06 Bushel Full of Murder Page 9

  “Okay,” I continued. “What about Betsy? Did you ever talk to her? Did you know she left the market?”

  “I did know she left. Allison called me,” Sam said. “We haven’t talked to Betsy, but . . . well, we think she had an alibi that we’ve confirmed via a third party. She drove up to the Smithfield market early this morning and talked to the manager there. It was thanks to Allison that we even talked to Smithfield. She didn’t think Betsy would want to give up a market business and she thought Betsy might try Smithfield. That’s exactly what she did, before she left the note at Bailey’s.”

  “Really? Why would she want to leave Bailey’s for Smithfield? I mean, it’s a great market, but I don’t understand.”

  “I think Allison would like to have that answer, too. And we still want to talk to Betsy, but she isn’t a priority at this point.”

  Sam looked pointedly at Harry and seemed to contemplate his next words, but I didn’t think it was because he was concerned about saying something he shouldn’t in front of the other police officer. He just liked to think before he spoke. I needed more of that in me.

  “Becca, I’ll tell you our theory of the order of events from this morning, if you’d like to know them. You might better understand why we’re talking to who we’re talking to,” Sam said.

  I scooted my plate back on the table and leaned on my elbows. I wanted to give Sam my full and undivided attention. I couldn’t believe he was offering to share the information, but I tried to hide my surprise and just look matter-of-fact. “Please.”

  “Right.” He’d scooted his chair back from the table. He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “We got the call early this morning, but you knew that part. The call came from Mr. Lyle Manner, an employee at the bank. He found Mr. Robert Ship’s body in the parking lot behind the bank.”

  I interrupted, but I couldn’t help myself. “Sam, the whole bankers’ hours joke is kind of based in fact. I’ve never known bankers to get to work early. I’m sure it was just plain weird that Mr. Ship was at the bank in the first place, but what was Mr. Manner doing there so early?”

  “Good question, Becca,” Harry said.

  “Very good.” Sam smiled, but only a little. “Yes, they were both there, and both starting their workdays early. Mr. Manner was there to meet your cousin, Peyton.” Sam paused and studied me a moment, but then continued. “We’re trying to understand the details better, but she claims not to have had a bank account set up in Arizona. It’s strange because that’s practically impossible to do these days, but we’re looking into it, and though the crimes here and the crimes in Arizona aren’t necessarily tied together, that bit of news did interest Harry.”

  “Right,” I said to Harry. “You mentioned that there was no way to figure out where Peyton got the money for her truck, that it didn’t show up on paper until it appeared in the truck seller’s account.”

  “That’s right. Peyton has a personal account, but I never found a business account. To repeat what Sam said, that’s a pretty hard thing to do these days, have a business without a business account.”

  “Nevertheless,” Sam continued, “Lyle Manner agreed to meet Peyton early to discuss setting up an account. She requested the early time, and he agreed. She was waiting for him, sitting on the curb on one side of the bank’s back parking lot. It wasn’t until they were at the back door together—Manner and Peyton—that Manner saw Ship’s body off to the left behind a Dumpster. We’re not sure why Mr. Ship was at the bank. We hope to find out.”

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “Right,” Sam said.

  “Peyton was there alone with the body for a while?”

  “It appears that way at this time.”

  “How was he killed?

  “Blunt object, we think an industrial pipe of some sort, to the head, but we don’t have the object. The area was searched thoroughly.”

  “All right.” I sat back in the chair, and tried not to look deflated. “So wrong place, wrong time for Peyton, right?”

  “That’s a possibility . . . ,” Sam said. He looked at Harry, who pinched his lips into an even tighter line.

  “What?” I said.

  “Manner overheard an argument between Peyton and Ship the day before in the Bailey’s parking lot. Peyton was upset and had some harsh works for Mr. Ship.”

  “I witnessed what might be considered an argument between Peyton and Mr. Manner, but I didn’t see the one with Mr. Ship,” I said. “And was it harsh enough to sound like she was threatening murder?”

  “Possibly. But you need to know that Peyton denies saying anything threatening to anyone. She told us that she was just trying to explain to Mr. Ship that she didn’t think that the food trucks needed temporary licenses, that when she set up her business in Arizona, she educated herself on the business laws. In fact, she went on to tell me that she even thought of moving her truck to Nevada because sales tax laws are different and beneficial to business owners there.”

  I nodded. Would it be like Peyton to educate herself on pertinent laws? I had no idea. I knew the young, free-spirited, searching-for-herself Peyton, not the slightly older business-owner Peyton.

  “I heard that Betsy and Mr. Ship also argued. I don’t want to try to make Betsy look guilty even with an alibi, but it makes me wonder if Mr. Ship was just the argumentative type. Or is there any chance Mr. Manner is mistaking the women in the arguments? Even though they look nothing at all alike.”

  “It’s a possibility, Becca. We’re looking more deeply at some of the things your questions bring up.”

  “Dang, I wish I knew what Betsy and Mr. Ship argued about.”

  “Us, too.”

  “Seems so . . . out of proportion, I guess. Why would Betsy leave Bailey’s and in such a dramatic way? What about Jeff, the potato cart vendor? You were looking for him, right? I think that’s what Allison told me.”

  “We were looking for him, but that was only because Mr. Manner told us we might want to talk to him. We weren’t given any more information than that. We don’t know why Manner sent us that direction. We have not spoken with him yet, though we tried to stop by his house, too.”

  “Has he left town?”

  “We’re not jumping to any conclusions regarding Jeff. There is no evidence at all that he had anything to do with the murder.”

  “Again, I don’t want to point a finger at someone when it comes to murder, but you should probably know what Jeff and I discussed the day before Mr. Ship was killed.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Me, too,” Harry said.

  I told them the details of the conversation between Jeff and me. Sam tried not to roll his eyes regarding Jeff’s insistence that he didn’t need a business license, and he muttered something about how easy it would have been for Mr. Ship just to come talk to the police and they would have been happy to talk to Jeff about his incorrect interpretation of the local licensing laws. Sam took a couple notes and then excused himself inside to make a call. Harry and Hobbit went for a quick walk around my crops and I was left alone with my thoughts. My musings didn’t clear up any of the questions by the time we were all gathered on the porch again.

  We spent the rest of the evening talking mostly about things that had nothing to do with criminal behavior or police duty. We talked about farming and canning and families. The friendship I’d seen growing between Sam and Harry flourished as we talked and laughed. Again, I was glad Harry was in town and that Sam had the chance to know him, even if I was sorry for the reason.

  Fleetingly, and throughout the evening, the memory of Basha looking at Peyton’s truck flashed through my mind, but I didn’t bring it up. I thought I might tell Sam about it after Harry left, but by the time the evening was over and I’d prepared my inventory for the next day, Sam, Hobbit, and I were too tired to do anything except fall fast asleep.

  Nine

  I hadn’t planned on the next morning’s diversion. I was surprised by it, in fact. As I steered my t
ruck toward Monson and Bailey’s, I felt a pull that made me turn left at an intersection where I would normally turn right. I just couldn’t fight it.

  Some of the city’s government offices, including the police station where Sam worked, were located in an old, small, but stately brick building in the heart of downtown. But there was another office building across the street from the police station. It was a gray stone structure with two unassuming stories and three carved eagles perched atop its front facade. My parents had shown the eagles to Allison and me when we were little girls, and I hardly ever passed the building without looking up and remembering how my sister and I had been mesmerized by the sculptures.

  I parked the truck in front of the gray building and looked in the rearview mirror at Sam’s building. He was probably somewhere inside and would know what I was up to the second he saw my truck. But I had a pretty good story ready in case he came over and inquired.

  Mr. Ship’s business licensing office was in the gray building, but so was the driver’s license office. It just so happened that my driver’s license was set to expire next month. Normally I wouldn’t do anything about that until the month of expiration, but it never hurt to take care of something ahead of schedule every once in a while.

  Still glancing back over my shoulder toward the brick building, but not seeing any officer moving in or out of it, I jogged up the front steps of the gray building and went through the front doors.

  It was already steaming hot outside, and the cool burst of air that greeted me made me think I could find a way to adjust to an inside desk job. The comfort turned into a shiver of horror as I gave it another moment’s thought, so I figured I still wasn’t ready to sell the farm.

  The driver’s license office was through the first door on my left. I hesitated there briefly, but then moved down two more doors to the licensing division. I’d been there a few times myself, usually a day or so before my license expired. Mr. Ship might have helped me, but I didn’t remember him specifically, and there’d always been a few people working inside.

  The door to the office was all glass. I stood close to it and peered in. Behind the wide front counter, I saw two people, a man and a woman, both probably in their early to mid-twenties. They each sat behind a desk and were facing each other, but not looking at each other. The woman’s attention was on a piece of paper she held, and the man’s was on his computer screen. There was a door on the back wall that seemed to lead to another office, but the rest of the visible space was filled with worktables and too many file cabinets to count easily.

  As I pulled the door open, the two people looked up at me and then at each other and then back at me. I noticed that the woman’s eyes were puffy and rimmed in red as if she’d been crying, and the man’s face was tight with concern.

  “Hi, can we help you?” he said as he stood, signaling to the girl that he would handle this customer. She seemed relieved.

  “Sure. Thanks,” I said as I approached the counter. I could have just asked about the specifics of regulation 458-098, but it might be too abrupt and strange and misplaced, particularly if I wanted these two to take a quick liking to me so they’d willingly share answers to some of my other questions.

  “What can I do for you?” he said. He had a name tag pinned above his heart. It said, “Kyle.”

  “Hi, Kyle,” I said. “First of all, I heard about your co-worker and I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Kyle’s eyebrows came together as if his first instinct was to be suspicious of me, but he recovered quickly and said, “Thanks. It’s been quite the shock.”

  “I’m sure. My name is Becca Robins and I work at Bailey’s Farmers’ Market . . .”

  “I thought you looked familiar,” the woman said as she stood and joined us at the counter. “I get jam from you all the time. It’s delicious.”

  “Oh, of course, I recognize you. You normally wear a perfectly floppy straw hat when you’re shopping at the market. Thanks for your support of my jams and jellies.” Her name tag said, “Meg.”

  “You’re welcome, and yes, I’m the straw hat girl.” She smiled, though it didn’t reach her puffy eyes.

  I paused. “The reason I’m here is kind of weird and tied to Mr. Ship’s visit to the market two days ago. He was there because he was helping some visiting food truck chefs get their temporary business licenses in order, but while there he mentioned that a couple of the market’s regular vendors were delinquent on business licenses.”

  “He told us that when he came back in later that day,” Meg said. She cleared her throat. “He mentioned that a couple people would be in yesterday morning to talk to him but I don’t know who exactly. Maybe he meant today, though. Are you one of the ones that were delinquent?”

  “No,” I said. “But has anyone else from the market been in, either yesterday or today?”

  “No,” Kyle said. “Meg and I opened the office both yesterday and today like we always do. No Bailey’s folks have been in at all. We heard about Mr. Ship only a half an hour or so into yesterday morning when someone from the police stopped by—an Officer Norton.” He shook his head as if he thought he was either rambling or telling me too much, or maybe it was just still hard to believe that their boss had been killed.

  I knew Vivienne Norton was thorough, so if Sam had been surprised last night about the regulation issue, then Vivienne hadn’t known about it, either.

  “One of the delinquent vendors has a food cart at the market. I was the one to approach him to ask about his license. I was helping out the market manager.” I hoped that was enough to keep them listening. “Jeff, the cart vendor, mentioned that he didn’t need to have a license because of a certain regulation. He mentioned the number,” I pulled a piece of paper out of my pocket. “Regulation 458-098.”

  Meg and Kyle immediately knew what I was talking about. They both said “Oh” in that long, drawn-out way that made me know they were way too familiar with Jeff and his regulation.

  “Jeff, the man who sells baked potatoes?” Meg said.

  “Yes, that’s him.”

  “He was a thorn in Mr. Ship’s side since the moment he set up the cart. Mr. Ship was this close to filing a legal complaint against him. Well, he was patient for a long time, but basically Jeff’s been breaking the law by not having a business license,” Kyle said.

  “Really?” I said. “Is there any chance you can show me the regulation?”

  “Sure.” Meg moved back to her desk. “Come through and you can read it on my screen. I’ll print it out for you, too.”

  Kyle lifted a hinged counter panel so I could walk through. He scooted a chair over to the spot behind Meg. I sat in it as he stood behind her on her other side.

  Meg manipulated her keyboard and mouse, and in only a few seconds a PDF page filled her screen.

  “This is direct from the book of regulations. It’s the law. It’s just a short few sentences that could maybe be interpreted to mean that carts don’t need business licenses, but it’s a pretty big stretch. There, right there.” She put the curser next to the regulation number.

  It said, “458-098—Pursuant to resolution 124B of the Monson City Code, it is deemed that carts (see definition under section 13B) used to cook, bake, or warm food items meant for sale to the public must be inspected by city and/or county food inspectors on a regular basis. The results of the inspections are used to determine the validity of the food cart’s business standing.”

  That was it.

  “So Jeff was saying that that was the only means for determining his business’s legal and good standing?” Basically, he was just being a jerk, but I didn’t say that part out loud.

  “Exactly. And he dug his heels in big time,” Meg said.

  “Why didn’t Mr. Ship file a legal complaint sooner? I mean, other regulations surely must overrule this regulation, right?”

  “Right,” Meg said.

  “It’s Monson and we’re nice people,” Kyle chimed in. “Mr. Ship was great with the business o
ffice here, Becca, but he was also willing to help people out if they needed it.” I’d turned my head toward Kyle as he spoke, so I didn’t miss the looks that he and Meg gave each other, as if to say they knew that Mr. Ship had been way too accommodating with far too many people. The only thing missing from their shared glance was an eye roll. But Kyle continued, “At first he wondered if Jeff might have a point, but when he researched it, he realized that even carts need business licenses. It was all ridiculous, and I thought Jeff was just trying to get away with something as a matter of ego.”

  Or he was just being a jerk, but again I didn’t say it out loud.

  “Got it,” I said.

  I really didn’t get it, though. Why wouldn’t Jeff just get a license? They weren’t expensive. Was it merely the “jerk” factor? Why pick that to be a jerk about?

  “When I first got my business license, I had to answer a bunch of questions regarding whether or not I’d been in any legal trouble and if so what the nature of it had been. I haven’t had to answer those questions when I’ve simply renewed, so I don’t remember what they were,” I said.

  “Here’s the application.” Kyle stepped around us and moved to the front counter again. He pulled a piece of paper off a stack and returned it to me.

  It was the uniform business license application. The questions were pretty basic and close to what I remembered regarding the applicant’s past possible legal issues. Things like, have you ever been convicted of a felony? Have you ever been sued? Have you ever been in arrears on child support payments?

  Perhaps Jeff had some legal problems he didn’t want to come to light?

  Or he was just being a jerk.

  “Can I ask you about another business?” I said.

  “Business licenses are public information,” Kyle said. “But I suppose the only information we have is if the license is current or not.”

  “Betsy’s Tomatoes. I think that’s what she calls it.”

  Meg maneuvered the keyboard and mouse again. “Right here. Yes, it . . . oh, nope, the license expired just last month so it’s showing past-due, but we give a thirty-day leeway, so it’s in a ‘pending’ file.”