Black Cat Weekly #88

Chapter 6

by“Aunt Dianna,” exclaimed her niece excitedly as she opened the farmhouse door. “I can’t believe a police detective came out here so quickly when all that’s missing are our three bushels of vegetables for the county fair.”

Detective Dianna Diamond stepped into the spacious living room where she’d grown up and said, “Actually, Cassie, I’m here because I promised my sister I’d drive out to the fairgrounds with you all as soon as I got off work.”

“Somebody took my basket of corn,” said Carrie. The oldest of the triplets by eight minutes was waiting in the living room.

“And somebody nabbed my basket of pole beans,” said Callie, the youngest triplet.

“Me, too,” admitted Cassie. “When we went out to the barn after an early supper, my basket of summer squash had also disappeared, and all three bushels were there before dinner.”

Just then, Deidre, Dianna’s sister, entered the living room from the kitchen and commented, “It’s probably just as well. All three of you had—what shall I say?—less than average crops this year.”

Dianna hugged her sister, then said, “What went wrong this year, ladies? We had plenty of sun, timely rain, and this soil is the best in the county.”

“Do you want to tell Aunt Dianna your master gardening plan this year?” said Deidre.

The three sisters hemmed and hawed, then said unanimously, “You do it.” With that, they bounded off for places unknown. Dianna followed her sister back into the kitchen and sat down at the table that had once been their parents’. Deidre poured them each a cup of coffee and plopped down across from her sister.

“Hard to believe they’ll be teenagers next year,” Deidre mused. “Anyway, as triplets, Carrie, Callie, and Cassie have spent their first dozen years on earth always doing things together.”

“Let me guess,” said Dianna, “they are starting to assert their own identities.”

“How did…?”

“We were sisters once on this very farm. We played together most of the time, but I liked to write; you, paint. I favored soccer—you, basketball.”

“Right. And you became a famous detective and I, a farmer’s wife.”

“I don’t know about the ‘famous’ part, but yeah.”

“Well, instead of planting a common garden this year with their crops comingled, Callie, Cassie, and Carrie each grew a separate garden on a different part of the farm,” Deidre explained.

“Maybe Averett took the three bushels,” yelled Carrie from the second floor.

“Who’s Averett?” asked Dianna.

“The new farm hand. Earl hired him because he needed work,” said Deidre.

“Do you think Dad took them on ahead when he left early for the tractor pull?” called Callie.

Dianna said, “I can’t see Earl balancing three bushels on his lap while he drove three miles to the fairgrounds with his tractor.”

“And today is Averett’s day off,” said Deidre. “He told me yesterday he was driving over to Central City to see his mom.”

“Hmm,” said Dianna before she sipped the hot coffee. “Had any visitors today?”

Deidre walked over to the sink. “We had farm-fresh fried eggs for supper, so I’ve got to wash the yoke off before it sticks,” she explained. “Let’s see. That tractor salesman met with Earl out front around noon. I don’t think the salesman ever left the porch.” She scrubbed harder. “Gosh, those girls are eating so much more I don’t see how the chickens can make enough eggs for them.”

Dianna gazed out at the chicken coop that was still attached to the side of the barn. “Call your three daughters down here, sis. I think we should explain to them what happened to their bushels.”

By the process of elimination, Dianna reasoned that her sister had motive, means, and opportunity. Deidre hated to see each daughter creating a separate identity for herself, and, yearning for the days of togetherness, her sister had hidden the three bushels when she went out to the chicken coop to fetch eggs for supper. In order to stress the value of cooperation, Dianna also told her three nieces how Native Americans had always grown the corn with pole beans winding around the stalks and squash preventing weeds from interfering with growth, even naming the cooperative process of the plant trio as the three sisters.