by Amity Allen
“Time stood still?”
I nodded. “It seemed that way.”
“Well, Poppy dear, I can see how this would be unnerving, but it sounds harmless or even like a helpful talent to have.”
“I guess. I wish there was somebody that would give me a manual and tell me how this stuff works. If I could use it for good, to prevent people from getting in accidents, that would be great, but I have no idea when it’s going to happen or how to make it work.”
“Check out your mother’s books. They might be able to help. Maybe it’s like a muscle, the more you use it the more proficient you’ll get with it.”
I was skeptical. “Maybe. I’d love to see these books sometime.”
“All right. I’ll get them together for you tomorrow. I think they’re in the attic.”
“Thanks, Cricket. I’d appreciate that, and by the way, thanks for dinner. It was delicious.”
“Sure, honey.” She squeezed my hand. “I’m real glad you’re home.”
“Me, too.” I kissed her cheek before leaving her room, still feeling unsettled with my unpredictable new “talents.”
The next morning, our guests convened in the dining room for breakfast, and I brought a basket of Aunt Cricket’s pumpkin chocolate chip muffins in to them.
“I want one,” Allessandra said.
Her mother looked at her. “Where are your manners?” Brittany asked.
“Please,” Allessandra said dutifully.
I passed the basket of muffins to her.
“I would like one too, please,” the little blond girl said. Her name was Anna Beth, and she belonged to the interim pageant director, Bruce Martindale, who sat to her left. She was a lovely child with an angelic countenance. It was too bad she wasn’t going to be able to compete in the pageant.
It had been decided that Anna Beth would be allowed onstage to perform in each of the events, but her scores wouldn’t count since her father was acting as director now. We judges had been told to leave Anna Beth’s score cards blank.
Allessandra passed the muffins to Anna Beth.
“Thank you,” Anna Beth said sweetly, and they both giggled.
“Isn’t she one of the judges?” Allessandra whispered to her mother, loud enough for the whole room to hear.
Brittany Gustavez looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time, and I wanted to sink into the floorboards. “Yeah it is. You were on some TV show, right?”
I nodded.
“She’s Poppy Parker, witch detective,” Anna Beth sighed, star struck.
“What are you doing here?” Brittany asked.
“I live here. This is my aunt’s bed and breakfast.”
“Oh. All right,” Brittany said dismissively. She’d been the woman I’d heard on the phone the night before, pacing the floors. Could she have meant Heather? Hadn’t she said something about a person “getting what was coming to her?”
I shuddered. There was something about Brittany that gave me the creeps.
Bruce Martindale smiled. “Thank you, Poppy. Please tell your aunt everything was delicious.”
Everyone’s glasses were full and there were pitchers of juice and water as well as a carafe of coffee on the sideboard, so I went back to the kitchen.
“I can tell you one thing. Nothing like this would ever happen at one of Marissa’s pageants,” Brittany Gustavez said as I was leaving.
“Of course not. Marissa has a built-in bodyguard.” Bruce Martindale’s voice floated into the kitchen.
Gracious, were these youth beauty contests so competitive that people had to hire their own security teams?
Aunt Cricket stood at the sink and was about to say something, but I shushed her.
She gave me a look of disapproval, but I mouthed the word “murder” in case she didn’t understand why I was eavesdropping. It was more than curiosity. A killer was on the loose, and there were two prime suspects in the next room discussing the previous day’s events.
With a finger pressed to my lips, I continued listening.
“She does, doesn’t she?”
They both laughed. Laughed? What sort of people laughed about a fatality amongst their associates?
“Anna Beth, don’t do that, honey.” I couldn’t see what she was doing.
“Allessandra, mind your manners.” More parental training.
“So, how did you come to take over the pageant for Heather?” Brittany asked. Good, that was a question I wanted the answer to as well.
After a pause, Bruce answered, “Well, Brittany, there was no one else to do it.” His voice grew quieter. “Anna Beth can’t win now, of course, or it would be seen as unfair, but I did what I had to do for the rest of you.”
Brittany snorted. “Should we all kiss your ring for falling on your sword and all that nonsense?”
“Why yes, actually. I didn’t see you stepping up to do it.”
“I don’t know how to run a pageant, Bruce, and I’m sure as sugar not going to throw Allessandra under the bus just for a power trip.”
“So that’s what you think this is, a power trip?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure what your angle is, but with you it’s never about pursuing the greater good. I know that.”
“You’re free to think whatever you want, my dear,” Bruce said in a snooty tone.
“Oh, I will. Seein’ as it’s a free country and all.” There was a rustling of belongings being gathered and chairs being pushed back. “Come on, Allessandra. We need to go brush your teeth before we head on over to the convention center. Crowning is today, and we can’t be late for you to win the Ultimate Mega Grand Supreme title.”
“Good luck,” Bruce said, his words saccharine.
“Why thank you. You too, Anna Beth.”
That was nasty, considering Anna Beth couldn’t win, but I wasn’t sure Anna Beth knew that. Either way, there was so much negative energy surrounding this pageant, I was glad today was the last day.
Skylar’s twin sister Mads called while I was driving to the convention center. “Are you really going over there? I can’t believe they’re going to continue this pageant.”
“So you heard about the murder?”
“Yeah. Skylar told me last night when she got home. That’s awful.”
“It is, but you know how it is, girl. The show must go on! Surely you can’t be that surprised.” I was only beginning to understand the importance of these competitions to their participants, but I pictured pageant moms dragging their glitzed-up toddlers over the dead bodies of fallen competitors. The way zombies climbed over each other to get to the top of the pile in movies. Only prettier.
“Are they sure it was a murder? She didn’t just have a heart attack or something?” I could hear the anxiety creeping into Mads’ voice, and I didn’t blame her. Our little town was supposed to be safe. Murders didn’t happen here. That was the sort of thing that happened in the city across the bridge. Not in our sleepy little bedroom community.
“That’s what they said, Mads, but I don’t think you need to worry. If it was a murder, you can bet it was personal. Certainly not the doin’s of a madman or a serial killer. If Heather Morgan was murdered, it was by somebody who knew her and had something to gain from her death. This was no random act of violence.”
“Okay,” she sighed. “From what Skylar said, it doesn’t sound like she was all that nice of a person.”
“You’re probably right. Want to watch a movie tonight?”
“Sorry. Can’t. We’ve got some family thing to go to.”
“All righty then. I’ll see you at The Flower Shoppe tomorrow.”
“Sounds good, and be careful.”
“I will.”
We hung up, and I drove the rest of the way to the convention center pondering over who could have killed Heather. Who would have wanted her dead?
That list was long. She’d probably angered a lot of people in the pageant world. Not to mention those she was nasty to in her daily life.
An
d what about the husband? If there was one thing I’d learned from my TV show, it was that the spouse was always the prime suspect.
Then there was the question of who had the opportunity? That list was long too. It included almost everyone who had been at the convention center the day before. I didn’t envy the police their jobs of interviewing everyone who’d been there.
It made judging a beauty contest seem easy. But that wasn’t all I would be doing today. I couldn’t help but be on the lookout for the murderer myself.
A significant police presence made itself known at the convention center. Officers manned the lobby and lined the walls of the performance hall. I wasn’t sure whether the result was to make the pageant folk feel more concerned or more secure. For me, it was nerve-wracking and sent me into high alert.
The morning began with the optional talent portion of the competition. Leading up to this segment, I’d grown quite curious as to what kinds of talents these girls would exhibit.
Talent routines that morning ranged from hip-hop dance to singing to gymnastics. Some of the more basic ones involved exaggerated posing with girls running around and making kissing faces at the audience. But Allessandra Gustavez blew the audience away, me included, with her contortionist routine. After the final contestant finished twirling her baton, I was happy to mark down my last score and take a break.
Over at the coffee station, word spread that the police intended to question most of the room’s occupants, at least the ones not wearing tiaras, after the contest ended. That news contributed to the feeling that an ominous cloud hung over the proceedings, the way you’d see a storm in the distance at a picnic. You’d finish your meal anyway, but the knowledge that when it was over you were going to get drenched kinda put a damper on your outing.
As I sipped my coffee, I couldn’t help but look around and think that someone in this room might have killed poor Heather Morgan. I was trying to remember what I’d learned from my TV show about finding clues when Skylar interrupted me.
“Did you hear that some of the contestants and their families left last night? They say they’re all going to be arrested,” Skylar told me. “That raises a lot of red flags on those people. Were they sure their kids weren’t going to get a big title, or did they kill Heather? Who knows? Or maybe they were simply scared they’d be next.”
Skylar swiped her finger across her neck in a horror-movie inspired throat-slashing gesture.
“Cute,” I said. “In addition, if any one of them had left because of a family emergency, I don’t know who they would have told. Normally it would have been Heather. Would they have known to tell Bruce?”
Skylar shrugged. “No idea.”
If there was one thing the pageant world had learned through Heather’s tragic death, it was that a pageant director needed a second-in-command. A vice-director, as it were. None of the parents wanted to go through something like this again. Chaotic and unorganized were words being bandied about.
I felt bad for Heather, being criticized even more in death than in life for her organizational skills, or lack thereof. She might not have been the easiest person to work with, but she had been passionate about the Bloomin’ Belles Beauty Pageant.
After the votes had all been counted by a local accounting firm, Bruce Martindale approached the podium, and I thought again how similar he looked to the news anchor seated to my left. If you were to tell me Bruce had a history as a weatherman, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest. He spoke with an ease and a cadence that definitely rang of television. He had to have a communications degree at the very least. Or maybe he had served as a tour guide at an amusement park in his youth. Mads and Skylar had a cousin who had done that, and it had given him a remarkable public speaking voice.
“All right, ladies and gentlemen. Contestants, please give yourselves a round of applause. You did great, and you should be very proud of yourselves. Now here it is—the moment you’ve all been waiting for. It’s time for us to crown our winners for this year’s Bloomin’ Belles Beauty Pageant. We’re going to be awarding one thousand dollars in cash, satin monogrammed banners, gorgeous crowns and impressive trophies. And each contestant will go home with a Bloomin’ Belles beach pail filled with toys and prizes.
“Now, I will be calling the finalists for each age division. If you will, please hold your applause till the end, thank you very much.”
They started with the babies, which was interesting because some of them cried regardless of whether they won or not. They really had no idea what was going on. Only the grownups did, so when a baby won, the parents were beside themselves. Some of them went bananas—crying, jumping up and down, squealing. On one hand, it was kind of sad to see the moms living so vicariously through these children, but at the same time there was something sweet about the pride they took in their offspring. And I wondered if my own mother would have felt that way about me.
After several of the names had been called in one division, I heard a mom behind me shriek, “Yes! She pulled!”
“You pulled!” another lady told her child excitedly.
“I pulled,” her child parroted back.
“What does that mean, ‘pulled’?” I asked Miss Watermelon Patch.
“If she didn’t get one of the lower titles in her age group, it means she pulled a higher overall title. The longer it takes for your name to be called, the better.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t believe how much I didn’t know about pageants.
Apparently, during this first round, the girls would win titles like Princess or Queen of her age division. After that, they had titles for individual things like Photo Supreme for the most photogenic or Swimsuit Supreme for the contestant who won the swimsuit category.
But what everyone wanted were the Grand Supreme titles, and the biggest title of them all—the Ultimate Mega Grand Supreme.
I would have thought some of these specialty awards would make people happy, but the ultracompetitive pageant parents were out for blood. They wanted their sweet, precious babies to win the highest title, and when they didn’t, you could tell by the occasional groans that some of the parents were not happy.
It bummed me out that these poor girls would feel like they were a disappointment to their families. They were beautiful and amazing. How did their mothers not realize that not everyone can win the biggest title at every pageant?
Unfortunately, I saw it over and over again today. Pageant moms whose message to their daughter was that if you didn’t win the very highest title—you lost.
But I guess this was one of the reasons why Liz Stoner had done a show on the pageant system—to shine a spotlight on some of the bad behavior of some of the pageant members. And I began to feel a grudging respect for what I thought Liz had been trying to do. I made a note to myself to seek her out and talk with her again. I had kind of blown off her request for more interview footage and now I regretted that. Hopefully she would remain in town with her cameraman for another day or so, and I’d have the opportunity to give her my thoughts and insights from a judge’s perspective.
As we got down to the very end, competing for the Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme, it had come down to Allessandra (who had already won the Ultimate Talent Grand Supreme title and five hundred dollars), with her long dark curls and super-tanned skin set off by a green dress that picked up her eyes beautifully; and Dimples, the local favorite, with her sandy-blond hair and dark eyes. If it only came to beauty, I would have chosen Anna Beth.
Poor child, she might have been the clear winner if she had been allowed to compete. With her blue eyes and white-blond hair, Anna Beth looked like a mini Cinderella and had the charm to boot. Her dancing skills were a notch above everyone else’s, but it looked like she would be getting a sort of consolation prize that her father worked out that involved one of the smaller crowns and the requisite bucket of toys. The little angel seemed content just to have the chance to perform onstage and play with her friends afterwards.
But when it
came to personality, I had to go with Dimples. She was an adorable little girl who made you think of Shirley Temple with that winning personality of hers.
The competition was close, and even I didn’t know who was going to win.
“We’re going to do something a little different this time,” Bruce Martindale said into the mic. “We’re going to do this the way they do it at Miss America. I’m going to ask you two remaining finalists to come out and stand together holding hands while I call out the name of the runner-up, who will be the Ultimate Grand Supreme. And then the winner will be the Mega Ultimate Grand Supreme.”
He called Allessandra and Dimples to the stage, and for the briefest of moments he winked at somebody in the back of the room. The look had been so flirtatious, so intimate that I couldn’t help but crane my neck to see if I could tell who that steamy look had been intended for. But unfortunately all I saw was a sea of faces. Hmm. I wasn’t imagining things, was I?
The two finalists made their way onto the stage, their little heels clicking across the floor, smiles plastered on, hair reaching to the ceiling. They held hands and stared into each other’s eyes. These two were seasoned professionals, and if they had nerves they weren’t about to let them show.
“All right. It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. This year’s Bloomin’ Belles Ultimate Grand Supreme is . . . Allessandra Gustavez!”
Dimples’ face blossomed with surprise, her eyes and mouth formed a big “O” shape, and Allessandra threw her arms around her friend and rival.
Congratulations. I read her lips as she spoke to Dimples.
