Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

"Blood?" Mrs. Fenniman trumpeted. "On one of my flamingos?"

"No," I said. "You're only paying for twelve, remember? The blood's on the one you're not buying."

"I haven't picked mine yet," she grumbled. "What if I like that one?"

I glowered at her and she retreated, clutching one of the unstained flamingos.

Using some clean rags, to avoid getting fingerprints on the flamingo – or at least any more fingerprints on top of what Mrs. Fenniman and dozens of passing shoppers had already made – Michael and I hauled the bogus flamingo back into my booth. And one of mine, for comparison. Mrs. Fenniman would just have to get along with eleven for a while.

When Monty showed up, he looked harassed, and not all that pleased to see us.

"So what's this nonsense about a blood-stained flamingo?" he said.

"I think I've found the missing murder weapon you've been hunting for," I said.

"What gives you the idea we're missing a murder weapon, Ms. Langslow?" he said, a little too loudly. "We found the victim with your knife stuck square in his back."

"Yes, but you've known for quite some time that my knife didn't kill him, haven't you? Probably since about five minutes after the coroner saw the wound. When we were talking about my dad this morning, you said something about how many people were running around with knives and swords and bayonets. Why would you care, if you had the murder weapon? And it's no secret to anyone that you've been scouring the camp and the fair all morning for weapons; hell, you even confiscated some of my dad's surgical instruments for a while."

"So what makes you think you've found this so-called missing weapon when we couldn't?" Monty said.

Was it just his typical stubbornness, or was there some more sinister reason for him to act so obtuse?

"Oh, for heaven's sake, just take a look at the thing, Monty," I said, jerking a thumb at the bird in question. "It won't kill you to look."

He lost the mocking air when he inspected its beak, keeping his Band-Aid – decked hands well away from it, I noticed.

"Damn, you made that thing sharp," he said.

"I didn't make it," I said. "This is one of the ones I made."

I indicated my flamingo.

"Looks pretty similar to me," he said.

"Similar? Are you crazy!" I exclaimed, and I pointed out the finer features of my bird and the shortcomings of the imposter.

"Still looks pretty much the same to me," he said.

"They're right," I muttered. "Justice really is blind."

"But you're right about one thing. This fellow's beak couldn't stab butter," he said, indicating my flamingo with a disparaging air. "You'd have to use him as a blunt instrument. This other one, now – that's a lethal weapon. Where'd you find the damned things, anyway?"

"Here, in my booth," I said. "They've been here all along."

A couple of spectators tittered.

"They couldn't have been," he said.

"Don't you remember when I was looking for my cash box?"

I said. "You opened the case they were in yourself, and said there was nothing but birds inside. Then you locked it up again, with the murder weapon inside."

More titters.

"You've been searching all morning for something that's been right here under your nose the whole time. Gee, maybe if you'd let me back in my booth a little sooner you'd have found the murderer by now."

"If I find you've been withholding evidence and obstructing justice – " Monty began.

"Then you can arrest me," I said. "Do I get a discount if I pay my bail in quarters?"

Monty's face turned pale, and then went blank and stony.

"I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to vacate this booth while we check this out," he said, with narrowed eyes.

I should learn to keep my mouth shut.

"I guess we should make ourselves scarce for a while?" Michael said. I was glad to see he'd had the foresight to pack the laptop and sling it over his shoulder while I was alienating Monty.

"Guess so," I said. "Hang on a moment. If I'm going to turn into the wrought-iron-flamingo lady, I don't want to lose sales momentum. Rob, don't get lost."

I wandered over to Amanda's booth, with Rob and Michael following.

"Remind me to commit all my crimes down here from now on," Amanda said, as she watched Monty. "If I lived here, I think I'd vote against that sheriff of yours, no matter who was running against him."

I shrugged.

"He only got the job because of necrophilia, anyway," Rob said. "It runs rampant down here, you know. You get used to it."

"You don't say," Amanda said, looking at him over her glasses.

"He means nepotism, of course," I said.

I think she believed me.

"Mind if I put a sign up in your booth for a while?" I asked.

"Be my guest," she said. "Your booth is already drawing me more traffic than I've ever seen. Need some paper?"

I took one sheet of the offered paper, wrote "SIGN UP HERE FOR INFORMATION ON THE WROUGHT-IRON FLAMINGOS" and taped it to the front of her booth, then cleared a small space on the table and left the remaining sheets stacked there.

"Feel free to tell really outrageous stories to anyone who asks where I am," I said.

"You got it, hon," she said. "Have fun."

As I walked by, I heard Monty snarling into his police radio.

"Then send someone out looking for them. No, I don't know his last name. We only have one Horace – "

"Hollingworth," I said.

He glared at me, but repeated Horace's full name into the radio.

"That's right. And the coroner. No, we don't have another dead body; never mind what I want him for, just – "

Michael, Rob, and I strolled away. We passed through the town square, where Horace was selling tomatoes. I made Rob take his place and told Horace to run along to my booth. We took a detour through the tent where the Lions' Club was advertising a colonial pig roast, interrupted the coroner in his task of dishing out barbecue sauce, and dispatched him to Monty, too.

"Okay, you're my witness," I said to Michael. "We have now done our bit to help the minions of the law, right?"

"So now we have some barbecue and relax until Monty's finished at your booth?"

"No, now we go to see a man about a flamingo."

We passed by Dad's booth, where I deduced, from the squeals of childish laughter, that he and his troupe of performing leeches were entertaining a crowd of small boys.

"Doesn't it hurt?" I heard one small boy ask.

"No, the leech's saliva contains a mild anaesthetic," Dad said. "As well as an anticoagulant."

I only hoped he and the leeches weren't playing Rogue Elephant, which, according to Rob, involved Dad attaching the longest available leech to his nose and lurching around the room trumpeting like a wounded pachyderm. Rob still swears that Dad did this to entertain him when he was sick with the chicken pox. I prefer to believe that no one from whom I had inherited DNA could be capable of doing such a thing, and have always put the whole episode down to Rob's vivid imagination and the fact mat he was running a fever of 102 degrees at the time. Still, I decided not to peek into Dad's booth. One likes to keep a few illusions intact.

"Should we ask your Dad along?"

"He sounds happy," I said.

"So where are we going?"

"To see Tony, of course," I said. "The only person at this whole fair with a known history of copying my ironwork. Not to mention the fact that I just realized something about Tony that makes him – well, you'll see. It all points to Tony."

Well, except for the stuff that pointed to Monty. I'd worry about that later.

We stopped in the lane, near Tony's booth, and observed him from a distance for a few minutes before approaching. He looked badly hung over, and he didn't have many customers to distract him.

"Shouldn't we tell Monty about this?" Michael asked.

"You really think he'd listen?"

"Okay, so what's our plan?"

"He's spotted us," I said. "Come on."

If I hadn't already decided that Tony was guilty of something, I could have guessed from the way he reacted to seeing us. He retreated behind his counter when we drew near, and when we stepped into his booth, he glanced behind him as if planning to duck out the back.

"Going someplace, Tony?" I asked.

"I… uh, I need to restock," he said.

"Good idea," I said. I walked behind the counter and picked up the book Tony had stashed beneath it.

"The Complete Book of Locks and Locksmithing," I read, holding it up. "Interesting choice of reading."

"Business is slow; I'm thinking of branching out," he said.

"I'm sure you are," I said, grabbing his arm. "Come on, Tony, we need to talk. Let's go someplace more private."

"I can't leave my booth," Tony said, as Michael grabbed his other arm.

"I thought you were going to restock. Don't you have a CLOSED FOR restocking sign? Well, people will figure it out. Come on, let's talk while you restock."

His booth was on the outermost edge of the fair, only about eight feet from the lightly wooded area that surrounded the field on two sides. We led Tony a few yards into the trees, where we wouldn't be overheard, and sat him down on a fallen log. I stood over him, hands on my hips, and Michael leaned against a nearby tree, his arms folded, and assumed a fierce, bloodthirsty expression that I recognized from having seen him play Richard III a few months before.

"Okay, Tony," I said. "The game's up."