The Clue at Black Creek Farm

  “It seems like a pretty clear message,” I said, stating the obvious.

  Sam nodded slowly. “I . . .” He gave a nervous laugh. “It’s strange. Of course it makes me angry, seeing this. But it also makes me feel . . .”

  “Scared?” asked Bess. I noticed then that she looked a little alarmed. Her blue eyes were wide, her brows raised.

  Sam thought a moment. “Not scared, though maybe I should be. No . . . I feel relieved.” He chuckled again. “Because this proves it, doesn’t it? It proves that I’m not crazy. Someone out there is trying to sabotage me. Someone out there wants to destroy Black Creek Farm!” He brought his hand down, slapping at the table beside him, strewn with torn-up pepper plants.

  “But . . . why?” I asked. I understood what Sam was saying, about the relief. This made it easier for me, in a way: now I just had to find the culprit. But I had a feeling that was going to be the hard part.

  Sam sighed, seeming to think. “I . . . don’t know,” he said finally.

  Of course you don’t. It’s kind of amazing to me, how many people who are being targeted have no idea that anyone’s mad at them. And with Sam, I could understand: he seemed like a perfectly nice guy. Who would want to destroy a kind man’s organic farm?

  “You don’t have any enemies?” Bess pressed, looking around at the damage.

  “I don’t.” Sam shrugged, as if to say, What can you do? “Not that I know of, anyway.”

  “Maybe someone from your lawyering days?” I suggested. “Someone you defended but couldn’t get off? Someone who was on the opposing side of a case you won?”

  Sam looked thoughtful, as though he was searching his memory, examining each case one by one. “Every lawyer has those sorts of enemies, if you could call them that,” he said. “But I can’t think of a single person who might be angry enough to track me down and try to destroy my farm.”

  Hmmmm. George knelt down and picked up a pepper plant that looked more or less intact, carefully placing it on the table. “What about the farm?” she asked.

  “What about it?” Sam asked, confused.

  “This might sound strange, but does the farm have any enemies?” she asked. “Someone who was inconvenienced, or lost money, when you guys set up the farm here?”

  Sam frowned, looking off into space.

  “Someone you’re competing with?” I prompted. “Maybe a bigger farm nearby?”

  “There’s a bigger farm down the road, sure, Sunshine Farm,” Sam said. He turned to look me in the eye, and his expression was uncomfortable. “There are farms all over this area. And I did have a brief . . . disagreement, I guess you’d call it, with them.”

  “What was it?” Bess asked, looking eager.

  Sam rolled his eyes. “Oh, it was silly. Just a little thing. They had planted their spinach very close to my berry fields, encroaching onto my land, and the chemicals they treat their crops with were leaching into my strawberries. I couldn’t let that go on, since strawberries soak up a lot of chemicals. So I complained to them, and they weren’t happy about it, but they eventually had to replant their spinach farther away from my land.”

  This was intriguing. “Did it cost them money?” I asked. Most of the cases I work on have money at the root of them.

  Sam shook his head. “Some, sure. A little. But I really don’t think Sunshine Farm is holding a grudge,” he said.

  Just at that moment, the door to the greenhouse was pushed open. An older man with leathery tan skin and a grizzled gray beard stood there, wearing a baseball cap and a black hoodie. He looked startled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know anyone was in here. . . .”

  But Sam was already waving his hand like he was waving away the man’s concerns. “Don’t worry about it, Bob,” he said. He gestured to Bess, George, and me. “These are just friends of mine. They’re looking into the vandalism here and what’s been happening with the vegetables.”

  Bob nodded, a little nervously, I thought. “Oh,” he said. “Okay.” Then, after a few seconds: “It’s a terrible thing, what’s happening with the vegetables. People getting sick.”

  “Yes,” Sam replied shortly. He turned back to us. “Bob helps us pick the produce when we have a busy week. He lives in town. Rides his motorcycle out here.”

  Bob nervously fingered the string of his hoodie. He looked at me, like he felt he had to explain himself. “Sam has been very good to me,” he said. “I hope you catch whoever’s doing the bad stuff.”

  Huh. I nodded. “Yeeeeeah, I hope I do.” I smiled, and he backed away.

  “I’ll come back later,” he called to Sam.

  We all watched the doorway after his retreat, and after a few seconds, Sam said quietly, “Bob’s had a tough life. He’s a Vietnam vet, you know. He’s been a little down on his luck, and we can use extra hands on the farm, so I’ve been paying him to help out on the weekends.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “You . . . don’t think he might . . . ?”

  Sam turned to me, his forehead wrinkled with concern. “Bob? Oh, gosh. No. He has absolutely no issue with me. I’ve done nothing but help him.”

  There was silence for a minute. So Sam doesn’t want me to suspect Bob, I thought, frowning. Which makes me even more suspicious.

  “So, why?” Bess asked suddenly, seemingly out of the blue.

  Sam looked at her in surprise. “Why have I helped out Bob?” he asked. “I don’t know. It seemed like the decent thing to do.”

  “No.” Bess shook her head. “Right before you came in, you were saying you don’t think Sunshine Farm holds a grudge. I was just wondering why.”

  “Oh.” Sam laughed, still seeming a little uncomfortable. “Well, in short, because of their daughter,” he replied. “Lori Park. You met her at the dinner the other night.”

  At the dinner. My mind flashed back to the young girl who’d been helping prepare the food. “The girl around our age who was working in the kitchen?” I asked.

  “She’s the one,” he said. “Lori’s parents are from Korea, and there was a bit of a language barrier, so when we were having our little disagreement, Lori was called in to act as a translator.” He smiled. “It turns out she has a real interest in environmental, sustainable farming. She convinced her parents that what I’m doing at Black Creek Farm is worthwhile. Even tried to convince them to try organic farming, but they didn’t want to mess with what works, you know.”

  “She wanted them to go organic?” George asked.

  Sam nodded. “She’s a very clever girl, too. Came up with all these monetary reasons, did up this PowerPoint presentation. But they still said no.”

  “That’s a shame,” I said.

  Sam shrugged. “Well, I can understand it. Anyway, it all worked out. She comes over a few times a week to help us out and learn more about organic farming. She’s headed to the University of California next year to study agriculture.”

  “Wow,” Bess said, sounding impressed. But I was only half listening. While Sam had been talking, I’d noticed something peeking out from underneath a pile of shattered clay pots and soil. It was bright blue, shiny . . .

  I scurried over and lifted the object between two careful fingers. It was a pair of sunglasses with bright-blue frames. I held them up so Sam could see them.

  “Do you recognize these?” I asked. “Because it’s fair to say, whoever owns these was in the greenhouse recently.”

  “Oh.” Sam looked at the glasses, and his face fell. He seemed to deflate like a beach ball with the stopper pulled out.

  “Those are Lori’s sunglasses.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Revelations

  “I HATE TO GO, GUYS.” George bit her lip as she, Bess, and I all stood in the Heyworths’ driveway again. George was leaving, heading back to River Heights so she could make her shift as barista and waitress at the Coffee Cabin.

  “Maybe I should go with you.” Bess, who’d been twisting a lock of blond hair around her index finger, suddenly spoke up
. “I kind of wanted to get a manicure today.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I turned to my friend, surprised and annoyed. “I’m about to go question Lori Park about why her sunglasses were in Sam’s recently vandalized greenhouse. You don’t want to see what happens?”

  Bess sighed. “I just . . .” She shook her head. “I’m not as into this farming stuff as you guys. I want Sam to find out who’s sabotaging his farm, but . . .”

  George rolled her eyes. “Stay here and help Nancy, please. I feel bad enough that I can’t.”

  “All right.” Bess sighed again, but her frustrated tone told me that she was feeling a little guilty too. “Let’s go, then.” She started heading toward the road. Sunshine Farm, Sam had told us, was just half a mile away, an easy walk.

  “Wait,” George said, lifting a basket of vegetables from her passenger seat. “Remind me what you want me to ask Ned to tell Rashid? We’re testing these for E. coli?”

  “That’s right,” I said. Since she was heading back to River Heights, George had offered to bring some more vegetables to Rashid for testing. “These are straight from the farm, just picked. Ask him if Rashid can test them for E. coli and tell us what he finds out. If these veggies are contaminated already, then we’ll know whoever’s sabotaging the crops is doing it here, at the farm.”

  George nodded. “Got it,” she said, replacing the basket on her passenger seat and closing the door. She walked around to the driver’s side. “I’ll ask Ned to call or text as soon as he knows. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I agreed.

  “And you call me,” George added, pointing at me, “as soon as you figure out who’s harassing Sam. Deal?”

  “Deal!” I agreed, giving George a thumbs-up. She climbed into her car and started up the engine as I followed Bess down the driveway to the road. As we walked, George passed us in her little coupe, tooting the horn. We both waved.

  It was a pleasant enough walk down the road, surrounded by fields of corn. On the left side, a big hand-painted sign welcomed us to SUNSHINE FARM—WHERE WE HARNESS THE SUN FOR YOU! The words were surrounded by glossy-looking paintings of tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, and peaches.

  A driveway led to a bustling farm stand, brimming with flowers and produce. It took a while for me to get the attention of a cashier, but when I asked, she suggested that we look for Lori in the cherry orchard.

  “Take a right on the road by the swing set,” she said brusquely. “It’s about a quarter mile down. There’ll be lots of people picking there today.”

  We followed her instructions. Sunshine Farm made Black Creek Farm look downright sleepy by comparison. Farmhands worked in an outbuilding sorting tomatoes, and as we walked along the path to the orchard, a tractor passed us, hauling a trailer filled with buckets of cherries.

  Bess let out a little moan. “Seeing all those delicious fruits and veggies at the farm stand reminded me how hungry I am,” she said.

  “We’ll have to grab a snack on our way out,” I suggested.

  “Maybe,” Bess said, turning her attention to the cherry orchard that we were approaching. Rows of trees stretched back toward the horizon, many with ladders leaning against them and farmworkers standing on rungs near the tops, picking cherries and placing them in buckets that hung from the branches. The cherries were bright scarlet, shiny in the midday sun. They contrasted nicely against the emerald-green leaves of the tree. I wasn’t even that hungry, but the sight of them made my mouth water. “Or maybe,” said Bess, “I’ll just grab a sample.”

  She ran up to the closest tree and leaned up as far as she could, plucking a trio of cherries from a low branch. “Mmmmm,” Bess murmured, popping one into her mouth. But almost immediately, her mouth puckered.

  “Ugh!” she cried, spitting the chewed-up cherry into her hand.

  “Yup,” a female voice suddenly spoke up from behind me. I turned to find the same young girl we’d seen working in the kitchen at the Black Creek buffet. She looked amused. “Those are sour cherries.”

  Bess spat out the juice onto the grass. “Why would anyone grow sour cherries?” she asked.

  The girl laughed. “They’re not so sour when you bake them into a pie or cook them into jam with lots of sugar,” she said. “They’re just not so tasty right off the tree. Anyway, can I help you? I’m Lori.”

  I smiled. “Hi, I’m Nancy, and my hungry friend’s name is Bess. You might remember seeing us at the Black Creek Farm dinner the other night.”

  Bess’s cheeks blushed nearly the color of the cherries. “Hi,” she said. “I don’t usually steal cherries.”

  Lori nodded. “I believe you,” she said, very seriously. Then we all laughed.

  “I’m here because I wanted to ask you about what’s been going on at Black Creek Farm,” I said.

  Lori’s expression turned solemn. “You mean what happened at the buffet the other night, with Julie getting sick?” she asked. “That was terrible.”

  I exchanged a glance with Bess. She’s acting like she doesn’t know about the vandalism. But was it an act?

  I held up the pair of blue sunglasses I’d found in the greenhouse. “Um, do you recognize these?”

  Lori’s eyes flashed with recognition. “Sure. Those are mine. I must have left them at the farm yesterday morning.”

  I handed them to her. “Where were you working yesterday?”

  Lori took the sunglasses and put them on top of her head. “Kind of all over. I was picking sweet potatoes, and then I was in the greenhouse for a while.”

  “Did you notice anything unusual at the greenhouse?” I asked. The vandalism we’d seen that day was certainly unusual. But also, if she was behind it, I expected to see a flash of discomfort cross Lori’s face—the realization that her crime had been discovered.

  She just looked at me blankly, though. “Oh, the door was unlocked,” she said after a few seconds. “That’s a little weird, because Sam usually locks it.”

  “Did you lock it when you finished?” I asked.

  Lori shook her head. “I was worried maybe he’d left it unlocked for a reason,” she explained. “Like he or Bob had forgotten their keys. So when I was finished working in there, I left the door unlocked.”

  Hmmmm. I glanced at Bess, who raised her eyebrows at me.

  “And it seemed . . . totally normal when you left?” I asked.

  Lori looked like she was beginning to wonder where these questions were coming from. “It looked totally normal,” she affirmed. “Um, why are you asking?”

  Bess cleared her throat. “Nancy’s trying to get to the bottom of what happened at the buffet,” she explained breezily. “She’s, like, a teenage sleuth.” She made a big show of looking over at me and then back at Lori and shrugging, like What can you do? “Keeps her off the streets,” she added.

  Lori smiled. “Um, is that a real thing? Teenage sleuth?”

  While I turned red, Bess grinned and leaned close to Lori. “I know, it sounds like a bad TV series or something, right?” she asked. “Anyway, do you work for the Heyworths a lot? Sam says you’re into organic farming.”

  Lori nodded. “Yeah, I kind of wish my parents would give it a shot here, but they’re afraid they’d lose money.”

  “What’s so much better about organic?” Bess asked. Her tone was totally casual, but I could see the focus in her eyes. She was information-gathering.

  “It’s better for everyone, basically,” Lori said, her dark eyes serious. “It’s less harmful to the environment, to wild animals. It’s more sustainable. And there’s some evidence that the produce is actually more nutritious.”

  “I thought those studies were inconclusive,” I piped up, channeling Ned.

  Lori rolled her eyes. “They’re conclusive enough for me,” she said. “So yeah, since my parents wouldn’t budge, I spend some time at Sam’s farm volunteering and learning how organic farming works.”

  “Do you want to be a farmer?” Bess asked.

  “Eventually,” she said, “definit
ely. I have a year of high school left, and then I want to go to college to study agriculture. My plan is, after that, I’ll work at other organic farms until I can raise enough money to start my own.”

  Bess smiled encouragingly. “You don’t think your parents would let you run part of theirs?”

  Lori shrugged, then looked away. “Maybe,” she admitted. “If I come back with a college degree and still say we should go organic, maybe they’d take me more seriously.” She paused, looking from Bess to me. “Hey, have you guys been at Black Creek today?” she asked.

  Bess and I said that we had.

  “How’s Julie doing?” Lori asked, her expression serious again. “She was still kind of weak yesterday.”

  “She’s better,” I explained. “It looks like she had E. coli poisoning.”

  “E. coli?” Lori asked, her voice as incredulous as if I’d just said that Julie had bubonic plague. “Julie got E. coli from Sam’s produce?”

  “Yep,” I said, watching Lori’s eyes carefully. She looked completely stunned.

  “How?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” I said honestly. “Do you?”

  She shook her head, then brought her hand to her mouth. “It just . . . it doesn’t make sense.”

  Bess glanced at me, then back at Lori. “Is there any chance,” she said, “that the food was contaminated at the community center?”

  Lori’s eyes looked unfocused as she thought. “I guess it’s possible,” she said finally, “but not on my watch. Holly and I were really careful. I worked in a restaurant last summer; I know about safe food preparation.” She paused. “Really, this just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Do you think that maybe the produce was contaminated on the farm?” I suggested.

  Lori frowned, looking back at me. “I guess,” she said, “but how? Sam runs a clean farm. It would be really weird for any bacteria to show up on his produce, much less E. coli. You know E. coli comes from animals, right? And Sam only keeps a few chickens.”

  I nodded, looking down at the ground, and when I did so I noticed a smartphone peeking out of the top of Lori’s jeans pocket. It shouldn’t have surprised me; every kid our age carried his or her smartphone everywhere, all the time. Even working on a farm. But it did give me an idea.