Merry Market Murder(39)

By the time we made it home, Hobbit was fast asleep, her nose nudged against my thigh and one of her back paws high on the passenger-side door. It was a shame to have to wake her, but wake her I did, and with urgency when I spied something unexpected on my front porch.

I’d had plenty of packages left on the porch, and lots of deliveries occurred when I was away from the house. But this item wasn’t a box or a container.

I pulled the truck along the driveway and parked as close to the porch as possible.

I thought about calling Sam but that seemed premature. I’d take a closer look first. Just in case, I made sure I knew which pocket my phone was in.

From the truck, it looked like a handmade doll. Chills ran up and down my spine and then made my teeth chatter. I’d seen enough horror movies to have witnessed dolls transforming from children’s toys to something menacing and deadly. But this one wasn’t opening its eyes, or pulling itself up to a standing position.

“Come on,” I said to Hobbit. “It’s just a stupid doll. I think.”

I got less spooked as we moved closer. When I realized the doll was adorned in red and green ribbon, I became more curious than concerned. It looked like my ornament collection was gaining a new addition.

The doll was about eight inches tall and crudely made of cornhusks, ribbon, and string. Barry of Barry Good Corn didn’t sell corn in December, but he still hung out at the market. A couple years earlier, he’d started selling dried cornhusks in the off season. Crafters used them, so he figured adding the product made sense. The husks wouldn’t ever make him rich, but they were an addition that gave him an excuse to be at the market even when he didn’t have produce to sell. I guessed that like the other ornament items, these cornhusks had come from Bailey’s, and they might have been stolen.

I knew it was a girl doll because it had a cornhusk skirt, the waist of which was tied with both a green and a red ribbon. The waist-length hair was made with a cut piece of husk, its multiple tips curling in all directions. It occurred to me that it must have taken a lot of time just to make the hair. The face was drawn in with black dot eyes and a simple black L nose, but the perfectly shaped lips were bright red, giving her a whole Christmas-elf-floozy persona. A paper clip had been stretched, bent, and again used for the hook.

I inspected it from top to bottom but there was no other clue to lead me to its creator. There were no years noted and no state seals. She was just a cornhusk Christmas doll ornament and one, I had to admit, I thought was cute. It was the first market-product ornament I’d received that I would consider putting on a tree.

I looked up and around the property. Nothing had been disturbed, but someone had secretly dropped it off, probably knowing that I wasn’t home, although that wasn’t ever much of a mystery. My orange truck was pretty good at giving away my location.

There was no harm done, but it was still creepy. If I’d just found it and not the others before it, I might not have felt uncomfortable, but I did. I didn’t like the fact that someone had easily traipsed around my property and could have caused more harm without being noticed. I really didn’t like the idea that Hobbit could have once again been exposed to someone up to no good.

I looked at my dog. She was also inspecting the property with her eyes and her lifted nose.

“We might have to get some cameras, girl.”

She agreed.

I carried the doll into the house and checked every room and every closet, just in case. Nothing had been disturbed. Nothing was out of place. No one had tried to come in through a window, and the back sliding door was still locked, its glass intact. Simply, someone had come onto my property and left a doll ornament. Someone who had stocked up on Bailey’s products or shopped there frequently was stretching his or her creative skills.

After a full inspection of the premises, I called Sam, but he didn’t answer. I debated leaving a detailed message about the newest ornament but decided just to let him see it when he came over later that evening. I had plenty of cookies to bake to keep me busy.

I transitioned easily into baking mode. My mind was so busy thinking about ornaments, Stephanie Frugit’s words, and murder that I finished the cookies without really noticing that I’d started.

When the last batch was cooling and Sam still hadn’t arrived, I was anxious to do something else productive, so I switched on my old laptop. Once it finally warmed up, I began searching. I started with “1987 South Carolina” and was overwhelmed by the large amount of available links. On October 3, the South Carolina Gamecocks football team had played the number-two ranked Nebraska Cornhuskers. South Carolina lost 21–30. And 1987 was the inaugural year for former governor Carroll Ashmore Campbell Jr.