October Fest: A Murder-by-Month Mystery (2 page)

“With no further ado, let the debates begin!” She shoved the microphone into the crook of her arm and clapped, walking backward so as not to block the view of the candidates.

Sarah Glokkmann arrived at the edge of the stage first, modeling sandy brown Lego-lady hair, thick orange make-up that probably looked great on TV, and an ill-fitting coral sports jacket over a matching skirt. Arnold Swydecker shambled behind her looking like he’d been trotted out of a fifth grade band room where he’d been boring kids since the late seventies, all gray comb-over and hunched back from peering too closely at the sheet music for “Another One Bites the Dust.” Both had the makings of a career drinker, as far as I could tell.

They waved at the live audience and the cameras before claiming their seats. Glokkmann spoke first. She couldn’t be older than her mid-forties despite the dowdy clothes. She was poised, I’d give her that, though if I wasn’t mistaken, she had a slight tremor in her left hand. “Thank you for coming, Battle Lake!” She fist-pumped the air, effectively hiding the wobble. Her cadre on stage left hooted, drawing the attention of the cameras. On the news, it’d look like there was a whole cheering section.

“I’ve served you faithfully for six years, and I’m willing to continue my work for as long as you’ll have me. Now, my opponent over here will tell you that I haven’t done enough, but I’d like to remind him of the thirteen bills I’ve been involved with since elected to office.”

Someone behind me snorted loudly. I snuck a glance and noted that it was the reporter who’d first mentioned a drinking problem. Drat. I shouldn’t have been so desperate with him.

The snort, however, did not break Glokkmann’s stride. She smiled winningly at the audience, revealing two dimples as deep as oil wells. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her. “What is important to me is what’s important to you. Increased money in your wallets. Healthier communities. Stronger families. More jobs.”

It occurred to me that I should be writing this down, but I didn’t see how she could be any vaguer short of saying, “I like good stuff!” She continued dishing out the pabulum for another ten minutes before tossing a gracious nod to Swydecker, who was as sincere as he was boring. In a mumbling, shuffling voice, he explained how his thirty years in the education system (I knew it!) taught him the value of strong public schools and well-funded libraries, the benefit to communities if families had access to living wages and health benefits, and the importance of preserving the environment for future generations by making unpopular decisions now. He did not have a hooting section, not even a small one. In fact, I wouldn’t have noticed when he stopped talking except he and the Representative took their seats.

The debate followed a pattern after that: Grace would read a question, which didn’t seem fair as we knew whose team she was on. Glokkmann would answer it with a chirpy ball of nothing, and then Swydecker would respond in a specific and stultifying way before being cut off for running over his time limit. The only alteration to this pattern was in who spoke first. I didn’t want to embarrass myself by nodding off and so instead closed one eye and pretended to squish the tiny heads of the people on stage.

Before I knew it, it was time for questions from the audience. I raised my hand not because I had something to ask but because I needed to reassure myself I was awake. Thankfully I wasn’t called on. Instead, the blonde woman to my left got her chance. “Representative Glokkmann, there’s rumors that you’re considering throwing your hat into the governor ring. Is it true?”

The Representative smiled brightly. “Lila, right now my priority is serving the state in the position they’ve elected me to. I have no other political ambitions at this time. If that changes, my family will be the first to know, and you’ll be the second.” The audience laughed politely, and Glokkmann winked in Lila’s direction.

Someone behind me was called on next. He stood. “Mr. Swydecker, what are your feelings on the current war?”

Swydecker appeared somber and thoughtful, which apparently was the debate equivalent of showing your throat in a dog fight. “Depends on what day you ask, doesn’t it Arnie?” Glokkmann interrupted, smiling as she sliced. “But I’m always on the side of the troops and America.”

Handy, I thought, settling in for a twenty-minute playground fight with Glokkmann playing the role of lunch-stealer. I was about
to pack it up when the reporter who’d tipped me on the tippler was finally called on. Grace seemed to have been deliberately avoiding acknowledging him because he’d had his hand up since before the official audience Q & A period and had been holding it impatiently aloft since.

“Yes, Bob Webber, right?” Grace said icily. “What newspaper are you with again?”

“I have a blog, actually, Ms. Swinton, but I believe you know that,” he said, standing. “It’s called
The Body Politic
. My question is for Representative Glokkmann.” He cleared his throat, and I noticed that the arms of his sport coat were a little short, the front shiny from wear. He looked vulnerable standing there, like a kid owning only hand-me-downs dressing his best for a big speech. “Ma’am, the only bill you have successfully sponsored in your three terms in the legislature is House Resolution 1294, which calls for the designation of the month of September as ‘National Moebius Syndrome Awareness Month.’ Of the twelve other bills you’ve co-sponsored, six are directly related to opening up national lands to gas and oil exploration, development, and production. Two are aimed at killing the health-care bill so insurance companies rather than doctors get to decide what health care we receive, while your husband coincidentally owns an insurance company. Do you have any ethical qualms about doing little else in Congress other than using your position to line the pockets of the oil industry and your family?”

Glokkmann held her smile, though it cracked a little at each corner. “Bob, tell me what you know about Moebius Syndrome.” Both hands were definitely shaking now.

“That’s not my question, ma’am.”

“I’ll tell you what I know. I know it’s an unfair disease that affects thousands, and through awareness and support, we can make a difference in the lives of children who face this tremendous hurdle. You’re telling me that advocating for those who can’t advocate for themselves is ‘doing little’?”

I always thought I had a gift for deflection, the pretty little sister of lying, but this lady was a pro. I craned my head fully so I could watch Webber’s reaction. His cheeks flushed, and he was shifting his weight from one foot to another. He knew he couldn’t pursue his line of questioning without looking coldhearted. Score one for the Lego-haired Lady. He sat down abruptly, and I turned back in time to see her smile triumphantly, her hands once again clasped in front of her.

Grace stepped in to announce the debate successful, and at an end. The candidates moved to the edge of the stage and shook hands while worker ants sprang up to clear the stage and prepare it for the night’s festivities. I wove through the crowd to reach Bob the blogger and was nearly there when a commotion erupted at the rear of the tent. A group of six or seven people marched in, all of them carrying protest signs. The posters I could read proclaimed health care a right and not a privilege, and the sign holders were chanting angrily, demanding an audience with Glokkmann and Swydecker.

I toggled to get a closer look, but so did all the other reporters and the camera crews, causing a bottleneck. Moving to the side instead of fighting forward, I was able to catch a glimpse of the dark-haired woman who’d assured me “Queen Glokkmann” would not miss a debate slide into the tent through the same opening as the protestors, a smirk on her face. She strode toward the stage and took a post where she could watch both the candidates and the sign holders. Swydecker was watching the sign holders with interest. Glokkmann, on the other hand, was high-tailing it toward an exit. The security guard materialized alongside the protestors.

I wished I had a chance to see how it all turned out, but I had to open up the library. I scribbled Bob the blogger’s name in my notebook, wondering if his last name was spelled with one or two b’s, and set off to start my shift. Of course, if I was a dog, I’d have bolted straight out of town, my hackles razor-sharp. The murder had never been closer, butcher and victim sharing the same tent air.

The Battle Lake Public
Library had served as my refuge since I’d arrived in town, an oasis of comforting words, leafy plants in the windows, a place for everything and everything in its place. I let myself in and grabbed the stack from the Book Return bin on my way to fire up the front desk computer. I loved having a peephole into what Battle Lake read. Today’s load featured
Artificial Intelligence for Dummies
with several pages dog-eared, a handful of romance novels, two books on training boxers (the dog, not the fighter), four hardcover bestsellers, all of which I had a waiting list for, and a Thai cookbook with a gorgeous cover photo of slivered pork in cilantro broth alongside fresh spring rolls and a tiny pot of peanut sauce. I was so busy slavering over the culinary possibilities that I didn’t notice the shadow on the other side of the door. I almost jumped over my hair when the greeting bells jingled.

“Oh! We don’t open for another thirty minutes.” I said, turning. I was all set to explain the library’s limited weekend hours to whomever was entering when my glance connected with beautiful eyes so profoundly blue that I swear clouds floated in his eyelashes. “Johnny!” My exclamation was half joy, half fear, a mix that comes easily to both cult members and women too stupid to fall in love with the right guy.

“Hey, Mir. Were you covering the debate this morning?” He smiled tentatively, and the sight of his full lips moving slowly over straight white teeth gave me a shiver in my happy place. Johnny and I had been dancing an awkward salsa the past few months, with him dating someone and then single, moving closer until I pushed him away, him acceding until I pulled him closer. This embarrassing hustle was made worse by the fact that his lean, muscled beauty dorkified me immediately, garbling my words and propelling me to say stupid, sarcastic stuff to cover my unease. Johnny had persisted, however, and we’d both been rewarded with a magnificent, earth-shaking, kiss-on-a-stick at the State Fair a few weeks back. Not wanting to mess up my dream image of him with reality, or give him a chance to not like me by getting to know me, I’d studiously avoided him since the spectacular, love-and-rockets joining of our lips. Until this moment.

“Johnny!” That was it. That was my conversational tour de force.

He smiled wider and shoved his hands into his jean pockets, which were slung low on his hips. During the summer, he worked at Swedberg Nursery, and he still had a residual tan from a season spent outdoors. His shaggy blonde hair hung in his face, thick as a book and curling around his neck. He was dressed in the male version of my outfit—fleece-lined brown corduroy jacket, white T-shirt, and rough blue jeans. “Hope I’m not bothering you. You haven’t returned my calls. Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Sure. You know how it is.” Why was I blushing?

He stepped in quickly and held me before I could protest. He smelled like cinnamon toothpaste and fresh air. “I’ve missed you.”

He caught me off guard, overriding my defense mechanisms and the speech center in my brain. I could feel his lean hips pressing against my stomach, his sculpted chest against mine. Dang, he felt good. “Hard as a board,” I whispered.

“What?” He asked, pulling away.

“Good lord! I mean
…
power cord. I need a new power cord for the library. Just, you know, going over my shopping list. Didn’t know I’d said it out loud.” I forced a grin, my face bright enough to read by.

His smile was puzzled. “I’m sure the hardware store has some on hand. I’ll check for you. I need to stop by there today, anyhow. What’s the power cord for?”

My blood was still too far south to do my brain any good. “Power,” I said.

He nodded and changed the subject, stepping back another hair. “I just came from the Senior Sunset. Mrs. Berns says ‘hi.’”

The mention of Mrs. Berns’ name should have set my danger danger radar off, but it, too, was enthralled by the magnificence that was Johnny. I’d met Mrs. Berns shortly after arriving in Battle Lake. She’d marched up to me and informed me that she was my new assistant librarian. After witnessing my second corpse in sixty days, I wasn’t in a state of mind to argue the finer points of experience or pay, or the fact that I didn’t need an assistant. She’d shouldered her way into the Battle Lake Library just like she’d shouldered her way into my life, infuriating me, saving my life, and making me look forward to my eighties. Oh yeah. Mrs. Berns turned eighty-seven last week. “Really? How’s she doing?”

He ran his hands through his hair. “The usual, mostly. She said she’s hardly seen you since the State Fair, either.”

I grimaced at the emphasis on “either.” Johnny I’d been avoiding on purpose, but Mrs. Berns was my best friend. I had been self-involved the past couple weeks, fall-cleaning my garden, prepping the house for winter by installing clear plastic over the windows and caulking drafty cracks, and catching up on my reading. Since Mrs. Berns, whose library schedule was whimsical during the best of times, hadn’t seen fit to show up for work since the summer crowds had fled town, our paths hadn’t crossed. “I’ll have to stop by.”

“You should.” He rocked a little on his feet. “She’s taking a class at Alex Tech. Oh, and she mentioned something about her son being in town.”

“The one who put her in the home?” I became aware that Johnny was feeling awkward, his body not fitting him quite right. Usually I was the artless one in this pairing. Was it something I’d said? I quickly ran through our five-minute interaction. Nah. I was good.

“I think so. She didn’t want to talk about it much.”

“Sounds like her. Now I
really
need to stop by. Maybe over my lunch hour.” His fidgeting escalated. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded, suddenly tongue-tied, looking embarrassed for no reason I could fathom. I wondered if he was wrestling with some internal body function. I knew how that could take its conversational toll. Clueless as to how to handle being the suaver of the two of us, I angled away and pretended to organize the pile of returned books I’d gathered from the return bin. I felt like a dumb monkey shuffling and then reshuffling eleven books, but I wanted to give Johnny a chance to compose himself without me looking at him.

I stuck with it, waiting for Johnny to retake the reins, but next thing I knew, the front door chimed and he was gone, no more words spoken. I was alone in the library with the books, my accumulated baggage, and a crisp ivory envelope Johnny had left on the counter top, “Mira James” scrawled on the front in a masculine stroke.