A Suspicion of Strawberries (Scents of Murder Book 1) Read online

  From the Thacker family to summer-job needs to sick relatives and sunburns and someone wanting to get a car, we gathered the requests and prayed together. Sadie frowned. Her mind looked like it had just hit overdrive.

  “Sadie, did you have a question?”

  She blushed and looked around the room. “It probably doesn’t have anything to do with the class, but I was wonderin’ something about Charla… .”

  Here we go…

  “That’s okay. Ask.”

  “I heard someone saying last night that it was about time Charla got a taste of her own medicine.” Sadie’s face went to a deeper shade of crimson. “I mean, who are they to say she got what she deserved?”

  And I thought taking the high school group would be easy. I tried to find words that wouldn’t sound trite to these kids. They could see through platitudes a mile away.

  I swallowed hard before answering. “I look at it this way. God made Charla and had a great destiny for her life, like He does for everyone. I’m not Charla’s judge, and I really didn’t know her personally, but I don’t think anyone deserves that kind of death. In the end, only God truly knows someone’s heart… .” Lord, help me; I’m sounding pretty lame. And I’m rambling. Ben would be in the back of the room, wondering when I’d stop trying to talk myself out of the hole I’m digging for myself.

  The dark-haired boy who talked about Charla’s swollen face—Russ, if I read the roster correctly—sat up straighter in his chair. “So do you think God wanted her to die like that? I mean, we talked last week about Psalm 139 and how God knows all our days from beginning to end.”

  “Wow, y’all don’t ask the easy questions, huh?” I clutched the podium a bit more tightly. Next week, we’re going to move the chairs in a circle, and I’m going to sit down and not be on display.

  “I’m not saying that God made that reaction happen to Charla. But the reality is we live in a fallen world. Bad things happen—to good people, to bad people, and those people in between. Sometimes it stinks. That’s the reality of free will. But God still cares and sees. If He can see the sparrow fall and care about it, He cares no less for us. I don’t know why this happened. I wish it hadn’t. It’s in times like this we really need to pour out to Him how we feel.”

  Again I felt the defensiveness from yesterday rising within me. It’s not my fault! I looked down at my class notes. We were way off track, and we couldn’t answer the tough questions of life in a forty-five minute class.

  “Well, maybe someone messed with your soap and it made her sick.” The statement hung in the air like a trumpet’s call, and I glanced to see who’d spoken. Sadie, the Thinker.

  “What?” I understood her perfectly, but I didn’t quite believe she’d said it.

  “Really, Miss Clark. If you know you did everything right with that face scrub and it didn’t bother her when she tried it before, the simplest explanation is that somebody else messed with your soap.”

  The breakin. Was it more than mere coincidence? My mind whirled. But who? How? Most importantly, why? I promptly dismissed her conclusion as the fervent wish of youth to see justice served, to find an explanation for the inexplicable. I could see the logic, though.

  I smiled at Sadie. “The police say it was an unfortunate allergic reaction.”

  “And that’s bad for your business.” Sadie looked around the room. “You guys, I think we should pray for Miss Clark. She’s got a cute store and she doesn’t deserve to have anyone saying bad things about her. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m gonna stop by Tennessee River Soaps and buy something every time I get paid.” A few in the group nodded.

  My heart swelled at Sadie’s words. “Sadie, that’s so sweet of you, but…”

  “I don’t care what people say. I know you wouldn’t have hurt her on purpose.” Sadie shook her head.

  This time, I let the students lead in prayer. I bit my lip. Oh, Lord, what has Sadie heard already?

  Somehow knowing Ben was home but not being able to find him made it worse than when he was hundreds of miles away. I wanted to see his smile, hear his dry jokes, and find out whatever new snippet of trivia he’d learned on the road.

  I didn’t see him in the crowd at church, although we’d talked on the phone for a few minutes around ten, right after he got to Jackson. Well, he talked and I ended up dozing off on him. Diana had been right about being tired. I’d dropped off to sleep almost as soon as I returned home the day before.

  When I checked my voice mail on the cell phone after church, Ben had called, apologizing for not meeting me at our usual spot in the foyer. He’d been delayed in Jackson, and he expected to return to Greenburg on Monday.

  My heart gave a twinge as I headed out into the humidity of the parking lot. I decided to drop in on Momma and Daddy for Sunday dinner. Usually if Ben was in town on the weekend, we’d go out to eat. Sometimes I wondered why Ben didn’t just get his own place. But he always said he didn’t need much, just a warm place to come home to. Jerry had a cleaning lady come in once a week, and the bachelors lived a quiet life.

  Today, though, I had to see Momma and Daddy and feel the embrace of the familiar. Maybe I still needed to heal up from what I’d witnessed the day before. I considered looking up Melinda’s number and calling her but decided against it. Her phone and her parents’ phone had probably rung off the wall the entire day and night.

  When I tried to imagine losing a sibling, I didn’t have to think too hard. Years ago, Momma lost her own sister, my aunt Jewel. Rumor had it that Aunt Jewel ran away the night she turned eighteen. Momma was twenty-three, married, pregnant with Diana. I was a nosy little five-year-old who reeled at the family’s grief over my aunt’s disappearance. The sensation of loss from yesterday settled around me again.

  I let the wind tug at my hair as the Jeep accelerated along Route 64 and headed west out of town. Sun sparkled off the water below the Tennessee River Bridge. Somehow the morose mood that tried to cling to my shoulders blew off and tumbled onto the road behind me.

  After turning off the highway onto a back road and then onto my parents’ drive, I saw my old home nestled against the edge of the pines. Daddy had built the glorified shotgun shack, room by room, the whole time we were growing up. They added the second story after he retired. Momma’s potted plants hung from the front porch and swayed gently in the breeze, as if welcoming me. Miles from town, the peace of my parents’ land helped me breathe easier.

  Bark lived up to his name as he ran out to meet the Jeep. I pulled up next to Diana and Steve’s SUV parked in the red mud driveway.

  Momma came out the back door. She wore an apron over her Sunday dress, and her salt-and- pepper hair still retained its weekly set, her one beauty indulgence.

  “It is you! I was just tellin’ your daddy I thought I saw you coming up the lane. Where’s Ben?” I climbed out of the driver’s seat and shrugged.

  “He had to wait for a part in Jackson.”

  She made a noise that sounded like a cross between a harrumph and a grunt right before she hugged me. “Y’all should be married and having a family.”

  I beat her to her favorite line instead of giving my usual protest. “I know, I’m not getting any younger. But let’s not talk about that right now. I’m just glad to be home today.”

  Momma put her arm around me as we headed to the house. She strolled. I sidestepped the leftover puddles from a recent rainstorm. We climbed the steps and went inside to the kitchen. The TV roared from the front room. Daddy must have a movie on. I pictured him already asleep in his recliner.

  “Diana and Steve are taking a walk, and the boys are watching a show with your daddy.” Momma shook her head and went to turn the tomatoes, frying on the stove. “I can’t believe it. That poor Charla Thacker, and right in your store.”

  “Oh, Momma. It was awful.” I settled onto the nearest empty chair at the table. My stomach growled. Someone had already set the table. A mound of potato salad in a bowl, cucumber salad, a tray of pickles,
fresh rolls, and the lone health food of tossed salad waited.

  Forget no-carb, low-carb, good-carb today. I helped myself to an empty glass and poured some sweet tea from the pitcher next to the cucumber salad. Thank You, Lord, for comfort food.

  “And what a shame. Right before the wedding, too.” Momma pointed to the paper towels at the other end of the counter. “Hand me those, hon, so I can lay a few on a clean plate.”

  Once I fetched the paper towels, I hovered close by the frying pan. I noted a bottle of canola oil next to the stove. No trans fat, but still fat. My mouth watered at the thought of the fried green tomatoes.

  “Charla had lots of plans.” I reached for a still-sizzling fried tomato. “Ouch.”

  “That’ll teach you.” Momma grinned and added another few tomatoes to the plate. “We can make all the plans we want, but we don’t always know what’s coming around the next bend in the road.”

  “One of my students said something interesting in Sunday school. She said she heard someone say it was about time Charla got a taste of her own medicine.” My face grew warm, and it wasn’t because of standing next to a hot stove. Momma had taught us not to tale bear, and here I was doing it right in her own kitchen. But there were some things I just had to know.

  “Jealousy is a creature that’s ugly as homemade sin.” Momma dipped a few sliced tomatoes into egg, rolled them in the flour mixture, and placed them into the hot oil. “Its long-forked tongue never stops moving, and it’s got roots like crabgrass. Just when you have it dug out, here it comes sproutin’ up again.”

  I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t known Charla well. Enough to know she was spoiled, larger than life, and was the kind of person you remembered once you met her. I could see how someone would be jealous of that. I tried not to bristle inwardly at recalling the high-and- mighty way she’d treated me. And honestly, I never wanted blond hair, either. Too much of a stigma. I’d keep my light brown hair, thank you very much.

  No fooling Momma, though. “Didn’t really care for her, did you?”

  “I’d have to say, honestly, she’s probably not someone I’d hang out with. So, um, not exactly.” I helped myself to a cooled fried green tomato.

  Momma checked the tomatoes and turned them. “I know. I’ve heard some things about her, too. The blow-dryer at the beauty shop doesn’t drown out voices very well. Those ladies blame her for taking their men and leaving a string of broken hearts from here to Memphis.”

  “What?” Oh, but the tomatoes were good—tangy and sweet and crunchy. Ben had bought me an elliptical trainer for Christmas. I’d have to dust it off and use it.

  “Maybe I’m sayin’ too much.” Momma looked me in the eye. “Just remember, lovin’ and leavin’s a two-way street. There’s more than one side to every story.”

  My stomach got the sensation it does when my empathy meter starts to kick in. The image of Charla, laughing with her friends, swam into my head. Had her heart been broken, too? I wanted to beg and plead and drag the details out of Momma, but her propriety would make her close up tighter than Fort Knox.

  Momma scooped the tomatoes out of the oil and put them to drain on another plate. “You’re putting on someone’s shoes for a walk, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Whether I want to or not. I know how Charla must have felt.” I snatched a fresh paper towel, loaded it up with a few of the cooler tomatoes, and sat back down at the table. Momma understood my empathy. I think she had a bit of that gift herself.

  “You’re right to think about how Charla Thacker felt, both envied and despised by others.” Momma washed her hands before pouring herself a glass of tea. She took a seat across from me.

  “I know she was probably frustrated,” I said around a bite of tomato. “You can’t always control what people think about you, or if they talk about you.”

  “Just remember that when you’re misunderstood.”

  “Momma, people are already starting to talk about the store. I’d hate it if people didn’t come around. I don’t know what to do.”

  Momma stood up and moved around the table and put her arms around me. The gesture reminded me of when I was small, and I leaned my head on her apron. “Do? Hon, you just keep doing. Hold your head high and go about your business. Don’t pretend like nothing happened. So long as you know the truth, that’s all that matters.”

  Momma released me and went to check on the chicken in the oven. I pondered her words. “Truth?” Like Pontius Pilate asked, ‘What is truth?’ Or in my case, what is the truth of the matter with Charla Thacker? Sadie’s words came back, along with Momma’s philosophizing about jealousy. Highly improbable, but not impossible, that someone tampered with the cherry scrub.

  I decided then to draft Diana to help me. Once she and Steve returned from their walk, I’d ask her to accompany me to the funeral on Monday. No one was a better people watcher than Di. And working in the bank, she knew plenty about people around town.

  Maybe nothing would come of the venture, and if so, fine. I needed to pay my respects to the family, and I wasn’t brave enough to do it alone. Better to show up at a public place instead of at their front door.

  I also reminded myself that jealousy wasn’t grounds to accuse someone of murder. If it was, they’d have to lock a lot of us up.

  Chapter Four

  The aromas from a multitude of cooked pasta dishes and hung in the air while the crowded church hall buzzed with a life of its own. Around here, when you bring on the food, you bring on the people. It doesn’t matter who dies. Everyone shows up for the after-funeral potluck buffet at First Community Church, the largest house of worship in town.

  “Have you ever seen anyone laid out so beautifully?” I heard someone say.

  I nearly choked on my bite of shrimp cocktail and grabbed Di’s arm. “Did you hear that?”

  Di clapped me on the back. “Yes, and by the look of things, Charla’s headed for a nomination for sainthood.” One end of the church reception hall had been dedicated to a photo montage of the life of Charla Rae Thacker, who’d been struck down “before her life really began,” as someone put it. Easels lined the edge of the room. One poster-size print bore a picture of Charla’s graduation from Greenburg High. Another was a candid shot of Charla, with a wide grin and wild blond waves, as she worked with some inner-city Memphis children the summer after her senior year. There was a picture of her and her fiancé, Robert, vacationing on a tropical beach. Another enlarged photo showed Charla swinging a hammer for a Helping Hands Homes project. Whoever put this display together must have used lightning speed with such short notice.

  I looked for the owner of the voice that claimed the view of Charla was beautiful. Honey Haggerty. Now that explained the remark. The owner of Honey’s Place, Greenburg’s best down-home cooking, never shrank from speaking her mind, or using hair coloring so vivid you could see her four blocks away. Now that I could envy. Not the hair, but not being concerned with what other people thought.

  “You’ve got to admit, though, the Warners did a great job of making Charla look, um…” I couldn’t believe I was agreeing with Honey’s blaring comment, but I still couldn’t forget the sight of Charla’s face just before the EMS worker covered it with a sheet.

  “Presentable?” Di munched on a carrot stick.

  I nodded. “It was so awful to see her that day. We’ve got to mingle and see if anyone might have had reason to get rid of her.”

  “Andi, I think you’re grasping at air here. How could someone have put something in your scrub?” Di gave a discreet wave to one of her coworkers from the bank.

  “One thing at a time, Watson.” I took a bite of someone’s macaroni-and-cheese surprise, chewed, and swallowed. “We find who, and then we find how.”

  “Isn’t that backwards? Don’t the cops usually find evidence first?”

  I shrugged. “They’ve got the evidence, remember? They just don’t know it yet. I’m trying to find out who had it in for Charla. Take half the single women in this room
, for instance.”

  “Really, could you tone it down a smidge?” Di shot me a look. I hadn’t meant for my tone to rival Honey’s.

  “Sorry.” My face flamed. I checked my cell phone to make sure I had it set on Low. Ben was due back from Jackson, and I didn’t want to miss his call. “I say we split up now before my mouth runs away. Then, we leave and talk in the car and compare notes.”

  “Okay, Sherlock.” Di grinned and headed off to the bank crew.

  I, for one, wanted another glass of sweet tea, so I headed for the drink table and surveyed the room as I crossed it. If I made a list of Charla’s victims of the heart, it might be pretty long. But most ladies who’d lost their men to Charla had gone on with their lives. Who would nurse a grudge strong enough to kill? Was it premeditated? Or an impulsive crime of passion?

  “That fancy face scrub did it,” someone’s murmuring voice said as I passed a circle of mourners. I tried not to look and, instead, let their respectfully dark clothing remain a blur.

  “And she showed up today. Well, I’ll give her points for that.”

  “Murderers often attend their victims’ funerals.”

  “Oh, come on, it’s not like she tried to murder the girl.”

  Ouch.

  I did catch one suspicious glance and wanted to find a place to hide. Fast. I glanced at the food table and stepped up the pace.

  Melinda Thacker nearly collided with me as she balanced her loaded plate on one hand and held a cup in the other. Her pale skin contrasted with the black dress she wore, her walnut tresses caught back in a chignon.

  I braced my hand gently on the edge of her plate. “I’m sorry, excuse me.”

  Her eyes widened. “Ms. Clark. Thanks…thanks for comin’.” Now her eyes glistened. “I’ve had time to think, and I have to say I was hard on you the other day when…”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I touched Melinda’s shoulder. “We had a horrible shock, on what should have been a special day for you—and for her.” Words failed me, and my mouth went dry. I glanced over her shoulder as a man in a tailored dark suit approached from behind her.