by Judy Clemens
Gregg was still in his suit, walking quickly down the fairway, head swiveling side to side, like he was looking for somebody. I hoped it wasn’t me. I really wasn’t in the mood for a fight.
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “At least he’s not threatening anyone at the moment.”
“Until he finds who he’s looking for.”
Two more men in suits followed Gregg, also searching the lines and stalls. These guys didn’t look like executives. They looked like bodyguards. Or thugs. Not from the same security company who had worked the concert. Their suit coats fit snugly around bulky arms and chests, and what promised to be a gun holster, and the men stood at least a head taller than the regular fair crowd. One of them caught my eye and held my gaze just long enough for a chill to sneak up my spine. But then he was gone. I shuddered.
“Stella!”
I searched for the source of the voice, and Nick pointed up. Zach was on the double Ferris wheel, peering over the edge, tipping the car forward. Taylor peeked over the front, too, and the car tipped even further, swaying as she waved.
“Whoa.” I held my hands up, like I could keep them from falling, should they tumble out.
The wheel kept turning, and the next car in line held Randy and Bobby, with Claire squished between them. She wasn’t having as much fun as Taylor, that was easy to see. And then they were gone, spun up toward the sky, and I was left feeling a little dizzy and carsick.
“Guess Taylor’s not ready to go yet, huh?” Nick said. “Her mom’s going to be wondering.”
“I’m ready, though,” I said. “I’ve got to be up in six hours.”
“Is it really that late?”
“So who’s that little vixen up there with Zach?” Carla’s eyes sparkled, maybe because she was interested in Zach’s love life, maybe because Bryan had just won her a gigantic purple puppy. Or something that sort of looked like a puppy. With horns.
“She’s a competitor in the Lovely Miss Pennsylvania pageant,” I said.
Carla blanched. “Not that horrible girl I saw hanging around the food tent earlier.”
Nick barked a laugh. “No way.”
“This girl is actually nice,” I said. “She’s Bobby and Claire’s cousin from Doylestown. She seems genuine.”
“In every way?”
“From what I could tell, although I wasn’t really looking.”
She angled her eyes toward Nick, and he held his hands up. “Not even going there.”
“But her mother,” I said, “is perfect, according to Nick.”
“Stella…”
“Just kidding. She seems pretty perfect to me, too.”
Carla wrinkled her nose. “She’s not one of those crazy moms who puts her three-year-old in beauty pageants, dresses her up in skanky clothes, and makes her dance to ‘Maneater’?”
“No.” I laughed. “Taylor, the daughter, doesn’t look like that. And her mom seemed like a normal person. She said the whole pageant idea was Taylor’s, and the only reason she let her do it was because of the community service element, and the pageant’s focus on talent.”
Carla harumpfed. “Twirling a baton in a skimpy outfit?”
“I didn’t know batons wore outfits,” Nick said.
I elbowed him. “Actually, Taylor’s talent is sign language.”
Carla nodded. “Okay. I can deal with that.”
Zach yelled again, coming around on another spin, and we waved up at him.
“Remember?” Nick said in my ear. “We were going home?”
Right.
“Carla—” I turned to tell her we were leaving, but she was busy being kissed by Bryan. Or by the gigantic horned puppy he’d won for her. It was hard to tell. I cleared my throat, and Carla pushed the stuffed animal to the side to see me. “We’re going.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow!” She grinned and hid behind the puppy again.
Nick laughed. “Guess the fair makes her frisky, too.” He swung my hand as we walked away. “See, Bryan’s not so bad, right? You just spent over an hour in his presence, and no one died.”
“Whatever.” Actually it really hadn’t been that bad. He didn’t talk to me much, and he made Carla as giddy as…well, as Taylor was around Zach. Interesting.
We made our way down the fairway and had just passed the calf barn when screaming split the air. We stopped like dogs on point, and listened. More screaming. Close by. We ran toward the sound, and found a teenage girl up on the manure trailer, shrieking, her hands on her face. An overturned wheelbarrow lay on the ground, obviously tipped off the trailer, its contents spilled into the path. I leapt over the dropped manure and ran up the ramp. The girl grabbed me, crying and saying things I didn’t understand, her face pushed into my shoulder.
Nick ran up the trailer behind me. “There.”
I followed his finger toward the pile of manure. I didn’t understand why the girl was so freaked out, because cow crap was a matter of daily business. Maybe there was a rat, which would be gross, but not unheard of. Or maybe she slipped and thought she was going to fall off. But she kept screaming, and blurting out unrecognizable words, and I took a closer look where Nick was pointing. He’d gone even paler than he’d been before the funnel cake, and I realized something was out of place. A person was lying on the pile—but no, not on it. In it. All I could see were jeans and farm boots. The entire upper half was covered.
Other people had arrived, and I wrenched the girl off and shoved her onto someone else. Together, Nick and I grabbed the legs of the person and pulled, but whoever it was was really stuck. A few more people joined us, and with a few hard tugs and some careful use of shovels, we were able to slide the person onto the bare floor of the trailer. Impossible to see who it was, with all that crap everywhere. Nick peeled off his shirt and I used it to wipe the person’s face, doing my best to clear the nose and mouth. It soon became obvious that it was a woman, and also that my actions wouldn’t do any good. She wasn’t going to be breathing again no matter how clean her airways became. Not with the way her eyes were staring, and the way her chest wasn’t rising up and down.
And then I sucked in my own breath. Because I saw something else mixed in with the muck surrounding the woman’s head. It wasn’t straw, because I would recognize that right off. But it was bright white, where it hadn’t been ground into the manure. Stunned, I rubbed Nick’s shirt over the woman’s head, clearing enough of the dirt that I could see that the white strands were attached to her scalp.
I had just seen that hair earlier in the evening, when it had been flowing beautifully, a part of the woman’s easily recognizable persona. I took another look at the victim’s face, realizing with horror who I was seeing.
It was Rikki Raines.
Chapter Twelve
“No, I didn’t know her. I never talked to her.” I’d said it a million times. “I saw her in concert this evening, like everybody else. That’s it. That’s all I know.”
“But she’s local.”
“So are thousands of other people. I don’t know them all.”
The detective—what was her name again? Wyatt? White? Watts—wrote in her little notebook. Why she hadn’t just asked the other officers for my statement was beyond me. But I was doing my best to cooperate and not be a pain in the ass. Because I’ve been told I can be one. By many people.
But I was reaching my limit. A talented young woman was dead, and from what I could see, the cops weren’t any closer to figuring it out than they were hours earlier. In fact, they needed a whole new approach, if their communication was as bad as it seemed. And I was tired of trying to communicate.
“Look, lady, I’ve told you everything I know. Including who I saw Rikki talking to earlier.”
Watts blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Mr. Gregg, whatever his first name is.”
“You didn’t mention him at all.”
I hadn’t? I’d told my story so many times, I couldn’t remember what I’d said. “They were together after the concert
, on the stage side of the fence. She stomped on his foot.”
The detective gave a surprised laugh, then pretended she was coughing. “Why?”
“Because he was attacking her.”
“Attacking her?”
“He’d grabbed her wrist. It was obvious he was hurting her.”
“And you saw this how?”
I explained why Nick and I had been held up in the stands, and how I’d just happened to catch the altercation.
“What happened after she…got away?”
“He went the opposite direction. There was another woman there, with an iPad or whatever, so it didn’t look like he could go after Rikki.”
“Did this Mr. Gregg and the victim have a relationship?”
“How would I know? I assume since she’s a singer and he’s a recording studio exec there could be something there. But like I said, I’ve never talked to the girl, and the Greggs and I aren’t exactly friends. I don’t think they even know my name.”
She frowned. “But you know theirs?”
“Well, sure, everybody knows theirs.”
“I don’t understand.”
So I had to explain the whole cheating at the fair thing. She seemed confused. “They don’t raise their own cows?”
“Right.”
“And that’s a problem?”
Obviously, the woman was clueless.
“The whole point of 4-H is for kids to learn about animals, and take on responsibility. If they just buy champions, they haven’t done any work, and they take away rewards from the kids who have.”
“But what about the kids who had the champions to begin with? At last year’s fair?”
“Those kids raised the animals and turned them into champions. They deserved the prize.”
She looked at me blankly. “Is this something someone would kill over?”
“I doubt it. People get angry about it, but killing someone? I don’t think so. Besides, the Greggs aren’t dead.”
“True.”
I glanced at my watch. Almost two. “Do you know how long ago she died?”
The detective didn’t answer.
“Hello?” I waved my hand in front of her face.
“No way to know. We do know she was alive at ten o’clock, because someone saw her heading away from the grandstand.”
“Right after I saw her with Gregg.”
She nodded. “I suppose so.”
I recalled standing in the fairway, seeing Gregg with those thugs. “He was looking for someone later.”
“Gregg?”
“It was close to eleven-thirty. He was walking fast past the carnival games with two other guys. They were looking for someone.”
“How do you know?”
“He was checking out all the games and vendors, looking through everybody. So were the men.” I shuddered, remembering the way the guy’s eyes had stunned me.
“Who were they? The ones with him.”
“Don’t know. I guess you’ll have to ask him.”
“I will.”
I rubbed my temples. “Can I please go home now? I’ve told you everything I know—” which I’d also told everyone else “—and I’m tired. And I’m sad.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you sad?”
Was she kidding? “Because a young woman is dead. Doesn’t that make you sad?”
“Well, of course it does, but—”
“Look, Detective, I’m going home.”
“I’m not done with—”
“Yes, you are. You are done with me and you’re done with Nick.”
“Who’s Nick?”
Was she shitting me? I looked around. The cops had taken over one of the exhibit halls, closing it off to the exhibitors and visitors, and all of us witnesses were being questioned in different corners of the building. I’m sure everybody with a booth in there was really going to be happy about that in the morning.
But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that a talented young woman was dead. My eyes landed on a pathetic huddle in the middle of the room, people I didn’t know, probably Rikki’s entourage. The group consisted of young women, mostly, all with red eyes and smeared mascara. A couple of guys sat with them, along with a middle-aged woman who stared into space, knees together, feet apart, creating an awkward triangle that wrenched my heart. Rikki’s mother? There was no way to know, but no one was treating her like she was special that way.
Across the room, half-hidden behind the regional Relay for Life table, were two men and a woman in power suits. All three were on the phone, and all three appeared ready to explode. When one of them would end a call, he or she would immediately punch in another number and begin talking again. Rikki’s agents? Managers? Recording studio executives? But then, Gregg was conspicuously absent. Had he worked with Rikki? If so, I would think he’d be here, for sure. Unless he was the one who had killed her, and had taken off for Brazil.
I let my gaze wander.
The girl who’d found Rikki’s body on the manure trailer had been sequestered at the local florist’s table, but I couldn’t imagine why the cops were keeping her. What more could she say, other than, “I saw the feet, and freaked out”? In other spots teens waited quietly in folding chairs, probably only to end up being questioned about who they’d seen out by the trailer that evening. I supposed it made sense to ask, but who was thinking about loiterers when they were shoveling shit? If it were an attractive teenager hanging around, maybe, but other than that? Everybody else may as well have been invisible, unless they were doing something strange. I didn’t think any of the 4-H’ers would have the answers. And I knew for sure that I didn’t.
I got up and walked away.
“Hey,” Detective Watts said, “you can’t just—”
“Watch me.”
I spied Nick in the corner of the building, talking to a police officer. Or listening to one. Or else just sleeping. He was wearing a stretched out Dairy Association T-shirt he’d been given by one of the 4-H parents after his had been used for cleaning off Rikki’s face. It was better for everyone if his naked torso wasn’t open for viewing. Who knew what some crazed stalker woman might do when presented with a living, breathing ivory sculpture. I strode over, and touched his shoulder. The officer stopped whatever he was saying to glance up at me. “Can I help you, Ms.?”
“I’m taking him.”
Nick’s eyelids cracked open to reveal bloodshot eyes. “Hey, you.”
“Hey, yourself. Come on. We’re going home.”
The officer’s head whipped around to the other groups of people, as if checking to see what he’d missed. The detective was striding our way, fire in her eyes, so I hauled Nick to his feet. “Start moving.”
He didn’t argue.
“Ms. Crown! Stop!”
All heads in the area swiveled our way, and one of the other cops stood up, fingering the gun on his belt.
“Whoa,” I said, hands up. “No need for violence.”
Watts waved the officer down, and I wasn’t sure if her irritation was with me or the gun-happy dude. When he’d relaxed and all the focus had left our little group, she glared at me. “I said I wasn’t done with you yet.”
“And I said I’ve given you all I had. Twenty times. And so has Nick.”
She eyed him. “So you’re Nick?”
He attempted a smile, which even in his state was devastating.
The detective wasn’t moved. “I need to talk to you.”
He sighed. “Whatever you need.”
“Nick—”
“I’m fine. Just…stay with me.” He sat back down, hanging onto my hand, and after a moment I yanked a chair over beside him. The officer stayed, and the detective loomed over us.
“From the beginning,” she said. “And I especially want to hear about this Mr. Gregg who assaulted our victim.”
Nick glanced at me, then started to talk. I crossed my arms and glared at the detective. She may have been in charge, but that didn’t mean I had
to be nice about it.
Twenty minutes later, in the middle of yet another stupid, repetitive question, there was a commotion at the door, and Daniella Troth burst through, eyes wide, face as pale as Nick’s.
“You can’t come in here.” A cop jumped in front of her.
She peered over his shoulder and scanned the room, skimming over the manure trailer girl, Nick and me, and the line of waiting teens. Her eyes landed on the group in the middle, where Rikki’s friends cried. One of the girls jumped up and ran to her, wailing. She flung her arms around Daniella’s neck and sobbed. Daniella held onto her tightly, smoothing her hair in such a motherly gesture I wondered if the girl actually was her daughter.