Calamity at the Carnival

by London Lovett

  "I don't go for those silly things like fortunes and card reading, but my brother enjoys learning about extra sensory perception. My mother and I thought he might enjoy having his fortune told, so we went into the tent just to make an appointment and pay in advance for his fortune. It was just sort of a gag but also something we thought he'd enjoy."

  "How fun!" I said excitedly. "What a great gift idea, a way to congratulate him on his engagement. Did he have his fortune told? I would love to hear if it was good news about his future."

  We were back to her squirming uncomfortably on the chair and fidgeting with the notebook. "I think she just told him some random nonsense. Those psychics have a few practiced answers for everyone to make it look real." She flipped the notebook shut and opted for the more believable prop, the telephone. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to make some calls."

  "Of course and thank you." I was out of ideas to press her on more information. I reluctantly turned and walked out of the office. I was about to rank my adventure as only a nominal success when an expensive sedan pulled into the lot. The windows were tinted so dark, it was impossible to see the driver, but when the car continued through the lot and parked in one of the reserved spots near the office, I was sure I was about to cross paths with Sutton Wright.

  The door opened and Sutton climbed out of the car wearing expensive sunglasses, his neon pink shirt and carrying a leather briefcase.

  "Excuse me, Mr. Wright," I said warmly.

  He lifted his sunglasses. "Yes, can I help you?" His phone buzzed urgently in his hand. "Excuse me," he said. He checked the text and lifted his eyes once or twice. I caught the twinkling of a suspicious gaze. It seemed his sister had sent him a warning text about the pesky news reporter.

  "I'm from the Junction Times." I fumbled for my pass, hoping I could salvage the situation. It would be disappointing to lose out on such a lucky opportunity.

  "Yes, well, I don't have time. I'm late for a meeting." He lowered his sunglasses and strode forward, planning to sweep right past me, only luck was on my side again this morning.

  "Sutton," a pleading voice called from across the lot. We both turned back toward the sound of it. Melinda was climbing out of a blue truck. She scurried on high heels toward the building. "Sutton, please, I need to talk to you."

  Yep, luck wasn't just on my side. I was wearing it like a comfy, old sweatshirt.

  Chapter 33

  Melinda hurried across the parking lot toward Sutton. She was so focused on reaching him, she didn't seem to notice me standing there until she was just a few feet away.

  "You again?" she asked.

  I placed my hands against the sides of my face. "Oh my gosh, I can't believe we keep running into each other. I mean, of course we've both been hanging out at the carnival a lot so I guess that makes sense. But I never expected to see you here." I chuckled. "Although, I guess since you two are engaged, that makes sense too. I was at your crowning and I saw your announcement." I realized I was talking ridiculously fast, but a plan had popped into my head and I didn't want to lose the chance to put it into action.

  I pulled my notebook and pen out while I rambled about the coincidence of seeing her again. "I hate to bother you." I shoved the notebook and pen toward her. "My ten-year-old niece has had a terrible cold all week." I looked at both of them. "Boring way to spend spring break, poor kid. But I told her I'd met the Spring Fair Queen, and she begged me to get your autograph. I would love it if you could just sign this, then I promise to leave you two lovebirds alone."

  She was so thrown off by my unexpected appearance and long, rambling speech, she took the paper pad in her hand. She reluctantly lifted the pen.

  "Uh, her name is Stefanie—with an f," I added.

  Melinda was even less friendly than our last few meetings at the carnival. She angrily dashed off an autograph and handed it back to me.

  "Thank you so much. I'll leave you two alone." I headed back to my jeep, which was parked a good twenty feet away. In those twenty feet, I'd found my suspect. I stared at the notebook and the hastily written autograph.

  Hey, Stefanie. Sorry you're not feeling well. Spring Fair Queen Melinda.

  The f in Stefanie was not the usual grammar school, manuscript f. It had a long tail, a fancy long tail, just like the f written in blood on Cherise's mirror.

  I hadn't even reached my jeep before Melinda jumped into an emotional conversation with Sutton. In a low hushed tone, he suggested they take it inside but she screamed no.

  "I can't go inside. I can't be in the same building with your mom and sister," she said loudly enough to make sure people inside heard her.

  I slowly climbed into my jeep, turned the key and rolled down the window on the passenger side, the side where the heated conversation was taking place. It wasn't like me to tape a personal conversation but something told me, I needed to record it.

  "I blamed that woman at the carnival, that fake fortune teller." Melinda waved her hands around and then crossed them. She paced around in a short circle before stopping in front of Sutton. He looked as if he wanted to melt into the sidewalk or, at the very least, vanish into thin air.

  "How could you believe something so silly?" she asked. "Everyone knows those psychics are fake but not Sutton Wright," she yelled. "The head of a big company but a complete stranger warns him that he's about to make the biggest mistake of his life and he breaks off his engagement." She smacked his chest and, obviously, feeling rightly ashamed, Sutton took it. "Then I find out it wasn't the fortune teller at all. It was those two conniving women, your mom and sister, who paid the fortune teller to lie. That's how badly they wanted to break us up, and it worked because you are a fool!" She screamed, then spun around and covered her face.

  Her dramatic scene seemed to be working. Sutton looked sympathetic toward her, almost as if he was thinking he'd made a terrible mistake breaking off the engagement. I couldn't see inside the office, but something told me his sister, Jane, was looking on in horror at the scene outside.

  I stopped recording and opened up a text box to Jackson. "I know who killed Cherise but don't worry, I'm safe in my jeep. You might want to watch this video. It sort of tells the whole story. And I was right about the bloody message on the mirror. It was a woman's writing." I clicked send and drove my jeep out of the lot.

  Sutton might have been thinking it was time to patch things up with his betrothed, but I was pretty sure that was not going to happen.

  I was only a block away from Wright Electric when Jackson called.

  "You are amazing," he said as I answered.

  "Why, thank you," My face warmed at the compliment.

  "I know Officer Reed had been focused on Ivonne and Cherise's ex-boyfriend. How did you figure out it was the Spring Fair Queen?" he asked.

  "I didn't at first. That handwriting sample was my best piece of evidence since I didn't get to see anything else the police collected. I was focused on Ivonne, the jealous wife. I even found a note she'd written to Cherise telling her to stay away from Carson or she'd be fired. It was her final warning, she wrote. The f on final wasn't elongated, which made me wonder if I was looking in the wrong direction. Calvin, the head of maintenance and the broken hearted ex-boyfriend, was my second person of interest. But his f didn't match either. I saw his handwritten to-do list for a coworker. Then there was the hidden hundred dollar bill, which just happened to be folded into a piece of paper with the Wright Electric letterhead. And that's where you come in."

  "Me? What did I do?" he asked.

  "You told me the story about Sutton Wright and his lucky hat and how his death made his son superstitious. Also, Melinda's friends, who I'm sure knew nothing about the murder, mentioned in a casual conversation with me that they had to look all over for her seemingly lost red cape. Guess where they finally found it?"

  "Outside the Lovers' Lane ride where Melinda switched the cape for Cody's sweatshirt?"

  "Bingo."

  "I'm going to call Officer Reed right no
w and see where she's at on the case. She's not going to be thrilled that she fell behind a reporter on this, but you really deserve the credit. Good job."

  "Thanks. Guess I deserve a lunch."

  "You sure do. Should we meet at Layers at noon?"

  "Sounds good. This detective stuff has really made me work up an appetite."

  Chapter 34

  It was as if the sun had come out to warm and brighten the cherry red picnic benches in front of Layers just to make the day even better. Jackson was running a few minutes late, so I'd ordered the Valentino for him, a fitting sandwich for the man, and I had landed on the Chaplin, with its layers of peppery arugula and turkey. Layers had so many glamorously named sandwiches and salads, it was usually hard to decide, but the Chaplin had popped right off the menu at me so the choice was easy.

  The triplet tulip poplars that shaded the eating area were heavy with sumptuous pink blossoms, and birds seemed to be twittering at me from every direction. I had to resist the urge to whistle a tune right along with my feathery troubadours. A dash of guilt hit as it occurred to me, while basking in my glory, that I hadn't checked in on Lana for a day. She had been avoiding texting, claiming it was laborious with one hand, so I rang her up.

  "Hey, Sunni, what's new?" she blurted before I could ask her the same.

  I was more than willing to talk about myself. "Well, let's see. I'm about to have a Chaplin at Layers with my favorite detective. I'm just waiting for him to show up. Ursula and Henry are lining up a guy to restore the wood shelving in the library. Oh, and I solved the murder of Cherise Duvay."

  "Yahoo! You should have been a private investigator. Who was it? The jealous wife?"

  "Nope, I'll tell you all about it later. I've got to wait for confirmation from Jackson that they've made the arrest. Just in case, on the crazy off chance that I have the wrong suspect."

  She laughed. "Did you have to take a harrowing carriage ride to find this one?"

  "Nope. I kept my nose clear of danger. How is your wrist?" Jackson pulled up to the curb.

  "It's still broken, unfortunately."

  "Let me know if you need me to do anything for the party. I wrote my article in just two hours, so I've got some free time." Jackson climbed out of his car. "Lana, I'll have to talk to you later. There is an extraordinarily handsome man walking toward me with a pink bakery box in his hands. One of the best sights I've ever laid eyes on, especially if my favorite chocolate mocha cupcakes are inside the box."

  "I'll let you go, then," Lana said. "Say hello to the extraordinarily handsome man for me."

  I hung up and couldn't stop myself from skipping toward him for a quick hug and to help with his bakery burden. "Lana says hello." I took a strong whiff of the box. "Do I smell chocolate mocha?"

  He stopped. "Is that the kind you like? I bought you their new sugarless prune cupcakes."

  I blinked up at him, clutching the box against me. "I hope you're kidding."

  His face broke instantly into a smile. "I had you there for a second." He leaned forward and kissed me. "That bottom lip was just starting to jut forward in a pout at the words sugarless and prune."

  "Who wouldn't pout at those words? They should be stricken from the language." I headed back to the table with the box. "I ordered the Valentino, just like you asked," I said as I slid onto the red bench. "Isn't it a beautiful, fantastic day?" I swept my arms around to point out the trees, sun and birds for visual proof.

  Jackson was suppressing a grin as he tossed his long legs over the bench and sat down. "Someone is happy about catching a killer," he noted.

  I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the table. The shiny red surface was hot under the midday sun. "So—did I catch one? Did Melinda kill Cherise?"

  "According to her very tear-filled confession, she was so out of her mind with heartbreak she didn't know what she was doing. Of course, she was still in a solid enough state of mind to plan out pulling someone else's sweatshirt on over her clothes to avoid blood splatter. Sutton was the ignorant fool in all this. His sister and mom confessed to paying for an arranged fortune telling session for Sutton where Cherise would inform him that his engagement was a terrible mistake. Apparently, they had never approved of the relationship."

  I sat back feeling even more excited. My entire theory had proved correct. "Maybe they had something there," I said. "After all, not that many people would resort to murder and a particularly heinous one at that. What's ridiculous is that Sutton actually allowed a carnival fortune teller to change his mind about his engagement."

  "True. That was ridiculous."

  The server brought out our food. My stomach churned in anticipation.

  I picked up the sandwich. "This crime solving stuff sure makes me hungry. I've been snacking on Myrna's pistachio nuts all morning and I'm still starved."

  We ate in silence for a few minutes, both of us enjoying our sandwich choices and iced teas. I finally worked up the courage to ask about Officer Reed's reaction to my barging in on the case. "Was Officer Reed upset that I'd been searching out clues for the murder?"

  He nodded as he finished a bite of food, then took a drink of tea. "I think her pride took a small hit, but she's great at her job. It seemed your last clue, the money behind the poster had opened up a new lead for the team. They were heading to Wright Electric next to find out the story behind the money. I'm sure the officer who searched through Cherise's meager belongings is going to get an earful about missing it in the first place. They were just glad to wrap the case up so quickly." He winked at me. "Which is all because of you, Bluebird."

  I wriggled my bottom and sat up straighter. "I am proud of myself, thanks. So proud that I might stop halfway between this sandwich and eat one of those cupcakes because I deserve it."

  "You certainly do. I guess you've got a 'killer', no pun intended, article for the paper. Chase is going to get another kick in the seat, eh?"

  I hadn't even thought about Chase when I sat down to write my mundane, vapid story about the carnival. "I'm afraid it won't be a kick at all. I sat at my desk for the longest time, fingers poised and mind racing with all the gritty, newsworthy details, but I couldn't do it. Cherise lost her life for such a shallow, ludicrous reason, and Melinda's life is ruined. One moment she's being crowned Spring Fair Queen and gushing to everyone that she is engaged to one of the town's most eligible bachelors, and the next, she's posing for a mug shot and searching for a defense lawyer. It was all too sad to write about. I just wrote a nice, nostalgic piece about the carnival. Parker will probably blow his stack, and Chase will wear a nasty smirk for the next month. But in the end, I think I did the right thing."

  "I think so too." Jackson's amber eyes glittered like gold in the sunlight as he gazed at me with a look that warmed me from head to toe. Without pulling his eyes from my face, he reached for the box, opened it and lifted out a frosting laden cupcake. "Here's a sweet for my sweet, the best darn journalist slash detective this side of the Smokies. And probably the other side too."

  Chapter 35

  The excitement of the day had finally caught up to me. I was tired and wide yawns intercepted each deep breath. I absently tapped the cup of hot tea sitting in front of me as I stared down at the envelope sitting on the table next to the tea. I had planned to open it in my bedroom, to read it in private, and if the news wasn't great, I could just not tell him. But after our last conversation, Edward made it clear he wanted to know more about his son, James. I wasn't sure that the information inside had anything to do with his son, but I surmised that it had something to do with Bonnie Ross, or Milton.

  "Well, what are you waiting for," Edward's voice carried across the room. "Neither of us is getting any younger," he quipped.

  "Yes but only one of us is getting older, and according to the tiny lines next to my eyes, that is me." I peered back over my shoulder in the direction of his voice. He was leaning casually against the doorjamb with his arms crossed over his untied cravat as if whatever was in the envelope
meant very little to him. Only I knew that wasn't true.

  "You're sure about this?" I asked.

  "I'm not unsure so I must be sure. If that makes sense."

  I lifted the envelope. "Not really but here goes." I carefully opened the envelope. It was very likely one of the last ones Henrietta Suffolk had filled. I pulled free the papers folded inside. The last sheet was a clean piece of paper folded over two older pieces of faded parchment. The printed ink on each piece of parchment was still fresh and clear, but the handwritten parts of the documents were faded and hard to read. One was a marriage certificate and one was a birth certificate. Tucked inside the entire set of pages was a half sheet of paper, a handwritten letter from Henrietta Suffolk. The writing was shaky and a little hard to read. I could only imagine how much effort it took her to write.

  Edward was watching me from across the room. Normally, he had no qualms about reading something over my shoulder, but he stayed a safe distance away waiting patiently to hear the news about his son.

  I held up the note. "It's from Henrietta Suffolk, the woman who is a direct descendant of the family who took Bonnie in after Cleveland sent her away. Shall I read it?"

  His nod was ever so slight.

  I cleared my throat and read slowly for him to hear every word.

  Dear Miss Taylor,

  * * *

  I understand you are the present owner of the Cider Ridge Inn. I'm afraid my eyesight is failing but I wanted to send these documents because I feel they are connected to the legacy of the inn. I'm a direct descendant of Carlson Suffolk, a distant cousin of Cleveland Ross, the man who built your home. An affair and a tragic duel left Cleveland's young wife pregnant and without a home. Cleveland asked Carlson to take her in. I am unable to find the birth certificate, but according to stories passed down through the generations, Bonnie gave birth to James Henry Milton in fall of 1817.