Paper-Thin Alibi

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  Jo could agree on that point at least, as her wooden smile turned to granite.

  “Amazing.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Fortunately for Jo, the arrival of a deliveryman drew Linda back to her own stall, where she remained to unpack the large box that had just arrived. Jo watched for a few moments, still unable to believe her incredibly bad luck. Of all the booths she could have been assigned, here she was within spitting distance – a phrase that made Jo salivate – of possibly the last person in the world she’d ever hoped to encounter again.

  Linda was looking good, though, Jo had to give her that. She wore a youthfully styled jacket and pants that made her look in her mid-twenties rather than what Jo knew to be close to her own age of thirty-six. Her hair was still blonde, having been lightened from her natural brunette shortly after Jo first met her, and was tossed in a casual style that was quite flattering. Her makeup was understated, but knowing Linda, had probably been studiously chosen and meticulously applied.

  Jo intensely disliked the woman, but couldn’t deny her skill in personal presentation. As far as jewelry design, however, she honestly was amazed at Linda’s claim to regular participation at Michicomi, aware as she was of Linda’s shortcomings in that department. Was Michicomi less selective than she’d been led to believe? Or was something else involved there?

  Jo turned away, not willing to go down that road. There was no point wasting any more time on the woman. Linda’s appearance at Michicomi was a definite downer, but Jo couldn’t let it affect her own Michicomi experience. She had invested too much in it. Besides, she had a lot still to do on her booth before Russ showed up to take her to dinner.

  That thought brought up a smile and she felt her good spirits return. Jo had begun seeing Russ Morgan a few weeks ago, a fact that continued to surprise her, considering how they had met – over a dead body - and how rockily their relationship had progressed from the first. A lieutenant in Abbotsville’s small police force, Russ and Jo had their head-butting moments, but over it all had hung a definite attraction. Jo tried to deny it for a long time, unwilling to allow herself to move in that direction while still feeling Mike’s loss keenly, until the attraction finally grew too strong to ignore.

  “How’re you doing here?” A voice, this time male and much friendlier, interrupted Jo a second time. She looked up to see a pleasant faced, white-haired man in a loose brown cardigan sweater over slouchy pants. He held out his hand. “Gabriel Stubbins. Most folks just call me Gabe.”

  “Hi Gabe,” Jo shook his hand. “Jo McAllister.”

  “Mine’s the wooden toy set-up over there.” Gabe jerked his head toward the adjoining booth. “Been coming to these festivals close on to twenty years. This your first?”

  “It’s my first time at Michicomi, though I’ve been to one or two smaller shows in the North East.”

  “Thought I hadn’t seen you before. You get to know people after a while. Some of us become pretty good friends.” He grinned. “We’re a lot like circus folk.”

  Jo hadn’t thought of it that way, but realized that must be true, with all the traveling required for the more regular vendors. “I’m sure that makes a difference, when you’re away from home a lot.”

  “Sure does. A few of us bring along the family, but for the rest, we become family, at least for two, three days. Makes the off-hours a lot easier. Where’re you from?”

  Jo had to think about that a moment. Abbotsville? Where she still occasionally needed directions to find her way around? New York? Where she and Mike had lived and worked during their all-too-few years of marriage? One of the many places she had lived growing up, as her dad’s job moved them about? Gabe, however, wasn’t asking for her life history.

  “Abbotsville,” she decided. “It’s a small town just down ---”

  “Down Route 30, isn’t it? Been there once or twice. Very nice little place. I’m from Pennsylvania, myself. Bought a little farm near Harrisburg that the wife runs, mostly.” He smiled. “But I’ll tell you more about that when you have time. I see you’ve got a few things to do. Just wanted to say ‘hi, neighbor’. If you need help, just give a holler.”

  “Thanks, Gabe.” Jo watched her new acquaintance wander off, stopping to greet other vendors at several booths along the way. She noticed, though, that he had skipped Linda’s booth. Interesting, since they both mentioned being in Michicomi shows often.

  Jo turned back to her jewelry, eventually getting the last of it arranged as she wanted. She started to move out into the aisle for a final check, then remembered the colorful tissue paper flowers she’d made and had carefully packed into their own container. She scrambled through the boxes to find them, then looked about her to find the perfect spots to set them. Overhead, she decided. Hanging from the overhead beam that held her booth number, the flowers would both brighten and frame her area, turning gracefully on their strings with the air currents. She pulled a folding chair over to stand on and hung away, then stepped out into the aisle to gauge the total effect.

  Not bad, she thought, feeling quite pleased.

  “Good luck getting any customers with that set-up,” Linda’s voice interrupted Jo’s reverie.

  Jo clenched her jaw, and turned to see Linda standing beneath a small computer monitor that she had set on an upper corner shelf of her booth. It ran a narrated video of Linda demonstrating her various jewelry-making techniques – with musical background.

  “That’s very impressive,” Jo said.

  “Oh, it’s just one of –” Linda stopped, her attention caught by something to Jo’s left.

  Jo followed the gaze to see Russ Morgan making his way through the crowded aisle toward her. Out of uniform, he was dressed simply in a grey, v-neck sweater and slacks, but his height and dark good looks made him stand out in the throng. Jo’s heart did a little flip, particularly when he spotted her and smiled.

  “Hi,” he said, coming up and greeting her with a quick peck on the cheek. “Am I too early?”

  “Not at all. Perfect timing. Do you mind helping me get these packing boxes out of here, though?”

  “Well,” Linda broke in, “you certainly didn’t waste much time, did you?”

  Jo felt her cheeks flame, which Russ thankfully couldn’t see, having turned toward Linda.

  She reached her hand out to him, smiling widely. “Linda Weeks. Jo and I know each other from way back.”

  Russ shook her hand. “Russ Morgan. Nice to meet you.”

  “Oh, very nice to meet you.”

  “Russ,” Jo interrupted, “can you grab these bigger boxes over here? I think I can get the rest.”

  Russ turned back, giving Jo a quizzical look, but said, “Sure.” He loaded up, and Jo grabbed her own batch and followed him after first spreading a large tarp over her merchandise, glad that she had been able to compact the empty boxes enough to avoid making a return trip under Linda’s watchful gaze.

  They pushed through the plastic-hung door and headed down the alleyway to deposit their light but bulky loads in Jo’s trunk and back seat. After a brief discussion, they agreed Jo would follow Russ to the restaurant, which would allow her to continue on directly home afterwards. It had been a hectic few days for Jo, and she’d have to get an early start for the opening of the festival the next day. She was doubly grateful, therefore, to be able to enjoy a precious few moments with Russ over a quiet dinner.

  Giorgio’s was an easy fifteen minute drive beyond the gates of the county fair grounds. Once settled within its muted, Tuscan-like atmosphere, Jo and Russ chose and ordered their dinners, then leaned back comfortably in their chairs to sip at Pinot Noir and nibble crusty warm bread. Russ asked a few questions about Michicomi, and Jo filled him in with as much as she knew about it, including its reason for existence, which was to create a venue for artists and craftspeople like herself to reach a wider market.

  “The fees we pay go largely to the overhead costs of running the festival, along with publicity and promotion. The organizers are car
eful about who they allow in to the shows, so that the public is guaranteed to find a high quality of merchandise. Which makes me wonder… well, never mind.”

  With the uncanny way he had of sometimes seeming to read her mind, Russ asked, “That woman I met, Linda Weeks. How do you know each other?”

  Jo sighed, but held off responding when the waiter appeared, setting down their orders of Chicken Marsala and shrimp-stuffed ravioli. Her ravioli dish smelled wonderful and she was reluctant to cut into her enjoyment of it with less-than-pleasant talk. But after savoring a first bite or two, she launched into the history between Linda and herself.

  “We knew each other up in New York,” Jo said, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. “We both made jewelry and placed it with many of the same consigners, so it was inevitable that we’d run into each other. At first she seemed perfectly nice, and we started sharing an occasional lunch. I introduced her to Mike and some of our friends.

  “But Linda wasn’t having as much success with her jewelry as I was, and I guess it started eating at her. She complained to me about being dropped by a certain gallery, and she seemed to want my opinion as to what she was doing wrong. But when I ventured suggestions such as thinking of her potential customers and what they might want rather than satisfying her own creativity, or working on one or two technical problems I had noticed, she didn’t take it well.”

  “The old ‘let me complain, but don’t offer any solutions’ routine, huh?”

  “Pretty much. So we drifted apart, which was okay with me until I started hearing about things she was saying about me – really negative things - to the people I was doing business with. Things like claiming I had copied her best ideas, or that I was showing signs of a major addiction problem!”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Right.” Jo took a soothing sip of her wine. “I guess she decided that her best way up was by pulling me down.”

  “Did it work?”

  “It started to. My business dropped off, and I lost a couple of gallery placements with no explanation. I didn’t know what to do to defend myself. I was furious, of course, largely from the helplessness I felt. Then I decided to just let it ride, do my work as I always had, and hope that people would eventually see the truth of things and that Linda would be seen for what she was.”

  “Probably the best mode of action. How did that go?”

  “Very well, thank goodness, due quite a bit to my regular customers who asked for my jewelry. Over time I began to hear that Linda’s business might be suffering, but I didn’t ask any questions or, tempting though it was, take any satisfaction in it.

  “The last time I saw her was at a large Christmas party. She tried to pretend we were still friends, but the best I could do was be civil.” Jo decided not to mention how outrageously Linda had behaved later that night after a few drinks, catching Mike in an isolated area and flirting boldly enough that Mike told Jo he ended up having to strong-arm her off of him. That had been Linda’s final, desperate effort to hurt Jo, and it might have worked if Mike had been less of the man he was.

  Jo thought of Linda’s flirtatious behavior with Russ earlier that evening with annoyance. It was going to be a long weekend, she realized. And not nearly what she had envisioned.

  “Would you like to see the dessert menu?” a mustached waiter asked, pulling Jo from her musings. He held a slim leather-covered menu forward invitingly.

  Jo shook her head. “No, thank you, but I’d love some coffee.”

  Russ asked for the same, and, after the waiter took off with their empty plates, reached out to cover Jo’s hand with his own large one. He didn’t say a word, but Jo felt the empathy in that gesture and cherished it. Russ’s entry into her life had made such a huge difference, raising her happiness level enormously. She had never expected to feel again what she was now.

  But that also worried her. Was she rushing into something too soon, being disloyal somehow to Mike? Linda’s comment about how Jo hadn’t wasted much time had stung for that very reason. Jo didn’t think Mike would want her to spend her life mourning him. But was opening her heart to someone new somehow saying that she loved Mike less? And was she being unfair to Russ, leading him on while being so uncertain?

  “Something wrong?” Russ asked.

  “No.” Jo said, changing her thoughtful frown into a smile.

  No, not wrong. Just terribly perplexing.

  CHAPTER 3

  Jo arrived at Michicomi for the start of the craft festival the next morning excited, but also nervous. The excitement came, of course, from the fantastic opportunity she had for showing her jewelry to a broad, new customer base. But nervous questions wove their way through. What if she had miscalculated the tastes of the people who would come to this show? What if they thought her designs were unoriginal, or perhaps too original, or worst of all, too expensive?

  Topping those worries, though, was the thought of spending the next three days in such close proximity to Linda. Jo’s only hope of getting through it was by both of them being kept so busy that neither would have time to spare a thought on the other.

  If the crowds are thin, Jo thought, and they ended up staring across the aisle at each other for three days, who knew what might happen? She suddenly pictured Linda pea-shooting seed pearls at her, then ducking as Jo lobbed half-pound pendants back in retaliation, and chuckled. Things surely wouldn’t sink to that level. They were both mature adults, professionals who could put their personal grievances aside while on the job. Weren’t they?

  Jo pulled into a spot near where she had parked the day before, and climbed out. The early morning air was crisp, but had been predicted to warm up nicely later on. She picked up tempting aromas wafting from the food vendors’ area – coffee and cinnamon rolls, which would likely change to smoky barbeque and hamburgers as lunchtime approached. She had brought along her own thermos of coffee to sip from in the early hours, but hoped to pick up a lunch treat when she had a chance.

  “Morning!” A wild-haired, bearded man dressed in beaded smock, faded jeans and boots called out as he headed away from his rust-spotted VW camper. Unlike Gabe Stubbins, who had likened the craft vendors to circus folk, what popped into Jo’s mind as she returned the man’s friendly greeting was aging hippie. And he was not the first she’d seen who would fit that description, though there was such a variety of people manning booths at the festival that Jo knew she’d rapidly run out of labels if she even tried to categorize them. The only universal label, she decided, would be friendly, and that was further confirmed as she made her way into building 10 and through the deluge of greetings and nods.

  There was definitely an air of excited anticipation as people made last-minute adjustments to their booths and waited for the first festival attendees to arrive. As Jo came to Gabe’s booth, he looked up from the brightly painted wooden merry-go-round he was examining and smiled broadly at her.

  “Good luck to you!” he said.

  “And to you,” Jo answered, glancing over his colorful wares with pleasure. Was there someone she could buy one of these delightful toys for, she wondered? Carrie’s children were way beyond them. And her little namesake, Jo Ramirez, was still struggling just to turn over. Maybe by Christmas, though…?

  Jo’s pleasant thoughts vanished as she caught sight of Linda, who was carefully adjusting the sound on her computer video. Jo slipped quietly into her own booth, hoping to avoid detection for as long as possible. She dropped her coffee thermos in a back corner and got to work removing and folding the protective tarp, setting up her cash and credit drawer and unlocking her display cases.

  Thankfully, Linda remained preoccupied with her own concerns until the clock reached nine and the sound of early-bird shoppers arriving reached Jo’s ears. Before long people began trickling into building 10 from the entrance Jo had come through, the one closest to the main pathway. They moved up the aisle from booth to booth, and Jo waited, shifting foot to foot, adjusting her showcase items by millimeters. It had been a long tim
e since her jewelry had been put to the test.

  “No need to worry,” Linda called across to her, obviously picking up on Jo’s butterflies. “There will always be people who get so carried away with the excitement of the show that they’ll buy just about anything. Even Roy Perkins, who makes those God-awful ceramic trolls, unloads a lot of his stuff.”

  Jo nodded stiffly. “Good for him.”

  Two women, clearly mother and daughter with identical curly hairdos and matching rounded shapes came up to Linda’s booth, and Jo watched Linda turn on the charm. Happily she didn’t have to watch very long, as a few people approached her own cases, and Jo found herself busily pointing out various pieces and explaining the materials she had used. She made one small sale – a pair of simple hoop earrings – and got one or two encouraging promises of coming back, ‘once we’ve seen everything’.

  Little by little the crowd grew, and Jo eventually found herself too busy to even think of reaching for her coffee thermos. The shoppers who came to her booth – mostly women – were unfailingly pleasant to deal with, many telling her stories of family members they wanted a gift for or what particular occasion they needed a special necklace or bracelet to wear to. Even if they didn’t buy, they complimented her work sincerely, and often carried away her business card for future reference. Jo’s earlier fears began to subside.

  Then, as she was writing up the sale of an amber-studded necklace for an elderly woman who had chatted at some length to Jo about the interesting pieces of jewelry her numerous late sisters had owned, Jo heard Linda calling to two women who were waiting patiently for Jo’s attention after having closely examined several silver items.