A Beeline to Murder

Abby leaned on the wooden handle of the utility broom and stared at the small mountain of black compost she’d swept from the truck bed onto the ground. Pulling the broad brim of her straw hat down to shield her eyes from the sun, she proffered silent thanks for friends like Lucas Crawford, who had given her the key to his 1958 Ford pickup and permission to use it whenever she needed to haul supplies or building materials. Lucas had lovingly restored it but hardly used the truck anymore. Most people who knew him figured Lucas saw his truck as part of the past.... And Lucas was trying to forget the past.

For years, Lucas and his red truck with CRAWFORD FEED AND FARM SUPPLIES emblazoned on the doors were as much a part of the landscape as the two-lane roads that crisscrossed Las Flores. Lucas delivered bales of hay, various types of feed, salt licks, and even baby chicks throughout the county and sometimes across the county line. After he married, Lucas’s feed-store employees joked that he had fixed up that old truck—which matched his wife’s hair color—so that if Lucas, who seemed to be a woman magnet, was ever tempted to dally, he’d see the truck and fear the wrath of that little redhead to whom he’d hitched his destiny.

Abby stiffened at the thought of the tragedy that had befallen Lucas in the past year. Business had been so good that when Lucas found out he was about to become a father, he and his wife had purchased a prime piece of real estate in the southern part of the county. There they planned to build their dream home. Six weeks after the building started, Lucas’s wife, who was recovering from the flu and was feeling well enough to visit the construction site, suffered a relapse. Fungal spores in the dust out there, which were known to cause valley fever, increased the load on the poor woman’s weakened immune system. Pneumonia set in. Her passing had shocked everyone.

After the burial, Lucas wanted nothing to do with the south county property. He secluded himself on the ranch up the hill from Abby’s place. Back at the feed store, where Abby bought her chicken pellets, customers and staff gossiped about how his wife’s death had pushed Lucas off purpose with the life he had planned. Abby felt sorry for Lucas but refused to be another one of the town’s unmarried ladies who delivered casseroles to the poor guy. He had lost his wife and unborn child and needed time to grieve. Lucas, everyone said, showed up for work as punctually as ever but kept to himself. He seemed to have lost his passion for everything, including his prized red truck. Most days, it could be seen parked in front of the old gray barn at the entrance to the Crawford property—one hill away from Abby’s farmette.

That was where Abby had found it when she needed to haul the compost. Just as she’d expected, it was Houdini’s crow—not the alarm she’d set—that had awakened her before six o’clock. Fifteen minutes later, she’d arrived at the Crawford place. A raccoon had left a pattern of fresh paw prints across the truck’s dusty hood. Abby had smiled when she’d seen it, and had reminded herself to wash the truck before returning it. Back in the day, Lucas had kept that truck spotless. She figured it was the least she could do after using it at the Go Green and Recycle facility where she’d gotten the load of aged manure.

Now, back at the farmette, with the compost swept from the truck bed, she would have the rest of the morning and the greater part of the afternoon to ferry the earthy-scented black mound from the front of the property to the back garden. Tossing the broom to the ground, Abby jumped off the tailgate, latched it, and marched through the big wooden gate with the broken hinge to retrieve the faded blue wheelbarrow that was behind her house.