A Secret in the Pumpkin Patch

by Elizabeth Ashby

  I backed away from the tent's entrance and did a brief visual search for Comstock in the surrounding area. He was muscular but only of average height, which, along with his casual clothes, helped him to blend in. The accumulated crowds were larger than at previous events, plenty large enough for a single person to disappear in but not so dense as to make it difficult to move briskly. While I'd been talking to Scott about the inspector, Comstock could have gotten anywhere from the far end of Two Mile Beach in one direction or to the Danger Cove pier in the other direction. He could even have gone up to the cliff where the lighthouse stood, although that seemed unlikely since the forensics team had still been up there the last I'd looked and there was still yellow police tape draped across the steps carved into the rock to prevent anyone without the proper credentials from going up there.

  I gave up on Comstock and went over to the demonstration grill. Cary insisted he didn't want to take a break and that he wasn't hungry because he'd had seventeen and a half samples from the demonstrations since noon. For anyone else, I would have insisted that he take a bit of time off anyway, but I knew he was happiest in a structured environment rather than left to his own devices.

  "I'm glad you're here, though, Maria Dolores. We're almost out of plastic baggies, and we could use a big roll of aluminum foil. The original one was too small, and it's almost used up now."

  I'd considered not bringing my sling bag today, since it was definitely not something my great-great-great-grandmother would have worn, but practicality had won the day, and I hadn't regretted the decision. The bag's contents had already come in handy half a dozen times today, and now I was able to pull out a handful of baggies for Cary to tide him over for a while. Despite all the other emergencies I'd anticipated, I hadn't thought of bringing extra aluminum foil. Fortunately, there was a grocery store in the old cannery building—now a little strip mall—on the other side of Cliffside Drive where I could get some foil.

  "If you're sure you don't want a break, I'll run across the street right now and get the rest of what you need. I'll be back in…" Cary could be quite literal about this sort of thing, and I didn't want to panic him if I were delayed. It would be safer to overestimate how long the trip would take. "I'll be back in twenty minutes."

  Cary waved me off, and I headed toward the street. I was halfway across the lighthouse's parking lot when my least favorite ex-client, Eddie Weber, practically barreled into me. His head was down, his eyes were focused on the ground, and he was carrying a thick folder of papers.

  I must have made a surprised sound that caught his attention a mere nanosecond before we would have collided, because he looked up suddenly and seemed startled to see me.

  It didn't take long for him to recover his bravado, though. "Good," he said. "Now I don't have to go hunting for you. I brought you my current portfolio so you can tell me how to fix it."

  He waved the folder at me, but I took a step back. "I'm not reviewing your portfolio. I don't do that work any longer. Anything you want to say to me needs to be done through my lawyer."

  I kept a wary eye on Eddie while looking for the distinctive bobby helmet worn by Officer Fred Fields. I hadn't wanted to get the police involved in the situation with Eddie, but perhaps if I'd reported the way Angela had been stalking me, she'd have been escorted off the premises and she'd still be alive now. I wasn't taking any chances with Eddie.

  "You didn't really mean it when you told me to leave you alone," he said. "You were just testing me to see how much I wanted your help. Well, I'm still here, and I've shown you how desperate I am, so you've got to help me now."

  I shook my head. Some people just couldn't be reasoned with. "I'm not going to review your portfolio. I need to go across the street for a few minutes, and when I come back, I expect you to be gone from the market. Otherwise, I'll have a police officer escort you off the premises."

  I didn't wait for an answer, just jogged toward the street, leaving Eddie behind. It took all my willpower to keep from looking over my shoulder to see if he was following, but I couldn't risk his taking that as an invitation to follow me. I managed to wait until I'd crossed the street and was tugging on the door to the grocery store before I checked to see what he was doing. He hadn't followed, but he hadn't left either. He was standing where I'd left him, looking as indecisive as Buzz the beekeeper.

  I didn't have time to go back and deal with him if I wanted to take care of my errand and return to the grill before my twenty minutes was up and Cary started to worry about me. Getting the police to remove Eddie could wait until after I got the supplies for the grill.

  * * *

  I grabbed a box of baggies and an extra-large roll of aluminum foil and paid for them as quickly as possible. They didn't fit in my sling bag, and I hadn't come prepared with one of the promotional canvas bags that were sold at the market to raise funds for the administrative costs, so I let the cashier drop my purchases into a flimsy plastic bag.

  As I stepped through the grocery store's exit, I checked across the street for Eddie. He wasn't where he'd last been standing, so that was encouraging. I didn't see him anywhere else either, but that didn't mean he'd left the grounds completely. There wasn't anything distinctive enough about his size or shape to make him stand out from the other people enjoying the market. He could have lost himself among the people watching the pet parade or the demonstrations at the grill, he could have ducked into one of the farmers' stalls, or he could even have wandered down to the pumpkin patch, where the farmer was scheduled to give a talk in a few minutes on how to choose the right variety for different uses, from cooking to decorating.

  The old cannery's parking lot was virtually deserted, presumably because everyone was either at the waterfront activities or participating in other holiday events around town. The McDowell Insurance Agency closed at noon on Saturdays, and the quilt shop, Sunny Patches, was closed for the weekend, with its owner, most of its staff, and the majority of its customers all at the quilting bee. There weren't any people visible on my side of the street and only three vehicles in the cannery's parking lot, with the nearest one a large, mud-splattered SUV parked in one of the handicap spaces between me and the lot's exit onto Cliffside Drive.

  As I crossed the asphalt on the way to the crosswalk to the right of the exit, the SUV's engine started up, and the driver backed up. I moved out of the traffic lane so he could pass me, which he did, coming to a stop to idle at the edge of Cliffside Drive.

  Since he seemed to be waiting for me to go ahead of him and cross the street, I looked up at the driver to see if it was someone I knew. I never paid much attention to vehicles, so it could have been a friend or one of the market's vendors. The driver wore a Halloween costume, but it was hard to make out exactly who he was trying to portray, which could have been anything from Batman to Darth Vader. Only the upper portion of a black cape was visible. He also wore a black beanie pulled low to cover his forehead, ears, and hair, and there was something below the hat that obscured his facial features.

  The driver waved, indicating he was indeed waiting for me to use the crosswalk before he pulled out onto Cliffside Drive. I waved back in case it was someone I knew and then looked in both directions. There wasn't much traffic, so I jogged into the street, in a hurry to get back to the demonstration grill before I was late and caused Cary to panic.

  I'd only taken a few steps when I heard the engine of the SUV racing, and the driver peeled out in my direction. I didn't waste any time screaming, just gripped the flimsy plastic bag and raced to the middle line of the road as if my life depended on it. As I ran, I heard a horn honking from my right and looked up to see a pickup truck heading toward me in the far lane of Cliffside Drive. Behind me, I could hear the SUV on my tail, as if it were herding me into the oncoming truck. I turned sharply to my right to keep moving along the dividing line while the truck wooshed by inches away from me, and then I went around its back to run to the far side of the street.

  I heard the SUV swerve into th
e wrong lane of traffic to follow me, but by then I'd almost reached the far side, and there was another car approaching from the other direction that would collide head-on with the SUV if it didn't get back in the correct lane. There was a screeching of brakes and then the sound of the SUV returning to its lane and peeling out at high speed.

  I dropped my plastic bag onto the sidewalk and collapsed beside it, out of breath and—even more so—out of patience with people stalking me.

  * * *

  While I waited for my legs to be steady enough to support me, I texted Fred Fields to say I needed to talk to Lester Marshall right away and I'd be waiting for him in the first aid tent as soon as I could get there.

  On my way, I stopped at the demonstration grill to drop off the plastic bag of supplies and then detoured to collect Merle from his stall next to the first aid tent with a tense, "We need to talk." Merle didn't hesitate to follow me.

  We ran into Eddie waiting outside the first aid tent, and he tried to stop me again, thrusting his folder at me. I didn't have any patience left to deal with him, so I just brushed past him. Either my expression or Merle's kept Eddie from trying to follow us into the tent.

  Once inside the unoccupied tent, Merle asked, "Are you okay?"

  "Yes." The wheelchair was on the far side of the table, where my seat should have been, so instead I dropped into the same folding chair I'd used when Lester Marshall had interviewed me earlier. I was more angry than scared now. "And no. Someone just tried to kill me."

  Merle sat beside me, a calm and reassuring presence, although I noticed tension in his jaw and around his eyes. "Who?"

  "I don't know," I said irritably. I was upset with myself, not with him. I should have done something to identify my attacker before he got away. I stared at my hands, still shaking in the aftermath of the crisis, and willed them to behave themselves. Panic didn't fix anything. "He was behind the wheel of an SUV and wearing a cape and some sort of mask." I looked up at Merle to see his confused expression. "Yeah, I know it sounds crazy, but it is Halloween weekend, and lots of people are wearing costumes."

  "Not generally while driving," Merle said. "Did you get the plate number?"

  I shook my head. "It all happened too fast, and the vehicle was covered with mud, so the plates were hard to make out."

  "What kind of SUV was it?"

  I sighed. "Cary could probably have told you the make, model, and year, but I have no idea. All I remember is that it was black and filthy, like it had been used in some sort of off-road race. Except it wasn't a Jeep or the sort of beater I'd have expected someone would choose for that sort of rough activity. It looked fairly new to me, but I can't say for sure. I've never been all that interested in vehicles."

  Lester Marshall arrived just then with a fresh supply of SweeTarts presumably snagged from outside Dangerous Reads. He tossed them down on the folding table and slipped into the chair across from us. "What's the big deal?"

  I repeated what I'd just told Merle and ended with, "I think whoever killed Angela was actually trying to kill me. We're similar enough in height and weight to be mistaken for each other from a distance, especially in light of our matching costumes. I heard that she'd been looking out at the ocean, maybe even using her spyglass, so her killer might not have gotten a good look at her face until it was too late."

  Marshall chewed a SweeTart thoughtfully and swallowed before saying, "It's a theory. But more complicated than it needs to be. In my experience, the simplest solution to any case is the right one ninety-nine percent of the time. And, as a bonus, it's also the easiest to prove in court. As far as I can tell, there's no reason to think Angela Henderson was murdered, so there's no point in asking whether it was a case of mistaken identity. Most likely, she was either standing too close to the edge and fell or she was depressed and jumped. Nothing the forensic team has found so far suggests otherwise."

  "Did you talk to Buzz Reed?" I asked. "He saw her after I did, and he thought she was waiting for someone. If she was, it's odd that that person hasn't come forward."

  "All right, all right. I'll talk to him." Marshall brushed aside the empty SweeTart packet and got out his phone to key in some notes. "But you still haven't given me a reason to think it's some big conspiracy and the wrong person died. Why would anyone want you dead?"

  "Because people don't like being told what they can and can't do, and it's my job to do just that," I said heatedly. I was done with trying to sound calm. There was a time to be unflappable and a time to let emotions fly. "Jim Sweetwater thinks I'm ruining the market and treating him like a second-class citizen. And the state agriculture inspector blames me for whatever bad things happened to him when he lived in Danger Cove twenty years ago. I've also got an ex-client stalking me this weekend because I won't look at his financial records. You probably saw him outside on your way in here. I could go on, but those are just the people I can think of right off the top of my head. I could probably come up with a dozen more who want to get rid of me if you give me some time."

  Marshall looked at Merle. "Is that right? Are there that many people gunning for her?"

  "It's your job to find out," Merle said, his tone even but with a hint of irritation. "She told you who might have wanted her dead. She told you someone tried to hit her with a deadly weapon, an SUV. It's up to you to decide what to do with that information. If you're not up to the challenge…" He let the threat hang in the air.

  "I know my job." Marshall stood, scooping up the last unopened packet of SweeTarts and leaving the trash behind on the table. He turned to loom over me. "Let me give you a bit of advice, Ms. Dolores. It takes years of experience to read a crime scene and to get inside the heads of killers. Don't try it on your own. Leave it to the experts."

  "And if someone tries to kill me again?"

  "We don't even know that anyone tried to kill you once," Marshall said, clearly exasperated that he had to explain things to a mere citizen. "You were probably just a bit hysterical after the near-miss. The fact is, though, that it didn't have to be intentional. There are plenty of terrible drivers on the road, especially when tourists come to town. You said the driver was wearing something on his face, so he probably couldn't see properly. You women take things so personally when there's a perfectly rational explanation that has nothing to do with you."

  I might have completely lost my temper if Merle had tried to intervene on my behalf, as if I couldn't defend myself, but he knew better than to fight a battle I hadn't asked for his help with.

  I clenched my fists and forced myself to remain in my seat while Marshall sauntered out of the tent, tearing open the last packet of SweeTarts. I waited until I was certain he was out of hearing range before I turned to Merle. "Is he like that with everyone? If so, I'm surprised someone hasn't gotten rid of him, one way or another."

  "I don't know," Merle said, relaxing visibly at the evidence that I wasn't going to get myself arrested for assaulting an officer. "I haven't dealt with Marshall or anyone else on the local police force that much. I am trying to put my legal career behind me, you may recall."

  "I'm sorry to drag you into this." I glanced at the tent flap that Detective Marshall had disappeared through. "I don't suppose there's a precedent for a finding of justifiable homicide when a woman lashes out after being mansplained at."

  "Not yet," Merle said with a grin. "And I'd consider it a personal favor if you didn't go out of your way to be the test case for a new legal defense."

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next morning, I agreed with Merle that I should leave my car at home and travel with him to the market. It seemed like a reasonable precaution, considering the events of the previous day.

  After Detective Marshall had left on Saturday afternoon, Merle and I had been caught up in the market's end-of-day routine, and then I'd been too unsettled to do anything more complicated than have dinner, take care of some preparations for Sunday, and then crash in Merle's guest room, since I hadn't wanted to be quite as isolated as I was in
the caretaker's cabin.

  The trip to the market was our first chance to really discuss what had happened on Saturday, but even as we walked from the farmhouse to Merle's truck, he tried to convince me I should stay home until the police were absolutely certain they knew what had happened to Angela Henderson and that it hadn't had anything to do with me.

  "I've got to be there today." I might have been able to skip a regular market day, but not the expanded Halloween event. "Otherwise, I might as well just hand in my resignation and recommend Jim Sweetwater as my replacement. And that's definitely not going to happen."

  "I know, but I had to try." Merle unlocked the passenger door for me. "Will you at least promise me you won't go anywhere alone for the rest of the day?"

  "I'm hopeful that the market will be too crowded for me to be alone while it's open, and then you'll be with me afterwards for the bonfires and dancing."

  "I'm definitely claiming all your dances tonight, but I'm more concerned about your safety before that, when I'll be needed at my stall at least some of the time." Merle went around the truck and climbed into the driver's side. He put the key in the ignition but didn't start the engine even after I'd climbed in beside him. "JT and I could trade off as needed, though, so one or the other of us is with you all day."

  "I don't need a bodyguard, and unless you can convince JT that I'm somehow a prerequisite for him to be able to continue making perry, I doubt he'd pay that much attention to me."

  "You are a prerequisite. I'd fire him if anything happened to you while he was with you."

  "You need him more than you need me." I saw that Merle was gearing up to object, so I added, "Okay, maybe not more than you need me, but in a different way than you need me. You're not going to fire him, and he knows it."

  "What about Cary?" Merle said. "He adores you. Why not keep him near you today?"

  "He wouldn't adore me any longer if I did that," I said. "He likes to keep busy, not just wander around aimlessly. Besides, I need him to supervise the demonstration grill. He's probably waiting for me there already and wondering where I am. If we don't leave right this minute, we'll be late, and I'll have to fine both of us for breaking the market's rules."