Can’t Never Tell

by Unknown

  I explained about the contract for representation, hung up, got hold of Shamanique, who was planning to go to the festival with her cousin anyway, then called Deputy Rudy Mellin. I was surprised to catch him.

  “Danged dead body in the fright house means somebody’s got work to do. Since somebody couldn’t leave well enough alone and just had to report what looked like a human leg bone . . .”

  “Knew you’d rather work than goof around,” I said. “Glad I could help you out. Keep you from getting bored. What have you found out?”

  “Any reason why I’d be telling you?”

  “I can think of lots.” For one, he didn’t mind talking to me when something weighed on his mind and he needed a sounding board. For another, we shared a table and plenty of gossip at Maylene’s several times a week, so why was this any different?

  “So far, we know it’s human. That what you wanted to know? That surprise you?”

  “What I really need to know is when can the Plinys reopen their business?”

  “The Plinys?”

  “They run the fright house. They’re losing business. Every day they’re closed is money.”

  “What’s that to you?”

  “They hired me to represent them.”

  He sighed. My being the lawyer newly returned to Dacus is fine with Rudy, right up until I’m the one pushing for something he’d rather not fool with.

  “No need for them to go lawyer up.”

  “That’s a bit harsh. They just wanted somebody on their side. I’m sure, in their business, they’ve run into plenty of inhospitable police officers and public officials.”

  “And with good reason, given the number of ex-cons, fresh fugitives, and crooks that travel that circuit.”

  I didn’t know anything about the Plinys, hadn’t even eyeballed them, so I didn’t offer a hollow defense of their character. For all I knew, Mr. Pliny, with his running voice-over commentary, might have just the rap sheet Rudy alluded to.

  “We know they need to be back in business,” he said, “but we’ve got other concerns, too.”

  “Such as?”

  “Adrienne Campbell, for one.”

  “What’s she—”

  “Madam Festival President insisted we shut that venue down. She didn’t think it seemly that curiosity-seekers would jam that attraction, making lots of money for what might well be a couple of cold-blooded murderers.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I knew Rudy was mimicking Adrienne. I just couldn’t quite figure her logic.

  “L.J. agreed to keep ’em closed until the autopsy was complete. Then they can reopen. Hopefully, we’ll know better what we’re dealing with.”

  “Any idea who the guy is? Or how he ended up as part of the display?”

  “Nope. Gotta admit, though, it adds to the draw for that stupid fright house.”

  I hadn’t thought about it, but people would flock to the scene of the crime, at several dollars a ticket, in hopes of seeing a dot of blood or a bone fragment, something the cops overlooked. Or just to say they’d been on the scene. Even though the Plinys had missed out on the Friday ticket sales, they’d more than make up for it on Saturday, provided they could reopen.

  “Yep, it would be a draw. Rudy, if Adrienne and the festival committee are okay with reopening the fright house, would L.J. go along with that? Is that the only reason L.J. closed it?”

  “It’s probably best to let things die down a bit, give it at least a day. Might seem disrespectful otherwise.”

  “L.J.’s all about being respectful,” I said with no attempt to disguise my sarcasm.

  “Yeah, well, she’ll be up for reelection, come November. She’s become kinder and gentler lately.”

  I didn’t snort, though I was tempted.

  “Besides, we do have to process it as a secondary scene until we know otherwise. Should something end up in court, you know how you lawyers love to insist on i–dotting.”

  He was right. Just in case, no need to make the target larger for a defense attorney.

  “Rudy, what do you hear from up at the falls? Have they—I keep hoping they’ll find Rinda and she’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s not likely. How’d’you know about that?”

  “I was up there this morning. At the picnic. When she fell.”

  “Oh.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

  “I just can’t quite believe it. I mean, how many times has one of us been there, or hiking somewhere else? You just don’t think about going out to have fun and it being—permanent.”

  “In my job, you do.”

  “Yeah.” Couldn’t say much to that.

  “Wow, Counselor. You’re on the scene for two incidents in two days. Maybe you ought to stay home for a while. Having you around isn’t going to improve our holiday weekend crime and accident statistics. The Chamber of Commerce ain’t gonna like that.”

  “Thanks, Rudy.” He was constitutionally incapable of being serious for long. “Talk to you later.”

  No wonder I felt beaten. It had been an adrenaline-draining two days.

  I dialed Adrienne Campbell’s cell phone. I knew she’d be marching around the festival, flicking her wrist first one direction, then another, issuing orders and obsessing over details. No point being festival president if you couldn’t stir up a cyclone with yourself at the center of the whirling activity and attention.

  “Avery! I’m sure you’ve heard. What a disaster.”

  “When—”

  “We’ve called an emergency meeting of the committee. For tomorrow morning. Eight A.M. We need to get this under control.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t ask when she’d planned on letting me know about the meeting. “Is that when we’ll decide to reopen the horror house?”

  “Reopen? I wanted that thing hauled off the lot. They can’t get it out, though. I can just see the complaints, the lawsuits. People traumatized simply by seeing it there.”

  “Adrienne, don’t you think that’s a bit—” She cut me off before I could say melodramatic.

  “I’m here monitoring the crowd as we speak. Seems to me everyone on the committee charged with the success of this event would feel the need to be here, too.”

  I hadn’t really known Adrienne before Mom had talked me into joining the festival committee, but it hadn’t taken long for me to understand how much she enjoyed a crisis, even if she had to first whip it up herself so she could rise to save the day. Far be it from me to interrupt her glory, but don’t ask me to come witness the drama unfold. None of her other manufactured crises had been that entertaining.

  “Finding the body yesterday kind of tired me out,” I said. “I’m sure you understand.”

  She gave that a long pause, probably wanting to find a way to blame me for the tragic effect on her festival. “I’ll bring the information on how this has affected the gate receipts to the meeting. We need to kick into crisis control here. I fully anticipate a huge drop-off in attendance. We need to decide how to handle that. That Mr. Letts of the carnival midway company and L. J. Peters arrived at some compromise, which suited them but doesn’t suit me in the least. After all, they aren’t the ones who are responsible. We’ll be seeing what we can do about that.”

  “See you tomorrow, Adrienne. Don’t eat too many sausage dogs.” I’d meant to lighten the mood with a joke. Not until I clicked off did I remember Adrienne was a vegetarian.

  I couldn’t think of anyone on the committee to call who’d be willing to make a wager on what effect this would have on the gate receipts. Adrienne was probably the only one who thought a dead body would keep people away, but she wasn’t the sort to enter into a friendly bet.

  The more I thought about it, the more I felt for the Plinys. They stood to lose the most—not just their regular take, which couldn’t be much when kids put on better haunted houses in church basements at Halloween. What really hurt was losing the boost in business from the cachet of having a fright house that once held a real dead body.
They couldn’t find a bigger crowd pleaser, and no one in the next town was likely to know or care. This was their best chance to make the most of it.

  My phone rang, jolting me from my musings.

  “Avery? Spence Munn. From the picnic today?”

  “Sure. How are you?”

  “Not sure. I was wondering if you’d—heard anything? About . . .” He didn’t finish his question.

  “No. I keep hoping someone will call and say they found her safe. That she’s fine.”

  “That would be good news.”

  Neither of us sounded as though we’d convinced ourselves, much less each other.

  “Avery, I hope this isn’t bad timing, but—well, my condo feels a bit quiet, after what happened this morning. I was wondering if you’d care to have dinner tomorrow night? Maybe go dancing? There’s a place in Greenville, a colleague owns it. An evening in good company would be welcome.”

  “Oh. Well.” That certainly wasn’t what I expected. “Um. Sure. That would be nice.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I couldn’t believe I’d agreed. A date would be a decided change of pace, but not one I was sure I welcomed. Maybe it had been the lure of dancing. I’d always loved dancing, but these days, what guy invites you to go dancing? Does that happen, outside a Nick and Nora Charles movie?

  “Leave about six? That suit you? I’ll pick you up at your place.”

  “Um, sure.”

  Soon as I hung up, I started wondering if, buried upstairs in a box I’d had no reason to unpack, I had something suitable to wear. Did Spence Munn wear Hawaiian shirts to dinner and dancing, or was that just his picnic attire? What had I been thinking, saying yes? At least this might keep me off Adrienne Campbell’s civic improvement project list. If she made another of her lame attempts to fix me up with Todd David tomorrow, it would be convenient indeed to actually have a date.

  Saturday Morning

  The next morning, Adrienne was, as usual, the last to arrive for the emergency meeting she’d called. The best way to make a grand entrance, after all, but a lost opportunity to till the soil, plant seeds, get others to see her point of view.

  Adrienne had, of course, used her phone calls yesterday to alert everyone to the danger and let them know what the committee’s course of action would be.

  I hadn’t talked to anyone before the meeting, but I did arrive early, with two boxes of assorted doughnuts—still warm—and enough coffee to float a bar exam review. I’d been there in time to unlock the church meeting room, using a key borrowed from Mom, and to chat with everyone about what keeping the Plinys’ attraction closed could be costing the festival.

  With any good trial, the jurors should hear from both sides. They’d heard an earful from Adrienne yesterday in her phone calls reporting directly from the scene of the disaster. She had, of course, been the only committee member who’d seen a need to be on site last night, though she’d shamed Todd David, the city attorney, into driving over to join her. Dacus is so small that the city attorney’s job is only part-time, but Adrienne wanted to get her tax money’s worth from her public servants.

  Today, before Adrienne arrived, the committee members licked doughnut glaze off their fingers while I told them the other side—with full disclosure about the Plinys’ plea for help.

  When Adrienne arrived, she refused a doughnut and launched into her meeting agenda. Mr. Wink, seeing there would be plenty, reached for another—chocolate-iced. Mr. Wink was ninety if he was a day and didn’t look the least worried about saturated fat.

  “Todd, you’re the city attorney,” Adrienne said. “Surely there’s some precedent to protect us. I’m envisioning lawsuits for emotional distress. This could ruin us.”

  I couldn’t help but snort when she said emotional distress. One of the most naïvely feared lawsuits. I stuck another bite in my mouth and tried to look innocent, as though perhaps a crumb had lodged in my throat, nothing more.

  “Well, we certainly wouldn’t want to be sued,” said Todd, an accommodating fellow who dealt with the law safely ensconced in his law office, never venturing close to the courthouse if he could possibly avoid it.

  “Let’s be realistic,” I said. “If someone is worried about psychological scars from being too close to where a dead body was found, she’ll probably stay home. If you’re really worried about a lawsuit, worry about the Plinys as the operators and about the midway company. We contracted with them. They have an expectation of a profitable week. If there isn’t a clause in the contract to require us not to hamper their efforts, never fear. A judge could—and probably would—find that to be a reasonable expectation, given their exclusive contract, the expenses they’ve incurred traveling here, and the other July Fourth engagements they’ve given up in order to meet their contractual obligations with us.”

  The look on Todd David’s face told me the contract probably did provide such a clause. When you need a contract with the correct clauses, I suspected Todd was the lawyer you wanted.

  “Avery Andrews!” Adrienne braced both hands on the tabletop. “Do you mean to tell me you intend to bring suit against the town of Dacus and the members of this committee? That’s bound to be—criminal!”

  “Of course not, Adrienne. It’s not criminal, but it would be a conflict of interest. I am telling you that they could sue—and would probably win. Lawsuits aside, what’s the problem with letting the Plinys open their attraction?”

  “Well! I never! It’s—it’s unseemly.” Adrienne overflowed with indignation. “For all we know, these—people are cold-blooded murderers.”

  “And dumb enough to haul the body from town to town?” I didn’t point out that they would also have to be schooled in the art of mummification if they’d created what Emma and I had found.

  Mr. Wink wiped his skeletal fingers on a napkin. “I don’t see a problem with reopening it. As long as the sheriff has finished doing whatever they do, then we don’t really have a good reason to keep it closed.”

  Mr. Wink’s father had owned a store on Main Street. Mr. Wink had built the Camden County equivalent of a real estate empire that his grandson now ran. He’d lived in Dacus his whole life, and he knew what made money and what didn’t. “Shutting that fright house is losing money, for us as well as for the people who count on it for their living.”

  “No one is going to want to go in that place,” Adrienne said.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Luke Deep, the new pastor at Dacus Baptist, his resonant baritone a contrast with his boyish face. “My children were bugging me all yesterday afternoon about going to the festival just so they could stand and look at the outside of the trailer.”

  Adrienne drew herself up as though she’d sniffed a foul odor. No one else looked shocked. I suspected Pastor Luke and Mr. Wink would be in line for a tour of the fright house themselves.

  “What’s the harm in letting them open?” I said. “If, by some remote chance, the investigation shows they were responsible, we can always close it down again.”

  I noticed no one had asked if there’d been a precipitous plunge in gate receipts yesterday, and Adrienne offered no evidence to support what she’d most feared. I bet the absence of her proffer of evidence, as we lawyers called it, was good evidence to the contrary.

  “When will the sheriff finish with her investigation?” asked Pastor Luke.

  Adrienne gave a toss of her head at his mention of L.J., but let a derisive sniff serve as her only comment.

  They turned to me for a more detailed answer.

  “I don’t know for sure,” I said. “I’d expect the autopsy back by Monday, though.”

  “We can’t let the Plinys miss the rest of this weekend,” said Mr. Wink. “This’ll be a big-money weekend, what with the holiday. If I was them, I’d sue us for taking that away—or come huntin’ who to whale the tar out of. I move we let ’em open back up.”

  “Can we do that?” Pastor Luke asked me. “I mean, does the sheriff have any objection?”r />
  “If she does, she has the power to keep it shut,” I said. “But from what I understand, it’s closed at our request.”

  Adrienne’s lips drew into a thin line. She shot dagger looks at me but said nothing. Everyone around the table knew she’d acted unilaterally in the committee’s name, but no one felt it worth spending breath to challenge her actions.

  “All in favor, then,” said Mr. Wink, his brown jacket sleeve falling away from his bony wrist as he raised his right hand.

  Pastor Luke and I raised ours. Todd David threw an anxious glance at Adrienne before he eased his hand to half-mast. Adrienne’s lips stayed tight, a little smirk that said she was biding her time until she could come back and tell us all, I told you so.

  I couldn’t help but notice this was the first meeting I’d attended where she hadn’t hinted, suggested, or insisted that Todd David and I should work as an ad hoc committee on something or join her and her husband for dinner. Here I was with an actual, honest-to-goodness date lined up, and no call to use it as a defensive measure.

  “I’ve got to see Rudy Mellin about something else this morning,” I said. “I’ll let him know what we decided.” That wasn’t entirely true. I didn’t have to see Rudy, but asking Adrienne to bear news she didn’t welcome wasn’t the smartest or kindest idea.

  We scooted back our chairs and gathered our notepads and pens, those shuffling movements that signal when a group is breaking up. Mr. Wink said, “Anybody hear anything more about what happened up at the falls yesterday?”

  “Wasn’t that sad?” said Pastor Luke. “So tragic.”

  No one looked at me, so I didn’t volunteer any on-the-scene reporting.

  “What exactly happened?” asked Todd. “I just heard somebody went off the falls.”

  “Rinda Reimann,” said Adrienne. “She finished high school here. Just recently moved back.”