The Fatal Funnel Cake (3 page)

Chapter 4

S
aying that Fair Park, where the State Fair of Texas was held and where the Cotton Bowl was located, was just down the road from Peggy's house didn't necessarily mean that the drive was easy, not when the roads involved were North Central Expressway and Interstate 30, also known as the R. L. Thornton Freeway. Traffic bound for the fair was already backed up on both highways by the time Phyllis and her friends approached their destination the next morning. Sam was at the wheel of the Lincoln again, with Phyllis in the front seat and Eve, Carolyn, and Peggy in the back. All of them were dressed casually and comfortably. It was going to be a warm autumn day, and since they expected to do quite a bit of walking, they had all opted for sensible shoes as well.

Eventually they reached the exit that took them to the parking area and the main entrance to Fair Park. As a rule Phyllis didn't like crowds, but as they joined the throng of people entering the fairgrounds and strolling along the esplanade, she couldn't help but feel a little excitement. Everyone was here for a good time.

“There's Big Tex,” Sam said, nodding toward the giant animatronic figure of a cowboy that had replaced the rebuilt Santa that had welcomed visitors to the fair for decades. It was located not far inside the fairgrounds in a circle where several roads came together. A deep voice boomed out, “Howdy, folks!” over loudspeakers as people posed in front of the figure for photographs taken by friends and family members.

“Huh,” Peggy said. “I thought he'd be bigger. You know, after that fire that destroyed the one they had for so long, I thought they were going to make the new one a lot bigger. But he's still pretty impressive, I guess.”

“He's plenty big enough for me,” Carolyn said. Then she pointed a finger at her cousin and warned, “Don't you say it.”

“Me?” Peggy asked in broadly feigned innocence. “What could I possibly say that would embarrass you, Carolyn?”

“Just remember,” Carolyn said sternly.

Sam chuckled and Phyllis tried not to smile, while Eve said, “It seems like I never know what's going on anymore.”

“Don't worry, dear,” Carolyn told her. “Some people are going through their fourth or fifth childhood, or else they never grew up to start with.”

“Should we all stay together?” Phyllis asked as they began walking around the fairgrounds. “With this many people, if we got separated I don't know if we could ever find each other again.”

“Well, we all have cell phones,” Sam pointed out. “So I reckon if anybody got lost we could get in touch that way. But I don't have any problem with staying together.”

“You don't mind looking at quilts and crafts?”

“As long as you ladies don't mind lookin' at cars and trucks later on,” Sam said with a smile.

There were so many things to see, Phyllis hardly knew where to begin. So they just started walking and took things as they came to them, which meant strolling through pavilion after pavilion filled with arts, crafts, industrial exhibits, historical displays, and museums. Endless food vendors lined the roads and walkways. Corn dogs, cotton candy, frozen lemonade, and dozens of other treats ranging from the mundane to the bizarre vied for fairgoers' attention. After a while Phyllis began to wonder if there was any kind of food that
couldn't
be dipped in batter, dropped in boiling oil, and deep-fried. Of course, anything that couldn't be fried could have bacon wrapped around it. Or chocolate. Or both. If anyone came to the fair looking for healthy, nutritious snacks, they were likely going to be disappointed. She had to admit, though, everything looked and smelled absolutely delicious.

They passed the cattle, swine, and horse barns, which added a definite, distinctive aroma to the air in that area of the fairgrounds. They walked through the midway with its Texas Star Ferris wheel towering more than two hundred feet, roller coasters, and games of chance, then looked up at the elevated skyway cars, running back and forth on thick cables, which gave riders an aerial view of the fair.

Looming over everything was the aging grandeur of the Cotton Bowl, which had been filled with screaming fans for some of the most epic college and professional football games ever played. Phyllis knew that Sam, a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan, still had bitter memories of his team's loss to the Green Bay Packers in the championship game played in the Cotton Bowl nearly fifty years earlier. Of course, as Sam had been known to point out, the Cowboys' loss in the infamous Ice Bowl a year later had been even worse. Phyllis had vague memories of both games herself, since her late husband, Kenny, had usually watched the Cowboys play.

There was so much to see and do, Phyllis didn't realize she was getting tired until early in the afternoon, when the group paused for lunch. But then it all caught up to her, and she said, “I'm glad we're going to see Joye's show next. I'll be glad to sit down in a nice, air-conditioned building for a while.”

The others chimed in, agreeing with her, and when they had finished with a definitely unhealthy meal of deep-fried jambalaya, chicken-fried cactus bites, fried bacon-cinnamon rolls, and iced tea, they started toward the Creative Arts Building, where the cooking contests would take place and where
The Joye of Cooking
would be broadcast all week.

They probably should have gotten here earlier, Phyllis thought as she saw the lines of people filing onto some temporary bleachers that had been set up. The seating faced a low stage set made to look like a kitchen. It was surrounded by cameras, boom microphones, and other pieces of broadcasting apparatus that Phyllis didn't recognize. Wires and cables ran everywhere. She didn't see how anyone could ever keep them all straight.

A man and a woman, each wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard, ushered the audience onto the bleachers, which weren't at all fancy. They looked like something that would be found in a small high school's gymnasium.

As Phyllis and the others got in line, Sam said, “I don't know if we're gonna get a seat or not. Looks like lots of folks want to see this Joye Jameson.”

“Of course they do,” Carolyn said. “This is one of the most popular shows on cable in the whole country. Her cookbooks are best-sellers, too. She has millions of fans.”

A man standing near them turned and nodded. “She sure does,” he said. “And I'm one of 'em.”

He wasn't in line to watch the show. Instead he wore the uniform of a security guard, with a name tag pinned to his shirt that read
CHET MURDOCK
. He was short and broad, muscular rather than fat, had close-cropped brown hair, and wore glasses.

“I can't believe I was lucky enough to get assigned here this week,” he went on. “I could have been stuck on the midway or in one of the livestock barns, but instead I get to watch one of my favorite shows being broadcast live.”

“And get paid for it at the same time,” Sam pointed out.

“Yeah,” Chet Murdock said. “That sure doesn't hurt.”

“Do you think they're going to run out of seats before they get to us?” Phyllis asked.

Chet studied the line of potential audience members and the rapidly filling seats for several seconds before he said, “I dunno. They might. But you can always come back tomorrow and get here earlier. Joye's going to be broadcasting from here all week.”

Carolyn said, “We know. But we're going to be entering some of the cooking contests tomorrow.”

“Really? Which ones?”

Phyllis didn't see anything wrong with passing the time by chatting with the friendly guard. She said, “My friend is in several of the cookie contests, and I'm going to be entering the funnel cake contest.”

That put a grin on Chet's face. “I love me some funnel cakes,” he said, patting his belly as he added, “As you can probably tell. I also love to cook. I probably would have been a chef if I hadn't gotten into the security business.”

He walked along beside them as the line slowly advanced. Carolyn said, “You must get to see a lot of behind-the-scenes things in your job.”

“Oh, yeah. I've worked all sorts of concerts and celebrity appearances. I could tell you stories about some of those folks . . . Let's just say that for every celebrity who's more nice and down-to-earth than you'd expect them to be, there are a dozen who are just as obnoxious as they can be. It's not just the stars, either. Take that guy.”

Chet nodded discreetly toward a man in a suit who had come out onto the kitchen set. He had a Bluetooth unit tucked in his ear and was talking animatedly even though there was no one around him. A pair of headphones hung around his neck, even though he wasn't wearing them at the moment. Wires ran from the various devices down to battery packs on his belt that were visible under the open suit coat he wore. Slender, sandy haired, and handsome, he had a familiar look about him, but it took Phyllis a moment to realize where she had seen him before. He had appeared briefly on camera during the episode they had been watching the week before, when Joye Jameson had asked one of her cameramen and then this fellow if they knew what funnel cakes were.

“His name's Reed Hayes,” Murdock went on. “He's the producer of the show. I don't see how they put up with him. He's always complaining about something.”

“Well, that's a producer's job, I suppose,” Phyllis said. “It's up to him to make sure that everything goes smoothly.”

“Maybe so, but he talks awful sharp to everybody. Except Ms. Jameson, of course. Everybody sort of tiptoes around her, even Hayes.”

Carolyn asked, “Is she one of those obnoxious celebrities?”

“Not really,” the guard said with a shrug of his beefy shoulders. “Oh, she's got a temper, I guess. I've seen her get mad a couple of times since they've all been here. But mostly she's sweet and smiling.”

“A man may smile and smile and be a villain,” Eve said. “That's Shakespeare. A paraphrase of the Bard, anyway.”

“Yeah, but Ms. Jameson's not a villain,” Chet said, looking shocked that anyone might think so.

“No, dear, of course not. But I used to teach high school English, so quotes like that spring to my mind.”

“What I really don't get,” Chet continued, “is how Ms. Broderick puts up with Hayes.”

“Who's that?”

“Bailey Broderick.” Chet pointed discreetly at the woman with the headset and clipboard who was waving people onto the bleachers. “She's Ms. Jameson's assistant, but Hayes keeps her loaded down with work, too, since she's also the assistant producer.”

Phyllis looked at the young woman and recognized her from occasional appearances on the TV show, as well. Bailey Broderick was the person who checked on things cooking in the oven and took them out while Joye was on camera so they would be ready for the star whenever Joye was ready to show off her latest culinary creation.

“And the worst part about it is, Hayes is supposed to be her boyfriend,” Chet went on. “Like I said, I don't know how she puts up with it.”

“You know an awful lot about what goes on here, considering that these people just got here yesterday,” Carolyn said.

Chet shrugged. “I pay attention to everything. That's what they pay me for, after all.”

The line had moved closer to the bleachers, which weren't quite full yet. Phyllis began to hope that they would get seats after all, although from the look of things they would have to climb almost all the way to the top row. She supposed they could manage that. It would be good exercise, she told herself.

They had almost reached Bailey Broderick. The young woman was really very pretty, Phyllis thought, although the jeans and sweatshirt she wore didn't do anything for her, and neither did the way she had her long chestnut hair pulled back into a plain, functional ponytail. She wore a harassed expression, which was understandable considering the things Chet Murdock had said about her demanding job.

She was about to wave Phyllis and the others into the bleachers with the clipboard in her hand, when loud, angry voices suddenly cut through the hubbub of conversation in the big hall. Bailey glanced in the direction of the commotion, muttered, “Oh, no, not her!” and hurried off, leaving Phyllis and her companions unsure what to do next.

The man who was working with Bailey stood at the other end of the bleachers. He called, “Keep moving down there!” and made a curt gesture with his clipboard. Phyllis could tell he was talking to her, so she started climbing the steps that led to the top rows. Sam and the others followed.

“Looks like there's some sort of trouble,” Carolyn said. “Why am I not surprised?”

Phyllis wanted to tell her not to start that. Carolyn's implication was that trouble followed her, and that just wasn't true. A few months earlier they had all gone to the annual Peach Festival in Weatherford, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Certainly no murders.

But as they reached the top row, where the only empty seats were located, Phyllis turned and looked down at the kitchen set. Several people stood there, stiff with anger and tension, and Phyllis couldn't help but wonder what was going on.