State Fair (14 page)

I stood up on my toes and kissed his cheek. “I’m fine. I thought I’d take Aunt Garnet to Liddie’s for dinner. Want to join us?”

“If you don’t mind . . .” His expression was apologetic.

“Go home, Friday, and put your feet up. Don’t forget to feed Scout.”

“I’ll keep the home fires burning. Change that to I’ll keep the air-conditioning on.”

I joined Aunt Garnet and Jazz, whose quiet crying had turned into an occasional shuddering hiccup. Her cheeks were stained with dots of mascara; her eyelids pink and swollen.

I sat down next to her. “Your dad told you he wanted you to go out to the ranch with Katsy and Maggie, right?”

She threw up a hand in frustration. “I don’t need to be protected! He’s just afraid I’ll fall apart and the newspapers will see it.”

“Sweetie, I think he’s just trying to keep you safe. I know about overprotective daddies. They can’t help themselves. He’s under a lot of pressure right now so why don’t you humor him and stay under the radar tonight? This’ll all look a little less daunting tomorrow.”

“She’s right,” Maggie said, walking up to catch the last of my sentence. “We’ll reconsider everything tomorrow, okay?”

Realizing she was outnumbered, Jazz nodded mutely and gave a loud, wet sniff.

“You keep it,” Aunt Garnet told Jazz when she tried to return her hankie. “I have a hundred of them. Apparently people think old ladies do a lot of nose blowing.”

After saying good-bye, Aunt Garnet and I walked over to where Hud watched the forensic team bag evidence. She peered over the shoulder of one gloved technician. “Careful now, young lady. Don’t want to contaminate the evidence.”

The frizzy-haired woman who looked to be about my age gave her a bewildered look. “Are you with one of the other departments?”

“Independent investigator,” Aunt Garnet said curtly. “Carry on.”

Hud slipped a hand up to his mouth, hiding his smile.

“Can we leave?” I asked him, feeling my face turn warm. “Aunt Garnet needs some supper.” And, apparently, a reality check.

“Sure,” he said, winking. “I’ll call you if I need to ask you anything tonight. Otherwise, just come over to the office first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll take an official statement.”

“No problem,” I said.

“We’ll be there,” Aunt Garnet said, settling her leather purse over her arm.

There’d be no “we” about it, but I wasn’t about to rain on her parade right now.

Aunt Garnet and I slipped out a back door to avoid the journalists already hanging around the front entrance. A couple of security guys were sneaking a smoke in the small, secluded patio. When they saw us, they dropped their cigarettes and stubbed them out with their steel-toed black boots.

“Lung cancer is very painful,” Aunt Garnet said, breezing past them.

“Bite me, old lady,” one guy said in a low voice.

“I’d rather eat dirt,” my aunt replied primly over her shoulder.

He’d obviously miscalculated her hearing capabilities. And her chutzpah.

Her quick retort caused me to giggle.

“Cancer isn’t a bit funny,” Aunt Garnet said. “Those foolish young men should heed my words.”

“No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.” Then I immediately sobered. Was she trying to subtly tell me something? “Aunt Garnet, are you all right?”

She glared at me. “Whatever do you mean? Of course I’m all right.”

She pulled her purse close to her body and marched away. I double-stepped to catch up with her.

“Follow me,” I said. “I know the shortcuts.” Utilizing the secret paths I’d learned as a child, Aunt Garnet and I made it through the fairgrounds without any reporters seeing us. Though I was beginning to wonder if giving an interview that would show up on the front page of the
Tribune
might actually be what Aunt Garnet was hoping for. This new Aunt Garnet was kind of kicky, but also nerve-racking because she was so unpredictable. I was beginning to appreciate Dove’s suspicions about her sister. There was definitely something going on with her, though I doubted that it had anything to do with stealing Dove’s much envied corn bread recipe. Aunt Garnet’s sharp comments about cancer had unnerved me.

“Tell me all about the crime scene,” Nadine said, once we sat down in the spongy red leatherette booth at Liddie’s Café. (Open Twenty-Five Hours a Day! its sign proclaimed.) Her brown eyes were magnified behind the bright pink cat’s-eye glasses perched on her bony nose. I wasn’t surprised she had already heard about the murder. Nadine had been pouring coffee, serving pie and keeping tabs on folks in San Celina County since long before I was born.

“Give me a break, Nadine,” I said, perusing the big plastic menu I knew by heart. “You already know every detail of what happened.”

“I know some of ’em,” she said, taking a pencil out of her pinkish teased hair. “But there’s nothing like an eyewitness.” She was counting on us giving her some tidbit that would give her street cred with her next fifty customers.

“It was quite something, Nadine,” Aunt Garnet said, sipping her iced tea. Since Aunt Garnet had visited San Celina at least once a year for the last thirty years, she and Nadine were old friends. “I think they needed more forensic investigators. They should have fingerprinted everyone present, but they let us go without taking prints. A bit incompetent, if you ask me. And not nearly enough photographs were being taken of the crime scene. Their cameras seemed a bit outdated. One would think they’d have more advanced technology seeing as this is the West Coast. They ought to look into that newfangled digital photography.”

“Tragic,” Nadine said, shaking her head. “Who’s running the show?”

“Benni’s young man, Detective Hudson.”

“He’s not
my young man
,” I said.

“He’s all right,” Nadine said. “Kind of a smart-mouth but sharp as a new razor. Usually works cold cases.”

“Well,” Aunt Garnet said, “let’s hope this doesn’t become one due to his incompetence. There was much at that investigation scene needing improvement. Maybe I should write the sheriff a note.”

I looked over the top of my menu. “In case anyone’s interested, I’ll have a cheeseburger and strawberry malt.”

“You know our sheriff’s a woman, don’t you?” Nadine said to Aunt Garnet. “Women always take constructive criticism better than men. What’ll you have, Garnet?”

While Nadine reeled off the night’s specials, I excused myself to call Dove. “If she hears about this from the Sissy Brownmiller grapevine, there’ll be a second murder—mine.”

Outside to the parking lot, I tried the ranch’s land line first.

“You just caught me,” Dove said. “I’m on my way back to the fair. What’s my sister been up to?” Obviously no one had told her about the murder yet. I said a silent thank-you.

“We’ve been pretty busy. Right now we’re at Liddie’s having supper. There’s some news you need to hear so Sissy Brownmiller can’t hold it over your head.”

“Spill the beans.”

I quickly told her about the last few hours, leaving out the part about how Aunt Garnet seemed to thrive in the atmosphere of the murder investigation.

“Poor Levi,” Dove said. “They’re going to really go after him for this.”

“I know. I wish there was something we could do.”

“Stand by him is what we can do. Shout down anyone who tries to besmirch his good name.”

“The fact that Jazz was seeing Cal is going to make things complicated.”

I heard Dove sigh over the phone. “I’d only met that young man a few times. He did some work for your daddy, but he seemed like a nice boy. Very polite. Somewhere in his life someone taught him manners.”

“I wonder what’s going to happen to his . . . him . . . after the autopsy.”

“Ask your friend Hud. By the way, he practically got on his knees begging me to take in that rooster of Maisie’s. I’m charging him by the day.”

“He can afford it.”

“I’m donating the money to the animal shelter.”

“To answer your question, your sister seems to be enjoying herself. She . . .” I could see Aunt Garnet bobbing her head as Nadine talked. Nadine pointed her pencil at Aunt Garnet; they both laughed.

“She what?” Dove demanded.

“She had fun at the fair, well, until the murder, of course. And I haven’t found out anything yet about why she’s here. She seems . . . almost . . . happy.” I said the word with a bit of surprise.

“I know! I know!” Dove shouted. “That’s what I mean. She’s
never
been happy in all the years she’s been alive. There’s something up, I tell you. Keep on the job.” She hung up before I could answer.

After supper, since it was still early, I asked Aunt Garnet if she’d like to take a tour of the folk art museum.

“You know I’d love that,” she said, “but I’m getting a little tired. Maybe another day?”

“Sure, we have plenty of time. Let me take you back to the ranch.”

At the ranch, Aunt Garnet said good night and went into the guest room. Before leaving, I poked around the walk-in pantry to see what goodies I could steal to take home to my patient husband. I found a cherry pie with one piece missing, a large plastic container of oatmeal-raisin cookies and under a clear glass domed cake plate a magazine-perfect black walnut cake with maple icing. It hadn’t been cut into yet and I was contemplating whether I should take the chance. Dove might have made it for something special.

“Caught you.” A deep voice startled my contemplation of cake.

It was my stepgrandpa, Isaac Lyons. Because of his broad face and wide-set, calm eyes, his surname always amazed me with its appropriateness. He had long white hair, pulled back in a thinner version of my gramma’s braid, a deeply tanned face from his years taking photographs all over the world, a gold stud earring in one ear. But it was that famous voice, like the roll of a kettle drum that drew people to him like children to an ice cream truck jingle. A man-of-the-world who had never stayed in one place for longer than a few months, he changed after marrying my gramma Dove. His home became the Ramsey Ranch, San Celina and most of all, Dove. To the world, he was the celebrity photographer who’d taken portraits of five presidents and has his work hanging in hundreds of prestigious galleries and museums. To us, he was simply Isaac, the man who loved Dove.

“Hey, Pops,” I said. “Do you have the 411 on this cake?”

He grabbed the cherry pie and sat it on the breakfast counter. “I’ve been eyeing that cake for the last four hours. I desperately want a piece. But, no, I have no idea what it’s for. We could call her.” His expression was hopeful.

“It’s probably for one of her meetings. Best we stick to the cookies and pie.” I pulled out a quart-sized plastic bag and stole six cookies. “How are things going so far with the sisters? Dove seems more agitated than usual.”

He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the counter’s red and yellow calico patterned oilcloth cover. “It’s like watching two jungle cats circle and eyeball each other.” Spiderweb lines radiated from his eyes. “The tension is great. I’m tempted to do a pictorial. At any rate, while Garnet’s here, I’m determined to take that sister portrait whether they like it or not.”

“You may have to slip some Valium in their morning coffee.” I leaned over the counter toward him, keeping my voice low. “What do
you
think is the reason Aunt Garnet is visiting?”

“I have no idea and I don’t have to tell you, it’s driving your gramma nuts. She tried calling WW this morning, but old William Wiley is living up to his middle name. He’s a cunning old coot, not about to be the Greek messenger. All he’d say is Garnet has something personal to talk over with Dove, but he wouldn’t give a hint what it was.”

“Personal? That doesn’t sound good.”

Isaac scratched his weathered cheek and winked at me. “I think the girls just like to keep things interesting.”

I rested my chin on a palm. “With what is going on at the fair, things are interesting enough, thank you kindly.”

His face grew serious. “I heard about the young man being killed. Any suspects yet?”

“If there are, Hud hasn’t informed me. It’s bound to get thorny. The murder happened on Levi Clark’s watch and his daughter was dating the victim.”

“Sounds complex. Who do
you
think might have done it?”

“There’re actually a couple of suspects.” I hesitated, not sure I should voice my suspicions despite the fact it was only me and Isaac in the room.

“You can’t stop there,” Isaac said.

“Okay, but this is only between us. First is Jazz’s ex-boyfriend, Dodge Burnside. He of the volatile temper.” I told Isaac about Dodge’s behavior in the parking lot. “Though as Jazz so graphically stated, they never actually hooked up, he apparently considered them a couple. Then there’s Milt Piebald . . .” I told Isaac what I overheard Milt say. “Maybe he did it to discredit Levi.”

The wrinkles radiating from Isaac’s eyes deepened. “Could be.”

I picked at a small hole in the red table cover. “I’m going to phone Hud later tonight to see if I can pry any information out of him, but I’m guessing he’ll keep the investigation pretty close to his vest.”

Isaac mulled over my words. I wondered what he was remembering that caused him to look so pensive. He’d marched to Selma with Martin Luther King Jr. A photo he’d taken of Dr. King touching the blond head of a little boy whose father, a car mechanic from Detroit, had taken vacation time to march with Dr. King, made the pages of
Life
magazine. The original print, hand developed by Isaac himself, hung in the Smithsonian.

“Are you taking any photographs of this year’s fair?”

“Already started,” he said. “I’m thinking about doing another book on fairs. I may attempt talking your gramma into taking a road trip, visit some of our country’s state and county fairs.”

“That’s a great idea. Your first county fair book is one of my favorites. Dove does need to get out of town . . . and I mean that in the nicest possible way.”