Shadows at the Fair

by Lea Wait

  Maggie wished they’d seen Susan; she would have felt better knowing what had really happened when Ben knocked down whoever it was. Whom could Susan have been arguing with? It could have been anyone.

  And Lydia Wyndham had seen Harry and Vince talking. That must have been an interesting conversation.

  “That was some rain we had for an hour or so this afternoon. Did you have any trouble getting your prints in?” Will was obviously trying to turn the conversation away from all the questions they hadn’t found answers to.

  “No; I was fine. I got unloaded before the storm hit.”

  “I got a late start driving up from my cousin’s place in White Plains and then hit bad traffic. Good thing I brought an extra set of clothes for the weekend; the ones I was wearing to set up look like sponges now.”

  “Lucky your inventory is mostly iron and tin and brass.”

  “Rust was the biggest worry today. But I got everything dried off.”

  They had almost reached the end of the exhibit buildings when they heard the screams.

  Chapter 12

  Die Abgotts-odoer germeine Baum-Riesenschlange (boa constrictor). Large snake curled around tree limb. German lithograph by Dr. Leopold Fitzinger, director of the Munich Zoological Gardens and the first to design a worldwide nomenclature for reptiles and amphibians. Price: $60.

  Somewhere a woman was screaming, over and over, a high-pitched voice without words, as though the screams had taken over and she had lost control. Like an animal caught in a high-powered trap.

  All over the parking lot flashlights and headlights turned on, and van and truck doors opened. Maggie turned and ran back toward the area they had just left. She stumbled once when her long skirt caught on a clump of dirt and leaves, but kept going. Both her feet were now wet; she could feel the cold water oozing over her toes. Will and Ben ran with her. But at least a dozen dealers got there ahead of them.

  Susan Findley stood with her back against a dark brown van parked in the middle of the parking lanes. She looked like an actress in a horror movie. Lights from flashlights everywhere pierced the darkness and focused on her. Her green dress had been replaced by a pink jogging outfit, and the flowered towel and white cosmetic bag she must have been carrying were on the ground at her feet. Her arms covered her face, and she was screaming. The scene was so unreal that it took a few seconds for Maggie to see what was in front of Susan.

  The body was on its right side, the face lying in a pool of blood that had already blended into the muddy field. The left side of the skull was caved in.

  “Somebody! Help! Get an ambulance!” Susan’s voice dropped almost to a whisper as the crowd gathered and her screams became intelligible.

  Maggie knelt down in the mud and tried to get a pulse, just in case. No one spoke; only Susan’s sobs broke the silence. After a long minute or two, Maggie shook her head, then she stood and reached out to hold Susan and turn her away. Maggie had EMT training, but that wasn’t going to help now.

  The group of stunned dealers parted to let Officer Taggart through. He took one look at the ground and pulled out his police radio.

  “Nine-one-one. We need an ambulance and police out at the Rensselaer County Fairgrounds. Stat!” He gave directions quickly. “Does anyone know who this man is?”

  Will was the one to speak: “His name is Harry Findley.”

  Chapter 13

  The Little Brothers, hand-colored engraving published by Currier & Ives, 1850. Small folio. Two young boys holding hands, dressed in red velvet jackets and long pants, surrounded by rambling roses. Typical C&I mid-Victorian sentimental engraving. Price: $95.

  It took only about three long minutes for the police to arrive, about four minutes for the ambulance, and about four and a half minutes for a detective to announce quietly but decisively that the Rensselaer County Fairgrounds were being sealed as a possible crime site. No one could leave without express permission from the police.

  Another antiques dealer had been murdered.

  Maggie was still holding Susan, who was weeping quietly. Looking pale, Ben stood to the side, next to Will. Lydia came over and patted Susan on the shoulder and offered tea; a man Maggie didn’t know offered something stronger; and Vince had already started arguing with the young detective about how long they would have to seal the site. Vince was expecting eight thousand customers to arrive at 10 A.M. Saturday morning, and by God, those customers had better be able to get in.

  Will went up and spoke with Officer Taggart and then came back to Maggie. “I’ve just asked the officer if it would be all right for both of you to come back to my van. He needs to question Susan, and probably the rest of us as well, but I think we need to get Susan away from this area. I have a cell phone you can use to call Gussie.”

  Maggie nodded. “Thanks, Will. Come on, Ben.”

  He stood still, looking at Harry’s body.

  “Ben, you come with us; we’ll call your aunt Gussie.”

  Ben turned slowly and followed, as Maggie helped Susan toward the row of vehicles nearest to the exhibit building where Will’s RV was parked.

  Will opened the door, and Maggie helped Susan up the step and into the tiny living space, which included two narrow beds and a small table. The low hum she immediately identified as a small electrical generator. It was powering a ceiling light and a small refrigerator built into a wall of stained-pine, louvered cabinets. The room wasn’t much longer than the beds, but it was cozy. The windows even had tiny curtains that matched the spreads on window-seat-type beds and some pillows piled in a corner.

  Maggie glanced at Will appreciatively.

  He smiled. “I taught woodworking, remember? And the home economics classroom was right next door. I spend a lot of time on the road at shows, so I figured, why not be comfortable?”

  She helped Susan down onto one of the beds. Ben sat on the other one.

  “Before we forget, we need to call Gussie; she’ll be worried, especially after she’s heard the police and ambulance sirens.”

  “Right.” Will pulled his phone out of its belt case and handed it to her.

  Maggie hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until she hit the wrong numbers twice. She took a deep breath and tried again.

  “Gussie? Maggie…. No, no, Ben and I are fine. The man was gone. But there’s been an accident, and the police want everyone to stay on the fairgrounds for a while.” She glanced at Will. “It may be all night, so you’d better go ahead and get some sleep. Ben and I will be fine. We’re with Will Brewer, in his motor home.” Maggie listened for a while. “Gussie, no, really, we’re fine. It’s—Harry Findley.” At the sound of Harry’s name, Susan, who had just been sitting quietly, burst out crying again. “Susan’s with us, too…. Yes, whatever we can. You take care of yourself. Do you want to talk with Ben?” Maggie handed over the phone.

  “Aunt Gussie, everything here is very bad. I’m scared. There’s a dead man, and the police are here, and an ambulance, and it’s not like on TV at all. And I didn’t get any pizza.”

  Will took over the phone. “Gussie, this is Will Brewer. We haven’t met, but I have the fireplace equipment down the aisle from you. Don’t worry. I’ll look after Ben and make sure he has something to eat, even if it’s not pizza. Maggie is going to stay with Susan, and we’ll all have to talk with the police, so it’s going to be a late night. You get some rest, because we’re all going to need a lot of energy for tomorrow.” He paused and glanced at Susan. “I really can’t say just now, but, yes, that’s the way it looks.” Another pause. “Vince is going to do his darnedest to make sure the show opens on time tomorrow, and you know Vince. It probably will. Okay. Just don’t worry. We’re all fine.” He paused, listening. “Of course. You’re welcome.”

  He put down the phone. “Ben, your aunt is concerned because you’re a growing boy and you may be starving. Shall we put some sandwiches together?”

  “I wish we had pizza.”

  “Me, too. But we don’t, so how does ham and cheese
sound?”

  “Do you have mustard?”

  “Absolutely. Couldn’t have ham and cheese without mustard.”

  “Okay. Thank you.”

  Will pulled out a small shelf that was hidden between two of the cabinet doors and reached into the refrigerator for bread, mustard, ham, and cheese. He deftly made a sandwich for Ben, adding a pickle and a handful of potato chips from a bag in one of the cabinets. “Soda?”

  Ben nodded.

  “Ladies? Mineral water? Beer? Cognac? Soda?”

  Maggie glanced at his supply. No diet soda. She thought longingly of the cognac, and then of the police questions to come. “Some mineral water would be good.”

  Will produced two glasses and the water, then gestured at Ben. “Why don’t we leave the women alone?” Susan looked up questioningly from the bed where she was seated next to Maggie. “We’ll just be right outside, sitting at one of the picnic tables, if you should need us.”

  Maggie nodded. Thank goodness for Will. Someone would have to be with Ben, and someone should be with Susan. She couldn’t handle both of them.

  “Susan, do you think you’re able to talk about it? I know the police are going to ask questions, but maybe it would help if together we think through what happened.”

  “Don’t ask me what happened! I don’t know anything! All I know is after the show I talked to Will for a few minutes. But Will really wanted to talk with Harry, not with me, so I took off. Let them cope with each other. I decided to look for Vince, but he was busy talking to his crew, so I started to go back to my van to change into more comfortable clothes. That’s when I ran into Harry. He said he needed to talk with me in private. I said, what’s the big deal? Privacy was never one of Harry’s priorities, you know? But he said it was important, and there were a lot of people around, so I said okay. I asked him if he wanted to come back to our—my—van, but he said no, he didn’t have time. So we walked over by the gates to the track to talk.”

  That must have been when Ben saw them.

  “What did Harry want to talk about?”

  “Nothing new. He just wanted to make sure everything was okay for the divorce to go through. I told him, ‘For this you bring me over here for privacy and the mud ruins my shoes?’”

  “I thought you said this afternoon the divorce was all arranged.”

  “It is. No problem. He was just checking. He gets nervous sometimes. Wants to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything. Some things we wanted to get straightened out before we signed off on the deal.”

  “He was going to buy your share of the business?”

  “Right. That’s what we decided. He was going to give me the money when we met to sign the final papers.”

  “What are you—were you—going to do then?”

  “Nothing different. Work for Art-Effects. Harry was going to pay me a salary, though.”

  “So instead of being a co-owner you were going to be Harry’s employee?”

  “Right. I’d have my share of the business now. In cash. That’s what I wanted.”

  But now Susan would have all of the business, not just half. And Ben had said “the pretty lady” and the man were yelling at each other.

  “So, did you argue?”

  “I guess we yelled a little. We always do. Sometimes Harry can’t hear anything unless it’s screamed. He wanted me to talk to some people and do some things I didn’t want to do. I have my own life, you know? So we had a disagreement. Anyway, we were having this private discussion, and then your pal—the retarded kid? He came racing up like he was going to put out a fire or something. So I took off.”

  “Did he knock Harry down?”

  “He might have. The kid was going full speed.”

  What if Ben had really hit Harry hard? Hard enough so he hit the ground but was able to get up and get himself over to that line of vans where…there were still a lot of questions to be answered.

  “Was Harry staying with Joe tonight?” It had just occurred to Maggie that she hadn’t seen Joe since the show closed.

  “Well, actually Harry helped pack the van and drove up with me. We’re still partners, you know. I guess he was going to stay with Joe tonight. I don’t know. Joe’s van is over there.” Susan gestured vaguely toward exhibit building one. “He drove over from Connecticut today.”

  “Was Harry going to move to Connecticut, then?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Did Harry tell you that? Doesn’t sound like him. Joe has a little studio over on Avenue A, and Harry spends some time there, and some time at the loft. Joe spends most of his time at his house near New Haven. That’s where his business is.”

  “You and Harry are still living together?”

  “Some of the time. When one of us isn’t somewhere else. But Art-Effects is in the loft. We’ve lived there for years.” Susan was still speaking of Harry in the present tense.

  “But you said Harry was gone! Off! With Joe!”

  “Yeah. I said that, didn’t I? Well, I meant we’re getting divorced. You know, legal commitment kaput. I didn’t mean Harry and I had stopped working together. Or loving each other.” Susan put her head in her hands. “This all doesn’t make any sense. Harry dead. It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Susan, the police are going to ask you all kinds of questions. Do you have any idea who might have killed Harry? Did he have any enemies?”

  “That’s a joke. I mean, Harry wasn’t always the nicest guy. To me he was, of course, and to Joe.”

  Right. And simultaneously. Why wouldn’t everyone love a guy with that much charm?

  “Business is business. There were times when Harry had a chance to make a few bucks, and sometimes other people weren’t so happy. I mean, everyone has to look out for himself, right? Like—Will.” She gestured toward the door. “Will hated Harry. Just because a deal Harry arranged for him didn’t work out as great as Will hoped.” Susan paused. “Harry was really smart about a lot of deals, and there were people who were jealous sometimes. People are always jealous of success, you know? No real enemies, though. Who would kill someone over a few dollars?”

  It would depend on how many dollars were a few, Maggie thought. Harry had been a hustler; that was clear. She wondered how many people Harry had beaten to a buy—or a sale. And was Will one of them? Will didn’t seem the type who would hate anyone.

  But Harry was dead. Someone had wanted him dead. And that someone could have been anyone. Will had been with Maggie for the past half an hour—but how long ago had Harry been killed? What if Will had killed Harry, then run into Maggie and Ben? Maybe he was establishing an alibi. But what sour deal could make someone angry enough to kill? And could Harry’s death have anything to do with John Smithson’s death last week?

  Maggie’s head reeled. There were just too many possibilities to consider. She had to concentrate. On Susan, for instance. Now Susan would own all of Art-Effects, not just have the cash for half of it. Plus, she was Harry’s widow. Any insurance would come to her. On TV crime shows, police always looked at the spouse first.

  “Susan, how angry were you with Harry tonight?”

  “You think I killed Harry? Me?” Susan broke into shrill laughter. “Me? I loved Harry. Harry taught me everything I know. When I first met Harry, I was just Susan Maria Coletto, a scared eighteen-year-old from Bayonne, New Jersey. One of seven kids in a two-bedroom walk-up. All I knew was that I loved beautiful things, and that someday I wanted to be able to live with those things. I used to take the bus to the city just to walk through all those fake rooms in the big department stores, like Macy’s. Everything there was always so planned. All the colors went together, and the decorations matched. It was so clean. So perfect. I used to dream that maybe I could be an interior decorator or something. And someday even live in a place that looked like those rooms. When I got accepted by the School of Visual Arts, I thought I’d really made it.”

  Maggie could understand that. SVA was a top school.

  “That’s where I met Harry. He�
��d grown up in New York, and he knew how to get by. He showed me around. Harry had had a real tough childhood. His dad just disappeared when he was little. And his ma drank too much to hold down a regular job. Harry tried to take care of his ma, even when he was little. Kids in the city have to be tough, especially when they’re not exactly prizefighter types, you know?” Susan paused. “You have a cigarette? I could really use a cigarette.”

  “No. Sorry. I don’t smoke.”

  “Me neither. Just sometimes I like one. Anyway, Harry did what he had to. He got by. And even after his ma died, he kept going to school. He moved in with his uncle for a while, and there was this priest—Father Jim—who let him sleep in St. Jude’s sometimes, when his uncle wasn’t around, and who bought him the art supplies he needed to put his portfolio together to apply to schools.” Susan looked at Maggie. “Having a talent with art wasn’t exactly something you bragged about on Ninth Avenue.”

  Maggie could imagine.

  “Anyway, Harry graduated high school. He went to Visual Arts, too, and we met. And then Harry got friendly with Professor Hochman, who taught there. A real smooth guy. Uptown, you know? And handsome. All the kids at SVA had crushes on him. Girls and guys both, you know what I mean?”

  She was learning.

  “Well, this professor decided to help Harry, and Harry helped me. The professor had friends with big money who were real well-known interior designers and decorators and all that. The Park Avenue kind. And he knew what kind of stuff they liked—sort of unusual and funky and Art Deco, art nouveau, Erté, you know?”

  Maggie knew just the kind of art and sculpture on the borderline between great and garish that a type of Upper East Sider would pay big money to display in his off-white, Bloomingdale’s-inspired living room.

  “Well, the professor told Harry that if he could find the kind of stuff those designers and friends of his were looking for, he’d buy it from Harry. That would help Harry pay his tuition and expenses. Harry and I had met in Introduction to Design, and we were hanging out together, and he told me about the deal, and we decided to do it together. Harry knew how to bargain, and it turned out I had a pretty good eye for what these uptowners liked, so we went to all the flea markets and Lower East Side places, and sometimes even out to Jersey, and we found this stuff. We sold it to Professor Hochman, and then he sold it to his uptown friends.”