A Killer Crop (22 page)

“Have you eaten? Not that I have much to offer. My mother’s off searching Daniel Weston’s office. Come on in and I’ll tell you about it. Marcus was here this morning—again.”

“Can I bring Max inside?”

“Does he like cats?”

“Oh, right—Lolly. I don’t know. We haven’t met any cats since I picked him up.”

“How about you tie him up outside here? We can leave the door open so you can keep an eye on him.”

“Will do.”

Seth joined her in the kitchen after a few minutes. Max whined plaintively, but Seth ignored him. “What’s up?” He took a seat at the table.

“Sorry I can’t offer you much—Mother’s been doing the shopping lately, but I think we’ve eaten everything. PBJ okay?”

“Fine. How’re you two doing?”

“Not bad. I think being a murder suspect has shaken her a bit. And she’s trying not to interfere in the investigation.”

“The operative word being ‘trying’?”

“Well . . . Right now she wants to find out if Daniel left anything in his records that might point to someone in the academic community as his killer.”

“Marcus hasn’t come up with any suspects?”

Meg shook her head. “He even admitted he’s frustrated. Daniel had no obvious enemies. It’s ridiculous—if my mother is the best suspect they’ve got, the state police really are grasping at straws.” She set the sandwich on a plate and put it in front of Seth. “Cider?”

“Sure.”

She poured a glass for him, then sat down in front of her unfinished sandwich.

Seth ate half his sandwich and washed it down with cider. “Meg,” he said suddenly, “are you trying to keep me and your mother apart?”

She was startled by his question, and at a loss for how to answer him. “No, not really. It’s just that she and I haven’t spent much time together in the last few years, and things got kind of sticky when Daniel died, and ...” She trailed off, knowing how lame she sounded.

Seth was regarding her steadily. “What have you told her about us?”

What is “us”?
They’d never really talked about it. Meg dismissed several flippant answers before ducking the question and saying, “Maybe we should plan a dinner together, just the three of us. I would have before now, except I’ve been so busy.”

“We could go to the restaurant. That’s nice, neutral ground. And I can show your mother I clean up real nice.”

“Seth!” Meg was hurt by his sarcasm, but she had to admit he had a point. She took a breath. “I’d be delighted to have you spend some time with my mother. And that’s an excellent idea. I’ll call Nicky right now.” Before she could change her mind, she stood up, went to the phone, and punched the speed-dial number for the restaurant.

“Hi, Nicky. How’s business?” Meg listened to Nicky burble on: the gist was that everything was great, terrific, and wonderful. “Listen, can you fit in three of us, say, tomorrow night? Me, Seth, and my mother.” Nicky was ecstatic, and the deal was done. Meg hung up and turned back to Seth. “There. Tomorrow. That work for you?”

“Great. Look, Meg, I don’t want to force anything.” He stood up and moved closer, then laid his hands on her shoulders. “If you don’t want to tell her.”

Meg leaned against him. “I’m sorry. I’m not being fair, to you or to her. You know I care about you, and I’m making unfair assumptions about what she’s going to think. Which is dumb. You’re a great guy, Seth, and she should see that. And if she doesn’t, that’s her loss.”

“It’s okay, Meg. I know I am but a humble plumber . . .”

She swatted his arm, laughing. “Stop that. You’re making me feel ashamed of myself. And you’re so much more than a plumber—although a plumber is a pretty good thing to be these days.”

“Meg, shut up.” He leaned in to kiss her, only to be interrupted by Max’s barking. “That dog’s probably gotten himself tangled up in the leash. He’s kind of a klutz.”

“He’s young. Think of him as a clumsy teenager. Are you going to be leaving him here a lot?”

Seth looked sheepish. “I can’t leave him locked up at my house, can I? He can come with me on some jobs, but at least here he can have a little space. Maybe I should set up a dog run for him out back. And I’m sure he’ll be a good watchdog.”

“Yeah, right,” Meg replied. One more thing to take care of; one more thing to worry about. And a constant reminder of Andrea, right in her backyard. “I’m sure we’ll manage. Well, Bree will be sending a search party for me if I don’t get back up the hill. See you tomorrow?”

“Should I pick you up?”

“Let me get back to you on that.”

“I’ll call you during the day, then. Thanks for lunch.” Seth went out to release Max from bondage and headed off toward his office at the rear of the property, whistling as he went, with Max at his heels. Meg put the dishes in the sink, locked up, and trudged up the hill once again.

In the gathering dusk, after another long day of physical labor, Meg stumbled her way down the hill and through the back door. Her mother’s car was in the driveway, along with an unfamiliar car, so Meg was prepared for the sounds of voices when she came in the front door. One was clearly her mother’s, but whose was the other? She wavered in the hallway, debating about ducking upstairs for a much-needed shower or confronting whoever was in her kitchen. In the end curiosity, combined with the good smells once again wafting from that direction, won out.

“Meg, darling—you look exhausted,” her mother greeted her. “Would you like a cup of tea? Or a drink?”

“Tea sounds good. Bree should be joining us shortly. I take it you made dinner again?”

“I did. It’s the least I could do.” Elizabeth handed her a steaming mug.

“Bless you!” Meg wondered when she would next have a chance to buy food, or clean house, or do laundry, or get her car serviced, or get her hair cut . . . probably December, at the rate things were going. “You must be Susan Keeley?” Meg eyed the rather plain young woman hovering in the corner, a mug of tea clutched in her hands. As Meg gratefully accepted the mug that her mother handed her, she thought she recognized their visitor from Daniel’s memorial service.

The woman straightened up and put down the mug to hold out her hand. “Yes, hi. Are you Meg? Your mother and I were so busy this afternoon that we lost track of time, and then she said, why didn’t I just come and eat with you here and we could keep talking? I hope you don’t mind?”

Meg assessed her unexpected guest. Tall, but with lousy posture; pale, as though she lived under a rock; a bit spotty of skin and chewed of nails. Was this what English lit graduate students looked like these days? But Susan’s gaze was unapologetic, as if she was saying,
Take me as I am, and I really don’t care
. “Not a problem, Susan. I’m glad to meet you.” Meg shook her hand: Susan’s handshake was firm and brief. “I’d love to hear what, if anything, you and my mother have found. But first I’m going to grab a quick shower. I’ll be back in five.” She fled up the stairs.

Lolly was lying curled in a tight ball on her bed, no doubt avoiding the stranger in the kitchen, and Meg scratched her behind her ears. “Have you been fed, silly animal?” When Lolly tucked her nose under her tail and went back to sleep, Meg guessed the answer was yes. She grabbed some clean clothes and headed for the shower.

Mere minutes later Meg was back in the kitchen, where she found Bree talking to Susan about details of UMass life. “It was really hard to get any studying done in the dorm,” Bree was saying. “How do you do it? I mean, you have to think about words and ideas—most of what I was working with was facts and figures.”

Susan nodded. “It’s not always easy. I’ve found some pretty quiet corners in a couple of the libraries, but sometimes I just had to get out of there, you know? Luckily I have a car, so I could go find quiet places here and there. Summer I could work outdoors—sometimes it was a relief to get away from the Internet and just concentrate on the research and writing.”

“How much longer do you have before you get your degree, Susan?” Meg sat down at the table after refilling her mug of tea. Elizabeth was bustling between the stove and the microwave, stirring something.

Susan shrugged. “I should finish by the end of this academic year—next spring. But it’s kind of complicated, now that Daniel’s out of the picture.”

“You were at his memorial service, weren’t you?” And had appeared very upset, as Meg recalled.

Susan nodded, and her eyes filled with tears. “That was so hard. I mean, I couldn’t believe he was dead. But wasn’t it great that so many people came out to honor him?”

“He must have been well respected. How did Daniel Weston become involved in your studies? I mean, he was at the college, and you’re at the university, right?” Meg asked. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean that to sound like you weren’t entitled to his attention.”

“It’s okay, I know what you mean. He was really important in his field, and I’m just a state university student. But it’s not unusual to have an outside committee member, depending on your area of specialization. I felt really lucky to have him on my committee.”

“You’re working on Emily Dickinson?”

Susan leaned back in her chair. “She’s my main focus, yes, but I’m looking at her in the context of other nineteenth-century American women poets. You know, whether they published and where, how they were reviewed, if at all— that kind of thing. Sort of a socio-politico-feminist slant. Male poets got a lot more pages, and a lot more attention. I’d love to find out if these women were communicating with each other—you know, sort of like a critique group, or maybe just sharing because they knew they weren’t going to find a bigger audience. People did a whole lot more letter writing in that century. Too bad most of the correspondence was tossed out as unimportant.”

“I thought a lot of Dickinson’s work had been preserved?”

“As much as anyone’s, I guess. You know, back in those days nobody thought some woman’s correspondence was important. In fact, Emily’s own family threw a lot of hers away after she died. What survives is scattered through a lot of different collections, although there’s a big chunk at the college in Amherst. Anyway, Daniel Weston was the big name around here, and a recommendation from him would mean a lot. Would have, I mean. Guess that’s not going to happen.” Susan slumped back into her chair.

“Is the job market tough for PhDs these days?” Meg asked.

“When isn’t it? That’s why knowing the right people matters—they can help. It takes more than a solid dissertation—you need publications, and conference panels, teaching experience. A lot of people give up and don’t finish, and a lot more spin it out as long as they can, since they don’t have anywhere to go. Of course, most people don’t go into English literature in the first place, if they’ve got any sense.”

“Why did you?”

Susan smiled ruefully. “I love language. I love seeing another era filtered through a poet’s eyes. And if I may oversimplify, the women poets tend to be more rooted in ordinary life. The men were all busy describing battles and history and grand ideas, but the women talked about a smaller, simpler world. That’s why Emily is so interesting—she deliberately shrank her universe, and then studied it very carefully, trying to capture it, which she did with surprising economy. Do you know her work?”

“Not well, I’m afraid, but as much as your average person, I guess. Is it true that she never intended to publish her work?”

“There’s some disagreement about that.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Elizabeth said, setting a large bowl on the table. “It’s a white chili recipe I’ve been experimenting with—I thought that was a good compromise for this between-seasons period, neither hot nor cold.” She went back to the cupboard and brought out bowls, distributing them around the table.

Fifteen minutes later, Meg felt much more right with the world. A glass of wine helped. More than one and she might fall asleep with her face in the bowl. She noticed that Susan didn’t drink much either, but she certainly ate with a healthy appetite.

Meg leaned back and surreptitiously loosened her belt. “So, you two looked at the files in Daniel’s office today?”

“We did.” Elizabeth glanced at Susan, who nodded for her to continue. “From what we could see, the police had gone through the drawers and shelves, and they took his computer, but not much else that we could identify. So we spent the afternoon sifting and sorting.”

“Was Daniel good at keeping records?” Meg asked.

Susan snorted. “Uh, not exactly. I mean, he wasn’t a total slob, and besides, this was his campus office, so he had to keep a couple of chairs free for visitors, and a path clear to get to his desk—it couldn’t be too much of a pit. But most of the important stuff was in his head. I mean, I could walk in and ask him, say, ‘Where’s that article that appeared in the
Hampshire Gazette
in 1878?’ And he knew exactly what I meant and could put his hand on it like that. He had his own peculiar logic, but it worked for him.”