A Slaying in the Orchard

by Gin Jones

  "What did Henry Atwell do now?" I asked the sniffling woman.

  "He broke our agreement," she wailed.

  The woman from Danger Cove Dairy sent a glare in Henry's direction. "I'm going to kill him. First he stole my ducklings, and now he's trying to ruin Jazz's business. He swore this time would be different, or I would have tried harder to talk Jazz out of working with him."

  Wait, what? Henry had stolen some ducklings? When had that happened? I knew they'd gotten loose at the market during the earthquake a few weeks ago, but as far as I'd heard, they'd all been recovered. Or had they escaped their pen another time that I hadn't known about?

  I gave myself a mental shake. Getting answers to those questions would have to wait until the situation with Jazz was straightened out. Much as I would have preferred to deal with something as simple as lost ducklings while I left the consoling of a crying woman to Denise, her anger was only making the situation more emotional. A firm hand was needed.

  "Perhaps we should go somewhere a little more private," I said, nodding toward the back of Jazz's stall where we would provide less of a show for passing marketgoers. Of course, any local resident who hadn't seen the argument in person would undoubtedly hear about it in the next ten minutes. I needed to know what had really happened before a distorted story made the full round of the grapevine.

  Denise gave Jazz's arm a final comforting pat. "I didn't see the actual argument, and I'd better get back to work before Henry decides I've abandoned my inventory and he can take anything he wants." She scurried across and down the Memorial Walkway.

  As Jazz and I moved to the back of her stall, I could hear occasional irritable outbursts from Henry, but I was confident that Tommy Fordham would keep things from getting out of hand in the adjoining space until I finished with Jazz. Tommy was an Army veteran and more than capable, even from his wheelchair, of restraining a grouchy, elderly civilian.

  Just past the spinning wheel was a rabbit hutch with a single white angora bunny engulfed in so much fur I couldn't even see its eyes. Jazz stopped to tell the animal how beautiful she was, using the tone of voice often used for cooing at babies. She fed it a bit of dried pineapple from a jar on top of the hutch before stopping in front of an open cedar blanket chest filled haphazardly with hand-dyed hanks of yarn. She closed the lid to turn the chest into a seat and dropped down onto it.

  I sat next to her and did my best to ignore the tears falling down her cheeks. "Okay. Tell me what happened. What agreement did Henry break?"

  "He was supposed to be making some wooden yarn bowls for me to sell, here and on my website."

  At my blank look, she went over to the checkout table and rummaged underneath it for a moment. She returned with a bowl, about five inches high and the same in diameter. She turned it so I could see a spiral slot that ran from about halfway up the side all the way to the upper edge. "They keep yarn clean and tangle-free while knitting or crocheting. You drop the ball into the bowl and then slide the strand of yarn through the slot. This one's the sample Henry made for me months ago. It was supposed to be the first of four dozen, but he's decided they're not worthy of his artistic time apparently. He was supposed to deliver at least half of the order today, but instead he tells me he's not making any more. I've got people who've already been waiting for weeks and weeks for orders that I'll never be able to fill now, and everyone's going to be mad at me, and you're going to kick me out of the market when they file complaints against me, and I'll probably have to go out of business and my bunnies will starve, and Henry doesn't even care." Jazz's face crumpled, and the tears increased in volume.

  "I'm not kicking you out of the market." I meant it to be reassuring, but I doubted she could hear me through her sobs.

  While I waited for Jazz to compose herself, I tried to eavesdrop on Henry and Tommy's conversation in the adjoining stall, but they were too far away. All I could tell was that Henry's tone didn't seem at all contrite. That was typical of him. He was always antagonizing people, and not once had he ever admitted he'd done anything wrong. Against all evidence, he persisted in believing that the customers, who never had any trouble with the other vendors at the market, were the problem, not him.

  Jazz had calmed down, so I repeated that her place in the market was safe. "There must be someone else who can make the bowls for you. I'm sure your customers will understand if you explain there's been a brief delay. If they wanted something relentlessly churned out by a machine that never took a day off or felt anything about the products, rather than something handmade by a craftsperson who sometimes couldn't deliver on time, then they wouldn't be buying from you."

  "I've already had to send several messages about delays," Jazz said. "But then at the market last week Henry told me he'd definitely bring at least two dozen of the bowls for me today. I went ahead and told the customers at the top of the wait list that they'd be shipped right after this weekend. And now Henry tells me he hasn't made a single one, hasn't even started them. It was all just a game to him. He was trying to make me look bad. I didn't realize it until now, but I think he's been mad at me ever since the Independence Day market when I wouldn't agree with him that you'd been wrong to give him a time out. I thought he'd gotten over being mad at me, but apparently not."

  "I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding," I said with more hope than confidence. "I'll go talk to Henry to see how we can fix the situation. Meanwhile, why don't you take a break so your customers don't see how upset you are? I'll get my assistant to keep an eye on your space while you're gone. I bet Gia Di Mitri from The Clip and Sip could freshen up your makeup and do something about your red eyes. I'm sure she has regular makeup with her in addition to her face-painting supplies. She's out near where the Danger Cove Police Foundation has its hot dog and burger grills. Tell Gia to send me the salon's bill."

  And I'd make sure Henry reimbursed me. Including the substantial tip I planned to add for Gia personally, which he'd probably grumble about even more than the salon's bill. If he made enough of a fuss, I'd just ban him from the market and save myself the future hassles. He'd had one warning before, and after this kerfuffle with Jazz today, he was already down to his final warning, and he was becoming more trouble than his admittedly beautiful and popular wood products were worth. If the market hadn't already lost several vendors this summer so that I couldn't really afford to lose any more, I'd have banned Henry already.

  * * *

  "It's not my fault she doesn't know how to run a business," Henry told me. "She's just a crazy bunny lady."

  Before demanding an explanation from Henry, I'd called Cary to oversee Jazz's setup and then gone over to thank Tommy Fordham and send him back to his own space. We were in the far back corner of the stall where Tommy had herded him. His granddaughter, Etta Atwell, was out front cheerfully helping customers. Except for her height, she didn't look much like him. She was thin and dark-skinned and had extremely short, tight curls. Her personality was also distinctly different from her grandfather's. She was as much of a natural with people as Henry was with woodworking. Maybe I could convince him to stay home in the future and let her do the selling. Then he'd have plenty of time to make Jazz's yarn bowls, or if he was determined to breach the contract, then he could spend the time doing what he loved to do, making his unique dishes and sculptures, rather than the sales work he loathed.

  Henry was seated in a rocking chair that he'd made himself, and he had a barely begun relief sculpture in his hand, along with a carving chisel. He was a big white-haired man in his late sixties. Despite his height and bulk, he had the long, elegant fingers that I associated with artists. Their beauty was marred with a few recent small cuts and a large number of old scars, presumably from slips with his woodworking tools. He was still nimble on his feet, thanks in part to the expensive name-brand running shoes that were the only items of apparel he seemed willing to spend much money on. Today's pair appeared to be brand new, in a lime green at odds with the more earthy shades of green in his t
ie-dyed T-shirt. He had dozens of the custom shirts, all at least ten years old, with WoodWell printed on the back, and he always wore them to the market with jeans that looked to be even older than the shirts.

  I took a seat on a nearby stool so he wouldn't feel like I was looming over him or looking down on him.

  "I'm not blaming anyone." Not until I'd heard Henry's side of the story, although I knew who I would like to blame. "I just want to know how we can resolve things between you and Jazz in the best interest of the market. I understand you two have had a falling-out, and it's not good for anyone if the vendors are feuding in front of customers."

  "She's got unreasonable expectations," he grumbled. "I'm an artist, not a machine. It takes time to do good work."

  "So how can we resolve this?"

  "We can't," he said, his voice rising to a shout. "I'm done with Jazz. She can get her stupid yarn bowls somewhere else. I've got more important work to do."

  "Perhaps it would be better if—"

  "I know, I know." Henry jumped to his feet. "You think I need to take another break to calm down. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

  "And consider this your second warning," I said. "One more, and, much as I'd hate to see you go, I'll have to terminate your contract with the market."

  He'd already turned away from me, so he simply raised one arm to wave his hand in what I took to be an acknowledgment that he'd heard me. He took the block of wood that he'd begun carving into a relief sculpture and stuck the chisel into the back pocket of his jeans on his way out of the rear of his space. I watched to make sure he continued past Snazzy-Jazzy Fibers, which he did, heading toward where the first aid tent stuck out beyond the backs of the canopies. I couldn't see where Henry went after Jazz's space, since the next few vendors had hung curtains or stacked bins across the back of their spaces. As long as he stayed away from potential customers for a bit, I didn't really care where he went.

  * * *

  Henry's granddaughter was busy with people eager to take advantage of his absence to get the products they'd previously only coveted from a distance, so I left her with a quick promise to check back later to discuss what we could do about curtailing Henry's troublesome involvement with customers.

  I strolled down the center of the Memorial Walkway, pleased to see that, as best I could tell without an actual head count, there were more people carrying purchases than I'd seen during any of the previous market days. A young male pirate and a female pioneer walked hand in hand, stopping where the local high school's consumer sciences teacher, Ethan Harding, and a half-dozen of his students sold healthy snacks in between handing out pamphlets on topics ranging from "Your First Apartment" to "Managing Your Credit."

  Between that stall and Tommy Fordham's was a vendor making her debut at the Lighthouse Farmers' Market today. I'd been too busy earlier to stop in and introduce myself, and I'd have liked to do it now before any other crisis could erupt, but the Thyme for Tea space was deserted. There was a little sign propped on the table, presumably indicating when the owner would return.

  I backed up to talk to the consumer sciences students. I could count on the teens' enthusiasm for their work to inoculate me against contracting grumpiness from Henry.

  Two teenaged boys in jeans and gray T-shirts printed with purple text proclaiming them to be Property of the Danger Cove High School Athletic Department vied to be the first to shove brochures about budgets and healthy grocery shopping at me. A third boy, shorter and chubbier than the others and wearing a gray pinstriped bib apron, squeezed between them to say, "We need to talk, Ms. Dolores."

  "Certainly." I declined the offered brochures, which I'd seen before, and followed the other boy inside the stall. "What can I do for you?"

  "There isn't enough room to do a proper demonstration on the puny little grill we're allowed here."

  "I'm afraid that's all the fire department will allow." The chief had insisted that there were serious safety issues if every vendor in the market could bring a grill to do food demonstrations. He was particularly concerned that there was no room for the fire truck to pass behind the canopies, since one row bumped up against a steep, boulder-strewn cliff that lined the edge of the cove and the other row sloped down to the historical garden. The space between the two rows of canopies wasn't wide enough for the fire truck to squeeze through, and even if it could, there was a significant risk that the weight would severely damage the memorial stones in the walkway. The chief hadn't wanted any grills in the individual stalls, but we'd compromised on a plan to issue two permits per weekend for specified market vendors to have a small grill for demonstrations in their own spaces. I'd held a lottery for the two permits, and the high school consumer sciences class and the corn farmer had been the lucky winners this weekend.

  "There really isn't that big a risk of fire," the teen said. "Not if we take proper precautions, and we would. Mr. Harding would make sure of it. Then we could really show people how easy it is to make healthy food on a grill. It doesn't have to be limited to burgers and hot dogs."

  Tell that to the Danger Cove Police Foundation volunteers. They had two full-sized residential grills set up in the area between the canopied market stalls and the parking lot. The fire chief had allowed the larger grills there, because they were closer to the parking lot, where the fire truck was sitting at the ready. It had hoses long enough to reach the grills without even moving the truck, if necessary.

  To be fair, the Police Foundation volunteers did sell some vegetables from the local farmers along with their meat, meat, and more meat, but I doubted the occasional tomato slice and mounds of grilled onions and peppers would satisfy the teens' crusade for healthier food.

  "I could talk to the Police Foundation's volunteers, if you want," I said. "They might be willing to let you use their grill for a brief demonstration, and you could suggest some healthier alternatives to their offerings."

  "I can talk to them myself," the teen said eagerly. "We're supposed to be learning how to negotiate, and I bet I could get extra credit for making a deal with cops."

  "Make sure it's okay with Mr. Harding first, please," I said, but the teen was already halfway across the booth on the way to talk to the teacher.

  Meanwhile, Cicely Smythe had returned to the Thyme for Tea booth. According to her application for the market, she'd settled in Danger Cove two years ago after graduating from a California college with an advanced degree in nutrition. From a distance she looked like she was at least in her sixties. Her pale hair was swept back in a loose bun, and she always wore what could only be described as granny clothes: a cardigan in a grayed-out color over a white blouse and a dark, below-the-knees skirt. Despite her appearance, she was younger than I was, with another year or two left in her twenties. I'd seen people do a double take when they got close enough to realize that her hair was blonde, not white, and her skin, beyond being free of age spots, hadn't even developed the hint of crow's feet at the corners of her eyes yet.

  Cicely was the market's new herb vendor, and her fresh and intensely fragrant lettuce-leaf basil had been in great demand all summer, generally selling out by midday. Her real passion though was for the leaves of camellia sinensis, more commonly known simply as tea. As I approached, she was beginning the process of demonstrating the fine art of brewing the perfect cuppa. Half a dozen people had stopped to watch, but as Cicely listed all the dos and don'ts, which made it sound more like an intricate chemistry experiment than a simple infusion, they were drifting away.

  "Temperature and timing are absolutely critical to a fine cup of tea," Cicely said. "Never let the water get above 176 degrees, and never steep for longer than three minutes, or you might as well pour it down the drain and start over. It requires total concentration, no distractions, but you'll find it's worth the effort."

  A young woman with an infant in a sling on her chest rolled her eyes at the mention of "total concentration" and turned toward the high school group. I thought their basic tips for running a household e
fficiently and within budget would be of more interest to her.

  With the mother and infant gone, there was only one other person besides me still interested in the demonstration. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. I'd come to believe that balancing the mix of vendors at a market had a lot in common with balancing the mix of investments in a portfolio. The goal was to have complementary products that worked together for the best overall returns. If there was enough variety, then a bit of mediocre performance in one sector could be balanced out with better performance in another sector.

  When I'd recruited Cicely, I'd been thinking of her as someone who would appeal to a wide audience, with a range of products from dried herbs in premixed combinations for the rushed cook to individual stems of fresh herbs for the chef who had more time and expertise for making her own combinations. I'd been particularly excited about the prospect of her building on the general appeal of the basic herbs with the more limited appeal of the niche product of locally grown tea—the real thing, not the more common herbal varieties—for the market, since it could set us apart from our competitors. Seeing Cicely in action, I wasn't so sure the business plan was working. If she was discouraging customers about any one of her products by insisting on scientific precision for using the tea leaves, they might be afraid to try her other products too. And that sort of negative response could be contagious, driving the customer away from the market as a whole, not just the one vendor.

  By the time Cicely removed the tea bag from the teapot and announced that steeping time was up, I was the only person watching the demonstration.

  "You're in for a real treat," she said. "This is unadulterated white tea—I never add any other flavors to such a delicate leaf—grown right here in Washington, steamed in small batches, and rolled by hand."