6 Murder at the Art & Craft Fair

by Steve Demaree

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  Darkness arrived, and after a dissertation from the movie screen on all the delicacies that the concession stand had to offer, and previews of movies to come during the rest of the month, House on Haunted Hill burst upon the screen, complete with an introduction from William Castle, who was trying to imitate Alfred Hitchcock, minus his distinctive voice. House on Haunted Hill starred one of the best actors at being campy, Vincent Price, whose character paid people $50,000 to spend a night in a house where murders had taken place. The movie had all the elements of a classic haunted house tale, but never took itself too seriously. Homicidal was Castle’s tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, only it contained more than one disturbed person. I found one elderly woman to be quite a hoot with all of her knocking. Well, she couldn’t talk, and she had to express her opinions some way.

  While both movies were campy, the four of us found them quite entertaining, and ended up watching the movies a lot more than we had expected. And Lou and I dashed back to the concession stand between movies to pick up four ice cream bars. And yes, Jennifer and I did take care of any stray ice cream that might have taken up residence on each other’s mouths. At least it was dark enough that we were no longer being spied on by any little boys who thought our practice gross. Who knows? Maybe those boys were scared away by some of the movie’s content, or their parents had found out where they were. But then, their parents could have been there, too, twelve trees down, or in a steamed up car.

  Both movies were short by today’s standards. Short compared to some of the movies back then, too. That allowed us to exit the drive-in the same day we entered it, which isn’t always the case. When Homicidal ended in time for us to get Cinderella home before her coach turned into a pumpkin, we joined in the procession of headlights beating a hasty retreat from the drive-in. No one had fallen asleep. At least no one in Lou’s car. And so we talked all the way home about the two movies and the fun time we had had that day. Morning would arrive far too soon, and church not long after that. As I looked ahead to Sunday, I anticipated a shorter version of Saturday’s jaunt through the art and craft fair, stopping only at the booths that fascinated us and only long enough to purchase a few items and take in the festivities. If I had time before church, I planned to put together a few of the pieces of my Empire State Building puzzle to see if I wanted to purchase a second puzzle on Sunday, or if I would borrow Lou’s if one puzzle wasn’t enough to frustrate me.

  As I thought ahead to Sunday, I figured that by mid-afternoon we would leave Hilldale City Park and go to Thelma Lou’s and hang out for a while. Thelma Lou had already offered to cook for all of us on Sunday night. Jennifer wasn’t leaving to go home until Monday morning. I figured the two of us would have a more leisurely time together on Sunday. I figured wrong.

  Chapter Twelve

  The look on Lou’s face when he picked me up for church on Sunday morning told me that he had either gotten frustrated trying to put his 3-D puzzle together or that something was wrong with Jennifer or Thelma Lou.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Cy, I got a message.”

  I had known Lou long enough to know that he hadn’t gotten a text or an e-mail, or that Thelma Lou had told him that she didn’t want to date him anymore. When Lou said he got a message, it meant that a thought had entered his mind, and not just any thought. Each time he had gotten one of those thoughts someone had been murdered. When this happened he continued to receive a thought for the day until we were able to solve the murder. The thoughts were so accurate and helpful that I told Lou they were his messages from God.

  I wondered what time today Lou and I would receive a page from the department telling us that date time was over. Maybe Jennifer and I weren’t going to spend the day together after all. As I thought of this, my look began to resemble the one on Lou’s face.

  “What was the message?”

  “Baubles, bangles, and beads.”

  “Isn’t that the name of an old song?”

  “It is. And I was sure you’d ask me that, so I Googled it. It was from the movie Kismet.”

  “Don’t think I saw that movie. So, what does it mean?”

  Lou gave me the same look he always gave me when I asked him that question. Lou had told me many times that if the messages as I called them were from God, that God didn’t give him the gift of interpreting that message.”

  “Cy, did you by any chance receive any unexpected presents this morning?”

  “None that I’m aware of. You think that Jennifer’s been by here?”

  “No. Cy. We’ve got a couple of minutes to spare. Let’s take a look out back, or in your back door.”

  “You think the body might be there?”

  “Let’s just look, Cy.”

  I decided to play along with Lou’s game. I hoisted myself up out of Lou’s car and ambled down my driveway to the backyard, a puzzled look on my face. No sooner had I rounded the corner of the house than I realized that someone had been at work. There, for all the world to see, sat a sandbox. And not just a sandbox, but a sandbox full of sand, and with a pail and shovel, for those times when I wanted to sit and play in the sand. I stood there, smiling to myself, contemplating some of the ways I would get even with George. Realizing that church wouldn’t wait for me, I turned and headed back to Lou’s car, ready to compare sandboxes, pails, and shovels. My pail was blue, my shovel red. I wondered what color Lou’s was.

  I got back in the car and looked at my partner in crime solving.

  “So, Lou, what color was yours?”

  “What color was my what?”

  “Pail and shovel. I assume you received a sandbox, too.”

  “No, Cy, I guess George took into consideration that I live in an apartment building, so I merely opened my front door this morning to find a container of Legos and some Tinker Toys.”

  “Oh, Lou, we must get together and play sometime.”

  “I’m all for that. Let’s play Houdini, and we’ll let George be Houdini first. Got any extra handcuffs?”

  “Sure do, but I had planned to use them on Jennifer.”

  “Cy, you don’t need handcuffs for her. She’ll come willingly. George, on the other hand, might be a different matter. We might need to Taser him first.”

  “How about if we just hit him over the head?”

  “As long as it’s not too hard, just hard enough to daze him while we cuff him.”

  “Sounds good to me. Let’s cuff him, bury him in sand, and give him a breathing tube.”

  We sat there for a couple of minutes thinking about our new toys, until we realized that if we didn’t leave soon we would be late for church. As Lou backed his car out of my driveway, my thoughts returned to the message Lou received. All the way to church I hoped that I didn’t receive a page during the sermon. Even with all the murder cases Lou and I have worked on, we’ve never gotten paged during the pastor’s sermon, but there is always a first time for everything. As it turned out, we received no page during the pastor’s sermon. I still hadn’t received a call from someone at the department by the time we picked the girls up to go back to the art and craft fair. All the way to Thelma Lou’s house I debated on whether or not to let them know that our date might end prematurely. I decided not to tread upon that moment until it arrived.

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  We arrived at Thelma Lou’s and found out the girls had fixed a picnic basket lunch for the four of us. Since everything inside was to be consumed in one manner or another, there would be nothing to bring back, except the basket. Depending on what purchases we made, the basket might be able to hold whatever we bought. If so, it meant that all of us would purchase less than we purchased the day before. I didn’t see any photographs that would fit in the picnic basket, and most of the puzzles would stretch its limit. Now, I could get a book or two, in case some new author dropped by or Tim Callahan cornered Jennifer again, and a basket could hold a boatload of jewelry. A basket full of jewelry would cost a boatload, too.

&n
bsp; Lou managed to find a parking place a little closer to the park on Sunday than he did on Saturday. I doubted if we would purchase as much as we did the previous day, but it was good not to have to walk quite so far, even if we left empty-handed.

  It seemed like others had the same idea the girls had, because I noticed a man with a wife and kids, and he too was carrying a picnic basket. When we got to the park, I spotted two others with picnic baskets and a couple of coolers.

  Jennifer carried a tote, which I found out carried a tablecloth to spread out over the picnic table, paper plates, and plastic eating utensils. The girls started unloading our basket and Lou and I started smacking our lips. We ate and talked. Jennifer had written down the numbers of the booths she wanted to visit again. I considered stopping by the puzzle man’s booth again, but I would play it by ear.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I watched the crowd, which was slower to arrive than the Saturday crowd. I expected that many people went to church before coming, and some of them might have gone home to eat, or were planning to eat elsewhere. There was a smattering of people, but not a large crowd checking out the booths. Saturday, I’d heard someone say that Sunday attendance is usually only around two-thirds as many as attend on Saturday. I wondered how many of them were repeat offenders. When any town other than a large city has a special event once a year and not much else the rest of the year, many people make sure they take in as much of that event as possible. I expected that many of the people who were there on Saturday would return to take in Sunday’s festivities, whether they spent any more money or not. I suspected that some people who attend town festivals don’t spend money on anything except food. And then there would be those who looked on Saturday and came back on Sunday to buy.

  Finally, we finished eating and threw away our trash and it was time to be on our way. Jennifer and I headed off to Lisa Kingsley and Bonnie Crouch’s jewelry booth, which was the lowest number of any of the booths Jennifer wanted to visit. We looked over their selections and Jennifer asked me what I thought. Naturally, I said, “Whatever you like. It’s for you.” She picked out three items and asked me to pick one. I picked up all three and paid for them. The total cost of all three was less than one hundred dollars, so it wasn’t like I was going to have to mortgage the house in order to buy them for her. As soon as we left the booth, Jennifer turned to me and said, “That’s all, Cy.”

  I replied with, “What do you mean, ‘that’s all?’ You’ve marked down four other booths that you wanted to go back to.”

  “We can still do that, Cy, but if we do, I’m paying for mine. And you still haven’t told me what I can get you.”

  “I’m a man of few interests. The only things I saw that I liked were books by those authors who are here, those 3-D wood puzzles that guy makes, and photographs from some of the photographers who are here, and I’ve already bought something from all of them.”

  “Thelma Lou bought Lou a puzzle. Maybe I can buy you a second puzzle, for you to do after you work the one you bought yesterday. If not, I want you to point out a photograph you might have missed yesterday, that you think would look good in your house.”

  I refrained from telling her that I saw one titled Babes in Bikinis that I thought was interesting. I thought of letting Jennifer buy me a little something, but I didn’t want to wear it home.

  None of the other booths Jennifer had marked down were on the first row. Upon insistence from Jennifer, I meticulously scanned each booth to make sure they had nothing I wanted. I looked back and noticed Lou and Thelma Lou a fair distance behind us, so I motioned to them that we were off to the second row of booths. We were moving at a much faster pace than we had the previous day. More of a Cy pace than a Jennifer pace. I was more used to the Cy pace.

  Jennifer made me stop at each booth with photographs. I weighed each photograph I saw against having another puzzle. I would wait until I’d looked at everything before I decided. I didn’t expect any new authors to pop up on Sunday, nor did I expect any of Saturday’s authors to come out with a new book before Sunday.

  All four of the booths Jennifer had written down came before the puzzle guy, so we visited all of them, made a couple more purchases that she wouldn’t let me pay for, and trotted off to find the puzzle guy.

  We made it to the last row and I glanced to the left and saw the author who was with the Fob Queen. He had changed shirts. This time he had on a shirt that said something about UK and eight national championships. It seemed like I’d read something about that. Maybe it made the newspaper. I forgot all about him and any national championships, and remembered why I was there. I wanted to find the puzzle guy, so Jennifer could be pleased that she bought something for me, too.

  I remembered he was located on the last row, and I darted off to where I thought he was. I scanned the last row of booths and didn’t see him. Then, I noticed that one tent was still zipped and not open for business, and that the tent that had been next to it the previous day was no longer there. I walked up to a woman whose tent was next to the unoccupied one and inquired if she knew where the puzzle guy was.

  “That’s his tent right next to mine. And the guy next to him on the other side left last night. I don’t think I did anything to offend either of them.”

  “So, he hasn’t been here all day?”

  “Which one?”

  “The puzzle guy.”

  “No, he’s staying at the same motel where I’m staying and I noticed when I left this morning that his truck and trailer were still there. That’s unusual, because I’ve done other shows where he is and he’s usually one of the first vendors to open up.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to open at 11:00 today?”

  “We were. I got here around 10:30, unzipped my tent and got everything ready. Sunday is usually a late-arriving crowd. Most people don’t start coming until noon or after, so some vendors don’t always get here early, but Tom usually does. And I don’t know what happened to that other guy. He was packing up Saturday when I left. Most vendors leave their tents up Saturday night unless the weather is supposed to be bad, but I figured he might be one of those few who takes down his tent and puts it back up the next day. I don’t really know him. As far as I know, we’ve never done a show together. I know that he and Tom got into it yesterday morning. He accused Tom of knocking some of his stuff off one of his tables when Tom was setting up Friday night. See, even though things don’t start until Saturday, most vendors set up their tents Friday night, and some of them even set up their displays. This guy had come and set up and left before Tom set up. Of course, Tom has a long drive. I think around five hours or more, so he’s one of the last to set up.”

  “Do you have any idea if anyone else here might know where he is, or why the other guy left?”

  “I don’t know anything about the other guy, but I talked to Lois this morning when we got here. That’s Lois over there,” she said as she pointed to a tent across the way and up a couple of spots. “She’s the one who originally told Tom about this show. She’s from western Kentucky too, so she and Tom do a lot of shows together. Lois was surprised too, commented that she thought Tom was the one who woke all the birds up on show days.”

  I thanked the woman for her help and turned away. I looked for Lou and Thelma Lou, spotted them just coming into the third row of booths. Evidently, they weren’t through. I’d wait until they finished, then see if the others were ready to leave or wanted to hang around a while. I conferred with Jennifer.

  “Cy, the guy has to come back sometime and pack up, even if he’s sick. Why don’t you find out the motel where he’s staying and call him?”

  “I’ve already got one of his puzzles.”

  “I know, but I want to buy you something.”

  I thought about telling her that she could buy me a bikini in her size and wear it for me, but I refrained. I wasn’t sure if she would smile, kiss me, or hit me, and I didn’t want her to do two of those three in a crowded park. I didn’t want her to do one
of them in an uncrowded park.

  I looked at my watch. It was almost 3:00. The show would be ending in another hour. Surely the puzzle man would be back soon. I turned back to the woman I’d talked to, but she had a couple of customers in her booth. We weren’t in a hurry. Lou and Thelma Lou were still enjoying themselves. I waited until the woman’s booth was empty, then stepped over and asked her the name of the motel. It was one I was familiar with, one that was almost as close to the park as the space where Lou parked yesterday. I borrowed Jennifer’s phone, located the number, and placed a call. I asked for Tom Kincaid’s room. No one answered. I called back and asked when he was scheduled to check out and was told he was paid until the next morning. I told them I thought something might be wrong with him and asked if someone could go check his room, but was told that since it was Sunday and the maids had already gone for the day and there was no one else to watch the desk and answer the phone, no one was available to do that for me.

  I wondered if he was sick, or worse, if he might have had a heart attack. I walked back over to the woman who had helped me and asked her if Kincaid had ever been sick at a show, and if so, had anyone else watched his space. She said she and Tom didn’t usually set up next to each other, but as far as she knew, he had always been at his tent, and had done his own unloading when he arrived and loaded his truck and trailer when he left. She said every show where she’d seen him he was alone. Puzzled, I returned to Jennifer, told her what the woman had told me.