by J A Whiting
“It sounds great. Congrats, again.” Juliet eyed her friend. “If you ever make any extra pies, don’t forget to bring one home, okay?”
Shelly chuckled. “There happens to be one for dessert tonight.”
The young women chatted and ate and enjoyed the clear, pleasant breeze and mild temperatures. “Dwayne seems nice,” Shelly said. “But the nephew, Paul, he does the marketing for the farm, voiced his concerns about Dwayne’s mental health.”
“The poor guy suffered a shock when he found the hand. It might take some time for him to deal with all of that.” Juliet sipped her iced tea with lemonade.
“Dwayne is taking medication for anxiety. Paul told me his uncle is forgetful and makes mistakes. He seemed very worried.”
“How was Dwayne when you talked to him?”
Shelly said, “He was fine. He gave me a tour, showed me the kitchen, answered all of my questions. He was nice, friendly. I wouldn’t have suspected he was dealing with anxiety.”
“Dwayne probably just needs some time,” Juliet said. “Now tell me about sitting in with Jay during Adam Wall’s interview.”
Shelly gave her the summarized version of the meeting and then said, “I didn’t know what to think about Adam. Sometimes he seemed to be holding back information. He’s a young guy who just lost his girlfriend. He must be torn up about it, but he didn’t show much emotion at all. He seemed very defensive and angry. At one point, he snapped at Jay and raised his voice. I kept thinking about what the woman on the woodland hike told me about overhearing some women talk about Adam … that he was controlling with Abby and he told her she couldn’t be with anyone else. That was in the back of my mind and I bet it colored my feelings about Adam.”
“Did anything important come out of the interview?” Juliet wiped at the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
“Nothing stunning,” Shelly said. “Adam did admit he sometimes would leave the house late at night while his parents were sleeping to go meet a friend, but he was adamant that he stayed at home after Abby left him off.”
“Did he say anything about the possibility they might break up before leaving for college? Did they discuss it?”
A long string of mozzarella stretched from the pizza slice Shelly was holding all the way to her mouth. She pinched it so it broke apart. “He said they had talked about it and were still on the fence about what to do. He said he loved Abby.”
“I wonder,” Juliet pondered. “We’ve heard through the grapevine that Adam said some harsh things to Abby when she talked about breaking up with him. It makes me wonder about the guy. I don’t like the things I’ve heard.”
Shelly said, “We have to remember those things might only be hearsay. It might be gossip with no basis in fact.”
“I think it would be good to talk to one of Abby’s girlfriends. See what Abby thought about Adam. She and a good friend must have talked about such things.”
“Adam also mentioned that the manager of the gift shop where Abby worked was a real pest saying off-color things to Abby, making sexual jokes. She didn’t like it and she didn’t like the man either. Adam said Abby told him she was uncomfortable around the manager.”
“No wonder,” Juliet sighed and rolled her eyes. “Why do some guys think women want to hear their stupid comments and jokes. Be normal, not like some leering goon. Gosh.”
Justice jumped up on Shelly’s lap and begin to purr. “I think the store manager needs to be looked at by the police. That friend we met at the pub a few days ago told us the manager touched Abby inappropriately. I have suspicions about him.”
“That’s smart. Did you tell Jay what we heard?”
“I did. Have you seen her lately?”
“No.” Juliet shook her head. “She’s straight out working all kinds of crazy hours on this thing.”
“She looked tired at the interview. Maybe we should make dinner for her sometime and drop it off at the house.”
Juliet agreed it was a good idea.
Shelly brought up something else. “I asked Adam about Abby’s back injury. Remember the gift shop manager told me Abby got hurt and couldn’t work at the farm anymore. That’s how she ended up working at the gift shop this summer. Adam said Abby was on the cross country team at school. She was doing a training run in the woods and she fell and hurt her back. Adam didn’t seem to have any worries about the injury. Something about the way he talked about it made me uneasy.”
“Like how? What did he say?”
“It wasn’t really what he said. It was more how he talked about it, sort of nonchalant, it was no big deal, he was emotionless. Abby was in the hospital for almost a week. It must have been a big deal. He spoke about it as if it was nothing. She must have been in pain, upset. It didn’t seem to faze him one bit.”
“Adam doesn’t seem to be earning many points in the ‘good guy’ column,” Juliet said with a tone of disgust.
“He came across as sort of selfish and self-absorbed,” Shelly explained.
“Is his behavior enough for us to be suspicious of him?” Juliet tilted her head to the side in question.
“I sure think it is, but Jay is the one who makes those decisions.” Shelly gave a shrug. “It’s my opinion based on his answers to questions and some gossip we’ve heard. Those are pretty slim reasons to think he might be guilty of killing Abby.”
“Feelings and intuition should never be discounted,” Juliet said. “It’s all enough to keep Adam on the suspect list.” After sitting and finishing their pizzas, Juliet asked, “Have you had any interesting dreams lately?”
Letting out a slight groan, Shelly shook her head. “I haven’t. I can’t even remember any of them. Maybe I’ve stopped dreaming.”
Juliet smiled. “You haven’t. Most people don’t recall their dreams. We all dream, they just don’t stick with us most of the time.”
“I wish I could do more to help Jay. She seems to think I have some special skill where I can pick up things from situations and people.” Shelly frowned. “I can’t.”
“I think you’re wrong about that. You’re one of the most intuitive people I know. You seem to be able to read people. You’re very sensitive to other people’s feelings.”
Shelly sighed. “Well, it isn’t anything that’s going to help the police. They should hire a real psychic.”
“I don’t think that’s in Jay’s budget.” Juliet let out a chuckle. “I also don’t think that would be something they could bring to the town meeting for a vote.”
“Too bad.” Shelly put her chin in her hand. “Because I’m not going to be of any help.”
“It’s not over yet.” Juliet stood up to clear away the dinner plates. “It’s time for dessert and someone promised me apple pie.”
“Oh, I forgot,” Shelly joked. “I left it at the farm.”
“Then we’ll just have to drive on over there and get it.”
With the cat following after them, the young women went inside, cleaned up the dishes, and took slices of warm apple pie with ice cream to the living room and sat on the sofa with Justice snuggling in between them.
“Where could Abby’s car be?” Juliet asked out of the blue. “How could it disappear into thin air?”
Shelly’s index finger had a bit of ice cream on it so she offered it to the Calico who gently licked off every drop making sure the finger was clean. “I have no idea, unless it’s been hidden in someone’s garage or barn or outbuilding. If it was out in the open, someone would have seen it by now.”
Juliet speculated. “I guess it could be in a public parking garage in some city, but I don’t think it could have gotten far from here without an officer from another town spotting it.”
“You’re probably right although the alert about the car didn’t go out for about twelve hours after Abby disappeared,” Shelly said. “Twelve hours of driving could have taken the car a very long way.”
“You’re right.” Juliet’s shoulders slumped and she released a defeated sigh. “It’s lo
ng gone and probably never to be found.”
Shelly said hopefully, “If the car went through toll plazas, there would be a video or photographic record of it passing by and the police will know which way it was headed.”
Juliet shook her head. “Do you think the killer would be dumb enough to travel on a toll highway? He must know they photo every car that travels through.”
“We can hope.” The corners of Shelly’s lip turned up as she reached over to stroke the sleeping cat’s fur. “The more important question is where is Abby’s body?”
“With the car?” Juliet asked.
“I don’t know, but I would guess not,” Shelly said. “It would be too risky to travel far with a body in the car, even in the trunk. My guess is that the killer left the body someplace around here and then drove the car away to hide it.” A thought flickered in Shelly’s brain and then, in a fleeting second, it was gone.
Or are the body and the car hidden here in Paxton Park?
12
The scent of cinnamon and apples drifted on the air in the corner of the farm’s huge kitchen where Shelly worked on her first batch of pies while the other workers buzzed around completing their own tasks. It was late afternoon and Shelly went straight to the farm after finishing up her job at the diner. After placing six pies in the commercial ovens, she stepped outside for a few minutes to sit at the picnic table before working on the last batch.
The sky was a bright, clear blue with an occasional wispy cloud showing high in the atmosphere. Shelly sipped from the glass of water she’d taken outside and then she put her hands over her head and stretched her back from side to side.
“Too much baking in one day?” Dwayne approached the picnic table wearing jeans, a long-sleeved shirt despite the heat, and his baseball cap and he sat down opposite Shelly.
“My back gets stiff no matter what I do,” she told the older man.
“Mine should get stiff, but it doesn’t. It should have given out by now, but nope, it keeps on going without a problem. I suppose I’ll have to keep working until the old back gives up.” Dwayne smiled at the young woman.
“It seems that will be a very long time from now.” Shelly returned the smile.
Dwayne asked her questions about her job at the diner, about living in Boston, about the car accident that claimed her sister’s life, and how she was faring in her move to the resort town. Shelly answered the questions thoughtfully and the two discussed the pros and cons of living in the city versus the country before moving the conversation to loss and how to handle grief.
“I lost my wife and son to a car accident fifteen years ago,” Dwayne said. “I thought my heart had shattered into a million pieces and would never be whole again.”
“Is it whole now?” Shelly asked.
“It is not and it never will be again.” Dwayne took off his hat and placed it on the table. “I’m sorry to say that to you while your grief is so new, but don’t despair. When you love someone and lose them, the heart breaks and is never the same, but you can still go on, find love, enjoy life, be active, and happy. You’re just not the same as you were before.”
“Are you happy?” Shelly asked.
Dwayne said, “I was happy until I found Abby’s hand. That brought up all my old heartbreak. I lost my family to an accident. Abby lost her life to a monster who stole it from her. It makes me angry, very angry ... and terribly sad.”
“I understand Abby worked here on the farm. I heard she loved it.”
“That girl was a ray of sunlight. She loved working hard, loved the animals and taking care of them. Abby was a naturally happy person, friendly, helpful, kind. She was good with all the people who visited here from the oldest ones all the way down to the little babies.”
A smile spread over Shelly’s face as she listened to Dwayne sing Abby’s praises.
“Why can’t the police find her body?” Dwayne asked. “Isn’t there any evidence to follow?”
Shelly and Dwayne turned their heads when they heard the laugh of a young child. The little boy and his parents had walked past a stack of hay into the petting zoo where a goat nuzzled the child on the belly. The giggles rang in the air like little cymbals.
“Sweet kid.” Dwayne scratched his chin and sighed. “I guess I’m not being fair to the police. Trying to find the body and the killer must be like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Shelly agreed and she and Dwayne talked for a few more minutes until a young woman around eighteen with long brown hair and big brown eyes came over to the table with a message for the older man. “Lizzie says you’re supposed to be at the office to meet the construction man. He’s there waiting for you.”
“Oh, dang it. I forgot all about it.” Dwayne pushed himself up, said goodbye to Shelly, and hurried past the food barn towards the office located in the log cabin.
Shelly watched him go thinking about how his nephew, Paul, had told her that Dwayne was becoming more and more forgetful. Checking her phone for the time, she saw she had five more minutes before the pies needed to be checked. Realizing the dark-haired girl was still standing next to the table, Shelly looked up. “Do you want to sit down?”
The slim brunette nervously slid over the bench.
Shelly introduced herself and the young woman said, “I’m Dana.”
She looked at Shelly, but didn’t say anything else.
“You work here at the farm?” Shelly asked to start a conversation.
Dana nodded. “Depending on the day, I’m either working in the food barn, the petting zoo, selling tickets to pick apples in the orchard, or working in the orchard or at the corn maze.”
“You do it all,” Shelly said with a smile.
“I heard you and Dwayne talking about Abby.”
“You must have known her,” Shelly said. “From working here.”
“Yeah, and we were in school together and on the cross country running team.”
“Were you friends?”
“Not best friends, but friends,” Dana said. “We didn’t really hang out together outside of school, the team, and work.”
“I’m sorry about the loss,” Shelly said.
Dana looked down at her hands. “I was running on the trails one day after school. It wasn’t a scheduled training. I was running on my own. Most of us put in extra training hours outside of the workouts with the team. There’s a six-mile path that winds around the base of the mountain … one part goes right past the resort.”
Shelly couldn’t imagine why Dana was telling her this.
“It’s a good training run. We all know about it. We all use it.”
Waiting for the girl to go on, Shelly kept quiet.
“Anyway, this particular day, I started to feel sick while I was running so I stopped and walked off the trail and climbed up to a flat rock where I rested. I almost fell asleep in the sun until I heard footsteps and I looked around expecting a runner from our team to go past.”
“Who was it?”
“It wasn’t anyone from the team. It was Abby’s boyfriend, Adam. I watched him for a while. He stood by a tree next to the trail. He didn’t know I was there.”
“What happened?” Shelly’s heart started to race.
“Abby came running along and Adam stepped out. Abby looked really surprised to see him. They talked, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. Adam got angry, his voice got loud. He started to fight with Abby. He pushed her hard and Abby almost fell. She caught herself and came up to Adam and hit him across the face. Adam screamed and punched Abby in the face. She staggered back. She fell backwards and tumbled down the ravine next to the trail. She screamed as she fell.” Dana’s breathing was shallow and fast.
“Adam pushed her down the ravine?” Shelly couldn’t believe her ears.
“That’s what happened to Abby. She hurt her back because of Adam. She was in the hospital.”
“When Abby fell, what did you do?”
“I came off the rock and went down the hill. Adam d
idn’t see me. I started to run towards him like I had just shown up. I acted like I hadn’t seen what happened. I asked what was wrong. He told me Abby had been running and she slipped on the stones and fell down the hill. I told him to call “911” and I ran down to help Abby. She had passed out. I stayed with her until help came.” Dana moved her hand over her eyes and Shelly could see her fingers shaking.
“How did Adam explain being on the trails if Abby was out for a run?” Shelly asked.
“I asked him at the hospital why he was in the woods. He told me he was going to take pictures of Abby as she ran by.” Dana’s chin jutted out. “That’s not why he was there.”
“Why do you think he was there?” Shelly asked.
“I think he wanted to talk to Abby in private. We all knew Abby ran the trails that day of the week. Adam knew she’d run by him on that path.”
“Do you think he wanted to hurt Abby?” Shelly could feel the sweat beading on the back of her neck.
“I don’t know what he was doing.”
“Have you told anyone about this?” Shelly asked.
“No.” Dana looked like she was about to cry.
“Why did you tell me?” Shelly didn’t understand why Dana would tell a stranger her story.
“I heard you and Dwayne talking. You seem nice. I need someone to tell me what they think. I can’t tell my family or my friends what happened. I don’t want it to sound like I’m accusing Adam of anything. I need advice.” Tears began streaming down the young woman’s face.
Shelly reached across the table and took the girl’s hand. “I think you should go talk to the police.”
A look of horror covered Dana’s face.
“It’s okay. My friend’s sister is a police officer in town. Go talk to her. Her name is Jayne Landers-Smyth. You’ll like her. She’s easy to talk to. Tell her what you just told me, then it will be in the hands of the police and you won’t have to think about it anymore.”