Murder in the Boonies: A Sleuth Sisters Mystery (The Sleuth Sisters Book 3)

by Maggie Pill

  “So you’ll actually consider this? I mean, the animals are going to require a lot of care.”

  “Bill would have to do most of it, but I don’t mind helping out on weekends,” Cramer said. “If I get my deposit back from here, I could pay Aunt Retta the first two months’ rent, which will give them time to figure things out. If the last renters sold eggs and peacock feathers and whatever, they’ll have a ready-made customer base, and I could set them up on Etsy or some other site where people sell stuff.”

  I was almost holding my breath. Was this going to work? The thought of my boys taking over the farm made my chest feel full to bursting. I found myself wishing I could tell Dad. It would have pleased him.

  Of course Bill and Carla had no idea of the plans I was making for them. Cramer volunteered to call them and present the idea. “That way, if they really don’t want to do it, they won’t feel like they’re disappointing you.” Cramer has a gift for sensing what will make others comfortable and providing it without expecting gratitude or even consideration. His ex-wife was a woman with no capacity for either.

  I didn’t see that Bill and Carla had much choice, given their present situation. They both love animals, and Carla had grieved deeply a few months back when their Mastiff got hip dysplasia and had to be put down. Crossing my fingers, I hoped peafowl, reindeer, and chickens were also to her liking.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Barb

  I was out of the office all day, working on a robbery Faye and I were investigating. A midnight break-in had garnered attention from the press and the local police, at least at first. When the leads dried up, the owner asked Allport’s police chief, Rory Neuencamp, to recommend someone who could spend more time on the case than his officers could. Rory mentioned the Smart Detective Agency, probably because we have a good reputation for solving cases, but possibly also because he is, for lack of a better term, my boyfriend. He shared what he had on the case with me, admitting they’d done what they could and come up with nothing.

  Faye and I were monitoring places we thought the robbers might try to sell the stolen goods. She searched Internet sites while I visited pawn shops in a widening circle—actually more of an arc since Allport lies along the shore of Lake Huron. Everywhere I stopped, I showed photos of the missing items.

  My luck had been good. I located several items I was sure were from the robbery, and I even had a photograph of the guy who pawned them, thanks to the store’s surveillance camera. Turning the evidence over to Rory’s secretary, I went back to the office to report to Faye.

  The Smart Detective Agency was Faye’s idea, and I had agreed to it mostly because I wanted her to have an income and a job that provided independence from petty bosses. There was also the fact I’d been bored silly after only a few months of retirement.

  Faye has always known what I’ll be good at better than I do. It was she who told the high school debate coach that her sister would make a great addition to his team. It was Faye who assured me I should skip community college and go directly to the University of Michigan. And it was Faye who insisted I could use the talents I developed in the years I spent as an assistant district attorney to become a successful investigator. As usual, she was right. After a year as a private detective, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

  As I told Faye the details of the afternoon’s discoveries, I could see her mind was elsewhere. From her comment about Bill, I thought I knew what was distracting her. Faye’s son considers himself an environmental entrepreneur, but nothing he’s done in that field has turned out well. After community college, Bill spent several years and lots of investors’ money trying to develop a disaster relief communication system, but it never worked as he hoped. Later he invested heavily in generating energy from wave motion in the Great Lakes, but his method proved too expensive to be useful. Most recently he’d formed a cooperative in Chicago, inviting people to live a minimalist lifestyle. It went well at first, but members began abandoning the project when the realities of living without modern conveniences set in. If Faye’s long face and lack of updates were an indication, Bill and his wife were stuck with an old apartment building they had taken a year’s lease on and a rapidly dwindling list of tenants. I guessed she was about to bail them out. Again.

  Faye wanted the farm for Bill and Carla, but I didn’t see that working. Retta, an advocate of tough love, would never agree to more than a slight discount for a family member, and she’d require first and last month’s rent. Besides, would Bill and his sweet but city-bred wife want to live in a crumbling old house miles from the nearest fast-food restaurant?

  “They might,” Faye responded when I asked. She continued working as we talked, printing off the paperwork for billing the jewelry store owner.

  “And the rent?”

  She took out an envelope and stuck an address label on it. “Cramer said he’ll take the bunkhouse. With his IT job at the factory and whatever Bill and Carla can contribute, they’ll manage until Bill gets something going.”

  “I take it Justine left again?” Cramer is an overly-loyal type who had allowed his wife to walk over him time and time again. First she left with a man she met on the Internet; she returned because it didn’t work out. She left again when Handsome Stranger #2 came along, that time filing for divorce. She came back six months later, sad-eyed and repentant. Cramer, a truly nice guy, ignored the completed divorce proceedings and let her move back in. Cramer isn’t stupid, just really, really loyal.

  “She took off last week after running up a ton of credit card bills,” Faye said, “but if he gives up the apartment, he can pay them off in no time.”

  I considered the idea. “I’m guessing Retta would go for it if they can scrape together the deposit and agree to find homes for the animals.”

  “I’ll pay the deposit.” Faye’s grin said she couldn’t help herself. “And both my boys love critters. They won’t mind taking care of them.” Peeling a stamp off the roll, she applied it to the envelope. “If they take over the farm, I’ll get something I want.”

  “Which is?”

  “Winston Darrow’s horses.”

  An earlier case involved the death of a woman whose husband now had no use for the two animals she’d loved. Faye has always liked horses, but it seemed her feelings were stronger than I guessed. “You aren’t going to take up riding again in your fifties!”

  “Probably not, but those horses saved my life.” She set the finished letter on the pile of outgoing mail. “Actually, I’ve always wanted to adopt retired draft horses. “Do you know how many of them are put down because no one will take them in?”

  “Draft horses. You mean like Clydesdales?”

  “That’s what a lot of people think when they hear the term, but there are other types: Shires, Percherons, Belgians—” She waved the current envelope to indicate there were others she couldn’t name at the moment.

  “Like the cart horses on Mackinac Island?”

  Situated in the straits between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, Mackinac Island is known for its ban on automobiles. Horses do the bulk of the work, carrying goods, luggage, and tourists around its 3.8 square miles.

  “Right. When they get too old to work, they have to go somewhere. I think they deserve a peaceful old age and people who are good to them. Bill and Carla could be those people.”

  “What about finances? It costs money to keep horses.” I didn’t say out loud that Bill had never shown much talent for handling money, but Faye read my mind, as usual.

  “Cramer will do the business stuff.” She grinned wryly. “He’s good with money as long as his ex-wife stays away, and I bet she will once she hears he’s living on a farm ten miles from town.”

  I had to admit, Faye had thought it through. While I wasn’t certain it would work out as she hoped, it seemed worth trying. Faye would get her horses, her sons would get a home, and Retta would have one less thing to fuss about.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Retta

  When
I went to meet Gabe at the farm after lunch, I took Styx, my big, lovable Newfoundland, along. He loves to ride in the car, loves exercise, and often serves as my protection. While I’m not afraid of Gabe, being a detective (auxiliary detective to be precise) has made me realize that even the world around Allport can turn threatening. Although he’s a real sweetheart, one look at Styx would make someone think twice about robbing me or stealing my car.

  As Styx drooled onto a towel I’d placed on the seat, I recalled the agonizingly long bus ride the three of us had endured to get to school each day. I’d hated every minute of it, and once Barbara Ann got her driver’s license, I worked to stay on her good side so I never had to ride the Big Banana again. In my opinion, school buses are mobile torture chambers. Barbara and Faye never let anyone harass me, but it was hard, hearing big kids pick on little ones who didn’t have older siblings to protect them.

  The last four miles of the trip was on gravel roads, which slowed me considerably. I finally turned onto the long driveway we’d once trekked to meet the bus. The fields on either side, rented and farmed by local agri-businessman Chet Masters, are flat and arable. Chet appreciates that; I appreciate the fact that his checks come in like clockwork. Hulking pieces of farm equipment lined the drive, waiting to be used. They might have done their work already. I don’t pay much attention to farm stuff.

  Parking in front of the house, I let Styx out of the back of my Acadia. He immediately broke into a run, circling the house once before peeing on some bushes. He started around again, this time stopping to sniff the flower beds, the doors, and anything else that caught his interest. Letting him have his fun, I surveyed the yard.

  Memories of Mom cling to the house because of the flowerbeds she so lovingly maintained year after year. The peonies were just greenery this early, but daffodils and tulips bobbed in the breeze. Bushes Mom had trimmed and tended would flower throughout the summer. Snowballs, spirea, and the lilacs had already begun perfuming the air, and birds chirped overhead, happy for the sunshine.

  I paused for a moment, taking in nature’s beauty. Then I took out my phone and checked my messages, answering a couple and sending the rest to the trash.

  As Styx circled the house yet again, Gabe pulled up in an old pickup with the driver’s side door smashed in. To get out, he slid across the bench seat and opened the passenger door. “In February a guy came right through an intersection and hit me,” he said as he approached. “I’m saving up to get it fixed.” Guessing he had no insurance, I decided to add a bonus if he did the current job well.

  Bounding around the house, Styx saw that we had company. He loped forward, skidded to a halt, and set his front paws on Gabe’s shoulders in his usual greeting. It was unfortunate, because the dirt he’d picked up from the damp yard left two smeary prints on Gabe’s gray jacket.

  “Styx, get down!” I ordered, but he paid no attention. Having met Styx before, Gabe gave him the affection he craved, rubbing his sleek head and patting his wide shoulders. When Styx finally backed off, I wiped at Gabe’s jacket with a tissue.

  “Just dirt, Miz Stilson,” he said with a laugh. “It don’t hurt a thing.”

  I warmed a little more toward Gabe. Even if he was clueless about animals, he seemed to have a sense for their needs.

  “Let me show you around.” I turned to the outbuildings, seeing them as Gabe might. The barn directly ahead of us was well-maintained, though gray with age. It was built into a hill that turned into woods just over the crest. On the bottom level were cattle stalls, above was hay storage. On our left were the sheds and pens: a granary, a corn crib, a chicken coop, and a toolshed. Between those structures and the barn was the yard, fairly dry for late May. I recalled with disgust the way it had looked and smelled when Dad raised cattle. Spring had been the worst, and I recalled being horribly embarrassed once when a boy I liked came to pick me up and made a disgusted face at the smell of the stinky muck.

  Along the far sides of the outbuildings were several kinds of animals in crudely partitioned pens. Nearest were half a dozen reindeer, who regarded us with casual interest. Rushing past Gabe and me at a dead run, Styx approached them, barking loudly. Surprisingly, the deer moved forward, curious to meet this new creature.

  Styx stopped, confused by the fact that the deer didn’t retreat from his ferocious bark. Momentarily at a loss, he spotted a second pen containing peafowl and chickens. Apparently feeling better about this new quarry, he went after them. The chickens scattered, bumping into each other in their hurry to get away. The peafowl retreated unwillingly, with human-like squawks of protest. One female flapped her wings, flying to the top of a fencepost and roosting there in hopes of safety.

  Satisfied that he’d made a commotion there, Styx turned to the barnyard, where a bull and two heifers stood along the fence, munching grass. Rolling their eyes, the cows backed away as he approached, barking. The bull merely lowered his head as if daring the dog to come closer.

  Even a Newfoundland has to respect the territory of an irritable bull. Styx stopped, contenting himself with barks that asserted his dominance without having to prove it.

  Watching Styx entertain the animals, I noticed they’d been fed. There was corn on the ground for the fowl, and the water trough was full.

  “Masters must have fed them when he came out this morning,” I told Gabe. Farmers are great about helping each other out, knowing there might come a time when they need help.

  Gabe and I explored a little, searching out the bags of feed and tools he’d need to see to things.

  “If it’s okay with you, I’ll bring my girlfriend out with me tomorrow,” he said. “She knows lots about a lot of animals ’cause of 4-H growing up.”

  “That sounds good.” I had considered calling the local animal shelter and having them come and take the animals, but that would strain their resources. If Gabe and his girlfriend could cope for a few days, Faye would have time to put the plan she proposed into effect. Then the animals would be Bill and Cramer’s headache, not mine.

  “Let me know if you run into any problems,” I said. “I expect to have tenants in a week or so.”

  “Okay.” He looked at the reindeer, who stood at the fence, watching us with interest. “Pretty, ain’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “You go ahead. I’m going to pet them so they get used to me.”

  Another good sign. Gabe didn’t intend to do only what he had to. He wanted to do it correctly.

  “Come on, Styx,” I called. Leaving Gabe to his deer-whispering, I started toward the house with the dog at my heels. We passed a pile of slab wood, an overgrown stack of bricks, and an ancient riding lawnmower parked atop some straw. Styx found the latter interesting and stopped to investigate.

  “Styx, come on.” He ignored me. “Styx!”

  It took a sharp tug on his pink collar to get him to follow me. (I like pink, and my dog is very secure in his masculinity.) I guessed there was a mouse or a mole hiding under the lawnmower’s frame.

  Stepping onto the creaky front porch, I let myself in. Styx left his outside exploring and bumped past me to investigate the inside smells. I stood for a second inside the narrow doorway, looking around. The house was familiar in some ways, alien in others. Mother’s china closet had been moved into the living room to make space in the dining area for Rose’s crafts. The top of the dining table was invisible under stacks of fabric. In one corner was an old Singer sewing machine, black with age. In another was a spinning wheel flanked with baskets of yarn. Plank shelves supported by bricks held stacks of colorful items, neatly folded.

  In addition to the misplaced china closet, the living room contained two shabby upholstered chairs, mismatched end tables topped with cheap Christian bric-a-brac, and rag rugs that were almost certainly home-made. A bookshelf near the doorway was stuffed with aged paperback books, mostly Christian nonfiction and inspirational fiction.

  Why had they left so much stuff behind? Didn’t they realize someone would have to spe
nd days cleaning up after them? I’d judged Ben and Rose to be odd people. I hadn’t realized they were thoughtless as well.

  Near my elbow, a book was shelved sideways atop the others in the row. An oversized piece of paper stuck out of its pages, and I took it out and read it. It was a church bulletin from the River of Fulfilling Life Church on Cable Street in Allport. Turning it over, I saw Ben McAdam listed as one of the church elders.

  They’d had a decent house, a self-sufficient lifestyle that apparently suited them, and a support group at church, yet they’d moved away abruptly, leaving most of their stuff behind. Whatever happened must have been either very good, winning the lottery or getting a big inheritance, or very bad. Somehow I doubted Ben McAdams had any rich relatives, and I didn’t see him as the type to buy lottery tickets. I guessed the reason they left was something bad.

  I had a lot on my plate, but the disappearance of Ben and his family demanded further investigation. Taking my cell from a convenient pocket at one end of my purse, I called Barbara. “Ben McAdams attended the River of Fulfilling Life Church in Allport. I think you should go over there and talk with the pastor to see if he knows where they went.”

  There was a pause, and I guessed Barbara was thinking something like, You’re not the boss of me. In an attempt to soothe her ruffled feathers I explained, “I’m supposed to help out at the school with plans for the graduation ceremony. I’m the only one who remembers what has to get done and how to do it.”

  Barbara still didn’t say anything, so I went on. “I’ve arranged for Gabe to care for the animals.” It wasn’t as if I wasn’t doing my part. “These people left most of their stuff behind, Barbara Ann. We need to make sure there’s nothing wrong.”

  When she finally spoke, her tone said clearly she could have argued but had decided not to. “Do you have an address?”

  I supplied the one on the back of the bulletin. “You’re the best, Sis.”