“Hey, babe. Did you have a good day?”
“Got an eighty-seven on that math test.”
“Good on you!” A girl of ten or eleven sidled in through the door. She had the same Snow White-style mix of dark and fair as her brother. “Alanna, honey, how was your day?” her mother asked.
“Okay,” the girl said. “Can I get on my computer?”
“Chores first,” her mother said. The girl made a face, slung her backpack onto one of the kitchen chairs, and retreated back to the mudroom outside.
“Aaron, this is Clare Fergusson,” Vicki said. “She’s a friend of the police chief’s. He’s in a bit of trouble, and she’s helping him out.”
The boy held out his hand. “Pleased to meet you.” His smile was easy and infectious, making him seem less like a polite child and more like a man who genuinely was pleased to meet her.
“Hi, Aaron.” Clare couldn’t help but smile back. “Like your mom said, I’m trying to follow up on a few loose ends concerning the Van Alstyne case. You’ve heard Mrs. Van Alstyne was murdered, right?”
He plopped into the chair next to hers. “Yes, ma’am. Quinn and I were there the day she was killed. I’m surprised the police haven’t questioned us yet. Or-well, maybe not.”
“That’s what I’m here to ask you about,” Clare said. “I understand from Quinn the two of you saw a car in the Van Alstynes’ driveway that Sunday.”
“Yes, ma’am, but don’t ask me to tell you what it was. It was little and Japanese, that’s about all I can remember.”
“Quinn was able to give us the make and the license number-” Clare began, but Vicki interrupted her.
“Babe, what’s this about Quinn’s parents not wanting you to hang out with him?”
Aaron’s display of confusion was almost theatrical. “What?”
“That’s what Quinn said, when Chief Van Alstyne questioned him. He didn’t want the chief talking to his parents, he said, because he was with you, and his parents didn’t approve of that.”
“Ahhh.” The boy ducked his head. A thick lock of dark hair fell across one eye, and he looked up at his mother sheepishly from beneath it. “That may be because he’s not exactly allowed to have anyone in his truck with him when he’s plowing.”
“Aaron.” Vicki frowned. “You’ve been going out with him all the time when he plows.”
The look on Aaron’s face was one of perfect teenaged exasperation. “It’s just ’cause his dad’s got his nuts in a wad about the insurance. He’s afraid if anyone’s in the truck and there’s an accident, he’ll be on the hook. It’s a dumb rule, Mom. Really, it’s safer with two. One to drive and one to keep an eye out for cars on the road.”
“I don’t care. If that’s Mr. Tracey’s rule, you need to talk with him and get permission before you go plowing with Quinn again.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
His capitulation was impressive. Back when she was a kid, Clare would have whined and pleaded a full twenty minutes longer. Clearly, Vicki MacEntyre was doing something right. “Aaron, do you remember anything else from that afternoon? Anything you might have seen at the Van Alstynes’, or along Peekskill Road?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. Sorry.”
“And what was it you were doing out there that day?”
“We were just driving around.” He gave his mother a deliberately mischievous look. “Maybe finding a few icy spots to do doughnuts on.”
“Aaron!”
Clare hid her smile behind folded hands. Intentionally spinning a pickup wasn’t exactly the smartest thing to do, but considering the range of misbehavior two boys that age could get up to, it fell into the reasonably harmless camp.
“Can I go do my chores now? I want my computer time, too.”
Vicki gestured toward Clare. “Anything else?”
“No. Thank you, Aaron.”
“Anytime.” The boy rose and ambled into the mudroom. After he had closed the door behind him, Clare could hear the rustle of a parka coming off the hook and the thud of boots.
“He’s a good kid,” she said.
Vicki knocked against the kitchen table. “I could wish he’d spend less time on the computer and more on his homework. But what the heck. So long as he graduates and has enough skills so’s the army doesn’t stick him on the front lines, he’ll do fine. Craig and me never went to college, and we’re doing just as well as the Traceys. And they have degrees up the wazoo.”
Clare collected her empty mug and spoon and stood up. “What is it you and your husband do?”
Vicki stood as well. “Let me take that.” She hooked both mugs on one hand and pointed toward where the enormous barn sat across the road. “Organic meats. Beef and poultry. Guaranteed free range, pesticide-and hormone-free.” She opened the dishwasher and set the mugs inside. “We bought this farm from my folks, back when it was all dairy. But, you know, it’s damn hard for a small dairyman to compete these days. You gotta have something the big agribusiness companies don’t have.”
Clare retrieved her coat from the back of a chair. “So you went organic.”
“Yep. It can be tough. You gotta get certified, you can’t use antibiotics or treated feed, but in the end, we net forty percent over what my dad did on a per animal basis-and that was back when the Northeast Milk Compact kept prices high. We’re thinking of expanding into exotic meats. Bison. The restaurant trade is hot for bison.”
One of the best meals Clare had ever had had been stewed bison. “Do you sell locally?”
“We butcher stock here for special orders, and we send some poultry to Pat’s Meat Market in Fort Henry. Turkeys before the holidays, that sort of thing. But most of it goes down to New York.” She gave Clare an entirely different sort of assessment than she had at the door and flicked a card out of a holder. “Here’s our number. Smallest order we do is a side or a half steer, but once you’ve tasted our beef, you’ll be glad you have the freezer packed with it.”
Clare took the card. “I may take you up on that.”
“You can get it cheaper, but you’ll never get it better.”
Clare pulled on her parka. “Thanks for the cocoa, Vicki. And thank you for letting me come in and pester your son with questions.”
Vicki smiled a little. “I got a lot of experience with quirky folks. Craig’s great-uncle holds meetings for a group that believes the Cubans are trying to spread Communism through fluoridated water. And my father-in-law down in Florida’s convinced a super-macrobiotic diet and sheep embryo injections are gonna keep him alive till he’s two hundred. So when you come along wanting to play detective…” She shrugged. “Seems like pretty small potatoes to me.”
THIRTY-ONE
It was full dark outside now, and the falling snow flashed like a thousand stars in the light from the MacEntyres’ garage. Clare was surprised to see Alanna MacEntyre behind the Subaru, stomping her feet and beating on her arms to keep warm.
“My brother would like to see you,” she said, jerking her thumb back toward the barn, where a row of cell-like windows glowed with liquid light. “There’s something he wanted to say without Mom listening in.”
So. She and Russ had been right when they guessed the boys had been up to something more than spinning tires on country roads. “Thanks,” she said. “Are you headed back that way?”
“Un-uh. My chores are done.”
“And you waited around in the snow to give me your brother’s message? You’re a good sport.”
The girl looked at her disbelievingly. “No,” she said. “I’m smart about not pissing my big brother off.” Then she shook her head-
Clare crossed Old Route 100 cautiously. The blacktop was whitetop now, even the recent boot prints of the MacEntyre children fading fast as the snow accumulated. The massive tractor-and haywagon-sized doors that had
