Crops and Robbers by Paige Shelton Page B

planned on finding and talking to Allison as soon as possible. It was rare that I was anything but late to the market, but I hadn’t slept much anyway. Nightmares didn’t make for good rest. As the sun barely peeked over the horizon, I pulled my truck into the load-unload area behind my stall. I was running on fumes from so little rest, but I was aware enough to notice the reprieve of cool early morning air that would give way to stifling heat soon enough.
    Instead of finding Allison either at my stall or answering her phone as I expected, I found an unlikely pair outside Bo Stafford’s stall. Bo and Jake Bidford were standing next to each other and surveying something.
    Other than with the restaurant association, I didn’t think I’d ever seen Jake at Bailey’s, but Bo had mentioned that he purchased onions from him sometimes. Maybe I just hadn’t paid attention.
    “Bo. Hi, Jake, what’s up?” I said as I joined them. “Oh,” I continued after I saw what they’d been looking at.
    Bo’s display tables were in pieces on the ground of his stall. It was as if someone had taken a hammer to them, breaking wood and pulling out nails.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “I have no idea,” Bo said. “When I got here this morning, I found it this way.”
    “I just got here,” Jake added.
    “Have you called Allison?” I asked Bo.
    He nodded. “I told her all about it. She’s on her way.”
    As if on cue, she appeared at my other side.
    “Sorry, Bo, I got here as quickly as I could. I called Sam. The police are on their way. Jake,” she turned to him, “you didn’t see anything either?”
    “No, nothing,” he said.
    Allison, her hands on her hips, looked closely at the mess in the stall. “I’d recommend staying out of there for now. We’ll let Sam tell us what to do.”
    Bo and Jake nodded again.
    I admired Bo’s effort to remain coolheaded as he suggested to Jake that they conduct whatever business they had behind the stall in the load-unload area and work directly from Bo’s truck. They disappeared through a neighboring empty space and out the back.
    “Jake come here often?” I asked Allison as we walked back to my stall.
    “Every now and then, why?”
    “I have never once seen him here. Is it weird between the two of you?”
    Allison laughed. “You’re early today, Becca. Lots of people come to the market earlier than you—particularly business owners who buy groceries. And Jake and I were a million years ago. In fact, Tom, Mathis, and I love to eat in his restaurant.” She waved away any further discussion along those lines. “I feel badly for Bo, and guilty that this happened to him on my watch.”
    “Someone had to have been pretty gutsy to do something like this when there could have been other vendors around.”
    Allison shrugged. “We’re mostly tent walls, Bec. I suppose anyone can make their way in if they really want to. And even though people get here early, we’re pretty empty and dark in the middle of the night. I’d been resisting because we’re such an easygoing group and haven’t had any problems, but I want to have some security cameras installed this afternoon. No one really leaves much inventory on the premises, but these display tables can be expensive. I can’t let this sort of thing happen to my vendors.”
    “Do you think it had anything to do with the murder yesterday?” I asked, though I hadn’t wanted to. I thought I might sound too paranoid.
    “I hope not,” Allison said, but she hadn’t shrugged off the question like I thought she might. “Anyway, you’re doing okay? Heard from Mom or Dad yet?”
    “I think I’m okay.” Lots of people had asked me that question recently. “No, I haven’t heard from either of them.”
    Bo, without Jake, appeared in the aisle from out of the empty stall again, and Allison went to talk to him.
    I still wanted to talk to Bo about his farm’s affiliation with the restaurant association, but that would have to wait for