A Slaying in the Orchard Read online

  I left the Dangerous Duelers' ship and headed for what I expected to be a bigger problem with little in the way of possible rewards: the stall at the farthest end of the market, the last one before the site became too rocky and steep to set up a canopy. The space was supposed to be unoccupied, as it had been since the end of the Independence Day weekend when I'd reassigned the vendor there to a more visible spot that had been vacant due to the death of the flower seller. I'd been working all summer to find a new vendor for the only empty spot, preferably a beekeeper, since quite a few people had been asking about a source for local honey. Unfortunately, I hadn't found one yet. The best I could do in the meantime was to make sure that all the spaces in the front were occupied, with the empty one tucked away at the back where it wouldn't make the market look like it had fallen on hard times.

  Where that far-back stall had at one time featured a display of pears and cider beneath a hand-carved sign that read Pear Stirpes Orchard, there was now a printed purple and white trade show–style banner with the name of an educational toy company above pictures of kids happily playing with the products. It was at least three feet wide by seven feet high and would have looked more natural in an indoor setting like a conference center than outdoors on grass. Next to and in front of the banner, partially blocking the stone steps up to the lighthouse, were three purple child-sized tables with matching chairs.

  Beneath the canopy was a brawny man wearing khaki pants with a loose soccer shirt in the distinctive purple and white of the local varsity teams. I'd seen him earlier, when he'd been unloading his handcart in his assigned spot—down near the first aid tent—and he'd introduced himself as Keith Nettles. I'd noticed then that the color of his shirt wasn't a random choice. It was official Danger Cove High School gear, with the school's name and logo printed on the left chest area. The shirt looked new, although as a man in his thirties, he couldn't possibly be a student there. He could be a coach, I supposed, since he had the muscular build of someone with a strong commitment to exercise. I couldn't see if anything was printed on the back of the shirt to explain his connection with the school, because he wore a matching purple backpack, again with the high school's name printed on it. If he was a coach, it would certainly explain how he'd had the political connections to get a space at the market after I'd rejected his application.

  Now Keith was bent over a plastic bin, unpacking samples of his company's line of educational toys. He set each one down on the children's tables with more force than necessary, as if he was angry and taking it out on his own products. It didn't seem like an ideal attitude for someone who was marketing to parents of young kids, but presumably he'd do a better job of being pleasant once he was fully set up and making his sales pitches. Some people didn't like to waste energy on an upbeat, positive attitude with noncustomers, and he had plenty of reasons to be less than cheerful at the moment. No one enjoyed doing the setup, especially if it was rushed because of a change of location. Plus, it was hotter than expected for early September, not the greatest weather for engaging in the heavy labor of lugging around the furniture and inventory bins. He wasn't going to be happy to hear that he had to move them all over again.

  "Excuse me," I said. "This isn't your assigned space."

  He turned to face me, holding an obviously used infant's version of a smartphone, complete with a touch screen and pretend apps. "I noticed no one was using it, and I didn't think it would be a big deal if I stepped in."

  "I'm afraid it is though." I wouldn't have cared if any of the regular vendors had decided to swap spaces, but Keith was not only a nonregular, but he was also someone who didn't meet any of the requirements for space in the farmers' market itself. It was worrisome enough that he was associated with the market at all, but I was determined to make sure that everything within the official canopies was grown in Danger Cove or produced by hand here, like the wooden bowls and relief sculptures of WoodWell across the path, or the yarns of Snazzy-Jazzy Fibers. This man was selling mass-produced educational toys, clearly not made by hand and unlikely to have been manufactured in Danger Cove. As far as I knew, there weren't any factories capable of mass-producing plastic products here in town.

  Still, Keith had connections with the mayor's office, so it wouldn't be wise to provoke him, no matter how much he tried my limited patience. "If you need help moving things back to your assigned spot outside the main market, I can get my assistant to lend you a hand."

  "It's too hot over there," he said testily. "It shouldn't be this tropical on a Labor Day weekend, and I was expecting a nice breeze from the ocean to keep things comfortable. You should have warned me to bring something to block the sun a bit."

  The farmers' market was located next to the cove the town was named for, on a triangular bit of land that rose to a cliff where the lighthouse had once warned sailors of dangerous waters. On the other side of the market, away from the cove and beyond the historical garden, was Two Mile Beach. Both the cove and the beach undoubtedly benefited from ocean breezes even on unseasonably warm days like today, but nestled as we were on the side of the cliff away from the water, the wind currents mostly missed us.

  It was incredibly tempting to quote the patron saint of financial planning, Benjamin Franklin, who once said, "By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail," but I'd learned over the years that it was a saying that only other financial planners really appreciated. My clients had certainly never thanked me for that particular bit of advice. In any event, it was too late now for Keith to do any useful preparation.

  I refrained from lecturing and simply said, "There's a place here in town called One Man's Trash. It sells canopies. Tucker would probably even deliver and set it up if you ask nicely. I've got his number in my contacts, if you'd like it."

  Keith crossed his arms over his chest, clearly indicating he had no intention of moving. "I'm not spending any more money than I already have on this rinky-dink little market. I'd been told it was going to be the next big thing in destination shopping, or I wouldn't have bothered. You should be glad I'm here, giving people a reason to check the place out. I don't understand why you're making it more difficult for me to work."

  I should have known he wouldn't feel obliged to follow any of the market rules. It didn't help that my authority had previously been undermined by the town officials who'd overruled my decision to deny Keith's application. He wasn't likely to care about any orders I gave him now.

  I had backup, of course. I'd seen the senior officer Fred Fields and rookie Richie Faria, along with a few of their colleagues, patrolling the area earlier. The regular Saturday market days generally hadn't required any police intervention, but for holiday weekends like this one, the police chief had decided that the expanded activities and corresponding increase in attendance called for some extra supervision. I hadn't tried to change his mind. Fred Fields was good with people, and after what had happened over the Independence Day weekend, I was grateful for the increased police presence.

  The officers would evict Keith from the stall he'd misappropriated if I asked, but I preferred not to involve them. Keith's political connections might make matters awkward for the responding officer. I also worried that it would undermine my authority with other more long-term vendors if they noticed I couldn't handle this on my own. I would be the first to admit that I had a lot to learn about my new job, but I tried not to give other people reasons to point out my inexperience. It wasn't easy to keep a low profile in a small town, especially when, as my mother had gloomily warned me would happen, everyone was watching to see if I would live up to the reputation of my legendary great-great-great-grandmother.

  Normally, I dismissed my mother's negativity toward Danger Cove. She had found the small town a stifling place to live, but she and I were very different, and I found the place charming. Nevertheless, there were a few people here who made me realize that my melodramatic mother had had some valid grounds for her complaints. The potato farmer, Jim Sweetwater, hadn't been one of the specifi
c people who'd caused her to flee to Seattle, but he embodied everything she hated about Danger Cove. He'd been born and raised here, as had his parents and grandparents, and he couldn't imagine living or working anywhere else. He was a middle-aged guidance counselor at the high school he'd once attended and was as fanatically supportive of everything local as the local teams' adolescent cheerleaders were.

  Even as I thought about Sweetwater, I caught a glimpse of him in his overalls and bow tie, stepping out from the shade of his canopy several spaces away and into the Memorial Walkway to watch my interaction with Keith. Now I really didn't want to involve the cops.

  In light of my audience, it was doubly important that I convince Keith to go back to his assigned space, more or less of his own volition. I couldn't remove him physically, and he didn't seem amenable to reason, so I'd have to resort to trickery.

  I glanced around as if I didn't want anyone to hear what I had to say and then took a step deeper beneath the canopy so I could lean in and whisper. "If you insist on staying here, there's something you need to know. The market's lawyer insists on it."

  I didn't have any qualms about invoking Merle Curtis, semiretired lawyer, owner of the Pear Stirpes Orchard and leading candidate for the role of my future significant other. He wasn't here yet, since he'd encountered problems of his own back at the orchard, but if he were here, he'd have backed me up with all of the considerable legalese at his control. I could have gotten him on the phone to deliver a verbal cease and desist to Keith, but I didn't want to bother Merle right now any more than I wanted to involve the police. With a little luck, some vaguely dire consequences would convince Keith to do the right thing.

  I continued, "Mr. Curtis said we could be sued if we didn't tell people about the defects in this particular section of the market before letting them use this space."

  Keith glanced around the space. It wasn't as large as most of the others, thanks to some rocky outcroppings that cut off one corner where we'd even had to shorten the leg of the canopy so it could be propped on a boulder instead of reaching all the way to the ground. Other than that, it did look much like the other spaces. Nothing noticeably scary or dangerous about it at all.

  "What could be so bad about a ten-foot-square piece of raw land?"

  "That's what I thought when I first saw it." I should have known Keith wouldn't be scared off easily. I was going to have to make up a story on the fly, and I was no good at winging things. Fortunately, I did have a mix of truth and fantasy to draw from, thanks to the time I'd spent at the historical museum this summer while getting to know the town. "Have you heard about Danger Cove's long history of pirates and smugglers?"

  "That's got nothing to do with this site," he said. "It belongs to the town, and it has forever. At least back to the construction of the lighthouse. I read about it on the town's website."

  "True, but the lighthouse isn't that old, and before that, the area was pretty wild. A perfect place for outlaws to hang out at night. It's been said that quite a few pirates died right in this spot, hunkered down by the boulders here when a rival gang claimed the top of the cliff for itself."

  "Are you telling me there are pirate ghosts in this space and I should be afraid of them?" Keith laughed. "I don't believe in ghosts."

  Neither did I, but I'd been hoping he would be susceptible to the sorts of stories told around campfires. I had a backup plan, though.

  "You might not believe in ghosts, but your customers do. Almost everyone in town does." That much was probably true, but I added some embellishments that I was certain mixed fact with a substantial amount of fiction. "They told me not to set up anything in this corner, and it took me ages to find someone who wasn't from around here to be willing to sell things from here. And now she's dead."

  Keith blinked, and I knew I had him. "You mean some foolish old woman had a heart attack and died of fright or something?"

  "Oh, no." This part I didn't have to make up from whole cloth. The victim hadn't actually been in this back corner of the market, but she was sadly real. And she had died. "Her body was found underneath a pile of audio equipment. You must have heard about it. It was in all the newspapers. Over the Independence Day weekend."

  "I did hear something about that," Keith said uncertainly.

  "So the thing is, if you do insist on staying here, you'll have to sign a release of liability." Judging from the look on his face, I was pretty sure he wasn't going to be sticking around the supposedly haunted spot for long, so I pretended to scroll through the apps on my phone for the nonexistent liability release form. "But I have to tell you, most of the locals are going to give this area a wide berth. You might not be afraid of the curse, but no one who lives here will let their children anywhere near it, no matter how enticing your toys are. So don't blame me if there isn't a good enough return on investment for your risk."

  I held my breath, waiting for his decision. If this didn't work, I was going to have to call in one of the patrol cops after all. I didn't care how connected Keith was politically. I was not allowing clearly mass-produced products inside the main market. Their presence would, almost all by itself, disqualify the Lighthouse Farmers' Market from consideration for one of the "best of" lists. A commitment to locally sourced products was one of the most important features for most of the judges.

  In my peripheral vision, I caught sight of Jim Sweetwater starting in my direction. He was going to ruin my bluff. Except just then, the tomato farmer, Tommy Fordham, wheeled his chair into the Memorial Walkway, gestured for the other man to come close, and then whispered something in his ear. I had no idea what they were talking about, but then again, neither did Keith. To an outsider, I thought it would look a lot like Jim Sweetwater was being warned off from going anywhere near the "cursed" stall.

  Keith uncrossed his arms and let his hands fall to his sides. "So what's the number for this hardware store that delivers canopies?"

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Maria Dolores! Maria Dolores!"

  There was only one person—other than my mother—who persisted in using my full name. That was especially true here, where everyone associated it with my great-great-great-grandmother. And if that wasn't enough to identify him, the sheer delighted enthusiasm in his tone would have done it.

  I turned to see my young assistant, Cary Baines, racing toward me. He held to an absolutely straight line from his starting point next to the first aid tent at the very beginning of the market to where I was standing outside the farthest stall on the opposite side of the path. His confidence that people would get out of his way as he raced along had an almost magical effect, as everyone did in fact move. I had a moment's concern as he approached Jim Sweetwater and Tommy Fordham in the middle of the Memorial Walkway, when I thought Cary was going to parkour over the wheelchair, but Sweetwater proved to have the reflexes of someone half his age and pulled the chair out of the way in the nick of time.

  Cary was in his early twenties, but he looked about twelve, and not just because everyone was starting to look young compared to my thirty-mumble-mumble. I thought Cary would probably still look twelve in another fifty years, thanks to his pale round freckled face and big ears. When I'd first met him a few weeks ago, I'd thought he looked like a puppet on strings, with skinny, wooden knobby-kneed legs sticking out of his loose shorts.

  He came to a stop in front of me. "Maria Dolores! I found you!"

  "You always find me," I said, aware that he was particularly proud of this skill. It was something I'd come to appreciate as well. He required very detailed and literal instructions, but once given an assignment, he would carry it out enthusiastically before reporting back to me. "Is there a problem?"

  "Jacob Taylor Perry is talking too much," Cary said. "The lady said I should find you."

  JT Perry was Merle's new employee, hired for his expertise with making beverages from the fruits of the orchard, and emphatically not for his social skills or salesmanship. He did bring in some customers with his appearance—he looked
like a member of a boy band, with his tousled blond hair, brilliant blue eyes, and baby-faced good looks—but then turned people away once he started talking. He'd been assigned to watch over the Pear Stirpes stall as a last resort today, since Merle had been detained at the orchard by Bud Ohlsen, one of Danger Cove's homicide detectives.

  I quickly gave Keith the number for One Man's Trash and left Cary behind to help with relocating the educational toys to the correct location while I hurried in the direction of Merle's space. It was located right next to the first aid tent, which marked the beginning of the official market area. The tent was twice the size of the stalls in both depth and width and also a few feet taller, so it cast a shadow on Merle's adjoining space. Two EMTs in uniform—the Baxter twins—stood outside the door flaps, flirting with every woman who passed by, regardless of her age. A couple of weeks ago I'd seen Dee Madison, the octogenarian president of the Danger Cove Quilt Guild, give them quite the verbal smackdown when they'd tried it with her, telling them she didn't have time for such nonsense, not when there was a quilt that needed to be finished by the end of the weekend.

  At the moment I was mostly relieved that the EMTs didn't have anything more important to do than loiter and flirt. If this weekend proceeded as smoothly as the last few regular market days, their skills wouldn't be in any significant demand. Later this afternoon there might be some cases of dehydration or other heat-related problems, since the weather was, as Keith had said, warmer than usual for early September. Tomorrow there might be a minor burn or two if people were foolish enough to get too close to the bonfires on Two Mile Beach, but that ought to be the full extent of the medical emergencies. Between the supplies I had stashed in my overstuffed sling bag and what was in the Baxter twins' medical kits, we were as prepared as we could be for anything that was likely to happen this weekend.