by Cindy Brown
Riley called while I was just a few miles from the faire. I was also sitting in a mile-long traffic jam, something I’d managed to avoid when approaching from Harmony Ranch. “Happens every faire day,” Riley said. “That’s why it’s cool to live on site...Oh...” he heaved a big sigh.
Uh oh. I didn’t want to ask if he was sighing for not being at the faire, or not having the fifth-wheel, or even being in jail. I didn’t have time for sad, which kinda sucked for Riley right now, but would be way better for him in the long run if I could prove someone else killed Angus
“I only have a few minutes—”
“So you think. Those traffic jams are killer, man.”
“And I wanted to know if you know what’s in the big cage that Bianca keeps covered.”
“A bird?”
“Is that a question?”
“I thought you were pulling my leg. Of course it’s a bird. What else would she keep in a cage?”
“But you’ve never seen it?”
“I might have. She volunteers for some wildlife rehab thing, so besides the birds in her show there’s always other birds around. She helps them get well, then releases them or gets them to good homes and stuff.”
Not anymore, she’d said. So why did she still have a sick bird? The cars in front of me started to move, and I did too. At about five miles an hour. “Do you think Bianca could’ve had anything to do with Angus’s death?”
“No way. Bianca would never hurt anyone. She’s all peace and love and birds.”
And wild sex. With bruises on her arms. “Hey, about Angus...Somebody told me they called him ‘Charming Bully’.”
“Yeah. He was such an asshole, but the kind you want to follow, you know?”
“Like the football player in high school who was mean to all the geeks, but everyone else wanted to be his friend?” I pushed away a few bad memories of being a theater geek in high school. No time for old tapes right now.
“Exactly.”
I wished I could see Riley’s face right then—I wasn’t sure if he’d been the theater geek or the football player. “‘Bully’ also makes me think of fights,” I prompted.
“Hell yeah. Angus was always getting in fights, just for the fun of it.”
“With who?” I was almost at the turnoff to the faire.
“Everyone, man. He’d fight the other knights just to see who was toughest.”
Dang. Now I had to check out all the non-jousting knights too. “But that’s not bullying exactly.”
“He did that too. He was especially mean to the gay guys.”
“Anybody in particular?” I wanted to ask about Benjamin, but I knew better than to ask a leading question if I wanted to keep an open mind.
“Nah. Pretty much all of them.”
Great. Now I had to check out all the knights and all the gay guys. My list of suspects was getting longer by the hour. I pulled onto the dirt road that led to the faire. “Did he ever fight with women? I mean, physically?”
“No.” Riley’s voice was emphatic. “There’s a code of honor among us. Fighting with women is off limits—unless it’s like mud wrestling or something.” Riley swallowed, loudly enough that I heard it over the phone. “Which is why it was especially bad that I, uh, pushed Bianca. I’m not just a bad boyfriend. I’m a bad knight.”
“Riley, I talked to Bianca. She said you didn’t push her.”
“What?”
“She said she just fell. She also said you’re an idiot.”
“Really? That’s great. Hey, would you, um, tell her I’ve been thinking about her? That I’m sorry?”
“Sure.” I needed to call Bianca anyway. She’d left me a voicemail and we’d been playing phone tag ever since. “Take care, Riley.”
I veered off from the line of cars and pulled onto the side road that led to the employee parking lot. Dang. I was definitely late, and I had one more thing to do before I went to work. “Bianca?” I was surprised she picked up since the faire was already open, but then heard the squawking of birds in the background. Must be inside the mews. “It’s Ivy. Everything okay?”
“Fine. I just wanted to...You’re in touch with Riley, right?”
“Yeah. In fact, he just asked me to tell you he’s been thinking about you. That he’s sorry.”
“...Okay. Let him know we’re raising bail. We’ll probably have enough tomorrow to get him out.”
“We?”
“Lots of people around here. Pretty much everyone thinks Riley wasn’t involved with the...accident.”
“Pretty much everyone?”
“Yeah. And the others don’t really care who did it.”
Chapter 52
I was really late. I hurried through the faire to the Gimme Shimmie stage. “Sorry,” I said to Jasmine. “Oi got stuck in—”
She zipped her lips, giving the gesture a slightly pissed-off flourish at the end. “It is well and good that you are kin to Doug,” she said. “Or you would be looking for other employment.” She thrust my sign at me. “Now go.”
I did. I went straight to From Hoods to Snoods. Benjamin was at the shop, untangling ribbons from wreaths of silk flowers. I swept past him, crooking a finger to let him know he should follow me to the back of the shop, where a couple of costumed mannequins could hide us from view. “Congratulations,” I said. “I heard you won first place last night.”
“Thank you.” His voice was wary.
“Which means you ride well enough to joust.”
“Oh.”
“And I heard you and Angus had it out once.”
“He pushed my friend into a cactus. You know how much that hurts?”
“Actually, I do. Any other fights with Angus? Or times when he bullied you or your friends?”
Benjamin pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything.
I sighed. I didn’t want to ask the next question. “Do you have an alibi for the time of the joust? Maybe you were working here?”
His lips stayed where they were.
“No?” I asked. “You weren’t working?”
Still nothing from Benjamin, which I took to mean no alibi.
“Well,” I said, “thanks for being honest. Or at least not lying. I hope you didn’t do it.”
I did. Benjamin finally had his dream role, and he was an awesome Jackie. I hoped I wouldn’t have to take that away from him.
I’d just left Benjamin and passed the Green Man swaying on his stilts in the middle of the road when...Oh no. Really?
I sidled up to the Green Man. “Cover me?” I whispered. He obligingly bent his leaf-covered boughs around me. I patted his trunk in thanks and peered out between his leaves.
Hayden/JFK was dressed in regular street clothes—a red T-shirt and khaki shorts, and seemed to be alone. He walked leisurely down the road—almost too leisurely, as if he was acting. And he was heading for Benjamin’s shop. Had Benjamin told him he was Jackie?
No. Benjamin’s shoulders jumped when he saw Hayden. He turned on his heel and headed for the interior of the shop.
“Excuse me.” Hayden plucked a cap from one of the displays near the road. “Can you tell me what kind of feather this is?”
Benjamin, still facing away from Hayden, waved another employee over, a young woman. She bustled over to Hayden. “I believe that’s a grouse feather, milord.”
“Right.” Hayden put the hat down. “Thank you.” He pulled his phone from a pocket, glanced at it, and left the shop.
This was curious. Why was Hayden there if it wasn’t about Benjamin? He didn’t seem like the Renaissance-cap-wearing type. Maybe he needed a costume for some reason? He was on the move now. “Thanks for the camouflage,” I said to the Green Man. He unwound his limbs from around me and bowed his head slightly. I took off after Hayden, staying hidden in the crowd, in case my belly danc
er outfit disguise wasn’t good enough to fool someone who’d been looking at me close-up for the past week.
Hayden. This was really weird. Did everyone and their uncle go to the Ren faire? Well, there were twelve thousand people a day, so yeah, maybe they did. Or maybe Hayden had found out I worked here and was looking for me. After all, he was flirting with me yesterday. Or maybe he was blackmailing Benjamin, and Benjamin pretended not to know him because he was afraid I was watching and would find out. It all made my head swim.
And just when I thought things couldn’t get more muddled, Hayden turned to his left and made things even worse.
Chapter 53
Yep, Hayden turned left, walked up to the back door of the mews, knocked, and was admitted. By Bianca. Whom he hugged before entering the mews and shutting the door behind them.
I sat down on a bench outside a nearby jewelry booth. Thinking while walking was not my strong point and I needed all the brain cells I could muster for this puzzle. How did Hayden and Bianca know each other? I’d done background checks on both. Bianca was from Pennsylvania. She’d attended community college there for a few years before working in Ren fairs. No links to California or even the West Coast. And Hayden had no links to the East Coast. What the hell?
The mews door opened. I turned my back on it, and watched via a mirror meant for trying on necklaces. Hayden came out while Bianca stood in the doorway. She said something to him. He nodded, then hugged her again. She closed the door and he started down the road. I followed again at a respectable distance, silently thanking him for wearing a red shirt.
I didn’t have to follow him for very long. He didn’t watch any shows or browse any shops. He just headed for the exit and into the parking lot. I followed him, ducking behind cars, until I saw him get into his Prius and drive away.
I hurried back to the faire, trying to think while walking. Hayden had to be there to meet Bianca. And it must be important—he paid twenty-six dollars for the privilege to enter the faire and didn’t even get a turkey leg. I made my way back to Benjamin’s booth and again motioned him to the back. “I saw Hayden.”
“I know. You didn’t tell him? About me, I mean?” Benjamin’s eyes pleaded with me.
“No.”
“It was just a coincidence?”
“I think he was here to see someone else. Listen, when did you and he start working with John Robert?”
“I auditioned a day before you did. Hayden was already at the ranch. I had the feeling he and John Robert somehow knew each other.”
“Any idea how?” John Robert was from New York—the East Coast-West Coast dilemma again.
“No.”
Dang. I said goodbye and walked away from all the hoods and snoods, lackadaisically wiggling my sign. So Hayden knew Bianca. Hayden knew John Robert, and had been at his ranch before the joust. What did it all mean?
The sound of bagpipes drove everything else from my mind (bagpipes can do that). Everything except that it must be noon if the Pulchritudinous Pipes Show was beginning. Arggh, late again: this time for a noon meeting with a monk.
Uncle Bob sat at the same picnic table as before, drinking iced tea. Two other black-robed men sat at the far end of the tab, enjoying fish and chips and big plastic cups of beer. “What’s bothering you my child?” my uncle asked in a solemn voice.
“I’m just...bummed and confused. I don’t feel like I know anything more than when we started.” I filled him in on the latest news.
“You know a lot more. Just not enough. We knew this was going to be a tough gig.”
“Yeah.” I drew a frownie face in a little puddle of iced tea Uncle Bob had spilled.
“And I think you’ll remember that with most cases you’ve worked, things just sort of come together at the end. Somehow.”
“What happens if we don’t find out who was responsible for Angus’s death? I mean, I know the client is still supposed to pay, but do they ever stiff you?”
“It happens.” Uncle Bob sucked on his iced tea straw, looking longingly at the monks’ beer (or maybe the fries). “But that happens with any business. Don’t worry about it. And I’ve got something that could help...” He leaned forward over the table, not an easy task for a man of his girth. “Pink called me last night.”
Pink, or Detective Pinkstaff as he was known at the Phoenix PD, was one of my uncle’s best friends. “He knows we’re working this case. Sent us something from the coroner’s assistant he thought we would find interesting.” My uncle paused. For someone who wasn’t in theater, he sure had a flair for the dramatic.
“And?” I asked, to get the ball rolling.
“He said the body—Angus”—that was one thing I loved about my uncle. No one was ever just a body to him—“had scratches on his face. Not caused by the joust.”
“They’re sure? It couldn’t have been a scrape from the helmet or something?”
“No. They’re going to run some tests, hoping there’s some more evidence there—but the guy told Pink it looked like the scratches were caused the night before he died.”
“Like maybe he got into a fight and someone scratched his face.”
“Exactly.”
“Huh.” I told Uncle Bob about the bruises on Bianca’s arms. “But...” I tried to put my thoughts together.
“You don’t think she did it?”
“Riley said that there’s a code of chivalry here—that men don’t fight with women.”
“But women might fight with men.”
“I don’t know. I got the impression the bruises were from...” Have you ever been talking when suddenly all the noise around you went quiet so that your words rang out really really loud? That was what happened as soon as I said “...ROUGH SEX.”
The two monks sitting at our table giggled. Yes, giggled.
“Plus,” I plowed ahead, pretending that a dozen nearby people were not wondering about my sex life, “though Bianca could have been the jouster, she’s the least likely candidate. Being a woman, she probably doesn’t have as much upper body strength as the men, and she was at the scene of the accident afterward. She could have dumped the armor and run to the arena, but...”
“Yeah. I see the problem. But she could have planned it.”
I nodded. “I know. And about a dozen people—that we know of—could have carried it out. I’m still bummed and confused.”
The monks finished their meals and got up.
“God be with you, my friend,” one said to Uncle Bob.
“And with you,” said the monk who’d taken over my uncle.
“Looks like you’ve already made friends.” I watched the two men walk away, their skirts swishing up the dust in the road. “Cool costumes.”
“They’re real monks.” Uncle Bob grinned. “Everyone loves a Ren faire. By the way, I keep meaning to ask how you’re managing to investigate here, since you can’t talk and all.”
I made series of gestures that were supposed to signify me listening and talking quietly behind the scenes and being a brilliant mime and detective.
“You got a stomachache?”
Maybe not such a brilliant mime. I shrugged, and the little coins on the edge of my belly dancer bra jingled.
“Seems like there’s something else on your mind.”
“Can’t fool a PI,” I said. “Matt’s coming home today.”
“Oh.”
“And I haven’t decided what to do.”
“Ah.”
“Remember when you said something about me being a snail in a shell?”
“Yeah...”
“And how Matt drew me out of it?”
“Uh huh.”
“Does that mean he makes me a better person?”
“Well, being the crack PI you are, I bet you noticed my sort of non-responses to your last few statements.”
“Oh
,” I said, giving him some of his own medicine.
“That’s because you have to make this decision on your own. I can’t help you. But I’ll listen if you want to talk.”
“Even about mushy stuff?”
“Well...”
We both smiled at his non-response. “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t even know where I’d start.”
“How about answering your own question?”
“My own...? Oh. Does Matt make me a better person?” I rested my elbows on the picnic table, and thought. Really thought. About how Matt helped me see Cody as a whole person. How he gave me confidence to audition and investigate. How I was a little braver, a little kinder, a little more open since I’d known him. “Yeah,” I said. “He does.”
“Does that get you any closer to your answer?”
“Yeah.” I echoed myself. “It does.”
Chapter 54
I was being a bad detective again. Rather than investigating or looking for clues or even eavesdropping, I just hoped my subconscious would sort things out, and I let my conscious brain spend the rest of the day at the faire thinking about me and Matt. Could I really have love and my dream career? It seemed too much to hope for, but I wanted to believe it was possible.
I skipped the after-hours party again (see? Bad detective) in favor of going home and showering before I picked up Matt at the airport. I was on the road home when Mooooo! Mooooo! Mooooo! Uncle Bob was right. The cow ringtone was better. Actually kind of comforting. Mooooo! Mooooo! Mooooo! I glanced at the display and all the comfort went away.
“Mom?” I said when I picked up. “Is everything okay?” My mother did not call me. Okay, she called probably twice a year. On my birthday and...maybe just once a year.
“I can’t get ahold of Cody,” she said. “I’ve been trying his cell phone all day.”