Murder Goes to Market Page 3

  It was Helen’s attempts to replicate her grandmother’s kimchi recipe that had formed the foundation of her business, and her determination that had driven it to grow, past the reluctance, and occasional outright hostility, that had greeted their products. (Since opening the shop, they had added some more Western-style pickles to the line, but if Helen was behind the counter, you were not getting out of there without at least trying a bite of something spicy and unfamiliar.) She wasn’t going to take kindly to an extended closure, if by “take kindly” you meant, “not try to break in and reopen it herself.”

  For the moment, though, she seemed subdued, looking from Claudia to the marketplace building and back again.

  “You think they’ll solve it right away?” she asked.

  “Sure they will,” said Claudia, who wasn’t sure. “I’ve heard most murders are done by someone close to the victim, so the police probably won’t have very far to look. I’ll stay in touch with them, and I’ll let you all know as soon as I get an idea of when we’re going to be able to reopen the marketplace. There can’t be much they can do in there, so with any luck it should be before the weekend.”

  Fortunately for Claudia, nobody present was taking notes. In the pantheon of famous last words, those should have been up there with “it doesn’t look that deep” and “hold my beer.”

  For the moment, her tenants seemed willing to take her at her word. The expressions on the faces around her ranged from Julie’s calm concern, through Robbie being uncertain and confused, and up to Helen who, for some reason, was looking deeply distressed. The last one was surprising to Claudia. Of everyone, the pickle business was the least likely to be affected by the delay, since even their shortest-lived products were good for weeks. But there was no question she was agitated, and Claudia didn’t know what she could say that would be helpful.

  “I don’t know what I can say that will be helpful,” she told them. “I’ll try to get more information from the police, and I’ll let you know as soon as I do. In the meantime, if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  No one seemed to be able to think of anything at the moment. After that, the group started to break up, as people pulled out their cell phones and got to work on alternative plans for their day. Claudia hung around until the last of the cars pulled away, then, with a sad look back at her marketplace with the police officer still standing guard at the door, she turned and headed for home.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Back in the cottage, Claudia tried to get some work done, but trying to focus on accounting spreadsheets right now was a battle she was never going to win. Finally, she gave up, fished one of the experimental empanadas out of the refrigerator, heated it up in the toaster oven, and took it outside to eat.

  A pair of plastic chairs and an unsteady card table made up her patio furniture, set next to the house on a concrete slab that might have seen better days, but even those hadn’t been that good. It would have been an unappealing spot, except for two things. One was that it was on the other side of the cottage from the marketplace, where she wouldn’t be tempted to try to watch what was going on and be drawn into useless speculation. (She could manage the speculation on her own just fine.) The other, and more generally applicable advantage was the view it did have, out over the bay and to the ocean beyond. Even when it was foggy it could be beautiful, with glimpses of water through the mist, and on a clear day like this one, when the overnight wind had blown the air clear, it was glorious.

  The hill on which the cottages and marketplace sat rose up above the bay, and it was connected to the wider world by a road that ran up from the two-lane highway that cut through the town. Following it took you past a scattering of houses mostly of the vacation-rental variety, a plaza with a laundromat, bar, and small grocery store, and a shockingly rickety pink building selling salt water taffy, then across the highway and down into San Elmo proper. Claudia could see it from where she was sitting, a patchwork of roofs clustered around the marina, punctuated by the neon seagull on the sign for The Lighthouse, the area’s one fine(ish) dining establishment. (Their chowder was actually quite good, but Claudia had learned to stay away from the more creative dishes. The sardine pad thai still haunted her.)

  The town itself was laid out in a loose grid across the flat land that hugged the edge of the bay, with a small commercial district running for about three blocks near the water, transitioning to modest residences that got progressively nicer and less likely to be occupied year-round as you traveled uphill. San Elmo Bay had had a few scattered heydays, leaving it with a comfortable jumble of architectural styles—a row of Victorian houses here, an art-deco theater turned bookstore there, a monstrosity of sixties church architecture that everyone wished wasn’t over there—all conspiring against the local civic boosters who longed for a cohesive postcard image.

  Claudia had always loved it, ever since she had come as a child with her parents, getting a scoop of strawberry ice cream and eating it while walking along the pier. She had still liked it as a sulky teen, when they had rented an A-frame house by the beach for a week every summer and she had discovered that she could climb out a window onto a gable roof and sit looking over the stubby pines to the sea. This had always been a place of retreat for her, and it was probably no surprise it was where she had turned to when she had needed somewhere to go.

  It hadn’t taken long to realize the difference between vacationing in a place and trying to make a life there, but even that hadn’t been so bad. Aside from a handful of old-timers, jealously guarding their status as the only true locals, most of the people in San Elmo were from somewhere else, washed up there when the tides of their own lives had turned one way or the other. It was the sort of place where, if you mentioned that you had left your city job to open a probably ill-advised business venture, you were generally met with an understanding nod and the story of the other person’s experiences with selling yarn paintings or training yoga goats. Rather than being greeted with the suspicion she had expected, Claudia found that, for the most part, she was just another of San Elmo’s seemingly endless supply of people who had never met a bad idea they didn’t like.

  Not that all was chaos and performing livestock. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Monday, and from where Claudia was sitting the town was so quiet it could have been modeling for a still life. A handful of boats bobbed in the marina, the remnants of the town’s long-gone commercial fishing fleet, now pressed into service for day-trippers looking to set Dungeness crab pots or cast a line for salmon, in their respective seasons. Past them, a thin spit of land curved around to form the sheltered part of the bay, and beyond that there was nothing but the Pacific, slate-green and endless. It was all so peaceful, exactly what had brought Claudia to this spot in the first place. Everything was going to be so much simpler here.

  Except it wasn’t, of course. She had sunk her whole life into a crazy business she knew nothing about, only to see it endangered by the last thing she had ever expected. Contrary to appearances, Claudia was not a fool. She knew there was plenty of risk involved in this venture, and a very real chance that she would be left to start over from scratch. But what she hadn’t considered was that she might take other people down with her. With the exception of the dead woman, every one of the vendors in that market was making do with the thinnest of margins, some probably on loans they shouldn’t have gotten. But they had taken a chance on her, and on themselves, and they didn’t deserve to have it taken away by whatever sort of lunatic had chosen her marketplace to murder Lori. Who, if you were talking about people who didn’t deserve things that happened to them, should probably be at the top of the list.

  Claudia had been deliberately avoiding thinking about finding the body, but her brain wouldn’t let go of the image for long. She kept coming back to the distended features of Lori’s face, and how much pain and terror she must have felt, and hoped that somehow it had been quicker than it seemed like it must have been.

  That memory sh
ould have been enough to shame Claudia out of worrying about her own problems, but questions kept intruding, like how long the police cars were going to be parked in front of the marketplace and what sort of sign she should put on the door if they were going to make her keep it closed. She was sitting there, contemplating her day and life so far, eating her second empanada and wondering if maybe that much nutmeg didn’t really work with the beets, when she had a feeling like she was being watched.

  Telling herself she was being paranoid, Claudia tried to subtly take a look around, as if it was perfectly natural for her to randomly stretch her arms while turning her body ninety degrees in each direction. She was about to chide herself for being silly when she straightened back up and looked into the face of her visitor.

  It was a dog, the same one she had seen the previous evening. Up close, she could tell it was barely out of the puppy stage, with long, gangly legs and ears that were too big for its head, and its ribs showed clearly through a patchy black and brown coat.

  Claudia tensed up, not exactly afraid, but definitely wary. She had always been taught to be cautious around strange animals, especially ones that had large jaws full of strong, white teeth. But the dog just looked back at her with a vacant cheerfulness, like it was waiting for her to do something and it didn’t matter much what it was.

  This state of affairs lasted for a couple of minutes, while Claudia thought about what to do. There was no collar, but the dog might have an owner, and she should really let someone know it had been found, just in case. In the meantime, the least she could do was give it something to eat, and Claudia knew just the thing.

  “Here you go,” she said, tossing it the partially eaten empanada. “I hope you like nutmeg.”

  Based on how quickly the pastry vanished, she guessed that her new friend wasn’t a very picky eater. Claudia had gone inside to look up the number for the nearest shelter when she heard the crunch of tires on the gravel driveway, followed by the sound of two car doors slamming. Through the window, she saw the dog stand up and trot off. Claudia watched it go for a moment, conflicted as to whether she should try to catch up to it, and what she would do if she did, but the decision was made for her by a heavy hand knocking on the front door of her cottage.

  Before she had made it across the room they were knocking again, so hard that it seemed to shake the entirety of the little building.

  “I’m coming!” Claudia said. “Hold your—oh. Hi.”

  She had been ready to give her visitors a piece of her mind, but that was before she saw the chief of police and his attractive new hire. They didn’t look happy to see her, and, piercing blue eyes aside, the feeling was mutual.

  “Do you have a moment, Miss Simcoe?” Chief Lennox said. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  They sat in her living room, because there were no other options. Lennox took the one good chair, and Claudia offered the other officer the barstool, leaving her with the sofa. She perched there, a good six inches below the two men, feeling in every way at a disadvantage.

  Still, this was her house, and a hostess had certain duties. She turned to the younger cop and smiled.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “With everything that was going on this morning, I don’t think I ever caught your name.”

  It clearly wasn’t what he was expecting, but it only took a moment of stammering for him to recover.

  “Oh, um, it’s Derek. Derek Chambers. Officer Derek Chambers.” The floor under the stool wasn’t entirely level, and the little wave he offered as a greeting caused him to wobble precariously, which made Claudia feel better about her seat on the couch.

  “Nice to meet you,” Claudia said, and, as he removed his jacket to expose wonderfully muscular forearms, she found herself feeling better about life in general.

  “This isn’t a social call, Miss Simcoe,” Lennox said, and this time she had to admit his irritation was probably warranted. “We’re talking about a murder here.”

  It did occur to Claudia to wonder why he was there at all. The San Elmo Bay Police Department was tiny, and mostly maintained by the town because the county sheriff, who provided law enforcement for the majority of the small towns along the coast, had at one point refused to offer extra support for the crab festival, and the resulting bad feelings had led to the reestablishment of a local force. But they mostly specialized in traffic stops and beach parking lot break-ins, and there was no way they were equipped for a murder investigation. A person who was aware of his own limitations would certainly have realized this, and not be trying to carry it on his own, and the fact that Lennox was not that person only served to support her suspicions from that morning about his ratio of confidence to ability.

  “We have a few more questions for you,” Lennox went on, sounding suspiciously like he had picked up his interview style from prime-time dramas. “How well did you know the victim?”

  “Not very, I guess. I saw her almost every day the market was open, but we didn’t really talk. I know she moved here from somewhere back East, and she wasn’t a fan of our weather, but that’s about it.”

  “Did she have any reason to be angry with you? Or with someone else at the market?” Lennox asked.

  It wasn’t a question Claudia had been anticipating, and she wasn’t sure she was ready to answer it honestly, so she did her best to avoid it.

  “Angry with me? Why? She didn’t do anything to me. What’s this about?”

  “Show her.”

  “We found these in the victim’s purse.” Derek reached into the bag he had been carrying and took out a zip-top bag containing two glass vials. He didn’t hand them to her, but he held them up so that Claudia could read the labels.

  “Stink bombs?” Claudia said once she deciphered the sideways writing. “Why would Lori be carrying around stink bombs?”

  “That’s what we were hoping you could tell us,” Lennox said.

  “You think she was planning to set them off in the marketplace? But why—oh.” Since finding the body, Claudia had been too distracted to think about her confrontation with the dead woman, and how that might look to other people, but it was clear she was going to have to now. Even if she hadn’t just connected the dots midsentence, she had no way of knowing if someone else knew, and to be caught concealing something like that would be about as incriminating a thing as she could do. So she went on.

  “Well, yes, I guess she might have thought she had a reason to be angry,” she admitted. “Yesterday I learned that the goods she was selling weren’t what she said they were, and I told her I was canceling her lease. She was obviously upset, but I certainly didn’t get any sense that she was planning any sort of retaliation.”

  “But when you saw her coming back to the marketplace last night, you went over to investigate, didn’t you? And then you got in a little cat fight when you realized what she was up to, and lost your temper?” Lennox said, his voice heavy with implication.

  “Of course not,” Claudia replied, trying not to let her anger show. “The last time I saw her, she was driving out of the parking lot, one hundred percent alive. I didn’t go back to the marketplace until I went to open it this morning.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “No, I can’t. But last night was cold and windy, and you can’t even see the entrance to the market from here. There’s no way to know that someone was there without walking all the way over. Which I didn’t do.”

  As far as Lennox was concerned, this was obviously an unsatisfactory answer. Clearly, the way this was supposed to go was that he would present his brilliant theories, and she would crumble and admit to her guilt. His fantasy thwarted, the police chief’s expression turned stormy, and he might have made an impolitic comment if Officer Derek hadn’t stepped in.

  “How did you know she was selling counterfeit merchandise?” he asked. “Do you do background checks on all of the sellers?”

  The question knocked the tension levels down a notch, for which Claudia was grateful. She to
ok a second to collect herself, then answered in as pleasant a way as she could manage.

  “No, I didn’t think there was a need. Most of them, it’s pretty obvious where their products come from, and honestly, it never occurred to me someone would want to cheat. It’s not exactly a big money operation, you know? I didn’t suspect anything until the printout from an online catalogue with all of her products showed up on my desk.”

  Lennox looked over at the card table in the corner that held her laptop and the stacks of paper that were too important to be filed on the floor.

  “On that desk? Do people often come into your house to leave you things?”

  “I have an office in the marketplace. I keep it open most of the day, since I’m in and out all the time. If people have something for me they leave it there. It’s slightly more organized than the one here.” That was true, with an emphasis on “slightly.” “I found the pages there yesterday afternoon, in an unmarked manila envelope. There was no other information included, but once I saw them, it was pretty clear what it was about.”

  “I see,” Lennox said, making furious notes. “And who do you think might have left it there?”

  “I have no idea,” Claudia said, and she meant it. She had wondered the same thing herself; grateful for the heads-up but worried about what kind of bad feelings might be going around under her nose. It had seemed like the most obvious candidates would be among the other vendors in the marketplace, but she was hardly going to say that to the police chief.

  “So what you’re saying is that anyone could have left it for you?” Derek said. “Anybody who knew where your office was, that is.”