Bitter Harvest (29 page)

“I do not! Wouldn’t you be kind of bored with no light and nothing to do out there?”

“I’ll figure something out.”

Meg turned to Seth. “Does that make any sense?”

“Maybe,” he said. “She’s right—it would expand the area we could watch. She’s got windows in a couple of the doors, but she’d have to keep patrolling. But if it’s late, I think anybody moving around outside would be pretty obvious and she’d hear. Nobody can be completely quiet.”

“If you say so,” Meg said, unconvinced. “This person has managed to sneak up on us before, even while we were in the house.”

“But you weren’t paying attention,” Seth said.

“Okay, say Bree settles in the barn after dark. What about us?”

“You can drive over to my place, and we’ll walk back.”

“In the dark?”

“Meg, I’ve been walking around here for most of my life. It’ll be fine. I’m not asking you to do it alone.”

Meg wasn’t reassured. “Then how do we sneak into the house?”

“The door from the shed. Wear dark clothes. Leave the door unlocked and the lights off—Bree will be watching until we get back. Then we can spell each other through the night.”

Meg sat back and looked at Bree and Seth. The idea was solid, but as they laid out the details, it sounded more and more ridiculous. She was pretty sure she would sound like an elephant blundering around in the dark, even with Seth to guide her—not the best way to avoid detection. But what other alternatives were there? She couldn’t think of any.

“I guess that’s the best we can do. So, Bree, we’ll trade off during the day tomorrow and do whatever we need to do, then you’ll drive to Seth’s and I’ll collect you there and sneak you back.”

“Hey, that means the place will be uncovered then,” Bree pointed out.

“I can try to stop by after five, and wait for you to come back, Meg,” Seth said.

Meg nodded. “Okay. Then you leave, and Bree hides in the barn. Then I’ll leave, and you and I will come back overland. Should we write a script for this?” Meg received blank stares. “I mean, shouldn’t we have some kind of dialogue, in case anybody’s watching? Like ‘So you’re going over to Michael’s and you’ll be gone all night, right, Bree?’ ”

Bree laughed. “And my line is, ‘Yes, Meg, I will be gone until tomorrow. And yourself?’ ”

Meg countered, “‘Indeed, Bree, I plan to go over to Seth’s house and stay there all night. I shall feed the cat and the goats before I leave, but I will not be back until morning.’ ”

“You two are nuts,” Seth said, smiling. “I don’t think anyone would be close enough to hear you, but if it makes you happy, go for it.”

Bree bounded out of her chair. “Well, I’d better rest up for our big day—or should I say night?—tomorrow. I’ll leave you two kids alone.” Before Meg could say anything, Bree had disappeared up the back stairs to her room. Leaving the last of the dirty dishes, Meg noted.

“You want help cleaning up?” Seth asked.

“No, don’t worry about it. You’ve already put in a full day of work. Seth, is this crazy?”

“Odd, maybe. But I understand that you want to do something, and I don’t think this will be dangerous. And I’ll be around to keep an eye on things.”

Meg swatted his arm. “Oh, yes, I need a big strong man to protect me. But seriously, you don’t think there would be any violence, do you?”

Seth studied her face before answering. “Maybe I’ve lived around here too long. The people I know in Granford aren’t violent. My gut feeling is, if this person had wanted to do any real harm, either to you or to your property, he would have by now. It would be too darn easy to set fire to the barn or shoot your goats when they were outside.”

“Seth!” Meg was appalled at the thought, but realized he had a point.

“I’m just saying that he could have, but didn’t. And believe me, if I thought you were truly at risk I wouldn’t let you out of my sight. Seriously, I don’t think destruction is the point here. I think this is intended to keep you on edge.”

“This jerk is good at that, damn him, whatever it is he
is
doing. I just hope this doesn’t take too long—more than a couple of nights, anyway.”

“Amen to that,” Seth said, standing up slowly. “I’d better be going. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

Meg stood up, too, and went to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Thank you for going along with this. It may be silly, but . . .”

“I don’t think it’s silly. I think you’re defending your home, which is pretty primal. I admire you for trying, whether or not it works. Nobody can say you don’t have guts.”

“Yeah, I’m a gutsy broad.” She kissed him hard, then shoved him away. “Go home and get some sleep. You’re going to need it.”

“Yes, ma’am. See you in the morning.”

Meg cleaned up the kitchen, locked up, and went to bed, trailed by Lolly.

 

 

The next morning
the sky was heavily overcast. Maybe the forecasters were right about snow. Should they defer their plan to trap a . . . what? Harasser? There should be a better word. “Nemesis” sounded a bit too strong, invoking overtones of fate and angry gods. “Gadfly”? Not serious enough. “Persecutor”? “Tormentor”? Nothing felt right. But Meg still wanted an answer, an identity for the shadowy figure who’d been dogging her for a couple of weeks now.

Bree was sitting at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper when Meg came downstairs.

“What are they saying about the weather?” Meg asked, filling her own mug.

“Snow, maybe four to six inches. No big deal.”

Meg wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. She sat down. “You have any new thoughts about our plan?”

“Not really. I agree with you, in principle—but I’m not convinced that what we’re planning will flush him out. If he’s smart he’ll see right through us and just wait for a while.”

“I know.” Meg sipped her coffee. “I’d still like to know what set him off, and why he’s in such a hurry. Why now?”

“Fewer people around? When we were picking, there were always people coming and going, and one of us was home most nights.”

“True, but that makes a person hanging around here all the more obvious now. No, I think there must have been something that triggered this, but I can’t figure out what it could be. What happened around Thanksgiving?”

“Got me. We finished the harvest, went to Rachel’s for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Maybe somebody thought we took their place at Rachel’s dinner? She’s one good cook!”

“Agreed. But bugging you after the fact doesn’t change anything. Seth have any jealous ex-girlfriends?”

“Not that I know of. I can’t imagine his ex-wife is involved in this. You think someone else has set her cap for him and is trying to drive me away so she has a clear field?”

“Boy, are you mixing your metaphors.”

“You know what I mean.”

Bree nodded. “Yeah, I do. And no, I don’t think that’s it.”

Meg giggled. “Well, I’m out of ideas. Look, I’ve got a couple of small errands to do this morning. What are you up to?”

“I’m going to catch up on my reading—it’s a real treat to have enough time for it.”

“Good for you. Just keep your eyes and ears open, will you?”

“Always do.”

After breakfast Meg went out to the car. The air felt heavy. Could one smell snow coming? Maybe if she hung around in Granford long enough she’d learn to recognize it. She got into the car and headed toward the nearest mall: new socks, some nicer underwear—she giggled at that thought—and a stop at a pharmacy were on the top of the list.

Two hours later she was headed back toward Granford, but on a whim turned off on the road toward the cemetery. No one was following her, and she was going to stay alert, just in case. The last snow had more or less melted, except where it had been piled deep, and if there was more coming, she didn’t know when she’d have another chance to locate Violet Morgan, née Cox. Maybe it was a bit odd to stop by and visit someone who had died more than a century earlier, but Meg thought it was only right to introduce herself if she was digging up all of Violet’s dark secrets.

Once again, there was no other car in sight on the road by the cemetery. Meg pulled as far over as the surviving snow piles would permit, climbed out of the car, and headed for the central gate. John had been right about winter visitors: even now Meg could see new flowers—garish plastic ones—on some of the newer graves. People did stop by regardless of weather. That made her feel a little better. After all, Violet was a relative of a sort, and Meg was here to remember her. She picked her way through the rows, looking for stones in the style popular in the midnineteenth century: not the old slate slabs, but more likely white marble.

Gail had said there were a few Morgans in Granford, and Meg wondered what the odds were that she’d find any of them. She wandered aimlessly for a bit, and almost cheered out loud when she finally spied a tall stone for Abiel Morgan, and directly under his name, “Violet C. Morgan, beloved wife.” It was too cold and damp to sit on the ground, so Meg leaned cautiously against a tombstone in the next row. “Hello, Violet.”

The wind whistled through the trees bordering the far side of the cemetery, and a raucous crow took flight. Otherwise, silence.

Meg was glad not to have an audience. “I found your sampler. It’s lovely—you did nice work. I don’t know how it stayed hidden for so long, but I’m glad to have it. I live in the house you once did, with your Uncle Eli.” Meg looked around, at the other, later tombstones flanking Abiel’s central one: more Taylors. “Looks like some of your kids stayed around—that must have been nice for you, to have close family nearby.”

The wind was picking up, and while it might not have been below freezing, the dampness made it chilling. Time to wrap this up. “Well, Violet, I’ll be back again, I’m sure—in better weather. It was nice to meet you.”

Meg retraced her steps to the main path, and then decided to make a small detour and say hello to Lula and Nettie Warren, the sisters her mother had inherited the house from, at the far end of the newer section. When she reached them, Meg said, “Hi, ladies. You know, if you’d been taller, you would have found a nice surprise in one of your closets. Well, I just wanted to say hello, and let you know that the house is looking good.”

OK, enough craziness for one day. If the good citizens of Granford could see her now, talking to lumps of rock in the snow . . . As Meg made her way back toward her car, her eye was caught by another stone, this one much newer granite, with the name John B. Taylor 1940—1972 at the top. John’s father, Donna’s husband? He’d died so young. No spouse was listed on the stone (which would make sense if this was Donna’s husband), but below John’s name were two others: Megan Taylor, Sean Taylor. Both had been born in the late 1990s—too late to be John’s own children—but both had died before reaching age five. Meg shivered, not sure whether from the cold or from what she was seeing.

There had to be a story here. The children’s dates of death were different, so it wasn’t some sort of tragic accident. But what natural cause killed children so young in modern times? Meg had no idea.

And were these children related to her neighbor John Taylor? She didn’t want to think so. It would be heartwrenching to lose not one but two children so young. And Seth had said Eli was sick; he hadn’t looked particularly sick when Meg had seen him, even held him—but he had been on his way to a doctor’s appointment. Jenn had said Eli was their only child . . . but was it too much of a leap of logic to assume that the children in the cemetery here were related to Eli? Maybe even deceased siblings? That wasn’t the kind of question Meg could exactly ask someone she didn’t know very well. But maybe Seth could tell her. Meg filed the question away for future thought, and headed back to the house. Right now she had a trap to set.

The sky was gray and heavy as Meg drove home, and the clouds seemed lower than they had been earlier in the day. When she pulled into her driveway, she stopped to check the mail. Bills, a few early Christmas cards, and at the bottom of the pile was a thick Express Mail envelope. Meg was surprised to see that it had come from Mercy at the Pittsford Library. Mercy must have been very eager to have assembled and copied information for her so quickly—after all, Meg had been there only three days earlier. And it looked like Mercy had paid for the speedy delivery herself; no doubt her library, like many, was facing a budget crunch. Mercy must have believed that this was important, and Meg was intrigued.

When she came through the back door, Meg called out to let Bree know she was back.

“What took you so long?” asked Bree, thudding down the back stairs.

“Am I late for something? I stopped by the cemetery on my way home.”

“Oh, well, of course—I should have guessed,” Bree said sarcastically. “I thought I’d squeeze in lunch with Michael, since I’m busy tonight.”