“We know it,” Timothy said ironically.
“Have you had any contact with any of the Amish or family-owned farms in the county?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I hope to. Right now. I just want to open for business. A lot of the farmers around here, Amish and non-Amish, watch me with some suspicion.” His enthusiasm waned. “Is that why you are here to check out the operation?”
My mind scrambled for the best answer.
“Yes,” Timothy said.
Alex laughed. “I respect your honesty, Tim. I plan to work with the Amish farmers, not hurt them. Maybe some of my organic farming techniques can benefit them as well. I don’t want to impact their business.”
Yet another unintentional insult. Alex reminded me of the guys in my computer science program in grad school, crazy smart with a legendary ability to stick their feet in their mouths.
Timothy’s jaw twitched. “You are impacting their business now whether you want to be or not.”
Alex put his hands up in a mock surrender sign. “Hey, I have no plans to hurt the Amish farmers. That was never my intention when Katts and I bought this land. If an Amish person wanted to open a farm here, he could have. The land lay fallow for seven years. Why didn’t they make their move earlier? You can’t begrudge me for making use of a forgotten farm.”
He had a point. Timothy relaxed his hands.
“So you’ve never been to the Troyer farm?” I asked.
His brow creased. “I already told you I haven’t.”
“Do you know a lot about plants?” I asked.
I felt Timothy tense beside me.
Alex cocked his head and his hair didn’t move a millimeter. I wondered how much product it took to keep it so perfect. “I studied agriculture,” Alex said. “Yes, I know a lot about plants. I deal with plants every day.”
“What about wild plants?”
“Some, not as much.”
“Do you know what a yew bush is?” Timothy asked.
“Yew? As in Y-E-W?” he asked. “Yes, I know what it is.”
“Have you ever used it before?”
The young farmer stepped back. “Of course not, it’s poisonous. It can kill a person or an animal.”
How well we knew that, I thought.
He waved his hands in front of his face. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you two think I did something?”
I put my hand in my jacket pocket and touched my cell phone. “Two people died at the Troyer farm Saturday morning. They drank milk laced with yew tea. Do you know anything about that?”
Alex stumbled. “No. This is the first I’ve heard of it. I promise you I had nothing, nothing, to do with it.”
“How can you not know about it? It’s the talk around town,” I said.
“I heard some of my guys talking about someone dying on one of the neighboring farms, but I ignored it. They like to gossip about what’s going in the county. I don’t pay much attention to it.” He waved his hands in agitation. “If you want me to testify or something, I will. Is there a cop or someone I can talk to about this?”
“There is an Appleseed Creek Chief of Police,” I said.
“I’ll talk to him then.”
“Her.” I removed my empty hand from my pocket.
“Okay, her.” He wagged his head. “I’ll talk to her.”
“She’d like that,” I said.
He frowned. “This isn’t the welcome I expected. I think it’s time for you to go.” Alex turned and stomped back to his rock star trailer.
“What do you think?” I asked Timothy as we returned to his pickup. “You think he had anything to do with Dudley and Ruby’s deaths?”
“No,” he said in a disappointed tone.
“Me either.” I held my seat belt away from my throat. “What’s wrong?”
“He got on my nerves.” Timothy started the truck. “He’d better be careful what he says about the Amish around here or he won’t last long in Appleseed Creek.”
I silently agreed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Back at the inn, the Blue Suede Tour bus was in its spot in the tiny parking lot. Timothy followed me into the Inn. Becky’s laughter floated into the lobby from the lounge. A group of tourists, including much to my surprise Jimbo, sat around her as she told a story about going to a one-room schoolhouse.
In one corner, Duke and Earl played a lively game of checkers, and Bitty curled up in one the massive armchairs reading a novel. With her tiny pin curls she resembled a retired fairy cuddled up for a nap. The only people from the tour who were absent were Pearl, no surprise there, and Hudson, no big surprise either. Of the people in the room, Earl caught my interest first. Why had he gone to Pearl’s hotel to see her?
Becky waved to me. “Everyone, Chloe’s back.”
Becky’s fan club clapped.
“Hi,” I said confused by the welcome.
Becky laughed. “I told them the story about how you rescued me from Curt and Brock the first day you moved to Appleseed Creek.”
“Chloe,” Raellen said. “You’re a real life hero.”
“And you solved three murders too,” Nadine said. “We’re so glad to have you on our tour. Maybe you will be able to figure out what happened to Dudley and poor Ruby.”
My skin prickled. Becky shouldn’t have told a busload of suspects I solved a murder before. I’d told her not to share everything about her past. Apparently that rule didn’t apply to my past.
Timothy touched my back. I turned and met his gaze.
There was no point in correcting Becky. She couldn’t take her words back, and she had entertained the guests like I’d asked her to. I hoped their amusement didn’t come at too high of a price for me.
I laughed. “Those were all very different situations. I’m strictly filling in here to be your tour guide.”
Timothy leaned close to my ear. “I’m going to finish up those odd jobs for Jane.” He squeezed my fingers. “And we need to talk later about the house issue.”
That sounded ominous. I sat on the corner of a plush footstool.
“What did you all do today?” I asked.
The women all began to talk at once, but unsurprisingly, Gertie was the loudest. “That ice cream factory had the ugliest ducks I’ve seen in all my life.”
Nadine nodded. “They were black and white and had these big red bobbles on their beaks and around their eyes. Maybe they need to see a vet.”
Becky covered her mouth to unsuccessfully hide a fit of the giggles. I refused to look her way because I knew I would start laughing too.
“They are Muscovy duck,” Jimbo said. “That’s what they look like. They are native to Mexico and South America. The ice cream factory just had them for show.”
Bobbi Jo added a stitch to her knitting project. “Jimbo is a retired zoology professor. He knows a lot about animals and nature.”
I eyed Jimbo with interest. Did that mean he would know what a yew bush was?
Gertie snorted. “Of all the water fowl in the world, they picked those.” She leaned closer to me. “I tell you, they were uglier than sin.”
“Did you have a nice time otherwise?” I asked.
“The ice cream was good,” Gertie said. “But the people there need a bigger vision. I offered them some of my fish jerky to add to their pistachio ice cream. I think if could be a real winner, and they wouldn’t take it. I wasn’t even asking for a cut of the profits.” She poked my leg. “You still haven’t tasted my jerky, have you?”
“Umm, no,” I said.
“It’s up in the room. I’ll make sure you get some.”
I swallowed. “Thank you.”
From across the room, I felt Earl watching me over the chess board. His mustache gave him a villainous air even if it was undeserved.
Duke moved a knight on the chess board in from of Earl’s queen. “Checkmate!”
Earl looked back to his game. “Good play, Duke. You’re a pro at this.”
Duke began resetting the pieces. “
My grandson is in chess club. He challenges me quite often and usually beats me. It’s nice to win once in a while.” He scanned the room. “Who’s next?”
Fred stood up from his seat in front of the unlit fireplace. “I might as well play you since there is no cable.” He gave me a narrow look as if I was responsible for the lack of ESPN.
Earl stood. “Have my seat.” He met my gaze before leaving the room.
Did Earl want me to follow him?
I waited all of thirty seconds before, I went after him. I checked the hallway and the lobby. No Earl. Instead I found Jane dusting the fireplace. “Jane, did you see Earl come through here?”
“Mr. Kepler?” She pointed at the door with her feather duster. “He just went out front.” Outside, the sun felt warm on my face and held the promise of summer.
Earl stood by the garden of daffodils in between the two sides of the driveway. He had a pipe in his hand and he tamped down a pinch of tobacco into the bowl with his meaty index finger. “I wondered when you would come find me,” he said. “I knew you would after this morning.”
I stopped in the middle of the driveway a few feet away from him. “I want to talk to you about Pearl. Why did you go to see her at the other hotel?”
He removed a match from the breast pocket of his short sleeve plaid shirt and struck it on the side of the pipe. The flame caught, and he touched it to the tobacco. “So what Becky told us is true. You’re some kind of private detective.”
Why, Becky? Why?
I forced laugh. “I’m not a private detective.”
“But you helped that lady police chief solve crimes in town.” He blew a ring of smoke out of his mouth.
Between the mustache and the smoke tricks, I felt like I was talking to a Walrus/Caterpillar combo from Alice in Wonderland. I shrugged.
He stared at the daffodils again. “I wanted to make sure she was all right for Ruby’s sake. She had been kind to me on this trip, and I wanted to honor her kindness by helping her cousin.”
I moved to the other side of the daffodil garden because I didn’t think Earl would appreciate what I said next. “So you were crying this morning because of Ruby?”
“Is that so hard to believe? A woman is dead. Shouldn’t I feel bad about it? Is it better to be like the others and be more concerned about what restaurant the bus will visit today?”
“Ruby is not the only one who died. What about Dudley?”
He dropped his pip. Ashes and tobacco littered the driveway. “That is also a shame.”
“But you don’t feel the loss as deeply?”
He stomped the smoldering tobacco. “How I feel about Ruby and Dudley has nothing to do with you.”
What I said next was rooted in a hunch. “What about the argument you had behind the inn yesterday?”
He stooped to pick up the pipe and froze with his back bent.
“I heard you.”
He straightened up and glared at me. “Who have you been talking to? Hudson?”
Hudson. So he was the other voice. I should have known.
“So what if I had,” I replied. It wasn’t exactly a lie.
“He promised me he wouldn’t tell.”
I remained quiet.
He dumped the remainder of the tobacco from his pipe into the garden. “Hudson had no right to do it.” His hands shook. “I wasn’t going to do it. I gave Ruby the money, so that I wouldn’t do it.”
“What money?”
“What do you mean what money?” he gripped his pipe so tightly I thought he might crush it in to a pile of splinters. “Isn’t that what you’re asking about?”
“Right.” I nodded. ‘The money.” My mind raced. I couldn’t let Earl know that I didn’t know what he meant. If I led him on, maybe I could figure it out. “Why did you give the money to Ruby?”
He grasp loosened on the pipe. “She saw me struggling, she knew I wanted to quit, and she promised to keep it safe from me.”
Was he speaking in riddles?
His jaw twitched. “She was kind to me when everyone else ignored me. She didn’t judge like the rest of them would have.”
Judge what? What was he talking about?
“So you went to the hotel to get the money?”
He nodded. “After she died, I wanted the money back. It was rightfully mine. I hoped she had given the money to Pearl. She either did that or it’s with her things the police took.”
“Why did Pearl refuse to see you?”
“I don’t think she knew anything about the money. Ruby promised me she wouldn’t tell anyone. The fewer people knew about my troubles the better. Pearl must have thought I was there for some other reason.”
What troubles? How much longer could I keep up this front that I knew what he was talking about?
Earl took a step back. “You’re not a cop. I don’t have talk to you.” He stomped away and his pipe swung back and forth in his right hand.
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and called Chief Rose. I told her about Hudson going to the Mount Vernon hotel to retrieve the money he’d given Ruby from Pearl.
“That could fit,” the police chief mused.
“Fit? Fit what?” I asked.
“We found a nice wad of cash in Ruby’s luggage,” the police chief said.
“How much are you talking?”
“Five hundred. But that’s not even close to the money I found in Dudley’s things.”
“How much did he have?”
“Enough for a down payment on an Amish farm and then some.”
I closed my eyes for a moment. “Why are you just telling me now? I could have been following this lead since yesterday.”
“It was on a need to know basis.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Don’t growl at me, Humphrey.”
“I wasn’t growling.”
“Sure you weren’t.” She laughed. “Nottingham and I are on the way with the thumbscrews.”
Great.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The chief’s patrol car turned into the Dutch Inn’s circular driveway two minutes later. As Officer Nottingham and Chief Rose slammed their car doors, Timothy walked around the side of the building. “What’s going on?”
“I just had a conversation with Earl. It didn’t go well, so I called the chief.”
He frowned. “Why didn’t you call me? I’m right here.”
Why hadn’t I thought to call Timothy? I cleared my throat. “She was already on her way here.”
“Humphrey,” the chief said. “Where’s Earl?”
“Not sure.” I folded my arms. “He didn’t enjoy our conversation and wandered off.”
“Did he leave the property?” Officer Nottingham asked.
I shook my head. “He went around the north side of the building two minutes ago.”
The chief straightened her department ball cap on her curls. “Nottingham, find him and bring him out here. Humphrey and I will be at that prissy little table over there.”
I turned to see the chief pointed at a white iron table and chair.
“Right boss,” Officer Nottingham said and jogged around the side of the building.
“Come on.” The chief waved at me to follow her to the table. She perched on one of the chairs. “These here are more uncomfortable than the chairs in my waiting room.”
Timothy folded his tall frame to sit in one the delicate chairs. “Not quite,” he said.
The chief laughed. “Okay, before surfer cop gets back, I have to tell you what’s going on. It looks like Dudley was involved in some type of gambling. Perhaps he was even a bookie.”
Timothy looked at me. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”
The chief sighed as if we let her down in some way. “Dudley was more than a tour guide. He took bets on sporting events, mostly NCAA, which is illegal.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“There’s the wad of money, and then there was his computer. He had a website and everythin
g. The bookie business has gone high tech. You should be able to appreciate that, Humphrey. It took us a while to figure out what was going on because Dudley’s side business was located in encrypted files on the laptop. Finally, one of the sheriff’s geeks cracked it.”
“You should have brought it to me. I could have cracked it.”
“I thought about it more than one time, believe me, but by that point it was already at the sheriff’s office. It makes the sheriff cranky if I ask him for help and then change my mind. Plus, I needed you on the bus.”
“You think he was killed because of this?” I took a quick glance at the corner of the stone-face inn Officer Nottingham had disappeared behind. “Do you think Earl was the one that did it?”
“If only it were that easy. If he had been shot or knifed, I would say yes it was a done deal, but he was poisoned. That’s not how the average bookie is supposed to go. It’s a girly way to die.”
Timothy held onto both of his knees. “A girly way to die?”
“Women are far more likely to use poison as a murder weapon than men. It’s clean and controlled and appeals to a woman’s sense of propriety.”
“Okay,” I said. “If Dudley was a bookie, what does that have to do with Earl?”
Officer Nottingham and Earl appeared around the corner. Earl drug his feet on the driveway.
Quickly, I said, “He thinks I heard about the money and betting from Hudson.”
“Did you?”
“No.” I lowered my voice. “I figured Earl’s was one of the voices I heard around the side of the building yesterday. I didn’t know it for sure. It was just a hunch. When he mentioned Hudson, I pretended I knew what he was talking about.”
“Nice acting work, Humphrey. I’ll suggest your name the next the county puts on a production of The Sound of Music. You would make a believable Leisl. Can you sing?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” She stood. “Mr. Kepler, how nice of you to join us.”
He blew his mustache out of his mouth. “Did I have a choice?”
“Not really.” She gestured to the empty chair. “Have a seat.”
There were only four chairs around the tiny table. Timothy stood. “You can have my spot, Nottingham.”
A Plain Malice: An Appleseed Creek Mystery (Appleseed Creek Mystery Series Book 4) Page 16
