Farm Fresh Murder (19 page)

“Abner?”

“Becca?”

“Where are you?” I demanded.

“Park behind the greenhouse. There’s a path into the woods. You’ll have to walk. You’ll be here in about seven minutes.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

No response. The timer on my phone had stopped counting. The call had taken ten seconds.

“Damn.” There was no way I was going to walk into the woods, alone and unarmed. Why would anyone do such a thing?

The seconds ticked by as I sat looking at the phone in my hand.

Somehow my mind twisted reality and worked to make sense of Abner’s request. I came to the horrible conclusion that I was not going to miss this opportunity. I was going to do as Abner had instructed. I was going to walk into the woods and meet him. I knew he wasn’t a murderer. I just hoped I was right. I pulled the truck behind the greenhouse. To prove I wasn’t totally insane or stupid, I dialed Officer Brion’s number. I’d never received his voice mail before, so I was surprised to hear his business-like greeting.

After the greeting, I spoke quickly. “Uh, hi, Off . . . I mean Sam. Becca Robins here. I’m at Abner’s. He called, said he’d meet with me. I’m parked behind his greenhouse and I’m going to walk down some path. He said it should take me about seven minutes to get there. Uh, just thought I should let you know. And thanks.”

I’d probably just killed him with a heart attack, which meant he wouldn’t be able to help me. But if he recovered in time, he’d head this direction and hopefully be here before the next axe fell.

“What’s wrong with me?” I mumbled as I propelled myself out of the truck. I had a tool kit behind the seat that contained a screwdriver and a hammer, or so I thought. At some point I must have needed the screwdriver for something, so all that sat in the metal box was an old hammer. I threaded the hammer handle through a belt loop on my jeans and realized I looked like I was heading out to do some carpentering. I was not only being foolish, I looked the part, too.

I headed toward the well-worn path and tromped down it as I muttered to myself. There wasn’t anything spooky about the heavily treed woods. And no matter what direction I looked, in the distance I could see part of someone’s farm. Abner’s to one side, Carl’s to the other, and then two others, the homes of which I hadn’t yet broken into or spied upon. But the day was still young.

After an approximately seven-minute hike I came upon a cabin smack-dab in the middle of the surrounding properties. It was small, made of wood planks and with a rock chimney shooting up from the the left side. The path opened up, both toward the cabin and farther past it. The continuing path opened wide and smooth, so that I thought a vehicle could it drive on it easily. I couldn’t see Carl’s property as well as I could a few minutes earlier, but I thought that this wider path probably led right to his big house and the orchard-in-a-bowl.

“Abner?” I cupped my hands around my mouth.

Before I could call again, the cabin door opened. Abner walked out and smiled sheepishly. He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his bald head.

“Come on in, Becca. Thank you for coming.”

He sounded resigned and sad, but also truly grateful that I’d shown up. I wanted to hug him and then slug him in his arm, but instead I sighed and made my way to the door.

“Abner . . .”

“I know, I know. We’ll talk.” He stepped back and motioned me through the doorway.

“There’s not a murderer in there, is there?” I asked.

“There’re no murderers either in there or out here, Becca. It’s just you and me, and neither of us have ever killed anyone.”

“I’m counting on it.” My hand on the hammer like it had a trigger, I walked through the door. The cabin was one big room with a bed, a couch, and a small table and chairs beside a half-wall kitchenette.

“Thanks again. For coming out here. Should I leave the door open?”

I looked at him and knew again, knew more deeply, maybe, that he wasn’t a killer. He was my friend Abner.

“No, you can close it. Is this cabin yours?”

“Yes, this is still my land. I built it a long time ago. It’s my idea of a vacation. I get away from everything and everyone, but I don’t have to travel far to get back home.” He laughed. I didn’t laugh with him. “Please sit down. Want something to drink?”

“No, I don’t. Is this where you’ve been staying?” I sat on one of the chairs.

“No. The police know about the cabin. It’s not smart for me to be here for very long. I’m staying somewhere else, but this seemed like the best place for us to meet.”

“Are you okay, Abner?” I asked. I was a mix of emotions. The murder, Abner’s possible involvement, his running away, his asking me to meet him in a cabin in the woods—it was causing a tidal wave in my gut, but still, first and foremost, Abner had been my friend for a long time, and I knew he wasn’t a murderer. I held on to that thought most of all. Or tried to.

“I’m fine, Becca,” he said. “I don’t like what’s happening, but I’ll get through it.”

“How? The police are looking for you. How are you going to get through this? You know who the murderer is?”

“I do.”

“Then why won’t you tell the police?”

“Because the murderer is very clever and is good at making all the evidence point in my direction. I’m hiding until I can figure out how to solve that problem. If I’m in jail, I’ll have no control.”

“Abner, I admire your need to clear your name, but this is what the police do. They know how to search for evidence, including evidence that someone is being framed.”

“Becca, I don’t doubt their skill. I just think the murderer is cleverer than anyone gives them credit for.”

I took a deep breath. “Okay, then tell me who it is. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

I meant what I said, I would help; but mostly, I had a deep need to know who was awful enough to take an axe to Matt Simonsen’s head.

“Not going to do that. Yet.”

“But you will at some point?”

“Maybe.” He sighed. “But the real reason I asked you out here is because I want you to stop asking questions about the murder. Please.”

“You want me to what?” Anger shot through me, red and hot, and choked my throat and burned my face. I was trying to help him, and he wanted me to stop?

“You talked to my sister. You shouldn’t have done that.”

My fingers went to the hammer again. It wasn’t really in me, but the urge to beat this man senseless did cross my mind.

“First, Abner, friend, you don’t get to tell me what to do. Second, I’m trying to save your butt. Third, this murder—though the person who got the worst of it was Matt Simonsen—has affected lots of people I care about. Bailey’s reputation could be in question. Allison’s job and the businesses that all the vendors have worked so hard to create could be jeopardized.”

Abner’s face fell as I went through my list. He was smart enough to have thought of all of these things. I wasn’t telling him anything new, but he waited patiently as my blood pressure spiked with the tone of my voice.

“Becca, I shouldn’t have said it that way. I’m sorry. I’m concerned for your safety, that’s all. Hey,” he laughed, “you just said a second ago that this is what the police do, not regular citizens like us, right?”

I took another deep breath. “Why are you concerned for my safety?”

“Because I don’t want you to get caught in the cross fire.”

“I can . . .” I was going to say that I could take care of myself. I could, but it sounded like something someone said right before something awful happened to them.

“I know you can, but, still . . .” His voice was kinder this time.

“Abner,” I said with a sigh.

We were silent, both of us gathering this strange anger that wasn’t really real—it was a misplaced product of fear on both our parts, I knew that much.

“Abner?” I broke the silence.

“Yes?”

“Why didn’t you show yourself at my house the other day?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“When you hid on my porch and left the flowers in my pumpkins?”

Abner stood, a redness coming to his face. “I wasn’t at your house. I swear to you. See what I mean?” He wiped his head again. “The murderer knows what you’re up to. You have to stop.”

Did I believe him? If so, there was a good possibility he was right and I might be in danger. If not, he was doing a great job of acting the part—
scare her and she’ll stop
.

“Abner,” I said, “if I’m in danger, give me something; something I can work with. I’ll be careful. Tell me . . . well, tell me what Carl Monroe has to do with all of this.”

That got his attention again. His eyebrows lifted high. “Nothing. Why would Carl have anything to do with any of this?”

“He’s your neighbor; you’ve worked together for a long time. He’s been acting funny, too. And when I saw him at Smithfield Market, he ran from me.” I left out the part that I’d seen Abner at Carl’s house. I don’t know why; it just seemed like something I needed to keep to myself a little longer.

“Why were you at Smithfield Market?”

“I went with Allison. She had a meeting with the manager. I thought it might be a good opportunity to see where Matt Simonsen worked, see if anyone there might give me some insight. My ‘investigation’ got diverted when I saw Carl.”

“Becca, you have to believe me, I have no idea why Carl was at Smithfield, no idea at all.” He pondered it for a moment.

“What, Abner? Is Carl the murderer?”

“What? No, Becca, Carl couldn’t hurt anyone. I don’t know why he was there, but it had nothing to do with Matt Simonsen, I assure you.”

I wondered, but I said, “I met Jessop Simonsen. He seems like a nice man.”

“I don’t know him well, but I’m sure he’s a nice man.”

“Why? Because though you might have hated Matt Simonsen enough to at least threaten to kill him, you know that Matt’s wife, Pauline, is a nice lady? Perhaps a lady you might have loved at one time?”

And there—I’d just offered him the biggest shock of all. He sat down again. “I knew you’d talked to my sister, but I didn’t know you’d learned so much.”

“She didn’t tell me everything, Abner. Barry told me some, too. He told me something about your younger days.”

“Barry,” Abner muttered as he shook his head.

“Is Barry the murderer, Abner?”

“No, Becca, it isn’t Barry. Barry’s version of the past might be tainted with time, though, you need to know that.”

“Were you in love with Pauline?”

His chest puffed as he pulled in a deep breath. He let it go with another wipe of his forehead and said, “Yes, very much so.”

“Are you still?”

He didn’t answer quickly, which surprised me. “No, not really. It’s been a long time. We had a great love and I’ll always look back on that fondly, but I haven’t loved her and she hasn’t loved me for a long time.”

“Was she the one in the picture?”

“What picture?”

Did Abner not know about the pictures and his upturned coffee table? If not, then he hadn’t gone in his house before Ian and I and the police got there. I told him what we’d seen.

He nodded. “That was probably Pauline. I think I know what pictures you’re talking about, but I don’t know why they were there. They aren’t mine. I didn’t see them. I didn’t go back into the house that day.”

“Are they Pauline’s?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think so. She sent me all of our pictures when she left me for Matty. Being youthful and romantic, I burned them in my own little ceremony.”

“But being youthful and romantic, too, maybe she kept some pictures.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“The killer must have put them there.”

“Maybe.”

“To somehow add to the case against you?”

“Maybe.”

“Why did Pauline leave you for Matt?”

The hum of an engine outside rattled loose glass in one of the front windows. Was Officer Brion here already? And did he drive to the cabin? If so, he must have known about a different path. There was no way a car could have come the way I did.

Abner stood up and looked out the window. “Dammit,” he said.

“Is it the police?” I asked. I wished I hadn’t called Officer Brion. I might not have been getting much information, but I had Abner in a question-answer mode, and now it looked like I was going to be the one to turn him in. I felt awful.

“I don’t know. Come on, let’s go out the back. We’ll have to use the window.”

I stood and looked around. I might not have been happy with my choice to call the police, but I didn’t like the idea of running from them.

“What?” I said. Abner’s eyes were wild, but I realized they weren’t the
right
kind of wild. “Oh, wait, it’s not the police, is it? It’s the killer.”

I headed toward the window. I was going to see who was driving toward the cabin.

“No, Becca, don’t!”

But I didn’t listen. That is, until a sudden explosion rocked the world.

In one very fast move, I flattened myself on the ground, the hammer pounding into my hip bone as I landed on the dusty floor. Abner was on top of me in the next split instant.

“What the hell was that?” I yelled.

“A shotgun. Stay down, Becca,” Abner said.

I was torn between staying down like he said and pitching myself out the back window like he’d suggested.
We were being shot at?

We stayed on the ground, him on top of me, for what must have been less than a minute, but in soul-aging time it was a year or so.

The engine of the vehicle fired up again. I heard wheels turning on the dirt road and then spinning out before taking off again. Even though Abner tried to hold me back, I squirmed my way out from under him and crawled to the front door. On my hands and knees, I reached for the knob, opened the door a crack, and peered out. I saw a cloud of dust and the back of a nondescript brown truck.