Farm Fresh Murder (17 page)

“What’s he doing?”

I dared to speak again. “Give me a minute, Al. I can’t talk and hold on at the same time.”

“Okay.”

Carl looked purposefully at something just to the right of my field of vision. He stopped pacing and crossed his arms in front of his chest. As he spoke, his line of vision didn’t falter. He was talking directly to someone. And, if I could only go another foot or so, I’d see who it was.

Slowly this time, I lifted my behind again, my knees digging into the branch. I pushed myself forward, my hands scraping on the rough bark. The limb was not happy I was moving again. This time it not only wobbled, it creaked with displeasure.

“Becca?” Allison said, this time not whispering. “What’re you doing?”

I ignored her as I focused on the last few inches I needed to traverse. The limb wasn’t going to hold for long, so I knew I’d have to get a quick look and then move backward or prepare myself for a body-bruising fall.

“Becca?”

The last inch wasn’t quite all the way there, but I thought that if I stretched my neck, I could accomplish my mission. I stretched and turned and stretched a little more. It was to no avail; I still couldn’t see who Carl was talking to.

Then, with a sudden start, Carl threw his arms into the air and turned. I got lucky because the person he was talking to stood and followed him. And though he was significantly shorter than Carl, I was up high enough that I could see exactly who it was.

Abner held his hands together in a plea as he followed Carl. His face was strained with his words, and I could only guess that he was begging for something.

The limb creaked and groaned in what I now thought was a pre-snap warning.

“Becca, come down now!”

I’d seen what I needed to see. I wanted to move my body backward, but the tree wasn’t having any of that. The branch was about to go. I realized that if I fell from this angle, I’d hurt myself, but if I managed to get my barely more-than-five-feet-tall body over the side of the limb and held on to it like the bars on an elementary school playground, I’d probably be okay. Somehow, I did it. I swung myself over and swooped backward and held on to the limb, shockingly not scratching my hands too badly. I swung once for dramatic effect and then landed on my feet. The tree was still intact. So was I.

“That was interesting,” Allison said.

“I saw Carl talking to someone.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you in the truck.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Allison turned and led the way out of the orchard.

I took one more look around. If I hadn’t taken that extra moment, I would have definitely missed something I thought might be important.

To the side of the house, but outside the bowl, there was a lift in the land; a hill. On top of that otherwise bland hill of grass were three trees, evenly spaced and lonely in their moonlit dismissal from the crowd in the orchard. It took only a second to realize that I was seeing the three trees in one of the pictures at Abner’s house.

“Becca!” Allison whisper-yelled from the edge of the orchard. “Let’s go.”

Allison probably would have called the police if I went to investigate them, so I tucked the idea to the back of my mind and hurried to my sister.

“One hundred percent sure, Allison.” We were still in the truck, parked on the side of the road. We’d locked the doors but were exposed in the bright moonlight. I resisted the urge to fire up the engine and screech the tires in a speedy escape. Something in my gut made me want to wait and see if someone would come outside. Another part of me wanted to march up to Carl’s front door and demand that he and Abner tell me what was going on. These two feuding choices froze my fingers around the key and my right foot poised above the accelerator.

“Becca, we should call Officer Brion,” Allison said. “It’s our responsibility to do as much.”

I reached over and touched her arm.

“Yes, we probably should. But, Allison . . .”

“I know, Abner’s your friend. He’s a friend to all of us, Becca, but he’s either gotten himself into something awful or is being thrown into something awful. Either way, murder is involved, and that makes it dangerous. Plain and simple—dangerous. You aren’t—we aren’t—qualified to solve a murder. That’s what the police do.” Her voice was firm, but she still hadn’t reached for her phone. When I’d seen Abner in Carl’s house, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to let Officer Brion know about my meeting with Abner the next day. Whatever Abner had to say, he was only going to say it to me, I knew that. If he was the murderer, I was fairly certain he wouldn’t kill me. If he wasn’t the murderer, I’d be more willing to listen to his story than the police ever would. I had to talk Allison out of calling them.

“How about this, Al? How about I ask Officer Brion to the dinner, we see what shakes out from that, and then we play on the up-and-up with the police? If we get Abner arrested before the dinner, we might miss out on something important. If he killed Matt, it was because of something specific. He’s not going to kill anyone else.”

“Do you think Carl’s in danger?”

I looked toward the now-spooky house that glowed in the spooky moonlight.

“No, Allison, I really don’t. Carl seemed agitated and Abner looked like he was pleading, but I don’t think there’s any danger there. I don’t.” I didn’t. If I had, that would have been enough for me to call the police and officially hand over my unofficial part of the investigation. As it was, I still thought I stood a good chance of getting at the truth.

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“You’ll call Officer Brion and ask him to come to the dinner? If it would make things uncomfortable for you and Ian . . .”

“It won’t. It’ll be fine. I’ll call.”

“Okay. Let’s go home.”

As the distance from Carl’s house increased, our moods improved. Once over the adrenaline rush of our entire adventure, we were both pleased at our seemingly fine-tuned skills to spy and not be caught. And Hobbit, at first irritated that we had left her in the car, enjoyed our triumphant attitudes.

By the time we pulled into my driveway, we were back to our normal selves, discussing our wayward parents and the group health plan that an insurance agent had pitched to Allison. The conclusions we came to were that our parents would be fine, and the health plan might be a good idea. Allison would hand out information flyers.

Once Allison left for her home and Hobbit and I had secured ourselves in the house, deep sleep came easily for me and my dog. I was always grateful that she didn’t snore, but I doubted anything would have awakened me that night. The security of the alarm wasn’t the only reason I was able to relax so deeply. I was plain old pooped out.

I woke the next morning at my usual early hour, got dressed, and headed out to the barn. It was good to have a normal routine, except now I kept checking my phone for the time. I wasn’t going to let Linda down. I was going to be a good buddy and be at Bailey’s right on time.

I packed a supply of preserves for the day. I didn’t pack a full load because I had every intention of leaving no later than about two o’clock, so I could easily get to Abner’s place by three o’clock. As I worked, I wondered about the conversation I’d seen between Abner and Carl. Abner could have been pleading for a number of things. It wasn’t fair to speculate, but I couldn’t help it.

Before last night I hadn’t known they lived so close to each other, let alone had any sort of friendship, or partnership, or whatever it was. Why was quiet, shy, peach-selling Carl in the middle of any of this? And what the heck did those three trees have to do with anything?

I loaded up the truck and made my way to Bailey’s. I pulled into the unload-load area right before Linda. She flashed her lights and gave me a thumbs-up when I looked in the rearview mirror. She was impressed that I was on time. So was I, actually.

“It’s good to see you,” she said as we opened the tail-gates of our trucks and started to unload.

“You, too. And it’s good to be here,” I said. It was great to be there. I loved working at Bailey’s and it was great to be back in the routine.

“So, you going to tell me why you had me call Allison out on a fake emergency yesterday?”

“Was that only yesterday?”

“Yes, it was.”

I caught a glimpse of one of her pies. The crust, as usual, was the perfect light brown and I could almost taste it with my eyes.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you, just not before I confess to her. Give me some time?”

“Well, sure,” she said with a crooked smile. “I see you ogling my pie.”

“I’d better buy that one,” I said.

“All right.” She laughed.

Sometimes we traded, but I was short on items she could use. The strawberries from my own crop were dwindling, and I didn’t trade the other fruit I purchased for my products—she usually purchased some of the same fruit for hers. However, when I started bringing the pumpkin preserves, everyone would want to trade with me. Linda had once told me that the entire population of Bailey’s used my pumpkin preserves for their Christmas gifts. I couldn’t help but be thrilled by that.

I set up my stall quickly, almost carelessly. I needed to talk to people before I could focus on selling.

“Hey,” I said to Linda as I craned my neck around the tent wall. “I need to run and talk to someone for a minute. Can you watch?”

“Of course,” she said hesitantly.

“What?”

“Becca, whatever you’re up to, be careful.”

“Always.” I winked.

I hurried first toward Carl Monroe’s stall. Not to my surprise, but to my disappointment, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I was a little worried about seeing him with Abner the previous night, but I still held fast to my initial instinct—Abner wouldn’t hurt Carl. I called Allison, nonetheless.

“Becca? What’s up?”

“Carl’s not at his stall.”

“Oh, I know. He stopped by to see me earlier this morning—and I thought maybe he’d caught us. I panicked a bit, but that wasn’t why he stopped by.”

“What did he want?”

“He’s low on product, so he wanted to let me know that he wouldn’t be in his stall today and was saving the inventory for Saturday, and that he’d for sure be at the Equinox Dinner. He asked if he could bring a date.”

It was the end of the season and lots of vendors who sold only what they grew were either done selling or almost done selling for the season.

“But he was fine?”

“Perfectly. He was shy about asking to bring a date, but that didn’t surprise me. He’s a shy man.”

“Yeah,” I said.
Unless he’s a murderer trying to act shy
. Was he the one who’d knocked on Allison’s door? Maybe he’d just stopped by to tell her about his product?

“Anything else, Becca?”

“No. Talk to you later.” We hung up.

Next stop, Ian’s. His stall was empty, too. I didn’t remember who his buddy was, and I stood at his stall with my hands on my hips. I was becoming irritated at the world. Why weren’t people where I needed them to be?

“Becca?”

I turned to see Barry making his way slowly down the aisle.

“Hey, Barry,” I said. “How are you?”

“Fine. You? You were sure in a hurry yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that. Hope I wasn’t rude. Hey, let me help you.” I reached for the wagon handle he’d been pulling. Though he often struggled with simple walking, he looked the worse for wear today. I wanted to confront him about his lies, but there was something about the way he seemed to be hurting that made me suddenly want to be gentler in my questioning. Plus, I’d already thought about how best to approach Barry. Accusing him of lying, even when he clearly had, was not the best way to get him to talk. Now, offering to help him with his wagon, that might work better.

“Normally, I’d say no, but I think I’ll take you up on that today. My hips are acting up and my shoulders seem to want to act up right along with them.” He let me take the handle and then reached for his right shoulder, digging at it with his knuckles. His face was pasty white and his eyes were pinched at the corners. He was clearly in pain.

I pulled the corn wagon deftly down the aisle as I formulated the best way to ask Barry if he was a murderer. We pulled into his stall and both started lifting the corn from the wagon to the display table.

“So, Barry,” I began expertly. “I was wondering . . .”

“What?”

“Well, guess who I met yesterday?”

“Is this a knock-knock joke or something? You sound odd, Becca.”

“No, it’s not a knock-knock joke. I met Helen Justen.”

Barry froze in place, his hands full of corn and halfway to the display table. I was surprised that his face became even paler.

“Now, there’s a name I haven’t heard in an eon or so. Helen Justen. Well, well, well.” He put the corn on the table and then sat on a stool. He took off his straw hat and wiped at his temples with an old handkerchief. He smiled. “How was she?”