Bushel Full of Murder (18 page)

I blinked at her. Blunt wasn’t her style, but maybe she was getting the same vibes I was getting and didn’t want to stick around, or be in the way, any longer than we had to.

“All right. I might answer.” He took a sip of his tea and looked hard at Allison over the rim of the cup.

“You and your brother didn’t get along?” Allison said.

“We got along fine.”

“I mean, there was a problem with the solar panels and approving them.”

“That was a long time ago. As you can see, I won.”

“Right. Well, can I ask if the bad feelings lingered?”

Nick laughed. “I didn’t kill my brother. Okay, we hadn’t really spoken on friendly brotherly terms in some time, but I didn’t kill him. I suppose that’s what all this is leading to.”

I sat forward a little. Neither Allison nor I were qualified to be asking these questions in any formal capacity, but I got the feeling she’d been more forceful than necessary.

“Nick,” I said. “We love Betsy. She’s one of the most beloved vendors at Bailey’s.”

“I’m not surprised. She’s a good person,” he said.

Maybe my method was worse than Allison’s but I continued.

“The other day, the day before Robert was killed, he was at the market and he and Betsy got in some sort of argument. We don’t know exactly what it was about but Robert had said
something about her business license not being up to date. The next day, Betsy left Bailey’s. She just put a note on her table that she was leaving and she packed up. Do you know anything about whatever problem that was?”

“I don’t. And it seems to me you’re trying to dig around in stuff that’s none of your business, and frankly, I’m offended,” Nick said.

He took a sip of tea but didn’t make a move to get up to throw us off his property, so I continued.

“Not at all,” I said. “Betsy couldn’t hurt anyone. She simply isn’t capable. And like you said, your problems with Robert occurred a long time ago. No, what we’re trying to do is understand Robert. He had a reputation as a nice guy.” I didn’t really know how far that reputation spread, but that’s what I’d gleaned from the few people I’d talked to about him. “And we’re not so sure that’s true. We’re just trying to understand him.”

“Why? What’s it to you?”

I looked at Allison, who gave me a quick nod of approval.

“Our cousin is suspected of killing him. We’re having some trouble convincing the police that she’s innocent, but we think she is. We’re grasping for straws, but maybe if we can understand your brother better, maybe we can find a different suspect—or just find something that proves our cousin is innocent. Though we don’t mean to point any fingers at you or your family.”

Nick took another drink and swirled the ice around in his cup as he looked at us. Finally, he shrugged.

“Well, ladies, now at least I understand what you’re doing. Makes more sense why you’re here. However, I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation that I like the
up front method better. Wish you would have just told me that at the beginning.”

I opened my mouth to apologize, but he stopped me with a raised hand.

He continued. “My brother wasn’t a terrible guy, but he was pretty stubborn. The thing about him that might help you the most to understand him is that he followed rules better than any person I’ve ever known. And he didn’t like people who didn’t. Okay, here’s the type of guy he was: he drove the exact speed limit. Exact. Have you ever ridden in a car with someone who goes the exact speed limit? It’s annoying. He took his job just as seriously. Letter of the law. He’d spend hours thinking about how to make some sort of stupid regulation clearer or some such thing. It was his obsession. Like I said, we hadn’t talked much in years but I know he still thought I was breaking some sort of law with my panels. He couldn’t let it go and he couldn’t believe the town council would rule in my favor.”

Nick sat forward and put his elbows on his knees and looked off toward the woods as he took a moment to think. Soon, he turned his attention back to us.

“If he and Betsy were having a problem, it was something he was taking out on her because of his issues with me. I know my Betsy wasn’t breaking laws or rules, but she might have been an easy target for him. If that’s the case, I’m sorry for her. I’ll ask her.”

“Have you seen her the last few days?”

“She came out to talk to me about Robert. I’d been trying to get ahold of her. I have three other brothers. Family news gets around. We’d tried to call Betsy, but she hadn’t returned the calls. She came out and was pretty upset.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Nick,” Allison said, “but you don’t seem all that upset.”

“I was. A little, I suppose. It’s a terrible, tragic way to die, and he didn’t deserve to be killed. But I gotta tell you, if I’d known he was harassing my Betsy, he and I would have had some heated words. Doubt I could have killed him. But maybe.”

“What about your brothers?” I said. “I don’t mean could they have killed him. I mean, did they get along with him?”

“Well, we’re not the closest of siblings. Other than my issue with Robert, though, no one had any real problems. We used to be all about the family barbeques and get-togethers, but we haven’t done that for some years. I guess you could say that when Robert and I had the falling-out, we all just kind of quit trying so much. It happens.”

I heard a tiny bit of regret in his voice.

“It does,” I said as supportively as possible.

“You know what you should do—you should go talk to the other people in Robert’s office. I bet they know who he was harassing and for what reasons, who was breaking the rules. As good of a guy as he was, if someone was breaking a rule according to his interpretation he would have done something to get under their skin. It was his way. Yeah, the people he worked with would be the ones to talk to.”

“Good idea,” I said.

It was a good idea. I’d spoken to them briefly, but that conversation had been more about Jeff than Robert.

“Yeah, I can’t really help you much,” Nick said.

“I think you’ve helped us in a very big way,” Allison said with a smile.

I had to give her credit. She’d probably started off our
conversation with Nick in such a blunt way so I could swoop in and appear to be the “good cop.” I wanted to give her a fist bump, but that would have to wait.

I took another deep breath. This part was more difficult than the part where it sounded like we were asking Nick if he’d murdered his brother, but we were there at his house and still had his attention. I didn’t want to miss the opportunity even if my next questions forced our reluctant host to finally throw us out.

“Nick, I’m so sorry about my next question,” I said.

He blinked and then raised his eyebrows.

I cleared my throat. “The other day I was covering for Betsy in her stall. I had to put some money into her cash box. It was a twenty. I put twenties under the top tray, so I lifted up hers to put the twenty underneath. I wasn’t snooping, I promise. But when I did, I saw two bills that were stamped with past due notices.”

“Becca,” Allison said as if she wanted me to stop right there.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Nick, “but do you know if Betsy is having financial problems?”

The pause was like watching an avalanche start. You knew something bad was about to happen.

“Becca, you already know that those notices were none of your business, I don’t think I need to tell you that. In fact, I don’t need to tell you anything at all, but I’m going to—only because I don’t want you thinking what you’re thinking. Those weren’t Betsy’s bills. I suppose if you’d truly been snooping, you would have picked them up and looked at them and seen my name on them. I’m not going to go into any more
detail than that, because I think that’s all you need to know about the matter.”

I nodded.

“Thank you for your time, Nick,” Allison said.

He walked with us through the weeds and around to the front part of the house. All three of us were silent.

We muttered good-byes to each other, and he waved and disappeared back into his house before I put the truck into Drive.

“I’m sorry. I took it too far,” I said to Allison.

“Not at all. I just thought I should act like you did. I have no idea if knowing that those bills weren’t Betsy’s might help Peyton, but now you definitely do know. It’s like each new bit of factual information fills in a part of a puzzle, even if I don’t know what the puzzle’s supposed to look like.”

“Wanna go downtown?” I said to my partner in investigating crime.

“Absolutely,” Allison said.

I smiled and we fist
bumped.

Kyle and Meg didn’t seem surprised to see me, but they were busy when Allison and I arrived, so they both waved politely as we took a seat on the small lobby’s bench.

They were each talking to someone at the front counter and there were three more people in line waiting to be helped. The two at the counter were women and the three in line were men. I recognized a couple of the men from town, but Allison knew one of them well enough to get up and say hello. They spoke until it was his turn to be helped.

“He’s applying for a liquor license,” she said as she sat next to me again. “He owns a small café.”

I nodded. “No one ever thinks much about all the permits and licenses a town needs to run properly,” I said.

“I overheard one of the women at the front. She’s here for her beautician’s license.”

“And there’s another one,” I said.

“I don’t think it will help us solve Robert’s murder, but it’s interesting to ponder how he was involved in lots of people’s livelihoods, maybe only for a short time, but still, he knew lots of people.”

“Good point, although that doesn’t help to narrow down our suspect list.”

“No. It expands it, but that might not be a bad thing, either,” Allison said.

We sat for only a few minutes longer before the line and the office cleared of other customers. I hoped we’d have Kyle and Meg to ourselves for a few minutes.

“Becca, right?” Kyle said as we approached the counter.

“Yes, and this is my sister, Allison.”

“You run the farmers’ market, don’t you?” Kyle said.

“I’m the manager.”

“It’s a great place.”

“Thanks.”

“What can we do for you today?” Kyle said as Meg stepped next to him.

“We have some more questions about Robert,” I said.

“All right.” Meg spoke first, but her tone was hesitant.

“I know you could get busy any second,” I said, “so I’ll get to the point. I know you cared for Robert. You liked him. That’s great. Liking co-workers and bosses is one of the keys to a happy life. So anyway, my question might seem harsh, but I really need to understand him better.” They both looked at me intently. I continued. “Was Robert a vindictive
sort at all? I mean, did he ever take out his anger on people when he thought they were doing something wrong? We hear he was a real stickler for the rules, but between us, I have to wonder: if he was such a stickler, why did he let our baked potato vendor drag his feet for so long?”

Meg and Kyle looked at each other. Meg gave Kyle a look that said, “I’m out” before she stepped away from the counter and went back to her desk. Fortunately, Robert turned back to me and Allison.

“Robert was a really great guy,” he said. “Really great.”

“We got that,” I said.

“But he
was
a stickler for the rules—and the rules he mostly stuck to were the ones he thought he interpreted better than everyone else. I wouldn’t say he was vindictive so much as he . . . okay, well, maybe sometimes his behavior was a little vindictive, but he thought it was for the greater good. There was no convincing him otherwise. As for your vendor, well, he was stumped there. He wanted to be right—he always wanted to be right, I guess. But he was careful with that vendor.” Kyle sighed. “I think that more than being a stickler, more than being right, he never wanted to be proven wrong about something that he thought he should know. He moved slowly with your vendor because he couldn’t get the confirmation he wanted to have to take more drastic action.”

“Can I ask how he behaved vindictively sometimes? The little ways?” I said.

Kyle looked around to see if anyone else had magically entered the office. Of course, no one had.

“Silly stuff. Petty stuff. Maybe he’d have us misspell a name or something. Like, just a few minutes ago, I helped
someone put together their application for a liquor license. If Robert had been here, he would have had to later give me his opinion regarding whether or not that person should have a liquor license. He knew so much about everybody that if he’d found out that that guy had gotten in trouble for something perhaps liquor related, or something similar, I don’t know, he would have found a way to delay the license or maybe even find a way to make sure it didn’t get put through at all.”

“He would judge everyone personally?” Allison said.

“Well, yeah, but not everyone. It’s wasn’t as bad as that. Most people were just fine, got sent through the process without a hitch. There were a few that didn’t, though. Just a few.” Kyle’s eyes lit with a moment of clarity. He realized that he shouldn’t be telling us these things, but like someone with a secret, it felt good to share, to get it out there.

“Any chance you’d want to tell us who those few were?” I said before he stopped talking altogether.

“No. I couldn’t do that. That would be violating the trust of the population of Monson. I’m not going to do that.”

I nodded. “Let me ask you something very specific. I understand if you don’t want to answer, but I don’t really think your answer would be a violation of trust. In fact, your answer could potentially right some wrongs.”

“I’m listening.”

“Were two of the people he was harassing our vendors, Betsy and Jeff?”

“Maybe.”

“What was he doing?”

Kyle bit his lip and rubbed his chin. “I can’t say exactly, but
it wasn’t so much what he was doing as what he was threatening to do.”

“Now that he’s gone, those threats won’t be carried out, right?” I said.

“Not unless our new boss wants to do something. We can’t control who gets hired or whatever grudges they bring to the job.” There went his eyes again. He was going to kick himself later for sharing so much, and I had no idea how to tell him that he didn’t need to worry, that we wouldn’t tell on him. Because frankly, we might.

“I see,” I said.

“Do you have Betsy’s renewal?” Allison asked.

“I think we do,” Meg said from behind her desk.

Her tone told me that yes, they had Betsy’s renewal, and yes, she knew exactly where it was hiding, and yes regarding the fact that Mr. Ship had told them to delay it. Meg was much better at telling us things with only a few words and her tone of voice than Kyle was.

“Do me a favor. Go ahead and process it now while there’s no one manipulating anything. I’m sure it will go through just fine,” I said.

“I’m sure it will, too,” Meg said as she moved her fingers over her keyboard.

“Good,” Allison said. “And I’ll get Jeff in here to get his license, too. I’m sure you’ll treat him with fairness.”

“Of course. Now that Robert’s not . . . yes, we will,” Kyle said.

“Any chance you’d give us more names?” I said to Kyle.

“No. No chance.”

I looked at Meg.

“I don’t have any idea what you all are talking about,” she said. “I’ve been busy over here working on stuff for some farmers’ market vendor named Betsy.”

Allison and I looked at each other.

“You need to tell the police about Mr. Ship,” Allison said.

“Nope,” Kyle said. “And now I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He stepped away from the counter and went to his desk.

I didn’t quite understand why they didn’t want to talk to the police, but it probably had something to do with incriminating themselves for their own bad behavior, not because of any respect for their dead boss. Did I see a need to get the information to Sam? Did what they told us make me think someone in Monson’s population, or Betsy, Jeff, or even Peyton killed Mr. Ship? No. I knew we were grasping at vapors, but if I thought blowing a few vapors Sam’s way would distract him long enough to keep wondering who the killer was, I might just do it.

Kyle and Meg were done with us and they both looked relieved when another customer came into the office. I thanked them both as Allison and I left. Once back in the truck, Allison spoke up.

“That does not feel right.”

“Not at all,” I said.

I looked at my sister. She was another rule follower, so much so that even my minor digressions seemed so much bigger than they ever were. Allison didn’t stick to the speed limit, but she stuck awfully close to it. I only did because my truck was speed impaired. If I’d driven anything newer, I was sure I’d have a speeding ticket or two.

But Allison was not vindictive. She didn’t need to be. She was just honest enough that you knew where you stood immediately and what would happen if you didn’t follow the rules. There were no hidden agendas, no misspelled names.

The biggest difference between Mr. Ship and Allison was that she was also flexible and didn’t leave all circumstances up to her own interpretation. She listened to and sometimes took advice. And lastly, she was an extremely fair person, the most impartial person I knew. I knew it bothered her that Mr. Ship had behaved in a way that had hurt people she cared about, her market vendors. Though she didn’t have it in her to kill anyone, if she’d learned what Mr. Ship was up to before he died she would have at least given him a good talking-to, and as the beneficiary of some of those talking-tos over the years, I knew he would not have enjoyed it a bit.

She was the good example of a rule follower. Robert was too extreme. In fact, he might have done some downright mean things to people, which might be motive for murder.

“Let’s go to Jeff’s,” Allison said.

“I don’t know where he lives. Can you get me there?”

“Sure.”

There were no fist bumps this time before I followed her directions to the baked potato vendor’s house.

I didn’t say it out loud, but I knew Allison was thinking about the same thing I was. If Mr. Ship’s killer was someone other than Peyton, chances were pretty good that we knew them, at least in passing. I was ready to point the light of suspicion at someone else. I wasn’t sure if Allison was there
yet.