Blackwork (25 page)

Betsy shouted, “Costume contest, over here!”

An adult dressed as a wrong-colors Santa approached: he was wearing a green velvet coat and pants with black fur trim, white boots, and a big, black beard. “I told them just the winners, right?” he said to Betsy. He was wearing an enormous blue ribbon on his chest.

“Oh, no! I wanted all the entries!” She stood on tiptoe and looked out over the milling crowd. There were people in costume winding their way out. Two were already crossing the street.

“Costume contest, come back, come back!” shouted Betsy, between blasts on her whistle. “Come back!” She said to the Santa, “Quick, go catch the fairy princess and the frog! Get all the entrants, as many as you can find. Line them up behind the band with all the drums!”

“Right!” Santa hustled away. No, not Santa—what would you call him? She realized suddenly how clever his costume was. He had picked its colors from the opposite side of the color wheel, green being the opposite of red. So call him Atnas, maybe?

“Now, where’s the float?” There was just one float in the parade, put together by the Chamber of Commerce. It featured a sailboat with three ghostly pirates riding in it. The Hopkins band started to play and drowned out Betsy’s voice. She blew her whistle, several sharp blasts, and Lars appeared.

“Got a problem? The mayor’s here, in case you’re wondering.” It being a part-time job, Excelsior’s mayor had a tendency to forget even important events. He was scheduled to ride in Lars’s Stanley Steamer for the parade.

“No, it’s the float,” Betsy said. “I need it to line up, and I don’t even see it.”

Lars, who was dressed in early 1930s gentleman’s sporting costume—plus fours, white shirt with stand-up collar, broad suspenders, argyle socks, pinch brim hat worn backward—ran off and came back in short order with an elderly woman who looked near tears.

“What’s the matter, Myrtle?” asked Betsy.

“The tractor that was supposed to pull the float has a flat tire. And it’s one of the big tires, so there’s no spare available. The float is already attached to it with chains and some kind of electrical cord, and the man who attached it has gone somewhere, and no one else knows how to undo that. Plus, even if we could get it loose, and find a truck or another tractor, we couldn’t fasten it on properly.”

“Oh, damn. I mean, darn. No, I mean damn. Then I guess we’ll have to make do without a float. Can the ghost pirates walk where the float should be? That’ll be where the costume contest people are. Would that be all right? Where’s Lars?”

“Right here.” His calm voice was such a contrast to the panic Betsy could hear in her own voice, that it served to calm her, too.

“I’ll see to it,” said Myrtle.

“Thank you. Lars, I’d like you to pull in line behind the costume contest.”

“Consider it done,” he said and went away.

“Ms. Devonshire?” asked another quiet voice, and Betsy turned back to see a young man holding his shako hat under one arm. “We’re the Osseo High School Band. Where’s our place in the parade?”

Betsy consulted her clipboard. “You’re behind the Stanley Steamer, which is right over there.” She handed him his card. “I know it says you’re behind the float and ahead of the Stanley, but the float has been scratched and so I’ve moved Lars and his steam car up into its place. You got that? You’re behind the old car and ahead of those men with the folding lawn chairs.”

“I got it,” he said with a grin as he did a military about-face and marched off.

That left just the Men’s Precision Folding Lawn Chair Marching Unit. Their leader wore chinos and a brown pull-over, which turned out to be the autumn uniform of the marchers. “Summers, it’s tank top, shorts, and sandals,” he said, smiling. “Winters it’s parka and Sorel boots. But it’s funny how few calls we get to perform once the snow flies.”

There were thirteen men in the unit, counting the leader, each equipped with an old-fashioned aluminum and nylon-web folding lawn chair. Lining up four abreast, they did a practice maneuver, lifting the folded chairs overhead with one hand, twirling them once, whipping them down, snapping them open to sit down. Lift, twirl, down, open, sit, all in unison. They put their left foot on their right knee with military precision, then stood up, slam-closed the chairs, and began marking time, using the Osseo drummers for rhythm.

Betsy laughed for the first time that evening.

Diddle up, duddle up, doodle up, bam!
Off went the Roosevelt band, the costume contest entrants drifting behind them like flotsam in a boat’s wake. Lars let loose his Stanley’s shrill whistle, and behind him went the Osseo band. The Men’s Precision Folding Lawn Chair Marching Unit brought up the rear, its leader calling maneuvers out by number. For better or worse, the parade was complete and moving. Her job was done.

But nervous about it, she set off to follow the lawn chair unit as it paraded very smartly out of the lot and started up Lake Street toward Water Street. There were people on Lake Street, some in costume, waving balloons, jack-o’-lanterns, and those glow sticks that look so pretty in the near dark. There was a smell of taffy apples, popcorn, and hot dogs, and, suddenly, hot and fresh horse manure—and she hadn’t arranged for a street sweeper.

The front end of the parade was making the turn onto Water Street, looking smart, when suddenly there was an enormous rushing sound and a burst of orange light. Betsy gasped as an orange flame shot more than two stories up in the air.

It was Hot Air Express, lighting off the burner in its huge wicker basket. Without the balloon, the height and brightness of the flame was frightening.

The crowd screamed—and so did a couple of horses. There was a clatter of hooves, and the sound of human throats whooping amid the shouts and screams.

As suddenly as it had appeared, the flame vanished, leaving blue-green afterimages in Betsy’s eyes.

Betsy dashed to the sidewalk and began running toward Water Street. She could see Indian ponies skidding around the corner, their steel-clad hooves sliding, seeking purchase on the street’s blacktop surface.

Not hot ponies, were they? Betsy thought furiously.

Just then, the fire truck’s rusty siren sounded, and she could see a spectacular black and white pony, about to become calm, shy violently and almost fall before recovering and dashing out of sight.

With her chest aching, Betsy had to stop running. Something struck her in the face and fell to the sidewalk. She stooped to pick it up. It was a piece of paper-wrapped taffy. She looked out into the street and saw the green Santa wave and smile an apology at her. She nearly threw the candy angrily back at him, but caught herself. None of this was his fault. Instead she waved acceptance of his apology. He pulled some lollipops from his plastic pumpkin and sowed them into the crowd, whose members cheered, laughed, and grabbed, begging for more treats. Santa laughed, too, and disappeared around Lars’s big antique car.

Betsy stopped under a streetlight and called Billie on her cell. “Did you see the runaways?” she asked when Billie answered. “Is everyone all right?”

W
HAT a
great
idea!” Billie exclaimed. “But I wish you’d told me about it! Wow, they came running by like a war party on the attack! The kids were yelling and the adults just loved it! They circled the posse a couple of times, but now they’re riding back to their place in the parade. Wow, it was just terrific!”

“Um, thank you,” said Betsy, deciding she had enough bad news to share already. “We have a little problem, though. I forgot to arrange for a street sweeper to clean up after the horses.”

“Oh, cripes, didn’t Wee-Wee Willie call you?”

“Who is Wee-Wee Willie?”

“He’s a guy with a two-wheeled cart, a shovel, and a big push broom. He follows all the parades around here, even the ones without horses. I gave him your number, and I thought I gave you his.”

“I don’t remember seeing it, and I know I never heard from him.”

“I’ve got his number in my cell. I’ll call him now. He lives just outside of town, so if he hustles, he can get here in time.”

“Thanks, Billie.”

Betsy cut the connection and hurried up ahead to see if the Dakota warriors were back in their place with their ponies and if anyone had thrown a shoe, sprained an ankle, or worse.

As she trotted from streetlight to streetlight, pressing a hand to the stitch forming in her side, she wondered if the burner going off again would cause another stampede. One rush up the street was exciting; two would be annoying; three would cause complaints from the rest of the participants.

She heard the whistle on Lars’s Stanley go off behind her, and the pleased laughter it raised from the crowd. The Osseo High School Band was playing the “Funeral March of the Marionettes”—Betsy wondered how many people knew that was the actual name of the tune best known as the theme song for the old
Alfred Hitchcock Hour
. She wondered what kind of patterns the precision lawn chair marchers could make to that melody.

She caught up to the Hot Air Express basket on its flat-bed truck as it made the corner. The crowd here was much bigger, and many turned to stare uncomprehendingly at the basket. Betsy was about to signal to the man in the basket not to light off the burner when he reached up and pulled down a gray semicircular lever.

“
Whoosh!
” went the burner, and a huge gout of orange flame shot skyward. The crowd shouted surprise and approval, except for a small child sitting on his father’s shoulders, too close to the flame for comfort. He started to cry.

The Indian ponies reared and one screamed, but the riders knew their stuff and held them in place. In mere seconds, order was restored in their ranks. The leader of the band looked back at the flat-bed truck, saw Betsy, and gave her an angry stare, which, combined with his war paint, made him seem truly terrifying. She signaled at him to approach. Betsy had been a rider many years ago, and she should have remembered how frightened horses were of fire.

He wheeled his horse around and leaned down to ask Betsy, “Can we move back a couple of units?”

Good, they weren’t going to go home. “Yes, I was going to suggest that. I’m sorry I didn’t think of it when setting this up. How far back do you need to go?”

“There’s a band behind the old car. If we could move in behind them . . .”

“Yes, okay. Tell the band I said it’s all right.”

“Thanks.” He rode back up to gather his fellows and they clattered after him to behind the Osseo High School Band.

They were still moving back down the parade route when, as if celebrating a victory, the basket erupted again, to cheers and whistles. But the horses, having made their own point, merely snorted and danced a little bit.

One of them left a comment of a different sort on the street, and the multihued clown became extravagantly shocked, pointing and gesturing, while the green Santa made a comedy of stepping around it.

An idea that had been waving for Betsy’s attention finally got it. The opposite of black was white. The opposite of red was green. The opposite of lavender was yellow-green. The space occupied by a Mitsubishi emblem could also be filled with a witch’s hat.

And now she knew the reason for the dream about the galloping oranges. “Screwdrivers on the hoof,” she murmured, remembering the hospital corpsman jest from her days in the Navy.

The reason Shelly’s blackwork pattern looked familiar was because it resembled Billie’s. No, it was the other way around. Shelly hadn’t stolen Billie’s pattern. Shelly had been working on her far more complex pattern weeks longer than Billie, who only thought she dreamed it. Billie must have seen Shelly’s pattern in Shelly’s sewing room a couple of weeks ago.

Remembering how careful Shelly was to shield it from other eyes, the only time Billie could have gotten more than a fleeting glimpse of it was when she was in there looking for a place to put her dry ice.

Which must have been in pellet form, because Ryan stepped on one that had dropped, giving the sole of his foot the same kind of mark that had been made on Betsy’s palm.

Betsy pulled out her cell phone again and pressed the speed dial button. “Lars?” she said a few seconds later. “We have a problem.”

They talked for a while, then she called Billie. “Billie, we have a little problem. Can you meet me on the corner of Second and Water by the bank?” She cut off before Billie could reply, and when her phone began its merry jingle, she just shut it off.

A few minutes later, she was standing on the corner. Her mistake was in not just letting the worried look on her face stay there. Billie, crossing Second Street, saw her expression and started to frown, too, which alarmed Betsy, who tried to change it to a smile, which in turn alarmed Billie.

And when Billie looked around and saw Lars approaching with that cop look on his face—and another cop in uniform beside him—she turned and ran into the crowd.