Merry Market Murder(84)

Of course, Brenton was a great guy, but his loner ways were the result of choices he’d made, choices that were all about being alone and not being a part of the family that he was born into, a family that had disappointed him deeply. He wasn’t just a private person; it turned out that he was a lonely, somewhat tortured private person. It wasn’t discussed, but I suspected that those personal choices had played a big role in the failure of his marriage to Stephanie Frugit; the tragedy of this broke my heart.

After he and I had spoken and when Sam had gone in search of him again, Brenton hadn’t left town, hadn’t disappeared; he’d only gone to talk to Stephanie. Though he couldn’t sustain a marriage, and though they hadn’t remained close at all, she knew about his past. He could talk to her if he really needed to, and he suddenly felt like he needed to. He needed to talk through his suspicions regarding who he thought had murdered Reggie Stuckey. Even though he’d felt betrayed by and had left his family, it hadn’t been easy for him to accept that one or all of them might have been involved in murder. He felt like Stephanie was really the only one who would understand. It didn’t even occur to him that Sam might look for him again.

No one brought up the fact that it seemed Brenton was gone from his home overnight. I didn’t know if he’d spent the night at Stephanie’s house. If the police knew, I didn’t push them, or Sam specifically, for the answer. It was none of my business, and I felt no need to overstep that boundary. I hoped a little, though, that a spark might have somehow been reignited between Brenton and Stephanie. I blamed it on the spirit of the season. Happy endings make good Christmas stories.

Billie and Reggie had been seeing each other again, but Reggie had tried to stop the re-acquaintance; this upset Billie. She told the police that originally she was only going to mess with him by calling him, disguising her voice, and pretending to be a representative from Bailey’s inviting him to sell trees at the market. She thought she would make her ruse even bigger if she called the Bailey’s owners telling them she represented Reggie. She would tell them that he wanted to sell his trees at the market. She expected to be told that the Ridgeways had the exclusive contract and that no one else was welcome, making Reggie look even worse when he showed up at the market with his truck full of trees. She was surprised when Mel told her he’d send her a contract just in case it worked out. She was so caught off guard that she gave him a made-up fax number. Then she doctored the Ridgeway contract and faxed it to Reggie. She hoped to put him in an inconvenient and uncomfortable situation; this was easily accomplished by his mere appearance at Bailey’s. Billie claimed that she hadn’t intended to kill Reggie. She claimed to become so angry with him, and that the stake was “right there. It just happened.”

When he was greeted by Allison in the Bailey’s lot, it didn’t take long for Reggie to suspect that the mixup had somehow been caused by Billie. After the initial conversation, and without anyone noticing apparently, he called her to his truck and confronted her. She claimed that his accusations and continued insistence that they weren’t going to ever be together again angered her enough to “just react” with the spike. She said it wasn’t premeditated, and it might not have been, but we all hoped she’d never leave jail.

Billie had never gotten over the affair that had ruined so many lives. Over the years, Denny had watched her closely with the hope that she’d move on. Billie wouldn’t tell anyone how she and Reggie had recently reconnected, but Denny blamed himself. He’d finally let down his guard, finally quit checking her whereabouts all the time, quit looking at her computer.

I shared with him the old adage—where there’s a will, there’s a way. If Billie wanted to get in touch with Reggie, she was going to find a way, even if it took her almost thirty years to do it.

Denny had known who’d killed Reggie, or he had suspected it. But his family was already broken, and he didn’t want to be the one to turn in his sister. He’d lost a brother. If he was going to lose his sister, he didn’t want it to be because of him. His loyalty was strange and misguided, but the idea of leaving ornament clues for me, for the person he knew was dating a police officer, was at least creative. The police didn’t like his reasoning, but I hoped he wouldn’t end up in too much trouble.

Later, all the ornaments and their messages made sense, sort of. The messages would have been difficult to interpret no matter what, but the last elf, if it had been delivered, might have brought everything together. Denny had stolen the eggs from Jeannine and the corn husks from Barry. He said he hadn’t been sneaky about his crimes, but it seemed that most everyone trusts the guy who looks a little like Santa, particularly during the month of December. He did purchase the onion from Bo, though. As they were completing the transaction, the small copy of the state seal fell from his pocket to the ground. He counted on Bo not noticing or caring. In fact, Bo had noticed, but he just hadn’t remembered the specifics of the moment until later when he heard the whole story. Denny had also stolen the fish ornament off Wanda’s tree. He’d seen Billie and me beside the tree, and he hoped that our shared few moments of conversation would make me think of Billie when I saw a fish ornament again. His plan hadn’t worked. He admitted it had been a desperate and poorly thought out attempt.