by Diana Saco
I wasn’t exactly cloistering myself away in some attic room hunched over a dusty typewriter. But I was generally uptight about writing, as if my life depended on it. It annoyed me that Chloe picked up on that so quickly. We had only talked a couple of times. I suspected Aunt Dottie was feeding her intel. So much for Bruno’s claim that Dottie could keep secrets. You big liar. I would have been really mad if Dottie had been talking to anyone other than Chloe. That thought stopped me cold. It suddenly hit me that I was developing a tiny crush on our prime suspect. That would not look good on our company About page.
I smirked as I reached for my writing pad and a pen. I mentally reviewed my latest project notes. All I had so far was a title, a topic, and some character profiles. My plan was to write a book that said something meaningful. Really famous books were thick with meaning. They had a message. More than that, they had gravitas. They were weighty, dignified, sober—in short, serious drama. Could I do that? I was seldom serious, and I got annoyed quickly by people with too much drama. I decided gravitas was not really my style.
I had settled on a political satire, something that had a serious theme but addressed it with wit and sarcasm instead of tears and tragedy. I could do that. For my topic, I picked war, which was a safe target to lampoon. Nobody liked war. Realists just convinced themselves that they needed it sometimes. The working title was Dick Ironblood, about a modern-day pirate without the Jack Sparrow charm and a lot less pretty, too. This pirate worked in Washington and brokered wars for his profiteering cronies in the defense industry. The protagonist was his idealistic, misinformed but well-meaning female political aide. She would become disillusioned after discovering her boss’s true motives. The story was from her perspective, with this as an opening line: “Where I grew up, being overtly political in polite society was a huge faux pas, like having your slip showing.” After two weeks of brainstorming the topic, this was all I had. And I wasn’t loving it. I knew I could craft the conspiracy plot with no trouble. Being a detective had shown me too many ways people could manipulate each other. But I didn’t particularly like spending time thinking about my characters screwing each other over. My outlook was too positive for that. Unfortunately, that could get in the way of some really great writing.
That positive outlook could also get in the way of good detective work. Like with the current case. I had already decided that I liked Chloe. Was I letting that get in the way of seeing her for what she was? Could she be a pirate, one of the bad guys? Was her charm and wit making me lose my moorings?
Thinking of moorings and pirates made me think about water, and suddenly I regretted missing my morning swim. I looked down at my pad and realized that I had absent-mindedly doodled little skulls and crossbones all over the page. And at some point, I had scribbled “Dick Ironblood” at the top and “YOU SUCK!” right next to it. Writing 101—when you don’t like what you’ve written, no one else will either. Might as well go get wet. I tossed my pen on the desk and got up to go change into my gym clothes. But as I headed out of my study, I unexpectedly crashed into Chloe coming in. She grabbed me by the shoulders to steady me. It had the opposite effect.
“Um, hi!” I said.
She smiled. “Hello, Nina” she said. Her voice had more depth and resonance than I’d remembered.
“Not that I’m not pleased to see you, but why are you here?”
“I’m here to remind you that double negatives are confusing,” she said.
It took me a moment to process her meaning. “Oh, of course. So pleased to see you, Chloe,” I said less ambiguously. “Now, why else are you here?”
“I wanted to see how the writing was going,” she said.
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. Something about bigger fish to fry,” I said.
She just looked at me like I had fins growing out of the sides of my head. It was like trying to talk to someone under the water. Why wasn’t she asking me about my meeting with Woo? Didn’t she care about her case? I fluttered my lips like a frustrated filly—or seahorse, to stick to the current metaphor. Relenting, I circled my desk, picked up the pad, and handed it to her. Given the paucity of my progress, she finished reading my notes in a matter of seconds. And had an opinion about them in less time than that.
“This doesn’t sound like you,” she said, acutely dissecting my story idea. “It’s interesting. But it’s not your voice.”
“So you’re an expert on my voice now?” I asked.
“I told you. I’m a fan.” She studied me for a moment. Her scrutiny was beginning to irritate me.
“Did you know that your favorite grocer is a nudist?” I blurted, coming at the topic sideways.
“Yes. His wife, too. Lovely couple.”
“Do you think it’s safe? It just doesn’t seem sanitary to me.”
“Well, they don’t farm naked. That would be dangerous,” she joked. I felt mocked, which annoyed me even more.
“His crop is fine, Chloe,” I said, finally getting to the point. “Woo has records showing who bought his rhubarb the same day as you, and I confirmed that no one else got sick. And his wife was able to give me a sample that I had tested. It came back normal.”
“Well, good, no? That means it wasn’t contaminated.”
“It also means that you look guilty!” I said, astounded that she wasn’t taking the entire situation more seriously.
“Guilty of what? Killing a woman everyone found annoying?”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s not serious, either. You’re letting your imagination run wild. Is that you being writerly?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked.
“It means that you should leave the drama for your stories.”
“I don’t write dramas,” I said, feeling like I was back to the beginning of my day.
“Well, maybe you should. It might give you an outlet for your obsession with grave plot twists.”
“Hey! You need to know me at least a month before you’re allowed to comment on my obsessions.”
“I’m a fast study.”
“Then why are you so slow to pick up on the fact that you could get arrested?” I asked.
“If that happens, I’ll deal with it then.”
“How can you be so cavalier about this, Chloe?”
“Not cavalier. Pragmatic,” she countered.
“You know, I’m trying to help you here.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Nina, but you’re working for the sheriff in this investigation. And so far, all the evidence you’ve uncovered suggests I deliberately poisoned two people. So how exactly are you trying to help me?” Her delivery wasn’t accusatory. She was merely summarizing the facts as she understood them. But I still got defensive.
“I have to be impartial in my investigation. I have professional standards to adhere to.”
“Well, good for you. But if you’re so impartial, why do you care how I’m reacting to any of this?”
I inhaled a controlling breath. She was right. I shouldn’t care this much. “Just do yourself a favor and hire a good lawyer.”
“Food safety!” she said, out of nowhere.
“What?”
“Food safety,” Chloe repeated. “That’s what you should write about.”
“Damn it! Would you please stick to the topic? We’re discussing the Munch case.”
“No, you’re discussing that. I came here to talk about writing. Apropos that, I think the ag-gag laws are a perfect topic for you. You could still do it as a political satire but in an area you hold near and dear—food.”
Chloe was talking about a series of laws implemented by a handful of states that make it illegal to photograph or record animal abuses on factory farms and slaughterhouses. The laws were ostensibly put in place to protect the owners from graphic images of abuses committed by employees who weren’t following the rules. They were apparently fired once their violations were discovered. But
animal rights groups argued that even if the worst abuses weren’t sanctioned, standard operating procedures at most slaughterhouses were inhumane. They claimed, moreover, that the purpose of the ag-gag laws was to put a freezing effect on legitimate whistleblowers and avoid the bad press.
I had no doubt that most people would stop eating factory-farmed meat if they knew the horrific ways the animals were treated and the disgusting ways the meat was processed. These procedures regularly resulted in food poisonings from E. coli outbreaks and other contaminants. I was struck by how commonplace these outbreaks had become—and by how little most people knew about the food industry—when I was sitting in a client’s lobby in Boston one afternoon, and the guy next to me reading the paper said matter-of-factly, “Oh, there’s another big beef recall. Guess it’ll be chicken sandwiches for lunch this week.” Living in Millsferry had so insulated me from these concerns over food safety that I was genuinely shocked at this man’s complete willingness to believe that this was how things needed to be. (Or that factory-farmed chicken could actually be safer!) When did it become okay, in our advanced and wealthy society, to expect that the food we buy might not be safe to eat?
Millsferry didn’t have factory farms or slaughterhouses. We had smaller, community-based farms that treated their animals humanely and dispatched them calmly and quickly. Cattle were grass-fed, not corn-fed. Chickens were free-range. Animals were fed healthy, organic diets. No pesticides, no toxins, no processed products, no genetically modified organisms. The flavors and varieties of fruits and vegetables confirmed that agricultural products were grown using old, sustainable farming techniques—some open pollination, lots of mixed crops, and seasonal rotations to ensure the soil maintained its nutrients.
Farm and Gizmo and I talked about this all the time. Gizmo even argued once that the stuff that the food industry engineered and processed wasn’t really food at all and should really be called something else. He was struggling for a better word when Farm and I simultaneously blurted unfood! The label stuck. For us, modern, large-scale agricultural industries did one thing really well—they grew unfood, bland and nutritionless food-like substances. Its lack of taste was probably what made condiments become so popular. Its lack of nutrients forced people to eat more and more to feel satisfied, contributing to the current obesity epidemic. The growth of the unfood industry wasn’t just a food safety issue; it was a food security issue. Famine in developing countries was caused by a lack of access to any food supplies. In developed countries, food insecurity was caused by access to too much unfood. We were starving because we filled our bellies with stuff that had the nutritional value of sugar-coated cardboard.
Chloe was right. The ag-gag laws were a great topic for me. In the process of finding my niche as a detective, I had become a food expert. More than that, I was a food lover and therefore naturally concerned with food safety and food security. Sustaining an interest in this subject matter wouldn’t be a problem for me. In fact, I was already working up a sense of the book as a political satire. It would read like the love child of Julia Child and Stephen Colbert. I might even be able to scavenge something from my now defunct war satire. Maybe the title with a slight name change—Dick Slaughter. I could make him an agribusiness lobbyist with a naive aide who thinks they’re the good guys until she sees a video she wasn’t supposed to see.
I suddenly realized that Chloe was still in the room and studying me with a rather smug expression on her face. Despite my gratitude for the undeniably excellent suggestion she had made, I was unwilling to let her win this argument. And I was pretty sure by now that we were arguing.
“Gave you something to ‘chew on,’ didn’t I?” she asked.
Yes, I thought, definitely arguing.
“Okay, so you know me,” I admitted aloud. “Food safety is a great topic for me to write about. But I have some insight into you, too, Chloe.”
“Meaning,” she said, the smile slowly disappearing from her face.
“You’re in denial about how much trouble you could be in. And I think it’s because you don’t want to admit that you may need somebody else’s help.”
“Really? Why wouldn’t I want your help?”
“I think you do want my help. You just don’t want to admit it.”
“What is it you think you know about me, Nina?”
I stopped to consider how far I should go. Chloe was no fool. She knew I would have done a background check on her and that I would have found out about her parents dying and then her grandmother, leaving her to grow up in a system that fostered feelings of inadequacy and distrust more than it actually fostered children. I was sure that her experiences made Chloe fiercely independent and completely terrified of ever making herself vulnerable again by actually needing someone. It was a wound that might never heal, and I felt suddenly loathe to rub salt in it.
“Never mind,” I said at last.
“I don’t do ‘never mind’ very well.”
“Don’t push it, Chloe. You’re the one who stood there being superior and analytical. Pretending you understood me better than I understand myself. It was annoying.”
“Yes, I can see how receiving someone’s so-called insight can be annoying. At last we agree on something.”
She didn’t even bother saying “good-bye.” She just turned on her heel and left.
I sat back against the edge of my desk and crossed my arms, anger leeching out and leaving me empty. Moments later I heard rustling at my door and looked up, half expecting to see Chloe returning to make up. But it was only Aunt Dottie carrying a plate with a sandwich.
She must have noticed the disappointment on my face because she crossed over to me, handed me the plate, and patted my shoulder.
“Eat,” she said. “Feel better.”
“What is it?” I asked, not really caring.
“P.B.J.”
“Oh,” I said, still distracted by my argument with Chloe. “What kind of jam?”
“Strawberry-rhubarb.”
Oh, brother!
12. The Trouble with Living in a Small Town
I wasn’t one to hold grudges, but Chloe left before we could smooth things over. So I was still bothered by our squabble the following Monday. That was making it hard to concentrate on the final report I was writing for Izzy Beacon. I was trying to let him know that Agnes Simmons wasn’t cheating on her ingredients (the pretext for the investigation) and that she wasn’t dating anyone (which was what Izzy had really wanted me to find out for him). Screw this!
I picked up my phone and hit call on my contact listing for my favorite florist, Annie Rubia, the only other Cuban-American I knew of in Millsferry. After our usual hola chica greetings, I got down to business.
“Annie, do you know Agnes Simmons?”
“The weather mami? Yeah, she’s a regular.”
“Would you happen to know her favorite flowers?”
“Let me check my records.” I heard her tapping at her keyboard for a moment. “She likes lilies. In fact, her son has a standing order for a dozen lilies every year on Agnes’s birthday.”
“Perfect. Do you think you can put together a bouquet of lilies that also includes a single red rose in the middle? A fat one?”
“Sure can. Is it going to be from an admirer?” she asked.
“Yes, and I’d like you to include a card. I’ll email you the message and name in a few minutes.”
“I’ll take care of it,” she said.
I opened an email message to Annie after we hung up and started typing the greeting for the card that would accompany the flowers to Agnes. I assumed Izzy’s penny-pinching was well known, so I went with the following sentiment: “Sparing no expense and finding my courage at last to let you know, my dear Agnes, how very special I think you are. Ever Yours, Izzy Beacon.”
I hit send, and then I forwarded a copy of the email to Izzy saying, “Per attached, I just sent Agnes flowers on your behalf (lilies, her favorite, and one red rose). She doesn’t have a boyfrie
nd . . . yet. The rest is up to you. Regards, Nina (your PI and friendly, neighborhood matchmaker).”
The move was uncharacteristically sentimental of me. It was also well outside the professional boundaries I preferred to maintain, but my actions were overdetermined. The uncertainly I felt over my friendship with Chloe made me all the more certain that Agnes and Izzy were right for each other. And because everything in the Munch case felt out of my control, I craved seizing control where I could find it. My reason told me it was not my control to take. Izzy’s love life was none of my business, and breaking the ice between him and Agnes was not my decision to make. Still, I felt it was safe and right. Izzy was shy. He might never buck up the courage to ask Agnes out but for my intervening on his behalf.
A ding told me I had a new email. It was from Izzy.
“You made me sound stingy,” he complained. Then he surprised me. “Add the price of the flowers to my bill. Thank you.”
Whew! That could have cost me a client and a professional reputation. Now I had visions of Izzy and Agnes spending the rest of their lives happily making soap together and maybe even naming an organic herbal body wash after me—“Nutri-Nina Bath Gel.”
I started doing a little happy dance in my desk chair but was interrupted by a call. The ringtone was the whistling theme song from “The Andy Griffith Show,” which meant that the call was from Bruno. Well, I couldn’t help the mental association, ingrained over years of watching reruns of a show about the sheriff of a small town called Mayberry. It was an obvious ringtone choice for our own Millsferry sheriff. I experienced a serious case of cognitive dissonance one day when I learned that Bruno can’t whistle.
