Murderous Matrimony (Renaissance Faire Mystery)

by Lavene, Joyce

  Her eyes got big and greedy when I held it out, and she snatched it from my hand.

  “Thank you.” She smoothed back her hair and wiped her hands on a small towel as though she’d just eaten. “But I was referring to the trinket the sorcerer gave to Wanda. Is it in your possession?”

  “If you’re talking about Wanda’s enchanted bracelet, I have it. I have all of her personal possessions. The police gave them to me because there was no one else to take them. We weren’t friends, but I hated to just throw them away.”

  She nodded and smiled. “Then the sorcerer will find you. When he does, he’ll ask if you wish a boon for the return of the trinket. You know what to say.”

  It was hard not to believe in the dragon. She was sitting right there looking at me like I was a snack. But a sorcerer? Not so much.

  “Don’t make the mistake of treating this request lightly,” she warned. “He is powerful, and will take what you say quite literally.”

  “Sure.” So much for her help. “A sorcerer is coming to take Wanda away.” Yeah, right. “What’s his name?”

  “That I cannot say. He rarely uses the same name or form twice. I dare not speak his real name. I cannot afford the cost.”

  I thanked her, and eyeballed the dragon one more time. As much as I loved the Renaissance world, there were definitely some whackos in it.

  I walked back outside into the blinding morning sun. Chase was approaching the tent. Someone was playing a dulcimer at the Main Gate, and a few of our bawdy ladies were welcoming visitors into the Village.

  Fred, the Red Dragon, was pretending to breathe fire and giving out tickets to a fire eater’s show at the Dutchman’s Stage. I shivered thinking about Buttercup.

  “You’ll never get rid of me, dearie,” Wanda purred. “I’m with you like snakes in the gutter. You’d best get accustomed to it.”

  I stared hard at her, and wished I could shoot her with an arrow. Maybe it was mean, but I was really frustrated. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I could shoot her with a hundred arrows and they would pass right through her. Arrgghh!

  “Are you okay, Jessie?” Chase hugged me and gave me a lingering kiss. “You were staring really hard at Fred. Is something up?”

  I held on to him tightly and closed my eyes. I wished it could always be this way—just me and him. Nothing bad could happen and Wanda could never get between us.

  I wasn’t sure he believed me about Wanda. He hadn’t said he didn’t believe me, but he kind of didn’t treat it as seriously as I wanted him to. He didn’t seem at all nervous or uncomfortable about the idea that she was watching us when we were alone together.

  “I went to see Madame Lucinda about Wanda again.”

  “Oh. What did she say?”

  “She said she couldn’t help me—again. But a sorcerer is coming who can help.” It suddenly struck me that Wanda had told me about her sorcerer/lover who’d given her the bracelet. How had Madame Lucinda known about it?

  I decided that I’d probably given it away to her in my emotional blathering and didn’t realize it. It had been a difficult two weeks.

  There was one question I could clear up right away. “Could you do me a favor?”

  “Anything.” His strong arms stayed at my waist, and his handsome, arresting face was close to mine.

  “Can you look in the tent and tell me what makes that dragon tick? I can’t figure it out.”

  “I’ve never noticed a dragon in there.” He gently smoothed a few flyaway strands of hair out of my face. “Let me check it out.”

  He stepped inside the tent. I could hear him talking to Madame Lucinda. I waited impatiently for him to come out. Wanda was gone, thank goodness, although that meant she was terrorizing someone else.

  “Well?” I asked when he was out of the tent again. “What do you think?”

  “You mean the dragon statue? That’s the only dragon I saw in there.”

  I looked at him, thinking about all the things I loved about him. Chase was intelligent, sensitive. He was a history buff, and loved horses. He worked as a consulting patent attorney who researched patents for his wealthy clients in his spare time, mostly after the Village closed in the evenings. He worked hard and played hard. He was a good friend to the residents of the Village, and stood up for them when it was necessary.

  But at that moment, I was too annoyed to care. “Dragon statue? I’m talking about a living, fire-breathing, small dragon.” I ducked my head back into the tent. There was Madame Lucinda wearing her enigmatic smile, and petting Buttercup’s head.

  I looked at Chase. “It’s right in there. How could you miss it?”

  “I don’t know, Jessie. I only saw a statue. It wasn’t alive, and didn’t breathe fire.” He kissed my forehead. “You haven’t been sleeping, and you’ve been upset about this thing with Wanda, and the wedding. You should get some rest while the museum is closed.”

  “In other words, you think I’m imagining it.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  The tension between us kept ramping up. I couldn’t explain it, and I couldn’t do anything about it. “I’ll talk to you later, Chase.”

  “Sure. Lunch?”

  “That’s fine.”

  Two giggling teenagers dressed as spiders ducked inside the fortune teller’s tent. I wondered what they’d find inside.

  Chapter Five

  Police officers still stood guard at the Arts and Crafts Museum across the cobblestones. Crime scene people were working around the front door, and at the site where Detective Almond thought Dave had been killed in the grass.

  I wondered how Manny was doing at the police station. If I hadn’t been so angry, I could have asked Chase to call about him. I’d lost that opportunity until lunch.

  Staying focused wasn’t easy. I couldn’t worry about Manny, or anything else, if I wanted to find Dave’s killer.

  The two police officers glared at me, folding their arms across their chests. I wasn’t welcome in my own museum.

  But there were no police officers next door at the antique weapon museum. I walked inside the door under the guise of wondering how the exhibit was progressing.

  I knew the man putting together the exhibit. Phil Ferguson was the owner of The Sword Spotte, a fine maker of swords. He was another old-timer at the Village.

  His swords were coveted around the world. He was a nice man too. Although I had considered that he had access to the weapon museum, with the antique crossbow, and could have killed Dave. I rejected the idea as soon as it crossed my mind.

  There were a dozen workmen there, putting up shelves and installing glass cases. I figured I might as well go ahead and see what they were doing—maybe ask a few pertinent questions. I wandered in and looked around.

  “Jessie!” Phil saw me and came over. He had a clipboard in his hand, and was wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of Renaissance gear. He was very short and studious looking, more like a librarian than a sword maker. “Come to check out the competition, eh?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think of you as competition. There are plenty of visitors to go around.”

  “I suppose that’s true. I think of our museums as catering to different clientele too. The men and teenage boys will come in here to look around while the ladies drag the girls and small children to your place.”

  “I don’t think it will be like that.” I defended my museum. “We’ll have something for everyone.”

  “And what’s your first exhibit? Tapestry weaving! That’s right! Every man’s dream.”

  I was starting to get a little hot. I reminded myself that I wasn’t here to argue with Phil. We’d never argued before. There was no reason for it now. Time would tell.

  “I stopped by to take a look at the crossbow and bolts that Master Simmons donated to the museum. Would that be okay?”

  “It would,” he agreed. “If something hadn’t happened to them the day after they were installed.” He pointed to a blank space on the wall. There was a page o
f information about crossbows next to where the crossbow should have been.

  “Were they stolen?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. Chase and his men have looked everywhere for them. They would be worth a fortune to the right collector.”

  I glanced around. “What about the workmen?”

  “It happened at night when the workers were gone and the Village was closed. The doors weren’t locked yet—I didn’t expect a thief. Adventureland is giving me a hard time about it now too! They weren’t covered by insurance because the exhibit wasn’t open.”

  I thought it was odd that the theft had happened right before Dave’s death. “Did you contact the police?”

  “I let Chase take care of that stuff. As it is, we’ll be lucky to make our grand opening deadline. Master Simmons doesn’t have another crossbow like that one to donate. We’re gonna have to purchase one. It won’t be cheap, unless we go with a new one.”

  “I see.”

  “What are you looking for, Jessie?”

  “We think Dave was killed with a bolt. Maybe not from that crossbow. The police are still working on it.”

  “Poor old Dave.” He shook his head. “He was a good guy. Bad poker player, but a good sport. I’ll miss him.”

  “You didn’t hear or see anything unusual last night, did you?”

  “I wasn’t here after the gates closed. My sister had a new baby. My wife and I went to see her at the hospital.”

  “That’s great! Congratulations, Phil!”

  “Thanks.”

  “There’s something else.” He glanced round. “I probably shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, Jessie, but I know Dave owed some money to a bookie in town. He loved gambling on just about everything, you know. And he lost all the time.”

  “A bookie. Do you know who it is?”

  “His name is John Healy. He runs most of the gambling that goes on in Myrtle Beach. I owed him money once. I didn’t pay off on time, and he trashed my car. He said I’d be next. I managed to pay him off, and I stopped gambling.”

  “Did Dave owe Healey a lot of money?”

  “He owed everybody money. He owed Healy more money than he could pay off in the next ten years. Dave was scared too. There just wasn’t anything he could do about it.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I can do something with this. The police thought my assistant, Manny, could be guilty.”

  “That lump?” Phil laughed. “I don’t think so! Dave could have beaten him off with his pots and pans that he loved to bang around.”

  I didn’t think of Manny that way, but he was welcome to his opinion.

  “Good luck trying to figure out what happened to Dave.” Phil watched the workmen around us. “Be careful, Jessie. Healy is dangerous. You don’t want to mess around with him.”

  I promised that I would be careful, and left the museum.

  It was hard to believe a bookie would follow Dave into the Village and kill him here. But then what did I know about the thousands of strangers who visited each day? Any of them could have been killers, blackmailers, and bookies. Anything was possible.

  It was clear that whoever had killed Dave was familiar with the Ren Faire, and had chosen his weapon well. I wondered how much Dave had owed Healy.

  Chase was waiting at the foot of the stairs. “The queen said she saw you going in here. I thought I’d pick you up for lunch.”

  My heart melted at his beautiful smile. I couldn’t stay mad at him. “What a nice surprise!”

  “Is Polo’s Pasta okay with you? I have to go over and talk to him anyway. I thought it could save me a few steps.”

  “That’s fine. What’s up over there?”

  We started walking across the Village Green where musicians were playing, and children were throwing coins into the Good Luck Fountain. Smells of onions frying, and corn roasting were filling the warm, humid air—the scents of lunch from around the world at the Renaissance Faire.

  “It’s probably not a big deal. You know how the people at Polo’s take everything personally. They want me to arrest Merlin because he refused to pay for lunch.”

  “Maybe he thought it was free lunch day.”

  Chase frowned. “You know they never do that kind of stuff at Polo’s. They never even let the residents eat leftovers for reduced prices after the Village closes.”

  “Is Merlin there now?”

  “He’s waiting. You know he’s not upset about it. Nothing bothers him.”

  “And they want you to sort it out?”

  He shrugged. “That’s my job. I’m sure I’ll end up paying for his lunch, and I’ll have to be reimbursed. I thought we might as well eat while we’re there.”

  We left the lush green grass and got off on the cobblestones at Polo’s Pasta. It was a small restaurant dedicated to the travels of Marco Polo, serving Italian food at the highest prices in the Village. But I had to admit, it was always a good meal.

  Merlin was there with the owners, Lynda and Morris Bell.

  Merlin was our resident wizard. He wore a purple robe with gold stars on it and a matching cone-shaped hat. He looked like you’d expect a wizard to look. His gray beard was scraggly, and his head was a little grizzled. He had a large nose and inquisitive brown eyes.

  He was also the CEO of Adventureland, though most people who lived in the Village didn’t know that. I only knew because Chase had told me. Merlin looked much different in a suit and tie.

  He loved the Village more than anyone else I knew. I think he liked living there because he could truly be who he was—that and the occasional chance to flash people with his robe.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Sir Bailiff.” Merlin held himself erect and brandished his staff. “These people are accosting me. I wish them removed.”

  Chase was nothing, if not diplomatic. “Hail, good wizard.” He also had to be aware of the crowd of visitors in the restaurant. “Let us adjourn to the back room to work out a solution to this problem.”

  “There is no solution, Bailiff,” Morris Bell stated flatly. “This is twice he’s tried to stiff me on his lunch tab. I want my money. It’s hard enough to make a living here.”

  “I am simply eating for all the other residents of the Village who would occasionally appreciate a free or reduced price meal. Can I get a Huzzah!?”

  He turned to the people around him who resoundingly yelled, “Huzzah!”

  This was something no one liked to have happen in the Village. It was worse than asking visitors for Lady Visa or Sir Master Card. It took them out of the mystery of traveling to another time and place.

  The odd thing was that the visitors loved it.

  “Get him out of here!” Morris, a short man with a mound of curly black hair on his head, yelled at Chase.

  The restaurant crowd continued to chant, “Huzzah! Huzzah! Give them food!” They pounded on the wood tables and stamped their feet. The situation was rapidly getting out of control.

  Morris shoved Merlin, and Lynda went to hide behind an empty table. Merlin retaliated by striking Morris in the chest with his staff.

  To make a bad situation even worse, Wanda decided to find out what was going on. I saw her come through the gondola at the front of the restaurant. She laughed out loud as she did what she could to make matters worse.

  Cups, bowls, and plates began to fly through the air. They smashed against the walls along with glasses, silverware, and pasta.

  At first, no one seemed to notice—or they thought the tiff had become a food fight. It didn’t take long to realize that food and eating utensils were independently taking flight.

  “What the—?” Morris first looked angry and then fear took over. “Is this your doing, wizard?”

  Merlin was just as mystified. He watched, open mouthed, as the restaurant seemed to come alive. “I can’t do anything like this. I’m not a real wizard, you fool.”

  Wanda laughed as visitors began to run from the restaurant. Her abilities had increased. She was able to lift a man and toss him through a w
indow. She didn’t have to touch him to do it either.

  Morris picked up a broom and held it before him like a sword. “I’ve heard people talking about this kind of thing today. They think the Village is haunted. It’s just a trick. There is no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Oh no?” Wanda grabbed a large, metal coffee urn and smacked him in the head with it.

  Morris dropped like a rug. Lynda ran to his side.

  “I’m out of here.” Merlin grabbed his hat and ran out the door. “Take care of it, Chase.”

  “Yes, Chase,” Wanda urged. “Take care of me, won’t you?”

  Luckily Chase couldn’t hear her. He ducked a hot plate of spaghetti that she threw his way when he ignored her.

  I grabbed his arm and pulled him outside.

  “Wanda?” He looked as though he was ready to believe that she was real now.

  “Yes. She’s stronger, and learning to do new things every day.”

  He pulled out his radio and called for backup. “This can’t go on. People will stop coming to the Village.”

  I hated to sound smug, but I’d been trying to tell him since the day she’d appeared at our apartment in the Dungeon. “There is nothing we can do until the sorcerer comes to get his bracelet back.”

  He stared at me. “What?”

  I shrugged. “That’s what Madame Lucinda says. She told me we can ask him to take her with him. That’s all we can do, unless I want to wish her on someone else. It’s like she’s linked to me.”

  It got quiet in Polo’s Pasta. I saw Wanda fly out and throw me a kiss.

  “She’s gone now. I suppose it wasn’t any fun once everyone else was gone.”

  “I’m going in to see if Morris is okay. You stay here.”

  Chase’s reinforcements had arrived, and carefully stepped into the restaurant. I could already see the visitors who had been in Polo’s spreading the tale via Facebook and Twitter. If Wanda wanted to cause trouble, she was doing a good job.

  “What was that?” Merlin asked from behind a privy. “More to the point, is it over?”

  I sat on a pretty purple bench in the shade. “It’s over for now. Or at least she’s gone for now. It was Wanda. She’s blue, angry, and back for an encore.”