Fourteen
At home everyone was
seated around the big butcher block table, chatting over the remnants of falling-apart baby-back ribs, baked beans, and tomato salad. A flaky apple strudel sat cooling on the counter. Brodie didn’t even spare me a glance, all his attention devoted to willing a tasty morsel to drop right in front of him. Conversation ebbed and all heads turned to me when I walked into the kitchen and sat down beside Erin.
Barr opened his mouth to speak, but I cut him off.
“Darla Klick.”
He closed his mouth and raised one eyebrow then smiled slow like he does when he’s impressed. Kelly looked confused and then got it and began to grin. Erin said, “Who?”
But Meghan’s head jerked up in recognition. “That name’s on my short list.”
“Well, your list is even shorter now. Nate Snow identified her.” I added a scoop of beans to my plate. Bless her heart, Meghan had included plenty of bacon.
Barr pushed the salad bowl toward me. “Nice job, darlin’. How does he know her?”
“Apparently they grew up together, out on Camano Island. Some kind of a commune.” I snagged a piece of tomato drowning in vinaigrette.
Kelly looked skeptical. “Really?”
I licked barbecue sauce off my fingers. “Yep. Sounds like kind of a weird upbringing. Bunch of families, home schooling, living off the land—at least that’s the way Nate described it. And guess who else was part of the commune?”
“Who?” Meghan asked dutifully.
“Tom and Allie Turner.”
Barr sat back and whistled. “So they lied to me last night.”
“Well, I talked to Allie about that.”
“Sophie Mae!” Meghan protested.
My husband pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything.
“I was careful—didn’t even go into the house. But I’d spent hours bracing the other members, not to mention the whole business of making Bette fuss with that photo this morning, all because those two were too afraid to admit that they knew Ms. Klick.” I took a bite of molasses-laced beans and nearly moaned.
“Is that what Allie told you?” Barr asked. “That they were afraid?”
“More or less.” I glanced at Erin. “I’ll fill you in on the rest after
dinner.”
She scowled at me. “I’m twelve years old, Sophie Mae. I think I can handle it.”
“A fact you seem to be bringing up a lot,” Meghan said.
Erin pushed back from the table. “Fine. I’m going in my room and shutting the door and turning on my music so you can talk all you want without having to worry about offending my tender ears.” She stomped out of the room. We heard the music come on, and then the door closed.
“Stop gritting your teeth,” I said to Meghan.
Kelly held up a finger and quietly stood. Our eyes met, and I nodded.
“So then Allie said after the commune broke up they all ran away and joined the circus.” I spoke a little louder than necessary.
Meghan’s forehead creased, and then understanding dawned. Barr looked amused as Kelly sidled to the doorway and peeked around the edge.
“Gotcha.”
“Kellleeeeee! Geesh, what a sneak.” Erin’s voice came from the other side of the wall.
“Takes one to know one,” I called.
This time when her bedroom door closed, she was on the inside.
Barr laughed, and Meghan shook her head. As long as Erin had been so kind as to absent herself, I quickly filled them in on Hallie’s behavior in Nate’s trailer and Allie’s tale of Darla at the commune, finishing with, “So Allie says she didn’t really know her that well, and couldn’t be sure that was her in the picture. But she sure remembered Darla accosting her husband.”
My dear husband looked unconvinced. “You didn’t talk to Tom?”
I shook my head. “Left that for you to do.” I gnawed on a tender pork rib.
Barr sighed and looked at his watch. “Yeah. I guess I should. Nate, too. Save me a piece of strudel, ’K?” Within seconds he was dialing his phone. “Sergeant? Looks like the Jane Doe is named Darla Klick … Yeah … Sophie Mae did. I’m going out to talk to Nate Snow. He lives out at the Turner farm, and that’s who identified her … right … next of kin. Let me know what you find out.”
He grabbed his jacket, kissed me, and hurried out.
“Bug, come get some dessert,” Meghan called. Miraculously, Erin responded, almost as if she was waiting for the summons. Maybe it was the strudel, or maybe she felt a little sheepish about trying to pull one over on us.
But I sat stunned.
Next of kin
. Darla hadn’t just been Nate Snow’s childhood friend and an ornithologist who took the time to talk to Erin about merlins. She was any number of other things: daughter, sister, maybe even wife and mother, though Nate hadn’t said anything about her being married.
Which made me think about my parents and how they’d lost a son, how it had devastated them for years. How I’d lost a brother.
How I couldn’t imagine losing a child. The thought bolted through my overtired brain before I could marshal any defense. What was I thinking? Maybe Barr and I were just fine without progeny.
Together, mother and daughter began clearing dishes. I watched as they stood hip-to-hip at the sink. Meghan leaned down and murmured something into Erin’s hair, and Erin giggled.
I turned my head to find Kelly looking at me as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. A slow smile spread across his face. That was why Barr and I were trying to get pregnant. There is always the threat of sorrow in life, but there is also real joy to be gleaned from our short years on earth if we’re brave enough to go after it.
_____
I helped with the cleanup before leaving Meghan and Erin and Kelly to what was becoming more and more like regular family time. Down in my workroom, I worked on the books for a while, but my mind wasn’t all that interested in invoicing and accounts. I did manage to order bulk ingredients for the new line of body oils before I hit the Internet.
Searching for “Darla Klick” netted me a professional page on a social network that I didn’t belong to (who had the time for such things?) and a five-year-old reference in a research paper from the University of Alaska. I was just considering joining the social network despite my tendency to shy away from such things when I heard the door shut upstairs, voices, and soon after footsteps on the stairs from the kitchen.
I met Barr in the door to my office/storeroom. “That didn’t take long.”
“That’s because no one is home at the farm.”
My eyebrows rose. “I sure got the impression Nate, at least, was expecting you. Maybe he thought you’d talk to him tomorrow?”
Irritation flickered across his face. “Looks like I’ll have to make the trip again.” Then he grinned. “But maybe it’s not so bad that I got home early.”
I grinned back. “Are you thinking about a little dessert?”
“Yes, ma’am. And I’m not talking about apple strudel, either.”
_____
I slept hard and awoke refreshed shortly after dawn. No bad dreams—no dreams at all that I remembered. Apparently taking action had helped to assuage my horror over how Darla Klick had died.
A detail I hadn’t shared with Nate or Daphne the night before.
Stretching like a cat, I turned toward the bedroom window. A hint of bright blue peeked around the edge of the curtain, and the sounds of chickens clucking contentedly to one another drifted in. Beside me, Barr stirred, and then he had his arm wrapped around me and was pulling me toward him.
“Feel like a little reprise?” he murmured in my ear.
I turned in his arms. “Someone’s making up for lost time.”
“Just trying to be efficient, is all.”
“Well, by all means, then. In the name of efficiency and all.”
_____
An hour later I slipped a spatula under the potatoes browning on the stove. A few more minutes and they’d be perfect. A plate of sausages warmed in the oven, and I cracked eggs into a bowl of freshly snipped chives. Barr sat at the table sipping coffee.
I’d tried out the thermometer again before coming downstairs. 98.1°. My basal body temp chart might be flat lined, but I didn’t care. I smiled over at my husband.
Meghan shuffled in, tying her bathrobe and yawning. A sleepy-looking Kelly followed right behind her, wearing the same clothes he’d had on yesterday. I raised my eyebrows and looked at my husband, who mirrored my expression, then ducked his head and took another sip of coffee.
“Good morning, you two.” I grabbed three more eggs to add to the mix. The shells were differing shades of light green and blue, so I knew the Araucana hens, Molly and Emma, had laid them.
“Morning,” they mumbled in unison.
“You’re up bright and early. Sit down. Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes.”
Soon we were digging in and making small talk, no one mentioning the elephant in the room. Meghan and Kelly had dated for well over a year, he’d uprooted his entire life and relocated to Cadyville so they could be together, and he spent nearly every evening at our house like one of the family. Yet to the best of my knowledge he’d never spent the
whole
night.
To the best of my knowledge. Just wait until I got Meghan alone.
“Any more interviews today?” I asked Barr.
He shook his head. “I’m going out to the farm first thing to talk to Nate.”
“Fancy that. I was planning to head out there, too.”
Meghan shot me a look.
“To finish a job I started for Tom yesterday,” I said. “He wants the popcorn picked and stored so it can dry, and it’s supposed to rain tonight.”
Everyone at the table looked skeptical. Too bad.
Kelly looked at his watch and suddenly stood. “Oh! I’ve got to go. Gotta surveillance gig down in Seattle.”
Meghan looked unhappy. He noticed and leaned down, wrapping his arm around her and kissing her on the neck. “Don’t worry. I’ll call you later.” And he was out the door.
Meeting my housemate’s eyes, I gestured toward Barr with my chin. “Welcome to the wait-and-worry club. You just have to trust that they’ll be okay.”
She pointed at me. “Thanks to you, I’ve been a member of that club for a long time.”
Erin came in before I could respond. “Did I hear Kelly?”
Barr pushed back from the table. “I’ll see you all later. Bye, hon.”
“Bye,” I said, but I followed him out to the hallway. Meghan was
on her own.
Fifteen
I parked the Rover
and got out. Though not yet eight o’clock, the sun had begun to warm the fields, and the air smelled of green leaves and rich earth. Barr hadn’t arrived yet, no doubt snagged by station business. Pulling on a pair of gloves, I made my leisurely way to the tool shed. It was unlocked as always, and the garden cart sat right where I’d left it the night before.
I tugged it outside and down the path to the popcorn field. The thick rubber wheels bounced over rocks, making the removable slatted sides rattle in their moorings. The tower of compost rose in my peripheral vision to my left. I found myself veering toward it, cart still in tow. I stopped outside the police tape, one end of which now flapped lazily in the breeze.
Unlike where I’d grown up in northern Colorado, August mornings and evenings in the Pacific Northwest were almost always crisp. Today was no exception, and the moist heat of decay wisped up from the pile. I could tell someone had given the whole thing a good toss since we’d discovered Darla. Was that a result of simple farm efficiency, or had the police been involved? It hadn’t occurred to me until now that there might be someone else in there, but the possibility had no doubt crossed Barr’s radar. I shuddered at the thought. In this case, no news was definitely good news.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture what the pile had looked like before Meghan and I had started digging up Darla. Had there been any indication she’d been moved there? Drag marks? Wheel tracks? Foot prints? Why hadn’t I paid more attention?
Oh. Right. Dead person. Very distracting. Still, I should have been more observant.
Even if I couldn’t remember anything specific it didn’t mean Darla hadn’t been killed elsewhere and transported to the burial site. Between the digging and the emergency personnel, the area had been thoroughly messed up with footprints.
Not to mention hoof and chicken prints.
Several red hens pecked and scratched at the newly turned earth. Another reveled in a dust bath, fluffing her feathers and preening. Arnold Ziffel, the young pig Meghan had shooed away from her gruesome discovery two days earlier, came running up to me, grunting like, well, like a pig. He nosed me, begging for scritchin’s. I obliged with a good rub between his ears. He followed me back to the path, trotting behind the cart until I shut the gate to the fields and left him behind. A single pig could do serious damage to the limited crops if he got the chance.
Wind sighed through the cornstalks, and crows called from beyond my view despite the stuffed scarecrow with the battered straw hat that towered at the edge of the patch. A whiff of manure drifted by as I worked my way down a row of popcorn. I snapped off the ripe ears and gently placed them in the cart while thinking about what I’d learned last night. Nate knew Darla Klick from way back, and they’d been in contact since she moved to Cadyville. But he’d been circumspect about how they’d fallen out of touch in the first place, his eyes darting to the left as he remembered something he hadn’t shared. Was it because his girlfriend was sitting right beside him? Had he and Darla been more than friends? Or did it have to do with her going off the deep end as Allie described? She’d said something about an accident everyone blamed Darla’s dissolution on—and come to think of it, Daphne had referenced a “sad story” Nate had related to her. Were they both talking about the same thing?
Nate had a lot more questions to answer. I could hardly wait to hear what he’d tell Barr.
And then there was Daphne. She knew of Darla, and seemed to believe Nate about the whole friends-only thing. She didn’t come across at all like crazy Hallie.
And what about Hallie? She’d seen Darla go into Nate’s trailer. Did she really think he was cheating on his girlfriend? Or would Hallie see it as more cheating on her? Was she really that unstable?
Remembering the look on her face as she exited Nate’s trailer, I had to admit it was possible.
And then there were Tom and Allie Turner. Once I’d confronted her with the lie, Allie had opened up rather quickly. Was an untoward advance on her husband at least a decade earlier enough for her to kill Darla? That seemed a stretch. But maybe the advance had been more than that. After all, Allie had already lied, so I had to take whatever she said now with a grain of salt.
A flurry of black wings exploded out of the corn in front of me. My heart bucked, and I squeaked in surprise.
Dang crows. Sheesh.
Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I reached for another ear.
What about Tom? Had he lied, as Allie had said, just to protect the farm? I remembered his reaction when we’d first found Darla had been simple disbelief.
This is some kind of joke, right?
I didn’t know him that well, but I knew others who tried to deal with unpleasantness by simply wishing it away.
On the other hand, he could have suspected his wife had killed her and had lied to protect her.
Why on earth had I thought that finding out the bird lady’s identity would simplify matters?
Ear-by-ear I filled the cart to the top. Mr. Ziffel had lost interest and wandered away from the gate by the time I returned to the farm stand. Barr’s department car was parked next to the Rover now. No sign of him, though. My eyes and ears on high alert for any sign of activity, I unloaded the popcorn and spread it to dry. Two more full loads should do it, for a total of five, including the two I’d picked between talking to the other CSA members the afternoon before.
If Barr wasn’t done talking to Nate by then I’d just have to come up with some other excuse to hang around the farm.
Not wanting to miss talking to my husband, I picked as fast as I could now. Finishing one row, I turned down the next. The cart snagged on something, and I gave it a hard yank, trusting its rugged construction. I certainly didn’t expect it to upend, dumping all the popcorn on the ground.
“Darn it!” Hands on hips, I surveyed the damage. Took a deep, calming breath.
The cart looked fine, the corn unbruised. I righted it and scanned the ground to see what had caused the problem.
Oh, no.
No, no, no, no.
I covered my eyes with both hands. See no evil. But when I dropped them, the boot was still sticking out from between the stalks of corn.
At least Meghan could rest easy, because the bodies were back to cropping up on my watch. This time the boot had the Wolverine logo on the side, and it definitely didn’t belong to a woman. It looked more like a work boot than a hiking boot, solid and heavy. Gently pushing apart the corn stalks revealed a denim-clad leg, then two pockets and the telltale straps of overalls criss-crossed over a green flannel shirt.
And above that, a brown ponytail stained with blood.
Oh, no.
Oh, Nate.