Drizzled with Death(35)

Nine





I was up before Grampa on Tuesday morning and that took some doing. Despite the fact the man never had to earn his living, all his life he had kept the hours of a dairy farmer. No one cared more about their herd than Grampa. But this morning I cared even more about my state inspection. My stomach was a mess, and I kept vacillating between feeling half starved and certain I’d lose anything I tried to choke down. I pulled three different almost identical outfits from the drawers and ended up choosing the one with the jeans that needed rolling up the least. Sometimes my hems are turned up so many times they look like my ankles are members of an Olympic snow-tubing team.

I had turned in the organic application to the state a while ago and I hoped my business was a shoe-in for certification. We didn’t have any diseases in our sugar bush, and we had been using an organically certified cleaner for the spiles and hoses as well as the buckets and jugs for years. My grandfather always said it didn’t honor the land to take something good and give back something bad so he never allowed it. Green practices were second nature at Greener Pastures, and it made the whole thing a lot easier. It also helped that we produced all our own sap. For the people like Jill Hayes, who tapped trees on property belonging to other people, the process was a whole lot more complicated. Not only did they have to run through all the fertilizers, pesticides, and cleaners used on their own property, they had to verify and document the ones used anywhere they tapped. Some sugar makers tapped sources all over the area so the organic certification could feel a bit overwhelming.

I wondered again how the tapping situation was going to affect Jill. I knew from the grapevine, and by that I mean Myra Phelps’s flapping jaws, that she relied heavily on the sap from the trees on Alanza’s property to stay in business.

Even though I felt good about my application, I was at the sugarhouse for a last round of tidying and pacing an hour before the inspector was due to arrive. Not that I was enjoying being in the sugarhouse all that much. My mother had made good on her threat of gussying the place up with a bit of Christmas cheer. Which meant everywhere I looked things twinkled, sparkled and glittered. She had even added a fake tree in the corner with blinking lights and a tinsel garland. I wondered if all that fake greenery would disqualify Greener Pastures for organic status. At least she hadn’t hidden the coffeemaker I had installed for the customers to enjoy. I busied myself making a pot to pass the final few minutes of my wait. By the time I’d located a couple of clean mugs and poured myself a steaming cup, I heard the clattering of heavy feet on the sugarhouse porch. This guy was never going to be mistaken for a mountain lion.

I took a breath that reached all the way to my thick-cuffed ankles and pulled open the door. Standing in the threshold was a real live garden gnome, complete with a drooping red hat and round rosy cheeks. The little old man standing in front of me was short enough that he looked me straight in the eye. Granted, my work boots had a very thick sole, which boosted me up by a couple of inches, but this was a first for me. I took a step back and wondered if my mental health was finally as eroded as a dirt road running down a mountain. I’d watched a couple of children’s movies with Hunter and Spring lately, but I didn’t think that could explain it.

“Are you Dani Greene?’ the gnome asked. I nodded, stunned to hear that the voice was not mechanized or quavery. “Good, good. It’s nice to meet you. Yep, very nice to meet you. I’m Brantley Sims. We have an appointment.” He held out a firm, small hand and grasped mine with bone-pulverizing vigor.

“Come on in.” I tugged a little at my hand, hoping he would relinquish it quickly since it felt like I’d caught it in a car door. Maybe he noticed my sharp intake of breath because he dropped my hand and opened a notebook. “I hope you found the place easily enough.”

“You bet I did. I’ve been roaming these hills long before there was such a thing as a GPS and I haven’t got lost yet. Now let’s get a jump on this. I’ve got a bunch of meetings today and I promised the wife I’d be home in time to help her greet my family when they roll in this evening for the holiday.” Lord forgive me, all I could envision was Snow White standing at a window twitching back the curtain and clucking her tongue as six white-haired little men made their way across her drive.

“Just tell me what you need. I’m eager to get this out of the way, too.”

“Why? Are you nervous? Trying to hide something? Got some kind of a guilty conscious?” He fixed a bright blue eye on me and poised his pen above his notebook like he was going to add my response to my permanent record. I gulped. And from his vantage point, I’m sure he could see it.