Finding a dead body in my kitchen was the second take-the-wind-from-my-sails experience I’d had that day, but this one was much worse.
I went back down to my knees. I wasn’t nauseated as much as I just couldn’t catch my breath. My eyes watered and my jaw clenched involuntarily. Hobbit, sensing that the happy moment of greeting was over, whined and licked at my ear.
I pushed her gently away. There was a body in my kitchen, and I had to see if there was a chance that my sharpest knife—the one sticking up from the body’s chest—hadn’t all the way killed the person attached to it.
I’ve watched a million movies where someone has no regard for the crime scene; they walk right into it and right into the puddles of blood that might help investigators figure out the identity of the killers. I murmur, “Idiot,” when I see such disregard.
But when it happens to you, when you are the person who comes upon a body in a pool of blood, there’s not much thought for investigators and evidence detection. There’s only: Holy crap, a body! I have to see what happened!
I stood and made my way deeper into the kitchen. The area was fairly large with a manageable work space and a huge stainless steel worktable in the center. The body was on the ground, next to the worktable, in a pool of blood.
I made it only partway before I realized that there was no chance the person on my floor was still alive.
Later I would wonder why it took me so long to realize who the person was. The face was clearly recognizable, but though I had seen it, I hadn’t really seen it until that second. The body on my kitchen floor was someone I didn’t like in the least, but I hadn’t wished her dead.
Joan Ashworth, owner of Bistro restaurant and president of the Central South Carolina Restaurant Association, was dead on the floor of my kitchen, killed presumably with one of my knives. She’d insulted my products and now she was dead on my property. Probably killed with the knife that had been used in the preparation of the product she’d insulted. Sick irony thrummed through my system.
My head was so jumbled that I had to force myself to think about whether or not I had done the deed. I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t, and as a comfort to myself only, hadn’t even considered such a thing.
I needed to call the police. My friend Sam Brion would be the one to call. He’d become such a good friend that his number was on my speed dial. I reached into my pocket for my phone as I turned and began to walk shakily out of the kitchen.
The light coming in from the door was suddenly shaded. I gasped as I looked up, fearful of what I’d see. I hadn’t thought about the crime scene, and I hadn’t thought that the person who did this horrible deed might still be on my property.
I was a double idiot.
The fear for myself transformed immediately. The person in the doorway wasn’t someone to be afraid of. The person in the doorway, with blood on her hands and tears running down her cheeks, was someone I should be afraid for. I looked hard just to make sure I was seeing who I really thought I was seeing.
“Mom?” I said weakly.
“Becca,” she said softly.
That was it, that was all I could take. My world went black as I fainted, realizing I just couldn’t handle any more bad news.
Four
“Becca, come on, you’ve got to wake up,” Ian’s voice said.
Had my morning at Bailey’s and then my afternoon at my own home been a horrible nightmare? Was I still in bed?
“Mom,” I grumbled as my eyes shot open. I was on my porch with Ian on one side of me and Hobbit on the other.
“I’m right here,” Mom said from somewhere behind us.
I sat up and turned around. Mom was sitting on a bench that I used for holding plant starts. I tried to get up to go to her, but I was woozy and slow.
“Becca, don’t. Stay there,” Mom said as she looked down at her hands, which were still covered with blood. “I don’t know . . . just stay there, okay?”
Ian had his hand on my arm. “Becca, you fainted. Take it easy. Drink some of this.” He handed me a blue crushed-ice drink that he must have had in his truck. It was his favorite refreshment after a hot day full of installations.
I took a sip of the blueberry cold and swallowed the icy eeriness of my current reality. We were quite the picture: my mom with her bloody hands, my dog with her bloody paws that had left imprints all over me, and Ian, grimy from working but at the ready with some blue crushed ice.
“Ian pulled in right after you fainted,” Mom said as if that explained everything.
“You all right?” Ian said as he looked hard at my eyes.
I nodded. “I think so.” I looked toward the barn where, I assumed, Joan’s body still lay. I looked at my mom again. “What happened?”
She sighed and huffed a strained laugh. “I’m not really sure. The last thing I remember clearly is your father dropping me off. After we left Bailey’s, we visited Mathis and Tom. Then we grabbed something to eat. I had Jason drop me off here so I could say hi to Hobbit and see what I could do about preparing dinner so you wouldn’t have to after working all day.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I have a recollection of walking toward the barn, but it isn’t clear, and I have no idea what happened after that, that is until I woke up on the other side of the barn, found my way back around it, and found you. The back of my head is tender.” She looked at her hands.
“We’ve got to get you cleaned up,” I said. I knew what we should have done first: call the police. But protectiveness for my mother won out and I wanted all of that blood off her.
“No, dear, we’re not going to do that,” she said.
“Your mom had me call Sam—call the police already,” Ian said. “They’re on their way.”
A surge of fear and anger shot through me. I was afraid for my mom and angry that Ian had done as she’d asked.
“I tried to get Ian to take you and Hobbit out of here, but he thought that might make you angrier than you are at the moment,” Mom said. She knew me so well. “I don’t think I did anything wrong, Becca, but we need to know for sure.”
“We could have cleaned up first,” I said.
“No, you know that would have been the wrong thing to do,” Mom said.
There was no more time to argue. Sam’s police cruiser pulled into the driveway and stopped just short of the small front yard. He got out the driver’s side door, and Officer Vivienne Norton got out of the passenger side.
Sam was still walking with a slight limp as the result of being taken hostage by the men who’d killed Linda’s mother-in-law. They’d messed up his ankle—it had been severely sprained. They’d also dislocated his shoulder. The shoulder had healed quickly, but the ankle was taking longer than expected. He looked around the property and told Officer Norton to make sure the area was secure and that the body in the barn didn’t need assistance.
As he made his way toward the porch, Sam looked only at me. His armor was his serious demeanor, but the chink in it at the moment was concern. He was concerned about me. We’d become good friends over the past year that he’d been a Monson police officer. Our friendship had been the result of him officially investigating crimes that I had been compelled to unofficially investigate. We’d been in some hairy situations together, and those situations had only helped build the friendship, or the bond, or whatever it was.
“Sam,” Ian said, pulling Sam’s intent gaze from my face to his.
“Ian.” Sam stopped and rubbed his finger under his nose.
Sam Brion was the picture of “professional.” When he was in his work mode, his hair was slicked back and his uniform was afraid to show a wrinkle. He didn’t sweat under any sort of pressure, and his blue eyes could either be stern or friendly, but they always held a sort of fierceness. I knew both the official Sam and the one who could relax, from his hair to his toes, and have a good time.
“I need to talk to each of you separately. Mrs. Robins?” He looked at Mom. “I’d like to talk to you first.”
She nodd
ed.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so. My head is a little sore, but I’m not dizzy. The blood isn’t mine, I don’t think.”
I wanted to cry.
“An ambulance is on the way, but for now Becca and Ian, how about you pull the tailgate of one of your trucks down and sit there?”
“Sam, my mom didn’t hurt anyone,” I said.
The pain in his eyes was as real as the fierceness. He didn’t want his friend’s mother guilty of a crime, particularly such a horrible one.
“Becca, I need to talk to your mom first. Please, you and Ian step away.”
“It’s okay, dear. I want to talk to him. I really need to know what happened, too,” Mom said.
“Should we call an attorney?” I asked her.
“Not yet. Let me talk to the police officer, Becca. I’ll let you know if I want an attorney.”
Mom had been arrested before. She had a record—of peaceful protests. When they were younger, she and my father had protested everything from war to pesticides. But, as far as I knew, they hadn’t been “detained” in some time. I didn’t think anyone should talk to the police without an attorney present, but if anyone knew the ropes, my mother did, and I had to believe that she’d request an attorney the second she thought she needed one.
The ambulance pulled into the driveway and parked behind Sam’s car just as Officer Norton exited the barn. She glanced at Sam and shook her head. Sam must have communicated something with a nod, because she pulled out her cell phone and proceeded to make a call.
“Ian, Becca, please,” Sam said.
Ian helped me stand, and we made our way to his truck. He helped me up to the tailgate as Hobbit lay down on the ground under my feet.
“You okay?” Ian asked as he held my chin and examined my face.
“Uh-huh,” I said halfheartedly as I looked into his concerned brown eyes. “I’m fine physically. I’m scared, Ian.”
“That’s to be expected. You want to tell me what happened?”
I nodded. I did want to tell him, but I didn’t want to say the words out loud.
Nevertheless, I recounted my day, beginning with the early morning visit from Joan and the other board members. I thought hard about each detail I mentioned, hoping I’d see something that would illuminate who the killer might have been, because I couldn’t possibly believe that my mother was involved.
As I spoke, I also observed the scene around us with a detached sense of dread. Sam sat next to my mom, and it looked as though the two of them could be chatting over irrigation issues instead of the blood all over her hands. Officer Norton had taken charge of the EMTs. They ventured into my barn, and then one of them walked to the porch and made sure Mom didn’t need any medical attention. He also made sure I was okay before going back to the ambulance. I thought they might remove the body, but they didn’t.
“You’re sure the body is Joan’s?” Ian asked when I finished talking.
I nodded.
“Okay, and your parents were in your stall when Joan offered her ‘critique,’ so to speak?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone besides Bo say something derogatory about Joan?”
“I don’t think so. Not really. I got a lot of support but nothing else bad.”
“Of course, be sure and let Sam know exactly what Bo said.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“It’s going to be okay, Bec,” Ian said as he put his hand on my leg.
“You sure?” I said, looking into his concerned eyes again. I didn’t want to cry, but I could feel the tears beginning to pool.
“Positive. Sam’s the best at what he does, and I don’t believe your mother did this”—he nodded toward the barn—“this . . . well, from everything you’ve told me, your parents are peace-loving, not violent.”
I sniffed away the tears and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I hope so.”
Another car pulled into the driveway and parked behind the ambulance. Officer Norton greeted the driver, who carried a big camera and wore a baseball cap. I had no idea who the man was, but it was clear that he was there to document the scene. Ian and I were silent as we watched him disappear into the barn.
It seemed that only a few minutes passed before he came out and rejoined Officer Norton. She escorted him to the porch, where he took pictures of Mom, specifically her hands. I swallowed away more tears as she turned them in every direction. Then, she pointed to an area at the side of the barn. Sam helped her stand, and they, along with the guy with the camera, walked to where she’d been pointing. I made a move to hop off the tailgate to join them, but Ian held on to my arm.
“I think we’d better wait here a minute.”
“Yeah, probably,” I said, deflated.
Time passed slowly as the three of them disappeared to where they couldn’t be seen from my perch on the tailgate. I caught Officer Norton looking in my direction. She must have been reading my desire to check what they were doing, so she shook her head slowly.
I sighed and waited until they reappeared, the photographer continuing to take pictures of the ground all the way to the barn’s door.
Sam retrieved something from his car and then used to use some sort of swab on Mom’s hands. He worked quickly and efficiently. Once that was done, he said something to her that had her nodding profusely. He turned to watch the photographer as Mom made her way toward the house.
She looked at me and said, “Can I clean up inside?”
Again I made a move to hop down.
“No, Becca, stay there. You still need to talk to the police. I just need to go in and clean up.”
“Should I call Dad?” I asked.
“Officer Brion is taking care of that,” she said, and she went through the front door.
“Becca,” Sam said as he appeared beside the truck. “I need to talk to you next. Ian, can you excuse us?”
Ian hugged my shoulders before he scooted off the tailgate. Hobbit raised her head and pondered whether she should follow him back to the porch or stay with me; she chose me.
“How’re you doing, Becca?” Sam asked as he peered at my face. I could tell he was trying to keep his as neutral as possible.
“Not so good. How’s my mom?”
“She’s very cooperative,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
“That’s good, I guess.”
“That’s very good. Becca, I need you to tell me about what happened, from your point of view. I take it you knew who the deceased was?”
I nodded and swallowed hard. Again, I recounted the events of the day. The more I talked about it, the worse I felt about Joan’s fate. Because she’d been in my barn when she was killed, I couldn’t help but think her death had something to do with me—the result of some misplaced and exaggerated loyalty to me or my products. Was she killed for insulting my preserves? That wasn’t a good enough reason to be murdered. No one I knew had such a short fuse that ridding the world of a critic would have crossed their minds.
“How well do you know Bo?” Sam asked when I got to that part of the story.
“I’ve worked with him at the market for a long time, but we’ve never done anything together socially. I recently started volunteering with him at the community garden. I’ve enjoyed that. I’ve seen another side of him. He’s good with kids. I think he and his wife have some kids of their own, but I’ve never met her or them. I used to think he was just a big, gruff guy, but I like him more than I thought I ever would.”
Sam took an extra second to write something in his notebook.
“Can you think of any reason Joan Ashworth would have come to your farm and gone into your barn? After your encounter this morning, her appearance here seems unusual at best, strange at worst.”
I looked at his serious icy blue eyes. I understood the need for total professionalism, but I couldn’t help but feel a small stab of betrayal. Sam was my friend, and I didn’t want to let even something as serious as a murder g
et in the way of that friendship.
“No, Sam. Unless she was here to apologize, which doesn’t make sense, I can’t think of any good reason she was here.”
“Your barn is always locked, right?”
“Always. Hobbit knows not to go in, but since this is farm country, there are a number of critters roaming around. I keep my barn very clean, sanitized almost to the point of obsession. I don’t want an animal to think it’s an appealing place.”
“Have you had any reason yourself to break into the barn recently?”
“You mean the scrapes on the door frame and the broken lock? No, I didn’t make those, and they weren’t there as of this morning. I’m positive.”
Sam nodded again and took more notes.
“Tell me, as close as possible, the exact time you left Bailey’s today and the exact time you got home.”
“I left around two thirty and drove straight home, so I must have arrived around two forty-five, two fifty. That’s the best I can do.”
“Can I see your hands?”
“Uh, sure.” I held them out, palms up first, and then turned them over. They were covered with dirt and a little blood that must have come from Hobbit during our happy reunion. I thought one of the splotches might be jam, but I couldn’t be sure and wasn’t willing to taste test.
Sam inspected them closely. “I’ll need to have Gus come over. He’ll take some samples from your hands, and then he’ll fingerprint you.”
I blinked and said, “Okay. Sam, should my mom get an attorney? Should I?”
He sighed. “At this point, I’m just investigating. Neither you nor your mother is a prime suspect right now. We have to analyze the evidence first. I think it would be wise to consider an attorney, though. It never hurts to be prepared.”
My heart thunked and then fell to my stomach. I hadn’t killed Joan, so the appearance of my possible guilt didn’t seriously cross my mind. I’d been concerned about my mother, and I still was, but now I had to add my own potential defense to the mix.
“Got it,” I said weakly.
Sam turned and walked to the man with the camera, who must have been Gus. He waved him toward me and then walked over to Officer Norton. As they talked, I noticed how Sam and Officer Norton stood identically, with their thumbs in their waistbands. Even in the middle of the serious and horrible moment, I couldn’t help but notice Vivienne Norton’s muscular arms, and how they contrasted with her bleached blonde hair and thick makeup, not to mention how they outgunned everyone else’s biceps.
Crops and Robbers Page 4
