Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

The sheriff flinched.

"That's… that's personal," he said, finally.

"Well, I assumed it was personal," I said. "I couldn't imagine anything job-related he could possibly hold over you."

"Thank you, Meg," he said, patting my hand. "Thank you for that vote of confidence."

I decided it would spoil the good impression I'd made if I explained that I knew it couldn't possibly be job-related because the whole county knew he never did any police work at all if he could help it.

"Okay, so it's personal," I said instead. "What is it? We'd like to help you, but we can't if we don't know what's wrong."

"That young man had evidence of an unfortunate… lapse in judgment I made a while back," the sheriff said. "Nothing illegal, nothing unethical or immoral. Just… well, stupid. Something stupid I did that would look bad if folks found out about it. He's been trying to hold it over my head, trying to get me to tell him something he could use in a story."

"What did he want to know?"

"I don't think he had anything in particular in mind," the sheriff said. " 'Something juicy,' that's all he said. I told him I didn't know anything juicy, and I wouldn't tell him if I did. Of course, now he wants all the details about the murder.

That's why I'm staying so far from the investigation. I can't tell him what I don't know."

"Of course, he may not believe you."

"Well, if he doesn't, I'll just have to live with that. I'll just have to tell him to – to – "

"Publish and be damned!" I suggested.

"Yes, that's the ticket," the sheriff said. "You have such a way with words. Only… do you think it's all right to say 'damn' with the election and everything?"

"Mrs. Fenniman says much worse," I said.

"That's true," he said. "But she's not actually carrying the burden of public office. I'll say 'publish and be darned,' just to keep on the safe side."

Just then Cousin Horace stuck his head through the flap of the tent.

"The fresh tomatoes just arrived," he said.

"Not too fresh, I hope," Dad said.

"Oh, no, they're plenty squishy," Horace said.

"I'd better go, then," the sheriff said. "Got to keep up appearances while I can."

He got up, put his tricorn hat on, and ambled out.

"The burdens of public office," I said, shaking my head.

"So what are you up to while Monty's occupying your booth?" Michael asked.

"Doing Monty's job for him," Dad suggested. "Solving the crime."

"Oh, no, Dad," I said. "Monty very specifically warned me against trying to do that. I'm just walking around, hunting down anachronisms, and talking to people."

"I don't suppose the topic of the murder ever comes up, does it?" Michael asked.

"Strangely enough, it does," I said.

"Well, Monty's doing the best he can to make sure no one forgets it," Dad said. "He came through here just after I opened, demanding to search the place, and confiscated a lot of my instruments. Then he brought them all back, about a half hour ago."

"That's odd," I said. "Did he say why?"

"Not a word," Dad said. "Of course, not being from around here, I don't suppose he understands how valuable the insights of the local population can be in solving a case like this."

"Probably not," I said. "So, Michael, want to stroll around with me and tap the keen insights of the local population? Unless your unit has something planned."

"Not really. Remember what Jess said last night about some units being more gung-ho than others?"

"Don't tell me your unit is one of those that just shows up to fire off your guns and drink beer?"

"I beg your pardon! The Gatinois chasseurs are not anything like that."

"I'm sorry."

"We're French; we just show up to wave our swords around and drink champagne."

"Much better," I said. "When will you be opening the champagne?"

"Not till after the 4 p.m. skirmish," he said, offering his arm. "Until then, I'm at your disposal."

"We'll see you later, Dad," I called, as Michael and I strolled out of his tent.

"Come back and tell me what you find," Dad called. He sounded a little forlorn, so I was relieved when we ran into a couple of reenactors outside, working up their nerve to enter.

"Is this the doctor's tent?" one asked. "I mean, he's a real doctor, right, not just doing an impression of one?"

"Oh, he's real, all right," I said. "What's wrong?"

"Poison ivy," the man said.

"I'm sure he'll have something for that," I said, and watched as the patients ventured inside.

"Of course, with the festival on, he'll want to give them an authentic period salve," I remarked to Michael when they were out of earshot. "That's why I didn't want him to know about the cactus spines."

"The authentic period salve wouldn't work on cactus spines?"

"The authentic period salve is lard and sulfur ointment, which works just fine if you don't mind me smelling like a crate full of rotten eggs for the next two days."

"I see your point," he said. "I'll try to keep my face out of the shrubbery until he's back in the twenty-first century. Enfin, ma chérie, òu allons-nous?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about, but it sounds nice," I said. "Feel free to say more charmingly incomprehensible things to me as we stroll around interrogating suspects."

"Actually, what I said was – "

"No, no! Don't spoil my illusion that you just said something witty, complimentary, and ever-so-slightly risque! Haven't you ever experienced the letdown of hearing a favorite opera sung in English? Besides, there's Mrs. Fenniman; let's go interrogate her."

"Is she a suspect?"

"Of course, and even if she wasn't, she knows more about what goes on in town than anyone other than Mother."

Mrs. Fenniman stood at the edge of the town square with a frown on her face, watching the sheriff.

"I need a better campaign platform," she complained. "He's killing me with those damned tomatoes. I thought you were going to think of something, Meg."

"Just because they're throwing tomatoes at him doesn't mean they're going to vote for him," I said. "Could mean just the opposite, in fact."

"Maybe," she muttered.

"I think public opinion's more likely to hinge on how his department handles this murder investigation," I suggested.

"Well, that's a relief," she said. "Because, if you ask me, that Monty fellow isn't handling it worth a damn. Be a lot different when I'm elected."

"Just what is he doing, anyway?"

"He's got his troops searching all the booths for your cash box," she said. "Didn't occur to them that all these folks have cash boxes of their own, so they got a little overexcited, first half-dozen booths they searched. Don't see what he thinks he's accomplishing; cash is cash. And do they really think a thief would keep around any checks made out to you?"

"I doubt it," I agreed.

"Seems to be searching for something else, too, but he's not letting on what," she added. "Something smaller than a cash box, anyway. And he's got a bee in his bonnet about weapons. Some of those reenactors complain that they can't walk ten feet without some cop wanting to see their swords and bayonets."

Now that was interesting. They already knew my dagger was the weapon – so why were they so interested in other peoples' swords and bayonets? There was something fishy going on, but I didn't think Deputy Monty was going to give away any details. I wondered if I could pry anything out of Cousin Horace.

"I swear," Mrs. Fenniman said, shaking her head. "If you'd told me Roger Benson would cause more trouble dead man alive, I'd have called you a liar. But that's what's happening."

"Just what trouble did he cause you when he was alive?" I asked.

"What makes you think he caused me some particular trouble?"

"Horace said you called him a no-good sneak thief who should be shot like a rabid dog."

"I did, and I meant every word of it," she said. "But it wasn't something he did to me in particular. Before he went into the computer racket, he was one of those merger-and-acquisition crooks. I had some money in this pulp mill company up near Richmond. Cooper and Anthony. It was starting to diversify, might have gone someplace, except that Benson and his crooks engineered one of those slash-and-burn leveraged buyouts."

"What's that, anyway?"

"They bought the company by running up a lot of debt, sold off all the assets that had any value, and shut the company down," she explained. "And somehow, even though they'd sold off the assets for a mint, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of money left over to pay the stockholders. Not when they finished paying off the debt and their own salaries and bonuses, anyway. Some mighty clever bookkeeping, I'll give 'em that. Mighty clever all round. Anyway, it cost me a pretty penny, but I wasn't the worst hurt. Some people lost everything they had."

"Anyone around here?" I said. "Anyone who might be holding a grudge?"

"No idea," she said. "Made a bigger stink up in Richmond than it did down here, and anyway, that was seven or eight years ago. Anyone going to do anything, I think they'd have gone and done it by now."

"I think you're underestimating how long most people can hold a grudge," I said. "But speaking of 'gone and done it' – do you have an alibi for the time of the murder?"

"Not a bit of one," she said, cackling. "I had a long day of campaigning, so I left early and went home to bed. So I can't prove I didn't do him in."

"You're not going to try to get arrested for this, are you?" I asked.

"Hell, no," she said. "I might have done it if I'd thought of it, but I didn't; and I'd hate to take the glory away from whomever actually had the gumption."

"That's good," I said. "I'm not sure getting arrested would be a good campaign tactic."

"Actually, it might be, under the circumstances," Mrs. Fenniman said. "Good thinking, Meg. I'll have to consider that."

She strolled off, looking thoughtful.

"Oh, dear," I said. "I hope she isn't going to start badgering Monty about her lack of alibi," I said. "Dad's already driving him crazy enough."

"Yeah, I noticed," Michael said. "That's why I was trying to keep your dad distracted, instead of coming to look for you."

"Thanks," I said. "Oh, damn, there's Wesley again."

"Relax," Michael said. "He doesn't seem to be looking for you."

"No," I said. "But he's certainly looking for something."

As we watched, Wesley stumbled along, his eyes on the ground. When he got to a booth, he'd walk in, ignoring customers and crafters alike, scanning the floor and every horizontal surface. Then he'd walk out, stumble on toward the next booth, and repeat the whole routine.

"He's been doing that all morning," Michael said. "Well not quite that; he was a little less frantic earlier. He came into your dad's tent and looked high and low, badgering us all the while about whether we'd found something of his."

"Found what?"

"He wouldn't say. We figured maybe he was snooping around everywhere the cops have been, but from the way he's acting, I think maybe he really has lost something."

"And I bet I know what it is," I said, fishing in my bag, and turning my back to Wesley. "Voila!"

"CD-ROMs?" Michael said. "He's lost three CD-ROMs?"

"I bet he's lost one," I said. "He was waving one at me when he said that he could swing the election. I bet he dropped it in my booth, and I picked it up without thinking."

"I think I'd notice if I picked up a stray CD-ROM; they're not exactly something I use every day."

"I would notice, normally, but everybody was handing me CD-ROMs yesterday – Tad brought by a CraftWorks patch, and Rob gave me his CD-ROM of the game to keep. I probably thought I'd dropped one of those and put it in my haversack."

"Or maybe I shoveled it into your haversack along with all the rest of the contents when I kicked it over."

"That's right, you did," I said.

"So should we give it back?"

"Later," I said. "When we get my laptop back and can figure out which one is Wesley's."

"I suppose we'll have to inspect the contents pretty thoroughly to do that."

"Naturally," I said. "Wesley will just have to suffer a little longer."

"Okay," he said. "Where to next?"

"Well, I thought – "

"Meg!" Mrs. Waterston said, from behind us.

"Morning, Mom," Michael said.

"Good morning," she said, rather perfunctorily. "Meg, that sheriff's a relative of yours, isn't he?"

"A distant relative, yes," I said, wondering what she was going to complain about. I knew, from experience, that no one ever asked if people were relatives of mine if they were going to pay them extravagant compliments.

"Then can't you get him to do something? That is how you get things done in this… town, isn't it?"

I wondered, briefly, what adjective she'd swallowed. "Crazy," maybe? "Backwards?"

"Godforsaken?" I'd heard them all; sometimes even said them myself, but she knew better than to say them aloud. And I knew better than to ask.

"What is it you want him to do, anyway?" I asked instead.

"I want him to finish this investigation," she said, "before it ruins the festival."

"Ruins the festival?" I echoed.

"Look how many tourists there are today!" she exclaimed, with a sweeping gesture. "Hundreds! And what are they seeing? Are they seeing an authentic colonial encampment? A thriving market full of period crafts? A little slice of Yorktown's history? No! All they see is dozens of modern police running all over everywhere."

"Actually, I think most of the tourists are rather enjoying the excitement," Michael remarked.

"Well, that's not what I brought them here to enjoy," Mrs. Waterston said. "What are the police doing, anyway?"

"Trying to solve a murder, I suspect," I said. "Questioning suspects and searching tents and booths."

"Well, they could question people out of sight of the tourists, couldn't they?" Mrs. Waterston demanded. "And what are they searching for? They have the murder weapon, don't they?"

"Well, yes," I said. "But they still haven't found my cash box."

"Your cash box?" Mrs. Waterston said, in a surprisingly faint voice.

"Yes, my cash box. It seems to have disappeared from my booth between the time I left for the party and the time I found the body, and while our local police may not have the extensive experience with homicides you get in a big city, they can put two and two together. They think it's pretty obvious that whoever killed Benson also took my cash box."

"But… but… that's impossible," Mrs. Waterston stammered.

"And just why is that?"

"Because I took your cash box," Mrs. Waterston said. "And I assure you, I'm certainly not the murderer."

Michael recovered first.

"Mom, why on Earth would you steal Meg's cash box?"

"I didn't steal it," she snapped. "I just took it for safekeeping. I thought she needed to learn a lesson about carelessly leaving her cash box lying around, in plain sight, in an unlocked booth."

"Gee, thanks," I said. "But for your information, I didn't just leave it lying around. I left it locked in one of my metal storage cases."

"Well, when I came by your booth, it was just sitting there on the table."

"And when was that?"

"I left the party for a little while about nine thirty or ten," she said. "I hadn't seen Spike all day, so I was going to bring him back with me. Your… brother was supposed to have dropped him off at my house and fed him. Which he hadn't done properly, of course; he must have let Spike slip out when he left the house, and I found the poor little thing cowering in the yard, trembling with hunger. I fed him, and I was heading back to the party with him. But on the way he managed to slip his leash and ran off into the craft-fair site. I thought perhaps he'd detected a prowler."

"More likely a prowling cat," I said.

"So I followed him," she said.

"Even though you thought there might be a prowler about?"

"I thought some of the Town Watch would be about, too, instead of carousing themselves into a stupor at the party," she said, in something closer to her usual tone. "But never mind; we won't see that happening again."

I briefly felt sorry for the Town Watch.

"I'm holding you responsible for their behavior for the rest of the fair."

My sympathy for the Town Watch evaporated.

"Anyway, I finally cornered Spike in your booth, barking at something."

"Probably the murderer," I couldn't help saying.

"Oh dear!"

"Meg!" Michael exclaimed. "Mom, it was probably only the body."

"Oh, that's so reassuring, Michael," Mrs. Waterston said. "Not a murderer; only a dead body. How silly of me to be upset."

"So what happened when you found Spike?" I said.

"I picked him up, and I noticed your cash box, just lying there on the table. I didn't know anything else had been happening; I just thought you'd been careless. So I took it away for safekeeping. I locked it in the safe, where I keep my own jewelry," she said. "It was perfectly safe, and I was going to tell you so today. With the murder and all, it slipped my mind."

"And it never crossed your mind that it might have had something to do with the murder – after all, you found the cash box in my booth, the murder was in my booth."

She shook her head.

"The booth had been ransacked," I said. "Didn't that strike you as odd?"

"It didn't look that messy for your booth," she said.

"Mom," Michael said, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking stricken. "I didn't mean – "

"Never mind," I said.

She glanced up at Michael, looking very upset, and for the first time I could remember, I felt – could it be sympathy? For Mrs. Waterston? Yes, definitely sympathy, and perhaps just a little bit of something that might resemble affection. She was so clearly upset by Michael's disappointed tone of voice – more upset by that than by the possibility that she'd barely escaped an encounter with our knife-happy murderer or with his victim. Call me a softie, but it's hard to keep on disliking someone who cares so much about the man you're in love with. Why couldn't she have shown more of her doting maternal side before?

Later, Meg, I told myself. Aloud, I said, "You'll have to talk to the police, you realize."

"Oh, dear," she said. But then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.

"We'll go with you, if you like," I said.

"Thank you, Meg, but there's no need to trouble yourselves, really," she said, as she began marching off. "I'm sure you both have a lot to do."

"Well, I'm going that way anyway," I called after her. "I don't have all that much to do until they let me have my booth back, which I hope they might possibly be ready to do. It's almost noon, after all."

But Michael held me back as I started to follow her.

"Meg – what if they suspect Mom?"

"Don't worry – they may suspect her at first, but she's in no real danger of getting arrested or anything."

"Why not?" he said. "She was in the booth around the time of the murder – how can she prove she didn't do it? Spike certainly can't give her an alibi."

"She has a better alibi than anyone at the fair," I said. "See the guy following her?"

"Which guy?" Michael asked, frowning.

"The guy in the blue uniform with the gold trim – the one who's sauntering just a little too casually down the lane behind her."

"Who's he?"

"One of Jess's men, no doubt – gold trim means artillery, remember? And Jess said he had someone following her around every minute."

"That's right!" Michael exclaimed, his face lighting up. "I'd forgotten about that; thank goodness you didn't. I'll just run up to the artillery camp and find out who was following her last night. The sooner we get that straightened out, the better."

"Good idea," I said. "I'll go down to my booth and make sure they don't haul her away to jail in the meantime."

"Thanks," he said. He gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and turned to go. But after about two steps he turned and looked back.

"Meg – I know she's irritating as hell, but she means well," he said, and then ran off toward the hill where the cannon-crew members were working. At least I assumed they were working; we'd heard the boom of the cannon at irregular intervals all morning, and I doubted they'd try the tape-recording ploy in broad daylight.

I headed back to the town square, where the sheriff again sat in the stocks while Cousin Horace did a brisk business selling half-liquid tomatoes. Today, I noticed, a lot more of the aspiring pitchers were craftspeople – probably reacting to the turmoil the sheriff's underlings were creating throughout the craft fair. Or maybe they thought the sheriff was in charge of the Anachronism Police.

"Hey, Horace," I said, joining him behind the table. "How's it going?"

"Your brother Rob's supposed to spell me in fifteen minutes," he said. "Have you seen him?"

"He could still be talking to Monty," I said, pitching in to make change for a customer while Horace handed out the tomatoes. "Want me to go look for him?"

"Please," Horace said.

"Okay," I said. "But before I do, tell me something. When was Monty going to get around to telling me that my dagger wasn't the murder weapon?"

"How did you –? But that's – No one's supposed to – "

Horace stood, his mouth hanging open, each hand gripping a tomato with such force that the juice was running down into his sleeves.

"Hand the man his ammo, Horace, and stop gaping,"

"I don't want those used-up tomatoes," the customer complained.

"Two nice, fresh, rotten tomatoes, coming up," I said.

Horace, looking dazed, dropped the squashed tomatoes and fished out two less-damaged ones.

"Don't try to tell me it's not so," I told Horace, in an undertone. "And if Monty finds out I know, you can tell him I deduced it, partly from what the police have been up to all morning and partly from something he said himself, and I'll say that in public if he tries to take it out on you. But just tell me: what makes them think it wasn't my dagger?"

"Shape of the wound," Horace muttered, as another customer stepped up. "Coroner said your dagger couldn't have made it."

"So what did?" I said, out of the side of my mouth, while smiling at a man who handed me a dollar bill.

"Something bigger," Horace said, while counting out ten tomatoes.

"Bigger how? Longer? Wider?"

"Blunter. like an unsharpened dagger. Unsharpened something, anyway."

"So that's why they were inspecting everyone's weapons?"

"Yeah, and not getting anywhere," Horace said, looking a little less nervous now that all the customers were busy pelting the sheriff. "Some of these reenactors keep their weapons sharp; we found that out the hard way."

"You'd think cops would know to treat weapons more carefully. Did anyone get seriously hurt?"

"No. Used a few Band-Aids, though."

"Please tell me Monty is wearing one of them."

"Most of them," Horace said, snickering. "Anyway, that's why they're back to searching the craft fair so hard, especially the blacksmiths. Looking for unsharpened weapons."

"Thanks, Horace," I said.

"I didn't say anything," he said.

"Of course not. Thank you for your eloquent silence."

I strolled on back to my booth. The police presence had shrunk to Monty and two other officers, and both were listening to Mrs. Waterston. Michael was there, too, with Mel from the artillery camp.

"Are you sure there's no way she could have shook you off?" Monty said, turning to Mel.

Without changing his expression, Mel reached inside his coat, took out his wallet, and held it out. Monty tilted his head to inspect it, but I noticed that he didn't take his hands out of his pockets. And he reacted as if a skunk had lifted its tail at him.

"So you're a damned bounty hunter," he said.

"I'm a private investigator," Mel said. "And yes, I'm presently working for a bail bondsman. It's legal, and I'm damned good at it. So I can guarantee you, she didn't shake me off."

Michael beamed at me as if I were personally responsible for putting his mother under surveillance by a genuine private investigator for the duration of the murder inquiry. Mrs. Waterston looked less enchanted with the whole thing.

"You down here to haul some lowlife back to Richmond?" Monty asked.

"I'm down here for the reenactment," Mel said. "It's my hobby."

I didn't like the way they were glaring at each other, so I decided to distract them.

"Look, you're not doing much with my booth right now, other than interrogating people in it," I said. "Any chance you could find a more private place to do that so I can actually start doing some work here?"

"I was just going to send for you," Monty said, with a scowl. "Now that we've cleared up the disappearance of the cash box, we're finished here."

He went off, taking Mrs. Waterston, Mel, and the rest of the police with him.

I looked around my booth. If I were a deputy whose job probably depended on my boss getting reelected, I'd be a little more careful how I treated voters' relatives. Obviously, at some point, the police had stopped considering my booth an active crime scene and started using it just as a place to hang out, judging from the number of coffee cups and doughnut boxes stashed in the corners.

"I'll get rid of these," Michael said, grabbing a stack of the rubbish. "And I think I saw Eileen down the lane; I'll let her know you're opening up.Anything I should bring back?"

"Some customers would be nice," I said.

"I meant to help with the cleanup," he called over his shoulder.

"I take it back," Amanda said from across the lane. "He cleans; he's a keeper."

With Michael pitching in to help, the booth was ready for business far sooner than I'd expected. And to my astonishment, Cousin Horace even showed up with my laptop a few minutes after the police had gone.

"No real need for us to keep this around, and I thought you could use it," he said, and disappeared before I could thank him.

"That was nice," Michael said.

"I hope he had permission to give it back," I fretted. "Not that I'm going to ask Monty, of course. But at least now, when things are quiet, I can check those CDs."

"I could do it now," he said, "if you don't mind. We've pretty much finished the cleanup."

"Go right ahead," I said. "Just let me know if you find anything juicy."

"Grisly as it sounds, I should probably take this anachronism behind the curtain," he said.

"Be my guest," I said. "But no practical jokes. No dying elephant screams, no clanking chains, no blank shots."

"I'll be a perfect lamb," he said, and disappeared behind the curtain with my laptop.