Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery series Box Set 1 Page 7

  “That’s what I thought,” Liz said. “Thanks anyway.”

  I could tell that Miss May was getting impatient. She wanted to look for the rock, and this polite conversation with Liz was driving Miss May crazy. Miss May took Liz by the elbow and led her down the path. “You want a really good photo subject, you need to go hang out with See-Saw!”

  “Is that the tiny horse?” Liz asked. “She’s been here forever. She’s still alive!?”

  “Alive and eating a thousand apples a day,” Miss May said. “Just follow this path all the way down another five minutes. And take plenty of shots. She’s very photogenic!”

  “I was actually hoping to take a few more photos up here,” Liz said.

  “See-Saw goes down for her nap in ten minutes. KP is very strict about it,” Miss May said. “Better get going now!”

  “OK,” Liz said. “Thanks!”

  Miss May smiled and nudged Liz down the path. “Bye now!”

  ---

  Thirty seconds later, we were at the edge of the brook, right where Vinny had died. There were the rocks. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. But that was it. No basalt.

  “The basalt is missing!” I said.

  “Look around,” Miss May said. “It's possible Liz moved it when she was trying to get her prize-winning photos.”

  My heart thump-thumped as I inspected the creek. I recounted the seven rocks, then I got down on my knees on the bank.

  I flipped over a few larger rocks, then dug into the silt, wrecking the manicure I’d given myself before Maggie’s wedding. No basalt.

  My hands trembled, and my legs wobbled as I stood up and called to Miss May.

  ”I can't find it.”

  “Look harder,” Miss May said. “It couldn’t have washed away.”

  She spun around, checking and rechecking the places I had just looked.

  “I don’t see it,” Teeny said.

  “Where could it be?” I asked. “It was in the picture. We all saw it in the picture!”

  “Alright, let’s stay calm,” Miss May said. “Let’s everyone stay calm.”

  I took a deep breath. In through the nose, out through the nose.

  “It's pretty clear what this means, right?” Miss May said.

  Teeny and I exchanged glances. We had no idea what this meant.

  Miss May narrowed her eyes.

  “Someone came back. And they took the murder weapon.”

  12

  Baking Up A Plan

  Back in the orchard bakeshop, I punched out bread dough like I was beating up a comic book bad guy. Thwap! Oomph! Kapow! I didn’t realize it, but I was grunting with every punch. And my mind had drifted to thoughts of my years as a karate student at Master Skinner’s dojo in town.

  When Miss May had first suggested that I begin karate lessons at thirteen, I had balked. What teenage girl would want to spend time kicking and punching with a bunch of sweaty dudes in a strip mall? But Miss May had been insistent, and she had already signed me up, so I had agreed to go “for just one month.” Miss May had promised that if I hated karate or if I hated Master Skinner, she'd let me stop.

  I did not hate karate. And I did not hate Master Skinner.

  Although Master Skinner stood a modest five-foot-eight, and some students in my first classes had been taller than him, he commanded respect with his rigid posture and sharp, beady eyes. When he spoke, the students listened, and we had all secretly wanted to be like him when we grew up.

  Master Skinner was quiet and controlled in conversation. But he unleashed an unexpected ferocity when he practiced karate. His eyes lit up. His movements sharpened. I had always envied how he immersed himself in his practice. And whenever he took the floor the term “master” always seemed like an understatement.

  Rumor had it that Master Skinner moonlighted for the FBI on weekends, flying off to Beijing on a Friday afternoon and returning on Monday morning having just saved the world. I never got verification on that fact, but I’d always thought it was true.

  Growing up without a male role model, I had viewed Master Skinner as a father figure. His classes taught me poise and perseverance and the value of hard work. They gave me confidence, and they gave me a way to cope with stress. Which brings me back to the bread dough.

  “You’re over-kneading it,” Miss May said. She hip-checked me out of the way and picked up the dough. She was right. The dough was tough. Overworked. Useless.

  Thwump. Miss May tossed my loaf into the trash and grabbed the flour. “We’re all a little freaked out, but abusing the bread is never the answer.”

  Miss May tossed fresh flour on her big, wooden, cutting board and thwapped a new ball of dough on top. “Honestly,” she said, clucking her tongue.

  I looked down, surprised at how embarrassed I was. I always took pride in helping Miss May in the shop, and I didn’t like to mess things up. “You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Oh, whatever,” Miss May said. “Cost of goods on that messed-up dough’s about nineteen cents. I’ll dock your paycheck.”

  Miss May smirked at me as she worked the dough with her knuckles, but I still felt uneasy.

  “I guess I’m a little distracted,” I said.

  “Distracted!? I’m terrified! There’s a murderer on the loose!” Teeny bustled into the bakeshop, closing her old-school flip phone as she entered.

  “Everything OK at the restaurant?” Miss May asked.

  “Oh yeah, Granny’s got the run of the place,” Teeny said.

  I wasn’t sure how Granny managed to keep Teeny’s restaurant running by herself. But Teeny had a restless spirit. If her restaurant didn't have a line out the door, she often took off, searching for a more invigorating challenge. Sometimes she'd even show up at the orchard and offer to get to work on some manual labor. Teeny was petite, and she wore kid-sized shoes, but she loved hard work. And at that moment, she was desperate to help us solve the mystery of Vinny’s death.

  Teeny looked around. “This place looks nice. What’s different?”

  I shrugged. The bakeshop had remained unchanged my entire life, and that day was no different. Wood floors. Farmhouse windows on every wall. And a long glass counter in back, filled with Miss May’s baked creations.

  “Oh! I know what looks different,” Miss May said, pointing over the windows. “Chels put up new curtains. Nice, right?”

  Teeny held up her finger. “That’s it! They look great.”

  “Looked better before someone got murdered on the farm,” Miss May said.

  Miss May grabbed a new dough ball and tossed it on the floured surface with annoyed determination. “Murder on the farm. I hate that! This is probably the first time someone has been killed on the farm since the prohibition era.”

  I perked up. “People were killed on the orchard during prohibition?” I had never heard stories about any murders, at least none that I could remember.

  “Oh yeah,” Miss May said. “The Thomas Family Fruit & Fir Farm was a hot spot back in the twenties. Grandpa Tom kept making hard cider even though the production of alcohol was illegal. So rich people would come up from the city, party, and buy out his supply every weekend. Some local gangsters didn’t love that Grandpa Tom was this independent bootlegger, making so much money and not sharing it.” Miss May grabbed another ball of dough and kneaded. “But Grandpa didn’t want to get involved in any real crime or violence,” Miss May continued. “He just wanted people to have fun. He used to have these crazy parties. One weekend, the head honchos from two different 'crime organizations' were visiting the farm on the same night. And they both had a plan to steal Grandpa Tom's cash.”

  “Two separate heists?” I asked. “So what happened?”

  “Yeah,” Teeny said. “Did one of them kill the other?” Teeny licked her lips.

  “It's a mystery,” Miss May said. “That night, both of the mobsters disappeared, and no one ever saw them again. The next week, prohibition got repealed, so that was the last big party Grandpa
Tom ever threw.”

  “What happened to the money?” I asked.

  Miss May laughed, “Grandpa Tom moved his cash every single day. Those gangsters never had a chance of finding it. He used that money to plant the first patch of Christmas trees. He was always thinking ahead, that man. But when he died, a lot of his secrets died with him, including the spot where he buried the rest of that money.”

  A thought popped into my head. “You don't think Grandpa Tom...”

  “Killed the gangsters?” Miss May said. “I doubt it. But somebody did. Right here on this farm.”

  “So you’ve got ghosts,” Teeny said. It wasn’t a question, more like a bald fact. “Mean ones.”

  Miss May waved her off. But Teeny looked at me and shuddered, like the ghosts were surrounding her at that exact moment.

  It was strange learning there had been a murder on the farm before Vinny. I had known about Grandpa Tom’s business. But I had never realized that he planted the Christmas trees with illicit alcohol money. That was probably one of those stories Miss May had always promised she’d tell me when I got older. I liked hearing the story, though I did not love that this qualified me as ‘older.’

  Miss May grabbed another dough ball and got to work kneading. “I still can’t get over the fact that something like this happened on my watch,” Miss May said. “I should have hired security, or installed cameras, or —”

  Miss May's voice cracked, and she bent over, wiping her eyes. I didn’t see Miss May cry often, and when I did, I felt like the world was upside down.

  Miss May took a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. Teeny and I flanked Miss May. We both wanted to comfort her, but we didn't have the knack for calming compassion that Miss May had.

  “Aw. Come on, May. This is not your fault,” Teeny said, patting Miss May’s back.

  Miss May tried to hold back her tears, but they kept right on falling. “It’s my farm,” she said. “So it’s my fault. People visit the orchard to have fun. Not to die. I—I should have protected Vinny. He was just a kid.”

  “There’s nothing you could have done,” Teeny said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Where would you even put a security camera? Up in a tree? Where would you plug it in?”

  Miss May laughed and wiped her eyes. She had brought me so many small laughs during sad times in my life, I was glad to return the favor.

  “I guess that’s true,” Miss May said. “And how would I pick which tree?”

  “Exactly!” I said. “We’ve got three hundred acres!”

  This time we all laughed. Teeny gave Miss May a hug.

  “Poor Vinny.” Miss May said. “He was about to start a new life, but instead…”

  Teeny and I nodded, unsure how to proceed. But Miss May snapped out of it on her own and straightened up with determination.

  “That’s why we’ve got to find his killer,” Miss May wiped her hands on her apron. “Even if the kid was a pain in the rear, he didn’t deserve to die so young.”

  “You want to keep going with this?” I asked. “I thought now we might… call the cops.”

  “And say what?” Miss May asked. “Someone stole my rock?”

  “Yes? I guess? It is the murder weapon.”

  “They can’t use that for anything,” Miss May said. “We need to come up with a better theory. Something that can lead to an arrest.”

  “I bet it was the mayor,” Teeny said. “Everyone knows Vinny was lining her pockets.”

  “Linda Delgado’s no criminal,” Miss May said. “And even if she were on Vinny’s payroll, she wouldn’t be killing him, she’d be trying to bring him back to life.”

  “I guess that’s a decent point.” Teeny twisted up her mouth. “But then who could it be?”

  I stepped forward. “What about Vinny’s business partner? Sudeer? I talked to him out by the barn right before I found Vinny. He seemed upset. Like… really upset.”

  Miss May and Teeny looked at me like I had a nose growing out of the top of my head.

  “How are you just telling us this now?” Miss May asked.

  “I saw him later that night, and he seemed… innocent,” I said.

  “How could someone seem innocent?” Miss May said.

  “I don’t know. He was coming out of the bathroom. It looked like he had just washed his hands.”

  Miss May looked at me and sighed. Her disapproving glance made me feel like a gullible young child again.

  “What? I’m sorry! I asked Wayne about it, and he said he had already questioned Sudeer. So I… I guess I decided Sudeer didn’t do it. He was a good guy in high school. And we weren’t even sure it was a murder. I guess I didn’t want to think—”

  I looked up. The barn was empty, and Teeny and Miss May were climbing into the bus out in the parking lot. I rushed outside. “Hey! Where are we going!?”

  “Where do you think?” Teeny said. “We’re going to find that Indian guy.”

  I climbed into the bus and buckled my seatbelt. “His name is Sudeer!”

  13

  Pies and Alibis

  Sudeer’s neighborhood was one that locals referred to as “the other side of the tracks.” Although that phrase typically conjured the image of a seedy area, Pine Grove’s version of seedy was still charming.

  Our “other side of the tracks” was a small community built up as a vacation destination for big city tourists in the fifties. The neighborhood centered on a man-made lake called Hastings Pond. Small white cottages surrounded the pond on every side, and all the homes had waterfront views.

  OK, “waterfront views” gave a grander impression of the lake than it deserved. Hastings Pond was equal parts algae and water, and it had a bit of an odd aroma. On hot days, some might have called it an “unbearable stench.” However, if you closed your nose, you could picture wealthy, 1950s Manhattanites sitting on the sandy beaches in their modest bathing suits, taking in the sun, and reading magazines that had actual articles in them.

  Up until the 1970s, there had been a booming country club at the far end of the lake. The club had attracted a steady wave of tourists and had even brought in some full-time residents. Sadly, a fire destroyed the club in the early 70s. Shortly thereafter, the town had built a sewage plant behind the neighborhood. Then the power lines went up. And that brought us to present-day Hastings Pond, an area that locals called “bad,” but real estate agents referred to as an “up-and-coming lakeside community.”

  The affordable prices of the neighborhood attracted the rare shady character or individual down on his or her luck. But more often than not, new residents to Hastings Pond were young couples looking to gain access to Pine Grove’s school-system-on-a-budget.

  As Miss May’s yellow bus rolled up to Sudeer’s one-bedroom cottage, I wondered to which group he belonged. Shady character or prospective new parent? Sudeer wasn’t on any social media sites, and he kept to himself in person. So although I knew what most of my high school classmates were doing on a minute-by-minute basis, I had zero idea what Sudeer’s life was like, other than that he had worked with Vinny.

  I also wondered how the heck Miss May knew where she was going. “How do you know where Sudeer lives?” I asked. “You barely even know his name.”

  “He bought the house from Barbara when she moved up to Vermont,” Miss May said.

  “I miss Babs,” Teeny said.

  “Yeah, but she’s never coming back,” Miss May said. “She loves it up there. We should visit her sometime. Learn to ski or something.”

  “I’m not skiing,” Teeny said. “I’ll be down in the lodge.”

  “You can’t après-ski if you don’t ski,” I said.

  “App-ray huh?” Teeny asked.

  “It’s French for after ski,” I said. Teeny scoffed, as she did whenever I invoked phrases or words that she found hoity-toity.

  “Après-ski is like drinking hot chocolate and hanging out to warm up. It’s nice and cozy, but only if you’ve been out on the slopes,” I said.
>
  “I don’t care what the Frenchies do,” Teeny said. “I strap nothing on my feet other than sandals and stilettos.”

  “When’s the last time you wore a stiletto?” Miss May asked.

  Teeny paused for a moment, trying to remember. Either she couldn’t recall the last time she wore a high heel, or she didn’t care to reveal the number of years it had been.

  “Well, I wear a lot of sandals!” Teeny retorted. “I even have my winter sandals that I wear with my fuzzy socks. I could take those with me for my hapri-ski.”

  Miss May and Teeny laughed. I tittered along with them, but the sound caught in my throat. Even my funny bone knew we were just moments away from confronting a suspected killer.

  I had been psyching myself up for this interaction, telling myself it would be exciting and rewarding to take the next step in solving the mystery. But as Miss May turned onto Sudeer’s road, I noticed how tight I felt, like a boa constrictor had been wrapping around me for the whole drive, and it had begun to squeeze.

  As we pulled up to Sudeer’s house, I immediately looked for a reason to leave.

  “Looks like no one’s home,” I said, gesturing to the empty driveway. “Guess we’ll have to come back next week or something.”

  “Not so fast, city girl,” Miss May said. “Up here in the ‘burbs, we park our cars in the garage.”

  “Oh yeah,” I said. “I forgot garages were even a thing.”

  Miss May chunked the van into park and opened her door to get out. But panic overcame me. The boa constrictor had a death grip on me now. I grabbed Miss May’s shoulder and pulled her back into the car.

  “Wait,” I said. Miss May turned back. “Are we sure we want to do this? What if Sudeer really is a killer?”

  Miss May scoffed. “Not even Charles Manson would off two old ladies and a defenseless girl before dinner.”

  “I’m not defenseless,” I said. “I was a brown belt as a teenager.”

  “Even better,” Miss May said. Then she hopped out of the car.