“Do you know how your grandma died?” Des asked.
“How would we know that? We weren’t even born yet.”
“Your dad never mentioned it to you?”
“Nope,” Stevie said, pulling on his cigarette.
“If I told you Pete’s last name was Mosher what would you say?”
The brothers exchanged a guarded look before Donnie said, “There’s tons of Moshers around here.”
Des said, “Your dad claims he found some black trash bags full of returnables at the foot of your drive when he left for work this morning. You told me you were home by then from your night out with Allison, right?”
“Uh, okay…” Donnie said uncertainly.
“You do remember we talked this morning, don’t you?”
“So what?” Stevie demanded.
“So did you guys notice those trash bags there at the foot of your drive when you made it home?”
“I don’t remember seeing ’em,” said Stevie.
“Me neither,” said Donnie.
“Maybe you boys left them there yourselves after you killed Pete,” Yolie suggested.
“It wasn’t us, lady,” Stevie said. “We weren’t even there. And if you ask me, somebody’s goofing on you. This is all some kind of a frame, this stuff going down as soon as we get out. Don’t you think it’s even a little weird?”
“Not really,” Yolie replied. “Not if you did it.”
“But we didn’t,” Donnie protested.
Quite possibly someone had fitted the Kershaw brothers for a frame, Des reflected. Using their release from prison as a convenient cover for a crime that they’d been planning for a good long while. Then again, quite possibly Stevie and Donnie were the culprits. Sometimes, the most obvious explanation was obvious for a reason.
“Oh, no-o-o…” Donnie groaned, his bloodshot eyes focusing across the meadow. “Please tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing.”
A battered Ford F-150 pickup loaded down with more manure was bumping its way toward them. Eric was behind the wheel, waving to them excitedly.
“Big brother, I will pass out in my own vomit if I have to fork one more load.”
“That man is beyond crazy,” Stevie concurred glumly. “He should be kept away from other people.”
Eric cozied the truck up close to the bed the brothers were working and hopped out, a lanky, hyperkinetic bundle of geeki-ness in his shapeless sweater and too-short jeans, a he-guy Leatherman multipurpose knife sheathed to his belt. “Afternoon, Des!” he called to her. “Isn’t this a great afternoon?”
“It’s a fine one,” Des said, thinking he needed to take sheep shears to all of that hair growing out of his ears. “Eric, I’d like you to meet Sgt. Yolie Snipes.”
“Re-eally pleased to meet you.” Eric dropped the tailgate of the truck, jumped in back and began shoveling the manure out onto the ground. The man was positively raring with bright-eyed vigor. “Sergeant, you are one lucky lady.”
Yolie stared up at him with her mouth open. “Is that right?”
“Oh, absolutely. This is the most exciting day of the year to visit Four Chimneys Farm, right, boys?”
“Don’t ask us, man,” grumbled Stevie. “We’re just spreading manure.”
“It’s not manure, it’s gold!” exulted Eric. “By spreading it you are helping to create life. Honestly, if you can’t get excited about this, what can you get excited about?”
“A hot bath,” Donnie answered promptly. “A cold beer. A nice, soft place to lie down.”
“You guys had it too soft up at Enfield,” Eric scoffed, scooping the chicken manure out of his truck with manic energy. “Just sat around all day doing nothing. Not here. Here, we are taking on The Man.”
“We’re doing what?” asked Donnie, puzzled.
“Big corporations control the agribusiness now. It’s all multinational this, genetically engineered that. Here we grow things the way nature intended them to be grown. No artificial anything. We’re fighting the system here. This is right up your alley, don’t you get it? You have a problem with authority and so do I.”
“Man, are you like a farmer or some kind of cult leader?” Ste-vie wondered, shaking his mullet head at him wearily.
Des heard a car door slam. Danielle’s Subaru was pulled up at the meadow gate and she was trudging her way toward them with a Thermos and two big plastic tumblers.
“I made some cold lemonade,” she called out. “Thought you might be thirsty.”
“Wow, thank you, ma’am,” Stevie said gratefully.
“Real nice of you, ma’am,” echoed Donnie.
Danielle filled the tumblers for them. The brothers gulped down their lemonade so fast that some of it streamed down their chins.
Danielle poured them more before she glanced somewhat meekly up at Eric in the truck. “I’m heading out for a few minutes, okay?” she said, twirling one of her pigtails around her fingers.
“Where are you off to?” A slight edge had crept into Eric’s voice.
“I made a big pot of stew. I thought Mark might eat some.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said disapprovingly.
“Eric, if I don’t take him food he doesn’t eat.”
“I said it was okay, didn’t I? I just don’t like him taking advantage of you.”
“He’s not.”
“Fine, he’s not,” Eric snapped, effectively closing down the conversation.
“Big thanks for the lemonade, ma’am,” said Stevie.
“You’re quite welcome. I’ll make some more for you tomorrow.”
“We’ll be here.”
“Unless we’re in jail,” said Donnie, glancing at Des and Yolie.
Eric watched Danielle scurry back across the meadow, a concerned look on his face. Then he shook himself and said, “How about you guys start working that other bed over there? If you get moving, we can still mix this in before dark.”
The brothers glanced unhappily at the broad swath of raw, untilled soil that awaited them fifty yards away.
“You’re the boss,” Stevie said defeatedly.
They slunk off, trailing their forks along behind them on the ground.
“Des, I still can’t get over what happened this morning,” Eric confessed, hopping down out of the truck. “That’s my land down where Pete was found. It’s upsetting, knowing that a murder was committed there. I feel responsible.”
“You’re not responsible for what somebody did to Pete.”
“I know that, but it’s going to take me a while to process this. Maybe I should plant some new trees down there.”
“That’ll have to wait,” Yolie said. “It’s still an active crime scene.”
“When you’re done with your investigation, I meant.” Eric glanced over at the Kershaw brothers, who’d begun poking at the new planting bed with a tremendous lack of enthusiasm. “I just need to do something.”
“Can you tell us anything about Pete?” Des asked him.
“Not a whole lot,” he replied, blinking at her rapidly. “I did get the impression that there was something special about him. The old-timers at the soup kitchen would whisper to each other when he came in. Almost with a kind of awe. I asked Doug once whether Pete was a Vietnam War hero…” Eric left off, his eyes on a vehicle tearing its way up the gravel drive. It was Claudia’s black Lexus SUV, and it was slowing up now, stopping.
“And what did Doug say?”
“He said no,” Eric replied distractedly, his buoyant spirit deflating as Claudia got out of her Lexus and marched her way across the meadow toward them, her clenched fists pumping furiously.
“This don’t look jolly,” Yolie observed.
“When it comes to my sister there is no such thing.”
In fact, Claudia looked exceedingly hostile. “Officers, how can you allow those criminals to work here!” she demanded, her eyes icy blue slits.
