Seeds of Deception Read online

  Praise for the New York Times bestselling Orchard Mysteries

  “[A] delightful look at small-town New England, with an intriguing puzzle thrown in.”

  —JoAnna Carl, national bestselling author of the Chocoholic Mysteries

  “Meg Corey is a fresh and appealing sleuth with a bushelful of entertaining problems.”

  —Claudia Bishop, bestselling author of the Hemlock Falls Mysteries

  “Fans will enjoy the heroine taking a bite out of crime in this fun regional cozy.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Meg is a smart, savvy woman who’s working hard to fit into her new community—just the kind of protagonist I look for in today’s traditional mystery.”

  —Meritorious Mysteries

  “An enjoyable heroine, an interesting hook, and some yummy recipes at the end.”

  —The Mystery Reader (4 stars)

  “Connolly continues to include fascinating facts about apples and orchards within her stories . . . Not only will you get hooked on the mystery, but you will be racing to the kitchen to bake an apple treat!”

  —Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

  “[A] warm, very satisfying read.”

  —RT Book Reviews (4 stars)

  “The premise and plot are solid, and Meg seems a perfect fit for her role.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Sheila Connolly

  Orchard Mysteries

  ONE BAD APPLE

  ROTTEN TO THE CORE

  RED DELICIOUS DEATH

  A KILLER CROP

  BITTER HARVEST

  SOUR APPLES

  GOLDEN MALICIOUS

  PICKED TO DIE

  A GALA EVENT

  SEEDS OF DECEPTION

  Museum Mysteries

  FUNDRAISING THE DEAD

  LET’S PLAY DEAD

  FIRE ENGINE DEAD

  MONUMENT TO THE DEAD

  RAZING THE DEAD

  PRIVY TO THE DEAD

  DEAD END STREET

  County Cork Mysteries

  BURIED IN A BOG

  SCANDAL IN SKIBBEREEN

  AN EARLY WAKE

  A TURN FOR THE BAD

  Specials

  DEAD LETTERS

  AN OPEN BOOK

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Sheila Connolly

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 9780698165656

  First Edition: October 2016

  Cover art by Mary Ann Lasher

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

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  To John Bartram, Thomas Jefferson, and John Chapman (aka Johnny Appleseed), who each played an important role in the cultivation and spread of orchards in America

  Acknowledgments

  The Orchard Mysteries are firmly rooted in small-town New England, but for this book, the tenth in the series, I thought it would be fun to get my main characters, Meg and Seth, out of their hometown. After all, they just got married, and they deserve a honeymoon. They didn’t count on having to help solve a murder in New Jersey, but with their track record they shouldn’t have been surprised when that happened.

  It appears that Meg Corey grew up in a town in northern New Jersey that looks quite a bit like the one where I grew up. I haven’t kept in touch with many people from those days (and those I’ve encountered on social media have scattered far and wide), but if I have inadvertently insulted or misrepresented any businesses or individuals there, past or present, I apologize. I do have fond memories of the town (and I think there’s a significant reunion coming up soon).

  It takes a lot of people to bring a book to fruition (pun intended), and I want to thank my editor, Tom Colgan at Berkley Prime Crime, and his able assistants for seeing this through. I also want to thank my agent, Jessica Faust of BookEnds, who has nudged and prodded this series all along the way. And as always, the support and professional insights provided by Sisters in Crime (and my local chapter, New England Sisters in Crime), the amazing SinC Guppies, and Mystery Writers of America, have been essential. It is an ongoing pleasure to be part of the writers’ community, and few of us can do it all alone.

  Contents

  Praise for the Orchard Mysteries

  Titles by Sheila Connolly

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Recipes

  1

  “Good morning, Mrs. Chapin.”

  Meg was awakened by the sound of Seth’s voice, followed quickly by the smell of coffee.

  “And good morning to you, Mr. Chapin.” Meg pried her eyes open.

  Seth set the coffee mug down on the table next to Meg, then settled himself beside her on the bed, plumping several pillows behind him. “How’re you feeling?” he asked.

  “I’m feeling great. Why? Should I be hungover? Or should I be thinking to myself, what have I done? How do I get out of this?”

  “I withdraw the question,” Seth said hastily, “if that’s the way you’re thinking.”

  “Don’t worry. I never drink too much, and we’re both mature adults and we had plenty of time to think about what we were doing when we decided to get married. We’ve got plenty of time to regret it later.”

  “I guess that’s encouraging. So, what now?”

  Meg pulled herself up to the same level, rearranging her pillows, and took a long swallow of coffee. “Now as in this minute? Today? This week? This month?”

  “Any and all of
the above. We were so busy trying to plan this wedding, and helping Aaron out of the mess he was in, and worrying about Rachel and the baby, that we kind of ignored something obvious.”

  “And that would be?” Meg asked, although she had a pretty good idea what he was talking about.

  “A honeymoon.”

  She was right. “Ah yes, that. Do we want one?”

  “Don’t you?” Seth asked, almost plaintively.

  She reflected. Some time alone with just Seth? No chores that needed to be attended to in the orchard. No family demands (although she was quite fond of her new mother-in-law). No interruptions. It was tempting. “I guess I do. Did you have something in mind?”

  “Well, I’ve pretty much rejected a glitzy package in Las Vegas.”

  “Good thinking—that’s not our style.”

  Seth rolled over to face her. “Look, we’ve got a week or two free from our own work. Okay, it’s winter, and that’s not the best time of year for sightseeing. But on the other hand, there are fewer annoying tourists around, and it’s easier to book places. We’ll just wear a lot of warm clothes.”

  “So no tropical islands? Foreign countries?”

  “Uh, no? Why? Is that what you want?”

  “No! My skin doesn’t handle sunbathing on beaches well. And foreign travel, much as I love it, is just too complicated right now. Hold that thought for some later time.”

  “Okay,” Seth said amiably. “So we’ve decided to stay in this country and not on a beach. Fly or drive?”

  “Flying’s complicated, too. But do you know, we’ve never taken a long road trip together? Unless you count Vermont, and that was only a couple of hours.”

  “Did I meet your standards?”

  “For a couple of hours,” Meg said, smiling. “Beyond that I can’t say. What’s your limit?”

  “If we want to enjoy ourselves and see something other than highways? Maybe two hours at a stretch. Four or five over a day, if it’s broken up in the middle. You want me to drive? You want to drive? You want to split it?”

  “I call navigator,” Meg replied. “I love reading maps.”

  “You do know they invented the GPS,” Seth reminded her.

  “Yes, I’ve heard of that,” she shot back, “but it’s not the same as following where you are on a page. And I’ve known GPS to be wrong.”

  “So you trust my driving—that’s progress. Do you want to go skiing?”

  “What’s this, Twenty Questions? I don’t ski, or at least, not downhill. I’ve been known to go cross-country skiing, but not lately. May I remind you that it’s winter? And we live in New England?”

  “What are you saying? That you don’t like snow?”

  “I love snow, when I can admire it outside my window while I sit in front of a roaring fire and don’t have to go anywhere.”

  “Got it. One veto for going north, where there’s bound to be more snow, ice, sleet, et cetera. So, east, west, or south? Or maybe I should ask first, city or country? Boston would be east.”

  “I’ve done Boston, remember?” Meg had lived there for several years, but while she had enjoyed her time there, she felt little need to revisit the place, and she didn’t feel compelled to share it with Seth. “And while I think New York or Washington, D.C., could be wonderful, somehow I don’t want to spend my honeymoon running around a city trying to fit in all the touristy sites. It’s supposed to be time for us.”

  “Agreed. Scratch cities, at least for now.”

  They both lapsed into silence. Meg sipped her coffee and wondered what she did want. Alone time with Seth would be a luxury, even if they were holed up in a cabin in the woods. As long as there was heat, food, and good coffee, she amended. Was there someplace she wanted to visit, something she wanted to see, that she hadn’t had the time or the opportunity for until now? “May I make a suggestion?”

  “Of course you may, Meg. I’m all ears.”

  “We both love history. You like old houses; I like apples and I want to know more about them. I know it’s not the best season to look at either, but can we somehow follow our interests? That would give us a sense of purpose as we roam around the country in a car, avoiding cities and snow.”

  “You, Mrs. Chapin, are a genius. Of course we can. Monticello?”

  “Exactly! I’ve always wanted to see that, but I don’t think I’ve ever been that far south. And it’s got both architecture and apples!”

  “Okay, that goes on the list. What else?”

  “Have you ever heard of Bartram’s Garden?”

  “Can’t say that I have. What is it?”

  “It’s a place outside of Philadelphia. The Bartram family distributed one of the earliest plant catalogs in the American colonies—and they had lots of apples.”

  “Excellent. How about Mystic Seaport? Have you been there? No apples that I recall, but it’s really interesting.”

  “I don’t insist on apples everywhere, you know, and no, I’ve never been to Mystic Seaport. It’s reasonably close, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  Meg was silent for a moment, then said carefully, “If we’re headed to Monticello, we could stop in at my folks’ house on the way back, and you could see where I grew up.”

  “All right. Your parents aren’t home yet, though, are they?”

  “No, they’re not. I didn’t catch all the details before the wedding—things were a little crazy, as you may recall. I think when they stopped by with the wedding suit, they were on their way to some nice bed-and-breakfast somewhere, but I got the impression that they planned to return to civilization after the wedding, I think in Amherst.”

  “If I never got a chance to say it, that was a lovely suit you wore.”

  “What, you noticed? It was such a wonderful idea, wearing something that belonged to my grandmother. Something old and something borrowed, if you can borrow something from someone who is no longer living. I’m amazed it fit, though.”

  “Maybe it was meant to be—your grandmother was looking out for you.”

  “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? In any case, maybe Mother is in Amherst to celebrate—I think she despaired of ever marrying me off.”

  “Was she pressuring you?”

  “No, not at all. You may have noticed that we don’t talk about personal stuff like that very often. My parents may live in New Jersey, but they’re Yankees through and through.”

  “So if I’d turned out to have two heads and drooled, she would have breathed a sigh of relief that someone wanted her spinster daughter?”

  Meg swatted his shoulder. “Hey, she came of age in that last big wave of feminism. She would never insist that every woman had to be married. I think she was worried that I’d lead a lonely life.”

  “So of course she sent you to Granford, where you knew nobody.”

  “Well, that wasn’t supposed to be permanent—just long enough for me to get my feet back on the ground and figure out what I wanted to do, while at the same time fixing up the house to sell it. I think that part was supposed to be therapeutic, but obviously my mother has never tried her hand at home repair. I could say that meeting you changed everything, but as I recall, you didn’t like me much when you first met me.”

  “True, but I was an idiot. I apologize, if I haven’t already. But in my defense, it did get kind of messy when you accused my brother of murder. Is your father okay with me?”

  “You mean, would he be happier if you wore a suit every day and went to an office in a high-rise? Maybe, but he just wants me to be happy.”

  “And are you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Chapin, I do believe I am.”

  He leaned over to kiss her, and the kiss kind of kept going. It was a while before they pulled themselves apart.

  “You know, I could get used to this,” Seth said.

  “You mean, not ha
ving to get up at dawn and go deal with late deliveries and reluctant pickers? I second that. But this won’t last.”

  “That wasn’t the part I was talking about, but you’re right. All the more reason we should throw together a plan for this honeymoon. The day is still young—we could be in Mystic by mid-afternoon.”

  “What, you want to leave today?”

  “Why not? Any reason why we can’t?”

  Meg reflected. “Well, no, I guess not. I’m just more used to planning things ahead of time.”

  “So let’s be spontaneous. Gas up the car and take off. Bree can keep an eye on the animals. Who knows—it could snow tomorrow. Why wait?”

  “Mister measure twice and cut once, being spontaneous? You’re full of surprises today. But can we check the weather report first, please? Much as I enjoy your company, I don’t want to get stuck in a snowdrift on a highway somewhere.”

  Seth grinned at her. “Spoilsport. Have you no sense of adventure? And I’ve already checked the forecast—looks fine for the rest of the week, at least for most of the Eastern Seaboard. And I had my car tuned up recently. Unless you want to take yours?”

  “No, yours is fine.”

  Seth jumped quickly off the bed. “All right! I’ll go down and work on breakfast, and you can find all the maps in the house, and then we’ll sit down and figure out where we’re going.”

  Seth left the room before Meg could answer, and she lay back and wondered what had just happened. Seth seemed positively giddy. Staid, responsible Seth? Was this what marriage did to people?

  She got up more slowly and ambled down the hall to take a shower. By the time she was dressed and downstairs, her orchard manager, Bree, was seated at the table, and Seth was whistling as he flipped pancakes.

  “Mornin’,” Bree said. “I cleared out last night, in case you wanted some privacy.”

  “Very thoughtful of you, Bree,” Meg said, trying to mute her sarcasm. Seth had been a constant feature of the house she and Bree shared for quite some time, so she must have been used to his presence by now. Had she expected some different kind of behavior from them, now that they were legally wed? She tried to imagine what might scandalize Bree and came up blank.