Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos (14 page)

The booth. No one would be at the fair grounds this time of night. I could not only get the privacy I needed, but I could even work off some of my temper rearranging my ironwork. And, come to think of it, I would feel better if I collected my cash box and laptop and took them to the tent. Even though I had locked them in the storage cases, I'd actually rather have them with me.

I fished in my pocket and checked the wristwatch I'd hidden there. It was nearly ten; the party was supposed to go on until eleven. I'd have at least an hour to cool down and meet Michael back here at the party.

I slipped away, stopping by the dressing room to collect my haversack from Mrs. Tranh's ladies. The string quartet faded in the distance as I strode down the lane toward the craft-fair grounds. I fumbled in my haversack until I found the laminated badge that identified me as one of the exhibitors and hung it around my neck, just in case I ran into any nitpicking members of the Town Watch, although that seemed unlikely. The last time I'd looked they were all at the party, diligently guarding the buffet tables and the cash bar.

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea, I thought, as I slipped through the silent lanes, starting at shadows. The party noise seemed far behind now. Even the intermittent boom of the artillery sounded subdued, and the crackle of my footsteps on the straw-covered lane seemed deafening. And then, as I neared the town square –

"Help!" came a cry. "Can anyone hear me? Help!"

I quickened my steps and got a good grip on my haversack, so I could use it as a weapon if need be, all the while telling myself I was an idiot for not going in search of help. The bag wasn't much of a weapon, and if I actually had to cosh someone with it, I'd probably break my cell phone.

When I reached the square, I stepped on something. A hand. I peered down, and saw Tony-the-louse lying facedown on the gravel.

"Tony!" I exclaimed. I bent down and touched the hand. Still warm. I was about to check for a pulse when a loud snore reassured me that Tony wasn't dead. Only dead drunk.

"Meg? Is that you?"

Wesley's voice. I recognized it now.

"Wesley?" I called. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"Over here."

"Over where? In case you hadn't noticed, it's a little dark out here."

"Over here in the stocks."

I ventured further into the square, until I could see the stocks. I could also see Wesley's back, rump, and legs. He was wiggling, trying either to escape from the stocks or to turn and look at me, but his head and arms were pinioned too tightly for either.

I strolled around to the front of the stocks. Wesley, still trying to break free, rattled the padlock that secured the stocks.

"There you are!" he said.

I checked the padlock. It wasn't just for show. Someone had locked it. And the spare key wasn't hanging on the hook beneath the platform where we left it in case of accidents.

"Don't just stand there, get me out," Wesley said.

"I'd be happy to if I knew where the key was."

"That idiot Tony has it, of course."

"You might have mentioned that before I walked all the way over here," I said, turning back to where Tony lay snoring.

But Tony didn't have the key – not in his hand or any of his pockets, and I didn't find it lying on the ground around him.

"He must have dropped it while he was capering around," Wesley said, when I reported my failure.

"Capering around?"

"After he locked me up, he was running up and down the square, taunting me until he passed out," Wesley said. "You'll need to search around some more."

"Fat chance," I said. "See you."

"You can't abandon me here!" Wesley shrieked.

"I'm not abandoning you. I'm going in search of help," I said. "I'm sure one of the other watchmen has the key, and if I can't find one, I'll use Horace's wrench and unbolt the hinge on the other side."

"Hurry up," Wesley grumbled.

I felt a little less nervous as I left the square for the lane leading to my booth. And, I had to admit, also a lot less out-of-sorts. Seeing Wesley in the stocks had improved my mood, and taking refuge on the familiar ground of my booth – not to mention taking possession of my laptop and my cash box – would complete the recovery, I was sure. Illogical, of course, since the ground my booth stood on was no more familiar than a hundred other small squares of land on which Eileen and I had set it up over the last few years. Still, the booth was, however temporarily, my turf. But instead of feeling safe, I felt my anxiety soar when I stepped into the booth and looked around.

It was a shambles. Half the ironwork on the table had been tipped over, and the rest had been knocked off to join the jumbled heap on the ground.

A strong wind? No, Eileen's pottery was completely undisturbed. Even the spray of dried heather gracing one delicate vase barely stirred in the still, humid air. Someone had vandalized my side of the booth.

"Tony, you snake," I muttered, as I reached down to set a candelabrum upright.

Which probably wasn't fair; I could think of a few other people who might have it in for me. But for some reason I was sure Tony had done this.

Even if I hadn't known about the time he'd done the same thing to Faulk's booth, I'd have guessed; it was just his style.

Crude. Mindless. And ultimately ineffective, since he'd at least had the decency to leave Eileen's stuff alone, and he'd have had to work a lot harder – and use better tools – to cause any permanent damage to my stuff.

Unless he'd gone after my laptop, I thought, suddenly. Or unless someone had cleverly faked the kind of damage Tony would do as a cover-up for a raid on my cash box.

I put down the andirons I'd been picking up, rushed to the back of the booth, and swept the curtain open. I was expecting to find a similar scene of shambles – the storage case jimmied open, fragments of my laptop strewn around, my cash box overturned and empty, save for a few small coins.

I wasn't expecting to find a body.

"Well, at least he's in period," I muttered, as I looked down at the body. Whoever he was – his face was hidden by an inexpensive tricorn hat – he was wearing one of Mrs. Waterston's ubiquitous blue colonial coats. With my falcon dagger buried to the hilt in the middle of the back.

I backed away, rumbled in my haversack, and managed to locate my cell phone. Thank heaven for anachronisms. It took me two tries to hit the ON button, and I was so rattled that I got directory assistance instead of 911 the first time I dialed.

"I do hope you're somebody I used to like," I said to the body as I stood looking down at it and waiting for the police to arrive. "Not a lot, of course; but if you're someone I didn't like, the sheriff will probably arrest me on the spot." At least that was the way it always happened in the mystery books my dad constantly read and recommended to me – the cops loved to suspect whoever found the body. Owning the murder weapon and the scene of the crime probably weren't too cool either. I found myself resenting the deceased, whoever he was, for managing to involve me so thoroughly in his murder.

And of course, by that time, I couldn't stand not knowing who he was. I picked up a pair of iron firewood tongs, stepped a little closer to the body again, and used the tongs to lift up the edge of the tricorn hat, just enough to see his face.

Roger Benson.

"Damn," I said, letting the tricorn hat fall back into place. I could feel my headache kick in again, just at the sight of him, even before I started to consider all the complications his murder could cause.

"So, what's the problem here?" came a familiar voice from behind me.

"Someone's been murdered, Sheriff," I said "Murdered!" the sheriff exclaimed. "Oh, dear."

He stepped forward, rather hesitantly, and peered at the body.

"He's in costume," he said.

"Most of us are," I said. Including, of course, the sheriff himself, who had changed out of his tomato-spattered blue colonial coat into another one in an astonishingly vile shade of greenish mustard.

"Yes, but is there any chance this could be one of those living-history reenactment things?"

"I doubt it," I said.

"Sir?" the sheriff called. "Sir? Excuse me, but if you're doing a reenactment, could you kind of give us a clue? So we don't have to get all the squad cars and ambulances and such out here and spoil the period ambiance? Sir?"

No response from the corpse – and unlike the sheriff, I wasn't holding my breath, waiting for one.

"Who is he?" the sheriff asked. "Do you know?"

I held out the fireplace tongs. The sheriff looked at them as if he had no idea what I was suggesting, so I reached out again myself and lifted the tricorn hat enough for us to get another glimpse of Roger Benson's face.

"Oh dear," the sheriff said again. "I hope Monty gets here soon."

"Monty?"

I let the hat fall down again.

"My new deputy," the sheriff said. "He's got big-city police experience."

"Really? What city?"

"Cleveland?" the sheriff said. "Or is it Columbus? Someplace in Ohio."

"Cincinnati, maybe?" I asked.

"Could be. Someplace like that. You can ask him when he gets here."

I nodded. Not that it mattered, but it gave us something to babble about while we both stood staring fixedly at the late Mr. Benson.

"He does all our homicides," the sheriff went on.

"You've had a lot since he got here?" I asked. Yorktown wasn't exactly a hotbed of crime.

"Oh, no," the sheriff said. "Actually, I can't remember that we've had one since he got here, come to think of it. But if we had, he'd have been die one to handle it. He had a lot of experience back there in Cincinnati."

"Or Cleveland."

"Wherever," the sheriff agreed.

"So what do we have here?" boomed a flat midwestern voice.

I turned to see a tall beanpole of a man in a deputy's uniform, standing at the entrance to my booth with his hands on his hips.

"Murder," I said, as the sheriff and I walked over to meet the newcomer. A little brass nametag on his chest said
"r. b.
MONTGOMERY," so I assumed he was the homicidally experienced Monty.

"I see," Monty said. He took a small notebook out of his pocket, checked his watch, scribbled something in the notebook, then looked back up at me. "Want to tell us about it?"

"Nothing much to tell," I said, rubbing my forehead. The headache was getting worse.

"What happened, he try to stiff you for your fee?" Monty said. "Or are you going to claim you changed your mind at the last minute and had to defend yourself?"

My mouth fell open in astonishment, and I stifled the impulse to giggle. I was willing to bet he'd started to inspect me from head to toe and gotten stalled just below shoulder level.

"Monty!" the sheriff exclaimed. "This is my cousin, Meg Langslow. She was attending a costume party when she found this body."

"Costume party?" Monty said, looking around the deserted booth.

"The party's at the Moore House," I said. "I was leaving the party to go back to my tent, and I stopped by my booth on the way to pick up my cash box. I found the booth ransacked" – I indicated the fallen ironwork – "and a body in my storage area, behind those curtains."

"I see," Monty said. He was still studying my costume with overmuch interest.

"Look, Monty," I said. "I don't know how the hell they do these things in Columbus – "

"Cincinnati," the sheriff corrected.

"Actually, I came here from Canton," Monty said, frowning.

"But here in Yorktown, we expect our law-enforcement officials to do something when they arrive at a crime scene. Something more than leer at the witnesses."

"Witnesses, sure," Monty said, with an insulting chuckle.

"Aren't you going to check the body, Monty?" the sheriff asked.

"I don't want to contaminate the scene any more than it's already been contaminated by you two," Monty said. "I'm waiting for the crime-scene technician; I've sent a patrol officer out to find him."

"We have a crime-scene technician?" the sheriff asked. "When did that happen?"