Til Dirt Do Us Part (A Local Foods Mystery) Read Online Free PDF

and ready to nourish the soil. As long as it had enough air in the process, the friable mix smelled as fresh as newly turned soil.
    This particular cartload was destined to nurture next year’s garlic crop. Cam dumped it on the recently vacated tomato beds and headed back to the barn. She brought the bag of seed garlic, a small knife, and a basket out to a picnic table Bobby had knocked together for her. As she sat separating the bulbs of Music and German Red into individual cloves, she searched her mind for where Bobby might be. Maybe he’d had an accident, too. Maybe he was sick in bed. Or maybe he was a killer on the run.
    One of the bulbs was particularly tight around its central stalk. This was stiff-neck garlic, the kind that grew in a single row of fat cloves around a pencil-thick stalk. She also needed to plant the soft-neck garlic. It featured several concentric circles of cloves, so some were smaller, but it kept longer than the stiff-neck varieties. She’d made garlic braids out of the soft-neck garlic at the end of August, and customers loved them.
    Cam poked the point of the knife into the middle of the tight bulb to try to separate the cloves from the stalk. She jabbed at it as if that would get Bobby found and would bring Irene back to life. The knife slipped and pierced her palm instead. She swore as she dropped the tool.
    A rumble from the driveway made her look up from her wound. The rental truck loomed. Cam pressed her other thumb to the cut as she directed the driver back to the tent. He and a helper, a young man Cam had seen bagging groceries at the Food Mart earlier in the year, set to work collapsing the tables and chairs, while Cam fetched a bandage from the house for her palm. When she returned to the tent, the driver approached her, holding something white.
    “Found this under a table.” He gestured behind him with his head. “Somebody must have dropped it.”
    Cam thanked him. It was a small envelope, unsealed, with nothing written on the outside. She opened it and drew out a slip of paper. She glanced at it and looked up with a quick movement. Had the man read what was written on it? But he had returned to his work. She read it again.
    MEET ME IN THE WOODS AT ELEVEN, OR I’LL TELL WHAT I KNOW.
    YOU KNOW WHERE.
    The message in all capital letters was a threat. She’d bet a bushel of heirloom tomatoes it was meant for Irene Burr. Or maybe Irene had threatened someone else. The real question was, who was it from? She slipped the paper back into the envelope and strode to the house, holding the envelope by one of its corners. She checked Albert’s yellowed phone list on the wall and dialed the numbers for the Westbury police station. She asked for Ruth Dodge.
    “It might be connected to Irene Burr’s death.” Cam tapped the countertop as she waited on hold. Or I’ll tell what I know, the note read. If it was for Irene, she must have harbored secrets she didn’t want made public knowledge. And if it was from Irene, who in town feared a secret revealed? Cam’s own life had been pretty straightforward up to now. Sure, she had a fear of fires based on an incident in her childhood. If that became generally known, it would be more embarrassing than dangerous. She was an adult. Shouldn’t she have been able to master the fear by now? But a secret that would allow someone to threaten her with disclosure of it? She had nothing.
    “Pappas here,” a voice barked into her ear. “Who am I talking to?”
    Oh, crud. “Detective Pappas, what a pleasure,” she lied. “It’s Cam Flaherty.” It had been anything but a pleasure working with the state police detective last June. He had to be in the local station, which could mean only one thing. Irene had been murdered.
    “Ah, Ms. Flaherty.”
    “I heard my customer Irene Burr is dead.” Cam didn’t want to use the words “was killed,” but the fact that Pappas was on the phone pretty much assured Irene had been murdered.
    “Who did you hear