The Grangers had their usual spot down at the end of the fairgrounds, but it was so crowded I couldn’t imagine trying to squeeze my whole troop in there, so we had searched out this spot and found it without too much difficulty. Pretty much everybody on our stretch of road was involved with the fair somehow. Other people chose to stay in their own front yards or along the sidewalk downtown, where the parade began. Still yet another group wanted to be sure of prime seats for the combine demo, and were already marking their spots in the grandstand.
Claire and Bobby’s folks, Amy Kaufmann and her husband, had set up across the street, and I gave them a wave. Also in our section were Randy’s parents and siblings, Laura’s folks, and several other families from the church I sometimes attended with the Grangers. The kids held their bags at the ready, waiting for the first float to throw candy. Tess was right there with them. I was surprised Miranda hadn’t snatched some poor kid’s bag out of his hands so she could grab the first bubble gum to be tossed out.
A marching band blew by, then some adorable miniature horses, followed by the first of the 4-H floats. The rabbit club. The kids on the float—mostly girls—waved and smiled and threw candy, almost whacking Miranda before she realized what was happening. When she did, she jumped up and down and clapped. Yay.
While horns aoogahed and kids (and Miranda) screamed, “Here! Throw some here!” I observed the on-lookers. Most of the crowd watched with small children on their shoulders or at their feet, but a smaller portion stood back, like me, wondering just how they’d been talked into doing this again. But then, I knew why. Zach. Randy. All those kids. This was one place where all were equal. All were given recognition for the hard work they’d put in during the year, regardless of how worthy their animal was, or where they’d end up when judging was over. It was great to see them out there, having fun, acting as a team rather than competitors.
I sucked down a water bottle and took a few steps to toss it in the recycling bin at the corner of the building. After I threw it in I glanced up and spied Daniella just down the way. She stood by herself, hand shading her eyes as she looked up the street, waiting for the Lovely Miss Pennsylvania float, which would be appearing at some point.
“Hey!” I called. “Daniella!”
She turned, but before I could catch her attention, someone else got it. Mrs. Gregg. She scurried up and touched Daniella’s elbow, and the two women got into a conversation I would have described as intense, if Daniella hadn’t kept watching down the street. Mrs. Gregg wore her city farmer clothes, but her Yes-I-belong attitude had disappeared. Now she looked out of place and out of sorts. She spoke with lots of hand gestures, while Daniella nodded and watched for Taylor’s float, until Mrs. Gregg finally grabbed Daniella’s arm and forced her to pay attention. Daniella gave one last glance toward the road, then turned her whole body toward Mrs. Gregg.
I wondered what they were talking about, but it wasn’t really my business, and I wasn’t worried about Daniella being able to take care of herself with Mrs. Gregg, so I turned to go, and smacked right into Austin. I mean really smacked him. I stumbled backward and kicked over the recycling bucket, while Austin bashed another guy, knocking him several steps.
“Sorry,” he said to the guy. The guy frowned, but didn’t stop.
“You okay?” I asked Austin, helping him up.
“Fine. You?” He picked up the recycling bucket and dropped in a couple bottles that had spilled out.
“Peachy. Where are you in such a rush to?”
“Me? You’re the one who’s like a tanker truck. I’m lucky I’m alive.” He grinned, but the grin didn’t meet his eyes.
“Austin? What’s wrong? You still pissed about today?”
His eyes flashed. “I’m fine. I’m over it. Sorry I ran into you.”
“Austin, have you talked to the cops about last night?”
He saw something over my shoulder. “Gotta go. See ya.”
He weaved his way through the crowd, done with me. But I wasn’t done with him. I looked over at Nick, but he was waving to Zach’s float, which was going by, Zach and Randy throwing more than one person’s share of candy toward our group. Tess scampered onto the street to pick up the bubble gum and Tootsie Rolls. Miranda jumped out with her, scooping up a handful and dumping it in Tess’ bag. Dammit, I was going to miss Zach’s float, or I was going to lose Austin, and I hadn’t liked the look in his eyes. Austin’s head was still bobbing along, and Zach would survive if I didn’t acknowledge the float, so I took off after the kid who worried me the most.
Austin wasn’t here for the parade, that was obvious. Hands in his pockets, he trudged ahead, not watching where he was going, or anything going on around him. No wonder he’d slammed into me. But he’d seen something behind me that made him say he had to take off. What had he seen?
I looked ahead, but didn’t see any people I knew. The junior fair building? Food? No. Something far more interesting.
Austin was headed right to the building where the police had set up shop to investigate Rikki Raines’ murder. Thank God. He was going to do the right thing.
My phone rang, and I checked the screen. Willard. “Hey, what did you find out?”
“Hello, to you, too.”
“Willard—”
“So here’s the thing. No official report on what killed Rikki Raines. I could get confirmation that she’d been paralyzed by something, causing her to suffocate, but toxicology hasn’t had a chance to analyze the medicine yet. This did just happen late last night, and no matter what television says, there’s no way to get results that quickly.”
“So Watts really is going by an anonymous tip. Or a guess.”
“That’s right.”
If I could have, I would have strangled Watts right there.
“But guesses—theories—are what we go by a lot of the time,” Willard said. “And if we don’t act on our instincts, we sometimes miss things.”
“So that makes it all right for her to accuse and terrify Carla?”
“Of course not. There are smoother ways to go about these things. But as we’ve talked about before, she’s young, and—”
“—and she wants to impress Daddy.”
“There is that.”
I thanked Willard, extracted a promise that he’d let me know as soon as he heard anything more specific, and went back to my family.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The grandstand was crowded when we arrived, and I didn’t see anyone we knew to squeeze in with. Lucy and Lenny had taken Tess and gone home, and I was beginning to wish we’d gone with them.
The combines were already lining up outside the arena, and it was obvious that plenty of people in the bleachers had begun their drinking some time before. I hoped the drivers of the combines had waited to start on their booze until after the demo, but I wouldn’t have bet anybody on it.
A tanker truck was spraying down the mud pit, creating a soggy, sticky mess, and firefighters stood ready outside the arena, which was lined with tires inside metal side rails. An ambulance had its place off to the side, and already a young guy sat in a folding chair, receiving attention, holding a rag to his forehead. Tow trucks and front end loaders waited for their turns to pull dead combines from the pit, and beyond all that, straw bales made seats for those people who needed to be close for one reason or another.
Nick shielded his eyes and scanned the people in the thick, restless crowd. “You sure you want to risk it?”
“Eh, what are they going to do?”
“Puke on us,” Miranda muttered.
I led the others across the front and up the far stairs, finding us enough space for two people, which we made to fit three. Normally I don’t mind being that close to Nick, but not when it was closing in on a hundred degrees and his sister was practically my Siamese twin.
Miranda’s face told plenty about the situation. Just by looking at her, you could know that we were surrounded by large, sweaty people with beer logos on their stretched-out t-shirts, and plast
ic cups of the same drink sloshing around everywhere.
“Why are we here again?” she said.
A loud click came over the sound system, and then a voice said, “Please rise for the singing of the national anthem.”
We smooshed our way to a standing position, as crammed together as the cows when they’re rushing into the barn for milking, or pushing to get to the hay when we feed them outside. Only the cows smelled better.
Some family with large smiles and cowboy hats sang the song, and we sat down again while the first heat of combines chugged into the arena.
“Now what?” Miranda said.
“Just watch.”
It was like a combine rainbow in the mudpit—a green one named SwampRat; a white and black one painted like a cow with a sign saying; “Show us your teats!”; an orange one called Smashing Pumpkin; a yellow one dubbed Sunshine; and a red one emblazoned “Rotten Tomato.” Each went to its specified starting spot, a fluorescent orange flag waving from a dowel rod attached to the side of the cab. The flag would be their token of surrender, should the driver snap it off. It took a while for the drivers to get positioned, because the machines weren’t exactly speedy, and they needed to back into their starting spots. Finally, they were poised, and the official shot off the starter pistol.
The red and orange combines flew right out of their spaces, well, if five miles an hour is flying, and headed for each other in a way that made me think they were probably friends—or enemies. The cow one and the yellow one waited just long enough to go after the first ones, and the green one spun in the mud, smoking and jerking, either stuck or fried. The cow smashed into the back of the red combine, pushing it into the orange one, and the driver’s head whipped back and forth.
“That can’t be good for them,” Nick yelled, trying to be heard over the noise.
“They’re twenty-year-olds,” I yelled back. “Do you think they care?”
The green one got bashed by the yellow, who was backing up to take another shot at the green one’s back tires, the weakest spot on the machine. But before Sunshine could make the run, the driver of the green one ripped off his flag, so Sunshine had to stop, which made it a prime target for the red beast, who banged into it so hard I was surprised the driver didn’t go flying out. Thank God for seatbelts and helmets.
They kept on bashing and crashing into each other until only the red combine remained running and was declared the winner of the heat. The tow trucks and front end loaders took ten minutes to pull out the losers, and the next heat entered the ring.
“GO GET ’EM, STINKBOMB!” a woman behind us shrieked.
Miranda jerked forward so hard she hit the guy in front of us, who turned around and leered. “Want to do that again, little lady? I wouldn’t mind.” He patted her hip.
Miranda was obviously speechless, so I answered for her. “Back off, sleazeball.”
“Hey, she’s the one feeling me up.”
I leaned forward, meeting his watery eyes. “Back. Off.”
He did.
“You let the teenagers come here?” Miranda said, when she got her voice back.
“They’re all down there.” I pointed to a special section, marked off for the 4-H’ers. “Booze-free zone.”
“Wish we were with them.”
I was beginning to wish that, too. I searched the young faces, but couldn’t find any of the kids I knew, until I finally spied Bobby’s neon green shirt. Once I saw that, I could make out Zach, Taylor, Claire, Randy, and Laura—who was apparently now part of their crowd. Zach and Taylor sat beside each other, with Laura beside Taylor, while the other three sat directly behind them. Poor Claire. She had the perfect sight lines for what she really didn’t want to see.
Being a teenager really did suck sometimes. I remembered. But then, being twenty-nine had really sucked as well, so I figured they’d better get used to it.
Four more heats of combines destroyed each other, and while the winners made repairs, pick up trucks took the stage.
Miranda dropped her head into her hands. “I thought it was over.”
I patted her knee. I would have preferred to pat her back, but I couldn’t move that far.
The pick ups went through the same routine as the combines, but the demo went a lot faster, since they were smaller vehicles. They smashed and banged, backing into each other to preserve the engine compartment, as well as the driver, and then we sat through a brief intermission while firefighters put out a fire in an old Ford.
“Poor trucks,” Nick said.
I shrugged. “They’ve lived a long life.”
“But to end up this way…”
“Hey, the drivers love them. For now.”
The firefighters left, and the trucks went at it again, one of them getting hung up on a side rail, stuck while another truck just whacked and whacked it. Finally every truck but one had died, and the winning driver climbed out of the driver’s window, pulled off the helmet, and shook her hair free. The crowd went silent for a split second, then went crazy. Who’d known it was a woman out there?
The area cleared out again, and the championship for the combines was finally ready to begin. By now, the air was filled with gas and diesel smell, dust, blue smoke, and the lovely odor of burning tires, thanks to their constant spinning in the mud. Miranda had turned a pale shade of green, and I was beginning to feel a little worried she was going to heave on the gross guy in front of her. That wouldn’t turn out well.
She pressed her hand over her mouth, and swallowed. “This is supposed to be fun?”
I sighed again. Heavily. “Why did you come, again? Wait, I know. To spend time with your brother.”
“And to try to understand you better. Which is getting harder and harder as time goes by.”
The starting shot was given, and the combines went at it.
“Destroy him, Stinkbomb!” the woman behind us screamed, and clobbered Miranda’s back with her knee.
“Will you watch it?” Miranda snapped.
The woman didn’t hear her, instead screaming for Stinkbomb to “Crush his back axle, you moron!”
I smiled at Miranda. “You don’t find this fun?”
In answer, she took her index fingers and stuck them in her ears.
“No sense of culture,” I said to Nick.
He grinned, and then his brow crinkled. “Is that your phone?”
I pulled it out. It was ringing. “How on earth did you hear that?”
“Super powers. Who is it?”
“Don’t know. It’s just a number.” I stuck the phone back in my pocket.
“You’re not going to answer it?”
“I don’t answer if I don’t know who it is. If it’s important, they’ll leave a message.”
“Are you sure?”
The red combine crashed into a camouflage one, and the woman behind us—along with a good portion of the crowd—went crazy.
“You get ’em, Stinky!” the woman screamed.
“I guess it’s important,” Nick said.
“What is?”
“Your phone call. Someone just left you a voice mail. I heard the ding.”
I pulled the phone out again. Nick was right. I considered where I was sitting, in the berserker woman zone, but also considered how hard it would be to make my way out of the grandstand. Lesser of two evils. I dialed voice mail and covered my other ear.
“Stella?” Bryan’s voice came over the line. “Where are you? Are you still at the fair? I don’t know what to—If you’re here, please come to the dairy barn. It’s bad. Carla’s bad. Please, I’m not sure how to—” The message cut off.
“Gotta go.” I stood.
Miranda glanced up, hope in her eyes. “Are we leaving?”
“I am.”
“Well, then, I’m coming, too.”
Nick stood up. “What’s wrong?”
“Move it!” the crazy lady screamed. “Get the fuck down!”
Miranda blinked, then put her fists on her hips. Good lord
, she was going to take on the crazy woman. Just as Miranda opened her mouth, I jerked her away, and the crowd closed in behind us. Miranda might not like the woman’s foul language, but no way would she win that fight. We picked our way down the stands. When we were clear of the crowd, we moved faster.
“Why did you yank me away like that?” Miranda said, plucking at my arm. “That woman had no right to—”
“That woman would have kicked your ass.”
Miranda stopped with the plucking.
“Where are we going?” Nick said.
“Dairy barn. Carla’s in trouble.” I kicked it up to a jog, leaving the two of them behind.
Leave Tomorrow Behind (Stella Crown Series) Page 18
