Foul Play at the Fair (34 page)

“Yes. Can you walk?”

“Yes.” Mutely, Liv let him lead her though the dark, the small round circle of his flashlight leading them to the exit.

They made a turn and Liv saw light ahead. She’d been so close. Like that guy in the dungeon who after years of digging a tunnel was met by the inquisitors as he finally climbed to freedom.

She had one last flare of hope that Andy had finally come to see what was going on.

Andy had come. He was waiting at the entrance of the maze. And he was holding a shotgun. The uneven light carved deep lines in his face.

Joss, Andy. Were they alone? Had others plotted to kill Pete Waterbury? Bill? Ted? Had they all conspired together?

Chaz had been right when he said that so many lives would be destroyed by one amoral boy, the same boy who grew into an immoral man.

And now she remembered all those furtive looks between the men, shutting up whenever she came near, shutting her out. Not because she was an outsider. It was because they were planning to cover up a murder.

“Andy,” she said, weariness in her voice. She didn’t even have the spirit to run. It was just too tragic.

She wondered if Chaz had gotten it through his thick head that she was trapped in the maze. Would he arrive just in time to find her body or would her body never be found? She didn’t even feel the cold anymore. Just disappointment and a bone-deep sadness.

“Liv? What happened? How did you get here?”

“Andy, don’t.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Andy, I saw the blood on the thresher. It was totally an accident. I was looking for Victor, and Whiskey led me to
the barn. I tripped over the tarp in the dark. It fell off the machine and I grabbed the handle for support. I…I got blood on my jacket.”

Liv caught sight of a truck speeding up the driveway. A gray truck. Her spirits sank even lower. The truck stopped and Anton jumped out and rushed toward them; Serge and Georgi followed close behind.

Andy turned to them. “It can’t go on like this. We have to end it now.”

Anton sighed. “You are right, my friend. It has gone on long enough. No matter what the consequences. Do you agree, Joss?”

Joss sighed heavily and nodded.

A shuddered wracked Liv’s body.

The shotgun wavered in Andy’s hand. “Oh God.” Andy thrust the shotgun into Anton’s hands.

They were going to kill her. And she’d only been trying to help.

Andy stripped off his hunting jacket and threw it around Liv’s shoulders; pulled it tight over her quaking body.

“Andy?”

“We’d better get her into the house where it’s warm. I think she’s going into shock.” He gathered her close and steered her to his house.

None of it was making sense to Liv.

“Do you know how this happened, Anton?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” Anton’s voice seemed to echo from the bottom of a deep well. “Serge and Georgi. They thought to teach her a lesson.”

He was talking about her, Liv realized, and she fought to pay attention. It was hard. It seemed like her brain was as frozen as her fingers and toes.

She stumbled up the steps to Andy’s house, vaguely aware of the others following behind. Andy pushed her into a chair in front of the stove and turned it on. “This will get you warm quick.”

“Anton, untie her wrists and help her get that wet jacket off. I’ll get a blanket.” He passed out of her sight; Liv didn’t care. He’d opened the oven door; the image of Hansel and Gretel flashed before her, before she stretched out her hands to the warmth of the gas flames.

Andy returned and exchanged his jacket with a heavy woolen blanket, and Liv began to grow warmer.

He poured tap water into a saucepan and put it on the stovetop.

“I’ve only got instant coffee.”

“I’m fine,” Liv said as her brain began to work again. If they were going to kill her, surely they wouldn’t be offering her coffee.

“My brothers, they are hotheads. They would not hurt you; they wanted to scare you. For you to see the fear of Victor the night we found him half dead by the water. And again last night when those policemen tracked him down no better than a dog.

“He and Serge are the same age. They are very close. You would take that away from us.”

“No. I didn’t tell the police about Victor. Someone heard us talking. I tried to catch them but they slipped away. I should have been more careful about where I talked to Junior, but I didn’t want any harm to come to him. He’s had enough bad in his life.”

“You should have left it alone.”

“I—” Suddenly she was sick of being the brunt of everyone’s anger. Tired of being on the outside. “Don’t you think it’s time to stop the lies? Which one of you killed Pete? Or was it all of you? How many people did you enlist for that night’s work?

“I thought the detectives were stupid when they took Joss in for questioning. But maybe I was the stupid one. Tell me, Joss. Were you in on the kill?”

“No!” Andy practically shouted the word. He slumped, cradled his face in his hands. “No more.”

“Oh, no.” Not Andy. Liv was hit with a sharp stab of pity. To see his friend after thinking he was dead for thirty years and to have Pete Waterbury return at the same time. It must have been more than Andy could take. And Liv couldn’t blame him. She’d feel the same way. But would she have resorted to murder? She hoped not.

“Andy, did you kill Pete?”

“It was an accident,” Anton said. “It was my fault.”

“No,” Andy said. “It
was
an accident, but because of me.”

An accident. Could it be true?

“Why didn’t you just tell the police?” Liv asked, relieved and exasperated in equal parts.

Anton snorted. “You said it yourself. The detectives, the town. All were willing to to sacrifice us. I would be sent to jail. And who would take care of my family?”

Liv thought that maybe three adult men could take care of themselves.

“Serge and Georgi could make do. But Victor…We are the only family Victor has known since his boyhood. He would be lost without us. Without me.”

“But you said it was an accident.”

“It was. But who would believe me? An itinerant circus man.”

“No one, after you put him in the apple press. That made it look like cold-blooded murder.”

Serge and Georgi erupted in angry denials. Anton hung his head.

“And what about you, Andy? How could you let them suspect Joss?”

“Because I told him to.” Joss’s voice sliced through the charged air of the kitchen.

“So you knew about this all along?”

Joss cleared his throat as if it hurt him to breathe. “Afterwards. I didn’t know Pete was back until I found him that morning.”

“But if you didn’t know—”

Andy stood and went to the window and looked out. “I think we should wait until Bill gets here and tell the whole story.”

It seemed like they were always waiting on Bill. Then Liv heard it, too. The sound of cars coming up the drive.

Moments later, Bill Gunnison came through the back door. He took one look at the group positioned around the table and went back outside again.

“She’s in here,” he called, and came back inside with Ted and Chaz.

“Jeez, Liv. Would you like to explain?” Chaz said, glaring at Andy and Anton.

“Yes, we would,” Andy said. “Let me bring in a few more chairs.”

They all crowded around Andy’s table while Andy and Anton brought the newcomers up to speed. Bill lectured Serge and Georgi about taking the law into their own hands.

Then he took out his tape recorder. “This is just for information. Unofficial. I’ll take your formal statements later. First tell me, Anton, how it came about that Pete Waterbury was traveling with your company.”

“Serge had just broken his arm and I needed a replacement to help with the setup and driving. He showed up and I hired him. I didn’t realize at first that he had chosen us on purpose in order to return to this town incognito. I thought it was just circumstance.”

“He knew we were on this circuit,” Serge said. “He was going to use us as a cover while he gouged people for money.”

“Serge, I will tell it. I didn’t learn that until later. When Pete began bragging about the money he would make and the revenge he would take for what the town had done to him.”

“To him?” Andy blurted out.

“Of all the bald-faced—” Bill shook his head. Rewound the tape. “Go on.”

Anton nodded brusquely. “Victor recognized him right away. At first he was afraid to tell even me. His brother. But I could see something was bothering him and at last he told me. Afraid of Pete after all those years. I should have killed him then.”

“Anton,” everyone shouted at once. Bill rewound the tape recorder. “I’m just recording interviews. I haven’t read anyone their rights, but please don’t make any statements like that.”

Which probably wasn’t police procedure, thought Liv. But since Bill wasn’t officially back on the case, maybe he didn’t have to go by the book.

“So Victor recognized Pete, but Pete didn’t recognize Victor?”

“You see his face. We have come here for three fall festivals and no one recognized him, not even Andy.”

Andy looked like he might cry. “If he’d only come to me. Let me get close enough to see him, even…”

“Do not blame yourself. It was his choice.”

“And what occurred on the night of Pete Waterbury’s death?”

Anton sat straighter in his chair. “We came home after the park closed. Pete always wore his whiteface so no one would recognize him. But someone did.”

“I did,” Ted said.

Anton nodded. “But so did Joss’s daughter. That night at the show he bragged to Victor about how he was going to pay his brother back for kicking him out of the house. I thought he meant to hurt the girl, and I could not let that happen.

“I would not let him use the truck to go to Joss’s, so he said he would take Andy’s truck. It was late. Andy would be asleep and he would never know.”

“I keep the keys in it,” Andy admitted. “Though I won’t anymore.”

“I followed him and tried to stop him. We fought.”

“I heard the ruckus,” Andy said. “I grabbed my shotgun
and went out to investigate. They were in the barn. Pete had Anton on the ground—”

“I am not so young anymore,” Anton explained.

“You could have taken him,” Serge said.

“I would have fought him if you had told me,” Georgi added.

Bill held up his hand, silencing them. “You found Anton on the ground.…”

“Pete had him by the throat. I yelled at him to stop. I didn’t know it was Pete. I just saw this maniac clown trying to kill Anton. I yelled that I had a gun. But he just kept choking him.” Andy’s voice wavered. He swallowed. “So I hit him on the back with the butt of the shotgun. It didn’t faze him. So I hit him harder, this time on the head.”

Andy stopped, seemed to be reliving that awful night. “Even then it only stunned him. It was enough for Anton to push him away, but still Pete didn’t let go, and he pulled Anton to his knees.”

Bill cut a look toward Anton, who nodded. “I grabbed him and pulled myself to my feet; then I pushed him. Hard.”

“He fell backward.” Andy made a sound between a laugh and a sob. “He tripped over my foot and fell into the thresher. His head hit the shaft. It must have hit something vital because he was dead.

“You’ll probably find his blood somewhere on the shotgun. It’s over there in the corner. And I kept the thresher covered with a tarp because I knew there might come a time when I’d have to own up to what I did.”

“Not you,” roared Anton. “It was my doing.”

Andy shook his head. “It was an accident. I just wanted to stop him from killing Anton. Then when Anton told me that he was Pete—I was—”

“Andy,” Bill warned. “Clearly a case of self-defense,” he added, shaking his hand. “Why in the devil’s name didn’t you call it in?”

Andy hung his head.

“Andy wanted to call the police,” Anton said. “But I knew how it would be. They would say I murdered him. Send me to jail. So I told Andy that Serge and Georgi and I would take care of it. Dump the body on the side of the road so someone would find him and think he had been hit by a car.”

“So how did he end up in the apple press?” Liv asked.

All eyes turned to Liv.

“Sorry.”

“How
did
he turn up in the apple press?” Bill asked.

“We put him in the truck, drove him farther out from town. But as we passed Joss’s farm, I began to think. If we left him by the side of the road, everyone would think it was an accident and feel sorry for him. I couldn’t stand that. He was a bad man.

“He was so anxious to get to his brother, I took him there. To his family to do with him as they would. I knew the door to the shop would be open because he told us so.”

“It was my idea to leave him in the apple press,” Serge said proudly. “See no evil, speak no evil, and never do evil ever again.” He nodded sharply.

Beside him, Georgi gave an echoing nod.

Anton leaned in and looked intently at Bill. “Fate brought Pete Waterbury to us; fate took him to his grave. He hurt Junior; he will never hurt again.”

Liv wasn’t sure, but she thought she wasn’t the only person at that table whose eyes misted over during that speech.

Anton stood up and held out his hands, wrists together. “I will go willingly.”

“Sit down, Mr. Zoldosky. So you left Pete in the apple press.” Bill paused to shake his head. Liv thought he might be suppressing a desire to laugh. It sounded so absurd. “And then what did you do?”

“We returned to the farm and told Andy it had been taken care of.”

“Andy?”

“He did. I didn’t sleep all that night. Just listened to the
police scanner waiting to hear that his body had been discovered. But there was nothing. Not until I heard the call to send units over to Joss’s. I went over to see. I thought maybe I’d dozed off and missed the discovery. But I hadn’t.” Andy shot his fingers through his corn-silk hair. “When I saw Pete in the apple press, I didn’t know whether to laugh or be sick.”

Liv remembered Andy’s face that morning. As ashen as his hair. If he’d just called the police, he would have spared them all this trouble and anxiety.

“Where do you fit into all this, Joss?”