A Secret in the Pumpkin Patch

by Elizabeth Ashby

  "JT went ahead to set up, so the Pear Stirpes Orchard stall will be open on time." Merle leaned back in his seat, making no move to start the engine. "I just can't stop thinking that this is a mistake and you should stay home today."

  "That's not an option, and I can't be late. Cary will worry." I unclipped the seat belt. "If you won't drive, I'll go get my car."

  He held out a gently restraining hand. "Just promise me you'll be careful. Stay where there are plenty of people."

  "I promise." That was easy enough to agree to. I'd already planned to do that. "Now let's go."

  "Okay." Merle started the truck, and we headed out.

  "I've been thinking some more about who could have been behind the wheel of the SUV yesterday," I said. "I bumped into my ex-client, Eddie, in the market's parking lot shortly before the incident, and he was surprised to see me. At the time I thought it was just guilt because he knew he wasn't supposed to be bothering me, but now I have to wonder if there was another reason. He might have been surprised to see I was alive if he thought he'd pushed me off the cliff earlier in the day. He's not from around here, so he might not have heard the news that identified Angela as the woman who fell off the cliff."

  "Seems like a long shot to me," Merle said. "If he thought he killed you, there wouldn't have been any reason for him to still be at the market afterwards. And he was waiting for us outside the first aid tent right after you were almost hit by the SUV. I'm not sure he'd have had enough time to ditch the car and get there before us."

  "It would have been tight, but there was more time than you might think," I said. "It took me a few minutes to get my legs under me again after the incident, and I wasn't really paying attention to the traffic, so the SUV could have turned around and gone into the parking lot while I was trying to calm down. Even after I got moving, I didn't go straight to the first aid tent. I stopped to visit Cary before I collected you for the meeting with Detective Marshall."

  "Still, I don't see it," Merle said. "Eddie had his portfolio with him. Why would he have brought that if he thought you were dead? Why would he even stay at the market if he'd killed you?"

  "The same reason any criminal returns to the scene of the crime, to see the fallout from his actions," I said, although Merle was probably right. My own suspicion was probably just wishful thinking, since it might lead to getting Eddie out of my hair permanently. Still, I wasn't ready to rule him out. There was no denying that he'd had means, motive, and opportunity to kill Angela, and I thought the timing of his trip to Danger Cove on a weekend when someone who looked like me had died would have made the more thorough Detective Ohlsen investigate him, even if it didn't register on Detective Marshall's radar. "I never actually looked at Eddie's folder, so it could have been fake, like a costume prop to explain what he was doing here. For all we know, it held a bunch of blank paper, just something that made him seem like a perfectly innocent client, seeking me out for emergency financial advice while he was really just curious to see what the reaction was to my death."

  "You'll need more than that to convince Lester Marshall." Merle turned into the parking lot and headed for the far corner where the vendors were required to park.

  The place held some uncomfortable memories for me. To distract myself, I considered who else might have been behind the wheel of the SUV. "I wish I'd gotten a better look at the driver's face." I tried to bring the image into focus. "Whatever he had over his face was weird. Not like a regular mask. Something that muffled his facial features without having any features of its own. Maybe some kind of veil."

  "Like a beekeeper wears?"

  "I don't know. I just remember that it was hard to make out the driver's features." I tried to remember exactly what I'd seen, but it had been such a brief look, and I hadn't had any reason to pay much attention, so now I couldn't form a clear image in my mind. No matter how much I concentrated, the details of his face remained elusive, and the rest of him had been cloaked in shadowy black. "Aren't beekeeper's suits usually light-colored? What I could see of the driver was covered in black material. And his hat was more of a beanie than the brimmed hat of a beekeeper. In any event, why would a beekeeper want me dead?"

  "No idea." Merle turned off the engine. "I'm just trying to understand exactly what you saw."

  "Me too," I said before opening the door and climbing out of the truck. "I just wish Detective Marshall was as interested in who the driver was as we are."

  "He may come around eventually."

  "It may be too late by then," I said. "He seems awfully committed to his suicide theory."

  "That could be a problem," Merle agreed.

  "And not the sort that I've got a solution for in my sling bag."

  * * *

  I was surprised to see Buzz waiting for me near the first aid tent. He was dressed in skinny black jeans and a yellow sweatshirt cinched in at the waist with his fanny pack again, but I was no longer certain it was an intentional choice to make himself look like a bee. Or at least not a choice that was limited to Halloween. He was so attached to his bees that he might have been trying to blend in with the colony. I'd read that cats believed their humans were just big cats, so perhaps bees had a similar view of their keepers.

  Buzz was alone in the spot where the Baxter twins usually stood. It worried me that the EMTs weren't there, since they only left their station when someone needed medical assistance. Most of the time, that didn't happen until later in the day, when people became dehydrated or fatigue led to accidents. Maybe the Baxter twins were running late today. It was only a few minutes after opening time, after all, and the public generally arrived later on Sundays than Saturdays, so there weren't many people on the grounds yet other than the vendors, who seldom needed any medical assistance. Even Cary hadn't arrived yet. At least he hadn't been at the demonstration grill when I'd passed it on the way to the main market area. He was never late, so I had to wonder if he might be the one who'd needed medical attention. As I started to get anxious, I reminded myself that surely they'd have contacted me if anything had happened to my employee.

  I gave Buzz a smile. "I'm so pleased to see you here. I didn't think you'd be back."

  "I'm sorry," Buzz said. "After I calmed down a bit, I realized I was a bit hasty yesterday in rejecting the Lighthouse Farmers' Market."

  "That's good to hear." I noticed that Merle had lingered beside me instead of continuing on to the Pear Stirpes Orchard stall that was mere feet away, so I told him, "I can handle this. You can help me most by making sure JT's got your space all set up before Jim Sweetwater complains that I'm giving you preferential treatment again."

  Merle left, and I said to Buzz, "Why don't you walk with me while I do my morning rounds?"

  "Okay," Buzz said. "See, I really like everything about this market, and I think my bees would too. Except for the deaths, of course. When I heard about them, I panicked, which is something I never do. Beekeepers need to keep their wits about them every single minute when dealing with a hive."

  "No one here is going to sting you to death, I promise."

  He gave me an appreciative smile, which erased years from his appearance. Maybe he was only pushing ninety instead of a hundred. "I'd really like to give this place another chance. I hope you won't hold it against me that I had my doubts."

  "Of course not. I appreciate a well-thought-out decision." I urged him over to the Memorial Walkway so I could get a better view of the various vendors' stalls to make sure none of them seemed to be encountering any trouble with their setups. "Did you happen to see where the Baxter twins went?"

  "The EMTs?" At my nod, Buzz continued, "They got a call about something happening down at the pumpkin patch. Somebody tripped over a vine or something."

  I devoutly hoped that was all it was, nothing ominous enough to send Buzz flying away from the market again in search of better options. "So, what can I do to help you make up your mind about the market?"

  Buzz stopped in the middle of the Memorial Walkway. "I don't
know. There's so much to consider."

  His gaze landed on the Sweetwater Spuds stall, where the owner had finished setting up his display. Sweetwater was out in front of the stall, pacing back and forth with his hands clasped behind his caped coat, in what I assumed was his impression of Sherlock Holmes cogitating over a case. Not the image I wanted Buzz looking at, with the implicit reminder that someone had died and a police investigation was underway, complete with a Lestrade-like police detective who gave the impression of being incapable of solving the case on his own.

  I needed to distract Buzz. Or at least steer him toward a more positive image. "Why don't you visit Tommy Fordham again? His stall looks like it's just about ready for customers. Tommy's one of the most popular farmers here, but if you catch him now before the crowds arrive, he'll have time to answer your questions. Meanwhile, I have to go check on whatever happened down in the pumpkin patch and see where my assistant is. You have my number, so you can text me if you need anything."

  Buzz ambled in his random way in the general direction of Tommy's stall. I watched until he arrived to make sure Sweetwater didn't ambush him on the way, before turning and jogging in the direction of the pumpkin patch.

  * * *

  The Baxter twins were in the garden path that separated the pumpkin patch and the turkey pen, kneeling on the ground to pack up their equipment. I considered that a good sign, since it meant that no one had been sufficiently injured to need ongoing treatment or to be taken away in an ambulance. On the other hand, it didn't bode well that a uniformed police officer I didn't recognize was standing a couple of feet inside the pumpkin patch, keeping people away from a trampled area.

  "What happened?" I asked the EMTs.

  One of them stood. "Someone tripped over a vine, twisted an ankle."

  Cary wasn't the most coordinated person, so I had to ask, "Was it anyone I know?"

  He shook his head. "A tourist from out of town, I think."

  His brother added, "Fortunately for the town's reputation, the injury wasn't serious. The guy didn't seem to have broken a bone, and he refused transport, so we let him go with a friend who promised to take him to the hospital if the symptoms worsened."

  Relieved that Cary was safe, I could concentrate on my other worry. "If it was just a minor trip and fall, why do we have a police presence?"

  "Nothing to do with us," the second twin said from the ground.

  "Well, nothing to do with our job at least," the first one said. "I almost stepped on a spyglass that was hidden in the vines, and I thought it might have been part of Angela Henderson's costume, so I called for someone to check it out. It's probably nothing to do with her—lots of pirates at the market, so anyone could have lost it—but that's for the cops to figure out."

  I automatically turned to look at the ground near the uniformed officer's feet. Then I saw the spyglass in question, at the far end of the section of trampled vines. It did look like the one Angela had been carrying, heavier and more expensive than the typical costume prop, but I was no expert. If it was hers, how had it gotten there? Buzz had seen her holding it shortly before she'd died, so it should have gone off the cliff with her. Unless the killer had taken it with him.

  In theory, finding the spyglass might have helped with narrowing down the suspects by figuring out who had been near the pumpkin patch after Angela's death, although I doubted it would be all that helpful. There had been a steady stream of people to and from this area all weekend, so the killer could easily have mingled with the crowds and not seemed out of place. Just about everyone who'd come to the market on Saturday, as either a buyer or a seller, had probably visited the pumpkin patch at some point.

  The squawking of the turkeys caught my attention, reminding me of two specific people who would have passed by this spot on several occasions: Scott Vicente, the turkey farmer, and Lew Sturgeon, the state agricultural inspector. They both had valid reasons to be at this end of the pumpkin patch, so either one of them could have waded into the vines and unobtrusively let the spyglass drop to the ground without attracting any attention.

  And then there was the injured person himself. Why had he been wading through the greenery here when most of the pumpkins were at the other end of the patch? Could he have been the one to drop the spyglass?

  "Did your patient say what he was doing when he tripped?"

  "Can't tell you what he told me," the twin on the ground said. "Confidential."

  "He didn't tell me anything," his brother said, "but a witness told me the patient and his friend had gotten here before the pumpkin farmer was open for business, and they got bored, so they'd dared each other into some kind of race through the obstacle course of the vines. I'll have a word with the pumpkin farmer to keep an eye on this end of the patch to make sure it doesn't happen again."

  "Thanks," I said. "I'll have a word with the turkey farmer too, in case he spots anyone getting into mischief in the vines." And also to find out if he'd seen anyone acting suspiciously near where the spyglass had been found.

  Perhaps now I could convince Detective Marshall that Angela's death wasn't an accident. Assuming the spyglass was indeed Angela's, the only explanations for how it had ended up in the pumpkin patch involved foul play. She'd been seen holding it shortly before she died, and there wouldn't have been enough time for her to race down from the cliff, through the market, down to the garden, and then back up to the cliff before she'd died.

  I turned to look up toward the lighthouse. Could Angela have thrown the spyglass from there? It would have taken far less time than running all the way to the pumpkin patch, but I couldn't imagine why she would have thrown it away, and I knew I could never have thrown it that far. Even assuming Angela was stronger and more athletic than I was, and I doubled how far the spyglass might travel if I'd thrown it, it still would have landed somewhere inside the turkey pen, closer to the front perhaps, than I could have reached but still well within that enclosure and nowhere near the pumpkin vines.

  Even Detective Marshall would have to agree that Angela's spyglass in the pumpkin patch proved that her death had involved someone other than just herself. It couldn't have been either an accident or suicide. Which, when coupled with the incident with the SUV, made it much more likely that the killer had intended to kill me and not Angela.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As I approached the gate to the turkey pen, Scott Vicente was holding a full forty-pound bag of organic feed with less strain than I experienced carrying my stuffed-to-capacity sling bag. He scattered handfuls of the food around the eager birds, who squawked and gobbled as they pecked at the ground all around him. I couldn't help thinking that if he'd been up on the lighthouse cliff and he'd thrown the spyglass from there, he could have heaved it past the turkey pen and into the pumpkin patch.

  Scott turned in my direction, and he definitely wasn't pleased to see me. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw the heavy-looking feed bag at me, and I took an involuntary step backward. He set the bag out of the reach of the birds before coming over to the gate and demanding, "Are you here to apologize for what you did?"

  "Me?" I asked, startled. "What did I do?"

  "You told Sturgeon about my juvenile arrest record. That's supposed to be sealed. I was a stupid kid back then, trying marijuana for the first time at a party that got rowdy, and I got busted along with a few other people."

  "I didn't tell him anything," I said.

  "How'd he find out then?" Scott demanded. "He was smearing my reputation all over social media yesterday morning, before he got here and could harass me in person. I only found out about the online stuff last night. He ranted about how terrible the Danger Cove market was, and he used me as an example. Like a marijuana bust when I was sixteen has anything to do with my work now, twenty-some years later. He made it sound like I was some sort of drug dealer and I was stuffing my birds with all sorts of illicit substances. Like people would get high from eating them."

  One of the first things I'd done in my new
job was to set a Google alert for any mentions of the market, in the hope of seeing some positive press that I could then share with the other vendors and the mayor. So far, though, all I'd gotten were a few hits from stories at the Cove Chronicles, and even though they'd been mostly positive, they'd invariably mentioned the deaths at the market, making them less than ideal for sharing. The last alert I'd received had been back in September after the Labor Day weekend market when one of the vendors had died, nothing more recent that might have included Sturgeon's comments. I'd been tired last night, but I'd still checked my emails right before going to bed, and there hadn't been anything to alert me to any online mentions of the market. How could I have missed them?

  Perhaps Scott had read between the lines of vague online comments, taking offense where none had been intended. "Did Sturgeon mention the market and you by name?"

  Scott took out his phone and keyed something in before handing it to me. "See for yourself."

  Sure enough, the screen showed a lengthy diatribe against the town and against Scott in particular, time-stamped Saturday morning. I could see at once why I hadn't gotten the alert—Sturgeon had misspelled the town's name as "Danger Trove," explaining that it was a treasure trove of a town for people who thought murder, backstabbing, and inbreeding were valuable.

  I checked the time-stamp on the posting. Eight in the morning. "I didn't even know he existed until later than that."

  "Didn't you talk to him during the week to schedule the inspection?"

  "As far as I could tell, no inspection was needed," I said. "I certainly didn't get any warning that Sturgeon would be here, and even if I'd talked to him, I couldn't have told him about your juvenile record, because I didn't know about it."