The Christmas Fair Killer

by Amy Patricia Meade

  ‘When I said that you catering the fair meant there might be a crime spree, I didn’t expect you to take it as a personal challenge,’ he joked.

  Tish stared down at the ground beneath her feet.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tish. Policemen are cursed with gallows humor. Are you all right?’

  She shook her head.

  Reade waved Tish to follow him. ‘Come on. Let’s get you some coffee.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m OK. Really.’

  ‘You’re not OK and I’m not arguing with you. I have a thermos in my car. You can warm up and we can talk about the case in private.’ Reade eyed the scads of officers and forensics specialists scanning the campgrounds and questioning its residents.

  Tish allowed Reade to guide her back to his squad car, which was parked in a grassy patch just outside the camp area. Once inside, the sheriff started the engine, cranked the heating system, detached the cap from his insulated canteen, poured a cup of coffee, and handed it to Tish.

  Accepting the cup, she murmured her thanks and gave it a sip. ‘This is really good,’ she stated, the color returning to her face.

  ‘It should be,’ he smiled. ‘I got it from your café. Mary Jo filled this thing to the brim just before I got the call.’

  ‘The call,’ she breathed. ‘I don’t know why I’m reacting this way. It’s not like I haven’t seen a dead body before.’

  ‘No, but this one was particularly … gruesome. The medical examiner believes Jenny was killed by a shotgun fired at close range, but the injuries she sustained and the subsequent blood loss were far more extensive than those from any shotgun blast I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It was gruesome, but it’s not as if Sloane Shackleford’s death was any less brutal. No, I think this might be worse because Jenny was so young.’

  ‘Twenty-two years old. A kid, really,’ Reade commiserated.

  ‘A “kid” with a future. She’d made a name for herself in the troupe, and critics were certain she’d soon move on to off-Broadway productions.’ Tish drew a deep breath. ‘Now it’s all gone. Who would have done such a thing?’

  ‘Could be anyone. This area is secured and patrolled during the day to prevent a wayward visitor from breaking into the trailers. But at night, during the off hours, it’s the other way around. We leave this area in relative peace so as not to disturb anyone, but the rest of the fairgrounds are cordoned off and guarded to prevent vandalism or theft.’

  ‘Do you really think someone snuck into the campground last night with the intent to kill Jenny?’

  ‘No idea. I’m just saying that this could very well have been a stalker scenario. She was an attractive young actress with a huge online following.’

  ‘She was also an attractive young actress who’d generated more than her fair amount of jealousy within the group,’ Tish announced before taking another sip of coffee. The rich brew was going a long way toward making her feel semi-human again.

  ‘Jealousy over Jenny being touted as the star of the group?’

  ‘That as well as sexual jealousy. Justin Dange, the actor with whom I discovered the body, dated Jenny until she dumped him shortly after getting into the group. And Bailey Cassels, another young actor, made a move on her last night, only to have Jenny verbally chop his head off.’ Tish drew another long sip of coffee. ‘By the way, Bailey Cassels wasn’t in his trailer this morning. Or, if he was, he wasn’t answering the door.’

  Reade was pensive. ‘Hmm. I’ll have to speak with him about that.’

  ‘Also, the head of the group, Rolly Rollinson, is a bit suspicious. According to Ted Fenton, Rolly founded the group on the principle of equality; that all the players in the group would get their share of “star” time. He did a complete one-eighty when he met Jenny and gave her all the lead parts.’

  ‘You think he might have had a thing for her, too?’

  ‘Could be. It would be interesting to find out why he made the sudden about-face.’

  ‘But why would he want to kill his leading lady?’

  ‘Because, as I mentioned earlier, Jenny was going places. She might have been going there far quicker than Rolly liked.’

  ‘Gotcha.’ Reade nodded.

  Tish suddenly pulled a face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Jenny’s position under the table. It looked as though she’d been cowering in fear.’

  ‘Yeah, it did. Someone standing at your door with a shotgun will do that to you,’ Reade deadpanned.

  ‘Well, I just can’t imagine anyone in this group being capable of instilling that much terror in Jenny. Even if that person was pointing a gun, Jenny would have been shocked or puzzled at first, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t have immediately hidden under the table.’

  ‘I think that would have depended upon the circumstances. If, for instance, Jenny had already experienced a physical altercation with her killer, she would have taken the presence of the shotgun as a legitimate threat.’

  ‘That’s precisely what I’m getting at. Jenny was already frightened of this person.’

  ‘That’s a very valid point,’ Reade conceded. ‘It also backs my stalker theory.’

  ‘It does. And yet the stalker theory doesn’t feel right to me. I saw Jenny after the show last night. She was cool, haughty, a bit aloof, but one thing she wasn’t was afraid.’

  ‘She was also a talented actress.’

  ‘Granted, but to remain that calm and collected would have required nerves of steel. There was a sizable audience here last night. If Jenny had a stalker, that stalker could have been anywhere in the audience. Yet Jenny came out of her dressing room on her own, placed an order for coffee, spurned Bailey Cassels’s romantic overtones, and then walked back to her trailer, once again alone. That’s not acting, Clemson.’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough, but only if I get back to the scene. You want me to give you a lift back to the café?’

  ‘No, thanks. I have my car.’

  ‘You’ve had a shock. Are you sure you’re fine to drive?’

  ‘Positive. The coffee and the car heater helped a lot. So did the conversation. Thank you.’ She drank the last drop of coffee. ‘I actually hadn’t planned on going back to the café right away. I started the morning bake before I came here, and we were all so tired last night that I locked up without restocking anything. I’d like to get things in order before we open at eleven. That is, if we’re still opening.’

  ‘This is the town’s biggest fundraiser of the year. It’s also the one folks look forward to the most, so I’ve promised the interim mayor that I’ll do what I can to keep it running. Since the crime was committed in a non-public area, I can uphold that promise. However, if we discover evidence in any of the public areas, I may have to make a difficult decision.’

  ‘I don’t envy you your job.’ She sighed.

  ‘Really? There have been times when I thought you were trying to take it over.’ He laughed.

  ‘Come now. I just helped with a couple of cases,’ Tish replied sheepishly.

  ‘You did more than help. Your investigative skills were vital to closing those cases. I appreciate all you’ve done for me – erm, I mean for the department. I, um, we, value your input.’

  ‘Thanks. I doubt you’ll be receiving much of that input this weekend, what with the fair. I’ll probably be flat out the next two days.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bet on that.’ Reade grinned. ‘If I’ve learned anything from working with you, it’s that you never fail to surprise.’

  Tish and Reade stepped out of the squad car and walked back to the campground. In the time since Jenny Inkpen’s body was discovered, the sun had given way to a thick cover of clouds and a damp northerly breeze. Yet, regardless of rain, sleet, snow, and even murder, the show, and indeed the fair, must continue.

  Tish nodded a farewell to Reade and watched as he knocked on the door of the Fentons’ camper. Tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat, she continued on her way to the folding table to collect her now-
empty coffee urn. As she passed by Rolly Rollinson’s trailer, she could overhear him instructing someone to ‘get to Hobson Glen as soon as possible’ and to bring their ‘brother’ as he would be ‘the perfect understudy for the role of Sebastian.’

  Tish paused. Calling someone to fill in for Jenny Inkpen was an urgent matter if the group was to continue with the day’s performances, but why would Bailey Cassels need an understudy? Did Rolly know something no one else did? And was that ‘something’ related to why Bailey was missing earlier that morning?

  Not wishing to be seen loitering outside Rolly’s trailer, Tish hurried along to the folding table, collected the urn, and then went to check on Justin Dange. She found him seated in a camp chair positioned just outside the ambulance. He was enveloped in an emergency services blanket and sipping a steaming mug of tea.

  ‘How are you?’ Tish asked as she took up the camp chair alongside Justin’s.

  ‘Jenny’s dead. I just can’t wrap my mind around it. It doesn’t seem real.’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ she sympathized.

  ‘And you? How are you doing? You had a shock yourself.’

  ‘I’m OK. Distracting myself with my duties for the fair.’

  ‘Yeah, we’re supposed to go on today as planned. Part of me thinks we should cancel. The other part is happy to get back to work. That is, if your local constabulary doesn’t arrest us all.’ Justin gestured as Sheriff Reade stepped into the Fentons’ trailer.

  ‘Sheriff Reade is excellent at his job. He’ll find the killer and ensure there’s a minimal amount of disruption to your group and to the fair.’

  ‘Well, if you’d give Sheriff Reade a message from me, since given how you two walked over here together it would appear you have his ear and perhaps a few other things—’

  ‘Oh, no, we’re not—’ Tish began to set the record straight about her relationship with Reade, but Justin was too quick for her.

  ‘Tell him that he’s barking up the wrong tree with all this questioning.’

  ‘The sheriff needs to question the group in order to establish the time of death and to find out if anyone saw or heard anything out of the ordinary. For instance, did anyone hear the shotgun blast? Did they look outside their window and see the killer?’

  ‘Doubtful,’ Justin replied. ‘Kids were setting off fireworks all night. The sound of a gun would have blended right in.’

  Tish had slept soundly the previous night, but even she could recall being awakened on more than one occasion by the sound of fireworks coming from the direction of the recreation park.

  ‘You need to tell your boyfriend to back off—’

  ‘He’s not my—’ Tish again tried to clarify the nature of her and Reade’s relationship, but was again interrupted.

  ‘No one in the group could have murdered Jenny. They’re simply not capable of such a thing.’

  ‘Even Frances Fenton?’ Tish challenged with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘Yes, even Frances Fenton. I know she can be loud and brash at times, and I know she and I got into it last night, but she’s just looking out for my interests. She’s always been like a crazy overprotective aunt to me. You see, I was a theater major at William and Mary when I started with the group. While my professors taught me the history of theater and acting techniques, Rolly, Edie Harmes – she’s our costume designer – and the Fentons featured me in bit parts so I could build confidence. They had me designing the sound and lights for performances. They had me building sets. It was a totally immersive experience. When I graduated, I was tempted to move to New York or LA, but I found Rolly’s offer to make me a fully-fledged partner too difficult to resist. This had become my family.’

  ‘By fully-fledged partner, you mean …’

  ‘I mean that as well as having a say and a hand in advertising, bookings, and day-to-day management, I take a share of the profits. Well, along with Rolly, Edie, the Fentons, and Lucinda, of course.’ He gave a wistful laugh. ‘I haven’t thought of my early days with the group in years. You know, I had a huge crush on Lucinda in those days.’

  ‘And now?’ she smiled.

  ‘Lucinda and I are good friends. I never had the guts to tell her about my feelings back then. However, she knows about them now. We laugh about it every now and then. You know, “what might have been” and all that nonsense. It was Jenny who most recently had my heart, but you probably already guessed that.’

  ‘I suspected as much when you jumped to her defense last night.’

  Justin sighed in exasperation. ‘Stupid of me, I guess, given our age difference, but I truly cared for Jenny. If only Frances had known her the way I did, she wouldn’t have said half the things she said last night.’

  ‘If you don’t mind me asking, if you still had feelings for Jenny, then why did the two of you break up?’ Tish asked as delicately as she could.

  ‘Jenny was a complicated human being. I know that sounds like a lame excuse, but it’s the truth. She ran away from home when she was quite young, so she was used to being on her own and taking care of herself, instead of relying upon others. All of it made her seem hardened, in a way. But that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, I think she probably felt things more intensely than anyone I’ve ever known.’

  ‘Is that why you broke up, because she felt things too intensely?’

  ‘I got too close. She was unaccustomed to trusting people, to letting anyone see the person she was, deep down.’

  ‘What kind of person was that?’

  ‘A deeply wounded one.’

  Tish and Justin were interrupted by the sudden reappearance of Bailey Cassels. His dark hair was uncombed, and he was dressed in a heavy parka, flannel pajama pants, and work boots. A pair of dark glasses shaded his eyes and a series of fresh red scratches ran down the left side of his face. ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’ he demanded in a panic.

  ‘It’s Jenny,’ Justin answered. ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘Dead?’ Bailey shrieked. ‘How? When?’

  ‘We found her this morning,’ Tish explained as she stood up and helped Bailey into the seat she had just occupied. ‘She’s been murdered.’

  ‘Murdered? My God. Who would kill Jenny? And why?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask that of the claw marks on your face?’ Justin braved.

  Bailey brought a hand, absently, to his face. ‘I went for a walk in the woods this morning to clear my head. I guess I must have caught myself on some branches.’

  ‘An early-morning walk? I’ve never known you to get out of your trailer much before rehearsal. And those scratches don’t look like they’re from any tree I’ve ever encountered.’

  ‘What are you trying to say?’ Bailey’s tone was confrontational.

  ‘I’m saying that Jenny came down pretty hard on you last night. I’m saying that, in retaliation, you stopped by her trailer and gave her a piece of your mind. Things got physical. You grabbed her. She scratched your face in an attempt to break free, and you lost your temper and killed her.’

  ‘What? You’re delusional. I’d never hurt Jenny, let alone kill her.’

  ‘And yet she’s dead.’

  ‘Look, you’re right about last night. I did see Jenny and things did get physical, but not in the way you described.’ Bailey Cassels leaned back in his chair and nervously licked his lips. ‘I went to Jenny’s trailer because I didn’t like the way we left things between us.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ Justin sneered.

  Bailey ignored the comment and turned his gaze toward Tish. ‘My timing in asking Jenny to join me for coffee at your booth couldn’t have been worse. She’d just given a dynamic performance as the lead in a Shakespeare production and had no time to regroup, and there I was yapping at her heels like some needy little dog.’

  ‘Finally, something we agree upon,’ Justin added.

  ‘So I apologized to Jenny for my poor timing and told her how much I respect her work as an actor, as well as how much I enjoy working with her.’ Bail
ey fell silent.

  ‘Yes?’ Tish urged.

  ‘Out of the blue, she pulled me inside the trailer, shut the door behind me, and began kissing me. It was completely unexpected, but it wasn’t unwanted. I mean Jenny is – was – a beautiful girl.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘Things were going fast. She had unbuttoned my shirt and had removed her top and was about to remove her bra and lead us to her bed when she got all weird.’

  ‘Weird?’

  ‘Yeah, like hitting me and pinching me and biting me. Not fun or in a teasing way, but hard. I thought I’d done something wrong, so I stopped. That’s when she told me – not asked but told me – to hurt her. I gave her a small bite on the neck and a light slap on her’ – Bailey cleared his throat – ‘erm, bottom … but that wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted me to slap her across the face. I refused. I mean, I can’t hit a woman. I just can’t. Least of all a woman who’s half-naked and kissing me.’

  Justin leaped from his chair, overturning it in the process. ‘You’re a goddamn liar. Jenny wouldn’t have gone near you. Not for one second.’

  ‘But she did,’ Bailey maintained. ‘She was all over me until I refused to strike her. Then she got angry and demanded I leave.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Tish asked.

  ‘I tried to explain that I was incredibly attracted to her, but that I couldn’t hurt her. She didn’t want to hear it. She was furious. That’s when she clawed at my face.’

  ‘That’s it! I will not have you making Jenny out to be some sort of freak,’ Justin shouted.

  ‘I never implied she was a freak.’ Bailey rose to his feet and stabbed a finger into Justin’s chest. ‘You’re the one using that word. I simply said I was uncomfortable with her request.’

  Tish inserted herself between the two men. ‘What happened after Jenny clawed at you, Bailey?’

  ‘I did as she asked and left, but the scene haunted me. I tossed and turned all night. When dawn began to break, I took a walk. That’s where I’ve been since.’

  ‘While you were awake last night, did you hear or see anything strange?’