Candy-Coated Secrets (2 page)

“Right. We’re clearing the highway now. You do know how dangerous this is, right? Oh, I forgot. I’m talking about Summer here.” He laughed and twirled his finger in a circular motion beside his head. “You and your big mouth. Is that the trainer following?”

I drew myself up to the pinnacle of my height. “Elephants may be unstable, but her people are close by in case of trouble.” Ginger’s trunk snaked around my shoulders again. Sighing, I flung it off. “She’s very tame. Not frightened at all by the traffic. What do you want?” Ginger nudged me.

“As much as I’d like to stay and watch you play, I’m on my way to the fairgrounds. I want to make sure everything runs smoothly. When should I expect you?”

I wanted to smack the grin off his face. “About fifteen more minutes.”

“Oh, wait.” He rummaged around his seat, straightened with his cell phone in hand, and snapped a picture. “Ethan will never believe this. It might make him have second thoughts about marrying you.” His laugh floated out the window as he drove off.

“Big oaf.” He was right, though. The two were going to have a great laugh when Joe sent Ethan the picture. “Come on, Ginger, we’re almost there.” The truck carrying Sally passed us with a honk.

We walked onto the grounds as if a disheveled woman and an elephant were a common sight. The midway resembled an anthill as workers scurried here and there, many burdened with planks of wood or boxes.

Empty rides spun and twirled. Tinny country music blared from speakers. I was glad I’d volunteered to walk Ginger. I loved the carnival. Now I had an opportunity to see a side of it I’d never witnessed.

Joe stood near the entrance, next to his squad car, speaking to a middle-aged man wearing a cheap suit and sporting a handlebar mustache. I gave a cheery wave and glanced around for Big Sally.

She shouldn’t have been hard to spot, yet she was nowhere in sight. Nor was the vehicle she rode in. Vividly striped tents were popping up everywhere. Food stands were being rolled into place. Rusty metal trailers, obviously the workers’ living quarters, lined the perimeter of the fairgrounds. “Come on, Ginger. It’s time to knock on doors.”

Ginger chose that time to abandon me and lumbered away to a large barn riddled with woodpecker holes. I sighed, feeling a bit sad that she’d so easily desert me. After all, she’d covered me with the contents of her nose. We had a relationship.

Where could a woman the size of Big Sally hide? To my left sat a trailer with bright crimson curtains blowing from the windows. It was as flamboyant as Sally. Just her style. Amidst wolf calls and howls from carnival workers, I made my way through the bustling fairgrounds to the trailer. My face most likely burned as bright as the fabric flapping in the breeze.

“Hello?” I pushed the partially opened door, trying to peer through the gloom inside. “I’ve brought back Ginger. Hello?” Heavy incense assaulted my nostrils. Born with the gift of nosiness, I stepped inside. A floor board creaked.

The only light filtered through curtains. I stepped into a combination living room and kitchen. Dishes littered the counters and dust covered every surface. I wandered down the hall to my left. A door revealed a bedroom decorated in the same garish red of the living room curtains and the obvious location of the incense. An aromatic haze hovered in the gloom. A water bed took up most of the space. A bathroom branched off to my right, and I peeked inside.

The absence of a window left the room in darkness, and my hand searched the wall for a light switch. A flick of the switch dispelled the gloom, and I blinked against the glare.

A shadow behind the shower curtain caught my eye. “I’m sorry.” I stumbled backward. By the silhouette, I could make out a fully clothed, kneeling person. Was he or she hurt?

“Are you okay? Do I need to call someone?”

When no irate voice demanded I leave, I gnawed my lower lip and reached toward the curtain. Goose pimples rose on my flesh. Every nerve ending tingled, warning me to run away.

Rings clattered as I shoved aside the striped plastic. A scream welled up from deep inside me, clawing its way through the lump in my throat. There, hanging by the neck with a brightly colored scarf around her throat, slumped a woman. A small wooden stool lay at her feet. The showerhead had pulled away from the wall. The scarf hung on the edge of the plumbing, while the woman’s knees rested on the stained fiberglass floor.

I grabbed my cell phone from my pocket and punched in Joe’s number.

Chapter Two

Footsteps pounded outside. I dashed to join them, certain that whoever approached had to be better than a dead body. Joe rushed up, his hand on the handle of his pistol.

“Summer?” He glanced past me, then grabbed me by the shoulders and ushered me to a nearby patio chair. “Stay here. Don’t let anyone in.” He whipped his cell phone from his pocket and ducked back into the trailer.

A crowd gathered. People jostled for position. Big Sally shoved people aside as she made her way toward me. Her chest heaved as she struggled to regain the breath she’d lost from her dash across the grounds. “What is it? This is Laid Back Millie’s trailer. Somebody tell me what’s going on.”

No match for her, I stepped aside. What I’d witnessed sunk in, and I slid to the ground, raising a cloud of dust around me. Mr. Handlebar and a younger version of him, minus the mustache, dashed up. The older man hurried inside, his clone following. Within minutes, the younger man reappeared.

“Come with me, miss.” He kept a tight hold on my elbow and led me to the larger of the trailers skirting the fairgrounds. “I’m Eddy Foreman. That’s my father, Rick. He owns this fair slash carnival. Pretty slick idea, isn’t it? Combining the two attractions? That was my idea. Foreman’s Fair and Carnival. Has a nice ring to it.” Eddy pulled up a straight-backed chair and lowered me into it. “I’m sorry. You aren’t interested in hearing about my brain scheme.”

Was it possible I’d imagined seeing a dead woman? This was a carnival, after all. Please God, let it be an illusion.

“Are you okay?”

Nodding, I removed my hands from my eyes. “Who is she?”

“Laid Back Millie.” He pulled up a chair across from me. “I don’t understand why she’d kill herself. She seemed happy enough.”

“Who said she killed herself?” I was thinking like my cousin. After I successfully solved a murder and diamond theft earlier in the summer, that thought pleased me. As long as I didn’t look like him, everything would be fine. My cousin Joe stood around six feet two inches and easily weighed two hundred pounds.

“Didn’t you notice the knocked over stool below her? What else could it be?”

Narrowing my eyes, I took a closer look at the man in front of me. Thinning russet hair swept across the spreading bald spot on top of his head. Gray eyes beneath bushy brows. Thick lips and. . .did my eyes serve me right? He wore a shiny polyester shirt with tight blue jeans. Had I stepped back in time when I’d entered the fairgrounds gates? The shirt came complete with buttons left undone, revealing ample chest hair and several gold chains. A close-to-forty-year-old trying to relive the good old days.

He leaned forward, placing a sweaty hand over my folded ones. Then an expression of what could be sorrow dropped over his face. “Now that Millie’s gone, God rest her soul”— he paused in a moment of silence—“the carnival will have a job opening if you’re interested. I saw you with Ginger. I know you own this land, but you’d be a natural. A great attraction. Never enough pretty ladies around here.”

“What was Millie’s job?” Despite feeling I’d been insulted, my curiosity got the better of me. Did it matter what the poor woman did? I pulled my hands free. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“Officially, she ran the ringtoss. Unofficially, she—” Joe barged in. “Summer, I told you to stay by the trailer.

It’s a circus out there.” His face reddened as he apparently realized what he’d said. “Sorry. No pun intended.”

“Carnival,” I corrected and stood. “Sorry, Joe, but Mr. Foreman came to my rescue. It’s not every day I see a dead body.”

“Good grief.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. He stared into my eyes. “Stay. Out. Of. It.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t want Ethan coming home to a dead girlfriend.”

“Stay out of what?” If Joe thought there was something to stay out of, something big must be happening. My investigative antennas went up. “You don’t think it was suicide, do you? Why?”

“Don’t go picking my brain, cousin. It won’t do you any good.” Joe pulled me along until we reached his squad car. He opened the passenger door. “Get in and behave yourself, or I’ll put you in the back.”

“You wouldn’t!” Everyone knows what kind of germs are in the backseat of a policeman’s black-and-white. Plus, with my damp clothes, I might slide off the plastic seat.

“Try me.” The door slammed in my face.

Of all the nerve. I folded my arms and slouched back to watch fair life pass by the car windows.

Ginger plodded the perimeter of the fence around her paddock like an overgrown cow, to use my aunt’s words. Carnival workers tossed feed to goats, lambs, and rabbits.

Part of the petting zoo, I imagined. Fat ponies grazed, tethered in a grassy area. Long tails swatted at flies.

The sound of striking hammers switched my attention to the right. Men in overalls nailed rails in a makeshift rodeo ring. The rodeo ran the first weekend of the carnival. Ethan won a blue ribbon in the horse-breaking event last year. Everyone expected him to do the same this year.

Shouts were bandied back and forth as workers scurried like mice on the scaffolding. The empty Ferris wheel spun like a forgotten toy. The whir of generators filled the air. And among it all—a dead woman. Her life snuffed out in an instant. And not by her own hand. I didn’t believe that for a moment. What bothered me was that more people didn’t seem concerned.

Big Sally moaned outside a trailer. Her wail increased as a silent ambulance rolled through the carnival gates and came to a stop in front of her. Joe glanced in my direction. Probably to make sure I stayed where he’d put me.

Catching a glimpse of myself in the side-view mirror, I groaned. Horror. I met people looking like this? Dark auburn hair plastered to my head. Mascara ringing my eyes, and my blush completely washed away. I looked like something from a nightmare.

A slight man, barely the size of an average sixth grader but a little taller than me, darted past the car and threw himself into Big Sally’s folds. He practically disappeared when she wrapped her arms around him.

I leaned forward for a better look. Seemed there might be a strange love story here. My heart lightened seeing the tenderness despite the shadow of death hovering over the fairgrounds.

Joe got in the car and glanced at me. “What are you smiling at?”

I pointed at the couple. “Look how cute they are together.”

“Are you serious? It’s like a mother and child. That woman is massive.” He turned the key in the ignition.

“I like her.” I put my seat belt on. “Despite having walked her elephant down Highway 64 for a mile. In flipflops. I’ve got blisters.”

“About the elephant, Summer. Rick Foreman is beside himself with the possibility you could’ve been hurt and would sue them.”

“Tell him he has nothing to worry about. It ended up being kind of fun. I thought of the danger, but not the liability.” Silly me. Chalk one more thing up to the rash actions of Summer Meadows. I turned to him. “Ready to tell me what happened?”

Joe stared through the car window as the crime scene investigators pulled onto the grounds. “Nothing to tell. And if there were. . .”

“I know. You couldn’t tell me, anyway.”

I stared out the side window. It didn’t matter. I’d be back tomorrow to see if I could set up a booth to sell my candy. Just a formality. My family owned the land the fairgrounds sat on.

The water cascaded over my head and shoulders like warm liquid heaven, washing away the odors of the carnival. But it couldn’t erase the vision of a woman dangling from a scarf. Or that someone unsuccessfully tried to make her death look like a suicide. If she’d wanted to kill herself, there were other places to do so. Hanging from the Ferris wheel, for example. Definitely high enough her knees wouldn’t have dragged.

If the showerhead hadn’t pulled from the wall, they would have left what, two or three inches between Millie’s feet and the bottom of the shower? A person would have to be very small to pull suicide off in that way.

Stop it, Summer. This doesn’t involve you. I lathered my hair with my favorite shampoo and inhaled the sweet scent of floral and citrus. Why would Foreman think she’d tried to commit suicide? And what about Joe’s evasive answer? And what was the woman’s unofficial job with the carnival? I couldn’t help it. Questions swirled in my mind like a whirlpool.

I shook my head to clear it and stepped beneath the spray of water to rinse my hair.

“Summer!” My aunt’s voice rang from the other side of the door.

I jerked, causing soapy water to run into my eyes. “I’m in the shower.” I forced my eyes open to wash the shampoo out.

“Ethan’s on the phone.”