Farm Fresh Murder Page 3

  I’d never shown any interest in farming, but my aunt and uncle had known something about me that I hadn’t figured out at the time. Though it was an option to sell the land and have a nice full bank account, I’d chosen to keep it instead and see what would come of it. And from there, my passion grew. I loved my farm, I loved my job.

  As I moved some more blackberries from the freezer to the refrigerator to thaw, a bark from outside announced that someone was coming down the driveway.

  “Coming, Hobbit. Just a minute.” I switched off the lights and left the barn, glad to be out in fresh air that actually had a tinge of coolness to it. Fall was almost here.

  Ian’s truck was probably about the same age as mine, but his was blue and he had a magnetic sign on the driver’s door that read Yardworks.

  I didn’t know him at all. On the way home I’d become concerned that I probably shouldn’t be going anywhere with a stranger who worked at the same place a murder had occurred. But when Allison finally called me back and I told her my plans, she seemed to think Ian was okay. She was just as curious as I was to find out where Abner lived, though, so I wondered if any potential concern was diluted by the upcoming discovery.

  Ian waved as he made his way down the driveway. Hobbit stood beside me and growled. She’d stop when I told her he was okay, but I wasn’t quite ready to do that yet.

  “Hey,” he said as he got out of his truck. He looked like he’d showered, and I was suddenly aware that I hadn’t. Frankly, I hadn’t even thought about it, but I should have—if not to be polite to Ian, at least for Abner.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Awesome place,” he said as he joined us in the side yard between the barn and the house. He didn’t act at all afraid of my short-legged, pretend-ferocious guard dog.

  “Thanks.”

  Hobbit growled.

  “Hey, buddy,” Ian said as he reached down without hesitation and rubbed her neck with both hands. She quit growling and would have purred if she knew how.

  “What’s his name?

  “Her name is Hobbit.”

  “Oh, I get that. Look at those long feet. Hey, Hobbit, hey, girl.”

  So he’d either read Tolkien or seen the movies.

  Hobbit was appropriately impressed. She might have left with him if he’d added a bacon treat to the mix.

  “Hey, Ian, could you give me about fifteen minutes? I had to finish some work that I started this morning, and I need a quick shower.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be just fine with the dog.”

  Common courtesy made me want to tell him to make himself at home, but I didn’t really want a stranger in my house. I said, “I’ll be out quickly.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  Neither Ian nor Hobbit seemed to care much that I left them. I hurried through the shower, put on my nicest slacks (jeans) and another T-shirt, and found Ian and my dog in the back. Ian was looking over the pumpkin patch and rows of trimmed-back strawberry plants as Hobbit sat beside him.

  “First Abner, now my dog,” I muttered as I walked out the back door and onto the patio.

  “What was that?” Ian asked.

  “Oh, nothing.” I joined them.

  “I knew about the berry preserves and jams, but I hadn’t heard about the pumpkins.”

  “Yeah, my main products are the berry things—no fruit that needs peeling. I buy some fruit from other vendors for the preserves. Strawberries are my spring crop, and my winter specialty is pumpkin preserves—really good stuff, by the way, but much more labor-intensive to make. I love growing pumpkins and I tend to overdo it, so I give a few away. I wish I could move quickly enough to use them all—have I mentioned how good pumpkin preserves are? But the pumpkins are only good for so long.”

  “Well, if you need help, let me know.” Ian cleared his throat. Just as much as I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me. His offer was sincere, but a bit premature in our potential friendship. He felt the weird vibe, too.

  “Those strawberry plants look great, but . . .” he continued.

  “What?”

  “I hate to give advice”—I was sure he meant that he hated to give advice to people older than him—“because we all raise our stuff our own way, but they need a good dousing of water. The buds for next year’s fruit are beginning to form.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was going to do that today, too. It was a very strange day, and nothing happened quite like I’d planned.”

  “I get what you mean.”

  “I take Wednesdays off, so I’ll water them tomorrow morning.”

  “That should work.” There was something more he wanted to say.

  “What?” I prodded.

  “You don’t have an automatic irrigation system?”

  I laughed. “Nope. I do everything by hand. I’m a very organic gardener—including, I suppose, in the ways of irrigation.”

  “Well, you make a great jam,” Ian said.

  “Thank you.” I didn’t know he’d tried any of my product, but I didn’t point that out. “So, you have some land?”

  “Nope. Someday. Right now I live above a garage in Monson—I use the garage as my studio—but I grew up on a farm, and someday I’ll own and work one. It’s what I was meant to do.”

  Allison had confirmed that Ian was in his mid-twenties, but he seemed older and wiser. His confident knowledge of what he was “meant to do” was something that I didn’t think I’d ever passionately felt. I loved what I did, but I wasn’t sure it was a calling so much as an insightful gift from my aunt and uncle.

  “I imagine you will.”

  “Should we get to Abner’s?” he asked, seeming to purposefully ignore my curious tone.

  “Well, only if Hobbit can bear to let you go.” My dog, lovey-eyed and smitten, clearly thought she’d found a new best friend.

  “She can come with us.”

  “Um, well . . .”

  “I’d love to have her along. Don’t get to have any animals in my garage. I’m getting my dog fix.”

  “Okay, then. She loves to go for rides. Let’s go.”

  Our party of three left my farm—this time with the house doors locked—and headed in the other direction on the state highway, away from Monson and Bailey’s.

  “So, Ian,” I said as I leaned slightly forward and around my dog, “you and Abner are pretty good friends?”

  “Sort of. He helped me set up my stall.”

  “Do you know him outside of Bailey’s?”

  “No.”

  “But you and he must have really hit it off.”

  “Well, I wasn’t so sure. He gave me some good pointers, but I didn’t think he liked me all that much. He’s a nice man, but very cranky.”

  “True. So, how do you know where he lives?” I got to the matter at hand.

  “Oh, that—yes, he vowed me to secrecy. He bought one of my sculptures. I had to go out to his place to set it up. He wanted to set it up himself, but he knew it would be too much for him. I’m surprised he didn’t have me sign something vowing to keep the place a secret. He did make it clear that I wasn’t to tell anyone, though.”

  “But you’re okay showing me.”

  Ian smiled. “Well, it’s no secret that he’s very fond of you—like a daughter. He needs a friend right now.”

  “You don’t think he killed Matt Simonsen?”

  “I don’t know him all that well, but no, I don’t think that Abner could kill anyone. He could probably irritate them to self-mutilation, but he wouldn’t hurt the proverbial fly.”

  “No, I don’t think so, either.”

  “He’ll be mad at me for bringing you along, but he’ll get over it.”

  “We’ll see,” I said quietly. I wanted to see Abner, make sure he was able to deal with whatever he was dealing with, but I didn’t want him to hold it against me that I’d seen his home. I understood the need to keep things close to the vest, to keep secrets. Not everybody needed to know every little thing. My curiosity was, however, much stronger t
han my desire to humor his elusiveness.

  “So, where’re you from?” I said, changing the subject and filling the space with small talk.

  “I’m from Iowa.”

  “No kidding?” His answer truly caught me off guard.

  He laughed. “That’s a pretty typical reaction. Even some guys from Iowa grow their hair long and get a tattoo or two.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean . . . two?”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe I’ll show them all to you sometime,” he said with such an over-the-board flirtatious tone that I laughed, too.

  “How did you get to South Carolina?”

  “After college, I wasn’t quite ready to go back to Iowa, so I literally threw a dart at a map I hung on the wall. I was hoping for a year in New York City, but my aim was off. I knew that eventually I’d want to have some land—some sort of farm—so I figured I was meant to get that going sooner than I thought. I came out here about a year ago.”

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “University of Missouri—I studied math and art.”

  “You’re a very good artist. What’s 7 times 8?”

  “I believe that’s 56.”

  “Outstanding at math, too.”

  “Thank you. How about you? Are you from here?”

  “Yep, born and raised. Allison, the market manager, and I are twins.”

  “I heard.”

  “Our parents are real-estate-mogul hippie types—they live in an RV, but own a bunch of rental properties. About a hundred years ago I went to the University of South Carolina, liberal arts, but before I could go further than my undergrad, I inherited my farm from my aunt and uncle. When that happened, my whole perspective changed. I suddenly wanted to grow things and create something with the soil. Putting my hands in dirt became more important than putting them around more textbooks.”

  “Well, first of all, you’re not that old, so stop that. Second, I understand exactly what you mean. See, you’re an artist, too.”

  “No, I make berry jams and preserves.”

  “And pumpkin.”

  “Only for a limited time.”

  Suddenly, Ian took a sharp left and turned onto a dirt road that would have been very easy to drive by without noticing. I braced both myself and Hobbit. She was sitting in the middle of the truck’s bench seat with a smile on her face. The turn and the bumpy ride left us all unstable.

  “Are you sure this is the way?” I asked.

  “Yep. The road smooths in just a second. Hang on.” Ian turned again, to the right this time, and the ride became less bumpy and darker under a canopy of tall trees.

  We continued on for about half a mile, then suddenly the trees stopped and a wide but shallow valley opened up before us.

  “Here we are,” Ian said.

  There was a huge building on the property. It was an übersized greenhouse, and it seemed to stretch on for a good couple of acres. To the front of, and a good distance from, the big building was a small, somewhat boring white house with a wide front porch. Next to the house was a large copper yard sculpture that moved in the light breeze. The sculpture was about ten feet tall and looked like a giant flower. The petals moved—somehow seemed to get small and then large—with intermittent wind, making the sculpture look as if it was continually blooming and then closing. It was breathtaking and went beyond art to a feat of structural engineering.

  Ian maneuvered his truck toward the house.

  “That sculpture is gorgeous. And that greenhouse—no wonder . . .” I said.

  “Thanks. Abner wouldn’t let me see inside the greenhouse,” Ian said absently as we got closer.

  “It looks like the front door of the house is wide-open,” I said as I followed the direction of his glance.

  “Yep. And there’s something on the porch,” he said, a catch in his voice. There was a large stain at the threshold of the front door. It was red and shiny.

  “Oh, crap, Ian, you don’t suppose that’s blood?” I unhooked the seat belt and reached for the door handle before the truck came to a complete stop.

  “Hang on, wait here a second. Let me check it out.” He reached over and grabbed hold of my arm.

  The sun was low on the horizon, and the entire property was patterned with fingerlike shadows and yellow, leftover light. Fear for Abner had already marched through my gut and was making its way to my toes, so when the front door slammed shut with the noise of a rifle shot, I should have been forgiven for my scream of terror.

  Four

  In the next half instant, when I realized that the sound hadn’t been a shot from a sniper hiding behind the greenhouse, but a gust of wind shutting the door, I yanked my arm from Ian’s grasp and threw myself out of his truck—unconsciously closing the door before Hobbit could escape. I had no idea how Ian made it to the porch first, but there he was, holding me back again.

  “Becca, hang on. I know you’re worried about Abner, but this could be dangerous or it could be evidence. Let’s slow down.”

  On one level his voice of reason was highly irritating, but on another level I knew he was right and we probably needed to be smart. Actually, we probably should have stayed in the truck and called the police, but that wasn’t an option I could accept. Abner could be hurt or in trouble—I couldn’t just wait for someone else.

  “Got it,” I finally said.

  I didn’t realize that he’d been holding both of my arms, but as he loosened his grasp, I could still feel the pressure.

  “Sorry—I hope I didn’t hurt you,” he said.

  “No, you’re right, we need to be careful.”

  Ian nodded and turned away from my surely frantic eyes. Where was Abner?

  “Okay, this doesn’t look like blood,” Ian said as he stared at the puddle. “I don’t think blood is quite this bright red.”

  “No?” I carefully kept all body parts away from the puddle but moved to my knees to get a better look. It wasn’t the way it looked so much as the way it smelled. “I know exactly what it is.”

  “Yeah?”

  I touched a fingertip to the edge of the red puddle, gathered a little of the stickiness, and put it on my tongue. “Sugar water—for hummingbirds. People make it red because hummingbirds are attracted to color. Well, I think that’s why, anyway.”

  Ian followed suit and fingertip-tasted the liquid. “Well, that’s good news, so far. Blood probably would have been bad news. Plus, I’d have to worry about your appetites if I’d just seen you reach willingly for a taste of blood.”

  I smiled a return of his. Okay, this was weird in many different ways. We were here to talk to Abner, not flirt awkwardly over spilled sugar water. I stood and looked someplace other than at Ian.

  “I don’t see a feeder or container for the syrup anywhere.”

  “Maybe it’s inside.” Ian stood, too.

  “No, wait. Look at the greenhouse. There’s a ton of feeders hanging on it.”

  Ian looked toward the greenhouse and then seemed to scan the entire property. “Uh-huh. Abner’s probably just inside or in the greenhouse.” He turned, kept to the side of the puddle, and knocked on the door. “Abner! Hey, Abner, are you in there?”

  The hollow silence that followed made the back of my neck tingle. I turned to scan for the pair of eyes that I felt was watching us, but didn’t see anything suspicious.

  “Go inside?” I asked.

  “Yeah, maybe.” Ian moved to his left and peered into a front window next to the door. “Yeah, for sure.” He stepped back to the side of the puddle, jumped over the syrup, opened the door, and disappeared into the house. “Abner. Hey, Abner.”

  Woof! Hobbit exclaimed from the open window of the truck.

  “Nope, you stay right there. I’ll be cleaning your paws all night if you step in this stuff.”

  Woof.

  “Sorry, girl.”

  Hobbit sighed and rolled her puppy-dog eyes at me.

  The light and shadows were just right that I couldn’t see much inside the open doorway
. I jumped the puddle and found what had caused Ian to hurry in.

  “Abner!” I added my voice. There was no answer.

  Abner’s house was decorated in the style of single-man-who-hadn’t-purchased-furniture-in-about-forty-years. His couch was covered in green material that made me itch just looking at it. He had two nonmatching chairs at the sides of the couch, one of them threadbare and probably the place where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t in his greenhouse or at Bailey’s. Next to the chair was a small side table that held an old-fashioned phone—the kind you plugged into a phone outlet but didn’t require electricity to work. But it was the coffee table, worn and decorated with water rings and tipped on its side, that gave the whole room a sense of something gone wrong.

  “He’s not in the house,” Ian said from the hallway in the middle of the structure. “I don’t see anyone, anywhere.”

  “Damn.” I needed to see for myself that Abner wasn’t around, so I followed the path of Ian’s search.

  The kitchen was furnished in a predictable manner: Formica table and counters, old cabinets that were at one time probably a clean cream color but were now dingy.

  “Dishes in the sink, but nothing is broken—it doesn’t look as though there was any sort of struggle in here,” I said.

  “Bed’s unmade, but that might not mean anything, either,” Ian said.

  I hurried down the hall and stepped into the bedroom. There was a full-size bed with an unmatched dresser and chest of drawers. The furniture was adorned with the types of man-things that had become familiar enough; having a dad and a couple of husbands let me in on the secrets of coin-gathering spots, a good place to put a watch, lip balm, the unnecessary pile of receipts for small items, and so on.

  “I don’t see his wallet on top of either the dresser or the chest of drawers.” I looked under the bed and saw a few pairs of shoes and fuzzy dust bunnies. “Nothing.” I stood and pulled open the closet door; there were only a few pieces of clothing. “Nothing.”