Liz Marvin - Betty Crawford 03 - Too Long at the Fair (6 page)

Betty leaned back, smiling “So all I really have to do is pay attention, smile and not fall over.”

“That is only the first part.”  Achmed laughed, “We’ll have table tastings for each category and those will be silent.  Each dish will be ranked from one to ten in five categories:  use of ingredients, fealty to its category, originality, presentation and taste but here’s the reality of scoring foods; you only score between eight point five and nine point nine because everybody will get their score so nobody loses by more than one or two tenths of a point.”

“Happy contestants who will try again next year.”

Achmed nodded.  “We’ll be watched, videotaped and photographed so there’s no cheating and most of the time we’ll know who is going to win before the tasting starts - however if either of us is pleasantly surprised by the taste of a dish put your pencil down in front of your card and I’ll do the same if I agree and vice versa.”

“What if I hate a dish?”

“Identifying the bad dishes isn’t the problem.  Now on to tasting.  You need to use your eyes, your nose, and your fingers – yes fingers, you lips, teeth and only then use your tongue.

“Involve all your senses in tasting and eating.  Did you know they did a study that proved people eat with their eyes?  If you only eat one meal a day it will be a big meal but suddenly if you eat two meals a day your eyes will demand that both be big meals even if your body, particularly your stomach, doesn’t need it.”

Achmed kept talking but Betty was lost in thought.  She was a big eyes/big portion girl.  She would skip meals and eat big, feel guilty and be unable to stop and it was all because she’d unknowingly trained her damned eyes to tell her stomach how hungry she was!

“How do you un-train your eyes?”  Achmed stopped talking and stared at her uncomprehendingly and then he laughed, understanding.

“You eat five small meals a day and you spend five minutes looking at your food before you taste it.   Just look at it.  If it isn’t appealing then find a way to make it the most desirable food in the world.  Then taste it, savor it.  Chew it. Let it dissolve on your tongue.  Feel it with your whole mouth, even while you’re swallowing”

Betty wanted to take notes but all thoughts of eating were driven out of her head when she saw Bill standing in the entrance of the tent.  He looked devastated.  She ran to him.

“There’s been a murder” was all he said.

9. Chapter 8

The Lofton Fairgrounds have always been contained on all four sides by a fence and not simply to encourage visitors to pay the entrance fee.  The tradition dates back more than one hundred years when several pigs were freed by some young hooligans.  The ensuing chase and recapture is the stuff of legends and has been the subject of many a Lofton Elementary School play.  The original wooden split rail fence was ineffective for pigs and was replaced by an oversized white picket fence that stood almost four feet tall. Only one or two sections of the old fence, now falling down and gray with age, remain. 

A similar event happened again in the late nineteen sixties when just about all the show animals were freed.  The police had blamed a group of out-of-town hippies who traveled with the midway selling macramé bracelets and necklaces.  They were arrested and spent the night in jail with half the town outside calling for their heads.

It turned out that the high school basketball team turned out to be the real culprits.  The hippies were released and after selling out their inventory to a very apologetic community they chose not to file a lawsuit.  Once the dust settled, the town erected a six foot chain link fence around the fairgrounds and added security guards and now video cameras to the animal barns.

Prior to the guards (and cameras) the animal barns were the place for kids to meet and hang out.  Back in the day ‘a roll in the hay’ really meant just that and the older Four H members always made sure to reserve a couple empty stalls near the back corner for use by young lovers.

For the last half century the new place to neck and pet was underneath the bleachers beside the reviewing stand.

Even during the day this was a place lost in shadows.  Thirty, forty, fifty years of trash lay under the bleachers.  Old newspapers and broken two by fours lay where they fell.  Presumably the rotted and broken supports were replaced by county maintenance crews although one never knew.   Only the bravest local teens or tourists sat in the upper seats. 

With the afternoon competitions over and the sun low in the sky couples slyly made their way by various circuitous routes known only to everyone past the bandstand, past the large gate used by vehicles and animals, past the reviewing stand to the bleachers.

The first to arrive was Gaylee Madison followed shortly by her beau Scooter James.  They found each other’s hands in the sunlight but Scooter had his arm around her waist at the first shadow and kissed her on the cheek once they were inside the bleachers framework.

That is as far as they got.  Gaylee pulled free, ready for a little hide and seek even if she had no intention of trying not to be caught.

Scooter caught up with her right in the middle of the bleachers and that is when they practically stumbled over her. Mrs. Johnson.  She was lying face down except her head was turned almost completely around and the side of her skull was caved in.  A bloody broken two by for lay beside in the bloody mud.

The teens’ screams could be heard clear across the fairgrounds

~

In her youth Marlee May had dreamed of dying of old age in her own bed surrounded by generations of loving family.  Childless by choice, she now dreamed of dying in her sleep many years from now.

In her youth she had no use for the lover’s lane side of the bleachers and wouldn’t have been caught dead seated in them but she had always loved the reviewing stand.  That was the center of attention. A place of honor and prestige.  That was where all the judges and dignitaries sat and all the blue ribbons handed out. 

She had never been a judge and only sat in the reviewing stand once, with her husband when his bank was being honored for ten years as a sponsor.  Even after she had caught the cooking competition bug she had not come to watch the results and only came to receive her blue ribbon. 

Until the pie eating competition today she had worn her ability to avoid such spectacles as a badge of honor but of course with her husband competing even on a lark she had to go and hold her head up.  She would never let it be said she wasn’t at her husband’s side even if he was embarrassing her.

She came to the bleachers now for one reason and one reason only:  the place was empty.  She had come there alone.  Marlee May had never seen any of the tractor pulls or greased pig chases but between spectacles there was a grimy solitude found only in such places – but only between spectacles. 

This was one of the few places in the fairgrounds where one could be solitary and along.  She didn’t mind the crowds.  Didn’t hate them. Didn’t need them.  She just didn’t care and she could afford not to care both socially and economically.  She was more than just a big fish in a small pond.  She was a sea bird.  Free to go anywhere inside or outside the pond.  The rest of the town could be fishies.  Big or small didn’t matter.  Birds ate fishies. Fish seldom ate birds and never ate the careful and powerful ones.

She had picked this temporary fortress of solitude to study her ill-gotten gains.  She had stolen something and now she wanted to have a look without being observed or disturbed. 

She opened her purse and carefully removed Addie’s old tintype with bandaged fingers.  The sharp edges had already cut her when she first picked it up and she wanted no more injuries.   The picture didn’t interest her but what was written on the back did.  In faded brown ink in elaborately cursive script was written a recipe.  The pie recipe.  The pie recipe was simple enough but she had never even heard of some of the ingredients.  She would look them up on the internet when she got home.

She knew that the pie couldn’t be recreated now.  Not because she had the recipe.  She had no illusions about that.  That little brat could cook this pie in her sleep.  Of that Marlee May was certain.  But everything had to be made from scratch and there was a lot of prep time.  There simply would not be enough time.

She dropped the photograph into her designer handbag, zipped it shut and turned just in time to meet a broken two by four swinging for her head.

A scream began deep in her throat. A growl, really, but it was cut short.  There was only a sickening thwack.  It didn’t hurt. She didn’t think it hurt but her thoughts were jumbled.  She spun, stumbled, fell.  The last thing she saw were the shoes of her killer beside her purse.  Then the purse disappeared from view but she no longer knew the words for shoes or purse or purse or anything.  There were only shapes that quickly faded to darkness. 

Marlee May’s body was found a short time later by a teen-age couple who, once they saw her, ran screaming for some adults.

~

“The state police will be here soon. And the county coroner. Hell this is a mess.”  Bill stood with his hands on his hips looking down at Marlee May’s body which lay just at it fell some twenty feet away.  Achmed and Clarise were working crowd control, keeping everyone back.  Wes finished putting up yellow “Police Do Not Cross” plastic tape.  A flash went off. Someone was taking pictures!  Betty thought about taking the camera away and beating the photographer about the head with it.  “If that was your brother or sister would you do that?” She yelled.  “Sorry” came the reply. 

Bill smiled at her.  Betty rested her hand on his shoulder and he patted it.

“Wes has the area cordoned off.  Do you want me to find Danby?”
 

“I wish you could.”

“But I can’t because it’s your duty to break the news to him.”

“And because as her husband he is a potential suspect.”

“He wouldn’t have taken her purse.”

Bill studied the body and the area around it.  “She did have a purse didn’t she?”

“An expensive one.  Designer bag.  Those have serial numbers.”

Bill snorted “A serial number on a purse?  Can you file them off?”

“Laugh all you want but the purse loses all its value if that number is gone and it is easily traceable if it’s not.”

Bill looked thoughtful.  “Any idea who the maker was?” 

It was Betty’s turn to think.  “Ask Mr. Johnson and if that doesn’t work check with Thelma and the rest of the gossiping grannies.  They’ll be able to identify the make, model and year.  Probably want to tell you about every purse she owned and what fashion mistakes they were and which ones went with which outfit and which ones clashed -

Bill held up his hand.  “I get the picture. Any chance you’d talk to them?”

“Oh no.  That’s way too sensitive for me.  Besides it might be one of them.”

Bill wasn’t laughing.  “Please.   They’ll pump me for more information than they’ll give me and it’ll take half the night.”

Betty couldn’t resist him and she really didn’t want to.  The truth was she would do anything for him up to and including interrogating the gossiping grannies. 

“I’ll meet you back at the cook tent.”

Bill nodded.  Wes joined him, out of breath and avoiding looking at Marlee May.  “Achmed and Clarise have the crowd under control.  Want me to find Johnson?”

“Yeah.  Take him to the cook tent.  Keep everyone away and don’t say anything to him until we get there.”’

We.  Bill had said we.  Betty pondered it as she walked then it occurred to her.  He would wait for the county sheriff and state police to show up.  Each would assign a lead investigator and they’d fight about who would be in charge of the investigation and try to push Bill aside.  Suddenly dealing with the gossiping grannies didn’t seem like such a bad deal.

But Betty didn’t have time to dwell on Bill’s problems for long.  Thelma was waiting just outside the tape.  “Waiting like a predator at the edge of a watering hole” Betty thought and immediately was ashamed.  For all her faults, Thelma was Marlee May’s friend.  Truth be told, Thelma did not have many friends and close family.  The news would be crushing.

Clarise joined her before she reached the tape?  “What next?”  “Get the gossiping grannies and bring them to the cooking tent” Betty whispered “and hurry!”

Clarise nodded once and was on her way.  Steeling herself Betty walked directly up to Thelma.  “Who is it?”  She asked before Betty had reached her.

Betty ducked under the tape and locked arms with Thelma.  “Come on.  Take me back to the tent.”

Putting Thelma in charge was a stroke of genius.  She cooed comforting words to Betty and shooed everyone else away.  Betty couldn’t have made it back to the tent faster if she had sprinted not; she thought wryly, that she was likely to be sprinting anywhere.

Addie was dumping one of two old wooden buckets filled with water into a huge old kettle sitting atop the large restaurant stove that Achmed had managed to finagle for them.  Her hair was matted and face glistened with sweat from the exertion but she smiled at the two women when they entered the tent.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” Thelma demanded.  Addie, to her credit, did not back down.  “There weren’t nobody here so I figured to stick around and keep an eye out.  I run home to pick more berries and brought back creek water to cook with.  It has more minerals and such and makes everything taste better. Least that’s what grannie used to say.”

Betty shook free from Thelma “How far away do you live?”

Addie looked at her shoes, dusty and scuffed. “Oh I dunno.  Mebbe six mile if you go straight and don’t bother with roads.”

“You carried those buckets of water six miles?”  Even Thelma seemed impressed.

Addie was bashful again. “Aww no.  Creek’s no more’n four and a half mile away.  Berry patch is even closer and I got enough to make a pie – that is if I can start to cooking them tonight.”

Betty cast a wary eye toward Thelma who only hesitated a moment.  “All right, fine. But only prep work. You can’t start making the crust or the pie until tomorrow.”

Addie practically jumped and her smile warmed even Thelma’s heart.  Thelma actually smiled back when Addie gave her a quick hug. “I need two more buckets of water before I can finish!” and the girl was off and running before either Betty or Thelma could stop her.