Джанет Кантрелл - Fat Cat Spreads Out

“Are you looking for someone?” Chase asked.

“Oh yes, my partner isn’t here yet.”

“Sally, right? I’ve met her.”

“Yes, I can’t imagine what’s happened to her.”

“My name is Chase. I’m in the booth next door.”

“Oh yes, sorry. I haven’t ever introduced myself. Holly Molden.” She took Chase’s hand. “I’m terribly worried about Sally. I can’t get her on the phone, and she’s not answering my texts. I hope nothing’s happened to her. She said she would be in extra early this morning.” She stuck her forefinger between her teeth and Chase saw that her hand was trembling.

“Has she been here at all?”

“It doesn’t look like it.” She lifted a new box of pamphlets, slammed it onto the table, and dug some out. “It’s not like her at all to be late and not call.” Her hands continued to shake, and she was blinking back tears. Some fell past her lashes and spilled down among the freckles on her cheeks.

“I hope so, too. Let us know when she turns up,” Chase said as she went toward her own booth, wishing she had some more hot coffee.

Holly seemed overly dramatic, going to pieces because her booth mate was a little late. Still, the blonde wore a lot of bling. Maybe all of it wasn’t fake. Maybe she’d been mugged for her jewelry. Chase had the idea in the back of her mind that, if the woman loved diamonds, she might have been tempted to steal a diamond collar. At any rate, Chase hoped nothing terrible had happened to Sally.

She peeked in at Harper’s Toys. The curmudgeon was putting his finger puppets into a box.

“Leaving early?” she asked.

He squinted at her and screwed up his mouth. She backed up a step, afraid he was about to spit. He refrained, however, and shook his head. “What business is it of yours?”

“None. Sorry. Just wondering.” She fled to her own booth next door.

The day did start slow. Patrice may have been right, Chase reflected.

Soon, a crowd began to gather in front of the butter building. Eventually, some fair security personnel came along and organized them into a line. Chase watched the proceedings, wondering if she and Anna should take time off to see the judging.

“I’m not interested,” Anna said when Chase asked her. “You go ahead if you want to see it. You could look in at the exhibit hall, too. That’s where Inger said she’d be, right?”

“Right, but I didn’t see her there when I peeked in just now.”

“We ought to try to keep track of her.”

Chase considered that. “Inger’s a big girl. She might object if she knows we’re trying to babysit her. I guess I don’t need to see the actual butter judging. It will all be on display for the rest of the day.”

She heard a familiar voice next door, at Harper’s toy booth. Detective Olson was there. He kept his tone low, and she couldn’t make out his words.

Soon, though, he walked into the Bar None booth. He was followed by two uniformed policemen. “We’re doing one last search for the missing artifact,” he said, sounding strict and official.

“I need to tell you a couple of things,” Chase said softly, coming up beside him.

He gave her a doubtful look but stood still to listen.

“I was thinking that Madame Divine’s turban could be a good hiding place for the collar.”

“We had the same thought a few days ago. She was quite upset we made her unwind it.”

“Oh.” They had been more thorough that she would have been.

“Any more ideas?”

She leaned even closer. “The travel agents next door? The blonde one, the tall one, loves jewelry, and she’s missing.”

“What do you mean? Has anyone made a police report?”

“No, her partner said she hasn’t shown up yet. They have a jumble of boxes at the back of their booth. Those would make good hiding places.”

“Believe me, we’ve been through every box and searched all the exhibitors.”

She remembered the quick search of their own boxes and the pat-downs. “I know. It’s just . . . We need to find that collar.”

“I would like to. But I would like to nail the murderer even more. Do you have thoughts on that? Any new ones?”

She wished she did.

The crowd disappeared from the midway as the queue was gradually let into the butter building. After half an hour or so, she heard clapping.

“They’ve awarded the prizes,” Anna said. “Maybe one of us should have gone. I wonder who won.”

Had Detective Olson gone to the judging? Would knowing who the winner was provide any leads?

There were three browsers in the booth, eyeing the Harvest Bars. Anna could handle those. “I’ll go see,” Chase said. She ran toward the door of the building. People were streaming out, so she had to wait to the side for them to clear. She could have asked who’d won, but she wanted to see with her own eyes.

She wandered back toward the booth beside the butter building, the jewelry booth, intending to browse their wares. Instead, as she reached the opening between the two, Detective Olson brushed past her with two uniformed policemen and a fair security guard, into the opening. They disappeared behind the jewelry booth. They had all been so intent, in such a hurry, she wasn’t sure Olson had even seen her.

No one else seemed curious, but she had to see what was going on back there, behind the booths. The opening was barely wide enough for an average-size person. Someone hefty would find it difficult to squeeze through. Every other booth was set up with a similar passage. The Bar None booth was up against the travel agency booth, with an opening between Bar None and Harper’s Toys.

When she reached the back of the jeweler’s, she stopped. An official-sounding murmur came to her. She stuck her head around the corner. Detective Olson was kneeling on the ground beside someone. He looked up at one of the policemen.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Strangulation?”

The policeman nodded.

Then Olson saw her. He was at her side in two seconds. “Chase, get out of here.”

“Is someone dead? Murdered?”

“Get out of here. This doesn’t concern you.”

She left, but not before peeking around him and catching a glimpse of blonde hair fanned out on the grass and a gleam from the rings on the travel agent’s outstretched hand.

Then she ran, blindly, until she was at the food court. She stumbled to the window of the nearest vendor.

“Are you all right?” the avuncular man asked, concern on his face.

She realized that tears were streaming down her face. “Something to drink, please.” Her words came out in a strangled tone. With shaking hands, she paid for a cola, then sat and sipped it until her breathing and heart rate returned to normal. Poor Sally.

There was another murder! And this time the victim had been strangled. Her mind worked furiously. Were the two related? Who would murder both Larry Oake and Sally Ritten? Had they even known each other? She didn’t think so. It was a stretch to believe that there were two murderers at the Paul Bunyan Fair, though. It had to be the same killer. Didn’t it?

Slowly, she tossed her half-empty cup into the trash and started walking.

She got back to the midway and saw that the crowd exiting the butter building was thinning. Paralyzed by indecision, she didn’t know whether to hurry back to tell Anna what she’d seen or to go ahead and find out what had gone on in the sculpture contest. One thing she definitely did not want to do was to let Holly know what had happened before the authorities did. She couldn’t bear to be the one to tell her. She would zip into the contest, then get back to the Bar None booth. Maybe, by then, Holly would have been told what had happened to Sally.

Another consideration was whether or not she and Anna were in even more danger now. She would have to be very careful for the rest of the day. She felt an overwhelming sense of relief that today was the last day of the fair. There would be safety in the crowd at the butter contest, so she moved toward that building quickly.