I forced a laugh. “Sorry. Yellow’s my favorite color. I was hoping . . .”
“Yellow’s too girly.” He smiled quizzically.
Fortunately for both of us, a young boy with a handful of wadded-up money walked up to the trailer. He looked longingly at the picture of the corn dog on the outside wall and said, “One please.”
His dad wasn’t far behind and greeted my smile with a quick one of his own.
I wrote to Lucy that we’d for sure be back tomorrow and asked her to give me a call when she got the note. I gave the pad and pen back to Jerry and hurried to the trailer. I knocked again but received the same nonresponse, so I stuck the note to the small glass window—a window I couldn’t see through because of tightly shut mini blinds—and hurried back to the Bailey’s booths.
The drive home to Monson cleared my confused mind. By the time Stella and I pulled into Bailey’s and she took off in her own truck, I decided that there must be nothing, or close to nothing, to the note I found in Scott’s wallet or his disappearance into the trailer. They probably weren’t even connected in any way.
They couldn’t be.
Scott wasn’t a killer. He didn’t have a violent bone in his body. And he wasn’t a cheater either. Neither of us had betrayed the other when we were married. Sure, he’d found a new girlfriend about thirty seconds after I told him I wanted a divorce, but I didn’t know who she was, and by that point in our relationship I didn’t care.
The cushion of distance from Orderville, Virgil’s murder, the corn maze, and the fair seemed to lessen my “need to know” at least a little. I’d figure it out tomorrow. For now, I had a dog waiting for me, plants to attend to, and hopefully a sort-of boyfriend to call. Since neither Stella nor I had taken enough inventory to last until the fair shut down at ten o’clock, I was home by four. I decided Hobbit and I would visit Ian. Though he and I hadn’t spent a lot of quality time together lately, something about talking to Sam today made me want to make seeing him a priority. A sense of needing a stronger resolution to my confused love life had been niggling at me all day; seeing Ian would surely help.
As I drove down the state highway toward home, I called Ian but had to leave a message. This probably meant that one farm machine or another was too loud for him to hear the phone. Between crafting metal yard art and cultivating his lavender farm, he was usually polishing or cutting, or tilling or leveling, and all those activities were noisy.
My short-legged, long-footed best friend greeted me happily as I pulled the truck onto my long gravel driveway. Since finding a body in my kitchen a few months earlier, I’d been hesitant to allow Hobbit to stay home alone, but the killer was safely behind bars and we’d never had any issues before that unsavory incident. No matter the strain between us, Ian always offered to keep Hobbit with him, and his landlord, George, always welcomed her, too, but she’d missed home and her porch whenever I’d taken them up on their invitations. She’d been happy to fall back into a seminormal routine that included her pillow on her porch.
I’d practiced the doggy door with her a number of times. I hoped she understood our long talks and my instructions that she should never play heroine, that she should run and hide if someone else murderous or just a plain old stranger showed up at the house. I was worried about the teenagers Lucy was sending out to help harvest the pumpkins for the maze-opening festivities. Either I or someone else Hobbit knew would have to be there to introduce Hobbit to them.
As I scratched her neck, I glanced around the property. The converted barn that housed my kitchen was locked tight. My dad and Ian had fixed the lock that had been broken in the aforementioned “incident,” replaced the main dead bolt, and attached an extra padlock to the outside. My crops, though mostly done for the year, looked fine, ready for the final pumpkin harvest. The ranch-style house appeared normal and untouched, too.
“Good day?” I asked Hobbit.
She nudged my hand with her nose. I wasn’t scratching hard enough.
After we checked inside and found nothing needing attention, we hurried back outside into the South Carolina late afternoon. There was neither a better time nor a better place to be. I spent so much of my life outdoors that I was continually aware of the temperature, and I very much welcomed the transition from the stifling heat of the summer to the current autumnal perfection.
I took Hobbit for a run up the slope of land behind and to the side of the house and then around the back of the crops and down around to the side of the barn. After a few laps, we both drank hefty gulps of water.
The pumpkins were ready to harvest and would be perfect for the decorating contest. My strawberry crop had been great again this year, but I wanted an even larger yield; though the plants were self-propagating, I would still have to add seedlings in the spring. I’d need to prevent any strawberries from growing on those new plants the first year to hopefully boost the size and sweetness of the subsequent crops’ fruit. I’d have to keep them separated from the established crop and snip off any buds before they matured into fruit. I’d already tilled and nourished a plot of land in preparation; come spring, the ground would be ready for the strawberries.
I had no pressing chores at the moment, but I could always find something to do, so I dug, tilled, trimmed a little, and pulled any weed that dared show its unwelcome head. I actually whistled while I worked. Hobbit reclined outside the edge of the plants, her ears perking at my happiness.
“Sorry, girl, can’t help myself,” I said.
She panted.
My head was clear by the time I was done, but Ian still hadn’t returned my call.
I hadn’t planned on it, but it looked like I had time to work on my latest fruity creation, a concoction that had risen from pure disaster.
Syrup was an unintended result even an expert fruit canner/preserver could end up with if they mistakenly boiled their fruit for too long—maybe a phone call interrupted operations, or maybe they got caught in a conversation with the mailman who they hadn’t seen in ages and who wanted to visit for a minute or two.
Let’s just say that it hadn’t been my intention to make a batch of boysenberry syrup, but both a phone call and a chat with the mailman had turned my preserves into a runny, sticky mess that just happened to taste pretty good on pancakes and waffles. I had tried the recipe again, overboiling on purpose and adding some sugar and lemon juice, and ended up with a new product line. My grape syrup had been selling like . . . well, like hotcakes at Bailey’s. In fact, the five Maytabee’s Coffee Shops that were selling my jams and preserves had started requesting the syrups, too. I hadn’t included them with the items I took to the fair, but I thought I might add a few jars to tomorrow’s inventory.
I’d purchased some of the most beautiful apricots I’d ever seen or tasted from a fellow market vendor, and I had a healthy supply of apricot syrup that I’d made the previous week. I packed twenty jars of it along with lots of jars of jams and preserves. For the first time since the fair began I was concerned about not having enough inventory.
By the time everything was packed it was seven. Ian still hadn’t returned my call, but it wouldn’t take long or much gas to check the usual places, and I was becoming increasingly curious about what he was up to.
After a quick shower, I locked up the house, loaded Hobbit into the truck, and set off. Just as I pulled onto the state highway that led to Monson, my cell phone buzzed.
I answered with, “Good timing.”
“Hey, Bec. Sorry, it’s been crazy. Where are you?” Ian said.
“On my way to find you,” I said.
“I’ll make it easy. I’m at the farm.”
“Hobbit and I are on the way. Should I pick up food?”
“That’d be great. I’m starving.”
Just as I was going to ask if he wanted pizza or Chinese, I heard another voice in the background.
“Oops. You with a client?” I said.
“No. No, just someone who stopped by to talk about lavender.”
“Oh.”
I wasn’t the jealous type, never had been, but something about the tone of her voice—and his—piqued my curiosity; shoot, more than piqued it, punched it hard to full attention. I wanted to know who she was, but I didn’t want to show my insecurity by asking. Fortunately, Ian jumped in to save me from further personal torture.
“Uh, that was Betsy. She’s looking at some different recipes for Bistro. Recipes that use lavender.” The way he said it, as though he was hiding something, knocked me off kilter.
I’d met Betsy only recently. It had been her boss that I’d found dead in my barn. The resulting events led to Betsy and me kind of becoming friends, or at least becoming friendly. Ian and I had gone to Bistro, the restaurant that Betsy now owned, a couple times. I’d noticed her talking to Ian with what seemed like avid interest, but I hadn’t thought much of it. Ian was good-looking in that exotic artistic way. He was also intelligent and thoughtful. He was hard to resist. I couldn’t blame Betsy for a little flirting.
“Oh,” I said. “Too bad I’ll miss her. So, Chinese or pizza?” I asked.
“Pizza sounds perfect. See you in a bit?”
“You got it.”
I stopped at the small pizza parlor in town. It was a carryout place only, so once I ordered, I sat on a bench and told myself not to stew over Betsy being at Ian’s. There was no reason to be bothered. The pizza took a long ten minutes, and then Hobbit and I were on our way again.
Wondering about Betsy’s visit to Ian’s farm somehow caused me to once again replay “the kiss” in my mind. In a moment that, unfortunately, I couldn’t define as “weak,” I’d kissed Sam Brion. He’d kissed back but only with his lips. He’d kept his hands to himself. I’d decided the kiss had been the culmination of a number of experiences Sam and I had shared. We’d been in some pretty hairy situations, literally life-and-death moments. We’d become close because of those moments and my continual efforts to throw myself into the middle of murder investigations.
Unbeknownst to me, my father had witnessed the kiss. Even in my midthirties, I’d needed his prompting to remember that I had to face everything with honesty. He, as usual, had been right.
So I’d told Ian about the kiss, but his reaction had caught me off guard even more than my own behavior had. He hadn’t been happy. He’d been hurt, and a dark anger had clouded his eyes but it had dissipated quickly. Ultimately he’d been pleased that I’d ’fessed up. He’d said that he wasn’t surprised that Sam and I had become close because of what we’d been through together, that having those sorts of feelings was only natural, but he’d also been very firm that he wanted me to make a decision regarding how I felt about him. I’d tried to be as honest as I possibly could. I’d told him I was still crazy about him but didn’t want to lose my friendship with Sam.
He’d laughed a strained laugh, and said, “You know, I like Sam, too. I’d like for us to remain friends. Maybe we’ll just have to see what happens next. If you get the urge to kiss Sam, though, I think you should probably talk to me about it first. I think that’ll be a sign that something else is happening, something more than just a close friendship. Just promise me that you’ll do that.”
I’d promised him. And since then, I felt like we were all still in limbo, waiting for something to nudge us all in the right direction. Probably waiting for me. This sense of being at loose ends only affirmed my frequent thought that I didn’t deserve either of them.
And then my chance meeting with Sam this morning had made me realize a few things: (1) I was happy to reconnect with him, (2) I wanted us all to get along, and (3) I really thought that since I was in my midthirties and I had been married twice, I should probably know how to better handle the entire situation.
Ultimately, I hoped it came down to everyone just wanting everyone else to be happy. Allison had set me straight on that confusion, though. She’d informed me that while I might be spending my time being wishy-washy and trying to figure out my own feelings, neither Sam nor Ian truly wished the other happiness if that happiness depended on me being in the other’s life. She said that though they might be behaving like mature adults, neither of them probably wanted to, and at some point one or both of them might give in to the frustration that I was one hundred percent responsible for causing. She warned me that an ugly scene could be in my future.
I felt bad. And even more confused.
I sighed, and Hobbit whined as she put a paw on my leg. She was sympathetic, but I thought her patience might be wearing thin, too. Soon, even she would start rolling her eyes at me.
Ian had purchased several acres coincidentally located only a short distance down the road from my childhood home. He’d been preparing the soil, building the warehouse and living space, and obtaining permits for all sorts of things that I didn’t know required permits. It had been mostly smooth going, but he’d run into a few surprises along the way. The previous owner, Bud Morris, hadn’t ever connected his small shack into the available underground plumbing system. No one had offered to make the system available to him, and he’d never asked for help. Instead, he’d used his own well for water, and built his own outhouse. These were decisions he’d made without consulting county building officials, and said officials hadn’t been happy to find that they’d been remiss in catching Bud’s jerry-rigged and illegal system. It had finally taken a field trip by a county manager to Ian’s farm to prove that Ian would, indeed, need some plumbing assistance. The underground system would need to be made available. Unfortunately, that entire process took numerous phone calls and more weeks than it should have to complete.
Through all the hassle and hard work, Ian had managed to continue to create his amazing yard sculptures, though he was making fewer than he used to.
Every time I passed the small white house I grew up in, I felt a tinge of nostalgia, but that tinge dimmed a bit each time I saw the current residents. This evening, the mother of the family was out on the front lawn with her two small girls. Though the scene brought to mind memories from my childhood of me with my own mom and sister, there was no doubt that the house clearly belonged to the new family, not to those old memories.
As I parked the truck in front of Ian’s farm, I marveled at how much he had accomplished over the last few weeks. The dim sunset light was augmented by two tall poles to which Ian had attached huge clip-on lights. The newly built structure that would house his warehouse and retail and living space now had walls and windows. Only a few weeks earlier the frame had merely hinted at the future possibilities.
Hobbit peered out the car window and barked. Once I opened the door, she leapt out and hurried to Ian. They greeted each other with mutual enthusiasm.
“She hasn’t seen you for what, a week?” I said as I carried the large pizza box toward a worktable and chairs. They were covered with sawdust, but we’d previously decided that adding sawdust to meals was just another way to get some extra fiber.
Ian smiled. “I’ve missed her, too. Both of you.” He leaned over my slobbering dog, took the pizza, placed it on the table, and then kissed me—a quick light kiss. “You doing okay? I heard about the murder at the fair.”
“I’m fine. Creeped out but fine. This time, at least, I didn’t see the body.”
“That’s good. Do the authorities know what happened?”
“Not yet, I don’t think. Hopefully soon.” I thought about sharing with Ian what I’d found in Scott’s wallet and his disappearing-into-the-trailer act, but I wasn’t ready to sound suspicious of Scott. There was something else I wanted to talk about first anyway.
“So,” I said, �
�Betsy was here?”
Ian smiled. “I suppose we should talk about that.”
“Really? Why?”
“We made a promise to be honest with each other, right?”
“Right.”
“I should probably tell you about Betsy’s visit. I didn’t kiss her or anything, though, so no worries there.”
I suspected my hollowed-out gut was close to what Ian had felt when I told him I needed to tell him something about Sam and me. It wasn’t fun, but I sensed that whatever he was going to say was real and not simply payback for my own indiscretion.
I sat down and smiled weakly. “Should we talk over dinner?”
As we ate, we watched Hobbit chase moths and discussed what had happened between Ian and Betsy.
And I didn’t like it one bit.
Apparently, Betsy had called Ian twice to ask him out. He’d declined both times, telling her that he and I were still a couple. Betsy had insisted that the real couple was Sam and me, that she’d seen it and knew it was bound to happen. She’d told Ian he would be wise to face the truth now and move on before he got too hurt.
I had no idea Betsy had been paying attention to the dynamics between Ian and me and Sam and me or that the dynamics were so obvious to someone who was mostly an outsider. I didn’t recall that Betsy had been around the three of us very often and I knew she didn’t know Sam well. The whole idea of her having “observations” made me deeply uncomfortable.
Ian was ten years my junior, but he was wise in ways beyond both our years. He was like the math he was so good at: logical and consistent. Two plus two always equaled four. He was the voice of reason when I wasn’t, and I wasn’t, plenty.
Betsy had visited today under the pretext of discussing lavender, but Ian’s first batch wasn’t going to be available anytime in the near future; it would be at least a year, maybe two, before he had a viable crop.
Betsy hadn’t called first but had driven from Smithfield and found Ian working on the warehouse. Once they’d established that it was premature at best to discuss Ian supplying Bistro with culinary lavender, Betsy shared an idea she’d had with him. She’d said, “I have a plan. I will host a dinner for you and Becca and Sam. We can talk this out like adults.”
A Killer Maize Page 5