Jeanne Glidewell - Lexie Starr 06 - Cozy Camping (12 page)

It was not a question I wanted to ask out loud though, in fear that Wendy would present me with a lengthy and detailed list of examples of harm I’d encountered in similar situations in the past.

Chapter 7

There were only three other campers accompanying us on the shuttle bus back to the Cozy Camping RV Park. Because of the incident responsible for my two-and-a-half hours of mind-numbing boredom, it was late, and the fairground was nearly empty of people by the time we boarded the last scheduled bus ride of the day.

As expected, Stone had a well-deserved bellyache, and I was preparing for the unpleasant potential of a Frito pie being unpleasantly hurled all over the occupants of the vehicle. I handed him a sack that had held a handcrafted leather dream-catcher I’d purchased in the Indian Village vendors’ area to hang from my rear-view mirror. The sack was small but would do as a barf bag if necessary.

Fortunately, Stone was able to keep the food down until we got back to our motorhome, at which time he rushed into the tiny bathroom to expel pretty much everything he’d eaten at the carnival—enough to have fed a small Ethiopian village. I was so proud of him. He had obviously put a lot of effort and expense into this nausea episode, and the results were proving he’d been very successful.

My now puny husband went straight to bed with a plastic trashcan on the floor next to him in case of an encore. It was cool outside, as was typical of Cheyenne evenings, but I was comfortable in my ratty old Kansas City Chiefs sweatshirt. So while Stone sought solace from his nausea by falling asleep, I sat in a cheap plastic chair on our patio. I was ruminating over who might have wanted Fanny Finch dead badly enough to commit the crime, when a voice behind me caused me to nearly jump out of my skin.

“Oh, Mom, I’m so sorry I startled you,” she said. “Andy went straight to bed because he could feel the foot-long chili dog he ate staging a comeback. Those men are like little kids when it comes to stuffing themselves with junk food at a carnival. At least they were wise enough to avoid the Scramble
,
or the Octopus, which frequently precede a hurling incident.”

“Been there, done that.”

“Me too, but I was nine,” Wendy said with a chuckle. “You up for a short chat? I want to tell you what Norma told me today about Sarah, and hear what Sarah said about Norma.”

“Good, I’m glad you’re still up, because I wanted to discuss it with you, too. Stone is sick to his stomach, and I’m beginning to feel a bit queasy myself.”

Speaking as quietly as possible so we wouldn’t disturb any of our fellow campers, I told Wendy what Sarah had said about suspecting Norma of Fanny’s murder. Wendy shook her head in wonderment as I related Sarah’s sentiments about her cohort.

“Wow,” Wendy said, after I had finished my story. “You are not going to believe why Norma told me she suspects Sarah of being involved in Fanny’s death.”

“I’ll believe anything at this point. So go on. I can’t wait to hear it!”

“She’s adamant that Sarah should be considered a prime suspect in the murder.”

“Why? What makes her think Sarah could have killed the woman? I was under the impression that Norma and Sarah were close friends, weren’t you?”

“Apparently not as close as they might lead others to believe,” Wendy replied. “Norma told me that what originally started Sarah’s bitterness toward Fanny was an incidence of sabotage perpetrated by Fanny against Sarah.”

“Go on!”

“Well, according to Norma, the incidence occurred the very first time the three authors’ mutual agent, Nina-something, set them up for a group book-signing at a popular New York bookstore. Fanny’s book had just been released and the initial sales were underwhelming. All three authors were promoting their debut book releases. So Sarah, who had been a client of Nina’s the longest, was assigned the table in the most prominent location in the store. According to Norma, the prime location is almost always assigned to the most noteworthy author, and at that time, Sarah had probably sold eighteen copies of her book to Fanny’s dozen.”

“I’m guessing that didn’t set well with Ms. Finch.”

“It appears it didn’t set well with her at all. While Avery Bumberdinger was bringing in boxes of all three of the author’s books, Fanny ‘accidentally’ spilled an entire thermos of hot chocolate into the case containing copies of Sarah’s tome. Norma used air quotes around the word ‘accidentally’ so I knew both Norma and Sarah thought it was intentional. All but a couple of the books were rendered useless and considered by Sarah Krumm to be casualties of Fanny’s spite and connivingness.”

“Is connivingness a word?” I asked. My experience as a librarian was coming out in me.

“Well, if it ain’t, it oughta be!”

I cringed when my college-educated daughter used two more words that weren’t recognized by Funk and Wagnalls as Standard English to answer my question, but wanted her to get on with her story. “Oh, my! I bet Sarah was furious. I’d have been a bit ticked off myself, if I were in her shoes.”

“Me too,” Wendy agreed. “So you know what happened next?”

“Sarah pummeled Fanny with a sodden copy of her boring book?” I guessed.

“No; although that course of action was probably considered. The bookstore owner turned the coveted table near the entrance of the store over to Fanny since Sarah now had a grand total of two books she could sell and sign.”

“And because of that nasty but crafty incident, Sarah was incensed enough to commit murder? I don’t buy it,” I said.

“Let me finish. There’s more to the story.”

“Okay, please continue.”

“The first person through the door of the bookstore that morning was the producer of a daytime talk show whose studio was right across the street in Times Square. Because of a major traffic jam, he’d had two last minute cancellations by individuals scheduled to appear on that day’s show. The producer was desperate for a replacement and had but minutes to find one. Because she was stationed right next to the front door, he approached Fanny and asked her if she’d appear on the talk show in a few minutes. Even though he’d never even heard of Fanny Finch or her book, he thought the show’s host could interview her and, with his talent for making even the most tedious conversation seem spellbinding, the interview could make the host almost a shoe-in for an Emmy. Naturally, she jumped at the opportunity.”

“Well, of course,” I said with a nod. “Who wouldn’t have?”

“Then, to make the interview of an unrecognized author even more scintillating, the host managed to make
Fame and Shame
sound as if it contained a slew of unfathomably sensational and mind-blowing revelations about the popular country and western artist. The talk show host convinced a multitude of viewers that it was the must-read book of the century because, as it turned out, the tell-all book really did contain a lot of unimaginable details of Vex Vaughn’s life, and sales took off like a gazelle being pursued by a cheetah,” Wendy said.

“Jeez, what a stroke of luck for Fanny. I’ll bet that Sarah thought it would have been her fate instead of Fanny’s had Fanny not destroyed her books and claimed her assigned table at the entrance?” I said in the form of a question.

“Yes, she did. Norma told me that she, herself, was realistic enough to know that her book about coupon-clipping would only appeal to a limited audience, but Sarah was naïve enough to believe her book about multi-generational households was worthy of the same level of success as
Fame and Shame
. Norma told me Sarah was still under the impression that anyone who had a published book to her credit was destined to make a killing off their ‘masterpiece’. Norma said she personally didn’t expect to break even, with what it had cost her to write and promote her own book, but it was a labor of love for her more than an attempt to make a profit,” Wendy explained.

As a response, I simply simulated the sound of snoring. Wendy ignored me and continued.

“According to Norma, when Sarah approached Fanny with this theory of Fanny ‘stealing her thunder,’ so to speak, Fanny told Sarah that she’d be legally able to marry her pet Shih Tzu before her ‘silly’ book ever became a best seller. Sarah was so livid, Norma said, that if looks could kill, Fanny would have been dead several months ago.”

“Legally marry her Shih Tzu? Well, you’ve got to give Fanny credit, she did have a way with words—an important skill for a writer, you know.”

“Yeah, right, Mom,” Wendy said, with a dramatic display of eye-rolling. “So, to put it in a nutshell, Sarah feels that Fanny stole her prosperity and fame. It was something Sarah could not let go of. She’s been allowing it to suck the joy and happiness right out of her life. Norma thinks Sarah might have been looking to settle the score.”

“That’s really a shame,” I said. “It seems to me that the person who wants revenge almost always suffers worse than the person they want vengeance against, who often don’t even realize, or care, that they’re the subject of that other person’s wrath. It ends up hurting the hater worse than the hated.”

“Yeah, that’s for sure! Oh, before I forget, since Wyatt bought us tickets to the Vex Vaughn concert tomorrow, I wish there was some way we could get to meet him.”

“I thought it was Veronica who idolized him, not you,” I said. “I wasn’t even aware you liked county music. I thought you liked artists like Pink and Bruno Mars.”

“I do. But I also like George Strait, Pitbull, Bob Marley and Mumford and Sons. I like all musical genres. And I really don’t care about meeting Vex Vaughn, or any other artist, for that matter. I’d just like to see what Vaughn has to say about the death of his nemesis, who was determined to undermine him. But, frankly I don’t think there’s any way we could get within a hundred feet of him,” Wendy said.

Her comment floored me because nosiness was normally my bad trait, not hers. Was this the same daughter who had gotten up on her “don’t be such a fool” soapbox and railed at me time and time again about getting involved in murder investigations? Was my reckless and impulsive nature rubbing off on her? For her sake, I hoped not. But at the moment I was happy to see I had lured her over to the dark side.

Wendy yawned and told me she was getting sleepy, so after she headed back to her own rig, I went inside and joined my husband in bed. I stayed as far away from him as the queen-sized bed would allow.

I felt another wave of discomfort and, for a second wondered if I’d been poisoned with something intentionally added to my nasty-tasting snow cone. I’d been poisoned before and had that same light-headed and confused feeling now that I’d had then. But I couldn’t see how either Norma or Sarah could have a clue that I suspected either of them of murder, or about my penchant for taking it upon myself to find people responsible for committing a deadly crime.

Then a bout of nausea hit me like a prizefighter. I leaned over Stone and grabbed the bathroom trash container just in time. It occurred to me then that perhaps a liberally salted pretzel, powdered sugar-coated funnel cake, corn dog dipped in spicy mustard, rancid blue snow cone, and half of Wendy’s nachos and cheese, had made for a dangerous combination. My empathy for my husband instantly went up a notch.

As I lay in bed waiting for the nausea to abate, I thought about how the way I felt now was reminiscent of the way I’d felt when I’d been poisoned before. It crossed my mind that Norma, Sarah, or both, had ample opportunity to slip something into my snow cone between purchasing it and handing it to me to eat. It would explain the bitter aftertaste of the frozen concoction. But what had I said or done at that point to raise a red flag? How could they know I wanted to elicit damning information from them and turn it over to the cops?

Had they spoken to Emily, who was aware of previous incidents when I’d done that, and been apprised by her of my ingrained inquisitiveness, as I like to call it? Or, as Wendy, Stone, Detective Johnston, and the Rockdale, Missouri, Chief of Police are apt to call it, my bad habit of intrusive meddling.

I convinced myself I was over-reacting to a well-earned case of
carnivalitis
. It seemed to be contagious amongst our little party of vacationers.

Although discovering Fanny Finch’s killer did not have any personal bearing on me, as previous cases I’d been involved with had, I still found myself wanting to see the no-account, scum-of-the-earth murderer brought to justice. And having my usually reticent daughter interested in the case as well, and seeing her willingness to act as my partner in crime-solving, simply spurred me on and made me want to throw caution to the wind. I only hoped my fascination with the crime did not come back to bite me in the you-know-what, as it often had in the past.