Candy-Coated Secrets

by Cynthia Hickey

  “Come with me, miss.” He kept a tight hold on my elbow and led me to the larger of the trailers skirting the fairgrounds. “I’m Eddy Foreman. That’s my father, Rick. He owns this fair slash carnival. Pretty slick idea, isn’t it? Combining the two attractions? That was my idea. Foreman’s Fair and Carnival. Has a nice ring to it.” Eddy pulled up a straight-backed chair and lowered me into it. “I’m sorry. You aren’t interested in hearing about my brain scheme.”

  Was it possible I’d imagined seeing a dead woman? This was a carnival, after all. Please God, let it be an illusion.

  “Are you okay?”

  Nodding, I removed my hands from my eyes. “Who is she?”

  “Laid Back Millie.” He pulled up a chair across from me. “I don’t understand why she’d kill herself. She seemed happy enough.”

  “Who said she killed herself?” I was thinking like my cousin. After I successfully solved a murder and diamond theft earlier in the summer, that thought pleased me. As long as I didn’t look like him, everything would be fine. My cousin Joe stood around six feet two inches and easily weighed two hundred pounds.

  “Didn’t you notice the knocked over stool below her? What else could it be?”

  Narrowing my eyes, I took a closer look at the man in front of me. Thinning russet hair swept across the spreading bald spot on top of his head. Gray eyes beneath bushy brows. Thick lips and. . .did my eyes serve me right? He wore a shiny polyester shirt with tight blue jeans. Had I stepped back in time when I’d entered the fairgrounds gates? The shirt came complete with buttons left undone, revealing ample chest hair and several gold chains. A close-to-forty-year-old trying to relive the good old days.

  He leaned forward, placing a sweaty hand over my folded ones. Then an expression of what could be sorrow dropped over his face. “Now that Millie’s gone, God rest her soul”— he paused in a moment of silence—“the carnival will have a job opening if you’re interested. I saw you with Ginger. I know you own this land, but you’d be a natural. A great attraction. Never enough pretty ladies around here.”

  “What was Millie’s job?” Despite feeling I’d been insulted, my curiosity got the better of me. Did it matter what the poor woman did? I pulled my hands free. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

  “Officially, she ran the ringtoss. Unofficially, she—” Joe barged in. “Summer, I told you to stay by the trailer.

  It’s a circus out there.” His face reddened as he apparently realized what he’d said. “Sorry. No pun intended.”

  “Carnival,” I corrected and stood. “Sorry, Joe, but Mr. Foreman came to my rescue. It’s not every day I see a dead body.”

  “Good grief.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me outside. He stared into my eyes. “Stay. Out. Of. It.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I don’t want Ethan coming home to a dead girlfriend.”

  “Stay out of what?” If Joe thought there was something to stay out of, something big must be happening. My investigative antennas went up. “You don’t think it was suicide, do you? Why?”

  “Don’t go picking my brain, cousin. It won’t do you any good.” Joe pulled me along until we reached his squad car. He opened the passenger door. “Get in and behave yourself, or I’ll put you in the back.”

  “You wouldn’t!” Everyone knows what kind of germs are in the backseat of a policeman’s black-and-white. Plus, with my damp clothes, I might slide off the plastic seat.

  “Try me.” The door slammed in my face.

  Of all the nerve. I folded my arms and slouched back to watch fair life pass by the car windows.

  Ginger plodded the perimeter of the fence around her paddock like an overgrown cow, to use my aunt’s words. Carnival workers tossed feed to goats, lambs, and rabbits.

  Part of the petting zoo, I imagined. Fat ponies grazed, tethered in a grassy area. Long tails swatted at flies.

  The sound of striking hammers switched my attention to the right. Men in overalls nailed rails in a makeshift rodeo ring. The rodeo ran the first weekend of the carnival. Ethan won a blue ribbon in the horse-breaking event last year. Everyone expected him to do the same this year.

  Shouts were bandied back and forth as workers scurried like mice on the scaffolding. The empty Ferris wheel spun like a forgotten toy. The whir of generators filled the air. And among it all—a dead woman. Her life snuffed out in an instant. And not by her own hand. I didn’t believe that for a moment. What bothered me was that more people didn’t seem concerned.

  Big Sally moaned outside a trailer. Her wail increased as a silent ambulance rolled through the carnival gates and came to a stop in front of her. Joe glanced in my direction. Probably to make sure I stayed where he’d put me.

  Catching a glimpse of myself in the side-view mirror, I groaned. Horror. I met people looking like this? Dark auburn hair plastered to my head. Mascara ringing my eyes, and my blush completely washed away. I looked like something from a nightmare.

  A slight man, barely the size of an average sixth grader but a little taller than me, darted past the car and threw himself into Big Sally’s folds. He practically disappeared when she wrapped her arms around him.

  I leaned forward for a better look. Seemed there might be a strange love story here. My heart lightened seeing the tenderness despite the shadow of death hovering over the fairgrounds.

  Joe got in the car and glanced at me. “What are you smiling at?”

  I pointed at the couple. “Look how cute they are together.”

  “Are you serious? It’s like a mother and child. That woman is massive.” He turned the key in the ignition.

  “I like her.” I put my seat belt on. “Despite having walked her elephant down Highway 64 for a mile. In flipflops. I’ve got blisters.”

  “About the elephant, Summer. Rick Foreman is beside himself with the possibility you could’ve been hurt and would sue them.”

  “Tell him he has nothing to worry about. It ended up being kind of fun. I thought of the danger, but not the liability.” Silly me. Chalk one more thing up to the rash actions of Summer Meadows. I turned to him. “Ready to tell me what happened?”

  Joe stared through the car window as the crime scene investigators pulled onto the grounds. “Nothing to tell. And if there were. . .”

  “I know. You couldn’t tell me, anyway.”

  I stared out the side window. It didn’t matter. I’d be back tomorrow to see if I could set up a booth to sell my candy. Just a formality. My family owned the land the fairgrounds sat on.

  The water cascaded over my head and shoulders like warm liquid heaven, washing away the odors of the carnival. But it couldn’t erase the vision of a woman dangling from a scarf. Or that someone unsuccessfully tried to make her death look like a suicide. If she’d wanted to kill herself, there were other places to do so. Hanging from the Ferris wheel, for example. Definitely high enough her knees wouldn’t have dragged.

  If the showerhead hadn’t pulled from the wall, they would have left what, two or three inches between Millie’s feet and the bottom of the shower? A person would have to be very small to pull suicide off in that way.

  Stop it, Summer. This doesn’t involve you. I lathered my hair with my favorite shampoo and inhaled the sweet scent of floral and citrus. Why would Foreman think she’d tried to commit suicide? And what about Joe’s evasive answer? And what was the woman’s unofficial job with the carnival? I couldn’t help it. Questions swirled in my mind like a whirlpool.

  I shook my head to clear it and stepped beneath the spray of water to rinse my hair.

  “Summer!” My aunt’s voice rang from the other side of the door.

  I jerked, causing soapy water to run into my eyes. “I’m in the shower.” I forced my eyes open to wash the shampoo out.

  “Ethan’s on the phone.”

  Ethan! Forget the burning. I reached for the faucet and turned it off. “Be right out. Tell him to hold.”

  “He’s calling from Mexico.”

  “I know where he’s calling
from.” I stepped over the lip of the tub and opened the door, hiding behind it. “Here.”

  “You can’t talk to him while you’re naked.” Aunt

  Eunice’s horrified whisper echoed in the tiled room. “Shhh. He doesn’t have to know if you keep quiet.”

  I slammed the door, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around me. “Hello.”

  “Sweetie.” My heart melted at the sound of his voice. “We must have a bad connection. I could have sworn your aunt said you were. . .without apparel.”

  “Uh.” Heat crept up my neck. “We do have a bad connection.” The line was filled with static, so it wasn’t a lie. I didn’t do that anymore. Not after making a deal with God back in July. “How are you?”

  “Tired. Missing you. What have you been up to?”

  Wow. Where to begin? I decided to save the elephant story until I saw Ethan, and I’d skip the part about finding Laid Back Millie. No sense in worrying him. “I’ve decided to sell solid chocolate carnival characters at the fair. I’m renting a propane-powered refrigerator. Do you think my candy will sell well?”

  “With your pretty face behind the counter? Yep. Besides, people line up to buy from Summer’s Confections.” Since I’d opened the doors to my dream of owning a candy store, I’d been blessed with regular customers and growing Internet orders.

  I left the bathroom and stretched my body across my bed. I hugged a pillow, my insides warming at his words. “You’re sweet. You’re still coming home in time for opening night, right?”

  “About that. . .”

  “Ethan!” My whine would have put a two-year-old to shame. “Can’t someone else build the house?”

  “I made a commitment to chaperone the youth group on this trip.” Ethan sighed. “Would you rather I came home to take you to a carnival, or build a house for someone who doesn’t have a decent place to stay?”

  “I miss you, that’s all.” Great. Now I had guilt. Forgive me, Lord. “I know you have to stay. What about the rodeo?”

  “I’ll be back in time for that. Anything exciting happen over there?” Ethan laughed. “I got an interesting picture on my cell phone.”

  “Oh?” Darn my cousin. I’d make him pay dearly next time I saw him. I’d spend the evening devising evil plots of revenge.

  “How in the world did you end up herding an elephant?” The story seemed hilarious as I told Ethan, and I giggled along with him. With my flair for description, he swore he could see Big Sally and the other characters. His laughter washed over me like a fine rain in May. Made me want to offer my services again to the colorful people of the fair. Almost. He stopped laughing when I let slip about Millie, and how Foreman offered me her job.

  Ethan cleared his throat. “Is your aunt going to cover the store while you run your booth?”

  “I’m thinking about closing for the week. There probably wouldn’t be many customers anyway. The fair’s a big deal. Everyone will be there and can buy from my booth. Aunt Eunice has pickles and vegetables she wants to enter in the competition. She’d kill me if I did anything to prevent her from doing that.”

  “Uh-huh. Speaking of killing and Millie. . .” Ethan went silent.

  “Ethan?”

  His sigh vibrated through the phone. “Joe told me you found her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Summer. Please, stay out of it.”

  Chapter Three

  The next morning dawned sunny and warm. A perfect day for another visit to the fairgrounds. I dressed in faded blue jeans and a flowered T-shirt. Aunt Eunice decided she would go with me to “scope out” the competition for the canning contest. Her hand rested on the top of her floppy hat as she thundered down the stairs in her steel-toed boots.

  She darted past me, hefted a cardboard box from the table, and squeezed out the front door. Her hat flew off her head and landed in the gravel. I bent to retrieve it.

  “I’ll drive!” Aunt Eunice set the box in the bed of her truck, then apparently thought better of the idea. She picked it up and thrust it in my arms.

  Great. I get to babysit her pickles. I plopped the hat on top of the jars.

  “Oh.” Aunt Eunice fairly skipped to the passenger side. “Let me get the door for you. I don’t want anything to happen to my babies. Today’s the last day to bring in entries.” She opened the door and, with a bow, waved me inside.

  “Why did you wait until the last minute?”

  She looked at me as if I’d asked the most ridiculous question in the world’s history. “I had to see what Ruby and Mabel are entering. It wouldn’t do to put in the same thing.”

  “Of course.”

  She bustled back to the driver’s side and slid behind the wheel. “A person needs to scope things out to decide the correct way to proceed.”

  This definitely didn’t sound like my aunt talking. Where did she learn to speak such proper sentences? With the box secured in my lap, I settled back. I’d bought the Dolt’s Guide to Private Investigating during the summer and successfully solved a murder. I knew all about scoping things out. Besides, I didn’t know there was a “wrong” way to proceed when entering vegetables in a county fair.

  “Isn’t that the point of a competition? To see who has the best?” I glanced at my aunt.

  “You obviously don’t know nothing about it.” Aunt Eunice backed the truck out of the drive, thrust the gearshift into place, then roared down Highway 64 toward the fairgrounds. “That might be why you’ve never won anything in your life.”

  Ouch. She didn’t need to be so mean. “What’s got you so riled up?”

  “You.”

  “What did I do?”

  “You went and found a dead body.”

  “Excuse me?” Now I knew my aunt had lost her mind. She swerved the truck to the shoulder and stopped.

  She turned to glare at me. “I promised Ethan I’d keep you out of trouble. And here you go, finding a dead woman. Since your uncle Roy decided to join Ethan on this trip, it’s up to me to keep you out of trouble.”

  “That wasn’t my fault, Aunt Eunice. Besides, Joe said it was suicide. Well, he didn’t exactly, but there are clues pointing to that not necessarily being the case. . . .”

  Aunt Eunice steered back onto the highway. “Last time you thought you could solve a murder, you got kidnapped and almost killed.”

  Thought? “I did solve the murder.”

  “Whatever. You just got lucky. Next time you might not get off as easy.”

  Had I mentioned a desire to get involved? No. So why was everyone on my case? If I didn’t have a box full of pickles in my lap, I’d have crossed my arms and pouted.

  “Summer’s gone and got all mad, do-dah, do-dah,” Aunt Eunice sang. “Won’t say another word all day, oh how I hope and pray.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Cheer up. We’ve only got your best interest at heart.”

  A sign declared Arrow County Fair ahead of us. Aunt Eunice sped onto the grounds. A cloud of dust rose and drifted through the Chevy’s windows. I endured, trying to hold my breath until my aunt opened my door, retrieved her pickles, and the dust settled.

  “I’m off. See you in an hour.” She fairly sprinted toward a squat, rectangular building, her arms stretched around the box. She kept the hat in place by squashing it with her chin.

  I slid from the truck. More amusement rides spun with gay music and no screaming passengers. Workers scurried from one attraction to another. A steady stream of farmers and women in country clothes trailed from the building my aunt had disappeared into and from a large barn next door. Last-minute entries to floral, vegetable, crafts, and livestock, most likely.

  Usually our county fair offered only rides, rodeo, freak shows, and contests. This year we’d hired a company that aspired to being a circus. Well, Eddy Foreman said carnival, but it all looked the same to me. The only thing circuslike was the elephant and animals. Well, maybe some of the people. The fair committee must have gotten a good deal on hiring this group. I shrugged. The change co
uld’ve been nice, if death hadn’t gotten in the way.

  Yellow crime tape encircled Millie’s trailer, and I couldn’t help but hope it would be gone by Friday. The tape wouldn’t be a good sign on opening night.

  “We meet again.” Eddy Foreman stood next to me complete with gold chains, heavy cologne, and shiny polyester shirt.

  “Oh, hello. Nobody seems very concerned about Millie’s death.” I breathed through my mouth and wanted to spit. The fumes from his scent hung heavy in the air.

  “The circus must go on. Or the fair, in this case.”

  My dislike for the slimy little man increased. “Could you point me in the direction of my booth?”

  “I’ll take you there myself.” Foreman tucked my arm in his. I felt like a child who needed some cootie spray. “Have you thought more about taking Laid Back Millie’s job? I’d be your first customer.” His eyes traveled over me. Okay, make that a giant can of cootie spray.

  “I already have a job running a chocolate business. But thank you.” I pulled my arm free. This guy was too smarmy for my taste. I wiped my hands on my jeans.

  “Oh, I like a feisty woman. You and I are going to get along just great.”

  Not if I have anything to say about it. What was with me and guys? At least Nate, the diamond thief I’d helped catch a couple of months ago, had been good looking. “I can find my own way. Thanks for the help.”

  “Catch you later.” Foreman cocked his fingers, pointed at me, and winked. Something told me this was going to be a long week.

  My booth faced the midway and sat opposite the Scrambler. Great. Fair attendees could eat my chocolate, ride the dizzy ride, and throw up all my hard work.

  No, the candy booth should be considered more of a craft than a food. Despite the shivers that ran up my spine at the thought, I’d have to speak to Foreman about moving me.

  A shadowy figure cut between two game booths. I squinted to try and make out who it was. The form looked hairy. Hairy? I stared harder. I shook my head and continued, deciding I imagined things.