Foul Play at the Fair

by Shelley Freydont

  “Hmmph,” Edna said. “He never came home because Pete Waterbury murdered him, and that’s a fact.”

  Chapter Ten

  Murder. The word bounced around in Liv’s mind and finally settled on her tongue. “He murdered someone?”

  “It was never proven,” said Ida with little conviction. “No body and no witnesses,” she added almost apologetically.

  “No arrests?” asked Liv. This information cast a whole new light on Pete Waterbury’s murder and the reason everyone had wanted to keep Liv out of the loop. They did know something she didn’t, not that her finding out could sway things in any way.

  And strangely enough, her first thought was not of the victim, or the details of what happened, or how it would play out now, but that Ted hadn’t confided in her.

  “Well, the boy was never seen again after that night,” Edna said.

  “Never?” asked BeBe. “How horrible for that poor mother.”

  Liv dragged herself back to the conversation. “Why do you think Pete Waterbury killed him?”

  “Because of what happened before,” Edna said.

  “What did happen before?”

  “It was a long time ago,” said Ida. “Maybe we shouldn’t stir it all up again.”

  “I don’t think anyone will be able to stop it, Sister. Bill is bound to take a look at the people involved then. History repeating itself. Uh-huh.”

  “What happened?” Liv prodded.

  BeBe pulled into the Zimmerman driveway, turned off the engine, and turned around. “I want to know, too.”

  The two sisters exchanged looks; then Edna said, “It seems that Victor and Andy were out looking for night crawlers when Pete and some of his bully friends accosted them.”

  “Andy Miller?” asked Liv.

  Edna nodded. “Andy Miller.”

  “Beat them,” Ida said barely above a whisper. “Terrible, just terrible. I remember. Andy didn’t come to school for a week afterward, and even when he did, his face was all bruised and he had stitches in his forehead and his cheek. He walked like an old man. And him just a boy.”

  “Victor never came home at all,” added Edna.

  “Didn’t Andy know what happened to him?” Liv asked.

  “As I remember it,” Edna said, “Andy told Victor to run and tried to hold them off. They found a missing rowboat down at the south end of the lake, but they never found Victor.” She shook her head, remembering.

  Ida sniffed. “Victor was a shy little thing, a couple of years younger than Andy. He was always getting picked on. Andy, such a sweet boy, stuck up for him, would let him tag along when he did things.

  “Andy was an ideal student, always so polite. Never married, though. I think what happened just took the heart out of him.”

  Liv’s mind was whirling. Andy beaten by Joss’s brother, his friend missing, presumed killed by Pete. Andy showing up right after they discovered Pete’s body. Ted and Joss standing over the body of the man who could have destroyed Joss’s standing in the community, who had allegedly murdered Ted’s nephew. Talk about your six degrees of separation. “They never brought charges against Pete or the other boys?”

  “They couldn’t,” Edna said. “It was Andy’s word against Pete’s. And they never found the body. A few weeks later, Joss sent Pete away.”

  “And he’s never come back until this week.”

  “That’s just awful,” BeBe said.

  “And now it’s all going to be dredged up again,” Ida said, and opened the car door. “Well, thank you for the ride, dear.”

  “Dead and still causing trouble,” said Edna in ominous tones. “Thank you, BeBe.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Liv said, getting out the other side. “I really appreciate you givng me a ride and including me.”

  “Don’t be silly. You’re one of us now. See you tomorrow.” BeBe backed out of the drive.

  “Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? It’s been a very exhausting day.”

  “Thank you, Miss Ida. I would.” Liv could use a cup of tea, and she needed a lot more information if she was going to navigate the town through this maze of secrets and intrigue.

  She followed the two sisters up the steps of the porch and waited while Edna unlocked the leaded glass door. They settled Liv into one of the padded horsehair chairs in the parlor, and Ida disappeared into the kitchen to start the tea while Edna excused herself to get something she thought Liv might be interested in.

  Liv sat in the scratchy chair looking around the old-fashioned room. She’d been in the old Victorian several times for tea, and it always was like stepping into the past. Sunlight filtered in through the side windows and several lamps cast a yellow light over the dark mahogany furniture. The head and arms of each velvet piece were covered with crocheted doilies. Ornate wooden tables filled the parlor and their surfaces held photographs and figurines and other knickknacks that made Liv’s head swim when she thought about how long it must take to dust them all.

  The sisters had grown up in this house and had never moved away except to go to the teachers college in Plattsburgh. According to Ted, both had been engaged to men who were killed in the war. Neither ever married and both still wore their engagement rings on chains around their necks.

  When Liv had first learned this, she’d thought of it as creepy. But once she got to know the sisters, she came to think of it as not just old-fashioned, but unswervingly loyal and steadfast. Traits she realized that were all too lacking in the world she’d grown up in. Getting to know the Zimmerman sisters had given her a new perspective and appreciation of what those qualities really meant.

  Edna returned, carrying two large, dark green books that Liv immediately recognized as school yearbooks. Edna placed them on the coffee table and motioned Liv to join her on the couch.

  “I thought you might be interested in seeing the boys. These were taken the year before, but it was only early autumn when the tragedy occurred. They hadn’t changed much.”

  She opened the top book and riffled through the pages. “In those days we only had two county schools, K through eight and the high school. All the children were bussed to school.”

  Liv had been stuck behind several school buses since she’d arrived in Celebration Bay. They stopped at every farmhouse and crossroad, and could make a trip seem interminable and probably extended the days of the kids at the end of the line by an hour or two each day.

  Edna stopped at a page and smoothed the paper with her hand, almost like a caress. “This was Nita Smith’s sixth-grade class.” She pointed to a black-and-white group shot of children standing on tiers next to a young woman with light-colored hair. “And this is Victor Gibson.” Her finger stopped on the first row, the fourth boy in. He was small for his age, with shaggy hair and soft features.

  “There’s his school picture.” She moved her finger to the next page of four rows of rectangular photos. He wasn’t smiling but stared at the camera beneath half-closed lids. Caught forever in this shy, self-effacing pose.

  Ida returned at that moment carrying a tray with a plate of cookies and a teapot and cups decorated with bunches of pink roses.

  Edna closed the yearbook and placed it on the side table. While Ida poured the tea, she opened the second book and placed it in Liv’s lap. Liv recognized Edna immediately. The tall, spare figure, her hair in the same severe short hairstyle she wore today. She must have been in her late forties. Liv wondered if she had already accepted her future, living with her sister, growing old together in the house they’d grown up in.

  “That’s Andy.”

  Even in black and white, Liv could have picked out Andy’s towhead from the rest. He, unlike Victor, was smiling, happy, carefree, and slightly mischievous.

  “It was the only year I taught ninth grade.” Miss Edna’s voice sounded far away, as if she was remembering the woman she’d been then. Or maybe it was with pity for what had happened to those two young men.

  “Andy was never quite the same after that.” />
  “Edna, hand Liv a cup of tea.” Ida’s voice broke sharply into the quiet. She lifted the book from Liv’s lap and closed it, then took both books to the far side of the room and placed them on a writing desk.

  “No use in dwelling on the past,” she said briskly. “Have a cookie, Liv.”

  Liv had to shake off the somber mood that had fallen over the room. It was almost as if the sisters had exchanged roles. Miss Edna was usually the brusque, matter-of-fact, slightly pessimistic one next to Miss Ida’s sentimental softness. But Ida had certainly risen to the occasion.

  Edna visibly pulled her thoughts from the past. She handed Liv one of the delicate cups. “Sugar, milk?”

  “No, thank you; this is fine.” Liv placed the cup and saucer on the table and chose a cookie from the plate Ida held out to her.

  “Say what you will,” Edna said, returned to her normal brusque self. “Pete Waterbury got his just desserts.” She took a cookie and bit into it.

  “Perhaps,” said her sister. “Only he’s not the only one to suffer. This will open all those old feelings. The pain and the guilt. Joss and Andy and everyone else involved don’t deserve to have to go through all that again.”

  “Do you think it will?” asked Liv.

  “Well, it was a long time ago,” said Ida. “Of course, all of them, including Bill Gunnison, were mere children then. Mrs. Gibson’s been dead these twelve years and more. I doubt if anybody much remembers about it.”

  “Somebody did,” said Miss Edna.

  Liv’s cup rattled against the saucer.

  Ida sighed. “I don’t know why on earth he had to come back here.”

  Edna stopped with her cup poised in the air. “Why, that’s obvious. He came to cause trouble.”

  “Well, he’s certainly done that. Will you have another cookie, Liv?”

  It was too late to go back to work when Liv finally left the Zimmerman sisters. And she had too many things batting around in her head to be able to sit still. That was normal. The next few days after any big event always left her at loose ends, slightly restless after running on adrenaline for days, sometimes weeks. But today there was another element caroming around her brain. The question of who killed Pete Waterbury and how it would affect the town’s future and hers.

  She did the only thing that was sure to clear her mind. She changed into running gear and dropped Whiskey off to visit with Edna and Ida. The sisters enjoyed his antics and had been dog sitting just about every day since Liv had moved in. She was glad he didn’t have to be shut up all day like he had in Manhattan.

  “Take your time, dear,” Miss Ida said as Whiskey bolted past her into the house.

  Liv hurried through a few stretches and hit the streets. She took off in the opposite direction from town. She wasn’t exactly sure what the etiquette of small-town funerals was. BeBe had gone back to work, but Liv thought they might look askance at Lycra running pants and a ponytail.

  She chose a route that she had never run before, one that skirted the north part of town but curved back to the lake. It had less-traveled roads and was nowhere near the Waterbury farm. The sun was already on its way to the horizon and the air was chilled. She zipped up her hoodie and picked up the pace.

  She ran through several blocks of residential streets. At first the homes were well kept with tended gardens, but as she got farther away from the center of town, they became more run-down with peeling paint and unkempt yards. The pavement began to have cracks and fissures until she turned into a street where there were no houses and there had been no attempt to keep the pavement traversable. Potholes cratered the two lanes, and Liv had to watch the ground in order not to twist an ankle or worse.

  It was a deserted area that she recognized from her first tour of town. The old cannery, whose closing had put the town’s future as a destination spot in motion, tottered on the landscape, big, empty, and forlorn. The windows were broken out and the walls were spray-painted with graffiti. Liv pulled up and ran in place while she considered the building, and a new idea took seed in her mind.

  The Cannery. Shops. Fine dining. Indoor activities for winter. Skating rink? Or some other venue. It was worth putting on a back burner. The town stayed open year-round and did fairly well from the overflow ski traffic. But they could do much better without going the theme-park route that some towns had taken. Using the cannery as an additional venue was definitely worth consideration.

  She started out again in the direction of the lake. She could make the loop back through town and be home before dark if she kept up her pace. She cut through a vacant lot to connect with the path that ran alongside the lake to the Lakeside Inn.

  This side of the lake was shadowed by the trees that lined its bank, but across the way the surface glittered with light from the setting sun. Ahead of her the shrubbery around the inn twinkled with little white lights.

  Liv slowed as she reached the parking lot where the wooden boat-rental dock jutted out into the lake like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Most of the boats had been put in storage. Dry dock, she amended. You stored winter coats; you dry-docked boats.

  There was a lone rowboat moored at the end of the dock, and Liv was hit with an image so strong that she actually stopped jogging. A frightened boy, Ted’s nephew, Andy’s friend, running from a gang of bullies led by Joss’s brother. Jumping into the boat and rowing desperately to the middle of the lake in hopes of getting away. What had happened? Had the boat overturned? Did he fall into the water? Was his body still lying at the bottom of the lake?

  After thirty years, she guessed there would be nothing left. Nothing but resentment.

  Liv shivered, decided etiquette be damned, and cut through the inn’s parking lot and back to town.

  She ran past the darkened Presbyterian church, but the stone rectory was lit up and she could see the silhouette of Reverend Schorr at the kitchen window. She ran past the cemetery and crossed the street kitty-corner to jog past the block of stores just off the village green. Made a mental note to make an appointment when she passed Woofery Dog Grooming. Whiskey was thriving on country living, and a lot of country was thriving in Whiskey’s fur.

  A block later she reached the village green. The town was pretty quiet. Just about everyone had gone to the funeral, and she imagined that some of the closer friends were still out at the Waterbury farm.

  Lights were on in the Buttercup. She didn’t need coffee, but she suddenly felt like company. She decided to see if BeBe was free for dinner.

  “I’d love to go eat. Not that I need to eat. But I was just going to close up, and I want to hear everything. I knew they’d ask you for tea—didn’t they? I was dying to stay but I couldn’t leave the store for that long.”

  “We should probably go to the inn,” Liv said. “They looked like they could use the support. But I’m not dressed and I don’t feel like changing.”

  “I’d rather go to Imogene’s anyway. It’s meat loaf tonight. And I have to confess, I’m a sucker for anything with hamburger and tomato sauce.”

  While BeBe closed up, Liv stretched in the warmth of the coffee bar, and within twenty minutes they were walking down First Street toward Buddy’s Place.

  Buddy’s was a combination luncheonette and diner. It had been around in pretty much the same form since the late 1950s. The neon sign said Buddy’s Place, but only tourists called it by its full name. Locally it was known as Buddy’s or the Place or just Imogene’s.

  Imogene “Genny” Parsons, the proprietor-manager-hostess and sometimes waitress of the Place, slid off the counter stool and reached for two menus as soon as Liv and BeBe walked in.

  “Well, you two seem to be about the only ones who didn’t eat themselves silly at the funeral repast today. Take your pick.”

  A row of red vinyl booths sat empty along the windows. They chose the farthest from the door, ordered two meat loaf specials and glasses of the house pinot grigio, and returned the unopened menus to Genny.

  Over meat loaf, L
iv filled BeBe in on what the sisters had told her about Victor Gibson.

  “I remember Eleanor Gibson,” BeBe said. “I knew her son had died but no one told me he was murdered.” She took a sip of wine. “Probably because I’ve only lived here for fifteen years.”

  “Off topic, but why did you move here?”

  “Followed a boy.”

  “No kidding. Anybody we know?”

  “No. He was a biker; his family lived out in the sticks near here. He took off again and I settled down.”

  “Amazing.”

  “I’d call it typical of young, stupid girls. But I recovered faster than I should have. Took out a bank loan a few years ago and opened up the Buttercup. Should make me one of the people, but not quite.”

  “Yeah,” Liv agreed. “I’ve only been here a few weeks, and I don’t really notice being an outsider until something like this happens. Then it seems like they all band together and close the doors.”

  “Just human nature, I guess. But everybody likes you, so you shouldn’t feel bad.”

  “I don’t,” Liv said. “It’s just I don’t like surprises. And I don’t want to fail this town because I lack information.”

  “How could you fail the town, just because someone who everyone hated was killed?”

  “The trustees are already talking about closing down the festivals until the murderer is caught.”

  BeBe stopped with a fork of mashed potatoes inches from her mouth. “They wouldn’t.”

  “I hope not, but the mayor is nervous, and things aren’t really moving on the case.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s that forty-eight-hour thing. But is it true you have to catch the killer by then or the trail goes cold?”

  “I sure as heck hope not.”

  BeBe reached for another roll and pulled it apart. Then she looked at Liv. “You know, we have the means in town to help Bill move things along.”

  “Don’t look at me. Roseanne Waterbury already asked me if I knew all about murder because I’m from the city.”

  “No offense, but I was thinking of Chaz Bristow.”