by Diane Morlan
Too Dead to Dance
Diane Morlan
Published by Cozy Cat Press at Smashwords
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Copyright 2010 Diane Morlan.
Cover design and illustration by Scott Saunders / Design 7 Studio, www.design7studio.com
ISBN:978-1-4524-8293-4
LCCN:2010923092
Dedicated to the Memory of my good friend
Marie Fournier Julian
January 4, 1945 - November 30, 1985
She always believed in me and encouraged me to pursue my dreams.
We miss you.
Acknowledgements
Writing this book has been one of my greatest adventures. I could not have completed it without the help of my family and friends.
Heartfelt thanks to my daughter, Shirlee Morlan, who taught me about roasting coffee, my grandson, Steven Morlan, my son, Jim Morlan and my daughter-in-law, Eileen Morlan who gave me the confidence to undertake this endeavor and always believed in me.
Thank you Maureen Kelley, Ann-Marie Eggleston and all my co-workers at the Kishwaukee College Library who supported and encouraged me, especially Deb MacManus, Carol Wubbena and DeeAnn Leuzinger my wonderful first readers.
Thanks to my friends Jennifer Walker, for lending me her name, Sheila Weigel whose initial suggestions helped me get started in the right direction, and Patty Herzog, for taking me to my first German folk music festival.
Thank you, Patricia Rockwell, for finding me and taking me on this incredible journey. It would not have happened without you.
Please visit my website, www.DianeMorlan.com, for news and information on Jennifer Penny mysteries. Become a Facebook fan of Diane Morlan, Author.
1
Friday
The first time I met the butcher he almost ran over me. He didn’t chase me down the road or anything. In fact, the whole thing was mostly my fault.
I was hurrying from the parking lot because I thought I was late. I hate being late but my stupid garage door opener decided not to work today. I had to drag open the door by hand and it had taken enough time to get me off schedule. I carried a box filled with one-pound bags of coffee beans that I had roasted just last night.
As I crossed the dirt road that runs through the Maron County fairgrounds, I twisted my foot in a notorious Minnesota gopher hole, did a pirouette and fell on my fanny in the middle of the road. Down I plopped, while the box flew out of my hands. Gold and black sacks rained down on me.
Looking to my left I saw a red cargo van bearing down on me. It was so close that the only action I could take was to throw my arms over my head and lean forward into my knees.
I heard the van screech to a halt. I peeked out to my left and saw the bumper of the truck about three feet from my head.
A tall, sandy-haired man dressed all in white jumped out and helped me to my feet.
“Are you okay?” He asked, helping me to my feet.
“I think so.” My ankle was beginning to throb.
“For God’s sake, Honey! I almost ran over you.”
“Why were you speeding? This is a fairground, not a race track!”
“Gee, I wasn’t going that fast, Sweetie,” he said while helping me to my feet.
“Thanks,” I replied automatically, brushing the back of my white slacks. They felt damp from the morning dew. I leaned down and began picking up coffee bags. “Let’s blame the stupid gopher who decided to make a home next to a road.”
“Let me help you,” he said picking up bags of coffee and stuffing them into the box. One bag had split and coffee beans spilled onto the ground. I carefully lifted it and set it in the box. I’d take it home for my personal use. Two bags were crushed but the beans were safe. I’d use those to brew coffee for tasting samples today. When the box was full, the man lifted it and held it out to me. Our hands touched. His hand was unusually cold on this hot summer morning.
“I can carry this for you. Where are you headed?” he asked, circling his arm around me and touching my waist.
Grabbing the box, I twisted around so I was facing him. “No problem. Thanks for the help. I can handle it from here.”
“You sure? I don’t mind. I did almost run over you.”
Backing away, I smiled which probably looked more like a grimace, flustered at the way he was grinning at me. I turned and hurried away, calling over my shoulder, “No problem. Thanks.”
I heard the truck door slam shut and turned to make sure he was leaving. He waved at me through the window over the sign painted on the door, Metzger’s Meat Market, Hermann, MN, then gunned the engine and zoomed through the gate I had just entered.
Peeking into my purse, I was relieved that the small white bakery bag holding a single chocolate covered donut still lay tucked inside. My nutritionally poor but tasty breakfast. I’d have to make another trip to my car in order to get all the coffee I had roasted to sell today at the Polka Daze Festival. There must be a better way to haul my coffee to the booths at these craft shows but a little red wagon wouldn’t fit in my Civic. I put the problem on my mental “to do” list.
I struggled up to the door of the Home Arts Building and grabbed the door handle. I pulled the handle toward me and nearly yanked my arm out of the socket. Locked. Guess I wasn’t late after all. During the Maron County Fair, needlework and home baked goods filled this long narrow building to the rafters. Now at Polka Daze, various crafters and small business owners rent space and set up booths to sell their wares. I rattled the door hoping I could shake it open and jumped when someone behind me said, “Let me open that for you.”
A distinguished looking man with silver grey hair wearing baggy jeans and a plaid shirt hurried up to the door and stuck a key in the lock. “Mornin’. Saw you talking to my brother, Al. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, looking at my watch. It read 7:55. “I was afraid I’d be late.”
“Nope. You’re the first one here.” He reached inside the door and flipped the light switches. The lights made the building less ominous, but without people it still echoed with each step I took.
“I’ll come back later for a cup of coffee,” the man called out to me.
When I looked back, he gave me a short, two-finger salute, then turned and walked away. Only then did I realize that he was the Fest Meister. I had met him last night when he presided over the nightly keg tapping. I hadn’t recognized him without his lederhosen.
Thinking about the man’s silver grey hair as I entered the cool, dimly lit Home Arts building, I wondered if my hair would look that good if I quit coloring it. I hadn’t seen my real hair color since my fortieth birthday, six years ago. I had decided I didn’t want to be a little old grey haired lady, so I found a great beautician. Now I wear my light brown hair in a short sassy bob.
I hurried toward my booth, anxious to set down the heavy box of coffee. I dropped the cumbersome box onto the front table of my booth and I pulled the bakery bag out of my purse.
My first chore was to make coffee for the fest-goers to sample as well as a cup to go along with my yummy donut. The black table cover hung unevenly across the table situated along the side of my booth that held my DeLonghi coffee maker. I try to position the tables in my booth so I don’t have my back to my customers while I pour them a sample cup of coffee.
I tugged the tablecloth back in place and then centered the coff
ee pot. My part-time helpers must have been in a hurry to leave last night. Besides the cockeyed cloth, the table itself was askew, one side pushed up against the table in the next booth.
Still holding onto the donut bag, I reached under the table for the gallon jug of spring water I use to fill the coffee pot. My foot slipped. Looking down I saw a puddle at my feet. My eyes traveled to the edge of the gooey mess under my right foot. I screamed. A body lay on the floor partly under the side table of my stand. I threw up my arms and the donut bag went flying across the booth.
Long legs encased in lederhosen, the man lay in a pool of reddish-black substance, which I figured was blood. His face was turned toward the wall. I spun around and slowly walked toward the exit. I wanted to run but could barely move. Digging in my purse, I pulled out my cell phone and with shaky fingers called 9-1-1.
I told the police dispatcher someone lay dead in the Home Arts Building at the Fest Grounds. I must have been blubbering because she made me repeat myself several times.
“Can you describe what you see, please?”
I stopped walking, turned to look back at my booth and said between clenched teeth, “Lady, I see a dead man in a puddle of bloody goo. I stepped in it. What more do you need to know?”
“Are you sure he’s dead and not just passed out?”
I stomped my foot. “He’s sort of grey, his mouth is open and his eyes are, too. He sure looks dead to me.”
“Did you say Fest Grounds? That’s outside the city limits. I’ll contact the Sheriff’s Department. Leave the building immediately and wait outside for the sheriff. And don’t touch anything else,” she ordered.
I barked at her, “I watch CSI. I know that. Besides, I sure don’t want to be in here any longer.”
I looked around, suddenly realizing that I was alone in this place with a corpse. I fled through the exit door, almost knocking down the guy who had unlocked the door for me.
“What’s wrong? Why were you yelling? Are you okay? You look like you saw a ghost.”
“I think I did. There’s a dead man in there.” Without warning, my eyes began to tear up and I found myself crying. Although I was sure I didn’t know who the dead person was, I was filled with dismay. The only dead bodies I had ever seen were at funerals. Those people lay on white silk not on a cold cement floor surrounded in blood.
I felt a hand on my elbow guiding me to a park bench just outside of the door. I tried to smile at the Fest Meister and thank him. While we sat on a bench outside the building’s door waiting for the deputies to arrive, the man introduced himself to me.
“I’m Frank Metzger. When I’m not the Fest Meister, I’m at Metzger’s Meat Market over on the highway. My brother, Al and I own the place. This is how I spend my vacation every year. Are you going to be all right?”
““I’ll be okay. My name is Jennifer Penny. I’m just shook up. It was quite chilling.”
An ambulance with lights whirling and siren screaming pulled up in front of the building. Two young men got out and asked us where to find the sick person.
“The man isn’t sick, he’s dead.”
“We’ll make that decision, Miss. Show me where he is, please,” said the tallest Emergency Medical Technician.
Shaking my head and pointing I said, “He’s in there. The dispatcher told me to stay out and I plan to do exactly what she said.”
The EMT’s entered the building and I listened to hear what was going on in there. It was very quiet.
After the Emergency Medical Technicians had been inside for a few minutes, the shorter EMT came through the door, cell phone to his ear. “No, Sir, we didn’t touch anything. Just checked his pulse, and then got out of there. Yes, Sir, I understand.”
He flipped the phone shut and stuck his head in the door. “Stan, get out of there, the cops are on their way.”
In a few minutes, the taller EMT swaggered out of the building, slapping his hands together just as a squad car sped into the fairgrounds, lights whirling. It came to a grinding halt two feet from where the Fest Meister and I sat.
2
A large black man in a cheap rumpled suit heaved himself out of the passenger side of the car. I stood up as he ambled toward me. “Mrs. Heinz, don’t tell me you’re the one who found this body?”
I had met Lieutenant Delmar Jacobs a few months ago when I had a break-in at my coffee warehouse. “I’m afraid so. And it’s terrible. I wish I didn’t have that picture in my head. But please call me Jennifer. It’s not Heinz anymore, either. I took back my maiden name, Penny.”
“Okay, Ms. Penny. Can you wait here while we check this out?”
I heard a car door slam and glanced over to the driver’s side of the squad car. A gorgeous dark haired man with a compact body strode toward us. I could see that, although not more than 5’9”, his solid build gave him a look of formidability. He looked down at me. I’m short. Everyone looks down at me.
“Detective Jerry Decker,” he said sticking out his hand to shake mine. When I grasped his hand, a little shock went through mine. He felt it too, I thought.
“So, you knew the victim, Ma’am?”
Ma’am? I thought. Did he say Ma’am? Did I look like a Ma’am? I looked him right in the eye, ready to tell him off. His eyes were light brown, like coffee diluted with cream. When I got a whiff of his musky after-shave, my knees went weak and I almost fell.
“Are you okay, Ms. Penny?” Lieutenant Jacobs grabbed my arm. “Maybe you should sit down.”
“No, no. I’m fine.” I straightened up and took a deep breath. I moved around until my back was to the building so neither man could see my damp posterior. “I don’t know who that man in there is. I’ve never seen him before.”
Detective Decker, the aromatic cop, looked at me with a tiny smile pulling at the sides of his mouth. “You touch anything in there?”
I started to say something snotty to him but when I looked up at him my knees waffled again. What the hell was going on here? How could this sexy man have such an effect on me? It must have been purely physical because I didn’t even know him.
I had been married for more than twenty years. I didn’t know how to interact with a man at this level. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to. It was probably just the shock of seeing a dead man that had my emotions all messed up.
Lieutenant Jacobs took my arm and helped me back to the park bench. “You sit here while Detective Decker and I go take a look. Jerry, call the State boys and get their Forensics Team out here.”
Detective Decker whipped his cell phone out of a leather case hooked to his belt like an old western sheriff drawing his gun. He snapped open the phone and hit a speed dial number. Before he turned away, he winked at me. Winked at me! I began to tell him off when my stomach did a flip and a gurgle. “Oh,” I whispered to my stomach and knees “stop that. I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
Vendors began to arrive to open their booths. When a group of them gathered at the entrance started mumbling about the delay, Lieutenant Jacobs came out of the building. Raising both hands for quiet, he said, “There’s been an incident. This building will be closed for the day. It’ll reopen tomorrow, if we’re finished.”
Jacobs looked at me and said, “Who has the booth next to yours? The one closest to the door.”
“That lady wearing the blue dirndl.” I pointed out a stout fortyish lady in the group of vendors. I had met her yesterday, the first day of the festival. “Her name is Trudy.”
“Thanks, Ms. Penny. Sit tight. I’ll be back to talk to you in a little while.”
Jacobs went over and talked quietly to Trudy. He escorted her into the building, his huge ebony hand gently touching her back. In a few seconds, we heard a shriek.
More deputies arrived and two of them wound the yellow crime scene tape around a large tree and brought it across the broad doors, anchoring it to a drainpipe at the corner of the building.
I sat there waiting for Lieutenant Jacobs to return, really just wanting to get out of
there. The sun beat down on me and I began to perspire. I shifted to the other end of the bench to be in the shade and noticed red on my new sneakers. Darn! I saw that I had left little red footprints like ink from a rubber stamp marching down the sidewalk. I had just taken the new sneakers out of the box this morning. I wondered what it would take to get the blood off the shoe. Probably more than Tide.
When the county coroner arrived, he pompously traipsed up the sidewalk to the building while his old black bag bumped against his leg. At the last election, the coroner-slash-dentist had run uncontested. After his reelection, people had joked that only his family had voted for him. Everyone swore they had left that choice blank. Mickey Mouse got two write-in votes.
Amongst all the activity going on, Trudy shuffled out of the exhibit hall and sat down next to me.
“The dead guy is Wes, the trumpet player in my husband Ray’s band,” she whispered to me. “I identified him.”
“Oh my God!” Then I whispered to Trudy, “That’s the guy Sister Bernadine had the fight with yesterday.”
“That’s right. I heard your friend telling you about it. He only recently started to play in Ray’s band. I only knew him from his reputation. Ach, Gott in himmel, I need to call Ray. I think Wes was a bit of a scoundrel. I know he was in a lot of trouble when he was a kid. But he didn’t deserve to die. Oh, this is terrible for the band.”
Frank Metzger, leaning against a sturdy oak tree next to the park bench took the toothpick out of his mouth. “Ain’t going to be too good for Polka Daze either. Ya know we started this event to help our kids learn about their ancestry. Now it’s turned into a major tourist event and brings a lot of money into Hermann. This could hurt attendance.”
I handed Trudy a tissue to wipe her eyes. “It’ll be okay, you guys. Lieutenant Jacobs is a good cop. He’ll find out who did this.”
