Treacherous Toys (9 page)

Not so Our Lady’s Gemstones. I knew the owners actually cut and set their own jewelry. They were new arrivals at the Village—twins, like me and Tony. But no matter how hard I tried to feel differently, Rene and Renee still made me a little uneasy. They were spooky with their white hair, pale skin, and vampirelike habits. I’m not one to judge, but I skirted around their shop.

That brought me up by Polo’s Pasta, which was closed for cleanup, and the Hanging Tree where they had mock pirate hangings from time to time. In between the two was the swinging wooden sign that marked the Lady of the Lake Tavern. The sign, with its half girl–half fish holding a sword in one hand and a tankard in the other, provided a colorful backdrop for visitors’ photos.

There seemed to be no one at the castle gate farther up the hill from the lake, not even Master at Arms Gus Fletcher, who was a former professional wrestler. That was a good thing for me since his favorite pastime was pinching ladies’ butts as they walked past him.

The record keeping and surveillance for the Village were computerized only two years ago. My friend Bart had done the job. Besides being a giant, he was also a whiz with computers. The first door to the right on entering the castle was his office. Most of the time, he wasn’t there, unless there was a problem.

Of course, tonight, since I wanted to look through the records to see when Edgar had arrived at the Village, Bart was there to ask me questions.

“Hello, lady.” He waved and smiled from his swivel chair at the corner of the cramped room. “What brings you up here?”

“I wanted to check someone’s employment record.” I was honest with him. “Is that okay?”

He frowned and shook his massive head. “You know I can’t let you do that. Suppose everyone in the Village wanted to look at employment records. It wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

“I suppose not.” I sat beside him on a tall stool. “But suppose the person I’m looking for is a killer? That would be fair, right?”

He thought about it. “Is there a killer working in the Village right now? No one told me about it. What do you know?”

I told him about Chris’s death. “His wife and I are investigating to help the police.”

“Why?”

“Because the police can’t be here all the time to do it.” Even to my own ears, the explanation sounded lame. “And there are a lot of other reasons, too,” I added hastily.

I wasn’t really sure there were any other reasons besides my wanting to do it. And being curious, of course. Chase certainly wouldn’t think there were.

Bart seemed to consider my reasoning (I hoped not so much that he could see the flaws in my logic) while he looked at the computers on the table in front of him. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but when he turned and smiled at me, I thought that he’d decided in my favor.

“I think you should get permission from Adventure
Land to look at the employee records, lady. I think we might both get in trouble otherwise.”

That wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I thanked him and left him there fiddling with something I didn’t understand—which was pretty much everything on a computer except how to go on the Internet.

As I was walking out of the tiny office, I saw Merlin approaching from the wide castle entrance. Maybe permission from a
part
of Adventure Land might be easier than I’d first thought.

“Lady Jessie.” He greeted me with a respectful head bow that knocked his pointed hat off his scraggly white hair. “I hope I find you well.”

“Better than this afternoon when that knight tried to kill me.” I was formulating a plan to get the information I needed, which might or might not include a little blackmail.

“I’m sure no one was trying to kill you,” he said. “Just a little mishap.”

“That’s not what I plan to tell the TV reporter who wants to interview me this evening. I think there’s a killer on the loose in the Village. He killed Father Christmas, and now he wants to kill me. Or Christine.”

Merlin shushed me and glanced around as though someone else might hear. “That could mean the Village being shut down, my lady. I know you wouldn’t want that. We share a great love for this place, you and I. No matter how long you have to be away, you always come back.”

“You’re right,” I agreed. “But something has to be done. If I can’t at least try to find out who was behind that armor on the horse today, I’ll have no choice but to talk to the press. I’m desperate, Merlin. No telling what I might do.”

He looked around again—we were completely alone. Then he pulled me to the side of the entrance. “What do
you want? I can’t authorize any pay raises this year. I
can
get you free food vouchers from some of the shops.”

Free food?
I never knew that was possible. I was tempted, but I stayed on track. “I want to see the employee records.”

He laughed. “Oh, is that all? Why didn’t you just say so.” He moved his star-crowned magic wand around in the air. “There you are. All taken care of.”

“Merlin—”

“You can’t look at employee records unless you work for Adventure Land.”

“I work for Adventure Land,” I reminded him.

“That’s not what I mean. You have to be
authorized
to look at the employee records and work for Adventure Land. You don’t have that clearance.”

“Give it to me then,” I persisted. “I’m going to meet that reporter in thirty minutes at the Pleasant Pheasant. I think I may have been injured trying to get away from that runaway knight this afternoon.”

Merlin made a face like he’d been eating lemons, but finally nodded. “All right. You win. But someone will have to be there with you. We can’t have you running through all the computer files willy-nilly.”

“Bart’s in there right now. All you have to do is tell him it’s okay for me to look at those records.”

“Done.” He looked up at me with his keen eyes narrowed. “Would you
really
do something to close down the Village?”

Since I hadn’t seen the files yet, I wasn’t admitting to anything. “You’ll never know. Let’s go in.”

Merlin gave Bart the okay for me to scan through the files. Bart shrugged and set up a monitor for me to look at. “This will only be employee files,” Bart said. “You can’t see the inner workings of the Village. Sorry.”

I didn’t care about that. I just wanted to see when Edgar was hired. I thanked Merlin and got to work.

What I hadn’t considered was that thousands of people worked in the Village every year. They came and went like Christmas. Only a small group of permanent shopkeepers and characters kept it going year after year. The rest were like a cast for a major movie production. They were mostly extras who worked for a few days or a few weeks and moved on. Many of them were high school and college drama students, which had something to do with why the Village was so strange.

The files were set up by date on some pages and by name on others. They mostly went back ten years, though the Village had been open for twenty. No doubt most of the remaining files were in paper folders somewhere in the castle waiting for someone to put them into the computer.

“Who knew Robin Hood had so many Merry Men?” I said absently to Bart.

“I know, right? How many does he need? And how many are still out there in Sherwood Forest? They have five acres of trees. There could be a Merry Man behind each one of them.”

There had also been ten Mother Gooses down through the years. They must have all looked exactly the same, because I’d never noticed the change.

The Village had employed hundreds of knights as well, for the joust and other promotional activities. Visitors loved the knights. I took a slight detour here and looked for the knights most recently hired. Of course, that section was set up alphabetically, so I had to trace down the hiring dates individually.

Ten new knights had been hired in the past week. I wrote down all of their names. They were from all over the
Southeast, from Virginia to Florida. Apparently, some people didn’t mind traveling if it meant getting paid to wear a suit of armor.

I didn’t know if the geographical information would help me find the knight who’d attacked me and Christine, but it couldn’t hurt to know. I scribbled it down.

“There have been ten William Shakespeares and a dozen Galileos. You know, I thought the same two guys had always played those characters,” I commented to Bart.

Bart kind of
humphed
but said nothing. He looked absorbed in his own work and didn’t find my observation all that interesting.

It was fascinating reading about all the people who had worked here. I knew Roger Trent had been a bailiff for the Village before Chase. He now created glass art at the Glass Gryphon. He’d been a police officer before he’d come to work here. He’d been injured on the job and had taken early retirement from that life.

But what I didn’t know was that there had been a bailiff
before
Roger. I laughed out loud when I read the name of the original peacekeeper here. Officer Donald Almond. Now Detective Almond. I would’ve given anything to see a picture of him in tights! Too bad these were only text records.

And all this time he’d called us freaks and weirdos. I couldn’t wait to see him again.

The records listed three Robin Hoods and fourteen Lady Godivas, three of whom had filed sexual harassment charges against other characters in the Village. Of the twelve Green Men who’d come and gone over the years, three had broken their legs falling off of the stilts they used for the part and had collected workman’s compensation as a result. The five Fred the Red Dragons and six blacksmiths,
however, seemed to have enjoyed relatively drama-free employment here.

“There’s no mention of the monks being hired,” I told Bart.

He swiveled in his chair to look at me. “That’s because they don’t get paid to work here. Don’t ask me. I guess it’s some kind of religious calling.”

That surprised me only a little. The monks from the Brotherhood of the Sheaf were a little stranger than even the strangest drama student. They’d evolved their own secret society with strict guidelines and ceremonies involving the making of bread.

I finally reached a page of recently hired side characters. Chris and Christine were there—and so was Edgar Gaskin. The new Father Christmas had been hired at the same time that Chris and Christine had been hired. He’d been given a room in the castle instead of normal Village housing.

In the “Hired by” field of Edgar’s database file, Olivia’s name appeared instead of the standard
Adventure Land
. The queen had hired a second Father Christmas before anything had happened to the first Father Christmas.

“It looks like Christine was right. Edgar was here before Chris was killed.”

Bart grunted and ignored me.

“F
ind what you’re looking for?” Bart asked about an hour later, apparently having noticed my
ahas
even though he hadn’t responded to any of the comments I’d directed at him earlier.

“I think so. Thanks.”

“So now you can catch the killer?”

“Maybe. I’ll let you know.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

I was about to get up when I noticed something else in the file.
Original king and queen of the Village, Chris and Alice Christmas.

There had been another king and queen at the Village! Did anyone else know that? Probably the characters who had been at the Village since it first opened.

I looked at the dates. Chris and his ex-wife had worked as king and queen for only a few months before Livy and Harry jumped onboard.

My mind was racing with the implications of what I’d learned. I almost couldn’t think coherently.

I already knew Livy’d had an affair with Chris and that Chris had been married before. Edgar had a grudge against Chris for turning him over to the Santa Fund for embezzlement. Livy had hired Edgar to take Chris’s place
before
Chris was murdered. And Chris had been the first king of Renaissance Faire Village.

Did any of that have anything to do with Chris’s death?

I thanked Bart for his help and went out the same way I’d come in.

Chase was waiting for me at the Lady of the Lake Tavern. “Where have you been?”

“Looking up employee records.” I was almost bursting to tell him my news.

“Jessie—”

“What? Merlin told Bart it was okay.” I didn’t go into the circumstances involving that request.

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

We sat down at one of the wood tables made to resemble the no-frills furniture of the 1500s or 1600s. The wood was very distressed, unpainted, and heavily stained with food and beer. The workers at the tavern kept the tables clean and rubbed beeswax into the wood each day, resulting in an odd patina.

“Okay,” Chase said. “It looks like we’ve got some time since you didn’t come in and order for us. What’s up?”

I told him about Harry and Livy hiring Edgar Gaskin before Chris had died. “Don’t you think that’s a little strange? It’s not like you can have two Father Christmas figures in the Village at the same time. That would mess with all the little kids’ fantasies.”

We ordered from the menu, such as it was. Even though we’d be paying rather than getting the free after-hours leftovers typically doled out to employees, there wasn’t a normal selection. We had a choice of chicken or cheese with bread and beer.