Foul Play at the Fair (7 page)

But Liv was at a total loss to understand or fix the events of this morning. She’d just have to wing it, because nothing, not even murder, was going to mess with her town, her festival, her new life.

She grabbed a granola bar and opened the door to the garden. “Whiskey, I gotta go. Come here, buddy. Come on.” Whiskey bounded out of a rhododendron bush and shot past her into the kitchen. She put her recharged batteries in her walkie-talkie and grabbed her canvas bag. When she got to the door, Whiskey was already there.

“Sorry, baby, but you have to stay home again. We’ve got trouble in Celebration Bay. I’ll ask Miss Edna to take you for a walk later.”

She squeezed out the door and locked it, and when she turned around she saw a little terrier face pressed to the living room window, looking pitiful. “Sorry,” she said again. Even though he got more attention and exercise here than he ever did in Manhattan, he could still make her feel guilty.

Before she reached the end of the driveway, she heard her name being called. Miss Ida was standing on the front porch of the main house, her arms crossed over a light green twinset.

“Morning, Liv. We heard you go out early this morning and—”

Miss Edna opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. “Sister, Liv is busy. Get to the point.”

Miss Ida pursed her lips. Liv knew what was coming.

“We were listening to our police scanner this morning,” she said. “And heard there was a commotion out at the Waterbury farm. They sent the sheriff out.”

“That was just after you left,” added Miss Edna, looking formidable in a tweed jacket and blue jeans. “But twenty minutes later they called for the CSI unit. What happened? And don’t tell us you weren’t out there. Where else would you have gone at that hour?”

“Now, Sister. It might not be any of our business. We just want to be sure no one was hurt. And if we should call Amanda to see if she needs help.”

“None of the Waterburys were hurt,” Liv said. “I can’t say more. I have to get back to town.”

“A robbery?” asked Miss Ida.

“I don’t think so. We’ll have to wait to hear from Bill Gunnison.”

“I suppose so,” Miss Ida said.

“Now I really have to run.” Liv waved. “Can you let Whiskey out for a bit? I may be gone late.”

“Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll take good care of him.”

“Thanks,” she said, heading for the street.

Miss Ida waved and smiled, but Miss Edna scowled after her. Ida might be satisfied with Liv’s prevarication, but it was obvious that Miss Edna wasn’t so easily fooled.

As Liv walked to downtown, she noticed that the posters had already been altered to reflect the closing of the Waterbury farm store, the name crossed out in thick black marker and replaced with: Closed Today, Family Emergency.

Fred had given just enough information to quell the complainers without raising suspicion or alarm.

A handful of vendors were setting up, getting an early start before their cars and trucks were banned from the area. None of the stores were open, though she could smell something delicious wafting from the direction of the bakery.

She glanced at her watch. Nearly seven. Two hours had passed since Ted’s phone call. Such a short time in which so much had changed.

She shuddered and crossed the street. Dolly’s wasn’t open yet, but the lights were on at the Buttercup.

“It’ll be another second,” BeBe said. “I just turned on the steamer a few minutes ago. Didn’t get to talk to you yesterday, but Ted said that you’re the one that spotted Dolly’s Peeping Tom.”

“I just saw him running across the lawn.”

“Probably one of those kids from the hills. They’re always coming down into town to do their mischief.” She opened a spigot and the steam screamed.

Liv jumped.

BeBe shot her a look as she placed the milk carafe under the spigot and the milk bubbled to the edges. “I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot, but are you sure you need the caffeine this morning?”

“Positive,” Liv said over the steamer. “I’m just feeling the stress. Caffeine helps stress.”

“If you say so.” When the milk was foamy, BeBe reached for a medium-size paper cup, pressed a double shot of espresso into it. “Do you know what is going on out at Joss and Amanda Waterbury’s?”

“Some family emergency,” Liv temporized.

“Someone sick? Not Amanda, I hope. She had really bad pneumonia last winter.”

“No, Amanda’s fine. I don’t know the details. Just that they had to close today.”

Her new job, her new home, and already she was having to lie. Liv’s stomach turned sour. Even though she had done her share of hedging the truth in her old situation, she’d really hoped to avoid it here. Of course, she hadn’t had to deal with murder back in Manhattan.

Sometimes life was just weird.

“Well, let me know if you hear anything.” BeBe waved her out just as Fred Hunnicutt, wearing the orange vest of the traffic patrol, came in the door.

“Morning, Liv. What’s going on up at Joss and Amanda’s? I tried calling but no one answered. Nothing too terrible, I hope.”

Depends on how you felt about Pete Waterbury
, Liv thought.

“Joss ain’t sick, is he? I saw him last night, and he just didn’t look like himself.”

Liv’s attention perked up. She knew she shouldn’t ask. Too much curiosity could set off a flood of speculation, but she couldn’t miss this opportunity.

“How did he look? The flu, maybe?”

“No, I don’t know. Just not like himself.” He stopped to give his order. “Two medium house blends with milk, one black with two Sweet’N Lows.”

BeBe nodded and began to pour coffee, but she stayed close enough to overhear anything they said.

“Kind of distracted, like maybe he was worried about something. It could be the flu, but the flu wouldn’t close him down.”

“When was this?” asked Liv.

“Well, let’s see. It was toward the end of the evening. He came to pick up Donnie and Roseanne. They were supposed to meet him by the Methodist church. Joss was standing out front, but the kids were late. Roseanne came up while we were talking, but she hadn’t seen Donnie. They took off across the park looking for him. I had to get on over to the bakery to pick up Dolly. Didn’t want her going home alone.”

So Joss was looking odd; maybe he was worried about his son or maybe he’d seen and recognized his brother.

“Hope it wasn’t nothing with Donnie.”

“Oh, no.” Liv caught herself. “I’m sure someone would have heard if Donnie was hurt or something.”

“More than likely.” Fred reached in his pocket for money. “Hard to keep secrets in Celebration Bay.”

They parted at the sidewalk. Liv dissected their conversation as she walked to her office. A strange choice of words. “Keep a secret,” as if Donnie might be doing something he shouldn’t. And maybe he was, but at that point, at least it hadn’t been murder.

Which made her think of Ted saying that Pete Waterbury had left right after high school, that he and Joss had fought over Dolly. How would Dolly feel if she knew he was back and that he’d been murdered here?

She came to an abrupt stop, and coffee spurted through the container opening. What if the Peeping Tom had been Pete Waterbury? She thought back to that night, and Dolly saying that he didn’t look human. Black holes for eyes and mouth.

Not a teenager up to mischief, but Pete Waterbury in whiteface. Up to his old pranks? Surely Dolly hadn’t recognized him. Or had she? And told Fred, who told Joss when they were standing in front of the church waiting for Roseanne and Donnie.

Ridiculous. Her mind was running away with too little information and too much imagination. She had a festival to run and visitors to keep safe from a possible psychopath.

Everything looked as bucolic and festive as it had the day before. Of course, it was still early. Hopefully everyone was too busy getting ready this morning to have time to listen to their police scanners. And what was it with that? Liv sometimes listened to music on the radio in the mornings, but she didn’t really get the appeal of starting your day with the snap, crackle, and pop of police communications.

She studied the park where the vendors were unpacking their wares. She wondered if the Zoldosky brothers had been told yet. And what was their story? Why was Pete Waterbury impersonating a Zoldosky and why were the real Zoldoskys letting him use their name?

Too many loose ends. Liv hated loose ends. They could sabotage a party or event with the snap of your fingers. Some things were out of her hands, but she could make sure everything else was secure.

Usually Ted opened the office, but today Liv walked into a dark, chilly room. She kept her jacket on while she drank her latte and organized her paperwork. She wondered when
Ted would be showing up and caught herself listening for the sound of footsteps in the outer office, but no one came.

She reviewed the contracts and invoices for the weekend, made sure all accounts were paid to date and no vendors were in arrears. She got out the checkbook to write the final checks to the entertainers, who were paid half on arrival and the second half at the end of the weekend.

She opened the checkbook to the last page of stubs. The bottom check was gone but nothing was written on the stub—no payee name, no date. Liv thought back. The last check she remembered writing was the one above the missing check, for additional garbage pickup. She checked the next page. All three checks were there with Ted’s signature.

Maybe Ted had taken one for emergencies, but since both of them had to sign for it to be negotiable, that seemed unlikely. She’d have to ask him when he came back from the farm.

She was just finishing up when church bells began ringing, calling worshippers to nine o’clock services. She went to the window and looked out. A steady stream of people was entering the two churches on the square.

The people in Celebration took their celebrations, their families, their friends, and their religion seriously. Liv knew she would have to make an appearance in one of the churches soon if she were ever to be really accepted.

She had never been a consistent churchgoer. She never seemed to have the time, except, she realized now, in her busiest party seasons. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, when she really didn’t have time to go but couldn’t resist the music and the message those holidays brought. Maybe there was a nascent churchgoer hidden inside her.

But for now, she had a festival to run. She put her cell phone and wallet in one pocket of her jacket and her walkie-talkie in the other. She shoved a stack of survey sheets into her canvas bag. She’d hand them out to the vendors later this morning and pick them up at the end of the day. The
questions were posed to give the committees a better idea of the efficiency and convenience of the facilities. There was a Web page where the surveys could be filled out online, but at Ted’s suggestion she’d decided to supplement that process by one she could collect at the end of the day. Strangely enough, not everyone was willing to go online to answer.

She left the office and cut through the alley between Bay-Berry Candles and the Bookworm, the new and used bookstore, to the municipal parking lot where the farmers’ market was already doing a healthy business.

The sun was just breaking and clear skies had been promised by the weather bureau. Rows of tables, tents, trucks with their tailgates down, and cars with their trunks open displayed produce. Some sellers had elaborate custom-painted signs and special display boxes constructed to show off their wares. Others had simple folding tables loaded with local produce: apples in more varieties than Liv had ever seen, pumpkins of all sizes, squash, funny-shaped gourds, crisp broccoli, frilly kale, cabbage, cauliflower, shiny purple eggplants, fresh and dried herbs, jars and jars of honey and homemade preserves.

Liv found Andy Miller’s stand strategically placed at the end of the second aisle, near the street and the sidewalk that people used to return to their parked cars or wait for the shuttle that would carry them to lots farther from town. A basket of corn, homegrown onions with the soil still clinging to them, gourds, and the last crop of green beans sat at one end.

The other half of the table held a pyramid of Waterbury cider bottles and jars of apple butter and grape jellies that Amanda had made. There were no doughnuts, and Liv knew everyone would be disappointed, but at least the day wouldn’t be a total loss.

Andy handed a paper bag to a woman with a double stroller, and the woman rolled babies and produce away, revealing Roseanne Waterbury standing behind the table next to him.

Her rusty curls had been subdued into a long braid behind her back. She was wearing tight, low-slung jeans and a tight ribbed tank top with the obligatory flannel shirt tied around her neck.

Even with the sun up, the day was still chilly. The girl must be freezing for fashion. It made Liv feel a little better to see that she wasn’t at home traumatized by the death of an uncle she’d never seen.

Roseanne smiled shyly as Liv walked up but evidently thought Liv would want an explanation. “Mom and Dad made me and Donnie come. I don’t think they wanted us around with the police there.” She slapped her hand over her mouth and looked quickly around.

“What police?” Janine Tudor, self-appointed society matron of Celebration Bay and former event coordinator, walked up to the stand and glowered at the little group clustered around the produce.

Of course Janine, of all people, would be in hearing distance. Liv plastered on a smile and turned around.

Janine was a tall, thin woman—Liv had never seen her eat anything but lettuce and rice cakes—with a frosted face-framing haircut that was always impeccably styled. (It was public knowledge that she went to a hairdresser in Albany every six weeks, no one in the county being expert enough for Janine’s tastes.)

Today she was wearing a rust-colored pencil skirt and a goldenrod jacket. Both were obviously well made, but they reminded Liv of a seventies kitchen. Janine carried a brown leather handbag that matched her three-inch heels.

“What’s happened now?” she asked accusingly, directing the question at Liv.

“Sorry,” Roseanne said to Liv, making it worse.