“So you were spying on him, saw him searching the women’s property, and he caught you. Then what?”
Lang’s little mouth tightened. “He came here, said he’d kill my dogs if I told. I said I never told anyone anything.”
“That’s true,” Sara said. “You have an extraordinary ability to keep secrets.”
Lang looked at her as though trying to decide if she was giving him a compliment or being snide.
Sara smiled at him. “Do you have any more cookies?”
Lang looked at her for a long moment, as though trying to figure her out. “I have some with nasties in them.”
“I don’t like—” Mike began, but Sara put her hand on his arm.
“Nasturtiums? Flowers or seed pods?”
“Flowers, of course.” He didn’t seem to think much of her gardening skills. “I pickle the pods.”
“You wouldn’t have made any of those, would you?”
Mr. Lang got up and went to the kitchen.
“You got rid of him,” Mike said, “so what do you want to tell me?”
“Did you really look at that tea set? It’s eighteenth century if it’s a day. And these are old recipes. We went through this house thoroughly but I didn’t see these dishes, did you?”
Smiling, Mike kissed her cheek. “You are a good detective. Maybe there’s something here, after all. I’ll tell Vandlo I own the farm. It’s another thing he’ll have to come through me to get.” As he said it, he took Sara’s hand in reassurance.
“Mike!” Sara said in exasperation. “That wasn’t my point. I thought you and I together could search and—”
“Shhhh. He’s coming.”
Lang sat down, a red metal box in his hands, and she recognized it from having seen it in magazines. It was a candy box from the 1920s, in pristine condition and valuable to a collector. Inside were fresh cookies with pretty nasturtium flowers put into them while they were still warm.
Sara took one but Mike passed. She took a bite. Delicious. “If you sell these at Luke’s booth at the fair I’ll see that you get a hundred percent of the money.”
“No rent, no commission?”
“Nothing,” Sara said. “In fact, if you want to use Luke’s wife’s new kitchen to do the baking, Joce will help you.”
“Don’t you think you should ask her first?” Mike asked.
Sara shrugged. “She’s so bored she’d work with the devil. Sorry, no offense, Mr. Lang.”
The old man and Mike were looking at her with identical stares of consternation.
“So, uh, back to Greg,” Sara said as she leaned back on the old sofa, two cookies in her hands. She’d had an ulterior motive in sending Mr. Lang to Joce’s house. If he was going to be hanging around the fair, then she wanted him bonded to Joce. Mike said there was no danger to Joce even though she was holding the tarot cards as bait, but Sara wasn’t so sure. Besides, Mr. Lang was more experienced in spying than all of Mike’s fancy Federal agents put together.
She took another bite. “Oh wait! Did you use stevia?”
“Grow it myself.”
Sara nodded. “My mother’s erotic dreams have come true. Okay, I’m done.”
Rolling his eyes, Mike looked back at Lang. “Did you ever see Anders with an older woman, early fifties? She has a prominent nose.”
Lang smirked like a dirty little boy. “I saw him with two at once. An old one and a young one. Together.” He looked at Sara, but she studiously kept her eyes on the cookie.
“Look at me,” Mike said, “not my wife. Are you saying that Anders killed your dogs just to keep you from telling what you know?”