Bedeviled Eggs (37 page)

Suzanne suddenly had a
mental picture of Kit showing
up in her red bra and panties. “She’s not going to wear
her
usual costume, is she?”

Toni shrugged. “Search
me. Or better yet, search her.”

“Not
with those skimpy clothes,” said Suzanne. “No
place to hide anything!”

They both chuckled,
Suzanne a little uneasily, then turned to look as a rattling truck and trailer
chugged its
way into their
lot.

“Junior,” said Toni. ‘With
the fire pits.”

Junior hopped from the
cab of the truck and grinned.
Spreading his arms wide, he twirled around, the better
to
show
off his red devil costume. Then he reached back into
the cab and produced a sparkling,
silver pitchfork.

“Good gravy,” Suzanne
breathed. Now she really was
glad Reverend Yoder wouldn’t be around to catch this act.

“Like my
costume?” asked Junior. “It’s guaranteed au
thentic.”

Suzanne lifted an
eyebrow.

“And it’s made of
genuine polyester,” Junior added.

“Don’t get too close
to the fire,” Toni cautioned, “you’ll
go up like a moth in a flame!”

“Where did you find
it?” Suzanne asked. Honestly,
where did one purchase a perfectly hideous red polyester
devil suit that had
the same basic construction as a pair of
long Johns?

“Dollar store,” said
Junior.

“Such a deal,” said
Suzanne.

“And I
got your fire pits,” said Junior. “Come on and
take a look.”

Suzanne and Toni
followed Junior to the trailer and peered
in. He was as good as his word.
Three low, round fire pits,
almost like flattened-out cauldrons, squatted in the
trailer.

“You made these?”
Suzanne asked, trying to ignore the
truck’s mud flaps, which featured silhouettes of
reclining
naked girls.

Junior
nodded. “Welded ‘em using a couple of oil
drums.”

“From your scrap metal
business “ said Suzanne.

“Um, sort of,” said
Junior, shifting nervously.

“Well, they look just
great!” Toni exclaimed. “Perfect
for toasting marshmallows and roasting chestnuts. Look!
They’ve even got legs.”

“I always figured that
welding class I took in reform school would come in handy,” said Junior,
practically
crowing over his handiwork. “It’s amazing what kind of art
you can create with an acetylene torch.”

“So here’s how it’s
gonna work,” explained Toni. ‘Ten dol
lars buys an orange bracelet, which gives
customers un
limited access to our food, cider, s’mores, games, prizes,
music, and the costume contest”

“And how many people
are we expecting?” asked Petra.
They were crowded in the kitchen, making last-minute
adjustments.

“Maybe a
hundred,” said Suzanne. “Although I suppose
it could even run to a hundred and fifty.”

“The Cackleberry Club
is the most popular venue in
town!”
Toni said, with glee.

“So maybe even two
hundred people,” Petra fretted. “I
wonder if we have enough...”

“Knock,
knock,” came a woman’s voice at the back
door.

“You’ll have to go
around front,” Toni screeched through
the screen. Then did a fast double take and said, “Kit?”

Kit Kaslik grinned as
she pushed her way into the
kitchen. Dressed in a white silk mini-dress, Kit had plas
tered Priority Mail
stickers all over her dress. On her head
was a veil made of bubble wrap.

“I get it!” Toni
squealed. “You’re a mail-order bride!”

“Oh, that’s so
creative,” Petra enthused. “And here I’m
just going to be plain old Raggedy Ann.”

“What’s your costume,
Toni?” asked Kit.

“Cowgirl,” Toni said,
proudly. “What else?”

Kit gave Suzanne a shy
smile. “How about you, Su
zanne?”

But Suzanne was
surprisingly mum.

“She’s not talking,”
said Toni. “It’s some kind of big
hoo-ha surprise.”

“That’s
right,” said Petra, “You’ll just have to wait and
see. And be around when I do my
special introduction.”

“This is intriguing,”
said Kit.

“Have to
wait and see,” said Suzanne, a sparkle in her
eye.

Toni
pushed two tables together in the cafe and laid out
newspapers. Then she
and Kit rolled up their sleeves and
went to work on the pumpkins.

“We don’t have much time left,” Suzanne
cautioned. The food was prepped, the cauldrons were lit, chestnuts
were roasting. In another thirty minutes their
guests would
begin to arrive.

“We’re only going to carve seven,” said
Toni. “Special ones to, you know, sit on top of those wooden stakes.”

“I like what you’ve got going there,” said
Suzanne, studying one of Kit’s pumpkins. It was a goofy face with a crooked
grin.

“Thanks,” said Kit. Then she gave a wicked
laugh. “I modeled it after one of the customers at Hoobly’s.”

Hoobly’s,
thought Suzanne.
Where Sasha O’Dell also danced.
And where her crazy husband, Mike, probably looked on with some trepidation. Or
was he feeling vindicated now? Could he have killed Peebler and Wilburn
Halpern and gotten away scot-free?

“How’s your friend Sasha doing?” Suzanne
asked.

“Good,” said Kit,
scraping away pumpkin pulp. “In fact,
I told her to stop by tonight.”

Suzanne frowned. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, I asked her to
help me with the games,” said Kit.
Then she made a nervous gesture. “I think she
might bring
her husband, too.”

Mike O’Dell,
Suzanne thought again.
I hope he’s not in costume
so I can keep an eagle eye on him. The last thing we need tonight is some kind
of... accident.

“How many games did we end up with?” Toni
asked. She glanced over at Suzanne, who was filling out gift certificates to
be used for prizes.

Suzanne tapped her pen against the table. “We’ve
got
Pin the Tail on the Werewolf, Wheel of
Misfortune, Vam
pire Ring Toss, and a Witches Pond, which is really a
sort
of fishpond for the kids. Oh, and the
costume contest. I
guess you could count that as a game.”

“Know what we should
do next year?” said Toni.

“What?” said Suzanne.

“Have a zombie crawl,”
said Toni. “Get a whole bunch
of people to dress up like zombies and then have
everybody
lurch through
downtown.”

Kit
chuckled. “They already do that. Every Saturday
night after last call!”

Toni glanced out the
window, suddenly taking notice of
a battered minivan. “Hey, our band just arrived.
We should
go out and show them
where to set up.”

“Got it,” said
Suzanne, pocketing her pen and tamping
her gift certificates into a nice, neat pile.

Toni looked at the
pumpkins as she wiped her hands on
her jeans.

“You go,” said Kit. I’ll
finish up here.”

“You sure?” asked
Toni, but Kit nodded sagely.

“Who’s the band
again?” Suzanne asked, as they t
romped
outside.

“Buckshot Benoit and
the Ring Tones,” said Toni.

“I’m not familiar
with them,” said Suzanne, somehow
doubting that this group’s musical repertoire had
ever made
it to serious
ringtone status.

Junior came hustling
up as they threaded their way
through hay bales, heading for the band. “Where does
the Wheel of
Misfortune go again?” he asked, waving his
pitchfork, looking a little weary.

Toni
heaved a sigh and took off with Junior, leaving Su
zanne to go it alone with the band.

But the band turned
out to be a friendly lot, with the
band’s leader greeting her effusively.

“Buckshot Benoit,”
said a tall, bespectacled man in
overalls, as he offered a hand. “Pleased to make your ac
quaintance, and
thanks so much for inviting me and the
boys to play.”

“I hope you have
enough room here,” said Suzanne.
There seemed to be five musicians in all. Two guitar
play
ers,
two fiddle players, and a drummer. They were all men,
all of an indeterminate age
owing to various beards, goa
tees,
ponytails, piercings, and tattoos.

“We’re just fine.”
Buckshot grinned.

“What kind of music do
you play?” Suzanne asked. She
hadn’t vetted the group and had relied solely on Toni and
Junior’s
recommendation, so she wasn’t sure what brand of
rompin’, stompin’ music they’d
pump out.

Buckshot
picked up his guitar and plucked a string.
“Rock, disco, old-timey, we play it all.”

“Eclectic,” said
Suzanne.

“Electric?”
said Buckshot. He shook his head, sadly.
“Naw, we just got regular old
acoustic guitars.”

Five
minutes later, Suzanne slipped into Junior’s clunker
and chugged her way
across the back field. It was time to
saddle up Mocha Gent and then ride him back across
to the
Cackleberry
Club. After all, she had a grand entrance to
make on horseback!

But as
she bounced across the rutted field in the dark, Suzanne’s party mood began to
slip. Low hanging clouds
had filtered in; blotting out what should be a full moon.
They
hunkered low and fretful, giving the night an eerie
feel. Adding an element of... danger?

Suzanne thought about
all the costumed revelers who’d
soon show up at the Cackleberry Club with one thing in
mind—dancing, eating, and playing games, as if they
didn’t have a care in the world.

As if nothing had
happened in Kindred.

But that wasn’t the
case. Two murders remained unsolved. A killer was still running loose. And
tonight, the
trusting folks of Kindred might even mingle unknowingly
with him.

A killer who was,
quite possibly, hiding behind a mask.

Suzanne,
Toni, and Petra crowded into the back office,
giggling and elbowing
each other as they changed into
their costumes. Toni was a slam dunk, of course. She just
tucked a
gaudy, embroidered Pepto-pink cowboy shirt into
form-fitting jeans and donned
boots, hat, and string tie.

“Cute,”
said Petra, as she struggled into her Raggedy
Ann costume.

“Holy buckets,” said
Toni, “you’re wearing red-and-
white-striped
stockings, too?”

Petra
stopped and gazed at her. “Do I look stupid? I look stupid, don’t I?” She
seemed like she was ready to
cry. “And I shouldn’t be wearing a polka-dot smock, it’s
just too weird.”

‘It’s adorable,” Toni
assured her, but couldn’t seem to
restrain her giggles.

“Aw crap,” said Petra.
“I
knew
it” All the last-minute
preparations had frazzled her confidence.

“No,” said Suzanne, “you
look cute.”

“Cute?”
asked Petra. “Or cutesy? There’s a difference,
you know.”

“What
can I tell you,” said Suzanne. “It’s a great cos
tume.”

“Really?” Petra
asked, fingering her bonnet. “You
wouldn’t just say that?”

Toni was nodding her
head like mad. “That bonnet lends
an extra special touch.”

“Group hug,” Suzanne
declared. “Everybody take a
deep breath and think only happy thoughts. Then let’s go
out and have fun.”

“Doggone,”
said Toni, wiggling her hips like a hula
dancer. “My six-guns are flapping.”

“That’s what you get
for having big guns,” Suzanne
cackled.

“Oh you!” said Toni,
punching Suzanne on the shoulder
as she shrugged into her black, high-collared jacket. “Hey,
what are you dressed as
really?”