A Tine To Live, A Tine To Die Part 8

"Yep. Okay, gotta run." Alexandra swept out, calling through the screen door, "I'll be in touch."

Cam walked to the door in time to see Alexandra ride off on her bicycle, braids flying. Cam scanned the skies, today a perfect paint-box blue. The storm had blown through and left the world looking clean and hopeful. It was a good morning for working. She had put in a couple of hours picking strawberries before her appointment with Alexandra and still had more work to do. Always more to do.

A truck rumbled up the driveway.

"Hey, Ms. Flaherty! Where do ya want me to dump it?" A scrawny teenager stuck his head out the window. "It's me, Vince. With the, you know, manure?"

Cam groaned. She'd forgotten all about the manure delivery. Her day's workload had just doubled. She grabbed a check and tip money from the house, then instructed the boy to back the truck up to the compost area. Cam walked alongside him to make sure he didn't swerve over one of the herb beds on his way.

He dumped the load of composted cow manure, then climbed out of the cab. "I heard you, like, had a murder here. Did you see the killer? Dude, it must have been exciting."

Cam shook her head. "That's not the word I would use." Neither exciting nor dude. She thanked him and handed him the check as well as five dollars for himself.

"Thanks, Ms. Flaherty. Let Pop know when you want more. Those cows never stop, like, sh . . . I mean, going."

Cam waved him off. She groaned at the pile, then trudged to the barn for a pitchfork. No time like the present.

When she came in for lunch, Cam scrubbed her hands. She was exhausted from shoveling manure into the wheelbarrow, adding it to the future lettuce beds, and repeating. It added organic material and nutrients to the soil, but working with manure was heavy going. She was going to have to hire another farmhand. She had no idea who, though, or even where to look.

She checked her e-mail. Alexandra had already created a lively logo and had sent Cam several versions of it in different resolutions. Alexandra had also sent a link to an online printer. When Cam clicked it, an order form for Produce Plus Plus business cards and refrigerator magnets opened. It was already filled out and included two magnetic signs for the doors of her truck, too. She shook her head, wondering at the efficiency and expertise of her young volunteer. Outsourcing the marketing part of her business was a smart move. Cam would definitely pay Alexandra for doing this work.

She added overnight s.h.i.+pping to the order, filled in her credit card information, and clicked the SUBMIT ORDER b.u.t.ton. Now she'd have business cards to hand out at the festival. Everywhere she drove she'd be advertising the farm. She could give each CSA customer a refrigerator magnet. Cam smiled. She could imagine Felicity hosting a dinner party featuring the farm's produce and then excitedly showing her guests the farm's magnet. Hey, if it brought in new customers, all the better.

After scarfing down a cheese sandwich and a gla.s.s of nonfat milk, Cam was about to head back out to the fields when she spotted the disk she'd picked up in the greenhouse. She focused on it for a moment, then picked up the phone. She left Ruth a message, inviting her for dinner. "If you can get away from the family," she said at the end. "Or bring the girls if you want to," Cam hastily added. She rooted around in the freezer, finally drawing out a package of nonlocal chicken. She checked her recipe file and then checked the fridge. If she ran out to the store, she could make a strawberry cheesecake, too. And might as well do it now, while her hands were clean. She could still get in a few more hours in the fields this afternoon if she hurried.

As she pushed open the screen door, the house phone rang. Cam glanced at it, looked out at the sunny afternoon, then turned back to answer it.

"Hi, Uncle Albert. What's up?"

"Wondered if you'd mind driving me to the wake this afternoon."

"Wake?"

"Mike's wake. Surely you planned on going."

"Right." Cam shook her head. How had that gotten off her radar? "What time?"

"It's from four to eight down at the McClaren Funeral Home. You know, next to the church. I'd like to be there at the beginning."

"I'll pick you up at three forty, then." She disconnected. There went her work afternoon, since she wasn't about to cancel the dinner with Ruth. But she could hardly miss Mike's wake, either, although it wasn't her favorite kind of outing. All those somber people to negotiate, all those polite things to say.

Cam helped Albert out of the truck and made sure his crutches were in place. The handicapped-parking placard he'd hung from her rearview mirror gave them the best spot in the lot.

"Early yet," Albert said, gesturing at the empty parking s.p.a.ces. "I'm sure it'll fill up later."

"Was Mike well liked, Uncle Albert?" They proceeded slowly up a zigzagging ramp.

"You wouldn't say that, particularly. But Bev is, generally speaking."

A black-suited woman held the door open for them amid a rush of cold air. As they entered, she pointed to the Rose Room. Cam took a deep breath. She flicked a spot of cat hair from her black skirt and hoped the businesslike purple blouse wasn't too bright. She wasn't very well equipped with mourning clothes.

Bev stood at the end of a line, preceded by two younger men and a woman about Cam's age. Sprays of flowers decorated a blessedly closed coffin to Bev's right. What looked like a high school graduation picture of Mike sat on an easel. A younger, tidier, handsomer Mike than the one Cam had known only for the few months he'd worked for her.

Cam and Albert took their places at the end of a short line of people who moved along, clasping the hands of family members and murmuring condolences.

"Are those Mike's siblings?" Cam whispered to Albert.

He nodded. "He was the youngest."

She followed Albert along the line, uttering what she hoped were appropriate condolences, until he reached Bev.

Propping himself on his good leg, Albert reached out an arm to embrace his old friend. "Too young, my friend, he died too young."

Bev returned the hug and closed her eyes for a moment. When she reopened them, she focused on Cam.

The chill in the look had nothing to do with the air-conditioning.

Bev looked back at Albert. "Thank you for coming, Albert. Don't you wish life was back like it was before? You farming, my Mikey working for you, Marie still with us?"

Albert put his hand back on his crutch. His smile was a sad one. "But we can't turn the clock back, can we? My Marie, she's resting in peace. That I know. And Cameron here is a good farmer, or will be when she gets her feet under her."

Cam shot a sharp look at him. When she got her feet under her? It sounded like Albert thought she wasn't doing a good job yet. Great.

"I've moved on, Bev. You will, too, in time."

Bev gazed from Albert to Cam and back, her face expressionless.

"I'm so sorry for your loss, Bev," Cam murmured, then realized she'd already said that to her at the market earlier in the week. Was she never going to get the hang of the right thing to say at the right time? It seemed to come so easily to others.

Bev's smile as she turned to the next visitor was unconvincing.

Albert turned to the coffin. He rested on his crutches in front of it with head bowed. He crossed himself. He touched his fingers to his lips and then to the coffin.

Cam waited, arms by her sides. Her parents weren't involved in any church, and while Cam had usually accompanied Albert and Marie to Saint Ann's in the summers, as an adult Cam didn't feel called to keep up the practice. Working with plants under G.o.d's blue sky was enough religion for her.

Her head snapped toward the doorway when she heard raised voices in the hall. One of the black-suited staff quickly closed the door, but not before Cam saw Bev Montgomery's eyes widen. If Cam wasn't mistaken, that was Stuart Wilson out there, raising the ruckus.

Curious about what Stuart was doing yelling at a wake, she whispered in Albert's ear, "I'll be right back." She slipped out the side door she had spotted and strode down the hall to where it turned. She peeked around the edge. Sure enough, two large attendants were escorting Stuart out the door. He was still yelling.

"I only wanted to pay my respects!"

One of the black suits made sure Stuart was well out the door. The other walked in Cam's direction.

"You don't get to pay your respects drunk and angry, buddy." He shook his head, looking back at the doorway. "And you especially don't when the family doesn't want you here."

Stuart had been laid off from his job, just like Cam had been. The golden marketing whiz she had known didn't seem to be taking the fall from grace very, well, gracefully.

"So, Tina, if you hear of anything, will you let me know? I'm kind of wondering if I made the right decision with this farm thing." Cam left her number on her friend's voice mail and hung up. Her friend Tina was still employed at the old company, still head down in a cubicle, writing software. If the job market started looking up, she'd be the first to know. It wouldn't hurt for Cam to keep her options open. For now, she had a dinner to pull out of a hat.

Ruth arrived right at six o'clock, bearing a bottle of wine. Cam, wearing a striped ap.r.o.n over her shorts and T-s.h.i.+rt, greeted Ruth at the door, then rushed back into her kitchen, which was adjacent to the dining area.

"Sorry. I'm in the middle of Chicken Ezekiel. And there seems to be a step missing in the instructions. That drives me crazy."

Ruth let out a deep, throaty laugh. "Still cooking by the recipe, are you?"

"Well, yeah. Doesn't everybody?" Cam waved a spoon at Ruth.

"No. But it doesn't surprise me that a geek does."

"Geek status fully acknowledged."

"And you always wanted to have procedures to follow. Remember the meal we made for those boys?"

Cam nodded. "I was dating Robbie-if you can call doing our math homework together dating-and you invited . . . wait . . . Was it Paolo? The Italian exchange student?"

Ruth rolled her eyes. "He was gorgeous, and taller than me. Which was saying something."

"And we cooked coq au vin from Julia Child, right? We had to steal wine from your dad's stash for it." Cam sniffed. "Oh, crud!" She whirled to the stove, where she gave a furious stir to a Dutch oven on the stove top. "Close one. Almost burned the onions."

"Smells great, Cam. Can I open this for us?"

Cam nodded in the direction of a drawer. She had to stop talking and start focusing on this dinner, or it would be ruined. She added the pieces of chicken she had cut and dried on a clean dish towel to the pan and stirred again.

Ruth extended a gla.s.s of red to Cam, who lifted it and clinked Ruth's. "Here's to old friends."

Cam returned the toast and sipped. "Now, let me concentrate for a minute." She sipped again before setting the gla.s.s down. She added cut-up tomatoes to the pot, then minced garlic, kalamata olives, and fresh rosemary from the herb garden. She stirred, set the lid on, and maneuvered the pot into the warm oven.

"There. Now I can relax a little." Cam wiped her forehead with the ap.r.o.n as she returned to the table. Sinking into a chair, she eyed Ruth. "Sit down. You're making me nervous."

Ruth obliged, but her cheery mood seemed to have vanished. She didn't meet Cam's eyes.

"What?" Cam asked. "It's like a dark cloud just came and sat on your head."

"I probably shouldn't have come."

"Why not? We can't be friends, at least on your day off?"

"Cam, there's a murder investigation under way. They haven't told me much directly, but I don't think they've eliminated you as a suspect."

Ruth must know she couldn't have killed someone. Cam shook her head. This was getting ridiculous. "It's making me nervous, you know, that a murderer is running loose out there." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Oh! I just remembered. Look what I found in the hoop house the morning after the killing." She rose and reached toward the kitchen counter.

In a flash Ruth was at her side and had encircled Cam's wrist with her own strong hand. "Don't touch it. It could be evidence."

"Ouch! I wasn't going to. I was just showing you. I even picked it up with a tissue," Cam said.

Ruth released Cam's hand but sighed. "Next time call the station. It's better if we process things like this in the proper way from the start. It probably can't even count as evidence now, but maybe we can get a print off it." Ruth leaned over and peered at it. "Any idea what it is? Or whose it was?"

"I don't know. There's a logo of some kind and the letters PM. See?"

Ruth's eyes widened, then narrowed. Her face grew pale. She blinked at the disk. She shook her head like she was trying to rid herself of a pest. "Sort of. Got a sealable bag?"

Cam extracted a bag from a drawer and handed it to Ruth, who managed to scoop the disk into the bag without touching it.

An insistent rapping sounded at the back door. Cam slid past Ruth. She addressed the door. "One second." Whoever it was didn't have much patience. Cam peered through the curtained gla.s.s top of the door and frowned. Him again. Cam looked back at Ruth. Preston sidled up and rubbed against Cam's leg.

"It's your favorite statie," Cam said. "Detective Pappas himself." Since he was here, she could take the opportunity and tell him about the two instances of sabotage. Which she probably should have done much earlier, except that Pappas made her feel like she and her farm were under attack. He did not project a helpful "We'll find the murderer, so don't worry" kind of vibe.

"Wonderful." Ruth did not sound enthusiastic. "Go ahead. Don't make him drill a hole in your door with his knuckles."

As Cam opened the door, Preston streaked out past her. "Hi," Cam greeted Pappas. She suddenly couldn't think of a single other thing to say.

"Evening, Ms. Flaherty." Pappas, now in a crisp oxford s.h.i.+rt with pressed blue jeans and brown loafers, glanced beyond her. "h.e.l.lo, Officer Dodge." He raised one eyebrow.

"Um, can I help you?" Cam asked, not sure of the protocol. Should she offer him a gla.s.s of wine? Or stand here at the door?

"May I come in?"

His tone was the most polite Cam had heard from him yet, but it reminded her of the ominously polite pitch Tom used to use when he was furious. She stood aside and gestured him in. He walked up to Ruth, who stood at the counter, next to the transparent bag with the disk.

"Officer Dodge, that looks interesting." Pappas eyed the disk.

A repeating electronic ding from the kitchen sped up in frequency. Ruth glanced behind her and then at Cam.

"That's my timer. Excuse me." Cam fled farther into the kitchen to switch off the annoying digital timer, wis.h.i.+ng she could find Marie's old-fas.h.i.+oned wind-up device, which merely rang with a pleasant little bell tone when the time was up. She opened the oven and stirred the stew. She strained to hear what Ruth and Pappas were saying, but they had their backs to her and spoke in low tones. Cam replaced the lid, shut the oven door, and set the timer for another thirty minutes. She filled a big pot with water and set it to boil. Drying her hands on her ap.r.o.n, she turned back to them.

Pappas was holding his hand out.

"I can sign this in at the station," Ruth said, keeping hold of the plastic bag with the disk in it.

"I'd rather take it now." Pappas glared at her. "I am the detective in charge."

Ruth glanced at Cam. "Yes, sir." She handed the bag to Pappas.

"Now maybe you can tell me why you are here out of uniform."

"Sir, Cam and I are childhood friends. I'm off duty, and she invited me for dinner. So I'm here." She raised her chin and looked down at the detective at the same time.

Cam opened her mouth and began, "Yes, we're . . ." but stopped when Ruth held up her hand in a halt gesture. All right, Cam would let her work it out. It was Ruth's job, after all.

Cam decided to match Pappas's manners with her own. "Can I offer you a gla.s.s of wine, Detective?" She mustered her sweetest smile.

He frowned, as if trying to figure out if she was kidding or not. "Uh, no thank you."

"I suppose you came by to tell me you found the killer?" Cam raised her eyebrows.

Ruth, in turn, raised hers.

"No, I'm afraid not." Pappas seemed about to interrogate when Cam interrupted.