Bushel Full of Murder (5 page)

“Robert has been a thorn in my side for three weeks now.” She turned and stepped surely to the license and pulled it off the pole. “Is he still out there?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Would you mind watching my stall for just a second? I’ll run out and talk to him. His records are messed up apparently. We’ve played phone tag, leaving increasingly impatient messages for each other. I even went into the office personally to try to take care of it,” she said with much more anger than I thought she would display over a simple misunderstanding.

I’d never seen Betsy as worked up as she was at that moment. Even when her customer lines stretched down the aisle, she kept her cool. Her pretty ivory cheeks were suddenly dotted with pink.

“You do have a second, don’t you?” she said.

“I do. Go on.” I’d told Allison I would talk to Jeff, too, but there was no way I could leave now.

Betsy marched down the aisle, her long bohemian skirt flapping backward as she moved, reminding me of a witch with a spell and a specific Muggle in mind. I didn’t want to be on the other end of that wand.

I moved to the spot behind her front table and took in the view. It was always interesting to see the market from a different stall’s perspective, and this was the first time I’d been on this side of Betsy’s table. I could see Abner’s and
Ian’s stalls much better from this vantage point. Ian’s stall was empty, but I knew he was out helping with the trucks.

Abner, the wildflower man, was organizing a small bouquet, his arms moving precisely and quickly, his old fingers still nimble and able to gather, arrange, and then tie a piece of string around a group of stems in record time.

The bouquet in progress was for a man who was just the right age to make me wonder if he was buying it for a romantic partner, his mother, or his daughter. It was fun to spend a moment pondering where the colorful flowers would go once they left Bailey’s.

“Is this for sale?” A woman pointed at the remaining bottle of sauce. She was tall and very thin with short gray hair but an unwrinkled youthful face.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“I’ll take it,” she said as she reached into her giant woven bag.

She handed me a twenty. I hadn’t asked Betsy where she kept her cash box, but it was easy to find, on a small table in the back corner of the stall. I kept hold of the twenty, but pulled out the change for the customer. Once I gave her the change, I took the twenty back to the cash box. I hadn’t put it away immediately, because I wasn’t sure how Betsy organized her money and I didn’t want to make the customer wait a couple seconds for me to learn the system. If Betsy did things the way I did, anything bigger than a ten would go under the tray, tens and smaller bills up top in the compartments.

There were no twenties in the top tray, so I figured Betsy worked the same way I did and I would find twenties underneath. The second I lifted the tray, though, I knew I should
have probably just left the twenty on top and let Betsy sort it out.

There were some larger bills under the tray: three twenties and one fifty. But there were other things, too. I wished I hadn’t noticed them but they were impossible to ignore. Two trifolded pieces of paper were under the bills. They were arranged so that I could see big, bold stamped letters on each of them. One said “OVERDUE” and the other said “DELINQUENT.” It was also impossible to ignore the letterhead next to each of the stamped notices. The two letters were from American Investors Bank and Trust, the bank where Mr. Lyle Manner, the man who’d I’d thought might be reprimanding my cousin a few minutes earlier, worked.

After the information that I should never have seen was burned onto my brain, I dropped the twenty into the cash box and put the tray back in place. Betsy might not even think about what bill the last customer had used. She might never suspect that I’d seen what I’d seen. I wasn’t going to tell her.

I hadn’t really seen anything anyway. I hadn’t unfolded and read the letters. They could have been . . . well, they could have been a misunderstanding of some sort, or not Betsy’s. None of my business.

I wondered if she was unpleasantly surprised to see a representative from American Investors Bank and Trust out in the parking lot along with Mr. Ship.

Also none of my business.

As could happen, market traffic suddenly dwindled to almost nothing, with only a few customers left roaming the aisles. It was a typical late afternoon weekday crowd. Allison had mentioned that the market managers were thinking about
opening late on a weekday other than Friday, but until that happened, the late afternoon would remain the best time for vendors who didn’t want to pack up yet to grab a nap or catch up on a good book. I didn’t think I should leave until Betsy came back so I grabbed the gossip magazine that was sitting on another chair and opened the cover.

“Becca.” A voice that sounded angry grabbed my attention before I could turn another page.

“Hi, Jeannine,” I said as I put the magazine down and popped up to attention.

Jeannine Baker was one of the market’s egg vendors. Her eggs were the freshest, best eggs I’d ever tasted. Jeannine was loyal to Bailey’s and never missed a day at her stall, but she was also one of Allison’s more challenging vendors. Jeannine was suspicious of everyone and everything. The world was against her, she was sure.

“Becca,” she repeated, making my name somehow sound like one syllable. “What is with the trucks?”

“They’ll just be here a couple weeks, Jeannine, and I bet they buy eggs from you,” I said, hoping I’d answered correctly.

“Will the market managers want us all to get trucks?” Jeannine was small and thin, with short hair and stern, sharp features. I often wondered if she’d been born that way or if she’d transformed over the years.

“No—not at all, Jeannine. They might like the trucks, but they’ll never get rid of the stalls,” I said. The idea hadn’t occurred to me; most of Jeannine’s ideas never occurred to me until she mentioned them. She had a way of planting unexpected seeds.

“I hope not. I don’t know about all these newfangled changes,” Jeannine said.

“Newfangled?” There wasn’t any way to be less newfangled than we were at Bailey’s. We still had our individual stalls made with tent canvas. The parking lot was paved, but the market floor was simply the dirt ground. The Smithfield market a half an hour away was slightly more newfangled than we were with an aluminum top over the canvas tents.

“Yes, like the misters. We worked here for years without any such thing. Now we have misters. Trucks might be right around the corner,” Jeannine said.

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t even crack a smile because I wouldn’t want to offend my paranoid friend and co-vendor.

“We’ll be okay, Jeannine. I promise we won’t have to get trucks.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“I am.”

“Hello, Jeannine,” Betsy said from over Jeannine’s shoulder.

“Betsy, what do you think of all this truck activity?” Jeannine asked.

“I think it’s great,” Betsy said, but her tone didn’t sound great. Instead, she sounded defeated—or as though she was working at not sounding defeated but couldn’t quite get there. I inspected her face closely. She had her emotions under control, but there was a small twitch at her left eye. Maybe it was nothing, but I doubted it.

“You do?” Jeannine said.

“Sure. I bet some of them buy eggs from you. They’ll be
gone in few weeks. They’re trucks, they’re not meant to be parked for long. It’s just a fun promotion for them and for the market. But the nature of their businesses means they’re on the road, always going someplace.”

“Oh, I know, but I bet they get so much business at Bailey’s that they stick around, and I’m just having a hard time thinking it’s a good plan, even if they do buy eggs from me.”

There was no sense in arguing with Jeannine when her mind took hold of an idea. Betsy just smiled patiently at her and said some of the same words I had.

“It’ll be okay, Jeannine.”

“I hope so.”

With that final declaration, Jeannine sniffed once, turned, and moved purposefully back to her own stall.

“Even with all that, she really is a likable person,” Betsy said.

“Yes, she is. Maybe it’s just that she’s one of us, you know?”

“I do. That makes sense.” Betsy took a deep breath and then let it out slowly as she looked down the aisle in the wake of Jeannine’s departure.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Oh.” She looked at me and forced a small smile. “All is well. I didn’t get the misunderstanding cleared up, but I will. I’m sure.”

“Your last bottle sold,” I said cheerfully.

“That’s great. Thanks, Becca. I know you have your own stuff to do, but I appreciate your help.”

“No problem at all. I’m packed up for the day,” I said.

“Yes. Fortunately, I’m a little ahead of the game. My inventory is good for another week. I won’t have to work this evening.”

“That must be nice.” I said, just to continue the conversation. In fact, I was frequently ahead of schedule and was this week, too. It was a good feeling.

Betsy nodded absently.

“Can I help you load up or anything?” I said.

“No, I’m good,” she said, a little more pep in her voice. “Thanks again, Becca.”

“My pleasure.”

Betsy stepped around the table, making her way into the stall. Unless I wanted to crowd the small space, my only real option was to go the opposite direction.

I stood in the aisle a moment, but she moved directly to the bins and started moving the remaining tomatoes to a small box that had been stored underneath. Even packing up the tomatoes proved she was off. She was always at the market until it closed if she wasn’t sold out.

“See you later,” I said.

“Later, Becca,” she said as she continued to load.

I turned and walked slowly away, my mind on Betsy more than my next task, talking to Jeff. I’d never once known her to be anything but her level self, friendly but not gushy, smart but kind of silly sometimes, earthy. She ate more vegetables than anything else, but I knew she loved cookie dough ice cream with a deep passion. She was what my grandmother would have described as a lovely person.

Which meant nothing when it came to the items I’d seen
in her cash box. And she’d acted funny when she came back to her stall.

As I reached the aisle intersection, I stopped and laughed at myself. Why was I turning this into a mystery? Why was I making this more important than it probably was? I’d check on Betsy tomorrow and make sure she was okay, but even earthy, happy, level people are allowed less than cheerful moments.

“What’s so funny?”

I turned to find that Ian’s stall wasn’t empty after all. Or at least it wasn’t empty now. Ian was there, sitting in a chair toward the back, which was open to the load/unload area on the inside of the U-shaped market. The back flap was pulled up to make room for a tall piece of yard art that he was assembling.

“Hey, Ian. I’m overthinking something,” I said as I stepped into his stall. There was no table in the front. In fact, he was barely in his stall anymore, and when he was, it was mostly so a customer could pick up a piece of art they’d ordered from him. Though he’d started at the market by making the yard art, his world had grown much bigger.

“You?” he said with a smile. “I can’t imagine you overthinking anything,” he teased.

I smiled, too.

I liked the comfortable spot we’d found in our friendship and dating spectrum.

“That’s a beautiful piece,” I said as I crouched and lifted the end of one of the scoop-shaped wind catchers. From what I could tell, it looked like one wheel of scoops would go one direction and another wheel would go the other. The
resulting illusion would be interesting. My boost up gave Ian the chance to use both hands to attach the top piece to the pole.

“Thanks, I’m pleased with it. I hope the customer is, too. There,” he said. “Done. Couldn’t have done it without you.” He smiled.

We both straightened as he moved the piece to an upright position.

“You’ve only gotten better,” I said. “A better artist. Your work was always great but it’s improved.”

Ian laughed. “I knew what you meant. Thanks. I don’t do as many of these as I used to. I’m enjoying the farm, but once everything transitions into more a routine than just a bunch of work to get things started, I hope to do more yard art, too. It was my first passion.”

If you looked up the word
artist
in the dictionary, there was a good chance Ian’s picture would be next to the definition. He looked the part. But what wasn’t obvious at first was his mathematically inclined mind. The calculations necessary to balance his sculptures required him to be good at math—really good. At first glance you’d have no idea he was so smart. At second glance, though, and once you’d had even a short conversation with him, you’d know he was not only exotic but intelligent, too.

“I hope you have the time. Farm going well?”

“Very well. If I stay on the right track, I will have giant and beautiful purple fields for many years to come.”

“I bet it’s amazing. How’s George?” I asked. George had been Ian’s landlord when he’d first moved to town. George had owned a big, old Tudor in the Ivy League district. Ian had
enjoyed the apartment above the garage, and he and George had become close friends. When Ian purchased the land for the farm, he’d asked George to come along with him. George’s eyesight had been progressively worsening, and the idea of leaving him alone in his big house didn’t sit right. Fortunately, George did go with Ian and they and the black cat I had found when he was a kitten and given to George were getting along grandly, I hoped.

“He’s doing very well. He’s more help than I thought he would be. He loves working on the essential oils. He can go at his own pace. Between that, listening to audio books, and hanging out with Magic, his days are full and busy. I think he’s happy. I’m sure he’d love for you to come out and visit. Sam, too.”

“I will. Soon.”

“So your cousin, the one with the truck?”

“Yeah. Sorry about the misunderstanding. We don’t talk as much as we should.”

“Oh. Not a problem. She and the guy from the business office were sure having a heated discussion out there. Allison had to break it up, and Betsy came over, too, and tried to help. Your sister had her hands full, but she handled it well,” Ian said.