“Hang on, you’re an EMT? A medical professional?”
Scott looked at Sam. “Clearly, she doesn’t believe I’m capable of bettering myself.”
“Clearly.” Sam smiled.
I wanted to say more, but the only words that came to mind were less than complimentary to Scott. Even if I’d said something like “Good job!” or “That’s great!” I would have sounded patronizing. I was shocked and impressed, but I’d have to keep that to myself.
I closed my mouth and lifted my chin.
“Damn, Becca, you got a little tape happy, didn’t you? Uh—don’t answer that, just let me get this stuff off.”
“How long were the two of you married?” Sam asked.
“Three years. We had a good time, but we were young. Becca was in college, I was pretty immature, but I was very cute,” Scott said.
“I bet,” Sam said.
I literally could not speak. Scott held my chin and pulled on the tape so that I knew that if I spoke I could make the injury worse.
“Becca was married once before we were,” Scott said. “I don’t think I was a rebound thing, but we never really talked about it.”
I tried to communicate with my eyes, but I doubted they held as much impact as my words would have.
“I knew she was married twice. Maybe third time’s the charm for her,” Sam said.
The tape removal hurt, and my eyes watered a little.
“She says her personal life’s a little complicated right now. Maybe she’ll get it together,” Scott said.
“Complicated? Hmm, interesting.”
Scott stopped pulling on the tape and looked at Sam. “Oh, I, uh. Oh.”
Sam just smiled at Scott and then looked at me. “Almost done, Becca.”
Scott finished pulling off the tape and then tilted my chin. “Not bad, actually. Here, go wash up. No! No talking until we get this done. Don’t want to rip the cut further.”
I wanted to talk, I really did, but vanity won out. In the light of day, I realized I really didn’t mind a scar under my chin, but I hoped it wouldn’t be too disfiguring. I marched to the bathroom, which was surprisingly clean and empty for a public space, and washed my hands with the foamy antiseptic-smelling soap Scott had given me. Then, using the washcloth and more soap, I gently washed the cut. It wasn’t pretty, but it looked as if whatever scar I’d end up with would at least be straight.
I still didn’t think I should talk until Scott somehow secured the injury. He’d said it was too late to stitch it, but I hoped he was better with tape than I was. I also hoped that the two of them would stop talking about me as if I weren’t there. I put on a steely glare and, armed with the wet washcloth and the soap bottle, made my way back to the pavilion.
The steely look wasn’t going to do much of anything. Both Scott and Sam sat on the table and watched me walk toward them. They had almost identical smug smiles on their faces, and I thought Scott was trying not to laugh. I rolled my eyes.
“Hop on back up there,” Scott said. “Good. Sam, can you hand me that tube of cream and then put on some gloves. After I put the cream on, I’m going to pinch the two sides of the cut together. You can either put the butterfly bandages on or keep the cut together. Which would you prefer?”
“I think I’d rather put the bandages on. You pinch.”
As they went to work, they fell into another discussion, one I was certain had been rehearsed while I was in the restroom.
“So, Sam, about Becca’s personal life,” Scott began.
“Yes,” Sam said.
“If it’s currently complicated . . .”
“I think it is.”
“Well, I think she just needs to listen to her gut. I think she needs to follow her heart. She needs to do all that stuff they tell you to do in poetry.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
“But she’s probably a little wary. She’s made some rough decisions in the past regarding who she wanted to be with.”
“Well . . .” Sam said.
“No need to be polite. She did, or she thinks she did. She made one bad decision. Scott, the first, was a bad move, but I wasn’t.”
“I see.”
“Well, maybe I was at the time, but I turned out pretty awesome, don’t you think?”
“I do.”
“See, Becca, you’re not all that wrong when it comes to choosing a guy. You were just a little premature with me. In fact, let’s call it insightful. Maybe you’ve grown into yourself. There, you’re all taped.”
“May I talk?” I said without moving my lips much.
“Sure.”
“First of all, thank you for putting me back together.” I opened and closed my mouth. Everything seemed to work much better with the butterfly bandages than the surgical tape I’d used. “Second, way to go, Scott, on becoming an EMT. And third—”
But I was interrupted by a snap and rumble that sounded like the trunk of a huge tree breaking in half.
“What the?” Scott said.
I hopped off the table and joined Sam and Scott on the edge of the pavilion. We looked in the direction of the noise and tried to find the event attached to it.
It had been loud, too loud, almost like a violent lightning strike, but there wasn’t a cloud to be seen; the sky was clear blue. I turned toward the woods on the edge of the parking lot, but nothing appeared out of place there. The corn maze wasn’t open yet, and nothing seemed to be on fire from lightning. Everyone had heard the sound, and the hum and buzz of people quieted, leaving only background organ music, dinging prize bells, and a few crying babies.
Just when it seemed the moment had passed and the noise would remain a mystery, a scream sounded from somewhere in front of us. The words that followed the scream were the stuff of pure nightmares.
“The roller coaster! It’s breaking! Help!”
The three of us broke into a run.
In fact, the roller coaster was breaking, or more specifically the track was breaking. You could see the exact spot; it was in a small valley on the side of the coaster that faced in toward the rest of the fair.
The coaster had three small cars, each of them with eight seats. One of the cars had cleared the break cleanly—maybe it was that car that had caused the break—but the other two cars, each of them full of people, were careening toward it.
“We’ve got to stop those cars,” Sam said.
“I’ll try to help get the electrical shut off,” Scott said as he broke into another run toward the coaster operations.
Sam turned on his professional mode and started telling the gathering crowd to step away, step back.
“Call 9-1-1, Becca,” he said, and suddenly I remembered the last time he’d said that to me. Someone had been killed. So far, we were okay, but if the track broke all the way or even a little more, the cars would derail and, though the drop to the ground from the small valley was only about twenty feet, I was pretty sure we’d have another tragedy on our hands.
I called 9-1-1, and as soon as the dispatcher confirmed that emergency crews were on their way, I hung up so I could help. If only I could figure out what to do to help.
The good news was that the coaster was definitely smaller and slower than modern coasters. It had one big hill about three-quarters of the way through the ride. The car that had traveled over the break was almost to the big hill. It was suddenly the least of my worries. I was freaking out, however, about the other two cars that were still making their way to the broken area.
“Sam! What are we going to do?” I didn’t remember finding him again.
“Scott needs to get that electrical shut down.”
“He will. He knows all about that stuff.” Come on, Scott, get it shut down.
I could tell Sam was debating whether he
should stay put or go find Scott and see what was taking so long.
“Damn,” Sam said.
The first of the second two cars was about to go up the slope that led to the down slope that led to the valley with the broken track.
“Sam! What do we do?”
“At this point, I don’t know,” he said painfully.
By this time the eight riders in the car had figured out that something was wrong, but I didn’t think they knew exactly what. The noise level from the crowd had risen, and we were all watching in horror as the car rolled up the slope and then started down. I didn’t even know I was clenching my fists until a shot of pain ran up my arm. I was squeezing so hard that I had popped my knuckles like they’d never been popped before.
As the car hit the valley, the entire world gasped. The car rode over the break and up the next slope, but not without creating another loud snap and pop. It was then that all the riders on the coaster figured out what was happening. Two of the three cars had cleared the break, but all twenty-four riders were panicking. Though the roller coaster was old and, apparently, about to collapse, the security bars that kept the riders in place worked perfectly. If they hadn’t, the riders might have thrown themselves out of the ride.
Of course, even though two cars had cleared the break, that didn’t mean the entire track system wasn’t at risk of falling apart.
“Scott!” I said aloud, but I still didn’t see him. I had no idea where he’d gone.
“I’ll find him.” Sam ran away. I was left alone with the frightened crowd.
The last car was approaching the up slope, and we all stepped forward. We forgot Sam’s words of warning and commands that we stay back. Somehow, irrationally, we must have thought that if the people or the car fell, we could be there to catch them.
And then as the car reached the top of the slope, it stopped. It froze in place for a long, long time, still putting weight and pressure on the break. The track sagged and I thought we were about to hear another loud crack and snap, perhaps the final one before everything fell apart.
And then the car rolled backward, away from the valley with the break. I could see the track relax back into place. If we could get the riders off the roller coaster quickly, everyone would be okay.
Suddenly, we were all cheering, some of us were crying, but mostly we were all happy that someone had saved the day. I didn’t know if it was Scott or Sam or someone else, but I forgot about their teasing and I wanted nothing more than to hug them both and tell them thank you.
Twelve
The emergency crews arrived only a few moments later, but it was Lucy who seemed to do the most good. She calmed the coaster riders so they stopped trying to climb out of the cars before it was safe to do so. She took over the controls of the machine, too, and before long brought in the two cars that had passed the break. Then she backed up the other car so that the riders who hadn’t hit the break yet could also disembark. She was amazing.
No one was hurt. No one was even scratched. Some had to be treated for mild shock, but no one seemed to have sustained any long-term injury. I think everyone was surprised at how lucky we’d been.
If the death by Ferris wheel hadn’t been enough, the faulty roller coaster tracks were the final straw. The fair was officially shut down, not to reopen for the rest of this year or probably ever, or at least that’s what I heard. The corn maze could open, but if the authorities had their way, no one would ever again ride a ride on those grounds. The police asked everyone to exit the park, after they were briefly questioned, and to stay or come back only if they worked at the fair and had to gather their things.
In a hurried, haphazard way, we were questioned, in groups mostly. It wasn’t as thorough an investigation as Sam would have liked, I suspected, but I could tell the police wanted to get everyone out of there as quickly as possible.
The main rides weren’t the pack-and-go kind, and though the game and food trailers were only temporary installations, some of them required more than a quick hookup to a truck to leave the premises.
As I walked around to see if anyone needed my help, I suddenly remembered something I wished I hadn’t remembered.
There was a time that I might not have minded turning Scott in to the authorities if I thought he’d done something illegal. In fact, there were times I was so angry at his immature behavior, I wished I hadn’t met him at all; this attitude had probably contributed to the divorce.
I wasn’t sure if my sense of loyalty to him had grown in the years since we’d parted or if the changes in his behavior made me more sympathetic to him, or maybe it was because he was now a family man, but I hesitated strongly when I thought about telling Sam what I’d seen in the files at the shooting gallery.
As I watched a cotton-candy vendor clean out her bin of sugar, it occurred to me that the sketches I’d seen hadn’t been merely interesting, they might also have been more telling than I wanted them to be. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought the big arrow drawn on the roller coaster schematic had pointed to the exact spot where the track had broken.
It was a damning piece of evidence, if I was remembering it correctly. I had no doubt it would lead the cops to suspect Scott of attempted murder.
I turned away from the cotton-candy trailer and ran back to the shooting gallery.
“Hey, Becca, you doing all right?” Scott asked as I halted.
“Fine, fine.”
The back of the gallery, the place I’d snuck into, was fully exposed. Scott had removed the flimsy metal walls and stacked them to the side. The storage area no longer existed. What had he done with all the junk that had been there just last night?
“This is quite the setup. How long will it take you to tear it down?” I asked breathlessly.
“Almost a full day. I’ll have to either stay late tonight or come back tomorrow. I’ve already carted a load out to my truck. Your tent stalls are much easier to disassemble.”
“Can I take a stack of something out for you?” I said.
Scott had been leaning over the front counter of the gallery. He held a screwdriver in his hand as he straightened. “You in the mood to be helpful?” Suspicion lined his words.
“Sure, why not?”
Scott looked around. “There’s not much more you could carry. I took all the small stuff out. I’ll need to bring my truck in for everything else, but there’s no need to do that until I’m ready to load. Thanks, though.”
I nodded. Why had he taken out the small stuff? Why hadn’t he just waited to load everything at once? Were there things he didn’t want anyone else to see? The sketches? I hadn’t examined any of them closely enough to know with certainty whether the arrow had pointed to the broken part of the roller coaster or if the Ferris wheel sketches contained anything suspicious. I suddenly wished I’d reviewed them more carefully or memorized them. Or had had time to take more pictures. The one I’d managed was just a blur of white light.
“Scott . . .” I began.
“Yeah?”
I thought way too long about what I wanted to say next. Should I just confront him, admit that I’d rummaged though his stuff? He’d be mad, but he’d probably also forgive me quickly. Unless he was hiding something big. Despite how things looked, I didn’t want to believe he was capable of some murderous act.
But just in case he was, it probably wasn’t a good idea to let him know I knew things that might point to his guilt. I decided to take the safer route for the time being.
“Nothing . . . no, wait, where do you live? Are you still in Charleston?”
“Yep, but I’ll stick around Orderville for a few days. Susan and Brady won’t be home for a week or so, and I just want to make sure everything gets taken care of . . .” He paused. “Well, I need to make sure all my stuff gets taken care of.” The last sentence seemed forced, as though he were correcting
himself.
“Give me your number,” I said. “Maybe we can get together. I’d love to meet Susan and Brady if that’s not too weird.”
“No, not weird at all,” Scott said unconvincingly. “Sure.”
I had Scott dial my number so that we had each other’s.
“You still here?” Sam said from behind me.
“Hey, yeah, just saying good-bye to Scott. Want to walk me out to my truck?”
“Sure.” Sam nodded at Scott, who turned his attention back to the screwdriver and some fixture on the other side of the shooting gallery counter.
My fellow farmers’ market vendors were gone, as were the temporary tents and stalls that had been set up for us. Only two folding tables remained in the space where our booths had been, but they’d probably be loaded up in a few minutes, too.
“That was something,” I said as we stepped over an electrical cord that snaked across the ground from some hidden location.
“That was almost as bad as it gets,” Sam said.
I looked at him; he sounded angry, unusually so.
I stopped walking and put my hand on his arm. “What’s up?”
He stopped, too, and looked around. “Not here. Let’s talk in my car or in your truck.”
I looked for Lucy as we passed the trailer, but didn’t see her or anyone else. The door was closed, and all the blinds were shut tight.
We got in my truck, but I left the windows up. It was just warm enough to be stuffy in the cab but not miserable. It would have to be okay. We needed the privacy.
“What?” I said when we were not only shut but also locked inside.
“I’m angry that the roller coaster incident even happened, Becca. That place should have been shut down after Mr. Morrison’s death. I told the local officers they should really take a closer look, but they assured me that they had things under control.”
“How did they have things under control?”
A Killer Maize Page 12