I turned to Scott. "What do you think? Will you be able to get everything delivered by noon?"
"I'll do my best. Can't have fresh vegetables sitting out in the hot sun for too long."
"Let me know if you run into any problems."
"I will." Scott climbed into the driver's seat, double-checked the stability of the bins on the seat next to him, and then took off. He always drove safely, but today he seemed to be taking extra precautions, presumably in recognition of just how many easily bruised items he had in his SUV today.
With the deliveries all set, I started on my morning rounds, making sure the vendors were on track to get their stalls set up for opening time and making sure everyone had their "certified local" certificates displayed prominently. Denise Casey at the Danger Cove Dairy stall was always a bit disorganized, and today was no exception. She had the eggs and cheese laid out but was behind in setting up her display of live chickens. When I checked on her, she abandoned the still-crated chickens to search frantically for her certificate. I kept duplicates in my sling bag for just this sort of emergency, so I posted it for her, freeing her to return to setting up the chicken enclosure.
Everyone else was on schedule, but I still needed to check in with them. I always did, so no one thought it was odd when they saw me, and it gave me the opportunity to drop some not-so-subtle hints about the plan to meet with Mayor Kallakala at noon on the beach to discuss some new evidence about Coach Andy's killer.
Tommy Fordham had arrived even earlier than I had, since he needed some extra time because of his disability. While I'd been helping pack the deliveries, he'd been zipping around in his electric wheelchair at the top safe speed, going back and forth between his truck in the parking lot and his stall, pulling a custom-built cart behind him. Despite having already sent quite a few bags of tomatoes out with the delivery orders, there seemed to still be about twice the usual inventory of heirloom tomatoes in shallow crates at the back of Tommy's stall. He was probably counting on heightened market attendance as a result of the salsa contest. I hoped I hadn't overpromised the benefits of holding the event.
When I gave him the story about evidence to be discussed with the mayor at noon, he paused in his setup to look at me thoughtfully. His usual cheerful expression turned serious. "I know you feel responsible for everything that happens here, but you don't owe the market your life."
"I'm not much of a risk taker," I told him lightly, trying not to confirm that the meeting wasn't as innocuous as we were claiming. "Not in finances and not in anything else. It's why it took so long for me to move in with Merle, remember?"
He shook his head. "I'm serious. Coach Andy knew how to defend himself, and he still died. Be careful."
"I will," I said. "I promise. Merle is keeping a close eye on me, while Matt's doing the same for Keely until both Coach Andy's killer and Gabe's killer are caught."
Reluctantly, Tommy returned to stocking his space, and I continued with my rounds. By the time I'd finished right before opening time, it was obvious that I had nothing to worry about, at least when it came to the market. And a quick glance in the direction of the historical garden showed that there was nothing to worry about there either.
Cary had already set up the judging tables in front of the historical garden, and Mayor Kallakala was chatting with constituents who had already started to gather for the event. The competitors were there too, of course, setting up their samples for the first round of judging. I recognized Cassidi Conti from The Clip and Sip, Meri Sinclair from Dangerous Reads, and Merle, of course, hanging out with Matt. Jack Condor stood apart from the others with his arms folded aggressively across his chest.
Officer Fields was there in uniform, along with his fellow preliminary round judges—the high school consumer sciences teacher, Ethan Harding, and Gil Torres from the museum.
I'd expected the mayor, judges, and contestants would be there early but not the size of the crowd already settling into folding chairs they'd brought with them or otherwise claiming spots in the grass to watch the proceedings. Despite the hot weather and the recent tragedy at the market, there were more people watching the salsa contest than had attended any concert or play associated with the market. The increased police presence would have been needed, even if we hadn't expected a killer to make an appearance.
I headed over to make sure Kallakala was ready to get things started. Before I reached the mayor, Jack Condor caught sight of me and came over to complain. "Maria, your stupid assistant won't let me sprinkle sea salt on my samples."
"Cary's not stupid," I said. "And he has my full support. If he said no, he had a good reason for it." I would have said no too, since I was pretty sure Condor wanted to visibly mark which entries were his so he could claim the judges had recognized who made them and then unfairly gave him bad scores because of their supposed bias against him.
"I thought you might have an open mind about me, unlike everyone else in town," Condor said angrily. "Apparently not. And if I lose today, it's going to be your fault."
"If you'd like to withdraw, I'll refund your entry fee." It would be worth it, just to make him go away.
"Oh, you'll refund it all right," Condor said. "I'll see you in court if I lose."
"Is that how you settle everything? Suing anyone who annoys you? If so, that could be why people don't like you." I quickly added, "Assuming that's even true."
"I'm entitled to my day in court," he said. "Any good business owner knows it's part of the job, making sure you're not getting taken advantage of."
"Like when you sued Gabe Portillo for breach of contract?"
"Exactly."
"What if you lose in court? You'll have incurred all those legal fees, with nothing to show for it."
"That too is just business," Condor said with surprising calm. "All I can do is move on. Not that I lose all that often in court, where they have to be fair. In fact, I won the case against Gabe. We came to a settlement a few days before he died, fortunately. I hate dealing with estates."
I'd have to ask Keely to check the court docket to see if that was true, but I couldn't see any reason for Condor to lie to me about it. He had to know the outcome of the case was public record. But if the case had been settled, then Condor hadn't had any reason to kill Gabe, making it less likely that he was the killer we were looking for. He might still have resented Coach Andy for his popularity, but if that was the killer's only motive, it wouldn't explain Gabe's death, since he was the only person I'd ever known who was less popular in town than Condor was. Besides, I still thought there was only one killer, so if he hadn't killed Gabe, then he hadn't killed Andy.
I had to be sure Condor didn't hold any residual anger against Gabe before I ruled him out definitively. "Still, it must have been a hassle filing suit against Gabe," I said. "Didn't that make you angry?"
Condor shrugged. "Can't take litigation personally. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. Sometimes I even count on the other person not being willing to sue, when I want to buy some time on making a payment or leverage for a contract change. Daring them to take me to court if they won't do what I want works often enough to make the legal costs worthwhile, especially since I've been to court often enough that I can represent myself most of the time."
"I can't believe all businesspeople think of court actions as a bargaining tool." I certainly hadn't, even when I'd had the occasional client who'd balked at paying my fees. And while Merle was even better situated than Condor to represent himself in court, as far as I knew, he'd never had to resort to his legal skills to resolve disagreements with either suppliers or buyers.
"Maybe not," Condor said. "And that's why they go out of business. Gabe knew that. And I make sure I can survive financial disagreements. You should know how it works, given your work as a financial planner. Any smart businessperson keeps some cushion in cash flow, lines of credit, and liquid assets to cover any delays in payment. Anyone who doesn't deserves to go out of business."
I definite
ly agreed about the importance of planning for setbacks, in life and in business, but not with his cavalier attitude toward those who might encounter unforeseeable problems. The more I got to know him, the more I could see how well-deserved his negative reputation was. But that didn't make him a killer.
"Why do you even care anyway?" Condor snapped. "Are you trying to keep me away from the contest so I won't see if someone messes with my entry?"
"Of course not."
He'd already turned his back on me and was stomping back toward the audience.
"Just remember," I called after him, "Cary has my full support. If you do anything to upset him, you will forfeit both your entry fee and your chance at winning."
"Yeah, yeah," Condor said, waving his hand in acknowledgment without turning around.
"I mean it. I don't care if you sue me." Not with Merle watching my back.
Condor ignored me to push his way into the front of the crowd, taking a spot as close as possible to one end of the tables.
I remembered belatedly that I'd meant to ask him if he'd seen either Tess Abbott or Georgia Portillo near the first aid tent when he'd seen Coach Andy there, but now wasn't the right time to ask. I'd try later, when there was a break in the contest and Condor might be in a better mood so he wouldn't clam up just to spite me.
It really was surprising no one had tried to kill Condor yet.
*
On my way to talk to the mayor, I texted Keely to ask her to confirm what Condor had said about settling the lawsuit. When I looked up from my phone, the mayor had taken the microphone at the salsa contest, so I'd have to wait until he wasn't busy. I spent a moment watching Officer Fred Fields, who had just finished the first round of tasting and was refreshing his palate with a tiny cup of some fresh lemonade donated by the market vendor who sold jams, jellies, and pies.
Keely and I had agreed that Fields needed to be one of the people who knew about the supposed meeting with the mayor but not the real purpose behind it. I felt a little guilty about lying to him, but he needed plausible deniability in case he was ever asked if he'd known what we were planning. We had to tell him something, or he'd be suspicious if he didn't hear about the supposed meeting directly from me, since he was the liaison between the market and the police and we'd worked well together in the past.
After confirming with Fields that the contest was proceeding smoothly, which was my excuse for seeking him out, I swallowed my guilt and told him our story about planning to meet the mayor on the beach during the break between the preliminary judging and the final judging.
"I'm surprised Bud won't listen to you, Maria," Fields said.
"This isn't about Detective Ohlsen," I said. "Our evidence suggests the two crimes are related, and Marshall won't even consider the possibility. We need the mayor to force him to work with Ohlsen."
Fields frowned. "That makes sense, I guess, but Marshall's head is going to explode when he realizes you've intervened. He's already upset after finding out last night that Georgia has an airtight alibi for when her husband died. Turns out there are a dozen witnesses to her having been at some school fundraising event for her kids that evening at a time that would have made it impossible to drive to Danger Cove before her husband died. So Marshall's been trying out a variety of new theories, ranging from the widow hiring an assassin instead of doing the murder herself to her being the killer and paying off the alibi witnesses. Bud got similar news in his case when he found out Elaine was definitely not in Danger Cove when her husband died, but he took it better than Lester did."
"Marshall is just going to have to get over himself." Fortunately, if our trap worked, nothing else would matter. "Finding the killer is too important to worry about one detective's ego. And we didn't decide lightly to go over his head. He didn't leave us any choice."
"I understand," Fields said. "I'll make sure there are some inconspicuous eyes on you during the meeting. Bud has already arranged for three undercover officers to be here today, along with three in uniform. They'll be watching your meeting with the mayor, and so will I."
"Thanks." His generous offer to watch out for my safety made me feel even worse about the decision to not tell him the whole truth. I made a mental note to send him a dozen muffins from the Cinnamon Sugar Bakery as an apology once the day was over. "I don't want you to get into any trouble over this."
"If I do, it will be worth it," Fields said before the mayor announced that the next round of samples was ready for the judges' tasting. "Time for me to go do my duty."
I stayed to watch, mostly because it was too hot to trudge up the hill to the market proper if I didn't need to. The Baxter twins were doing a brisk business in treating dehydration and handing out the sample size tubes of sunscreen that I'd had printed with the market's logo. No one was in any real danger from the heat, and everything else was going smoothly.
The judges were putting on a good show. Fields laughingly mimed a burned tongue in response to a particularly hot sample, while the consumer sciences teacher gave an academic lecture about the pros and cons of his current sample. The audience, which continued to grow, applauded and heckled in equal measures, while some of the contestants and their supporters engaged in some good-natured trash-talking. Cassidi teased Meri that only someone born and bred in Texas could really understand salsa, while Meri sniffed theatrically and said cooking was all about fresh ingredients and refined taste buds, not where a person was born.
Jack Condor turned to glare at the two women from his spot in the center of the front row of spectators. They didn't seem to notice him, but I caught sight of someone on the edge of the crowd who was staring at him. She was young, redheaded, and busty, and she looked a lot like the picture of Gabe's mistress that Keely had sent me.
Tess was also the only one of the top suspects who had no legitimate reason to be at the market or even in Danger Cove. Fields had said Marshall had cleared her, so it wasn't likely she'd been told to stick around until an arrest was made. So why was she still here, unless she was the killer, trying to cover her tracks?
Of course, I could be mistaken about the woman's identity. In my impatience for setting our trap, I could be seeing potential killers everywhere. I snapped an unobtrusive picture of the redhead and sent it to Keely. She hadn't met her either as far as I knew, but maybe one of the quilters she worked with could confirm the identity.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Keely Fairchild
We got to the market just as it opened on Saturday morning. On the way from the parking lot, I had to convince Matt I'd be fine on my own for the next two hours while he participated in the salsa contest. He wasn't usually the hovering sort, but he'd been worried about me ever since he'd heard about the plan to trap Coach Andy's killer. I might have lost the argument, except Matt was reassured by the sight of extra officers in uniform and the larger-than-usual crowd at the market that would make it difficult for anyone to act without a lot of witnesses. I promised I'd stay out of any secluded spots until he rejoined me at noon for our meeting on the beach and would keep Officer Fields' number at the ready in my contacts.
Matt went off to join the contestants in the area in front of the historical garden, and I went up the Memorial Walkway to see what was new in the vendors' stalls. It didn't take any agricultural expertise—which I had none of—to know I was looking at the peak of harvest season. The stalls were overflowing with the standard hot-weather crops, like tomatoes and peppers and corn, but what I found particularly fascinating were all the things that were new to me, like neon-colored swiss chard, blue radishes, and purple broccoli. The vendors were doing an excellent job of selling them, with eye-pleasing displays and cooking tips for the more unusual crops.
I'd almost run out of stalls to visit when I received a text from Maria. It was a picture of someone she'd seen in the audience of the salsa contest who she thought was Tess. I studied the image, comparing it to one I'd been given by Zoe that had been taken during the guild meeting when Gabe had been the gues
t speaker. I thought they were the same person, but I wasn't entirely sure. There was something different about the second picture—the woman's posture maybe—but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was.
I hurried over to the salsa contest, where Matt stood in the back of the crowd to avoid becoming a distraction.
"Take a look at these." I waved my phone at Matt. "You're used to working with pictures. Is it the same woman in both of them?"
He took my phone and studied the two pictures carefully. "I think so, but pictures can be misleading. It would be better to ask someone who's seen her in person."
"Some of the quilters have met her," I said, taking back the phone. "I'll check with them in a minute. The guild is having a small exhibit of Modern quilts here today, and I'd like to see what's on display."
"Don't forget to come get me when it's time to go over to the beach."
"I'd never forget you."
"Same here," he said, although his attention had already returned to the judging tables, where Fred Fields was responding to a good-natured heckler, one of the high school students rooting for their teacher's entry.
I hurried back to where the guild had set up in its usual location between the market and the parking lot. They'd needed more room than usual and had expanded their exhibit into the partially shaded space where the Second Chance Animal Rescue often showed off adoptable pets. The hot weather had probably posed too much of a risk to the animals for them to be on display today, especially since the usual ocean breeze was absent. I was already overheating in my tank top and shorts, and I couldn't imagine how hot I'd be if I were wrapped head to toe in a fur coat.
The heat hadn't slowed down the quilters though. If anything, there were more volunteers than usual, presumably people who had contributed a quilt to the impromptu exhibit of Modern quilts. With luck, one of the guild members would be able to say definitively whether the young woman in Maria's picture really was Tess.
Two Sleuths Are Better Than One Page 17