A Late Frost

by Sheila Connolly

  “Whatever is lurking in the freezer, I guess. I suppose I could bake a cake. That’s much more interesting than compiling financial statements.”

  “I’ve got to replace some of the supplies I’ve used up lately, and I want to look at tools, so I’m headed out for the box stores. I should be back by the time Larry gets here.”

  After Seth had left, Meg’s search of the freezer yielded the bare requirements for spaghetti sauce, but she suspected that Larry wouldn’t complain. She pulled out a package of sausage to let it thaw, and found canned tomatoes and a couple of onions, and set to chopping. An hour later a large pot was simmering on the back of the stove, and she had to face the dreaded financial summaries: no more excuses. It was hard to believe that she had formerly been a competent financial analyst for a major Boston bank, given her reluctance now. Maybe that was because she was afraid of what she might find. She knew there was money in the bank, and the crop had been fairly good. She and Bree had identified some new outlets for her apples with local farmers’ markets, and there was always a steady demand at Gran’s, although she tried to keep the prices low for them since their business was still fairly new. But the looming question remained: would she break even for the past year? Would there be a respectable profit that would let her invest in a new wellhead and irrigation system or a new tractor—or, by some miracle, both? Only one way to find out, Meg.

  After two hours with her computer, with invoices and estimates and charges and bank statements spread all over the dining room table (which seemed to have become their permanent home), Meg was feeling much better. At least her gut estimate of the state of the business had not been far off, and while she wasn’t going to get rich from the orchard, she could at least cover the expenses for both the business and for herself. An income! It had been a while since she’d seen that.

  She and Seth hadn’t really talked a lot about how they would pool expenses. They each had a business, and kept the accounting separate for those. The house had been paid for—for a couple of centuries!—but there were still ongoing expenses like utilities and taxes and maintenance. They had to eat, and pay for health insurance. They each had middle-aged cars that required upkeep and gas and would have to be replaced eventually. And Meg couldn’t remember the last time she had bought clothes—her mother had given her a wedding outfit. So she and Seth were getting by, but a lavish lifestyle was out of their reach. Their brief honeymoon would have to do as a vacation for a while.

  But Meg refused to play the Little Wifey and depend on Seth for financial support. They were going to be equal partners in this marriage thing. At least, that was the plan.

  Meg had tidied up the dining room table and made a neat stack of her documents, and was stirring the sauce when Larry came up to the back door. Meg let him in. “Have I given you a key yet? You should have one. We might ask you to feed the animals now and then, or something like that.”

  “Okay, sure—that’d be good.” Larry lapsed into silence again. What would it take to make him relax and open up, at least a little? Meg wondered.

  “Why don’t we go sit in the dining room?” she suggested. “This is only my third season with the orchard, and I’d like to hear your ideas about what we could do to improve yield. I’ve got the numbers together.”

  “Sure. Lead the way.”

  Larry followed Meg into the dining room, where they sat down and spent a productive hour reviewing the status quo, even though Larry hadn’t seen the orchard when it was bearing, and then he had moved on to suggestions for a number of changes. Meg listened, and as he talked, her respect for his expertise grew. It was clear that he’d given the matter some serious thought, and he suggested a few things Meg hadn’t even heard about. When he slowed down, Meg said, “Can you map out something like a five-year plan? This is a lot for me to take in all at once, and I don’t yet know how much we could tackle this year, but if I could see how it lays out over several years I’d appreciate it. Oh, and figure out if our current picking crew will be adequate or if we need to look for more.”

  “You’ve been working with the same guys for a while now, right?”

  “Yes, and they’ve been great. What matters to me is that they take pride in their work. They know we’re all in this together. So I’d like to keep them together, if it makes sense.”

  “Sure, no problem. I don’t think you’d need to change much, not more than one or two people, up or down. You’ve been selling to a pretty limited group—the restaurant, a couple of small markets around here. You think about expanding? Cider? Jellies?”

  Meg laughed. “So far I’ve been lucky to stay afloat doing only what needs to be done. I’m not into cooking, certainly not in large amounts, and I think I’d need an officially approved kitchen. I could see a cider operation somewhere down the line, but I don’t know what’s required in the way of machinery or regulations. Let’s see how things work out this year, and we can talk again after the crop is in.”

  Seth came in, brushing a scattering of snow off his jacket. “Hey, Larry. Glad you could make it.”

  “Hey, Mr. Chapin. Meg said there was something you wanted to talk about?”

  “Call me Seth, please. Let’s wait and do it over dinner. I guarantee you it won’t spoil your appetite.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Larry said, giving Meg one of his rare smiles.

  15

  After they were seated around the kitchen table with steaming bowls of pasta and sauce, grated Parmesan on the side, Meg asked Larry, “Maybe we talked about it before, but I’m not sure where you’re living now. I think I mentioned a couple of options. You have any new plans?”

  Larry chewed a large forkful of pasta vigorously before answering. “I’m crashing with friends for now. It’s hard to find an apartment this time of year, much easier for the summer, once the students leave. And if you get your foot in the door, you might get to keep the place past the summer. No big deal.”

  Seth spoke up. “Larry, I think Meg mentioned the idea of using the foundation for the old chicken coop to build a tiny house the first time you were here. I’ve been looking around online, and I kind of like the thought of building one—at the very least it would be good advertising for my business, although only the foundation and some of the framing would be old, so no renovation angle—unless I re-create a nineteenth-century chicken coop just for show, which probably isn’t worth the effort. Anyway, I measured what’s there, and I think it would come out to be about five hundred square feet. Not large, but enough for one person, or for short-term use.”

  “You want me to live there?” Larry asked, staring at his spaghetti.

  “No obligation, Larry,” Seth said. “I just wondered if you’d be interested. You can certainly say no if you want—it’s not a kind of space for everyone. Or you could wait and see how it turns out before you make up your mind. How’re your construction skills?”

  “I can handle a hammer and a drill. I’ve done my share of repairs and stuff, but nothing fancy, and never from scratch. Why’re you so interested in this, uh, Seth?”

  “Mainly because he’s looking for a distraction before his own business picks up in the spring,” Meg said quickly. “You heard about Monica Whitman’s death?”

  “The lady who died after the fair on Saturday? Yeah, people in Amherst were talking about it. Something fishy about it?”

  “Kind of,” Seth told him. “It looks like she was murdered. Poisoned.”

  Larry stared blankly at Seth, then Meg. Finally he said, “That’s too bad. Who did it?”

  “Nobody knows yet. She hadn’t lived around here too long, so nobody had a chance to get to know her. As the saying goes, the police are baffled.”

  Larry nodded. “And you want something to keep you busy so you don’t have to worry about it?”

  Meg leaned over and put her hand on Seth’s. “You know, we never told him about, you know, the other deaths.”<
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  Larry looked from one to the other of them again, confused. “You serial killers or something?”

  Seth and Meg exchanged a smile at that comment. “No, but we’ve been involved in helping the police with some local crimes,” Seth told him. “The town police chief, Art Preston, is an old friend of mine, and he was in our wedding. But it’s the state police who handle homicides. We just fill in the gaps about the more personal aspects of Granford and its citizens.”

  “Huh,” Larry said, apparently digesting that information. “But you said nobody really knew this Monica person? So you can’t help, can you?”

  “True. Mostly we serve as a sounding board for Art to bounce ideas off. So far nobody’s come up with a suspect.”

  “You said she was poisoned?” Larry asked.

  “That’s what the medical examiner says,” Meg told him. “But nobody knows which poison yet. A few other people who were at the fair got sick, but they’ve all pretty much recovered, so we don’t think that was the same thing.”

  “Wow. You never know what’s going to happen, do you? So, Seth, you got a concept for this tiny house thing? All one big room? Or divided up?” Apparently Larry had lost interest in the murder, Meg thought. But he was showing some enthusiasm for Seth’s idea.

  “I can show you some floor plans after supper if you want. You can go either way, structurally, but most people want a little privacy for bathrooms and such.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense.”

  Meg watched as the guys lapsed into guy-speak, about tools and materials and layouts. Larry was more animated than she’d seen him before. He hadn’t committed to actually living in the space, but since that space existed only in Seth’s head, and maybe on a few sheets of paper, that wasn’t a problem. She realized that she hadn’t said if she would charge Larry for living there, but she didn’t mind giving him five hundred square feet—with his own kitchen and bath—rent free. And maybe Seth could write off the construction costs as a business expense if he used it as a showcase for his skills. She was pretty sure the space wouldn’t go to waste, whatever they did with it. Maybe she could get a loom and start weaving goat-hair scarves . . . With a jerk, she realized she was nodding off.

  “There’s cake, if anybody’s interested,” she said, standing up. “Coffee with it?”

  “Cake sounds good,” Larry said. Seth nodded agreement.

  “Coming up.” Moving around the kitchen helped keep her awake as she distributed apple cake and coffee. But her energy started flagging after another half hour, and Seth noticed.

  “Maybe we should call it a night. You want to come back by daylight, Larry, and we can take some measurements?”

  “Sure, that sounds good. Thank you for inviting me, Meg. I’ve got some ideas about increasing yield per tree that we didn’t get around to discussing, but I can show you tomorrow. Ten okay, Seth?”

  “Sure. See you then.”

  Side by side, Meg and Seth washed up and were in bed by ten thirty.

  • • •

  The next morning, pets fed and Max walked, Meg and Seth were enjoying a second cup of coffee in the kitchen when Christopher knocked at the back door and let himself in. “Would you happen to have any more of that?” he asked, nodding toward the coffee cups.

  “Always,” Meg said, smiling. “It’s good to see you. Did you come looking for coffee, or did you want to talk to one or the other of us?”

  “A bit of both, perhaps. I’m on my way to work, but I wanted to see how you and young Larry are getting along.”

  Meg handed him a mug of coffee. “We’re still getting to know each other, but he seems to know his stuff as far as the orchard goes. I don’t see any problems, at least not yet. Do you have any reason to be worried?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. He’s a good boy—man, I guess I should say. He’s well into his twenties. What he might lack in scientific expertise he more than makes up for in hands-on experience. Both are necessary in agricultural pursuits.” He accepted the mug of coffee that Meg handed him.

  “I agree, from what I’ve seen, but you’re the expert. Speaking of experts, I may be in the market for a new irrigation system if the numbers work out. What should I be looking at, and how much should I have to spend for it?”

  They spent a few minutes discussing the pros and cons of various commercial systems intended for small farms, and Meg was beginning to think it might, just might, be in the range of possible. “When would I need to decide? I mean, to get it set up for this growing season?”

  “You’d have to wait until the ground thaws, but I’d start talking to vendors now,” Christopher said. “With the unusual weather patterns of the past few years, people are increasingly concerned about managing their water. You’re lucky that you have that well. Have you had the water tested?”

  “Uh, no? I didn’t know I needed to. Actually I’ve only used it the once, I guess—it hasn’t been necessary. What am I testing for?”

  “I won’t trouble you with the menu of chemicals, both natural and man-made, that you might find. And you need to assess your water pressure as well, in choosing the right system for you. You can ask Larry to follow up on that.”

  “I had the water tested at the family house a few years ago,” Seth told Christopher. “I can’t swear that we share the same aquifer here, but that test came up pretty clean. There’s never been anything but farming in this neighborhood.”

  “I’m glad to know that, Seth. In any case, Meg, I’ll send you a list of people you should talk to. And take Larry along—if he doesn’t have this information, he should, and he can learn something.”

  “Thank you. You and Lydia didn’t go to the WinterFare this weekend, did you?”

  “Lydia was not in the mood for socializing, so we spent a quiet day together.”

  “But you heard about what happened?”

  “The death of Monica Whitman? Of course. News travels fast around here.”

  “That it does,” Seth said.

  “Do the authorities have any, uh, leads?” Christopher asked. “If that’s the correct term in this country.”

  “Not yet. Or not that they’ve shared,” Seth told him.

  “How very sad,” Christopher said, almost to himself. “It seems that the poor woman declined quite rapidly.”

  “That’s true,” Seth said. She got sick on Saturday night and passed away Sunday. I’ve heard that organ failure was the cause, due to an as yet undetermined poison.”

  “That was rather abrupt, if she consumed something toxic at the fair. It suggests it might have been ingested earlier.”

  Seth shrugged. “We don’t know. The forensic people are still looking for the cause. Do you know about her husband?”

  “I’ve heard nothing. What should I know?”

  “I met him on Sunday,” Meg said, “and I wondered if he’s suffering from some form of dementia. He was definitely acting strange, and thought his wife was out on an errand and would be back any minute. And the house was a mess—rotting food all over the place.”

  “Might that have been the source of her illness?” Christopher asked.

  “We don’t know, but you can be sure the state police are looking at that. If there’s anything left of it—I made the mistake of washing the dishes. Nobody said it was a crime scene before I started, but when the state police arrived it was too late to do anything about it. Except for the trash.”

  “So you, my dear, are once again under the magnifying glass. You do seem to have an attraction for problems of this nature.”

  “Tell me about it,” Meg said with a rueful smile. “You’d think we would have been safe from it, on a honeymoon in a different state, but nooo . . . Christopher, I do have one question, and you’re about the only senior scientist I know. From what little I’ve heard and read, this sounded like typical stomach flu, which would be an illness, or ga
stroenteritis, which could have any number of causes, or even norovirus. That would account for the worst of the symptoms—the nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. But the rapid organ failure doesn’t fit. Does it?”

  “It does seem rather abrupt, although there are exceptions to almost every rule. We don’t know anything about her medical history, do we?”

  “Not the last time I talked to anyone. I’m not even sure what town the Whitmans came from, although I’m sure the police will figure that out. You’re not thinking drug allergy or something like that, are you?”

  “I think not, Meg. If I may set foot on your turf, so to speak, once again we find ourselves confronted with the basic elements of a crime: means, motive, and opportunity. We also find ourselves with only the shakiest of suggestions for any of those. Perhaps the opportunity is the strongest. Mrs. Whitman attended the WinterFare and was deeply involved with planning and execution. She would no doubt have felt it her duty to taste everything that was presented. Therefore there were multiple opportunities for someone to have slipped something into an item she was going to eat, then or later. That person had only to either sell it to her directly, or follow her about and slip it into or onto what she was intending to consume.”

  “Okay,” Meg said cautiously. “Assuming, of course, that the poisonous substance would not be obvious if applied externally. I’m less convinced that someone could have injected a food product with so many people watching.”

  “A valid point. Next, let us move on to means. How was she killed? With a quick-acting poison—assuming your fears about the bacteria circus at her house are unfounded—that attacked the digestive system and, slightly later, the liver and kidneys, and that acted rapidly once it was established. Will you accept that hypothesis?”

  “We have to, don’t we?” Seth asked. “I mean, she wasn’t electrocuted, she wasn’t shot or stabbed or strangled. She wasn’t drowned. She didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. There were no physical marks on her body, or so Art led me to believe. So we have to go with poison. But which one?”