A Suspicion of Strawberries (Scents of Murder Book 1) (11 page)

The market came into view. Cars filled the muddy parking lot in front of a large, covered open-air pavilion that looked like a red and black barn, without the walls. I caught glimpses of brightly colored produce displayed on tables and glass jars that glowed amber in the sunshine. Ben aimed the truck for an empty gap between two cars.

“I didn’t bring my mud boots.” I stuck my head out the window and looked at the ground. Leftover rainwater mingled with the grass and red mud a couple of inches deep.

“No problem.” Ben left the truck and came around the hood to stand at my door. “Piggyback.” He opened the door with a squeal of hinges.

“You’ve got to be kidding. I’ll break your back.” I wasn’t overly round, but then I wasn’t like one of those toothpick women who can fit into teenager's clothes, either.

“Seriously.” He turned his back to me. “C’mon.”

I put my feet on the truck’s running board and slung my bag over my shoulder. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.” He caught my legs as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and he started to walk.

We moved forward to a dry patch of grass, and Ben made little strangling noises. “Very funny,” I said.

“I’m not joking,” he gasped.

I loosened my grip on his neck. Evidently one of my arms had slid up to his throat. “Sorry about that.”

“Ands, you’ve got to trust me. I won’t let you fall.” He stopped when we reached a damp patch of grass, and my feet slipped to the ground. Ben frowned before he took my hand.

“I do trust you.”

“More than carrying you piggyback?”

“Of course I do.” I grinned at him. “I just didn’t want to fall into the mud.”

He looked as if he didn’t believe me.

“What’s wrong?” I knew better than to try to drag an explanation out of him, but first with him buying Doris Flanders’s property, and then what Jerry said about a house estimate. . .

“I—I need to show you something, but later. Now’s not the time.” His brief hint of a smile told me he wasn’t mad, but his behavior puzzled me.

“All right, later then. Let’s get the strawberries.” This was not how I had envisioned the afternoon. I’d pictured us holding hands, catching up on time spent apart. Sidestepping puddles. Trading stories and laughing. That and coaxing information out of Mike with Ben’s help. Instead I asked a question and received one-syllable answers. I trusted Ben. I just didn’t want to be dropped. What was the big deal?

Silence hung between us as we wove between the vehicles and approached the pavilion. I had no idea what I’d said or done and stifled several questions before they slipped out. All I knew was I had started eating those words I’d spoken to Sadie. But you couldn’t very well communicate with someone who didn’t want to talk. Ben did say we’d talk later, so I tried to content myself with that knowledge. We rounded the puddles, and my sneakers ended up getting muddy anyway.

“Ben, did I do something?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

“No, it’s me this time.” He paused at a table of round, plump tomatoes, half of them ripe and red, the other half green.

“These look good. I think I’ll get some.” I chose one basket of red and green, and paid for them. My mouth watered at the thought of fried green tomatoes.
Comfort food, here I come
. “What can I do to help you?”

“Just be here.” Ben took one of the baskets from me. “Because. . .with one breath you sound thrilled to see me, and with the next breath you sound like you’re trying to push me away.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to come across like that.”

“What have we been doing all these years?” Ben took the other basket from me. “Why didn’t I ask you to marry me sooner?”

Where was this coming from? Here I’d been planning to coach Ben on what to look for when I talked to Mike. Not this. “I don’t know, Ben.” I couldn’t admit that the thought of getting married both thrilled and terrified me at the same time.

“The years have gone by fast, haven’t they?” Now he sounded like he was at the brink of a midlife crisis a few years early.

I nodded. “Sometimes I wish you could come home from the road, but I don’t know what you’d do for work.” The idea hit me like a wave. He had hit the road after his uncle’s construction company folded and hadn’t looked back.

He hadn’t asked me if I minded him going out on the road, either, but at that time we hadn’t been a couple for long. Now I was thirty-five, and he was thirty-seven. Time hadn’t stopped for us.

“What if I did come home? Where would we be, then?”

I opened my mouth to answer.

“Ben Hartley, how’s it going?” Someone from the church softball team clapped Ben on the back. They chatted for a few minutes as I scanned the area. I thought I saw a man with a goatee at the far corner. Mike. My pulse pounded. Just thinking about talking to him was like planning to give a bath to a Rottweiler.

“You ready to get those strawberries?” Ben turned back to me and touched my arm.

I nodded, and we headed for the corner where I thought I’d seen Mike standing behind a table full of red strawberries. He was stacking a fresh tray of green plastic baskets that brimmed with the red fruit. His right hand was wrapped in a bandage.

“Hi there, Mr. Chandler.”

A glimmer of a smile flashed across Mike’s face. “Call me Mike. Mr. Chandler’s my daddy.”

So far, so good. “Andi Clark. I, um, run the soap store in town.”

He gave us each a glance. “Ah, so that’s your place?”

“That’s right. I need a few of these.” I pointed to some of the strawberries.

“Good deal. I’ll probably have a couple more weeks of berries, then that’s it for the year.” He shrugged. “Should have a ton of watermelons, though, so stop back. Fourth of July’s not far off.”

“No, it’s not.” I looked at Ben, hoping he’d say something. Make some guy small talk. Anything. Fishing? I already knew how much he hated golf.

“So, how’s business?” Mike asked.

“It could be better,” I admitted. “All new businesses struggle at first, but I’m hoping things will pick up after this recent setback.”

“Yep, Charla Thacker’s been a setback to a lot of people.” Mike’s jaw tightened.

“She wasn’t responsible for what happened.” Since Ben was choosing to stay mum at the moment, I took matters into my own hands. “But I’m wondering if someone else was.”

“I call it poetic justice.” At his harsh tone, several passersby glanced at us and continued on their way.

“You seem pretty angry at her.”

“And her creep of a fiancé.”

“I saw Robert's face.” I decided to strike with my knowledge. “So why’d you hit him?”

Mike frowned. “Some people don’t deserve what they get. He didn’t. Not with all his money. He didn’t deserve her.”

I rubbed my forehead. “Mike, I don’t understand. She sued you for trying to poison her with strawberries last summer. I heard you say you would’ve liked to have seen her suffer. Yet you went and decked her fiancé.”

Mike’s eyes flashed. “He’s slime. I would have never done to Charla what he did. I might have a short fuse that burns fast, but I’m not a lying, two-faced cheat.”

“What did he do?” Maybe I was on to something about Robert not seeming as grief-stricken as he appeared.

“You know what? It’s not for me to say.” Mike blinked and stared at the baskets of strawberries.

And then I knew. “You still loved her, didn’t you?”

“They say you always hurt the one you love.” Mike’s brow furrowed. “She and I, we did. Maybe I did some stupid stunts, and maybe she was shallow, but I loved her.”

“What about killing someone?”

Mike placed both hands on the table and looked me straight in the eye. “Yeah, at one time I probably could’ve killed her.”

Chapter Ten

“After that lawsuit, I wanted her to suffer for almost putting me out of business. I had to take out a loan to float me through the rest of last summer, and I’ll be paying on that for another couple years. By that time she’ll be worm food. Ironic.”

The sounds of the market faded to nothing, and my pulse roared in my ears. My throat burned. While this information was nothing new, hearing him and seeing him say the words to my face was downright terrifying.

I felt Ben’s presence next to me. He slipped his arm around my waist. Despite our earlier prickly feelings, I had no doubt of his loyalty. I also understood a silent
I told you so
from him as I remembered the story he’d told me on the way over in the truck.

“So. . .how much for the strawberries?” I gestured to the tray, figuring I’d buy extra.

“On the house.” Mike waved off the money I held out. “It figures I should sympathize with you about Charla.”

“No, I couldn’t do that. You need paying customers, too.”

Mike straightened. “Before you run to the cops and claim I tried to kill her and succeeded at last, you ought to know something.”

“What’s that?”

“I wouldn’t have gone to all that trouble of trying to set up an allergy attack. I mean, c’mon. A shotgun would’ve been much simpler. That’s what I told ‘em last year when she tried to smear my name through town right before we broke up.”

A petite brunette approached from the direction of the main house and sidled up to him. Mike slid his arm around her and kissed her on the nose.

“Hey, sweetie.” Mike’s throat bobbed, and he shot me a look that screamed the conversation was over. “We having lunch in a while?”

“Yup, I’m driving over to Honey’s for some box lunches.” She smiled at us. “Hi, y’all.”

“Hi.” I picked up my strawberries. “You two have a great day.”

Ben and I trudged from the open-air market. “Now that was interesting.” I kept replaying Mike’s words in my mind. We found Ben’s truck, and he popped our produce onto the seat between us.

“I’ll say.”

I climbed into the truck. Mike’s mood puzzled me. Anger, betrayal, rage, revenge. His demeanor rang out that he still loved her, but he wanted her to suffer for dumping him, for hurting his business. Mike’s rage at Robert also had me baffled. I mentally crossed him off our suspect list. . .for now.

It only made sense that he wouldn’t have gone through the subterfuge of sabotage. If he was forthright enough to confront Robert physically, he’d have done the same with Charla. When he said he’d have shot her if he really wanted her dead, I believed him.

Ben fired up my charcoal grill outside while I sliced freshly washed strawberries for shortcake in my kitchen. We’d stopped at the grocery store after the farmer’s market and picked up some rib eyes which were now marinating in the fridge. Ben came inside and swiped a berry from the basket before I could slap his hand away.

“You know, while I was on the road, I listened to a late-night radio talk show about murderers and serial killers,” Ben said.

“That’s a creepy choice for late-night listening.” I looked at him and shuddered. “And you out there on the road by yourself.” It wasn’t like Ben couldn’t hold his own in a fight—not that he’d ever had to. His burly stance was usually enough to intimidate some people. “Didn’t bother me. But I remember an interesting comment the profiler made. About the killer’s gender and MO.”

Why didn’t he just come out and say it? I dumped a handful of sugar over the strawberries and stirred. “And, what’s that?”

“Female killers tend to use poisons. It sounds like something a woman would do, spiking your scrub with strawberries.” He poured us each a tall glass of tea.

I handed him the foil-wrapped bundle of salted onions and butter to place on the grill. “You think?”

“Really. What guy would go to all the trouble of messing with your face cream? I don’t even know what you do with that stuff half the time.” Ben set his glass of tea down on the counter. “Now a woman? A woman would pull a mean stunt like that.”

“Oh, that’s a low blow. So you’re saying men believe in swift vengeance?” I slung a damp dish towel in Ben’s direction, which he caught with one hand as he grinned. He carried the onion packet outside to the grill on the back patio, and I brought my glass of iced tea outside with me.

“Seriously.” Ben lifted the lid and laid the packet on the grill. “A guy wouldn’t go through the hassle of doing something he wouldn’t be sure worked and that he probably wouldn’t see. You said Mike mentioned he’d have liked to have seen Charla suffer. What guy would know about the party, or even care? Except for Charla’s fiancé.”

“You’ve got a point.” I set my tea on the patio table and sank onto a lawn chair. Ben took the one opposite mine. “I feel so silly. I practically tried to drag a confession out of Mike. I almost feel like I should apologize to him or something.”

“You want answers. No one can blame you for that. I’ve gotta admit it sounded crazy, but the more I think about it, you might be on to something—about her death being no accident.”

“I’m glad you’re on my side.” My heart beat faster at the idea that Ben believed in me. After all his pooh- poohing the idea of someone trying to kill Charla, this felt like a major breakthrough. I had to get some evidence, though, something to bring to Jerry, since obviously the man’s hands were full.