The Clue at Black Creek Farm

  “So the cooked dishes were clean?”

  Ned didn’t even look surprised. He held up one finger while he swallowed and set his burrito down on a paper plate. “Not clean,” he clarified after a few seconds. “Not necessarily. Rashid said that they might have been contaminated too, but the high temperatures of cooking would likely kill off any traces. That’s why we’re always told to make sure chicken and fish are cooked thoroughly and to avoid eating rare beef.”

  “So all the vegetables could have been contaminated,” I realized. “Does that seem strange? That it would be all of them—not just one or two dishes?”

  Ned shrugged, picking up the burrito. “Strange? Sure, maybe a little. But not impossible.” He took a bite.

  I tapped my finger against my lips, thinking. “But E. coli comes from the digestive system of cows. Sam was right. I researched it last night.”

  Ned glanced at me briefly before taking another big bite. “Hmmmmmm.”

  “It couldn’t just show up on vegetables that are grown nowhere near cows,” I went on. “A human being would have to transfer it.”

  Ned dunked what was left of his burrito in a little puddle of guacamole. “Mm-hmm.”

  I folded my arms, pondering. I wasn’t exactly looking for a case to solve right now. I’d been enjoying a break from sleuthing, taking up tennis, and on George’s recommendation (okay, more like insistence), making it halfway through Lost on Netflix. I didn’t want to give up my free time.

  But Sam’s defeated expression as I’d walked him to his car last night stuck with me. This is my dream. And from what Rashid had found, it seemed very likely that someone was trying to take that dream away from him. Why?

  “Who hates an organic farm?” I asked.

  Ned glanced up from his guacamole, which he was now scooping up with a spoon. “Is that the setup for a joke, Nance?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m serious. If he were still a lawyer, I could see him having enemies. Ooh . . .” I paused, bringing my hand to my mouth. “Maybe that’s it? An enemy he made in his law days wants to destroy the thing that matters most to him—his farm!”

  Ned stuck his finger into the spoon to pick up one last dab of guacamole, then stuck his finger in his mouth. “That’s it, Nance,” he said, deadpan. “You’ve solved the case. That must be some kind of record.”

  I reached out and bopped him on the head. “Stop it,” I said. “I’m serious! Who would sabotage an organic farm?”

  Ned shrugged. “No one?” he asked. But I recognized an arch tone in his voice, like he was trying to point out something obvious.

  “You don’t think someone is behind the E. coli?” I asked.

  Ned sighed. He reached for his soda and took a long sip. “It’s just . . . the guy was a lawyer, and now he’s an expert organic farmer?” he asked. “You know about Occam’s razor, Nance?”

  I nodded. Occam’s razor, the principle, actually came up a lot when solving mysteries. “Sure. Occam’s razor says that the simplest solution is most likely the correct one.”

  “So isn’t it likely that this guy just screwed up and put something on his plants that he wasn’t supposed to?” he asked. “Cow manure. Some kind of unapproved fertilizer. And the plants got contaminated, and that poor woman got sick. Lucky us, we were warned.” Ned shrugged again. “Isn’t that more likely than some big bad guy sprinkling cow bile on these vegetables to make people sick? To close down a farm? Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, fishing my phone out of my purse, “but I intend to find out.”

  I opened the texting application and typed a quick note to Bess and George: YOU GUYS FREE TO GO TO BLACK CREEK FARM TOMORROW?

  Ned glanced at the text and pretended to pout. “You’re going without me?”

  I grinned at him. “You have midterms, remember?”

  Ned startled like he’d just been reminded he had a midterm right then. His eyes bugged out. “Oh my gosh, you’re right! What am I doing here, out in the world? Why did you drag me out of my study-hole, temptress?”

  I laughed. “You needed to eat. If you faint in the middle of your midterm, it doesn’t matter how much you studied.”

  Ned nodded, sipping his drink. “Your logic is sound.”

  A ping! sounded on my phone, and I looked down to see a text from George: I’M IN! As I typed out a response—GREAT, WILL TXT U DETAILS—Bess responded too: OF COURSE! WHAT TIME?

  I fished Sam Heyworth’s business card out of my wallet and dialed the phone number. The phone rang only once before someone picked up.

  “Hello?”

  It was Abby. And her voice sounded a little tremulous and unsure.

  “Hi, Abby? This is Nancy Drew. We met last night?”

  “Oh, of course.” Abby’s voice sounded warmer now.

  “Listen, I was wondering if I might set up a time tomorrow to come visit the farm with my friends Bess and George. I’d love to have a look around. Sam and I talked about it a bit last night.”

  A hollow sigh echoed over the line. “That would be great, Nancy,” Abby replied in a serious tone. “In fact, the sooner the better. Something very strange has happened on the farm . . . something awful.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lay of the Land

  I PULLED INTO THE DRIVEWAY of black Creek Farm the next morning just after ten o’clock, with Bess in the passenger seat. George, who had to work a shift at the Coffee Cabin that afternoon, was right behind us in her own car. We both parked and climbed out, greeted by a soft breeze and gentle birdsong.

  “It’s beautiful here,” enthused George, taking in the gentle rolling hills shaded by old oak and pine trees. “I can see why Sam would trade some corporate office for this.”

  “Let’s just hope it was the right decision,” said Bess.

  I followed, taking some time to soak in all the details of the farm. A circular driveway led to a modest white ranch-style house. Behind the house, I could see what looked like fields of corn, lettuce, and some crops I couldn’t identify, all stretching over gently rolling hills. The fields were dotted with small storage buildings, a barn, and the occasional piece of farming equipment.

  George was right: it was beautiful, and the farm looked idyllic in the midmorning sun. You’d never guess the crops were crawling with E. coli, I thought. Or are they? It was also possible, I realized, that the vegetables had been contaminated at the dinner itself and there was nothing strange going on at the farm.

  “Nancy?”

  I came out of my thoughts to find Bess and George watching me, a smile playing on the edges of Bess’s lips.

  “Do you have it all memorized and filed away?” she teased. Bess had tagged along on enough investigations to be well used to my tendency to observe carefully and make note of little details. “Can we knock on the door now?”

  “Knock away,” I agreed. We climbed onto the small porch attached to the house, and I raised my fist to knock. Just as my knuckle rapped against the wood, sounds emerged from inside.

  “She’s not going to eat that!”

  Jack. I recognized the voice immediately. I looked awkwardly at my friends, who were both wearing the same uh-oh expression that I imagined on my own face.

  “Overreacting . . . perfectly safe!”

  That sounded like Sam.

  “Oh great,” Bess murmured, folding her arms. “We’ve arrived right in the middle of a huge family argument. That’s not awkward!”

  I lifted a finger to hush her as Jack’s voice—louder than Sam’s—traveled toward us again.

  “Don’t you even care about my unborn child? Why risk it?”

  I heard the screech of a chair being pushed back quickly, followed by stomping and a female voice making soothing sounds—possibly Julie? I couldn’t be sure. I’d barely heard Jack’s wife speak at the dinner.

  George looked at me quizzically. “Are we waiting for this to be over?” she whispered. “Should we come back another time?”

  I shook my head,
realizing that made no sense. “No, let’s just knock again,” I said, frowning. “I don’t think they heard us before. And I have a feeling this could go on awhile.”

  George nodded and lifted her hand to rap sharply on the door: four precise knocks. When we didn’t immediately hear footsteps coming toward us, she knocked again, a little louder. There was silence for a moment, and then the scrambling sound of someone rushing to the door. Somebody pulled back the curtain that blocked most of the window in the door, let it fall back, and quickly swung the door open.

  “Nancy!”

  It was Abby, pink-cheeked and dressed in a neat button-down and jeans.

  “I’m so glad you made it! Thank you for stopping by, girls. Please, come on in.”

  We cautiously followed Abby into the foyer. It was a small, neat, wood-paneled room, holding a table decorated with family photos and ceramic animals. Abby saw me looking at the animals and smiled.

  “Those are our farm animals,” she said kindly. “I think Sam was a little disappointed that we decided to raise only chickens on the farm. So we got some miniature cows, pigs, and sheep for him to tend.”

  “Hello, Nancy.” At the mention of his name, Sam’s booming voice sprang from the doorway that led to the kitchen. “And your friends, Jess and—?”

  “Bess,” Bess said with a smile, holding out her hand. Sam nodded and shook it.

  “And George,” George added. “Your farm is beautiful,” she said as she and Sam shook hands.

  “Thank you very much,” he replied. “Yes, it’s our own little piece of paradise. Speaking of which, can I offer you some of my famous sweet potato—”

  There was a loud groan from the kitchen. Jack.

  “Dad, just throw them away!” Jack suddenly appeared behind his father, his dark eyes shining. He glanced at us but didn’t acknowledge us. “I didn’t just mean they’re unsafe for Julie to eat. I meant they’re unsafe for everyone.”

  Sam sighed, his face reddening. He looked uncomfortable.

  He wants to throttle Jack, I realized. But not in front of the three of us.

  “That’s a shame,” I said quickly, wanting to speak up before Sam or Abby changed the subject. “Sweet potatoes are my favorite vegetable. What’s wrong with the . . . What kind of dish is it, Sam?”

  Sam spoke without taking his eyes off his son. “Pancakes,” he replied. “My own recipe. The sweet potatoes are from the farm, of course.”

  “Which makes them unsafe,” Jack added, a crimson color spreading over his ears and cheeks. I could make out a vein throbbing in his neck. “Come on, Dad. It isn’t rocket science.”

  “What makes them unsafe?” Sam shot back. I recognized the same hardness in his dark eyes that I’d seen in Jack’s the night of the buffet. They’re both stubborn, I realized.

  “The fact that they’re crawling with some kind of contaminant?” Jack replied. “The fact that they made my wife so sick she had to be brought to the ER? Dad, really.”

  “I washed them thoroughly,” Sam insisted. “And I cooked them well.”

  “It’s still a risk!” Jack’s voice rose to a yelp.

  Abby cleared her throat. All eyes turned to her.

  “Why don’t we set this subject aside for the moment and invite our guests into the kitchen to sit down?” she asked. “Pancakes or no, we have plenty of coffee and fresh blueberry muffins—made with blueberries I bought, I should add.”

  There was silence for a moment, and Bess smiled eagerly. “That sounds great,” she said. “Blueberries are my favorite vegetable.”

  Sam chuckled, and Abby and Jack soon joined in. I felt relieved. Bess always seemed to know the right thing to say to lighten the mood.

  But Jack glared at Sam as we departed for the kitchen and shook his head. “I’m going out,” he muttered. He walked out the front door, and a few seconds later I could hear a car starting up, and then driving down the driveway.

  We settled in the kitchen, where Julie, looking much healthier than the last time I had seen her, sat sipping from a mug at the table. There was a plate near the stove piled high with orange pancakes, and a plate sat near the sink, swiped clean, dripping with syrup. I noted a small pile of pancakes in the sink. The pancakes Sam tried to serve Julie, I figured.

  Julie gestured to a blueberry muffin sitting on a saucer in front of her. “If it’s all the same to you guys, I’ll just eat this,” she said with a wry smile. “Hello, girls.”

  “How are you feeling?” Bess asked, moving forward and taking a seat at the table next to Julie.

  “Much better,” Julie replied. “The hospital did a great job of stopping the nausea and keeping me hydrated. But I was still feeling tired until this morning. Now I just feel . . . well, as tired as an eight-months-pregnant woman should feel.”

  I laughed quietly, along with my friends. George and I took seats at the table, and Abby served us coffee, tea, and warm muffins with butter. The conversation turned to gentler topics, like the weather and what we were studying in school. After a few minutes, Abby turned to Sam. “Why don’t you take the girls outside?” she asked. “Show them around. Show them what happened.”

  I glanced at Sam. “Yes, what is it that happened yesterday?” I asked. Abby hadn’t given me many details on the phone and had told me it was nothing to worry about, but of course I was worried. Under the circumstances, anything unusual that happened at Black Creek Farm seemed like something to worry about.

  Sam shook his head. “It’s . . . no big deal,” he said. “Just unusual. Yes, girls, if you’re finished, perhaps we can head out?”

  I glanced at my friends. They made murmurs of agreement and pushed back from the table. Sam rose and led us to a screen door off the back of the kitchen. We followed him out and onto another low porch, down a ramp, and out toward the fields of crops.

  Sam looked up at the sun and let out a satisfied sigh. “What a day, what a day,” he murmured. “You don’t get weather like this on the twenty-sixth floor of an office high-rise, I’ll tell you that.”

  “Why don’t you tell us about how you built the farm?” George suggested. “Last night Holly told me that this was all an unused field before you bought it and started building Black Creek Farm. How did you plan it? How did you figure out what to do?”

  Sam smiled, surveying the farm with a look of contentment. “Oh,” he said. “Well . . .”

  He went on to tell us a complicated story about agricultural research, irrigation theory, nutritional optimization, and a bunch of other terms I didn’t fully understand. But as Sam spoke and lovingly pointed out his fields of greens, corn, peas, eggplants, summer squash, zucchini, and tomatoes, one thing was clear: Sam really loved farming and, despite what Jack had said the night of the buffet, had put a lot of thought into how his farm would work best. When George asked a throwaway question about why he’d planted greens in a certain field, and not closer to the house, Sam went into a long explanation about hours of direct sunlight, evaporation levels, and soil composition. He really knows what he’s doing, I realized. I remembered my conversation with Ned the day before: Isn’t it likely that this guy just screwed up and put something on his plants that he wasn’t supposed to?

  Sorry, Ned, but I don’t think Occam’s razor holds up in this case. I watched Sam’s eyes light up as he plucked a perfect red tomato from a plant that snaked up a crosshatch of wire.

  That’s the thing about solving mysteries. It’s not always the simplest solution that turns out to be true.

  “Sam, can you tell us more about what happened yesterday?” I asked.

  Sam’s face fell as he handed the tomato to George. “Take that home,” he encouraged her. “Just . . . be sure to wash it thoroughly.”

  George nodded, raising her eyebrows at me.

  Sam cleared his throat. “The incident, if you could call it that . . . it happened over here.”

  We followed obediently as Sam led us through the tomatoes, up a small hill, past the barn and chicken coop (filled with the
trilling, clucking sounds of birds), and toward a large glass greenhouse.

  “Oh, you have a greenhouse!” George observed happily. “Does that mean you can grow crops all year long?”

  Sam waved his hand to indicate more or less. “Almost. Hearty plants like kale and cabbage, beets and parsnips, those do best. But yes, the greenhouse is very helpful. With it, we can produce cucumbers and tomatoes in the spring, and going well into the fall. We can start seeds in a safe, nurturing environment. It was an excellent investment.”

  He pulled a key from his pocket and fitted it into the lock in the door, twisting and pushing the door open. He walked in, gesturing for us to follow, and I entered first, followed by Bess and then George.

  “Oh . . . oh no!” George cried. I looked around and realized what my friend was reacting to: the greenhouse had been trashed. Dirt, uprooted plants, pots, and trays littered the floor, and it looked like someone had taken the time to carefully rip each plant apart. There were even broken panes in the greenhouse’s glass walls.

  Bess and I gasped. “When did this happen?” I asked.

  Sam shrugged. “Sometime between seven a.m. and three p.m. yesterday,” he said. “It was stupid—I always keep this locked, but yesterday morning I forgot. Guess my mind was on other things.”

  I stepped farther into the greenhouse, trying to take in every detail. As I picked my way through the dirt and shattered pots to the far wall, I caught sight of something that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Oh my gosh!” I pointed, and Bess and George ran up behind me to take a look.

  Someone had used dirt to scrawl a message on the floor: KILL THE FARM!

  George’s mouth dropped open. “Sam,” she called, “did you see this?”

  Sam, who was lingering by the door, moved forward, climbing through the overturned pots to the spot where George was standing. He surveyed the words with a stunned expression. “I’ll be . . .” He stopped and shook his head. “No,” he said to George. “I didn’t see that yesterday.”