War and Peas

out of here with yesterday?“ Jumper asked. “I assumed so,“ Jane said.
    “Then if he was still carrying them around, that means—“ Jumper stopped.
    But Babs was recovering and wasn’t afraid to say the rest. “It means Derek’s probably been lying there in the basement since yesterday. And we’ve all been complaining about him not doing his job.”
    A sort of collective shudder ran through them. Shelley cleared her throat and said to Jumper, “Did the police mention how—?”
    Jumper nodded. “There was a blow to his head. I don’t know if they’ve identified the weapon—“
    “But his face,“ Jane said, shivering with revulsion at the memory. “Why—“
    “The blow didn’t kill him,“ Jumper went on. “Only knocked him out. Then someone“—he paused, searching for an acceptable word—“someone filled his nose and mouth with peas to obstruct his breathing.“
    “Peas!“ Babs exclaimed. “Peas?“
    “ From a drawer in that big piece of furniture with all the drawers.“
    “I haven’t been down there in years,“ Babs said. “What kind of furniture is for peas?”
    “It’s like the seed bins they used to have in hardware stores,“ Jumper explained. “Except instead of bins, there are drawers. Old Auguste used it to store his genetic crosses. I helped drag the thing away from the wall a couple years ago when the foundation-repair people were here to give us a bid.”
    Babs nodded. “Yes, I remember it now. It used to be in his office at the warehouse. Daisy took me there once and I was fascinated with it.”
    Jumper had flung himself into a chair, laced his fingers together, and was staring at them as if they held an answer. After a moment, he looked up at Jane. “What were you two doing down there anyway?”
    There was only the slightest hint of suspicion in his voice, but it was enough to compel Jane to explain. They’d all find out sooner or later anyway.
    “We were going to look in that pea furniture for Little Beauty. When I got here Monday, I heard a man telling Sharlene that when he was a kid during the Depression, his family had grown that particular Snellen pea one year. He said it sprawled around on the ground and was too hard to harvest, but his father had some left over that he planted as ground cover for a couple years. The man telling Sharlene about it said they grew the best potatoes in the world the next year, and carrots and beets and things, and it kept his family from starving.”
    Babs said, “Oh, Sharlene started to tell me that story, but the phone rang while we were talking and she never got around to finishing it.“
    “Carrots, potatoes, and beets?“ Jumper said. “Anything else?”
    Jane was surprised by the question and thought for a minute. “Turnips, maybe.“
    “Root crops,“ Jumper said under his breath.
    “Anyhow,“ Jane went on, “Shelley and I were down there Monday and I picked up a book to use as a clipboard. And we noticed this morning that it was a ledger. I looked at it again and saw that one page of it was about the Little Beauty pea, and there was a letter in the book that’s probably the one that the family’s father wrote to the seed company when they lost their pea crop to the frost and wanted to order more. The company hadn’t pursued growing and selling that pea because it fell on the ground. And I was just curious about it. The drawers have code numbers on them, and there was a code number for Little Beauty in the ledger. So we went to look, but found Derek instead.“
    “Root crops,“ Jumper said again. “Don’t legumes leave something in the soil? Nitrogen or something? I wonder... couldn’t this particular kind of pea have done something unusually good that caused root crops to thrive?“
    “I guess so,“ Jane said. “I sort of knew that about beans. But I hadn’t thought it out that way. I was only curious to know if there were any still left. I thought Sharlene might want to give a few to the man who told her the story. He was sentimental enough to make a trip here to talk about it and—”
    Shelley interrupted her. “Jane, a plant that leaves extra nutrients in the soil could be very valuable.“
    “It sure could,“ Jumper said. “There are people patenting ‘designer’ plant crosses these days. I don’t know enough about science or farming to actually say, but Shelley could be right. Someone who really knew his or her way around DNA might produce a patented plant that could make a