Laid Out in Lavender

Book 3: Garlic Farm Mystery

by Gin Jones

Genres: Culinary Cozy Mysteries; Amateur Sleuth

Synopsis

Mabel Skinner still hasn't acquired a taste for growing garlic, but the app developer-turned farmer does have a nose for rooting out killers . . .



Dreaming she'll someday return to her less pungent life of computer coding, Mabel continues to honor her deceased aunt's legacy by running Skinner Farm. To make ends meet between harvests, she's renting out the property's mercifully downwind lavender field for summer weddings.



Mabel's first clients are a retirement age couple celebrating their second chance at love in their later years. Hosting a rehearsal dinner with fresh foods seemed like a good idea to promote the farm—until the dead body of one of the wedding guests is discovered. The suddenly departed was the soon-to-be-ex-business partner of the groom, supposedly poisoned by goat cheese hors d'oeuvres provided by Mabel's neighbor.



Despite the tragedy and the scandal, the groom insists on keeping his wedding date. But with the adult children from the couple's previous marriages scheming to stop the new union, Mabel's farm is reeking with suspects. And if she doesn't uncover the murderer, her goat farming neighbor will get sent to the pen for life . . .

Release date: April 6, 2021

Publisher: Lyrical Press

Print pages: 215

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

“I’m going to kill that woman,” Emily Colter announced as she burst through the Skinner Farm’s kitchen door and made a beeline for the harvest-gold refrigerator. Emily had traded in her usual white painter’s overalls for a caterer’s outfit consisting of a white apron over a black shirt and pants. She was in her mid-twenties, and looked like the tall, blond trophy wife she had been until about two months earlier. “Unless she kills me first by suffocating me with the gallons of lavender perfume she’s wearing.”

“I’d really rather no one died.” Mabel Skinner closed the laptop in front of her at the kitchen table. “We’ve had enough death here already.”

Emily’s face fell. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect to your aunt.”

“I know.” Mabel glanced at the laptop that held her notes about a promising candidate for the job of farm manager. If he was as good as his résumé suggested, hiring him would let her go back to her usual work as an app developer. She’d been trying to fill the position for the past eight months with no qualified candidates applying until now. Unfortunately, Richard Wetzel had only been available for an in-person visit today, which was less than ideal timing. The farm was hosting a wedding for the first time, with the rehearsal and related photography sessions underway already out in the lavender field and the ceremony scheduled for the next afternoon. Emily had been setting up the buffet for the wedding party on the patio outside the kitchen before she’d come inside to announce her homicidal intentions.

Mabel pushed aside her laptop. She was desperate to hire a manager for the farm, or she would never have agreed to schedule the interview at the same time as the wedding events. Wetzel had all the necessary qualifications, according to all the books she’d consulted, and she was as prepared for the interview as she’d ever be, so until he arrived, she had to focus on making sure the wedding events went smoothly.

It had sounded so simple when Emily first suggested the project as something that could benefit them both, but Emily’s usual serenity had been shaken recently. This was her first major contract as a caterer, and she needed to make a success of it in order to grow her new business. Mabel needed it to go well, too, since, according to Aunt Peggy’s records, the income from renting out the lavender fields as a backdrop for pictures had gone a long way to keeping the farm financially stable. Mabel had hoped to expand the service from just a setting for pictures to hosting the entire wedding weekend on the farm, for a significantly larger fee. If today was a success and the property could be rented out regularly at a time when not much else was going on in the fields, then it could help keep the farm sustainable, regardless of what Mother Nature might do to the crops.

“Who’s the woman annoying you?” Mabel asked.

The planner, Paige Middleton.” Emily had retrieved the pitcher of Mabel’s iced tea from the refrigerator and was pouring herself a large glass. “You know how brides have a reputation for turning into lunatics over their weddings, making extra work for their planners? Well, Donna Markos is the most laid-back person I’ve ever met, and instead it’s her planner who’s the crazy one. Do you know what she just asked me?”

“No.” Mabel went over to the sink to fill the kettle for a new batch of iced tea. It sounded like they were both going to need it to get through the day.

“She wants me to change the lavender-flavored wedding cake and make it lemon instead, because she just found out the bride is allergic to lavender.” Emily took a long swig of iced tea and set the glass down with an emphatic thump. “Can you believe she thinks I can produce a whole new wedding cake with only twenty-four hours left before the wedding? I don’t have time to make another one myself, and it’s the peak of wedding season, so it’s not like I can get someone else to make it for me. Bakers are booked to capacity and beyond. I’m just glad I decided not to add lavender to today’s cheesecake bars, and I have extras for tomorrow, so there will be at least one dessert the bride can eat.”

Mabel wrinkled her nose. “I’m glad too. I don’t like lavender any more than my aunt did, and those bars are fabulous without it.”

Emily brushed away a tear of frustration. “I wish I could just tell Paige to stuff it, but I really need this job to go well, and I need her to give me a good reference. Catering is the only way I’ll be able to earn enough to keep my goats.”

Emily’s estranged husband had recently given her an ultimatum along with the divorce papers—if she couldn’t earn enough money on her own within six months to prove she could cover all the expenses of keeping her goats at what had been their marital home, then it would have to be sold as part of the court proceedings. Emily was convinced she’d also have to sell the goats in that case, since she wouldn’t be able to afford another farm for them to live on, and it would break her heart if she had to let them go. The goats were working animals, producing milk for the artisanal cheese she sold at the farmers’ market, but she also loved them like pets.

“I’m sure the bride will give you a good reference, even if the planner won’t,” Mabel said. “And unlike the planner, the bride is local and probably knows more people around here who could use your catering services.”

“It’s like the planner is trying to ruin both the wedding and me,” Emily said as if she hadn’t heard Mabel’s reassurances. Her usually sweet face turned dark. “I bet my not-soon-enough-ex-husband-to-be paid her to sabotage everything. He’s determined to hurt me any way he can, and he knows it would kill me to have to sell my goats. I can’t let him get away with it, and catering is the only skill I have that would earn me enough to cover the farm’s expenses.”

“You’ve still got four months left. And you’ve got Rory on your side.” Rory Hansen was a mutual friend, the wife of a local police officer, and the moving force behind the local Community Supported Agriculture group. She knew everyone in town, and most people tended to do whatever she asked them to, although sometimes they had to be dragged into doing the right thing. Mabel herself had found herself doing things she’d had reservations about, simply because Rory insisted. “She’s been promoting your new catering business to everyone in town.”

Emily wasn’t willing to be mollified. “Having Rory on my side would be enough in most circumstances, but my husband doesn’t fight fair. If he did, he never would have carried on with a colleague behind my back for months and then had divorce papers served on me with no warning.”

He had been unnecessarily cruel, but there was nothing Mabel could think of to make her friend feel better, so she settled for saying, “I’m sorry.”

“He’s such a jerk,” Emily said before launching into a rant about how, after he’d been sure the papers had already been served, he’d called from his new girlfriend’s house to explain that he’d had enough of his wife’s “artsy-fartsy, new-agey ways” and she needed to learn to live in the real world.

Mabel went about brewing the tea while her friend vented. She tuned out a bit, since she’d heard it before. The water had boiled, the leaves had steeped and been removed, and ice cubes had been added to the pitcher before Emily wound down.

“I’ll show him a real world he never imagined,” Emily said with quiet determination. “I’m going to be the most successful caterer in West Slocum, maybe even all of western Massachusetts, and then I’ll buy more goats, and he won’t be able to stop me.”

That was better, Mabel thought. Emily wasn’t her usual sunny self, but at least she wasn’t giving up either. After today’s wedding reception, when everyone told her how wonderful her food was, she might even lose a bit of the anxiety that had dogged her for the last two months.

“Is there anything I can do to help so you’ll be ready for the rehearsal dinner?”

“Thanks, but I can handle it, and you’ve got a lot to do today already,” Emily said. “That reminds me, how did it go with the candidate for the farm manager position?”

“I haven’t finished interviewing Richard Wetzel yet,” Mabel said. “We’d barely introduced ourselves after he arrived, and he insisted on viewing the property before we talked in depth, to make sure it was something he thought was worth his time. Apparently he’s been looking for just the right farm for the last two years, and nothing has quite lived up to his expectations. He was particularly impressed when I told him we had our own water source, so he headed out in the direction of the creek to inspect that first.”

Unfortunately, Mabel didn’t think he’d approve of it. She’d briefly described the main features of the farm before he’d headed out on his own, and even without viewing them closely, he’d made it clear that he considered them inferior to what was on the farm he’d grown up on. She half-expected him to report back that water didn’t flow downhill on his family’s farm, so the creek was clearly doing it wrong and would have to be fixed if he took the job.

Emily had enough to worry about at the moment, so Mabel didn’t share her less-than-optimistic expectation for hiring Wetzel. “He should be back soon, but until he returns I can help with the buffet if you want. As long as I don’t have to cook anything.”

Emily laughed. “I’d love to sic you on the wedding planner, but you’d probably find her even more annoying than I do. Perhaps you could keep an eye on the patio while I go out to the lavender field to try to talk some sense into her. The best man, Thad Dalton, keeps sneaking back here to sample the food, or worse, to light up a cigarette while he’s snacking instead of using the smoking stations away from the patio. It’s like he thinks no one can see him as long as he’s on the other side of the buffet table, where it’s supposed to be staff only. Keeping the guests where they belong is the planner’s job, but of course she isn’t doing it. I wouldn’t mind so much if he just sneaked some tidbits discreetly—there’s way more than enough food for everyone—but he dives into everything practically headfirst, and leaves the dishes looking like wild animals got at them. And then he throws his cigarette butts all over the ground nearby, stinking up the place so no one can even appreciate the food.”

“I can definitely guard the buffet for you while you talk to Paige. If Wetzel comes back while you’re gone, I can still keep an eye on the best man while I do the interview.”

“Thanks. After the last mess Thad made, I filled a couple plates with a ton of food and put a little flag in each of them with his name. They’re on the back side of the buffet table, so if he shows up, you can just grab them and offer them to him. I should be done with the planner and back here before he can finish both plates. I hope. It’s hard to believe a guy who’s as skinny as he is could eat that much.” Emily glanced out the window and squeaked. “Never mind. He’s here again. I’ll go give him the first plate before I go find Paige.”

* * * *

Mabel followed Emily outside, both to keep an eye on Thad Dalton and to watch for Wetzel’s return from checking out the farm. The patio, designed for Aunt Peggy’s parties, attended by half of West Slocum’s residents and almost as many more from farther away, ran the entire length of the farmhouse’s back wall and about thirty feet deep. To Mabel’s left, near the far end of the patio, a pair of buffet tables were set up across its width, separating the serving area from the dining area, which held five widely spaced six-person round tables for the rehearsal dinner. Additional tables were stored behind the buffet table for the wedding reception’s larger crowd on Saturday.

She’d been counting on Emily and the other contractors to take care of everything without Mabel having to do much more than make a few quick appearances to greet the bride and groom, and maybe check back with them later to make sure everything had gone smoothly. Then she could have spent most of the day in her home office, doing her real work as an app developer, with just a brief break to interview the candidate for the manager position. She wasn’t going to be able to do that if the wedding planner was as flaky as Emily said, and there was no reason to doubt her, since she always seemed to see the best in everyone, except perhaps for her soon-to-be-ex-husband. Emily would be too busy with food service to oversee the planner as well, so if Mabel wanted the wedding to be a success, she was going to have to be the one who smoothed over any problems.

Heaven help them all.

Smoothing over personal problems had never been Mabel’s strong point. She could fix a buggy app with ease, but when it came to dealing with misbehaving people instead of code, she was more likely to cause problems than solve them. Fortunately, she didn’t have to actually talk to Thad yet, since Emily had lured him over to the table farthest away from the buffet. He seemed content enough there, alternately studying the contents of the plate she’d given him and pouring a visible layer of salt on anything that wasn’t sweet. Mabel settled at a table near the buffet, so she could allow him some privacy while also being well-situated to guard the beautifully displayed food from his pillaging.

Since Thad appeared fully occupied, Mabel took advantage of what she expected to be a brief bit of calm to appreciate her surroundings. Even for someone more comfortable indoors, all alone in her room and hunched over a computer, it was far from a hardship to sit outside on an idyllic June day. Everything on the farm was green with potential, and there wasn’t any pressing work to be done in the fields over the next few weeks. She and her workers had recently finished seeding the squash in May, and the harvesting of the fall-planted garlic wouldn’t happen until July. June was mostly for maintenance, which her employees could handle on their own, probably better than she could herself.

Over the past eleven months, she had come to understand—in her heart, not just in her head—why Aunt Peggy had loved the farm so much. The beauty and serenity almost made Mabel want to stay on the place even after she hired a manager, but there were too many distractions on the farm that kept her from concentrating on her real work as an app developer. And nothing could ever make her appreciate getting up with the literal early birds as she’d done during the planting season and then again today to make sure everything was as perfect as possible for the wedding rehearsal. This event could make or break both her farm’s bottom line and Emily’s. And until Mabel had handed off responsibility for the farm to a manager, she would do whatever was necessary to keep her aunt’s legacy sustainable. Even if it meant getting up at dawn. And mingling with strangers.

Mabel shuddered. The sooner she hired a manager, the better.

She glanced out toward the fields to see if she could spot the manager candidate wandering around out there. He wasn’t on any of the tractor paths that ran through the farm and divided the fields, or with the guests out near the lavender crop, or in any of the areas where garlic was growing in neat rows, rapidly approaching its maximum height. From this distance, she couldn’t see the inter-planted squash seedlings that had only sprouted in the last ten days but would completely fill in the beds after the garlic was harvested. Her part-time field hand, Terry Earley, was wielding a hoe around the garlic in the field nearest the lavender one that served as a backdrop for photographs of the wedding party. A wheelbarrow overflowing with mulch—purchased straw this time, not grass clippings acquired in a midnight raid—was parked in a path near Terry for use in covering any bare spots.

Mabel’s reverie was interrupted by the sound of Pixie yowling—the cat’s standard announcement of a vehicle turning into the driveway—loud enough to be heard easily through the kitchen’s screen door. She’d been shut in Aunt Peggy’s office, so there would be no chance of someone letting her out in the chaos of the rehearsal dinner, but the inner closed door had done little to muffle her piercing screech. Given how many visitors had arrived already, it was surprising Pixie hadn’t given herself laryngitis, but if anything, her warning cries seemed to have grown louder as the day progressed and the total number of visitors increased.

Mabel confirmed that Thad still had a huge amount of food to eat, so he wouldn’t be likely to raid the buffet again any time soon, before heading over to the driveway to see whose arrival Pixie had been announcing. As far as Mabel knew, the entire wedding party had already arrived and gone out to the lavender field, but perhaps someone was late and would need to be escorted out to where the pictures were being taken.

An older-model compact car came to a stop in the middle of the driveway and idled there, its owner apparently not sure where to park. Mabel had moved her own Mini Cooper into the front yard, and then asked Terry to move the farm’s truck out of its usual spot in front of the barn, leaving the parking spaces there for the two dozen or so people attending the rehearsal. The guests had filled the area in front of the barn and even double-parked a couple of vehicles, leaving nowhere obvious for the newcomer to park.

Mabel gestured for the driver to put his vehicle next to her Mini Cooper on the front lawn and followed to greet him.

A middle-aged man climbed out of the car and went around to the passenger-side door. His clothes didn’t give any indication of why he was there. He was dressed casually, for the most part, in khaki pants, a dark polo shirt, and a rumpled tweed sports jacket. The only note of formality was the gray fedora with a black band, which made Mabel think of 1920s gangsters. The hat had a bright yellow piece of laminated paper stuck into the band with the word press on it.

Now she knew who he was, and she was already having second thoughts about having invited him. She’d been counting on giving him her full attention for the brief time he was on the farm, but she didn’t even have that much time to spare for him.

The man bent to grab a tablet and a Nikon camera from the passenger seat before slamming the door shut and heading for Mabel. He draped the strap of the camera around his neck as he walked, the weight of its massive professional lens tipping him forward to lean at an uncomfortable angle as he walked.

“Do you know where I can find the farm’s owner?” He straightened when he came to a stop in front of Mabel. “I’m Andrew Rainey with the Times.”

The pride and gravitas in his tone made it sound like he worked for the New York Times, but Mabel knew he was actually affiliated with a small regional paper here in western Massachusetts. It featured a lot of local sports and town politics, along with fluff pieces and syndicated columns, nothing that would count as investigative journalism or even serious news. Still, she couldn’t complain, since she was hoping he’d do a fluff piece on the farm to get it some free publicity for the expanded services offered for weddings.

“You found her. I’m Mabel Skinner.”

He pointed toward the lavender field. “And that’s where the wedding rehearsal is happening, right? For the soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Bellingham?”

“It is.”

“I was hoping to get a few pictures of the rehearsal. I’m not just an award-winning reporter, but an acclaimed photographer too. I used to do my own prints to get them just the way I wanted them, although nowadays, with digital technology, I can make the adjustments on the computer instead.”

“Then turn your camera on the farm,” Mabel said. “You’re here to write about the sustainability of small farms, not weddings.” At least that was what he’d claimed when he’d gotten her permission to visit the farm on the day of the wedding.

“You said that having additional streams of income is part of sustainability, so the wedding is part of my story. Besides, a good journalist can spin facts any number of ways and is ready to jump on any opportunity that presents itself. This is the social event of the century for West Slocum. Did you know that Bellingham was born and raised right here by a single mother, and then went on to become one of the richest people in the state?”

She hadn’t known that, but presumably, if true, the groom’s upbringing and wealth were well-known by people who cared about such things. “That’s not news. Neither is his wedding or his upcoming retirement. They were announced months ago, so there’s nothing happening here that’s worth writing about.”

“I’m the one who decides what’s worth writing about.” Rainey pointed to his chest as he spoke, only to get his hand tangled in the strap of the camera.

“You can ask Mr. Bellingham if he’s willing to be interviewed, but only after the rehearsal is over,” Mabel said, ushering him past Thad and over to the table she’d vacated on the patio. He could interview her there while she also kept an eye on the best man. At least Thad was still where she’d left him, working his way through the plate Emily had filled for him, instead of raiding the buffet table or smoking near the food.

Once they were seated, Rainey said, “I’ll need to talk to Bellingham’s business partner too. Rumor has it, being best man is all part of the price for buying the company. Bellingham couldn’t find anyone else to stand with him at the altar, so he put in their contract that the sale won’t go through until the marriage happens. It’s a great story—money can’t buy you friends, but it can buy you a best man. I just need confirmation from someone with firsthand knowledge before I can write it.”

Mabel forced herself not to look in Thad’s direction, since apparently Rainey hadn’t recognized him. “You need to wait until the rehearsal is over to talk to anyone involved with the wedding, and even then, I expect you to be discreet about it.”

Rainey shrugged. “Discreet doesn’t get the story.”

“Then you’ll have to leave right now,” Mabel said. “I won’t have my guests disturbed.”

“What about the story on your little farm? If I leave, I can’t write. . .