Farm Fresh Murder (21 page)

“Hey, Ian,” I said cheerily. This hurt my face, but I didn’t groan.

“Becca. How are you?” His words weren’t laced with concern, so I figured he just meant it in a friendly way.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Good. I wanted to let you know why I didn’t show up at Bailey’s today after I told you I would. A new customer had a hard time making up her mind where she wanted her sculpture placed. After about a hundred different spots, she chose the first one we’d looked at. Naturally.”

“Sounds challenging.” I laughed lightly. This hurt my face, too.

“Goes with the territory.”

“Yeah.”

“Anyway, I know this is really late notice, but I wondered if you wanted to go to the Fall Equinox Dinner with me Sunday night.” He cleared his throat.

“Oh, Ian, thanks for the invitation, but strange circumstances have occurred and I already have a date. Of sorts.”

“Okay.” He tried to hide the question in his tone.

I debated what to say next. “Ian, do you have a few minutes? I’d like to tell you what happened today.”

“Sure. I’m listening.”

Because I easily gave him the details of the day, I hoped my instincts about his innocence were correct. And as we spoke, I realized that I really liked this man, my potential new boyfriend who was ten years younger than myself, an artist, and tattooed in a number of places.

My hippie parents were going to be very proud.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t in any shape to go to Bailey’s on Sat
urday morning. I didn’t feel horrible, but I woke up stiff and sore, and colorful. I was sad to miss the last Saturday for many of the vendors, but I’d have to be content with seeing them on Sunday.

My bruises were transforming, and some of the black was turning yellow and purple. Lying around or sitting still made everything stiffer, and the idea of making jam seemed overwhelming—I could see getting halfway done and then losing the energy needed to finish it.

So I did light chores around the garden, barn, and house, fielded calls from the entire world regarding my well-being, and made Hobbit happy by giving her too much attention.

I even took a nap, which was a rare treat.

But when I woke up at midafternoon, I was restless. My body felt a bunch better, and I had enough energy to be irritated that I hadn’t made the day more productive.

I debated what I could do for the next couple of hours to burn off energy. There was always something to do, somewhere. It was far too late to go to Bailey’s with some product. My barn was spotless—I hadn’t made enough jams or preserves this week to dirty it; my crops were in great shape and I’d given more than enough attention to the ripening pumpkins; my dining table still had stacks of paperwork, but I was in no state of mind to try to figure out what to do with all of it.

“Want to go see Allison?” I asked Hobbit.

She wagged her tail in the affirmative, so we got in the truck.

I had every intention of going to Bailey’s and visiting my sister and everyone else, Ian included, but I stopped at the top of the driveway. Going to Bailey’s required turning right, but something didn’t want me to go that direction.

I’d promised Allison, Ian, and Sam Brion that other than my upcoming “date” with Sam, I was done investigating murders. On our call the previous evening, Ian had said he was going to come to my house and keep me out of trouble today, but I convinced him that I’d just be resting and he should take advantage of the Saturday crowd at Bailey’s. And I told them all again today, when they called to check on me, that I was fine and was going to take it easy. I hadn’t been lying on purpose; I just hadn’t known I’d feel such an urge to turn left.

“You up for a different drive?” I asked.

Hobbit again wagged her tail affirmatively.

“You’re so easy.”

I turned left.

Something had been eating at me, and I didn’t know how I was going to ease the pain other than go check things for myself.

The trees. What was with the trees? I wanted—no, I
needed
—to see them for myself. Sam had told me he’d investigate, but he wouldn’t promise to share details. I needed details.

It was daylight, so I wasn’t going to go to the trees via Abner’s house and the woods; I’d walk over Carl’s more open property and I’d have Hobbit with me. I still had Carl in my “potential murderer” category, and I knew without question that he was at Bailey’s—Allison had confirmed as much when I asked her that morning. Apparently everyone was at Bailey’s except me. In many years, I didn’t think I’d ever missed a Saturday, but as I pulled in front of Carl’s bowl orchard, I felt like it was meant to be. The big house was clearly empty, and the trees in the orchard seemed to beg for my company.

“Let’s go, girl.” I parked on the side of the state highway again.

Hobbit followed me toward the bowl. She remembered that the last time she was here, she was forced to stay in the truck. She lifted her nose to the wonderful smells all around and looked at me as if to say, “See, I could have handled this the first time.”

The only realistic way to get to the trees was through the bowl. The orchard smelled heavenly—this was something I’d noticed on my previous visit, but hadn’t taken the time to appreciate. But it wasn’t peach smells so much—most of the peaches were gone—as it was healthy trees and soil. I had a nose for such things, and the smells around us seemed to tell me that Carl took very good care of his orchard.

Carl was one of the vendors who probably wouldn’t be back to Bailey’s until next season, and I wondered if he did something else to supplement his living from selling peaches. Why didn’t I know the people I worked with as well as I thought I did? I always missed those who weren’t lucky enough to have a pumpkin patch or be able to freeze enough product to have a year-round operation, but I didn’t really
know
many of them well enough at all.

Hobbit and I climbed up the other side of the bowl and walked back into the warm sunshine that cut through the slight chill in the air. The pain in my hip was escalating slightly, but I tried to ignore it.

Allison’s words from our morning conversation came to me as I realized I was breathing heavily.

“Don’t overdo. Even if you feel better, you’ve been through trauma; you need to make sure you get lots of rest,” she’d said.

The trees were only a small hill away so we continued on, though I was slow.

When I got there, I was no longer certain that these were the trees in the pictures. They might be, but so much time had passed, and though the setting seemed the same, the trees were definitely bigger. I thought they were some sort of maple; they weren’t huge, but they were full with leaves that still didn’t hint at a color change, yet that wasn’t unusual for this time of year in South Carolina.

I looked back at Carl’s house, which I could clearly see, but I couldn’t distinguish any other properties from this vantage point. That seemed odd, because I was higher up, but nonetheless I couldn’t see any part of Abner’s house or greenhouse.

I went to the other side of the trees and realized that without question these must be the ones in the pictures. Each of them had a heart carved into its trunk and words carved inside the hearts—not just initials, but whole words.

One said Pauline Loves Barry but had an X over it as though to cross it out. Another tree, the middle one, said Pauline Loves Matty, and it, too, had an X over the writing. The last tree was the most disturbing, though. I think it said Pauline Loves Abner, but I couldn’t tell whether or not those words had been negated by an X. Someone had recently taken what must have been an axe to it, and the only part I could read was Pauline Loves A; everything else was chopped up. I wondered if Sam had seen the trees yet, and if he had thought to check the axe for wood pieces along with blood and fingerprints.

“Weird,” I said. “Why?”

Beyond the fact that chopping away at the words was childish, the tree probably wouldn’t survive, and that irritated me. The Xs had been done a long time ago, carved with the same sort of thing that had carved the initials. The trees had made it through the carvings. But the chopping was a recent addition, something violent and thoughtless.

“It’s some sort of clue, Hobbit, but I have no idea what it means,” I said as I touched the exposed innards of the beautiful tree. “Who did this?”

Hobbit didn’t answer but made her way back to the other side of the trees. She barked lightly to get my attention.

Someone was pulling into Carl’s driveway. We were far enough away that they might not think to look in our direction, but I didn’t want to risk being seen.

“Come here, girl,” I said.

Fortunately, she listened and we hid behind the middle tree.

It was a truck, but not a brown one. In fact, it was white and maybe only five years old or so. It also had a topper over the bed. It had come from the opposite direction than we’d come, but I didn’t like that my bright orange truck was on the side of the state highway, right there for everyone to see. I didn’t have any advertising on it, but the color was an announcement in itself.

Since the house was so close to the road and the driveway was so short, once the white truck was all the way in the driveway, I couldn’t see it. I really wanted—no,
needed
—to know who was driving it.

“Damn. Hobbit, come on.”

We came out from behind the tree and hurried to the bowl. I ran like I’d been beaten up the previous day and my hip in particular had been injured. Even Hobbit looked at me like she wasn’t sure if I was serious or not—my gait was far from even and pain free, but I trudged along.

Finally we reached the bowl, and I practically slid on my behind down the side. I hurried (well, to the best of my ability) to the slope of the orchard from which I’d previously spied on Carl. There was no climbing the tree today, but I crawled up and peered over the side of the bowl. Hobbit, good sport that she was, lay on her belly next to me, her long paws sticking up over the lip of the bowl like rabbit ears.

The truck was empty and my breathing was more labored. If someone had come at me with an axe at that moment, I would have told Hobbit to run and save herself; there was nothing I could have done to protect my aching body from anyone or anything.

Ten minutes or so passed before the person attached to the truck emerged from the house.

I was shocked from the top of my bruised head to the bottom of my sore toes.

Mamma Maria, the pie lady from Smithfield Farmers’ Market, came out of the house, looked around as though she was trying to spot someone watching her, and then snuck a key into the lock. She wore jeans and a white T-shirt, but she was still . . . what was the term? Oh, yes, she was
hot
. She was a beautiful, sexy woman who baked amazing pies—if I wasn’t so curious about her involvement in Matt Simonsen’s murder, I might have been jealous. She hurriedly slid the key into her back pocket, got in the truck, and drove away. She didn’t look in my direction once.

What was she doing at Carl’s house? Why wasn’t she at her own market on one of the busiest days of the year? When could I get another one of her pies?

For a long time, I leaned against the edge of Carl’s orchard bowl and tried to come up with some answers, but nothing came to me except more questions. I couldn’t call anyone and tell them what I’d discovered. I’d pinky-sworn that I was out of the business of investigating murders and that I would take it easy all day. Even Allison might have had me arrested if she knew what I’d been up to—if only to keep me out of trouble.

“Come on, Hobbit, let’s go home,” I finally said.

I gathered my stiffening self and my dog. We made our way out of the bowl—my crawl wasn’t pretty—and into my truck.

So, for the rest of the afternoon, I did as all my friends/ family/pretend-doctors said. I thought my busy mind might prevent me from relaxing, but I was wrong. I didn’t just rest, I slept—another long nap. As I was dozing off, I hoped any upcoming dreams would help sort out the questions. But as far as I remember, I saw only black nothingness.