Killer Jam (A Dewberry Farm Mystery)

by Karen MacInerney

  She smiled, exposing a line of yellowed teeth behind her thin, pink-painted lips. “Oh, that geologist fellow promised me they’d put everything back to rights once they were done. I’m sure everything will be just fine.”

  “But . . . ”

  “Now, honey, I hate to run off, but if I’m late for supper, Bunny is like to kill me. Nice chattin’ with you,” she said. “Flora, open that door for me, will you?”

  Her daughter hurried to do her mother’s bidding, then rounded the car to the passenger’s seat. Before she ducked into the car, she shot me a look over the top of the Cadillac. To my surprise, it had every bit as much appraisal in it as her mother’s.

  As I watched, Nettie Kocurek pulled off the sidewalk with a double-thunk and squealed out of the square, leaving a cloud of gray exhaust in her wake.

  “I hear Nettie Kocurek is puttin’ the screws to Dewberry Farm,” Nancy Shaw said as we walked the pathway to her honey house. Nancy, Buttercup’s local beekeeper, was a tall, slim woman in her sixties. Today, she wore faded jeans and a tank top that showed off her tan, muscular shoulders. Her husband, Martin, was a painter who sold his oils of bucolic Buttercup to daytrippers and interior decorators in Houston and Austin. Lavender bushes lined the flagstone path behind the bungalow-style house, releasing their sweet scent as we passed, and bees buzzed through the air on their way to find flowers. Several hives were lined up at the back of the property, under the dappled shade of a row of cottonwood trees.

  “News travels fast,” I said.

  “That it does,” Nancy said, her weathered face breaking into a smile. Nancy and Martin had moved to Buttercup from Wimberley twenty years ago. Between Martin’s work as an architect and hers as a beekeeper, they’d made a good life for themselves. “What are you going to do about her?”

  “I’m talking to an attorney on Wednesday,” I said.

  “Expensive,” she said as she opened the door to the cool, honey-scented barn where she kept her equipment and stored honey and wax. “She’s givin’ us a bit of trouble, too,” she added, glancing toward the barbed-wire fence I knew was the boundary between her property and the Kocureks’ pasture.

  “How so?” I asked.

  “She’s been sprayin’ something on the fields, and the bees are gettin’ into it. Lost a good part of four hives in the past month; thank goodness the others were out pollinating at Hensky’s orchards.”

  “Oh no!” I said. “Did you talk to her?”

  “Of course,” Nancy said. “Said it was her land and she’d do what she had to do to take care of it.”

  I followed her into the dark, sweet-smelling building, which was lit with skylights. A steel honey extractor and several metal tables stood at the end of the room, and rows of honey jars and slabs of golden wax lined the clean wooden shelves along the back wall. A few empty frames were stacked in a corner, waiting to be slipped into the hives.

  “Your grandmother had her number,” Nancy said. “Nettie Kocurek wouldn’t mess with her. Just about killed her to have to sell Dewberry Farm to her, though.”

  “I’m surprised Nettie left her alone,” I said.

  “Never knew why,” Nancy said. “Lord knows she messes with everyone else. Now,” she said, looking at the stacks of beeswax bars. “How many do you need?”

  “Probably about twenty pounds,” I said.

  We loaded four of the fragrant five-pound bars into the cloth bag I’d brought with me, and I wrote out a check. “Here’s a gallon of honey for you, too. On the house.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “Just bring me a big ol’ jar of your grandma’s peach-honey jam, when the season comes,” she said. “Haven’t had it in almost two decades, and I miss it.”

  “I’d love to,” I said, grateful for her generosity, and made a mental note to bring some jars of jam over to the Bees’ Knees.

  “How’s business going out at Dewberry Farm?” she asked. “Good to see it occupied again—and by a Vogel, no less!”

  “It’s bumping along,” I said. “I’m just worried about what will happen if there’s an oil well in my backyard.”

  “If there’s anything we can do to help, let us know,” she said, shaking her head and looking over the fence toward the Kocureks’ sprawling compound of brick, 1960s ranch-style houses. “Sometimes I think the whole town needs to unite and get rid of ol’ Nettie!”

  Founders’ Day dawned cool and crisp. After a cup of coffee and a slice of Quinn’s homemade bread with jam on the front porch, I herded Blossom into the milking parlor and gave her a bucketful of cow chow, then set to work filling my newly reinforced milking pail, which I had placed in a crate weighed down with a concrete block and screwed into the floor. She’d done her best to foil me, delivering a series of well-placed kicks, but my pail had held, and I now had three milkings’ worth in my fridge. It looked like mozzarella would soon be on the menu.

  When the pail was full—despite a few well-aimed kicks—I patted Blossom affectionately on the backside and sent her back out to pasture. The look she shot me from her long-lashed eyes gave me the distinct impression that she knew I’d won the battle but that she hadn’t given up on the war. Feeling slightly smug, I crossed to the little yellow farmhouse with the pail in my hand, pausing for a moment to take in the view. The larkspur was a purple and pink carpet next to the house, my grandmother’s roses were putting out a few pale pink blooms near the newly repaired picket fence, and a mockingbird sang from a branch on the sycamore behind the house. With the quaint painted farmhouse, the red barn, the roses blooming, and the wash of purples and pinks from the larkspur and the blue of bluebonnets in the distance, the scene looked like it could be a painting. Granted, I still needed to paint the fence and I’d only just begun to reclaim the gardens around the house, but if you squinted your eyes, it could almost be a painting. An impressionist one, anyway.

  The screen door thunked behind me as I walked into the farmhouse with the pail of milk. Morning sun streamed through the windows, making the oak floors glow, and a breeze from the open window ruffled the white muslin curtains. I poured some of the warm milk into a glass and the rest into the sterilized jugs I’d prepared to help the milk cool faster, only spilling a little bit on the white tiled counter. Chuck strolled into the kitchen and stretched, looking at me with hope in his brown eyes.

  “Hey there, big fella’.” I petted his shaved head and slipped him a piece of bacon leftover from yesterday morning. It disappeared in a nanosecond, as always.

  “Sorry, sweetie, but that’s all for today. But you can have a carrot!” I opened the fridge and offered him an orange medallion left over from dinner the night before. He took one sniff and turned his nose up at it.

  “Like it or lump it,” I said. “That’s all you’re getting. Doctor’s orders.”

  I’d taken Chuck to the vet just last week for some ant bites he’d acquired on one of his fence-post sniffing expeditions. “Interesting looking farm dog,” Dr. Brandt had said with a twinkle in his eye when he met Chuck.

  “Oh, he’s excellent at herding sausages,” I said. “Not one ever gets away.”

  “I can tell,” he said, eyeing Chuck’s sizeable girth. I used to attribute it to the fur, but now that he was shaved almost bald, I was a bit taken aback by how much of Chuck there really was.

  Dr. Brandt was what my grandmother would have called a tall drink of water. He was certainly tall, with dark blue eyes and gentle hands that made me shiver when I accidentally touched them—like, say, when I was holding Chuck down for a blood test.

  I felt slightly guilty for hoping that Chuck would require more hands-on procedures in the near future, despite the fact that I couldn’t afford them.

  “You might want to cut back on the sausages,” he suggested, much to Chuck’s dismay. “And more exercise would help, too.”

  “He won’t go further than the fence,” I said. “Digs in his heels.”

  “He’ll be easier to drag after a few weeks on low-fat kibble,
” Dr. Brandt said, depositing a bag of Light ‘n’ Lean dog food on the table next to the poodle. Chuck sniffed it and turned away with a look of disdain in his brown eyes.

  “Can I give him any treats?” I asked.

  “Cooked carrots,” the vet suggested.

  “Treats,” I reiterated.

  He laughed. “Try the carrots. You might be surprised.”

  I’d tried the carrots, but I hadn’t been surprised. Chuck staunchly refused to touch them, and usually followed me around with a wistful look in his eyes until I left the kitchen. This morning, as usual, I tossed the carrot in the chicken bucket and headed out to water the vegetable garden with Chuck at my heels.

  The chunky poodle sniffed along the edge of the fence and watered one of Grandma Vogel’s roses as I turned on the sprinkler for the veggies. As the jewel-like spray cascaded down on the tender leaves, I found myself wondering who had won the statue debate.

  Unfortunately, however, the thought of Nettie Kocurek and her sausage nose reminded me of the threat that hung over the farm, and a memory of the rangy geologist and the looming threat of the thumper truck skidded across my thoughts like a dark cloud. The reading I’d done told me that thumper trucks essentially created small underground earthquakes, leaving scars on the landscape and potentially damaging both septic systems and wells. And if they found anything . . . I shuddered at the thought of a well in the middle of Blossom’s pasture.

  When the sprinklers were running, I cut and bundled two dozen larkspur bunches, putting the pink and purple bouquets into a tub filled with water. Then I gathered the eggs from the chickens and headed back inside to finish getting ready for Founders’ Day.

  I had put handwritten labels and a raffia bow on each small beeswax jar candle and was wrapping a bar of lavender soap when I noticed Grandma Vogel’s cookbook open on the counter. Goose bumps rose on my arms as I walked over to the counter. I knew I had put it back in the bookshelf next to my bed the night before. Every time I leafed through the yellowed pages, it almost felt as if my grandmother were talking to me. Sometimes, I wondered if she really was talking to me: more than once, I’d come home to find the book open to a recipe I hadn’t been planning to make, and the book had a habit of turning up in odd places.

  As I walked over to the cookbook, the phone rang.

  I answered on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “May I speak with Lucy Resnick?” said an unfamiliar voice.

  “Speaking,” I said.

  “I’m Mindy, with Lone Star Exploration. This is a courtesy call to inform you that we’ll be sending a seismic exploration truck out to your property Monday morning.”

  I felt as if she had punched me right through the phone. “You can’t do that,” I said, feeling my chest tighten. “It’s my land.”

  “Actually, the mineral rights were retained by the previous owner, so it is legal. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I can assure you we will restore any damage to the property.”

  “What about my well? And my septic system?” I glanced out the window at the rows of bright green lettuce. “And my garden?”

  “As I said, we will repair any damage.”

  “That won’t help me recoup the cost of what I’ve planted,” I said, gripping the phone. And I could only imagine how the chickens would feel about an enormous, thumping truck on the property. Not to mention Blossom. “Can’t you postpone a week?” I asked, thinking of the appointment with the attorney I’d scheduled for Wednesday.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s already been scheduled.”

  “But . . . ”

  “If you have any questions, you can call us at this number,” she said, reeling off an 800 number.

  “One week,” I pleaded. “That’s all I need.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. If you have questions, call the number. Have a nice day.”

  And then she was gone.

  I was still stewing when I drove my old Toyota truck into town an hour later, jouncing over the potholes. The bouquets of larkspur filled the tub in the back, along with the soaps, the candles, and the jam I had made yesterday. As I crossed the railroad tracks, I waved at Bessie Mae, who was sitting at her post by the depot in a red corduroy skirt and a white wool sweater, looking perfectly content despite the eighty-degree weather. Bessie Mae waved back, as always, her face breaking into a sweet, gap-toothed smile.

  The town square looked festive already, with brightly colored tents and flags flapping in the wind: red and white for the Moravian population, and red, black, and yellow for the Germans. Even Krystof Baca, whose statue was situated, as Nettie had requested, in the center of the lawn, was decorated with a red-and-white lei. My heart sank at the sight of it. If Mayor Niederberger couldn’t win against Nettie, what hope did I have?

  The tantalizing smells of barbecue and yeasty kolaches wafted through the truck’s windows as I pulled up on the edge of the square, near the Blue Onion.

  “Hey, Lucy!” Quinn said as she arranged a tray of her famous maple twists on a table covered in red-and-white gingham.

  “You’re way ahead of me,” I said, admiring her blue-and-white striped tent and the cloth-covered table. “Those look great!” I added as I lugged my own white tent from the back of the truck.

  “So do those,” Quinn said, coming to help me as I set up my booth. Within a few minutes, the tent was up, as was the table with my grandmother’s embroidered tablecloth. I arranged a bouquet of larkspur in a large mason jar, then helped Quinn with the cooler of water bottles she was lugging from the cafe. “Looks like Nettie won the statue competition,” I said, eyeing the bronze monstrosity in front of the courthouse.

  “He’s got a heck of a nose, doesn’t he?” Quinn said. “She had it put up in the middle of the night. Mayor Niederberger was steamed over it, but there wasn’t any time to take it down.”

  “Nettie Kocurek is a force of nature, isn’t she?” I said.

  “That she is,” Quinn said. “And a festive one, too. Look at that!”

  I followed her pointing finger to see Mrs. Kocurek, who was all decked out in a red-and-white dirndl-style dress. She was carrying a red-and-white lei, and headed in the direction of the statue. “She’s submitted her Moravian prune jam again this year,” Quinn said. “I doubt she’ll be hard to beat.”

  “In that arena, maybe,” I said. “I’m going to go and talk with her.”

  “Good luck.”

  I grabbed a jar of jam to enter into the Jam-Off and hustled over to Mrs. Kocurek, who was headed toward the jam tent herself.

  “Mrs. Kocurek,” I called out.

  She turned and looked at me. Much as she might resemble a sweet Czech grandma in her traditional dress, her eyes were steely behind the caked mascara.

  “What can I do for you, honey?” Her voice was syrupy sweet.

  “Please don’t send the thumper truck out to my house,” I said. “I’ve put everything I have into that farm.”

  “I’m just exercisin’ my property rights,” she said. “Besides, they told me they’ll put everything back the way it was when they’re done.”

  “This is about my grandfather, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Frank Vogel?” Her face was suddenly transformed; I could see the anger that had festered for decades. “That man lied to me. Cheated me.” The honeyed words were gone. Her voice was harsh.

  “But . . . ”

  “What goes around comes around,” she hissed. “It’s just too bad he’s not around to see it.”

  “This isn’t about money, is it?” I asked. “This is about revenge.”

  “You’re smarter than your grandmother, at least,” she said with a smile that made my stomach turn over. “Sold me the place for nothing. Desperate for money.”

  “I won’t let you destroy the farm,” I said.

  “Oh really?” she said, the syrup back in her voice. “Frankly, unless you poison me with that jam of yours, I don’t see how you plan to stop me.”

  “Aunt Nettie?”
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  I turned to see a uniformed man with a large paunch approach us, a concerned look on his face: Sheriff Rooster Kocurek, Nettie’s nephew. “Is everything all right?”

  “I do believe this young woman just threatened me,” she said, the sweet little-old-lady voice back in place. “She doesn’t like me exercising my property rights.”

  “I didn’t threaten you,” I objected, but I could tell by the suspicious look on the sheriff’s face that it didn’t matter.

  “I think you should just move along now, miss,” he said.

  I opened my mouth to protest, but realized just in time that it would only make things worse. Gripping my jar of jam as if it were Nettie Kocurek’s throat, I turned on my heel and walked toward the jam tent, head high. The only way I’d let that woman ruin my grandparents’ farm was over my dead body.

  I had sold everything but a half dozen candles and was finishing off a delicious sliced brisket sandwich topped with onions and Bubba’s smoky-sweet barbecue sauce when the announcement came that the mayor would be announcing the winner of the Jam-Off.

  “Let’s go,” Quinn said. “Rebecca said she’d mind the store.”

  “You sure?” I asked the freckled teenaged girl who often gave Quinn a hand in the afternoons.

  “It’s just Mayor Niederberger talking about jam,” she said. “Y’all go on ahead.”

  Quinn and I walked over to where a large square had been marked out with ribbons.

  “Howdy, Miz Resnick,” said Alfie Kramer, who was wearing jeans and a plaid western-style shirt. Although he was of German heritage, he viewed himself first and foremost as Texan, as did many of the cattle ranchers in the area. “How’s the farmin’ business?”

  “Not too bad,” I said. “I don’t know how you deal with four hundred cattle, though. I’m having a tough time managing one!”

  “I don’t milk ’em,” he said, grinning. “Helps.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Heard ol’ Nettie’s stirrin’ up trouble for you,” he said.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Little bird,” he said. “Ain’t no surprise, but I’m sorry to hear it. That woman don’t feel her day’s work is done unless she’s makin’ trouble for someone. Your grandpa sure made the right choice, marryin’ Elsa instead of Nettie.”