Farm Fresh Murder

by Paige Shelton

  “The day of the murder—that night, I went to Abner’s house to see if he was okay. He wasn’t there, but the door was unlocked so I went in anyway. The pictures were on the floor, next to his overturned coffee table.” The truth flowed but felt somewhat foreign.

  “Abner broke into my house and took the pictures?”

  “I don’t know. But why were you blond?”

  She sighed heavily.

  “It was the disguise I used to wear when I went to meet Abner. After Matty and I were married. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “After you married Matt, you continued to see Abner?”

  “Yes.” She hung her head in shame. “We met when we could at the cabin. But that picture was from a trip we took to Florida. The wig wasn’t necessary, but I still wore it. I don’t know. It made me feel less . . . less deceitful, I guess. Stupid and silly. It’s possible that Matty found the pictures and confronted Abner.”

  “That sounds like a reasonable scenario. I can see your husband snooping around in your closet. How long were the pictures there?”

  “Decades.”

  “And he just discovered them, right before he went to work at Bailey’s? Is that really why he went to work at Bailey’s? Did he want to keep an eye on Abner or torment him?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The loud roar of a truck interrupted the questioning. We were still standing in the front entryway of the house. Pauline opened the door and I peeked around her as another brown truck sped to a quick stop right beside my bright orange one.

  Jessop Simonsen swung his long body out of his truck and then walked over to look inside mine. He could easily see the gloves, the feeder, and my cell phone. Him knowing what was on my front seat made me strangely uncomfortable.

  Pauline closed the door. “Don’t tell Jessop we’ve been talking about this. Let’s go back into the front room and sit down. I don’t want him upset. He’s had such a hard time with everything.”

  We did as she instructed. As I sat, I whispered, “Pauline, I need to know about the hummingbirds before he comes in the house.”

  “I loved hummingbirds when I was younger. It was the nickname Abner used for me.” She spoke quickly, then calmed her face just as Jessop walked through the door.

  So what? was what ran though my mind. If Abner killed Matt, did he put up the hummingbird feeders to honor his old love? Who would do something like that? Maybe a psychopathic murderer, but the act didn’t seem worth the effort.

  “Mom?” Jessop said with scrunched eyes and a tight mouth.

  “Hello, dear. This is Becca Robins.” Pauline stood.

  “I know who she is. She came by Smithfield one day.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. What’s she doing here?”

  “Just paying her respects, Jessop.”

  They both looked at me as though it was my turn to contribute something to the conversation, but I didn’t. Instead, my eyes were fixed on Jessop’s face and the familiar look it had just held.

  And when I looked more closely, I realized that Jessop not only could twist his facial features in a familiar manner, but his entire face was familiar.

  No. Way.

  “Paying her respects, huh?” Jessop said, filling the silent air.

  “Jess, come help me with something in the kitchen for a minute. I’ll be right back, Ms. Robins,” Pauline said.

  They walked away, Pauline practically dragging her son with her. Had she seen something on my face that made her realize what my brain was putting together?

  I stood and went back to the piano. I found a picture of a twenty-something Jessop and put my fingers over the full hair. The face was younger, but still one I knew.

  Jessop had Abner’s face. He was tall like his mother, but Jessop was Abner’s son. I would have put every dime I had on that fact.

  It suddenly seemed very obvious. How could anyone look at the three people involved—Abner, Matt, and Pauline—and not know that Jessop belonged to Abner more than he belonged to Matt? Abner might have been short, but Jessop clearly got his build from his tall mother. And he most definitely got his face from his father.

  How did this help me know who the murderer was? I switched my thinking into overdrive. Though it was now obvious to me, Pauline, Abner, and perhaps Matt probably knew all along. How did this get Matt killed? Did Abner finally want to be a father to his son and Matt felt threatened? Did Matt just figure it out and confront Abner, and Abner killed him?

  Still, while all of that seemed possible, none of it quite fit. Abner kept claiming that he didn’t commit the murder, but he wouldn’t say who had. If that was true, it meant he was protecting someone; someone he loved. That could be his sister, Helen, Pauline, me . . . or his son. I knew it wasn’t me and I also knew I was in a house with the two strongest suspects. I had to get out of there, or at least get to my cell phone and call Sam for help.

  I turned back from the piano and stepped quickly toward the front door. With each step, something else became perfectly clear. When I’d visited Abner earlier that day, he’d said something that rang a bell. I suddenly realized what it was—it was about old-timers. Barry had kept bringing up old-timers, too. Old-timers were the market vendors who got to work early every day. Early to rise, early to sell.

  That was it! That was what had been nudging at me this whole time.

  I knew exactly who the murderer was, and I was most definitely in the house with that person.

  I turned my quick steps into a run, made it out the front door, and was halfway to my truck when the familiar boom of a shotgun made me instinctively hit the ground and cover my head.

  “Where are you going, Ms. Robins?” Jessop said as he stood on the front stoop, the butt of his gun resting on his thigh.

  With my ears ringing from the explosion, I lifted my face out of the dirt and looked at the tall, young, crazy version of my friend Abner. There was nothing friendly about this man, there was nothing right about him. He was the one having the breakdown. He was the one who’d discovered the pictures, perhaps the trees, and whatever else it must have taken for him to recently learn that Abner Justen was his biological father. And Matt Simonsen wasn’t. Jessop was the killer.

  “I was just going to get my cell phone. I’m expecting a call,” I said. “You scared me to death, Jessop. Was that really necessary?” I was surprised at how calm my voice was. My insides were mimicking circus mice on crack, but I knew that I was dealing with someone who was missing some marbles. It was best that I remain calm and not make any accusations.

  “You’re not getting your cell phone, Becca Robins. You’re coming back into the house, right this minute.”

  “I’ll just be a second,” I said as I stood and started walking toward the truck once more.

  The gun boomed again, and I froze in place. He was still shooting into the air, but I knew where he’d aim next—right at me. I turned slowly and made my way to the maniac with the shotgun.

  I didn’t have any idea how I was going to get myself out of this mess.

  Twenty-five

  If I’d been able to really think about what was happening, I’d have been so freaked-out that I couldn’t have managed to put one foot in front of the other. As it was, I felt like I was outside of myself, in a way, as I stepped toward Jessop and his shotgun. He’d shoot me if I ran, I knew that. I didn’t want to go back into the house with him, but my frenzied mind couldn’t put together another plan. A plan—Allison always had a plan. What would she do?

  I had no idea.

  Fortunately, I had a little help. In a flash of denim, Pauline rushed at her son and hit him on the head with a huge frying pan. He dropped the gun and bent over from the blow.

  “Run, Becca!” Pauline yelled.

  I was going to run to my truck, but Jessop was recovering too quickly. If I got to the truck and managed to get inside it, Jessop would have plenty of opportunity to shoot me. I needed to run fast and far away. Ignoring any leftover pain from
my earlier injuries, I sprinted toward the cover of the woods.

  I felt like I was going both fast and slow; my feet were flying and pulling taffy at the same time.

  I hadn’t gone far when another shotgun blast rattled the leaves on the trees around me. I stopped cold and turned toward the house I’d been running from.

  The shot didn’t sound as though Jessop had made it to the woods yet. Had he just shot his mother? The thought took me to my knees.

  She’d hit him so I could run away, and now he’d killed her? His own mother? Of course, he’d killed his father, biological though he might not have been. What would have driven him so over the edge as to kill his entire family? Until these last few days, I hadn’t known anything about the Simonsen family. I hadn’t really known much about my friend Abner. And now my entire world had changed because of the craziness that had been going on without my knowledge and right under my nose. I was angry and devastated.

  But now, I had to get up and get out of there.

  I stood and looked around.

  I had no cell phone and I was out in the middle of the woods. I knew someone was at Carl’s, so that was the direction I needed to go, but I couldn’t figure out which way it was, exactly, unless I got to the cabin first. I thought I could find the cabin, so I set off in that direction.

  With the instinct for survival pushing all other thoughts away, I ran. I hoped I was going the right way, but there wasn’t time to ponder anything, so I put my energy into moving my legs.

  As if to punctuate my thought process, the shotgun blasted again; this time it was closer, but it wasn’t right behind me. I focused on that sound and tried to guess how far away it was.

  I had a head start, but not by much. And Jessop wouldn’t keep firing the gun. He was shooting on purpose, at something. When he wanted to sneak up on me, he’d be quiet.

  I was more hell-bent on the destination than on being careful, and I tripped over a tree root that bumped up through the surface of the ground. I went down with a sliding thud, scraping the skin on the front of my right leg.

  I felt no pain, but there were small, sharp pebbles embedded in the skin and enough blood mixed with the dirt that I acknowledged it would probably hurt at some point. For now, I had to get moving again.

  When I thought I might almost be at the cabin, I slowed and hid behind a big, round tree. Darkness was coming on, and I wanted to look behind me while I still could. It had been eon-minutes since I’d heard the gun. It was worse not knowing where Jessop was. Had he not followed me at all?

  Was the second shot I heard . . . had he killed himself?

  “No . . .” I said aloud at the amplifying tragedy. Another wave of desperate devastation washed over me, but I couldn’t let anything cloud my need to get safe. It would have been crazy to go back to Simonsen Orchards. The best thing to do was to keep going.

  I left the tree and hurried along, finding the cabin in only a few moments. I’d been running in the right direction! I was almost to Abner’s, and I knew exactly which way to go. Relief that this might all be over soon made me stop and catch my breath.

  As you might guess, that was stupid.

  The door of the cabin burst open. Jessop Simonsen, alive and in one piece but unarmed, came toward me and grabbed my arm before I could lift one foot from the ground or let out the scream that jumped to my throat.

  “I took the shortcut,” he spat in my ear.

  I twisted and turned, trying to get free from his grip.

  “Let go,” I said, wasting important energy on words he wouldn’t listen to.

  “Right. I don’t think so.” He yanked and pulled. He was much bigger and stronger than me.

  I knew that if I went into that cabin, just as if I’d gone into his house, he’d kill me. Probably instantly. But I couldn’t break from his grip. He threw me inside the door, and I landed on the floor next to the bed, adding more scrapes to my leg.

  I did a quick survey: the gun was in a back corner, but other than that addition, the cabin didn’t look much different from the last time I’d been in it. Was he going to shoot me? He didn’t reach for the gun, but instead stood tall above me with his hands on his hips.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “Becca Robins,” I answered stupidly.

  “Yeah, we met. But why do you care about any of this?”

  “There was a murder committed at my place of work. My good friend is in jail for it. He’s not a murderer. I wanted to figure it out.” I kept my eyes on his.

  “Ha!” Jessop said. “That’ll teach you.”

  I wanted to stand, but he probably wouldn’t have let me. I supposed there were worse ways to die than being shot. The space was small and close, and he was a maniac who was so much bigger than me that he could probably just stomp down and that’d be it. Death by bullet seemed better than that. I scooted back and pulled myself up onto the bed. It wasn’t much better, but it wasn’t the floor.

  “Why did you kill your father? Why would you do that?” I asked. I didn’t think he’d answer.

  He took a step backward and rubbed at his chin. “My father? I didn’t kill my father.”

  “No? Who did?”

  “My father’s still alive. I framed my father for the death of the man who posed as my father.”

  “Okay, why did you kill Matt Simonsen? And why would you frame your father for murder?”

  Jessop put a chair in front of me and straddled it. He had an enthusiastic bounce to his movements, as though he wasn’t going to talk about murder but about what he’d done last weekend. I swallowed the sickening fear bubbling in my chest—he was so far from sane.

  “It’s like this, see,” he began. “I found the picture of my mother and Abner in her closet. I found the letters where he called her his ‘little hummingbird.’ And I found the stupid trees; the one with Abner’s name was the only one that didn’t have the name crossed out. I’m a much better investigator than you.” He smirked. I didn’t react. “Anyway, apparently my mother was the queen of all whores in her day. While she was married to my father, she was screwing that short piece of crap who . . .”

  “Who what, Jessop?”

  “Who I might have only seen twice in my entire life. Can you imagine that?! He lived pissing distance away, he knew he was my father, and he never came to the house once. And get this, he came to the Smithfield Market a month or so ago as a ‘friend’ of my mother’s. Dad—Matt—was out of town, so she came to the market to help me. And she invited Abner to stop by. She introduced him as a friend of the family, but I knew . . . I knew something was strange between the two of them. Even after all those years . . . that’s when I started snooping around, looking for something—what, I didn’t really know, but I knew there must be something, somewhere.”

  Was that the day Ian had seen Abner at Smithfield?

  “But what if your mother wasn’t a whore? What if she really loved Abner? What if Abner stayed away because he, your mom, and your father—yes, Matt was your real father, Jessop. It takes more than sperm donation to be a father—what if they all thought it was in your best interests for him to stay away? Abner didn’t move, he was close by all the time. It was probably torture for him. Your mother might have invited him to Smithfield because she thought he might want to see you.”

  “When you’re married, you don’t sleep with other people. You don’t fall in love with other people. You don’t . . .” He slammed his fist on his leg. “You don’t forget to tell your son that his biological father isn’t the man he thought he was.”

  “Jessop, they didn’t tell you because they wanted to protect you. That’s all. Abner is still protecting you. He knows what you did, but he won’t tell the police. What these people did are things that people do when they care about someone, not when they just want to keep secrets.”

  “Right, whatever,” he said. But I thought I might have made him think twice.

  He had no idea what he’d done. He’d just done it. When it soaked in, he was g
oing to fall apart even further. And I didn’t want to be around when that happened.

  “I’m sorry, Jessop,” I said. “I’m sure you’re in a lot of pain.”

  His eyes, so much like Abner’s and so much not like Abner’s, glistened with anger.

  “How did you figure it out? And why did you come to the house alone?”

  I flinched at my own stupidity. “I didn’t figure it out until you got home. When you pulled your truck next to mine and looked inside it—that’s when I figured it out.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “It was right in front of us all the whole time. It was the Monday before the fall equinox, a day that lots of vendors take off work. But not you, you were trained to be an old-timer. But you didn’t go to work the day your . . . the day Matt was killed.”

  “So?”

  “Like I said, you’re an old-timer, Jessop—even if you’re not old, you learned the market business from your father. You’re never late for work. If you’d gone to Smithfield, you wouldn’t have heard about your father’s death until about the time I did. That was about 7:00 A.M. You’d have already been at work like any good old-timer would be. Someone would have contacted you there, and then you’d have gone home, or to . . .” I was going to say “the morgue,” but that sounded too gruesome. “Anyway, when you got home today, I thought about your long hours and the fact that you’d probably been at Smithfield since early this morning, like any old-timer. Someone at the Smithfield Market told me you hadn’t come to work the day Matt was killed, and that they didn’t remember you ever missing a day. If you weren’t already there by 6:00 A.M, there was something wrong—or you were committing murder.”

  Jessop glared at me. “If you didn’t put it together beforehand, why were you at my house?”

  “I wanted to ask your mom about hummingbirds. I saw a bunch of feeders on Abner’s greenhouse. I wondered if she knew where they came from. Did you kill your mom, Jessop?”

  Jessop huffed and ignored the question. “That was a nice touch, wasn’t it? I hung those feeders and spilled nectar on the porch—I wanted it to look like blood. I tipped the table and planted the pictures just for fun, and the axe—that was Abner’s, anyway. It had his fingerprints all over it. I wore gloves when . . .” His eyes went funny again.