I tried to decide what to say to Deacon. A black car had come into this mystery too many times for that not to seem like the strongest possibility; Honolulu’s story of having seen one at Tabitha’s house had only strengthened my suspicions. I was quite sure that someone driving a black car had killed two of the three judges of the pie competition.
It was still a mystery who it was, as was the question of why Mrs. Stone had been spared.
Before I could formulate how to answer Deacon’s question, though, the pie judging started and we turned all our attention to what the judges were doing.
“Mrs. Stone is the only one being serious,” said Charlie irritably.
Frannie and Fearne were both walking around, picking up pies and examining them. They would both sniff them, and Frannie also liked to poke them. Then they’d pick up forks and fight over which bit of the pie to eat. They nodded and bobbed their heads a lot, and not once did either of them look remotely unhappy.
“I bet they just like all the pies equally,” muttered Charlie.
“If it’s all up to Mrs. Stone, maybe she’ll choose Greer,” said Deacon under his breath.
“Mrs. Stone does seem to be taking it very seriously,” I said.
No one else seemed to mind Frannie and Fearne’s antics, and it didn’t take long for the judges to reconvene at their table. Mrs. Stone was holding a sheet of paper, and the three of them were going over the list and pointing. Frannie was being awfully emphatic about something, but I had no idea what. Eventually Mrs. Stone gave in to whatever they were arguing about and stood up.
“Thank you all for coming tonight. This is the second night of the baking competition, and I would like to announce the top three prizes for the night. In first place for the second night in a row is Mrs. Barb from Caedmon. In second place is Mavvie Davie of Mintwood, and in third place is Greer Dice, also of Mintwood. Given that this is the exact same line-up as in the first round, the rankings remain the same as they were last night.”
Most of the spectators started to grumble, but there was a small if enthusiastic cheering section for Mrs. Barb. Truman stood in front of the crowd clapping and whistling, a broad smile lighting up his face. Some Mintwooders glared at him, less than thrilled with the success of someone from out of town.
To the idle observer it was hard to tell that Greer was upset, but her friends knew she was.
She came over to us shaking her head. “My rhubarb pie wasn’t good enough. I knew it wasn’t good enough! I had such a hard time perfecting it. That only leaves tomorrow night’s finale.”
“You’ll make something amazing,” Charlie assured her, but Greer’s shoulders drooped.
“I had to take the weekend off work to do this, even though Saturday is our busiest night. And I just took a Saturday off because of the Country Club weekend.” She shook her head again as if she didn’t know how to express her frustration in words.
Deacon, sensing that she needed some comforting contact, put his strong arm around her thin shoulders. “You’ll figure it out! You always do!”
She leaned into him and tried to smile, but I could see how tired she was. The past couple of days had been eventful, to say the least.
“You know what we need?” said Charlie, as if reading my mind.
“What?” I asked.
“A night off,” my friend replied.
“Yes, let’s enjoy the fair,” Jasper chimed in. He waved to someone behind us, who turned out to be Hansen, who was just then strolling up to join us.
“No notebook tonight?” he asked Charlie.
“It’s in Liam’s tent,” she said, then realized her mistake. “Don’t go sniffing it out.”
Everyone laughed. Even Charlie could joke around sometimes.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Our little group of friends set out to enjoy the fair, with Jasper insisting that our first stop had to be the cotton candy stand. We each got a treat, then set off to wander around the fair for a while. I was so caught up in the sights, smells, and laughter that I didn’t even notice where we were headed until I saw Jasper’s eyes darken, the green going from mint to forest.
I followed his eyes and discovered that he was staring hard at Ellie’s ramshackle booth.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I still like the idea that it’s a fortuneteller’s booth, though at this point I kind of feel like he or she is slacking,” said Hansen, frowning in the direction of the empty stall.
Jasper looked at me intently, trying to see what I thought of Hansen’s guess, but I had nothing to say. We had long since finished our treats and were casually holding hands, but I was relieved that my friends hadn’t commented on our public display of affection. Since we were walking in a group and most people at the fair were preoccupied with all the things there were to see and do, no one else seemed to notice either.
Even so, I was incredibly nervous about the fact that walking around holding Jasper’s hand at a fair felt like the most normal thing in the world to be doing.
Now he started toward the shack and I tried to pull him back.
“What?” he asked.
“Why don’t we just skip it?” I asked, trying to keep the pleading out of my voice.
But now every single one of our friends was looking at us, a variety of expressions on their faces. Charlie and Greer knew why I wanted to avoid the shack, but the guys didn’t.
“Okay, we can skip it,” said Jasper reluctantly.
With one more searching look at my face, he pulled my hand gently and started to lead us all away from the shack. But as we went, he turned several times to look behind him. When he had finally given up on seeing any clues to what was going on, I risked turning around just once myself, and lo and behold I caught sight of a wisp of movement near the front of the booth. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought something had moved just inside the shadows of the doorway.
“Ferris wheel next?” Deacon asked, the entire previous scene having been lost on him. And thank goodness for that, I thought.
After the pie competition, the Ferris wheel was the highlight of the fair, and there was always a long line to ride it. Everyone was game except Greer, who didn’t like heights. Deacon decided to stay on the ground with her while the rest of us hopped in line.
“Am I going with you?” Charlie asked me.
Liam rolled his eyes. “You’re going with Handsome Gregory over there,” he said, then his face split into a grin. “That was a great joke, don’t you think?”
“So good,” said Charlie. “Fine, I’ll go with him. Who will you go with?”
“I’ll go with Keith. We store owners must stick together,” said Liam. He wandered over to join Keith of Mintwood Mucking, who had been standing by himself and looking a bit lonely.
“That means I’ll be going with Jasper,” I said, as if it had ever been in doubt.
Standing in line together, not to mention the ride itself, would put us even more on display. Maybe I should have cared, but no surprise, I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel with Jasper and no one else. Once that was settled, I enjoyed standing in line and watching the comings and goings of visitors while we waited our turn.
Half an hour later we were riding the biggest attraction of the carnival, Jasper and I in one bucket together, Charlie and Hansen in another. Liam and Keith had gotten into a passionate discussion about the merits of street sweeping in front of their stores and had forgotten to get on the ride at all.
Alone together, Jasper and I were awkward all over again, as if we had no idea what to say to each other. But this time the silence didn’t last long; soon the words came easily. Jasper told me a funny story from work from the day before, then asked how setting up Liam’s tent had gone.
We were soon deep in conversation, but we popped out of it immediately when a terrified voice rang out from far below.
“Mrs. Stone! I can’t find Mrs. Stone!” Mrs. Cook was beside herself as she came running through the fairgrounds. We were at the top of the wheel, which
was the only thing that kept me from running straight to her. Even as it was, Jasper had to seize my hand to keep me safe because I slid so far forward to watch the action.
A crowd had gathered around the distraught woman, and I needed desperately to talk to her.
“Get me down!” I cried. It took all I had not to use magic to simply spin the wheel faster and deposit us back on the ground. I knew I couldn’t reveal myself that way, but I was getting frantic. “We have to get down,” I repeated, straining at Jasper’s hand.
“How do you plan to do that? Fly?” he asked wryly. “You can’t actually fly, can you? I don’t see your witch’s broom on you.”
“No, I can’t fly,” I said. “Flying is very advanced.”
“Obviously,” said Jasper.
The Ferris wheel moved far too slowly to suit me, but we were finally nearing the ground when I looked back at Charlie, who was just as desperate as I was to get off the ride. Hansen couldn’t wait either; he and Charlie were both missing all the action, and as reporters they found that beyond frustrating.
By the time we reached the low point on the circle and were able to scramble out of our respective buckets, a large crowd had gathered around Mrs. Cook, who was still crying about Mrs. Stone.
As we made our way over to her, Detective Cutter was also just arriving. “Make way, make way,” he said urgently. “Someone tell me what’s going on!”
Mrs. Cook grabbed Detective Cutter by the arm, her eyes huge. “I was supposed to meet Mrs. Stone at the baking tent after the competition. We had agreed that she was never to be alone. I waited for twenty minutes and she never showed up.”
“Have you tried calling her?” Detective Cutter asked.
“I’ve tried everything. Her cell phone is turned off, not that we get reception anyway. I’ve asked everyone. Fearne and Frannie said they said goodbye to her and went to get cotton candy, and they haven’t seen her since. What if something’s happened?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” said Detective Cutter in his most reassuring voice. But I wasn’t sure he believed himself.
All the fairgoers within reach had gone quiet. Music still played in the background, but the laughter had stopped and all eyes had turned to the frantic Mrs. Cook.
“You have to find her! What happened to the other two . . .” She blanched. Clearly it was too horrible to think about.
“I’m sure you just got your signals crossed and she’s right around the corner,” said Mrs. Barnett, walking up to join the fray.
“We double-checked the plan five different times. Like I said, she was never supposed to be alone,” wailed Mrs. Cook. “This is all my fault.”
“We’ll find her,” said Pickle, who had just arrived from the Information Tent. She penciled something onto her clipboard and reassured us, “I’ve made a note of it.”
“Everybody spread out,” cried the detective. “We’re going to search the fairgrounds until we find Mrs. Stone. One way or another.” He said the last bit more or less to himself.
The entire fair became mobilized action. Liam started offering freebies to anybody who found Mrs. Stone. Mrs. Barnett did her part and said that whoever came across Mrs. Stone first could have free morning coffee for a month.
Paws, who had gone to take a nap in Liam’s tent, came bounding over. “Is there mystery afoot? Am I needed? Am I useful?”
“There are such different answers to all those questions,” said Greer, tapping her chin.
“What were you saying?” Deacon asked. Greer had tried to keep her voice down, but he had overheard.
“Sorry, I was clearing my throat,” said Greer.
Jasper gave her a curious look, but he couldn’t figure out what was going on either, because he couldn’t see Paws.
Paws looked up at my new boyfriend, then at me, and said, “He’s too smart for your own good. More importantly, he’s too smart for my own good.”
“Let’s get looking,” I said, turning Greer.
“Oh, no you don’t,” said Jasper, almost as quickly as Deacon.
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked.
“You are not going off alone,” said Deacon. “There’s a murderer on the loose, and you’re not going running around alone in the middle of the night. I won’t have it. We’re all going together, or no one is.”
My friends and I exchanged looks. Having Jasper and Deacon along would make it a lot harder to do anything witchy. If Deacon knew I was a witch, he’d be less worried about my safety. Then again, if Deacon knew I was a witch he’d probably know about Ellie, and then he’d be even more worried about my safety.
I couldn’t think about Ellie now.
We had to find Mrs. Stone before it was too late.
“Let’s head for the parking lot,” Charlie offered.
Greer looked dubious, knowing that Charlie was on the hunt for the black sedan, but in the end she went along with it.
Just as we reached the parking lot, I heard a screeching of tires, which turned out to be a black sedan zooming away in such a cloud of dust that we couldn’t pick out any useful details at all.
“They’re driving too fast,” said Liam. “It’s dark. They have no visibility and they’re driving around like that. It’s just foolish.” He shook his head and started walking along the nearest row of cars.
Liam might think he had just seen a random careless driver, but my heart was pounding. If the black car hadn’t disappeared so quickly I would have followed it. What if Mrs. Stone was stashed in the trunk and something awful was about to happen to her?
“Maybe it wasn’t the same car,” Greer whispered to me.
“It was definitely the same car,” I said, keeping my voice jus as low.
After confirming that Mrs. Stone was not in the parking lot, we made our way back to the fair.
“We should see if there’s a fortuneteller at that booth yet,” suggested Hansen. “Maybe we could learn the future and find out where Mrs. Stone is.”
“I think it’s an excellent idea to walk past the booth,” I said, prompting Jasper to give me yet another strange look. He knew there was more to that booth than I was letting on, just as he’d known there was more to Greer’s throat clearing than she had let on. I was beyond grateful that he wasn’t pushing the point in front of everyone.
I led the way. The booth still stood empty, but unlike before, there was now a curtain drawn across the front.
“It’s very strange,” said Liam. “I saw this monstrosity yesterday and checked to see if it was on any of the fairgrounds maps.”
“Let me guess: it wasn’t,” said Charlie.
“Correct,” said Liam, shaking his head. “Someone stuck it here, and somehow neither Mrs. Cook nor Pickle have told them to scram. Like I said, it’s very strange. Usually they’re very on top of that sort of thing. I guess with two murders they have a lot more than usual to think about this year.”
We were coming up empty on all fronts, and the people in the crowd were starting to get bored with looking for Mrs. Stone. It was starting to seem as if no dead body was going to pop up, smack dab in the middle of everything, and there was only so much evening left. Fairgoers had probably expected to find something gruesome and shocking, but instead they were just being forced to walk past the cotton candy stand without getting to eat any.
For the most part the fair had managed to be a happy event. After Mrs. Tootsie’s murder I had worried that a buzz of suspicion would hang over it, but for the most part that had not been the case. Still, tempers were starting to fray.
Just as we were all getting discouraged, a shouting match broke out. We had returned to the center of the fairgrounds near the baking tent when we heard it.
It was about to become a full-blown fight when a familiar voice rang out.
“What’s all the fuss about?”
Heads turned, and people were by turns amazed and annoyed to see Mrs. Stone approaching as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She was wearing the same outfit she
’d had on all evening and she looked completely puzzled by all the fuss.
“Where have you been!” cried Mrs. Cook, who was still beside herself with upset.
“I’m so sorry! I lost track of time,” stuttered Mrs. Stone.
She didn’t look terribly sorry. She looked as if she had known she was fine, and why did anyone else care? “I ran back home to pick up a couple of things and was slower getting back than I expected to be.”
Hansen glanced at Charlie, presumably to see if the other reporter believed this tale. Charlie’s face was unreadable, but as for me, I didn’t believe Mrs. Stone’s ready explanation one little bit.
In fact, the more I thought about it the more I realized that there was something very fishy going on with Mrs. Stone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The fair resumed, but the mood had changed. We had all done a good job of setting aside our worry over the murders for short periods, but tonight’s false alarm had been a bit too much. Mrs. Cook declared that she couldn’t bear to be at the fair a moment longer, so Mrs. Barnett kindly helped her home.
Not long after the uproar, my friends, Paws, and I also headed home. I half expected to find some sort of problem with the ghosts when we got back, and I didn’t want to be gone all night.
“I’m sure they’ve been lazing about doing nothing all evening,” said Paws, reading my mind.
“I highly doubt that,” said Charlie.
“You only think of lazy when I’m around?” Paws asked.
“Something like that,” said Greer.
We said our goodbyes to the guys in the parking lot. Greer and Deacon kissed, while Charlie said to Hansen, “I’ll be reading your article in the morning. Better be good.”
“When is it ever not?” Hansen grinned.
Charlie took a step back, not expecting mouthiness. “It’s always good.”
“You really think so?” Hansen asked. He wasn’t expecting honesty or her high opinion.
Tonight, at last, their relationship had taken a step beyond bantering mistrust on Charlie’s side and patient forbearance on Hansen’s.
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