“Good,” said the interloper. “When do the tours start?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They were eventually able to convince the tour guide that, regardless of what her clients had been promised, there was no e production facility available to be visited, and she finally settled on letting them in for the “market preview hour” Claudia made up on the spot. Everything was pretty much ready, so it wasn’t too great of a hardship. And there was no question it was a relief when the first sales started to go through.
The next couple of hours were a blur. Cars pulled up, blocked traffic, parked inappropriately, people got out, packed into the lot, wandered out of the lot and irritated the geese. Sales were made, cheeses were explained, pickling techniques were argued about. The crowds waxed and waned, and varied between random passers-by who got distracted on their way to the beach, and a surprisingly dedicated crowd of food-enthusiasts who mostly seemed to have found out about the market through Emmanuelle’s outreach efforts.
Claudia’s informal polling efforts were interrupted when she was approached by a man she didn’t recognize.
“Claudia Simcoe? Hi, I’m Todd Thompson.”
The society reporter for the West County Gazette was a barrel-shaped man who looked like a cuddly Viking, but with more earrings. He was probably in his early forties, with curly brown hair and a tightly trimmed beard, dressed in battered cargo shorts and a T-shirt advertising a long-past music festival, and accessorized with an array of woven bracelets and a scrimshaw necklace on a leather cord.
“Nice to meet you in person,” Claudia said. “And thanks so much for getting that story in the paper.” It had been barely more than a blurb, but so far the market was enough of a success that she was happy to spread the credit around.
“Not a problem. I like to think of myself as the guy with his finger on the pulse, and this crowd you’ve got here is making me look good. Are you going to be doing more of these?”
“We’ll see. Not right away, at least. I don’t think this weather is set to last through tonight, anyway,” Claudia said, keeping half an eye on the group of people who had descended on the pickle table, led by a man who was loudly holding forth about the products to a deeply unimpressed Helen, plainly unaware of how much trouble he was asking for. She was set to intervene when Betty swooped in, driving off the kimchi-splainer with an exchange Claudia didn’t quite catch. As he stalked away, Claudia’s friend caught her eye and gave a quick thumbs up, and she smiled back, grateful for the support.
“. . . and that’s why it was so short. But next time I should get more space.”
“What? I’m sorry, I was distracted for a minute there.” Claudia had come back into the conversation just in time to catch the last of what he was saying, but not enough to be able to respond without embarrassing herself further.
Todd was unruffled. “I was just saying that my bosses weren’t very enthusiastic about writing up this event, but with things going this well, I think they’ll change their minds. People who spend money are a newspaper publisher’s favorite people.”
“Yeah, they’re pretty popular with me, too.” Claudia had the sense that they were talking around the main point. However pleased he might be now, Todd had only done the original write-up as a quid pro quo for information about the murder, and Claudia didn’t think he would have forgotten that for the sake of a crowd of cheese shoppers.
As if on cue, Todd ran a hand over his beard and raised an eyebrow at her.
“So, I have to ask, do you have some sort of direct line to the underworld?” he asked.
“What do you mean?” Claudia wondered for a minute if Iryna had been sharing her theories about mob involvement.
“You gave me three names the other day, and two of them are dead.”
“Two of them?”
“Looks that way. The ex-husband, obviously, and that other one, the friend of the victim? I looked her up, and if I’ve got the right person, then she committed suicide five years ago.”
“Suicide? Are you sure?” Claudia tried to look surprised, but given what she had learned from Lori’s emails, she had already suspected Dana might have killed herself.
“She left a note. I couldn’t find out what it said, but I guess the police didn’t find anything suspicious, because there was never a case filed on it. She was cremated, and her family held a small, private memorial service, no obituary.”
“You found all that out in two days?”
“I have skills, lady.”
“I guess so. What about name number three? I take it that at least our favorite cultist is alive and kicking?”
“You could say that,” Todd agreed, suddenly cagey. “Nothing to do with Ms. Roth, that I could find, but he’s, well, let’s just say he’s an interesting guy. I have to thank you for pointing me to him, and that’s all I’m going to say right now.”
“Any time.” Claudia thought about what she knew of Mr. Bartok and how he had dealt with previous opposition to his operation, and added, “Watch out for snakes.”
“Will do. So, is there anything else you’d like to mention? Between you and me, it’s been a slow news week, and the publisher is looking for us to bump up the coverage on this murder thing. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in getting out ahead of that, would you?”
Claudia was about to upbraid him for not even concealing his threats better, but before she got the words out, she realized there was a better option.
“I don’t know what you think I’d be in front of,” she said, in the coldest tone she could manage on short notice. “But if you want to do some actual reporting, I have someone who might be willing to talk to you. You have a lot of pictures from events around here, right?”
Todd agreed that this was the case.
“Okay then.” Claudia fished a piece of paper out of her pocket, making sure it didn’t contain anything incriminating before scribbling Kara Young’s email address on it.
“Write to this woman and mention my name, and see if she’s willing to look through your photo archive for someone she might recognize. I can’t guarantee that she will, but if she does, then you’ve got all the story you could ever want.”
“Can you be a little more vague there?” Todd complained. “Want to throw in a reference to a Bible verse, or something about the phase of the moon?”
“Sorry,” Claudia said, quickly seeking out something that needed her attention. She had said as much as was safe, and possibly more. “That’s what I’ve got. Looks like there’s a bit of a situation with the pierogis; I’d better go. Why don’t we catch up later over email? Enjoy the market.”
She walked away before his disappointed look could penetrate her defenses, reminding herself that she needed to keep herself safe a lot more than she needed a new friend. Todd Thompson might have thought his information should have bought him more in return, but she hadn’t made any deals like that. And besides, the pierogi situation really was getting critical.
From there on, Claudia didn’t have a lot of opportunities to investigate. Nobody working at the market had done anything like this before, so the opportunities for problems were extensive, and thoroughly explored. Eventually, though, the stream of crises slowed to a trickle and they were all able to catch their breath. The sun was getting low in the sky and the wind had picked up, carrying a cold edge that promised the fog was on its way. Iryna and Carmen had sold out of all their stock almost an hour ago, and the Paks’ booth was adorned with a single, lonely tub of pickled seaweed. A few stragglers stayed on past the official closing, and by the time they were finally ushered out of the parking lot, there was only a narrow window to get the tables taken down and loaded back onto Elias’s truck in order to return them to the rental place on time.
Claudia tried to maneuver herself into having a chance to talk to Robbie alone, but even when she did, it was hard to get the conversation to the point where she could naturally bring up Lori or her former friend’s tragic end. It wasn’t until th
ey were going around doing the final cleanup that she got a chance to corner Robbie near a bad patch of detritus.
“Thanks for staying,” she said. “You didn’t need to, you guys have done so much.”
“Hey, no problem. Keeps the party going, you know?” He smiled like they were friends having a great time, not a landlord and leasee picking up dirty paper plates. Robbie still wasn’t her type, but the charm went a long way. Which brought her back to the investigation.
“I just glad there was a party in the first place. The promotion Emmanuelle did for us was a big help, and it was great that we were able to get a mention in the paper. By the way, I was talking to the reporter, and he mentioned someone he thought you knew—a Dana Herschel?”
Her attempt got her nothing but a blank look in return.
“I don’t think so. There was a girl named Dana I worked with down in San Diego, but I think her last name was Chen. Maybe she got married?”
“Maybe that’s it.” Claudia had no business being disappointed with that pathetic gambit, but she was.
“When were you in San Diego?” she said, trying again. “I didn’t realize you’d spent much time on the West Coast before. Weren’t you living in DC for a while there?”
That got a response.
“Who told you that?” Robbie asked sharply, before catching himself and reverting to his previous, relaxed self. “Actually, yeah. But that was a long time ago. Different life.”
He made it sound tossed-off, but with a dark edge to his tone that made it clear the subject was closed. Claudia wasn’t interested in pressing her luck, so she moved on to another line of inquiry.
“I tried some of your bacon, by the way, and it was great,” she said as she carefully maneuvered a half-eaten cheese sandwich into her trash bag, trying not to think about why it was so damp on the edges. “Emmanuelle said you were working on it all last night.”
“Yeah, you really have to watch the smoker when you’ve got something with so much sugar. A little too much heat and you’re halfway to charcoal.”
“Right, of course.” Claudia wasn’t sure how she could check it, but nonburned bacon seemed like a pretty thin alibi.
“Is everything under control here?” From the way she was carrying her bags, it was clear that Julie meant this less as a request for information and more as a prelude to leaving. Claudia answered in the affirmative, because what else could she say?
“Okay then, I think we’re going to head out. We’re releasing the two-year gouda next week and I need to make sure everything is ready to ship.”
“Of course, thanks for everything you’ve done,” Claudia said.
“By the way,” Claudia added, as Robbie moved out of earshot. “There was a reporter who was here earlier who was asking some questions about Lori’s murder. I didn’t tell him anything, of course, but I was just wondering, have you ever heard of someone named Steve Mann?”
Claudia figured she was only going to get one question in before it looked weird, and gambled on the chance that Julie had been one of the mystery man’s other victims, and he had used the same name on her.
“Sorry, doesn’t ring a bell. Who is he?”
“I’m not sure,” Claudia said with absolute honesty. “But it seems like Lori might have gotten tangled up with him in the past. Him and a lady named Dana Herschel.”
That was probably less subtle than was ideal, but Julie’s mind was on her cheeses, and the question barely seemed to make an impact.
“No idea. I hope that reporter knows what he’s talking about, and he’s not just throwing people’s names around for no reason.”
“Me too,” Claudia said, feigning a sudden concern for the feelings of a pseudonymous scammer and a dead woman. “He did seem pretty aggressive about his theories. But I can’t imagine a reporter for a small regional paper is going to be able to do that much.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Julie warned. “It doesn’t take a lot for a person to make trouble these days. I hope he wasn’t trying too hard to get information from you?”
“I had to be nice, because he was doing a write-up about the marketplace,” Claudia said, by way of deflecting the question. “But I don’t think I told him anything he could run with.”
“Don’t believe that. Those people can spin a story out of two guesses and a hiccup, and the whole world will believe them. The best thing you can do there is lock your doors and pretend to be deaf.”
Julie had never said anything like this to her before, and Claudia had no idea where this animosity against the press had come from. But that didn’t seem like a question she could ask, so Claudia just promised that she would be more careful when dealing with the dastardly members of the local media, and thanked Julie again for all she had done to make the market day a success. On those cheerful terms they parted, and Claudia tried not to think too much about what would happen if her marquee tenant turned out to have killed two people in a vengeful fury. It would take out the Christmas season, at the very least.
Once the Dancing Cow van pulled away, the rest of the vendors didn’t take long to follow. The weather was also done with its contribution, and soon there was just Claudia, cleaning up the last of the detritus of the day in the gathering fog.
She was involved with the problem of whether she could leave the extension cords out overnight, or if she really needed to haul them back to her cottage, when she remembered she had left Iryna’s cooler behind the marketplace building to keep it out of the way of crowds who had started opening everything in reach. She went to retrieve it, discovering on the way back that some of the guests had turned the back corner of the building into an impromptu smoking section.
She spent the next couple of minutes bussing cigarette butts and swearing about people in general until she caught a glimpse of movement in the corner of her eye and realized she wasn’t alone. Mid-swear, she looked up and found herself face to face with Roy.
“Betty sent me to get you,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Um, I’m not sure. I have a lot to do here still.” It hadn’t occurred to Claudia that her friend would send her husband, and she was torn between fear and the awkwardness of the situation.
“Want some help? Be dark soon.”
It was an innocuous comment, said in Roy’s normal, level tone of voice, but it was about then that the paranoia started to overtake Claudia. Why didn’t Betty just call? Did she even know Roy had come? Claudia looked around, but the last car had pulled out of the lot several minutes ago, and there was no one left for her to casually inform where she was going.
“I appreciate the offer, but it’s all accounting stuff that I’ve got left,” she said, casting around for a topic that Roy wasn’t likely to want to help with. “But maybe if I get done before it’s too late I’ll come over. Can you tell Betty that, and thank her for me?”
If anything was going to happen, that was the moment Claudia thought it would. But Roy seemed to take the rejection the same way he took everything: with a thoughtful blankness, as if he was going to have a reaction as soon as he worked through all the implications.
“Okay,” he said.
He left, and Claudia decided that she had had enough of being out in the parking lot on her own. She had brought her car, because even a short distance was too much to carry all she had over the uneven and rocky hillside, without any hands free to defend herself against the geese (who had been seriously annoyed by all the activity, and had spent most of the afternoon glaring goosily at the customers). She felt silly doing the loading and unloading so close together, but she consoled herself with the fact that there was no one around to see her.
At least, that was what she thought. Claudia had just finished bringing in the cash box and pay point hardware, stowing them in her high-security spot behind the couch (if there was one thing she had learned from this experience, it was that she needed to get a safe that was located somewhere other than the marketplace itself), when she noticed someone
wandering around the parking lot, among the scattering of chairs and other large items she had left for last.
The last thing she had patience for right now was some jerk messing with her stuff, so Claudia took off across the hillside, barely stopping to lock her front door. She came over the crest of the hill at full speed, and was about to shout at him that the market was closed, until she recognized the uniform and realized who it was.
“Oh, hi,” she said to Derek, as she arrived, slightly out of breath. “Sorry, I didn’t see you drive up.”
“No worries, I wasn’t sure if you had the lot opened back up yet so I parked down the street. I was just passing by, thought I’d see how things went.” He looked around the remains of the day’s activities with a rueful smile. “Looks like I missed all the fun.”
“All over but the shouting,” Claudia agreed. “And I don’t think I have the energy for much more than a whisper at this point. But I think it went well, on the whole.”
“That’s good.” Derek looked awkward and embarrassed, shifting his flashlight from one hand to the other and avoiding Claudia’s eyes. “Look, I’m sorry about all of the trouble this is causing you. My boss, he gets an idea in his head, and that’s got to be the truth, you know?”
“I didn’t kill Lori,” Claudia insisted. “I swear, I had nothing to do with it.”
“Yeah, I think even the chief is starting to come around on that, after what happened last night. Like I said, once he gets an idea, he tends to stick with it, but he doesn’t deal with contradictory information real well. The thing where you had such a good alibi for Mr. Hahn’s murder, and the texts, that really threw him for a loop. He was going pretty crazy about it for a while there, but he’s settled on a new theory, and I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but you aren’t his first choice anymore.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” Claudia was surprised, both by the information and who it was coming from. That he wasn’t supposed to tell her was the understatement of the day, assuming it was true. She reminded herself that this could still be some sort of setup, and not to lower her guard, and then promptly forgot to take her own advice.
Murder Goes to Market Page 21