A Slaying in the Orchard

by Gin Jones

  Denise's eyes widened, and it wasn't just from shock. I thought there was a hint of terror in her expression. There was no sadness, but I hadn't expected to see any since she'd obviously despised Henry. Still, her reaction—a fear that bordered on total panic—did surprise me. Did she think she might be the next victim of some mad killer? Or was she instead worried that she might have just incriminated herself by revealing the extent of her hatred of Henry? His theft of a few ducks that were going to be sold anyway struck me as a petty reason to kill someone, but I had experience with clients whose objectively minor financial losses had been blown out of proportion by the emotional meanings attributed to those losses. No rational person would kill over the loss of a few dollars' worth of ducklings. She might, however, be driven into a murderous rage by the disrespect implied by such a theft.

  "I didn't know he was dead." Denise's voice was hushed, and she did seem to be shocked by the news, not particularly gratified by it. She glanced in the direction of WoodWell. "How is Etta taking it? And Jazz? Does she know? She's about the only person here who thought Henry wasn't so bad. At least until he turned on her. Maybe I should go see if she needs anything."

  "I'm on my way over there now," I said. "The best thing you could do right now is just get your rescued ducks secured and then try to get back to business as usual. The police haven't ordered me to shut everything down, and I'm hopeful people will remember why they came to the market in the first place and will get back to shopping. With a little luck, the gawkers will get bored with the show and decide they need some cheese to go with their schadenfreude."

  CHAPTER SIX

  There were no customers at either Merle's reassigned space at the far end of the market or across from there at my destination, the WoodWell stall. Behind me, people were losing interest in the crime scene now that their line of sight had been cut off. The forensics team had affixed a tarp to hang down from the back of the canopies that covered Tommy's space and the now-vacated one that had belonged to Pear Stirpes Orchard. The gawkers were starting to wander off, as I'd hoped they would, getting back to whatever had originally brought them to the market.

  I found Cary shuffling the bowls on WoodWell's main display table into some precise arrangement that only made sense to him.

  "Good job," I said on my way past him. Officer Fields was in the back, kneeling on the rocky ground beside a rocking chair where Etta was seated, slumped over, with her hands covering her face. Henry had custom built the rocking chair for his height and heft, and while his granddaughter was tall for a woman, she looked like a child sitting in adult furniture. In her early twenties, she was officially grown up but still young to have to deal with such a sudden, shocking loss.

  I crouched down on the other side of her.

  "I'm sorry for your loss." I couldn't bring myself to go so far as to say that Henry would be missed. "Your grandfather was a brilliant woodworker."

  Etta peered out from behind her hands, revealing a face wet with tears. She took in a shuddering breath. "Thank you. I know he wasn't a nice person when he was here. He wasn't much better with family. He always wanted to be alone in his workshop. Even more so recently. He pretty much locked himself in there a few days ago and wouldn't come out until this morning. Not even for some people who stopped by specifically to see him."

  "Who were they?" Perhaps his visitors had had something to do with his death. If so, Detective Ohlsen would want to know about them. I'd seen Officer Richie Faria getting contact information from all the vendors and their employees after Ohlsen had arrived, but I doubted the rookie had the authority to ask more in-depth questions, like the names of people who might have been upset with Henry.

  "I don't know who they were," Etta said. "I wasn't home. My brother told me about the visit, and he didn't know much about them either, just that it was odd for Grandpa to have unexpected company. Everyone knows he would never let anyone inside his studio when he was working. Not even me, and he always said I was his favorite grandchild. I taught myself the basics of wood carving and then asked him to help me perfect my craft, but he didn't have the patience for teaching."

  "You must have been terribly disappointed."

  "I was," she said. "I continued practicing on my own, hoping that maybe his skills would be wired into my DNA, but I don't know if I'll have the heart to keep learning on my own now."

  Officer Fields interjected, "Don't make any major decisions just yet. Give it some time. Trust me—I've seen too many people in your situation, and it's going to be difficult enough just doing what's absolutely necessary to get through the next few days. Don't put any extra pressure on yourself." He got to his feet with less difficulty than I might have expected from the excess weight he carried. "Detective Ohlsen will want to talk to you before you leave."

  "I'll be here." Etta gestured vaguely at the confines of the market stall. "I owe it to Grandpa's memory to keep this open. It's what he would have wanted. WoodWell was all he ever cared about."

  Fields patted her on the arm reassuringly before heading out to the walkway. On his way he passed Jazz, who was sidling in past the front display. She continued on a tentative path toward where Etta and I were, stopping about six feet away and fidgeting with the bright purple hand-woven angora sash she'd wrapped around her middle. I didn't remember her wearing it earlier in the day. Then she'd been wearing a more tailored blouse, but she'd changed into a looser one that would probably have fallen to the hem of her pencil skirt if it hadn't been cinched in at the waist.

  "I hope I'm not intruding," Jazz said, "but I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about what happened to Henry."

  Etta raised a hand to invite Jazz to pull up a folding chair and sit beside her. "You're probably going to miss him almost as much as I will."

  "He was a good man," Jazz said as she retrieved the chair from where it leaned against a stack of plastic bins. "I've always believed that. He just didn't know how to interact with real, live people. It wasn't entirely his fault. He was like a feral cat that's never been socialized and lashes out even when someone is trying to help him."

  Wow. Jazz was far more forgiving than I would have been. She'd been crying her eyes out because of Henry's cruel treatment of her just a few minutes before he'd been killed. Was she really that saintly, or was she more susceptible than most to the natural tendency to not want to speak or even think ill of the dead?

  "I meant to tell you before, but I didn't get the chance," Etta told Jazz. "It wasn't that Grandpa didn't want to make the yarn bowls for you. It's that he wasn't able to make them."

  "Why not?" Jazz found a spot next to Etta where the ground was even enough that the chair wouldn't wobble too much, and perched on the edge of the seat.

  "I'm not sure exactly. He definitely tried to make them. He wouldn't let me into the workshop even after he put away his tools for the day, and he burned all the failed pieces, so I never saw what the problem was. Judging by the ashes, he must have made at least a dozen failed attempts. I don't know if they were truly bad or if they just weren't living up to his expectations. You know how much of a perfectionist he is. Was."

  Jazz nodded.

  "All he'd tell me was that they weren't coming out right and there was a problem with the design. I didn't realize until this morning that he'd decided to give up on them completely. I thought we had time to fix the situation. I'd even tried making one myself, hoping it would meet your standards, if not Grandpa's."

  "Really?" Jazz said. "I'd love to see it."

  "It's at home," Etta said. "I chickened out of showing it to Grandpa. It's definitely not as nice as his would have been."

  "I'm sure it's lovely," Jazz said. "I bet you have your grandfather's perfectionism in your DNA, along with his artistic abilities, and that's why you're so critical of your own work."

  "You may be right." Etta straightened up from her slump. "Do you think I could keep WoodWell going? I mean, even after the pieces Grandpa made are gone?"

  "Oh, I hope you do," J
azz said. "Assuming there aren't any legal issues stopping you. The market's contract is pretty complicated. I don't know what the rules are for transferring it."

  Both women looked at me.

  "I'm sure we can make it happen," I said. "Merle Curtis would know how to do it, and I can make the arrangements while you're dealing with more important things."

  "Thank you." Jazz smiled at me through her tears.

  "Happy to do it." My words were a little too true, and I felt a bit guilty for thinking that Henry's death had made my job as the market manager a lot easier. Except for the challenge of having to deal with the reputation the market was getting as the place where people came to buy local products and witness murder investigations.

  * * *

  Jazz left to help a customer who wanted to buy a bunny, and Etta insisted she would be fine by herself now. I assigned Cary to stay and help anyway, with an explanation that Henry Atwell had died and instructions to do whatever Etta asked him to and to come find me or Merle if anyone said or did anything to upset her. I was a little concerned that Cary might not notice if she was too distraught to continue working, but he had been able to identify that JT had been "talking too much" earlier, so he wasn't entirely oblivious to the emotions of the people around him. In any event, I couldn't stick around WoodWell any longer. I needed to go put on a positive face and encourage the vendors and buyers alike that the weekend market would go on as planned. While I was talking to them, I could also see if they knew anything about Henry's death that might get the matter resolved quickly.

  I glanced across the walkway to see how Merle and JT had handled their move away from the crime scene. They seemed to be doing fine and had even attracted a customer, but I convinced myself that it was my duty to check that they didn't need anything from me. I told myself that I would have done the same for any of the vendors who'd had to move to a new space in the middle of the day. I knew it wasn't entirely true, but I refused to admit just how much I needed some reassurance from Merle that the market could survive this latest tragedy. I already felt like I had been relying on him too much due to my relative inexperience with both the town and my job as the market manager.

  Merle finished making change for a woman buying a case of individually wrapped pears. When he caught sight of me, his smile widened beyond the pleasant, friendly one he'd offered to his customer. "Can I interest you in a bottle of perry?"

  "This year's crop or last year's?"

  "It's too early for this year's." Merle led me into the unoccupied back of the stall. His assistant must have left while I was over at WoodWell. "JT tells me the new pears aren't good enough for making the mash yet. They're fine for harvesting to eat, a little bit short of ripeness so they can finish at home on the customer's counter, but they need more time on the tree to reach his preferred sugar content for use in the perry."

  "I think I'll hold off until this evening for anything stronger than water, but I won't turn down a chance to sit for a few minutes," I said, dropping into one of the three chairs near the cooler. "So how's the situation with the dead body back at the orchard?"

  "It's complicated." Merle remained standing, keeping half an eye out for any customers that might need help. At the moment an older woman was inspecting the display of pears, but she didn't seem particularly interested in buying anything. "We've had enough death around here for now. Let's stick to lighter subjects for the rest of the afternoon, and I'll tell you all about the happenings around the shallow grave tonight at dinner."

  "Assuming you haven't been arrested by then."

  He snorted. "What? For killing Henry? I've got the most airtight alibi anyone could want for the time of his murder. I was giving a homicide detective a tour of the orchard."

  "I was thinking about an alibi for when the body on your orchard was killed."

  "I might have one for that too," Merle said. "But they'll have to figure out when he died first so I can go through my records. As long as it was at least six months before I bought the orchard, it should be easy enough to prove I wasn't anywhere near Danger Cove. If it happened during a trial I was working on, I can get the presiding judge to vouch for me. That's almost as good as being with a cop to establish an alibi."

  "I'm in the clear for the orchard murder," I said. "It's pretty well known that I never set foot in Danger Cove until this spring. Unless you count when I was a baby, and I don't think I could have killed anyone before I learned to crawl."

  "Does that mean you don't have an alibi for Henry's death?" he asked, no longer amused.

  "Nothing like you've got. Officer Fields might be able to vouch for me for some of the time after I sent Henry away to cool off, but I wandered all over the market between then and when the body was found."

  Merle ran a hand over his face. "Are you telling me you and Henry had an altercation before he died? And presumably Fred Fields knew about it?"

  "I wouldn't say it was an altercation exactly. More of a bit of calm, reasonable discipline on my part and some grumbling on his part," I said. "Henry's altercation was with Jazz, not me. That was why I gave him a time out. He could be annoying, but I hadn't reached the point of planning to kick him out of the market permanently, and I certainly wasn't upset enough to want him dead just because he'd made my job a little more difficult than it has to be. He was about the least of my worries today."

  "Who was worse than Henry?"

  "The toy seller Keith Nettles," I said. "I was willing to cut Henry some slack because his products are really stellar. This other guy's got nothing in his favor. His products aren't terribly exciting, and I know it's small of me, but I can't help resenting the way he went over my head to get a space outside the main market."

  "You aren't thinking of quitting over that, are you?"

  "Not quitting. It's just…" I looked away for a moment. People had died under my watch. Not that it was my fault, not really, but it was sobering. "I just can't help thinking someone else might be able to do more for the market than I can. I'm losing vendors left and right it seems."

  "You can't blame yourself for people dying."

  "It's not just that," I said. "I've got all these plans to expand the market, and instead it's shrinking. Even if no one had died, I'd still be failing at my goals. I've tried everything I can think of to find a beekeeper, especially since honey is the number one product that people tell me they were disappointed not to see here, but I can't get one to commit. I had some good candidates, but they kept backing out at the last minute. There's no point in expanding the market with highly specialized vendors if I can't even cover the basics, like honey."

  "The scarcity of beekeepers isn't your fault either," Merle said. "A lot of them are having trouble meeting the demands of their current customers with the way bees have been dying in recent years, so they can't take on any new markets. If you can't find one, no one could."

  "That's not what I've been told." Some of my frustration seeped through my tone.

  "You mean by Sweetwater." Merle groaned. "Everyone here is glad he's not in charge. Just ignore him."

  "He's got a point though. I'm having a terrible time finding a beekeeper, and he probably knows a dozen prospects."

  "Doesn't matter," Merle said. "If he had your job, the market would be deserted within two weeks. Possibly not even that long. He's good at knocking other people down, telling them how things should be done, but he's no good at actually doing the work. You get things done. And you can handle the worst possible disasters, the things that would send most people into a panic. Everyone here is counting on you."

  "People only appreciate me for what I've got in here," I said, tugging on the strap of my stuffed-to-its-limits sling bag.

  "Not everyone," he said, reaching for my hand. "Some of us appreciate a great deal more about you."

  JT came trudging into the stall, pushing an empty handcart. "You two should get a room."

  Merle moved so the handcart could be tucked away in the corner behind him. "You can be replaced
, you know."

  "No, I can't," JT said. He didn't sound cocky, just confident of his own worth. "No one can make perry like I can. You need me."

  "He's right about that last bit," Merle told me ruefully.

  I got to my feet. "I'd better hope you never have to choose between him and me then."

  "You don't have to worry," Merle said, closing the distance between us to drop a quick kiss on my mouth. "I'm planning to have my cake and drink my perry too."

  I'd heard all the standard-issue boyfriend compliments and never paid them much attention, but no one had ever compared me to cake before. I would have liked to linger and see what other nice things Merle might have to say, but we both had work to do.

  "I'll see you later," I said, reluctantly disentangling my hand from his. I really did need to check in with other vendors to make sure they weren't experiencing problems due to Henry's death and the police investigation.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I wandered down the Memorial Walkway between the two rows of canopied stalls. The market was returning to normal, despite the continued activity in the area cordoned off by the police. Fortunately, the crime scene was out of the main traffic flow, so no one in authority had suggested shutting down the whole market. It probably wouldn't have cut down much on the rubbernecking if he had closed the market, since people would have come to the waterfront for other weekend activities anyway.

  I made it halfway along the walkway, past several fruit and vegetable vendors on Merle's side and the crafters and the high school consumer sciences group on the other side, before running into anyone who needed me. It was hardly surprising that the first person with a problem that I was expected to fix was Jim Sweetwater.

  The potato farmer was the only vendor who didn't have any customers. His disapproving body language probably had something to do with it. He was standing to one side of his impressive display of potatoes and carrots and radishes, arms crossed over the bib of his overalls and one foot tapping impatiently as he glared across the path and slightly to his right, as if he could see the crime scene through the tarps hanging down from the backs of the canopies there.