Page 12 of Pumpkin Patch Peril
Brenda nodded toward the back of her property. “Mason Road’s about a quarter mile through the field. If someone brought a tractor in that way, we should be able to follow the trail right back to where they parked.”
“Lead the way,” Mona said. “Ruth, you might want to leave the car here. This sounds like a job for sensible shoes and detective work.”
“As long as we don’t get trapped in any more enclosed spaces,” Ruth muttered, but she was already pocketing her car keys with the determined air of someone ready to solve a mystery.
CHAPTER SIX
The autumn sun was just setting as they trudged across Brenda’s back field, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink that would have been beautiful under other circumstances. The four ladies picked their way carefully through the uneven ground, following the clear impressions left by heavy tractor tires in the soft earth.
“These tracks are as clear as day,” Ruth observed, consulting her phone’s flashlight as the light began to fade. “Someone definitely brought equipment through here.”
“And recently too,” Helen added, crouching to examine the deep grooves. “You can see where the treads pressed into the mud from the rain.”
The trail led them past several patches of pumpkins in various stages of growth. Some were the size of basketballs, their orange shells gleaming in the fading light, while others were still green and small. Ida paused beside a particularly impressive specimen that had to weigh at least a hundred pounds.
“Maybe you have an even bigger one hiding out here,” she suggested hopefully, patting the pumpkin like it was a prize-winning pet.
Brenda shook her head emphatically. “No, that’s nowhere near the size of the one I was nurturing. Not even close.” Her voice carried the pain of someone discussing a lost child.
They continued following the tire tracks as darkness settled over the field like a heavy blanket. One by one, phone flashlights came out, creating bobbing circles of white light that turned their investigation into something resembling a very slow-moving light show.
“I still don’t understand how someone could have driven all the way to your barn without you noticing,” Mona said, sweeping her light across the trail. “Wouldn’t you have heard a tractor?”
Brenda gestured back toward her farmhouse, which now looked like a distant lighthouse in the gathering darkness. “The barn’s far from the house. And I sleep with a white noise machine—doctor’s orders after my neighbor got those roosters. I wouldn’t hear a marching band if it set up in my front yard.”
“Convenient for thieves,” Ruth muttered.
As they approached the back edge of Brenda’s property, the tire tracks became even more pronounced in the beams of their flashlights. The ground here was softer, and the impressions were deep enough that Ida could have used them as footrests.
“Where exactly is Knowles’ land?” Ida asked, playing her light across what appeared to be a fence line ahead.
“See that barbed wire fence?” Brenda pointed toward a rusty fence that stretched into the darkness in both directions. “That’s it. His property runs right along this edge of mine.”
Mona stopped walking and turned to face Brenda, her expression thoughtful in the phone light. “Do you two get along? You and Tom Knowles?”
Brenda was quiet for a moment, considering the question. “Well... not really. He’s always complaining about something. My pesticide use, my farming methods, the way I trim the hedgebetween our properties. Last month he accused me of letting my irrigation runoff flood his organic lettuce beds.”
“And you never considered that it might have been Knowles who took your pumpkin?” Mona asked quietly.
The group fell silent except for the distant sound of crickets and the soft whisper of wind through the dry cornstalks in a nearby field. Brenda’s face was pale in the glow of four phone flashlights.
“I... I just assumed it was Gertrude,” Brenda admitted. “She’s my main competition, after all. She’s the one with the most to gain if my pumpkin disappeared.”
Ruth had been following the tire tracks with her light, and now she looked up with a frown. “These tracks are getting harder to follow. The ground’s more solid here, and...” She paused, sweeping her beam back and forth. “They seem to be washing out.”
They gathered around the spot where Ruth was standing. The tire impressions that had been so clear near the barn were indeed fading as they approached the fence line. The combination of harder soil and several days of weather had blurred the edges until it was impossible to tell exactly where the tracks were heading.
“Can you tell if they go toward the road or toward Knowles’ farm?” Helen asked, crouching down for a closer look.
Ruth played her light systematically across the ground, but the evidence was inconclusive. “They could go either way. Or both. There might have been multiple trips, or...”
“Or what?” Brenda asked.
“Or whoever did this was smart enough to cover their tracks,” Mona said grimly. “The question is, how well do you really know your neighbor?”
Brenda stared across the fence line toward Tom Knowles’ property, where a single light glowed in what appeared to be adistant farmhouse window. In the darkness, it looked isolated and somehow ominous.
“I know he signed that petition Laura Jenkins was circulating,” Brenda said slowly. “And I know he’s been angry about the pesticide runoff for years. But steal my pumpkin?” She shook her head. “That seems pretty extreme, even for Tom.”
