Berry Murderous

by Katherine Hayton

  Reg nodded along with that. “I could really get behind that effort. What were you thinking of?”

  “I wasn’t.” Willow picked up a small handful of nuts and sultanas. “You’re the one meant to be thinking.”

  “You said you had a surprise,” Reg grumbled. “While this seems more like a punishment.”

  “It’s only a punishment if you don’t have any fun while you’re doing it,” Willow said, leaning over to give him a pat on the knee. “And you know once you get going, this’ll be a barrel of laughs.”

  “Will it?” Reg looked around at them doubtfully. He sat back, fiddling with the marker caps, popping them on and off again. “I suppose we could run a bake sale?”

  “That’s not a manly thing to suggest,” Harmony said. “Besides, when we do bake sales to raise money, all the local eating establishments complain. Try something else. What’s something you’ve wanted in the past but hasn’t been available?”

  “A car wash?”

  Willow shot him a suspicious glance. “If the next words out of your mouth are bikini, then Harmony and I are out of here.”

  Reg guffawed with laughter, shaking his head. “No. I thought since the full-service garage shut down, we don’t have anywhere you can easily go to get that done. I know it’s just a half hour job in your driveway, but in winter, that’s not appealing to anyone.”

  “Write it up on the board,” Willow said, giving his shoulder a nudge. “What else?”

  “You said part of this was going to help out Shelby Causer?” Reg asked, turning to Willow.

  She gave a nod, and he glanced back at the board. “Then I suggest I round up a group of able-bodied lads around my age and we inspect all building work he’s done around the area for free. We mightn’t be able to fix it ourselves, but we can certainly warn others if things are about to go pear-shaped.”

  “Could you do that for my place?” Willow asked. “I’d be happy to pay for the peace of mind of knowing everything in there is safe. I don’t even like the thought of Mavis walking in the conservatory after seeing the flooring at Shelby’s house.”

  “I can do yours gratis,” Reg offered. “It’ll help to train up the men I have in mind.”

  “And your first idea of a bake sale might come back to haunt you,” Harmony said. “It won’t upset the local eateries if we give a bunch of baked goods to your men as a thank-you gift.”

  “On the board,” Willow insisted, pointing and laughing.

  They continued well into the night, writing up all their ideas. As Willow left, she took one last glance at the board and thought they could probably afford to buy a new house for Shelby by the time they were done.

  What had started as a simple distraction to take Reg’s mind off his troubles had turned into something bigger and better than she could have imagined.

  Willow thought of visiting Shelby that very minute and informing her everything was about to be put right. Luckily, a random note of caution sounded. It was far too late at night to be bringing people to their doors. She could tell her once the profits started to flow in, that would be soon enough.

  Chapter Nine

  As Willow crossed the town square the next day, she caught sight of Charley slipping out of the sheriff’s office. Never backward in coming forward, she strode across to greet him. “What are you doing here?”

  Charley’s eyes opened wide in surprise, then he managed to produce a grin from somewhere. “I’ve just been dragged across the coals,” he informed her with a little bow. “Apparently, your sheriff doesn’t take kindly to people undercutting their bosses on new jobs.”

  “Hardly a reason for you to murder him, though,” Willow mused, falling into step beside him. “I mean, it’s a great reason for Jeff to have bludgeoned you and tossed your body in the river but the reverse…?”

  Charley winced at her flippant description, giving Willow pause. She’d always thought of herself as having a delicate composition, not able to view anything that was designed to shock. Now, the events of this week coming so soon on the heels of the terrible business with Roger Randall seemed to have put a damper on her squeamishness.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I don’t know what I’m thinking lately.”

  That gave Charley a laugh. “I’m pretty sure I can tell what the sheriff is thinking. He thinks I did Jeff in, then tried to cover over my mistake.”

  “Did you?” Willow stared at the man intently as she finished her question. If Charley was lying about the murder, then he was a better actor than she’d have pinned him for.

  “Not a chance. I might be a builder, but any of the guys at work could tell you, I’m averse to the sight of blood.”

  “Me, too!” Willow smiled at Charley, feeling well-disposed to him because of their similarity. “It’s in my medical records that I faint when someone starts bleeding.”

  “I can’t imagine it comes up too often in your line of work, though. Making tea isn’t really a high-risk occupation. Building work, however? I had to watch out to avoid seeing men nicking their fingers or sawing through something they shouldn’t.”

  All of Willow’s worries that she was becoming hardened disappeared in a second. “Oh, don’t,” she cried, clapping a hand over her mouth at the thought.

  “Sorry. I should know better, shouldn’t I? Make myself ill sometimes.”

  For all that his words were sheepish, Charley had a big grin on his face.

  “Did the sheriff question you about anything in particular?” Willow asked, getting the conversation back on her intended track. “He’s been putting the wind up my friend Reg, just because he had that stupid argument with Jeff the other morning.”

  Charley snorted and nodded. “That’s an overreaction if I ever heard one. Jeff had an argument with somebody new every day. If the sheriff is using that to add to the pool of suspects, he’ll end up with a very long list.”

  Willow nodded along, noting Charley had neatly sidestepped her question. She could try again, but it would definitely not come across as idle conversation if she pushed him again. Was it worth that risk?

  “I like you, Charley,” Willow said. Her mother had taught her the importance of leading with a compliment. As a child, Willow had learned to dread the flattery, knowing that a telling-off would soon follow.

  “This sounds like the start of a bad joke,” he responded, a grin still very much in place.

  “I just wondered if the sheriff had any solid evidence on you. Something concrete that would set my friend’s mind at rest.”

  “Why would he?” Charley fell out of step, drawing to a stop so Willow had to turn around and look back at him. “If you believe me that I didn’t do it, then it follows that Sheriff Wender can’t have any solid leads.”

  “Except judging from the face you wore when you walked out of the station, he had something good on you.” Willow placed her hands on her hips. The friendly comradery was gone—now she just wanted answers.

  “The sheriff knows I was moonlighting, knows I was stealing jobs from under Jeff’s nose, and knows I was fired. Cripes, if I saw that on a sheet of paper, I’d think I was guilty, too.”

  It was all perfectly understandable. Every word out of Charley’s mouth made perfect sense.

  So why did Willow feel like he was still hiding something from her?

  It was later, as she walked into the bank to inquire about setting up an account for the fundraising, that Willow discovered the missing piece of Charley’s puzzle. As soon as her conversation with him had come to a sticky end, she’d regretted the whole incident.

  In this small a town, there was no need to go around poking people, trying to make enemies. It would only come to no good if she didn’t get back in touch and apologize for her boldness earlier that day.

  “I’ll need three forms of ID,” the teller informed Willow, who hunted around in her purse for the required cards and documents. No matter how prepared she was, as soon as something entered her handbag, it seemed to disappear into another
realm. Items would hide in impossible corners, out of sight and out of the reach of her fingertips.

  Behind the teller, in an office with the door sitting wide open, a man undertook an increasingly irate conversation on the phone.

  “I’ve already said since the check was essentially a forgery,” the man said. “The money will be returned to the deceased account, forthwith. We can’t push the transfer through in the same day, but it will update in the account overnight.”

  Willow managed to grab two cards, her driver’s license and her social security card, while the broader fold of her passport remained out of reach. She slapped those down on the counter, smiling an apology at the teller, and continued the hunt.

  “I’m aware that it appears to have overdrawn the business account, but I can assure you that it’s not the case.” The man in the office sighed. “Although the money was temporarily deposited in Mr. Lacy’s favor, it has already been taken out of his name and redirected back into Mr. Waterman’s account.”

  In front of Willow, the teller snapped her fingers to get her attention. “I’ll still need that third form of ID.”

  “Yes, sorry.” Willow put her eyes back on the job, but her mind raced off with the overheard conversation.

  Mr. Lacy could only be Charley Lacy surely—anything else would be too much of a coincidence. Could it be possible that not only had Charley been stealing jobs away from under Jeff Waterman’s nose, but he’d also been stealing money?

  “No, checks are not an inherently bad form of currency,” the man in the office continued, his forehead now cupped in the one hand he had free. The other remained in a death grip on the phone receiver. “They’re as good as any other. Unfortunately, no system is immune to forgery. However, we’ve caught the instance, and it’s now in the hands of the sheriff’s office to deal with. I’m sure that something like this will never happen again.”

  “Ha!” Willow made a show of triumph as she finally snagged her passport.

  The teller just picked up the offering and typed a few lines into the computer, looking bored. “It’ll be a few minutes for the standard checks to go through, then we’ll send out a letter with your account information.”

  Willow nodded happily as she swept her ID back into the black hole of her handbag, giving the teller an enormous smile and walking out the door with another piece of information to fit into the murder puzzle. It mightn’t form a complete picture yet, but she felt sure it would all come together, given time.

  Chapter Ten

  As Willow was about to get back in her car, a distraught young man appeared beside her. She gave a yelp of fright as the youth appeared out of nowhere—clutching her bag close against her body and poking her car keys out, just like her self-defense instructor had taught her years before.

  “Sorry.” The man backed up a few steps, holding his palms up in surrender. “I didn’t mean to give you a fright. I’ve been calling your name for a minute.”

  Considering how deep in thought Willow had been, she supposed the young man could be telling the truth. Something about his face looked familiar to her, and she leaned forward, squinting against the afternoon light.

  “My name is Lee Harrington,” he explained. “You’ll have seen me working on the extension to your conservatory.”

  Willow nodded, only realizing how tense she’d been as her shoulders relaxed down to their normal level. “What was it you wanted?”

  Lee looked down at his shoes, shuffling nervously from foot to foot. Willow resisted the urge to snap at him to hurry. Even if she felt impatient, it wasn’t as though she had anywhere she needed to be.

  At last, Lee straightened his back to look her in the eye. “I wondered if you might consider hiring me to finish up the job. I know I don’t have a lot of experience, but I’m a quick learner, and I’ve memorized the basics, in and out. Anything I haven’t come across yet, I’m happy to question.”

  “To ask who?” Willow said with curiosity. “It’s no use asking me. I wouldn’t have a clue how to go about building so much as a birdhouse.”

  “No. I have a mentor who helps me out…”

  The young man trailed off, staring down at his shoes again as the temporary courage wore out.

  “Would that be Charley Lacy?”

  Lee looked up again, his expression a mix of startled and delighted. “Yeah. He’s the one. There’s nothing about building that he doesn’t know.”

  “There’s nothing about blagging that he doesn’t know,” Willow quickly responded, then laughed as Lee’s face creased in doubt. “It’s an old word,” she explained. “It means showing off or selling yourself a bit hard.”

  “Oh.” Lee’s face brightened again. “Well, he’s certainly got that going for him.”

  “I don’t have anything against the idea,” Willow said carefully. “But I also can’t say for certain what the monetary situation is at the moment. According to the contract, all the money for the building work is held in a separate account. I’m not sure if I can access it until a court has decided how much of it should be paid to Jeff Waterman Building.”

  “But he’s dead!” Lee stamped his foot down on the pavement, his lower lip poking out. The quick transition from asserting he was a builder to be trusted into such childish behavior was the best warning Willow could have received.

  “Don’t you need to finish out your apprenticeship before you can work on your own as a builder?” Willow had her finger’s crossed, hoping she was parroting the information Charley had told her back in the right order.

  If she judged it from the deepening look of sorrow on Lee’s face, she’d hit that nail squarely on the head.

  “How do you know about all that stuff?”

  “Because I do my homework, young man.” Willow’s brisk demeanor softened a little as she considered Lee’s position. What was it Charley had said? A pregnant wife to look after. She couldn’t imagine how frightening it must be to have growing responsibilities, then lose your only source of income. “Aren’t you still working with Charley on the side?”

  Lee shrugged. “There’re few jobs we’re finishing up, but they’re all small and not good payers. We couldn’t take on anything too large. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to promise we could get it done on top of the work we did for Jeff.”

  He scuffed the toe of his shoe on the pavement again. “We suffered a bit of a loss on the last job, too. Someone walked off with a few of Charley’s tools.”

  “Oh, no!” Willow felt a pang of shock. “How did that happen? Did someone break into the house you were working on?”

  Lee looked startled at the proposition. “Nah. We were building a decking out on the Patterson’s backyard—down by the river—and someone walked along and just stole the tools while we were inside, having a cup of coffee.”

  Willow shook her head, wondering if that explained why Charley had written a check out from Jeff’s account. Either way, she made a mental note never to leave her purse or checkbook out in clear view if the two men did start working on her tea room.

  The world was a very different place now than it had been when she was a child in the same town. Even though Aniseed Valley sometimes appeared like it was holding back the groundswell of modernity, some of the nastier pieces still managed to slip through the net.

  Her mother would think Willow crazy for letting a thief onto her property. However, despite the weirdness of their last few encounters, Willow still got a good feeling from the man. She couldn’t believe Charley would do anything to steal from her, not if he was earning a living wage.

  Hm. Or she was a fool being sweet-talked by a British accent and would soon learn her lesson.

  “Well, why don’t you have a word with Charley about both of you coming to finish up the job.” Willow hid a smile at the burst of relief on Lee’s face. “I have to warn you, I’m having a group of professionals take a look at the building already done. If they find anything in there that looks like the type of work Shelby Causer ended up wi
th, then I might need to hire somebody else. No offense to you two, but I can’t have people working on my business premises who’ve been led astray.”

  Lee’s face turned into thunder. “You don’t have to worry about that, missus,” he said. “There’s none of the crew that worked on her place would ever let something like that happen again.” He flashed her a quick smile. “Not that I was one of them, that’s before my time.”

  “Good.” Willow nodded to Lee, then got into her car and drove away.

  Later, at home, Willow watched Mavis chasing a ball of twine over the floor for an hour, getting into ever-more-ridiculous tangles. The sight had her laughing so much she thought of poor Shelby Causer. That woman had a lot of heartache in her life and could use a nice mood lifter.

  Only a few minutes passed between the thought occurring and Willow setting out to drive there, Mavis installed on the passenger seat. If Shelby didn’t want to let them in, fine, but if she did, hopefully an hour from now the woman would feel the same joy Willow was now experiencing.

  “I should have got a kitten a long time ago, shouldn’t I?”

  Mavis padded the seat with her paws, craning her long neck to try to see over the dash. Her loud meows seemed to be in perfect agreement with Willow’s statement.

  “Come on, then,” Willow said to Mavis as they pulled up outside Shelby’s bomb site of a house. “Let’s go in and try our best!”

  Although Shelby looked startled that the pair were on her doorstep, she willingly let them inside. By the time she fetched a cup of coffee, Shelby was as entranced with Mavis’s antics as Willow had been.

  “I keep thinking I should get a pet of some kind,” Shelby said with a soft sigh. “With my home in the state it is, though, I can’t see it happening. I’d hate to lose a pet to the rotting floorboards in there, just because I turned my back for a minute.”

  “I didn’t think of that,” Willow said, taking a small sip of her coffee, so she didn’t offend her host. It was really too late in the day for her to introduce much more caffeine into her system. Otherwise, she wouldn’t get to sleep tonight.