Killer Jam (A Dewberry Farm Mystery) Page 17

  “Well, I do,” I replied as Tori walked through the swinging door from the dining room, her dark eyes filled with curiosity as they fixed on me. Everyone would know I was at the restaurant within five minutes, I realized, stifling a groan. But at least I hadn’t flaunted my presence—and I hadn’t had to walk the gauntlet of curious eyes and whispers.

  The plywood over the door cast a shadow over the sunny kitchen. “Did you get in touch with the glazier?”

  “He’ll be here tomorrow,” she said. “I called for a quote on a security system, too.”

  “Good.” I knew it was expensive, but considering the circumstances, I wouldn’t feel comfortable if Quinn stayed here without it. I was nervous enough about her staying here at all—at least until Jed was behind bars. “I just wanted to swing by and check on you,” I said as Quinn slid a slice of quiche into the oven.

  “I’m doing okay,” she said. “Thanks again for letting me stay over.”

  “It’s nice having the company,” I said.

  She smiled, but there were dark circles under her eyes.

  “Any word from Rooster?”

  “Nothing yet. I let my attorney know what happened, though. She alerted the Houston police, and I’m hoping they have enough evidence to arrest him for breaking and entering.”

  “Not to mention assault and disregarding a restraining order,” I added dryly.

  “I’ve learned not to get my hopes up.” Tori pushed through the door to retrieve a tray, and we both fell silent, aware of her curiosity. Quinn busied herself washing another bunch of salad greens and I leaned against a counter and smiled at the waitress. She didn’t return the favor.

  When she disappeared through the door again, I pushed myself away from the counter and headed toward the door. “I’ve got a few more stops to make this afternoon,” I told her.

  “Any luck this morning?”

  “Maybe,” I told her. “We’ll talk about it over dinner,” I suggested, glancing at the door to the restaurant. Quinn nodded in understanding.

  “Thanks for stopping by.”

  “I’ll see you tonight, okay? Be safe,” I warned her.

  She glanced over at the corner, and for the first time I noticed the baseball bat leaning up against the wall. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  The sun was high in the sky, the rising mercury a hint of what I knew was to come in July and August, as I drove out toward the Bees’ Knees, the window of the truck open and the smell of grass and baking soil in the air. As I turned toward the road leading to Nancy’s homestead, a gust of cool wind freshened the air, carrying with it the ozone scent of rain—always a welcome gift in Texas. I glanced in my rearview mirror; sure enough, there was a front advancing from the west, the clouds a heavy gray blue. I sent up a quick prayer that it would continue advancing in Buttercup’s direction, hopefully parking over my fields for an hour or two before moving on, as I turned up the lane toward the Shaws’. Nettie Kocurek’s red ranch was next door. I recognized Roger Brubeck’s truck outside, and parked next to it was a white SUV. Faith’s Escalade? I wondered, squinting to see if I could make it out.

  The road veered away and my view was obscured by a stand of mesquite before I could identify it, but I found myself wondering if Faith Zapalac was at the Kocureks’—and if so, what business she was conducting with Flora now that Nettie was gone.

  Another cool breeze gusted through the window as I pulled in next to Nancy’s truck. The air felt fresh on my skin as I opened the door, and all around me I felt a sense of expectation and electricity, as if the trees themselves were waiting for something to happen. What did bees do when it rained? I wondered as I walked up the flagstone path to the little house Nancy shared with her husband, Martin. She had landscaped it with lots of bee-friendly plants, most of which were native—a hummingbird darted in and out of bright red cherry sage flowers, and a number of bees and butterflies were busy collecting nectar from a swath of purple and white lantana. I knocked on the blue-painted door, but nobody answered.

  I knocked a second time and waited a few minutes before heading around back toward the honey house.

  A rumble of thunder sounded behind me, rolling across the sky, and the smell of rain intensified. The first fat drops of rain fell, making poofs of dust as they hit the ground, and I broke into a trot.

  The honey house door was ajar, but there was no light on. “Nancy?” I called, standing and knocking at the door. The wind picked up and the raindrops multiplied, turning into a sudden downpour. I pushed the door to the honey house open and stepped inside.

  Although it smelled of warmed honey and beeswax and rain, there was something disquieting about the shadowy barn. I stood inside the doorway for a moment; the only sound was the rain drumming against the metal roof, as if demanding to be let inside. The path outside was quickly turning to mud, and the clouds filled the sky; it looked like the rain was going to stick around for a while. I hovered by the door, trying to decide if I should make a run for the pickup truck—Nancy obviously wasn’t here—but when a flash of lightning filled the sky, followed almost instantaneously by a bone-shaking crack of thunder, I decided I’d at least wait until the initial fury died down before heading back to the truck.

  I turned the light on, hoping to dispel the eerie feeling in the shadowy space. The honey extractor gleamed, and the beeswax on the shelves glowed gold. I felt a cool breeze from a vent overhead, and looked up to realize the air conditioner was on. Which made the open door a bit odd; Nancy would have been careful to close it, to make sure her product wasn’t compromised. Where was Nancy, anyway? Had she and Martin gone somewhere in his car?

  I walked past the shelves toward the table and chair Nancy kept under the window, for when she was making labels or dipping candles. As I approached, I noticed a blanket crumpled on the floor in the corner, next to the separator. I took a step toward it, stooping down to pick it up, and froze.

  It wasn’t a blanket. It was a blue chambray shirt, and there were arms coming out of the shirt, and a tumble of silvery hair. Only the chambray shirt was stained dark, sticky red. Red, I realized with growing horror, from where it had soaked up Nancy’s blood.

  What happened next I recall in bursts, like stop-motion photography. Something inside of me took over, propelling me through the mud to the house, traipsing through Nancy’s clean kitchen to the phone, and dialing 911. Had I taken her pulse? No, I hadn’t taken her pulse. I had known, just known, she was dead. There was so much blood. Could I stay on the line? The phone was corded and I’d left my cell phone in the truck, so no, I couldn’t stay on the line. I had to go back, check her pulse, stay with her until someone came to care for her. To take her away. I recall seeing my muddy footprints on the Saltillo tile floor, and thinking I’d have to clean that up before Nancy came back—and then remembering that Nancy would never set foot on that floor again.

  I returned to the barn out of duty, dreading what I had to do. I put my fingers to Nancy’s pale, exposed wrist—I couldn’t bear to be near the blood pooling around her head. The skin was still warm, but there was no steady beat beneath my finger. Nothing at all. Fighting back the urge to retch, I put her hand down gently and retreated to the chair, wrapping my arms around my body and waiting for the whine of sirens.

  As I breathed in the scent of honey—tinged with the coppery scent of Nancy’s blood—my eyes swept the clean concrete floor of the honey house. A torn-off label caught my eye; it was about six inches by three inches and looked like it had been torn off another bag. The front of the label said COMPOSTED COW MANURE and seemed to have been printed on a laser printer. Underneath, on the sticky side, there was a bit of whatever it had been stuck to. I could make out the letters “MIK,” along with “15 mg” and the words “Brand Aldi.” I’d seen the same label in the back of the truck at the Kocureks’ house, I realized with a jolt. It hadn’t occurred to me then, but now I wondered who would keep manure in a paper bag; I’d only ever seen it in plastic bags. Maybe it wasn’t cow man
ure, after all.

  I found a scrap of paper and a pen, jotted down what I saw on the label, and put it back on the floor, wondering what the label was covering—and whether it was connected to Nancy’s death.

  “So.” Rooster was staring at me, and I could see in his eyes that he thought I was a murderer. They’d taken the body away—taken Nancy away—in a black body bag, the rain spattering the plastic as they carried her to the ambulance. I watched from the covered porch on the back of Nancy’s house. Where was Martin? I wondered. How would he take the loss of his wife? They’d been married thirty years; it was going to be an awful shock. This place was going to be lonely without Nancy. My eyes strayed to the line of hives under the cottonwoods near the creek, back behind the property. Who would take care of the bees now that Nancy was gone? My heart ached thinking about it.

  The ambulance and Rooster’s car had pulled up right outside the honey house, and the flashing lights seemed surreal in the serene country scene. The cherry sage still glowed scarlet against the wet green leaves, and as they loaded Nancy into the back of the ambulance, I found myself thinking of the hummingbird I’d seen just a little while ago. So much had changed in such a short time. Poor Nancy. They’d take her to the morgue in Houston, probably, far away from her comfortable home in Buttercup. I watched them close the doors behind her and hugged myself.

  “Mizz Resnick?”

  “What?” I swiveled, startled. Rooster stood there, his round face stony. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”

  I hadn’t noticed him leave the barn; I’d been too focused on the body bag. Thunder rumbled in the distance as I looked at him, solid and somehow menacing. His hair and his polyester shirt were wet from the rain, which seemed to be slowing down a bit.

  “I asked what brought you out here,” he said in a slow, measured voice that somehow managed to be menacing.

  “I . . . I thought . . . ” I was about to tell him I thought Nancy might have known something about Nettie’s murder, but decided referencing Nettie’s death was a bad idea. “I wanted to talk about another order of beeswax,” I said. “And maybe ask about setting up a hive of my own,” I added. I had considered it, after all, although it wasn’t in my plans for the near future.

  “Beeswax?”

  I nodded. “She sells it to me, along with honey. I use it to make candles.”

  He scribbled down what I’d said. “Beeswax,” he repeated, not sounding at all convinced by my story. “And what time did you arrive here?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, feeling numb. I had no sense of time right now. “Probably around thirty, forty-five minutes ago.”

  “Hmm. Did she know you were coming?”

  “No,” I told him. “I just swung by.”

  “What were you doing back here?” he asked, nodding toward the honey house.

  “She didn’t answer the door, and I saw her truck here, so I thought she might be working.”

  “You let yourself in?”

  “The door was open. I went inside because it started to rain, and then . . . ” I shuddered, remembering the dark stain on the blue chambray, the tumble of hair against the concrete floor.

  “You came inside,” he finished for me. “Very convenient.”

  “Convenient?” I didn’t like the way this was going, I decided. Not at all.

  “Well,” he said, rocking back on his booted heels, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it seems that ever since you rolled into town, dead bodies are piling up all over the place.”

  A burst of anger shook me free of the numb feeling. “Excuse me, Sheriff. Are you suggesting I killed Nancy and then called you to come and get the body?”

  His eyes glinted. “You said it, not me.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “If I were the murderer, why on God’s green earth would I call the police to tell them I’d found the body?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe to explain why your fingerprints and DNA evidence are all over the place.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The man was serious. “And are they?”

  “Maybe. Too early to say.” He gave me a nasty smile. “We’re still conducting the investigation.”

  “Even if you did find my DNA—which you won’t, since I just got here—what possible motive would I have for killing poor Nancy?”

  He cocked a bushy eyebrow. “Maybe she saw you doing in Nettie. Maybe she was blackmailing you.”

  I almost choked. Although I’m not usually a violent type, I had a strong urge to wring Rooster’s fleshy neck. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to sound calm. “I’m afraid there are a few problems with that theory, Sheriff. First, I didn’t kill Nettie, so there’s no way Nancy could have seen me doing it.” I forced a polite smile. “And second, I don’t have any money. I spent it all on the farm.” Which your aunt did everything in her power to destroy, I thought but didn’t add.

  He smiled, exposing his teeth. Which, I couldn’t help noticing, needed brushing; there was a piece of lettuce stuck between his incisors. “That’s not what Faith Zapalac tells me.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  His smile broadened, and I started to get a very bad feeling. “I ran into her just before your call came in. She told me you had come into some big money.”

  Which is the trouble with lies, I reflected, feeling sick to my stomach. When you tell them, they have a nasty habit of coming back and biting you in the butt.

  By the time I got home, I was feeling like I needed about a quart of whiskey. Instead of emptying what was left of my bottle of bourbon, I let Chuck out to water the roses and poured myself a big glass of iced tea before helping myself to a slice of chocolate icebox pie. Sitting in my grandmother’s kitchen was usually a comfort to me, but today, I felt too agitated to relax. As I finished the last bite of creamy chocolate pie, the phone rang.

  I set the plate on the counter as I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

  “I’m glad to hear your voice.” It was Tobias. “I thought I’d scared you off last night.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “It’s been a crazy twenty-four hours.” I glanced down at the answering machine and realized the light was blinking. “I haven’t checked my messages. What happened with Sadie?”

  “She looks like she’ll pull through,” he said. “I called last night, but you didn’t answer.”

  “I was at the Blue Onion,” I told him.

  “Midnight snack?”

  “I wish.” I told him about Quinn’s run-in with her ex, and then about finding Nancy.

  He let out a long, low whistle. “And I thought I’d had an exciting day.”

  “I could go for a bit less excitement, to be honest. Rooster now seems to think I’ve murdered two people.”

  “He thinks you killed Nancy and then called the police?”

  “He seems to think I killed Nettie, then killed Nancy because she knew something about it.”

  “And then called the police. Maybe things have changed, but that’s not usually how it works, in my experience.”

  “I said that’s what I thought, too, but he didn’t seem convinced.” I slumped against the wall. Two titmice fluttered around the feeder outside the window, and the swath of bluebonnets beyond the fence rippled like water in the breeze. Blossom was investigating the gate at the far end of the pasture. Looking for a way to open the latch, I was sure.

  “How did Nancy die?” Tobias asked.

  “I don’t know, but there was a lot of blood. I checked her pulse,” I told him, shivering at the memory, “and her skin was still warm. I don’t think she’d been gone long.” I considered telling him about the torn label I’d found, but decided not to bother. It wasn’t much to go on.

  “I’m sorry you had to find her like that,” he said. “How is Quinn doing?”

  “She’s staying here for a few days. Rooster took fingerprints—Jed broke the back door and let himself in—and she called her attorney. We’re hoping he gets a
rrested, so she doesn’t have to worry.”

  “Doesn’t she have a restraining order?”

  “Yes, for all the good it does.”

  “I hope Rooster’s got someone keeping an eye on her place.” There was the sound of a bell, and voices. “Looks like my next appointment’s here. I’m going to have to let you go.”

  “Thanks for checking in on me,” I told him. “I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

  “No worries,” he said, then paused. “I’d love to take you out to Rosita’s sometime soon, if you’re up for it.”

  “I’d love to,” I said.

  “Maybe tomorrow for lunch?”

  “That would be great,” I said. We settled on a time, and as I hung up the phone, I found myself smiling. At least one thing had gone right today.

  Unfortunately, however, that did not negate the several things that had gone wrong.

  I sighed and checked the pie safe, where I kept the jams and candles I took to market on Saturdays; murder or no murder, I needed to have something to sell this weekend at the market. There were only six jars of Killer Dewberry Jam left, and with all the excitement, I hadn’t picked since the day the thumper truck had come. I grabbed a basket and a stick and headed down to the dewberry patch down by the creek.

  Even though the muddy ground squished under my feet, I was thankful for the cool air the rain had left in its wake—and the water. Already the lettuce seemed greener; I was going to have plenty of heads to pick for the market this Saturday, and the broccoli plants were going strong. I’d have to plant one or two more rows of lettuce over the next few days, I decided, and maybe some arugula; we were moving into the warm season, but I might be able to eke out a few more cool-season crops. I smiled with satisfaction at the neat lines of healthy green plants. I’d have to try composting the chicken poop like Peter recommended—it was supposed to be a great natural fertilizer—and as I walked down to the creek and made plans for future plantings, I felt the tension seep out of me.