A Slaying in the Orchard

by Gin Jones

  "What happens with Keith is my problem, nothing to do with you," I said, but I did make a mental note to keep a closer eye on the toy seller for the rest of the weekend.

  Leo wasn't satisfied. "If you're really worried about people being disrespectful, and it's not just an excuse to target the gamers, shouldn't you shut down the whole market?"

  "I'm trying to avoid that." So far the police had only been interested in cordoning off the space behind the stalls and taking over the first aid tent, but that could change. Especially if roaming pirates and pioneers decided to get a little too close to the crime scene. "You don't really want to be responsible for that happening either. Too many people have made plans for a nice day on the waterfront."

  "We made plans too," Leo said desperately. "We've been working on this game for weeks. Months."

  "You definitely don't want all that work going to waste, then," I said. "So I'd suggest you declare an intermission, and after this weekend, we'll make arrangements for you to come back some other time to finish the game. Otherwise I'm going to ask Officer Fields to have anyone in a costume escorted off the town property."

  "That's so not fair," Leo grumbled, but he seemed to accept that my compromise offer was the best he could hope for. He gathered up the fabric of his robe again and turned to address his gamers, minus the female pirate who'd stomped out of sight. "Come on, guys. Let's figure out where everyone is in the game so we can pick it up again later. Assuming certain control freaks let us."

  I thanked Officer Fields and told him I didn't need any further help. He wandered off, even though, judging by the uncertain look on his face before he left, he was as unconvinced as I was that the gamers would live up to their side of the bargain.

  * * *

  I decided to check in with Keith Nettles just in case there was any truth to Leo's claim that the toy seller had essentially been charging people for rubbernecking. If he had been, I couldn't see any indications that he was still doing it. The young couple he'd been trying to sell the ring-toss game to were gone, and I hadn't noticed whether they'd actually bought anything. The police tape that ran from the back leg of Keith's canopy to a stake in the ground, blocking access to the area behind the first aid tent, was intact, and no one was standing anywhere near it other than a uniformed police officer.

  I couldn't exactly ask Keith outright if he'd been profiteering in the wake of the tragedy, but perhaps some small talk would lead to him inadvertently admitting to it. If so, I'd ban him and be rid of yet another source of irritation this weekend. His political allies would never back someone who'd done something so despicable to the memory of a long-time local resident.

  I pasted on a friendly smile and went over to where Keith was picking up what seemed to be an excessive number of pieces for the ring-toss game, some of them small enough to be lost easily in the grass. "How's everything going?"

  "Great." Keith did seem considerably happier than he'd been when I last spoke to him. He didn't even seem to notice the unseasonably warm weather he'd complained about earlier, even though his Danger Cove High School shirt was marked with large sweat stains, including one on his back that outlined where his backpack had been before he'd taken it off.

  He had good reason to be happy, judging by the reduced inventory in his stall, which suggested he'd been selling his toys at a brisk pace. Whether he was intentionally profiteering from the tragedy or not, he had definitely had more prospective customers walking past his toy display at the side of the first aid tent than he'd have had if he'd stayed at the other end of the market.

  "Everything is going far better than I'd dreamed," he continued. "I only signed up in the first place because a buddy insisted. I never realized farmers' markets were such a great play to sell educational toys."

  I found it hard to believe that anyone coming to a farmers' market would be all that interested in mass-produced products, even if they lived up to their hype as educational and high quality, but the evidence was right in front of me in the empty bins beneath the canopy. People had bought his products. Unless Leo had been right and the toys had been purchased not for their own merit but as a ticket to a close-up view of the crime scene.

  "It looks like you sold out most of your inventory."

  "I did." Keith tucked the ring-toss pieces into a matching plastic case and snapped it shut. "Almost everything except the display models. And I've got a whole list of people who wanted things drop-shipped to them so they didn't have to carry them around while they enjoyed the rest of the waterfront activities today. I hadn't actually intended to come back tomorrow, but if the crowds are anything like today, I can't afford to skip it. I've already called to extend my hotel reservation."

  "I'll see you tomorrow then." I wasn't as enthusiastic about the prospect as he was, but his success spoke for itself. It also made me doubt my abilities as the market manager. If I'd been so wrong about the appeal of his toys, how could I trust any other judgments I made about the appropriate vendors for the market?

  To cheer myself up, I popped into the adjoining tent to see what new book Meri Sinclair might recommend to take my mind off the stressful events of the weekend. I left the Dangerous Reads tent a few minutes later with not just one but three paperbacks and a heavy hardcover copy of The Beekeeper's Bible.

  By then all of the vendors were packing up for closing time. They wouldn't appreciate any interruptions, so questioning them would have to wait until tomorrow if I wanted to keep it subtle and not get myself in trouble with Detective Ohlsen.

  I headed up the Memorial Walkway to collect Cary from WoodWell and check on Etta. As I passed Fordham Farms' space, I caught a glimpse of both Baxter twins hunkered down on the ground behind the display table. The second one must have joined in on the attempt to coax Ginger out of her corner before the market closed for the evening. With Tommy's permission, I left my books in the back of his stall and continued up the walkway.

  For once Sweetwater was too busy to bother me—due to packing up, not because he actually had a customer—and everyone else just waved as I passed. By the time I got to the far end of the market, Merle and JT had already finished their end-of-day routine and left, and Etta and Jazz were leaving together, each of them pushing a filled handcart with the last of their inventory and supplies.

  Beneath WoodWell's canopy, I found Cary in a heap on the ground. He didn't appear to be upset, so it was more likely that he'd collapsed when he couldn't decide what he should do next. I must have forgotten to tell him to come find me at the end of the day, and Etta wouldn't have known that he needed such specific instructions.

  I crouched beside him. "You can go on home now." I'd given him a ride home once, since he didn't have a car, but I'd quickly figured out that he would have preferred to take the Main Street trolley. He loved all sorts of vehicles, the more unusual the better, so my boring little sedan wasn't anywhere near as interesting as the reproduction trolley cars. There was a stop just across Cliffside Drive from the lighthouse's parking lot and another one within a couple of blocks from where he lived. He was fascinated by the workings of the trolley, and if given a chance, could reel off more facts about it than JT could about fermenting and distilling.

  Cary jumped to his feet and took one eager step in the direction of the parking lot before stopping and turning back to me. "I can't leave. It's not the end of my shift yet. I have twenty-three minutes left, and Merle said if I do my job perfectly, you'll give me a good recommendation for my dream job."

  "You have done perfectly all season, and I'm sure I owe you some time off. You never got a chance to take a break today, so you can take it now." While there were a few stragglers finishing their packing, I didn't see any point in either one of us sticking around. Especially not with the increased police presence around the crime scene. "I'm leaving in just a minute or two myself, and I can't leave until you do."

  "That's all right then." Cary lifted one foot and then paused midstep as if he'd remembered something. In singsongy tone, clear
ly repeating something he'd been taught to say, he added, "Good night, Maria Dolores. I will see you again tomorrow morning."

  "Good night, Cary."

  This time he took off at a run. I followed more slowly, confirming that everyone had indeed finished packing up, including Jim Sweetwater, and the vendors were all either completely gone or heading down the Memorial Walkway in front of me. Apparently the Baxter twins had managed to coax Ginger out of her little corner, because all that was left in the Fordham Farms stall was the empty display table and my Dangerous Reads bag.

  As I reclaimed my books, I could hear voices in the nearby first aid tent. One belonged to Detective Ohlsen, and from the ongoing activity at the crime scene, it didn't sound like he was planning to leave any time soon.

  I turned to give the market one last check. The canopies were still all neatly lined up, ready for the next day and waving in a slight breeze that came down from the cliff where the lighthouse stood, but without the activity of vendors and customers, the white fabric looked a bit forlorn. And the ground looked like the messy aftermath of a frat party. There seemed to be more trash than usual, including what looked like bits of discarded police tape and several empty, crumpled evidence bags that had gotten away from a technician. I typed a note into my phone to set Cary to picking up as much of the debris as possible tomorrow morning before we opened for the day. Perhaps by then the police would have finished with the crime scene and it would no longer be so obvious that a murder had taken place in my market.

  Even as I tucked my phone away, I heard voices coming up from the parking lot. Portable high-powered lamps were being transported to the crime scene by a half-dozen technicians, suggesting that any chance of a quick arrest was fading with the late-afternoon sunlight.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I would have liked to take a nice, long refreshing shower at the Ocean View B&B, but I'd stopped on the way there to pick up some trash bags for Cary to use the next morning, so I only had about half an hour before I was due to meet Merle at the Smugglers' Tavern for dinner. It was barely enough time to change out of my sweaty market-manager T-shirt and into something a little nicer.

  Still, I managed to make myself presentable—although probably not much more than that—and arrive at the Tavern more or less on time. It helped that the B&B was only a short drive away, and I may have gone a little faster than the speed limit.

  I didn't want Merle to think I took him for granted or that I wasn't enthusiastic about the prospect of spending the evening with him. It had been a while since we'd done anything together, not counting the time spent on market business. It was the beginning of peak harvest time, so he was putting in more of what he persisted in calling "billable hours" at the orchard than he'd put in during his days as a trial lawyer, and I'd been spending all my spare time looking for a permanent home here in Danger Cove. So far all I'd found were generic condos built by the shady developer Jack Condor, at the low end of my price range, and at the top end of my price range, the gorgeous but too-large-for-me old houses offered by Alex Jordan of Finials and Facades Renovation and Restoration Services. I was looking for something in between—cozy, but with the sort of unique architectural features that made Alex's buildings so spectacular.

  A house was generally the biggest investment in anyone's portfolio, and I knew both personally and professionally that it was a mistake to rush the decision. I'd moved frequently as a child, each time because my mother's "dream home" chosen on a whim had quickly become a disaster in her eyes, and then after a year or two she'd fallen in love with a different "dream home" that would definitely be the last one. Except it hadn't been.

  I'd warned many clients not to make any hasty decisions about a house, and now I was determined to follow my own advice. Still, it had been close to a month now since the closing on the sale of my condo, and much as I liked Bree Milford and her Ocean View B&B, I was ready for a home of my own here in Danger Cove. I suspected my brother was even more ready for me to find a permanent place to live, since I'd been crashing at his condo in Seattle a few days a week for the past month.

  Lilly Waters was behind the bar when I entered the Smugglers' Tavern. She waved and said, "I sent your drink out to your table on the patio already."

  Outside, Merle was waiting for me, as welcome a sight as the splendid view of the cove. The sun was setting, and a nice breeze came in off the ocean offering a reprieve from the heat of the day.

  He stood to greet me. "You look nice. But where's your overstuffed bag?"

  "I'm off duty. Any crisis happens here, and it's not my problem."

  "I didn't think you ever considered yourself to be truly off duty."

  "Okay, so I didn't leave my emergency supplies all the way back at the B&B. The bag is out in my car," I said. "But I'm hoping not to need anything in it for the next couple of hours. Definitely not before I've had something to eat. I never did get lunch today."

  "Me neither."

  The waitress appeared then, and we declined menus, choosing instead to order the weekend's seafood special without even looking at the description. Whatever it was, it would be fabulous.

  "Tomorrow should be less demanding, thanks to the late start," I said. The market couldn't open until noon, two hours later than usual, because Cliffside Drive would be closed most of the morning for the annual Labor Day tradition of the Procession of Saints. Local residents carried statues of diverse saints through the streets in a cheerfully inclusive declaration of faith and community. The procession wound its way to the other side of town, ending at noon, and afterward the market would be open just until four o'clock, when it was time to begin lighting the bonfires on the beach.

  "There's plenty of opportunity for things to go wrong tomorrow," Merle said. "You may not be able to call on me for help either. I got a call from Detective Ohlsen on my way over here. He wants to pick up in the morning where we left off today in his tour of the orchard."

  "They've been poking around your place for almost a week now," I said. "What are they looking for?"

  "Ohlsen's not saying. You know how he gets."

  I did. The detective was long on silences and short on sharing information. "Still, you must have some idea of what he's up to."

  "I'm guessing he's looking for any likely spots to dig up another body."

  "You'd think he'd have had enough of those already this week and wouldn't need to go looking for more."

  "Normally you're right, but he's got a reason to believe there might be more. He held a press conference this morning confirming that the first body belongs to the orchard's previous owner, Ryan Palmer. They've been looking for his widow, Louise, all week, even before they were certain of the identification, so they could interview her. They can't seem to locate her or her two kids, so now they're wondering if maybe they were killed too, and Ohlsen is looking for anyone who might know where they went after the orchard was sold. He showed me a picture of Ryan and Louise from a feature story that ran in the Cove Chronicles a few years back, and I recognized the woman. But the man in the picture wasn't the person who was introduced to me as Ryan Palmer when I bought the property. The police think the real owner was already dead and that the family brought someone else in to impersonate him during the signing of the papers."

  "Does that mean you don't really own the orchard?" I reached for a roll from the basket the waitress had just left on our table. I didn't even stop to decide which of the three kinds of bread I preferred, just grabbed the first one I touched. Like the seafood specials, the rolls at Smugglers' Tavern were always fabulous, and my head was starting to ache from hunger.

  "It's likely to be a bit of a hassle, but there are legal protections for innocent purchasers when the seller commits fraud. It's probably a good thing I've got a legal background to get me through the process, but you don't have to worry I'll lose the orchard."

  "That's good. I've lost enough vendors at the market, and I've got plenty of other things to worry about."

  "Like finding a p
lace to live that's not a B&B or your brother's guest room?"

  I nodded, unable to talk while my mouth was full of what turned out to be herbed sourdough.

  "I might be able to help with your living arrangements," Merle said.

  I swallowed, and already my head was starting to feel better from the combination of food and good company. "You've done so much to help me get settled here already. And you've got your own problems right now. I can always move into an apartment in Hazlitt Heights for the short term if Bree gets tired of seeing me around the B&B."

  "What about moving into my caretaker's cabin at the orchard?" Merle looked up from methodically buttering a chunk of his own roll. "You can stay there as long as you want."

  "I thought JT was living there. Did he decide he was afraid of ghosts after the body was found?"

  "He'd already turned down the use of the cabin before that," Merle said. "He prefers to live in the barn. Which is nicer than it sounds. The prior owners liked to keep their business space separate from their personal space, so they had a section of the barn winterized to use as an office. It even has a galley kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. The minute JT saw the little suite, he claimed it as his living quarters."

  "Are you sure he won't change his mind?"

  "I'm sure. The barn space is perfect for him. Living there, he's right in the middle of his work, which is where he wants to be. If inspiration strikes in the middle of the night, he only has to walk a few feet from his bed to the brewing equipment."

  I hesitated, peering into the bread basket indecisively, although my real uncertainty had nothing to do with the rolls. I was definitely having a second one. But Merle's offer of the cabin required more thought. My first inclination was to jump all over it, but it was perhaps too perfect, and I'd never trusted easy solutions. Living on Merle's property would allow me some time to concentrate exclusively on my new job for the next two months, and then I could worry about the house hunt after the market closed for the season on Halloween weekend.