Killed on Blueberry Hill

by Sharon Farrow

  Some part of me hoped Ryan stayed away long enough for the killer to be caught. After all, this past June the police arrested the wrong person for Cole Bowman’s murder. Since our police force had little experience with violent crime prior to this summer, they could make the same mistake again. Only this time, with Ryan.

  After leaving Aunt Vicki, I spent the rest of the day and night buried in work. When my shift at the shop ended, I dropped Minnie off at home before going to the fairground to operate my vendor booth. I tried to contact Ryan yet again—with no results. Although I felt exhausted and emotionally drained when I finally returned home, I called Tess. I needed the support of my best friend to help get me to sleep.

  We ended up talking for two hours. When we finally hung up, I lay awake for several hours more. What sleep I did manage to get was filled with images of carnival rides, dogs, and men competing at tug-of-war.

  Another long day at the store and fairground lay ahead. To prepare myself, I ate a big bowl of homemade raspberry yogurt, then set off for a session of beach yoga. As often as I could, I left my own stretch of private beach to walk barefoot along the lake until I reached Oriole Beach, which was open to the public. There Rowena Bouchet, owner of Karuna Yoga, held a thirty-minute yoga session five days a week at eight a.m. Classes continued to be held on the beach until the first snow, at which time we all reconvened at Rowena’s studio in town.

  Always in need of a good stretch and a chance to meditate, I tried to attend her beach yoga class before going in to work. Something about staring out at the lake while in Warrior Pose lulled me into a Zen state. I arrived at Rowena’s usual spot on the beach, noting a fair number of tourists had joined the daily yoga crowd. I had no sooner rolled out my yoga mat than Rowena called for Child’s Pose. I tried to clear my mind of anything but her soothing voice and the lapping of the waves along the shore. By the time we moved into Downward-Facing Dog, I already felt more centered. But the determination to clear my thoughts wavered during Plank Pose as I wondered who hated Porter Gale enough to want to kill him.

  How could I once more be connected to murder? Bad enough I’d been dragged into murder cases earlier this summer, but I left New York City two years ago for the same reason. After graduating from NYU, I interned at Dean & DeLuca and discovered I had an affinity for selling and marketing food. This led to a job at the Manhattan headquarters of the Gourmet Living Network, where I helped produce three popular cooking shows.

  Sugar & Spice, the most successful of the three, starred husband-and-wife celebrity chefs Evangeline and John Chaplin. As the executive producer of what became the hottest cooking show on TV, I believed we were on the way to food superstardom. And we were, until Evangeline discovered John having an affair with a much younger woman working on the show. Evangeline wasted no time handling the situation. She baked a cake laced with arsenic for her cheating husband and served it to him on their wedding anniversary. The subsequent murder trial lasted almost a year; it ended with Evangeline in prison and me deciding I’d had enough of the big city, television, and celebrity chefs. I returned to Oriole Point, grateful to be home.

  I never regretted my decision, especially after I opened The Berry Basket, which allowed me to combine a lifelong love of berries with my marketing skills. Aided by growing online sales, the business was in the black and I had dreams of one day opening more Berry Basket stores in Michigan. Once Ryan and I began dating, even my checkered romantic life looked to be on the upswing. Surrounded by friends, with a thriving business and a wedding on the horizon, I should be euphoric. But there were speed bumps even in a place as beautiful and friendly as Oriole Point. Porter Gale’s murder qualified as a speed bump. Maybe even a roadblock.

  Following Rowena’s instruction on how to get into Wide Leg Forward Bend, I faced the lake. A cloudless sky had turned Lake Michigan a cerulean blue. Even at this early hour, boats were out on the water and visitors had begun to claim their corner of the beach. By noon, a sea of beach umbrellas, sunbathers, small cabanas, and Frisbee players would blanket every square inch of sand. When I bent forward, I glanced to my left. A dozen brightly colored sun umbrellas already fluttered in the gentle breeze, their owners lying on towels or settled back in beach chairs as they read a book or their tablets. Three shouting children ran past me with buckets and shovels to begin the endless fun of building sandcastles.

  With only two more weeks until the end of summer, tourists wanted to squeeze every minute soaking up the sun, windsurfing, and swimming in the lake. Another gorgeous day, too: sunny and warm, but not blistering hot. Concentrate, I told myself as I relaxed into the forward stretch. While holding the pose, I closed my eyes, but opened them at the noisy arrival of what had to be a group of teenage girls, heralded by high-pitched, breathless voices and laughter.

  As Rowena led us into Triangle Pose I craned my neck to see who these new arrivals were. With my head turned one way and my body the other, this wasn’t easy. About thirty feet away, I spied four girls laying out their towels and blankets. One of them was Courtney O’Neill. Joking with her friends while she applied sunscreen, Courtney looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Except her uncle had been murdered two days ago.

  I wondered if Cara’s children shared her own resentment toward Porter. Maybe the hard feelings caused by Eric Gale’s will had led to a serious breach in the family. If so, why did Wyatt sit at the Gale picnic table at Trappers Corner? He must have been on friendly terms with Porter.

  Or perhaps it was Porter’s wife he wanted to be friendly with. I recalled how avidly Wyatt had watched Sloane. Then there was the neck nuzzling I’d glimpsed right before the tug-of-war. Sloane had shoved him away. And who could blame her? Wyatt possessed all the appeal of Richard III, minus the hunchback.

  As for Courtney, I had no idea what her relationship had been with Porter. I reminded myself that she was only fourteen. Little more than a child. Death was almost an abstract term for someone that young. Still, seeing her at the beach surprised me.

  With half an ear on Rowena’s instruction, I moved into the next pose while keeping my gaze on Courtney. Pain suddenly shot through me as a charley horse seized my left leg.

  “Ow-ow-ow-ow!” Contorted in the wrong position, I lost my balance and fell over. I grabbed my left calf and tried to stop it from completely cramping.

  Rowena quickly made her way to my side. Kneeling down, she told me to breathe deep and count to ten. If I didn’t relax, my muscles wouldn’t, either. Easier said than done. Embarrassed because I disrupted the yoga session, I told her I’d be fine and to please continue. After she went back to leading the class, I took deep breaths while massaging my calf. Slowly, the cramp began to subside. Since I couldn’t manage another yoga pose, I rolled up my mat and limped far enough away from the group in order not to distract them further. It was a fifteen-minute walk to my house, and I wasn’t ready for a hike yet.

  I sat down close to the water. Pulling up the leg of my gray yoga pants, I began to massage the sore muscle. A young couple ran past me into the lake, sending water splashing my way. I peeked over my shoulder. Although I didn’t see Courtney now, her three friends were busy texting on their phones. In June, Oriole Point completed work on a nearby cell tower, finally allowing Internet service on the beach. It was welcomed with more enthusiasm than anything that had happened to our town in my lifetime.

  “Is your leg okay, Marlee?”

  I looked up to see Courtney standing over me. “What? Oh, yeah. It was just a charley horse.”

  She sat cross-legged beside me. “I figured you pulled a muscle or something. I saw you grab your leg when you were doing yoga.” With her gaze on the half dozen people splashing in the lake, she began to swirl her hands in the warm sand. “I always did think yoga was weird. You won’t catch me doing it. Give me horseback riding any day.”

  “It helps if you own a horse.” The O’Neills owned three, and Courtney was often seen riding one of them along the country roads.

  “
True.” Her wide smile revealed the braces on her teeth.

  “I’m surprised to see you and your friends here so early. The sun isn’t high enough to get much of a tan right now.”

  “It’s the only time all of us could get to the beach today. Jordan and Jane have to help out their dad at the dune buggy rides. He wants them there by eleven.” The popular dune buggy rides were owned by the Larson family, of which the twin Larson girls, Jordan and Jane, were a part. “Alice babysits on Wednesday afternoons. And I have to be back home by noon.”

  “I understand. I have the shop, you have chores at the farm.” Because I sold O’Neill homemade blueberry jams and butter, I visited their farm once a month. Whenever I did, Courtney always seemed to be cleaning berries or updating the O’Neill Blueberry Farm website. Farming life meant everyone past the age of kindergarten pitched in.

  “It’s not that.” She brushed sand off her two-piece bathing suit. “My mom doesn’t think I should be seen having too much fun right now. You know, because of Uncle Porter.”

  “I’m sorry about your uncle. Your family must be shocked.”

  “Yeah. Pretty shocked. Bad enough Uncle Porter just up and died. The police told us that someone may have killed him. Only they must be lying. What do you think?” Courtney gave me a penetrating look. She didn’t resemble her mother at all. Both Wyatt and Courtney had inherited the physical traits of the O’Neills: pale, freckled skin, large protruding eyes, thick coppery hair. Her mane was so untamable, Courtney normally wore it tied back. Today that mass of curly hair cascaded past her shoulders. She reminded me of the Celtic princess Merida in Brave.

  “I’m afraid it does look like someone tampered with his insulin.”

  She didn’t seem convinced. “My mom says the police have been wrong before.”

  I couldn’t argue with that.

  “Besides, who would want to kill Uncle Porter?” she continued. “He treated everyone who worked for him really well. And Sloane and him seemed happy. Whenever the family got together during holidays and birthdays this past year, there was a whole lot of PDA going on.” She rolled her eyes, remembering those public displays of affection. “It was disgusting. Mom always threatened to throw cold water on them.”

  “What did you think of Porter and Sloane as a couple?”

  She shrugged. “I think Uncle Porter thought his wife was hot.”

  “And Sloane?”

  Courtney picked up a fistful of sand, then let it trickle through her fingers. “She probably enjoyed all the money Uncle Porter had. But I bet she thought he was hot, too. Uncle Porter wasn’t bad looking for someone his age. Why wouldn’t Sloane like him? And Jacqueline has no reason to get rid of Uncle Porter. This murder thing is crazy.”

  Unfortunately, I could think of reasons her own mother might want Porter dead. Revenge for being disinherited, for one. And who knew what Porter had specified in his will? Maybe he didn’t leave everything to a young wife he’d been married to only thirteen months. Maybe provisions had been made for his sister Cara. And Cara might know it.

  “Anyway, Mom is upset,” she went on. “I think she’s feeling guilty. Her and Uncle Porter didn’t get along all that great, with Grandpa Gale leaving everything to his son and nothing to her. I don’t blame Mom for holding a grudge. But it’s Grandpa who screwed everything up. I never liked Grandpa Gale. He never smiled. And he had such a loud voice, it hurt my ears.”

  Despite Courtney’s breezy dismissal, I did believe someone wanted Porter Gale dead. And that person was not only at the fairground that day, but in close proximity to the cooler holding the insulin. “Is your brother upset about your uncle?”

  “Who knows with Wyatt? He acts like he’s too cool for school. Although he was actually too stupid for school. Him and those losers he hangs with. He’s probably upset. I mean, he hung around Uncle Porter more than the rest of us did. But maybe he was only doing that to see if he could beg money off our uncle.” Courtney leaned closer. “Or maybe he went to Blueberry Hill because of Sloane. Everyone in the family knows Wyatt has a thing for her. And how sick is that? I mean, she’s his aunt! And even if she wasn’t, Sloane is way out of Wyatt’s league.” She snorted. “Any girl with half a brain is out of his league.”

  It looked like Courtney and Wyatt were carrying on the family tradition of sibling animosity. Or maybe this was normal sibling rivalry.

  “Hey, you’ve got a berry tattoo.” Courtney pointed at the four blackberries tattooed on my right ankle. “Pretty. Blackberries?”

  “Yes. A memento of my two years at the Blackberry Art School. My friend Tess Nakamura has one as well. Along with the girls we shared a summer cabin with back then.”

  “I want to have a horse tattooed on my arm, but I’m not allowed. And I blame Wyatt. Back in high school, he got this ginormous tattoo of a skull on his back. My parents had a fit. Now I’m not allowed to get any ink until I’m old enough for college.”

  “Seems reasonable.” I smiled at her. “And you may change your mind by then.”

  “Nope. In fact, I’d like three horse tattoos.”

  “Don’t tell your parents. It will only stress them out.”

  “We’re all stressed right now. That’s why I’m at the beach. Mom and Dad thought I should get away from the house. They’re discussing funeral arrangements, and it’s depressing.”

  “When is the funeral?”

  “Friday. Mom’s handling everything because Sloane is zoned out right now on meds. Of course it won’t be a proper funeral.”

  “Why not?”

  She threw me a disgusted look. For the first time she brought to mind her mother. “The police haven’t released the body yet because they need to run more stupid tests. It doesn’t really matter. Uncle Porter wanted to be cremated. But there’s a memorial service at our church. I’m sure all the fruit-growing families will be there. Do you think you’ll come?”

  “Certainly. I want to pay my respects.”

  “I wonder if the Zellars will show up. That was an awful big fight at the tug-of-war.”

  “Trust me. Someone from the Zellar family will be there. Probably not Ryan, though.”

  She laughed. “Don’t be silly. I never thought Ryan would come. My uncle and Ryan didn’t exactly love each other.”

  “That’s an understatement,” I muttered.

  “I don’t think your boyfriend understood Uncle Porter very well. Uncle Porter loved to tease people. When he found their weak spot, he went after it. If you laughed it off or ignored him, he left you alone . . . eventually. From what I could see, Ryan didn’t.”

  “Nope.”

  Courtney sighed, stretching out her legs so her toes reached the wet sand near the water. “Uncle Porter did the same thing with my brother.”

  “What did he tease Wyatt about?”

  “Sloane. Uncle Porter told Wyatt that he needed to get a lot richer and better looking if he wanted a girl as sexy as his wife.”

  “Lovely,” I murmured. Those holiday get-togethers must have been awkward.

  “But he teased him about money, too. Uncle Porter knew Wyatt would grovel in front of him if it meant he’d throw cash his way. Don’t know who Wyatt’s going to bother for money now. Maybe Aunt Sloane, although she’s too young for us to call her ‘aunt.’”

  “I guess Sloane will be running things at Blueberry Hill now.”

  The girl looked as if I had suggested her favorite horse should take over the business. “I can’t see Sloane handling such a big operation. I don’t think she’d want to anyway. Maybe another grower will buy the business from her. Uncle Porter said the Zellars wouldn’t rest until they owned Blueberry Hill. Except he swore he’d never sell a single acre to them, especially Ryan. Now that Uncle Porter’s gone, Sloane might sell it.”

  “If she does sell, I doubt it would be to Zellars. I’ve never heard any of them say a thing about wanting to buy Blueberry Hill.”

  “All I know is Uncle Porter thought it was funny that Zellar Orchards was s
till afloat, particularly after your fiancé came to him for money. He claimed Ryan had no business sense. Or any sense at all.” She blushed. “Sorry. It was Uncle Porter who said that, not me. But it was rude to repeat it to you.”

  “Hold on. Ryan went to your uncle to borrow money?”

  “Yeah. But I think he went to Grandpa Gale first.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  The adolescent made an exaggerated face. “Hey, I’m only repeating what my uncle told us. The first time he mentioned Ryan asking for money was during the funeral for Grandpa Gale. So it was right before Thanksgiving last year. He said Ryan borrowed money from Grandpa a month or two before. And during my birthday dinner in May, he told us Ryan had just come to him to ask for more money.”

  “Let me get this straight. Ryan borrowed money from your uncle and your grandfather?”

  “Forget I said anything. None of this matters. Uncle Porter is dead, and I shouldn’t pass on things that might be embarrassing for other people. My mom would ground me for a year.”

  “Courtney, I need to know exactly what he said about Ryan. This is important.”

  “Uncle Porter told us Ryan came to him because he needed money. And that Ryan had borrowed money from the Gales more than once. I don’t know any more than that, Marlee. I swear.” Courtney reached over to pat my hand. “Don’t look so worried. Even if your boyfriend owed money to Uncle Porter, I’m sure Sloane won’t care about him paying it back. Not with all the money she’ll inherit. Everything will be fine.”

  I disagreed. Last year, Ryan apparently went to Eric Gale for a loan. Then he borrowed more money from Porter this past spring. Why? Ryan had no reason to borrow money from Porter Gale. Not only did he hate Porter, but Ryan and the Zellars were financially sound.

  Staring out at the lake, I tried to absorb this latest revelation. At least I had learned one thing. The bad blood between Ryan and Porter involved money, not tug-of-war contests or old orchard feuds. And as every police detective knew, the two prime motives for murder were love—and money.