“Who knows, you might even get to be on TV,” she told us. “One of the Sacramento stations is going to be in the food area all week, filming our activities for their cooking show.”
The siren was still sounding as Teddy and I passed through a group of umbrella tables that had been set up to create a food court near the edge of a small lake.
“What is it, do you think?” Teddy asked. “Ambulance or firefighters or police?”
“I hope they’re just responding to a fender bender in the parking lot.”
“Or chasing down a goat that got out of its pen. Hey, look at that.”
He whipped out his camera and aimed it at a bright yellow lemon that was at least ten feet high. It turned out to be a lemonade stand, and I bought each of us a cup. Teddy made loud slurping noises through his straw.
“Aren’t you too old for that kind of behavior?” I chided him as we walked past the Critter Corral and the scent of goats and pigs wafted in our direction.
He rolled his eyes, practicing for the day, not too far off, when he would become a teenager, all moody and broody. He slurped again, just to make a point.
The Home and Garden Pavilion was another drab, barnlike building, a twin to the Palace of Fine Arts. Many more people were leaving the building than going in, which seemed odd when it was so early in the day. A few were milling about the entrance, some looking over their shoulders to peer back inside.
“Where’s everybody going?” I asked a skinny man in a red polo shirt.
“Dunno.” He shrugged. “Guy back there says we have to leave.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward a burly security guard who was herding people to the door.
“Where’s Florence?” Teddy asked uneasily.
“Let’s find her,” I said. We started to push past the crowd into the building, but the guard came up to stop us.
“Sorry, ma’am.” Stepping in front of us, he hooked his thumbs in the belt loops at the sides of pants and spread out his elbows to make himself more of a barricade. “Building’s closed.”
“Why? Is there some kind of trouble?”
“Can’t say,” he growled. “You need to turn around and—”
Teddy abruptly darted around him and dashed inside. I took off after him.
“Hey!” the guard yelled. “Come back here! You can’t—”
“Sorry!” I called back. “Got to catch my brother.”
We ran down the long central aisle, not pausing to admire the beautiful quilts hanging on the walls on one side of us or the carefully shaped and pruned bonsai trees arranged on shelves on the other. As we neared the far end of the hall, a vast array of goodies came into view—plates bearing luscious-looking cakes and pies, platters of cookies and brownies, jars of jams and jellies the color of garnets and ambers.
In the midst of this bounty was the cooking demonstration area. A stage had been set up—a low platform, really, with a worktable in the middle of it. Rows of folding chairs faced it, seating for an audience.
All of the chairs were empty.
I became aware of a commotion taking place. Despite the guard’s effort to boot everyone out, quite a few people were milling around. Their attention was focused on an open door behind the stage. It appeared to lead into the blackness of an interior room.
“What are they doing?” Teddy asked, and I could tell he was trying not to sound scared. “Is something wrong? Where’s Cousin Florence?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see her.” I pulled him to a stop behind the last row of chairs. A bad feeling was clamping down on my gut.
I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw Florence emerge from the crowd. She was several inches shorter than my five-foot-seven but weighed about as much as I did. Her girth was the result of her love for her twin hobbies: cooking good food and eating what she cooked.
Spotting us, she came running over to where we were standing.
“Oh, Jess! There you are. Thank goodness!”
“Florence! What’s going on?” Teddy asked.
She patted his shoulder but directed her answer to me. “Something awful has happened. I just can’t believe—”
“I’m so glad you’re here.” Taking my elbow, she started to steer me toward the open door.
The security guard I’d encountered earlier came up to us. He was huffing and puffing, and his face was red and moist; he must have covered the length of the building at a run, chasing Teddy and me. “I told you not to come in here. Now go. That means all of you. Everybody out!”
“Not until my cousin takes a look,” Florence said firmly. “This is Jess Randolph, a private eye from San Francisco. She’ll be a big help.” She pointed to a chair. “Wait here, Teddy.”
Hand to my elbow, she steered me around the protesting guard and all of the chairs toward the open door.
I tried to resist. Whatever the problem was, for this weekend I was supposed to be in artist mode, honoring the part of myself that got too little attention because the private investigator side of my life sucked up so much time. Also, I had Teddy to watch out for. But Florence’s grip on me was firm, and I had to admit that I was curious.
“Since I’m the chair of the cooking demo committee,” she said, “I’m in charge of what happens in this area. This storeroom is where we keep the supplies and equipment for the cooking demos.”
As we got near it, I began to see what all the fuss was about. A pair of feet in highly polished brown loafers was protruding through the door.
“Everything was fine when I left last night. But when I came in this morning, I found—this!”
She flipped a light switch and an overhead bulb came on, illuminating the grim scene. Now I could see the man’s khaki-clad legs and, as I stepped closer to the door, his torso—he was lying on his back with a large knife protruding from his stomach. The front of his cream-colored shirt was stained red, and more of the same red substance was splashed around the room. On the concrete floor were shards of broken glass.
“Oh my—” My hand went to my mouth.
The man looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place where I might have known him. His dark hair was fashionably cut, and I could see that in better circumstances he would have been handsome.
I looked around the storeroom. The walls were lined with industrial shelving that held cooking equipment, jars of spices, and various items of food. A metal disk lay on the floor in one corner, and a metal ring had rolled into another. A wooden knife block sat on a counter. The largest knife was missing.
I heard sobs, and turned to see a tiny white-haired woman who was leaning against a wall and weeping. I recognized her as Florence’s friend Mavis Tucker; I’d met her when I visited Florence last Christmastime. She was in her eighties, a decade or so older than Florence, and a member of the Culinary Arts Club.
Florence said to her, “Calm down, Mavis. Come sit over here.” She led the woman to one of the folding chairs and sat down with her, offering a tissue from her purse. Several other people standing nearby had looks of shock.
“Who’s that?” whispered a voice at my ear. I turned to see that Teddy had ignored Florence’s order and had crept up behind me. He was staring with wide-open eyes at the man on the storeroom floor.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But we seem to have stumbled into a bad business.”
He lifted his camera and took two or three shots before I could stop him.
“It smells funny in there.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I pulled him close and put his face to my shoulder.
“Like cherries,” he mumbled into my shirt.
I inhaled deeply. Sure enough, beneath the awful odor of death I detected another scent, something fruity.
Straightening up, Teddy slid his cap off his head and clutched it to his heart. I didn’t know if he was aware of doing that or if it was an unconscious gesture of respect for the dead.
Because the man on the floor was dead. I was certain of that.
Chapter 3
The sec
urity guard flung open a nearby door that led to a parking lot, and the siren grew louder. The guard did his best to shove the milling-abouters outside. Some were eager to get out of there, others more reluctant.
Tires screeched. The siren gave a final yelp and went silent. A moment later two uniformed officers from the Mira Vista County Sheriff’s Department rushed into the hall. A team of paramedics wheeled in a gurney. Sadly, it was too late for their expertise to be of much use.
As the emergency personnel got to work, I saw two more people hovering in the open doorway, adjusting some sort of equipment. Then they stepped inside.
The first was an attractive young woman with long blond hair and a bland face with a bit too much makeup. She was wearing neat black slacks and a lavender top with a low V-neck, too fancy for the fair and too warm for the day. She was carrying a microphone and a sound recorder.
The guy who slouched in after her looked much more casual. His faded jeans, black T-shirt, and white tennis shoes looked none too clean, and he sported the three-day growth of beard favored by some young movie actors. A TV camera labeled with the call letters of a Sacramento station rested on his shoulder.
They must have been listening to the police scanner in the station’s van to have arrived so quickly. They hurried to the storeroom door because clearly that’s where the action was.
“Oh no, Drake, look!” The blonde clutched the cameraman’s arm as she gazed upon the unfortunate man on the floor. “It’s Gourmet Gus!”
~*~
Florence had pulled some of the folding chairs into a circle well away from the storage room and was sitting there now with three other women, all of whom looked dejected and dismayed. Florence had an arm around Mavis, who sat beside her. Mavis’s tears had subsided; she was staring down at her hands, which fluttered in her lap.
I guided Teddy over to the circle, and Florence made quick introductions—her fellow members of the Culinary Arts Club.
“Who’s Gourmet Gus?” I asked them.
“Don’t you know him?” asked Carlene Wilmot, looking surprised. She was the youngest by a couple of decades. Her hair was almost black, and cropped in a no-nonsense style.
“He’s on TV,” Mavis said, as if that explained everything.
“He’s famous,” Thelma Jenkins chimed in. She was a tall, bulky woman; I bet she referred to herself as big-boned. Like me she was a redhead, but her color was brighter and lighter than mine, more apricot than auburn—an odd shade that must have come from a bottle.
“A TV star?” Teddy’s eyes went wide.
I shook my head. “I’m behind the curve on this one, obviously.”
“His name is Gus Garfield,” Florence explained. “Gourmet Gus is the name of his show. You probably don’t see it in San Francisco. It’s a local show, airs on a Sacramento station.” She pointed to the blonde with the microphone and her companion with the camera, who were hovering at the storeroom door, trying to talk to the two cops. “The same station they work for. She’s a reporter, and he operates the camera.”
“They’re the team that was going to broadcast your cooking demonstrations,” I said.
“That’s right,” Florence said. “Looks like the publicity we’re going to be getting isn’t the kind our Culinary Arts Club was hoping for.”
“They were here yesterday,” Thelma added, “filming the jams and jellies competition.”
“Don’t remind me,” Mavis said, and Florence reached over to pat her hand.
“When I was helping them set up yesterday,” Carlene said, “Gus told me he was moving to L.A. A cable network picked up his show and was going to make him a national celebrity. He was so excited about it.”
“Always dine with Gusto—that’s the show’s motto,” Thelma. “Gusto, that’s him. Isn’t that a cute nickname? He—”
“Dis-gus-ting, that’s what they should call him,” Mavis sniffed. “He was a horrible man.”
There was a gasp of shock.
“Oh, Mavis,” said Thelma, “you don’t mean that—”
“Yes, I do. I know you’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead, but—you saw what happened yesterday during the jam judging. You were all here.”
“Well, yes, but he didn’t mean for it—”
“Yes, he did. He humiliated me, and he did it on purpose. He enjoyed it!” Mavis burst into fresh sobs.
“There now.” Florence patted her shoulder and gave her a fresh tissue. “We understand why you’re upset.”
“What happened?” Teddy asked. “What did the guy say?”
“I was sure I’d get the blue ribbon for my cherry jam, or at least a red—”
Carlene nodded. “You always do. Your jam is something special.”
“Not all that special,” Thelma mumbled under her breath. If I hadn’t been sitting next to her I wouldn’t have heard the words.
“—so I was thrilled that the judging was going to be on TV.” Mavis waved a delicate hand at the two members of the TV crew, who were busy filming the scene in the storage room. “But when Gus tasted my cherry jam he screwed up his face”—she twisted her own face in imitation and lowered her voice to imitate his tone—“and said, ‘This jam tastes like poison.’”
“I couldn’t believe it when I heard him say that,” Florence said. “Everyone knows you make the best cherry jam in Mira Vista County.”
“And they showed that on TV?” Teddy said.
“All the judging and demos were being filmed,” Florence explained. “They were going to edit the footage and make the fair the focus of Gus’s show next week. Don’t worry, Mavis. Given what’s just happened I can’t imagine they’ll air the jam judging now.”
Carlene and Thelma exchanged glances. “Well,” Thelma said with a little giggle, “it so happens that they did run a little snippet last night on the eleven o’clock news. As a … what do they call it?”
“A teaser,” Carlene said. “A promo for next week’s show. But it was only a minute or so, Mavis. Most people probably didn’t even notice that it was about you.”
Mavis looked like she was about to resume her tears. Instead she squared her shoulders and sat up straight. She was so small that her feet barely touched the floor. “Well, it’s spilt milk, I guess. But I won’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.”
I saw two newcomers, a man and a woman, come in through the outside door. They were wearing street clothes but something in their demeanor told me they were cops. Sheriff’s deputies, to be precise. The fairground was on county land, outside of the boundaries of the town of Mira Vista, so the Sheriff’s Department would have jurisdiction.
The security guard had been lingering around the action, staying out the way but paying close attention to what was going on. Now that the detectives had arrived, he made his way over to us, a scowl on his face. “I already told you ladies, you have to leave. You too, son. We have to clear the building so the police can do their work.”
We all stood up, but as we started to file out of the circle of chairs, the blonde and the camera man rushed over and intercepted us. “Wait,” she said. “I’m Ashley Hewitt and this is Drake Fuller. We’re from Channel Twelve news. We’d like to get some comments about this … this tragic turn of events.”
Mavis turned her back and crossed her arms across her chest. The others looked flustered, though I noticed that Thelma stood straighter and fluffed up her hair. Teddy’s eyes were fixed on the point of Ashley’s low-cut V-neck. “Wow,” he murmured.
I said to the blond reporter, “I hear he was a colleague of yours, working at the same station. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Now it was her turn to look flustered. “Yes, thank you. I, uh—we’ll miss Gus. He was a wonderful man, one of a kind.” She looked back toward the door where the body lay. I saw her shudder, and a strange expression—sorrow? longing?—passed over her face. Then she refocused her attention on me, thrusting her microphone at my face. “Let’s get started. First, what is your name?”
I saw that Drake Fu
ller had raised his camera to his shoulder and was aiming it at me. I lifted my arm to block the camera’s view.
“I’m not the right person to make a statement. I didn’t know the deceased, and I saw nothing that would add to your report.”
“Well, then, one of the others…”
I shook my head. I wanted to keep Teddy from getting further ensnarled in the situation and to spare Mavis from more distress and embarrassment. To spare all of them, really. The morning had been traumatic enough. “Sorry. We’re all upset, and I think we should follow the guard’s direction and leave.”
Teddy, though, had other ideas. “What a cool camera,” he said to Drake Fuller. “Can I see it?”
I started to object, but Fuller seemed willing. He held out the camera and launched into an explanation of its parts and capabilities that held Teddy captivated. I decided to let him have a little enjoyment.
Teddy reached into his pocket and pulled out his own camera, tiny next to Fuller’s.
“Let me take a picture of you,” Teddy said. “Hold your camera like you’re shooting a TV show.”
Fuller stepped back. “I don’t think so—”
But Teddy was quick. He had already clicked the shutter two or three times before Fuller raised his objection. “Wow, you’re lucky. I’d love to work in TV.”
I tapped Teddy’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go.”
That was when the two sheriff’s deputies came over to us, badge cases in their hands.
“Folks,” the man said, “I’m afraid you can’t go anywhere just yet. We’re with the homicide division of the Mira Vista Sheriff’s Department. We need to talk to you.”
Chapter 4
“Are you okay?” I asked Teddy as we drove back to Florence’s house. We had been the first to be questioned by the detectives, and the first they’d let leave. I was sorry that the members of the Culinary Arts Club were still trapped in the exhibition hall, squirming on the hard folding chairs, but I was glad to get Teddy out of there. Glad, too, that Florence and I had driven to the fair in separate cars.
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 64