Rhubarb Pie Before You Die

by Gin Jones

On their way back through the greenhouses to leave, they passed the metal file cabinet holding Graham’s notebooks. Given what Terry had said about how valuable his records might be to a breeder, and Sandy’s obvious covetousness of the data in them, Mabel decided to pack them up and bring them to someone for safekeeping. Terry offered her the use of his backpack and ran back to the car to get it.

  After it was filled with Graham’s notebooks and they were heading back to the car, they found Lena Shaw waiting for them on the sidewalk at the edge of the driveway with her arms crossed over her chest and one foot tapping the concrete impatiently. Mabel sent Terry on ahead to the car. Bosses were supposed to cushion their employees from having to deal with annoying people like Lena, after all. That kind of protection was one of the main reasons why Mabel continued to work for Phil Reed instead of going freelance, and she owed the same consideration to her own employee.

  “Who is he?” Lena demanded with a glare at the departing young man.

  “His name is Terry Earley,” Mabel said. “He works for me, and he’ll be helping take care of the rhubarb. Just until everything gets settled with the estate, as we discussed.”

  “You didn’t tell me about strangers coming onto the property and taking things out of the greenhouse,” Lena said. “I can’t do my job if I don’t know all the details. You’d been in there for long enough today that I thought something might have happened to you. Especially in light of Graham’s death.”

  “I’m fine.” Mabel wanted to ask Lena if she didn’t have anything better to do with her life than to spy on her neighbors. Or perhaps to ask how it was, given how much Lena apparently knew about Graham’s daily routine, she hadn’t caught a glimpse of his killer either arriving or leaving. Pointed questions would only upset the woman though, and Mabel needed her goodwill or the police would rescind their permission for her to visit the greenhouses to take care of the plants. She settled for saying, “It’s good to know someone’s keeping a close eye on the property while it’s unoccupied.” She truly was grateful for that, especially after the incident with the fire in her wheelbarrow. If anyone tried to damage Graham’s property, Lena would notice before everything was destroyed.

  “Someone has to do it,” Lena said primly.

  “Did you happen to see the woman who was here with me yesterday?”

  “The professor, you mean?”

  Mabel nodded.

  “Oh, yes. She used to come here all the time, and I almost had to call the police on her more than once.”

  Mabel might have been more impressed with Sandy’s apparent bad behavior if it weren’t for Lena’s obvious intolerance for even small infractions like brief on-street parking when there was no significant traffic to be hindered. “Why would the police need to be called?”

  Lena glanced around, as if her neighbors were as nosy as she was and might be eavesdropping. Confident no one could hear her, she said, “Sandy is a drunk, and not a happy one, from what I saw. I thought she might get violent.”

  “It’s hard to imagine Sandy being much of a threat.” She had a motive for murder, but she was so tiny, and Graham had been such a large man. If his size alone hadn’t been enough to ward off an attack, he’d kept a deadly knife within easy reach. The whole idea seemed like the desperate imaginations of someone who wanted to throw suspicion on someone other than herself.

  Lena sniffed. “It’s not up to me to decide things like that. I just report incidents to the police and let them settle it.”

  “What did you report Sandy for, exactly?”

  “Most of the time Sandy’s and Graham’s fights ended after the first heated words, so I never actually called the police,” Lena said. “The closest I came was about a month ago when Sandy was drunker than I’d ever seen her before. She was furious about something, and I heard her shouting that Graham would be sorry.”

  Mabel wondered where Lena had been that she’d been able to hear the exact words. And whether it had been as bad as Lena claimed, given her tendency to see minor infractions as major crimes. Without any police report, it was hard to judge whether Lena was making the incident up or not. “If it was that bad, why didn’t you call the police?”

  “I should have, but Graham saw me, and he managed to calm her down.” Lena frowned. “I really should have called it in anyway. Maybe Graham would still be alive if I had made the police aware of just how dangerous Sandy could be.”

  Lena didn’t sound terribly regretful, but maybe she was just hiding it well. Mabel always had trouble reading people. She wished she hadn’t sent Terry away. He might have been able to interpret the woman’s facial expression for her.

  “It’s hard to believe someone as responsible as you are would let it drop completely.” Mabel remembered what she’d read in Graham’s journal, where he’d described Lena and the mayor as a couple. “I’m sure you did your duty and let someone know. The mayor perhaps? Did you tell him about how dangerous Sandy was? He might have been able to do something about it. I understand you two are good friends.”

  Lena snorted genteelly, and Mabel had no problem reading her disdain. “The mayor is useless. I’m sorry I ever backed his candidacy. I had such high hopes for him in the beginning. He hates the blighted spots in his town as much as I do.” She glanced pointedly at Graham’s run-down property and the vehicles crammed into the driveway. “But he wouldn’t actually do anything about it. Just about anyone else would have been more proactive.”

  “Are you planning to run against him in the next election?”

  “Me?” Lena assumed a startled expression that seemed obviously fake even to Mabel. “I never even thought of such a thing. Although, now that you mention it …” She stopped and looked away for a moment before her head gave an emphatic shake. “No, no, I couldn’t. I have far too much to do already.”

  Mabel needed to keep Lena from interfering with the visits to maintain the rhubarb plants, so now was not the time to comment on the woman’s obvious insincerity. And Emily had been giving Mabel hints on how to find something positive to say about almost anyone. “You’re very detail-oriented. I think you’d do a good job as mayor.”

  “That’s the problem—anyone who’s got the skills to do a good job as mayor knows better than to take it on. Done right, it’s too much work for too little reward.” Lena sighed. “It’s terribly frustrating, but Danny’s probably the best of the folks who are actually willing to do the job. I just wish he cared more about the actual work than the title and prestige.”

  Lena looked like she could go on at length about the mayor’s shortcomings, so Mabel was relieved when Terry called from the corner that he really needed to get back to school to do some studying.

  Mabel excused herself, and hurried toward her Mini Cooper, only then realizing she was going to be at least a few minutes late for her meeting with Betty Comstock, the jam-maker. Mabel’s inability to keep track of time was another reason why she really needed to get back to her day job. She’d always been better working in a virtual world than one that involved interacting with people face-to-face.

  * * * *

  Mabel was fifteen minutes late by the time she dropped off Terry and then returned to the farm, but Betty had waited. An old but well-maintained, bright-yellow hatchback was parked in front of the barn, and a woman was sitting at the outdoor table on the patio outside the farmhouse’s back door. Mabel was a little surprised her visitor hadn’t simply gone inside. According to Emily, Betty had been a friend of Aunt Peggy, and it seemed as if all her friends had routinely made themselves at home when she’d been alive. Some, like Rory and Emily, still did.

  Mabel hurried over, apologizing as she went. “I’m so sorry. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “Not a problem at all.” Betty stood up. She was short and round, and in her fifties. She wore a red jersey dress with a ruffled gingham apron the same sunny color as her car, and she held a canvas b
ag with yellow handles, and Sweet Betty Jams printed on it in bright red. “It’s so peaceful here, and I just love Peggy’s fountain. I’m sorry I couldn’t be here for the memorial event.”

  “Thank you.” Mabel had had the pineapple-shaped fountain installed in her aunt’s memory, along with a small herb garden at its base. “My cat likes watching the birds who drink from it.”

  “That’s right,” Betty said with a laugh. “I heard you’d adopted a cat from the shelter. And that you’ve taken in a pregnant barn cat.”

  “I have.”

  “I wish I could take some of the babies, but my house is full up. I’ll let you know if I hear of anyone else who needs a kitten though.” Betty handed over the bag, which on inspection held three small jelly jars.

  “Thanks,” Mabel said. “What do I owe you for this?”

  Betty waved her hand dismissively. “It’s the least I can do for Peggy’s niece. Although I would love to see the pregnant cat.”

  “She is upstairs.” Mabel led the way to the kitchen door. “Come on inside.”

  “Have you ever dealt with a pregnant queen before?”

  “Not even a pregnant peasant.” Mabel left the jam bag on the kitchen table and showed Betty up the stairs with Pixie following, presumably hoping to slip inside the bedroom to check out the new member of the household.

  “I used to breed Maine coon cats, so feel free to call me if you have any questions.”

  Mabel opened the door to her aunt’s bedroom and stepped aside to let her guest through while also blocking Pixie from joining them. She followed Betty inside and closed the door just a whisker’s breadth away from Pixie’s disappointed face.

  “I thought pregnant cats knew what to do on their own.” That was what the animal shelter guy had told her.

  “Most of the time they do.” Betty tiptoed into the room and sidled up to the crate. “Oh, my. She looks like she’s going to pop any day now.”

  Mabel followed her gaze. Billie Jean didn’t look much different than she had the day she’d arrived. Having made major inroads into the kibble bowl again, she was curled in a ball in the far corner, glaring and occasionally hissing.

  “How can you tell?”

  “It’s just instinct, after all the kittens I’ve seen born,” Betty said. “You’ll know the queen’s getting ready for labor when she stops eating and acts restless. She’s not quite there yet, judging by how still she’s sitting. We should probably leave her alone now. She doesn’t need any stress and she needs all the rest she can get. She’s not going to get much sleep after the kittens arrive, and it looks like she won’t sleep while we’re here.”

  Mabel quickly topped off the kibble bowl again and then followed Betty downstairs with Pixie trailing behind.

  Once they were back in the kitchen, Betty pointed at the canvas bag on the table. “You’ve got to try the jam and tell me what you think. Rory said you’d never had rhubarb before, and I love seeing how people react to their first taste.”

  Mabel emptied the bag, laying out the three tiny half-cup glass jars and a small box of animal crackers.

  “They’re for dipping into the jam,” Betty explained.

  The jars had custom-printed red-and-yellow labels. One jam was all rhubarb, and the other two combined rhubarb with berries.

  “Rhubarb-strawberry is traditional, and I’m partial to the blueberry one,” Betty said. “But you should try the plain one first, if you want to get a real taste of rhubarb.”

  Mabel hesitated. The stewed rhubarb she remembered from her visits to her aunt really hadn’t been appetizing at all. What if she hated the jam and gagged or couldn’t hide her expression of distaste? People sometimes took unimportant things like food preferences too personally, and Betty seemed almost as obsessed with her jams as Graham had been with his rhubarb.

  “Why don’t I get us some iced tea to cleanse the palate first?” Mabel said, not waiting for a response before claiming the pitcher from the refrigerator. She poured two glasses and handed one to Betty. Maybe she’d be too busy drinking to see Mabel’s reaction to the jam.

  Mabel dipped an animal cracker—a giraffe—into the plain rhubarb jam and cautiously raised it to her tongue. It was tart, but not face-twistingly so, and had a nice hint of lemon. She knew rhubarb was sour, so the jam had obviously been sweetened, but the sugar didn’t dominate the fruity flavor.

  Mabel swallowed and dug in the box of animal crackers for another one. “This is good.”

  “You don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings,” Betty said. “Rhubarb isn’t to everyone’s taste.”

  “No, I mean it.” Mabel opened the jar with the strawberry mix and sacrificed a tiger to it. “Mmm, this is good too.” She tried the blueberry one next. “I don’t know which one I like best.”

  “That’s how I feel about all my jams,” Betty said, blushing happily.

  “Where do you get your fruit? Do you grow it yourself?”

  “I have deals with local berry growers to buy some of their crops, but I grow my own rhubarb. At least I have until now. Demand is rising, and I may not be able to keep up with it. I don’t have a farm, just a small yard.” Betty took a sip of her iced tea. “This is really good.”

  “Thanks. It’s my only claim to fame in the kitchen.” Mabel stuck a bear-shaped cracker into the plain rhubarb jar. “Did you ever consider buying some of Graham’s rhubarb?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “I asked him once if he had any for sale, but he was a difficult person, as I’m sure you know. I thought he’d appreciate having another market, and since I live near him and wouldn’t mind picking it up, we’d both benefit by not having to pay for shipping.”

  “Relying on local food sources is good for everyone,” Mabel said, parroting Rory’s pitch for joining the CSA.

  “Exactly,” Betty said. “But you’d have thought I was asking Graham to sell me his children or something. He chased me off the property—literally! The woman who lives next door to him told me later that she’d been so worried for me, she almost called the police.”

  “Lena does like chatting with cops,” Mabel said. “But why was Graham so upset about the prospect of selling his crop? Did he tell you?”

  “He did, although it didn’t make any sense. He said I was a mole, and at first I thought he was hallucinating and thought I was a giant, talking version of a garden pest. But then he went on to rant about how Sandy Faitakis at the university was desperate to get samples of his plants so she could clone them and take all the credit for his breakthrough work. He seemed to think I was there to get some stalks for her to analyze by pretending to want them for my jam.”

  “What was the breakthrough he was so worried about protecting?”

  “That’s the thing that really doesn’t make sense. I don’t know what he was so worried about protecting. And it’s not like someone couldn’t have broken into his greenhouse and stolen a few tissue samples if they’d wanted to. No need to come up with an elaborate story.”

  Mabel wondered if there was something in Graham’s journal about his supposed breakthroughs. And if the information was in there, would she even recognize it or dismiss it as gibberish like most of the other entries?

  “I’m thinking about starting a rhubarb field if I can buy some of Graham’s seedlings,” Mabel said. “Let me know if you’re still looking for a supplier next year.”

  “It’ll take more than a year before you’ll have a harvest,” Betty said. “More like two years from next spring when you plant them. But I’d definitely be interested in buying locally, so let me know what you decide.”

  That was encouraging. Mabel still hoped she wouldn’t still be in West Slocum in two years or whenever the rhubarb was ready for harvest, but surely having an additional field planted, along with a local buyer lined up for some of the crop, would appeal to anyone interested in buying a small farm.

/>   Mabel took two more tastes of the jam—one each of the strawberry and blueberry versions, so she could compare them all again—and decided to redouble her efforts to get Rob Robinson to sell some of the rhubarb plants to her. Even if he sold the most valuable, newly developed plants to Sandy, the greenhouse would still have a large number of more standard varieties of no particular interest for research, and they would be adequate for the farm.

  Mabel licked the last bit of jam from her lips and decided she wasn’t just going to plant a field here on Stinkin’ Stuff Farm; she was going to bring some plants back to Maine with her and Pixie.

  Chapter 17

  After Betty left, Pixie yowled to announce yet another visitor. Mabel tossed her a treat before going outside to see who it was.

  Sandy Faitakis was getting out of her black sedan, and without any introductory pleasantries, shouted, “You’re messing with things you don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Graham’s greenhouse.” Sandy stomped across the driveway. “I was just there to check on my plants, and that nosy neighbor woman made me leave. She said you were the designated caretaker, and she was going to call the cops if I didn’t leave.”

  “She’s a bit trigger-happy with her phone.”

  “Well, you’ve got to tell her to let me inside the greenhouse.”

  “Why?” Mabel asked. “I talked to Graham’s brother-in-law, who’s apparently in charge of the estate, and he gave me permission to keep the plants alive. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Of course I want to keep them alive,” Sandy said. “But I should be the one doing it.”

  For a scientist, Sandy wasn’t being very logical. Mabel wondered if the woman was drunk. It fit with the aggression and irrationality. Of course, it could also be explained by desperation to get her hands on Graham’s journals. Sandy couldn’t say that was what she wanted, so she was making nonsensical excuses.

  “Why would you want to take on extra work?” Mabel asked. “Don’t you have a full-time job? Plus your breeding work? It’s quiet here at the farm right now, so I have some free time.”