Farm Fresh Murder

by Paige Shelton

  “There is something else,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Abner called me today.”

  “Oh?”

  I gave him the details, sparse as they were. He took notes and said he’d check my phone record to see what he could find out.

  “You know, Ms. Robins, this is a murder investigation. I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know if Mr. Justen attempts to reach you again.”

  “Sure,” I said, appropriately subdued. I should have told him sooner.

  “Now, what about tonight?”

  “What about it?”

  “Is there someone you can call—someone you can ask to come over or someplace you can go? I’ll have officers drive by throughout the night, but I want you to feel comfortable.”

  “Oh, I’ll call my sister.” I wasn’t sure if I would or not, but she’d welcome both me and Hobbit. I didn’t think I’d be uncomfortable, though. Even though Officer Brion was pretty convinced that Abner had something to do with Matt Simonsen’s death, I still had at least a little doubt. If Abner’d been on my front porch, he’d probably just wanted a friend to talk to. But I couldn’t deny the chill that zipped up my spine as I thought about the axe—really, could Abner have used it to kill someone?

  “Very good. Would you like me to wait while you call?”

  “Oh, no. All is well. I actually have an alarm system.” I did, though I hadn’t activated it in years. I thought I still had the code written on a piece of paper in a drawer somewhere.

  “Well, then, thank you for your time, Ms. Robins. I’ll be in touch, and please let me know if you hear from Mr. Justen again.”

  “Of course.”

  I watched the officers drive away. I kept Hobbit at my side as I locked everything and searched for the security system code, to no avail.

  Finally, after about fifteen minutes of watching television in my bedroom and imagining all sorts of mysterious noises, I called Allison and told her we were coming over.

  Eight

  I still didn’t sleep well.

  It wasn’t that I was concerned about safety at Allison’s house, but I spent most of the night being angry. I was almost 100 percent certain that Abner had been the shadow on my porch. Why the mystery with me? Why hadn’t he just shown himself? Why hadn’t he called again?

  I woke the next morning, anxious to get up and get to work—just not the work at my stall. Without question, I was determined to figure out who killed Matt Simonsen. That earlier jab of denial about the murderer potentially being Abner was lessening with every moment that passed. It wasn’t so much that I believed he did it, but if he did do it, I was ready to face that reality and do whatever was necessary to bring him to justice. No matter that we were friends, this craziness had to stop.

  Allison and I were up and out of her house early—Hobbit had no interest in rising from the guest futon we’d shared, and Allison’s husband would get their son, Mathis, up, dressed, and fed. Large coffees and even larger donuts were our breakfast as I drove us along the highway, precrack-of-dawn.

  “I understand your determination, Becca,” Allison said in between coffee sips, “but be careful.”

  “I will. I won’t do anything crazy, but we know these people, Allison—farmers’ market people.”

  “Everyone’s a mystery in some way or another. You’ve seen that with Abner. Maybe the murder had absolutely nothing to do with market people.”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  After a moment of thought she said, “Okay, let me know what I can do to help.”

  I nodded in the darkness. I thought about telling her my observations of Carl Monroe at the previous day’s meeting, but I didn’t. There might have been nothing strange about his actions—I’d look into it further, though, then maybe tell her.

  “So,” she continued. “Jessop Simonsen should be working at Smithfield today. I called Mrs. Simonsen yesterday to let her know about the dinner and the fact that we would have a moment of silence for Matt. She was actually very happy that we were continuing with our plans, by the way. And she said that Jessop has to work. He can’t deal with sitting around all day thinking about what happened.”

  “I guess I get that,” I said.

  “Do you want to talk to him?”

  “I don’t know. You?”

  “I do. I’d like to tell him how sorry I am, but I don’t know if the timing will be right.”

  “It’s a tough situation, no matter how you look at it.”

  “Awful.”

  Fortunately, Allison and I never ran out of conversation topics, so in order to move away from such sadness, we used the rest of our thirty-minute drive to talk about Mathis and our hippie parents who were currently touring the country in an RV. Neither of us had heard from them in few weeks, but that was nothing new. They’d call when they wanted to talk.

  We pulled into Smithfield Market at about 7:00 A.M., earlier than our original plan, but there was still plenty of activity. In line with my belief that Bailey’s was the best farmers’ market anywhere in the universe, I hadn’t spent a lot of time at many others. I knew all about the big ones in South Carolina, and I knew they were just fine when it came to farmers’ markets. But Bailey’s was the best. Of course, I wasn’t beyond knowing that the vendors who worked at other markets probably thought theirs was the best, too.

  Smithfield Market was about thirty miles from Bailey’s, but it felt like a different world. Bailey’s sat on the edge of the town of Monson and was surrounded by hilly land, fertile and deeply green. The Smithfield-area land was just as fertile, but it was flat and tended to brown up a little bit by the end of summer. And, though the town of Smithfield was close to the market, it couldn’t be seen, heard, or smelled from the inner sanctum of the market tents.

  But Smithfield Market did have one thing that Bailey’s didn’t have—well, two: funnel cakes and a Ferris wheel. It was as if the two most popular items from the state fair were stored at Smithfield during the off-season. It was too early in the morning for the Ferris wheel to be fired up, but whoever sold the funnel cakes must have already turned on the fryer. The smell of rich dough almost put me into a coma of fried bliss.

  We were greeted at the entrance to the market by a very friendly man with a ready smile and the fastest walk I’d ever seen.

  “Ms. Reynolds, it’s great to see you again,” the man said as he pumped her hand.

  “Good to see you, too, Jack. This is my sister, Becca. Becca, Jack Wilson, Smithfield Market’s manager.”

  We shook hands, and then he and Allison took off to his office for their business meeting that would apparently include market managers from throughout the state. I was invited to come along, but I couldn’t think of anything more boring so I declined, hopefully hiding my terror at the thought of participating in such an activity.

  I also wanted to find Jessop Simonsen. Despite what I’d said to Allison, I wasn’t hesitant in the least to talk to him. I needed to know more about his father, and he would be the one to talk to. There was nothing easy about death, particularly when murder had been involved, but I’d do my best to be sensitive.

  It was still early, so as I walked slowly down the aisles in search of Jessop, I watched the vendors set up their stalls. I compared the tomatoes and corn with what was sold at Bailey’s. There probably wasn’t much difference, but I was certain that the superior products were most definitely being sold by Barry and Betsy.

  A corner booth of one of the aisles stopped me in my tracks, as literally as possible. I stood still, probably with my mouth agape in wonder, staring at the pies that had been created by someone, according to the sign, named Mamma Maria.

  Mamma was not your typical mother/baker-type person. Frankly, she reminded me more of a stripper. She was tall, blond, and built—just like her pies, I thought to myself. Mamma wore Daisy Duke shorts and a low-cut shirt that I’d probably at least have in my closet if I’d been gifted with such cleavage.

  “Hi
,” she said in my direction. “Like lemon meringue?” She held up an oversize pie, the topping probably almost half a foot high. I’d never seen anything like it.

  “I, uh,” I stammered.

  She laughed. “This is the first time you’ve seen my pies, huh?” She waved to the back of her stall, where a cooler displayed a number of pies, all of them tall and beautiful and moving in slow circles inside a mechanical case. I focused on one tent card that read Mamma Maria’s Mmmm-Amazing Lemon Meringue Pie.

  “Yes, actually.”

  “Well, I make them all myself. I try to get most of my ingredients from here at Smithfield’s, but no one’s grinding wheat and selling flour here, so I have to get some ingredients from the grocery store. Let me get you a sample. My name’s Maria Christopher, but everyone calls me Mamma.”

  Mamma turned toward the display case and pulled out a pie that had already been cut into. With long red fingernails guiding the way, she sliced a thin but tall piece and put it on a paper plate. She handed me the plate and a plastic fork that had a pink ribbon tied around the end of it.

  “Thank you. I’m Becca Robins.” The fresh lemon scent filled the air right in front of my nose, and my mouth was already watering explosively. I dug in.

  “Mmmm,” I mumbled as I chewed and enjoyed the melting sensation of the treat. “This is fantastic.” Everything about the pie was perfect: the tart lemon, the light but tall meringue, the flaky crust.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. And I’ll take one, if you don’t mind keeping it in your cooler until I’m done shopping for the day.”

  “Not a problem.” Mamma turned again and put a small piece of paper with the word SOLD written on it beside one of the pies in the case. “So, where are you from?”

  “I live outside Monson, but I work at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market.”

  “Oh yeah, what do you sell?”

  “Jams and preserves—berries and pumpkin.”

  “Those sound yummy. I’ve been meaning to make my way up to Bailey’s. A friend of mine left here and moved up there.”

  “Who?” Did she know Matt Simonsen?

  “Ian Cartwright. Do you know him?”

  “Ian worked here?” I swallowed the next bite without letting it melt first.

  “Yes.”

  Now wait, I wanted to say, why didn’t I know that? Ian hadn’t said a word about working at Smithfield. If he’d worked here, he would have at least met Matt Simonsen.

  “How long did he work here?”

  Mamma shrugged. “About a year, I guess.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she said, her eyebrows together. She was probably wondering why I was having a hard time grasping the concept of Ian working anywhere but Bailey’s.

  “You were friends?” I finally said.

  “Yes. Oh, not that kind of friends. We were just friends.” She smiled.

  She thought I was jealous—I might have been if my mind had gone that direction. She thought Ian and I were “involved” or I wanted us to be involved. In truth, I was just attempting to understand why he’d hidden the fact that he’d worked with Matt Simonsen from me—and maybe from Allison and Officer Brion, too. I squashed the desire to burst into the managers’ meeting and tell my sister what I’d just learned.

  “Well, I hope he’s doing okay up there,” Mamma Maria continued.

  “I think so,” I said, forcing my voice to be even.

  “Yes, he was very popular here.”

  “Why did he leave?”

  “Um, well, I don’t really know. You’ll have to ask him. He still has customers who ask about him, but maybe he felt like he’d saturated the market. Maybe Bailey’s expands his customer base.”

  “Maybe. Well, Bailey’s is a great place, despite what you might have heard lately.”

  Her eyebrows knit together again as she put her hands on her hips. “Yeah, I heard about the . . . the murder. Just terrible.”

  “Horrible.” And it was, but I had come to get answers, so I pushed forward. “I bet you knew Matt Simonsen.”

  “Sort of. Didn’t know him all that well. Simonsen Orchards has had a booth here for a long time. It’s at the other end of the market and down the next aisle. Speaking of expanding market base, I heard they wanted to grow their business, so the father went to Bailey’s. Jessop still works here, but he’s extremely shy.” She looked in the direction of the younger Simonsen’s booth and her forehead crinkled. “We knew something had happened when Jessop didn’t show up that day. The Simonsens—at least one of them at a time—were never absent. They don’t take a day off. Ever. They’re part of the old-timer group. When they worked together, one of them was always around. When Matt went to Bailey’s, I did wonder how they were going to get their orchard work done if both of them had to be someplace every day.”

  And now there would be one less Simonsen to get the work done. We didn’t say the words, but we both thought them.

  “Matt only recently started working at Bailey’s, so I didn’t know him well, but I heard he was a hard worker,” I said.

  Mamma nodded. “Don’t suppose anyone knows what happened? It’s creepy, you know.”

  “I have no idea what the police think,” I lied. “Did you know of anyone who disliked Matt—any enemies or anything? Other vendors, customers?”

  Mamma bit at the inside of her cheek. “Gosh, I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t . . . didn’t know them nearly well enough to answer that. They kept to themselves. They are . . . were hard workers. Friendly to their customers, from everything I’ve heard.”

  As Mamma’s cell phone rang, relief relaxed her pretty face. She was glad to have an excuse to end our conversation.

  “Hey, thanks,” I said. “I’ll be back later to get my pie.”

  She smiled again and answered the phone as I took off toward Jessop Simonsen. I wanted to call Ian immediately and ask just why he hadn’t told me about working at Smithfield. Surely he’d known Matt Simonsen. I slipped my questions for him to the back burner of my busy mind. I’d talk to him, but for now I had other people to talk to.

  Someone had wanted Matt Simonsen dead, and I thought that if that person wasn’t Abner, then the murderer might have something to do with the place where Matt apparently spent most of his time—Smithfield Market. Mamma had said that Matt went to Bailey’s to expand his customer base, but that didn’t sit right with me. It made sense that Ian might have needed to expand his market—really, a person needed only one of his products. But peaches brought repeat customers. Like my own products, if someone liked them, they tended come back for more. Something else must have happened to send Matt away from Smithfield and to Bailey’s.

  Maybe I could get the answers from Jessop. And if he wouldn’t answer my questions, Mamma had shown me how easy it would be to ask other vendors. I’d get the story, no matter who I had to talk to.

  The funnel cake cart was right next to the Simonsen Orchards stall. Hanging from the display rack were three fresh cakes, glistening with oil and powdered sugar. I was there to do a job, not indulge my sweet/fried tooth, so I ignored my salivating mouth and stood on the other side of the aisle, pretending to be interested in some hand-painted greeting cards as I observed the man I assumed was Jessop Simonsen.

  He was tall, like his father, but didn’t have the same wide build. Instead, he was almost skinny. He wore old jeans and a clean white T-shirt underneath a brown body apron emblazoned with a bright peach iron-on patch. My mind played back the horrible picture of the dead body, and I remembered that Matt had had dark, almost black, hair. Jessop had dark auburn hair, cut fairly short. He was almost gangly but still kind of handsome. He was packaging up some peaches into a recyclable bag, and the look on his face was intense and serious. A middle-aged couple stood in front of his stall and seemed to watch Jessop closely, saying things that prompted him to put down whatever peach he had in his hand and search for another one. He took the picky customers in stride and didn’t act i
mpatient or put-out in the least.

  When he had filled the bag, he looked back up at the customers and smiled easily. This confirmed that he was definitely handsome—and that he had a beautiful mouth. I wouldn’t have called him feminine-looking, but he had a lovely pair of lips.

  Once the transaction was complete, Jessop went back to his table full of peaches and rearranged the mess he’d made. The look on his face wasn’t quite so relaxed anymore. In fact, it was pained. He might have been working to keep from thinking about the murder, but he was certainly distressed about something. Apparently, there weren’t enough customers to keep the horrible thoughts at bay all the time.

  My heart sank. This man’s father was dead, killed, maybe killed by someone I considered a friend. Anger soured my throat. Who had done this? And if it was Abner, I might not be beyond harming him myself. A family had been torn apart.

  “Can I help you?” a young girl with long braids asked as she pulled her tired eyes up and away from a thick textbook.

  “No, thanks. Just looking around.”

  She looked back down at the book.

  I calmed my anger and gathered the courage to go talk to Jessop. It was much more difficult than I’d thought it would be, but I couldn’t not talk to him.

  As I walked toward the stall, Jessop looked up and flipped an inner switch that made his misery disappear.

  “Hi, what can I get for you today?” he asked pleasantly.

  “I . . . My name is Becca Robins.”

  “Nice to meet you, Becca. I’m Jessop Simonsen.” He was attempting to keep his customer service mode flipped on, but my monotone greeting must have sounded strange.

  “I know, Mr. . . . I mean Jessop.”

  “Yes? Can I help you, Ms. Robins?”

  “Jessop, I work at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market. I just wanted to stop by and tell you how very sorry I am for your loss.”

  “Oh.” Jessop looked confused, perhaps shocked. “Well, thank you.”

  There might never have been a more awkward moment in my life. Fortunately, Jessop saved me.

  “It’s very kind of you to stop by. Is that why you came here today?”