Marshmallows and Murder

by Christy Murphy

  "Proceeds go to Main Street!" Wenling added.

  The man shook his head and started to walk away.

  "Chicken!" Mom yelled after him.

  A crowd started to form around the dunk tank. People started to tease the man for not stepping up to the literal plate. The booth had a little rubber baseball-style plate where you would stand to pitch the baseball-like balls at the bullseye.

  Wenling started clucking like a chicken, which was pretty funny with her accent. She even flapped her arms.

  Sure enough after a few minutes of being goaded by the crowd, Mom and Wenling had snared their first sucker.

  This is about where we started. Mom and Wenling heckled people on the street for hours while I sold out of the marshmallows—even the overflow stock we put into the diner.

  Mom met Hannah and the fight broke out with Al threatening Wayne Boggs.

  We headed back to spend the night making tons of marshmallows to sell the next day. Except things didn't go as planned.

  The next morning at the Lucky Dragon, we loaded up a bunch of trays and headed for the booth.

  Mom and Wenling stocked the booth while I went into the diner to store the overflow. I waved hello to Sheila, the waitress, as I headed to the kitchen.

  After I set down the trays, I turned and noticed that the door to Al's office was open. I was surprised to see someone sitting in the chair in front of Al's desk. Whoever it was, was slumped against the wall, almost as if he was asleep.

  I looked around for Al but didn't see him.

  "Hello," I called out to the blading man with greasy hair, which should have clued me in that it might be Wayne Boggs.

  My heart pounded in my chest as I got closer. There was something about how still he was that made me nervous. My brain was sending a "here we go again" message to the rest of my body.

  And, it turned out to be the late Wayne Boggs looking greasier than ever and sporting a Fletcher Canyon Fair T-shirt.

  Here's the thing about finding a corpse. If you've been avoiding your homicide detective boyfriend, it's not exactly a handy thing to have happen.

  "When they said they found a dead body here, I knew you were the one who called it in," DC said as he walked into the diner.

  "Don't you have to recuse yourself from the case because of me?" I asked.

  "That's for judges. Anyway, this is Detective Gordon," DC said, pointing to a man roughly the same age as DC, but instead of having an Ed Harris hairline, Detective Gordon was completely bald. "He's working lead on this case, but unless you turn out to be a suspect I think I'll still be involved."

  "She's the one with the weird memory thing," Detective Gordon said to DC.

  "Yeah, if there's ever a person that you want to be a witness of the scene of a crime, she's a good one," DC said, giving me a wink, and then he walked off to tend to what I assumed was detective business. As he walked away, I realized I'd missed DC over the last few days.

  "So you're Christy," said Detective Gordon. "DC's wife."

  Uh-oh. DC's coworkers had been teasing DC about his news interview. Detective Gordon laughed. "DC made that same look when I mentioned him getting married, too."

  My mind relaxed. If DC reacted the same way I did, maybe what he said on TV was nothing more than a slip of the tongue. A wave of relief washed over me, followed by a wave of disappointment. Did I want him to want to marry me? Seriously? I was so confused.

  I told Detective Gordon everything that happened. It didn't take long.

  Talk turned to the two fights that had happened earlier. The one the day of the accident, and the one yesterday. I didn't recall the first with as much vivid detail, which took some explaining. Finding the dead body triggered my weird memory thing, but seeing the fights hadn't triggered the same thing.

  "Not even the accident that took out the power?" the detective asked.

  "I didn't actually see it," I said. Although it did take me by surprise that the moment hadn't solidified itself in my mind like it had when I was a kid. The time I threw up in the lunch line for instance. I could still see the expiration dates on some of the cartons. Was my memory not being triggered by the other two evens a sign that I was able to handle more stressful things in life without being as traumatized? Was that good?

  I told him about the fight between Wayne and his wife on Main Street as well as the fight with Al on the day of the accident.

  From the questions about the fight, I guessed the police were looking at Hannah and Al as the prime suspects. I figured that the police would favor Wayne's wife over Al, because I've been watching a lot of crime shows with Mom and Wenling. Murder is typically committed by someone close to the deceased. And spouses and lovers were always at the top of that list.

  It struck me that I'd assumed that Wayne Boggs had been murdered, but he just as easily could have had a heart attack at the desk waiting to talk to Al.

  "So is this another homicide?" I asked the detective.

  "I'll ask the questions, Ms. Murphy," Detective Gordon said to me. He adopted the same tone that DC had with me the very first time he interrogated me about a murder. I guess that was just the way detectives acted. "I've been warned about you and your Nancy Drew crew. There will be no amateur sleuthing on this case."

  That was fine by me. Even though solving murders had helped our little catering business become more successful, this particular case seemed to me to be a domestic problem.

  The detective gave me his card, along with the spiel about calling him if I thought of anything new.

  A police officer escorted me "from the crime scene," and I found myself led under the yellow tape surrounding the diner and back onto Main Street.

  I looked around and didn't see Mom or Wenling, but I spotted Dar-Dar talking to Todd Fletcher, Solomon, and some other man I didn't know.

  "There she is!" Dar said. "She's my housemate."

  I ascertained that the other man was also a reporter covering the story by the notepad he was carrying. Darwin had managed to get himself interviewed for the paper, and I knew he was waiting for television news crews to arrive.

  I tried to ignore them, but the small group rushed over to me. "Christy," Todd called after me as I tried to cross the street. "Is it true you found Wayne Boggs dead?"

  I've known Todd for almost my entire life. He'd spent some time away from Fletcher Canyon to work for a big national newswire service and then returned. He'd always been close to everyone in town, and he knew I wouldn't be able to ignore him.

  "Yes," I said, and stopped to talk to him.

  Todd smiled.

  The other reporter interrupted. "How can you be sure he was dead?"

  "He was really cold and clammy to the touch and I just assumed he was but—" I shrugged. "Anything's possible.

  Just as I finished saying that, the coroner's office pushed a gurney with a sheet over it out of the Fletcher Diner.

  Solomon took a photo. "I think it's safe to assume he's dead," Solomon said.

  "She has a lot of experience with bodies," Darwin said. "She's found like a million of them."

  "Is that true?" the reporter asked.

  I know that Darwin was just trying to help, but he had no idea that he was only making things worse for me.

  I glared at the reporter.

  "You don't have to worry about her," Dar said. "She's the fiancée of one of the best detectives on the entire force."

  "Do you feel your relationship with this detective protects you from being investigated for these crimes?" the reporter asked.

  "Mike," Todd said. "Knock it off. You know darn well about the other cases here in town. Stop trying to dredge up dirt."

  "I'm only trying to do my job," Mike said.

  "I'm not one of the suspects. You can confirm that with one of the detectives. I'm here to help the police in any way. I have no further comment," I said.

  Todd glared at Mike, knowing that I had to walk away and not contribute to the story anymore, but Todd knew where to find me late
r.

  "Aren't you going to stay in case there are TV cameras?" Dar-Dar asked.

  I grabbed him by the hand and led him away from the other two reporters. "I'm not going to stick around for any TV cameras, and neither are you."

  "No fair," he said.

  "You've almost got me in the newspaper as one of the killers," I said. "There's no way I am going to let you talk to a television crew live.

  "It wasn't that bad," Dar said.

  "It was," Solomon yelled from behind us.

  The coroner's van sped away, and it looked like the police were instructing everyone to move farther away from the diner.

  "Are they going to close down the fair?" I asked.

  "It looks like they're closing down everything near the diner," Dar said, looking back as we walked toward the Lucky Dragon.

  "Where's Mom and Wenling?" I asked.

  "They went to talk and snoop around," Dar said.

  "Are they talking to Mrs. Boggs?" I asked.

  "No, she isn't here," Darwin said.

  "Did she leave as soon as the police came?" I asked.

  "No, nobody has seen her all day," Dar said.

  "Not even really early to help open the carnival?" I asked.

  The police set up barriers two blocks from the end of the street. The bookstore, barbershop, diner, and coffeehouse were all blocked off. I realized that I'd left the marshmallows in the diner, and I doubted Mom and Wenling had time to take the ones they'd put in the booth.

  "So much for selling all those marshmallows," I said.

  I spotted Mom and Wenling on the sidewalk outside of the Lucky Dragon. Several police officers were standing next to them. They had someone with them, but I couldn't make out who it was. As we neared, I realized that it was Al.

  If Mrs. Boggs wasn't here this morning and had an alibi, that made Al the next likely suspect. Dar and I walked faster. We didn't run, but I could tell we both wanted to know what was happening. We reached Mom and Wenling just as the police officers opened the back door of the police car for Al.

  "I remember when I got to ride in the back of a police car," Dar said. He looked closer and recognized one of the officers. "Hi Officer Reed!" he called out.

  The officer waved back and then the car sped away.

  "Dar, when you rode in the back of a police car, you almost got arrested for murder," I reminded him.

  "But your Mom fixed it," Dar said. "She'll do that for Al, too."

  "That's if he didn't do it," Wenling said.

  Wenling thought the same thing I did. Al had a terrible temper, and he'd even threatened the man. It didn't help that the dead body was found in Al's office at the diner.

  "You don't think he did it, do you?" Dar asked.

  "No," Mom said. "Well, when we talked to him, he didn't seem all that sad about the man's death. And he was still ranting about how the man was trying to sheist us."

  "He used a different word," Wenling said.

  "So do you think he might have done it?" I asked.

  "I hope not," Wenling said. "It would be so boring if the police got it right on the first try."

  "And then we'd have to find someone willing to be mayor all over again," Mom said.

  None of this sounded like a ringing endorsement for Al's innocence.

  A news van pulled up to Main Street, and Darwin got excited.

  "Don't you dare go over there," I said.

  "But he wants to be on TV," Mom said.

  "He almost implicated me in this murder talking to some other reporter just five minutes ago," I said.

  "It was Mike from the LA Times," Dar said excitedly.

  "No TV news for you," Mom said to Darwin.

  The Fletcher Canyon trolley bus stopped a block away from us. Passengers stepped off.

  "Oh my God, people are still coming for the fair," Wenling said.

  Without the head of the carnival company and our mayor, no one knew what to do. Main Street was flooded with police officers and fairgoers. Chaos mounted.

  Swimsuits and Suspects

  By that night, the town's rumor mill went into overtime. Since the diner and the other half of Main Street was closed to the public, the Lucky Dragon—which is normally the center of all gossip thanks to Mom and Wenling—became the eye in the hurricane of gossip.

  It was decided that "the show must go on" regarding the fair. Two of our locals, Margaret and Jeb, went out to tell the news crews as much.

  Most of the town seemed to believe that Al was the killer. But since no one had really liked Wayne Boggs, including his wife, most of the residents of Fletcher Canyon callously lamented the prospect of having to elect a new mayor.

  "I figure it should be Jo," Jeb from the barbershop said when he returned from talking to news crews outside.

  It was odd seeing Jeb anywhere that wasn't the barbershop. The farthest he ever got from his business was to sit out front on the bench near the old barber pole and carve these little sticks. I never even knew what he was carving or as he would say, "whittling."

  "I'm not going to be mayor," Mom said. "Everyone has to stop thinking that I'm going to be mayor. I've been mayor too many times, and I'm not going to do it again. You be mayor!"

  The job of mayor wasn't one that anyone liked. It was a lot of work, and being forced to make decisions for a small town pretty much made the mayor the enemy of everyone. Except the three times that Mom had been mayor. Everybody loved Mom, but Mom told me being mayor made her not particularly fond of her neighbors. By the third time, she said if she ever had to be mayor again, we'd move.

  "I can't be mayor. I've got a business to run," Jeb said.

  "Al had two businesses to run," Mom said.

  "And he ended up killing some guy probably from the stress. I got into two fist fights my first year as mayor, and my right knuckle still hurts from punching that guy."

  "It wasn't just some guy," Rudy from the ice cream parlor said. "It was me, and I still have a scar right here on my cheek from where your ring cut me."

  We all squinted to see, but I didn't see anything. "I don't see it," Wenling said.

  "Sorry about that, Rudy," Jeb said. "You're not a violent man. You didn't deserve that. Maybe you should be mayor. You'd be our town's first black mayor. It would be historic."

  "Carlton was our town's first black mayor," Rudy said. "I'm not falling for that historic talk. That's how you got him to do it. Besides, I can't be mayor. I'm not violent enough. I'd probably get killed doing it." Carlton was Solomon's father and Rudy's cousin. Carlton owned the building that housed the ice cream shop next door and the Lucky Dragon. The Burns family was the richest family in town. But they didn't spoil Solomon. He always had to work.

  "I never got killed, and I'm not violent," Mom said.

  "It's because nobody hits a woman," Jeb said. Jeb turned to me.

  "Haven't lived here long enough," I said. Although technically that excuse didn't hold true.

  "You've been here for over a year," he said.

  "It's two years' residency, and I was overseas for almost six months," I exaggerated.

  All eyes turned to Wenling. She started to speak in Chinese.

  "That Chinese thing won't work," Rudy said. "We've known you for over thirty years. We know you speak English."

  "But I can't read or write in English," she said.

  "We've seen you write the specials on the blackboard," Jeb said.

  "Those are all Chinese dishes. That's Chinese. It's not English," she argued.

  That stumped Jeb for a moment, but I knew that wasn't true. Although I did notice that when Wenling wrote notes for herself that she did write in Chinese. For a second, she had me doubting, but I knew I would've known that. Just like Mom, Wenling had a pretty decent poker face.

  "Is there a law that says that someone who's in jail can't be mayor?" Rudy asked.

  "I don't think this is a rule about that," Mom said.

  "I don't think he'll be that busy in jail," Rudy volunteered.

&n
bsp; "But how will we have the town meetings?" Dar asked.

  "Maybe we can visit him in the joint, or we can do them through the mail or something," Wenling said. "Let's just leave him as mayor for as long as possible. Remember when Harold died? We went a whole six months with him still as mayor. Jail isn't as bad as dead."

  "And if he didn't do it…" I started.

  I was interrupted by a cacophony of most people saying that they were pretty sure he did it.

  "Well, maybe he won't be convicted?" I suggested.

  That seemed to make everyone happier, and a few people even suggested that maybe Mom could dig up some dirt on other possible suspects to sort of confuse the investigation.

  "Are you suggesting that we pin the murder on an innocent person so we don't have to elect a mayor?" I asked. That was going too far.

  "We won't let anybody go to jail, but maybe that will create what they call—" Jeb paused, trying to think of a word.

  "Reasonable doubt," Wenling chimed in.

  "Yeah, that," Jeb said.

  "I'll interview some of the carnival rental employees at the fair tomorrow," Mom said. "See what they have to say."

  That seemed to make everyone happy, and in an odd way, we were on the case.

  I woke up to my old alarm-clock radio and the smell of half-caff coffee brewing. It was seven thirty in the morning. I'm not an early bird by any means, but we wanted to be at Main Street by eight thirty to set up our booth for the big nine a.m. Saturday opening.

  We'd stayed up late making a fresh batch of marshmallows just in case we wouldn't be able to return to the Fletcher Diner to get our last batch. And we'd have to throw out the ones in the booth.

  I headed to the bathroom to take a shower.

  When we left Main Street last night we were happy to see the police had removed the barriers for the last two blocks of Main Street, but had kept the Fletcher Diner cordoned off. We'd all assumed we'd be able to have the fair, but it was uncertain.

  As the water washed over me I went over yesterday's odd turn of events. To be honest, I felt like the town had become a little callous about the death of Wayne Boggs. And even more callous about the prospect of our town mayor being a murderer. On the other hand, it could've been some sort of community shock.