The Christmas Fair Killer

by Amy Patricia Meade

  ‘Your hat is on fire,’ she repeated. ‘Your hat is on fire!’ She lunged forward, grabbing Biscuit from Jules’s arm with one hand and swinging at the flaming hat with the other. It was no use. The conical cap was securely fixed to the reporter’s head.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Schuyler rushed forth with a blanket he’d snatched from a nearby vendor.

  At the same time, Mary Jo ran out from behind the booth, carrying the fire extinguisher Tish had brought to keep in line with town fire codes.

  The pair converged on Jules simultaneously, leaving him just enough time to shout, ‘Cut! Cut!’

  The order came too late. The last scene Channel Ten viewers saw was a shrieking Julian Jefferson Davis being tackled to the ground, smothered with a blanket, and then engulfed in white foam.

  ‘I told the camera man to cut,’ Jules lamented as he watched the resulting video on YouTube. Fortunately, the wool blanket had shielded Jules’s clothes and face from the soaking foam of the fire extinguisher, meaning that after a quick rinse with soap and water, a brush to his coat and pants, and a re-styling of his hair, Jules was back to his well-groomed self. ‘Why didn’t he cut?’

  ‘He was probably as stunned as I was,’ Tish explained.

  ‘It’s already had five thousand views,’ he cried.

  ‘Hey, that’s quicker than the Poe Museum snowplow video,’ Mary Jo exclaimed. ‘You got a whole lot of job perks after that went viral. I can’t wait to see what the station gives you for this one.’

  ‘I don’t want perks. This weekend was to be a test of my journalism chops. I really wanted the station and my audience to take me seriously.’

  ‘In an elf’s hat?’ Celestine questioned.

  ‘Hey, I didn’t wear it for the murder segment.’

  ‘I’m just glad you’re OK.’ Schuyler spoke up. ‘You’re sure I didn’t hurt you when I tackled you?’

  ‘I’m a little sore, but otherwise I’m fine.’

  ‘Sorry, I think I might have relived my high school football days there for a minute.’

  ‘I’m just happy you acted so quickly.’ Tish gave Schuyler a kiss of appreciation. ‘You too, Mary Jo.’

  ‘Amen,’ Celestine seconded.

  ‘I’m grateful to both of you for putting the fire out,’ a humbled Jules replied. ‘And to you, too, Tish. Had you not grabbed Biscuit, he might have been injured.’

  ‘Of course. I’m always watching out for my furry little nephew,’ Tish replied with a wink. ‘So, riding this wave of gratitude, why don’t you put away the phone? There’s nothing you can do right now except to prepare for the late-evening broadcast.’

  ‘If there is a broadcast. I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve been fired.’

  ‘Well, did you get a call?’ Celestine asked.

  ‘No. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming,’ he whined.

  ‘When are you on again?’

  ‘Eleven, but as there have been no new developments, they’re re-running my Inkpen murder spot. And I’m giving a brief recap of the day’s events at the fair with footage we shot earlier.’

  ‘It’s been an hour. If they didn’t want you, you’d have heard something by now,’ Schuyler reasoned. ‘A warning or word that a replacement is on the way.’

  ‘And you never will get that call. You’re a publicist’s dream.’ Mary Jo had worked in public relations before her children were born. ‘Everyone and his brother is going to be Googling Julian Jefferson Davis and Channel Ten news, and then tuning in tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if people were streaming it around the globe just to see what you do next.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’ll be tuning in for the wrong reasons.’

  ‘There’s no such thing as a “wrong” reason. They might be tuning in for reasons you wish were different, but the fact of the matter is they’re still tuning in. So show them what you can do. Give them a different reason to tune in tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.’

  Jules smiled. ‘You’re right. At least they’re watching my segments.’

  ‘You got it. The more people who tune in, the more people to appreciate your indisputable talents.’

  ‘I can be rather charming,’ he asserted.

  ‘You can be,’ Celestine agreed. ‘Now, if you could turn those charms toward the dinner crowd, that would be mighty handy.’ She gestured toward the sudden influx of people descending upon the booth.

  Jules tied an apron around his waist. ‘I’m ready. Actually, serving drinks sounds like fun. It will provide a nice distraction from the broadcast. I’ll chat with the customers and spread some holiday cheer.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ Schuyler offered to Tish.

  ‘If you don’t mind, could you deliver orders? Augusta and Edwin did it during the lunch rush and it really helped minimize the logjam.’

  ‘Absolutely. Then, when the crowd is gone, I’m going to meet up with a few of the town council members, if that’s OK with you?’

  ‘Sure. I thought you attended the last council meeting of the year this morning.’

  ‘I did, but there are a few loose ends I’d like to tie up before Christmas.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s fine with me.’

  ‘Good. I was also thinking—’

  ‘Uh-oh,’ Tish teased.

  ‘As per our most recent conversation’ – he took her hands in his – ‘maybe tomorrow night, when the fair is over, you might stay with me? The café’s closed Monday and I have an early-morning meeting, but I should be back by the time you get up – leisurely – finish the coffee and pain au chocolat I leave you, shower, and dress. Then I was thinking—’

  ‘You seem to have been doing a lot of that,’ she noted.

  ‘I was thinking that, as I have no Christmas decorations in my house, maybe we could go out and get a tree. Together. And maybe decorate it together? If you say yes, I’ll need to get some lights, but I’m not sure if I should buy clear or colored, blinking or non-blinking.’

  After the fair and helping to investigate Jenny’s murder, Tish wanted nothing more than to crawl into her own bed and sleep for a day, but Schuyler’s invitation was irresistible. Although she’d decked the café out with garlands, lights, a menorah, and an artificial tree she’d picked up at the local thrift shop, Tish’s apartment was utterly, and depressingly, devoid of holiday decor. ‘Non-blinking. Definitely. As for color, I lean toward clear, but colored lights can be fun, too. It’s all about tradition.’

  ‘Or new traditions,’ Schuyler beamed. ‘No cooking on Monday, by the way. We’ll gather up all the ingredients for an indoor picnic: some cheese, smoked salmon, those olives from Provence you like so much.’

  ‘Sounds perfect.’

  ‘Oh, maybe a bottle of Prosecco to toast the holiday season,’ he added.

  ‘Or a nice red,’ Tish suggested. ‘It’s perfect for a cold night.’

  ‘Supposed to feel even colder with the wind chill factor.’

  ‘Really? I didn’t know it was supposed to be windy.’

  ‘Do you ever watch my forecast?’ Jules shouted from the drinks station. ‘I said as early as Wednesday that we could be looking at rain and wind early next week.’

  Tish rolled her eyes. ‘I forgot, Jules. I’ve been kind of busy.’

  Jules was about to shout a snappy comeback when he noticed a young boy approach the counter. He was approximately six years old with straight dark-brown hair and glasses. In a small, chubby hand, he held one of the red-and-white swirled peppermint candy canes Santa’s elves were distributing on stage. ‘Well, hello,’ Jules greeted.

  ‘Say hello to the man and tell him what you want, Hemmingway,’ his henna-tattooed, ripped-jeans-and-puffer-jacket-clad mother instructed before ordering their meal from Tish.

  ‘Cocoa,’ Hemmingway demanded.

  ‘That’s the little man,’ his mother encouraged without even the suggestion of adding the word ‘please.’ She went back to chatting with Tish about whether the vegetables in the stew were heirloom varieties gro
wn locally and if the spices used were Fairtrade.

  ‘Someone saw Santa,’ Jules observed. ‘Did you tell him what you want for Christmas?’

  Hemmingway nodded. ‘A remote-control fire truck.’

  ‘Cool. If you’re a good boy, I’m sure Santa will bring you one.’

  Hemmingway nodded and then suddenly exclaimed, ‘Hey, I know you! You’re the silly man with the burning hat.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Jules feigned ignorance in the hope that the boy would believe he was mistaken.

  Hemmingway, however, was undeterred. ‘You’re the silly man! The one in the video. Your hat went on fire and some man knocked you down and then some lady sprayed you with white stuff.’ He laughed.

  ‘I have no idea what you mean.’ He poured the cup of cocoa.

  ‘I saw the video on my mom’s phone. We all laughed at how dumb you are,’ Hemmingway heckled.

  Jules looked to Hemmingway’s mother to intervene, but she was too busy scanning the ingredient list on the bag of greens Tish used for her bitter salad. ‘I can’t eat arugula or chicory,’ she explained. ‘They’re far too peppery.’

  ‘Well, it is a bitter greens salad,’ Tish replied as she smiled through clenched teeth.

  Meanwhile, Hemmingway delighted at his discovery. ‘Silly man. Silly man,’ he sang. ‘I’m going to tell all my friends I met you.’

  ‘Aw, you’re precious, aren’t you? I hope Santa brings you that fire truck, Hemmingway.’ Jules handed the child his cup of cocoa, leaned in close, and whispered, ‘And that the wheels fall off as soon as you get it.’

  Hemmingway’s jaw dropped open and his eyes grew wide. Taking the cocoa with him, he followed close behind his mother as she moved to the end of the counter toward the till.

  Satisfied with his handiwork, Jules folded his arms across his chest, sniffed, and flashed a smug grin, only to be met by Tish’s cold stare. ‘He’s six, Jules. Six.’

  ‘Yes, your point being?’

  ‘Be an adult,’ she instructed.

  ‘Me?’ He pointed to his chest and burst into laughter.

  ‘Never mind.’ She sighed. ‘I forgot who I was talking to.’

  EIGHTEEN

  With the dinner crowd fed and settled in for the first of two back-to-back performances of Twelfth Night, Mary Jo and Celestine both took a much-needed break, leaving Jules to take Biscuit for a walk, and Tish to watch, breathlessly, as Martina took the stage in the role of the fool, Feste. Her voice was ethereal and heartfelt, her pitch and delivery perfect:

  ‘Come away, come away, death,

  And in sad cypress let me be laid;

  Fly away, fly away breath;

  I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

  My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,

  O prepare it!

  My part of death, no one so true

  Did share it.

  Not a flower, not a flower sweet

  On my black coffin let there be strown;

  Not a friend, not a friend greet

  My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown:

  A thousand, thousand sighs to save,

  Lay me, O, where

  Sad true lover never find my grave,

  To weep there!’

  As the audience erupted in thunderous applause, Tish reflected upon the structure of Twelfth Night. It had been decades since she’d seen the play and even longer since she’d read the text, but upon seeing it again, she was struck, once more, by the beauty of Shakespeare’s words but also the duality present in the storyline.

  Two sets of twins: Olivia and her late, unnamed, brother, and Viola and her brother, Sebastian. Two brothers – one dead, the other presumed dead – leaving behind two grieving sisters. Two sets of disguises: Viola masquerading as Cesario and Feste disguising himself as Sir Topas. Two characters prone to melancholy: Olivia and Orsino. Two servants in the form of Maria and Malvolio, and two rogues in the form of Sir Toby and Andrew Aguecheek. The double meaning of several of Feste’s lines. And, finally, the double life being lived by Viola as a result of her disguise.

  Tish pondered the role of Viola. ‘Conceal me what I am, and be my aid for such disguise as haply shall become the form of my intent,’ she recited to herself. Like Viola, Jenny Inkpen was also leading a double life and had asked Justin to conceal it. ‘What else may hap to time I will commit. Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.’

  As the evening wore on, Tish thought about the duality also present in the Inkpen murder case. Everywhere she looked, there were pairs and symmetry at work. A theater group founded by two sets of couples – Rolly Rollinson and Edie Harmes, and Ted and France Fenton – and joined by another two couples, Lucinda LeComte and Justin Dange, and then Bailey Cassels and, finally, Jenny Inkpen.

  Jenny herself was a study in duality. Two suitors – the sensitive and mature Justin Dange and the young, impressionable, and easy-to-lead Bailey Cassels. Two older men whom she could charm – Ted Fenton and Rolly Rollinson – and their significant others – Edie Harmes and Frances Fenton – who would like nothing more than to give Jenny’s eyeballs a good clawing. Two descriptions of Jenny: one as a conniving double-talker, and the other as a wounded young runaway scared of intimacy. Jenny led two lives, had two names, a dubious past, and now, to top it all off, there were seemingly two Jennys – one alive, the other dead.

  ‘This youth that you see here I snatch’d one half out of the jaws of death,’ Tish quoted with a smile.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Jules asked. He, Mary Jo, and Celestine had long returned from their breaks and were preparing for the beverage-and-snack rush that would invariably follow the end of the first performance.

  Tish was roused from her thoughts. ‘Just myself.’

  ‘You’ve figured it out, haven’t you? You know who killed Jenny.’ He rubbed his hands together with excitement.

  ‘No. No, but it’s all very much like Twelfth Night, isn’t it? All about twins and pairings.’

  ‘Wait. Twins? Twi-i-i-ns,’ he sang in comprehension. ‘The Jenny we’ve been seeing is a twin.’

  ‘Or a sibling. A sister or even a brother.’

  ‘Yes, between the buzz haircut and the clothes, the Jenny we’ve been seeing is kinda …’

  ‘Androgynous?’ Tish filled in the blank.

  ‘Yeah. Wow, I’m blown away.’

  ‘Really, Jules? You didn’t believe we were actually seeing Jenny’s ghost, did you?’

  ‘No, of course not,’ he sniffed. ‘Well, yeah, maybe.’

  Tish laughed and placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Yeah, it freaked me out so much that I wondered for a little while too.’

  ‘Thank heavens I’m not the only one. So what do you think is going on?’

  ‘Off the record?’

  ‘Seriously, Tish? Yes, it’s off the record.’

  ‘I’ve yet to sort everything out, but like I said, it’s all very much like Twelfth Night, from Jenny’s assumed identity right down to the androgyny.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that, if I’m not mistaken, this whole case has more to do with Jenny’s past than it does with anything that might have happened on stage. Who was Jenny Inkpen? I don’t just mean her identity, but who was she as a person? We know she was talented, ambitious, and charming, but what did she believe in? Whom did she love? We need to find her mysterious sibling and ask those questions. And, while we’re at it, we need to know if Jenny was aware that this sibling was here in Hobson Glen. If she was aware of this person’s presence, did Jenny summon them? Were they reuniting for the purpose of achieving some mutually beneficial goal? Or was this sibling the person Jenny was trying to elude? Was this person the reason Jenny changed her name and destroyed all traces of her past?’

  ‘If Jenny was trying to elude this person, then they might …’ Jules’s voice trailed off as he realized the implication behind Tish’s words.

  ‘Then this person might be Jenny’s murderer,’ she confirmed. ‘It would also explain the l
ook of surprise and fear on Jenny’s face when she died.’

  Tish fell silent as she recalled the murder scene.

  After several seconds had elapsed, she spoke again. ‘Then again, if this person is the killer, why stick around and risk being seen? Why not slip out of town before anyone knows you exist?’

  ‘Because he or she thinks their disguise is impenetrable?’ Jules ventured.

  ‘Yeah, as impenetrable as Clark Kent’s,’ she scoffed.

  ‘Hey, it worked for Superman.’

  ‘Fortunately, people in real life have much better eyesight,’ she laughed.

  Jules smiled. ‘You know, speaking of pairs and twins and the like, there are two times when I can count on you to be absolutely beaming. The first is when you’re devising a new recipe for the café or for a catering gig menu.’

  ‘I do enjoy that,’ she conceded.

  ‘And the second is when you’re on a case.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. Your face just glows when you’re doing what you love.’

  She frowned. ‘I’m not sure about this one, Jules. There’s something off – either with the case or with me.’

  ‘It’s not you. You’re entirely in your element.’

  ‘Thanks. I don’t know. I’m probably just tired. And more than a little distracted by Reade’s warning to me last night.’

  ‘Warning?’

  ‘Yeah, he was afraid this case was a dangerous one. Warned me from getting too involved. And yet – here I am.’

  ‘He’s probably scared you’ll solve it before he does,’ Jules joked.

  Tish raised a skeptical eyebrow. ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘Wanna bet? He’s headed this way right now. Probably to ask for help again.’

  Tish looked up to see a pensive Reade traversing the fairgrounds. ‘Hey,’ he greeted as he neared the booth. ‘Hey, Jules, I saw your TV piece. Glad you’re OK.’

  ‘You saw it, too?’

  ‘Yeah, one of my officers played it on her phone.’

  ‘Your officers? So the entire sheriff’s department has seen it?’

  ‘Not sure about the entire department, but a majority of us, yes.’

  Jules groaned. ‘Ugh, I may have to wear a mask to serve drinks tomorrow.’