I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I shone my light around the scene. A few feet away from Tess’s body, the cat’s head basket mold sat in a patch of blood-spattered grass.
Instinctively I stumbled back, knocking my hip into the side of the booth. Several baskets fell off the cart and bounced softly onto the field. Taking a deep breath, I dialed 911.
Chapter Six
The next call I made was to my sister’s cell phone. I wrapped my coat tighter around me. I heard the twins screaming in the background. “Can you repeat that?” Carmen asked.
And so I did. I held the phone away from my ear as Carmen yelled at her husband, Chip, that she needed to go out. “India’s found a dead body.” She sounded almost nonchalant about it. I shivered to think what my nieces and nephew would consider alarming if that pronouncement could be said in their presence without a qualm. It wasn’t that Carmen was callous or uncaring; she was in super-mom mode, which allowed no time for hysterics. It was better just to do as she ordered or get out of way.
Sirens interrupted our conversation. A minute later, the flood lights clicked on, washing the field and empty booths in a garish yellow light. If anything, the lighting made Tess’s head wound look more gruesome. I clicked off my flash.
A small army of police jogged across the grassy field, with Officer Knute leading the charge. It would have to be Knute first on the scene, wouldn’t it? He stumbled when we made eye contact, and his floppy blond hair fell over his eyes, but not before I saw the look of shock quickly followed by annoyance. The officer jogging behind Knute wasn’t watching where he was going and ran into Knute’s back. The pair tumbled into the damp grass. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but smile. Knute deserved a few grass stains on his pristine uniform. The smile immediately died on my lips when I saw Detective Rick Mains maneuver around the officers, who fumbled about in an attempt to right themselves.
Mains saw me and closed his hazel-green eyes briefly, as if to wish away my appearance. When he opened them again, I did a finger wave. He muttered something to himself that I couldn’t hear. Probably I didn’t want to hear it.
He was just a foot away from me now. “You’re the one who called nine-one-one?” He pushed his dark hair away from his forehead. He had great wavy black hair, which makes women insanely jealous. It was completely wasted on a man, as were his long dark eyelashes.
I nodded.
He looked down at Tess. “Did you check her vital signs?”
My eyes went wide. “No.” I instantly felt horribly guilty. What if she was alive when I got there?
He put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. Looks to me like she’s been dead for a while.”
His hand felt warm. I noticed he was looking at my legs. I gave an inward groan. My I Love My Cat PJs were showing under my trench coat. “What exactly were you doing when you discovered the body?”
I was about to answer him, when I heard my sister call my name.
Mains took a deep breath and closed his eyes again. “Is that who I think it is?”
I nodded and watched my sister advance. She marched across the festival grounds with a clipboard firmly clutched in her hand. Everything about her demeanor said damage control. Her gait was the same Mom March she used on the playground when other kids teased my five-year-old nephew, Nicholas. The march was intended to make children cower. I felt a little shaky myself, but it could have been the dead body four feet away.
I shivered from the cold as much as from the presence of Tess’s body. Winter was on the way; there was no doubt about it. I felt its icy fingers on my neck. I wondered if it would snow within the week. It had been known to snow on little witches and goblins on trick-or-treat night in Stripling. I glanced at Tess’s feet. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her head.
Carmen came to an abrupt halt in front of me and paled. She put her hand to her mouth. I suspected I looked much the same when I saw Tess’s body laying there for the first time. “Oh my!” Carmen swallowed hard. She gaped at Tess’s body. “I mean you told me, but . . . I . . . I thought you were joking.”
“You think I would joke about this?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s just so unbelievable.” She swallowed again and ran her free hand along her fresh-pressed khaki pant leg. “Did you try to, you know, revive her?”
As if I didn’t feel badly enough about that already? I thought. I bit my lower lip.
Carmen cocked her head. “Well,” she said with her bossy persona firmly back into place. “Isn’t that what you are supposed to do?”
Mains cleared his throat. “She’s been dead for some time. There wasn’t anything India could have done.”
I smiled my thanks, and unheeded, I felt tears well up in the corner of my eyes. I tried to blink them away.
Carmen’s face softened. “India, I’m so sorry.”
I swallowed. “I just met her earlier today. I didn’t know her very well, but she seemed like a cool lady. I wish—”
Carmen turned her attention to Mains. “Ricky, I want to talk to you—”
Mains held up a hand. “Not yet, Carmen. Trust me, you will have your turn.” His eyes never left my face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I felt something catch in my throat and swallowed. “It’s just so awful. Poor Tess.” I pointed at the body partially obscured by Tess’s cart.
Mains glanced down at her and grimaced. Knute and the rest of the officers walked the perimeter of the booth, peering intently at the grass, on the hunt for evidence. One of them held a huge camera with a telephoto lens. Mains waved her over. “Take a shot from every angle you can think of.”
“You got it,” Officer Habash said, another officer I’d met as a result of my brother’s troubles last summer. She gave me a quick smile. At least she didn’t hold a grudge like Knute did.
Mains turned his attention back to me. “Now, tell me why you came back to campus in what looks like your pajamas.”
So I did.
“India, that money could have been stolen. I can’t believe you were so irresponsible,” Carmen said when I’d finished my story.
I gritted my teeth. “I came back for it, didn’t I?”
“Still,” she said. “Ricky, what about the festival?”
“The festival?”
Carmen made an exasperated sound. “Yes, the festival. That’s why all of these booths are here. I’m the chair this year. I must know if we can open on time tomorrow.”
I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and checked the time. It was half past nine.
Mains put a finger to the corner of his eye as if to stop a twitch.
Carmen huffed. “I asked you a question.”
“What time were you planning on opening?” he asked.
“Ten.”
Officer Habash, who wore latex gloves, held up the cat’s head basket mold for his inspection. “Here’s your murder weapon, sir.”
Mains nodded.
“What the heck is that?” asked Knute, who had to move away from the patch of grass he searched.
I inched closer to the scene, but I refused to look down at Tess. “It’s a cat’s head basket mold.”
Knute gave me a black look. Gee, and I thought someday the two of us could be friends.
“Tess was a basket weaver. She used it to make a basket. The corners kind of look like cat ears, don’t they? That’s where the basket gets its name.”
Knute’s eyes seemed to glaze over with my explanation. I knew the look well. It was the same look freshmen gave me during library orientation.
“Bag it,” Mains ordered Habash.
“You seem to know a lot about it,” Knute said suggestively.
“If you’re implying I had anything to do with this . . .” I gestured at my haphazard booth. “I was face painting in the next booth all day. I learned a lot about basket weaving in the amount of time. It was part of her spiel.”
“Her spiel?” Mains asked.
“You know, her sales pitc
h. Every artist knows you have to talk to make a sale, and most of us do it so often we repeat the same pitch over and over until we could say it in our sleep. Ask any of the crafters here, they’ll tell you the same thing.”
Knute didn’t look convinced. He’d love to find an excuse to toss me into the pokey.
Carmen snapped her fingers, an annoying habit she picked up in the classroom to grab teenagers’ attention. It worked like a charm on Mains. “Ricky, you are ignoring me. What about the festival?” She hugged her clipboard to her chest and ground her foot on the grass, turning the fallen leaves into mulch.
Mains winced as my sister called him Ricky for a third time. It was times like this that I was uncomfortably reminded that Mains was once Carmen’s Ricky, her high school sweetheart. A fact she apparently planned to hold over him for the rest of his life.
“Carmen,” Mains said in a pacifying voice.
Uh-oh! He’d spoken condescendingly to her. I’d think, after dating her, he’d remember that was not the best approach. “This is a crime scene. The festival will have to be closed for the time being. No one can come near this booth.”
“Closed? Closed?” Carmen’s voice was shrill. “The Stripling Founders’ Festival has never been closed. In nineteen hundred, there was a tornado and the festival went on. In nineteen fifty-six, the mayor fell and broke his leg the morning of the festival but was still there in the afternoon for his obligatory appearance. In nineteen eighty-seven, there was an outbreak of chicken pox in the elementary school, but there was a fair.”
Mains ran his hand through his lush dark hair, and a vein on the side of his neck began to throb.
“Let me tell you something, Detective Richmond Mains. You are going to do whatever it takes to get this festival up and running by ten o’clock tomorrow morning, so that we can open on time.” She consulted her watch. “That gives you exactly twelve hours and fifteen minutes to do whatever it is that you do.” Carmen’s eyes blazed. I knew Carmen was nervous about the festival going off without a hitch. It was all she’d talked about for the last few months. A dead body was not a good start, but I thought she was being a little harsh on Mains. It wasn’t like he killed Tess. He was just doing his job.
Mains clenched his jaw, holding back whatever remark he’d like to fire back at my sister.
The officers and EMTs stopped working to watch the show. Knute gaped back and forth between Carmen and Mains, his mouth hanging open like a bass.
Slowly, Mains’s jaw relaxed. “We’ll do our best to clear the scene before the festival opens, but you’re yammering at us and prolonging the process.”
Carmen’s mouth fell open, and she started to speak. Mains was faster. “Now, please give us the space to work.” His head snapped around at Knute. “Officer Knute, don’t you have some ground to comb?”
Wordlessly, Knute turned on his heels and bent his head as if his life depended on staring at the grass.
Carmen got in one parting shot. “Jem and Adel Stripling survived countless hardships to settle here, and we have an obligation to honor them. They battled heat, disease, snowstorms, torrential downpours, and the death of their infant son, Matthew, all in that first year. If they hadn’t survived, where would we be?”
We’d probably be here anyway, I thought to myself. I mean, if the Striplings hadn’t settled here, someone else would have. Manifest Destiny and all that, and as far as I knew, none of the parties standing around Tess’s body were direct descendents of the Striplings. I thought better of mentioning any of these musings to my sister.
Carmen ground her sneakers deeper into the earth as if setting permanent fence posts. She wasn’t going anywhere. Mains and Carmen squared off. This could get ugly, I thought.
“Could we move the festival?” I asked.
Carmen stared at me. “Move it? Move it where? Do you know how hard it was for me to convince Martin to hold the festival on its grounds? Now, with this”—she paused—“situation, they’ll never agree to it again.” Her brow furrowed. “Does Martin know?”
“We called the president. She’s getting her VPs together.”
It was my turn to shiver. I hoped Mains hadn’t mentioned my name when talking to the college president. I had enough notoriety on campus as it was. “You could move to the other end of the field. Closer to the parking lot on the other side of the food vendors.”
Carmen sniffed. “That area’s reserved for the corn hole tournament.”
I looked heavenward. “I’m sure the college could move the corn hole somewhere else.” I knew nothing of the kind. I almost suggested the library’s quad but stopped myself. My director, Lasha Lint, would not look kindly on a bunch of children throwing bean bags back and forth in front of the library’s entrance.
A slight man in a rumpled suit and carrying a large medical bag hurried across the field. Mains waved him over. “Thanks for coming, Doc.”
Doc was Dr. Frank Maynor, the county medical examiner. He was a member of my mother’s church.
Doc panted hard. “I came as quick as I could.” He glanced at Carmen and me. “Girls, is your mother here?”
We shook our heads.
He smiled and looked relieved.
“Let me show you the scene,” Mains said. He walked around the booth, and together the cop and medical examiner knelt beside Tess’s body. Doc slid a penlight out of his jacket pocket and shone its light on Tess’s wound. I looked away. Mains glanced up at Carmen and me, who were still standing there like gap-mouthed statues. He shot me an exasperated look. “Give your statement to Officer Habash and go home. I’ll see you in the morning.”
At home, my phone rang a few minutes after I walked through the door. It was Mains. “Tell your sister the festival can start at ten as planned.”
“It can?” I was surprised.
“Yes, the college president thinks it will draw more attention to the murder if the festival was to be canceled.” He didn’t sound very happy with the decision.
I thought the crime scene tape around Tess’s booth would do the trick, but who was I to know?
“The crafters will have to move to the other side of the field as you suggested.”
“What about the corn hole game?”
“Not my problem.”
“Why don’t you call Carmen yourself?”
There was silence, then he sighed. “Can you just tell her?”
“Sure,” I agreed.
“We have a lot to talk about tomorrow, India, so get some rest.” He hung up.
I held the phone in my hand, wondering if he meant there was more to talk about than just the murder.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, I parked in the practice field lot a little before eight. Carmen wanted me there early to help the other crafters move their booths.
As I approached my sister, Carmen looked at me in dismay. “Where’s your pioneer dress?”
I wore jeans, the polo shirt Tess had given me, a warm hoodie, and a scarf. I opened my jacket to show her the polo. “See, I’m in uniform.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky I don’t have time for this.”
I smiled. “Where do we start?”
Most of the crafters were gathered at the edge of the parking lot. Knute hovered close by to make sure the crafters didn’t bother the crime scene. Carmen clapped her hands for their attention. “As I told you all on the phone, there was an accident in the crafter area last evening. We need to move all the crafter booths to this side of the field before we can open.”
“What kind of accident?” someone called. “Was anybody hurt?” asked another, and everyone started talking at once.
The fifteen or so crafters formed a makeshift circle around Carmen and me. Knute, who was supposed to be controlling them, watched us with just a hint of a smile on his face. Carmen put two fingers in her mouth and whistled at painfully close range. When everyone quieted down, her teacher persona was firmly in place. “Listen up!”
I wondered if I’d ever be
able to hear out my right ear again.
“One of our fellow crafters was attacked,” Carmen said. Her announcement silenced them.
I inwardly groaned.
Knute awakened from his comatose state. “Ma’am, the detective didn’t say you could tell the public.”
Carmen looked down at Knute as if she was inspecting the expiration date on a gallon of milk. “Nor did he say I couldn’t tell them. These people here are crafters and vendors who paid good money to be a part of this festival.”
“But ma’am—”
“What happened? Tell us,” Lynette said with a crochet hook clenched in her small fist.
The crowd agreed.
“I’m sorry to report that Tess Ross is dead.”
There was collective intake of horrified breath.
One woman with red-blond hair standing away from the crowd burst into tears. She covered her mouth, and before I could ask who she was she ran off. I wondered if she was going to be sick.
A beader interrupted my thoughts. She was a small woman wearing a white puff-sleeved blouse and brown sprig-patterned skirt that fell all the way to her shoes, which I assumed were twins of my wretched granny boots. She gasped. “Dead?”
“She died here at the festival?” someone called out.
“How could that happen?” the weaver asked.
Carmen clapped her hands. “We don’t know anything yet. The police are just beginning their investigation. But”—she paused—“It looks like she was murdered.”
Knute moaned softly and shot me a look of loathing. Like it was my fault, I thought. Please, I never claimed any semblance of control over any of my family members.
“Murdered!” the crowd responded aghast.
“I know this is a shock, but the festival must go on. Detective Mains promised the festival will open on time. The scheduled activities will continue as planned. Being a crafter and annual participant of the Stripling Founders’ Festival, I believe that Tess would have wanted us to keep the festival going.
“The food vendors are free to set up their booths and stations at their present locations. However, the crafters and artists will have to move their booths to this side of the field. I suggest you all get to work now. We don’t have much time. I’m sure if you have any questions, Officer Knute will be happy to assist you.”
Murder in a Basket (An India Hayes Mystery) Page 4