The Christmas Fair Killer

by Amy Patricia Meade

‘What about him?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard by now that he was in Jenny’s trailer just before she was shot. Apparently, he had also – how did you put it? – “grown to care for her.”’

  Ted’s eyes flashed. ‘I highly doubt Bailey’s feelings for Jenny emanated from anywhere above the waist.’

  ‘Those sound like the words of a jealous man.’

  ‘I’m not jealous.’ Fenton’s voice rose. ‘I’m disappointed that Jenny would have chosen to associate on a personal level with someone like Bailey.’

  ‘How are your feelings for Jenny now? I mean, after learning about Bailey.’

  ‘I’m shocked and horrified by the manner of her passing and saddened by the fact that I’ll never again get to talk to her or make her laugh or watch her give a great performance. However, before Jenny’s death, I’d realized that I’d made an egregious error in starting any sort of relationship with the girl. I’d let myself become infatuated with her without giving a single thought to what might happen next. Did I sincerely think Jenny would run away with me? It was stupid. Downright idiotic. If Frances had found out, it would have destroyed my marriage, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.’ Ted Fenton looked up at Reade with a determined face. ‘I simply couldn’t.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘So, Ted Fenton did see Bailey Cassels enter Jenny’s trailer that night.’ With Ted Fenton gone, Sheriff Reade spoke freely over his cell phone.

  ‘Yes, Frances was in the bathroom when she saw Ted get up and look out of the bedroom window. She, in turn, looked out of the bathroom window and saw Jenny kiss Bailey and then bring him inside,’ Tish explained as she stepped away from the booth for privacy. ‘Ted went to bed right afterwards. She said he had the same expression on his face as when they had to put their dog down a few years back.’

  ‘Heartbroken,’ Reade remarked.

  ‘Young girl dashes older man’s dreams? That’s one way to explain it, but what Ted told you could be the truth as well. When he saw Jenny with Bailey, he could have realized he’d made a mistake. It might have occurred to him that he nearly sacrificed his marriage for a pipe dream.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t buy it. If the guy felt anything for his wife, he wouldn’t have texted Jenny in the first place. He gets no sympathy from me.’

  ‘Wow. I can see you’ll take your afternoon coffee black, with no added sprinkles of opinion needed,’ she teased.

  ‘Sorry, but if you’re fortunate enough to find a woman you want to marry, you don’t neglect her while you shop for a newer model.’

  ‘Yeah, well, tell my ex-husband that,’ she said. ‘I’d like to add, however, that it’s not always so cut and dried. Husbands and wives sometimes drift apart. One partner grows and finds interests the other partner doesn’t share and, as a result, the other partner feels left behind.’

  ‘You paint a sad picture of love,’ Reade remarked.

  ‘No. Love can be sad, of course. We lose loved ones all the time. I’ve lost my fair share, but I have no regrets, because love itself is amazing. I just don’t think love sticks to a specific formula. It’s something nebulous. Something you can’t quite explain, and it makes you do some crazy things at times. That’s where Frances Fenton has been: the crazy side. Ted had this whole world outside his marriage, while Frances – well, all Frances wanted was Ted.’

  Tish was met with silence on the other end of the connection. ‘Reade? Hello?’

  ‘I’m here,’ he replied.

  ‘Do you think Ted Fenton killed Jenny?’

  ‘I think it’s quite possible. Did Frances Fenton hear her husband get up in the middle of the night?’

  ‘No, she said she slept very soundly and woke up only twice. The first time to use the bathroom. That’s when she saw Jenny. The second time she was awoken by the sound of fireworks. Her husband was beside her.’

  ‘Ted said the same thing. He woke up twice and otherwise slept through the night.’

  ‘Doesn’t prove or disprove anything, does it?’ Tish complained.

  ‘No, but Ted had a motive and knew where the rifles were stored.’

  ‘To be fair, anyone with access to the campground or the area behind the stage could have seen where they were stored. The re-enactors are wearing Revolutionary-era clothing. It’s not too hard to spot them returning the rifles to the shed after a demonstration.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t think Ted Fenton did it?’

  ‘No, I think he very well could have. I also think it could have been Frances. She was already out of her mind with jealousy and she wished Jenny dead. Also, she’d seen enough antique firearms in her own house that she might have known how to fire a rifle.’

  ‘I have a team searching the Fentons’ camper for the instrument that broke the shed lock and door. So far, the woods behind the campground have turned up empty.’

  ‘Let me know what they uncover. I have to get back to my booth. There’s a swarm of people trying to get lunch before the next performance.’ With a quick goodbye, Tish disconnected the call and returned to her food booth.

  There she found a long queue, at the head of which stood Edwin and Augusta May Wilson. ‘You have quite the crowd here,’ the library board director noted.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been juggling a few things,’ Tish apologized.

  ‘No need to be sorry. You’re slated to sell out of books by the end of the day. I’ve had to overnight a batch to have enough for tomorrow’s crowds.’

  ‘Do you have enough money left for that?’

  ‘No, but John Ballantyne has been generous enough to cover the costs of the extra books.’

  John Ballantyne, father of Charlotte, the high school junior who was currently keeping things running at the café, had turned his life and business around since selling his late mother-in-law’s home, Wisteria Knolls.

  ‘Just Dickens?’

  ‘No, Shakespeare’s in there too.’

  ‘The bawdy Bard? So, after all her efforts to purge the library of books she deemed to be of questionable moral content, part of Binnie Broderick’s estate is being used to purchase books she would have deemed to be of questionable moral content,’ Tish noted.

  ‘Ain’t karma grand?’ Augusta May grinned. ‘Now, how can I help you folks?’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got this. But thank you.’

  ‘Yeah, this is our second lunch wave,’ Jules explained. ‘We got through the first round just fine.’

  ‘Yes, but the next show starts in less than thirty minutes,’ Edwin announced.

  ‘We need to get people to their seats as quickly as possible to prevent a rush. Edwin and I will serve the lunches while you folks take and assemble orders,’ Augusta instructed. ‘That way there’s less of a traffic jam here at the counter and most folks will be seated when the performance starts.’

  Augusta’s plan worked. Two minutes before the curtain was due to come up, the crowd hovering around the booth had been whittled down to just two families of four. As Tish and company assembled their food orders, Augusta May took to the stage to quiet the noisy audience members.

  ‘Ladies, gentlemen, boys, and girls. Thank you for coming out on this blustery Saturday to make the Hobson Glen Holiday Fair the best-attended event in the region. We thought you’d come out in droves for some holiday fun, but we never anticipated this turn-out. Give yourselves a round of applause as I turn you over to Hobson Glen’s interim mayor, Laurie Villanueva.’

  Ms Villanueva, tall, slender, dark-haired, and festively dressed in a long red wool coat and knee-high quilted riding boots, took the microphone and gave a brief speech introducing herself, thanking the community for a warm welcome, reminding Hobson Glen residents that the election for a permanent mayor would take place in April, and wishing all present a beautiful holiday season.

  Amid cheers and applause, Augusta May took to the microphone again. ‘Thank you, Ms Villanueva. I would also like to extend a sincere thank you to the fair planning committee for all their hard work and our wonder
ful vendors, re-enactors, and volunteers for making this a fun and food-filled weekend. And a special thanks to Tish Tarragon and the staff of Cookin’ the Books, for putting together a menu that complements the incredible performances of the Williamsburg Theater Company.’

  As a swathe of sunlight broke through the low-lying clouds, Augusta May gestured toward Tish’s booth. While Jules blew kisses to the cheering crowd and Mary Jo and Celestine bowed their heads humbly, Tish shielded her eyes against the sun with one hand and gave a friendly wave to the audience with the other.

  It was then that Tish saw her. She was standing across the field, on the other side of the audience, to the right and several yards in front of the stage. She was dressed in a dark hooded sweatshirt topped with a navy quilted vest, a pair of fitted black jeans ripped at both knees, and a pair of Converse high-top sneakers. In the warmth of the sun, she peeled back her hood, revealing a head of dark peach fuzz.

  It was Jenny Inkpen.

  Not wanting to cause a scene, Tish waited until Augusta and Mayor Villanueva had vacated the stage and the curtain had lifted on the first act to give chase. Judging it more expedient to travel around the perimeter of the audience than to try to cut a path through the crowd, Tish dashed out from behind her booth and ran along the U-shaped arrangement of food stalls and gift sellers that surrounded the theater area until she had reached the approximate spot where she had seen Jenny standing.

  Not surprisingly, the young woman was gone.

  Tish scanned the neighboring booths for a sign of the girl, but the sheer number of visitors combined with the vast amount of dark-colored winter clothing put the search on a par with the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack.

  Tish hastened back to the booth where she was met with the questioning stares of her friends. ‘I saw her,’ a breathless Tish explained. ‘I saw Jenny Inkpen.’

  ‘You did?’ An excited Jules reached out and took Tish’s hands in his.

  ‘Yes, she was wearing the same hooded sweatshirt and jeans you described.’

  ‘Same buzz cut?’

  ‘Yes, but she was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t see her eyes. Still, she seemed lost.’

  ‘Of course she looked lost,’ Celestine inserted. ‘She’s supposed to be dead, ain’t she?’

  ‘Where was she?’ Jules asked.

  ‘On the other side of the field, just there, to the right of the stage.’ Tish pointed. ‘I ran as fast as I could to try to catch her, but I was too late. She just disappeared into the crowd.’

  ‘That’s what she did at the Piggly Wiggly, too. It was as if she just vaporized.’

  ‘I’d better call Reade,’ Tish resolved.

  ‘Yes, you should,’ Jules agreed with a giggle.

  ‘What’s with you?’

  ‘It looks like you’re Aunt Velma now.’

  ‘If you and your staff could refrain from seeing dead people for the next forty-eight hours, it would be greatly appreciated,’ Reade half joked as he arrived on the scene.

  ‘If it helps, we weren’t too happy about seeing them – um, her – either.’ Tish folded her arms across her chest with a shiver.

  ‘Must have been a shock. Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, a little creeped out. Otherwise, just sorry I didn’t catch her.’

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll go over and poke around, see what I can see, and ask some of the vendors if they’ve seen her. One of my deputies is talking to the Piggly Wiggly manager and looking at the surveillance camera footage. For now, that’s the best I can do. My department is already maxed out controlling fair traffic, trying to find Jenny’s killer, and tracking down who she was while she was alive.’

  ‘No, I understand, Clemson. You’re doing plenty.’

  ‘Thanks. I, uh’ – Reade glanced over Tish’s shoulder – ‘I have some news.’

  Tish exited the booth and led Reade toward her car. ‘What is it?’ she asked when they were away from listening ears.

  ‘I ran a search on all the baby girls born in Florida twenty-two years ago to a mother named Lucinda LeComte. I couldn’t find a single match for the name LeComte, but I did find a number of Lucindas. One of those Lucindas – according to the birth certificate, a Lucinda Gilcrease, aged twenty-three – gave birth at Tallahassee Memorial on February twenty-third, 1998. The name of the child’s father was not given. The baby girl in question was adopted several days later by a couple from Pensacola.’

  ‘The age of the mother and the location of the birth line up perfectly with Lucinda’s story,’ Tish noted. ‘Also, as Rolly didn’t want to settle down, she’d hardly list him as the father.’

  ‘The Pensacola adoptive family lines up with what Jenny told Justin about catching the bus north to Savannah,’ Reade added.

  ‘Do you think the baby was Jenny? And do you think Lucinda and Rolly were her parents?’

  Reade shrugged. ‘We’ve reached out to the adoptive parents to ask them about their daughter. We’re waiting to hear back from them. I will say, if Jenny was Lucinda and Rolly’s child, then her meeting up with Justin Dange seems like one hell of a strange coincidence.’

  ‘Unless it wasn’t a coincidence. If Jenny had run away from home because of a traumatic childhood, she might have been looking to meet up with her birth parents.’

  ‘Then why not go to her mother directly? Why rig some weird, seemingly random meeting with Justin? How would she have known he would be in Savannah and see her show?’

  ‘It would have been easy to link Lucinda to the theater group. And the theater group, in turn, has a website and a social media presence. So does Justin Dange. He was at a wedding. He may have posted photos. As for seeing her show, Jenny performed at the major tourist sites in Savannah. It would have been hard to miss her.’

  ‘Still sounds like a crapshoot to me. Why not just approach her birth mother?’

  Tish pursed her lips as an idea flashed across her mind. ‘Perhaps she did.’

  FOURTEEN

  As the second performance of A Christmas Carol ended and the cast gave autographs and posed for selfies, the audience dispersed on to the adjacent fairgrounds, inundating the Cookin’ the Books team with orders for late-afternoon drinks, cakes, and snacks.

  As per usual, Tish, Jules, Celestine, and Mary Jo kept up with demand and cleared the queue just in time for the cast members to put in their orders for post-performance refreshments and, since the additional Saturday performances put time at a premium, their evening meals, to be delivered to their trailers later.

  Lawrence, the young understudy, still dressed in his long black Ghost of the Future robe, was first in line. ‘Can I have a cocoa, please?’ he asked of Jules.

  Jules reeled back in mock surprise. ‘Y’all can talk? I was expecting you to point a bony finger at the menu item you wanted.’

  ‘Yeah, I can talk,’ Lawrence chortled. ‘Since it’s my first role in one of Rolly’s productions, I don’t think he trusted me to do a lot of it onstage, though.’

  ‘Yes, Rolly told me he called you down with your sister so you could lend a hand with the stage work,’ Tish stated. ‘Lucky for everyone you were here to fill in.’

  Lawrence’s brow wrinkled in confusion. ‘Stage work? No, I don’t know a thing about stage production. I’ve performed in small community theater, which is why Rolly thought I could fill for Bailey, but I’m majoring in music composition at Old Dominion.’

  ‘I must have misunderstood.’ Tish excused herself and took Lawrence’s dinner order.

  The rest of the cast and crew having been served, it was finally Lucinda’s turn. She passed her empty mug to Jules, who refilled it with Christmas chai scented with cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger.

  ‘What about dinner?’ Tish asked.

  ‘Oh, that vegetarian stew sounds divine, but can I do something other than bread with it?’ Lucinda requested.

  ‘I have salad greens.’

  ‘Lovely. I’ll have that. See you in a little bit.’ Lucinda, in her silver Ghost of Ch
ristmas Past costume, gave a wave and sashayed toward the campground.

  A little over an hour later, Tish stood on the steps of Lucinda’s Airstream camper, her right hand on the door and her trusty insulated bag in the other. After a loud metallic clang, Lucinda appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in her customary kimono and her ghostly makeup and pale wig had been shed in favor of red cheeks, red lips, a set of false eyelashes, and her natural auburn tresses.

  ‘Sorry to make you wait, but I’ve been making sure my door is bolted tight these days.’ She invited Tish to enter and shut the door behind her.

  ‘Can’t say I blame you.’ Tish removed the cardboard tub of stew from the hot compartment of the bag and the foil container of salad and vinaigrette from the cold and passed both to an eager Lucinda.

  ‘Tea?’ the actress offered.

  ‘I’d love one, but it has to be quick. I have other orders to deliver and then I need to get back before the dinner rush – oh, and Jules’s news broadcast. He’s featuring me in his report of the fair.’

  ‘That should be good for business.’ Lucinda poured a mug of tea from a ceramic pot.

  ‘Yes, it should. Thanks.’ She accepted the mug from Lucinda and perched on the edge of the kitchen banquette while Lucinda flopped on to the plush pull-out sofa and put her feet up.

  ‘This smells incredible.’ Lucinda removed the lid from the stew and inhaled.

  ‘Perfect evening for it, too. It’s a cold one out there.’

  ‘Mmm, I was happy to have my brocade gown on this afternoon, with extra petticoats. Tonight it’s a velvet tunic, but I’ll be wishing my tights were wool.’ She ate a spoonful of stew. ‘Fab. Just fab.’

  ‘I’m glad you like it,’ Tish acknowledged. ‘Lucinda, since we spoke this morning, something has been nagging at me.’

  ‘Oh?’ With her stew balanced on her lap, she took the bitter greens salad from the nearby table and drizzled it with dressing.

  ‘Well, the times and dates, and everything you told me got me thinking. Did you ever wonder if Jenny Inkpen might have been your daughter?’