Sweetwater had to go, but that didn't mean I had to humiliate him in public. The only way he'd go quietly was if I gave him a chance to save face. As long as there weren't any witnesses to his accepting the banishment, he could make up an ego-saving story later about what had happened. No one would believe him, but he could at least pretend he'd done nothing wrong. "If you want to discuss the situation further, we need to go someplace private."
Sweetwater's eyes flicked in the direction of the avidly listening quilters before he nodded. "Where?"
I could see that the Baxter twins were still over by the haunted house. They were still kneeling on the ground next to their patient, and it didn't look like they'd be leaving there for a while. "My office. In the first aid tent."
Sweetwater chewed silently on his corncob pipe as we walked. It was only after we were all the way inside the first aid tent, with Sweetwater standing in front of the only exit, that it dawned on me how isolated we were. There was no one in the Dangerous Reads tent on one side of us or in the next two stalls on the other side.
I brushed aside the thought. Sweetwater was annoying, but he wasn't dangerous to anyone or anything except for my reserve of patience and, possibly, the prospects for getting my contract renewed. The market would be better off without Sweetwater, and that was all that mattered right now.
For once the wheelchair was parked where it belonged, so I could continue without any detours over to the folding table that served as my desk and drop into the chair facing the entrance, where Sweetwater was still planted. "Well?" I demanded. "Why haven't you left the market yet?"
"I couldn't leave," he said. "It wouldn't have been fair to anyone else. That poor woman needed justice. Someone had to get it for her, and no one else was doing it. I had to finish my investigation before I could leave."
I closed my eyes, searching for what little patience I could find. When I opened them, Sweetwater had moved from the entrance to loom over me from in front of the flimsy folding table.
"This is all your fault." A sheen of sweat on his face attested to the uncomfortable warmth in the tent, especially noticeable after being out in the cool autumn air. He unwrapped the ugly beige scarf from around his neck and let it dangle from his hand. "No one would be dead if it weren't for you."
"That's ridiculous," I said, mesmerized by the scarf, my instincts screaming that it was important. I forced myself to look at his face. "And totally beside the point. Which is that you've been told to stay out of the police investigation and yet you didn't. You were also told to leave, and again you ignored me. If you've got a legitimate reason to still be here, I'm willing to hear it, but otherwise, I'm going to ask Fred Fields to escort you off the premises. I'll have Cary pack up your stall, and we'll deliver it to your farm this evening."
"You've done more than enough for me already." Sweetwater's words could have been a gracious declining of help, but the way he'd clenched his right hand into a fist around one end of the beige scarf turned the ambiguous words into a threat.
And then I realized why the scarf was niggling at the back of my brain. I'd seen it on the driver of the SUV that had almost run me over. There hadn't been a transparent veil covering the man's entire head but a tight, flesh-colored scarf that had covered him from his eyes down, blending with his skin and blurring the details of his face.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"I can't take any more of your so-called help," Sweetwater continued as he wrapped the second end of the beige scarf around his left hand, forming a garrote. "I should have taken direct action from the very beginning to get rid of you, instead of going after you indirectly."
I was a sitting duck, much like the ones that had escaped from the Danger Cove Dairy over the Independence Day weekend, only to be scooped up by Henry Atwell. Except he'd given his victims a good home, and that clearly wasn't what Sweetwater had in mind.
Still, I wasn't as helpless as the ducklings, and I never flew around or made a lot of noise in a panic the way baby birds were known to do. A more focused shout for help might be in order, except that I doubted anyone could hear me. The thick canvas muffled sound somewhat, so a person passing the tent out front wouldn't hear me over the background noises of the market. If there were anyone inside the Dangerous Reads tent, they might have heard me, but it was still unoccupied. The Pear Stirpes Orchard stall on the other side of the first aid tent was likewise unoccupied, and I wasn't sure my voice would carry beyond that and then beyond Sweetwater's unoccupied stall, all the way to where the high school students were. And I couldn't ask them or their teacher to put themselves in danger for me.
My best plan was just to remain calm and out of Sweetwater's reach until I could slip around him and through the tent's closed door flaps to where there would be witnesses. The crowds were thinning but not completely gone, so there had to be at least a few market-goers out on the Memorial Walkway, in addition to the vendors across from the first aid tent. I doubted Sweetwater was so deranged as to commit murder or even assault in front of a dozen or more witnesses. He was more the sneaky type who'd commit a crime in secret and then lie or offer self-serving justifications afterwards, as he'd done in the past.
I got to my feet, keeping a wary eye on Sweetwater. I debated taking out my phone and texting Fred Fields, but he'd only left a few minutes ago to escort Lew Sturgeon to a waiting patrol car near the market's entrance, so he was probably still too busy to look at his phone. I was on my own.
"What did I ever do to you?" I said. "Besides apply for the same job as you, I mean? That wasn't personal. I didn't even know you then. Or know that anyone else was interested in the job."
"It doesn't matter what your intent was," Sweetwater said. "You undermined me from the very moment you waltzed into town, trading on your family's reputation to get the job that I deserved. I didn't mind so much when I first got the news, because I thought you'd bail once you realized how unprepared you were. You were bound to trip up eventually, and then I could step up."
I thought back to the way he'd withheld information he'd known about possible suspects in the death of the flower vendor at the first market weekend I'd overseen. "You didn't just wait for me to fail. You made sure that I would trip up by not sharing information with me or the police. It's not my fault that Veronica Buckley died. You set everything in motion by getting everyone all stirred up."
Instead of looking ashamed, he puffed out his chest. "Yeah, I did." He frowned. "Except you came out of it as the hero instead of me."
"Is that why you withheld information on Henry Atwell's killer too? In order to make sure that the market would get a bad reputation and I'd take the blame? You might not have realized the first time, with Veronica, that anything worse than a disruptive argument would happen, but you had to know the second time, that Henry was in real danger from his killer. He was going to get beaten up, at a minimum. And yet you enabled the confrontation."
"I didn't want Henry dead," Sweetwater said. "Not that I cared particularly. I just wanted to stir up some chaos that you'd be blamed for when you couldn't handle it."
And instead, like the first time, I'd come out of it a hero for catching the killer. Sweetwater must have been livid.
"So this time you figured you'd make sure I wouldn't survive the weekend at all, let alone as a hero."
He nodded. "It's all your fault. You were supposed to be up on the cliff at noon, not Angela."
"Why would you think that?"
"You said so," he said. "You told me you'd meet me then."
I couldn't tell him that I didn't even remember any such conversation, or it would provoke him into even more anger than he was already experiencing. I did vaguely recall his insisting that we needed to talk, although as I remembered it, his invitation had been more along the lines of a "let's take it outside" type of schoolyard challenge, and I hadn't thought he'd meant anything by it. I certainly hadn't agreed to meet him on the cliff or anywhere else. Although, now that I thought about it, he had said something about me
eting somewhere out of the flow of market traffic around noon.
"Angela wanted to talk to me then too," I said, thinking out loud. "Perhaps she heard our conversation and decided to barge in on it."
"I don't care what Angela wanted," Sweetwater said. "Especially after she almost took me over the edge with her. She heard me come up behind her at the last second, right before I pushed her, and she grabbed at me to keep from going over. I realized then that it wasn't you, and I tried to save her, I really did, but when I reached for her hand, all I got was that spyglass she'd been holding."
I'd never much liked Sweetwater, but I'd never imagined he was so evil. He was actually proud of the fact that he'd caused several deaths indirectly and then had escalated to committing the murder himself. It wasn't enough for him that he knew it—he needed me to know that he'd bested me.
Perhaps his ego would save me. The longer I could keep him talking, the more time I'd have to look for a weapon to use against him, or, failing that, the better the chance that the Baxter twins would finish what they were doing at the haunted house and come back to the first aid tent to pack up for the day. "Why didn't you toss the spyglass over the cliff with Angela?"
"I wasn't thinking straight. I just stuffed it into my overall pocket and ran before someone saw me up there." Sweetwater chuckled, obviously pleased with himself. "It turned out to be a pretty good plan, actually. Guess I've just got good instincts. Some of it was planning too. I left my coat and hat behind when I headed up to the cliff, so I wouldn't be so easily recognizable. And it worked too. I made it back to my stall before anyone noticed that I was gone, not even your snitch Tommy Fordham. And I had plenty of time to clean off the spyglass so there was no evidence on it to connect it to me. After that, it was easy enough to slip it into the pumpkin patch."
"I still don't understand why you tried to kill me with the SUV," I said. "You'd already gotten got away with murder. No one suspected you. The police even thought Angela's death was suicide, so they weren't looking very hard for a killer. If you'd just stopped then, you'd have been home free."
"I did plan to stop then. I thought it would be enough that you'd be blamed for yet another death at the market, and third time's the charm and all that."
While Sweetwater talked, I sketched out a mental escape plan. I couldn't get the garrote away from him, but if I threw something at him, I might be able to knock him off balance long enough to escape.
"I thought they'd have to fire you over Angela's death. Her parents would have made sure it happened. It wouldn't have been as satisfying as seeing you dead, but at least you'd be gone and I could take over the job that should have been mine in the first place, and then everyone would see how much they needed me. But then that stupid detective decided Angela had committed suicide, and no one would blame you for that. You were going to come out of this weekend smelling like roses. Again. I couldn't believe it. I'd done everything right, and still your incompetence was winning out."
I realized he'd stopped talking, so I brought my thoughts back from a review of the sparse contents of the first aid tent to provoke him some more. "So that's when you decided to follow me to the grocery store and finish the job there."
"It seemed like a good idea," he said. "My truck was in the shop, so I'd borrowed a friend's SUV for today's market. No one would have identified it as mine. It was already muddy from some recent field work—I'd offered to get it cleaned in return for borrowing it, but I hadn't had time yet, so all I had to do was dirty up the license plate a bit more so it wasn't legible."
"Except you missed me."
"No one else could have done it any better," he insisted, as if he thought he could convince me that he was a brilliant mastermind, and that I deserved to die. "Just bad luck."
If Sweetwater needed me to acknowledge his brilliance before I died, there would be plenty of time for help to arrive. I just needed to keep reminding him of his failures. "My clients frequently claimed their lack of savings was just bad luck. Sometimes it was true. More often, though, it was due to bad planning."
"It wasn't entirely spur of the moment when I chased you with the SUV," Sweetwater insisted. "I considered the risks. There shouldn't have been that much traffic on Cliffside Drive on a Saturday afternoon. Everyone should have already been at the market or perhaps over at Town Square Park. And I did get away with it. No one suspected me of that either."
"Now, that was luck," I said. "And you've really pushed yours. I bet you didn't even check to see if anyone saw you come in here with me. If I don't leave this tent alive, someone will remember you were here with me."
"Everyone was busy getting ready to shut down," Sweetwater said, although his voice was uncertain. "No one was paying attention to us, and no one will save you this time."
I finally remembered the wheelchair in the corner behind me. If I could grab that, I might be able to hit him with it while still staying out of the reach of his garrote. On the other hand, in order to grab the wheelchair, I'd have to retreat, moving farther away from my ultimate goal of getting to the exit. Sometimes taking a step back to regroup could generate long-term benefits. Other times, it just made the situation worse.
I needed more time to think, so I took aim at his ego, confident he'd feel obliged to defend himself.
"Unlike your plans," I said, "mine all work. That's why I was hired instead of you and why your schemes all fell apart once I got involved. I don't need someone else to help me get things done. And I don't need luck."
My words had their intended effect, causing Sweetwater to sputter and then rant about how he'd accomplished great things without anyone else's help, he'd succeeded despite everyone's best efforts to keep him down. He only succeeded in making it more obvious how inappropriate his Sherlock Holmes costume was. While he was lost in his self-justifications, I scooted over to the other back corner of the tent and slid behind the handles of the heavy-duty wheelchair.
I hesitated, briefly considering my options from the relative safety behind the wheelchair. Should I run straight at Sweetwater, hoping to knock him down like a bowling ball hitting a pin? If he bounced back up fast enough, he'd be behind me and I'd be susceptible to being grabbed by the garrote. I could instead use the wheelchair as more of a shield, keeping myself out of his reach while I pushed him back toward the exit.
Outside the tent, Cary called my name. He must have finished overseeing the removal of the grill and was checking to see what I wanted him to do to help with closing down the market. He would be through the flaps, within Sweetwater's grasp, in just a few seconds unless I acted right now. I didn't have time to work out all the pros and cons of my plan of action.
I'd never been provoked into screaming when it wouldn't do anything except provoke a headache, like in the haunted house, but I knew that loud noise could be distracting, and right now I needed a distraction. I opened my mouth and let out a shrill scream, channeling the war cry that Angela might have uttered as she engaged in a mock pirate's battle. I kept it up as I bore down on with the wheelchair, intent on knocking him out of my way.
The footrests jammed into Sweetwater's shins. He cried out, and I backed up to get some space and then hit him again. I cringed at the impact, distantly aware that I was intentionally hurting a human being. Cary's voice, closer now, reminded me why I was doing it. I bashed Sweetwater's shins again, and he fell down, dropping the garrote to grab his legs.
I dragged the wheelchair sideways to serve as a shield until I realized Sweetwater wasn't even trying to stand up. I let go of the handles and raced out through the flaps.
I careened into Cary, knocking him down and falling with him into a heap on the ground.
He just laughed. "This time you found me, Maria Dolores."
I started to tell him that we needed to get up and run, but in the background, I heard a long, high-pitched whistle. Fred Fields had finally gotten the chance to use his costume prop that was every bit as painfully loud as he'd claimed, and he was racing toward us with Merle
beside him.
Sweetwater was about to be banned, not just from the market, but from all of Danger Cove.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The sky was dark, the bonfires were blazing, and a Mexican band was providing music for the Day of the Dead dancing by the time I'd convinced Detective Marshall that, yes, Sweetwater had explicitly confessed to having killed Angela and having tried to kill me, not just once but twice, and there was no way I could have misunderstood him.
While the vendors had packed up their stalls and left, Fred Fields had kept Sweetwater inside the first aid tent, and I'd been interviewed outside. Detective Marshall had gone back and forth, questioning me, then Sweetwater, then me again. For a while, I'd wondered if my mother had been right when she'd said that no one in Danger Cove would ever trust me, simply because I hadn't lived here my entire life.
In the end, though, hours after the interrogation began, Marshall did finally believe me. It might have turned out differently if Fred Fields hadn't kept vouching for me every time it sounded like the detective was going to let Sweetwater go. Marshall had still been wavering when he'd received a texted copy of the forensics report that mentioned some beige fibers found on Angela's spyglass. While more testing would be needed, it was impossible not to notice the similarity between the description of those fibers and the threads in Sweetwater's scarf.
Once Sweetwater was arrested, Merle had suggested going straight home, but I was too restless, so we wandered toward the beach to watch the dancing. On the way, I got a text message from Buzz, who said he'd discussed all the options with his bees, and they'd decided that the Lighthouse Farmers' Market was a fine place to sell their honey. He'd even attached the signed vendor's contract. Between that accomplishment and Sweetwater not being around to tell the mayor what a terrible job I was doing, I could count on having a job for the next year.
A Secret in the Pumpkin Patch Page 18
