by Peg Cochran
Monica finished the batter for the day’s coffee cake. The cranberries in it winked as red as the ruby ring she’d found, and Monica glanced over to the table where she’d put it for safekeeping. She hoped Stevens would return her call soon. The sooner she got if off her hands, the better.
The cranberry cake that Monica had tried out on Greg the night before was almost finished when Monica’s front doorbell rang. Stevens? She hoped so.
Stevens was standing on the doorstep when Monica opened the door. As usual, her trench coat was open, and her protruding belly looked even bigger than the last time Monica had seen her.
“T minus one and counting,” she said as she edged her way around Monica’s open door. “I’d hoped to have this case wrapped up by now.” She rubbed the small of her back and winced. “At least I’ve got the crib put together, so I have a place to put the baby when it comes, even if the Winnie-the-Pooh border isn’t up yet, and the changing table is still in pieces in the box it came in.” She sighed as she followed Monica out to the kitchen.
“Cup of tea?” Monica reached for the kettle.
“Decaf?”
“No problem.”
Stevens sat at the kitchen table, her feet propped on one of the chairs as Monica made them each a cup of tea.
“It smells heavenly in here. What are you baking?”
“I’ve made muffins and a coffee cake, and a cranberry cake is now in the oven,” Monica said as she put the kettle on the stove and turned on the gas.
“Everything cranberry, I gather?”
“Yes. Cranberries are our stock in trade.”
“Okay,” Stevens said, when Monica handed her a mug of tea. “What’s all this about a ring?”
Monica reached across the table and handed Stevens the ruby ring.
Stevens held it up to the light and checked the inside of the band. “There’s an inscription, but it’s too faint to read. Maybe the guys in the lab will be able to make it out.” She turned the ring this way and that. “Looks expensive. I suppose that’s a real ruby.” She took a sip of her tea. “How did you come to find this?”
Monica explained about spotting it on the ground on the path by the bog.
“So anyone could have dropped it. Although, unless it was extremely loose, I can’t see it just falling off someone’s finger.”
“Maybe they’d taken it off for some reason and had it in their pocket?”
“And the pocket had a hole?” Stevens smiled. “What bad luck.”
“But that’s not all,” Monica said, moving over to the kitchen counter and leaning against it, her mug of tea cradled in her hands. “Darlene—she’s the girl who works in our farm store,” she said when she saw Stevens raise her eyebrows. “Darlene claims it belongs to Andrea Culbert, Sam Culbert’s wife.”
“I know who she is. I’ve already spoken to her a number of times. Seems she and Culbert weren’t exactly a match made in heaven. But how would this Darlene know—”
“She cleans for the Culberts once a week and remembers seeing that ring on Andrea Culbert’s dressing table.”
“And you found this near the bog? The one where the body was discovered?”
“Yes.”
“Odd.”
Monica gave Stevens a puzzled look, but Stevens didn’t elaborate. Instead she heaved herself to her feet.
“Mind if I take this with me?” She held out the ring in the palm of her hand.
“Please, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. Do you think you’ll find out who owns it?”
“If we do, I’ll let you know.”
• • •
The aroma of freshly baked goods wafted around Monica as she hurried to the farm store. She passed the bog where Culbert’s body had been found and shivered. She didn’t know if she would ever get over the shock of finding him floating amidst the cranberries. She averted her eyes but could still see, in her mind’s eye, the scene as it had been that day—the yellow-and-black police tape flapping in the breeze, the officers clustered around the bog searching the ground for any clues, their patrol cars pulled up haphazardly on the grass.
Monica was relieved when the farm store came into view. She was surprised to find Lauren behind the counter instead of Darlene. She looked as if she, too, had had a restless night. Her usually shiny hair was dull, and her eyelids had the slightly swollen look of someone who hadn’t slept well.
“Where’s Darlene?” Monica asked as she hoisted her baskets onto the counter.
“She called to say she was sick. She asked me if I would mind taking her place today.” She smiled. “It’s no problem.”
“I really appreciate it,” Monica said, and she meant it. Lauren was always willing to pitch in whenever and wherever necessary.
Monica arranged the cakes and muffins in the glass case and then began carrying the jars of salsa to the cooler. She realized she hadn’t yet heard from Fresh Gourmet. She had her fingers crossed that the store would be willing to stock her product. The extra source of revenue would put Sassamanash Farm on considerably sturdier financial ground.
“Do you mind if I run into town?” Monica asked Lauren, who was straightening their stock of tea towels. “I need to pick up some more flour before I forget.”
“Sure. Weekdays are usually pretty slow. I can handle it.”
Monica grabbed her jacket and purse and headed toward the door. She turned around as she was leaving. “Thanks again, Lauren. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Lauren’s face lit up and she smiled. It gave Monica a good feeling as she walked to her car.
The day had started out overcast, but the clouds were moving swiftly and sunlight was breaking through. The leaves had nearly reached their peak of color and the trees were a vivid red and yellow. Monica took a deep breath. The air had that indefinable autumn smell to it, and there was a hint of wood smoke on the breeze that blew her hair across her face.
Monica beeped open the Focus and got behind the wheel. Traffic was scarce as she made her way into town, although almost all the parking places on Beach Hollow Road were taken when she got there. Monica finally found a spot two doors down from Gina’s new shop. A van was pulled up in front of it, and Monica glanced at it curiously. It was white with Ralph’s Plumbing written on the side in red letters. The van Jeff claimed to have seen the night of Culbert’s murder was white with red lettering—obviously Greg’s wasn’t the only one in town like it.
Monica turned into the doorway of Gina’s shop. Carpenters were nailing wallboard to the studs, their electric nail guns nearly deafening in the small space. Gina was in the back of the shop talking to a man in denim overalls and a T-shirt with Ralph’s Plumbing on the back. Obviously that was his van outside.
Gina waved her over, and Monica picked her way across a floor strewn with loose boards, various tools and abandoned fast-food containers.
“I want to hear all about your evening,” Gina said when Monica reached her. “Just let me finish up with Ralph, okay? It seems there’s some sort of problem with the pipes, but Ralph is going to sort it all out for me. Right, Ralph?” Gina turned to him and graced him with her most flirtatious look.
Ralph nodded and smiled at Monica.
“I take it that’s your truck outside?” Talk about stating the obvious.
“Yup. The one with Ralph’s Plumbing on the side.”
“Have you heard about the murder out at Sassamanash Farm?” Monica asked casually.
“You bet.” Ralph stuck his thumbs through the straps of his overalls. “Probably ain’t nobody in town who hasn’t heard of it.”
“You didn’t happen to be out that night, did you? In your van.” Monica waved toward the street. “My brother saw a white van on the road that night near the farm. It could be that the driver saw something and didn’t realize it.”
Ralph puffed himself
up. “Really? And, like, would they get to talk to the police and all?”
“I should imagine so.” Monica shot a warning look at Gina who had opened her mouth to say something. “They might even get their name in the paper.” She felt guilty leading on the obviously gullible Ralph.
“As a matter of fact, I was out in the van that night.” Ralph unhooked his thumbs from his overall straps and pointed them toward his chest. “A buddy of mine hosts a weekly poker game for us guys.” He patted his stomach. “His wife always puts out a nice spread for us. I took the van so I could leave the Taurus for the wife.”
“Do you remember if you drove past Sassamanash Farm?”
“That the place that Sam Culbert used to run?”
Monica nodded.
“I sure did. It’s right on my way. Eric, that’s my friend, lives over on Evergreen Road.” He pointed out the window of the shop.
“You didn’t happen to see anything out of the ordinary, did you?”
Ralph stroked his chin. “I passed someone out walking. That what you mean? I I did think it was kind of odd given the hour. This was on my way back home, see.”
“Do you remember if it was a man or a woman?”
“Couldn’t tell,” Ralph said succinctly. “Had on jeans and some kind of sweatshirt or jacket with a hood that was pulled up. Covered their face. Besides I wasn’t really paying any attention.”
Monica nodded.
“Do you think I should go to the police?” Ralph’s eyes shone.
“Yes. They might find it helpful.”
“But you’re going to finish up here first, right?” Gina gave him a stern look.
“Sure, Ms. Albertson. Don’t you worry.”
“I’ve got to get going,” Monica said quickly, touching Gina’s arm. “Lauren is at the store all by herself. I’ll tell you about my evening when you get back tonight.”
Gina looked disappointed, but Monica hastily said good-bye and left the shop before Gina could detain her further.
Monica caught a glimpse of the awning over Book ’Em as she headed toward her car and blanched at how close she had come to accusing Greg of murder. Hopefully he would never know.
She almost forgot she’d come into town for some flour and nearly walked back to the Focus empty-handed, but after her purchase was duly made, Monica headed to her car to go home to the farm.
She was pretty sure that Ralph would go running to the police with his information the minute he finished his work in Gina’s shop. It might have been a coincidence that someone was out walking near the farm that night, but then again, maybe not. She would let Stevens deal with the information.
Monica was about to pull out of the parking space when her cell rang. She put the car in park and fished her phone from her purse.
“Hello?”
“Detective Stevens here. I thought you’d want to know that we found Culbert’s car in the driveway of an abandoned house down a dirt road not far from the farm.”
“So he parked there and walked back to Sassamanash? I wonder why. Do you think he was meeting someone and didn’t want to be seen?”
Monica thought back to what everyone had been saying about Culbert’s marriage—was he seeing someone on the side? But why meet them at the farm? Hardly a romantic—or comfortable—destination. Unless this had been business? Funny business of some sort?
“We’re quite certain he drove out to the farm in his own car. We’ve got the analysis back on the tire tracks that were found. They were faint—the ground was pretty hard—but there’s no doubt they’re consistent with Culbert’s Mercedes. We think someone lured him to the farm, killed him and then drove his car away, thinking that it would be a while before the body was found. We’re testing it for prints now.”
“What about another car? The person he was meeting must have driven to the farm themselves.”
There was a pause long enough to cause Monica’s hands to begin to sweat, and the phone almost slipped from her grasp.
“There aren’t any other tracks. At least not anywhere near where Culbert’s car must have been parked. Of course that doesn’t mean that the person, whoever they were, didn’t park farther away. But it doesn’t rule out the fact that the murderer could have been someone from the farm. It would have been easy enough for them to walk to the spot where Culbert was waiting for them.”
“You don’t think . . .” Monica tried to keep the panic out of her voice.
“I don’t think anything,” Stevens said wearily. “I can’t draw any conclusions until I have all the facts. Otherwise, it’s just guesswork. Hopefully the techs will find something useful in Culbert’s car.”
Monica thanked Stevens for keeping her informed, tossed her phone in her purse and put the car back in drive. If the murderer had any brains, the police wouldn’t find anything incriminating in Culbert’s car. Jeff was smart. Monica pushed the thought away. Jeff had had nothing to do with this. She was positive.
Monica tried to imagine how things might have happened—someone luring Culbert out to the farm, killing him and dumping his body, then driving his car out to this deserted house. Had they left their own car there? Did the person Ralph saw walking along the road have anything to do with it? She should have told Stevens about that, but Monica was certain Ralph would be heading to the police station with his information the second he was finished at Gina’s shop.
Once again the scene at the cranberry bog flashed through Monica’s mind—the police surrounding the area with tape and the men searching for clues. Jeff had said that afterward the techs had arrived and had taken casts of any tire tracks
A thought occurred to her so suddenly she nearly slammed on her brakes. The horn from the car behind her blared, and Monica waved to indicate she was sorry.
The pieces were falling into place—or some of them at least. That ring had to have been dropped after Culbert’s body was found. The police had combed the area around the bog. Monica remembered how they had divided the area into a grid and were going about it in an orderly fashion hoping to find something—anything—that would lead to the murderer’s identity. If that gold and ruby ring had been there that day, they would certainly have found it. If it had caught her eye as she was just walking past, surely the police would not have missed it.
And what if someone hadn’t dropped the ring? What if they had planted it there on purpose, wanting it to be found? Monica chewed on her lower lip. They must have hoped to incriminate someone.
And if that ring really did belong to Culbert’s wife then that someone must be Andrea Culbert.
Chapter 23
Monica pulled into the driveway of her cottage without really knowing how she’d gotten there. So many thoughts were chasing each other around her head—Stevens’s not-so-subtle insinuation that someone from the farm could be responsible for Culbert’s death, the idea that the ruby ring had been planted to incriminate Andrea Culbert, her own ongoing concerns as to where Jeff was and what he was doing.
Monica dumped her purse on the kitchen table and opened the refrigerator door. She was starving. She rummaged around and found a hunk of cheese, some rather stale country bread and a few slices of deli ham. She could toast the bread and make an open-faced ham and cheese sandwich.
Monica was spreading some grainy mustard on the toasted bread when the back door was flung open, and Gina barged in.
Monica jumped.
“Sorry. Did I scare you?” Gina slung her jacket over a chair. “Look what I did.” She turned her back to Monica.
Gina’s pants were ripped—a large flap of material hanging down, revealing her leopard-print thong beneath.
“I caught my back pocket on a nail, and next thing I knew . . .” She shook her head, and the hair piled on top quivered like gelatin. “Someone didn’t pound the nail in properly and it was sticking out of the wall. At least no one was hurt. But I had
to come back and change. I could hardly spend the day going around like this.” She looked over her shoulder at the hole in her jeans.
“Are you hungry?” Monica gestured toward her sandwich. “There’s enough for two.”
“That would be heavenly. I’ll just run up and change. Be right back,” Gina called as she headed toward the stairs.
Monica had noticed the label on Gina’s jeans. That was an expensive rip. She knew that brand went for upwards of two hundred dollars, unlike the ones Monica bought at JCPenney.
By the time Monica had put together a second sandwich, Gina was back downstairs. She slid into the seat opposite Monica.
“Did you ever do anything about that ring you found?” Gina asked picking up her sandwich.
“Yes. I gave it to Detective Stevens.”
“It was an expensive piece of jewelry. You’d think someone would be looking for it.”
“Darlene said she thought it belonged to Andrea Culbert. She’d seen one just like it on Andrea’s dressing table once.”
“That must mean that Andrea Culbert was out at the farm the night Culbert was killed,” Gina exclaimed.
Monica hated to burst Gina’s bubble. “I doubt it. If the ring had been there that night, the police would have found it when they searched the grounds. No, I think someone planted it to throw suspicion on Andrea.”
“Maybe Darlene did.” Gina dabbed at her mouth with a napkin.
Monica stopped with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “Darlene did say Andrea had to let her go. Maybe she was resentful—”
“Let her go, my eye! She fired her. You’ve seen how that girl works. Or maybe I should say doesn’t work. I’ll bet you anything she swiped that ring and left it in a place where you would find it and draw the natural conclusion. Although that would require more brains than I thought Darlene possessed.”
Monica nodded. “She wanted to get back at Andrea for firing her.”
“She strikes me as the sort who would stoop to something like that.”
“And I gave the ring to Detective Stevens thinking it might have something to do with the case. I hate to think of the police wasting their time investigating it when it’s most likely a dead end. . . .”