Farm Fresh Murder (10 page)

“Thank you. I’m Becca Robins.” The fresh lemon scent filled the air right in front of my nose, and my mouth was already watering explosively. I dug in.

“Mmmm,” I mumbled as I chewed and enjoyed the melting sensation of the treat. “This is fantastic.” Everything about the pie was perfect: the tart lemon, the light but tall meringue, the flaky crust.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. And I’ll take one, if you don’t mind keeping it in your cooler until I’m done shopping for the day.”

“Not a problem.” Mamma turned again and put a small piece of paper with the word
SOLD
written on it beside one of the pies in the case. “So, where are you from?”

“I live outside Monson, but I work at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market.”

“Oh yeah, what do you sell?”

“Jams and preserves—berries and pumpkin.”

“Those sound yummy. I’ve been meaning to make my way up to Bailey’s. A friend of mine left here and moved up there.”

“Who?”
Did she know Matt Simonsen?

“Ian Cartwright. Do you know him?”

“Ian worked here?” I swallowed the next bite without letting it melt first.

“Yes.”

Now wait,
I wanted to say,
why didn’t I know that?
Ian hadn’t said a word about working at Smithfield. If he’d worked here, he would have at least met Matt Simonsen.

“How long did he work here?”

Mamma shrugged. “About a year, I guess.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” she said, her eyebrows together. She was probably wondering why I was having a hard time grasping the concept of Ian working anywhere but Bailey’s.

“You were friends?” I finally said.

“Yes. Oh, not that kind of friends. We were
just
friends.” She smiled.

She thought I was jealous—I might have been if my mind had gone that direction. She thought Ian and I were “involved” or I wanted us to be involved. In truth, I was just attempting to understand why he’d hidden the fact that he’d worked with Matt Simonsen from me—and maybe from Allison and Officer Brion, too. I squashed the desire to burst into the managers’ meeting and tell my sister what I’d just learned.

“Well, I hope he’s doing okay up there,” Mamma Maria continued.

“I think so,” I said, forcing my voice to be even.

“Yes, he was very popular here.”

“Why did he leave?”

“Um
,
well, I don’t really know. You’ll have to ask him. He still has customers who ask about him, but maybe he felt like he’d saturated the market. Maybe Bailey’s expands his customer base.”

“Maybe. Well, Bailey’s
is
a great place, despite what you might have heard lately.”

Her eyebrows knit together again as she put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, I heard about the . . . the murder. Just terrible.”

“Horrible.” And it was, but I had come to get answers, so I pushed forward. “I bet you knew Matt Simonsen.”

“Sort of. Didn’t know him all that well. Simonsen Orchards has had a booth here for a long time. It’s at the other end of the market and down the next aisle. Speaking of expanding market base, I heard they wanted to grow their business, so the father went to Bailey’s. Jessop still works here, but he’s extremely shy.” She looked in the direction of the younger Simonsen’s booth and her forehead crinkled. “We knew something had happened when Jessop didn’t show up that day. The Simonsens—at least one of them at a time—were never absent. They don’t take a day off. Ever. They’re part of the old-timer group. When they worked together, one of them was always around. When Matt went to Bailey’s, I did wonder how they were going to get their orchard work done if both of them had to be someplace every day.”

And now there would be one less Simonsen to get the work done. We didn’t say the words, but we both thought them.

“Matt only recently started working at Bailey’s, so I didn’t know him well, but I heard he was a hard worker,” I said.

Mamma nodded. “Don’t suppose anyone knows what happened? It’s creepy, you know.”

“I have no idea what the police think,” I lied. “Did you know of anyone who disliked Matt—any enemies or anything? Other vendors, customers?”

Mamma bit at the inside of her cheek. “Gosh, I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t . . . didn’t know them nearly well enough to answer that. They kept to themselves. They are . . . were hard workers. Friendly to their customers, from everything I’ve heard.”

As Mamma’s cell phone rang, relief relaxed her pretty face. She was glad to have an excuse to end our conversation.

“Hey, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be back later to get my pie.”

She smiled again and answered the phone as I took off toward Jessop Simonsen. I wanted to call Ian immediately and ask just why he hadn’t told me about working at Smithfield. Surely he’d known Matt Simonsen. I slipped my questions for him to the back burner of my busy mind. I’d talk to him, but for now I had other people to talk to.

Someone had wanted Matt Simonsen dead, and I thought that if that person wasn’t Abner, then the murderer might have something to do with the place where Matt apparently spent most of his time—Smithfield Market. Mamma had said that Matt went to Bailey’s to expand his customer base, but that didn’t sit right with me. It made sense that Ian might have needed to expand his market—really, a person needed only one of his products. But peaches brought repeat customers. Like my own products, if someone liked them, they tended come back for more. Something else must have happened to send Matt away from Smithfield and to Bailey’s.

Maybe I could get the answers from Jessop. And if he wouldn’t answer my questions, Mamma had shown me how easy it would be to ask other vendors. I’d get the story, no matter who I had to talk to.

The funnel cake cart was right next to the Simonsen Orchards stall. Hanging from the display rack were three fresh cakes, glistening with oil and powdered sugar. I was there to do a job, not indulge my sweet/fried tooth, so I ignored my salivating mouth and stood on the other side of the aisle, pretending to be interested in some hand-painted greeting cards as I observed the man I assumed was Jessop Simonsen.

He was tall, like his father, but didn’t have the same wide build. Instead, he was almost skinny. He wore old jeans and a clean white T-shirt underneath a brown body apron emblazoned with a bright peach iron-on patch. My mind played back the horrible picture of the dead body, and I remembered that Matt had had dark, almost black, hair. Jessop had dark auburn hair, cut fairly short. He was almost gangly but still kind of handsome. He was packaging up some peaches into a recyclable bag, and the look on his face was intense and serious. A middle-aged couple stood in front of his stall and seemed to watch Jessop closely, saying things that prompted him to put down whatever peach he had in his hand and search for another one. He took the picky customers in stride and didn’t act impatient or put-out in the least.

When he had filled the bag, he looked back up at the customers and smiled easily. This confirmed that he was definitely handsome—and that he had a beautiful mouth. I wouldn’t have called him feminine-looking, but he had a lovely pair of lips.

Once the transaction was complete, Jessop went back to his table full of peaches and rearranged the mess he’d made. The look on his face wasn’t quite so relaxed anymore. In fact, it was pained. He might have been working to keep from thinking about the murder, but he was certainly distressed about something. Apparently, there weren’t enough customers to keep the horrible thoughts at bay all the time.

My heart sank. This man’s father was dead, killed, maybe killed by someone I considered a friend. Anger soured my throat. Who had done this? And if it was Abner, I might not be beyond harming him myself. A family had been torn apart.

“Can I help you?” a young girl with long braids asked as she pulled her tired eyes up and away from a thick textbook.

“No, thanks. Just looking around.”

She looked back down at the book.

I calmed my anger and gathered the courage to go talk to Jessop. It was much more difficult than I’d thought it would be, but I couldn’t
not
talk to him.

As I walked toward the stall, Jessop looked up and flipped an inner switch that made his misery disappear.

“Hi, what can I get for you today?” he asked pleasantly.

“I . . . My name is Becca Robins.”

“Nice to meet you, Becca. I’m Jessop Simonsen.” He was attempting to keep his customer service mode flipped on, but my monotone greeting must have sounded strange.

“I know, Mr. . . . I mean Jessop.”

“Yes? Can I help you, Ms. Robins?”

“Jessop, I work at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market. I just wanted to stop by and tell you how very sorry I am for your loss.”

“Oh.” Jessop looked confused, perhaps shocked. “Well, thank you.”

There might never have been a more awkward moment in my life. Fortunately, Jessop saved me.

“It’s very kind of you to stop by. Is that why you came here today?”

“Well, my sister manages Bailey’s. She came down for a meeting. I came along to give her some company—I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

“Oh. Your sister—Allison Something?”

“Yes. Reynolds. Allison Reynolds.”

“She talked to my mom. She sent some flowers, too . . . that was nice.”

“We know the police are working hard to figure out who . . . what happened.”

“Oh, I know who killed my father,” Jessop said. Suddenly, his eyes filled with both anger and tears. He cleared his throat as he turned to rearrange the peaches again. The tears never fell down his cheeks.

“You do?”

“Yes.” He looked at me, tear-free but full of dangerous anger. “Abner Justen killed my father as sure as I stand here today.”

“Really? What makes you so sure?” My chest tightened. He sounded so certain.

“I just know, that’s all.”

“Have you explained to the police why you think that?”

“Of course. They’ll find evidence, I’m positive, but for now they’ve got nothing substantial.”

I nodded. “So, they had a history, your father and Abner?”

Jessop huffed. “I’d say. Fifty years or more.”

“Wow, that’s a long time.”

“Well, if Abner wasn’t such a sore loser, this never would have happened. By the time Dad started working at Bailey’s, Abner should have been long over it.”

“Sore loser?” I wanted to keep him talking. “What, a land deal or something?” It was the best I could come up with.

Jessop huffed. “Not quite. Aw, hell, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to tell you.”

“Only if you’re comfortable with that, Jessop. I’m not a gossiper . . .” I should have been ashamed of myself—this was none of my business.
But it is my business
, I mantra’d silently. I’d made it my business, if nothing else.

Jessop sighed deeply. As he released the air from his lungs, I heard a hitch of emotion. He was hurting in ways I didn’t ever want to experience firsthand.

“It was my mother,” he muttered.

“Excuse me?”

“My mother. Abner was in love with my mother. He was dating her when she met my father. She dumped Abner for my dad.” A nerve twitched at the side of Jessop’s face. He looked down and away from my eyes.

“Oh my,” I said with my own heavy sigh. “Did you tell the police?”

“Of course. They’ll catch him.”

“Oh my,” I repeated. As far as motives went, I could imagine the organ keys of doom now announcing Abner’s guilt. “I didn’t know, Jessop. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. They’ll catch him. Hey, could you excuse me, please?” His voice cracked.

“Of course.” I watched Jessop turn and walk out the back of his stall. I felt terrible for being the cause of such emotion—it hadn’t been my intention. I was also simmering with anger. If Abner had called me at that moment, I probably would have answered only so I could hang up on him.

I debated whether I should leave or stay and apologize to Jessop again for disturbing his day, but if I were him, I wouldn’t want to see me when I came back. I turned to walk away, my appetite for funnel cake reduced to nothing.

The market was already getting crowded, which was normal for a Thursday at most markets. I dodged people at about every third step as my thoughts performed mental gymnastics. It sure seemed like Abner could have been the murderer. But—I had to remember—seeming guilty and really being so was always a matter of evidence.

What about those pictures—that woman, was she Jessop’s mother? Was that evidence? Officer Brion had asked me if I knew who was in the picture—he’d acted like he didn’t know. Did that mean he really didn’t know, or that he knew and was just trying to get more information? Probably the latter. Did he know that Abner had been in love with Matt Simonsen’s wife? It was a long time ago, but still . . .

And what did Ian have to do with all of this?

I didn’t realize I had stopped walking until an elderly lady bumped into me.

“Oh, dear, pardon me,” she said.

“No, I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

“Fine, fine.” She waved me away and continued her walk/shuffle. As I watched her to make sure she was none the worse for wear, something down the aisle caught my attention.

If he hadn’t been so tall, I might not have thought I was seeing Carl Monroe, the Bailey’s peach vendor who seemed to want to give me the brush-off yesterday, moving quickly away from me.

I knew I was seeing a tall person with short dark hair zigging and zagging away through the crowd, but I couldn’t tell for sure if it was Carl.

Suddenly, he stopped moving and turned. He looked directly at me, his eyes wide and afraid. I lifted my hand to wave hello, but he turned and hurried on his way. Again. The man was trying to give me a complex.

“What the . . . ?” I took off running, unfortunately bumping right into the woman I’d stopped in front of a moment before.