5 Merry Market Murder (16 page)

“What did he do when he was here?” Sam asked.

Gellie shrugged. “Mostly he worked outside. I’m not here in the evenings. Well, I wasn’t; now I stay a little later to make sure Batman isn’t in trouble. What am I going to do with that goose?” She looked at Sam.

“I’d say call animal control. They might be able to find him a good home, but I bet that’s not what you want to do,” he said.

“No, I’m not ready to do that. I’ll just keep trying to figure it out.”

“Gellie, I saw a small shed outside, but I’m not sure how far back and over the hills the property extends. Is there any chance there’s another building somewhere?”

Gellie shook her head, the ball from the Santa hat bouncing off her cheek. “I’m not really sure, but I don’t think it goes far. Oh, wait, of course! I bet you didn’t look in the garage. I bet the other officers didn’t, either.”

“No.” Sam stood. I eyed the cookies first and then stood, too.

“I didn’t even think about it. He stored that big truck . . . the one he was . . . well, he stored it right around the side of the house, kind of behind the garage. He had an office of sorts . . . well a desk at least, set up in the garage. I’ve been so flustered, I didn’t even think to see if anyone looked out there. I’m so sorry.”

“No problem, we’ll look now.”

Gellie led the way. “I’m getting to be too old for my own good. I really should have said something earlier.”

“It’s okay.” But it wasn’t okay. Sam wasn’t happy that he hadn’t already thought to search the garage and that the other Monson officers might not have, either.

He followed Gellie and I followed him as we weaved down a back hallway behind the kitchen. It was the first hint I’d had that this house was old. I quietly tapped the wall and thought it was made of lath and plaster. And the old, wood floor was scratched and dull. This part of the house hadn’t been given a remodel.

“Reggie wasn’t secretive at all. A little odd and mumbly but not really secretive,” Gellie said from the front of our line. I’d already told Sam about his Ridgeway mumbles. “But a couple times he just appeared in the kitchen when I wasn’t expecting him. He showed me this back hallway and explained that this is the easiest way back into the house from the garage. I wondered why he needed to come in through the garage if he never went anywhere; that’s when he told me that he had tools and a desk back here. I never even came out to see what he was talking about. Maybe that’s why I didn’t remember.”

“Why do you suppose he did that? He had a great office in this great house.”

“Not sure, except that . . . well, this sounds stupid, but I think he liked to hang out with Batman and he couldn’t do that inside for long stretches of time. Oh, sometimes he could, but do you know how much a goose poops?”

“No,” I said.

“Lots. That creature gets into the house all the time, but I try to shoo it out before it causes too much damage.”

“I see,” I said.

Gellie pushed through a door that opened to a spacious garage. My second ex-husband, Scott, would have used the space to create a fully equipped car-shop garage, but Reggie must not have been into fixing things.

Except for the far wall, there wasn’t much to see. There was no vehicle, which Sam noted. Reggie did have a truck other than his large delivery truck registered in his name. Sam wanted to know where it had gone.

The shelves against the far wall were full, however—full of the things you might expect to find at a Christmas tree farm. There were boxes of sharp implements similar to what I’d seen in Reggie’s chest. I shivered when I saw the cold, casually stored spikes. Two axes made an
X
as they leaned against one of the bottom shelves.

“What’s that?” I pointed to a gun-like trigger mechanism that was stored on a shelf with a full supply of cans with yellow labels. The mechanism had a long tube that was in a loose circle on the floor, and it was attached to a generator.

“I believe it’s a flocking gun. You attach the can and shoot the contents at a tree,” Sam said.

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“White stuff to flock a tree, make it look like it has snow on it.”

“Oh.”

The shelves were full of other, less interesting things like hammers and a couple wrenches. It was a poorly stocked garage, tool wise, but a desk in a back corner proved to be much more interesting.

“What a mess,” Gellie said as the three of us stood in a half circle around the paper-and-file piles.

“I’m going to have someone come out and process the items on the desk, Gellie, but I’ll take a quick look first. You okay with that?”

Gellie shrugged. “Don’t think it matters one way or another if I care, but I don’t. If it helps you find Reggie’s killer, all’s the better. I’m going back inside, though. You two don’t need my help.”

Sam flipped a switch, which illuminated the garage with a healthy supply of yellow-fluorescent light. I would have preferred to open the garage door, but I knew we shouldn’t do something that might disrupt the evidence, if there was, in fact, evidence.

“At least he’s somewhat normal,” I said. “He really did have a computer and a printer; the printer’s also a fax machine. He’s not as strange as his gorgeous but uptight house makes him seem.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam said distractedly as he looked at the items on the desk and then pushed buttons on the printer/fax. “I’d like to find the fax number or a sent and received log, but I think I’ll let the crime scene people figure it out.”

From what I could see, Reggie’s organization resembled how my dining room table sometimes looked, though my paperwork messes were usually in stacks more than they were just papers everywhere.

“Sam, this is weirder than I thought—maybe
not
normal,” I said, though it was more me thinking aloud than to get his attention.

“How do you mean?”

“It’s messy, really messy. Even messy people—myself included—have a system to their mess. This looks like someone rifled through it, maybe looking for something.”

“And if they found it, we’ll never know what
it
was.” Sam pulled out his phone and started snapping pictures.

“Do you really think the other officers didn’t look out here?” I asked.

“They said there was no computer, but this isn’t a crime scene so there’s a chance they weren’t as thorough as we all should be. We asked Gellie about Reggie’s activities. If they didn’t ask, they might not have thought about a desk being in the garage.” Sam stopped snapping pictures, looked through the ones he’d taken, and said, “Okay, let’s see if we can see anything interesting.”

The usual paperwork suspects were everywhere—invoices, statements, supplies bought, and trees sold. The most curious thing about the mountain of papers was that some pieces were old, from as far back as ten years ago. The file drawers were full to overflowing, presumably with even older paperwork, but there was neither rhyme nor reason to the filing system.

“Hmm,” Sam said as he opened a file he’d wrangled out of one of the packed drawers.

“What’d you find?” I asked.

“It’s all about the Ridgeways,” he said as he held it so I could look, too.

There were articles and pictures of Denny, Billie, and Ned Ridgeway from over the years. Mostly there were articles that highlighted the Ridgeway farm, but there were also articles about social events that one or some of the Ridgeways had attended. The dates on the articles went back as far as 1991.

“I suppose it would be okay to keep a file about your competition,” I said as I glanced at the pages, which Sam was quickly flipping through. “The Ridgeways were much more successful than Reggie ever was. Maybe he was jealous.”

Sam rubbed his chin. “Maybe, but everyone keeps telling us that he didn’t have a Christmas tree farm to be successful, and that’s becoming more and more obvious. We haven’t figured out where all his money came from yet, but we’re working on it—family money, textiles, probably nothing surprising. He could have done more to find more customers. Shoot, just a picture of the setting around here in some sort of advertisement would have garnered a bunch of attention. I’ll take this one with us.” He closed the file, stuck it under his arm, and then sat down on the creaky office chair.

He pushed the power button on the old dusty computer and we waited patiently while its technologically ancient innards warmed up.

“No password, that’s a good start,” Sam said as he pulled the chair closer to the desk and started moving the mouse. “Simple, non-password-protected e-mail, too; not the best way to protect your privacy, but helpful to us, at least.”

As nosy as I was, looking at someone’s e-mail was a new level of intrusive. I got over it quickly, though, when Sam said, “Well, now we might be getting somewhere.”

“What?”

“Looks like Reggie had an admirer. Read this one, it’s from someone called ‘Old Girl.’”

“That’s not a very flattering name,” I said. “At least Old- But-I-Still-Got-It Girl would be a little better.”

Sam smiled.

I read aloud: “But I’ve missed you for so long. There has to be a way for us to meet again. No one has to know.”

“I’d like to know who Old Girl is,” Sam said. “We have ways of tracking that down, though they aren’t as quick as I would like.”

“What was Reggie’s response? Or what did he write that prompted her to say what she said?” I said.

A couple clicks of the mouse later, and the text on the screen read, “No, not possible. We hurt too many people. They’re just beginning to heal; maybe some will never heal. We can’t. We just can’t. I’m sorry, desperately sorry.”

“I’ll have someone put together the entire conversation,” Sam said.

“Yeah,” I said, “you need to find out who this is. This could be talking about the affair I sensed when I was talking to Evie. Affairs are good motives for murder.”

“Possibly, but we’d better at least track Old Girl down and talk to her. I didn’t think Evelyn was all that important, but now I’m beginning to think she needs an official visit.”

“So, you’re saying I might have uncovered something important to your case?” A swell of excitement built in my chest.

Sam stood from the chair and looked at me with my favorite version of his eyes. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Good job.”

I doubted very much that he ever complimented any of his coworkers with those eyes and then that hug, and most definitely not with the kiss that came next. In fact, he was usually so darn professional that I was caught off guard by his reaction. Thrilled, but still caught off guard.

“Here, help me unhook this hard drive from the monitor. I’ll take it in and have it looked at thoroughly,” he said when he released me. I wondered if he’d even noticed what he’d done. Surely a piece of his slicked hair should protest the unprofessional kiss, but it all remained neatly in place. Maybe a wrinkle in his uniform would show. Nope, no such luck. How did he do that?

Sam searched the rest of the garage just in case we’d missed something. We scanned the area right outside but didn’t find anything of interest there, either. Then we gathered the computer and told Gellie we were taking it and the file. As the police car rolled along the long driveway, Batman stood beside the house and watched us leave. I looked back and saw Gellie talking to the goose but she didn’t wield a butcher knife and Batman didn’t run away, so I figured they might be working on a temporary truce.

Our movement was halted by an incoming newer model truck. It veered around us as though it had done the maneuver a time or two before.

Of all the things to notice about the truck and the people inside, the thing that garnered the biggest chunk of my interest was the color and length of the passenger’s hair. A long, blonde ponytail trailed out from her thin winter cap.

“Sam, she might be the cornhusk doll,” I said without really thinking about what I was saying.

Sam didn’t need further explanation. He turned the cruiser around and we went to talk to whoever was in the truck.

Patricia and Joel Archer were not happy that a police officer wanted to talk to them, which only made Sam more persistent with his questions.

“We just worked for Reggie out here,” Joel said. “We just helped him harvest trees. I don’t think we ever spent much time in the house.”

Patricia’s long, blonde ponytail was only the first reason I was interested in knowing more about her. The rest of her reminded me of a farm worker version of Mamma Maria. Mamma was younger than Patricia, but both women were fond of heavy eye makeup and red lipstick. They were also tall and thin, and, even though Patricia wore what amounted to a flannel jacket, I guessed that her curves could rival Mamma’s.

Those facts, along with what Gellie had told me the day before about the Archers returning to help Reggie after they hadn’t been around for some time and Patricia’s resemblance to the cornhusk ornament, made me quickly think her, and maybe her husband’s, activities around the time of Reggie’s murder needed to be looked at closely. Before we’d gotten back out of the cruiser, though, Sam had warned me about jumping to any conclusions without having real evidence.

Still.

“When’s the last time either of you saw Reggie?” Sam asked.

The Archers looked at each other, and both of them shrugged lightly. We were standing outside the copse of pine trees, but I was paying such close attention to what the Archers had to say that I didn’t have time to appreciate the strong pine scent.

“I guess the day before he was killed. We helped him load up the truck to take it to the farmers’ market,” Joel said.

“What did you know about his plans to sell at Bailey’s?”

“It was something that had only come together last week,” Joel said confidently. “He was excited about it. He said that he’d been working with a woman from the market, and that it was a good market, and that it would be good to get more of his trees out to the world.”

I watched Patricia as Joel spoke. I was certain she looked down and blushed a tiny bit when Joel mentioned the “woman from the market,” but those actions didn’t tell me anything, particularly when she looked back up quickly and I realized that the blush could have been attributed to the cool air.

“Did either of you ever go into his office, the one in the house or the one in the garage?”

“No,” Joel said, but Patricia wasn’t so quick to speak.

“Well,” she finally said, her voice soft and tense.

“Go on,” Sam said.

“He sent me in the garage for some spikes the day before . . . the day before we loaded up for the market.”

I didn’t know if the police had released to the press that Reggie had been killed with a Christmas tree spike, so I remained quiet.

Joel didn’t say anything but his eyebrows came together in a tight knit as he looked at his wife.

“I thought . . . never mind,” Joel said.

Sam and I looked at each other before he turned to Joel. “Never mind what, Mr. Archer?”

“It’s nothing really. I just thought Reggie told us the garage was off-limits, that we weren’t ever to go in there, but he must have made an exception for Patricia.”

“It was just that one time,” she was quick to add. “Just that one time.”

“And you retrieved a spike, just one?” Sam said.

Patricia nodded. “I did. I’m sure he would have asked Joel to get it for him, but Joel was helping to deliver a tree.”

I didn’t know what Joel had been doing but the nervous twitches around his eyes told me that he probably hadn’t been delivering a tree.

“Did you ever fax anything for Reggie, or gather a fax, or help with any sort of paperwork at all?” Sam asked.

“No,” Patricia said.

“Where did you take the tree?” Sam asked Joel, pen and paper at the ready to write down an address.

“Uh, well . . . I just met someone on the corner of Main Street and Pomegranate. They met me there with their truck. They were from . . . Smithfield and we just met there.”

“Do you have any other information? Names, the kind of truck?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“What about that truck?” Sam nodded to the mint-condition, shiny, blue truck they’d been riding in.

“That’s . . . that’s Reggie’s,” Joel said, clearly embarrassed. “We don’t have a vehicle, so we were using that one. We didn’t think there would be any harm in doing so. Reggie always drove us around.”

“He ever let you drive it without him?”

“Uh. Oh. No, not that I remember,” Joel said.

“But he would have,” Patricia added. “We were sort of friends.”

“Friends, but the garage was off-limits?” Sam said as he used the pen to scratch at a spot above his ear.

“Well, we’d all known each other before,” Patricia said.

“Friends from way back?” I said. “When was way back?”

“Oh, we were kids, in our early twenties at least. It was back in the mid-to-late eighties. We helped with the trees back then, too.”

“So you probably knew Reggie’s wife?” Sam said.

“Sure. Evelyn. We knew her well,” Patricia said, but I thought I caught another look Joel sent in her direction. She caught it, too, and pinched her mouth closed.

“Tell me, what do you remember about their divorce?” Sam asked. I was surprised by his abruptness, but I liked it.

“Nothing,” Joel said before his wife could speak again.

“Really? Evelyn, a person you knew very well, gave up her political position and divorced her husband and you don’t remember anything about it,” Sam said.

“No, sir,” Joel said.

If I was reading the look on her face correctly, Patricia might never speak again.

“You two going to stick around now that Reggie’s gone?” Sam asked.

“We thought we’d help with the trees until we’re shut down or told to leave.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, we knew each other. Reggie was a friend. Sort of.”

“You care if we look in the shed?” Sam said as he started walking that direction. I followed behind.

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Joel and Patricia followed behind me.

The shed was almost empty. There were two axes locked in place with a cross bar against a wall and one flocking gun, loaded (as far as I could tell, given my limited understanding of flocking guns) with a can of flocking spray. Two short stools were against a side wall, but those few items were all that was there. Sam gave the small space a quick once-over and I silently wondered why we hadn’t looked in it earlier.

Sam wrote down the address that Joel gave him for where they were staying but Joel added that they truly wouldn’t be around for long. I suspected that was a recent decision. Sam didn’t tell them not to leave town, but to stay in touch if they did, just in case he had more questions about their “friendship” with Reggie Stuckey.

They were thrilled and relieved to see us go, though they both tried to hide it.

As we drove away again, I said, “Why didn’t we check the shed earlier?”

“I knew what was in there a couple days ago. The other officers looked inside and included an item inventory in their report. I should have taken another look on my own probably, but the reason I asked Joel was simply to see his reaction. He didn’t seem to mind us looking, which made me think he hadn’t hidden anything in there.”

“Like what?”

“I have no idea.”

“What do you think of them?”

“I think they’re up to no good, but I’m not sure murder is a part of that ‘no good.’ They’re staying around so they can make some money. It’s a cash business, I’m assuming, and without Reggie around, their cut of the cash just got bigger.”

“They’re stealing. Sort of?”

“No doubt in my mind. I also think Patricia’s been in Reggie’s garage more than she admitted to, though I don’t know why or who she didn’t want to know she’d been there—us or her husband.”

“Could she be the mystery ‘girl’ who was working for Reggie?”

“Maybe. I really need to better analyze the phone and fax records. I also need to know more about the Archers. I’ll do some research. Also, I suppose that will be one of the questions I ask Evelyn.”

“Oh yeah, the lead I fleshed out for you.”

Sam laughed. “Yes, that one.”

He dropped me at my truck, but offered to take me with him to talk to the real estate agent, which is where he was planning to go after he dropped the computer and the file at the station.

I wanted to go with him, but farmers’ market duty called. I had customers who’d be looking for their orders and other customers who’d be looking for me and my other jams and jellies.

I did manage to get one more kiss out of him before we parted ways, though.

I liked it when he multitasked.