Too Much at Stake (22 page)

Deb and Pat headed off to work at the raffle ticket booth at the Tent once again.

"Two bucks, two bucks, two bucks!" Kay yelled as they came through the gate. "Hey, you two, you're late!"

Kay and Don are always early,
Pat thought resentfully.
Don't they have a real life?
The couple's skill at selling tickets was legendary. Pat, overachiever that she was, was determined to outsell them this year.
Snap! Wouldn't you know she's already selling at the best spot?

"I've already sold four books of tickets and five singles. Better hurry up, Pat, or I'll leave you in the dust!" Kay taunted.

Speed-walking to the ticket booth, Pat grabbed an apron and stuffed her pockets with pens, tickets, and the stickers that she put on buyers' shirts that read, "I've already bought raffle tickets."

"Cheesh, Pat, we're not twelve," Deb said, hurrying to catch her. "You don't actually have to sell more tickets than her, you know. She's, like, the queen of ticket-selling."

"Then I'm gonna be empress this year," Pat insisted.

"Immature!" Deb retorted.

Don laughed. "Fat chance you'll beat my wife tonight," he bragged. "She's already got her spot by the gate." Teasingly, he added, "Besides, aren't you just a little busy to sell tickets? I'll bet you'll be out there, grilling folks. You know, all 'tied up' in the investigation."

All the other ticket-sellers laughed.

"But I'm a pastor. I've been trained to talk people into things," Pat said as she left the booth.

"Remember, Pat, we're just trying to raise money for upkeep on the tent. Don't harass people," Deb called after her.

"Yeah, yeah, like you don't count how many you sell. Raffle tickets, two bucks, two bucks, two bucks. Buy ten tonight, and get one free. Buy a hundred, and I'll buy you a beer." Hawking tickets, Pat headed for her favorite selling spot.

Don's remark was only the first that the two women would endure that night. By now, all the other volunteers knew about their adventure in the RV and were ribbing them mercilessly. The bruising didn't help. Luckily, Marc had bandaged them and tended to their bruises—after he'd stopped laughing. They were definitely teased that night, but they were too old to be too embarrassed.

With the bigger-than-usual crowd, and the women trying to sell lots of tickets, the time sped by. Pat didn't even stop to think about the time until she realized it was the end of the first set. The crowds came out of the tent, looking for a little snack and a beer. She stood outside the ticket booth and looked at her watch.

"Hurry up, Deb. They want us up there
now!"
Pat said impatiently, as her friend fussed with her sweater, which had somehow been buttoned wrong. Part of it was bunched up around her throat, making her look like a small child who hadn't quite figured out how to dress herself yet.

"Hang on," Deb replied, quickly rebuttoning. "Is this right?" she asked, looking at Pat for approval. "Boy, whose bright idea was it that we call out the winners every week?"

"I believe that would be you," Pat called over her shoulder. She hurried ahead of Deb toward the front opening of the tent, where the stage crew and stars entered. "Deb, did you bring the bucket with the tickets in it?"

"Oh, my gosh, I'd forget my head if . be right back." Deb ran back for the bucket.

Pat sighed and went in through the stage entrance, her mind wandering as she waited to be called up on stage.
Suspects ... I just can't believe it's Linda or Forrest. That's the trouble. I never can quite believe nice people commit murder,
she thought, gnawing at the puzzle like a dog with a bone.
Of course, that's exactly who does it in the murder mysteries I read—the ex-lover, the quiet guy, the bad boy, or the estranged son. Murderers have no type. It's never the stranger from outside the village, no matter how much I wish it to be. I just can't figure out this murderer—or maybe the truth is that I just don't want to know.

Leaning against the fencepost, she began mentally ticking off suspects while waiting for Deb. She could hear Ed on stage, making the audience laugh.

No, not Forrest or Linda, because they were both worried about each other. And it's just silly to think it's Sam. Girlfriends from the past, no matter how sordid the affair, only seem to add to interest in the Tent and in him, not distract from the band's popularity. This is the twenty-first century, after all. But this has become serious, and the longer it goes unsolved the more people will be hurt. Like Forrest. Of course, there is always the chance that the killer will get frightened or angry and do it again.
She pulled her sweater closer around her chest, as if to shield herself from the thought.

Looking back through the tent flap, she saw Deb coming up hurriedly behind her.

"Ready for us?" Deb puffed.

"Just about." Noting her friend's heavy breathing, she gently chided, "Guess it's back on the treadmill for us, old girl."

"Oh, do shut up!" Deb responded. "And let's get this over with."

"I'd like to get this murder over with," Pat answered.

"Ready, girls?" Carl whispered from his spot by the stage stairs. "Be careful on the steps. This one's loose." He pointed to the first step with an old-fashioned gallant motion.

Deb hurried past him up the stairs, giving him a tentative smile. She was hoping that the big man had really forgiven them for questioning him about Linda.

Pat absentmindedly glanced down at the loose step and noticed something in the dirt.
What is that?
she wondered. It was something shiny, and for a moment, as she focused on it, she forgot the group waiting for her on stage. She leaned down to get a closer look, slipped on the gravel, and lost her balance. Her left foot went out, hitting the loose bottom step, and
—whoosh
!—down she went.

"Ooof! Darn, I thought those Wii sessions would have given me better balance." Focusing her eyes in the dark back stage, she looked at the object that had caused her fall.
Curiosity killed the cat,
she reminded herself, but she still reached out for the piece of metal buried in the dirt. She pulled it out of the dirt, brushed it off, and held it up in front of her to get a better look at it in the dim backstage light.
A tent stake?

Then her eyes looked beyond the tent stake she held in her hand—and into the face of the killer. Her heart beat so fast, she thought she was having a heart attack.

Steady, old girl,
she thought.
Oh, no. Not you. Please God, not him.
She knew—and it showed in her eyes.
Okay,
she thought, clutching her chest.
Maybe my heart will just break instead.

He reached out as if to take the stake from her, and then, his face crumpling like one of last year's apples, he stepped back.

"Yes, I can see by your look that you've figured it out. It was me," he said, tears welling up in his eyes. "But there's the start-up music, and like they say, the show must go on." Clearing his throat, he managed a small laugh. "Can we just finish this and talk afterward?" he pleaded.

"What's keeping you guys?" Deb whispered frantically from above them. "Anyone alive down there?"

Pat stared into his face, ignoring her friend. "Finish this?" She started to waver, but the guilt and remorse was written there for her to read, and there was no danger for her, as far as she could tell. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. And with their eyes, they made a pact to see it through to the ending.

"Let's go," he said.

And Pat followed Carl up onto the stage.

Deb stood smiling at the crowd, standing center stage as she waited for her friend to join her.
Where has Pat's sunshine personality gone all of a sudden?

"What happened?" she whispered when Pat joined her. "Did you hurt yourself? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"No, my dear friend," Pat replied. She glanced over to Carl as she pulled a ticket. Raising her voice, she spoke loud and clear into the mike. "And this week's lucky winner is Nancy Hanson!"

Smiling and clapping with the crowd as the winner came up to receive her prize, Deb noticed Pat's eyes were not smiling.

Pat shook her head in response to Deb's concerned look. "No. No ghost but something much worse," she said as she wiped her eye.

Deb looked puzzled. "What's going on?"

"Later," Pat whispered, and she thought with regret,
I'll never think of this pl ace in the same way ever again.

That's the trouble with opening Pandora's Box,
Pat thought.
Once you get a peek, you can't stop everything from rushing out.
She sighed.

Now that the show was over, the two best friends sat on green plastic chairs, with Carl's big frame dwarfing a chair between them.

"It was dark," he began, "just like tonight. It had been a crisp fall evening—one of those nights you could only have on the big lake. The northern lights made a show just for us. And it was like biting into a honey-crisp apple, or catching the damp earth smell of leaves under your feet when you walk along the shore in the early fog. The grounds were buzzing with activity. You know how it is. Of course you do. You two were even there. The last show had finished ... another successful season."

He drew on his pipe, and the sweet smell filled the air. "The cars pulled out of the parking lot, one by one, lights against the dark, making the trees stand out in relief—trees that lined the road back to real life; life outside the magical circle of the Big Top Chautauqua." He shook his head, as if in the wonder of it all. "Why that night? I've thought so many times since. Why that particular night? But I had to have it, you see. It was special . part of the history, a part that made me connected to this place." He paused a moment, remembering.

"Some people, reluctant to leave the Tent and summer behind, lingered around the stage, where Mac and the band were pulling cords out of equipment, storing guitars carefully, and drinking beers from the case on the edge of the stage. I bought that case, you know, like so many before. They never even thanked me; never really invited me to share in their circle. Just as if they were gods and I ... I was nobody—the nobody they allowed to buy them beer. I could hear them, standing in the shadows, right about where we are sitting tonight.

"Well, you crazy Canucks," Mac said as he strolled across the stage trying not to show his impatience at their slow pace. "What we got here is a slew of stuff best put in the van by experts" Taking a drink from the bottle in his hand, he pointed it at Forrest. "Can you handle it on your own, do you think?"

Heinrich looked up and smirked. "In a bit of hurry are we?"

Mac frowned. He never liked being teased about women, even obliquely, in front of his son. "None of that now. I'll just be finding my old guitar before I go. I won't be seeing you at the motel" And everyone knew he was off to meet his latest amore.

"And so it all began." Carl wiped his eyes as if he could wipe away the memory. "I slipped off into the barn, looking for my treasure—a keepsake of the season. I store a few of them you see, mementos of the place. I give my life to this place, these people," he said with a bit of fire in his voice. "I deserve it." Then sighing, that fire went out. "Anyway, there was an old poster, left by mistake when B.B. King was here. An early one that he and his band had signed. I . I had to have it. And I had just found it out in that dark old barn and was tucking it into a folder under my arm, when he came in."

"Oh, and is it you, Carl?' Mac said, his voice heavy with disdain, like a king to one of his peons. "And what might you be doing out here all alone on Old Last Night? Can't be that your pilfering something, are you?"

"And then," Carl said, "he ... he
smiled."
Carl paused and looked up at the northern lights, all green and blue, changing each moment. Relighting his pipe, he continued, "I put up with all the jokes about my love of the Tent, always being left out of the inner circle. I understood they were all so special. But there I stood, with the evidence of my addiction in my hand, and Mac knowing about my trinkets. Even if he never told, he would
know.
I was enraged. I went toward him, and I guess I just pushed him. Pushed him away. Away from my little secret."