5 Merry Market Murder (9 page)

On the way to the market, I called Sam to tell him the details from my meeting with Gellie. I left out the goose bite. I’d had my sleeves pushed up when Batman bit me. I now had them rolled down, so I hoped the injury would go unnoticed, and I wasn’t going to replay it over the phone.

Sam was genuinely pleased to have the new information, and said he’d tell me later if he found out more. In turn, I was genuinely pleased that he’d share with me.

This was working just fine.

The market was, not surprisingly, busy, and my late arrival put me in an immediate rush and made me unable to properly set up my stall. I started off behind and remained so until around noon, when things slowed a little and I could finally properly display what was left of my inventory, though it seemed a lame effort. Hobbit was patient in the back of the stall but I knew she’d rather be on her pillow on the porch. I wouldn’t be able to leave for a couple more hours so I hurried to Brenton’s stall, bought a couple of his homemade biscuits, and supplied Hobbit with treats and a big bowl of water. Brenton had been just as busy as the rest of us, so I didn’t have an opportunity to ask him any questions. He seemed closer to the normal Brenton but still subdued.

When I’d left my stall for Brenton’s, I’d asked Linda to keep an eye on Hobbit, which was an easy duty. Hobbit was comfortable and unbothered by my brief absence. But for the millionth time since she’d been the main part of my family, I wished she could talk in words and not just with facial expressions, because she was probably the only one to see whoever left the surprise on the back corner of my side table.

“Linda, did you by chance see who left this for me?” I held the item up as I leaned around the pole.

“No. What it is?”

“I think it’s a Christmas tree ornament.”

Specifically, it was an onion—a big, white, and almost perfectly round onion. But it was decorated with more care than had been taken on the eggshell. Instead of red and green markers, the artist had used ribbon. A green band of ribbon circled the top of the onion and a red one circled the bottom. Wire had been inserted through the bottom and came up through the top to form a hook. The onion was dense and heavy but the thick wire over a good, solid tree limb would hold it in place. That was, if I was so inclined to put an onion on my tree.

“Well, it’s . . . kind of interesting,” Linda said.

“Interesting is a good word.”

“What’s the circle in the middle?”

Glued to the middle spot in between the two colorful bands was a round piece of thick paper that held a familiar design, though I couldn’t place it at first.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I think . . .” I held the onion closer. “I think maybe it’s the South Carolina state seal or stamp, whatever they’re called.” I turned it and held the onion so Linda could inspect it more closely.

“I think you’re right,” she said.

The business lull was still in place, so Linda pulled out her fancy phone and did an Internet search.

She glanced at the phone’s screen and then held it up next to the onion.

“Yep, that’s it. It has Latin words. Hang on, I’m curious enough to know what it says.” She moved her finger over the screen with a couple of expert swipes. “Huh, well there’s more here than I expected to find; a full explanation. I’ve never paid a bit of attention, but it’s kind of interesting. Here, read.” She handed me the phone. The screen read:

The Great Seal of the State of South Carolina was adopted in 1776. The seal is made up of two elliptical areas, linked by branches of the palmetto tree. The image on the left is dominated by a tall palmetto tree and another tree, fallen and broken. This scene represents the battle fought on June 28, 1776, between defenders of the unfinished fort on Sullivan’s Island, and the British Fleet. The standing tree represents the victorious defenders, and the fallen tree is the British Fleet. Banded together on the palmetto with the motto “Quis separabit?” (“Who will separate us?”) are twelve spears that represent the first twelve states of the Union. Surrounding the image, at the top, is “South Carolina,” and below, is “Animis Opibusque Parati,” or “Prepared in Mind and Resources.” The other image on the seal depicts a woman walking along a shore that is littered with weapons. The woman, symbolizing Hope, grasps a branch of laurel as the sun rises behind her. Below her image is the word “Spes,” or “Hope,” and over the image is the motto “Dum Spiro Spero,” or “While I Breathe I Hope.”

I looked up at Linda and said, “I would not have thought that learning that would ever be a priority, but it is interesting . . . in a high school history class sort of way. What in the world is it doing on an onion decorated as an ornament and then placed on a table in my stall? There was something else in my truck yesterday, too.” I told her about the egg.

“Dunno. Maybe it’s something Sam’s doing? A . . . cute, but admittedly odd, way of celebrating your first Christmas together as a couple?”

“I don’t think so, but maybe, I suppose.” Sam wasn’t the cutesy type, but as well as I thought I knew him, there was always the potential for surprises.

“Excuse me, Becs, I’ve got a customer. I’ll try to think if I saw someone being sneaky, but I don’t think I did.” Linda patted my arm supportively, but then turned to the sudden line growing outside her stall.

I nodded absently and then turned my attention back to the onion.

“I don’t know what to do except just ask people. I don’t have a line at the moment. Shall we venture out?” I said to Hobbit, who agreed wholeheartedly. I knew this because she stood up, wagged her tail, and panted.

I put a sign on my table that I’d return shortly, and we stepped around it and made a quick beeline to Bo’s onion stall. He was currently the only onion vendor at the market. Because of the weather and his inordinately fertile land, he was able to grow and then, in turn, sell onions almost all year long.

Hobbit and I stayed back a couple steps as Bo finished with a young boy who held a piece of paper in his fist. I recognized what I was seeing: his parents had sent him in with a list. Bo double-checked the piece of paper and then smiled at me as he handed the boy some change. We’d become pretty good friends over the last few months, mostly because his mother and my mother had reignited their high school friendship, which had resulted in dinners and picnics that included both families, lots of laughter, and stories about our mother that Allison and I weren’t sure we needed to know.

Bo was a big guy whose wardrobe choices were similar to mine. We both enjoyed overalls, though I’d never seen him in the short-pants variety.

“Hey, Becca; hey, Hobbit. How’s your business? Mine’s been pretty darn good, especially for December,” he said happily when he was finished with the transaction.

“Great, really. It’ll be one of our best Decembers ever, I think.”

“What do you have there?” he asked as he looked at the odd onion I held.

“I found it in my stall. It looks like someone turned an onion into a Christmas ornament, doesn’t it?”

“I’ll be,” he said as he took it from my hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing. Can’t say it’s an attractive way to use an onion, but I do think it’s creative. Who’d you say made it?”

“I don’t know. It was on my side table. I’d like to find whoever did it, though. I’m curious.”

Bo laughed. “You are the curious type.” He handed me back the ornament. “It’s a plain white onion. I’ve sold a number of them today. And yesterday, the day before, and so on. Sometimes I remember who I sell specific onions to, particularly if the customer is picky and they take their time going through them all, but this one, pre-decoration, doesn’t stand out.”

I turned the onion and tried to come up with another question, but I was blank.

“What’s that circle?” Bo asked.

“It’s South Carolina’s state seal.”

“Oh, sure, of course it is. You know . . .” he began. He rubbed his chin.

“What?”

“I’ve seen that recently, today or yesterday. I didn’t realize it, but now that I see it again and know what it is, I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere else.”

“Here, at Bailey’s?”

“I don’t know. Shoot, I could have seen it on something official, something that it belongs on, but I didn’t pay it any attention until now. I’ll think about it and let you know if I remember. I’m kind of curious, too. I’d like to know who’s so darn creative, particularly if it’s with one of my onions.”

“Thanks.” I thought hard about what I could say that might help him remember more. “Has Sam bought any onions in the last couple days?”

“No.” Bo shook his head.

“What about vendors? Who’s bought from you today and yesterday, if you can remember?” Something told me my Secret Santa was someone I knew, someone who worked at Bailey’s. Even a frequent customer didn’t make much sense. The personal touch, no matter what it might mean, might help me figure out if I knew the ornament artist.

“Gosh, let’s see.” Bo rubbed his chin again. “Brenton bought something—just one onion, but I can’t remember if it was yellow or white. He buys onions one at a time all the time—though he switches up what kind. Allison bought a whole bunch of them, all kinds again. Oh, and that tree guy, the one who looks like Santa, bought a bunch of white ones. I think that’s about it.”

Brenton, Allison, and Denny. I didn’t see any of them taking the time to create ornaments from eggs or onions, though they were all possible covert artists. But why? And, it was possible that the egg had been stolen from Jeannine’s stall. If so, maybe the onion had been stolen, too.

“Bo, do you count your inventory every day?” I asked.

“Gosh, no, I do everything by weight and it’s just an estimated weight at that. I haven’t used a scale in years. I can pick up a bag of onions and know what it weighs. I’m pretty close to accurate.”

I didn’t keep a close inventory, either, but I knew how many jars fit into each box and it was pretty easy to have a good daily guesstimate. Neither Bo nor I was meticulous like Jeannine, and we never would be.

“Thanks, Bo. I’d love to know if you remember where else you saw the seal.”

“Sure. I’ll call you if it comes to me.”

Hobbit and I walked away from Bo’s stall with no real next destination in mind. When that happens, I usually just roam, which eventually leads me to my sister’s office. I caught her in the aisle, just as she was hurrying back to it.

“Hey, sis. Hey, girl,” she said as she reached down and patted Hobbit’s head. “I’ve got to make a quick call. Come with me.”

I sat in the same chair I’d sat in the day before, and Hobbit found a space next to me that she could fit herself into. Allison’s office was small, but today almost all the available extra space was taken up with boxes of flyers.

“They were supposed to go to the post office. They’re our mail piece to announce the Ridgeway Farm trees. The printer messed up and sent them here. That’s who I have to call. Give me just a few minutes.”

Allison used her firm but friendly voice to inform the printer of their mistake. From the side of the conversation that I heard, I thought they might be trying to place the blame on her, but she managed to remind them of the initial agreement, an agreement that had been written and then signed. As was usual, she handled the problem perfectly.

When she hung up the phone, I held up the onion.

She blinked and said, “That’s . . . interesting.”

“I know. It’s, as far as I know, the world’s first onion Christmas ornament.”

“Me, too. I have never seen another one like it. Did you make it?”

“No, someone left it in my stall today. Someone left an eggshell ornament in my truck yesterday, too, with the number 1987 written on it. I’m assuming it’s the same person.”

“Really? Who?”

“There’s the mystery.”

“Let me see.”

I handed it to Allison and she turned it every direction. “It’s the South Carolina state seal.”

“It is.”

“You have a proud South Carolinian admirer.”

“Or something else.”

“Like?”

“I think someone is trying to communicate something to me other than Season’s Greetings. These are the pieces to some sort of puzzle.”

“A puzzle to where the real gift is hidden, maybe? That’s a cute idea.”

“Or . . . well, there was a murder here.”

“Clues to the killer?” Allison asked.

“That’s pretty far-fetched, isn’t it?”

“I think so. But maybe we can work to figure out the clues before we jump to conclusions. My interpretation is that something happened in South Carolina in 1987 and that something will lead you somewhere that’s important to the ornaments, or their creator. That’ll take some research.”

“I’ll look into it.”

She handed me the onion. “Did you discuss this with Sam?”

“Not yet. He only knows about the egg.”

“Talk to him. Maybe his police officer eyes and instincts will see things we aren’t trained to see.”

“I will.”

Changing the subject, Allison said, “Sam released Brenton quickly yesterday. I tried to talk to Brenton again this morning, but he wasn’t in the mood. He wasn’t violent, but he also wasn’t interested in talking to me.”