Sunday night, I had trouble sleeping. I struggled because I never worked up the nerve to call Briar and tell her what was happening, and worries about the farm and the trespasser I had seen in the orchard during the day plagued me. The more I told myself it was a deer, the less I believed it. So I was up at five Monday morning, working on the barn. My goal was to clean it out and have room to store the new equipment I wanted to buy—assuming I could find the money.
Huckleberry, the barn cats, and the chickens looked on while I carried equipment out of the building and sorted it into piles to go to the dump or save for future use. Farmers weren’t good at getting rid of things, and my father was no exception. Every broken piece of machinery was saved for decades just in case he could use a part from it. My hope was to organize the various pieces from the tractor, combine, and plow so the barn felt more open and usable.
The back door of the farmhouse opened, and my father came out. He was in his play costume: weathered trousers, a camping jacket, and a raccoon hat. I hoped it wasn’t made with real raccoon but was too afraid to ask. The clothes hung loosely on him, and I saw his belt was cinched tightly around his waist to keep his trousers up. He leaned on his cane, which just barely supported him. He would have done much better with his walker, but I guessed it didn’t go with the uniform.
“Dad, I didn’t expect you up this early.”
He eyed me. “Early? It’s after seven. Any farmer worth his salt is up at five.”
I grimaced. I didn’t know that I made a very good farmer then. I was up early today because of stress, but if given the chance, I could easily sleep in until ten.
He shuffled to his old truck parked beside the barn. It was a red Ford with an extended cab, and he had owned it for as long as I could remember.
I followed him. “Are you going somewhere?”
He looked over his shoulder. “I promised Stacey I would help out with the play today. It’s important that I’m there. I am a lead and the historical consultant.”
That explained the uniform. “Is it a dress rehearsal today?”
“No, but I think it’s important to wear the clothes you’ll wear in the play during rehearsals. It keeps you in character.” He paused. “Are you coming to the theater today?”
“I’m not sure. There’s a lot to do…”
He frowned. “I think you should. You and Stacey didn’t start out on the right foot, and she needs your support. Julius Caesar opens Friday night. It’s important that this first performance goes well. The future of the Michigan Street Theater is riding on it. There’s so much to do these last few days before the play. I’m sure she wouldn’t turn down another volunteer.”
I frowned. Stacey needed my support? What about her supporting me? I was the one trying to save our family legacy. I really didn’t have time to volunteer at the play. Didn’t my father see the state of the farm?
I bit my lip to stop myself from snapping back. “I can stop by the theater,” I said, promising nothing more. “I would like to see the inside of the theater and you on the stage.”
He opened the door to his truck and put his cane inside. “Good.” Carefully, moving at a snail’s pace, he climbed in. His movements were stilted, but I stopped myself from offering him any help. I knew my father well enough to know that it would not have been well-received. No matter what my intentions, he would find it insulting that I thought he couldn’t do something himself. Which maybe explained his grumpiness given the whole farm situation and him needing my help. I wisely held back the questions on the tip of my tongue as to whether he should be driving at all.
Keeping a careful eye on him just in case I needed to jump into action, I went through my mental to-do list. Clean up and update the farm, find out the status of my contract with Crocker now that he’s dead, and find a killer. There wasn’t much time in there to volunteer at the theater. However, by the expression on my father’s face, I knew there was a wrong answer in this case. “I’ll drop in sometime today. Promise.”
He nodded and slammed the door shut.
Huckleberry was at my feet, and I scooped him up while my father turned the truck around and drove down the long driveway toward town. I watched him go with an ache in my heart. I had to make things right between my father and me, or I might as well pack my bags and head back to LA. I would be lying if I didn’t admit that California was looking quite appealing at the moment.
I put the dog down and held the clipboard to my chest. “Huckleberry, I hate to say this, but we’re going to have to go to Jessa’s Place.”
He looked up at me with those wide eyes.
“I know, I know,” I said. “It’s a terrible idea, but it’s the best option we have to find out who would want to kill Jefferson Crocker.”
He made a snuffling sound, which I took as assent.
“You will love it,” I told him with more confidence than I felt. “I’m sure Jessa will spoil you. I, on the other hand, will not like it in the least.” That, I was certain was true.
I went back into the house to get ready for the onslaught. Onslaught was no better way to describe a visit to Jessa’s Place when you were the center of attention.
I had known when I returned to Michigan, I would be the talk of the sleepy town where I grew up, but I never knew it would be this bad, and I certainly didn’t think it would include a dead body.
* * *
I tucked the convertible in the small gravel parking lot to the side of the diner between two pickup trucks with rifle racks. The term “gravel” was used loosely. Most of the small pebbles had been ground so far into the dust and dirt they could no longer be seen. My little convertible was out of place in the parking area dominated with trucks, minivans, and sedans that had been on Michigan’s winter roads for two decades or more. I wrinkled my nose. Maybe I should start driving my father’s truck with the hope I would blend in a little bit better.
I stepped out of the car, snapped on Huckleberry’s leash, and asked him to hop out. We started toward the diner. As I remembered, Jessa had let dogs in the diner if they stayed by the front door.
“Hey, sugar,” a man said to me as I walked toward the diner. “Looking good!”
I spun around. “Listen!” I prepared to deliver a tongue-lashing to the catcaller. My mouth fell open.
“I heard you were back in Cherry Glen.” The large teddy bear of a man in the Cherry Glen High School T-shirt grinned from ear to ear. “Kristy told us. I said we should get the whole gang back together.” He shook his head. “She didn’t tell me how much you’ve changed. California has been good to you!”
“Wesley Sumner!” I cried. “I had no idea you still lived in the Glen.” Next to Kristy, Wes had been my closest high school friend, but I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since the day I left town. He had also been friends with Logan.
He laughed. “I was one of those who never got out. However, seeing how everyone seems to boomerang back to town, it seems to me I would be here one way or another by now.”
Boomerang was the right word for it—or whiplash. I felt like I was in a constant state of memory whiplash since I came back to my hometown. “How have you been?” I asked.
“Can’t complain,” Wes said. “Amy and I have two boys now. They are both in high school.”
Amy Mulligan had been his high school sweetheart, like Logan and I had been. Unlike Logan and me, they got married right out of high school.
“You have kids in high school?” I asked. “If that doesn’t make me feel old, I don’t know what will,” I said.
He laughed. “As soon as my oldest entered ninth grade, I felt ancient. Now he’s going into eleventh, and my youngest is going into ninth.” He squatted down and scratched my pug between the ears. “Who’s this?”
“This is Huckleberry.”
He stood up. “My kids would love him. They keep asking for a dog. So far, we have resisted.”
“I’m so happy to see you,” I said. “Are you working on your family farm?”
A strange look crossed his face. “No. We had to sell the farm. Price of milk dropped too low to make a go of it. We just couldn’t compete with all the factory farms out there lowering milk prices. We couldn’t pay the bills. There wasn’t much else we could do there after that. My pops never wanted to get into any other kind of farming. It was enough money for Mom and Dad to retire to a condo in Traverse City. Now, they play bocce every day of the week, and Mom’s in a book club.”
I nodded. It was the common story for a family farm. I supposed I should be happy we’d been able to hang on to the property. Unfortunately, the Sumner family hadn’t been as lucky. I was relieved to hear it worked out for Wes’s parents though. It didn’t always go like that. Oftentimes, farmers were financially ruined by selling out.
“I’m sorry to hear about the farm. You had a beautiful piece of land.”
He smiled. “Thanks. It was about ten years ago. It was for the best, but I will admit at the time, I was devastated. I always thought I would be a farmer and pass that legacy down to my kids. I never wanted to work in an office. It took me a little while to find something I liked as much.”
“What are you doing now?” I asked.
“I work for the county park service. It doesn’t pay much, but Amy is a teacher, and we get by. I love the work, and I have opportunities to collaborate with the National Park Service on several events a year. As sad as it was to let the farm go, I really found my passion in being a park ranger. I never would have found my true calling without it.”
I smiled. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Have you seen anyone else from the old days?”
“Kristy and Laurel. Oh, and Quinn.”
“Ah, how’d that go?” Wes leaned in like he was still in high school, waiting for a piece of juicy gossip.
“Fine,” I said, hoping he wouldn’t ask any more about it. I certainly hoped he wouldn’t mention Logan. Quinn had been very vocal about how he felt about me after Logan’s death. I was certain Wes knew that too.
He laughed and then nodded at the cinder block restaurant. “You heading into Jessa’s?”
I nodded. “I’m hoping her coffee is as good as I remember.”
“It is, but…” He rocked back on his heels. “I’m not sure you want to go in there.”
I frowned. “Why not?”
“Well, there is the little issue of Jefferson Crocker’s death.”
“Ah, so you heard about that?” Just as I had expected, it was the talk of the town.
“Everyone who lives within thirty miles of the Glen has heard about it. I was just in Jessa’s, and it’s the main topic of conversation. Your name came up a few times.”
I grimaced. “How did it come up?”
He winced. “There was a pretty vocal woman who said that you were the one who shot him. She told anyone who would listen.”
“Was her name Minnie?” I asked.
“How’d you know?”
I shuffled back and forth on my feet. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Wes since high school. He had been a close friend of mine when we were growing up. He, Kristy, a few other kids, and I would pal around together, but again, that was a long time ago. I didn’t know anything about his life now, and he surely didn’t know anything about mine. Even so, everything I could tell him about Minnie, she would have probably told him herself.
“She saw me right after I found Crocker’s body and jumped to the conclusion I must have something to do with his death. She was also very upset he died so close to her honey booth.”
He nodded. “She did mention the booth. She’s still steamed about that. It seems the police confiscated the whole thing. I would stay out of her way if I were you. In her mind, you are public enemy number one.”
I winced. From what I could tell about Minnie, I knew this to be true. “Is she still in the diner?” I would seriously rethink my bright idea of going in there if she was.
“No, she left a half hour ago. She said she had to make play rehearsal.”
“Play rehearsal?” I squeaked. It couldn’t possibly be the same play that my father was in, could it?
“Yep, she’s in the production being put on by the Michigan Street Theater. I thought you would have known about it. Doesn’t your cousin Stacey own that place?”
I nodded. Suddenly, stopping by the theater as my father requested felt like a terrible idea.
He cleared his throat. “If it makes you feel better, I know you didn’t kill anyone,” he said with confidence. “But if you did…Jefferson Crocker is not a bad choice, and I think most of the people in town would agree with that.”
“Why is that?” My skin tingled. Maybe I would finally get some suspect names for my pathetic list.
“The man was a sleazeball. All he cared about was making more money. I think he must have had more money than God at this point, but for some reason, he wanted more and more, no matter what the cost. Trust me, if you ask anyone, they won’t say they are sad he’d dead, not even his wife.”
“He’s married?” A wife would be an excellent suspect.
“Yes, but I think they were separated and have been for a long while. From what I heard, Crocker didn’t want to get an official divorce because they didn’t have a prenup. He would be stuck giving his wife half of everything. A selfish man like him wouldn’t want to do that.”
“What’s her name?” I hoped my question sounded more casual to him than it did to my own ears.
“Shannon Crocker,” he said. “I believe she’s in your cousin’s play too.”
And now I had a real name to add to my list of suspects. I would say trapping a woman into a marriage she no longer wanted to avoid losing his fortune was a pretty good motive for murder. I hoped Chief Randy would put her on his list too. I didn’t know how he could possibly ignore her, knowing that.
“I’m not kidding that no one misses Crocker. I was in Jessa’s Place when I heard about the murder. A few people cheered,” Wes said. “That is how deep their dislike of him runs.”
I internally winced. As bad as Jefferson Crocker seemed to have been, I still couldn’t fathom celebrating the fact that someone was dead. He might not have popular agendas, but he was still a person whose life was cut short by another person. Didn’t that count for a little sympathy?
“I can see why his wife wouldn’t be upset he was dead, but why would the rest of the town celebrate?”
“Because he owned Cherry Glen and reminded everyone in town of the fact as often as possible.”
“How could he own a town?” I asked.
“By buying up all the real estate. Crocker had been doing it for years. A business failed or a house foreclosed, he bought. If someone else wanted the property that he wanted as well, Crocker would outbid the other person.”
“When I arrived, I noticed that Cherry Glen had changed a lot. There are so many new businesses, and Michigan Street is barely recognizable.”
He nodded. “That’s because of Crocker. He had the money to build up the town.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It depends who you ask. There are a lot of people who don’t like the idea of one man owning so much of Cherry Glen.” Wes folded his arms. “He bought the properties and rented them to the businesses. With all the changes in town over the last several years, he must have been making money hand over fist. He even bought the town hall. He owns it free and clear. Paid in cash, from what I heard. Don’t tell me that doesn’t give him an advantage when he’s trying to push his agendas through the town council.”
It seemed to me it would be a clear conflict of interest for him to own the town hall and still make requests from the town council, but I didn’t know enough about rural Michigan policy to be sure.
“At least we no longer have to worry about his big agenda, the wind farm.”
“The wind farm? My cousin mentioned that yesterday. She said there was a billboard coming into town about it too. I only vaguely remember seeing it.”
He scowled. “I bet you can guess who put that up.”
“Crocker?” I said.
“Right.”
“Maybe I’m missing something, but what do people in Cherry Glen have against renewable energy? Doesn’t everyone want that?”
“There is nothing against renewable energy. I’m a park ranger, and of course I want that, but the plan Crocker had was just wrong. He would put his wind farm on people’s property without their permission. He said the town should claim eminent domain. He didn’t care what impact it would have on the wildlife of the region or the parks either.”
“Was the wind farm to be put on parkland too?” I asked.
He frowned. “You would be surprised what the government allows to happen in parks now if someone with enough money and influence asks for it.” He scowled. “But no, in this case, the wind farm was to be all on private land only, so the parks had nothing to do with it or no means to stop it.”
“I could see why the people who own the land would be upset, but why is the general public against it?”
“Birds.”
“Birds?”
“Yes, birds. Wind farms kill thousands of birds every year while they migrate both in the spring and fall. Crocker is not taking that into consideration at all. I don’t hate wind farms, but I believe that we have to be responsible about their placement.”
I grimaced as I thought about it. “That’s awful. I had no idea.”
“Exactly, it is awful. We are only twenty miles from Lake Michigan. Michigan, in general, is a major migration path for birds as they come from Central and South America to the northern United States and Canada every year. All the evidence proves that Cherry Glen would have been one of the worst places to put a wind farm because of migration patterns. Someone like Crocker cares more about making money than saving birds. He’s not doing this because he’s a good-doing environmentalist. He’s doing it to make money.”
Was I crazy to think Crocker might have been killed over birds?
“Was everyone in the town against it because of the birds?” I asked.
“Not everyone, but it wasn’t a popular idea in general,” he said.
“I would think there might have been enough public disapproval to stop it.”
“Well, we’ll never know now, will we? Anyway, most of the people just didn’t like Crocker getting his way all the time. It was discouraging watching him buy up the town like he did. There are a number of conspiracy theories out there over what he was going to do with Cherry Glen when he bought up every last piece of it.”
“He wanted all of it?” I asked.
“I don’t know if he ever said that to anyone, but that’s what most folks thought.” He sighed. “If you’re really interested in learning more about the wind farm, you should talk to Hedy.”
“Hedy?” I asked.
“Hedy Strong. She’s the driving force that has stopped Crocker from getting his way on this matter. She’s a powerhouse and has raised thousands of dollars to cover the court costs to fight him. She’s a hero to all the environmentalists in the region. There aren’t many of us around here, but we are still a powerful and vocal group.”
His cell phone rang, and he unclipped it from his belt. “It’s the park. I had better get going. It was nice to see you, Shiloh. Maybe Amy and I can host a get-together. The kids are rarely home in the evenings. They are way busier than we ever were when we were their age.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, but as he walked away, I couldn’t help but think my old friend just might be a new suspect in Jefferson Crocker’s murder. Wes had always been passionate about animals. In fact, when we were in biology class together, he convinced me to help him free all the frogs from the lab one day after school. The great frog escape ended with a local pond being stocked with thirty new bullfrogs and a week’s detention. So it didn’t surprise me in the least that Wes would be so upset about the wind turbines.
“Oh, before I forget.” He turned around and removed his wallet from his pocket, pulling out a bent business card. “If you want to talk to Hedy, that’s the best way to get in contact with her. You might have to call a few times. If she’s out birding, she will have her phone on silent so it doesn’t scare the birds.”
I took the card from his hand. “Grand Traverse County Birders. Hedy Strong, President.” Below that, there was a phone number and a website. “Thank you,” I said, because I did want to make contact with Hedy, but that had more to do with murder than with the birds. I realized it just might have to do with both.