The county agent, p.1
The County Agent, page 1
THE COUNTY AGENT
A COBBLER’S BLUFF COZY MYSTERY
K.P. STAFFORD
S&S PUBLICATIONS
The County Agent
A Cobbler’s Bluff Cozy Mystery
Copyright © 2024 by K.P. Stafford
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
Published by S&S Publications
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https://kpstafford.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Also by K.P. Stafford
A Note From the Author
About the Author
Preview - Murder & Mayhem
1
Marnie sat at her desk, her face propped in her hands, blowing air out, puffing up her bangs. She did not want to be at work today. Peggy was holding some fun gathering at the bookstore and she’d rather be there, helping with that. Normally Peggy would do that stuff on the weekend so Marnie could help, but today’s date was special. Unfortunately, Marnie had to miss out, so she’d resorted to her normal boredom at work pastime—she was watching shoes pass by the windows. Her office was in the basement of the courthouse, so the windows were ceiling level and next to a sidewalk. Some days she counted shoes, other days she just noticed what kind of shoes people were wearing. Unless they came into her office, though she never knew what face to put with which shoes. Once in a while she’d see them out and about in town or at the diner when she and the girls were having breakfast, but most of the time they were just nameless shoes.
She sipped on her coffee as a pair of stylish pumps went by. She shook her head and had no clue how women walked in those things, or why they’d want to. Flats or only two-inch heels at the most were her preferred choice of footwear. She was pretty active and usually always in a hurry, so she didn’t need anything that impeded that. She wasn’t in a hurry on purpose, she’d just been walking fast her whole life and it was a habit, not necessarily because she needed to get anywhere fast. Plus, being the junior agent who went out in the field a lot, her foot attire was mostly work boots.
She spun around in her chair and wondered what was happening at the bookstore. Retirement couldn’t come fast enough, so she could work at the bookstore more. She made a mental note to get her finances lined out to see if that was even a possibility in the near future. She huffed out another breath, afraid that wouldn’t be possible and she shouldn’t even hope for it. But the girls would tell her to keep hope alive. Sometimes things do just work themselves out. She stopped spinning in her chair and stared out the windows again. It was going to be a long day.
Just as she had the thought, her phone rang. She actually looked forward to answering it. The morning was already crawling at a snail’s pace, so a call was a welcome relief and gave her something to do other than watch shoes go by and blow bangs out of her eyes.
Marnie picked up the phone, “Johnson county County Extension Office. This is Marnie Fiest. How can I help you today?”
“Oh, hey Marnie, I was hoping you’d answer the phone. This is June Bug O’Reilly.
“Well happy Thursday, June Bug O’Reilly.” Marnie said into the phone as she wondered what would have been wrong with Janie answering the phone. Janie Sinclair was the senior county agent, extremely knowledgeable, but Marnie guessed her people skills weren’t exactly wonderful, so maybe that’s why June Bug would rather speak to her. She didn’t mind. She generally enjoyed speaking to people.
“Well, I’m not real happy today, Marnie. I’m having garden issues and I was hoping you could come out and look at them.”
“I sure can. When is a good time for you?”
There was a slight hesitation. “Oh, you can come out today?”
“I can. Is today not good for you?”
“No, no, today is perfect. I just figured it’d be next week before you could make it out here.”
“Well, it’s a quiet day in the office, so it’s no problem.” Marnie said as she reached for her appointment book and placed it in front of her.
“Is before lunch too early?”
Marnie looked at her watch. It was only 8:45. “Before lunch is perfect. How about around 10:30?” Marnie said as she flipped open her appointment book and jotted it down on the right line.
“Oh, that’s perfect for me, too. I’ll see you then.” The line went dead.
Marnie replaced the receiver onto the phone, a bit shocked at how abruptly the call had ended. Oh well, at least it was something to do today and would get her out of the office for bit. It also gave her a chance to stop by the bookstore and see how the event was going.
She glanced at the date in her appointment calendar to make sure she hadn’t overlooked anything. The entire day was empty. That wasn’t uncommon, but it was a little unusual for the beginning of summer and growing season. It was well past Easter, so everyone had their gardens planted by now. She was busy in late spring helping everyone decide on crop rotations and which nutrients they should add to their soil for certain crops, but since then, things had slowed down as people got busy doing the actual work.
She was supposed to meet the girls that evening to discuss the corn maze that Arlene wanted to grow and create since she’d inherited more land from the death of Myrtle Camp last fall. Marnie didn’t know if she’d started planting yet, but she’d find out that evening. With the phone being quiet, her morning was free again until time to go check on June Bug’s garden problem. There was no indication of what kind of problem it was as he hung up before Marnie could ask any questions. It didn’t matter, but she did like to have things running through her head before she saw the actual problem. It could be any number of problems and each usually had more than one solution. She was going in blind on this one, but it wasn’t the first time and for sure not the last.
She’d just settled into her chair with her second cup of coffee when the phone rang again. Maybe the day was picking up, at least for the phone line.
Marnie grabbed the phone and stuck it to her ear, “Johnson county County Extension Office. This is Marnie Fiest. How can I help you today?”
“Oh Marnie. I need your help. My poor garden is just dying and I can’t figure out what to do about it. I need you to come work your magic. Please.”
Marnie chuckled, “I don’t work magic, I just figure out what the soil needs.”
“Well, sometimes it sure seems like magic. I just need you out here to look at this. When can you come?”
Marnie thought through how long it would take today at the other garden and decided lunch time or later would be good for her. “I can come out at lunchtime or after lunch. Is either of those good for you today?”
“Oh, after lunch would be great. How does 1:00 sound?”
Marnie reached for the pencil and wrote it down in her appointment book. “That’s fine with me. I’ve written it down.” Marnie wrote down a few more details before ending the call.
Marnie received another phone call. Her day was pretty much filled out now. It would take time to drive to the various locations, speak to the owners, and take some soil samples. She might have plenty of time at the end of the day to drive into the city and drop the samples off at the lab.
She checked her watch and decided to leave a little earlier than planned so she could pop into the bookstore and have a few extra minutes to hang out instead of running in and then running out.
Marnie had to park down the street from the bookstore. It looked like there had been a good turnout. At least she hoped all those cars were there for the bookstore event.
As she neared the entrance to the bookstore, a warm feeling swept over her. The bookstore was full of people and everyone looked engaged with whatever section they were focusing on.
Marnie found her way through the crowd to where Peggy was standing. Peggy looked at Marnie. “How’s your morning going? I’m guessing pretty slow, since you’re out of the office and here at the bookstore.”
Marnie shook her head. “It was very slow and extremely boring, but I got some phone calls in to go get some soil samples. I left the office a little early so I could stop in and see how things are going here.”
“Oh, it’s a big hit. Just look at this crowd,” Peggy said as she waved her hand across the room.
Marnie smiled. “I wish I could stay here instead of traveling all over the county today.”
“No, it’s all around Ozone mountain, but they are spread out enough that it seems like the whole county. Plus the fact that I’d really rather be here, anyway.”
“I understand that. Hopefully, you can take early retirement in the next year or so.”
“Oh, that’d be great. I need to get my finances in order to see where I stand on that. I’m almost scared to look, afraid I’ll be disappointed.”
Peggy reached out and rubbed her shoulder. “I know. Just get it over with, so you know.”
Marnie left the bookstore and headed towards Ozone mountain. The homesteads she was heading to were all at the base of the mountain, but they were all several miles apart and on different back roads, so it could be an adventurous day, but probably not. She was used to the back roads and her Jeep usually handled anything that might cause an obstacle, an overfilled creek bed, small trees that had fallen across roads. Although the locals usually took care of those pretty quickly and got some extra firewood for their trouble.
She thought about stopping in to see Ms. Ida while she was out this way. The girls tried to check on her as much as possible and Arlene took her fresh fruit each week, but Marnie hadn’t seen her in ages and missed talking to the elderly woman. She was full of spitfire and told the most interesting stories, or tales. They could have all been tales. No one was sure if any of her escapades from her younger days were true, but most figured they were since Ida was such a wild child back in those days. She had been a groupie for a popular rock band and traveled the country for several years with them, so she had seen a lot of places and had a lot of experiences. How she settled into being a mountain woman in rural Arkansas was a mystery. Maybe Marnie would ask about that one day.
2
Marnie pulled into the first homestead. Most mountain folk had a yard full of dogs, so she waited in the car until the homeowner came out to greet her. She didn’t care much for dogs or cats. Both shed terribly and she couldn’t stand for pet hair to be on her sewing projects. However, she loved horses and didn’t mind their hair on her clothes. It was never enough to spread to her sewing materials, though, and usually brushed off with ease.
In less than a minute she saw June Bug come around the corner from the back of the house. Three dogs sauntered behind him. He stopped at the front of the house and pointed to the porch. The dogs went up the steps and flopped on the porch. He had them well trained. Marnie was glad as she didn’t want dog hair on her clothes, much less dog slobber.
She got out of her car, grabbed her supply bag out of the backseat and turned to walk across the grass to meet June Bug. The day was starting to warm up and she could tell he’d already been hard at work by the amount of sweat stains on his shirt. He reached out his hand to shake hers. “Thanks for coming on such short notice. I’ve been noticing it for a couple of weeks, but it wasn’t all that bad.” He turned and pointed to the backyard. “The garden is back here.” He said as he headed in the direction he’d came from a few minutes earlier. Marnie followed.
As she approached the garden area, something looked familiar. This was the same thing that had happened to Louise’s plants and shrubs a few weeks earlier. The lab had been backed up, so she didn’t have those results yet, but she suspected it was the same thing. Maybe a parasite or bug that was migrating had hit the area. She would have to check a map to see if this followed some type of migration pattern. It would be helpful to know how fast the bugs were traveling, too. That way, she could make an announcement on the radio for people to expect some damage to their plants.
With the lab behind on getting results out, she wondered if surrounding counties were having the same problems. A parasite would definitely explain that. She made a mental note to contact some other county agencies and inquire about the problems they were having.
Marnie collected soil from around the plants and marked the containers with the appropriate information. She then pulled out her knife and scrapped some of the plant material for testing as well.
She spent the next couple of hours at the other two homesteads collecting samples and talking to the home owners about when their problems began. She took notes so she could remember dates when she looked over everything later. At the moment, she couldn’t see a pattern in anything, but she kept thinking about some bug or parasite migration. That might fit the timelines, but she couldn’t be sure without using a map and marking the locations of the farms she’d been to.She had a box full of samples to get sent to the lab. Hopefully, she’d have some news for these people soon.
After traipsing around with the homesteaders for half a day, Marnie’s feet hurt. Work boots could be rough wearing all day. She decided she’d ask Peggy if Kyle could take the samples into the city the next morning, since he was going there anyway for the music store. With the lab already behind, another day wouldn’t matter too much. She just didn’t want to make the drive into the city and back at this late in the afternoon. She was ready to wrap her day up and head home for a nice cup of tea and a light dinner.
She checked the clock on her dashboard. The gala event at the bookstore was still in progress. She smiled. She could stop by and see how it was going, plus drop the samples off for Kyle to take into the city. Her timing was perfect.
She didn’t expect there to be much of a crowd at this time of the day, but as she drove by she noticed there was no parking available in front of the bookstore, just like it had been that morning before she headed out to the homesteads. She’d have to park down the street and walk. Her legs would protest from all the walking she’d done the past several hours, but she didn’t mind since she was headed to her favorite place in the whole town.
She opened the door to the bookstore and heard the small bell jingle as she entered. She spotted Peggy in the historical section talking to Old Man Martin. He wasn’t really that old, but folks had taken to calling him that a few years back. Probably because he’d become more reclusive as he reached middle age. She’d never pegged him as a reader, but she noticed he had an arm full of books. She walked over and listened to the man speaking to Peggy. “All those big trucks going by my place at night keep me awake, so having plenty of books to read helps make the night go a little better. I’m tired most of the day, but seem to be learning lots of stuff from all the reading.”
Peggy reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry you’re not sleeping, but glad you’re making good use of the time.”
The man smiled at Marnie and Peggy and then excused himself to go pay for the arm-load of books he had.
Peggy looked at Marnie. “He really is a sweet man. It’s a shame he can’t get a good night’s sleep these days.”
“Déjà vu. Wasn’t there a guy in here this morning with the same problem?”
Peggy waved an arm in the air. “I don’t know. I guess the feed mill is doing midnight runs now in their shipping department. I’m not surprised. These days, we all seem to have to work crazy hours to get things done.”
“Yes, we do.” Marnie replied. “Speaking of, I’ve been out all day collecting soil samples. Do you think Kyle would mind dropping them off at the lab tomorrow when he goes into the city?”
“Oh, I’m sure he won’t mind at all. He loves doing things for people.”
Marnie handed the large bag to Peggy. “So, this event looks like it was a big hit.”
“Oh my lands, it’s slowed down tremendously, but all day this place was packed and almost a mad house at times. I couldn’t be more pleased with the results. And, it turns out, a lot more people read than I ever thought about.”
