A Festival of Murder (4 page)

“Been a while
since we’ve had a homicide in these parts,” Tom acknowledged with a touch of
awe in his young voice.

Nicholas’s throat
seized. The alcohol in his system evaporated, leaving him icy sober. “So you’ve
declared it a murder?”

“Officer Little is
jumping the gun slightly,” said his companion. “Detective Erwin Canberry.”

“Nicholas Trilby.”
He expected a spark of recognition, but Canberry was as expressive as snow. It
had to be an act. Nicholas was infamous in the valley, and for all the wrong
reasons. He had learned in the weeks after his abduction that law enforcement didn’t
look too fondly on anyone who claimed to have had contact with aliens.
Apparently one sighting opened the floodgates for hundreds more, resulting in
loads of useless, tedious paperwork for the police. He was sure his photo was
pasted on the police’s “Most Wanted” board, or else on their dartboard.

“We’re still early
into the investigation,” Canberry went on. He removed a pair of supple-looking
leather gloves, and rather than pocketing them, held them casually in his right
hand, lightly slapping them against his left palm. “Right now we’re taking
statements. Since you’re handy would you mind answering a few standard
questions for me?”

Nicholas wondered
if Canberry would slap him across the face with the gloves if he said no. He
decided he wasn’t adventurous enough to find out.

“Now would be
perfect.” He remembered then the dozens of eyes on him, which compelled him to
quickly add, “Perhaps Charles’s study would be more comfortable.”

Canberry followed
Nicholas out of the living room while Officer Little remained behind.

After they’d
entered the room, Canberry pulled out a small, leather-bound notebook and what
appeared to be a tortoise-shell fountain pen. He fumbled with the metal clasp
on the notebook for a few seconds, muttering curses beneath his breath, before
finally opening it. His shoulders rose and fell before he raised his head and studied
Nicholas intently as if seeing him for the first time.

“Just to get it
out of the way, could you tell me where you were for the last five hours?”

The simple question
caused Nicholas to begin breathing heavily. It had all seemed something of a
game before, but now he was being interrogated. He hoped his growing stress
wasn’t apparent as he replied, “I was at home. Reading.”

“What were you
reading?”

Nicholas hesitated.
“
The Joy of Cooking
. I was looking for a good soup recipe. You know, for
when it snows. Soup is nice. Warm.” He cleared his throat. “Soupy.”

“You cook.”
Canberry said it the way other men would say, ‘You knit.’

“I occasionally
like to eat.” Nicholas smiled, proud of his joke. Canberry didn’t return the
smile.

“Is there anyone
who can confirm this?”

“That I like to
eat?”

Nicholas’s smile
withered beneath Canberry’s blank, expectant stare. “Er, no. Beyond Winchester,
I’m afraid not.”

“Winchester?”

“Sorry, my alpaca.”

Canberry’s pen
stuttered, lifted off the page. Nicholas thought a bit hopelessly that he would
have been better off confessing that he’d been throwing dollar bills at a strip
club. Or perhaps, robbing a convenience store. At least those came with
eyewitnesses.

After murmuring
ominously to himself, Canberry asked, “What was your relationship with the
deceased, Mr. Johnson?”

“I didn’t have a
relationship with him. I was one of many in Hightop that he wanted to
interview.”

“When was the last
time you spoke with him?”

“This morning at
breakfast. Around eight, I think.”

Canberry scribbled
something in his notebook.

“What did you talk
about?”

“He told me he had
all the information he needed to write an article about Hightop.” Nicholas didn’t
feel the need to elaborate that the article was going to focus on him in
particular. If Canberry wanted more detail he could ask for it.

“Why did he think
you would care?”

“He was a very
polite man.”

“An article about
Hightop sounds like it would have been good publicity.”

“Perhaps.”

Canberry eyed him.
“What could have been the downside?”

Nicholas wondered
what had given him away. He must be a poor liar, or else Canberry already knew
of Johnson by reputation. Maybe the reporter had left a trail of aggrieved
interview subjects in his wake.

“A few people were
worried Johnson would give a slant to his story,” Nicholas said, figuring he’d
best spread the blame around. “He didn’t seem to have come here with an eye
toward writing an objective story.”

“You think he had
an agenda?”

“I don’t know. But
his antagonism toward the town was obvious to everyone.”

“Reporters are
supposed to be impartial. Objective. Any guesses as to why he would lose his
professionalism when it came to Hightop?”

“Jealousy? He had
a vested interest in maintaining Roswell’s claim to fame. Hightop might have
drawn interest away from his city. That’s just a guess, though.”

Canberry took a
long, loud inhalation of air as if sniffing it for lies. “How did
you
feel about his presence here, Mr. Trilby?”

A tingling in his
fingertips alerted Nicholas to the fact he was doing his best to strangle one
hand with the other. He clasped them behind his back. “I didn’t care what he
wrote, but I wanted him to leave me out of it. I’m not a fan of media coverage.”

Canberry arched a
brow. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve given dozens of interviews in the past.”

So he did know of
the abduction. Nicholas eyed him with fresh distrust.

“Why did you treat
Rocky Johnson differently and deny him an interview?”

Nicholas didn’t
like the spin the detective had placed on his answer. “I wasn’t singling him
out. I just want to be left alone, by him and by anyone else who comes up here
looking for an interview.”

“Even though you’ve
already given—”

“That was then,
this is now.” Nicholas’s jaw was beginning to ache from how stiffly he was
clenching it. “I haven’t spoken to the media in a long time. I’m done with the
attention.”

Canberry gave him
a long look. Nicholas wasn’t sure if he was supposed to squirm beneath it but
he was considering it. “When did you say you last saw Mr. Johnson?”

“During breakfast.”

“What did you do
after you spoke to him?”

“I opened my shop.
My employees, Emma Flowers and Bea Bingham, can vouch for this. And I’m sure I
could wrangle up several customers who bought items from me.”

“You were there
until what time?”

“The last customer
left at five o’clock, which was when I shut the doors. Emma left at a quarter
after and I left about five minutes after that. I drove back to my cabin and
remained there until I came here for the party, a few minutes after seven.”

Canberry flipped
his notepad shut and had better luck securing the complicated clasp this time.
His rain-colored gaze seemed distant, as if he was still running Nicholas’s
answers through the filter of his mind.

“Did anyone touch
the body?”

“Kevin Lee.”

“What about you?
Did you confirm that Mr. Johnson was dead?”

Nicholas shuddered
theatrically. “No. It was already pretty obvious that he was.”

“Seen a lot of
dead bodies, have you?” Canberry’s smile was a flash of teeth, which for some
reason appeared to consist of all incisors.

“When someone’s
frozen solid you can pretty much assume they aren’t going to sit up and start
talking.”

“Why was Mr. Lee
outside at the lake finding bodies instead of inside at the party?”

“He usually drives
down to the Gingerbear using a route that takes him past the lake.”

“Is it common for
people to spend time at the lake during the winter? Or at night? Any activities
held out there?”

“No. It ices over
but it’s not thick enough to skate on. Charles keeps the kids off it.”

“When I was out
there I saw red lights in the trees.”

Nicholas sighed. “You
probably saw Captain Sam’s trailer. He lives about fifty yards from the south
side of the lake.”

“Captain Sam?”
Canberry perked up. “Is he military?”

“No idea. To be
honest, he might have given himself the name on a whim.”

“Is he here
tonight?”

“I sincerely doubt
it.” The mere thought of it nearly made the eggnog curdle in Nicholas’s
stomach. “He’s even less social than I am.”

“Not an attention
hound?”

Like you are,
hung unspoken in
the air. It gave Nicholas pause, turned his polite smile on its wobbly end. “No,”
he said, careful to keep his voice even. “He’s more like a hermit.”

Canberry’s smile
was chilly. “Looks like he came to the wrong town if he wanted to avoid the
spotlight.”

The detective
worried Nicholas. Occasionally, sharpness peeked out of him like a pair of
scissors swaddled in a blanket. Was he one of those officers who disliked
people who reported sightings? Considered them troublemakers? Or had the
prospect of a murder in a normally peaceful, idyllic place turned him into a
barracuda who considered everyone guilty until proven innocent?

Canberry ran his
eyes around Charles’s study, pausing on each of the framed photos of alleged
UFOs. Nicholas could imagine what the man thought:
what a bunch of nutcases.
They’re probably card-carrying members of a cult
.

With a frown, he
turned back to Nicholas. “Who do you suggest I question next, Mr. Trilby?”

Caught aback,
Nicholas warily circled the question, checking it for the trap he was certain
lie in wait for him. “Er, Captain Sam seems like a good start.” He had no
problem throwing Hightop’s strangest resident—and his personal nemesis—to the
wolves. “He’s the only person I know of who wasn’t at the party when the body
was found.” It was a half truth. He wouldn’t be able to recognize all of
Hightop’s residents if he faced them in a lineup, and the tourists were one
annoying blur to him. But Captain Sam seemed a good fit for most crimes.

Canberry reached
into his coat pocket and withdrew a wadded up ball of burgundy silk. Judging by
the way it flopped about as he unfolded it, it was already quite damp. Nicholas
suppressed a shudder. Who used a handkerchief these days? He watched the man
mop his nose with it before stuffing the sodden thing back into his pocket. One
monogrammed corner peeked out like the tongue of something exhausted.

“That should be
enough for now, Mr. Trilby. Please make yourself available for further
questioning if we require it. In other words don’t go making any spontaneous
trips to the Caribbean.” Canberry’s smile held all the warmth of a snow cone.

Nicholas
reluctantly took the card Canberry handed him, hoping it wasn’t swarming with
viruses.

Tom Little was by
the Christmas tree when Nicholas and Canberry reentered the living room. The
officer nodded as Charles proudly pointed out various ornaments on the sagging
limbs of the blinged-out tree. The ornaments were all alien-themed.

“Everything all
right?” Charles asked with a tremulous smile when Nicholas and Detective
Canberry joined them. Christmas lights blinked off the sweat on his brow.
Nicholas found it remarkable—not to mention alarming—how poorly his friends
were dealing with the presence of a detective in their midst. Did that say
something about their guilt?

“I’m not arrested
yet, so I’d say so far so good,” Nicholas said, smiling like a man with a gun
pressed to his spine.

Canberry turned to
Charles. “I’d appreciate if you’d spare me a few minutes. Just some quick
questions.”

Charles blanched
and looked ready to topple. “You want to—you want to speak to me, do you?”

Nicholas headed
for the kitchen to refill his mug with eggnog. This looked to be a long night
and he’d be a fool not to be properly hydrated for it.

It
was Saturday morning, and Rocky Johnson had been dead for half a day.

Nicholas
stood at his kitchen window, hands curled around a mug of steaming tea, and
stared at the alpaca in his backyard whose nose was pressed to the glass from
the other side.

“Eventually
I’m going to learn you’re an undercover alien spy, aren’t I?”

Nicholas
wished he could smile at his own joke, but a part of him studied the alpaca
with suspicion.

Winchester
was strange looking enough that he could very well be an alien. Nicholas had no
idea if the bulging brown eyes were normal or if the banana-shaped ears were
meant to swivel like radar dishes as they often did. Twin spots of ghostly
rings blossomed on the window in front of Winchester’s nostrils as he stared
back at Nicholas and simply breathed. Nicholas shuddered. Creepy.