Farm Fresh Murder (18 page)

“Fine. I helped her with some preserves.” I had no idea why I said that.

“A long time ago . . . oh, shoot, you don’t want to hear an old man’s stories.”

“Yes, I do. What were you going to say?” I’d finished unloading the wagon, so I leaned against the table.

“Well, Abner and I were pretty good friends when we were young’uns. Oh, we caused some trouble, yes we did.”

“I bet.”

Barry looked up. As his eyes landed on mine, his face clouded. He’d connected the dots: I met with Helen Justen, which meant we talked about Abner, which meant we talked about Abner’s connection to Matt Simonsen. Of course, Pauline Simonsen came up in conversation. And finally, we must have discussed the love that every man currently over the age of sixty who was associated with Bailey’s seemed to have had for the younger version of Mrs. Simonsen. That thread inevitably led to Barry.

“What was it about that woman, Barry? She must have been something. Why didn’t you mention your long-ago love for her to the police? Or to me?” I asked.

Barry’s mouth pinched. He looked like he needed a moment. Would he tell me to leave? I didn’t think so. Should he lie? Should he shut up? He would come to the right conclusion in a minute, I just had to give him the time.

“Aw, hell,” he muttered as he stood from the stool and pretended to arrange some corn. “Aw, hell.”

I attempted a sympathetic smile, but I was never good at that sort of thing.

“Becca, you have to understand how long ago all this was. None of it matters in the least, but if I’d brought it up to the police, they might have thought it did.”

“I understand.”

Barry looked around as though he didn’t want anyone else to hear his next words. It was still early enough that the crowds hadn’t come yet.

“We were so young and . . . well, everything that goes along with being young, you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“The three of us were friends—Abner, myself, and Matt—we called him Matty, that’s how young we were. We went to high school together.” Any reservations he’d felt a moment ago were now replaced by a reminiscing tone. Allison, the brilliant human nature expert, always told me that people loved to talk about themselves. If you wanted to know something about someone, sometimes a little nudge was all they needed. “It was the sixties, a crazy time. But we weren’t part of the sixties crowd. We were farmers. All three of us came from farming families. We got up before the sun, did chores, went to school, went home, and did more chores. But when we weren’t working, we were together, raising our own versions of a ruckus.” His eyebrows lifted as he smiled. “Not the same as your parents; they were more, uh, in tune with the sixties.”

“You went to high school with my parents?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know them well.”

“Huh.” I was the one who hadn’t connected the dots—of course my parents were the same age as Barry and his buddies. I couldn’t imagine that meant anything to the murder of Matt Simonsen, but I’d see if I could contact them and ask them what they remembered. “Tell me more about that time. When did you all meet Pauline?”

“Oh, yes, well, Pauline Nelson moved to Monson the summer before our senior year. She was something to behold.”

“Beautiful?”

“No, she wasn’t beautiful, she was spectacular. Next to her, beautiful didn’t mean much. She was pretty, sure, in that young, fresh-faced, bright-eyed way, but she was more. She was smart and funny and made everyone else feel like they were smart and funny. She was someone new, Becca, and she was, probably still is, a wonderful person.”

He looked off into the distance, into the past, certainly. “She liked me first,” he said quietly.

“Tell me.”

“Aw, shucks, Becca, before my body got old and too big to wrangle around with some sort of grace, I was something.”

“I bet.” I smiled.

“Anyway.” Barry’s cheeks reddened. “Anyway, anyway. I asked her out first and I was the first one she went out with. It was the best two months of high school.”

“Two months. That doesn’t sound like very long.”

“Naw, I was bound to lose. She had an eye for Abner, even when she was dating me.”

“That had to be pretty tough on your friendship.”

“It was, but there was nothing to be done. No one understood it. Abner was a handsome enough fella, but they just didn’t seem right together, you know? And Abner had nothing, barely a pot to pi . . . well, you know.”

I nodded as though I agreed, but I didn’t really. Abner had a heart of gold, I knew that much. He’d built an amazing greenhouse and what seemed to be a profitable business. But who was I? I hadn’t known him then. People usually turned out pretty different from their high school selves.

“What was it about him that attracted her?” I asked.

“Never did understand it. They just hit it off, like they were meant to be together. She saw something the rest of us didn’t.”

I shrugged. “The laws of attraction are more abstract than definite in my life. I suppose it’s hard for anyone to completely understand why people love who they love.”

Barry nodded.

“So what happened? Why did she marry Matt Simonsen?”

“Now there’s the question of the century. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t. The three of us, our friendship, fell apart after high school when Pauline married Matty. Before that, Matty got real sick with pneumonia and Pauline, being the friend that she was, helped take care of him. All of a sudden they were in love. After that they went their way, I went mine, and Abner went his. I even gave up peaches,” Barry huffed.

“What do you mean?”

“My family was a group of peach growers. Since Matty and Pauline went into the peach business, I gave it up. Couldn’t bear being in competition with them. That seems very silly now after all these years. I’m happily married, Becca, with two wonderful kids. I wouldn’t trade any of my family for another moment with Pauline.”

I didn’t want to divert the conversation, but something occurred to me that I quickly filed to the back of my mind. Carl Monroe must also be in competition with Simonsen Orchards. Carl seemed to be pretty successful. Had competition with Simonsen Orchards perhaps led him to do something horrible? I’d have to think about it later. For now, I had to stick with getting whatever I could from Barry.

“That’s good news,” I said. “But what about Abner, Barry? He never got married, as far as I know. Was he not able to move forward?”

“I always wondered. Like I said, we all went our own ways—even after all that time and these recent years when Abner and I have worked at the same place, we still aren’t close like we used to be. After high school, we never had one discussion about it. But I still don’t know. He loved her something fierce. Maybe we all did, but I always thought he loved her the most.”

Now came the hard part. Had I waited long enough into the conversation to ask the question? Was I going to do this right?

“Barry, where were you Tuesday morning, during the time that Matt Simonsen was killed?” Subtle as a brick. Even though Allison said she’d seen him, there was still some unaccounted-for time.

His mouth twitched, but he must have seen the seriousness in my eyes. I wanted an answer.

“Becca, I didn’t kill Matty. We hadn’t been friends in a long time, but I would never have killed him. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Abner killed him, either.”

“Helen Justen said she thinks you might have been the killer.”

Barry’s belly jiggled with his laugh. “Of course she did, Becca. I broke up with Helen Justen so I could ask Pauline out. That was just another ugly part of the whole ugly matter.”

“Oh.” That did put a different twist on Helen’s accusation, though I’d have to find out if it was true. “Then where were you?”

“I told this to the police, Becca. I was here, but if you must know the details, I got up extra early, picked up Jeanine and her eggs because her truck was in the shop, and we set up our stalls together. Go on over and ask her. I’m sure the police already have.” He pointed at Jeanine, who was deep in thought about something. “We live by each other and we often come in at the same time—earlier than any ole bird lookin’ for a worm.”

“I’ve been to your house. You live on the far side of town, right?”

“Have for a long time.”

I nodded. My thoughts needed to catch up with my mouth. Barry lived nowhere near the Ivy League neighborhood; he lived nowhere near Abner and Carl. Barry’s address was the one that didn’t seem to fall in line with the other coincidences. That in itself didn’t clear him, but his alibi probably did.

“Hmm. Well, I didn’t know that Jeanine lived by you.”

“A long time, Becca. And the stuff you’re talking about, it was a long time
ago
. I really think you’re barking up the wrong peach tree, darlin’. I don’t know for sure if Abner killed Matty, but I don’t think he did. He might have held a torch for Pauline, but after all these years . . . well, you just move on.”

I nodded again, but I wasn’t so sure I agreed. “Barry, what about Carl Monroe?”

“What about him?”

“Are he and Abner friends?”

“Becca, I don’t know. Abner and I have worked together civilly for a lot of years, but as I told you before, we aren’t good friends. I know Carl, but not well enough to know who he’s friends with. Now, I’ve got to get to work. Scoot along and let me get my stall put together.” He sniffed. “We all moved on,” he muttered.

Again, I wasn’t so sure, but there seemed to be nothing else I needed to know. “Yeah, thanks for your time, Barry. See you at the dinner?”

“See you there,” he said as though I hadn’t just accused him of murder. Maybe he liked telling his story—getting some of it out. Maybe.

I made my way back to my own stall, wondering if Helen could still be so angry about being dumped by Barry that she falsely accused him of murder. If so, then contrary to what Barry said, not everyone had moved on. Helen hadn’t struck me as vengeful, but when it came to love, who knew anything for sure? I also wondered if Barry had told me more lies or if I was finally getting the truth out of him. I’d check with Sam—I knew he had to have talked to Pauline Simonsen. But would he tell me what she said?

I did one more walk-by of Ian’s stall, found it still empty, and then hurried to my own.

It was good to sell my preserves. It felt normal and right. The crowd numbers were still low, but that wasn’t a surprise. I sold, I chatted with Linda, sold some more, chatted with Herb and Don, sold some more. Not one customer asked about the murder, no one mentioned it. No one even looked over their shoulder funny, like they were concerned about someone running at them with an axe held high. I saw Allison a few times, though she didn’t stop by my stall. She was in her manager mode, handling manager-type things like customer complaints, power issues, or whatever. It was a good day.

And when I sold out of product by one o’clock, my meeting with Abner came to the front of my mind—Abner my friend, not Abner the murderer. Hopefully.

“You done already?” Linda asked as she saw me packing up my portable table.

“Yeah. I didn’t think we’d have a normal crowd today, so I didn’t bring enough to last the day.” It was a perfect excuse.

“Yeah, it’s still slow.”

“Uh-huh.”

I said good-byes to the normal group and, because I couldn’t resist, checked Ian’s empty stall again and left in my truck, as though meeting with a murder suspect was as normal as selling preserves.

There were two reasons I hadn’t asked Officer Brion to the din
ner yet. First, I wanted to talk to Ian. Our kiss hadn’t been something that an exclusive relationship might be built upon, but I decided it was only polite to give him a heads-up. And I wanted to talk to him in person—that effort being thwarted today, even though I thought he’d told me he’d be at Bailey’s. Second, I didn’t want to talk to Officer Brion until I’d talked to Abner. Officer Brion seemed like a pretty good police officer; he’d know something was up by the guilty tone of my voice. He’d track me down before I could make the meeting.

The trip to Abner’s was easy this time around. I slowed at just the right moment to turn easily onto the hidden back road, and my truck rumbled over the bumps without too much argument. All these years, and I’d never known where Abner lived. Now I knew where his sister lived and where he’d created his magical greenhouse. I also knew where Barry and Carl Monroe lived. And it might all mean squat. But I didn’t think it did.

“It matters,” I said to myself. “I just don’t know why or how, yet.”

Abner’s house and greenhouse had a distinctly empty look to them. There was plenty of light left in the day, but there seemed to be a shadow over the property; a sadness, a longing.

“Just your imagination,” I muttered.

I stopped in front of the white house at two fifty-eight. My phone rang exactly two minutes later.