A Suspicion of Strawberries (Scents of Murder Book 1)

by Lynette Sowell

  Ben shook his head. “I was just kidding.”

  “Well, I’m not. Really. Paper and a pen or something.”

  “I happen to agree with Doyle, the detective buddy in Rear Window. That’s a private world we’re looking into.”

  I stood and went to the kitchen. “It is, and if nothing comes of this idea, so be it. At least I tried. Now, about that notepad? Don’t you have a place where you keep your bills or paper or something?” I shouldn’t have been so hard on him. For a guy, he’s remarkably organized.

  Ben met me in the kitchen and pulled out a drawer. “Here. Since you’re so insistent.” He withdrew a notepad and pen. “Want an envelope, too?”

  “That would be wonderful.” I sat down at the kitchen table. “I need to say something direct, yet simple. Okay. How about this?” I wrote in block letters, as carefully as I could: “Melinda, I know what you did. And I know how you did it.” Then I held up my handiwork. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re something else.” He tapped the note. “So what do you plan to do?”

  “I’m going to do a stakeout. You got your binoculars handy?” If I sounded a little intense, so be it, but thanks to Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, I knew I’d get to the bottom of this. I followed him back to the living room.

  “A stakeout.” Ben moved to open the front door and let the cool evening breeze drift through. He paused the movie. “Andi, stop. You don’t have to go to all this trouble.”

  “Don’t you have binoculars?”

  “Aren’t you listening to me? Drop it. Enough.”

  “A woman died. Someone killed her. I’m tired of this hanging over my head and waiting for this to end.”

  “Well, I feel the same way.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Never mind.” Ben sank back onto the love seat. A roar from the den and a shout from Jerry told me his night was going well.

  “I could be wrong.”

  “And if you’re not…”

  “Poor Melinda…” My stomach caught. What if Melinda had only intended to scare her sister, maybe mess up her wedding photos—not kill her? Of course, I didn’t know how long Melinda had known she was pregnant. “But if she did this without trying to kill Charla…maybe it won’t go too badly for Melinda.” My head hurt.

  “You could just talk to her, tell her what you know.” Ben squeezed my hand.

  “Give her a chance to explain.” I sighed. “Especially now that she’s lost the baby.”

  “You’re so compassionate, and I love that about you.” He put his arm around me. “Take your time and choose your words carefully.”

  “I will.” I forced my attention back to the television. At last, “The End” flashed across the screen. I tried not to yawn, but Ben beat me to it.

  “Guess I’ll go,” I said as I stood and stretched. “I know you’re tired.”

  He nodded and gave me a sleepy smile. “But I enjoyed the evening.”

  “Can…can I borrow your binoculars, just in case?”

  Ben groaned and stood, then went to his gun cabinet and pulled some binoculars out of a bottom drawer. “Stubborn woman.”

  “You are such a sweetheart.” I accepted the binoculars and hugged him. “I might not even need them.”

  “You’re going to do this tonight?”

  I nodded. “I can’t afford to wait.” I slung the binoculars strap over my shoulder and reached for my purse, tucking the letter neatly inside.

  Ben gave me a quick hug and a kiss. “I’ll see you when I get back.”

  “I’ll be waiting to hear from you.” I wanted to add, “Don’t forget to call me while you’re on the road,” but I didn’t. He would be home again soon enough, with everything the future would bring us.

  It wasn’t too much after nine, and I hoped Melinda would be home for the evening, as well. Someone on a stakeout never knew how long they’d have to wait. I figured I ought to bring a variety of snacks and drinks to keep me alert. My Jeep needed gas, so I dropped by a convenience store on the way into town and filled up. After my debit card recovered from the shock, I bought three sodas and some yogurt-covered pretzels.

  I found my way down the darkened streets of Greenburg and turned onto the street where Emily and Melinda lived. My heart thudded. What on earth was I doing? I’d blazed a trail from Ben’s place all the way here, and I was sure if I looked over my shoulder, I’d probably see flames trailing behind me.

  After I parked the Jeep behind a pickup near the corner, I peered through the binoculars. I could see the glow of the porch light in front of Melinda and Emily’s home. Both women’s cars were in the driveway.

  Minutes ticked by. For a while I listened to the radio and tried to hold off eating my snacks. After all, I’d had a great Bongo burger at Ben’s. If someone had told me that morning I’d end up staking out Melinda Thacker’s house, I probably wouldn’t have believed them.

  I remembered my earlier train of thought. Did I care about Melinda, or was I just trying to prove my point? Maybe Ben was right. Instead of trying to slip her the letter anonymously, I would try a direct approach. Maybe then Melinda would talk to me, say something, and then we could go and talk to Jerry together. I knew I couldn’t sleep tonight otherwise.

  Putting the Jeep into first gear, I headed the rest of the way to Melinda’s house and parked in front of her driveway. Lord, help. I can’t do like they did to Lars Thorwald. I just wanted to talk to her. I knew she trusted me. I just couldn’t sneak. Well, not until I gave her a chance to talk.

  So I pounded on the door.

  The screen door swung open. Melinda’s fair skin looked almost pasty in the porch light. “Oh, um, hi. What brings you here?”

  “I…I wanted to talk to you about something. I couldn’t over the phone…” Just then I realized I hadn’t planned on what to say. “Er, how are you feeling?”

  “Better every day.” Her slight smile provided a scant mask for the pain I saw reflected in her eyes.

  “Good.” I rubbed my arms. A hot, sticky Tennessee night, and I had goose bumps. “I need to talk about the day Charla died. I know that’s painful for you, but I’ve learned some things that you should know.”

  She licked her lips and blinked. “Another conspiracy theory?”

  “No. Someone broke into my store. That’s how the facial scrub got sabotaged. But I don’t think someone was trying to kill Charla. I don’t think they meant it. Maybe they were trying to scare her, or teach her a lesson, or ruin her wedding.” I made myself stop. A cricket chirped somewhere in the night. In other circumstances, this would have been funny. Somewhere out toward Main Street, someone honked a car horn.

  “Is that what you think?”

  “I do. Does that idea sound possible?”

  “I don’t know.” Melinda shook her head.

  “It was dried strawberries. I found the seeds in the scrub. This points to several people. You said that Emily even admitted to giving Charla strawberry candy or something last summer as revenge. And then what about Mike Chandler? Charla sued him for trying to ‘poison’ her. Or worse, what if Robert was trying to get out of the wedding for some reason? A little extreme, but if he was seeing someone else…” I’d already blown the theory about Robert, but I needed to see what Melinda would say.

  “I—said—I—don’t—know!” She brushed away a tear. “Just go. Please go.”

  “Melinda, do you know something?” Please…my throat hurt. “If it was an accident—”

  “Go—” The wooden door slammed shut behind the screen. Off went the porch light.

  I trudged to my Jeep and launched into prayer. “I tried, I did. Lord, I never thought it would be this hard.” My own eyes burned as I drove away from Melinda’s house. At the end of the street, I waited. A niggle in my stomach told me I ought to go back to where I’d hung out and debated with myself not long ago. So I circled the block and tucked the Jeep behind the pickup again and waited.

  Chapter Twenty-Two
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  Three hours later, I’d cleared through my bagful of yogurt-covered pretzels and all three sodas. I squinted through the binoculars at the front porch of Melinda and Emily’s place.

  C’mon, Melinda. I staved off the late-night mental fog and glanced at my watch. Midnight had come and gone. Maybe I should have brought something with a little more caffeine in it.

  And maybe I’d been wrong. There was that possibility. Maybe Seth was a good liar. Maybe I’d made assumptions about that private world I was looking into, thinking back to the line from Rear Window.

  My pulse rate jumped at least twenty beats when I saw a rectangle of light in front of the darkened house. Someone was coming out, leaving the porch light off. And that someone held a box and a lumpy garbage bag. Donation time!

  Melinda carried the items to her car. The streetlight gave me a good view. When she glanced up and down the street, I shrank down a bit. Then I realized I should have brought Di’s sensible minivan, a carbon copy of so many others in Greenburg. I flopped sideways across the passenger seat, praying all the while that Melinda did not see me. As a sleuth, I had definitely not thought of everything. Besides that, the sodas had kicked in and I really needed a bathroom.

  The lights from Melinda’s car reflected off the interior of the Jeep as she passed. Only when the street darkened again did I dare sit up. I threw the Jeep into gear and whirled it around, then slipped out onto the main street. Did she take a left or a right? I saw a pair of red taillights attached to a dark hard-top convertible ahead. There she was. I followed but not too closely.

  My phone warbled. I tapped the speaker button. “Di?”

  “Andromeda Clark, where are you?”

  “Now’s not really a good time to talk,” I said above the rumble of the engine.

  “I called the house, and when you didn’t answer, I was worried.”

  “I’m following Melinda Thacker.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t explain right now, but I think she’s trying to get rid of her food dehydrator.” Melinda hung a right, as if she were headed to Wal-Mart.

  “Oh, I wish I could have helped out, but Stevie’s been sick tonight. Poor baby. I wish this stomach bug would leave our house once and for all.”

  “Don’t worry about it. He needs you.” I hollered the words as I downshifted.

  “I’ll let you go. Be careful.”

  “I will. And give Stevie a hug for me.” I ended the call, then downshifted again as I approached Wal-Mart’s parking lot. Nothing open except a gas station back down the street and Wal-Mart with a cluster of cars in front. What a scandal when the store stayed open twenty-four hours after the big corporate remodel.

  Melinda headed across the parking lot to the strip mall next to Value-Mart. It dawned on me that she probably had a clear view of my Jeep, so I turned into the drive-through lane of Burger Barn (also open twenty-four hours). When I was in high school, it was the only place you could get a burger after midnight. Still is.

  The worker at the order window slid back the glass door when I drove up.

  “Sorry, I’m not placing an order.” I waved at the cashier and circled around behind the restaurant. I kept an eye on Melinda’s car, the parking lot lights glinting off the blue metal. Now she was heading past the corner of the building.

  I assumed the strand of stores had a garbage receptacle in the back. Melinda was a smart cookie, getting rid of the evidence somewhere besides her place. I paused in the restaurant parking lot and waited until I saw Melinda’s car emerge from the shadowed end of the line of stores. She drove back the way she came, intent on her journey.

  Then I drove the same route that Melinda had taken. When I rounded the corner of the minimall, the rear entries of the storefronts were lit by a solitary streetlamp. The sight of half a dozen trash bins greeted me.

  Some sleuth I was. I hadn’t counted on each store having its own bin. Worse, I didn’t even have a flashlight with me. Was this a fool’s errand, a quirky coincidence? Maybe I should have stayed at Ben’s a little longer and talked about our future and let this crazy idea go. I shouldn’t have left him, especially considering how strange he’d been acting lately. Momma always said avoiding a problem was worse than meeting it head-on. If you met it head-on, it couldn’t sneak around behind you. When Ben returned home again, I wouldn’t run off. But I couldn’t deny that my questions for Melinda tonight had definitely struck a nerve and spurred her into action.

  I sighed as I pointed the front of the Jeep at the first trash bin and slid the gearshift to Park, taking care to pull the emergency brake. When I slid from the driver’s seat of the Jeep, the nighttime breeze wafted the odor of garbage in my direction. No matter how bad it smelled, I would see this thing through to the end. Di and Ben ought to be proud of my determination not to quit when the going got smelly.

  A sign above the back of the first store told me I was at the rear entrance for China Café. Oh, please, not in this bin. The edge of the rusted steel contraption stood just slightly above my eye level. I hopped, trying to catch a glimpse of the contents. Just black plastic bags and flattened cardboard boxes, partly covered in shadow.

  I jumped back into the Jeep. On to the next one. I shook my head. Melinda couldn’t have been long in tossing away the dehydrator box and the garbage bag. I squinted to see the signs for the rest of the stores.

  Salvation Army. What better place to donate used items, especially ones that were good sellers? I drove the Jeep down to that trash bin. A flash of headlights from a passing car on the street made me look up. No, Melinda wasn’t going to return. She would go home, get into her jammies, and try her best to sleep.

  The bright red bin beckoned me as if it contained a treasure. If only it weren’t so tall. Maybe I could vault onto the edge and balance at the top to see down inside it, then grab the food dehydrator box and make sure I had the right one.

  My plan was simple. If I found the food dehydrator, I would take it. No, not steal it. I would write a note to Jennifer Toms, who ran the store, and leave a donation in their mail slot at the front of the strip mall.

  Bracing my hands on the edge of the bin, I vaulted onto the edge as planned. There it was! The Dry-It- Fast food dehydrator, normally sold at Value-Mart for forty dollars, once owned by Melinda Thacker. If I was careful, I’d have the long-sought-for evidence. That “means” Jerry needed. On its own, the food dehydrator didn’t matter. But pile it together with the other evidence…

  My forward momentum didn’t stop, and I crashed onto a lumpy trash bag. Clothing oozed from the split bag. I reached for the food dehydrator box as if it were the holy grail.

  Now, how to get out of here? I let the box balance on the flat corner of the trash bin then reached for the edge once again and slung my legs over the side.

  But wait. This was evidence. I could tell Jerry it was here, and that I was 90% sure Melinda had dropped it here, that I’d followed her to this alley. He could send people here or whatever he needed to do so someone could legally pick it up. I dropped to my feet and took the box down from the corner of the trash bin.

  A pair of headlights approached, and I squinted at the vehicle. Greenburg is not a town where one should be afraid after dark. But tonight, past midnight, in the shadowy backside of a minimall, I trembled.

  Then a police siren chirped, and a set of blue and red strobes lit up the night. “Freeze—Greenburg PD!”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Ma’am, put the box down, and put your hands on your head.” The officer crossed the short distance between his car and the trash bin.

  I closed my eyes and obeyed. “This is a mistake, really; I’m not trying to rob…” Every arrest scene from every cop show I’d ever seen flashed through my mind.

  “You are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent—”

  “Listen, Officer, Jerry Hartley’s practically my brother-in-law.” If any doubts remained in my mind about Ben and our future, they’d been replaced by the scenes fro
m cop shows. I just couldn’t be arrested.

  “—can and will be held against you in a court of law.”

  Various protests teetered on the tip of my tongue. Shut—up—shut—up—shut—up. I kept my mouth closed.

  My arms were drawn downward. No one ever told me how much that hurt, but then I’d never been arrested, either. Cold, steel handcuffs circled my wrists. I bit my lip. All I’d wanted was the stupid food dehydrator. Sort of. But if I tried telling the officer I was just putting it back, I suspected I wouldn’t convince him.

  “Let’s go.” Officer Go-Get-’Em took me by the elbow and escorted me to the waiting car, its lights flashing. “That store’s been complaining of thieves making off with donations in the evenings, and they’ll be glad to know I got someone.”

  But you’ve got the wrong someone! I slid onto the rear seat of the squad car, behind the metal mesh that divided the front from the back. When the door slammed, I clamped my eyes shut. Blue and red strobes pulsated through my eyelids.

  I opened my eyes to watch the officer radio for a tow truck for my Jeep. He had the swagger of a young twenty-something when he headed back to the trash bin. Of course he slipped on some latex gloves. Then with a flourish and half grin, he toted the food dehydrator box to the back of the squad car and stuffed it into the trunk.

  We waited until the tow truck came to take my Jeep to the impound. Then the fine young rookie climbed behind the wheel of his car, radioed that he was taking a female perpetrator to the station, and we were off. I wiggled on the seat so I could glimpse the triumphant grin on his face.

  “Please, Officer. You don’t know…”

  When he shot me a backward glance, I closed my mouth again. I did have one phone call. That much I knew. I’d probably have to sit in the town jail at least overnight. Would bail have to be posted?

  What would Ben say? No way would I call him tonight and hear “I told you so.” I refused to cry as the squad car moved through the deserted streets of Greenburg. One final trip as a trucker, and Ben would come back to this news. In the paper. Whispered in restaurants. Scandal like this was good fodder for at least a couple months’ gossip. And thereafter, whenever anyone talked about garbage receptacles or Salvation Army or Andi Clark’s crazy stunts.