A Suspicion of Strawberries (Scents of Murder Book 1) (14 page)

“I would have said something sooner—”

Robert held his hands up as if to push Emily away from him. “—calling or stalking won’t work with me.”

“—really need to talk to her. I’ve never seen her like this—”

“Ands, you need to stop this.” Ben took my other hand, pulled me to a full stand, and forced me to face him. “These are people’s private lives, and you can’t make assumptions based on scraps of conversation. You’re taking this too far.”

“I know someone murdered Charla Thacker.” I pointed to the pair by the lodge. “And I think he could have had something to do with it. Or maybe she did. Or both of them. What if Robert was seeing someone else?”

“Let it go. It was an accident.” Ben paused and cleared his throat. “Jerry told me the lab results are inconclusive and prove nothing.”

“What?” My throat constricted as if someone had clamped a vise around it. “How do you know this?”

“He said results showed strawberry in the scrub, but there’s no proof it was put in there on purpose.”

“Why didn’t he tell me?” I wanted to sit down and cry. “And why didn’t you tell me, either?”

Ben sighed. “I found out last night. Told Jerry I’d break the news to you.”

“I don’t know what I expected the lab to find. I’m not happy that I’m right.” I watched Emily trudge to her car, her shoulders slumped. Robert wasted no time in spraying parking-lot gravel from his tires and disappearing on the road to town. Whatever they’d talked about had made him aggravated enough to ruin his paint job.

“He wanted me to let you know, and actually, I hadn’t thought about it since he told me last night.” Ben caressed my cheek. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t that I feared as much for my business as I did at first, but my gut told me something was very wrong about Charla’s death. Lab results proved there were strawberries mixed in the Cherries Jubilee, and I didn’t understand why no one in authority believed me when I told them I didn’t put them there. Well, actually I did understand. I couldn’t prove anyone had a firm motive.

“We should head back.” Ben turned to walk the way we came, and I followed, trying not to trip on an occasional stump.

What was Emily begging Robert about? Why wouldn’t he listen? He had the look a guy gets when he’s cornered by a woman.

What if he’d been having an affair with Emily? Had he put her off and gone ahead with his intent to marry Charla, and this action pushed Emily over the edge? But if that was the case, what man would go to a remote location to meet with a woman he thought was stalking him? No, that wouldn’t work. Emily mentioned him talking to “her.” Whoever “her” was, Emily sounded almost desperate.

Ben glanced at me. “I can smell your brain hitting overdrive from over here.”

I managed a smile. “So much doesn’t add up to me.”

He stopped so quickly I almost ran into him. “It doesn’t have to add up.”

“I won’t accept that.” I crossed my arms.

“You can jump to conclusions without knowing the whole story. Look at us: We disappeared and ran into the woods. How do you think that would look to our group?”

“We were just looking for Seth,” I said.

“We’re also a couple in love,” Ben fired back. “Do you think that sets a good example? What do you think some people would assume?”

“That’s not fair. If you really think that, we shouldn’t have gone into the woods. Besides, people who know us also know our standards.” We continued our trek back to the picnic site.

“What about those who don’t?” His footsteps pounded the trail next to me.

Sweat stung my eyes as I trudged beside him. “It’s not the same.”

“Oh, isn’t it? You’re making assumptions about people you barely know.”

“So what is it I’m assuming?” I caught sight of the edge of the woods and a glimpse of our group beyond.

“A secret affair, a cover-up of some kind. A crime of passion.” Ben took my hand as we left the woods.

“Yes on the first two.” I wiped my forehead with the back of my free hand. “But on the third assumption, no. I think whoever did this planned well. Mike Chandler showed me that much.”

I wanted to scream once we reached our picnic table. Not only had my plate been pitched out with the rest of the trash, but Seth glanced up at us as he chowed down on a thick slab of watermelon.

“Would you look at that?” I whispered, thankful the rest of the group appeared oblivious to our absence and arrival.

Ben shook his head.

Melinda, Emily. Emily, Melinda
. I chewed on a piece of fresh beef jerky that Di had dropped off at the store on her way to take the kids to the library. If I ate much more jerky, I’d be ready to moo, but Di had been so enthusiastic about using her food dehydrator I couldn’t resist.

The afternoon was still young, and the lunch rush was over. This time, all three customers had come and gone by two, and the hours until closing time stretched ahead of me. I couldn’t expect more business on a Wednesday, and I’d stewed over the whole strawberries situation since the picnic on Saturday.

I had to dig deeper into both Melinda’s and Emily’s relationship with Charla. I still remembered Sadie’s nana and her reminiscing about Melinda and Charla. But then there was that secret meeting between Emily and Robert at the parking lot. Emily had seemed urgent, desperate, almost passionate as she’d addressed him. If only Ben and I could have gotten a little closer to them.

If only I could see Melinda, Charla, and Emily in their past, in black and white, untainted by people’s opinions and hearsay—and in the case of Sadie’s nana, impaired memory.

My daddy always said if you wanted to learn about something, you could find it in a book. Of course, this was before the Internet. I decided to take his advice, close the store for the afternoon, and head to Greenburg’s public library. They probably carried back editions of Greenburg High’s yearbooks. Daddy also said the past often dictates the future, and if these three women’s pasts converged somehow, maybe looking at their younger selves would shed some light on them.

Yet Ben’s admonition to mind my own business rang in my ears, and I almost decided to give up the idea about Charla’s death being more than an accident. Almost.

However, my inner radar blipped louder than Ben’s words, so I jumped in my Jeep and went to the library. After securing six years’ worth of yearbooks dating from the year that Charla started high school until Melinda graduated, I settled down at a table, then opened my notepad.

Echoing whispers and shushes made me look up to see Di and my nephews heading in my direction. She grinned.

“Hey there. Just getting the boys from Young Readers Camp. I think they’re ready to explode from all their pent-up energy. Wish I could bottle it. Sherri Martin invited them for ice cream with her kids.”

“Wow, I can see they’re excited.” Stevie darted around the corner of a bookshelf after his younger brother.

“Sherri’s meeting me out front to pick them up.” Her gaze fell on the yearbooks. “What’s that?”

“Greenburg High’s yearbooks.” I tapped the cover of the nearest volume. “I’m doing some sleuthing.”

Stevie returned with Taylor in tow, and Di reached for Taylor’s hand. “Thanks, Stevie, for snagging him for me. Taylor, don’t you run off like that again. I tell ya, they love stories, but once it’s time to go. . . Can I give you a hand?”

“Of course. I need another brain to pick besides mine.”

“I’ll be right back.” Di marched off with the boys to the front of the library, leaving me with a stack of high school memories on the desk in front of me.

Without waiting for Di to return, I flipped open the volume from Charla’s freshman year and checked the index. As I expected, Charla had at least half a dozen appearances in that first year’s edition.

I jotted down which clubs she belonged to and who she appeared with in candid shots. Charla was all smiles, looking forward to a future bright with promise. A lump swelled in my throat. She had no idea then that she had only eleven years left to live.

Sometimes Daddy says I’m too philosophical for my own good, but I suppose I get that from Momma. Would I have lived the past eleven years of my life differently if I would have known the future? Trouble is, none of us do, which is why we either spend our lives at the edge of the cliff being scared to jump, or else we grab on to the hang glider and fly. Charla flew. Like her or not, a person couldn’t say she didn’t. And what had I done?

I’d skittered at the edge and watched others do what I didn’t dare. Not finishing college. Not sticking with a business. Ben and Di both pegged me on that one.

Lord, I’m sorry for wasting time. And now look at me
. . . . I’d treated Ben so callously, thinking of my own self before him. Love was supposed to be the most selfless, the most patient, the most kind. I stopped my train of thought. It wasn’t the time to mull over my life and my choices. My quiet time would come later. I found myself looking forward to those moments of listening for guidance and wisdom in my life.

Charla’s smile beckoned to me from the pages. She didn’t deserve what happened to her, no matter how people felt about her. Whoever sabotaged that scrub still walked around, free and alive with a future ahead of them. The question was, where did that murderer lurk?

Chapter Thirteen

So, what’d you find out?” Di slid onto the chair across from me. She looked worn to a frazzle, and I suspected she needed this break.

“Nothing new, really.” I pushed away somber thoughts about my personal life. “I’m making a list, year by year of Charla’s time in high school—and Melinda’s and Emily’s—to see what activities they participated in, who their friends were, and maybe find some foes.”

Di’s gazed probed my face, and she frowned. “You okay?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m just realizing some things about myself. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. We need to get through these yearbooks and get as much information as we can.”

“Okay.” Surprisingly, Di decided not to push me by asking any more questions. I did fill her in, though, on why I was concentrating on Emily, as well.

“Who’d have thought? Robert cheating on Charla?” Di shook her head.

“I. . .didn’t say that. . .for a fact,” I stammered. My face grew hot. Here I was, sounding like a biddy in a beauty shop, clucking about the latest news. “It’s a theory I have, but nothing for sure. Why else would Emily meet him out there? Plus, remember that get- together after Charla’s funeral? That woman named Kaitlyn still cared for Robert.”

“So Robert’s not squeaky-clean either. . . .”

“No, nobody is actually. But that doesn’t make him a murderer, either.”

“Okay. We’ll stick with the innocent-until-proven- guilty idea.” Di reached for a yearbook. “What am I looking for again?”

“Any pictures of Charla, Melinda, or Emily.” I opened the next album in front of me. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for, exactly. I’ll know it when I see it. Especially look at any candid shots. Those might not be labeled with captions, but usually that’s when someone’s guard is down.”

“You got it.” Di saluted. She turned a few pages, then paused. “Would you look at that hair? I can’t believe we did our hair that way.”

“Ha. At least you didn’t have the early ’90s hair like I did.” I cringed at the memory. “Sometimes I wish Momma would burn those pictures from junior high.”

We chased ideas round and round, and through our digging in the yearbooks, we discovered that Emily, Charla, and Melinda seemed to be quite popular. Charla’s senior yearbook was the most vivid. National Honor Society, Historians Club. Added to that, she performed the coveted role of the Greenburg Hornets mascot, besides making the homecoming court. She’d already scored a coup her junior year by being crowned homecoming queen.

The other two girls had done well, too. Emily had been nominated one of the class clowns, but she stood out in her own right. Even sophomore Melinda shone as the lead for the Drama Club’s fall and spring plays. She also excelled as one of the youngest ever varsity drum majors in the marching band.

Then I saw a picture that made me gasp.

A candid shot of Melinda and Charla walking arm in arm down a crowded hallway. Charla’s now- familiar smile, wide and bright. Melinda’s expression of adoration for her older sister. What got my attention was another individual who didn’t know she’d been captured on film.

Emily leaned against a locker in the background. The black and white shot made empty black holes of her pupils as she stared at the passing sisters. A shiver plucked my spine.

And Sadie’s grandmother had spoken of everyone living in someone’s shadow. Maybe Nana had been on to something, only she couldn’t have known she spoke of Emily.

“Di.” My voice croaked. “Look at this.” I swung the book around so she could see the picture, tucked in a lower corner of the page in a collage of photos.

“Now that’s downright creepy. She looks ready to rip someone’s face off.”

“You can’t mistake that kind of expression.” I wished I could somehow enter the photo and hear the conversations swirling through the hallway.

“A hot glare doth not a murderer make.” Di spun the yearbook back, and I studied the picture some more.