Dyeing Season Read online

  Dyeing Season

  A Dewberry Farm Mystery

  Karen MacInerney

  Copyright © 2019 by Karen MacInerney

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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

  Books in the Dewberry Farm Mystery Series

  Killer Jam

  Fatal Frost

  Deadly Brew

  Mistletoe Murder

  Dyeing Season

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  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

  More Books by Karen MacInerney

  Recipes

  Dewberry Farm Shrimp and Goat Cheese Quesadillas

  Dewberry Margaritas

  Quinn’s Blue Onion Mazanec

  Buttercup Pecan Pie

  German Potato Salad

  Alfie’s Smoked Pork Ribs

  Natural Easter Egg Dyes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  It was a beautiful morning in Buttercup, Texas. The bluebonnets were carpeting the rolling hills, I had three new kids gallivanting around the pasture, my spring crops were going strong, and the little house I'd spent the last few months renovating was almost ready for habitation.

  There were times over the past year or two since quitting my reporting job in Houston and buying my grandmother's farmhouse that I'd questioned my decision. But now, thanks to a few minor windfalls and excellent weather, for the first time, I was feeling optimistic about my prospects. I had three new female kids, my cow had recently calved and was producing tons of milk, and the fields I'd worked so hard to recondition since moving to Buttercup were green with healthy organic vegetables. Plus, it was almost time for Buttercup's first-ever Easter Market, and I had a bunch of new products I was looking forward to selling: egg-shaped soaps in a rainbow of pastel colors, dyed blown eggs, herb starts, and packets of organic egg dye for customers to take home and try themselves.

  I was surveying my little kingdom with a feeling of satisfaction when the cell phone buzzed in my pocket. I checked the Caller ID: it was Peter Swenson, a fellow organic farmer. "Have you seen the weather?" he asked when I picked up.

  "No," I said, not liking the ominous tone of his voice.

  "Hail coming," he said. "Some of it as big as golf balls. Do you have row cover?"

  Murphy's Law, I thought to myself. "I do," I said, "but I'm not sure it can handle golf balls. How much time do I have?"

  "It'll be here by six," he said. "At least according to the weather." He paused. "Tornadoes, too."

  My stomach clenched. "Tornadoes?"

  "Maybe," he said. "There's a watch. Just wanted to let you know."

  "Thanks," I told him. I stared up at the clear blue sky and sighed, thinking of the saying I'd heard for many years. Don't like the weather in Texas? Wait a few minutes.

  "If I get done here," he said, "I'll come over and help."

  "Thanks... and thanks for the heads-up," I told him, already jogging toward the barn. "I'm taking care of it right now!"

  I'd just finished covering the first row of arugula when I heard somebody roaring down the drive. I looked up to see my friend Quinn's truck, and smiled in relief.

  "What are you doing here?" I called to her as she got out of the driver's seat. I was fighting with the breeze that had recently kicked up as I attempted to pin down another sheet of row cover.

  "Peter told me what was coming," she announced with a bright smile. She was dressed for the task in overalls, her curly red hair tied up in a green bandanna. Quinn owned the Blue Onion café on the Town Square; I sometimes lent her a hand prepping meals and waiting tables. She had been one of my closest friends since I moved to Buttercup, and had started dating Peter last year. Her previous relationship had been, to put it mildly, less than ideal; it made me happy to see her with such a kind man. "I got an early start on prep work and Katie is handling the lunch shift, so I thought you might need some help," she said.

  "I do. You're a lifesaver," I said, picking up a roll of white row cover. "Here... can you grab an end of this while I unroll it?"

  "It's like a giant roll of paper towels," she said, grinning.

  "I know," I said, grimacing at the long white banner unfurling from the roll. Thankfully, I'd already wrapped the young tomato plants to protect them from chilly nights; I wasn't sure if the clips would hold if we had high winds, but at least they were covered. I looked down at the row cover in my hand, wondering how it would hold up to hail. It didn't look particularly sturdy, but it was all I had. "I don't know if it will be enough, but it's better than nothing."

  "What are you going to do with the animals?" Quinn asked, glancing over at the pasture.

  "I'll get them into the barn. But I want to get the tender crops covered first," I told her. "And now that I think of it, I'd better get the herb starts inside, just in case; I'm taking them to the Easter Market."

  "Speaking of the Easter Market, did you finish your egg dye packets?" she asked. "I saw that you're doing a workshop on natural egg dyeing."

  "I finished last week, and I'm ready to go," I said. I'd been looking for ways to expand my business in creative ways: the herb starts and the egg dyes were part of the experiment.

  "Good for you! Speaking of eggs, you might want to make sure your chickens are locked down."

  "Why?"

  "There's a chicken rustler in town," she said.

  I stopped what I was doing. "You're kidding me, right?"

  "Someone released all of Ed Zapp's chickens last week."

  "He just started raising chickens, didn't he?"

  Quinn nodded. "Not in the good way, either. They're all crowded into one big room, and they never get any outside time."

  "Poor things," I said. I knew factory farming was the way most eggs were produced, but it still troubled me.

  "Whoever did it left some spray paint on the side of the house, too."

  "Spray paint? Like what?"

  "Some kind of letters," she said.

  "How about the chickens? Did he find them all?"

  "Most of them," she said. "I guess at least they had a little bit of time outside."

  "I'm glad I've got my own egg factory," I said, thinking of my small flock. Most of my hens were Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns, but Peter had given me a couple of Araucanas to raise. They hadn't started laying yet, but I was looking forward to collecting blue eggs, and I'd come to enjoy the chickens' spunky personalities. "Speaking of poultry, I imagine Rooster is clueless as to who did it?"

  My friend rolled her eyes. "Look up 'clueless' in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Sheriff Rooster Kocurek."

  "Has his wife divorced him yet?" I asked. The two had separated last winter; apparently she got
tired of him disappearing to a deer blind with a few cases of Lone Star and his buddies all the time. On the other hand, from what I knew of his personality, if I were married to Rooster, I might view his continued absence as a win.

  "Not yet," she said. "She let him move back in, finally, though."

  "Poor thing."

  "I know. The woman deserves a medal. Or a sainthood."

  "Or something," I said. Rooster Kocurek was not only a less-than-ideal husband, at least if Lacey's actions were any indication, but the laziest law enforcement officer I'd ever encountered, and I'd met quite a few in my job as an investigative reporter in Houston. He'd arrested the wrong person at least four times that I could count since I'd moved to Buttercup... which hadn't been that long ago.

  "What I want to know is, why hasn't he been fired?" Quinn asked.

  "It's a mystery," I said.

  "Well, let's not worry about that now," she said as we stretched out another length of row cover. I eyed the sky nervously; a line of dark clouds was approaching from the north, and the goats were starting to get frisky. Something told me the storm might arrive earlier than six. "How's the house renovation coming?"

  "Slowly," I said with a groan. "I was hoping I could be ready to rent it out in time for the spring antique fair, but it's not looking good. The workers found some structural issues when we were replacing the floors." With the help of some concerned local citizens, I'd moved a historic house to the farm several months ago; if I hadn't, it likely would have been destroyed, and it had a lot of history... including reports of a ghost. I'd been worried about renovating it, but between a small windfall and some help from the community, I was slowly (very slowly) turning it into a small but adorable living space.

  "Did you keep the stenciling in the downstairs?"

  "I did," I said. One of the earliest owners had painted a beautiful blue pattern near the tops of the walls downstairs. I'd repainted many things, including the beaten-up wood floors on the second floor (and now, soon, the floor joists, apparently), but I'd kept the stenciling, cleaning it carefully and wondering about the woman—I don't know how, but I knew it was a woman—who had painted it.

  "No more ghostly noises?"

  "Nothing unexplainable, anyway. It appears to be ghost-free."

  "And your grandmother?" she asked.

  Since moving to the farm, I'd often smelled her scent of lavender, and she'd been something of a quiet guiding force. "She's here," I told Quinn. "I can sense her sometimes. It's comforting."

  "Maybe she'll help protect your hens," Quinn said. "But I'd recommend putting a padlock on the chicken coop, just in case."

  "It seems weird to do that in Buttercup, but you're probably right," I said. I hardly ever locked the house, much less the chicken coop.

  "I know it's weird, but it's probably a good idea. Just until they find out who's doing this," she said. "I'd hate for you to lose your hens."

  "Me too," I said as we pinned down the last bit of row cover and headed out to round up the livestock.

  We had just gotten the goats and cows into the barn—the chickens, birdbrains though they might be, had retreated to their coop on their own—when the first rain hit. And it wasn't a gentle shower, either. It was more like steak knives being hurled from the sky.

  Quinn and I raced to the farmhouse. I busied myself moving my herb starts indoors, where the rain wouldn't flatten them, while Quinn put a kettle on for tea. The rain pounded on the metal roof as I tucked the last tray of starts into a corner of the living room and headed back to the kitchen. "No hail so far," Quinn said, peering out the window and running a hand through her damp curls. Chuck, my rescue poodle, threw himself at her feet, begging for a snack, or at least a belly rub, as I put a few scones on a plate and ferried them to the table.

  "Thanks again for coming to help," I said, looking out at the dark clouds with trepidation. The trees were swaying like crazy as the wind and rain lashed down; I hoped the row cover would hold. "I'm thankful for the rain, but I wish it were a little more... gentle. And consistent."

  "Welcome to Texas," Quinn said. "Perpetual drought interrupted by intermittent flooding."

  "Perfect for farming," I said. "Whose idea was it to settle here, anyway?"

  "People looking for cheap land?" Quinn replied with a grin.

  "Well it isn't anymore, unfortunately," I replied. With more wealthy Houstonians and Austinites buying up properties in Buttercup, prices were going up fast. I was glad I'd bought my grandmother's farm when I did. I was hoping to expand my acreage at some point, although to be honest, I was having a hard enough time keeping up with what I had. I didn't know how I was going to handle anything larger.

  "Speaking of land," Quinn said, as if reading my mind, "I heard a rumor that Faith Zapalac was over at your neighbor's house the other day."

  "What? Which one?"

  "Dottie Kreische's," she said. "I haven't heard anything else about it, but Dottie’s son Jessie had lunch with her at the Blue Onion the other day. It looks like Dottie may be moving to Sunset Home in La Grange."

  "I hope she doesn't move," I said. I'd enjoyed getting to know Dottie since moving to Buttercup. I remembered her from when I was a child visiting my grandparents—she'd always worn a sunny smile on her broad face, and had plied me with cookies when I went next door to borrow a cup of sugar for my grandmother—and we'd had tea many times since I'd taken over the farm. Later, when I was older, I'd babysat her kids, Jessie and Jennifer, from time to time. She'd told me lots of wonderful stories about my grandparents; it would be a real loss if she left. "I knew she wasn't doing well, but I hate that she's got to leave. She's spent her whole life on that farm."

  "I know," Quinn agreed.

  "There's no way she can stay here?"

  "I don't know; I'm just reporting what I heard. I know she has a home health aide some of the time," Quinn said.

  "You mean Eva?" I asked. Eva Clarke was a caring woman in her midthirties, and whenever I'd visited and seen her, she'd seemed to treat Dottie like family. "She's great; she really cares for Dottie."

  "I've seen her with Dottie at the Blue Onion sometimes. Unfortunately, Dottie's reached the point where she needs someone with her all the time."

  "That's too bad," I said.

  "I know," Quinn agreed, grimacing. "Anyway, although I hate to think of breaking up the property, if she decides to sell, it might be a good opportunity to pick up some acreage right next door."

  "If I can afford it," I said, feeling a touch of anxiety at the thought of deciding whether to expand my little operation. I'd come into a few windfalls recently, but most of that money had gone toward renovating the little house. As the rain pounded on the roof, I found myself feeling gloomy.

  At least the cistern and the well would fill up, I told myself, trying to look for a silver lining. It was early in the season for tornadoes thankfully, but I still eyed the clouds nervously. I'd lived in Texas my whole life, and thankfully, I'd never yet seen a tornado. People said you could hear them coming, but the rain on the metal roof was so loud I wasn't sure how you could. "How do you know if a tornado is coming? I've heard the sky is supposed to turn green, but I've never seen it."

  "It looks kind of green now, actually," Quinn said, glancing out at the sky. As she spoke, my phone buzzed with an alert. I grabbed it, and my stomach clutched. "Tornado warning."

  "Where?"

  "Here," I said, staring out the window. "What do we do?"

  "Do you have a root cellar?"

  "No," I said. "But the little house does."

  Quinn scooped up Chuck.

  "What about Dottie?"

  "Let's go check on her," Quinn said. We ran out to my truck without stopping for rain jackets. Puddles had already formed on the driveway, the sandy soil turning to mud. As I turned at the end of the driveway, Quinn jabbed a finger at the sky above my neighbor's house. "What's that?"

  A funnel cloud was forming.

  Adrenaline coursed through me as I turned the k
ey. It took two tries to start it; when it finally caught, I gunned the engine. "It's almost on top of the house," I said. I was crazy to keep driving toward it, but I hated to think of what might happen to my neighbor if we weren't able to get her to safety in time.

  The tires spun briefly as I punched the gas; a moment later, the tires grabbed and we lurched forward.

  The funnel cloud was heading right toward the house. Would we make it in time?

  Or would all of us be caught in the middle of a tornado?

  2

  A small, beaten-up Honda was parked next to Dottie's old Ford truck.

  "That's Eva's car," Quinn said as we slammed the truck's doors shut and sprinted to the front door. We didn't bother knocking; I threw open the front door and raced inside. "Dottie! Where are you?"

  "I'm in here," answered a wavering voice I recognized as Dottie's. "Is Eva with you?"

  We hurried to the small bedroom, where Dottie was tucked into her bed.

  "There's a tornado," I blurted. "We have to find a place to go. Is there a cellar?"

  Dottie eyes widened. "Tornado?" Although her body was deteriorating, my neighbor's mind was still sharp. "I saw the weather, and I told Eva we might be in trouble. She went out about an hour ago; I don't know where she's gone."

  "Her car's here," I said. "We didn't see her, though. But we've got to find a safe place for you; is there any shelter here?"

  "There's an old root cellar beside the house," Dottie said. "Do we have time to get there?"

  "I don't know," I said, "but it's our best bet.