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know much about
farming, but I do know that there are good years and bad years. Sometimes the bad
years have to do with the weather, and sometimes they have to do with things like
prices and subsidies. My dad tried to explain it to me, but it’s complicated.”
    “All you really need to know is that Clyde had a bunch of bad years in a row,” Charlie
said. “And that they couldn’t have come at a worse time.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He’d loaned Ted a lot of money for new equipment. Then there were a couple of drought
years. At the same time, Clyde decided to change his crop mix—that turned out to
be a bad decision. He’d taken out a second mortgage on his place to get the equipment
for Ted, and then he started losing money because of the new crop. Finally, the bank
foreclosed on him and put the farm up for auction.”
    “So what’s the big deal?”
    “The big deal is that the auction wasn’t supposed to turn out the way it did.”
    “Wasn’t supposed to?” I said. “Who knows how an auction is supposed to turn out?
It turns out the way it turns out—the highest bidder wins.”
    “Boy, do you ever not understand Moorebridge!” Ashleigh shook her head again. “Ted
felt terrible that his father was going to lose the farm on his account. He didn’t
have the money to bail out Clyde. So instead he organized the other farmers in the
area—they’re a pretty tight bunch, especially the old-timers. He got everyone to
put up some money to help buy Clyde’s farm. It wasn’t a lot from each person, but
altogether it would meet the reserve bid—”
    “Reserve bid?”
    “The bank set a minimum price for the farm. That’s the reserve bid.”
    “Oh.”
    “But a couple of other people showed up at the auction who weren’t supposed to be
there,” Charlie said.
    “Like Mr. Goran?” I asked.
    “If you ask me, Ted should have talked to him and explained the situation,” Charlie
said. “Maybe he didn’t think Mr. Goran could outbid them. But he did. You should
have seen the look on Ted’s face.”
    “You were there?”
    Charlie nodded.
    “How does Mike fit into this?”
    “Clyde was his grandfather.”
    “Was?”
    “He died six months after he lost his farm at auction,” Charlie said. “Car accident.”
    “ Single-car accident,” Ashleigh said in an ominous voice. “Ted’s brother-in-law tried
to hush it up, but my dad knows the doctor who did the autopsy. Apparently Clyde
had been drinking, and his car went off the road. Ted says it happened because his
dad was depressed after losing the farm. He blames Mr. Goran.”
    “All Mr. Goran did was show up at a public auction,” I said. “He just wanted a farm.
He’d wanted one ever since he left Kurdistan.”
    “He just happened to pick the wrong farm in the wrong town,” Ashleigh said.
    “And I guess farming here isn’t the same as farming in Kurdistan,” Charlie added.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Well, he burned down his barn to collect the insurance money, didn’t he? So the
place must have been in trouble.”
    “Maybe he didn’t do it.”
    Both Charlie and Ashleigh looked at me as if I were a hopelessly muddled newcomer.
    “You said Ted Winters’s brother-in-law tried to hush up the autopsy results,” I said.
“So the Winters family must have a lot of influence around here.”
    “Not really. But Brian’s a cop, just like—” Ashleigh caught herself and stopped abruptly.
She’d been going to say just like my aunt.
    Brian? “Brian Shears?” I asked.
    “Don’t tell me you know him too,” Ashleigh said.
    “I met him at the market this morning. He’s Mike’s uncle?”
    Ashleigh nodded.
    No wonder he hadn’t been overly keen to find out who had trashed Aram’s stall.

    We stayed at the party until well after midnight, which is when Ashleigh started
yawning.
    “I did a ten-hour shift today,” she said. “It’s catching up with me. You ready to
go?”
    I was.
    Charlie looked disappointed.
    “Relax, Romeo,”