Crops and Robbers (5 page)

I sniffed just as I heard a muffled bark.

“Hobbit?” I said. “Where are you, girl?”

Another muffled bark greeted me.

“Are you in the barn?” I said as I ran for my converted barn. I’d inherited the property from my uncle Stanley and aunt Ruth. It had originally been my uncle’s dream to make jams and preserves, and he’d turned the barn into an ultramodern kitchen. When he and Ruth were killed in a car accident, his dream had transformed into my dream and I’d made good use of the modern appliances.

But the kitchen had been off-limits to Hobbit. She’d taken the news well and seemed to understand that animals hanging around during food preparation didn’t make for the most sanitary environment. As I sprinted to the door, I wondered if I’d somehow forgotten to lock it that morning. If I had, it was the first time I’d ever done such a thing.

I noticed but didn’t digest the fact that the frame next to the doorknob was scratched, deep gouges digging into the wood. I was intent on one thing, so I flung open the unlocked door and was greeted by the object of my search.

Hobbit jumped up, her paws landing on my stomach, and we melted into a happy greeting. She was as pleased to see me as I was to see her.

“Oh, girl,” I said as I went down to my knees. “I was so worried!”

The relief I felt over finding her lasted only until I realized she was getting jam all over both of us. Her paws were covered in the sticky red substance, and our happy moment was spreading it all over my white T-shirt and short overalls.

“Hang on, girl,” I said as I stood. I was perplexed at how she’d stepped into some of my preserves. Yesterday evening I’d finished making some jam, but I hadn’t left any groceries, products, or supplies out. Or at least I thought I hadn’t left anything out. I never left anything out, but cleaned up the kitchen after each use and deep cleaned it once a week.

It took me less than a second to stand up, but in that short time I processed the gouges in the door frame that my dog couldn’t have caused. I realized that Hobbit wouldn’t have gone into the kitchen of her own accord; she knew she wasn’t allowed and she never pushed the issue.

Someone had broken into my kitchen and then shut my dog inside. Who would do such a thing?

A glint of reflected sunlight hit my eyes when I was fully upright. When I shaded my face with my hands, I realized how the horrible moments I’d just gone through were only the beginning of what might turn out to be the most horrible day of my life.

The smell hit me at the same time I saw what was causing it. The scent was tinny and sharp and wasn’t coming from some spilled preserves. The smell was instead coming from spilled blood.

Finding a dead body in my kitchen was the second take-the-wind-from-my-sails experience I’d had that day, but this one was much worse.

I went back down to my knees. I wasn’t nauseated as much as I just couldn’t catch my breath. My eyes watered and my jaw clenched involuntarily. Hobbit, sensing that the happy moment of greeting was over, whined and licked at my ear.

I pushed her gently away. There was a body in my kitchen, and I had to see if there was a chance that my sharpest knife—the one sticking up from the body’s chest—hadn’t all the way killed the person attached to it.

I’ve watched a million movies where someone has no regard for the crime scene; they walk right into it and right into the puddles of blood that might help investigators figure out the identity of the killers. I murmur, “Idiot,” when I see such disregard.

But when it happens to you, when you are the person who comes upon a body in a pool of blood, there’s not much thought for investigators and evidence detection. There’s only:
Holy crap, a body! I have to see what happened!

I stood and made my way deeper into the kitchen. The area was fairly large with a manageable work space and a huge stainless steel worktable in the center. The body was on the ground, next to the worktable, in a pool of blood.

I made it only partway before I realized that there was no chance the person on my floor was still alive.

Later I would wonder why it took me so long to realize who the person was. The face was clearly recognizable, but though I had seen it, I hadn’t really
seen
it until that second. The body on my kitchen floor was someone I didn’t like in the least, but I hadn’t wished her dead.

Joan Ashworth, owner of Bistro restaurant and president of the Central South Carolina Restaurant Association, was dead on the floor of my kitchen, killed presumably with one of my knives. She’d insulted my products and now she was dead on my property. Probably killed with the knife that had been used in the preparation of the product she’d insulted. Sick irony thrummed through my system.

My head was so jumbled that I had to force myself to think about whether or not I had done the deed. I came to the conclusion that I hadn’t, and as a comfort to myself only, hadn’t even considered such a thing.

I needed to call the police. My friend Sam Brion would be the one to call. He’d become such a good friend that his number was on my speed dial. I reached into my pocket for my phone as I turned and began to walk shakily out of the kitchen.

The light coming in from the door was suddenly shaded. I gasped as I looked up, fearful of what I’d see. I hadn’t thought about the crime scene, and I hadn’t thought that the person who did this horrible deed might still be on my property.

I was a double idiot.

The fear for myself transformed immediately. The person in the doorway wasn’t someone to be afraid of. The person in the doorway, with blood on her hands and tears running down her cheeks, was someone I should be afraid
for
. I looked hard just to make sure I was seeing who I really thought I was seeing.

“Mom?” I said weakly.

“Becca,” she said softly.

That was it, that was all I could take. My world went black as I fainted, realizing I just couldn’t handle any more bad news.

Had my morning at Bailey’s and then my afternoon at my own home been a horrible nightmare? Was I still in bed?

“Mom,” I grumbled as my eyes shot open. I was on my porch with Ian on one side of me and Hobbit on the other.

“I’m right here,” Mom said from somewhere behind us.

I sat up and turned around. Mom was sitting on a bench that I used for holding plant starts. I tried to get up to go to her, but I was woozy and slow.

“Becca, don’t. Stay there,” Mom said as she looked down at her hands, which were still covered with blood. “I don’t know . . . just stay there, okay?”

Ian had his hand on my arm. “Becca, you fainted. Take it easy. Drink some of this.” He handed me a blue crushed-ice drink that he must have had in his truck. It was his favorite refreshment after a hot day full of installations.

I took a sip of the blueberry cold and swallowed the icy eeriness of my current reality. We were quite the picture: my mom with her bloody hands, my dog with her bloody paws that had left imprints all over me, and Ian, grimy from working but at the ready with some blue crushed ice.

“Ian pulled in right after you fainted,” Mom said as if that explained everything.

“You all right?” Ian said as he looked hard at my eyes.

I nodded. “I think so.” I looked toward the barn where, I assumed, Joan’s body still lay. I looked at my mom again. “What happened?”

She sighed and huffed a strained laugh. “I’m not really sure. The last thing I remember clearly is your father dropping me off. After we left Bailey’s, we visited Mathis and Tom. Then we grabbed something to eat. I had Jason drop me off here so I could say hi to Hobbit and see what I could do about preparing dinner so you wouldn’t have to after working all day.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I have a recollection of walking toward the barn, but it isn’t clear, and I have no idea what happened after that, that is until I woke up on the other side of the barn, found my way back around it, and found you. The back of my head is tender.” She looked at her hands.

“We’ve got to get you cleaned up,” I said. I knew what we should have done first: call the police. But protectiveness for my mother won out and I wanted all of that blood off her.

“No, dear, we’re not going to do that,” she said.

“Your mom had me call Sam—call the police already,” Ian said. “They’re on their way.”

A surge of fear and anger shot through me. I was afraid for my mom and angry that Ian had done as she’d asked.

“I tried to get Ian to take you and Hobbit out of here, but he thought that might make you angrier than you are at the moment,” Mom said. She knew me so well. “I don’t think I did anything wrong, Becca, but we need to know for sure.”

“We could have cleaned up first,” I said.

“No, you know that would have been the wrong thing to do,” Mom said.

There was no more time to argue. Sam’s police cruiser pulled into the driveway and stopped just short of the small front yard. He got out the driver’s side door, and Officer Vivienne Norton got out of the passenger side.

Sam was still walking with a slight limp as the result of being taken hostage by the men who’d killed Linda’s mother-in-law. They’d messed up his ankle—it had been severely sprained. They’d also dislocated his shoulder. The shoulder had healed quickly, but the ankle was taking longer than expected. He looked around the property and told Officer Norton to make sure the area was secure and that the body in the barn didn’t need assistance.

As he made his way toward the porch, Sam looked only at me. His armor was his serious demeanor, but the chink in it at the moment was concern. He was concerned about me. We’d become good friends over the past year that he’d been a Monson police officer. Our friendship had been the result of him officially investigating crimes that I had been compelled to unofficially investigate. We’d been in some hairy situations together, and those situations had only helped build the friendship, or the bond, or whatever it was.

“Sam,” Ian said, pulling Sam’s intent gaze from my face to his.

“Ian.” Sam stopped and rubbed his finger under his nose.

Sam Brion was the picture of “professional.” When he was in his work mode, his hair was slicked back and his uniform was afraid to show a wrinkle. He didn’t sweat under any sort of pressure, and his blue eyes could either be stern or friendly, but they always held a sort of fierceness. I knew both the official Sam and the one who could relax, from his hair to his toes, and have a good time.

“I need to talk to each of you separately. Mrs. Robins?” He looked at Mom. “I’d like to talk to you first.”

She nodded.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. My head is a little sore, but I’m not dizzy. The blood isn’t mine, I don’t think.”

I wanted to cry.

“An ambulance is on the way, but for now Becca and Ian, how about you pull the tailgate of one of your trucks down and sit there?”

“Sam, my mom didn’t hurt anyone,” I said.

The pain in his eyes was as real as the fierceness. He didn’t want his friend’s mother guilty of a crime, particularly such a horrible one.

“Becca, I need to talk to your mom first. Please, you and Ian step away.”

“It’s okay, dear. I want to talk to him. I really need to know what happened, too,” Mom said.

“Should we call an attorney?” I asked her.

“Not yet. Let me talk to the police officer, Becca. I’ll let you know if I want an attorney.”

Mom had been arrested before. She had a record—of peaceful protests. When they were younger, she and my father had protested everything from war to pesticides. But, as far as I knew, they hadn’t been “detained” in some time. I didn’t think anyone should talk to the police without an attorney present, but if anyone knew the ropes, my mother did, and I had to believe that she’d request an attorney the second she thought she needed one.

The ambulance pulled into the driveway and parked behind Sam’s car just as Officer Norton exited the barn. She glanced at Sam and shook her head. Sam must have communicated something with a nod, because she pulled out her cell phone and proceeded to make a call.

“Ian, Becca, please,” Sam said.

Ian helped me stand, and we made our way to his truck. He helped me up to the tailgate as Hobbit lay down on the ground under my feet.

“You okay?” Ian asked as he held my chin and examined my face.

“Uh-huh,” I said halfheartedly as I looked into his concerned brown eyes. “I’m fine physically. I’m scared, Ian.”

“That’s to be expected. You want to tell me what happened?”

I nodded. I did want to tell him, but I didn’t want to say the words out loud.

Nevertheless, I recounted my day, beginning with the early morning visit from Joan and the other board members. I thought hard about each detail I mentioned, hoping I’d see something that would illuminate who the killer might have been, because I couldn’t possibly believe that my mother was involved.