5 Merry Market Murder Read online

  The Great Seal of the State of South Carolina was adopted in 1776. The seal is made up of two elliptical areas, linked by branches of the palmetto tree. The image on the left is dominated by a tall palmetto tree and another tree, fallen and broken. This scene represents the battle fought on June 28, 1776, between defenders of the unfinished fort on Sullivan’s Island, and the British Fleet. The standing tree represents the victorious defenders, and the fallen tree is the British Fleet. Banded together on the palmetto with the motto “Quis separabit?” (“Who will separate us?”) are twelve spears that represent the first twelve states of the Union. Surrounding the image, at the top, is “South Carolina,” and below, is “Animis Opibusque Parati,” or “Prepared in Mind and Resources.” The other image on the seal depicts a woman walking along a shore that is littered with weapons. The woman, symbolizing Hope, grasps a branch of laurel as the sun rises behind her. Below her image is the word “Spes,” or “Hope,” and over the image is the motto “Dum Spiro Spero,” or “While I Breathe I Hope.”

  I looked up at Linda and said, “I would not have thought that learning that would ever be a priority, but it is interesting . . . in a high school history class sort of way. What in the world is it doing on an onion decorated as an ornament and then placed on a table in my stall? There was something else in my truck yesterday, too.” I told her about the egg.

  “Dunno. Maybe it’s something Sam’s doing? A . . . cute, but admittedly odd, way of celebrating your first Christmas together as a couple?”

  “I don’t think so, but maybe, I suppose.” Sam wasn’t the cutesy type, but as well as I thought I knew him, there was always the potential for surprises.

  “Excuse me, Becs, I’ve got a customer. I’ll try to think if I saw someone being sneaky, but I don’t think I did.” Linda patted my arm supportively, but then turned to the sudden line growing outside her stall.

  I nodded absently and then turned my attention back to the onion.

  “I don’t know what to do except just ask people. I don’t have a line at the moment. Shall we venture out?” I said to Hobbit, who agreed wholeheartedly. I knew this because she stood up, wagged her tail, and panted.

  I put a sign on my table that I’d return shortly, and we stepped around it and made a quick beeline to Bo’s onion stall. He was currently the only onion vendor at the market. Because of the weather and his inordinately fertile land, he was able to grow and then, in turn, sell onions almost all year long.

  Hobbit and I stayed back a couple steps as Bo finished with a young boy who held a piece of paper in his fist. I recognized what I was seeing: his parents had sent him in with a list. Bo double-checked the piece of paper and then smiled at me as he handed the boy some change. We’d become pretty good friends over the last few months, mostly because his mother and my mother had reignited their high school friendship, which had resulted in dinners and picnics that included both families, lots of laughter, and stories about our mother that Allison and I weren’t sure we needed to know.

  Bo was a big guy whose wardrobe choices were similar to mine. We both enjoyed overalls, though I’d never seen him in the short-pants variety.

  “Hey, Becca; hey, Hobbit. How’s your business? Mine’s been pretty darn good, especially for December,” he said happily when he was finished with the transaction.

  “Great, really. It’ll be one of our best Decembers ever, I think.”

  “What do you have there?” he asked as he looked at the odd onion I held.

  “I found it in my stall. It looks like someone turned an onion into a Christmas ornament, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ll be,” he said as he took it from my hand. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a thing. Can’t say it’s an attractive way to use an onion, but I do think it’s creative. Who’d you say made it?”

  “I don’t know. It was on my side table. I’d like to find whoever did it, though. I’m curious.”

  Bo laughed. “You are the curious type.” He handed me back the ornament. “It’s a plain white onion. I’ve sold a number of them today. And yesterday, the day before, and so on. Sometimes I remember who I sell specific onions to, particularly if the customer is picky and they take their time going through them all, but this one, pre-decoration, doesn’t stand out.”

  I turned the onion and tried to come up with another question, but I was blank.

  “What’s that circle?” Bo asked.

  “It’s South Carolina’s state seal.”

  “Oh, sure, of course it is. You know . . .” he began. He rubbed his chin.

  “What?”

  “I’ve seen that recently, today or yesterday. I didn’t realize it, but now that I see it again and know what it is, I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere else.”

  “Here, at Bailey’s?”

  “I don’t know. Shoot, I could have seen it on something official, something that it belongs on, but I didn’t pay it any attention until now. I’ll think about it and let you know if I remember. I’m kind of curious, too. I’d like to know who’s so darn creative, particularly if it’s with one of my onions.”

  “Thanks.” I thought hard about what I could say that might help him remember more. “Has Sam bought any onions in the last couple days?”

  “No.” Bo shook his head.

  “What about vendors? Who’s bought from you today and yesterday, if you can remember?” Something told me my Secret Santa was someone I knew, someone who worked at Bailey’s. Even a frequent customer didn’t make much sense. The personal touch, no matter what it might mean, might help me figure out if I knew the ornament artist.

  “Gosh, let’s see.” Bo rubbed his chin again. “Brenton bought something—just one onion, but I can’t remember if it was yellow or white. He buys onions one at a time all the time—though he switches up what kind. Allison bought a whole bunch of them, all kinds again. Oh, and that tree guy, the one who looks like Santa, bought a bunch of white ones. I think that’s about it.”

  Brenton, Allison, and Denny. I didn’t see any of them taking the time to create ornaments from eggs or onions, though they were all possible covert artists. But why? And, it was possible that the egg had been stolen from Jeannine’s stall. If so, maybe the onion had been stolen, too.

  “Bo, do you count your inventory every day?” I asked.

  “Gosh, no, I do everything by weight and it’s just an estimated weight at that. I haven’t used a scale in years. I can pick up a bag of onions and know what it weighs. I’m pretty close to accurate.”

  I didn’t keep a close inventory, either, but I knew how many jars fit into each box and it was pretty easy to have a good daily guesstimate. Neither Bo nor I was meticulous like Jeannine, and we never would be.

  “Thanks, Bo. I’d love to know if you remember where else you saw the seal.”

  “Sure. I’ll call you if it comes to me.”

  Hobbit and I walked away from Bo’s stall with no real next destination in mind. When that happens, I usually just roam, which eventually leads me to my sister’s office. I caught her in the aisle, just as she was hurrying back to it.

  “Hey, sis. Hey, girl,” she said as she reached down and patted Hobbit’s head. “I’ve got to make a quick call. Come with me.”

  I sat in the same chair I’d sat in the day before, and Hobbit found a space next to me that she could fit herself into. Allison’s office was small, but today almost all the available extra space was taken up with boxes of flyers.

  “They were supposed to go to the post office. They’re our mail piece to announce the Ridgeway Farm trees. The printer messed up and sent them here. That’s who I have to call. Give me just a few minutes.”

  Allison used her firm but friendly voice to inform the printer of their mistake. From the side of the conversation that I heard, I thought they might be trying to place the blame on her, but she managed to remind them of the initial agreement
, an agreement that had been written and then signed. As was usual, she handled the problem perfectly.

  When she hung up the phone, I held up the onion.

  She blinked and said, “That’s . . . interesting.”

  “I know. It’s, as far as I know, the world’s first onion Christmas ornament.”

  “Me, too. I have never seen another one like it. Did you make it?”

  “No, someone left it in my stall today. Someone left an eggshell ornament in my truck yesterday, too, with the number 1987 written on it. I’m assuming it’s the same person.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “There’s the mystery.”

  “Let me see.”

  I handed it to Allison and she turned it every direction. “It’s the South Carolina state seal.”

  “It is.”

  “You have a proud South Carolinian admirer.”

  “Or something else.”

  “Like?”

  “I think someone is trying to communicate something to me other than Season’s Greetings. These are the pieces to some sort of puzzle.”

  “A puzzle to where the real gift is hidden, maybe? That’s a cute idea.”

  “Or . . . well, there was a murder here.”

  “Clues to the killer?” Allison asked.

  “That’s pretty far-fetched, isn’t it?”

  “I think so. But maybe we can work to figure out the clues before we jump to conclusions. My interpretation is that something happened in South Carolina in 1987 and that something will lead you somewhere that’s important to the ornaments, or their creator. That’ll take some research.”

  “I’ll look into it.”

  She handed me the onion. “Did you discuss this with Sam?”

  “Not yet. He only knows about the egg.”

  “Talk to him. Maybe his police officer eyes and instincts will see things we aren’t trained to see.”

  “I will.”

  Changing the subject, Allison said, “Sam released Brenton quickly yesterday. I tried to talk to Brenton again this morning, but he wasn’t in the mood. He wasn’t violent, but he also wasn’t interested in talking to me.”

  I’d been trying to somehow tie the ornaments to Brenton, but I couldn’t detect any real connection. Nevertheless, he was on my mind, too.

  “Me, either. He’s embarrassed. Sam said there was no real reason to arrest him and once he cooled down a little and Sam told Brenton that he shouldn’t behave the way he was behaving, Sam just wanted to let him go. He likes Brenton.”

  “Everyone likes Brenton. I wish I understood the history between him and the Ridgeways. I thought about asking Denny, but it feels like we as a market might have already been less-than-stellar hosts, and it might just be none of my business anyway,” Allison said.

  I’d thought about talking to Denny, too, but I’d been so busy that I hadn’t yet made the effort.

  “Did you know Brenton was once married?” I said.

  “Sure. I know his ex-wife—not well, but as well as anyone, I suppose.”

  “Who is she?”

  “You didn’t know that Brenton was once married to Stephanie Frugit?” Allison said.

  “As in Frugit Orchard, Stephanie Frugit?” I said as I sat up straight. How did I not know this?

  “It was a long time ago, but yes, the one and only Stephanie Frugit is Brenton’s ex-wife. She’s the one who told Brenton he should sell his dog biscuits here at Bailey’s. Of course, that was after she laughed at the idea of her orchard having a stall here.”

  The Frugit Orchard issue had occurred about ten years earlier. I remembered Allison’s anger at the way she felt she’d been treated by Stephanie when Allison suggested that a Frugit Orchard apple stall at the then up-and-coming Bailey’s would benefit everyone involved. Stephanie Frugit had laughed at the idea and had even been quoted as saying “That little Monson market would never be able to handle the popularity of a Frugit Orchard apple stand” to a newspaper reporter who was writing a story on Monson businesses.

  The worst part of the entire episode was that the apples were delicious, probably some of the best I’d ever eaten. I knew that Linda only purchased Frugit Orchard apples. They were easy to find; they were sold in most South Carolina grocery stores, and they were the number-one apple brand sold by all the local produce wholesalers. They were almost everywhere, except at Bailey’s. Over the years as Bailey’s had grown, I’d sometimes wondered if Stephanie Frugit might reconsider and set up at stall at the market. But knowing what I knew of her stubborn and way-too-proud reputation, I thought it unlikely.

  “No matter how hard I try to create that picture in my mind, I can’t imagine Brenton married to Stephanie Frugit. In fact, from what I know about them both, I can’t even imagine them liking each other,” I said.

  “Their marriage ended badly, I hear.” Allison winced; she didn’t like to gossip.

  “When Brenton was freaking out yesterday, Barry said he was going to call Brenton’s ex-wife,” I said, as I wondered if Barry truly had made that call and what the result had been.

  Allison shrugged. “Sometimes time passing can help. You and Scott seemed to get along fine recently.”

  The Scott she was speaking of was my second ex-husband. The other had been named Scott as well. I’d run into Scott the Second at a local fair and festival.

  “Well, mostly,” I said. I sat back again. “What do you know about Reggie Stuckey?”

  “Until a couple days ago, I didn’t know anything about him. His arrival was a mystery, his death a tragic mystery. I’d never heard of him or his trees until they both showed up here this week.”

  I told her about my time with Gellie and the new information I’d gleaned.

  “But Allison, the one big thing I came away from Gellie with was this: Remember when Reggie said he was going to call his ‘gal’ and have her fax over the contract?”

  “Sure. It arrived shortly thereafter.”

  “There were no ‘gals,’ no office personnel. There was Gellie and someone named Patricia Archer, who helped with the trees. Gellie didn’t know anything about sending a fax to you or anyone else, for that matter. I didn’t meet Patricia Archer, but Gellie said she’d never seen her come into the house.”

  “That could mean nothing. Maybe he just used the word gal because it sounded right to him. Maybe he didn’t want to say that he’d have his ‘guy’ fax over the contract. Some people are funny about those sorts of things.”

  “But the only guy is Patricia’s husband, Joel, and he helps with the trees, too. I doubt it, but I suppose it’s possible.” I wished I’d thought to ask Gellie if Reggie had an office in the house and if I could look at it.

  “The mystery of Reggie Stuckey only continues to grow,” Allison said.

  I sighed, but had nothing more to add, so Hobbit, the onion, and I headed back to my stall and watched for suspicious-looking people bearing strange homemade farmers’ market ornaments.

  No one stood out.

  Ten

  Mid-afternoon, I put my again-empty boxes and Hobbit into the truck and rode the bumpy back load/unload path out of the market and toward the highway. There had been no new ornaments to add to the collection, either in my stall or my truck. Linda said she didn’t think she had seen anyone acting strangely or suspiciously around my stall, though it had been so busy she couldn’t be certain.

  I pulled the truck around to the front parking lot and stopped on the edge of the lot between Allison’s office and the Ridgeway setup. The Stuckey truck had been removed earlier though I hadn’t witnessed its departure.

  Denny was tending to some of his corralled trees—it looked like he was fanning their limbs and making sure none of them were being unduly crushed. His tree adjustments reminded me of my pumpkin adjustments. It was important to move growing pumpkins and their vines every now and t
hen so the gourds wouldn’t end up with a flat side or some other misshape.

  Billie and Ned were closer to the truck than the tree corral and were sitting in facing chairs, but they acted as if they weren’t aware of each other. Billie concentrated on one of her fingernails and Ned was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees as he thumbed something on his phone.

  “Stay here, girl,” I said to Hobbit as I put the truck into park and turned off the engine. I had a sudden desire to see if I could get some questions answered.

  “Becca, hello!” Denny said happily as I walked toward the corral. The two seated siblings sat up a little straighter and returned my smile and wave.

  “Hi,” I said as Denny remained behind the low rope of the corral. “How are you all doing? Comfortable?”

  “I think we’re fine. We’ve already sold more trees than I anticipated,” Denny said. “The Stuckey tragedy didn’t disrupt Bailey’s business much, if at all.”

  Gone was the tenderness I thought I’d witnessed when we found Reggie’s body and shortly thereafter, but Denny was correct. Bailey’s business hadn’t suffered. Briefly, I wondered what would have happened if the legendary Denny had been the murder victim instead of the much- lesser-known Reggie.

  “No, it didn’t. I didn’t know much about Reggie. Did he have a family?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” Denny said, but a twitch pulled at the corner of his mouth. I knew this because the twitch stretched through his beard.

  “You must have known each other a little, being in the same business and all.”

  “We did. We hadn’t had many dealings for the last few years, but there was a time . . . oh, I suppose that’s not important now.”

  “You were close?”

  Denny waved off the question.