And if Penelope had failed the first time, she’d certainly try again. Val could think of no way to find out where Payton’s mother had been last night, but maybe she could talk the chief into checking on Penelope’s alibi. “Imagine having her as a mother-in-law. Love is all well and good, but when you marry someone, you also marry his family.”
Bethany focused over Val’s shoulder, her eyes widening. “Hi, Gunnar.”
He had slipped into the back of the booth without Val noticing him.
“Who’s marrying whose family?” he asked.
Val saw the tension in his close-mouthed smile though he’d sounded nonchalant. Maybe he was still obsessing about Tony. “We were talking about the bride-to-be who’s staying at my grandfather’s house and her potential in-law problems.”
Bethany’s head swiveled from Gunnar to Val. “You could use a break, Val. Why don’t you go for a walk with Gunnar? I can manage on my own.”
“Okay. If it gets busy again, call me. We’ll go to the park.” Close enough that she could return within two minutes if Bethany needed help and far enough from the booths to breathe air that didn’t reek of buttered popcorn.
Bethany pointed to her straw hat with a four-inch brim. “Take my hat, Val. The sun’s brutal.”
Val put it on. Much cooler than a crab hat. She and Gunnar went behind the canopies to the parking lot perimeter. They weren’t the only ones avoiding the crowds visiting booths. Val stopped walking when she saw Jennifer and Payton ten yards away.
She pointed them out to Gunnar. “His mother was less than cordial to his fiancée a few minutes ago. I wish I could hear what Jennifer and Payton are saying. Well, maybe I can. No harm in trying.” She pulled down the brim of the sun hat so her face was less visible.
Gunnar bent down and peered under the brim. “Nosy, aren’t we?”
“You can hang back if you have qualms. I’m going to park myself closer to them.”
“You’ll be less obvious if I’m with you.” He grabbed her hand. “Now look at me as if I’m your secret lover and we’re wrapped up in each other. When you’re close enough to hear them, stop walking and take my other hand. We’ll gaze into each other’s eyes and listen to what they’re saying.”
Gunnar’s plan worked well. They halted near enough to hear the engaged couple talking.
“When you said your parents had invited friends, I assumed they were old people,” Jennifer said. “Now I find out you have an ex-girlfriend staying at the house.”
“I didn’t know my mother was going to invite her. I swear I didn’t, Jennifer. I haven’t seen Whitney in years.”
“It’s pretty clear why your mother invited her. She wants to break up our engagement.”
Safe conclusion, Jennifer. Val stole a glance at the couple.
Payton held Jennifer by the shoulders. “My mother doesn’t control who I marry.”
“She’s controlling your time. That means she’s controlling you.”
“She invited a whole bunch of friends to a barbecue. She needs me there to help with the drinks and the food.”
Val was fairly sure the Grandsires could afford to cater a barbeque.
Jennifer put her arms around Payton’s neck. “I could help at the barbecue.”
He pulled her closer. “You don’t want to take drink orders and stand over a hot grill. Go out and have a nice dinner with Sarina and Noah. Or get picnic food and eat it during the outdoor concert. I’ll join you as soon as I can get away.”
“If you can get away.” She wriggled free of his grasp. “We’re not going to any concert. We’re going to the corn maze tonight.”
“Jennifer, please don’t do that. You’ve got to be careful after what happened to Fawn. I wish you would listen to me and leave Bayport.”
“Of course you wish that. Then you could spend the whole weekend with Whitney Oglethorpe.”
Jennifer stalked off, leaving Payton standing alone. He didn’t try to go after her.
“The curtain goes down,” Gunnar said softly. “I missed the opening scenes, but I followed the plot anyway. Two young lovers kept apart by interfering elders, class differences, or previous romances. Where have I heard that story before?” He tapped his forehead. “Oh, yeah. Hollywood. Shakespeare. Jennifer should take heart. It turns out well in the end.”
“Except when it doesn’t. Remember Romeo and Juliet? And Jennifer has all three obstacles working against her—elders, class, and former flings.”
“But no feuding families, so she’s good.” Gunnar steered Val across the street to the park. “Let’s find a place to sit. Something you said has been bothering me, and I haven’t had a chance to ask you about it.”
Well, he’d had several chances to ask about Tony and seized them all. Maybe this time he had a question about something else.
Chapter 8
Children and their parents waited at the park dock for boat rides along the creek and clustered at the face-painters’ tables. A banjo-mandolin-fiddle trio played bluegrass on the bandstand. Val spotted a patch of green grass in the dappled shade of a small tree and hurried to it. She sat on the ground with her legs curled under her.
Gunnar stretched out, leaning on one elbow, and faced her. “Before the chef showed up at your booth, you said you didn’t know who the strangler intended to kill. What did you mean by that?”
Oh, good. He wasn’t asking about her ex-fiancé this time. She much preferred talking about murder than about Tony. “Have you seen the crab hats?”
“How could I miss them?”
“Fawn wore one last night, and so did Jennifer, who’s about Fawn’s size. In the dark it would have been hard to tell the difference between them. I’m worried that the killer mistook Fawn for Jennifer and will try to correct that mistake. Do you think I should tell Jennifer?”
“You might be frightening her for no reason. Tell the police instead. They can warn her if your idea makes sense to them.”
“I’ll talk to Chief Yardley about it.” Maybe the bride-to-be would listen to the police even though she’d ignored her fiancé’s warning. “It’s also possible I was the intended victim.”
Gunnar jerked upright. “What? Why do you think that?” Worry lines added to the roughness of his face.
“I’m about the same size as Fawn and Jennifer, and I wore a crab hat last night too. Chef Henri saw me in the hat, followed me last night, and went ballistic, screaming that I ruined his life. He’s always blamed me for the injuries he got in the car accident. He knows where I live, and he’d like to wring my neck.” Val massaged her throat.
“Yelling at you isn’t the same as strangling you. Did you ever see him attack anyone physically?”
“No, but I’ve seen him verbally violent with his underlings and me. Verbal abuse often leads to physical abuse.”
“But he just made his hostility toward you obvious to a lot of people near your booth. Would he do that if he tried to kill you last night and planned to try again? He’d have to be insane.”
“He has an anger-management problem, temporary insanity. Last night he was like that. This afternoon he was crazy like a fox. He was feeding his ego and drumming up an audience for his cooking demo. I was just the instrument he used.”
“Stay out of his way and tell Chief Yardley. If he’s concerned, he can get his officers and the festival security force to keep an eye on Henri.” Gunnar ran a finger under the collar of his plaid work shirt. “I’m sorry, but I have to back out of dinner tonight. I’ll make it up to you when the festival’s over.”
Again? “Tonight was a makeup for last night. And now the makeup for tonight can’t happen until after the festival? Are you still constructing sets for the play?”
He shook his head. “One of the guys in the theater group arranged a gig for tonight and tomorrow night. He came down with a stomach bug and asked me to take his place.”
Val sighed. Gunnar wouldn’t refuse a request for help. That’s who he was, and she liked him that way, so she couldn’t
complain. “What kind of gig?”
“I’m going to be a zombie scarecrow at the corn maze.”
She laughed. “That, I’ve got to see. When you take up your duty station, text me where you are in the maze, and I’ll find you.”
He winced. “I don’t want you going into the maze alone after last night’s murder.”
“I won’t be alone. Bethany asked me to go with her. She’s giving up her weekend to help me at the booth, so I couldn’t turn her down. Anyway, if someone wants to get away with murder, the maze isn’t the place to do it. One way out, hard to find, no easy getaway.”
“I still wish you wouldn’t go there. But if you insist, call me when you go in. How do I explain where I am in a maze?” Gunnar traced curlicues with his finger in the grass as if designing an ant maze.
“You can give me the number of the last signpost you passed and tell me which way you turned after that. I should be able to find you. I’ve been all over that maze to check where the signposts for the trivia questions are.” She stood up and brushed off her jeans. “I’d better get back to the booth. I don’t want to work Bethany too hard or she may not come back tomorrow.”
As they crossed the street to return to the booths, Gunnar said, “There’s Chief Yardley. I’ll give Bethany a hand in the booth if you want to talk to him now. Oh, wait. A woman just came up to him, and they’re hugging.
“Where?”
Gunnar pointed. “Over where Jennifer and Payton were standing earlier. Does the chief have a sweetheart?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. He’s been divorced for a while.” Val craned her neck, but the chief blocked her view of the woman. “This doesn’t look like the right time to talk to him. Maybe we’d better walk a little further before we cut over to the festival tents. It’s not the quickest way back to my booth, but I don’t want to interrupt him.”
“They’re clenched so tightly that I doubt the chief would notice if you brushed against him.”
The chief released the woman from his embrace, giving Val a clear view of . . . her mother?
Maybe the woman just resembled her mother. Val took off her sunglasses and squinted at the couple.
Definitely her mother with the chief, the two of them so intent on each other that they might as well have been in a cocoon.
Val felt as if her lungs had compressed, leaving no room for oxygen. Did Mom use Dad’s fishing trip as an excuse to spend time with Earl Yardley? Her mother and the chief, both close to sixty, had known each other when they were growing up. After leaving town to go to college, Mom didn’t return to live in Bayport until Val was a teenager, and then only for a couple of years. By then, Earl Yardley had left Bayport to work elsewhere. He’d moved back here in the spring, and this was Mom’s first visit since then. The two of them probably hadn’t seen each other for many years.
Satisfied that she’d worked it out, Val put on her sunglasses again. “That’s not the chief’s sweetheart, Gunnar. I think he’s just greeting an old friend with a hug.”
“I doubt it. You hug an old friend with your arms. The chief and that woman were hugging with their bodies, and it lasted a lot longer than a greeting-your-old-friend hug.”
Val put her hands on her hips. “That’s my mother.”
“Oh, sh—” Gunnar covered his mouth. “Your mother? Where’s your father?”
“In Florida with his fishing buddies.”
Gunnar gave her arm a brief squeeze. “I must have been wrong about that hug. Why didn’t you tell me your mother was in town?”
“I only found out this morning that she was coming here. This is the first I’ve seen of her. I was hoping you’d have a chance to meet her, but this isn’t the right time.”
“Definitely not. I don’t want to meet your mother dressed like this.” He gestured toward his faded jeans and stained shirt. “How long will she be here?”
Val shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I find out. Now let’s just give her and the chief a wide berth.”
Back at the booth, Val told Bethany and Gunnar that she could manage alone until closing time at four. Her mother stopped by the booth shortly after they left.
“Welcome to Bayport, Mom.” Enveloped in a hug, Val momentarily forgot the embrace she’d witnessed earlier.
Her mother let go of her. “You look so much better than last February. No dark circles under your eyes.”
Her mother’s short, brown hair had more streaks of gray than Val remembered, but otherwise she looked the same. Not like a woman contemplating a huge change in her life. “How’s Dad?”
“Happy to be on a boat.” Mom pressed her lips together, looking stern. “When you told me about the murder, you left out that you tripped over the body. Your grandfather gave me all the details.”
A pair of teenage girls approached the booth and ordered lemonade and cookies. Her mother sat down at the card table while Val served the girls.
Once they left, Val joined her mother at the table. “I saw Granddad walking by earlier, but he didn’t stop. Is he still here?” And had he seen Mom and the chief together? Maybe he could explain that overly friendly greeting.
“He’s home, turning your bedroom into a fortress so I’ll be safe sleeping there. I reserved two rooms in a motel this side of Annapolis, one for me and one for him, but he refuses to leave his house. I won’t let him stay there alone, so I cancelled the reservation.”
“Why? Are you staying at the house to protect him from his guests?”
“In a way. I doubt they’ll kill us in our beds, but they might make too many demands on him. While I was at the house, they came back so the bride-to-be could change into more comfortable shoes. She was nuts to walk around in high heels for hours.” Sitting at an angle to the card table, Mom crossed her legs and showed off stylish beige flats that went well with her ankle-length pants. “They’re all going out for crabs tonight, so we’ll have the house to ourselves for dinner.”
Val envisioned the shelves of the refrigerator at home. Not enough of anything there to feed three. “What would you like for dinner? I’ll have to stop by the store.”
“I brought Florida shrimp with me. Frozen solid and in an insulated bag. There’s enough for four. Do you want to invite Gunnar? I’d like to meet him.”
“He can’t make it tonight. How long are you staying?”
“My plane back leaves Monday evening.”
Val noticed her cousin approaching the booth. “Here comes Monique.”
“I haven’t seen her in a long time.” Mom intercepted Monique outside the booth and gave her a quick, though awkward, hug. “I’m so glad to see you. We usually meet only at funerals. Val has told me how good a friend you’ve been to her since she moved here. Thank you for that, and also for putting her up this weekend.”
“She’s been a good friend to me too.” Monique raised her eyebrows at Val as if asking how much she should reveal.
Val shook her head, signaling her cousin to say nothing about the dangers Val had faced while trying to prove Monique innocent of murder.
Mom fiddled with the festival flyers on the table, looking ill at ease. “My father hasn’t been a friend to anyone on your side of the family for a long time, Monique. I’m glad he’s finally mellowing about that. Come sit under the booth canopy. I want to hear about your children. I hope I get a chance to see them this weekend.”
“They’re with my in-laws today. We’re getting together at the park at four.” Monique checked her watch. “Fifteen minutes from now. You’re welcome to come along and meet the little guys.”
“Mom would love to do that.” Possibly not true, but Val wanted to give her mother no choice. “When I close the booth at four, I have to drive to the café to refrigerate the leftovers and get a head start on the food for tomorrow.”
She planned a quick escape from the booth to avoid Tony. He might show up, though she’d warned him she would be busy even after the booth closed.
By four o’clock she had already loaded the coole
rs in her car. She was about to climb into it when she noticed something colorful under her windshield wiper—a frizzy-haired miniature Raggedy Ann doll, with VAL printed in marker on its pinafore. The five-inch high doll had another personalized feature.
Val’s stomach clenched. Someone had stuck a dozen straight pins into the doll, one between the eyes. A Raggedy Val voodoo doll.
Val was so shaken that her hand trembled as she reached for it. She stopped before she touched it, took out her phone, and snapped photos of it. Now she had proof that someone hated her, but no evidence of who. If Chef Henri had put Raggedy Val on her windshield, as she suspected, he would have made sure no one had seen him do it. Val removed the doll, holding it by a few strands of its yarn hair, wrapped a tissue around it, and put it her trunk so she wouldn’t have to look at.
As soon as she maneuvered through the traffic in town, she pulled into a strip mall and phoned the chief. When he answered, she told him about the doll and her encounters with Chef Henri La Farge, describing him as a man with a grudge against her. “I think he left that thing on my windshield.”
“Nasty, but not dangerous, unless the voodoo works,” the chief said.
She took a deep breath. “True, but I wonder if Henri could have strangled Fawn, mistaking her for me.”
“Hmm. First, he tries to kill you and, when he fails, he resorts to voodoo? The other way around makes more sense.”
“Henri’s unstable. He doesn’t always make sense.” But the chief had a point. As long as she had him on the phone, she’d give him a chance to shoot down another theory. “It’s also possible that Jennifer was the intended victim. She and I are about the same size as Fawn. All three of us wore crab hats.”
Chief Yardley took a moment to respond. “I’m not ruling out anything, but for now the investigation is focused on the victim we have. We also want to make sure there isn’t another victim. I told your granddaddy’s guests not to go anywhere alone until this case is solved.”
“I hope they take your advice.” As long as the three of them stuck together, there was less chance of another murder, either by or of one of them.
Final Fondue (A Five-Ingredient Mystery) Page 8