The Wiles of Watermelon (Scents of Murder Book 2)

by Lynette Sowell

  Maybe if Papaw traveled the past, he could help me learn more about Bobby. “Papaw, why didn’t you like Bobby?”

  “He’s a slacker. All he does is sit around and play that fool guitar. A man can’t put food on the table that way. His daddy would pitch a fit if he knew what’s happened to his boy.” Papaw shook his head. “His momma ain’t going to hold onto that house, either. Her brother-in- law won’t take ’em in if they lose the place.”

  “Who’s her brother-in-law? Does he live around here?”

  “Joe Toms. And that Bobby is going to end up like his uncle, a hand-to-mouth good-fer-nothin’.”

  “How can Joe be Bobby’s uncle? Aren’t they almost the same age?”

  Papaw shrugged. “Bobby’s momma was married to Joe’s brother, Delmer. Joe must have been pretty young.”

  Great. Yet another someone conveniently left out information about Bobby Johnson. Joe, of course, had protected Honey and his nephew.

  “All right!” Papaw’s bellowed cheer made me jump. “Twenty-three thousand dollars. This guy’s good.” He pointed at the television screen.

  I could tell I’d exhausted Papaw’s trip to the past. But I think it brightened his day, and that would make Momma happy. “I’m goin’ to leave now, Papaw.”

  “Okie-dokie, Andi girl.” He chucked me on the shoulder. “You come back now. Don’t be a stranger. I ain’t gonna bite no one. Not if I can help it.”

  “You got it. Maybe next time Ben will come, too.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.”

  Friday night came. In a little more than twenty-four hours, I’d find out if our mystery visitor would come to the watermelon patch. To pass the time, I agreed to help Ben go through one of the storage rooms at Honey’s Place. We crossed the darkened dining room. The last of the employees was cleaning the kitchen.

  “We’ll lock up when we leave,” Jonas said as he pushed a stack of dirty dishes into the commercial dishwasher.

  “Thanks. See you tomorrow afternoon.” Ben headed into the office, with me trailing behind him. The restaurant’s office held metal storage cabinets, a gargantuan desk, and stacks of restaurant equipment.

  “Oh, Ben. How do you work in this?” I shook my head. “I realize I’m not Ms. Neat-freak, but still. . .”

  “It was worse, if you can imagine that.” Ben moved to the back of the office and shoved some boxes away to expose a door. “Back here is where we’re going to tackle. Or start, anyway.”

  The promise of a sneeze tickled my nose. “What in the world?”

  Ben opened the door, and a stale smell filtered into the office. “I don’t know when anyone last spent real time in this room.” He flipped a light switch.

  Boxes lined the room, each one with a year scribbled on the side. Nice. She organized in her own way, which really didn’t help us much. “What are you going to do with all this?”

  “I checked with Honey’s lawyer. He said I couldn’t throw anything away. We’re still waiting to hear if anyone’s contesting the will. But unofficially, anything older than ten years is safe to throw out.” Ben moved to the first box. His speed amazed me. Maybe it’s just when he’s motivated, he moves faster. “This one says 1982.”

  It took us about an hour to shift decades’ worth of boxes around, the newer ones to one side and the older ones to the other side of the room. A narrow path wound to the half a dozen strays, blank boxes we’d have to go through. Thankfully, two of them had “trash” scrawled on the sides in black marker.

  “Who labels their trash?” I couldn’t stop a giggle. Then came a sneeze. “Maybe Honey meant to dump this stuff.”

  “That’s a possibility.” Ben pulled the first box toward him. “Let’s see what she means by trash.”

  We both sank to our knees on the concrete floor, and Ben opened the box. “Newspapers. A bag of boxes for office equipment. Oh, lookie. The box for her adding machine. And the receipt.”

  I picked up the yellowed piece of paper. “Yup. 1978.” I almost made a quip about that being a very good year, but 1978 was also when Jewel had disappeared. After fishing through the first box and finding nothing that smelled too bad, we started on the next one.

  Ben paused before opening the box. Then he enveloped me in his arms and gave me a kiss that reminded me of how great it was to be married to him. Not the most romantic of places, but the restaurant storage room would do just fine.

  “Wow,” I said. He still held me in his arms. “That was unexpected.”

  He grinned. “That was the idea. ’Cause when do couples stop being newlyweds?”

  I settled back on my heels. “Good question. Why does it take us more than five minutes of being alone before we realize it? Do people just stop noticing each other and what made them love each other in the first place? I don’t mean just the attraction part of romance.”

  “Darlin’, if you could figure that out, bottle, and sell it, we could retire next week.”

  “I can’t believe how blind I was last summer. About getting married and settlin’ down, I mean. Di told me how, sure, there’d be those ordinary days. But the joy of being with you makes up for the boring parts. Just like she said. And I don’t want to lose that.”

  Ben looked down at the box. I wasn’t sure if he was going to bring up the subject of a child again. I hoped not. I wanted to ease into things a little at a time.

  “What’s in this box?” I opened the second one marked trash, the box Ben had chosen before he kissed me. “Oh. Bank bags. And huge ones at that. Bigger than the ones you use now.”

  “These look old.” Ben chuckled. “If Honey put these up for safekeeping, she sure forgot about them.”

  “I bet Di can ask her manager at the bank. Maybe they’ll know what to do with them, especially since the bags say ‘Property of State Bank of Tennessee.’ Look, they’ve got registration numbers.” The heavy cloth weighted down my lap. “The zippers are broken. And they’re empty. No wonder Honey stuck these off to the side.”

  Another chuckle from Ben. “Honey probably thought the bank would charge her for them if she brought them in ruined.”

  I laughed then stopped. “Bank bags. A robbery the same weekend Aunt Jewel disappeared. Honey winning big at the gambling tables.”

  “And Bobby Johnson leaving town.”

  “But there’s no telling how old these are, or how long they’ve been stuffed in the box. I’ll talk to Di about the bags, and if there’s anything suspicious, I’m sure they’ll pass this along to Jerry.”

  We laughed over Honey being such a character and continued opening boxes. After two hours, the Dumpster outside the back door brimmed with trash. We piled the three bank bags on the seat between us and drove home.

  The next morning, I called Di with a bribe. If she came by the store on Monday morning, I’d have a tall café latte for her from Higher Grounds. That is, if she would take the bank bags to work with her.

  “You found bank bags at Honey’s?”

  “Yeah, and they’re pretty old. We were going through some of the stuff in a back room. You wouldn’t believe the stacks of boxes.”

  “I’ll come by and get them.” Her voice had a weird tone to it.

  “What is it?”

  “Are they from our branch?”

  “I’m not sure. State Bank of Tennessee, they say on the outside.” I read aloud as I held one of the bags. “I didn’t think we should throw them away. Ben said maybe Honey didn’t want to get charged for them because the locks are broken.”

  “Okay.”

  When Di got tight-lipped, I’d learned not to try to drag anything out of her. It would keep until Monday. And if she didn’t mind, I probably would go to the bank with her, too.

  The Saturday hours crept along as I kept the store open and worked on soaps. Summertime did that to my schedule. If I had my way, I’d be at the river or the city pool with the rest of the crowd, cooling off. The hot air made my neck prickle, my pony tail doing little to help me, and the window air-conditioning u
nit in the salesroom window chugged along. But the box fan blowing cooler air from the sales floor to my workroom didn’t help much.

  I reached home a little after five. Ben had made plans to catch a ball game over at Jerry’s, so he’d be out late. And I’d be sure to make a show of having lights- out at nine before sneaking out to the shed. I found the digital camcorder on the coffee table in the living room. If I could record the event—providing someone showed up—I’d have something to show Jerry.

  Spot complained about me neglecting her. She romped around my ankles as I crossed into the kitchen. Ben knew what he was doing, giving me a kitten who somehow had almost tripled in size in the last month or so. My poor forlorn kitten proved how over-busy I’d made myself. How could I pay attention to a baby, who would require more attention than any pet? Not that I didn’t want to care for a baby.

  Ben would say it was me being too hard on myself and giving up too easily.

  “Lord, I thought I’d learned that lesson last summer. Of not letting fear of failing make me give up.” You couldn’t send back a child, no matter how much I’d begged Momma to send Di back when she was a baby. “I do want a baby, I do. And Ben was right, I’m scared.”

  Maybe admitting my fears would help God enable me to conquer them. After all, He probably wasn’t surprised.

  Okay. I thought I knew how to operate the camera correctly. I filmed Spot playing with a scrap of paper on the kitchen floor and that went well. She rolled onto her gray-and-white back and mewed at me in her kitty-cat voice. I stopped recording and played with her for a while.

  Finally. Nine p.m. I slipped on my navy blue nylon wind suit. I couldn’t very well go outside with my tuna- white legs glowing in the light of the moon once the sun set. The moon had passed the full phase but still had enough shine to illuminate the yard. All the lights were out inside the house. Spot knew something was up, because she kept trying to trip me in the way that cats do. But nothing was going to keep me from my stakeout.

  The night air prickled outside, the last touch of dusk to the west disappearing. My wind suit stuck to my legs and made me feel as if I’d done a round of circuit training at Shapers. Which reminded me, I needed to go back again and see how Vivian was doing.

  With flashlight and camcorder in hand, I crept to the shed. A rustling noise, too close to be a breeze in the treetops, made me pause. I turned round in the yard. Nothing I could see. The wooden shed loomed in front of me. I shuddered. The romance and coziness was gone, without Ben here. The shed’s open door yawned like a dark tunnel.

  I flipped on the flashlight and breathed easier. The riding lawnmower waited with its cushioned seat. I could sit on that and still have a glimpse through the knothole Ben made. Everything else looked normal. No creatures waited to attack once I turned out the light.

  Waiting does not come easily for me. Ben, on the other hand, has plenty of patience in the fruit of the Spirit department. This is probably why God usually gives me plenty of opportunities to wait, and to learn self-control, too.

  So I listened. I heard the breeze sweeping through the woods—please, Lord, a little rain would help beat the heat tonight. Then a few crickets chimed in from their hideouts closer to the river.

  I heard a rustling again. My heart pounded. I leapt from the riding mower and looked out the knothole to get a better view of a perfectly ordinary watermelon field.

  A faint mew sounded from the corner where Ben kept the weed eater.

  “Spot.” Great. My shadow had followed me from the house.

  She let me catch her and I scooped up her warm furriness. “Every time you get outside you get me into trouble.”

  If I hurried, I’d have enough time to toss her in the house and get back to my lookout inside the shed. Just as I moved to step into the yard, I froze.

  I heard a car coming up the drive.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The car stopped at the edge of the driveway, and the driver turned off the headlights. I cradled Spot in my arm and tiptoed back to the mower to grab the camcorder.

  Then came the faint click of a car door. Footsteps. I couldn’t breathe. Spot squirmed. At least she couldn’t bark at him. I moved so I could see through the knothole Ben had drilled the other night. A dark figure stood at the edge of the watermelon patch then crossed onto the field and went to stand where Spot and I had discovered the body. He hunched over as if looking for something. I’d seen that stance before, one stormy night in the driving rain.

  The face was lost in the shadow of a ball cap as whoever it was turned to face the shed. I didn’t make a noise that I could tell, but Spot’s claws had started gouging into my wind suit. Fine. I let the cat go. She scurried into the darkness. Something clattered to the ground.

  The man moved closer, and I fought the urge to run. If I stayed quiet, maybe he’d think Spot was running loose on her own. Did he intend to do to me what he’d done to Jewel? Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Why didn’t I think of this before? Ben would be furious. Besides, I hadn’t actually planned to talk to the guy. Just film him and bring it to Jerry. Oh, Lord, what was I thinking? What if he hurts me, too, whoever he is? And Ben’s not home.

  A few more steps. Just as I decided to dart around the corner and shine my flashlight on his face, he clicked his flashlight on. Straight at the knothole and into my eye.

  “What do you want from me?”

  I couldn’t place the voice. Had I heard it while shopping in Value-Mart, or dining at Honey’s Place, or anywhere else around town? My eye teared up from the sudden brightness.

  “The truth.” I shrank back from the hole.

  “I loved her. What happened was unintentional. Never wanted things to go that far.”

  All I heard was crickets and the beating of my heart.

  “And I’ve had to live with what I’d done. Didn’t think the past would come back with a vengeance. Honey and her kind have long memories.”

  He turned away.

  “Bobby, did you kill Honey, too?”

  The man broke into a run. I followed, tripping over whatever it was that Spot had knocked down. I skittered around the corner of the shed, my flashlight in hand. I clicked it on. The light made wild arcs across the field and on the driveway. All I saw was the back of his head, a T-shirt, and some jeans. Dark sneakers.

  He reached the idling car parked at the end of the tree-lined driveway and jumped inside. The flashlight slipped from my hand. Bobby—it had to be him— sped off in his darkened car.

  I trudged back to the shed. Working out at Shapers had helped me find more energy, but I had a way to go in the physical fitness department. I couldn’t have chased him down even if I’d been foolish enough to try. Once I found the camcorder in the shed, I headed for the house. Spot waited for me on the back step. She’d had enough of her romp outside, and so had I. My pulse still pounded.

  Inside the kitchen, I let Spot scamper across the tile floor to her water bowl. Then I sank onto a chair. The answering machine blinked, so I checked the messages. Ben had called. I dialed Jerry’s number.

  “Hey, were you in the shower when I called just a few minutes ago?”

  “Um, no. I set up a stakeout in the shed.”

  “You what?”

  “You weren’t here, so I figured if it looked like we’d gone out, maybe Bobby would show.”

  “That was a dangerous thing to do.”

  “I know, I know. I realized that as soon as a car showed up. Don’t worry, though. He ran off. I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be home in ten minutes, babe, and you can tell me all about it.”

  “I’ll make a fresh pitcher of iced tea. This wind suit has me feelin’ like I’ve been sittin’ in a sauna.”

  True to his word, Ben arrived home ten minutes later. I poured us each a glass of tea and we took our seats on the porch swing, a wedding gift from Di and Steve. Part of me wanted us to spend every evening on the porch, drinking iced tea and listening to the night.

  “Imagine that. All
that lookin’, and he really is here in the area somewhere.” Ben gazed out into the yard that ended in a strip of trees and then the main road. “He has to be, if he reads the Dispatch.”

  “I know.” My bare legs thanked me for exchanging the wind suit for a pair of cutoffs. A soft breeze cooled the night. “But it got me to thinking.”

  “Uh-oh. That’s dangerous.”

  “Very funny.” For that, he deserved a poke in the ribs.

  “Ow.”

  “As I was saying, I was thinking. About something Bobby said. He told me her death was an accident, that he hadn’t meant things to go that far, and he loved her. He’s had to live with what he’d done all these years. Plus, Honey and her kind had long memories.”

  “So Honey probably was blackmailing him.” Ben pushed off the porch floor with his foot and set the swing in motion again. “Interesting.”

  “But, and this is just a guess, I don’t think Bobby killed Honey.”

  “Are you sure? Remember the talk of his temper. And whoever killed Honey made sure they finished the job. Blackmail is a strong motive for murder.”

  “I know that.” I also knew that after the police had released the crime scene at the restaurant, Ben had cleaned the kitchen himself, refusing to allow any of the other employees help him. He hadn’t wanted the other employees, especially Esther, to see what Honey’s attacker had left behind.

  Despite the humidity, I leaned closer to Ben. He kissed the top of my head. “Tonight, though, Bobby didn’t sound angry. He seemed more. . .beaten. My gut tells me that if he’d killed Honey he wouldn’t have talked to me and then run off when I called him Bobby. He would have repeated what happened at the restaurant.”

  My own words made me shiver. How foolish I’d been, trying to draw a killer out.

  “I don’t want to think about that happening.” Ben’s voice sounded low and somber. “I should have stayed home tonight and skipped the game. And you should have told me what you were plannin’. Bobby probably came out here all those other times late at night, even while we were home, and we never knew it. If he’d seen my truck, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because he probably wouldn’t have cared if we were both at home. Promise me you won’t do anything like that again.”