September Fair (20 page)

“Brittany,” I said, my
blood chilled, “do you know you have a snip of hair missing from the back of your head?”

She put up her hand in alarm. “Where?” She began feeling around the back of her layered and curled shoulder-length hair.

I guided her hand to the spot. “Feel that?”

“Oh yeah. Weird. Must have been a bad haircut.” She teared up. “Does it look horrible?”

“No, it’s not bad. A person wouldn’t notice it unless they were looking for it.” It was the truth. The chunk of hair missing was only two inches long and no wider than a pencil. It could have easily blended in if a person had a layered haircut, which all the Milkfed Marys did. I didn’t see any reason to alarm Brittany by telling her that Christine and Janice shared the same “mark.” I needed to check the other Milkfed Marys but quick and see if they had a similar hair deficit. “When are you all going to be together again?”

“Who?”

“The Milkfed Marys.”

“Oh. Miss Opatz wants us all there for Megan’s head-carving tomorrow morning for a photo op. Should be fun!”

“Thanks.” I’d check them all first thing tomorrow. Brittany and I exchanged niceties and then parted ways. She said she had an interview on MPR in an hour to prepare for, and I needed to go to the 4-H and Agriculture-Horticulture buildings to interview the Battle Lakeans there displaying their goods.

It was on the way to the 4-H building that I bumped into Alison Short, my old manager at Perfume River, who was there with a guy about her age who I didn’t recognize. Seeing her familiar face in these surroundings was disorienting, and it took a few seconds to pull up her name, even though we’d worked together for nearly five years. She looked the same—cropped blonde hair, a space between her two front teeth, short and sturdy German build. “Alison!”

“Mira? They let you out of Battle Creek!”

“Lake. It’s Battle Lake.”

“Whatever.” She laughed and gave me a hug. “It’s good to see you!”

“You too. I went to the River the other day, but they said you didn’t work there anymore.”

“Yeah, new owners. They told me I could keep working there but only as a waitress. They had family to manage it. I decided to move on. I’m a day manager at the 7 Corners Grandma’s now.”

“How d’you like it?”

“It’s fine. The pay is good, and there isn’t much trouble during the day. How about you? Life good up nord, der?” She smiled wickedly, but because she was both funny and kind, her jokes never stung.

“About what you’d expect.” Oh, except for the dead bodies. “I’m working at the library and do some writing for the newspaper. That’s why I’m here. Battle Lake has a lot of local people in the fair, and I’m covering them.”

“Fantastic!” Alison’s friend gave her sleeve a tug, pulling her attention away, and she grimaced. “We need to get going. We’re meeting some friends at the Space Tower. You wanna come with?”

It was tempting, but I had an article to research. Plus, I was still agitated from seeing Brittany’s missing chunk of hair. “I can’t. I have to work.”

“Later then. Lissa is having a party tonight. You remember Lissa? She’s still at the Riverside Plaza, same apartment. You should come!”

Her invitation raised mixed emotions. I liked being invited, but my West Bank life had been characterized by booze and bad choices. Still, seeing old friends might erase that feeling of uprootedness nagging at me since visiting the area on Tuesday. “I’ll see. I’ll try.”

“OK. Great to see you!”

As they walked away, I called the library on a whim. I think I wanted to feel needed. “Battle Lake Pubic Library, Curtis Poling here.”

“
Pubic
Library?”

“Dammit, where are my glasses! Ida, did you move my glasses? I can’t read the card here without ’em.”

“Curtis? It’s me, Mira. What card are you reading?”

“Oh, the ladies made a bunch of cards. Said my telephone answering skills were poorly lacking. I have one to read when I answer the phone and then one for each possible question a caller could ask. The damn print is so small, though, that I gotta squint to see what’s written. Ida! Woman! Find me my glasses!”

I held the phone away from my ear while he cooled down. When he’d subsided to angry muttering, I asked him how things were going.

Deep sigh. “When I started, I thought this was an easy job, but I didn’t know there were so many stupid people in the world. You know how many dumb questions I get each day?”

I had a hunch. “Goes with the territory. You all haven’t burned the place down yet, right?”

“Not yet, but if one more person asks me how often the weekly magazines come in, or if I can find them some dang blue book about a bear, or what other names Mark Twain wrote under, I might just try.”

“I’m sorry, Curtis.”

“Not your fault,” he grumbled. “And it’s not all that bad. I just like to complain sometimes.” In the background, I heard a chorus of female voices agreeing with him.

“I sure appreciate you helping out.”

“And the whole town appreciates you taking Kennie Rogers off our hands. How’s that working?”

“About like you’d expect, only I think she has a new venture she’ll be bringing back with her.”

“Hold on.”

“Mutton Busting. Turns out she makes a really good clown at a sheep rodeo.”

“She makes a really good clown as a mayor, too. How about Mrs. Berns? You tell her we miss her.”

I smiled. The Senior Sunset folks were a tight-knit bunch. “She’s fine, and I will. So everything’s good back home?”

He was quiet for a moment, and when he did speak, he reminded me why elderly friends are the best friends. “As good as it can be without you here. No one can run the library like you. Whole town misses you.”

My eyes felt surprisingly hot all of a sudden. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you Saturday, when I come back.” I hung up quick before I started crying. The Ag-Hort building was in sight, and the 4-H building just two blocks on the other side, but I needed to go back to my trailer and grab the notebook I’d forgotten before I conducted my newspaper interviews. I strode with my hands in my short pockets and my head down, still feeling warm and fuzzy and a little teary as I pulled into the campgrounds.

I stopped short when my trailer was in sight. A man was kneeling next to the Airstream, toward the front by the hitch, and even with his back to me it looked like he was searching for something. A cowboy who had dropped his spurs? But this guy was far too spiffy for that, wearing a suit and dress shoes. When he stood and turned, my heart felt like it had been gripped with icy tongs. It was Lars Gunder messing with my Airstream, and he had seen me.

It was peculiar to
see him next to my temporary home, and my hackles rose instantly. Something about him gave me the willies, even before he’d stranded me in the hallways of BPM and left me to stumble into that horrible room. It might be his marketing background; I was always suspicious of guys who sold other people’s stuff for a living. It was so parasitical. My apprehension was connected to more than that, though—if we hadn’t made eye contact, I would have snuck away and watched him from a distance.

“Mira! This your trailer?” He stood quickly, slipping something into his jacket pocket. He brushed his hands on his pants and smiled, lighting up his bland face. The sun shone through his thinning hair, exposing his scalp. I wondered why I hadn’t noticed before that he was balding.

I stepped closer, but not too close. “Yep. What’re you doing here?”

He marched over and held out his hand, which I reluctantly and briefly shook. “It’s nice to see you. I hope you don’t mind. The campground director told me which lot you’re staying at.”

“What’re you doing here?” I repeated.

He studied me for a moment and then looked off quickly. “I have something to tell you.” He clenched his hands before shoving them in his pockets, blinking rapidly. He was playing the role of nervous informant perfectly.

His tone of voice and exaggerated nervousness made my bowels feel crunchy. This whole moment was very wrong, and I couldn’t look at him without seeing the dead paws sticking out from the bottom of that pile and hear his scientists talking about ramped-up animal testing. Two lots over, a couple argued about how much money they had spent at the beer stand. Cries of joy from the Midway echoed around the campground, and the smell of smoky barbeque wafted on the air. There were literally thousands of people around. He couldn’t hurt me here, but everything about him made me want to run.

“Mira.” He stepped in closer, like he wanted to whisper to me. His eyes were glistening brightly. I tried to step back, but my feet were trapped in tar.

“Whoo-ee, and I was telling Kennie we should be sorry for you.” Mrs. Berns’ voice carried across the expanse from the entrance of the campground to where Lars and I were standing, dancing too close in the bright day. “Lonely girl on her own at the State Fair, I thought, but here you are making friends and influencing people.”

Lars pulled back, momentarily surprised, and quickly recovered. He threw a dazzling smile at Mrs. Berns. “We were talking shop, I’m afraid. I’m Lars Gunder, marketing director for the Milkfed Mary pageant sponsor. And you are?”

“Hungry. You ready to get some chow, Mira?”

It took me a beat or two to realize she was deliberately extricating me from a situation that was making me obviously uncomfortable. “Of course.”

“Wait.” He held up his hand. “Before you ladies go, let me help you to sleep better.”

“What?” We asked in unison.

“Your trailer.” He nodded at the silver hulk. “It isn’t balanced.”

“I bet Kennie’s end is getting lower,” Mrs. Berns grumbled. “Am I right? Is the front lower than the back?”

He chuckled and led us over to the hitch. “See this leveler here? It’s not your front or back that’s uneven. It’s your side. A couple cranks, like so, and you should be all set.” He stepped back. “Check it out. Even steven.”

“Thank you,” I said. The fear I had experienced moments ago felt distant and a little crazy. All the fried food must be clogging my synapses. “Was this what you were going to tell me?”

He nodded without meeting my gaze. “That’s it. I’ll see you around.”

As he walked away, Mrs. Berns leaned into me. “There’s a snake oil salesman if I ever did see one.”

“I think you’re right.” I shivered, shaking the last of his energy off of me. “He’s married with two kids, two little girls, and there’s a possibility he was fooling around with Ashley right up until she was murdered.”

“You don’t say,” she said thoughtfully, wrinkling a proud nose that was already wrinkled. Her brown eyes were as clear as glass. “If you told me he worked at a cyanide factory, I’d say you had your Milkfed Mary killer.”

I crossed my arms and watched his back disappear into the crowd. “If only it were that simple. It could just as easily be a hundred other people. Take Kate Lewis, State Fair Corporation president, suspected embezzler, and likely releaser of wild bulls. Killing Ashley would bring the media spotlight to the fair and dig her out of her financial hole. She seems too nice, though.”

Mrs. Berns crossed her arms. “Nice people murder too. Anyone with enough reason could be a killer.”

“When’d you get so wise on murderers?”

“You been around as long as me, you pick up on stuff. Speaking of Kate Lewis, I met one of her employees at the Mutton Busting last night. She’s a rider, semipro. I got to talking to her, and it turns out she’s a receptionist at the offices here. Why don’t we go ask her what she knows about her boss?”

“People don’t just tell you if their boss is a murderer.”

“They don’t tell just
anybody
, but they tell their sheep sisters. Come on.”

The satellite office of the State Fair Corporation located on the fairgrounds was an unpresuming structure on the northwest corner, near Heritage Square. The building was one-story gray brick with no sign out front, and I’d probably walked past it a hundred times. “You think they’d advertise what they are.”

“Probably don’t want to be bothered. Come on inside and meet Eustia.”

The woman behind the counter looked as though she’d been separated from Mrs. Berns at birth. Mrs. Berns was ten or so years older, if depth of wrinkles and posture were any guide, but they both had tightly sprung apricot curls, strong noses, and tiny bodies. They also both dressed with their own little pizzazz, though Eustia’s ran toward the wild-fingernail-art end of the spectrum, whereas Mrs. Berns was more about accoutrements, usually in the form of decorative weaponry.

“How can you type with those?” I asked after introductions had been made and mutton-busting camaraderie exchanged. Eustia’s fingernails were long enough to curve downward and painted red, white, and blue.

“Practice,” she cackled. Surely, the tiny woman was Mrs. Berns’ long-lost sister.

“I was telling Mira here that you know all about Kate Lewis. Said you might be willing to give us the skinny about her embezzling.”

Eustia looked over our shoulders toward the entrance. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“Come on now. Do I have to crack out the tequila again?”

“Oy, not the tequila. My head’s still pounding from the other night.”

Mrs. Berns leaned in and whispered. “Look here, Eustia, we just want to satisfy our curiosity. What you say in this office won’t go outside of it.”

Eustia sighed, glancing worriedly at the door again. “You swear?”

“Cross our hearts,” we both said in unison.

“Well get closer, and if anyone walks in, you two are just looking for directions.”

“You got it.”

“Kate’s from your neck of the woods, you know. Graduated high school in Fergus Falls. Isn’t that by Battle Lake?”

“Just up the road,” Mrs. Berns said.

“After she graduated, she went to the community college there, then transferred to the University in Minneapolis. Ended up with a business degree, an MBA to be specific, but fat lot of good it does her. Doesn’t keep her husband from abusing her. The more he yells at her, the more she eats, the sadder she gets, and the more he yells at her. Before I got transferred here, I was her personal receptionist. Sat outside her office listening to those two fight, either over the phone or when he’d stop by her offices.”

“What’s he do?”

“Besides nurturing his gambling addiction? Oh, he works for the State Fair Corporation, too. Maintenance man. That woman married beneath her, but I don’t mean because of his job. That man’s a waste of skin, simple as that.”

Mrs. Berns nodded. “Sounds like the truth.”

I remembered the man that Kate had been arguing with in the alley behind the Dairy building. “Is her husband short?”

“I’d say so. Not more than 5’7”, though he wears those silly inserts. Looks like he’s always gliding down a mountain, even when he’s standing stock still.”

“So, do you think she was embezzling?”

“I don’t need to think what I know. I saw the books. She started by skimming a little off the top, but when that wouldn’t satisfy that bastard husband of hers, she’d make $10,000 disappear in a couple of months. I think they flew around the world so he could gamble where the laws were more lenient. Big trouble, that. You get in over your head quick. It was only a matter of time before the authorities caught up with her. I should have turned her in much earlier, but I felt sorry for her.”

So Eustia was the whistle blower. “Think she’s going to jail?”

“For sure. We’re just hoping she doesn’t drag the fair down with her, and I think she feels the same way. I believe she always planned to pay it back. She loves this fair more than anybody, and if it weren’t for her husband, she’d never of harmed it. Too late to worry about that, though. Her ass is in the shit can, and last I saw her, she was a desperate woman.”

“How desperate?”

Eustia scrunched up her face, which caused her bejeweled glasses to slide off her nose, where they were caught by their chain. “Between you, me, and the wall, I think she let that bull out the other day. She wanted to get more press for the fair. If it breaks even this year, she won’t have hurt it permanently. We’ll recover next year. But if ticket sales don’t cover enough of the bills that have gone unpaid, we’re going under.”

“That’s stupid,” Mrs. Berns said. “Releasing dangerous animals is no way to attract people. Why, if I wanted to get some rubberneckers in, what I’d do is …” She slapped her mouth shut before she let Eustia in on what we were thinking.

I finished her thought. “You’d murder someone?”

“I was going to say I’d have a wet T-shirt contest.”

“Nice save. I need some fresh air. Eustia, thanks for your time.”

My wandering didn’t clear my head, but it brought me past the Ag-Hort building, and so I figured I might as well write my articles as I couldn’t do what I really wanted to do—check the Milkfed Marys’ hair to see if they were all marked—until tomorrow, and I needed some mental space to connect the dots on Kate before gathering any more clues. Something was there, something that I was missing, a piece connecting her clearly to Lars Gunder and the two of them to Ashley’s murder.

I stepped out of my head and into Ag-Hort. The interior of the building seemed busier than it had been during Henry Sunder’s book launch, but saying something was more busy at the fair was like calling someone more dead or pregnanter. The main exhibit in the building changed every day. Today the focus was on honey, and the entire north end of the cavernous building was given up to displays of honey-sweetened baked goods, specialty honeys, cooking with honey demonstrations, active, glass-encased miniature apiaries, and beeswax sculptures.

A woman leaned out of the stall nearest me, its front counter creaking under the weight of hundreds of jars of honey, a rainbow of yellows. She looked a little like a bumble bee herself, with her fuzzy blonde hair streaked with gray, and a black and gold striped T-shirt. “Care to try our basswood honey?” she called out.

I stepped in and read her nametag. “Mrs. Lieber? Jenny Lieber?” She was exactly the person I’d come to see.

“Yes?” She didn’t recognize me and her expression said that she felt bad about it.

“Don’t worry. We’ve never met. I was just reading your tag and recognized the name. I’m Mira, and we’re both from Battle Lake. I work for the
Recall
. Ron Sims, the editor, has me at the fair covering locals. Your family owns the honey business south of town?”

She held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you. Yup, we have Honig Lieber’s Honey Farm. Three of our honeys won grand prize ribbons this year!”

“Was the basswood one of them?”

“You betcha. Here you go.”

I accepted the small plastic spoon that was handed to me. The dot of honey on it was the palest yellow, almost clear, and it smelled like flowers and sunshine. I licked it off, savoring the mild spread of sweetness and light. “That’s wonderful. What makes it basswood honey?”