State fair, p.14
State Fair, page 14
“Aunt Garnet, for cryin’ out loud, you gotta tell me. What did you see over there when they were dismantling the Piebald exhibit? You’re holding back on me.” I wasn’t going to listen to one more word about her quilting conquests until she told me what she saw or thought she saw.
She looked down at me, her long, even teeth and pale powdery skin as familiar to me as Dove’s long braid. Her blue eyes twinkled and for the first time it occurred to me how the shape and color of them were so similar to my gramma’s. The mischievous look in her eyes definitely reminded me of Dove.
“C’mon, Aunt Garnet. Fess up.”
“You know when that piece of board fell?”
I nodded.
“Tell me exactly what you saw.”
I exhaled impatiently. She obviously was going to make me work for the information. “Juliette was nagging the workers to be careful. She waved and I waved back. I asked her if she needed help and she refused. Dodge Burnside and her stepson, Justin, walk in. The three of them talk. Then he almost got hit by the falling board. Juliette screamed for Dodge to watch out.”
“It’s what happened right after the board fell that is particularly interesting.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. “Excuse me?”
“Dodge Burnside,” Aunt Garnet said, her voice triumphant.
I thought about it. So Dodge Burnside was there helping them pull down the display. Dodge worked for Milt Piebald, so that seemed perfectly logical. I said as much to Aunt Garnet.
“Ah, but does his job include “fringe benefits”?
“Aunt Garnet! I can’t believe you even know what that means!”
She gave a low chuckle. “I have read books published in the last five years. And I watch Jon Stewart. So, my point is that in a split second Mrs. Piebald and young Mr. Burnside gave away the fact that there might be a little something more between them.” She tsked primly and patted her cotton-candy hairdo.
I honestly hadn’t noticed a thing. “They did?”
She leaned down close. “When the board fell, they all jumped back. But after it was obvious they were safe, Mr. Burnside touched Mrs. Piebald’s waist just long enough and just intimately enough to tell me that he’d shimmied down that garden path before.” Her lips turned up into a triumphant smile.
I was shocked. Then I was annoyed . . . at myself for missing it. “Wow, that certainly opens this situation up to a whole new ball game.” Then I caught myself. “Wait, no it doesn’t. So what if Dodge and Juliette are doing the horizontal mambo? What’s that got to do with Cal’s murder?”
Aunt Garnet’s faced flushed telling me that I’d struck a nerve . . . and taken some of the air out of her investigating sails. Feeling bad that I’d ruined her moment of Sherlockian glory, I linked my arm through hers. I wouldn’t take her mystery away from her. I mean, what could it hurt? It was only a conversation between my aunt and me.
“You’re right, Aunt Garnet, it is suspicious. Maybe Cal saw them and told Dodge and he killed Cal so Jazz wouldn’t find out. Or maybe Juliette killed him so Milt wouldn’t find out. Shoot, maybe Milt killed him because Cal was the one having the affair with Juliette. There are all kinds of possibilities. I say we save that puzzle piece and come back to it when we have more information.”
She opened her mouth and I was almost certain she was going to reprimand me, tell me not to take that condescending tone with her. But she surprised me. “You’re absolutely right, niece. It’s a small observation that may or may not have anything to do with our case.” She squeezed my hand and smiled. “Now, what’s next?”
I looked into her face, which seemed to me to look a little wilted, the area around her eyes pale. Like Dove, she’d never admit when she was getting tired or when something was too much for her. But since I didn’t know yet what was going on with her, I decided to finagle her into resting a little while.
“Let’s go over to the Bull Pen,” I said. “That’s what we call the hospitality suite. It’s cool and they have a bar and always have snacks. Really good ones this year because of Emory. We can look over the fair schedule and decide if there’s anything we’d like to see this afternoon.”
“Sounds lovely. Will they allow me in?”
“Absolutely. You’re with me and I’ve got connections.” I waggled the all access pass hanging around my neck.
“Nice photo,” she commented.
Tim, the official fair photographer, was an old college friend who also had aspirations toward stand-up comedy. He’d taunted me until he caught me with my mouth open, then snapped the picture. I appeared to be angling for bait. Then he refused to reshoot the photo.
“Trust me, I’m gonna get back at ole Tim for that.”
Early afternoon was the most pleasant time to visit the hospitality suite. There were enough people in the room to chat with but not so many that it took you a half hour to get something to drink or eat. I bought myself a Coca-Cola and an iced tea with three sugars for Aunt Garnet. I brought our drinks and a plate of locally made goat cheese and whole grain organic crackers over to where Aunt Garnet was visiting with Emory on the sofa.
“Aunt Garnet, you have to see the Great Kansas Pig Races,” he was saying. “If you’re tempted to bet—mind you, it’s a tad illegal, but it happens—go for Sukie, the black-and-white one with what looks like a daisy on her side.” He lowered his voice. “She’s a ringer.”
“Shame on you!” Aunt Garnet exclaimed. “I will not be betting on pigs or anything else, Emory Delano Littleton. The Lord doesn’t look kindly on gambling.” The words sounded like the old Aunt Garnet, but she was smiling indulgently at her favorite nephew. In Aunt Garnet’s eyes, Emory could do no wrong. If anyone could talk her into laying down a few bucks on a racing piglet, it would be Emory.
“Quit trying to corrupt her,” I said, flopping down on the sofa.
“What’s the scoop on how the Booster Buddies are taking Cal’s murder?”
Before he could open his mouth, his eyebrows went up. He stood up, a phony smile on his face. I turned around to see who would cause this quick change in my cousin. Milt Piebald strode toward us, his face definitely not in a happy place.
“Emory, have you seen Levi?” Milt demanded, his voice loud as a rodeo announcer’s. His black hair glistened like the shine on his cowboy boots. “That boy seems to be a lot harder to find after this incident with his daughter. He’s not answering his walkie-talkie or his cell phone. What’s the use of paying for those buggers if people ignore your call? My friend, we might as well be shouting at a herd of heifers.”
“Milt, shut up,” Emory said. His voice drawled the words, giving them a good-natured timbre. “Levi’s not answering calls because he’s probably walkin’ around the fair making sure everything’s runnin’ like it should, which is exactly his job. He’s doin’ fine, so just leave him be.” His smile was full of steel.
Milt hesitated, recognizing that Emory was angry, something that happened so rarely that when it did, it threw people off.
Milt rolled his tongue around in his mouth. “He’s deliberately trying to keep this low profile to protect his little girl. She was running around with that young man who, in case anyone is interested, already had himself a nice little criminal record.”
“Hey, Milt,” I said. “Did it occur to you that Levi might be trying to keep this incident low profile for the good of the fair?”
“All’s I know is that we’ve got ourselves a peck of bad publicity and I’ve got myself one pissed-off wife. Juliette is not happy about having to take down our prizewinning display.” He pulled a paper-wrapped toothpick out of his pocket, dropped the wrapping on the floor and stuck it in the side of his mouth. “And when the missus ain’t happy, believe me, she makes sure I’m not happy.”
“The sheriff has the investigation under control,” Emory said, standing up. “I talked to Detective Hudson this morning and the Jones homicide has top priority. But these things take time and I’d suggest we all return to the business of making this fair as successful as we can.”
Milt moved the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other. “Easy for you to say. Your wife’s not chomping on your balls every dang minute.” He looked over at Aunt Garnet. Her thin lips were pressed together in a Sunday school teacher’s scowl. He had the grace to look chagrined. “Sorry, ma’am. Don’t mean to be crude.”
“Then don’t be, young man,” she snapped.
Milt jerked his head back in surprise, obviously expecting her to give a polite That’s all right. Ha, he didn’t know Mrs. Garnet Wilcox. He adjusted his white cowboy hat, then marched over to the bar without another word.
“Good one, Aunt Garnet,” Emory said, grinning.
“What a nasty man,” she replied. Then she turned to me. “So, what now? Time’s a’wastin’. Most homicides are solved in the first forty-eight hours or they are cold as a Thanksgiving turkey carcass.”
Emory slipped a hand in front of his grin.
“You know, there’s still so much to see at the fair,” I said, picking up a program from a stack on the oak coffee table. I glanced at my watch. “It’s five o’clock now. At five thirty we have a choice of seeing the Kansas racing pigs or the San Celina County Cloggers or taking in the ugly lamp contest.”
“The what?” Emory said.
“It’s right here. There are two categories—Made Ugly and Born Ugly.”
“Definitely the lamps,” Emory said. “The pigs run every day during the fair and you can see cloggers any old time in Arkansas.”
“Okay, it’s the ugly lamps.” She pulled another hankie from her purse and patted her damp upper lip. It was downright chilly in the Bull Pen so immediately an alarm went off in my head.
Outside, I realized that the temperature had gone from blazing hot to come-to-Jesus hot. Hot enough to convince anyone that hell indeed existed and an August day in Paso Robles might be its first cousin. There was no way I could let Aunt Garnet walk across the fairgrounds to the El Camino Real building where the ugly lamp contest was held. So I flagged down a red golf cart, flashed my badge and my most winning smile. “Official business,” I said to the middle-aged Hispanic man driving. “We need to get to the El Camino Real right away.”
“Ugly lamp contest?” he asked, helping Aunt Garnet into the front seat. I climbed on back sharing the space with two boxes of chicken-shaped paper fans.
“You got it,” I said.
“I could’ve won that,” he said, pressing down the accelerator. The cart started with a jerk. “My mother-in-law gave us a lamp when we got married that she said was a pair of rare black swans, but they looked more like vultures. Think she was trying to tell me something?”
“Why didn’t you enter it?” I asked him.
He turned to grin at me. “Broke. It was an accident. I swear.”
The ugly lamp contest was more popular than I anticipated. There were only a few seats left in the corner of the small air-conditioned building so I found one for Aunt Garnet and told her I’d stand in the back.
“Let’s get a snack afterward,” she said. “How about nachos?”
“Sounds good to me.” Though I couldn’t imagine Aunt Garnet snarking down tortilla chips, melted cheese and jalapeño peppers. Then again, this was the new, improved, throw-good-eating-habits-to-the-wind Aunt Garnet.
I leaned against the wall and watched as twenty-five contestants and the tackiest lamps I’d ever seen paraded across the platform to the song “I Feel Pretty” from West Side Story. A photographer from the Tribune was frantically snapping pictures as each lamp seemed to be more horrible than the last. This would likely be one of the human interest stories they loved to report about the fair.
Each contestant had two minutes to give his or her lamp’s story. My favorite was the one about how the lamp was a wedding gift from a beloved aunt who had no taste and visited the owner regularly so they couldn’t ditch it. It had a glass lampshade that changed color as the lava lamp bottom roiled and gurgled. Every time the color changed, the audience laughed. A good many of the stories involved lamps given as wedding gifts. After the stories I heard, I swore to myself that from now on I was only giving checks or gift certificates for wedding presents.
After the contest, I found Aunt Garnet.
“What now?” I asked. “Want those nachos?” It was six thirty and though we’d had snacks in the Bull Pen, we hadn’t had a real supper.
“I’m a bit tired,” Aunt Garnet said. “And I’d like to spend a little time with my sister. I miss her. Do you know if she’s going to be home tonight?”
“Let me call her and see where she is. I’ll be right back. It’s too noisy to call her in here.”
Okay, now I was really worried. While Aunt Garnet used the ladies’ room, I told her I’d track Dove down. I knew she had to be here at the fair somewhere. I’d seen in today’s program that Isaac was speaking in the fine arts building this evening. He was the featured fair artist this year since his book of state and county fair photographs had recently been reissued.
Dove answered on the third ring. “He’s signing books now. Got a line clear out to the Haunted House ride.”
“I’m taking Aunt Garnet back home. She looks tired.” I hesitated a moment, then said. “You know, Dove, I think there’s something wrong.”
“You bet there is, she’s always wanted—”
“No,” I interrupted. “Something’s really wrong. She just said she missed you.” I didn’t want to scare Dove, but I had to say it. “Gramma, she might be sick or something. She’s been acting real strange. I think you two need to talk.”
There was silence on the phone.
“Ready to go?” Aunt Garnet asked behind me.
I jumped in surprise. “See you later,” I said to Dove. “Think about what I said.”
“Everything okay?” Aunt Garnet said when I flagged down another golf cart and asked them to give us a ride to the exit.
“Great,” I said, silently praying, Please, God, make that be true. “Dove’s at Isaac’s book signing, but she’ll be home soon.” I made that last part up, but maybe after hearing what I said, she’d come right home after Isaac’s event.
On the drive to the ranch, Aunt Garnet leaned back against the headrest and closed her eyes. I refrained from turning on the radio, afraid to disturb her. The quiet gave me time to contemplate Cal’s murder. Though I really had no horse in that race, there was a part of me that wanted to help solve the murder. I mentally listed the suspects—Dodge or Milt seemed the most likely. There was Juliette—that was certainly possible, though that was a stretch. How would she have moved Cal’s body? Unless she had help. She and Dodge? Also, if I was going to be fair, I should add Lloyd Burnside. Maybe he lied about his son not going back out after his friends brought him home. Maybe he helped Dodge kill Calvin Jones. That would make him an accessory, wouldn’t it? Had Hud considered that? Of course, then there were those unknown friends of Cal’s. Maybe one of them did it, using the Harriet Powers quilt as a slap in the face to Jazz and Levi. Surely Hud was looking into that possibility.
On the way down the Ramsey Ranch’s long driveway, gravel pinging against our doors woke Aunt Garnet. She straightened up, flustered that she’d fallen asleep. To cover her embarrassment, she blurted, “Sam told me that Dodge Burnside told him that Justin and Cal had a fight about Jazz right before Cal was murdered.”
My foot hit the brake. We jerked forward, then were caught by our shoulder belts.
“Whoa,” Aunt Garnet said, reaching out to grab the dashboard.
My hands squeezed the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. You surprised me. Are you all right?”
She nodded.
I started slowly driving again. “Run that by me again. Sam told you what?”
“Justin and Cal had a fight right before Cal was killed. Dodge Burnside told Sam.”
“When did Sam tell you that?”
“This afternoon when you spilled your drink and had to wash up.”
We pulled up in front of the ranch house and I turned off the ignition. Daddy sat on the front porch in a wood rocking chair drinking a glass of tea. Gabe sat in an identical rocker next to him, laughing at something.
“Is that all he said?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t he tell me about it?” It annoyed me especially since I praised him earlier for being so truthful. He was a little like his father in that aspect. He told the truth . . . just left out something significant.
“He was afraid you’d get the wrong idea about his friend.”
Add Justin Piebald to the suspect list, I thought. I liked Jazz. She was a young woman whom I thought would go far in life. She was smart, kind and talented, but it was beginning to appear she wasn’t adept at choosing stable men.
I was helping Aunt Garnet out of the truck and up the porch steps when my cell phone rang.
“Benni?” Katsy’s voice was an octave higher than her normal alto. “I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Jazz has locked herself in the guest room and won’t come out. She insists she has to talk to you.”
“Me? Whatever for? Do you think she’d do anything drastic?” I sat down on the porch steps, aware that Gabe, Daddy and Aunt Garnet were staring at me.
Katsy made a sound halfway between a sigh and a moan. “I don’t think so. If we have to, we can break down the door. We have a key somewhere, but I have no idea where. We’re just not in the habit of locking things up here.”
“I’m at the ranch so it’ll take me about a half hour to forty-five minutes to get there.”
“Thanks. Honestly, this is enough to make a girl reconsider having kids.”
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked.
“Apparently Jazz has locked herself in the guest room at the Morrison ranch. She wants to talk to me.”
Gabe rocked slowly, a frown shadowing his face. “Why you?”
I shrugged. “She trusts me?”
“We’d better get going,” Aunt Garnet said. Her face sparkled with eagerness even though the tightness around her eyes had worsened. “No time to waste.”
