No Farm, No Foul (Farmer's Daughter Mystery)

by Peg Cochran

  She gave a wry smile that suggested to Shelby that her fiancé had been the one to call it quits.

  “After that, I didn’t think I’d ever marry, but then Alan came along. He’s a natural-born salesman and back then he worked for a paint company. It meant he was away, traveling, quite a lot, but I actually didn’t mind. I’d been alone for so long I was used to it. And when he came home it was a . . . special time for us. Like a perpetual honeymoon.” She smiled.

  Shelby nodded.

  “Alan joined a different company about five years ago, but the job still entailed a good bit of traveling, so life went on pretty much as usual.” She paused and took another sip of her wine. “We attended church here in town, where Reverend Mather was the rector. That’s how I met Prudence.” Marcia shook her head. “She was always causing trouble—making accusations against people that weren’t true, stirring up bad feelings—that sort of thing.”

  “I heard that’s why the Mathers were moved to another church.”

  “Yes, that’s what I heard, too, and frankly it didn’t surprise anyone. We all felt sorry for Reverend Mather, of course—none of it was his fault. But I have to say Prudence’s last stunt really took the cake—even for her!”

  Shelby cocked her head. “What did she do?”

  “As you know, Prudence called me. I was surprised to hear from her—we certainly had never been close and hadn’t stayed in touch after she moved. I thought perhaps it had something to do with the church, but I soon found out the real reason.” She gave a bitter laugh. “She tried to tell me that my husband . . . Alan . . . is a bigamist. Can you imagine? The nerve of the woman!”

  Shelby nodded but kept quiet, and Marcia continued.

  “Prudence claimed that Alan was at her new church’s potluck with another woman—someone named Grace—who introduced Alan as her husband. I told her she was mistaken—Alan wasn’t usually in town on Sundays, so he didn’t attend church with me. Prudence had only met him the one time he’d picked me up from the Women’s Auxiliary luncheon. She insisted the man she’d met with this Grace was my Alan. I refused to listen to any more lies, and I hung up. I was furious with her. She’d really gone too far.”

  “Have you talked to your husband about this?”

  “No.” Marcia shook her head and glanced at her watch. “But he’s due home within the hour and of course I’ll tell him about it. We’ll both have a good laugh over it, I’m sure.”

  Shelby swallowed hard. Should she tell Marcia what she knew? Would Marcia even believe her? Perhaps it would be better to go to Frank with this information and let him deal with it.

  “I hope that answers your question,” Marcia said, beginning to get up. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I’d like to freshen up a bit before Alan gets here.” She patted her hair.

  Shelby thanked her and stood up to leave.

  Marcia walked Shelby to the door and stood there for a moment, watching, as Shelby got into her car. Shelby waved and slowly pulled away.

  She waited to turn out of the cul-de-sac onto the main road while a dark blue Buick made a right turn onto Marcia’s street. Shelby glanced at the driver. It was Alan Swanson and he was staring straight at her.

  As Shelby turned onto the highway, she wondered what Alan planned to say to Marcia. Marcia seemed willing to believe him—eager even. Obviously Prudence had cried wolf once too often—no one believed her anymore. If that was the case, Alan might get away with his double life.

  With Prudence conveniently dead, there would be no one to tell Grace the truth about her husband because there would be no one else who knew. Except herself, Shelby realized with a panicky start.

  She glanced in her rearview mirror. There was a dark blue car behind her. It was too close for her to determine the make. How long had it been there? Shelby’s palms suddenly felt slick against the steering wheel.

  If Alan had killed Prudence to keep her from telling anyone else about his double life, what was to prevent him from killing her? He seemed an intelligent man—he would have guessed why Shelby had been visiting Marcia.

  Panic seized Shelby. She looked in her mirror again, but the car was no longer there. She felt a moment of relief and then realized it was passing her. It went by too fast for her to see the driver.

  Was Alan heading to the farm to lie in wait for her return? Shelby was about to reach for her phone to dial Frank when a thought occurred to her—Liz Gardener had said she’d seen a woman go into the mudroom after Prudence. Alan couldn’t be the murderer. All the stress and tension of the last week was getting the better of her common sense.

  Shelby relaxed in her seat and switched on the radio. She had a weakness for cheesy pop songs and was happily singing along to one of them when another thought occurred to her. Liz Gardener often said that although she needed glasses, she was too vain to wear them all the time. She hadn’t been wearing any the day of the potluck. Could she have mistaken a man for a woman because of it?

  Panic welled up in Shelby again and she abruptly switched off the radio. What had sounded pleasant before was now stretching her nerves to the limit. She hit the gas pedal and the car jerked forward. She scrabbled in her handbag with her right hand and breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers closed around her cell. She flicked on her blinker, slowed down, and pulled over to the shoulder of the road. The sun was beginning to dip toward the horizon, and Shelby clicked on the car’s interior light.

  Her heart sank when she looked at her cell phone—there were no bars to speak of and the low-battery warning was on. Shelby tossed it back in her purse, turned out the overhead light, put on her left signal, and pulled back out onto the nearly empty road.

  She would head straight to the police station as soon as she reached Lovett.

  Shelby tried to quell her panic as she sped down the highway. It would abate slightly only to return with a vengeance, making her palms sweat and causing her to punch the accelerator aggressively. A few times she found herself drifting into the other lane without realizing it, and she prayed she would make it home in one piece.

  A never-ending dialogue was on a loop in her head—one minute she was convinced that Alan was on his way to her house and the next minute she had convinced herself that her imagination was running away from her.

  Would Alan hurt her children? The thought made Shelby sick to her stomach. Of course they weren’t alone—Bert was with them, but although she was as feisty as they came, Bert would hardly be a match for a strong, healthy man and determined killer.

  Shelby had never been so glad in her life to pass the sign stating LOVETT 5 MILES. She was almost there. She’d planned to head to the police station, but she had to make sure the children were okay. She couldn’t bear the anxiety another moment. Besides, would the police think her an overwrought woman and drag their feet about sending a car around?

  That decided, she made the left turn that would take her down the road leading to the farm. Mud created by the recent rain splattered up against her windshield as she flew down the road, her foot pressed to the gas pedal.

  Finally Love Blossom Farm was in sight. Shelby’s heartbeat sped up as she rocketed down the pockmarked driveway toward the back of the house.

  24

  Dear Reader,

  I think I may have opened a can of worms. Is it too late to swear off amateur detective work and concentrate on learning to knit? Unfortunately I am afraid the damage may already be done. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you will know that the killer is onto me.

  Shelby bolted from her car and headed toward the old farmhouse, her heart hammering in her chest. Everything looked normal from the outside—no unexpected cars in the driveway or strange faces peering out the window. Obviously she was overreacting. She was glad she hadn’t gone to the police station—she would have looked a fool.

  The back door was open, as Shelby had expected, and she let herself insid
e. The kitchen was empty and dimly lit by the light over the sink. The dishes were all done and the table wiped down. For a moment Shelby smiled and silently blessed Bert.

  Faint sounds drifted into the kitchen from the television in the living room, and music thumped overhead from one of Amelia’s favorite YouTube videos, which she’d already played at least a thousand times. Everything was as it should be, with nothing out of the ordinary. Shelby’s panic slowly began to subside, although a faint uneasiness remained. She tiptoed into the living room, half afraid she’d find Bert and the children tied to chairs and gagged, but Bert was snoring softly in the recliner, her knitting abandoned in her lap, and the children were obviously upstairs in their rooms. Jenkins was tucked in next to Bert on the chair, and Bitsy’s chin rested on her knee, leaving a spot of drool on her capris.

  Bert must have sensed Shelby standing there, because she woke with a snort. She pretended she hadn’t been asleep and Shelby pretended to believe her—a game they’d played many times before.

  “All’s quiet on the western front,” Bert said, snapping the recliner into position and levering herself out of it. She pointed toward the ceiling. “Except for that, of course.” Thumping bass notes from Amelia’s music drifted down the stairs to the living room.

  “Was everything okay?” Shelby asked, unable to rid herself of the unease that prickled her scalp.

  “Right as rain.” Bert squinted at Shelby. “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Shelby said hastily, shaking her head for emphasis.

  Bert clearly didn’t believe her, but Shelby was relieved when Bert let it drop with a grunt.

  “Guess I’ll be taking off, then.” Bert tucked her knitting into a patchwork cloth tote and made her way through the kitchen to the back door.

  “Thanks, Bert. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Don’t go getting all sentimental on me,” Bert admonished. “You’ll make me cry, and that will ruin my tough gal image.”

  Shelby laughed, closed the door behind Bert, leaned against it, and breathed a sigh of relief.

  She moved around the kitchen restlessly—there wasn’t anything left to do; Bert had taken care of everything. She drifted into the living room and turned on the television, but nothing held her attention. She was as jittery as someone hyped up on too much caffeine, and she hadn’t had so much as a cup of coffee since early that morning. Finally she decided she would work on her knitting and retrieved her needles, wool, and half-finished scarf from the basket next to the recliner.

  Dear Reader, whoever said knitting is calming must have been delusional. I have half a mind to chuck this project out the window.

  Shelby continued to dutifully struggle with her knitting—she couldn’t show up for the church knitting club not having made any progress at all. She held up the length of red scarf that descended from her needles. Could numerous holes from dropped stiches be considered progress? She was ready to stuff the whole thing back in the basket when she was startled by the sound of someone knocking on the front door.

  A knock on the door at any other time wouldn’t have fazed Shelby in the least, but tonight it froze her in her tracks. Who could be stopping by now at this late hour?

  Maybe Alan had been lying in wait and was now coming after her hoping to catch her off guard? The thought made Shelby’s stomach turn over. Her hands were trembling when she pushed aside the living room window curtain to peer outside.

  But instead of Alan’s dark blue Buick in the driveway as she had feared, it was Frank’s beat-up pickup truck.

  Shelby breathed a sigh of relief, unlocked the front door, and threw it open.

  Frank stepped over the threshold. “Sorry about my boots. I can take them off if you want.”

  Shelby glanced at his feet. “Are you kidding? The kids track in more dirt than you ever could.” She motioned toward a chair. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I don’t want to trouble you.”

  “It’s no bother. Iced tea?”

  “Sure.”

  Shelby left Frank in the living room and went to the kitchen for the tea. Why had he come? Did he have some news about the case?

  Shelby poured them each a glass of tea and carried both back to the living room.

  She handed Frank his glass and took a seat opposite him. He seemed nervous. Was there bad news?

  Frank downed his iced tea in one long gulp, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and put the empty glass down on the table.

  “I came by to make sure you were okay,” he said after looking at Shelby for a moment.

  Shelby ran a finger around the rim of her glass.

  Should she tell Frank that she thought Alan had been following her? Probably not—most likely she had been mistaken.

  Frank looked so like his brother sitting in the shadows by the television that for a second Shelby forgot he wasn’t Bill and almost got up to go to him. When she looked at Frank, there was a yearning look on his face that startled her.

  Frank tilted his head to one side. “You sure you’re okay? You seem sort of . . . tense.” He rolled his own shoulders as if he himself was tightly wound.

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  “If you’re sure . . .” He sighed, put his hands on his knees, and pushed himself out of the chair.

  He walked toward Shelby. She couldn’t move. She knew Frank wasn’t Bill, but she couldn’t stop the small leap of her heart as he came closer.

  He put a hand on her arm. “Shelby.”

  Shelby tried to find her voice but couldn’t.

  Frank sighed again. “I’d better go.”

  He pulled his keys from his pocket and paused at Shelby’s front door. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”

  Shelby nodded and watched Frank retreat through the open door. She had the feeling there was more to his parting words than even he realized.

  25

  Dear Reader,

  The fact that Frank looks so much like my Bill is playing havoc with my mind and heart. I know he’s not Bill, but I can’t help being drawn to him nonetheless. I know my future lies elsewhere—with Matt or Jake or someone I haven’t even met yet.

  Shelby stared at the closed door for several long minutes before collapsing in the recliner. What had just happened? Why was her heart beating so fast?

  The sound of Billy calling out in his sleep pulled her out of her reverie. She knew he was fine, but she decided to check on him anyway. Perhaps the sight of his childish sleeping face would chase away the other thoughts that were going around and around in her head.

  She tiptoed up the stairs, even though she knew both Billy and Amelia were sound sleepers. The old steps gave their usual creaks and groans and Shelby winced, but all remained quiet. The door to Billy’s room was cracked, and Shelby eased it open the rest of the way. The room was softly lit from the glow of the night-light her parents had sent him that cast stars and moons on the ceiling.

  He’d kicked off his covers and was clutching an old stuffed rabbit he’d had since he was a baby. Its fur was rubbed off in places, and it was missing both button eyes—Bert had applied some creative stitchery to make new ones in their place. Shelby reached out and smoothed a lock of blond hair off Billy’s forehead before tiptoeing out.

  There was no music coming from Amelia’s room, but the strip of light beneath her closed bedroom door meant she was still up. Shelby had a vision of how Amelia looked sleeping when she was younger—spread out like a starfish, the blond curls around her forehead always a little damp with perspiration. Shelby started to raise her fist to knock but then dropped her arm to her side again. She’d let Amelia sleep on things first before tackling her in the morning.

  Shelby went back to the living room and picked up a seed catalogue she’d been meaning to look through, but her earlier feelings of unrest returned. She flipped the pages with
out really seeing them and finally tossed the catalogue back on the ever-growing pile of unread magazines and old newspapers. Finally she decided she might as well go to bed herself—she would be up with the chickens, literally.

  Shelby checked the front door to make sure it was locked, then went around to the back door and did the same. Not that the locks would provide much security if someone tried to break in—the house was as full of holes as a piece of Swiss cheese. It would be easy enough to cut a screen on one of the open windows or pry apart the doors to the cellar and find the way inside.

  Shelby walked down the hall and glanced at the open windows in the living room. A deliciously cool evening breeze was wafting in and, along with it, the scent of the lilacs planted alongside the house. Shelby hesitated for a moment, then went over and slammed them shut. Even though she doubted she and the children were in any real danger, she wasn’t taking any chances. The feeling of unease that had started when she saw Alan’s car was still with her, hovering around the edges of her consciousness.

  Shelby climbed the stairs to the second floor with Bitsy and Jenkins following close behind. The air was stuffier the higher she climbed, especially with the children’s bedroom doors closed. Shelby left hers open, hoping to encourage some air circulation. Her own windows were wide-open, and the lace curtains billowed in the breeze like a blowhard puffing out his cheeks.

  A four-poster bed dominated the room—it had been Shelby’s grandparents’, then her parents’, and finally hers and Bill’s. And now it was just hers, and it seemed so vast and lonely. She gave a mental shake, reminded herself that self-pity was horribly unattractive, and gave herself orders to lose it.

  Shelby washed her face, brushed her teeth, and slipped into an oversize T-shirt—gone were the days when she would go online to order pretty nightgowns from JCPenney. She slipped into bed, threw back the light summer blanket she kept on the bed for those occasional cool summer evenings, and pulled the sheet up to her chin.