by Jess Lourey
Sunder is a Minnesota treasure who loves and respects the land he’s grown up on. He can track a deer for miles over dry ground, catch fish with his hands, and make camp in a snowstorm. He’s a throwback to the pioneer days, when people didn’t own what they didn’t need. When asked why he prefers his frontier lifestyle, Sunder said, “Because anything else ain’t truly living.”
His launch party was well attended. Sunder plans to use the money he makes off his most recent book to buy replacement parts for his windmill and a new crossbow for his wife. He said he also promised his children, Hunter and Gathy, a new set of picture books. He’s currently at work writing his fourth nonfiction book, tentatively titled, Puff It, Stuff It, or Make a Muff of It: 101 Uses for Prairie Grass.
I wasn’t normally a fan of hunters, having found them to be a monosyllabic, selfish bunch in general, but I could admire a person who lived in rhythm with his world. I punched the “send” button and while I was online, began to search for information on Milkfed Mary, 1977, the year Janice had said she’d won the first runner-up title.
The Midwest Milk Organization kept a pretty schnazzy website and had a file for each of the Milkfed Mary pageants. Unfortunately, the files consisted of a brief press release and were entirely focused on the queen. Her runners-up didn’t get so much as a mention. Shelby Spoczkowski had been the winner in 1977, and the only two things I could definitively say about her after viewing the article were that she didn’t like facial hair—despite a head full of curly dark tresses, she was completely eyebrow-free—and mozzarella cheese was her favorite dairy product.
I was just about to e-mail myself a copy of the 1977 Milkfed Mary press release for later perusal when the cell phone Ron had forced on me jangled in my purse. A passing mother held her children tighter at the sound of Barry White’s voice, and I made a mental note to change the sex-drenched ring tone.
“Hello?”
“James. Ron Sims. You interviewed Henry.” It was a statement of fact, not a question.
“Were you just sitting by your computer waiting for the article to land on your lap?”
“Yes. I received the recipe article yesterday and realized you were sending me one a day to make it look like you were actually working.”
I smiled. He’d found me out. “You’re a putz.”
He didn’t respond. “What else did you uncover on Ashley Pederson?”
“I don’t have anything new. The other contestants are staying at a hotel, so I have to wait until they return to the fair tomorrow to interview them. I’m trying to track down the sculptor, but I’m having a hard time getting my hands on her name. And, last but not least, the butter-carvings will resume on Tuesday. Let’s hope the police were right and Ashley’s death was random and isolated, or this fair is going to turn into a hall of horrors.”
Ron was quiet for a couple beats. “We need to find out who killed Ashley. I think Carlotta knows what kind of poison was used. Call and ask her.”
“What?” I sputtered. “Why can’t you ask her?”
He didn’t respond. “And people here are talking about an older man Ashley was seeing. Find out about that.”
“Wait. What older man?”
“Right now, it’s just rumors. Get me the story.”
Click.
I pushed the “end call” button on my phone, the word echoing in my head. Rumors. The brutal side of small town life.
The thing was, there was a kernel of truth in every piece of gossip, which is why it was so dangerous.
Thirteen
With Ron’s directives still ringing in my head, I got up with the sun on Monday and headed to the Dairy building, escaping the humming gas snore that was Mrs. Berns and Kennie for the fourth morning in a row.
The first thing I noticed when I neared the building was that the security guards and the sprawling, makeshift memorial of stuffed animals, flowers, candles, and signs were gone. On the one hand, the cleared sidewalk looked normal and allowed fairgoers to resume walking past this area without being reminded of death, but on the other hand, it broke my heart how quickly the evidence of Ashley’s murder could be wiped from the fair.
That knowledge spurred my already-strong desire to find her killer. A woman’s death shouldn’t get swept under the rug so the fair could go on.
I peeked inside the Dairy building to see fair workers scuttling around like mad hatters late for tea. The place wasn’t officially open for business, but it looked like it would be in time for the passing of the crown ceremony tomorrow.
All police officers and yellow and black police tape had been removed. That boded well for the return of the princesses to the dormitory, and sure enough, when I entered the Cattle Barn, there was no uniformed officer guarding the entrance to the dorm. Instead, a teenaged boy attended the bottom of the steps, his face afire with pimples and hope beneath his cowboy hat.
He held out his hand as I neared, palm facing me. “You can’t go up there. I’m a Milkfed Mary bodyguard, and it is my sworn duty to keep anyone from entering.”
“So the princesses have returned? They’re back upstairs?”
“Just one. She’s the only one I guard.” His eyes were silly with love.
I wondered which of the newly returned milkfed sirens had convinced this poor Future Farmer of America to watch the stairs for her, and why. Best to trick him. “I know. She asked me to stop by.”
“Really?” His expression was puzzled. Clearly his instructions hadn’t covered this scenario. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“She told me to tell you on my way.”
He looked over his shoulder and back at me, uncertainty connecting the dots of his acne like a constellation. “Maybe I should go up with you.”
“You know she wouldn’t want that. She needs this time up there uninterrupted, or she wouldn’t ask you to be down here guarding the entrance. Right?”
He scratched his head under his cowboy hat. “I suppose.”
“Absolutely right. I’ll tell her what a great job you’re doing. This shouldn’t take more than a couple minutes.” I gave him a brisk nod and started up, trying to walk as quietly as a cat. A thought occurred to me, and I tiptoed back down. “It goes without saying that you can’t let anyone else up. She was very clear about that. If someone tries to get past you, holler.”
I’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time enough to know that it’s not a good idea to be overly present in the area where a murder investigation is taking place. If the police or worse, Janice Opatz, returned, I wanted a chance to spin a good excuse before they caught me.
“Understood.” He tipped his hat resolutely and turned back to face the crowd of cows, steadfast in his clarified duties.
I crept back up the stairs, watching for the creak I’d heard the first time I’d climbed them. It had been where the steps curved sharply to the right, but by sticking to the outside, I avoided it.
The door at the top was ajar, and inside, I heard huffing.
And puffing.
Rather than blow the door down, I cracked it slightly more. I could see movement on a bed at the far wall, but couldn’t make out who was on it with my one eye staring through a crack.
Behind me, I heard my cowboy friend say urgently, “You can’t go up there!”
“I most certainly can. I’m the girls’ chaperone. Now get your hands off of me.”
Uh oh. It was Janice. My heart quickened its rhythm. Should I rush forward and satisfy my curiosity or retreat and talk my way out of this? That was an easy one—curiosity was a vice I took great pains to gratify. I stepped into the dorm and marched swiftly toward the bed.
Two bodies writhed on top.
My mouth dropped open in shock when I saw who they were.
Fourteen
“Delrita?” I hollered. “What’re you doing screwing around with Ashley’s boyfriend?”
The petite blonde pulled her face off of Dirk Holthaus, the moose in a letter jacket that KSTP-TV had interviewed in front of th
e Dairy building the day of Ashley’s murder. Delrita’s hair was disheveled and her shirt was unbuttoned, revealing a pink, lacy, snap-front bra.
“She had something in her eye. I think I got it,” Dirk stammered, jumping off the bed. He fumbled with the zipper on his pants.
“With your tongue?”
“Yeah, I had to get in real close.”
“Forget it,” I said, disgusted, turning to Delrita. “Janice Opatz is on her way up, so unless you want to answer to her, you’ll find a place to hide me and Dirk but quick.”
Delrita’s mind was surprisingly agile when she was cornered. She pointed behind her. “The office. Janice isn’t allowed in there. I have a key.” She pulled it from her pocket, jumped to the far side of the long room, unlocked the door, shoved us in, and locked it behind her just as Janice’s voice came from the top of the stairs.
“Delrita? What’re you doing here?” The chaperone’s voice was icy. “The parade begins in ten minutes. All the princesses need to be there.”
“I had cramps. I had to come back for some aspirin.”
Janice’s clacking footsteps echoed across the hardwood floor. “You do look flushed. Are you sure it’s just cramps?”
“I’m fine. You don’t have to be all up in my business.”
“Maybe the problem is that I wasn’t paying enough attention to your business,” Janice said ominously.
Delrita didn’t respond, but I could hear the stare down through the thick wood of the old-fashioned door. Delrita must have won, because shortly, the older woman harrumphed and tromped out of the dormitory, saying over her shoulder, “Parade. Ten minutes. There’s news crews everywhere waiting to see the Milkfed Marys welcomed back to the fair.”
Sixty seconds later, Delrita opened our door. It was just in time, as Dirk was breathing down my neck. He struck me as one of those guys who’d mount anything that stood still for long enough, so I’d kept wiggling as much as I could while still keeping my ear to the door.
I stepped into the main room of the dormitory, glancing to the other end to make sure Janice wasn’t sneaking back. There was no movement, however. Only the lines of ball gowns and scattered makeup, jewelry, and hairspray, evidence of pageant princesses prepping for a parade, and the two rows of beds lining the walls, straight out of the dwarves’ attic in Snow White.
“What was that comment about?” I asked a smirking Delrita.
“What?”
“Janice saying maybe she wasn’t keeping a close enough watch on you.”
“Who knows with her.” Delrita shrugged, avoiding my eyes. “She’s crazy as a two-headed loon. Dirk, you should probably go.”
“See you later?”
“I’ll call you.” She watched him walk out and then went to make her bed.
“So, how long have you been fooling around with Ashley’s boyfriend?”
She fluffed her pillow and kept her back to me. “You mean Lana’s boyfriend?”
“I mean Dirk, that big oaf who was getting dirt out of your eye with his mouth.”
“Yeah. He was Lana’s boyfriend before Ashley stole him.”
I tried to figure out the logistics of that. Milkfed Marys were from all over the state and I didn’t think they’d have that much time to socialize with one another outside of the pageant, forget meeting and stealing each other’s boyfriends. “Where’s Lana from?”
“Carlos.”
Ah. A wide spot on the map about forty-five minutes from Battle Lake. It was possible that Lana and Ashley had crossed paths outside of the pageant. “How’d Ashley meet Dirk?”
“I dunno. One of those preliminary Milkfed Mary events last spring, I suppose. All I know is when I first met Lana, she was set on marrying Dirk, and then he started sleeping around with Ashley.”
“Did Lana know?”
“She’d have to be an idiot not to. We all did.” She rolled her eyes, and then walked to a vanity and sat down to freshen her makeup, her back rigid.
“And who knew you were sleeping with him?”
“That’s new,” she said. “We’ve just been messing around this past week. Nobody knows.”
I wouldn’t count on it. “So when you told me a few days ago to ask Lana about what Ashley steals, you meant Dirk.”
“Yup.”
I didn’t see any reason to point out that Delrita herself was a boyfriend-stealer. I’d already intuited that she operated on a different set of principles than the average person. “But I heard that Ashley was seeing an older guy. Dirk’s not that much older.”
Delrita’s shoulders clenched, but it might have been an involuntary spasm. “Where’d you hear that?”
“You know. Small town gossip. Remember that I’m from Battle Lake.”
“Mmm.”
She was definitely acting cagey. “So, do you know what older guy she was seeing?”
“Not really. Some of the girls thought she was seeing a guy working for the company sponsoring the pageant, but I doubt it. She doesn’t seem like the type who could pull in the older guys. She wasn’t a real deep pool, if you know what I mean.”
And a lot of older guys weren’t that good swimmers, at least when it came to pretty young blondes, but that was something Delrita would learn on her own soon enough. “Do you know his name? The guy some of the girls thought she was seeing?”
Her reflection in the mirror analyzed me as she finished brushing her hair and placed a silver, rhinestoned circlet on her head. The combs protruding from it disappeared into her flowing blonde hair, holding the tiny crown in place. “Not really. It was Swedish sounding, I think.”
Whatever she was hiding, she would not give up easily. I changed the subject. “Where’s Lana now?”
“Probably at the parade, which is where I better be. Can you help me into this dress?” She stood from the vanity, unbuttoned her shirt, unsnapped her bra, and dropped her pants with not a hint of self-consciousness. Clad only in a pink thong, she indicated a glittery strapless gown, probably as hot as a fitted convection oven on a day like today.
“How long do you have to wear this?” I asked, averting my gaze and stepping away from her to pull the heavy sequined dress off the dowel.
“The parades last a half an hour, and then we can wear what we want.”
“Do you think Lana’ll be free after the parade? I want to talk to her about Ashley.”
Delrita’s blue eyes flashed. For the first time, I noticed she didn’t have eyebrows, or they were so light as to be invisible. “Don’t tell her about Dirk.”
“I don’t care about Dirk. I want to know how she thinks Ashley got poisoned.”
“Probably all that stupid diet cola she chugged. Said it made her feel like a movie star to use a straw to drink it. That’s where I’d put poison if I wanted her to drink it. Anyways, Lana’s in meetings with Janice for the rest of the day to get ready for the hand-off of the crown tomorrow.” She stepped into the gown, and I zipped the back.
She kept talking. “That’s your best bet for talking to Lana—after the passing of the crown ceremony. She needs to stick around and be sociable. Janice said.”
All fitted in her gown, with her tiny tiara and blue eyeshadow, Delrita appeared as pretty as a doll. She smiled at me, sweetly, before heading down the stairs and toward the parade.
For the life of me, I couldn’t decide if she was friend or enemy.
Fifteen
The sun was ending its arc, sending shadows across the streets, when I finally returned to the trailer after time spent wandering the corners of the fair, weighted by the puzzle of Ashley’s death.
“Where have you been?” Mrs. Berns stood outside the trailer, bony arms crossed in front of her and her eyes accusing. She was wearing the same outfit she’d arrived at the fair in—Neil Diamond shirt with 3D chest hair, elastic-waisted shorts, tennies, sword at her waist. I’d managed to mostly avoid both Mrs. Berns and Kennie since Friday, and it appeared as though I hadn’t missed a thing.
“Talking to a Milkfed
Mary, eating some fried rice over at the International Bazaar, checking out the baby animal exhibit, cruising on the River Raft Ride, taking…”
“It was one of those metaphorical questions,” Mrs. Berns said. “You’re not supposed to answer it. You’re supposed to apologize for not getting here sooner. I almost left without you!”
“For where?”
She grabbed my hand and yanked me into the trailer. Over the door she had hung a banner proclaiming tonight, “Neil Diamond Rocks My World Night.” She pointed at it. “Didn’t you see the sign on the way out this morning?”
“It was early when I left,” I mumbled. Truth be told, I’d forgotten about the concert entirely. “You sure you don’t want to take Kennie? I need to do some follow-up work on my Ashley article.” I decided against filling her in on Delrita’s escapades.
“No, I do not want to take Kennie, and I forgive you for asking only because you’re like the village idiot when it comes to Neil Diamond. You have no idea what you’ve been missing, girl. Once you get a taste, you’ll eternally hunger for more.”
“Then maybe I shouldn’t go,” I said, hopefully. “I don’t want to set myself up for an addiction that I can’t feed.”
“Shush, and come along.”
I followed her out and to the Grandstand, trailing a few steps and acting like I didn’t know her when the security guards at the entrance to the outdoor stadium confiscated her epée. She attempted to persuade them that it was a cane, but nobody was buying. When she pretended to cry, the head guard promised her she could pick it up after the show.
Inside the amphitheater, I was floored by the massive crowd, thousands of people of all ages coming together for the open-air Neil Diamond concert. The crowd appeared predominantly female and aged fifty or older, and all around the amphitheater their eyes glittered with fanaticism, reflecting the stage lights.
