Called Home (An Orchard Mystery) Read online

  “Joyce, I know you’re upset,” Seth said patiently, “but I swear, this is the first I’ve heard about your problem. Let me do some research and I’ll get back to you in a couple of days. You know as well as I do that the town records are stashed all over town, and it may take me awhile to track down what we need to look at. But I will get back to you, one way or the other. The town must have pulled the records when they leased the land to you. I’ll find them.”

  Joyce sighed. “I know you will—you’re one of the few people I can trust to keep his word. I know this isn’t your fault, but it’s so damn frustrating. Just when I think I’m getting a little bit ahead, something starts making my cows sick! I can’t seem to catch a break. Remind me again why I got into this business?”

  “Because you like milk?” Seth joked.

  “I like cows. They don’t talk back,” Joyce responded. “Call me when you know anything. Nice to meet you, Meg—I’ve been meaning to introduce myself for a while, but I never seem to have any free time.”

  “I know the problem. Good to meet you, too, Joyce.”

  Joyce stomped off to her aged pickup truck. The door had a logo on it, something with a cow. Silently, Meg and Seth watched Joyce pull away.

  “What was that about?” Meg finally asked.

  “If you offer me a cup of coffee, I’ll tell you all about it. It’s not hush-hush. If anything, it’s a public matter, involving her land, or rather, the land she leases from the town.”

  “Coffee I can do. I might even have some cookies, if Bree hasn’t eaten them all. But she does work hard, so I guess she earns them. She certainly burns it off.”

  Meg led Seth through the back door into the kitchen and put a kettle on to boil. Seth dropped into one of the chairs at the well-scrubbed round oak table in the middle of the room. “How’re things coming?” he asked.

  “Looking good, I think, and Bree agrees. The trees held up pretty well over the winter, even with all the snow we had. She’s doing an inventory now, but she didn’t seem too worried. Sometime in here I’m going to have to decide if I want to expand—if I put in new trees now, it’s still going to be a few years before they bear.”

  The kettle boiled, and Meg set about putting ground coffee in her French press and adding the water. When the coffee was ready, she filled two mugs and sat down across from Seth. “So, what’s Joyce’s story? I don’t think I’ve seen her around before, not that I get out all that much myself.”

  “She runs a small dairy operation, maybe thirty or forty head, on the north side of town, just before the ridge this side of Amherst. She grazes all her cattle on the pastures there. It’s really a labor of love for her. She used to be a federal dairy inspector, but she decided that she’d rather be a producer than a bureaucrat, so she and her husband Ethan bought a nice piece of land, with a house and milking barn. She sells organic raw milk and makes some cheese. The regulations for selling raw milk—and calling it organic—are pretty specific, but she knows the ropes.” He stopped to take a swallow of coffee.

  “So what was she complaining about? And why did she come to you? Apart from your recognized role as Granford’s own Mr. Fixit, not to mention an elected selectman.” She smiled at him.

  Seth grinned back. “A couple of years ago Joyce decided she wanted to expand the operation, give herself a little more cushion, without adding staff and facilities. So she came to the town and leased some pasturage that the town owns, and she spent a year improving the field, mostly getting rid of weeds and invasive plants and adding some good feed grass, before turning any cows loose on it. She was thinking long term and she did it right, plus the town gave her a good rate for it, since we weren’t using the land anyway. So, a couple of weeks ago she let out some of her cows for the first time—you should see a herd of cows the first time they get out into a field in the spring! They frolic, there’s no other word for it—and anyway, they’d only been out a couple of days when some of them started getting sick, and one died, so she pulled them off the field. She came to me to complain, since I'm on the town's board of selectmen, and I can’t say that I blame her.”

  “That’s a shame. Any idea what the problem is?”

  “Not at the moment. The land hasn’t been used for anything for decades, and even though you think I know everything there is to know about Granford, I haven’t memorized the history of each plot of land here. I wasn’t just stalling when I told her that I’d have to do some digging before I could tell her anything about the history of that parcel.”

  “You said the records are scattered all over? Not at town hall?”

  He smiled ruefully. “You’ve seen town hall—it used to be a mansion for some people from Boston who came out summers to enjoy the country air. It was never intended to be a municipal building. There are a lot of files shoved into the basement, which at least is dry, but I have a feeling that what I need to check goes back quite a ways. We’ve put the archived documents wherever we can find space, much like the Historical Society does. It’ll take me a few days to track down whatever went on with that field. Since the town owns it, there must be some kind of story behind it.”

  “Have you known Joyce long?” Meg asked, getting up to freshen her cup. “You want more coffee?”

  “Please.” Seth held out his mug as Meg poured. “Not that long. Neither she nor her husband grew up around here, but she knows the area pretty well. She did her homework when she picked her location, and she’s got a good local reputation for her milk. You’ve probably eaten some of her cheese at Gran’s.”

  “I’ll have to ask Nicky the next time I’m in the restaurant.”

  “Speaking of using land, have you considered my offer?”

  “Which one?”

  “I’d be happy to let you use some of my land to expand your orchard.”

  Meg had been putting off giving Seth an answer because she was torn. In part it was a business decision: did it make financial sense for her to expand? If so, how much? It had taken awhile to get the numbers assembled and to review them with Bree, and the answer had been a tentative “yes” to the expansion. But the more complicated issue was, did she want to enter into that kind of commitment with Seth? She’d only just started to really feel like they were dating . . . using his land for a long-range purpose felt akin to making a public statement that they were together for the long haul. And although Meg was cautiously optimistic about the relationship, she wasn’t quite ready to make that kind of declaration. Still, whether or not to expand the orchard was something she would have to decide soon, before the window for planting closed.

  “Let me get back to you on that, okay?”

  Seth eyed her a minute before he shrugged and said, “Okay. It’s up to you, and I have no other plans for the land. But I’d like to see it put to good use.”

  Was he disappointed? “Let me talk to Bree about it, now that we know what’s survived the winter. So, anything else going on?” she said to change the subject.

  “There’s the Spring Fling this weekend.”

  “The what?”

  “Oh, that’s right—you were a little preoccupied around this time last year. It’s a party that we hold each year to celebrate the arrival of spring, since by now everybody’s usually got a serious case of cabin fever. It’s not fancy—we hold it in the high school gym—but we’ve got a good local cover band who plays the kind of stuff most people like, and there’s food and dancing, and raffles and prizes. Half the town turns out. Will you come?”

  “Are you asking me to be your date?” Meg tried to keep a straight face.

  “Of course. But my mother may tag along to chaperone.”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s a good thing I like your mother.”

  About the Author

  After collecting too many degrees and exploring careers ranging from art historian to investment banker to professional genealogist, Sheila Connolly began writing mysteries in 2001, and is now a full-time writer.

  She wrote her first mystery se
ries for Berkley Prime Crime under the name Sarah Atwell, and the first book, Through a Glass, Deadly (March 2008), was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Novel; Pane of Death followed in November 2008, and Snake in the Glass in September 2009.

  Under her own name, her Orchard Mystery Series (Berkley Prime Crime) debuted in 2008 with One Bad Apple, followed by Rotten to the Core in July 2009, Red Delicious Death in March 2010, A Killer Crop in December 2010, Bitter Harvest in August 2011, and Sour Apples in August 2012.

  Her new series, the Museum Mysteries (Berkley Prime Crime), set in the Philadelphia museum community, opened with Fundraising the Dead in October 2010, followed by Let’s Play Dead in July 2011, and Fire Engine Dead in March 2012.

  She is currently planning a new series set in Ireland, which will debut in 2012/13.

  Her first short story, “Size Matters,” was published by Level Best Books in 2011, and was nominated for an Agatha Award.

  Sheila is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America. She is currently President of Sisters in Crime New England, and cochair for the 2011 New England Crime Bake conference.