Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death

by Jeffrey Allen

“And you’re going to buy the land up near Denton to move the fair to?” I asked.

  The smile faded and she studied me. “I’m guessin’ that daddy of yours is still tied to the bank and those bankers have big ol’ mouths.”

  “Yes or no?”

  She grabbed the walkie-talkie and set it in her lap. “You may be thinking some awful things about me right now, but you better know one thing. I wouldn’t up and ditch the fair. It’s been a part of my family for as long as I can remember. I know how important it is to the community and I would never do anything to harm it.”

  I glanced at Victor. His tiny arms were folded across his chest and he looked bored.

  “So, yes, I am looking to move the fair,” she said. “It’s all in place. That new land is better plumbed, has better access, and can accommodate more exhibitors. It will actually be a better place to house the fair.”

  “It’ll hurt Rose Petal,” I said. “Local vendors and retailers will lose out on money that comes from people all over the county and the region.”

  “You don’t think I know that?” she said sharply. “I’m well aware of that, Mr. Winters. I’ll be doing what I can to accommodate them.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know exactly and that’s not your concern. But I will be taking care of the people here in Rose Petal. If I didn’t, my daddy might up and rise out of his grave to tan my hide.”

  We stood there for a long minute. I was unsure what to say. I looked around and couldn’t believe that everything was just going to be moved to a different place.

  “Let’s get back to the dead guy,” Victor said. “He figured out what was going on, but you told him to shut up about it. Why?”

  “Because it wasn’t none of his danged business,” she snapped. “And the paperwork wasn’t all signed yet.”

  “When were you planning to tell everyone about the deal?” I asked.

  “After the fair.”

  I thought back to Butch Dieter’s questions at the board meeting and it clicked into place. “You were softening the blow.”

  She looked at me, annoyed. “Excuse me?”

  “You were softening the blow,” I said. “You were tweaking a few things this year. So you could spin it.”

  “What the heck are you talking about?” she asked.

  Victor looked at me, too.

  “The things that you’ve changed this year,” I said. “You mentioned them at the meeting the other night. No demolition derby. The Ferris wheel has been broken. The horrific band.” I paused. “You sabotaged this year’s fair. You made sure there would be a few things wrong so that you’d have some justification for moving when you announce the move.”

  Mama’s face reddened.

  “And killing a guy in the 4-H food stand to kill off the sales would give you even more justification,” I said.

  Mama pushed herself out of the cart, put her hands on her hips, and leaned closer to me.

  “Listen here, Mr. Winters,” she said, her mouth coiling up into a snarl. “I did not kill anyone. You wanna come after me for doing what I’m doing with my own land, fine. You wanna argue about where the fair’s gonna be, fine. You wanna moan about the fact that you can’t ride on the Ferris wheel, fine.” She leaned in closer, so our noses were almost touching. “But I did not kill George Spellman. And you are an idiot for even considering it.”

  “I don’t think it’s that much of a leap to . . . ,” I said.

  “And I was well aware that my dimwit daughter was in love with George,” she said, her mouth in full snarl now. “And no matter what I thought of that train wreck, I would not have killed the only man that has ever shown Matilda the least bit of kindness.”

  “So you knew,” I said.

  “Of course I knew,” she snapped. “I’m not an idiot. And I knew how it would look if everyone knew about Matilda and George when they found him. So I told the board to distance themselves from him.”

  That would explain all of those weird statements about being aware of George.

  “It was a mistake on my part,” Mama said. “But that is all I’ve done.”

  “Well, I still think . . . ” I said.

  “Well, maybe you should stop thinking!” she said, cutting me off. “You think his death won’t hang over this fair for years to come? No matter where it is, everyone is going to remember this. We’ll always be the fair where they found a guy in the freezer. You think that won’t cut into my bottom line next year? Or the year after?” She shook her head, frowning at me. “I’d be a fool to put a dead body anywhere on these grounds when I’ve got all my eggs in this basket.” She squinted at me. “I’m gonna kill somebody, you better believe you’ll never find that body.”

  She hopped back into the cart and slammed the accelerator to the floor, covering us in dirt and gravel as she sped away.

  35

  “She has a point,” Victor said.

  We were at the drinking fountain, rinsing the dirt from our mouths and faces from Mama’s hasty exit.

  “I guess,” I said, shaking the water from my hands.

  “No, she really does,” Victor said, doing the same with his hands. “A dead body causes way more lasting damage than any of those other things. And now that she’s admitted she’s the owner, I think it makes less sense. She’d be hurting her own pocketbook. And then there’s the whole hiring us thing. She may be a bit cracked, but she doesn’t seem dumb.”

  No, Mama wasn’t dumb. That was certain. And I agreed with Victor—given what we’d just confirmed with her, it seemed far less likely that she’d had anything to do with George Spellman’s death. I could make a case that certain things pointed in her direction, but the financial part—which now seemed to be Mama’s driving force—pointed the finger clearly away from her.

  The problem was that I wasn’t sure where it was pointing.

  I stepped out from under the awning that housed the water fountain and into the late day sun. I was frustrated. I felt like we’d made no headway. And I wasn’t getting to really enjoy the fair. I was too busy worrying about George Spellman, and about Mama’s plans.

  “So maybe this guy’s death isn’t related to her newfound business venture,” Victor said, slipping his sunglasses from the brim of his hat to his face. “Maybe it was just bad luck and timing.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You said he was in some motorcycle group and that tree-hugger group,” he said. “Maybe the answer is there somewhere.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe you could just keep saying maybe.”

  I squinted into the sun. “Maybe.”

  “Hey. Bozo. What’s the matter?”

  I shaded my eyes from the sun. The heat was intense. At least a hundred degrees. Too hot for April. Maybe that’s what was frustrating me.

  “I just find it hard to believe that all of this is going on and it’s a coincidence,” I said. “Could it be? Sure. But I’m just having a hard time buying that, particularly given the fact that he was somewhat involved.”

  “I wouldn’t say he was involved,” Victor said. “He seemed to have known about what was happening. But that doesn’t mean he was involved.”

  “So, then, what? Someone killed him for another reason?”

  “Sure. Happens all the time. Might not even be a reason. Might’ve just run into the wrong guy at the wrong time. It might not have been personal at all.”

  I sighed. He was right, of course. But I still wasn’t buying the coincidence. George had his hands in too many things that were overlapping for me to buy that.

  Victor looked at his watch. “I gotta scoot. Meeting the wife and kid for ice cream.” He paused. “You should do the same.”

  “They’ll be here soon,” I said.

  “No, I mean it, Deuce,” he said. “You’re wearing yourself out over this. Take a break tonight. It’ll all still be here tomorrow. And maybe it’ll make sense then.”

  I knew he was right. It was just hard to disengage sometimes.
/>   “Spend some time with Julianne and your daughter,” he said. “As soon as number two shows up, you’re gonna be too busy to even think.”

  I laughed. “I know. And you’re right. Thanks.”

  He tipped his hat as he started walking away. “You’re welcome. And I’m always right, Stilts. Always.”

  36

  Julianne and Carly arrived shortly after Victor left, and I was determined to take his words to heart. I felt like I’d been ignoring them and I wanted to rectify that. The fair had always been family time for us. With the closing of everything in town and Julianne always taking vacation days during that week, we usually spent it tethered together. I’d untethered myself and that didn’t feel good. So I thought that night would be a good time to bond again.

  During Carriveau County Idol.

  Now, lots of fairs held their own singing competitions. Lots of fairs ripped off the singing shows from TV and tried to make them their own. But very few fairs put on a competition with the elaborateness that Carriveau County did.

  There were town tryouts. Then town competitions early in the spring before fair week. Then all of the town winners were featured in the newspapers. A website was created. There were multiple age divisions. A local radio station hosted it. And then tickets were sold for the big night at the fair.

  Mama was smart. She might have ditched the demolition derby, but she hadn’t messed with CCI. There would’ve been an insurrection. It was the toughest ticket at the fair to get and something people talked about all year long.

  Most of the singing was horrifically bad, but some of it was decent. Decent for a county singing competition, anyway. While the judges tallied up the final scores at the end of the evening, people were invited up to sing karaoke. And most of those who made it up on stage did so with the backing of a little—or a lot of—liquid courage.

  We stopped to pick up a bright red slushy for Carly before working our way toward the stage. A long table was set up near the entrance, with a large plastic box on it.

  “Daddy! A contest!” Carly pointed. “Can we enter?”

  I glanced at the table. A trifold poster board advertised a weeklong getaway at some Texas resort.

  I shrugged. “Sure.”

  She ran to the table and tore off an entry form. She thrust it and a pencil into my hand.

  “Here. You fill it out and I’ll drop it in the box.”

  I scribbled our name and address on it, folded it in half, and handed it to her. She pushed it through the slot on the top of the box and came back beaming.

  “I bet we win!” she said as she reached for her slushy.

  We fled past the box and found our seats in the second row of bleachers, off to the side of the stage.

  “We got good seats,” Julianne said. “I’m impressed.”

  “Only the best for you.”

  “It was a lottery, wasn’t it?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well, at least we’ll have an easy time getting out of here if your kid decides to enter the world this evening,” she said.

  “Win, win.”

  We were two contestants into the teenage division when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

  I turned around to see Butch Dieter, the questioner from the board meeting. We shook hands.

  “Haven’t missed this in about fifteen years,” he said with a grin.

  “Me, either.”

  He shifted on the bleacher. “You make any headway on George’s death?”

  “Nothing to speak of, no, unfortunately.”

  He frowned. “Bummer.”

  “I did talk to Matilda, though.”

  He nodded solemnly. “Yeah, she’s hurting pretty good. Feel bad for her.” He paused. “Sorry I couldn’t tell you about her the other night.”

  “I understand,” I said. “Rules are rules.”

  He nodded again. “Club is strict. But she was pretty good for him, you know?”

  “How so?”

  “He was kinda messed up for a while,” Butch said. “Not in a bad way or anything, but I think he was lonely, kinda sad. He wasn’t the same old George. He stopped telling jokes. Stopped showing up for the occasional beer. Just was withdrawn for a while. But when he started seeing her, the old George came back.”

  “Were they serious?”

  Butch thought for a moment, then nodded. “I think so. They were kinda low-key about their relationship, but they seemed pretty serious, at least from what I knew about them.”

  I glanced at the stage. The MC was asking trivia questions to the people in the audience and tossing out T-shirts as rewards.

  I turned back to Butch. “You said he was down for a while? How come?”

  “Bad relationship,” he said, shrugging. “Look, I know all the jokes people were probably making about Matilda because of her size, okay? But she was ninety times better for him than anyone else ever was.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, the music came up and the next singer started in on a horrific version of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

  Julianne leaned over so her mouth was right next to my ear. “I used to love this song. Now I don’t think I’ll want to hear it ever again.”

  I smiled and nodded. “The sound of you screaming in labor will be more melodic than this.”

  And the rest of the evening was much of the same. Bad renditions of overly popular songs completely butchered by people who’d clearly been lied to about their talent. Julianne and I tried to contain our laughter by burying our faces on each other’s shoulders. Carly just looked at us like we were weird.

  Nearly two hours later, the sun had disappeared, replaced by the moon and temporary floodlights to illuminate the stage. Mosquitoes were out in full force and the judges were now set to begin their deliberations.

  Which meant karaoke.

  “You going up this year?” Julianne asked.

  “Very funny.”

  She shifted on the bleacher next to me. “If I thought it would force the baby out, I’d go sing anything.”

  I put my hand on the small of her back and she released a small, grateful groan. I smiled at her and then took in the surprised look on her face. “What?”

  She pointed at the stage.

  Matilda had the mic in her hand and was working with the MC on the karaoke machine.

  “Oh, my,” I said, unsure I wanted to hear what might come out of her mouth.

  Matilda pointed a finger at the screen and nodded firmly. The MC raised an eyebrow, shrugged, and punched a button on the keyboard.

  Matilda strode to the middle of the stage, hitched up her black sweat pants, which were stretched to their absolute limits, and stared down at her feet, either preparing herself or studying the construction of the stage.

  “Isn’t this the song from Titanic?” Julianne whispered as the first notes floated out over the crowd. “Celine Dion?”

  “‘My Heart Will Go On,’” I said, nodding.

  “Oh, my,” Julianne said, clutching my arm, preparing herself.

  Matilda’s voice wavered with nervousness over the first few lyrics, then settled down, and I think everyone in the crowd was looking around at one another, wondering if they were all hearing the same thing.

  Because she was pretty darned good.

  Her confidence grew as she got deeper into the song, her eyes focused somewhere out beyond the crowd, her free hand sweeping out in a grand gesture over the people, bringing a fairly sizable round of applause as she continued on.

  And that’s when I noticed the tears coming from her eyes.

  As the lyrics tumbled out of her, it seemed pretty clear that she wasn’t so much singing them as she was speaking them to someone else.

  George Spellman.

  She finished with a flourish and most of the audience rose to their feet, exploding with applause. Matilda wiped her eyes and handed the mic back to the MC, who was still encouraging the crowd to clap for her performance.

  “Of all the things I�
��ve seen on this stage, that might’ve been the most surprising,” Julianne said. “And touching.”

  I nodded in agreement as the applause finally started to die down. Not everyone in the audience was privy to the meaning behind the lyrics, but it was hard not to infer that the song meant something to Matilda. I could even hear Butch sniffling behind me.

  As Matilda lumbered down the stairs from the stage, I noticed that her expression started to change. The sadness that had been draped all over her face was being slowly replaced by something else.

  Anger. Or irritation. Or something along those lines.

  And she was staring at Susan Blamunski, who was doing her best to return the stare.

  “Wow,” Julianne said, seeing what I was seeing. “Rawr, cat fight. Wonder what that’s all about.”

  As Matilda reached the bottom stair, Susan met her there. They glared at one another and I couldn’t be sure, but it looked as if Matilda bumped her with her massive hip as she passed. Susan tossed her another angry look over her shoulder as she went up the stairs to the stage.

  “Maybe she took her song,” Julianne said.

  I nodded and watched as Susan marched up to the karaoke machine. She placed her hands on her hips, made an impatient face at the MC, and waited for him to pull up whatever she was looking for. When it was up, she grabbed the mic from his hand and marched to the middle of the stage, her face still masked with anger.

  The first few notes of the song pulsated through the speakers and Julianne dug her nails into my arm. “Oh my God. Duran Duran? I used to love them!”

  It was indeed Duran Duran and Susan plunged into a ferocious version of “Hungry Like the Wolf,” prancing and preening around the stage in a near maniacal manner. She clawed at the air. She bared her teeth. Her singing was okay, but she was selling the act and the audience was eating it up, including Julianne, who was standing and singing along, one hand cradling her stomach, the other raised in full fist-pump mode.

  Carly just stared at her mother, wide-eyed with wonder.

  As the song wound down, Susan planted herself in the middle of the stage. She made one more clawing gesture at the audience and thrust the microphone into the air, an evil-looking smile settling on her face as she stared out into the wildly cheering crowd.