Merry Market Murder(55)

Still.

“When’s the last time either of you saw Reggie?” Sam asked.

The Archers looked at each other, and both of them shrugged lightly. We were standing outside the copse of pine trees, but I was paying such close attention to what the Archers had to say that I didn’t have time to appreciate the strong pine scent.

“I guess the day before he was killed. We helped him load up the truck to take it to the farmers’ market,” Joel said.

“What did you know about his plans to sell at Bailey’s?”

“It was something that had only come together last week,” Joel said confidently. “He was excited about it. He said that he’d been working with a woman from the market, and that it was a good market, and that it would be good to get more of his trees out to the world.”

I watched Patricia as Joel spoke. I was certain she looked down and blushed a tiny bit when Joel mentioned the “woman from the market,” but those actions didn’t tell me anything, particularly when she looked back up quickly and I realized that the blush could have been attributed to the cool air.

“Did either of you ever go into his office, the one in the house or the one in the garage?”

“No,” Joel said, but Patricia wasn’t so quick to speak.

“Well,” she finally said, her voice soft and tense.

“Go on,” Sam said.

“He sent me in the garage for some spikes the day before . . . the day before we loaded up for the market.”

I didn’t know if the police had released to the press that Reggie had been killed with a Christmas tree spike, so I remained quiet.

Joel didn’t say anything but his eyebrows came together in a tight knit as he looked at his wife.

“I thought . . . never mind,” Joel said.

Sam and I looked at each other before he turned to Joel. “Never mind what, Mr. Archer?”

“It’s nothing really. I just thought Reggie told us the garage was off-limits, that we weren’t ever to go in there, but he must have made an exception for Patricia.”

“It was just that one time,” she was quick to add. “Just that one time.”

“And you retrieved a spike, just one?” Sam said.

Patricia nodded. “I did. I’m sure he would have asked Joel to get it for him, but Joel was helping to deliver a tree.”

I didn’t know what Joel had been doing but the nervous twitches around his eyes told me that he probably hadn’t been delivering a tree.

“Did you ever fax anything for Reggie, or gather a fax, or help with any sort of paperwork at all?” Sam asked.

“No,” Patricia said.

“Where did you take the tree?” Sam asked Joel, pen and paper at the ready to write down an address.

“Uh, well . . . I just met someone on the corner of Main Street and Pomegranate. They met me there with their truck. They were from . . . Smithfield and we just met there.”

“Do you have any other information? Names, the kind of truck?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“What about that truck?” Sam nodded to the mint-condition, shiny, blue truck they’d been riding in.

“That’s . . . that’s Reggie’s,” Joel said, clearly embarrassed. “We don’t have a vehicle, so we were using that one. We didn’t think there would be any harm in doing so. Reggie always drove us around.”

“He ever let you drive it without him?”

“Uh. Oh. No, not that I remember,” Joel said.

“But he would have,” Patricia added. “We were sort of friends.”

“Friends, but the garage was off-limits?” Sam said as he used the pen to scratch at a spot above his ear.

“Well, we’d all known each other before,” Patricia said.

“Friends from way back?” I said. “When was way back?”

“Oh, we were kids, in our early twenties at least. It was back in the mid-to-late eighties. We helped with the trees back then, too.”

“So you probably knew Reggie’s wife?” Sam said.

“Sure. Evelyn. We knew her well,” Patricia said, but I thought I caught another look Joel sent in her direction. She caught it, too, and pinched her mouth closed.

“Tell me, what do you remember about their divorce?” Sam asked. I was surprised by his abruptness, but I liked it.

“Nothing,” Joel said before his wife could speak again.

“Really? Evelyn, a person you knew very well, gave up her political position and divorced her husband and you don’t remember anything about it,” Sam said.

“No, sir,” Joel said.

If I was reading the look on her face correctly, Patricia might never speak again.