Deadly Row to Hoe (7 page)

Twelve

I swiped my note
off the dry-erase board, grabbed up the photos and trotted out the door, tossing a “Thank you!” over my shoulder. But Daphne was in for a pound now, and hurried to join me. We practically ran to the house—well, I practically ran. My companion was tall enough to outstride me by half. At a little after seven o’clock, the sun was lower in the sky, and increasing cloud cover created a false twilight. The motion sensor light over the front door flicked on as we neared.

Daphne pulled at my arm. “Nate’s probably in his trailer.”

We went around the side of the house. The silver Airstream gleamed, and cheery yellow light spilled through the red gingham curtains that covered the open windows. The savory smell of cooking onions drifted out on the sound of rattling pans.

“
How could you?
” The harsh feminine shriek from inside the trailer stopped us in our tracks.

Daphne and I exchanged looks. Her shoulders drooped.

“You know I’ll never give up. And I’ll never give up because I know you really do love me.”

A low male murmur in response.

My heartbeat quickened.

“Remember how much fun we used to have?” The voice cajoled. Yick.

Another murmur.

I darted a look at my companion, but she just rolled her eyes and started for the trailer. Clutching at her arm, I pulled her back to the corner of the house. I held my finger to my lips and gave a slight shake of my head.

“What?” she whispered.

“We don’t know what’s going on in there,” I whispered back, reaching into my pocket. “I’m calling the cops.”

Confusion mixed with anger on her face, and she shook off the hand which still gripped her elbow. “What for? It’s just Hallie.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. Who do you think it is?”

Oh, I don’t know. Another potential victim?

“Why is she so upset?” I asked.

Daphne looked at me like I was missing a few bolts. “Because she’s Hallie. And she’s out of her freaking mind when it comes to Nate.”

Now I was confused. “I didn’t even know they were dating.”

“They’re not.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Then why—”

“No!” exclaimed the voice from the trailer. “You need to remember how it was between us. It can’t be that way between you and Daphne. It just can’t. You wouldn’t be cheating on her if it was.”

“That won’t work,” Nate’s words were clear now. “You’re not going to break us up with your lies. I’ve had enough. Please just go back home, and leave me alone.” His voice cracked on the last three words. “Please.”

“You creep!” Hallie shouted.

Daphne took off, running toward the trailer. I was right behind her.

But before she could get to the door, it opened. Hallie stumbled out of the trailer. Her face was crimson with anger, and tears shone from dark, wild eyes. She snarled at Daphne, pushing her roughly out of the way, and ran past me to the house. The back door to the farm house slammed behind her.

“I thought she was going to stop that nonsense,” Daphne said from behind me.

I turned to find Daphne had gone into the trailer, and now she and Nate were thoroughly wrapped around each other. She was about four inches taller than he was, the crown of her head almost touching the low ceiling. His baby blues rose and looked at me over her shoulder.

“Er,” I said, and stepped into the cramped interior of the trailer.

Blushing, Daphne let go of him. He was red, too, and shuffled his feet. “Hi, Sophie Mae. Did you, uh, did you hear any of that?” He gestured vaguely toward the farm house.

I nodded and waited expectantly. Sometimes if you just kept you mouth shut other people feel compelled to fill the silence.

Nate broke first. “See, Hallie seems to think she’s, well, in love with me.” His color deepened. He looked at Daphne, who looked disgusted. “She’s not, of course,” he rushed on. “Or if she is, it’s not my fault. We went out for a while, when she first came to stay with Tom and Allie, but she was way too intense for me.”

Daphne took over. “Nate broke it off with her. Said he wanted to stay friends.” Her expression betrayed what she thought about that.

“I figured we live too close to be enemies,” he said in a quiet voice.

She stroked his arm. “I know, I know.” Her attention returned to me. “But Hallie didn’t take it well. It’s been over a year, and she still wants to get back together.” She shot an affectionate look at Nate. “We’ve been dating for four months, and it makes her
crazy
.” Daphne paused, then shrugged. “She really hates my guts. Do you know she followed us to the theater in Monroe last night? Sat right behind us. God, I could have killed her.”

Interesting word choice. At least I knew where Hallie had been the night before when Barr had brought out the picture.

“We had it out in the parking lot afterward,” Daphne continued. “I really thought she’d back off after that, but
no
.” Frustration and anger leaked out of every word.

“You ‘had it out’?”

“Oh!” She shook her head. “Nothing physical or anything. I just told her in no uncertain terms to lay off of Nate and me. She’d already tried to convince me Nate was seeing someone else.” She glanced at him. “Which is why I brought Sophie Mae to see you, honey.”

He looked confused.

I was equally bewildered. This drama had something to do with the bird lady?

“Show him, Sophie Mae.”

Gesturing Nate toward me, I took out the pictures. They looked pretty ratty by now, scuffed and bent and smudged by all the fingers they’d been through. And after a horrible night’s sleep and a long day, I was tired as all get out. Without preamble, I shoved them at him and stood back to watch his face.

He blinked at the two pieces of paper in his hands. Held them closer, his gaze flickering between them, and took a deep breath. “Oh,” he said. Daphne hovered at his side.

“Do you recognize one of those?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Which one?”

Nate blinked a few more times, and I realized he was holding back tears. “Both.”

Daphne put her arm around his shoulders, radiating sympathy. “It’s the woman they found yesterday. When I saw the picture … it’s her, isn’t it?”

He nodded again.

I couldn’t contain myself. “Who? Nate, what’s her
name
?”

He looked up at me, grief rolling off him in waves. “It’s Darla. Darla Klick.”

Thirteen

If there was ever
a time when a bracing drink was in order, this was it. Nate’s fingers curled around a glass of Jack Daniels, Daphne opted for a vodka tonic, and I sipped Johnny Walker from a shot glass with a picture of Elvis on the side.

The young Elvis. The thin Elvis. Funny how people changed.

The interior of the airstream trailer seemed bigger than it looked
from the outside, but it was still cramped. A built-in table flipped down from the wall, but most of the furniture crammed into the small space looked like something out of a college dorm—wicker
papasan chair in one corner, bean bag chair in another, and rough
shelves made from cinderblocks and two-by-eight lumber. A futon functioned as both sofa and bed. Nate’s half-cooked kale stir-fry
languished in a wok on the two-burner stove.

I sat in the papasan chair, feet curled underneath me. The lovebirds sat side-by-side on the futon.

And Nate told me about Darla.

“We grew up together on Camano Island. Under sort of strange
circumstances, actually. See, our parents were throwbacks, hippies into the back-to-the-land movement, only a few years late.”

“She was your
sister
?” I interrupted, stunned.

“Oh! No. Different sets of parents. We were neighbors, if you could call the other people in your commune your neighbors. It was more like a huge extended family, all working together. There was a central kitchen, and everyone shared in the gardens and taking care of the animals. There was a one-room school, and all us kids went there. The parents took turns teaching us. Kind of like home schooling, but centralized.”

“Doesn’t it sound wonderful?” Daphne breathed.

Ah, the romance of youth. “I bet it was a lot of hard work,” I said.

Nate nodded. “Oh, sure. But it was fun, too, at least the way I remember it.” He took a deep breath. “Darla was my very best friend for nine years.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me. “When I was eighteen and Darla was seventeen, the man who owned the land sold it to a big corporation.”

“And you all had to leave?” I asked.

“There’s a resort there now,” he said.

“How many families were involved in this commune?”

“About a dozen, give or take. People would come and go. And you didn’t have to be a family to join us. A lot of single people were interested in belonging to a big community.” He paused, looking into a distance that wasn’t there.

Was he remembering the past, or thinking of the future?

Daphne nudged him. “Tell her about Darla.”

“Right.” I reined my imagination back in. “You stayed in contact with her?”

“For a while. But soon we lost touch, and I didn’t see her for years and years. It turned out part of that time she was working in Alaska on some grant project.”

“She was into birds, right, honey?” Daphne said.

“How do you know so much about her?” I asked her.

She scowled. “Hallie tracked me down one day about a week ago. I was out hoeing around the pumpkins. She just had to tell me about this ‘other woman’ Nate was seeing.”

I looked at Nate.

He sighed. “Hallie likes to keep tabs on me, which isn’t hard to do since this trailer is in her backyard. So she saw Darla come to see me. Darla was between assignments, and living with her parents in Arlington. She tracked me down through some mutual friends and gave me a call. I invited her to come see the farm. I opened the door, and there was my old friend after all those years. She’d lost weight and was in great shape—I’d never seen her look so hot.”

Now I looked at Daphne.

Other than a slight flare of her nostrils, she ignored his commentary. “By the time Hallie saw fit to tell me about this new woman Nate was seeing, he’d already filled me in about Darla. About what good friends they were and how happy he was to see her again.” She twisted to meet his eyes. “And about their … past. What a sad, sad story.”

Nate offered a grimace. “I wish you could have met her, Daffy. You would have really liked each other.”

“So you never actually saw her?” How had Daphne recognized the photos then?

“I did see her, but she was in the parking lot. She and Nate had been catching up and she was leaving. Nate pointed her out to me and said what he did just now. That we would really like each other. So when I saw the pictures, I was pretty sure they were of Darla. I knew Nate could tell you for certain.”

“I think Darla lived in Cadyville for a time, maybe four or five years ago,” I said.

His forehead creased. “I was in Oregon then. I moved around a lot after the commune folded. I was under the radar much of that time, working for cash on ranches and farms all over the West. It wasn’t until I learned Tom was starting a CSA farm that I realized how much I missed this little corner of the world. When he offered me a job, I jumped at the chance.”

We all fell silent, thinking about how Nate and Darla had finally managed to cross paths. When I eventually spoke, it was almost to myself. “So why did someone kill her?”

Nate passed his hand over his face and shook his head.

Daphne gave him a peck on the cheek. “Don’t worry. Sophie Mae will find out what happened to her.”

I hauled my behind out of the chair, awkward as all get-out. Now I remembered why papasans had gone out of style. “No promises. But knowing her identity is the first step in finding out more.” I slipped on my shoes. “I’ll pass on what you told me to the police. I’m sure they’ll want to talk to you.”

Nate stood. “Of course. Tell Barr I’ll be available whenever he needs me. I want to find out who killed Darla as much as anyone.”

As I stepped outside the door, I asked, “So how do you know Tom?”

“From the commune. He and Allie were one of the last couples to join before we had to leave the island.”

I stared. “He knew Darla?”

Slowly, Nate nodded. “He and Allie both did.”

Now I felt my own nostrils flare. “They both out and out lied to me.”

Daphne’s eyes widened, and she gripped the edge of the futon where she still sat. “Why would they do that?”

Wariness crept onto Nate’s face. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, no,
what
?” My patience was worn paper thin.

He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t jump to conclusions, Sophie Mae. They’re just trying to protect the farm.”

_____

Well, now I not only knew who the murder victim was, but had a whole pile of possible suspects, too.

If Hallie “loved” Nate so much she was willing to stalk him and Daphne on a movie date, was she capable of doing worse? After all, she’d thought Nate was seeing Darla on the side. But in that case, wouldn’t she have gone after Daphne first?

And what about Daphne? She seemed understandably irked by Hallie’s histrionics and interference with her relationship, but not overly concerned. It sounded like she’d stood up for herself, and apparently for Nate as well, in the movie theater parking lot. She didn’t seem concerned about Darla, or Hallie’s allegations that
Nate was cheating, either. Daphne was even more Zen than Meghan
in some ways.

I tried to put myself in her position. If Barr came home and said he’d run into his best childhood friend and that friend happened to be female, would I be jealous? I liked to think not, especially as his ex-wife had already surfaced in a very unpleasant way early in our relationship. Nothing could top that. Besides, I trusted Barr. I couldn’t fault Daphne for trusting Nate as well.

But what if she didn’t? What if that was an act? After all, Nate had sat right in front of both of us and described his old friend as “hot.” It was a stretch, but while Hallie might go after Daphne as a rival, Daphne might see Nate’s old friend as a rival. I had a hard time wrapping my brain around all of it, however, mostly because Nate himself didn’t seem like the type to elicit such strong emotion.

Yet I’d witnessed exactly that from Hallie.

Sheesh.

All this flew through my mind as I walked around to the front of the farmhouse. Before going home, I wanted to brace the Turners about Darla Klick.

Allie answered the door, took one look at my face and said, “Oh …” She sighed and stepped back. “You’d better come in.”

I remembered my promise to be careful. “I’d rather stay out here, if you don’t mind.”

Her forehead creased in puzzlement. “Dinner’s on the stove. I take it you found out about Darla?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I couldn’t keep the irritation out of my voice. I’d worked all day trying to figure out who the dead woman was, and the Turners had known all along. “More importantly, why didn’t you tell Barr?”

She glanced inside. “Clarissa? Clarissa! Turn off the stove, okay?”
She came out to the small porch and closed the door behind her. We sat down on the top step.

Allie turned to me with apprehension. “I’m sorry, really I am. She looked so different in the picture Barr showed us, and it had been so long. I couldn’t be positive.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. You knew her better than that.”

“Not that well.” She licked her lips. “And yet too well. What did Nate tell you?”

“That you and Tom were part of the commune where he and Darla grew up.”

“Right. But only for six months before it all disbanded. By then Darla was falling apart, and she was gone a lot.”

“College?”

“Rehab.”

I felt my eyebrows climb my forehead. Nate hadn’t said anything about substance abuse.

“Poor thing was a real mess,” Allie went on. “Problems with drugs and alcohol … and promiscuity. At least that’s what I heard. And one time I caught her …” She swallowed convulsively. “… I caught her with Tom.”

Oooohhh. I struggled to keep my face expressionless. It didn’t work.

“No, it’s not like that,” Allie said, rushing her words now. “She was kissing him, yes, and pawing at his clothes, but he was trying to stop her. It was awful, caused a big stink. We were newcomers while her parents were part of the group who originally founded the whole place. Something had happened, some kind of accident, and they knew all about it and blamed her behavior on that. I wasn’t sorry when the owner sold the property we were all on. There was even talk of trying to find another piece of land together, but by then I didn’t want any part of it.”

A weariness settled around her slumped shoulders, but I could tell some of the anxiousness had lifted. Lying was a stressful business.

“Did you really think we wouldn’t find out eventually?” I was still peeved.

She took a deep breath. “Tom and I just … we thought there might be a way to save the farm.”

I leaned forward. “Allie, did you kill Darla Klick?”

“Of course not!”

“Did Tom?”

“No! But once the police found out about that old connection we knew everyone would turn suspicious eyes on us. We thought if we could only stay under the radar, Barr would find who killed her, and people would still want to be part of the farm.”

I just looked at her.

She held up a hand. “I know. Stupid.”

More like desperate.

“Did you see her here?” I asked.

“Never. I didn’t have the faintest clue she was anywhere near Cadyville.”

“She sought out Nate,” I said.

Allie nodded. “I’m not surprised. Apparently they were awfully close as kids.”

And yet they’d fallen out of touch.

The door opened behind us, and we craned around to see Clarissa standing in the doorway. She looked right at me, then turned to her mother as if I didn’t exist. “Hallie’s crying. And something’s burning in the kitchen. It smells really bad.”

Allie launched to her feet. “Didn’t you turn off the stove like I asked?”

“My nails are wet.” She twiddled her fingers at her mother, who
rushed past her into the house.

I stood. Clarissa leaned a hip against the doorframe and considered me. She wore a mini-skirt with high heels and a skimpy top that would have suited a street walker but merely looked sad on her scrawny, little-girl torso. Bright pink lipstick gleamed on her lips, and her light brown hair was gathered into a high ponytail on top of her head.

“I have to be going,” I said. “Will you tell your mom?”

“Sure.”

Unless her wet nails got in the way.