Red Delicious Death (32 page)

Gail laughed. “Website? Heck, no—we use smoke signals, or carrier pigeons. Seriously, if I’m intruding, just tell me to mind my own business. But if things are good, I’m happy for you. Both of you.”

“Thank you,” Meg said primly. “Things
are
good, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“Gotcha.” Gail’s cell phone rang, and she rummaged through her pockets to find it. “What’s the problem, sweetie? Oh, dang, you’re right. I can run it right over to you. See you.” She hung up with a grimace. “I forgot to give the kids their bag lunches this morning, so I’d better go drop them off. Listen, you keep that material for now. You can share it with Nicky and Brian, and I’ll keep looking, both for the house and for any food-related stuff. I’m sure we’ve got something.”

“Sounds good. I won’t keep you. Besides, I haven’t checked my trees for at least an hour, and maybe something will have changed.”

Gail laughed. “Right. You do that. I’ll talk to you soon.” She set off for her car—carefully parked in the shade of the church building—at a brisk trot.

Meg went back to her car more slowly, thinking. Funny that Mrs. Goldthwaite had never mentioned her association with the Stebbins place. Or maybe she just assumed that everyone already knew? Insider information took on a whole new meaning in a small town like this. Had Mrs. Goldthwaite even been inside the house since she had left decades ago? Had she seen the changes that Nicky and Brian had made? The whole way home, Meg mulled over this new view into Mrs. Goldthwaite’s resistance to the restaurant.

After a haphazard lunch, Meg was still restless. She could go through the rest of the materials Gail had given her, but that was inside work, and she really wanted to be outside, moving. She had talked to small markets between Granford and Amherst; maybe she should cross the river and try the rest on Michael’s list, and then she could tell Bree she had finished with it. And if she had any time left, she could stop by some of the Granford farmers’ homes, after they got back from work.

Energized, she grabbed her bag and keys and headed out. After several hours, with a few more tentative commitments from markets in hand, Meg decided to quit while she was ahead. She had to admit she had come to enjoy the process, which surprised her. The country roads were beautiful and far from busy, and she was beginning to recognize some of them and could get from one place to another without getting lost. Maybe she’d hate it in winter, when these same roads were piled high with snow, but right now it was lovely. She was learning so much, and found herself looking at produce displays quite differently than she would have only a month or two earlier.

She checked her watch: it was after five. Seth had said Jake Kellogg might be home at this hour. Maybe it was worth a trip by his place to talk with him.

She found the farm with no trouble, but when she knocked on the door, it wasn’t Jake but his wife who opened it. The sound of a radio blared behind her. “Oh, hi—Meg, is it?” she said, looking harried. “You looking for Jake? He might be out back with the pigs. Is his car here? Oh, right, there it is—he can’t have gone far. Maybe you could check the barn out back? I don’t know.” She yelled back over her shoulder, “Jessica! Turn that thing down!” Then she turned back to Meg. “Sorry. Look, if you don’t find him, stop by here on your way out, and you can leave him a message.” She shut the door before Meg could respond.

The sun was lower now and a cool breeze had sprung up, and Meg had spent too much of the day either in the car or standing around and talking, so a walk might do her good. She set off along the lane that led toward the pig field.

It was, she decided, a good day for a stroll. She was pleasantly tired but satisfied with what she had accomplished. The air was warm but not hot, thick with pollen, and lots of colorful weeds she couldn’t identify bloomed wildly in the ditches that flanked the lane. She rounded the gentle curve that hid the house from the pigs, or vice versa, and almost stopped: there was someone there already, leaning against the fence, apparently deep in communion with the pigs, and it wasn’t Jake. As she drew closer, she realized it was Caroline Goldthwaite.

Mrs. Goldthwaite looked up when she noticed Meg approaching, but her stance didn’t change. Up close, Meg realized that she held what looked like a long walking stick, and she was using it to scratch the back of the nearest pig, who looked ecstatic.

“Hello, Mrs. Goldthwaite. That pig looks happy.”

Mrs. Goldthwaite’s rhythm didn’t slow. “I believe she is. Aren’t you, Lulu?”

Lulu appeared to be grinning. “What brings you out here?” Meg asked, mainly to forestall being asked the same question. Knowing how Mrs. Goldthwaite felt, she didn’t want to bring up the restaurant and set off a new round of unpleasantness, unless she had to.

“I live at the other end of the lane—the house is on East Road. I don’t think this lane has a name, as is the case for many farm roads hereabouts. I walk over this way whenever I have the opportunity, weather permitting, of course. My daily constitutional.” She gave one of her characteristic sniffs. “I assume you’re here to talk to Jake about his pigs, for . . . that place.”

There was no avoiding it now. “Yes, for the restaurant. You never mentioned that you used to live in the Stebbins house, Mrs. Goldthwaite.”

“Didn’t I?” Mrs. Goldthwaite kept her eyes on the pigs. Lulu had wandered off, but a smaller pig had trotted over and was begging for attention. “That’s right, you’re a new-comer. You wouldn’t know the history of a place, would you?”

“I’m doing the best I can to learn about it. I asked Gail Selden about the history of the building. She said I should talk to you.”

Mrs. Goldthwaite nodded silently, still watching the pigs.

When she didn’t volunteer any additional details, Meg cast about for a change of topic. “Did you know the Warren sisters? The ones who left the house to my mother?”

“Yes, although I was a child at the time. My father bought apples from them, if I remember correctly. We lived in town, and we didn’t farm, but my father believed in supporting the community. He was on the Select Board for a time, years ago. Although then they called it the Board of Selectmen. It was, in fact, all men in that era.”

“When did you first run?”

“After my husband died, a few years ago. I was . . . bored, I suppose. I thought it would be wise to seek out an activity that demanded that I get out of the house now and then, or I would turn into one of those crazy old ladies that children used to call witches. Heaven only knows what they call them now. Children have become quite rude, which I think reflects poorly on their parents. I’m sorry I never had the chance to set a better example, but Herbert and I were not blessed.”

“Did you and your husband farm?”

Mrs. Goldthwaite shook her head. “We didn’t have enough land for that—Herbert’s parents were forced to divide their holdings to accommodate several sons. Herbert managed the hay and feed store on the highway outside of town, not far from your place.”

Meg struggled to find something else to say. She assumed she was probably already in Mrs. Goldthwaite’s condemned column for her public association with the restaurant project—and for her implicit criticism that Granford needed the money that a restaurant or any other commercial project would bring in, thereby sullying the historical purity of the place.

Meg noticed that Mrs. Goldthwaite was quite content to let the silence between them lengthen. She seemed focused on the pigs. Obviously she had visited them before, maybe had been doing so for years. Had the pigs always been in this field?

A faint alarm bell rang in Meg’s mind. This was Mrs. Goldthwaite’s regular walking route, she had said. Did the state police know that? Had they questioned her about Sam’s death? She could have seen something, heard something, when Sam died. Someone could have come through from her end of the lane, and few people would have made the connection.

Or maybe she hadn’t just seen something. Maybe she had done something.

No
. That was absurd. Meg studied Mrs. Goldthwaite out of the corner of her eye. She was a tall woman, although age had bowed her back, despite her erect carriage. Meg realized that she hadn’t realized how tall Mrs. Goldthwaite was, since generally she had been seated at the meetings Meg had attended. Mrs. Goldthwaite also did not move like an eighty-year-old woman—clearly a recommendation for regular exercise, fresh air, and clean living. Meg tried to imagine the scene: Sam had been stung by a bee and he was woozy, going into shock, unsure of what was happening to him. He would have leaned on the fence for support—because the fence was the only support at hand. He was tall, and the top of the fence would have reached his waist. He could have fallen—or it would have been easy for someone to give him a push and topple him over the fence to join the pigs.

If—and it was a big if—he
had
been pushed, wouldn’t Sam have been surprised? Wouldn’t he have struggled? But she had no way of knowing how incapacitated Sam had been. No one did.

Meg realized she was dancing around a thought that she didn’t want to put into words: Mrs. Goldthwaite might have killed Sam, or at least facilitated his death. Surely she hadn’t sicced a bee on him, but she could have been there when it happened. She would then have been faced with a choice: seeing Sam in trouble, she could have sought help, hurried back to her place or to Jake’s and called for an ambulance. Maybe it would have been too late, but she could have tried. That would have been the right thing to do.

Or she could have stood where she was standing now and looked at Sam, gasping and wheezing, maybe pleading for help, and taken advantage of the unexpected situation. She could have given him a nudge—just the smallest nudge—and knocked him over into the pigsty. And then what? Clambered over the fence? Meg looked more carefully around the perimeter of the field. Of course: there on the perpendicular side was a gate. Mrs. Goldthwaite could simply have walked over and let herself in. She knew the pigs, and they were accustomed to her.

Meg looked at Mrs. Goldthwaite’s shoes. Sturdy, supportive boots, suitable for walking over rough ground. With a thick, heavy sole. They could easily have been her late husband’s. Would that tread match the footprint found on Sam’s back? Had prim and proper Caroline Goldthwaite stood over prostrate Sam as he fought to breathe, placed one foot on his back, and waited until his struggles stopped?

It was a horrifying thought, and Meg wondered if she had finally gone over the edge. She forced herself to look directly at Mrs. Goldthwaite, who was regarding her with a faint smile.

“Are you feeling well, Meg? You look a bit pale. Perhaps you aren’t quite accustomed to the physical demands of farming, especially in the summer heat. It must be a challenge, to take on that house and the orchard, all at once. And still you find time to involve yourself in other activities in the town.”

Meg swallowed. “I believe in contributing to any community I belong to—surely you approve of that. I have expertise that may be helpful, and I’m happy to volunteer my time.”

“I do indeed. I wish only that you had chosen a more worthy undertaking.”

“You still believe the restaurant is a bad idea?”

“I do. It cheapens the character of the town. Oh, I acknowledge that people will need to eat, and often they like to go out for a pleasant evening, but surely there are other suitable locations, out along the highway perhaps. There is no reason why it must be in the heart of town.”

In the house that you must have loved at some point in your life
. “Plans are going forward, you know.”

“Are they? That remains to be seen. I still have some supporters in this town, you know. And those young people may yet fail. Your Mr. Chapin does not always get his way.”

Meg no longer knew what to believe. Had her fantasies gotten out of hand? Mrs. Goldthwaite appeared as she always had, a proper old lady. A little stiff, perhaps, and set in her ways, but a pillar of the community. Not a murderer.

But maybe, just maybe, Mrs. Goldthwaite had been more deeply dismayed than anyone had realized about what she perceived as unwanted changes coming to her beloved town, to what was once her own home. Perhaps she had found herself presented with an opportunity to eliminate one of the three partners involved, and perhaps she had hoped that by eliminating Sam, the others would lose heart and leave town. It would have been a risk, and one that had not anticipated Nicky and Brian’s response.

Well, there was no way Meg was going to confront Mrs. Goldthwaite here and now. She needed to think this through. And she should talk to Seth. He would know what to do. Meg was surprised by the wave of relief that swept through her at that thought.

Mrs. Goldthwaite’s voice woke her from her trance. “You shouldn’t depend too much on Seth Chapin.”

Was she a mind-reader?
“What? Me? Why?”

“I would guess he is what one might call ‘interested’ in you, if that’s the appropriate term. But Seth has a tendency to spread himself too thin, while at the same time he has a soft heart for those in need. I’m sure he’s pleased to act the gallant knight on your behalf, but that may not last.”