The Pear Stirpes Orchard's stall was on my way, so I stopped to check in with Merle first. He was busy taking payment from a customer, so I went into the back of the stall where a pair of folding chairs were set up. Merle joined me there a moment later, leaving the young JT—who had come to the market today and was reliable as long as he wasn't distracted with brewing equipment—to deal with the steady but not overwhelming stream of customers.
"You look worried," Merle said, handing me a cool bottle of pear cider.
"Not worried, just at my wits' end." I took a swig from the bottle, appreciating the intense fruity flavor. Maybe I was as much of a philistine as JT insisted I was, but I had a hard time believing the next batch would be hugely improved with his new recipes and upgrades. It was pretty amazing already. "I've asked everyone, and no one has anything bad to say about Coach Andy. As far as I can tell, absolutely no one had a reason to kill him."
"Nobody's that perfect," Merle said. "I learned that from preparing for personal injury trials. There's a lot of work that goes on before you get to court, making sure you know as much as possible about your own client as well as the other side so there won't be any nasty surprises in front of a jury. On more than one occasion, it turned out that someone who was supposed to be a saint was hiding some pretty serious sins."
"If Coach Andy was hiding anything, it was buried pretty deep," I said. "His wife is the most likely person to know his secrets, but she's not too happy with me right now. Not when she thinks it's at least partly my fault he's dead. And I'm sure Detective Ohlsen is already considering her a suspect. Without some new leads, I won't be doing anything that he couldn't do."
"And there's something wrong with that?"
I sighed. "I suppose not. I just feel like I should be doing something."
"You've done enough," Merle said. "You don't have to protect the market as if it were one of your younger siblings."
I did have a tendency to feel responsible for the people around me, but anyone would feel that way in these circumstances. The murder had happened on my turf, and if I hadn't asked Coach Andy to be the salsa contest's judge, he wouldn't have been at the market, and the killer might not have been able to get to him.
"Actually," I said, "there is one other possible suspect. Keely told me there was an incident at a high school football game when someone was angry with Andy about something and made a scene on the sidelines."
"I can't recall anything like that, and I go to most of the at-home football games, since I donate some of my nonalcoholic beverages to be sold at them. It's good for business, and it's fun watching people play just for the love of the sport." He set aside his now-empty bottle. "Oh, wait, there was one incident. I'd forgotten about it. The guy used to be the coach before Andy was hired. Claimed he'd been wrongfully fired, but the courts didn't agree. I'm pretty sure he was terminated from the job before anyone even knew that Andy was planning to retire, so it really had nothing to do with him. And even if it did, the guy left town shortly after that incident, and no one's seen him since. Not a great suspect."
"You're probably right," I said. "And that means I'm completely out of leads. Again."
"You could always find something more pleasant than murder investigations to organize if the market isn't keeping you busy enough."
"It's running fairly smoothly these days," I said. "Even the salsa contest barely skipped a beat, despite losing the original judge."
"I'm sure I can find something to keep you busy after the market closes, as soon as we get home and have some privacy," he said with a seductive grin.
"I'm sure you can," I said. "Unless, of course, the goats need you."
"You wouldn't want me to let them run loose," Merle said. "They can't take care of themselves, and you can."
"I know, but I do wish that sometimes they weren't such a nuisance." The goats were an environmentally friendly method to keep down the grass and weeds in the orchard, but it didn't save as much time as it might seem. The hours of mowing and weed whacking were replaced with the need to care for the animals. "What if you hired an intern to take care of the goats occasionally? Someone from the Future Farmers of America at the high school?"
"Sure," Merle said. "But they're mostly available in the summer during school vacation, and we're both too busy to travel then."
He was right, even if it wasn't what I wanted to hear. As long as I was in a relationship with Merle, I was looking at the prospect of never being able to take an extended trip with him. Not as long as he owned the orchard and the goats, and from what I'd seen, he loved his work so much he wasn't likely to retire from farming unless he was physically unable to do the work. And then he'd be unable to travel the world the way I'd dreamed of doing when I decided to take what I thought was a summer-only job.
Finding a suspect in Coach Andy's murder suddenly seemed easier than dealing with my plans for the off-season.
*
I left Merle to his customers and headed out to see if any of the other vendors knew anything about Coach Andy's death. I'd only hit three stalls before I heard excited cheering from the salsa demonstrations and went to see what was happening. Officer Fred Fields was up next to the mayor, apparently being introduced as one of the four preliminary judges, responsible for narrowing down the entries in each category to just three finalists. Otherwise, Mayor Kallakala's taste buds would be overwhelmed by the two dozen entries that had already been paid for. I'd limited the number of entries to ten per category, and all but one nontraditional slot had sold out at the market's website before this weekend.
Fields might have heard something more about the investigation into Coach Andy's death. Ideally that a suspect was already in custody and I no longer had to worry about the pall the murder placed over the market.
By the time I got to the demonstration area, Fields had returned to the outer perimeter of the audience, where he could keep a professional eye on the crowd.
"How's everything going?" I asked him.
"Great," Fields said. "There were a few passive-aggressive comments from the audience during one presentation, probably from contestants who have strong feelings about the 'right' way to make salsa. But the mayor stepped in right away and defused the situation."
"I had no idea people would be quite this passionate about salsa. I mean, I wanted them to be excited about it but not to take it too personally."
"It's good that they care about things, Maria," Fields said. "As long as they don't do anything illegal in their enthusiasm."
"Speaking of which, do you know if Detective Ohlsen has made any progress in investigating Coach Andy's murder?"
"He's keeping his cards close to his chest," Fields said. "More than usual. All I know is we're supposed to keep an eye out for the murder weapon. Just between us, they think it might have been a length of pipe. Something uniformly cylindrical anyway, all one diameter, not tapered like a baseball bat."
I made a mental note to text the description to Keely so she'd know the murder weapon had been tentatively identified. "I'm assuming nothing like that was found in the first aid tent yesterday."
"No," Fields said. "And it's not anywhere between the lighthouse and the parking lot either. They did a pretty thorough search of this whole area yesterday. And then again this morning before the market opened. Even checked the first mile of the beach."
"Are there any ideas at all about who might have done it?"
"Not that I've heard." Fields glanced briefly at some movement in the middle of the audience, but it was just a parent leaving with a restless child.
'What about the widow?" I asked. "I don't know if anyone's confirmed her alibi, but she told me she was out of town on business when her husband was killed."
"Really?" Fields said. "I talked to the officer who informed her of Coach Andy's death. He was at the station this morning, and he looked pretty upset about having been the one to tell her. It sometimes helps to talk about it—I learned that in a stress-management program—so I gave him
a chance to unload. He said he found her at home in the middle of baking a cake, which didn't seem like the sort of thing a person would do right after getting home from a trip. Especially one that involved traveling internationally across several time zones the night before, like she claimed."
"Where does she live?"
"Out near Matt Viera's place."
Keely had mentioned that his cabin was on the outskirts of town, but that didn't mean Eileen couldn't have come to the market on the way home. The shortest route to her house from Seattle would have brought her through the center of town, no more than a mile or two from the market. Closer, if she'd detoured to pick up groceries or anything else on the way.
The police would undoubtedly check her flight itinerary to determine whether she could have returned to Danger Cove in time to kill her husband, but I doubted they'd think to check her whereabouts the previous weekend when Gabe was killed, in case the two widows had swapped murders.
"I wonder if she travels for business a lot," I said a little wistfully. The only travel I could justify for my current job involved visiting other farmers' markets in the Pacific Northwest, and I couldn't even do that very often since I had my own events to oversee.
"I was surprised to hear she had a job," Fields said. "She kept such a low profile here in town that I always just assumed she was a full-time homemaker. But now I'm hearing she's some sort of hotshot marketing expert with clients all over the world."
"No one seems to have known her well," I said. "Except maybe Georgia Portillo. I've heard they were friends."
"Interesting," Fields said. "That would explain why she spent the evening with Eileen yesterday. Offering her condolences, I assume, one tragic widow to another."
"How did you know they were together?" I asked. "Is the department staking out the widows?"
Fields laughed. "Nothing that formal as far as I know. It's just that this is Danger Cove. Someone sees or hears everything that's going on in town. And when it's got any connection to a murder, especially when the victim was as loved as Coach Andy was, the information gets to the police pretty quickly. We're good at letting the community know they can come to us and we'll listen."
Fields certainly would listen, I thought. Some others, like Detective Lester Marshall, who were actually in charge of the investigations, not so much.
CHAPTER TEN
Keely Fairchild
I arranged for Emma to keep an eye on my market purchases before trekking up Cliffside Drive to the Ocean View B&B. Even without carrying anything, I arrived overheated and dehydrated. I helped myself to a cup of water while I waited in the lobby for the manager, Bree Milford. The flower arrangement I'd delivered from the guild was still on the coffee table, although the stick with the sympathy note had been removed.
Bree caught me looking at the flowers. For once, her Hollywood-gorgeous best friend, Cristal, wasn't overshadowing her, and I could appreciate her more down-to-earth appearance and gorgeous red hair. "Wasn't that kind of Georgia, to share them with everyone?"
"It was." I didn't share my thought that there could be less savory reasons for not wanting the flowers in her room as reminders of a husband she hadn't cared for. "Has she been like that in other ways during her stay?"
"You're looking into her husband's murder?"
I nodded. "The guild is concerned about the link with the quilting community."
"I wish I could help, but I can't really talk about her," Bree said, dropping into the upholstered chair Georgia had occupied before but slouching in a way the elegant Georgia would never do in public. "It may not be as official as the lawyer-client privilege, but guests are entitled to confidentiality from their innkeepers. Besides, she's such a good person, I don't want to contribute to any gossip about her or speculation about her marriage."
"But what if she actually killed her husband?"
"It can't be her," Bree said. "She wasn't anywhere near Danger Cove when he died."
"That's not entirely clear," I said. "And no matter how good a person she is, her husband definitely wasn't. It looks like he was cheating on her during his trip here, and he wasn't even being discreet about it. That could have been the final straw, and she snapped and killed him."
Bree sighed. "I hate it when good people do bad things, but it does happen."
She didn't seem any more inclined to talk about her guest, so I added, "It's also possible Georgia didn't do it but she has information that would be helpful. Maybe even for the investigation into Andy Zielinski's death if the two cases are related."
"Coach Andy?" Bree sat upright. "Only a monster would kill him. Did you know he used to encourage his players every once in a while by promising a weekend's stay at the Ocean View to the player he considered most improved? Then they could bring a relative or friend who weren't local to Danger Cove to see them play in a game."
"Everyone in town seems to have a story like that about how great Andy was," I said.
"And you think the two murders are related?"
I wasn't as convinced as Maria was, but if it would get me some cooperation, I could finesse it. "It's entirely possible. Two murders in a short timeframe, and the victims were friends."
Cristal came into the lobby as I was explaining Maria's theory. She was yawning as if she'd just gotten up from a nap but otherwise looked ready for a photo shoot, with her make-up flawless and her clothes casual but trendy. She might have left Hollywood behind when she'd come to Danger Cove to stay with her best friend, but she hadn't abandoned her Hollywood image.
She perched on the arm of Bree's chair, her posture as perfect as if she were being interviewed on a television talk show. "Are you implying that Georgia killed Andy in return for his wife killing Gabe? Sounds like a movie plot."
"It's just a theory," I said. "But I'm not sure how likely it is. I need to know more about Georgia and Gabe's life together. I understand she has two young children. She must be missing them after being here for a full week."
"She has video calls with them multiple times every day," Cristal said, either not seeing or else ignoring Bree's side-eye that warned against gossiping. "But yes, she's pretty obviously anxious to get home. I feel bad for her, having to deal with Lester Marshall. He won't let her leave until he's made an arrest."
I might never be welcome at the Ocean View B&B again in the future, but I needed to know whatever Cristal could tell me. I asked her, "Does Marshall think Georgia killed her husband?"
"If he does, it would pretty much guarantee she didn't do it, as far as we're both concerned," Cristal said. "I think he's just being a jerk though, enjoying the way he can control other people's lives. As best I can tell, he's convinced Gabe was killed as part of a breakin and robbery."
"That seems unlikely," I said. "I'm told he didn't have anything valuable on him. He didn't bring cash or even credit cards because he was making the quilt guild pay for everything. What could a burglar want from him?"
Cristal shrugged. "You'd have to ask Marshall, and you probably wouldn't get a coherent answer. He never thinks things through."
"Did Gabe ever stay here at Ocean View?"
Bree glared at her friend. "We don't talk about guests."
"Yes, we do," Cristal said. "At least when they're bullies. You warned the other innkeepers in town about Gabe." Cristal turned to me to explain. "He threw a huge temper tantrum on his way out of here the first time he came to Danger Cove, like he was a spoiled-brat, A-list actor. He contested all the charges over some bogus complaint about not having as many towels as he liked and not being able to rouse housekeeping at three in the morning. Georgia convinced him to go out to the car and then came back to put the charges on her own account."
Bree sighed. "I guess it doesn't hurt to admit that I'd banned Gabe from the B&B."
"She didn't even want to let Georgia stay here when she called on Monday, in case he was planning to come with her," Cristal added. "We hadn't heard about the murder yet, so Bree was trying to come up with an excuse for not bo
oking the room. Georgia must be used to that kind of hesitation, because she volunteered that she needed to stay in town to make her husband's final arrangements."
"How did she sound?" I asked. "Was she crying or confused or anything?"
Bree crossed her arms and refused to answer.
Cristal leaned forward eagerly. "Bree told me it was odd because Georgia was so calm on the phone. Who wouldn't be a mess when calling from the scene of her husband's murder? But it turns out, she's always like that. Nothing upsets her."
"I told you she's a good person," Bree said. "Way too nice to kill anyone cold-bloodedly, and she's too even-tempered to lash out in a fit of rage."
"I hope you're right. I'm just ruling out all the possibilities, since it seems unlikely that Marshall will." Bree looked like she was going to take more drastic measures to silence her friend, so I couldn't ask directly about Georgia's alibi for the time of Coach Andy's death. "Georgia must be getting cabin fever, stuck in her room all week, waiting for Marshall to tell her she can go home. I mean, the B&B is lovely, but it's still a confined space. Or has she been going out a lot?"
"Not until Friday," Cristal said. "She went out in the evening, although I don't know where. And yesterday she asked Bree where she could go for a long walk. She suggested checking out Two Mile Beach."
"Did she go?"
Cristal nodded. "She was there when I did my beach yoga. I didn't talk to her then, but when she came back to the B&B in the afternoon, she looked happier than she had in a while. The fresh air must have agreed with her."
Or else, I thought, she'd been relieved to have completed her part of a deadly bargain, repaying Eileen for having killed Gabe.
"What time did you see her on the beach?"
Cristal shrugged. "Early. I don't know exactly."
"Cristal isn't a morning person," Bree confided. "Early doesn't mean dawn but more like ten or ten thirty."
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