Til Dirt Do Us Part (A Local Foods Mystery) Read Online Free Page A

number, honey.”

Chapter 2
    C am trudged up the worn wooden stairs of her antique saltbox several hours later. She loved this house. Growing up, she’d spent her summers here with her great-uncle and great-aunt. Marie had welcomed her like the grandchild she’d never had, and the two old farmers had enveloped Cam in love and warmth while her peripatetic parents spent months overseas, doing anthropological research. She paused at the fading photograph of Albert and Marie on their wedding day. She extended a finger to stroke Marie’s image. Her great-aunt had passed away two years earlier, after sixty-one years of marriage, and some of the light had gone out of Albert. Now he seemed to be doing well, though, and was making friends in his new assisted-living quarters. He even had his own laptop computer and maintained a blog where he posted short memoirs about his life as a farmer.
    Swinging aching feet into bed, Cam rehashed the dinner. It had gone well. There had been enough food, Ellie and her friend had served without a hitch, and the guests seemed to appreciate the free wine and beer. She hadn’t taken time to tally the cash but thought the fifty-dollar-per-person tickets had more than covered the expenses, since Jake and the other vendors had discounted their costs so steeply. She’d certainly offer the event again next summer and fall.
    Jake. He hadn’t spoken privately with her after his comment about deciding between him and Bobby. Which was ridiculous. There was nothing going on with her and Bobby. The guy was a flirt. That was all.
    And Cam felt uneasy at the undercurrents she’d witnessed swirling around Irene Burr. That Irene was difficult was no surprise. That she was difficult enough to spur Bobby into anger merited thought. Cam didn’t know Sim Koyama at all but wondered at Irene’s power to invoke her ire, too. And then the conflict about Old Town Hall’s fate . . . Even mild-mannered Wes Ames was upset with Irene.
    As Cam slid toward sleep, fall crickets serenading her through the open window, she was glad she hadn’t experienced Irene’s wrath. The distance of a farmer-customer relationship with Irene Burr was fine with Cam.
     
    Cam threw on an old sweatshirt before heading downstairs after letting herself sleep in until almost eight. Gray clouds pressed in on the morning, and the temperature had to be below sixty. Still, the farm season wasn’t over yet. She’d be working on many colder mornings soon. She took a moment to clean up an unfortunately placed hair ball Preston had hacked up during the night on the kitchen countertop, near the telephone. She shoved aside residual clutter here and there as she wiped down the counter with some liquid cleanser. Hair balls were one of the drawbacks of owning a very large, very furry feline.
    She headed out to the fields to work, passing the now forlorn tent, its empty chairs and bare tables ghosts of last night’s warm conviviality. The people from the rental place would be here sometime before noon to dismantle it and cart it all away.
    A siren wailed in the distance. The rising and falling keen sounded like it came from the other side of the woods that formed the back perimeter of her property. Cam sniffed the air for smoke and scanned the skyline. She relaxed her shoulders, not having realized how tense she’d become at the thought of a fire. A childhood incident, combined with the barn fire, made her wary every time she heard sirens.
    She threw an empty bushel basket into the garden cart and headed for the tomato field. It was time to call it a day for the crop of larger heirlooms, even though there hadn’t been a hard frost yet. New England didn’t offer enough sun or warmth at this time of year to ripen the crop of baseball-size green fruit yet clinging to the browning vines. She filled the basket with the pale green orbs while thinking about green tomato–apple chutney and began pulling the spent plants, laying them in the wide garden