A Late Frost Read online

  “You’re not helping, Nicky. That could be any of a lot of people, going back years.” They sat in silence for a few moments.

  Then Nicky said, “I’m concerned that there were other people who were affected.”

  “Weren’t there some kids, too?” Meg asked.

  Nicky waved a hand dismissively. “There are always kids getting sick at this kind of event—they eat too much, and run around and get too worked up. Then if they hear that someone else has—excuse me—puked, they decide they’re feeling sick, too. Psychosomatic, right?”

  “Maybe.” Meg sighed. “Of course the state police are going to want to check out my apples, not that I’m worried about that. Oh, speaking of apples—you’ve met Ginny Morris, right?”

  “Briefly, a few months ago. Why?”

  “I’m embarrassed to say that I just met her at the fair. Kind of silly, since we’re in the same business and we live pretty close to each other, but we’ve both been busy.”

  “I gather she’s been working her buns off trying to get the old orchard back in shape and get it certified organic,” Nicky said. “She came by and introduced herself once she got her first crop in. She was really into the whole organic thing.”

  “Did you buy anything?”

  “I said I’d think about it. The apples looked okay, and she had some interesting older varietals. She told me she’d saved some of the old trees in her orchard. The problem was, back then at least, that there weren’t enough of those varieties to sell. She hoped that we could use them, but again, she didn’t have enough that we could put them on the menu on any long-term basis. To be fair, I suppose we could have held an organic night and advertised it. Maybe this season. I’ll be happy to talk to her again.”

  “I think I can stand the competition,” Meg said wryly.

  “I know!” Nicky snapped her fingers. “You wanted to poison Ginny, to eliminate the competition, and killed Monica by accident. Or killed her first in order to throw everyone off the scent, and then you’d go back after Ginny later. You’ll wait until the furor dies down and then, bam! Ginny dies.”

  Meg grimaced. “I’m flattered you think I’m that devious. I think. Tell me, how did I do it? I didn’t know either of them until recently.”

  Nicky waved a dismissive hand. “Details. You’re smart—I’m sure you could have found an undetectable method. I’ll let the police sort it out now that I’ve got the answer.” She checked the clock on the mantel. “Oops, gotta get back to the stove. You staying for lunch?”

  “Maybe—Seth got an emergency call about somebody’s plumbing, and I have no idea when he’ll be back. We’re kind of out of food, and that’s why I was at the market, but I panicked and fled after explaining what little I know for the fifth or tenth time, so I picked up only half the things I needed.”

  “Poor baby,” Nicky said, laughing. “I’ll fix you something, and then you can go your merry way. Oh, how’s your new manager working out? I don’t think I’ve met him yet.”

  “So far, so good, but I haven’t seen much of him, either. That’s not a problem, since there’s nothing urgent to do in the orchard, but things should pick up in a couple of weeks. I’ll try and introduce him to a few more people in town—he needs to know you guys, and our local vendors.”

  • • •

  Happily stuffed with a variety of Nicky’s winter dishes, Meg made her way home by noon, to find Seth had returned. “Hey, there,” he greeted her. “Where’d you disappear to?”

  “I went to the market to stock up, but everybody and his sister wanted to talk about Monica, so I went over to Gran’s and Nicky fed me lunch. Don’t worry—I brought you a doggy bag.”

  “You are a mind reader.” Seth grabbed it from her, leaving her to wrestle with the skimpy grocery bags. Once that food was stowed away, she sat down to watch Seth eat.

  “How’d your plumbing job go?”

  “I could have done it in my sleep. Burst pipe to the outdoor hose spigot—the owner had forgotten to shut it off for the winter, and then he couldn’t remember where the shut-off was inside. I’m surprised it held as long as it did. Didn’t take long to fix. But as you were saying about the market, he wanted to talk about the fair and Monica’s death. Are we surrounded by ghouls?”

  “No, I think they’re unsettled, maybe afraid, so they want to know what’s going on. Which Marcus isn’t going to tell them, not that he’s under any obligation to. If we’re lucky he’ll keep Art in the loop, and Art will fill us in. Oh, I asked Nicky and Brian if they had seen anything odd in Doug’s behavior, and they hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary. He was quiet and polite and appeared happy, and Monica did all the talking. So we don’t know anything more. You haven’t heard from Art today?”

  “No, or not yet—yes, I checked the phones for messages. I have to admit I keep wondering about whatever it was Monica ingested that could have killed her, and how the heck a lab can identify it. It’s one of those circular problems: you have to know what you’re looking for in order to use the right test to find what you’re looking for. Unless it’s something simple like arsenic or cyanide, or an overdose of street drugs.”

  “All of which have already been ruled out by the obvious tests. Make haste slowly.”

  “Indeed. Nicky can sure cook,” Seth added, now that he’d emptied his plate.

  “She can. Oh, and the police collected food samples, but the restaurant has been cleared. And business is booming, which kind of tells you that nobody in town suspects them. Wow—we’ve eliminated one suspect, or pair of suspects. Does that help anything?”

  “Not really, since we never suspected Nicky or Brian to begin with.”

  “Maybe it was a passing tourist who jabbed Monica with a lethal pinprick of a rare Indian cobra venom?”

  “Wrong symptoms, not to mention timing. You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  “Of course I don’t. But I’d rather believe in the random tourist theory than suspect anyone in Granford.”

  “I know what you mean. There’s always the possibility of suicide.”

  “I suppose. Monica put on a bold face in dealing with the town, but she had Douglas to worry about—by the way, do you think anybody medical is going to look at him?—and who knows how they were fixed financially. Maybe she just couldn’t deal with it all anymore. Maybe the WinterFare was her last farewell. We’ll have to see what the cause was, and if she had access to whatever it was.”

  “In other words, we’ve done all we can do,” Seth said. “Do we have any of our own work to tend to?”

  “I’m still working on my business taxes. I should inventory some of my apple crates to see how many need replacing. I have to get the tractor tuned up so it will keep running for another year, unless I find a financial windfall and can afford a new one. But those are expensive, and I think the well pump is more important than the tractor. No water, no crop. You?”

  Seth sighed. “As a good businessman, I should be contacting all my prior and potential customers to see if they are planning any building improvements, repairs, alterations, and so on in the coming year. Maybe I’ll go play on my computer and design a fancy brochure with lots of pretty pictures.”

  “Old-house pictures are always nice. No big projects in sight?”

  “Well, I told you before that since the library moved out of the town center, that building is up for grabs. The town assembly is making noises about selling town hall and taking over another building—not necessarily the old library, which I’ll agree is probably too small—but they’ve been talking about that for years. Besides, I would have to disqualify myself. Maybe I’ll sniff around the neighboring towns and see what they’re planning. If anything.”

  “I hear the Emily Dickinson house needs a bit of work,” Meg offered.

  “I think I’d feel compelled to do that pro bono—as long as they let me put a sign up so m
y name would be linked to the repairs.”

  “We could clean out the attic,” Meg suggested.

  “Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun,” Seth replied.

  “Build a fire and sit and do a jigsaw puzzle?”

  “Better. Let’s get the basic chores out of the way and think again. Feed goats and clean up their pen. Change cat litter. Give Max a good run.”

  “Don’t forget laundry!”

  “What an exciting life we lead,” Seth said, smiling.

  Meg carried Seth’s dishes over to the sink and, looking out the window, saw Art Preston’s car pull into the driveway. “Looks like it might get more exciting pretty quickly.”

  14

  Meg hurried to the door to let Art in before he could knock. He looked tired. “Come on in, Art,” Meg said quickly. “Have you eaten? Want some coffee?”

  “Coffee’s fine. Hey, Seth,” Art said as he walked into the kitchen.

  “Art.” Seth nodded. “Why do I think you’re not bringing good news?”

  Art dropped into a chair, and Meg set about boiling water and grinding beans. “More like no news. It’s not that Marcus isn’t sharing—it’s that he doesn’t know anything more than he did yesterday. And of course that makes him angry, and he’s likely to take it out on me, probably because he figures that I’m covering for you two.”

  “I’m sorry, Art. You don’t deserve the wrath of an angry Marcus. What happened with Douglas Whitman?” Meg asked.

  “Not much, from what I hear. It didn’t take Marcus long to realize that Douglas wasn’t quite in touch with reality, and to his credit he let me call elder services so Douglas could be evaluated. He didn’t want to be accused of browbeating a helpless man. I guess he’s got some scruples.”

  “Good for him. So Douglas was taken somewhere to be looked at?”

  “So it seems, at least temporarily. I’m glad there are some good people involved. In the meantime the forensic folks have been having a wonderful time scraping everything in the house. I hope you didn’t get too close to anything, Meg.”

  “Well, I did wash the dishes. I looked for some rubber gloves but couldn’t find any.”

  “Any symptoms of anything?” Art asked.

  “No, unless you count frustration. I feel fine.” The water boiled, and Meg poured it over the coffee grounds. “I went to the market today and everybody was still talking about the murder. I tried not to say too much, but just being polite to people was tricky. I ended up leaving fast.”

  “I know what you mean,” Art said as Meg poured him a cup of coffee. “I can’t go anywhere without getting questions.”

  “I also stopped by Gran’s while I was out. Nicky told me the police had come and gone, but they were allowed to stay open—and nobody in town has been too afraid to eat there. It’s been well over twenty-four hours since . . . Any new cases?”

  “All the kids are fine—like we guessed, mostly they were overexcited and stuffed their faces too fast. I’m sure Marcus and his crew have talked to all the food vendors by now.”

  “So what does that tell us?” Meg asked. “Monica went to the fair and ate who knows what; she goes home and shortly after that she gets sick, then sicker. That suggests that whatever Monica took might have come from the fair, rather than her own home?”

  “Maybe.” Art rubbed his hands over his face, then took a large swallow of coffee. “It’s been, what—three days since I got back from vacation? A nice, peaceful vacation, with nobody pestering me with questions I can’t begin to answer. Feels like I never left Granford. And why am I not surprised to find you two in the middle of all this? Seth, you’ve been pretty quiet. What’re you thinking?”

  “I’ll take the easy answer first: I was involved because I represent the town,” Seth told him. “Meg is involved because she grows apples, and she was one of a whole bunch of people who sold edible products at the fair. Nothing suspicious there. Two unrelated reasons for us to be part of this.”

  “I know, I know,” Art said, holding up his hands. “Just a lousy coincidence. I’m grasping at straws. I’d really like to help Marcus out, but I don’t have anything to offer him. Where’s Sherlock Holmes when you need him?” He mustered up a weak smile.

  “If he was still alive after all this time, he’d be in London, I’d guess,” Meg said. “No help there. What happens next?”

  “The state police continue to interview anyone who swallowed anything at the WinterFare—I don’t know how far they’ve gotten with that list. The lab keeps applying their fabulous high-tech toys to identify the poison or toxin—but they are neither as fast nor as fancy as those TV shows would have you believe. Marcus keeps chewing on the furniture. And life goes on in peaceful Granford. Seth, if anybody proposes another public event, give me a heads-up and I’ll plan another vacation. Maybe to Alaska. Without a phone.”

  “I can’t see anyone doing that soon, Art,” Seth told him. “Which is a shame, because this one worked well, until the end of it.”

  Art hauled himself out of his seat. “I guess I’ll be heading back to my office, where I will find yet more questions I can’t answer. You’ll let me know if you hear anything?”

  “Of course we will, Art,” Meg assured him.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” Seth said. “Max? Walk?” The Golden Retriever bounded to his feet and followed the two men out the door.

  Meg found herself wondering why the killer had chosen to poison Monica in a peculiarly unpleasant way. He could have used something that let her die quietly in her sleep, but instead he had used something that caused repugnant symptoms, and led to a very undignified death. That almost sounded personal, and definitely cruel. And why did she keep saying “he” even in her head? A woman could administer poison easily. But Meg kept circling around to the same issue: nobody in Granford knew Monica, or not well enough to wish her dead. She assumed that Detective Marcus was looking at earlier parts of her life, with Doug, and he was best equipped to do that. Maybe back in her teaching days Monica had somehow harmed a child, and the parents had borne a grudge all these years and tracked her down here, thinking no one would connect them with a long-ago incident? The fair had offered the ideal opportunity to mingle with the crowd, and to somehow slip something to Monica. But wouldn’t Monica have recognized them?

  Could it be payback for something Douglas had done in the past? If there had been any warnings, or anything suspicious, in his current state he might not have noticed. Would Monica have seen them, and known about whatever inspired them? Maybe in another life Douglas had been a Mob accountant, had made off with documents the Mob didn’t want to go public, and they had killed Monica to send him a message?

  This is ridiculous, Meg thought. She was spinning her wheels, trying to understand something when she didn’t have anywhere near enough information to make even an informed guess and no way of getting any more information—and it wasn’t even her business. Or maybe only indirectly, as an apple seller and the wife (wife!) of a town assemblyman. Which put her only one notch above most of the population of Granford. Leave the problem to the experts—Marcus and Art—and get back to your own business!

  She could work on her profit-loss statement for the year just ended. That would be a responsible adult thing to do, even if it bored her. Or maybe she should meet with Larry again. They should talk about specific ideas for the spring, which was approaching rapidly. And Seth could chat with him about the tiny house idea—and if Larry hated it, Seth could stop thinking about it and go back to taking care of his business. Before she could overthink her decision, she pulled out her cell phone and called Larry.

  He answered on the third ring. “’Lo?”

  “Hey, Larry, it’s Meg.” Which he could see on his own phone, duh. “I thought we should sit down and start working on details of what we’re doing over the next few months. What’s a good time for you?”

  “Uh, the
afternoon’s okay.”

  “Why don’t you come over late afternoon, and you can have supper here? You ought to get to know Seth since you’ll be crossing paths a lot, and he has something he wants to talk with you about. Does that work?”

  “Yeah, fine. Thanks. I’ll come by around four, okay?”

  “Sounds good to me. See you then.” After they’d hung up, she wondered if Larry had heard the news about Monica’s death over the weekend. She had little idea where he was living at the moment, and he said he didn’t really watch television. But it was unlikely that he had crossed paths with Monica, so he shouldn’t be too upset about the news.

  Seth and Max came bounding in the back door, panting. “That was quite a walk,” Meg commented.

  “We both needed the exercise. It felt good out there, and we might as well use the time when we’ve got it.”

  “I wish I felt that way about the orchard accounts. I just invited Larry over for supper—we’ll meet first to go over orchard plans for the next few months. I didn’t mention the tiny house, just that you wanted to talk to him about something. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

  “I’ll be happy to run it by him. And we should talk about any changes we need to make in the barn, and what equipment to order.”

  “Hey, isn’t that my business?” Meg said, mock-serious.

  “Lady, if you want to talk about tractors to local mechanics, be my guest.”

  “I’m so glad to know you’re not going to be sexist about women and machines. I recognize one when I see it, and I know which end the gas goes into, but that’s the end of my expertise. I let Bree take care of it, and she was good at it. But I would be delighted if you would do the talking when it comes to tractors, oh big strong man.” Meg batted her non-mascaraed eyelashes in an exaggerated way. “I suppose we should find out how much Larry knows while we’re at it.”

  “Good idea. I can’t say I know whether they cover farm machinery at the university. What’re you going to feed Larry?”