THE REVERBERATING BANGS SHOOK my nerves more than my truck, and Mister Tibbs would have wet the back seat of the pickup if I hadn't left the door open. She rocketed out just as the second Roman candle fizzled and headed toward the cornfield.
Either someone was aiming at my vehicle, or they didn't know fireworks were supposed to go upward.
I ended up on my tailbone on the hard dirt, hands splayed behind me. I stood slowly, searching the twilight for the source of the two salvos. Whoever had shot them off had surely meant to scare me. It worked.
The cicadas, silent for several seconds, rejoined the cawing starlings as they regrouped on the telephone wires. I whistled for Mister Tibbs and watched her crawl out from under a juniper tree next to my late parents' farmhouse.
I looked at her meekly wagging tail and stooped so she could walk into my arms. "I'd call you a super wuss, but I didn't like it either."
She licked my cheek and tried to aim herself for the back seat of the truck as I rose. If her multi-colored, short fur hadn't been mostly ringlets, the firecrackers would have curled it.
I lifted her onto her blanket, anxious to get back into the truck myself. After she circled twice and put her head on her paws, I raised my voice and yelled, "Whoever you are, you can't scare me."
No response, but the safety of the truck cab beckoned.
I got in, started the engine, and began to pull onto the gravel road, just as a sheriff's patrol car turned onto the lane from a nearby crossroad. I recognized Deputy Newt Harmon in the dusty cruiser and stayed put while he pulled into the driveway beside me.
We both lowered our windows, and I gestured toward the now vacant clapboard house. "I came out to eyeball the place, and someone shot off a couple roman candles."
Deputy Harmon is the youngest of the sheriff's staff, and his usually smooth brow wrinkled. "Hey, Melanie. Somebody was out here a couple nights ago, but closer to Peter Frost's place. They're shootin' off a lot more than sparklers."
I wanted to say I wouldn't have minded if they shot a firecracker at Frost, but instead said, "June's kind of early for fireworks lawbreakers. That why you're out here?"
"Partly." He grinned. "Had supper at my parents' place during my break."
I smiled back. "You're welcome to look around. Ambrose and I aren't going on the property until the lawsuit is settled, but legally it's still ours."
Almost as soon as my parents' funeral had ended, the farmer who owned the adjacent property came forth with the claim that my parents had planned to sell him their farm for a ridiculously low price. My brother and I were stunned.
Peter Frost claimed a verbal contract and had a piece of yellow-lined paper with a rough sketch of the property and a few words in my father's handwriting. Below the drawing, in Frost's handwriting, was a per-acre price that would have been believable fifteen years ago. Frost maintained that he and my parents had "begun to lay out the particulars," so he essentially had a verbal contract.
Bullshit.
The deputy shook his head. "Whoever did it's long gone. Not like we'd do footprint casts in a cornfield."
I nodded. "It's dry. As close as the corn is to the house, we're lucky they didn't start a fire."
In tandem we raised our windows against the humid June air of Southeast Iowa. Mister Tibbs said her goodbye from the back seat, paws on the side window.
After Harmon's cruiser drove back onto the road, I put the truck in reverse and did a two-point turn, so I faced the large yard. The thirty yards or so that separated the barn, on the left, from the house had seemed as large as a football field when I was young.
After my father sold the last milk cows, the barn had largely been used to store the tractor and other tools. At dusk, its shadow loomed over the yard, almost reaching the house.
The house. Each time I made a weekly check on the farm, I seethed. The house should not be vacant. I longed to see lights on in the kitchen and watch my father walk onto the side porch to stow his muddy boots before entering the house.
I usually only took a minute to go from sad to furious. I should be living in that farmhouse.
The breach-of-contract lawsuit Peter Frost lodged against my parents' estate, which meant against Ambrose and me, would wend through the court system, and our family lawyer had assured us that we would not be forced to sell the farm to him.
Next week would be a hearing before the Iowa District Court, and the dispute would be finished. Or the judge would rule in Frost's favor, and Ambrose and I would spend more money on legal fees. Or the judge would find in our favor, and Frost would appeal.
It was a mess.
In the meantime, we paid to have the property around the house mowed and contracted with two other farmers to plant and harvest corn and soybeans. Our lawyer had suggested we put any profit into an escrow account. That also ticked me off.
I could use some of that money. So could Ambrose. Instead of farming our land, which we would own outright, he rented land in Dubuque, near where his wife Sharon's family lived.
Movement near the barn caught my eye, and I squinted. In full daylight I could have discerned a human from a coyote or dog, but not near dusk.
Probably a coyote. The Donovans, who had the farm east of ours, said they'd seen one sitting on the cistern at the side of the house.
I put the truck in gear and backed onto the gravel road. Next week I'd make one of my reporter buddies drive out here with me. We'd bring a hunting rifle.
MY CELL PHONE RANG as I climbed the steps to my apartment. It's an attic, with a couple of dormers added, in Mrs. Keyser's house in River's Edge. I didn't recognize the number, but it was an Iowa area code, so I picked up.
"Melanie? It's Bruce Blackner here. I think I have something that belongs to you."
"If it's a winning lottery ticket, I'll split it with you."
He laughed. "No. A book or, rather, part of a book that apparently belonged to Hal Morris."
For a couple of seconds my brain dimmed. Hal Morris' murder hadn't exactly altered my life's trajectory. He'd already fired me from the South County News, and I'd just begun work as a gardener.
Along with the rest of the town, I didn't mourn him, but his death stunned me. For a few weeks, it had seemed as if life along the Des Moines River in Southeast Iowa was a lot less safe than anyone had thought.
"I don't think I ever lent Hal any books." I finished unlocking the door and placed my purse on a console table next to the entry door.
"Should've said it's a draft. Haven't read much of it, but your name is written in green marker on the first page, along with your cell number. I figured you were coauthoring something with him."
I glanced at my compact sitting room and laughed. "Hal hated how I wrote. Too terse for him. The only thing we ever did together was sign a couple of get-well cards."
"Huh."
"So, Bruce, where did you find this draft?"
"I should've said that first. You ever go on his boat? He kept it at Fairhaven."
Hal had kept a small, gas-powered cabin boat at the marina a few miles from River's Edge. "Nope. He never invited any South County News staff on a boat ride."
"Always heard he mostly kept it at the dock. Especially after he ran into the pilings that time."
I plopped on my couch and put one foot on the edge of the coffee table. My mother always said you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but I had to make an exception for Hal. "I heard he was chewing out somebody for trying to pass him when he flooded his engine."
"No doubt. So, it's only a few chapters. If you don't want it, I guess I'll pitch it. Unless you know of family."
Hal had none. "Gee. Maybe I should take it. He could've talked to someone about it." I paused. "In fact, I think Shirley at the diner said Hal was writing a book or something."
"Good. I wasn't keen on pitching it, but I've got enough paper in the file cabinets."
"I'll stop by your office tomorrow."
"This could be right up your alley. Looks like a murder mystery."
FRIDAY MORNING Mister Tibbs and I had things to do before going to Blackner's Insurance. First on the agenda was running the vacuum in my two-bedroom apartment. A gardener tracks in a lot of dirt. I also changed out the older bedspread in the guest room for a fun yellow floral-patterned one I'd found at a rummage sale.
With that done, Mister Tibbs and I headed for Dr. Carver's house. She was my newest landscaping client. Mrs. Keyser recruited her, probably in part to be sure I could keep paying the rent.
I kept the cab window down, so I could smell air made fresh by last night's light showers. I love the smell, though our town of 7,500 never smells bad unless you drive by the alley behind Mason's Diner just before the dumpster's emptied. Or past one of the huge transports taking hogs to the meat packing plant just outside town.
I love River's Edge. Its town square provides a sense of cohesion that larger cities don't have. Several buildings on the square are empty at any given time, but the Chamber keeps the plate glass windows decorated with either displays about local history or ads for other businesses.
My apartment is on the north side of town on a block that once held beautiful Victorian homes. The remaining ones are past their glory days, and nearly all have been subdivided into apartments.
I'm fortunate to live in one of the smaller houses. It's a Sears bungalow, originally delivered via railroad, in pieces. The house has been converted to only two units and feels more like a private residence than an apartment.
My route to Dr. Carver's took me by the park at the edge of town, on the river, and I briefly glanced at the baseball diamonds. They had been spruced up for the upcoming July Fourth softball games, one of which pitted U.S. military vets against the combined memberships of the Lions and Rotary Clubs. It had to be a combination, since the vets in the clubs usually played on the military team.
At least rain wasn't expected again before the Fourth, here or upstream. The Des Moines River, which runs along the city park that houses the fields, would stay in its banks. Mud would not be the issue it had been the past two years.
I parked in Dr. Carver's driveway and studied the compact Cape Cod house. Most houses in River's Edge are at least fifty years old with frame construction. This house's brick structure meant it had been expensive to build. She paid a pretty penny to the former owner.
Two small evergreen trees, still in their burlap root balls, sat on either site of the walk that led to the screened-in front porch. Stooper and I had made the bushes his top priority. He said he would be on site earlier than usual, so he could plant them before the heat became stifling.
A horn beeped from the road, and I turned to see Stooper's beat-up Dodge Dart. At least, that's what it looked like. Rust was copious around the tires, and he'd replaced both back doors. Neither was the same color or matched the original blue, so I thought of his car as a rolling kaleidoscope.
Stooper couldn't pull into the narrow driveway without blocking me in, and he knew I didn't plan to stay. I backed out and pulled a few feet down the road to park. He entered the driveway, and Mister Tibbs and I walked toward him as Stooper got out of his car.
The walk gave me a chance to study the symmetry of what we were planning. Dr. Carver had said she wanted flowers and bushes equally distributed on both sides of her front walk. Yesterday, I had used a yardstick to be sure that the two azalea bushes we'd planted were directly across from each other.
Stooper raised a metal thermos of coffee to me, and I nodded. I'd always known his name, mostly because he had taken up his father's two professions – stone mason creator of headstones for the local cemetery and town drunk.
When I asked him to help me with a huge project at Syl Seaton's place, I thought it unlikely he could work more than a couple hours per day. He wasn't much older than my twenty-seven years, but his belly lapped over the waistband of his jeans and his perpetually red face spoke as much of high blood pressure as booze.
However, Stooper had apparently decided to reinvent himself through hauling soil and burning piles of brush. After just two months, he looked twenty-five pounds lighter and the Beer Rental Heaven Tavern had less revenue.
"Hey, Stooper. Looking good."
He twisted open the thermos top as he kicked his car door shut with one foot. "Getting there. Did you bring those gladiola bulbs?"
I snapped my fingers, which Mister Tibbs took as a reason to run around in circles and lick Stooper's hand.
"They're in the back of the truck. I'll grab them." I patted my thigh. "Come on, girl."
She cocked her head. Her plan had been to get Stooper to throw a ball for her.
"Okay, stay with Stooper. I'll be right back."
She ran around him twice before I'd gone three feet.
The back of my pickup was littered with gardening tools, an old quilt Mister Tibbs liked to snuggle with, a large bag of gladiolus bulbs, and two trays of marigolds and petunias.
I don't mind planting annuals, but it seems like such a waste of money to do more than a few in one yard. However, Dr. Carver wanted immediate color, so she would have it.
I took the bag of bulbs, lifted one tray of flowers, and started for the huge flowerbed that Stooper had created near the front of the house. The Scotch Pines would go on each side, the gladioli in the middle, and bedding plants around the edges.
Mister Tibbs barked, and I watched Stooper throw the now tooth-marked rubber ball at least fifty yards. Though he doesn't say so, I know it's to keep Mister Tibbs occupied so Stooper and I can talk for a minute.
"Hey, Mel. I should've offered to carry those."
I sat the bulbs and flat of flowers on the trunk of his car. "Stooper, you've seen me lift forty-pound bags of topsoil with one hand." I'm about five-six and sturdy. While no one would call me a pixie, I'm a good weight for my height.
He grinned. "Except when they break and the dirt spills out."
"Except for that. How's it going?"
"Not bad. I think Dr. Carver was kind of wary of me, 'cause she didn't know we were a team when she hired you. Pretty much got her charmed now."
"How did you win her over so quickly?"
"I helped her carry in a couple boxes of medical books and stuff when she made her last trip down from her old place."
Dr. Carver had been a partner in a busy internal medicine clinic in Sioux City. For some reason, she decided to move to the opposite end of the state, saying she wanted the tranquility of a Des Moines River town. She hadn't yet figured out it could be boisterous here, but if she went to the softball game she'd learn.
"A strong back wins them over every time."
He grabbed the tray of flowers and started for the flowerbed. "Heard people been setting off fireworks near your old place."
It's still my place. "Yep. Can't wait for the hearing next week, so we can get rid of Peter Frost and his claim on the farm once and for all."
"I hear you. What you up to today?"
"Couple things. Have to stop by the hardware store to pick up two trellises they ordered for Syl's place. And then, you won't believe this, Hal apparently left a partially finished novel on his boat."
Stooper stopped separating the marigolds and petunias. "Say what?"
"That's all I know. Bruce Blackner bought the boat and found it."
"Huh. You'da thought the auction people would've taken out all Hal's personal stuff."
I shrugged. "Guess Bruce bought it with the contents. I'm going to stop by his office."
Because she loves Dr. Carver's half-acre lot with its plethora of squirrels, it took five minutes to get Mister Tibbs' attention. She finally trotted up to me when Stooper called her. Very annoying.
After she settled on the back seat, I checked my phone for messages and turned to face her. "You know those squirrels will never let you catch them, right?"
Apparently she had run out her dog-o-meter, because she snored in low, even snuffles.
BLACKNER'S INSURANCE SAT just off the town square, not far from the South County News. Like most of downtown, such as it is, the company resides in a two-story, frame structure. It sits in the middle of a block-long strip of businesses.
While some buildings in town could use a lot of TLC, Blackner's place always has a fresh coat of paint. The deep burgundy canvas awning is fairly new, unlike others on the block.
The small insurance office lobby was empty so, as I shut the door, I called, "Melanie here, Bruce."
His voice came from down the hall, "Be there in a minute."
Mister Tibbs had heard my voice and yipped. I opened the door to the street and gave her a stern look. "No barking when you're tied to the post."
She seemed to get the message and settled into a spot in the shade, under the awning.
I shut the door and picked up a brochure about life insurance policies as lifetime annuities. I'd always been a saver, but not much since my parents' deaths. They'd had just enough insurance to cover the funerals. Ambrose and I figured that they had expected to leave us a nice inheritance with the farm. And they had.
A cough came from behind me. I hadn't heard Bruce approach from his office.
"Sorry. Compelling reading you have here." I placed the brochure back on the reception desk.
Blackner is in his early fifties and fit enough that no one would think him the grandfather of year-old twins. He smiled. "You aren't here for a sales pitch, but if you need investment advice let me know."
"Thanks to greedy Peter Frost, I have little beyond money for rent and my truck."
He grimaced. "Though I have no first-hand knowledge, I certainly never heard your father or mother talk about selling the farm to him. Or anybody else."
"No one did." I held my hand out for the manila folder he proffered. "Hal as author."
He let go of the folder. "Who would have thought? I always heard you or Fred corrected his typos."
"More like he never had the patience to write more than a few paragraphs at a time." I grinned. "Unless he insulted local insurance companies."
Bruce did an ungentlemanly snort, as he turned to go back to his office. "Let me know if it's a good read."
Mister Tibbs greeted me as if I'd been gone for three weeks, and I let her extend the leash its full twelve feet, so she could inspect the strip of grass in front of the local pharmacy.
As we walked to my truck, I glanced at the first page. Rather than open with Snoopy's dark-and-stormy-night phrase, the book began with, "It was well past twilight, and sleet was coming down in sheets."
"At least it's only one cliché," I murmured.
My mobile phone rang before I got to the end of the first paragraph, and I put the pages back into their manila folder. "Melanie here."
Through static I heard the clipped voice of Peter Frost. "Melanie. I'm calling to make a deal."
I said nothing for several seconds, and the static got worse.
"Did you hear me?"
"I did, but you need to talk to our lawyer. Ken Brownberg said that…"
"Bring him with you."
I wanted to tell Frost to shove it, but that would probably be counter-productive. "Um, to where?"
"Barn on your…" More static, and a couple of beeps.
"What? I can't hear you."
"Barn at your parents' old place. I'll be there at two-thirty." He either hung up or we lost the connection before I could tell him Ambrose and I owned the place.
I looked at the phone in my hand, willing it to ring again. Ken had told Ambrose and me not to contact Frost, but he hadn't said we couldn't talk if the old goat called us.
When my phone stayed silent, I pushed Ambrose's number.
He answered on the fifth ring. "Hey, you got my message."
"Nope. Telepathy."
"Smart ass. Just left it."
"Ah. I must've been on the phone with Peter Frost. You won't believe what he said."
"Called me, too. About twenty minutes ago. That's why I'm driving."
I realized the five rings were because he'd pulled over to answer the phone. Ambrose hates ear buds. "Did you talk to Ken about it?"
"You being in River's Edge, I thought you might grab him to meet us there."
I looked at my watch. It was eleven-thirty, and the drive from Dubuque to River's Edge would take three hours. "I'll call his office. What if he can't be there?"
"He has other lawyers in with him."
The sound of a truck's air horn came through the phone. "Sounds as if you should get driving."
"Yeah, not a big shoulder. See you at the barn. Maybe this'll all be over." As Ambrose hung up, I could almost see a big grin on his tanned face.
Over didn't seem likely. Frost would probably up his per-acre offer. We'd say no, and the hearing date would grow closer.
Or maybe Frost's lawyer had told him the so-called verbal agreement had no basis in reality, and Frost wanted to make an improved offer so he could still try to get it at less than market value.
Aloud, I said, "That won't work." At this stage, I wanted him smacked down and stuck with all the court costs and our legal bills.
I HEADED FOR the hardware store to pick up the trellises that Syl Seaton wanted me to use to tame rose bushes near his front fence. Setting them in his front yard would be the last major project at his property – for now, anyway.
Sandi had pointed me to Syl when I began doing gardening and landscaping work. He came in to place an ad for help on his five-acre property at the edge of town, and she told me about it before the ad ran. He became my first client.
Syl's good-looking, in a city sort of way. His easy good looks indicate a healthy bank account, and I've never seen him so much as perspire. The most casual clothes he wears are Dockers, never jeans.
I don't know what brought him from the Los Angeles area to southeastern Iowa, so I accept his change-of-pace explanation. I still don't get why he chose to live more than ninety miles from Des Moines, where he does most of his business. He works at home a fair bit, so I supposed the town he lived in didn't matter much.
I smiled to myself, thinking of his brown hair with its precise cut that says he got it at a salon rather than local barber. I like him. He has a wry sense of humor and doesn't look his age, which is early to mid-forties.
All four of the parking places in front of the hardware store were empty, so I didn't have to parallel park the truck precisely. It looked as if the displays in front were in transition from spring gardening to lawn mowing season. At least that's what the line of mowers and rakes made me think.
This early in the day, the air conditioning wasn't on, but a couple of box fans kept the air moving. The store sells everything from crock pots to Christmas decorations to chain saws. The proprietor, Jody, even maintains a bridal registry to encourage townspeople to shop locally.
Andy, the hardware store clerk, stood at his customary spot by the wooden checkout counter. He was also his usual annoying self. "So, Mel, anything new at Syl's place?"
Ever since I started landscaping work at Syl's property, Andy had seen it as his duty to raise the issue of whether Syl and I have more than a professional relationship. We don't.
I signed the account book that would let the store bill Syl directly. "Let's see. He got Stooper to replace the bottom slider on his barn door. The hostas your boss gave me have taken root really well. That's all I can think of."
Andy flushed. The gift of three plants had been owner Jody's way of apologizing for one of Andy's cracks. Not that he had to, but I appreciated the gesture.
"Stooper told me he fixed the barn."
I gave Andy my most brilliant smile. "Then you're up to date."
AFTER I ATE A LUNCH at home of potato salad and tomato soup, I took Mister Tibbs out to do her business. I planned to make Syl Seaton's my first stop after lunch, so I left her at the apartment.
Mister Tibbs has been to his place many times, and for some reason, she likes to dig in the flower beds. Probably because the soil is looser than in the rest of the yard. Apparently the squirrels had worn her out, because she offered no protest when I left.
Syl's driveway ends at the side door to his frame house, but his shiny green pickup truck was absent. That meant he had gone to Des Moines to work on his consulting contract with the insurance association. A glance around the front flower gardens told me I could wait another day before watering them thoroughly.
I wandered to the back of the house to check the few tomato and pepper plants I'd put in for him. Last night's brief showers had been just enough to keep them looking healthy.
A barn for hay and horses sits not far behind the house. Syl has no livestock of any kind, storing only a new riding mower and old tractor in the barn. He recently had it repainted red with white trim, which gives the acreage a kind of Better Homes and Gardens look.
I walked back to the front of the property, where I paced off good spots for the two trellises, next to the white front fence. They were to be centered, based on the house's position on the lot. It would take a while to train the roses to grow up instead of along the fence.
Stooper could use the post hole digger to help me put the trellises in place in the hard-packed soil. We'd have to either pour a lot of water to loosen it or wait until a soaking rain.
I glanced at my watch. Fifteen minutes before two, and my parents' farm was only ten minutes from Syl's. I didn't like to work in midday sun unless I had to, and I was already perspiring.
Though I knew where Syl hid a house key, I washed my face at the outside spigot and untied the scrunchie that had held my shoulder-length brown hair off my face. The short walk to my truck made me perspire again.
I had parked my aging green truck in a shady spot in the driveway. I'd sit in it and read part of Hal's masterpiece.
After automatically editing four pages of Hal's misspellings and laughing at the hero, whom Hal had clearly modeled on himself – intrepid newspaper publisher Harry Muldoon – I glanced at the dashboard clock.
"Oh, damn." I had less than five minutes to get to the farm. I threw the folder on the seat next to me and started the truck.
A quarter-mile from the farm, a siren sounded behind me. I pulled to the right. The speeding vehicle kicked up so much dust that it took a moment to discern whether it was a sheriff's car or an ambulance.
As the patrol cruiser sped past, the dust swirl parted enough to reveal Aaron Granger, Frost's nephew and my least favorite sheriff's deputy. Probably his uncle wanted him at the meeting, and Granger was late. The siren was overkill.
Had I known he'd be there, I would have said no dice, and Ambrose probably would have, too.
"Crud." I pulled back onto the road and made my way to the farm. Ambrose's car sat near the barn. Granger had pulled in behind him, leaving the cruiser door open.
Why would he be in such a hurry?
Raised male voices greeted me, and I half ran from the truck to the barn entrance.
Peter Frost lay sprawled on his back, motionless. Ambrose knelt next to him, holding a knife whose blade clearly had blood on it.
Aaron Granger was pointing a gun at my brother's chest.