by Tim Myers
“We’ll talk to Andrew as soon as we can find him,” Molly said. “Do you happen to know where he or Terri are?”
I thought about my earlier confrontation with Andrew. “I don’t know where Terri is, but Andrew’s in Raleigh by now. He left right after our argument.”
Molly shook her head. “Don’t tell me. You two were fighting about that stupid fence.”
“It’s going to kill our business if it’s true that the Joys own that land,” I said. ‘That makes it pretty serious.”
She stared at me a second, then asked, “Ben, do you want me to lock you up? I don’t need much more reason now than you’ve given me this afternoon.”
“Do what you have to do,” I said. “I don’t care how bad it looks. Somebody else killed him.”
“We’ll look into Andrew’s alibi and his sister Terri’s too, but we’re going to be talking to your family as well. I’ve got to tell you though, you’re the most logical suspect, given the facts.”
It looked like I was going to jail, despite my innocence. “Can I at least call Kelly and have her meet us at your office?” I didn’t relish spending the night behind bars, but I knew on one level that Molly was right. It did look bad for me.
“Don’t be a bigger horse’s rear end than you already are. I’m not locking you up until I have more evidence than I’ve got. But do me a favor and hang around town, would you? I’ve got a feeling I’m going to get some heat for not taking you in right now.”
I offered my thanks, then said, “I may need to go to Sassafras Ridge or Fiddler’s Gap, but I won’t go more than seventy miles from here without telling you first.”
She shook her head. “You’re all heart, aren’t you?”
Ralph Haller, Earnest’s crony from the shop, came charging out from the house next door. “Is it true? Did you kill him?” he asked, shouting as he hurried toward me. “You did, didn’t you? You sick jerk, he had every right to put that fence up.”
“Take it easy,” I said. “I didn’t kill anybody.”
Ralph pointed to Molly with his right index finger. “You’ve got to arrest him. I heard him threaten Earnest yesterday.”
“You’re lying,” I said, a little louder than I’d meant to.
“Prove it,” Ralph said.
Molly stepped between us. “Sir, if you’d like to make a statement, why don’t you go back and wait on your porch and I’ll talk to you in a few minutes?”
Ralph stared at me with a crazy glare in his eyes. “You bet your hat I want this on the record.” He stared at me a second, said, “Killer,” then walked back to his property.
Molly watched him go, then asked, “What was that all about?”
“He was Earnest Joy’s best friend.”
She shook her head. “Ben, is it true what he said?”
“I never threatened Earnest Joy,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. “He’s making it up.”
“Did he witness any conversation at all between you and Earnest yesterday?”
I couldn’t believe this. “Molly, he was at the jewelry store when I confronted Earnest about that blasted fence. I may have raised my voice once or twice, but I didn’t threaten him. I swear it.”
She paused, then asked. “Was anybody else there?’
I shook my head. “No. it was just the three of us.”
“Great that’s just great. Ben. Nicely done. The next time you get into an argument with a man who’s about to be a murder victim, could you at least have the courtesy to get a witness who doesn’t want to see you go to jail?”
There wasn’t much I could say to that. “Am I free to go then?” I asked.
“Where can I find you if I need you?”
I looked her straight in the eye. “Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
I took a deep breath, then said, “I’ll be out looking for who really killed Earnest Joy.”
She finally blew up. “Don’t make this worse than it already is, Ben. You’re in way over your head.”
“Maybe I am,” I snapped, “But at least I know I didn’t kill him. Can you say as much?” I paused a few seconds, then added, “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Before Molly could say another word, I walked off. All the way to my car, I half expected her to call me back to the porch so she could arrest me, but when I didn’t hear anything, I felt a sense of relief, no matter how temporary it was. While it was true that I was under pressure to figure out who had killed Earnest Joy, I didn’t have a single idea where to start. Besides, there was one other thing I needed to do before I started my own investigation. I had to tell my family what had happened, and it wasn’t going to be much fun adding that I was the prime suspect.
Suddenly jail didn’t look so bad after all.
I parked in the customer lot of the soap shop, but before I went in, I had to call Kelly.
When her receptionist answered, I said, “Kelly Sheer, please.”
“Whom may I say is calling?”
“Tell her it’s Ben Perkins,” I said.
There was a hint of glee in his voice as he said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Perkins, but Ms. Sheer is unavailable.”
What an officious little twerp. “Just put her on.”
“I’m afraid she’s gone for the day. You could try back Monday morning.”
“That’s all right,” I said, “I’ve got her cell phone number.”
After I hung up, I dialed her cell, only to find out that it was turned off. Kelly never did that, and I wondered if she had done it just to avoid talking to me.
Don’t be so paranoid, Ben, there’s probably a perfectly good reason she’s out of touch.
I left a brief message on her voice mail and asked her to call me. Then I added lamely that I was looking forward to tomorrow and hung up. I couldn’t delay it any longer. It was time to tell the family about Earnest Joy.
At least it was close enough to closing time to lock the doors before I told them. As expected, everyone was shocked by the news of the homicide. Before I could even finish, my brother Jim said, “You were with me all afternoon, remember?” He added with a wink, “You can bet your life I’ll testify to it in court, too.”
Mom looked relieved by the news. “Is that true, Benjamin?”
Jim kept nodding, but I said, “No, ma’am, I can’t actually account for all of my time this afternoon. I had plenty of opportunities to sneak over there and kill him if I’d wanted to.”
Mom slapped Jim’s hand.
As he rubbed his knuckles, he said, “Ow. What was that for?”
“For lying to your mother,” she said, then she slapped him again. Though he was a grown man who towered over her, he took it, though he protested the treatment. “What did I do that time?”
“You didn’t believe in your brother’s innocence,” she said simply.
“You’ve got it all wrong. I’m trying to keep him out of jail. I know he didn’t do it. It’s the rest of the world I’m worried about.”
Mom bit her lower lip, then reached up and hugged him. “I’m sorry, Jimmy, I shouldn’t have swatted you.”
Bob said, “Don’t be too easy on him. I’m sure he deserved it for something else.”
Kate snapped, “Would you boys grow up? This is serious.”
“It’s worse than you realize,” I said. “Molly’s going to interview all of us about the murder. She’s going to want to know about your alibis, because I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s got the motive and the murder weapon wrapped up.”
“Why that’s wonderful news,” Mom said, and I wondered if she’d had a little toddy with her lunch.
Louisa asked her before I could. “And why is that such good news?”
Mom looked smug as she explained. “It means that she’s not a hundred percent convinced that Ben is the one who killed Earnest.”
Cindy muttered, “But we’re her only other suspects.”
I said, “It’s not just us. She’s going to t
alk to Andrew and Terri, too.”
Jeff was surprisingly quiet during the conversation. I looked at him, but he wouldn’t make eye contact with me. A sudden feeling of despair hit me. Could my brother have killed the man out of some sense of family? “Jeff, is there something you want to say to me?”
“Not me,” he said, and that was all I could get out of him.
Mom shook her head, no doubt just as confused as I was, then she said, “So here’s what we’ll do. We’re going to go about our business and let the police handle this. For now, it’s going to be business as usual at Where There’s Soap.” Mom glanced at the clock, then said, “Right now, it’s time to go home. I won’t pay overtime for you all to sit around trying to solve a murder.” She tossed her keys to Louisa. “It’s your turn to take everyone home.”
They were grumbling as they left, and I tried to follow them out when Mom called out, “Ben, may I speak with you a moment?”
Blast it all, I’d almost made a clean getaway. “What’s up?”
She waited until the front door was locked and no one was left but the two of us. Then she turned to me and said, “So what are you going to do about this?”
“What are you talking about?”
Mom squinched her eyes at me. “How are you going to solve the murder so this doesn’t touch us?”
“What happened to letting the police do their jobs and us doing ours?”
“That’s nonsense,” she said. “I said it to appease your brothers and sisters, but we both know better. We can’t afford to wait for them to see the truth. You’ve got to figure out what really happened to Earnest Joy.”
I took my mother’s hands in mine and said, “Mom, I wish I knew how to manage that, honestly I do, but I’m stumped. Molly’s going to talk to Andrew and Terri, the crime lab’s probably still at the house, and most likely there are two or three other cops working on it. What does that leave me?”
She smiled. “You’ve got something they don’t.”
“Please, enlighten me,” I said.
She tapped my forehead. “You’ve got this. So go home and think about it. Make a list like you always do and find an angle that Molly might miss.”
I shook my head. “You give me too much credit.”
“Ben, you are very good at this. Don’t underestimate yourself. I don’t want you to come in tomorrow. This is more important. Besides, with the Fair on the Square, we won’t have many customers, if past years are any indication.”
“I’ve kind of got something else going on tomorrow,” I admitted.
“Tell me, what could be more important than this?”
I finally admitted, “I’ve got a date with Kelly Sheer and her daughter.”
Mom smiled. “Well, I’d have to say that’s at least as important as this. Go, have a good time, but don’t forget, you need to keep working on this. We’re all counting on you.”
No pressure there, having the entire Perkins clan depending on my ability to better a trained police force. “I’ll do my best. Good night, Mom.”
“And to you, Benjamin.”
I grabbed a pizza on the way home to my apartment and settled in for the night. Television couldn’t hold my attention and neither could the three books I tried to start reading from my waiting pile. The image of Earnest Joy dying with a bar of our soap in his hand kept haunting me, and finally, barely after ten, I gave up and went to bed. I might as well have stayed up for all the rest I got.
When I finally dragged myself out of bed the next day, I realized that not even a cold shower would bring me back my normal bouncy step. As I shaved, I realized I should be excited about my first family outing with Kelly and Annie. So why was I dreading it?
Chapter 5
I waited by the old stone chimney near the Square, the rendezvous point Kelly and I had agreed on. It was close enough to the action to see everything gearing up, but still easy enough to spot each other. The petting zoo was nearby— filled with bleats and baas from the goats and sheep—and I could smell popcorn and funnel cakes in the air. I was a good half hour early for our allotted meeting time, and I fully expected to wait. That’s why I was so surprised when Kelly showed up a minute after I got there. She was alone.
“Where’s Annie?” I asked, trying not to believe the sad look in Kelly’s eyes.
“Ben, we need to talk,” she said solemnly.
I had never had a conversation with a woman in my life that started off with those particular words and didn’t end in disaster.
“Go on,” I said, ready for the bad news. I was half expecting it from the way she’d been acting lately, but I never could have imagined the reason why.
“Wade and I are going to try to reconcile,” she told me, the blow of her words nearly staggering me backwards. “It’s for Annie’s sake,” she added, obviously trying to soften the sting of her words.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “After everything you told me about him? Is Annie enough of a reason to put yourself through that again?”
While he hadn’t been exactly abusive, Kelly had told me enough about Wade to make me despise the man for the way he’d treated her.
“He’s changed,” she said, her voice nearly breaking. “I’m so sorry to do this to you.”
The other shoe finally dropped. “Wait a second. That was him in your office yesterday, wasn’t it?”
She reached for my hand, but I was in no mood for it. In a plaintive voice, Kelly said, “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” I protested loud enough to draw the attention of some parents waiting for their kids at the petting zoo. That was too bad, let them listen. “Kelly, don’t do this. There’s something special going on between us.”
“I know that,” she said, barely choking out the words. “I’m not thinking about my own happiness. I’m doing this for Annie.”
She left me standing alone, and there wasn’t a thing in the world I could do about it.
My first reaction was to get out of there. I wasn’t in the mood to be around a lot of people, most of them happy and joyous to be together.
Maybe Kelly was right. I had to grant her the possibility that Wade had changed, but even if he hadn’t, Kelly had been pretty emphatic about her decision, and the reason behind it. She was doing it for her daughter, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t fault her for that. My parents were together until my father’s untimely death, and it had meant a great deal to me having them both right there whenever I needed them. If Kelly was making a sacrifice for her daughter, wasn’t that what parents did? My loyalty to my own family made me realize that, even though there was the potential for a truly great love between us, she had a daughter to consider.
Even if I could change her mind, I wasn’t at all sure I had the right to.
I felt an arm grab mine and looked up to see my sister Louisa standing there. “Hey, bro, what’s up?” She took one look at my face and asked, “Oh, no, did someone else die?”
“Just a budding romance,” I said, quickly telling her what had happened.
“Ben, I’m so sorry. Would you like to go somewhere and talk about it? I’m a great listener; you know that.”
“I wouldn’t dream of doing that to you.” I looked around. “Hey, where’s John?”
She shrugged. “He had to go to a sales conference at the beach this weekend with his company. From the way he described it, they’ll talk about business for ten minutes then golf the rest of the time. So what do you want to do? I’m all yours.”
I thought about leaving the Fair and taking my sister up on her offer to listen to my problems, but the last thing I wanted to do was to hold a postmortem over a relationship that barely had the chance to bloom, no matter how promising the bud had been.
“Tell you what,” I said. “Why don’t we check out the Fair since we’re already here?”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind missing it. Really I don’t.”
“I’m positive,” I said. “Aft
er all, maybe it would do me some good.”
She put an arm through mine and led me toward the festivities. “Then let’s go and have some fun.”
There were more than a few whispers and indirect looks my way as Louisa and I walked past the street vendors and displays. There was no doubt in my mind that news of Earnest Joy’s homicide had already been rehashed over breakfast tables throughout Harper’s Landing, and I was pretty sure that everyone in town knew I was the chief suspect. I didn’t let it get to me, though; I tried my best to forget about what had happened with Kelly, too. It didn’t work, but I still tried.
Set up in the center of the Square was a series of big glass pickle jars, the kind that restaurants must use. In front of each jar was a sign describing an item that was being raffled off for the fire department’s fundraiser. They were in dire need of a new truck, and with the budget cuts that had been hitting our state lately, this was probably the only way they were going to get it.
As Louisa veered off to buy a caramel apple, I took a closer look at the signs, then I asked the young woman with a nametag that read Sarah, “How many things are being raffled?”
She smiled as she counted the items on her list. “Believe it or not, nobody’s asked me that today. We’ve got twenty things we’re giving away, but some of them you probably won’t like.”
I smiled at her. “Now how do you know what I might not like?”
She grinned as she looked at me and said, “Funny, you don’t seem the type to like manicures and pedicures.”
“You never know if you don’t try, do you? I’ll take twenty tickets.”
As she took my twenty-dollar bill and exchanged it for the requisite number of tickets, Sarah explained, “Put your name and phone number on each ticket, then drop them in the jars. We’re drawing at five P.M. but you don’t have to be present to win.”
I did as she said, depositing a ticket into each jar without even looking at the prize offered. With my luck, I probably would win the manicure and pedicure. If I did, I’d give the certificate to Louisa. I didn’t know how she’d managed it, but she’d found me at exactly the right time, just when I’d needed her.
