A Vineyard Summer by Jean Stone

Author:Jean Stone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2019-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Sweet Everything Farm had a hand-painted shingle that hung on the tree belt where the long driveway began. Cornfields seemed to rise up from the fertile earth in every direction, as if it were the most natural thing to do. They found Rodney in one of several barns, slicing into a bale of hay. He was short and stocky and, over a T-shirt, he wore denim overalls that made him resemble Elmer Fudd.

Annie introduced herself and Kevin and said they’d come by way of Orrin Lathrop. “I’m doing research for a book,” she said with a smile. “Orrin said you had a bad batch of honey recently. I’m trying to incorporate that into a plot.”

He pursed his lips as if he were about to kiss someone. “You write murder mysteries?”

“I do,” she said with a light laugh. “And I’m intrigued by the thought that a food source as pure as honey can be poisonous. I might have a character who wants to try and kill someone with it.”

Rodney scratched his chin, then said, “It would be tough for anyone to know how much honey it would take to be fatal. One or two bad batches pop up on the island every couple of years. Maybe there are more, but they’re destroyed as soon as the beekeeper discovers it tastes bitter.”

There was that word again.

“Anyway,” Rodney continued, “lucky for me, my bad batch didn’t get far.”

Kevin stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “What happened? Did your taste test tell you it was poisonous?”

Rodney broke the hay apart with his foot, then tossed a bundle over the wall of an empty stall. Annie supposed the small herd—there were eight stalls in the barn—was grazing outside in the summer sun. “My allergies were bad one day. So my taster was off.” He wiped his palms on his jeans, raised one of his fingers, and tapped his tongue, much the way Orrin had done.

“We only sell raw, organic honey,” he continued. “Straight from the hive, unfiltered, not pasteurized. As much as I hated losing the whole batch, my guardian angel must have been watching out for me that day, because only Myrna got sick. From now on, she’ll be double-checking me.”

“Who’s Myrna?” Annie asked.

“My wife. I potted a few jars of the honey the day before Myrna left for her sister’s on the Cape. She measured two heaping cups and made two cakes. She does it every July so her sister has them for the big picnic she throws on the Fourth. Myrna wanted to take the early boat, so I drove her down to Vineyard Haven. On the way she mentioned she’d skipped breakfast. I told her to get something at the snack bar on the boat. But Myrna hates to spend a dime. Anyway, while she waited to get on, she opened one of the boxes and broke off a hunk of cake. She knew while she was chewing it that it tasted bad, but the passengers started boarding, so she swallowed fast and climbed up the ramp.

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