09 The Clue at Black Creek Farm (8 page)

Abby sat down at the table, putting on an enthusiastic expression. “Did you find out anything today, girls?” she asked hopefully. “Do you have any theories about the vegetables?”

I put down my sandwich, chewing and swallowing carefully as I parsed my words. “We've made some good progress,” I said. “George took some vegetables from the farm to be tested for E. coli. We'll know more when we hear from her.”

Abby nodded. The teakettle whistled, and she started to get up, but Julie jumped up and headed to the stove before her mother-in-law could push back her seat. “Stay where you are,” Julie said. “I can get my own tea.”

Abby let out a sigh. She looked tired suddenly and placed her elbows on the table, leaning forward to rest her head in her hands. “We have to catch this person,” she said. “This farm is Sam's dream. I don't want anyone to keep him from enjoying it for . . . for whatever time he has left,”
she said, her voice breaking on the last word.

I watched her sympathetically. “Sam told me the farm was losing money?” I said, remembering what Lori had mentioned about the strange tension with Jack.

Abby pulled her hands away and looked me in the eye. “We've been losing money since the farm opened,” she said. “But you know what? I don't care about money. I'd rather have a farm that loses money but makes Sam happy than have him working a job that makes us lots of money, but he hates.”

How to say this?
“It . . . sounds like Jack doesn't feel the same way,” I said carefully.

Julie was bringing her tea back to the table, and she and Abby met eyes and exchanged a knowing look as she pulled back her chair and sat down.

“I wish I could say that wasn't true,” Abby said. “But . . .”

Julie carefully sipped her tea. “They're so much alike,” she said simply, “Jack and Sam.”

“They always have been,” Abby agreed, her eyes
growing warm with the memory. “Sometimes, I think that's why they butt heads.”

Julie turned back to me and Bess. “They're both so
stubborn
,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Men!”

Abby laughed.

“So
unreasonable
,” Julie added with a smile, sipping her tea again. She leaned back in her chair and added, “And I think Jack was a little hurt when Sam decided to give up practicing law.”

“Why?” Bess asked curiously.

“Because Jack is a lawyer too. He followed in his father's footsteps,” Abby explained.

“And I think,” Julie went on, “that when Sam announced that he didn't want to be a lawyer anymore—that he no longer saw value in that—Jack viewed it as a rebuke.”

Abby nodded slowly. “On some level,” she said, “I think Jack thinks his father has chosen this farm over him.”

Julie looked uncomfortable. “In some ways that's true,” she said quietly, gazing down at her tea.

Abby glanced over at her. “What do you mean?”

Julie shrugged, still not meeting her gaze. “Oh, you know,” she said lightly. “
I
don't feel this way. But you could argue that Sam's spending money on the farm that Jack might have inherited someday. Anyway, I'm sure Jack will come around.”

Abby stared at Julie in surprise, and Bess met my eye with an
Oh no, she didn't
sort of expression. Everything got really quiet. But Julie just kept sipping her tea, as if nothing incredibly awkward had just been said.

Thank goodness my phone beeped right at that moment, cutting the silence. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled it out, excited to see a text from George.

“Oh! This is from my friend who had the vegetables tested,” I said eagerly. “She says . . .”

I read the text out loud.

“ ‘Rashid says the veggies were “crawling with” E. coli. So the bad guy is working on the farm? Ugh, wish I weren't working!' ”

I lowered my phone and looked up at the faces
around me. Bess looked thoughtful; Julie and Abby looked confused.

“She means the vegetables we picked here on the farm already had E. coli on them,” I explained. “Which would seem to imply . . .”

“. . . whoever's contaminating the vegetables is doing it here,” Bess finished for me.

I nodded. “Right.”

Abby and Julie still looked mystified. “So they're doing it
on purpose
,” Abby said, not sounding entirely sure.

“It looks that way,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Do you know
anyone
—anyone at all—who might wish the farm ill? Who's had access to the plants?”

Abby seemed to think for a while. “No,” she said finally.

“Do you have any farmhands?” Bess asked. “Anyone besides Lori and Bob who regularly work on the farm?”

Abby shook her head. “We can't afford them on what we're making,” she said. “Lori comes on weekends, and Bob helps out a few times a week, but other than them it's
just me and Sam tending the crops. And Jack, since he's been staying here,” she added. She straightened up. “Sometimes we get volunteers from the CSA,” she said, “but we haven't had anyone out here in weeks.”

Everyone was quiet for a minute.

“How would you even
do
it?” Julie asked.

Bess nodded. “Contaminating a whole farm full of produce—in broad daylight? It seems impossible.”

I stood up, an idea taking root. “It probably is,” I said, walking toward the window and looking out over the rows of crops.
Whoever's doing this is doing it at night,
I realized, and suddenly our next step became clear. I turned to Bess with a grin.

Alarm brightened her eyes. “I know that grin,” Bess said. “I hate that grin. That's the ‘Nancy has an idea Bess is going to hate' grin.”

I shrugged, glancing at the crops again and back.

“So what is it?” Bess went on.

I smiled, gesturing toward the planted fields. “Feel like camping out tonight, Bess?”

“I HATE THIS,” BESS GRUMPED
as she laid out one of the sleeping bags Sam and Abby had loaned us in the tent they'd also loaned us.

“Come on, Bess,” I chided, bumping her shoulder playfully (which was super easy to do, since the tent was only about five feet across). “We got to have a hot dog cookout for dinner!”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that really made my day, Nancy. Because I am nine years old.”

“Anyway,” I said, fluffing my pillow, “I thought you were invested in the case now?”

Bess groaned. “Couldn't I be
invested
while we watched the footage from a video camera or something?”

I shook my head. “There's no way a video camera could cover the same amount of space as two sets of human eyes and ears,” I explained. “Besides, I want to catch whoever is doing this quickly! The sooner we get this figured out, the sooner everything can go back to normal at Black Creek Farm.”

“And with Sam,” Bess added quietly, her face drooping.

“And Sam,” I confirmed. The kindly farmer had seemed sort of embarrassed when he'd learned that Bess and I knew he had cancer. He apologized for not telling us but repeated what Abby had said—he didn't want anyone to treat him any differently. And he thought it was irrelevant to the case.

But is it?
I bit my lip now, remembering how upset Jack had seemed that morning, and even earlier, the night of the buffet. It had been perfectly clear that Jack didn't support his father's decision to become a farmer.
Could he really care more about his inheritance than his father's happiness?
I wondered.
Does he think if he ruins Black Creek's reputation, Sam will close the farm and stop losing money by chasing his dream?

Bess yawned loudly, cutting off my gloomy train of thought. I turned and found her stretched out on her sleeping bag.

“How are we doing this?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbow.

“We take shifts,” I explained. We'd discussed this over hot dogs, but I was getting the sense that Bess was pretty worn out. I should have been too, but I guessed adrenaline was keeping me going.
The thrill of the chase.
“Two hours each. I can take the first shift,” I offered. “You go to sleep. It's ten now—I'll wake you up at midnight. Okay?”

“Okay,” Bess agreed. But her voice was muffled as she was already climbing into her sleeping bag. Abby had loaned us T-shirts and sweatpants to sleep in. It was slightly cool in the tent; perfect sleeping weather.

“I'll sit outside,” I said, climbing out the tent's
zippered door. We'd set up the tent on a small hill that overlooked the fields of crops—as close to having a view of the whole farm as I could find.

I settled myself on a rock next to a tree and turned to position an old camping lantern the Heyworths had lent me. I kept the lantern off so our campsite wouldn't attract any attention; the moon was nearly full, casting plenty of light to see into the fields. It was totally quiet except for the occasional hoot of an owl or chirping of crickets. I glanced over at the house; all the lights were out except one, on the top floor. I watched a figure pass in front of the window: Jack. I shuddered and wasn't sure why. Jack had finally returned to the farm as we were finishing up our weenie roast on the back porch. He claimed he'd been working in a coffee shop all day—trying to collect his head. No one questioned him, and he asked where Julie was and then disappeared upstairs. Sam had looked after him, pensive, and Abby had put her hand on his arm and told him to “give Jack time.”

Then the conversation had shifted.

The figure disappeared from the window, and soon after, the light went out. Everyone would be going to sleep now—except me.

I cast my eyes out over the fields again.
Where are you, little crops poisoner?
I thought.
Greenhouse destroyer? Dream trampler?

I rested my back against the tree and got ready for a long night.

It was almost midnight. I stared into my phone, watching each minute pass, dying to wake up Bess so I could get some shut-eye. It had been a long day, and adrenaline could only get me so far.

That was when I heard what sounded like a car coming up the road. My heart squeezed. There were only two farms and one or two other houses on this road—what were the chances someone could be coming home this late? I blinked my eyes and shook my head, trying to wake up.
Could this be my crops saboteur?

I got to my feet. The car noise died down right in front of the farm. I heard the shuddery sound of an
engine turning off, and then a car door opening and slamming.

Gulp.
I ran my fingers over the phone in my hand. I'd typed in the farm's house number as a “favorite.” The plan was, if I saw anything unusual, I would call and wake them up.

Should I call now?

It was unusual to have someone pull up to the house in the middle of the night, wasn't it?

I swiped my finger across the bottom of the screen to wake up the phone, but before I could enter my pass code, I heard them.

Footsteps.

They were headed from the house . . .
this way
.

I turned and squinted toward the path that led from the driveway, behind the house, to the foot of the hill where we were camped. There it was: a dark figure. It looked small, like a teenager or petite woman, and it wore a gray sweatshirt and a baseball cap. It was carrying something large and heavy-looking in its arms.

Whoever it was, he or she was close enough that they would be upon me before I could get Sam or Abby out here. My fingers clutched uselessly at my phone.
Should I call the police?
I thought of the unlit lantern sitting nearby and considered grabbing it.

But it was too late. I heard a twig snap just feet away and realized the person was already climbing the hill.
It's like they know we're here!
I felt my heart start to pound in my chest.