by Cindy Brown
Chapter 28
I got into my pickup after rehearsal, my mood dragging. Did all Broadway musicals start off this shaky? Did any? It was tough to imagine anything we’d done today making it to any stage.
But it didn’t matter right then. What did matter was changing into my belly dancer disguise and getting to the faire on time. I started up my truck and took off down the road. A few miles later, I saw a 7-Eleven. That’d do. I pulled into the parking lot, took off my wig and fluffed my hair (good thing it was going to be covered by another wig), grabbed my duffle, and went into the mini-mart. I purchased a surprisingly decent cup of coffee from the pony-tailed Native guy behind the counter, then went to the restroom. Thankfully, the bathroom was a family-style one-stall room, with plenty of space to change into my costume. I did so, then changed my blue contacts to brown, put on more eye makeup and brushed on some bronzer. My dark brown wig was a bit tangled from being squashed in my duffle, but it gave me a wild Bohemian look that seemed perfect for a belly dancer, especially when topped with my veiled headdress. I fastened another veil across the bottom half of my face. Perfect. The only bit of me visible was my now-brown eyes and my midriff.
I unhooked the face veil (it might look suspicious to drive with it on) and tried to slip out of the quick mart without being seen. No such luck.
“Ren faire, huh?” called the guy behind the counter. “Love it out there.”
Ren faire. Camelot. Ren faire. Camelot. The two ideas ran through my head as I drove to the faire. John Robert had been at the Ren faire, and he wanted to reimagine Camelot. Which came first, the Ren faire chicken or the Camelot egg? Did it matter? I couldn’t see how, and yet it was a question I wanted answered.
I also wanted to know more about Riley and Bianca, specifically about their fight. Once I reached the employee lot for the faireground, I parked, pulled out my phone and began to punch in Bianca’s number. Then I stopped. Could I tell her I was a PI on the job? Probably, since I could also investigate her while I was undercover. But what if she did talk to Riley and mentioned it? I didn’t want him to know—he’d be more open with me if he didn’t. In the end I called and left a message on Bianca’s voicemail saying I was helping Riley with some of the legal stuff (I had gotten him a lawyer) and asking her to call me when she could. Then I stashed my phone under my seat, locked up my truck, walked to the Gimme Shimmie pavilion, and grabbed my ass-sign.
“Here you are.” Jasmine was bedazzled again, a rainbow of colors sparkling in the sunshine. “Listen, we didn’t get a chance to talk after your day on Sunday.”
“We didn’t talk because Oi’m a mime.”
“Hey, a talking mime,” said a teenaged passerby. I bit my thumb at him, a Shakespearean-type gesture that meant “up yours.”
“Nice,” said Jasmine, sounding like she meant it. “And yes, before you ask, you still need to stay mute today. Also, I wanted to say that you did a great job on Sunday. We had a few dozen people more than normal. So, we’re going to keep you as an audience grabber, rather than a dancer. At least for right now. Sorry.”
I made the disappointed face she expected, but inside I was celebrating. I’d already realized it’d be tough to fit dance lessons and/or learning new routines into my already full schedule. Plus, walking around the faire was much better for snooping purposes. Even the mime bit had worked out well—William the Wondrous was right about being quiet and listening.
“Hope you’re not too upset,” she said. “See you at the show.”
I circled the faire, past a mud-wrestling pit and a giant blow-up dragon slide and the Enchanted Forest, smiling and jiggling my sign and reminding myself that I was wiggling my ass to catch a murderer, sort of like a worm on a hook. Then I got a bite.
“Oi!” I spun around to see who’d grabbed my sign. The pimply teenager I’d seen at the gate. Dang. It was kind of like catching a carp when you were hoping for trout.
“See, a talking mime!” he said to his buddies
“Sure, she talks,” said a tall skinny guy. “But how do we know she’s a mime?”
“Do something mime-y,” the first guy said to me.
I bit my thumb at him again—until I saw the twenty he was waving. What the hell. I quickly mimed pulling a rope hand over fist (like a lot of actors, I’d studied movement theater). When I got to the end of the rope, I grabbed the cash and pretended to kick the lead teen in the rear. His friends roared. Ha. The kid reached to take back his twenty so I tucked the bill inside my belly dancer bra. Ha again.
A trumpet sounded. “Her royal majesty, Elizabeth!” An entourage of people dressed in velvet and brocade walked down the road at a regal (i.e. incredibly slow) pace. Probably too hot to move fast; those clothes were designed for England, not Arizona. “Curtsey, wench!” said the stout man who’d announced the queen. He looked a bit like Henry the Eighth after he’d gone to seed. “Do you not recognize your queen?”
I smiled and curtseyed.
“Ah, I’d heard tell of a new subject,” said her royal majesty. “A belly dancer, I see. Perhaps you would dance for me?”
Ack. I didn’t think I could fake a belly dance. I shook my head, cringing. I’d seen a set of stocks in one section of the faire.
“You dare defy her majesty?” said the King Henry-looking guy. “Answer for yourself.”
I stood up from my curtsey, and zipped my lips, then shrugged my shoulders. A lady-in-waiting whispered in the queen’s ear. “Ah,” said the queen. “You are the mime.”
Wow, misinformation sure got around fast, but hey, maybe I could use it to learn something.
I nodded happily, then held out my hand in an invitation, a “shall we play?” gesture.
“I do love mimes,” said the queen. “Perhaps she’ll build a box.”
So I did, but then I grabbed invisible bars on the front of the box.
“Oh,” said the lady in waiting. “I think she’s in jail.”
As she said “jail,” I watched their faces, but nothing. Surely news of Riley’s arrest would be all over the faire by now. Maybe I hadn’t been clear enough. I galloped like a pony, and pawed at the ground.
“A horse,” cried the duke or whatever he was. “My kingdom for a horse!” Everyone laughed obligingly, but still no forthcoming information.
I mimed putting a helmet on my head.
“She wants a new veil.”
“No, she’s going to become a nun.”
I picked up an invisible lance and tucked it under my arm.
“What’s she carrying?”
“A book?”
I shook my head. Now to put it all together. I put on my “helmet,” picked up my “lance,” and galloped.
“By George, I think she’s jousting.”
Yes! I gave Henry a big thumbs up, then staggered back and fell on the ground.
The group of royalty was silent for a moment.
“Is she dead?” said the lady-in-waiting.
“Is she Angus?”
“Is this supposed to be funny?”
I’d begun to nod in answer to the first two question, but unfortunately I was still nodding when Henry asked the last question.
“Not a laughing matter,” said the queen. “In terribly bad taste.”
I shook my head and traced mime tears down my face, but I was too late. The entourage walked away, heads held high. “Too bad,” said the queen. “I was thinking she might make a good jester.”
Chapter 29
What had I been thinking? That one of them would give themselves away? That one of them would confess, or—
“Were you wanting to know about the killing of Sir Angus?” The scratchy soft voice behind me was familiar. I turned around. The fortuneteller. “I warned you,” she said.
She had. I’d forgotten. “But how did—” I clapped a hand over my mouth.
“The crone kno
ws.” The woman smiled.
Dang, dang, dang. She’d warned Ivy, not this brown-eyed belly dancer-mime. Now she knew we were the same person. How did she recognize me? Would she tell people? Did everyone already know who I was?
The fortuneteller turned away, holding an arm above her shoulder and crooking a finger, beckoning me to follow.
I followed. What choice did I have?
When we got to her caravan, the woman waited at the steps to the entrance. “Tell your fortune?” she said to me. I nodded.
“Fifty dollars.”
Fifty! Surely she didn’t charge...oh. Fifty dollars might be high for a reading, but it was cheap for an information bribe.
I pulled the twenty the teenager had given me out of my bra. “I can get you the rest later.” The woman nodded and went up the steps and into the caravan. I followed.
Inside, the wooden caravan was painted floor to ceiling in scarlet, with gilt trim around the small windows. Maybe in Romania or someplace like that it’d be cool and gypsy-ish, but here in Arizona it felt hot and stiflingly close, like being inside a vein. The crone sat on one side of a small table draped in red (of course). I sat opposite her.
“When you bring the rest of the money, you ensure my silence.”
I nodded. “Um, how did you recognize—”
“The crone knows,” she said again. It was beginning to get on my nerves.
“What can you tell me about Charming Bully?” I asked.
“You do not mean the song.”
“No.” Besides, the song was called Charming Billy, but I didn’t think I should correct her right then. “Was Angus a pedophile?”
“What? No. Oh, I see, from the song.”
“It’s about a man who wants woman who’s too young for him, right? Maybe Bianca is younger than I think?” I watched to see if mentioning Bianca in conjunction with Angus would surprise the fortuneteller. It didn’t.
“Not so young. Mid-twenties. No, it is only the name of the song that suits—suited—Angus.”
“Do you have anything else to tell me?” I really hoped I wasn’t paying fifty dollars just for her to keep quiet, though it was sort of a bargain when I thought about it that way.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “The trouble is not over.”
“How do you mean?”
The woman put her hands to her temples. Maybe she was a real psychic. An actor surely would have avoided such a stereotype. “I see...a storm. Trouble. Danger.”
“Could you be more specific?”
She opened her eyes, motioned for me to be quiet, then held her hand over a deck of tarot cards that lay on the table. I’d had my cards read at a theater party once. The guy doing the reading had asked me to shuffle and cut the deck. This woman just plucked a card from the pile, and lay it on the table between us.
The card showed a man in a red robe, one arm raised high in the air holding something—a wand? A candle burning at both ends? He stood behind a table that held a cup, a sword, a staff, and a coaster-looking thing with a star on it. “The Magician,” said the crone. “A practical card, usually associated with skillful communicators.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“But he’s reversed.”
“So I’m not a skillful communicator? Oh. I’m a mime, duh. That fits.”
The woman shook her head. “The magician in this position means trickery...” I was sort of tricking people by being undercover. “Untrustworthiness.” That was going a bit far. I was just doing my job. “Greed...” Hey. “Manipulation and mis-utilization of skills toward a bad end.” She looked deep into my eyes, in a mesmerizing gypsy sort of way. “For evil.”
Oh. I was pretty sure the crone wasn’t talking about me. She was warning me about someone else.
Chapter 30
It may sound funny, but I’d actually forgotten there was a dangerous killer around. I don’t know if it was the fact that my brain was preoccupied with Matt’s offer (which I was not going to think about at work) and my career (Broadway!) and the play (Kennelot? Really?) or the fact that the faire just seemed like an innocent place, full of merriment and bad jokes and people playing dress-up. No matter. Despite having been lulled into a false sense of wellbeing, I now felt awake and alert and ready to do some detecting. I decided to start with Bianca.
The falconry show stage was in the center of the faire. I got to the entrance about ten minutes before the show, but just as I was going in, I heard a voice: “Prudence!” Dang. Jasmine walked up to me, belly dancing bells jingling in exasperation. “What are you doing? No one will take notice of you there. They’ll be watching the birds.” She looked to the heavens. “Oh Lord, thou hast sent me a lubberwort.”
“Oi! Don’t be calling me an idiot.” Jasmine arched an eyebrow, surprised I’d know the insult. “Oi studied Shakespeare, you know. Fellow countryman and all that.” I huffed like I was offended and strolled back into the thick of the crowd. Twenty minutes later, I checked to make sure Jasmine was nowhere in sight, then ducked into the falconry show again. The stage area was an oval-shaped dirt plot surrounded by small hills lined with benches. At one end of the space was a large perch, at the other a two-story permanent structure built to resemble a castle. Several turrets with balconies rose above a wooden stage, which was set simply with a table and chair. The show was in progress.
Bianca wore the outfit I’d seen before, leggings and a leather bodice, but with the addition of a large leather glove, and a vulture. The enormous bird sat on her arm, flapping its wings a little. “Just to show you how quickly one of these birds can strip meat from a bone, we have a demonstration.” Another young woman came out from the structure behind them, holding something behind her back. “Delia has a chicken drumstick. Once Igor reaches it, let’s count together to see how long it takes him to clean it up.” She turned herself and the vulture toward Delia, who threw the drumstick on the ground between them. Igor launched himself off Bianca’s arm and was on the chicken in seconds. “One,” counted Bianca. “Two,” the crowd chanted with her. “Three,” I said along with everyone else (I loved audience participation). Igor was done with the drumstick by the count of nine.
“Impressive, yes?” said Bianca. Let’s give Igor a hand.” The crowd applauded and the bird flew back to the “castle” where Delia was now waiting for him. Bianca walked toward the structure. “Now, you’ve seen owls, hawks, falcons, and vultures, but you haven’t met the most magnificent bird in our troupe, the pinnacle of our show.” She stepped onto the stage and held out her arms like a ringmaster. “Edgar!”
The audience turned to the turret where Igor had flown. The other birds must have been released from there. “Edgar!” Bianca said again, sitting down at the wooden table on the stage. The crowd scanned the sky, then a few began to laugh and point at the stage, where a (comparatively) small black bird hopped toward Bianca. “Edgar,” she admonished. “Did you forget we were dining together?” He cocked his head at her, then flew up to the turret, where he took a small apple from Delia’s outstretched hand. “Ravens like Edgar and their cousins the crows are the most intelligent of birds,” said Bianca. “Thought to be as smart as great apes or even small children.” Edgar flew back to Bianca and deposited the apple on the table.
“But Edgar, if you want to share,” Bianca said. “I must cut it.” He looked at her a moment. “With a knife.” Edgar flew a short distance to the side of the stage, picked up a knife by its wooden handle, and brought it to Bianca. She cut him a piece of apple, then said, “That’s all well and good, but I am a little hurt that you forgot my birthday.” The raven shook its head from side to side, then flew back over the audience, where a man dressed in a tunic held out his hand. Something shiny dangled from it. Edgar grabbed the object and flew back to Bianca, where he placed it on the table. “A locket,” she said, “How lovely.” She bent her neck forward. Edgar picked up the locket by its ch
ain, hopped onto her shoulder, and slipped the large silver chain over her neck. She raised her head and reached back to stroke his feathers. “I’m so sorry. It’s just that last year you didn’t remember so I thought you forgot my birthday again.” The raven shook its head. “Nevermore.”
Like the rest of the audience, I leaned forward, holding my breath, trying to hear, to understand. Was it the bird that...
“Nevermore,” the raven said again. Yes, it was Edgar who spoke.
After the show, I lined up with the other fairegoers to see Bianca and Edgar. When it was my turn, I lowered my voice, and said, “Hi, did you get—” Ack. I’d nearly said, “my message,” but I’d left the voicemail as Ivy, not as the belly dancing mime. I almost blew my own cover. “Oi mean, where did you get Edgar?”
“From a wildlife rehabilitation center, like most of the birds in my act.”
“She said that at the beginning of her show,” said a tourist behind me in line. “If people would just listen...”
I smiled and excused myself. There wasn’t much I could ask her as my present persona. I wiggled my ass back to the woman in the costuming booth I’d talked with on Sunday. “That falconry show is brilliant,” I said to her in a lull between customers. “Just bloody brilliant. Especially that bit with the raven. Nevermore, ha!”
The wrinkles on the woman’s plump face all turned downward. “I heard you’re supposed to be silent.”
“But there’s no one around,” I said. “What’s the harm in a little gossip?’
“Gossip?” The wrinkles all turned the right way up.
“Oi just wanted to ask about that bird woman. Oi mean, Oi fought she was pretty effin’ amazing to begin wif, and then someone said it was her boyfriend just died. But Oi’d heard he was in jail. So...”
“Poor Bianca.” The woman shook her head. “The lass has remarkably poor luck with men. One dead, one in jail.”
“Cor blimey,” I said, hoping people in England still said that. “They was right? She’s got a dead boyfriend and a jailbird? A love triangle, eh?”