Stay At Home Dad 03-Father Knows Death (11 page)

“Well, since no one knows exactly what this rinky-dink carnival takes in each year, maybe there’s more money in it than we know,” he said.

“Who owns these fairgrounds?”

My dad paused. “The county, I’d assume.”

“But you don’t know for sure?”

He chuckled and slapped me on the shoulder. “I can’t do
all
your work for you.”

24

“You look perturbed,” Julianne said.

We were sitting outside the 4-H building under an awning and Carly was off helping her grandmother.

“Perturbed?” I said, then shook my head. “No. Not perturbed.”

She grabbed one of the hot wings from the paper boat in her lap and held it up. “Hmm. Okay. How about bewildered?”

“Are you just trying to use big words to confuse me?”

She gnawed on the wing. “Maybe. Whichever word you like, you are clearly preoccupied with something.”

I nodded. “Yes. The impending birth of our child.”

She dropped the empty bone into the boat. “Ha. Funny. But that is not what I see in your expression. And remember. Being, like, ten weeks overdue gives me incredible powers of clairvoyance.”

“I don’t remember hearing that at birthing classes for Carly.”

She chewed on another wing. “That’s because you’re a man and your hearing is awful.”

“I remember everything from birthing class.”

She snorted. “Oh, really? So how did you promptly forget all of it the minute we walked into the delivery room?”

“I didn’t,” I said.

“I think your memory is just as bad as your hearing,” she said. “It’s the whole reason we signed up for the refresher class. Which was totally stupid and pointless.”

The refresher class wasn’t stupid and pointless. We’d dutifully gone for six weeks of learning and bonding with other parents-to-be. Six of them, actually. All of whom had delivered healthy, happy babies. The “reunion” had been last week. We were the only ones still incubating, much to Julianne’s dismay.

I laughed and told her about my conversation with my dad.

Her nose wrinkled and she pointed another wing bone at me. “I think this town might explode if the fair was moved somewhere else.”

“I agree.”

“I don’t see how they think they could make that happen,” she continued. “It would still be in Carriveau County, but it wouldn’t be in Rose Petal. Which would mean big losses for the local businesses. Gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores. They’d all take a huge hit.”

It was a good point and one I hadn’t thought of.

“They’d all pitch a fit,” she said, grabbing the last wing in the boat. “Not to mention everyone around here having to drive up there. They’d all freak. People walk with their wagons and ride their bikes. And I can’t believe it would be that easy to just up and move a county fair.”

“But if it just takes a fair board vote and the vote is controlled . . .”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Julianne said, then licked a finger. “I can’t believe it’s just a single vote that would allow the move. I’d think there would have to be other approvals involved. Local government or something. Something in the original bylaws that would require multiple agency approvals to move something so vital to all of the local businesses.”

I pondered how I might go about finding out that information while she cleaned the hot sauce from her fingers like a cat.

“And now I can’t help but think this is somehow tied to George Spellman’s death,” I said to her.

She grabbed a napkin and wiped her hands. “Why?”

“Why? Because it seems like a really weird coincidence.”

“Everything around Rose Petal is really weird.”

“You know what I mean,” I said. “It just seems odd that a dead guy shows up in a freezer at the same time the leader of the fair board is looking to maybe move the fair.”

She thought for a moment, then squinted against the sun. “The key word there is
maybe
. You don’t know for sure that she’s looking to move the fair.”

“My dad was pretty certain about her trying to buy the land.”

“So? Maybe she’s trying to buy it for another reason. Investment. Flip it. Who knows? It doesn’t mean she’s looking to yank the fair up. She’s a sharp old broad. It might be for other reasons. If the developer is willing to dump it for a low price and she can get the money, maybe she just wants it to have it.”

Even in the shade provided by the awning, the air was getting hotter by the moment and beads of sweat formed on my neck. “He said he heard rumblings, though. About her wanting to move the fair.”

“There are always rumblings,” she said, rolling her eyes. “This town subsists on rumblings. You know how many of them end up being false. I’m not saying it is or it isn’t. But don’t just make the assumption. Find out for sure.”

I smiled at my wife. I loved everything about her. Her intelligence, her beauty, her rationale when it chose to appear. I couldn’t imagine myself married to anyone else in the entire world.

“Just keep digging,” she said, pushing herself off the bench, placing her hands behind her back to support herself when she was upright. “The truth will turn up. It always does, because no one knows how to bury it the right way in Rose Petal.” Her eyes scanned the grounds, moving all the way from right to left. “Now. I know I saw the deep-fried jalapeños somewhere nearby. Walk with me and buy me a couple, husband.”

25

I got Julianne her fried jalapeño—on a stick—and after we finished our short shift in the animal barn, we convinced Carly that it might be a good thing to go home for a nap, since she’d be spending the rest of the night at the fair with her mom playing games, while I went to poker night. She grudgingly acquiesced and Julianne scooted her on home while I stuck around to do some more digging.

I was making a mess for myself, grasping at too many threads and trying to weave them together. I needed to pick one and hang onto it until I got to the end. Since Mama Biggs was paying us to look into Spellman’s death, I figured that was the thread that needed the most attention.

There was one person specifically I wanted to start with and I knew I’d find her on the grounds somewhere. I went to the fair board office to see if anyone knew where Matilda Biggs was and got lucky when she was the only one in the air-conditioned trailer when I walked in.

Her automatic greeting smile dimmed when she recognized me. “Hello,” she said.

“Hi, Matilda. How’s the fair going?” I asked, weakly attempting small talk.

“We’re hanging in there,” she said, fiddling with a pencil on the desk top. “Things seem to be settling down at the moment, so that’s good.”

“Oh, good,” I said. “Is this a good time? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The pencil went flying out of her hand and smacked into the wall. “Oh, well, I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on here and then I need to get over to the barns. . . .”

“I know my partner talked to you last night,” I said, not letting her finish. “I just want to follow up with some other things.”

She glanced at the pencil on the floor, as if it might help her answer the questions, but said nothing.

“I’m going to be direct,” I said, not knowing how else to get around it. “I heard a rumor that you and George Spellman were close. Is that true?”

She looked at nearly everything in the room but me. “Well, I was aware of him.”

There was that word again.
Aware
. “I’m asking, were you more than aware of him? My partner seemed to think that maybe you were . . .”

“That little midget?” she said, her flabby cheeks flushing. “He was kind of rude.”

“That’s the way God made him, I’m afraid.”

“He kinda creeps me out.”

“You’re not alone. But you still haven’t answered my question.”

Her cheeks flushed a little more. “Well . . . I . . . uh . . .”

“Were you having an affair with George?” I asked, throwing it out there.

She dropped her head into her hands, covering her eyes.

“Matilda, unless you killed him, I don’t need to share this information with everyone,” I said.

Her face shot out of her hands, her eyes wide, her mouth as open as it went. She tried to say something, but nothing escaped her mouth. She coughed and cleared her throat, laying her hands flat on the desk. “I could never have hurt George. Ever.”

“Why’s that?”

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Because I loved him.”

26

Matilda unwedged herself from the desk, waddled around it, and opened the door I’d come in. She hung a sign on the outside that said
OUT TO LUNCH
, shut the door again, and turned the deadbolt above the handle.

She dropped onto the sofa beneath the window, the entire trailer shaking beneath her girth. “I don’t want anyone barging in and hearing this.”

I grabbed a metal folding chair and sat down.

“About six months ago, I was here late one night,” she said, her eyes still watering. “I don’t even remember what I was doing. Paperwork, probably. Anyway, he came by the trailer. He needed a key to one of the barns.” She sighed heavily. “He was so handsome.”

I could only picture George in his denim coveralls. Considering the last time I’d seen him he was blue and frosted over, I couldn’t remember whether he was handsome or not.

“I walked him down to the barn,” she said. “We aren’t supposed to give out the keys to anyone, even him. So I took him down there. And there was just a . . . spark.”

She was at least half a foot taller than George and a good two hundred pounds heavier. I was trying to imagine the spark.

“We were just talking,” she said, her eyes elsewhere, lost in her memory of George. “We were in the barn and he grabbed me and kissed me.”

Whoa. Awkward.

“And it was the most amazing kiss,” she said, a smile creeping onto her lips. “It was electric. That man knew how to kiss. I have no idea where he learned, but he was incredible.”

I was wishing I had called Victor and told him to continue questioning her. I didn’t need these images in my head. But now I was trapped.

“And, before I knew it, we were on a hay bale,” she said, her cheeks flushing again, but in a different way. “I was on my back, he was on top of me, and he pulled out his . . .”

“So you were having an affair,” I blurted out loudly, before she could say anything else that would scar me for the remainder of my life. “You and George were a couple.”

She giggled like a teenager and brushed the stringy black hair from her face. “After that night, we were. But we kept it a secret.” Her face clouded over. “I figured Mama might not like it.”

“Why not?”

“Two reasons,” she explained. “One, she really doesn’t like men. Does
not
trust them at all. And, two, she didn’t want any fraternitying between fair employees.”

“Fraternizing.”

“Yeah. That. I knew it would make her mad. So we decided to keep it quiet.”

“George was okay with that?”

“He said he was.”

She was proving to me that there really was someone for everyone. I believed her when she said she didn’t hurt George. She clearly seemed to me to be someone very much in love.

No matter how much it grossed me out.

“Okay, then. I need to ask you something else,” I said.

She pushed the hair away from her sweaty face again and looked at me anxiously.

“I was told that maybe he was breaking up with you,” I said. “Is that true?”

Her bottom lip quivered and her eyes filled. “Breaking up with me? Why?”

“No, no. Someone told me they saw you together and it looked like he was breaking up with you. You might’ve been crying or something like that?”

She thought hard for a moment, then shook her head. “He didn’t break up with me. I can assure you of that. So I’m not sure what you mean.”

I didn’t want to mention Susan Blamunski’s name because I was afraid it might cause more drama. But she was the one who’d told me about seeing Matilda and George together in the restaurant.

“Were you out together recently?” I asked. “Publicly? In a restaurant?”

Recognition clicked through her eyes. “Oh my God. Our anniversary.”

“Anniversary?”

“Six months from that first night in the barn,” she said. “I wanted to go out and celebrate. He was kind of surprised because of the whole keeping-it-quiet thing. But I really wanted to go out and I was really tired of not telling everyone about us. I wanted everyone to know we were in love.”

I nodded. “So you went out to dinner?”

“Yes,” she said, and something in her body language changed. She went from remembering a night out with a man she loved to being very uncomfortable.

“Something happened at dinner?” I asked.

“I really can’t talk about it,” she said, her voice dropping to nearly a whisper.

“Why not?”

“I just can’t.”

“But something happened that made you cry that night?” I asked. “I was told you were crying. That’s why it may have looked like you were breaking up.”

“Who saw us?” she asked. There was no malice in her question. She just seemed curious.

“I really can’t say,” I said. “But were you crying?” I gently pressed.

She nodded, but still didn’t say anything.

“But you won’t tell me why?”

She shook her head.

The air-conditioning hummed loudly in the silence. I waited her out. She was good at staying quiet and she just stared back at me, her eyes watery and sad.

“Matilda, do you want to find out who killed George?” I asked.

She looked at me, bewildered that it could even be a question. “Of course, I do. They took him from me. And I’ll never get him back. I’ll never love anyone like that ever again.”

“Then you need to tell me everything you can about George,” I said. “And that means you might want to tell me about that conversation, too. What upset you so much that you would cry on your anniversary?”

She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, thinking.

“I think you’d be upset with yourself if you had information that might help solve George’s murder,” I said. “I think you’d feel guilty forever. You might not think it’s important, but it might help me figure out what happened to him.”