A Festival of Murder (7 page)

“They’ll
pay for your travel and hotel expenses.” Emma looked up at him with a leer
which was disturbing on a woman her age. “For you and a guest.” She elbowed
Bea.

He
hesitated and then snatched the paperwork from her hands. “I’ll think about it.”
He stuffed everything back into the envelope and shoved it into the closest
drawer to prevent her from showing it around town.

“I
bet Phoebe would love to go to Washington State.”

“Ooh,
that would be so nice, Nicholas. Just the two of you.”

He
glared at the women. “Don’t you two even start.”

Cackling,
Emma hobbled off to dust more bobbleheads, Bea fluffing shelves in her wake.

The
bell above the door jingled merrily. Nicholas raised his head and groaned with
relief when he saw who had entered.

“Please
save me,” he said as Kevin wandered over to him. “They’re trying to pimp me out
to fantasy conventions.”

“Don’t
appear anywhere unless you get a meal allowance that includes alcohol,” Kevin
advised.

Nicholas
leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Have you seen Detective Canberry around?”

“As
a matter of fact, I have. He came by the house this morning with follow-up
questions. I asked Dennis to let you know. Did he forget, or—” Kevin shifted
from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. It was nothing compared to how
Nicholas felt.

“No,
no, he told me.”
I didn’t forget
was what he really meant. “What did the
detective want to know?”

“Nothing
much.” Kevin flicked a finger through the alien-head key chains hanging from a
stand on the counter. “He wanted me to clarify some statements I’d made about
the condition of the body. Time of death. That sort of thing.”

From
the corner of his eye, Nicholas watched the twins’ heads peek up like a pair of
floating gray dust bunnies from behind the display of toy space ships.

“He
thinks it’s murder, doesn’t he?” Emma asked.

Kevin
nodded. “You bet.” He didn’t appear to be overly concerned, but the two women
in the shop tried their best to suck in all of the air in the room with their
theatrical gasps.

“This
is terrible.” Bea pulled out her flask, nestled within a knitted yellow cozy,
and took a fortifying sip of its contents.

Nicholas
started to stand up, thought better of it because he knew he would begin manic
pacing, and sat down again. “The police are as clueless as we are. That’s why
they haven’t arrested anyone yet. We need to assist in the investigation.”

“Assist?
Why?” Kevin looked between Nicholas and the twins. One of his eyebrows began to
rise. “You’re afraid the killer is going to strike again.”

The
possibility, in fact, hadn’t occurred to Nicholas until that moment. Now, his
problems were twofold: avoid becoming labeled the prime suspect and avoid
becoming the next dead body.

“To
keep everyone safe, we have to ferret out the killer and get him into police
custody,” he said with as much authority as he could muster. “I have a couple
of suspects already in mind.”

Kevin
grew very, very still. “Do I want to hear who they are?”

“Captain
Sam and your boarder, Dennis, are my prime suspects so far.”

An
unreadable expression flashed across Kevin’s face, too quickly for Nicholas to
decipher. “Dennis? He’s just a kid. Toby loves him.”

“Neither
of which implies he’s innocent.” Nicholas ticked off his fingers. “For one
thing, he was an enemy of Johnson’s, so there was bad blood between them. Two,
the first time we have a murder up here is after he shows up. And three, he’s a
very sneaky person. Almost like a ninja. I have no problem believing he snuck
up on Johnson and attacked him.”

Kevin
patted his hip pocket where his wallet sat. “I don’t know. Twenty bucks says he’s
got a good alibi. What about Captain Sam? Between him and Dennis I’m more
likely to believe he’s the killer.”

Nicholas
nodded eagerly. “First impressions don’t look good. Captain Sam’s not flying
with both engines, and he has a tendency to hold grudges. If any of the
residents could commit a murder, it’s him.”

“Bah,
your evidence against him is weak,” Emma said. “Captain Sam’s been dug deep
like a troll in these mountains for years. Only now he decides to turn into a
murderer? Makes no sense.”

“Although
it’s a very good guess,” Bea said.

“Stop
coddling him!”

His
head beginning to throb, Nicholas said, “I’m not writing anyone off at this
point. Things can happen out of the blue that can make a normal person go off
the deep end.” He paused, realized the others were studying him speculatively,
and hurried on. “We’ve all got enough to worry about without a murderer running
loose in the neighborhood. Hightop’s going to get a bad reputation if we don’t
clean this mess up quickly. We need the killer behind bars so this story goes
away.”

Kevin
studied his watch before shrugging. “I have nothing better to do for the rest
of the week. What the heck.” He looked at Nicholas with mild interest. “How are
we going to do this?”

The
stool beneath Nicholas squeaked uncertainly. “Well, that part I haven’t worked
out yet.” He ignored Emma’s loud sigh of discontent. “I’m not exactly Sherlock
Holmes, all right? But if we go about our duties at the festival as usual, all
the while keeping an eye and ear open, we should pick up the information we
need to figure out who did this.”

“And
then life will go back to normal?” Emma sneered.

“No,”
Nicholas said, a little sadly. “It’s far too late for that.”

“Stop
acting like a baby!”

~~~~~

The
pie-eating contest was as bad as he’d feared.

Nicholas
averted his gaze when one of the larger UFO-eating contestants paused with
cheeks bulging and looked around frantically for his bucket.

Nicholas
turned his back on the line of tables upon which the mangled pies were smeared.
The entire area beneath the tent looked like the scene of an alien autopsy that
had been performed on a particularly squishy specimen. The turn put him facing
the small crowd that had migrated over from the finished snow-alien-making
contest. He looked over the two dozen or so cheering spectators, noting more
children than he’d seen last night at the Gingerbear party. He squinted and
tried to determine if any of their parents looked like a murderer.

“…
just a kooky old man.”

The
muscles in his neck seized up just as they did whenever he heard the word “abductee”
whispered in his vicinity. He glanced to the right and found a pair of young
boys, twins by the look of them, confronting a younger black-haired boy whose
chubby cheeks were red with cold and outrage.

“Everyone
who lives up here is a retard,” one of the twins said to the younger boy.

The
young boy’s bottom lip quivered. His mittens curled into small fists. “Am not!”

“There’s
no such thing as aliens, retard,” taunted the second twin. “Trilby’s a nutso
and so are you for believing him.”

“Aliens
are real!”

“Yeah,
as real as Santa Claus. Aw . . . don’t tell me you still
believe in Santa Claus? Haha, he does! What a baby!”

“Look
at him. The baby’s gonna cry!”

Nicholas
stalked over to them. The brothers’ laughter dried up.

“Trilby!”
one of them gasped.

“You
two didn’t come up here on your own. That means your parents are here. Your
parents are believers.”

“Nuh-uh,”
said one of the twins. “Dad just rewatched
Close Encounters of the Third
Kind
and wanted to see if people are crazy enough to think all that stuff’s
real.”

Nicholas
studied the boys with a raised eyebrow. “Crazy? Maybe your dad should’ve done
some research before dragging you all up here. This is a dangerous place. The
last time the aliens were here they sprayed radiation all over Hightop. It’s
clinging to your skin right now. Just like invisible paint.”

One
of the boys tried surreptitiously to wipe at the front of his jacket.

“No,
don’t bother. You can’t remove it. It’s a biological stain, sticks to
everything that’s not coated with Teflon or bacon grease. It helps the aliens
locate you anywhere in the world. Probably also causes mutations.” He scratched
at his back. “I’ve got something growing on the skin near my kidney. Itches
like crazy. Could be a mole; then again, it could be a third arm.” He gulped,
hard. “I hope it’s only cancer.”

“Eric,”
one of the twins whimpered.

Nicholas
leaned toward the twins conspiratorially. “People come up here thinking it’s
safe. It’s not. This is an alien hunting ground. Just like in the movie
Predator
.
Tell your dad I said good luck. You guys are gonna need it.” He scratched
spastically at his back. “Oh, man, I think I can feel the fingers growing!”

The
first boy yanked on his brother’s sleeve, and then both were slipping and
sliding in the snow as they scrambled away with matching screams of “Da-ad!”

Nicholas
straightened up and turned to the young boy. “You can’t let them get away with
bullying you, Toby. You’ll develop a reputation as being easy pickings.”

“They’re
wrong,” Toby sniffed. “I see aliens all the time.”

“I
suggest you keep that information to yourself. Wipe up that snot, don’t—no, don’t—ugh.”

Toby’s
small tongue lashed back and forth across his upper lip. Nicholas cringed.

“Where’s
your father?”

The
boy shrugged. “He said to stay here and wait for him and not go anywhere with
anyone. Not even the aliens.”

“Sounds
like Kevin’s campaigning for Father of the Year again.”

“He’s
coming. He’s gonna help me build a spaceship down at the turnoff. A real big
one!” Toby spread his arms as wide as he could.

Nicholas
wasn’t impressed. “The larger it is the worse mileage it’ll get. Your father
should be teaching you these things.” He bent forward again and tightened up
the front of Toby’s puffy coat so it covered the bare skin of his throat. “You
need a scarf,” he said with a sigh. He was pretty sure most days Toby dressed
himself with no input from his father. Once, he’d seen Toby with his underwear
on the outside of his jeans.

He’d
have to ask Bea if she would knit Toby a small scarf in exchange for a day’s
worth of actual pay.

“The
aliens came by to see Winchester yesterday, Mr. Trilby.”

Nicholas
paused with one hand about to ruffle Toby’s hair. “I saw the picture you drew
of Winchester in the tractor beam. Last I checked, they hadn’t taken Winchester
away. It’s not nice to raise someone’s hopes and then dash them like that. That’s
like lying.”

“They
visit Winchester all the time,” Toby said, his little chin firm with
stubbornness. “I’ll show you.”

Nicholas
glanced around, uneasy. “Is that a threat?”

“I’ll
come by today and show you, Mr. Trilby. You’ll see!”

“I’d
rather not, thank you.” He looked around and saw no sign of Kevin. He gave in
to his urges and fluffed Toby’s hair, earning him a squirm from the boy. “Looks
like we’re stuck with each other until your deadbeat dad shows up. Don’t wander
far, okay? I’m too lazy to organize a search party for you.”

“I’m
gonna make snowballs!”

The
boy leapfrogged over a mound of snow and began scooping snow together, his
tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration. Nicholas watched for a few
moments, but when he found himself yearning to correct Toby’s snowball-making
technique he forced himself to look away.

“Well,
it’s about time I found you.”

Nicholas’s
molars clicked together. “Seems I’m a popular man today.”

Captain
Sam stomped his way into Nicholas’s field of view. The man was about a decade
older than Nicholas, with two stone pits for eyes and a snarled, graying brown
beard that reminded Nicholas of a swarm of angry bees. Captain Sam’s hands
clenched and unclenched by his sides as if he wasn’t sure if he wanted to punch
Nicholas or strangle him. His burly beard split so he could speak.

“You
told that detective that I killed Johnson.”

Nicholas
immediately looked around for backup and witnesses in that order. “I didn’t say
anything of the sort.”

Captain
Sam’s thick, mustachelike eyebrows knit together, forming an impenetrable
hedge. “You told him I was crazy. Not to be trusted—”

“I
never used those exact words—”

“—and
you told him about the . . . incident between us.”

“No.”
Nicholas raised his chin, relieved to find some high ground even if it was just
a hill. “I didn’t tell him anything about that, although I’m sure he would have
been interested to hear it. You’ll have to look elsewhere for your snitch.”

Captain
Sam leveled a glare of suspicion at the crowd that was cheering on the
pie-eating contestants. Nicholas glanced over, too, and smiled grimly at the sight
of Charles egging on the crowd like a game show host.