Fruit of All Evil

by Paige Shelton

  The oooohs and ahhhs for the chocolate strawberry jam were exactly what I was hoping for, and were the same response I’d received from Ian the night before. I’d been experimenting with chocolate strawberry, and I thought I’d mastered the recipe, but since my winter supply of strawberries had dwindled to almost nothing, I was holding off introducing it until fall. It was unique and would probably sell well, but only time would tell.

  “This is so good,” Mary said. “It’s the most amazing jelly I’ve ever had. Both the stuff with the chocolate and without it. How do you do it?”

  “Thanks,” I said, not pointing out that she was currently testing some preserves, not jelly. “I don’t know, really. I have a way with strawberries, I think. My farm has the perfect growing conditions for berries that are very sweet. From experience, I know exactly when to pick them, and I’ve made so many jars that my process is automatic. Plus, I inherited the farm from my aunt and uncle when they died. I like to think that in their way and wherever they are, they’re helping.” It was honest, if not flashy, and hopefully somewhat humble.

  My presentation had turned into more of a taste test than a presentation, and that was fine. Ian and I had worked up something the night before on his laptop, but we thought it would be too boring to talk about my products with a computer attached. I’d planned on just talking to the managers and then offering the samples. As it was, Clarissa had done most of the talking and I’d just passed around the food.

  “How much?” Jarad asked. He was young but balding, and wore slacks, a dress shirt, and a tie.

  “I’ve written it all out for you.” I passed around the papers that listed the wholesale and recommended retail prices. I used the same font on them that I used on the front of the labels, so the information almost looked like it was handwritten. It wasn’t a big deal, but a detail I hoped made the right impression.

  The managers read the papers. Jarad and Mary pulled out pocket calculators and punched buttons. Olivia, the manager who hadn’t yet spoken, studied the sheet closely, her long blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. She looked up, put her hair behind her ears, and asked, “How much can you handle?”

  This was the most important question of all. Ian and I had done our own calculations, and we thought I could handle the five Maytabee’s stores if I purchased extra fruit during the summer.

  “I’ve written that up, too.” I handed out another set of papers that listed what I thought was a reasonable output from me. I wasn’t ready to hire employees, so if I couldn’t handle the Maytabee’s business on my own, I didn’t want either of us to commit to anything. “Please look at the numbers and let me know if you have any questions. This is a reasonable expectation.”

  Again, the managers peered at the papers. Clarissa’s phone buzzed loudly, interrupting her study. She didn’t hide her exasperation as she pulled the phone from the clip on her belt.

  “Excuse me, Becca,” she said.

  I nodded as she walked to the other side of the store, where she could have a mostly private conversation.

  I answered a few more questions, and the managers answered some of mine. We chatted easily, and they asked for more samples. I happily obliged.

  “Okay,” Clarissa said as she joined the crowd again. “Anyone have any more questions for Becca? No? Okay, we’ll let her get back to her real job and we’ll continue our meeting. Get your sales numbers ready while I walk them out.”

  And just like that, the presentation was over. It had been painless. Clarissa led the way out of the store.

  “Ian, thanks for introducing me to Becca’s products,” she said as she shook his hand. She turned to me. “I’m sure we’ll do business together in one form or another. Give me some time to talk to the managers and look at the numbers. I’ll get back to you no later than next week.”

  “I appreciate your time. You’ve created a great business,” I said, though I was afraid it sounded like I was sucking up. I wasn’t.

  “Well, it’s a passion, but I don’t think I need to explain passions to you. I apologize for the phone interruption. I’ve been dealing with some silly bank issues.”

  “Really? Me, too,” I lied. Chances were, considering the small community, she was talking about Madeline’s bank. “I bank at Central, and something weird must be happening over there, because they’ve sent me some questionable paperwork lately.” They hadn’t, of course. I was still lying, but I couldn’t resist seeing if there was a bigger pattern emerging at Central Savings and Loan.

  “Well, I suppose this is a terrible thing to say, but I’m pleased to hear it isn’t just me. I bank at Central, too, and . . .” She didn’t want to share what the issue was, and I didn’t blame her. She didn’t want to spread her own bad rumors. “Anyway, I hope you’re getting yours straightened out. We’re almost there, I think, but I have to answer whenever they call, or the phone tag can go on forever.”

  “I know. Gosh, I can’t think of the name of the person I’m working with.” I looked at Ian, who was playing along well.

  “I’m working with a Sarah Nelson, but she just told me that someone else would be calling. They all seem to want to pass off the work. Well, sorry about that. I shouldn’t complain if they’re fixing it,” Clarissa said.

  Sarah Nelson. The one person who wouldn’t talk to me about anything.

  “Well, thanks again, Becca, and good job covering the coffee spot,” Clarissa continued. She turned and went back into her store.

  “Great job, Becca,” Ian said. “You’re a natural.”

  “Thanks,” I replied absently. I was pleased with the presentation, but my mind was already rummaging through the new information about the bank. What was going on there that was causing so much false information to be disseminated? There must be legal issues involved, but I didn’t have any idea what they might possibly be.

  “Do you know who Bud Morris is working with at the bank?” I asked.

  “Someone named Addison Something . . .”

  “You have time for a trip to Central?” I said to Ian.

  “Why did I know you were going to say that?”

  Twenty

  Sarah Nelson wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Either she wasn’t working or she was on a break. Unfortunately, no one else could offer much help.

  Our first stop was the teller line. Ian remembered that Bud’s bank contact was named Addison Stinson, but two youngish male tellers said they were new to the bank and they had no idea who that was.

  And there seemed to be no manager on duty. The tellers told us all the managers had been called to a meeting out of the building. They admitted it was strange, but considering the bank president had recently been murdered, everything at the bank had seemed strange lately.

  We sat in the lobby for ten minutes, hoping someone, even Sarah Nelson, might show up to give us more substantial answers. Every second seemed too precious to wait, though, so I came up with another plan.

  “Come on.” I got up and led the way outside. I said, “Ian, I’d love to meet Bud Morris.”

  “Right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Something tells me that Bud’s issue is tied to Clarissa’s. Something really odd is going on. You said he received a foreclosure letter from Central. Did you see it?” I was also adding Jeanine’s issue into the mix, but I continued to keep my promise not to tell, which was becoming very tedious. I almost wished Allison hadn’t shared.

  “Yes, I did. It was just a letter notifying him that he was going to be foreclosed on within the month if he didn’t pay some seemingly random amount. But . . . Becca, that’s a pretty big leap—tying Bud’s and Clarissa’s issues together. Bud is a residential property owner, and Clarissa is a business owner. Whatever their issues are, real or not, they’re worlds apart.”

  “Probably, but it’s all very coincidental, don’t you think?”

  “Yes. Coincidental, but that’s probably all.”

  “Maybe. But what would it hurt? Do
you think he’d show me the letter?”

  Ian squinted. “You feel pretty strongly about this, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose you should meet Bud anyway. Let’s go.” Ian maneuvered the truck back to the world of my childhood, but this time I was so focused on getting to the shack that I didn’t even glance at my old house as we passed it.

  Bud Morris was exactly as Ian had described him: old and unable to move well.

  His shack was as clean as could be expected under the circumstances. It consisted of two rooms: the main room and the bathroom. He didn’t have a kitchen, but there was one burner on a counter next to a small refrigerator. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a small table, three chairs, and a bed. He didn’t have any family left. In fact, he didn’t have much of anything at all. His circumstances broke my heart, but he seemed content and happy.

  “Ian, how wonderful to see you,” he said as he opened the front door. He was a smallish man, his bent-over stance making him seem even smaller than he really was. He had a few strands of gray hair left on his head, and his eyes were as bright a blue as I’d seen on anyone, young or old. He used a cane, but every movement seemed a challenge. “Did we have an appointment today?”

  “No, this is a surprise visit,” Ian said.

  “Well, come in, come in. And who’s your friend?”

  Ian introduced me as we occupied the chairs. The space was crowded but not unpleasantly so. It wasn’t really clean, but it wasn’t really dirty. Ian had explained to me that Bud’s wife had died twenty-some years ago. When his unmarried son died ten years later in a tragic car accident, Bud had left his home in Monson and moved out to the shack. He’d owned the land for decades but hadn’t ever tried to grow anything on it. It had always been his plan to sell it when he needed the money. His career as a farm equipment salesperson had been successful enough that he’d never needed anything extra. According to Ian, Bud didn’t look at his living circumstances as dire. When he lost his family, he moved away from other people because he wanted to. According to Bud, his retirement income had been enough. Until recently.

  Though he owned the land outright, yearly property taxes were still due, and he was finally beginning to run out of money. He wanted to sell the land to Ian, but shortly after they began talking, Bud received the foreclosure notice.

  “Can I get the two of you some tea?” he asked. He turned over a notebook that had curled edges and small torn pieces in the spiral binding.

  “No, thanks, Bud. I drove Becca by here the other night, but I wanted her to see what it looks like in the daytime. Plus, I wanted her to meet you.”

  “He’s something, isn’t he?” Bud mused as his bushy eyebrows rose. “He’s brilliant. Lavender! Makes sense, and I think he’ll do well when we can get those bas . . . oh, sorry, those bank people . . . to stop their shenanigans.”

  “I think it’s a good plan,” I said. “Sorry about the bank, though. I bet it’ll get worked out.”

  “Yes, I think so. I had my cab driver stop by there Saturday morning.” Bud looked at Ian, who nodded that he was listening.

  “They talked to you then?” Ian asked.

  Saturday had been the day after Madeline’s murder. The bank was normally open for a couple of hours Saturday morning, so they must have stuck to their schedule.

  “Yes, sir. They said to give them just a little longer to figure things out. The gentleman I met with said there might be some sort of mistake. Some—oh, what was the word he used?—some sort of glitch in the system.”

  “Did you meet with Addison?” Ian asked.

  “Nope, he wasn’t in when I got there. Let’s see . . . who did I talk to? Darn it, I can’t remember. Some new fella, but . . . oh, give me a minute, maybe I’ll remember it. He was in a tizzy, I’ll tell you. He seemed nervous and upset, but calmed down enough to look at my letter. He took it from me and told me not to worry for the time being. I think we’re going to be fine, Ian.”

  My stomach fell. “Did you keep a copy of the letter, Bud?”

  “No ma’am, didn’t think I needed that nasty thing hanging around.”

  The person at the bank probably didn’t think so either. I would have put money on Bud’s letter disappearing into thin air. Yes, there was most definitely something going on at the bank.

  I didn’t want to point out that Bud might have given away evidence, so I said, “It might not have been valid—that’s what he said?”

  Bud shook his head. “The gentleman wouldn’t commit to anything, but it’ll be fine, I know. I can prove I own the land. I’d just like to move things along.”

  I hoped Sam was looking at the bank employees along with its customers. Something fishy was going on there. A glitch in the system? False foreclosure notices were lots bigger than glitches. The word “fraud” came to my mind, and though I knew little about the details of the law, I knew that fraud, when combined with banking, was a big deal.

  “I do have a bit of good news,” Bud said. “I’ve found exactly where I want to live if we get this deal done. There’s an old person’s—well, that’s what I call it—apartment complex right in Monson. I can have my own apartment with two bedrooms, of which I’ll only need one, but two is as small as they come: a living room, a bathroom, and a kitchen. Part of the deal is that they take care of the whole shebang. They come in and clean, help with cooking if I need it. I’m not a fancy eater or anything, so I won’t need that. But they help with medications if I ever need them.” He looked at me. “I haven’t taken so much as an aspirin in over thirty years. What do you think of that?”

  I smiled. “I think you must be very healthy, and I wish I could say the same for myself.” I’d been known to pop an aspirin or two after a long day in my fields. The older I got, the more frequently it happened.

  “Weeeell, I guess I’m healthy except for not being able to straighten up, but it only hurts when I try.” Bud smiled, more with his eyes than his dentures.

  “You know what they say don’t you?” I asked.

  “Then don’t stand up straight!” Bud laughed.

  We chatted a little longer before Bud seemed to get tired. He gave us his blessing to walk over his land whenever we wanted. He promised he’d neither call the police nor shoot at us for trespassing.

  “Darn,” I said after Ian and I left the shack and ventured up a small slope of the rocky land. “I can’t believe the bank took back the letter.”

  “Yeah. I wish I’d insisted that he make a copy of it, but I had no idea he’d go in on Saturday. I do think you’re right, Becca, there’s something going on at that bank, and I wouldn’t be surprised if figuring it out will lead to Madeline’s killer.”

  “I’ll call Sam this afternoon and tell him about Bud. But what else about him? Does he need groceries or something? Does he need rides, or does he use cabs all the time?” I asked.

  “I’ve offered, but he won’t take me up on it. A cab stops by three mornings a week and takes him into town. He buys groceries and runs other errands. I think he was offended when I offered to help, so I haven’t brought it up again.”

  “What else does he do with his time?” I looked back at his old shack. I didn’t want to feel sorry for him, because he didn’t want people’s pity, that was clear. But I couldn’t help it.

  “He writes poetry.”

  “What?”

  “Well, that’s what he told me. That notebook he turned over when we went in—he says he spends most of his free time writing poetry.”

  “Is it any good?”

  “I don’t know. He wouldn’t let me read it.”

  “He doesn’t seem lonely.”

  Ian shrugged. “I hope not. He’s been through a lot. He strikes me as someone who likes his alone time. Life just doesn’t always turn out the way we plan.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  We made it to the top slope of the property. There was a patch of trees bordering Bud’s land, but the land itself was true to my earlier imp
ression of being—what had Ian called it—gritty? It also seemed more fertile than I’d originally thought. I didn’t understand my connection with such things—more instinct, I guessed. But there was something about the feel and smell of the earth that spoke to me. Again, it was probably a feeling that was courtesy of having hippie parents, but I couldn’t deny that it existed, and that my sense of these sorts of things was usually on target.

  It was another perfect South Carolina spring day. The sun was warm, but the air was cool enough that the sun didn’t feel too hot. There wasn’t much humidity, and I wished we’d packed a picnic lunch.

  “What do you think? Really, Becca, I want to know what you think about all this.” Ian gestured at the land.

  “I think it sounds like lots of hard work. I think it’s a beautiful place. And I think you’ll be successful.”

  “No reservations?”

  “Not really. You can afford it?”

  “Yes, more easily by the day. My business is growing steadily.”

  “Then I hope you and Bud can do business. Besides, I think he likes the apartment idea.”

  Ian laughed. “Me, too.”

  We walked around the rest of the property, dug our fingers into the soil, tentatively planned where Ian would put his warehouse, and discussed layouts for the lavender plants. It was the most relaxing couple of hours I’d had since the moment before Linda had asked me to be her Number One. It was about the land, the soil, the air, and working to create something that not only would, hopefully, give Ian a great living, but also would be something beautiful.

  That was the best part, the real payoff; the cycle of life, the beauty of that cycle, through the earth. I loved the time we spent on the property, and by the time we drove away, I felt rejuvenated. Enjoying the brief respite, I hadn’t intended to put my thoughts back to who killed Madeline Forsyth so quickly, but something occurred to me as we drove again down the old road in front of my childhood home.

  And then it passed right through my mind, too quickly to be stopped.