Merry Market Murder(57)

Sheesh, maybe the holiday spirit’s getting to me, I thought.

I came up for air many jars of jelly, jam, and preserves later. Just as I blew my bangs out of my eyes, a familiar face appeared outside my stall.

“Ian! Hello again,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Busy. I can’t believe how many people want to give yard art as gifts this year.”

“It’s good to be busy,” I said, having just gone through one of the busiest rushes I thought I’d ever been through, and was luckily to still be alive to talk about it.

“It is.” Ian smiled. I could see him building courage for something. I waited patiently. “Hey, I’m going to send you and Sam an invitation to a New Year’s gathering. You okay with that?”

“Of course. Sounds like fun.”

“Good.” Ian paused.

“What?”

“George and Gypsy will be there, but so will someone else. I wanted to you know beforehand.”

“I’ve heard. You and Betsy?”

“Yeah.”

“You happy?”

“I am, but does that seem weird to hear?”

“Not even a little bit. I’m happy you’re happy.” I was.

“She’s not as awful as you might have thought she was before you and I broke up.”

Betsy had tried to intervene in our relationship by forcing our breakup. She’d seen something early on that the rest of us had taken a little longer to recognize: that Ian and I weren’t meant to be long-term and Sam and I (there it was again, Sam and I) were meant to be together. She’d been obnoxious in the way she’d handled her revelation, but I could probably forgive her. Eventually.

“She just saw someone she liked and went after him,” I said. “She has great taste. I know.”

“She’s assured me she doesn’t make a habit of doing such things and she really wants to have a good heart-to-heart with you, and she asked me specifically not to tell you that. But I thought me stepping over that small boundary might help even things out.”

I laughed. “I’m good with even. I look forward to the New Year’s gathering. I’m sure Sam will, too.”

“Good to hear. Okay, well, I’m out of here again. More orders just today. It’s a good thing I can’t do much with the farm right now.”

“See you later, Ian.”

“You two are so civilized,” Linda said as she looked around our common wall again. Maybe we should just take that wall down.

“It’s awkward every now and then,” I said. “But doable.”

“Sam and Ian seem to get along just fine, too.”

I shrugged. “They do. There are times I wonder if the two of them plotted the whole thing—me falling for one so I could see the other one more clearly.”

Linda laughed. “No, Becca, that’s not what happened. I’m just impressed by y’all’s maturity.”

“Me, too, frankly.”

I stepped closer to Linda with the goal of peering around the wall to see how much inventory she had left. I thought about offering to cover her stall for the rest of the day just so I wouldn’t feel bad about asking her to do the same for me sometime down the road, build up the favor bank a little, at least.

But I was stopped when my toe ran into something. I looked down, but I must have propelled whatever it was to a spot under my front table. I crouched down.

“What’s up?” Linda said.

The object I’d kicked under the table was alarming, even though I didn’t think it was meant to be. I reached for it and stood.

“Is that a tree?” Linda asked.

“I think so.”

It was a crude design, made of metal, and only just resembling a pine tree. It was simply a flat piece of metal with scooped branches. The branches spread wider as they moved down the small tree. A hole had been carved or cut through the top of the tree, and a paper clip was once again used as the ornament hanger.

I pulled out my cell phone and called Ian.

“Hey,” he said. “You change your mind about the party?”

“No. Where are you?”

“On the way home. What can I do for you?”

“Did you drop a Christmas tree ornament by my stall?”

“No. I didn’t have one to drop.”

“By chance, have any pieces of your metal gone missing from your stall?”

Ian was silent a second. “Well, I don’t really have the raw materials at the market but one of my smaller pieces went missing yesterday. I thought it had either gone missing or I’d just forgotten that I hadn’t brought it.”

“Any chance it was made of thin metal, maybe with about a seven- or eight-inch flat part?”