Deadly Row to Hoe Read online

  Well, now I felt lower than slug snot. “I’m sorry.”

  But Bette shook her head. “It’s okay. I have that to remember her by. I did it before her face faded in my mind.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. I had a hard time bringing my first husband’s face clearly to mind, and he’d only been dead for seven years. On the other hand, what if I had a realistic mask of his face on the wall? Or of Barr’s should something happen to him? The thought of either made me inexplicably shudder.

  “And the others?” I ventured.

  She shrugged. “Friends. From when I was still experimenting, still deciding what my niche would be.” But the sorrow about her mother lingered.

  “Well, maybe Barr would prefer something with some humor,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “What do you think? Are you too busy to do it by the end of next month?”

  “I’ll manage it—for you.” Her response warmed me. This was a woman who truly loved what she did. “How about I put together a few ideas from these photos using that software you saw me use yesterday, and you can pick which one you like best.”

  “Sounds great. Oh, speaking of that software—and yesterday—we found out who the first victim was.”

  “First victim?” Her smile dropped.

  Of course. She didn’t know about Nate.

  “I found Nate Snow in the popcorn patch at the farm this morning. Someone hit him over the head, too.”

  Her hand moved to her throat.

  “He’s in the hospital now,” I said.

  “So he’s not dead?”

  “He’s in a coma. We don’t know much else. His girlfriend is with him now.”

  “I didn’t even know he had a girlfriend.”

  “Daphne Sparks.”

  She nodded. “Oh, sure. Nice girl. Well, I hope he’s all right.” She made a tsking sound. “Why on earth would someone do such a thing?”

  “We don’t know yet, but I suspect it has something to do with wild jealousy.” I saw the intrigued expression on her face, and barely stopped myself from spilling the beans. They were, after all, my theoretical beans, not official beans, and either way not ready for spilling. But I could tell her something. “At least Nate was able to tell me who the woman was that Meghan found in the compost.”

  Her eyebrows rose, and she leaned forward. “Really? Who?”

  Yep, there’s something about being instrumental in finding the truth that hooks you into the rest of a murder investigation all right.

  “Her name was Darla Klick. She was an ornithologist, and it seems she specialized in birds of prey. Merlins, if Erin is right. Did you know her?”

  Bette looked the “duh” at me.

  “Oh. Right. You would have recognized the picture. You know, Jake Beagle seemed to remember her from a few years back, but couldn’t place her. I’m glad Nate was able to let us know who she was. Us and her family. He popped up to Arlington to let her parents know before his encounter with the mysterious bludgeoner.”

  She shook her head. “What the heck is going on out at that farm? It makes me want to stay away.”

  “Oh, no. Don’t do that. The Turners can’t afford to lose volunteers in the middle of the harvest season. This year could make or break that farm. But,” I held up my finger, “Barr suggested that we work in pairs, and we’re already scheduled to work together tomorrow. So I’ll pick you up in the morning. Unless you want to ride your bike?”

  “No, I’ll go with you,” she said absently.

  We both paused for a few moments, digesting all the weirdness.

  Finally, I said, “I’d better get going. Her parents are nervous, so Clarissa Turner is staying with us until things get sorted out at the farm—and Meghan has a client arriving soon.”

  She nodded. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got computer mockups of Barr’s mask.”

  It took me less than three minutes to walk home, but by the time I got there I was worried all over again. What if Nate died, and never had a chance to tell us who hit him? And what about Daphne? How much danger was she really in?

  Twenty

  I called the hospital when I got home, but they wouldn’t give me any information about Nate because I wasn’t family. They said I needed a code word, patient bill of rights, yada, yada, yada. Sheesh. It was a hospital, not a speakeasy.

  Meghan was busy with her last massage client for the day, the girls had given up on the television and were back in Erin’s room, and Barr wasn’t home yet. Likely he wouldn’t be much before dinner. When I tried calling him, he didn’t answer.

  We had a rule that if either of us was in the middle of something we didn’t have to answer. Of course, that worked for him a lot more than it did for me, but I sure didn’t want to mess up a stakeout or interrupt a suspect interview to ask my hubby to pick up some milk on the way home from work. And if we had a real emergency then we followed the first call with a second one right away.

  This wasn’t an emergency, not like that. I just wanted to know if Nate was still comatose. At least the hospital had confirmed that he’d been admitted to the ICU, so I knew he was still alive.

  Still, being in the ICU wasn’t a good sign. I looked at my watch. When Meghan’s client left I’d have enough time to run to Everett and back before dinner. Maybe someone could tell me something if I was standing right in front of them. Plus, I could check on Daphne.

  Pop music drifted down the hallway from Erin’s room, prompting me to see how things were going with the prepubescent trio. My young housemate sat in her desk chair with a towel draped around her shoulders. I immediately thought of Cyan’s purple locks and cast about the room for a telltale box of hair color. But her hair was dry, and as I watched, Clarissa fished a bobby pin out of a pile on the dresser. She tucked another of Erin’s curls into the updo and stood back to inspect her work, nodding to herself.

  I had to admit, it looked pretty cute. Perhaps Clarissa had a future in cosmetology. Heck, maybe she could do something with my unruly mop.

  Zoe lolled on the bed looking bored as all get out, Brodie at her feet. Seeing me in the doorway, she gestured toward the other two with her chin and rolled her eyes. I grinned. That didn’t appear to improve her disposition.

  “You guys need anything?” I asked.

  Murmurs in the negative assured me all was well for now, and I went downstairs to check in with Cyan and Kalie. They had finished labeling all those tiny lip balm tubes, a tedious task for young eyes that I’d learned to avoid. I asked them to pack up a small wholesale order while I made a dent in my growing pile of paperwork, and then I sent them home. A few minutes after four o’clock I shut down the computer and headed back upstairs.

  The door to Meghan’s office was open, and her client was gone. She stood next to the file cabinet, perusing a single sheet clipped into a file folder.

  “Is that Darla Klick’s file?”

  She closed it and put it on the top of the file cabinet. “Yes.” Terse.

  “Anything interesting?”

  “That’s confidential, Sophie Mae.”

  I just looked at her.

  It took about ten seconds to crack her. “I gave her two regular massages,” she said. “I noted how tense and nervous she seemed to be.”

  “Which is probably why she sought you out anyway,” I said. “Do you know how she heard of you?” Meghan didn’t advertise per se. After seven years as a massage therapist in a town the size of Cadyville, regular clientele and word-of-mouth garnered plenty of business.

  “I noted that, too. It was Dr. Beagle who recommended me.”

  “Huh. He did mention that he thought he’d seen her in a professional capacity when I showed him the photo Bette adjusted for us. But he couldn’t remember her name.”

  Meghan’s mouth pursed. “There was one other thing.”

  I waited.

  “She told me she was in her first trimester. I always ask new female clients of child-bearing age if they’re pregnant.”

  “Oh,” I breath
ed, leaning my tush against her desk. “Oh, my. I wonder if Jake knew?”

  “That really would be confidential, you know.”

  “Of course. And it was years ago. I wonder what happened to the child?”

  “Didn’t Sergeant Zahn talk to her parents? Did they say anything about a grandchild?”

  “Not that I know of. I’ll follow up with Barr tonight,” I said. “Right now I’m going over to the hospital to get an update on Nate. The girls are in Erin’s room.”

  “Zoe, too?”

  “Last I looked.”

  “Do they look like clowns painted up to go to the circus?” She dropped the file back into the cabinet.

  My eyes crinkled in a smile. “Not so much. But your daughter sure has a fancy hairdo now.”

  “Oh, God,” Meghan groaned. “Clarissa didn’t cut her hair, did she?”

  “Nah. You’ll like it. It’s pretty.”

  “We’ll see.”

  We went out to the entryway together.

  “How ’bout CSA soup tonight?” my housemate asked.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  One side of her mouth turned down. She paused. Licked her lips. “Um, about this morning.”

  “Isn’t that supposed to go, ‘About last night’?”

  “Okay, both.”

  I held up my hand. “You know, I was going to quiz you pretty hard when I saw Kelly stumble into the kitchen after you this morning, but darlin’ it’s really none of my business. It’s got to be hard enough living with another couple in the house without us asking you about your personal life. Besides, it’s not like I’m a prude.”

  She snorted. “I don’t have a personal life when it comes to you, Sophie Mae. Never have, and probably never will. Erin is the only reason I’ve been so careful about overnighters with Kelly. If it weren’t for worrying what she’d think, I’d move that man into this house lock, stock, and parabolic microphone.”

  “Erin’s got a pretty good head on her shoulders,” I ventured.

  “She does. But after all that mess with her father, his girlfriends, his crazy mother, and then him up and leaving the state altogether, I don’t want to do anything that could potentially hurt her.”

  “Of course not.” We’d been through a lot of growing pains with Erin. Her resilience was impressive. At one point she’d been quite jealous of Kelly; now she loved him to death. “Are you afraid you guys won’t last?” I asked.

  “Not at all. I’m pretty sure this is, you know, it. We’ve moved slowly—”

  “I’ll say.”

  “—and been pretty careful. We’ve talked about a lot of things to make sure we’re on the same page.”

  “So why don’t you guys get married?”

  Meghan stepped around her desk. “For one thing, he hasn’t asked me.”

  “But you’ve talked about it?”

  “We did for a while.”

  I grimaced. “Did he act like a scared bunny?”

  But she shook her head in the negative.

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, Megs!” I struggled to keep my voice low so the girls wouldn’t hear. “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “Uh.”

  Putting my hands on her shoulders, I gently shook her. “Do it. Be a real family.”

  She stared at me with a slightly dazed expression. “Oh, my God. Of course. It’s the only real solution.”

  I watched her wander out of her office toward the kitchen, no doubt already rehearsing in her mind. Good Lord. Meghan was one of the brightest bulbs I knew, but when it came to love she sometimes needed a seeing-eye dog.

  Arf.

  _____

  For once I didn’t get lost trying to find the hospital parking garage in Everett. Of course, it hadn’t been that long since I’d been there, and it was still daylight. But I did have to ask the nice gentleman at the information desk how to get to the ICU. An elevator ride and a few turns later, I spied Daphne sitting down the hall in a small lounge, her tall frame folded into a chunky, multi-colored chair. It wasn’t until I veered toward her that I spied the two older women in the chairs next to her. I didn’t know the one who wore the shapeless batik dress and sported thick gray dreadlocks. She held a cell phone to her ear with one hand and gesticulated with the other. But the woman sitting next to her was none other than Ruth Black, who had bullied Sergeant Zahn into letting her see Meghan’s grisly find.

  As I approached, Daphne looked up with a mixture of gratitude, relief, and weariness and lifted her hand in greeting.

  Ruth rose and met me at the entrance of the lounge. “Hello, dear.” She hugged me, smelling of cinnamon, rosewater, and hair gel. Her short white spikes glistened with it. Today she wore a pink, crocheted shell with a white cotton skirt and tennis shoes.

  “Hello, yourself,” I said. “You heard about Nate, then?”

  “From your husband, actually.”

  “Really? When did you see Barr?”

  A smile crinkled her crow’s feet, and she leaned forward, searching my face.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell if you’re glowing or not. I ran into your handsome man in the drugstore. He was buying one of those little kits. You know, the ones where you pee on a stick?”

  I gaped at her.

  Ruth patted my arm and whispered, “Don’t worry. I haven’t told anyone.”

  “Um, thank you,” I managed.

  Sheesh. Barr must be anxious indeed if he’d made that purchase himself. I reminded myself to take my temperature again when I got home.

  “Anyway, your hubby told me about poor Nate and that Daphne was watching and waiting here, so I thought I’d stop by and check on her while Uncle Thaddeus is playing poker over at the Senior Center,” Ruth said as we continued into the lounge.

  “Hey.” I sank onto the chair across from Daphne. “Any news? They wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone.”

  She shook her head. “He’s the same. The doctor says he’s stable, but there’s something funny in his eyes when he says it.”

  “There’s some pressure on Nate’s brain,” Ruth explained. “It’s quite worrisome.” She picked up a bundle of knitting from the seat of the chair to Daphne’s left and settled in, needles bobbing in and out of what appeared to be an elaborately patterned lace shawl.

  I reached out and squeezed Daphne’s arm. She nodded acknowledgment as the other woman ended her call. She shifted in her chair to look at me.

  “This is Nate’s mom, Faith Snow,” Daphne said. “And this is Sophie Mae Ambrose.”

  “Ms. Snow.” I nodded.

  She stuck out her hand. “Call me Faith. Any friend of Nate’s …

  well, you know. Sophie Mae … aren’t you the one who found him?” She looked to Daphne for confirmation.

  “I’m afraid so,” I said.

  “Well, I’m glad you did, because Nate might’ve died if you hadn’t.”

  Not knowing what to say to that, I didn’t say anything at all. But I’d already taken a liking to her. She seemed down-to-earth and practical. I wondered what she did for a living since the dream commune she and her friends started had been sold out to The Man.

  “And Nate’s dad …?” I ventured.

  “He’s working on a fishing boat in Alaska. I just spoke with him. He’ll be here tomorrow or the next day.”

  I licked my lips and tried to work out how to ask Faith about Darla Klick without coming across as an insensitive jerk. So far the information I’d gleaned about her was sketchy and even contradictory. Nate’s best friend for years, a nice girl who loved birds. Or, according to Allie, a troubled, promiscuous teen with substance abuse problems. There was a story, if only I could get at it. Was muckraking like that really necessary, though? Would knowing Darla’s story help find her killer?

  Well, it wouldn’t hurt.

  “Um,” I finally said. Brilliant.

  Faith and Daphne both looked at me expectantly. Ruth cocked her head to one side, and her hands slowed.

  I sc
ooted my chair forward, keeping my attention on Faith. “I was wondering if you’d mind telling me a little more about Nate and Darla. He mentioned that you used to live in a commune?”

  She smiled a sad smile. “It was such a great place—and a great way to raise kids. I still miss it. Nate told you it was on Camano Island?”

  “Mmm, hmm.”

  Daphne turned in her seat, as did Ruth. Faith had our attention.

  “We called it Happy Daze.” She gave a little snort and held up her hand. “I know, I know. Pretty silly. But we were young and goofy. It started as three couples who went to school together at Western University up in Bellingham. We were all dreamers, I guess, and we felt like we’d been born a decade too late. Then, on a field trip, we visited a Hutterite settlement in eastern Washington. That was it. We wanted to live in a similar community, working together, being self-sufficient, but without the heavy religious overtones.

  “Over the period of a few months, Nate’s father and I found a few other people on campus who liked the idea. We’d sit around and drink wine and talk about how it would be. Shared work, huge gardens, centralized kitchen, spreading the load, interconnected and living like a huge, warm family. A one-room school house, a little chapel on the hill. Our imaginations created quite the idyllic scene. When we learned of a piece of land for lease, off grid, we set out to make it happen.”

  “Was it all you imagined?” Ruth asked. In her lap her knitting needles moved with lightening speed.

  “Of course not. When you put people into any equation you get their weaknesses, too. There was conflict, certainly, and sometimes we had to ask people to leave. But there were central tenets we lived by, that we truly believed, and they created what structure we did have. Most people genuinely wanted to make it work, and God knows we were chock full of energy, if not wisdom. We made a lot of practical mistakes at first, simply because we didn’t know what we were doing. But we asked for advice and read books and worked things out for ourselves. We learned so much in the first few years. Good thing, too, because otherwise we would have starved.”

  I couldn’t help but raise my eyebrows at that.

  “Well,” Faith acquiesced. “Maybe we wouldn’t have starved, but we would have had to give up our dream. In some ways that would have been worse.”