by Wendy Tyson
So why was she being secretive now?
Megan’s search was turning up nothing. Yes, George Washington had been rumored to have stayed in Winsome, but that wasn’t news. There had only been a few houses in Winsome back then, and Washington Acres, with its large size by yesteryear’s standards, would have been the practical choice: room for Washington’s men, fresh hay and shelter for their horses. Plus, with its location near the canal, Winsome would have been a handy spot to refresh supplies. Still, all that supposition didn’t amount to fact.
So what had Lenora found? And how was it connected to Simon’s death—if it was at all?
Clearly the former professor had better resources than an internet search engine and limited research skills. Frustrated, Megan stood and pushed her chair back more violently than she’d intended. It was then that she saw her grandmother standing in the doorway, watching her, an odd expression on her weathered face.
“Bibi, I didn’t know you were there.”
“What are you doing, Megan?” Her voice sounded wary, resigned.
“I got a surprise today.” Megan described her conversation with Lenora Duvall. “I don’t need to tell you that a zoning change could be disastrous, at least depending upon what restrictions they place on the farm.”
Bibi sank into the room’s only armchair, a faded gold brocade with Queen Anne legs and rounded wooded armrests. “Oh, that man.”
Megan frowned. “Simon?”
“Roger Becker.”
“What does Roger Becker have to do with anything?” But even as she spoke, she recalled the zoning official’s pancake breakfast at their house not long ago. His willingness to push everything through seemed odd then. “He did make things happen awfully easily.”
Bibi nodded. Bright green eyes shone from her frazzled face, and in that moment she looked every one of her eight-four years. “Lenora’s doing, no doubt. The Historical Association wants their claws in this farm. Simon was desperate—” Bibi clasped a hand over her mouth.
Megan arched her eyebrows. “You were saying?”
Her grandmother simply stared, weighing her next words.
“Bibi, please. I’m an adult. Tell me what’s been going on.”
Finally, Bibi nodded. “After all that happened yesterday, I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Bibi sighed. “A story.”
“As far as your grandfather knew, this house was built in 1764, not too long before the beginning of the Revolutionary War. The first owner was Paul Caldbeck, a gentleman farmer and landowner from England. He and his wife Elizabeth sold the property in the 1780s to a neighbor, whose family then owned it for years.”
“I know all this, Bibi.” She’d heard it so many times as a kid she could recite the home’s history by heart. What did any of it have to do with Simon’s murder?
“Patience, Megan, because I’m going to tell you something I haven’t shared before.” She breathed in deeply, contemplating her granddaughter with a heavy look. “In 1856, when your great-great-grandfather Jeremiah Birch bought the farm, it consisted of a rundown house and a dilapidated barn—the oldest sections of the current barn.
“Now, Jeremiah Birch was a good farmer, but he came from a poor family. He and his wife had four children, two boys and two girls, one of whom was your great-grandfather, Jeremiah Birch the second. His brother, Adam, was what they called simple-minded back in the day. The two women married local men and moved into their husband’s houses. So as was typical in the day, Jeremiah senior left the entire farm to his son, Jeremiah junior.”
Bibi grew silent. She closed her eyes for a moment before continuing. “Jeremiah junior had three children: your grandfather Theodore, your Uncle Samuel, and Aunt Sarah. Jeremiah’s wife, my mother-in-law and your great-grandmother, was a deeply religious woman, and very traditional. She would no more question her husband’s judgment than she would run for president. So when Jeremiah decided to leave his farm to his eldest son, Samuel, she let him do it—even though Samuel was a no-good drunkard with less sense for farming than your father.”
Bibi pointed to the brocade ottoman that matched the armchair. “I need to rest my feet, Megan. Would you mind pushing that over here?”
Megan pulled the ottoman over and helped her grandmother to lift her swollen feet onto the cushion. “I’ll get you some ice water.”
But Bibi shook her head. “Let me finish. I know it’s a lot to follow, but I’m almost there.”
Megan sat back down on the desk chair and waited. The cuckoo clock in the dining room rang ten. Sadie, on the floor between her and her grandmother, let out a low snore followed by a loud yelp. Megan reach down and stroked her with her toe, rousing her from her doggie nightmare.
“Uncle Samuel died young and childless,” Megan said, trying to help her grandmother along. This much of the family history she knew.
“Yes, he did. And everyone expected that he would leave the farm to his siblings, Sarah and Teddy.”
“He didn’t?”
“No, he didn’t. To our surprise, he left the entire estate—what was left of it—to your grandfather only. Sarah and Teddy had been very close and Sarah loved the farm—the history, the animals, the reality of farming. She was the true farmer in the family. Samuel was too soft for farming; Teddy too hard.
“When we found out that Samuel had left your grandfather the farm, I thought for sure he would say no. We were living on Bentley Road back then, on a smaller farm where we grew vegetables for our family and had a few chickens. With only Eddie, who showed almost no interest in farming, I knew taking on this place would be tough for Teddy. He was working at the steel plant up in Bethlehem at the time. He was a foreman, and the money was decent.” Bibi shook her head. “But he wanted the farm.”
“And he gave Aunt Sarah her fair share?”
Her silence was answer enough.
“So Grandpa accepted the farm and she got nothing—again.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“When she came back to town, you offered her the farm to make up for old wrongs? Is that it?”
“Yes, Megan. I…when Eddie met Giada, I knew he was leaving. I could feel his restlessness building. And the farm was…well, you saw what it looked like when you came, before you and the Dorfmans started fixing everything up.” She looked up and Megan saw tears in her eyes. “It’s not easy being an old woman. Your mind wants control. Sometimes, your body doesn’t cooperate. I didn’t want to leave, but if I had to go, I wanted Sarah to have the house.”
“But she refused.”
Bibi nodded.
“So you approached Simon.”
Bibi’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, no. He approached me.”
“Sarah told him you were looking for a buyer?”
“I honestly don’t know how he knew. But he offered me a good price. I almost accepted, thinking it was for the Historical Society and the house and farm would be looked after, but then I had a change of heart.” She smiled apologetically at Megan. “When I heard you were coming.”
“Oh, Bibi, why didn’t you tell me?” The thought of her grandmother feeling alone, thinking she had to leave her home because she could no longer manage and there was no one to help her, was almost unbearable. “I would have come sooner.”
“If you were to come back, I wanted it to be for you, not for me.”
“You’re my family, Bibi. You’ve been a mother to me most of my life.”
A shadow passed over Bibi’s face. She sat forward in her chair and placed her hands on the armrests, her signal that she was getting up.
But Megan wasn’t willing to end the conversation yet. “All these years, Sarah never spoke to Grandpa because of the farm?”
“No. It was your grandfather who refused to speak to Sarah. He cut her out of his life—our lives—altogether.”
“I don’t get it. Why would Grandpa be angry at Aunt Sarah? Shouldn’t it be the reverse?”
Bibi sank back into the chair. “This is the part I didn’t want to tell you. Your grandfather stopped speaking to Sarah because she’s the one who convinced your mother to leave. And she helped Charlotte do it.”
Twenty
Megan sat forward in her chair, arms wrapped around her torso. Her grandmother’s words were a punch to the gut.
“So that’s why you didn’t want to tell me,” Megan said. “It wasn’t about Simon at all.”
“No, it wasn’t. This has always been about you, I’m afraid.”
“Why did…why would Aunt Sarah do that?”
“You’ll have to speak with her, Megan. I can’t answer that. All I know is that Charlotte was an unhappy girl—and let me be clear, at that time, your mother was still a girl, mentally if not physically—and Sarah thought she was helping. Although Teddy didn’t see it that way.”
“He thought she was getting back at him for the farm?”
Bibi, eyes still closed, nodded. “He wouldn’t budge on the farm, despite her pleads and protests. I wanted him to give it to her. She wasn’t the well-known author she is today and she didn’t have any money back then. I told Teddy we could have her pay us half the farm’s worth over time. Work something out. But he was Birch-stubborn and insisted it was what his father meant to happen.” Bibi scowled. “As though his father had had some grand plan.”
“When my mother left, Grandpa took it out on Sarah.”
Bibi’s eyes flew open. “Make no mistake, Sarah had a hand in your mother’s leaving. And to her credit, she never tried to hide it. She helped arrange for a job in New York. She even drove Charlotte to the train station.”
That day in the parlor, her mother’s tailored suit and stiff goodbye. Sarah had been waiting to drive her to her new life. One that didn’t include a little girl.
“I lost a mother and an aunt that day.” Megan thought about the pictures in her aunt’s house, the babies with their fat cheeks and innocent smiles. “And cousins—family I have never met.”
A tear trekked down Bibi’s face. “Your aunt never married.”
“Then who are all of the children on her mantel, if not Aunt Sarah’s grandchildren?” But Megan knew the answer by the glaze of despair in her grandmother’s eyes. “My mother’s grandchildren?”
“Yes.” Bibi held a hand out, as though in supplication, the tears making streak marks on her skin. “She remarried and had two more kids. Sarah never lost touch with her. Those pictures? Your nieces and nephews.”
Friday was blessedly dry. Megan, still reeling from her conversation with Bibi two nights prior, was happy to spend the day in the fields, picking lettuce, sugar snap peas, kale, and mustard greens for Saturday’s farmers market. Clover was holding down the fort at the café, and Jeremy, the new chef, was there with her, finalizing the menu for Monday’s café grand opening. If they were going to have enough vegetables for the farmers market, the store, and the café’s needs, Megan would have to pick almost all weekend, a task that suited her fine.
The local high school had sent over two volunteers—students in the vocational technical program—and Megan could see them down by the barn, washing lettuce in giant tubs of fresh water, their young backs bending in ways hers no longer could withstand for long.
“I still can’t believe it,” Clay said. He was on his knees, pulling tender sugar snap peas off the vines and tossing them efficiently into a large basket he’d strapped around his neck. Every once in a while, he’d pop one into his mouth. “And your grandmother has known all this time?”
“About Sarah? Yes. About my mother’s other family?” Megan shook her head. “She told me she learned about them when she visited Aunt Sarah. My father doesn’t know either, and Bibi made me swear not to tell him.”
Clay paused to examine a pod, holding it up to the sun. With a squinty frown, he tossed the snap pea in another pile, one meant for compost. “You don’t sound terribly upset.”
“I feel numb, like I heard news that was disturbing, but about someone else. Does that make sense?”
Clay nodded. “That’s how I felt when my father died. We hadn’t really known him—he and my mother never married, and he lived hours away. I was sad for all that could have been. Less so for the man himself.”
“Yes, that’s exactly it,” Megan said. “I was young when my mother left. And truthfully, she was more like a kindly aunt than a mother. Bibi was always my mother, at least in my mind.”
Megan heard a shout followed by a squeal. She glanced toward the barn in time to see the students squirting each other with the hose. They caught Megan watching and quickly returned to their chore.
“Kids,” Clay said, smiling.
“Kids.”
“Speaking of kids, will you make contact with your mother?”
Clay asked this nonchalantly, as though he was inquiring about the taste of a new brand of butter. Knowing he was keeping any trace of sympathy out of his voice lest it be mistaken for pity, Megan smiled at her friend. It was nice to have someone to confide in, and Clay, for all his youth, was a good listener.
“I don’t know. Right now, I’d say no. Maybe that will change.” Megan looked up, keeping an eye on a series of darker clouds edging in from the southwest. Rain this weekend would be a problem. It would make working outdoors unpleasant, and the farmers market could get canceled. “I’d like to talk with Sarah again.” She smiled, though her heart wasn’t in it. “Once I have the emotional fortitude.”
Clay dumped the overflowing basket of peas into a larger bin attached to a wheelbarrow. He covered the larger bin, protecting its contents from the harsh midday sun, and moved on to a new row.
“Do you think Simon’s bid for the farm is somehow connected to his murder?”
“My gut says yes. He wanted this property—that much we know. And when he couldn’t buy it, he became part of the zoning initiative. Then there’s the Washington connection.”
“But what would any of that have to do with a motive for killing him?”
“That’s just it. On its face, the person with the most to lose is me. The permits, the rezoning.”
“Then there is a motive we’re missing.”
“There’s Porter.” Megan shared Denver’s hypothesis that Brian Porter had broken into her store.
“I don’t know.” Clay looked troubled. “It’s possible Porter had a beef with Simon that we know nothing about. One that was unrelated to the farm. The setting of the murder could have been coincidental. Porter—anyone—could easily have followed him here.”
Megan considered this. “What about the other night? The intruder, and the break-in at the store? Your theory would make sense if Simon’s death was the end of it.”
“I know, I know,” Clay said. “And that scares me more than anything. I worry for your safety.”
Clay’s mention of safety reminded her about the dog, Gunther. She described their new addition to her farm manager.
“A Polish Tatra Sheepdog? Never heard of the breed.”
“Kind of looks like a Great Pyrenees. Or a large Golden Retriever. Or a white Newfoundland.”
“You’re really painting a picture.”
“Yeah, well.” Megan wiped her hand across her sweating brow and then replaced the glove. “Between the dog, the café opening, and the Historical Society fundraiser, next week is promising to be a busy one.”
“Don’t forget the farmers market.”
“That too,” Megan said, returning to her chore. She glanced toward her high school volunteers, pleased to see them washing the lettuce exactly as she had instructed. “The first one of the season is always a treat.”
Denver called Megan at four o’clock that afternoon. His voice, normally cheerful, held ominous undertones that caused Megan’s
hands to tense around her mobile phone.
“They’ve questioned Porter,” he said. “About your store…and about Simon’s murder. And they searched his house.”
“Today?”
“Aye. Brian called me earlier. Sarge was his excuse, but it was clear the laddie had been drinking.”
Megan was quiet for a moment. “Denver, why are you telling me?”
“Because maybe you can talk to the police on his behalf.” When Megan didn’t respond, he said, “Look, perhaps I understand Porter better than I’d like to admit. He’s got a hot head and some nasty demons chasing his skinny arse and it wasn’t that long ago that I was in the same boat.”
“What would you like me to say to the police?”
“That he needs some help, yes, but that he’s not a killer.”
“But we don’t know that.”
“The boy is not a murderer.”
Megan rubbed her temple, massaging the tension away with strong fingers. There it was again: that question of trust. Did she trust Denver enough to do this for him—on the basis of his request alone? What did she feel about Porter deep down in her own gut? Did it matter?
“I’ll talk to King,” Megan said. “Not that it will do any good. I think he half believes I’m involved.”
“He’ll be looking to see whether you want to press charges against Porter for your store. I think you should.”
“But you just said—”
“I said the boy’s not a killer. He admitted to the break-in to me. Maybe a good scare will help set him on the path to usefulness.”
Megan sighed. Since when was farming so damn complicated? “Okay.”
“That’s it? Okay?”
“You’ll owe me another dinner.”
“So it’s dinner ye want, is it?”
“Dinner…and maybe dessert.”
Brian Porter’s house was quiet. Megan pulled alongside the closed gate—unlocked this time—climbed out of her truck, and rapped on the door. Not surprising, Porter didn’t answer. His Jeep was there. He may be sleeping one off, she thought, and kept pounding, her hand aching from the effort.
