'd picked a gauzy pale blue Indian blouse that set off her eyes and white capri pants. The tiny bells on her silver Indian earrings jingled when she moved her head. Of course, she'd rolled the sleeves of the blouse up for cooking, and a drop of strawberry juice had landed on the pants, near her knee, which kind of spoiled the look. Cam knew she wasn't a style setter. If Jake was going to be involved with her, he'd have to learn that this was what he was going to get.

When the timer rang again, Cam dashed back to the kitchen and carefully extracted the pie, setting it on a wire rack to cool.

She looked down at Preston. "Don't you get any ideas about licking the sour cream off the top of that, sir." He only occasionally made his way onto the countertop, and this would be a particularly inopportune time to do it. Cam rummaged in the lower cupboards until she found an extra-large colander. She turned it over and covered the pie. A proper farmhouse would have had a pie keep. If Marie had had one of the cupboards with doors made of perforated metal, it was long gone now.

Cam made her way outdoors to wait in a lawn chair under the tree. A breeze that had sprung up brought the tang of fresh-cut gra.s.s. A mosquito keened near her ear and earned a slap. It was still a couple of hours until sunset. This one must have been extra hungry. She closed her eyes, trying to still her mind. A motorcycle sped by on the road. The leaves rustled in the tree above her, and a branch rubbed against another.

She got up and wandered over to the flower garden, which was in its purple phase. The j.a.panese irises. The pointy stalks of lupines. The delicate columbines. Cam bent over and pulled a few weeds. While she was at it, she deadheaded several of the narcissus that had gone by, a task Marie had taught her on one of Cam's first visits to the farm, twisting off the little bulging bulb where the flower had been. "The energy has to go back into the bulb in the ground and nourish it, so it will flower next year, too," Marie had said.

Cam looked back at the yard, glad she'd taken twenty minutes to mow it earlier. It made everything look tidier, nicer, even the peeling paint on the back of the house. But where was Jake? It had to be almost six-thirty. Maybe he'd had an accident. Maybe he forgot. Or maybe he thought fashionably late was cool. She realized she didn't really know if he was habitually late or not. She didn't know much about him at all, for that matter. Cam dusted her hands on her pants, as was her habit.

"Oh, rats," she said as she looked down. She didn't usually wear white for precisely this reason. A dusting of dirt now decorated the outer seam of both pant legs.

Just then a Cooper Mini with the top down pulled into the drive. There he was. Just in time to see her ruined outfit. Cam watched Jake unfold himself out of the tiny convertible. He wore ivory linen slacks with black sandals and a loose silk shirt in a bold print with blocks of black, red, and ivory tumbling every which way. To Cam's eyes, he looked relaxed and stylish. And s.e.xy.

"Sorry I'm late," he called, waving a floral wrap full of flowers. He leaned into the backseat and emerged with the other arm tucked around a bottle of wine and a paper bag. A CD was clamped under his chin, preventing him from straightening all the way. "Help?"

Cam laughed. She relieved him of the CD, and then of the flowers when he extended them to her. "Thanks." She peered into the wrap and said, "Awww, Jake." It was dozens of pink and white carnations. "How did you know?"

"Know what?" He had the audacity to wink at her. "That you like carnations? Maybe I'm just a good judge of character."

"I guess. Anyway, thanks."

Jake a.s.sumed a stern look. "They're not local, you know."

Cam shook her head, gesturing around her with the CD. "I live, breathe, and eat local. Mostly. I don't need flowers from my dinner guest to be local, too. They're beautiful, by the way. And they happen to look great for at least a couple of weeks. It's funny. A big bunch of carnations was left here a couple of days ago. Would that have been from you, too?"

Jake's face darkened. "No, it wouldn't have happened to have been me. The compet.i.tion again? What's his name?"

"Don't be silly. It was probably one of my customers." But if not Jake, she had no idea who could have left them. "So what's in the bag?"

Jake held out the paper bag. "I brought just one little contribution. An appetizer, only."

Cam wrinkled her nose. "Oh, right." Appetizers. She glanced up at Jake. His dark expression turned to hurt. "I mean, thank you! I totally forgot about appetizers. And I really appreciate it."

Jake's face relaxed. "I just made simple pastries stuffed with crab and truffles."

Yeah, simple, thought Cam. "What a treat," she said. "Come on in." She led the way into the house, her body aware of his following her.

Cam laid the flowers next to the sink, then drew two slender winegla.s.ses out of the fridge. "Chardonnay okay to start? We'll have what you brought with dinner."

"Lovely."

Cam poured the wine and handed Jake his gla.s.s. "Here's to summer. Less than two weeks to the solstice."

"To summer." Jake clinked his gla.s.s with hers and sipped. "Delicious. It'll be perfect with the pastries. Give me a cookie sheet and an oven, and I'll just crisp them up."

After directing Jake to what he needed, Cam leaned her elbows back on the counter and watched him work. His ample body and energy filled the room. He glanced over once and smiled.

After he closed the oven door, Jake examined the timer on the stove and, apparently being a quick study, set it for ten minutes. He washed his hands. "Now, a wine opener. I want to let the red breathe."

The man was all business. Cam handed him the corkscrew. While he opened the red wine, she clipped the ends of the flowers and arranged them in a heavy gla.s.s vase then placed it on the table, shifting the bucket of flowers to the table near the door. She remembered to roll down her sleeves and smooth them out.

Jake set the bottle on the counter and turned to her. "There," he said. He gazed at Cam, taking in her face, her outfit, her feet-thank goodness for the red nail polish she'd unearthed in her cabinet-like he was hungry for more than dinner.

The blush tiptoed its way up her neck.

"You look fabulous, Cam. The perfect summer hostess."

Cam snorted. "Yeah, perfect." She shook her head, then gestured to her now less than white pants.

"Well, a hostess who can not only cook but can also grow the dinner, no? That's a good thing, that little bit of dirt." Jake picked up his gla.s.s and, with a seductive look in his eyes, sidled over next to Cam, leaning one elbow on the counter so he faced her. "What's on the menu, Madame Chef?"

His heat. His delicious scent. His ice-blue eyes boring into hers. She felt a little dizzy and a little damp.

The timer went off.

"Ah, saved by the bell!" Jake said as he left her side and busied himself finding a plate and a spatula, sliding the pastry cups-now tipped with a light toast color-onto the plate, offering it to Cam with a flourish.

Saved by the bell was right.

A couple of hours later Cameron took the last bite of her pie.

"That was splendid, Cameron. I must have the recipe." Jake pushed back from the table a little and patted his stomach. "What a meal."

Cam nodded, taking a sip of coffee. The pasta and salmon had been a success, and Jake had exclaimed repeatedly about the freshness of the salad. Cam had promised him as many greens as she could cut as soon as they were ready in quant.i.ty, and had made a note to herself to feed the lettuce seedlings the next morning so they stayed healthy.

"Thanks for bringing the crab thingies. They were divine."

Jake laughed with gusto. "Thingies? A technical term among farmers?" He reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

Cam sputtered as she blushed. "Hey, you're the chef. What do you call them, anyway?"

"Crab-truffle thingies." He wiped the smile off his face but not out of his eyes. "I put them on the menu every other week. They even got a thumbs-up from the reviewer last month. 'The crab thingies were divine' was in the second paragraph of the review." Jake broke down and let the laughter out until he cried.

Cam tsk-tsked, protesting, "I'll bet you wouldn't have the slightest idea what the beneficial parasite that colonizes tomato hornworms is called, so there."

Jake wiped his eyes with his napkin, the hilarity apparently subsiding. "No, my dear, I wouldn't. But you know what else I brought besides thingies?"

"A CD."

"Righto. I'm going to clear here, and then I want to put on a particular CD for you. No, don't get up," he said as Cam started to rise. "Let me do it. You worked hard all day. I had the day off, remember?"