Fatal Frost (Dewberry Farm Mysteries Book 2) Page 7

  Mary Jane and her husband had started out with the farm as a weekend place but fully migrated to town thirty years ago, and they embraced the old ways of doing things. Mary Jane grew and canned her own produce, did most of her own repairs in and around the old outbuildings, and even smoked her own sausages in the little red smokehouse just down the hill from her old well.

  As I got out of the truck, I saw Mary Jane nailing a board to the bottom of the barn. “What happened?”

  “There’s a rabbit family living under the barn, and Brooks keeps ripping off the boards trying to get to them,” she said, hammering in a last nail and standing up. Brooks, the dog in question, came to nuzzle my knees, then sat with his head cocked, observing the proceedings.

  Mary Jane wore her long gray hair in two barrettes on either side of her head, and her blue eyes were bright under wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m just about finished up out here,” she said. “Will you grab that board for me? I’ll just put this up, and then we’ll head into the house.”

  I helped her put the wood and tools up in the dusty barn, then retrieved the cooler from the back of the truck and followed her into her house.

  Mary Jane and her husband were both artists, which was immediately apparent when I stepped inside. Mary Jane’s beautiful stained glass adorned the kitchen windows, glowing in the frosty light, and the walls were covered in oil paintings her husband, Clyde, had painted of the Buttercup landscape.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” Mary Jane asked as she washed her hands at the sink.

  “That would be great. Thanks,” I said, putting the cooler down on the floor next to the kitchen table. Mary Jane had laid out a number of wooden soap molds on the table. “These are beautiful,” I said, inspecting the antique molds. “Where did you get them?”

  “I picked them up for next to nothing the last day of the antique fair,” she said. “I always get the best deals when the dealers are about to pack up and go home. I have a few more in the barn if you’re interested.”

  “I might be . . . thank you!” I said as she handed me a cup of coffee.

  She sat down across from me with her own cup and surveyed what I’d brought. “Looks like you’ve got everything,” she said, nodding with approval. “Ever worked with lye before?”

  “No,” I said.

  “I’ve got goggles, gloves, and an extra apron,” she said.

  “That bad?”

  “It’s not terrific,” she said. “But the final product is well worth it.” She grinned at me. “Let’s finish up our coffee, and then we’ll get started. I need to sit down for a few minutes, anyway.”

  As I sat in her cozy kitchen, watching a cardinal visit the bird feeder outside the window, I felt peace steal over me, despite the turmoil I’d experienced the last few days. The open shelves were colorfully painted and lined with Mexican plates and glass, and the wind battered against the greenhouse Mary Jane had appended to the kitchen. It was filled with red geraniums and poinsettias, which were blooming brightly.

  “I heard you discovered Krystal Jenkins,” she said.

  “It was Peter, actually. I was picking up the goats when we smelled smoke,” I told her. “We got to the house before it was totally gone, but Krystal was already dead.”

  “She was renting the place from me,” Mary Jane said with a grimace. “I hate that someone doused it with gasoline, but I’m glad it wasn’t something wrong with the electricity; I’d feel awful about it.”

  “I think someone was covering their tracks,” I said.

  She nodded. “I got the impression Rooster thinks Molly did her in,” she said.

  “I think someone did, but I’m sure it wasn’t Molly. I didn’t know you owned that house; have you always had it?”

  “I bought it about ten years ago, hoping my daughter would move back, but she decided to go to Austin, instead. I kept it as a weekend house for a while, but she was too busy with kids to come out—and when she does, she usually comes here.” She took a sip of her coffee. “Ben O’Neill actually asked about buying it about a month ago. Faith Zapalac stopped by to say he was interested.”

  “Did she say why he wanted it?”

  “She said he thought it was a pretty piece of property, and he liked the creek access.”

  “But his house is miles away,” I said. “Why buy acreage on Skalicky Road?”

  “Who knows?” She shrugged. “Anyway, now that the house is gone, I’m thinking about giving Faith a call. I can’t lease the house out anymore, and I hate thinking of what happened there, so I might as well get rid of the place.”

  “Was the house insured?”

  “It was. It wasn’t worth much, but I was fond of it. I don’t really care about the house, though; I’m more upset about Krystal. She was so young.”

  “I know,” I said. “There was a puppy in the house when we found her. Did you know she had a dog?”

  She shook her head. “Poor thing. Did it die, too?”

  “No, Peter got her out in time, and she’s at the vet hospital. Dr. Brandt thinks she’ll pull through.”

  “Krystal never said anything about a dog,” Mary Jane said, looking perplexed. “She would have had to have a pet deposit.” She sighed. “Stupid thing to think about. It doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s gone . . . and so’s the house.”

  “Did you get over there much?” I asked.

  “Last time I was there was a couple of weeks ago; there was a problem with the sink,” she said. “She did seem jumpy, though.”

  “Jumpy?”

  “When I knocked on the door, she only opened it a crack; she was relieved when it was me.”

  “Why?”

  “She told me someone had been outside her window at night, and had been leaving things on the front porch in the middle of the night. She was nervous about it.”

  I felt my hopes rise; this was the first real lead I had. “Who was it?”

  “She didn’t know,” she said. “But whoever it was had been leaving flowers on her doorstep at night and love notes on her car, but without a signature. If you could find out who was leaving gifts, it might be a good place to start.”

  “Maybe that’s why she got a dog,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” she said.

  “She had no idea who the admirer was?”

  “When she dropped off the rent, she mentioned it might be Dougie Metzger, but she wasn’t sure.”

  “Maybe Brittany Kramer knows more. They were pretty close.” I’d ask tonight, when I was at the Kramers’ for dinner.

  “I can’t believe the sheriff thinks Molly did in that young woman. Rooster doesn’t know his back end from his front,” Mary Jane said, getting up and reaching for the cooler I’d brought in. “But I guess it will all work out.”

  I wasn’t so sure, so I wasn’t going to leave it to chance.

  “How are you doing with the goats?” she asked.

  “We’re getting to know each other,” I said. “I’m a little worried about keeping them in, though.”

  “Better double-check your fence,” she warned me, just like everyone else had. “I ended up electrifying mine. I swear they can chew through wire.”

  “The last thing I need is to have to chase down goats,” I said. “This week’s been tough enough.”

  “Sounds like it. And just before Christmas, too.” She sighed. “Ah, well. Ready to make some soap?”

  “I think so,” I said, reaching for the goggles and gloves and giving the lye a sideways look. “Should I be scared?”

  “You’ll be fine,” she said, tying on her old apron. “Now, let’s get those oils melting, shall we?” she said.

  After we weighed and measured all of our ingredients, Mary Jane dumped the oils into a pot on the stove and directed me to break the frozen goat milk into chunks with a mallet. “Why does it have to be frozen?” I asked.

  “It keeps it from heating too fast and scorching,” she said. “If that happens, the batch is ruined, and you have to start over.”


  “Got it,” I said. Once the frozen milk was in chunks, she directed me to pour it into a bowl in the sink that she’d filled halfway with ice and water. “Now,” she said, “put on your goggles, let’s trade places, and I’ll add the lye.”

  I switched with her and watched as she poured in the caustic substance. We stirred our respective mixtures, waiting until they both reached the magic temperature.

  As we stood together in the kitchen, I thought of the holes I’d seen outside Krystal’s house.

  “I noticed a bunch of holes in the ground when we found Krystal,” I told Mary Jane as I stirred. “And someone was digging by my house two nights ago, too. Bubba Allen said it might be Buster Jenkins or Clyde Swartz. Do you know anything about buried treasure?”

  “Bubba’s right; it was more than likely Krystal’s uncle,” she said. “He’s been digging up Buttercup for twenty years, on and off.”

  “Treasure hunting, I’ve heard. Confederate gold?”

  “Oh, that old story about a Confederate lieutenant who got caught hightailing it to Mexico. Supposed to be waiting for a second uprising of the South . . . only it never came to pass.” She shook her head. “There’s another story, too, though.”

  “I haven’t heard it,” I said.

  “Well, it’s not a story everyone tells,” she said. “One of the Kocureks told me once, when we were at a party, but not too many people know it. There was a man named William Keene who came to Buttercup from New Orleans. He made his fortune in shipping . . . or pirating. Whatever it was, he made enough enemies that he decided it was better for his health to retire.”

  “To Buttercup?” I asked.

  “Yes . . . I guess it was far enough inland that he thought he’d be safe. He’d fallen in love with a woman in New Orleans, though—her name was Violette, and apparently she was known as a great beauty.”

  “Sounds Creole.”

  “I think she was a mix—quadroon, or whatever it was they called it back then. He talked her into moving with him, then came to Buttercup to get things ready. He built a house and then went back to get her, but fell ill along the way—it was winter, and there was some kind of nasty sickness going around. Anyway, before he died, he sent a letter telling her that if he didn’t make it to New Orleans, she should come to Buttercup and look for a tree marked with a fleur-de-lis. He’d buried the gold he had left from his exploits under it.”

  “Did she come to town?”

  “She did, of course, but she never found it, and left heartbroken and disappointed.”

  “Sad,” I said. “Do you think it’s true?”

  “There’s a copy of the letter at the library, if I recall.”

  “Did anyone ever find the gold?”

  “No. Even though there have been crazies tramping around in the woods with metal detectors for as long as I’ve been here.”

  “Good way to get bitten by a snake,” I said.

  She grinned. “That’s the truth. Thing is,” she said, “most of the property here is owned by other folks; it’s not public land. So the treasure hunters are trespassing; whatever they find generally belongs to the landowners.”

  “Does anyone know where he lived when he was in Buttercup?” I asked.

  “He had a house somewhere along Dewberry Creek, but it’s not in the records, and no one knows where he supposedly hid the gold. The house probably fell in years ago, or was moved, though; there’s no telling. There are lots of old foundations around town, so it could be any one of them; there’s the remains of an old homestead out behind Krystal’s house, in fact. It probably got washed away during a flash flood; it was awfully close to the water.”

  “Do you think Krystal might have been involved in the treasure hunting?”

  “I didn’t check up on her,” she said. “Maybe I should have, though. She probably let Buster dig on my land.”

  “And if they found something, he’d have a motive for getting rid of her,” I mused. “In case you can’t tell, I’m looking for any suspect I can find. Any suspect other than Molly, that is.”

  “I’m with you on that,” she told me, then bent down and peered at the soap mixture. “Looks like it’s about done. You have the essential oils ready?” she asked.

  I pointed to the vial of lavender oil I’d gotten from the Hill Country Lavender Farm that summer.

  “Let’s mix them, then,” she said. Mary Jane poured the milk and lye mixture into the oils. “Stir it with a spoon,” she instructed me, and after I’d worn out my arm for a few minutes, Mary Jane told me I could stop and switched to a stick blender. “This is the tricky part,” she told me as the blender whirred. “You have to reach what’s called ‘trace’—when everything is emulsified, and there aren’t any streaks. The consistency should be something like cake batter, and it should be easy to pour.”

  “I’m glad you’re here to help me figure it out,” I said, watching as she pulsed the blender. Finally, she judged the time was right.

  She nodded to me. “Add in your lavender oil, Lucy.”

  I poured in the essential oil, filling the kitchen with the wonderful scent of lavender, and we filled the prepared molds on the kitchen table. “Now we cover them with plastic wrap and a few towels to keep them from cooling too quickly,” she said. “In twenty-four hours, you can cut them into bars; then let them sit somewhere dry for about a month.”

  “No soap for the Christmas Market, eh?”

  “Not this year,” she said smiling. “But now you know what to do. Easy, right?”

  “Except for that whole trace thing,” I said.

  “You’ll learn it with time,” she told me. “We can do another couple of batches together if you want, until you get the hang of it,” she said. “Your grandma taught me a few things when I first moved here; I’m happy to return the favor. I know she’d be thrilled you’re living at Dewberry Farm again.”

  “How well did you know her?” I asked as we laid towels over the molds.

  “I moved back here after a long time in Houston,” she said, taking off her gloves, “and it was tough finding my place, but your grandmother just opened her heart to me. She taught me what she knew, too, which was quite a lot.”

  “Soap making?”

  “That I picked up later,” Mary Jane admitted. “But I learned the planting cycles, and how to make cottage cheese . . . your grandma’s cottage cheese was the best. Really good in her kolaches, too.”

  “I remember,” I said. “Sometimes, when I’m in my kitchen,” I told her as I peeled off my gloves, “I almost feel like she’s there with me.”

  “I’ve had that feeling a couple of times, too,” she admitted, replacing her goggles with her glasses. “She was always such a warm, nurturing presence. Sometimes I feel like if I said something, she’d answer.”

  I smiled at her. “Me too.”

  The sun streaked through the stained glass windows above the kitchen sink. Although there was still a hint of lye in the air, the smell of lavender filled Mary Jane’s warm kitchen, combining with a loamy scent from the greenhouse and the spicy scent of oranges and cloves from a bowl of pomanders on the window sill.

  “What else did she teach you?” I asked.

  She laughed. “How to cut the head off a chicken, for starters. And pluck it.”

  I shivered. “Haven’t had to do that yet.”

  “Wait till you have a few chicks grow up to be roosters,” she grinned. “She also taught me how to use the smokehouse.”

  “I haven’t tried,” I confessed. Although I’d hung up onions and garlic to dry in the little wooden building next to the shed, I hadn’t actually attempted to use it. The walls and roof were blackened from years of use, though; I needed to give it a shot eventually.

  “Tell you what,” she said. “Next time we have a pig, you can come over and help me make sausages.”

  “Doesn’t that involve . . . intestines, and stuff?”

  “My dear,” she grinned, “if you’re going to run a farm, you’re going
to have to get used to things like that.”

  “I guess,” I said, although I mentally resolved not to add pigs to the mix. I liked bacon, and I tried to get my meat from other farmers, but I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to slaughter an animal I’d raised. Besides, goats were proving to be challenging enough.

  “Now,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “I’ve got chores to do this afternoon, so let’s get cleaned up. I’ll send the soap molds home with you.”

  “I’ll return them after I cut the soap, tomorrow,” she said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she told me, waving me away. “You can have these; I’ve got another dozen in the barn.”

  “Let me buy them from you, at least,” I said as I helped wash out the pots.

  “Consider it payback for all the wonderful things your grandma did for me,” Mary Jane said with a smile. “You’ll do the same for someone else one day, I’m sure.”

  “I hope so,” I said, thinking about Krystal. She hadn’t had a chance to pass anything on to anyone. Would I be able to make the farm survive long enough to pass on what I’d learned? And more importantly, I thought, would I be able to save Molly from going to jail for Krystal’s death?

  I got to Molly’s at six, with one of Quinn’s Christmas cakes in hand. My friend met me at the door, a smile on her tired-looking face. “Thanks so much for coming!” she said, pulling me into a warm hug as the family’s Lab, Barkley, sniffed at my shoes. “I feel like it’s been ages.”

  “Thanks for having me,” I said. “I keep wanting to have you guys over to dinner!”

  “With all the kids, it’s easier if you come here,” she said. “I hear your parents are in town; you should have brought them!”