Murder at the Art & Craft Fair (5 page)

Chapter
Eight

Lou and I were sitting on one of the benches, doing
our best to hide our sand art, when Jennifer and Thelma Lou walked up.

“So, you boys couldn’t wait to buy something, huh?
Let’s see what you have.”

I set the sand art down and opened my bag containing
the cream candy. Jennifer looked at it and laughed, then opened the only bag
she had, which also had some of Mike Jackson’s cream candy. At least I’d bought
vanilla and butterscotch and she’d bought strawberry and bourbon. We had all
the food groups covered.

“What else do you have there, Cy?”

“Oh, we ran into George Michaelson from the
department, and he told us that if Lou and I would do a sand art project that
he’d pay for it.”

“Well, I think it’s cute. You did a good job.”

I then offered it to Jennifer as a small token of my
embarrassment.

We talked for a couple of minutes, checked out the
time, and then set off to take in Booths 16-30. We hadn’t gone far before Lou
and I found one that interested us: Bill Noel, Louisville, Kentucky,
Photographs and Books. One of his matted photographs, a photograph of a pier,
taken on one of his trips to Folly Beach, South Carolina, interested me, and
the price was right, and so I purchased it. We saw that he also wrote our
favorite kind of books, mysteries, so Lou and I purchased
Folly,
the
first in his series of mystery novels, and
The Pier,
the second book in
the series, whose cover photograph looked something like the photograph of his
I’d purchased. It wasn’t the same, but similar.

Lou and I completed the second fifteen booths with no
additional purchases, met up with the girls again, and stalked off to attack
fifteen more. It was in this group that we ran into our old classmate, Bill
O’Connell. Lucky for us, Bill’s name was above his booth. Otherwise, we
wouldn’t have recognized him. He had no trouble with us, however. He called us
by name and reached out with a firm handshake and clasp on the arm as soon as
we walked up. We were lucky in another way, too. Bill’s craft was making
dollhouses and doll furniture. I didn’t know any little girls. Besides, if I’d
purchased a dollhouse or doll furniture, I was sure George would emerge from
behind the next tent. We’d have enough trouble living down our other fiasco,
which I was sure would be on Facebook and YouTube before the day was over.

Bill had enough houses and accessories that he had two
booths. One tent had nothing but houses, the other accessories. He had several
styles of houses, including a southern mansion and something he called English
Tudor, and while I had no interest in what he was selling, I admired his
handiwork, which looked better than anything similar I’d seen in any store. We
talked to Bill for a few minutes and told him to stay in touch before we
marched on to the next booth. It was here that we ran into the first of two
Freds in a row, Fred Money, who was there with his wife, Judy, made birdhouses.
They were well done. I thought about buying one, but then I thought about
Alfred Hitchcock. I wasn’t sure I wanted to attract too many birds. I thought
about buying one for my next-door neighbor, but then I didn’t see any large
enough to attract buzzards or vultures. Next to Fred Money was Fred Spoon, who
made fine quality ink pens out of different types of wood. This Fred had some
sharp-looking pens. I’m a sucker for a good photographer, so when we ran into a
second photographer, Dean Hall, I purchased a second photograph to place on
another wall at home. At our last booth on our next go-around, Booth 45, we met
Raven and Delinda Felty, from Crab Orchard, Kentucky, wherever that is. While
many of the others were focusing on Halloween crafts, Delinda made Christmas
ornaments out of clay, and had quite a selection. I purchased one for my tree
and another for Jennifer to place on her Christmas tree, when it came time to
decorate. Delinda Felty took a pen and inscribed the year on the ornament, so
we could both remember the year we met, and first attended the Hilldale Art
& Craft Fair, which I was sure would become a big moment in my life.

Lou and I contemplated whether or not to take our
purchases to the car, but decided to wait on the girls. We’d see if they had
bought anything else, and then we could go to the car, while they got a head
start on the next fifteen booths. I figured we would have no trouble catching
up and passing them.

+++

Lou and I didn’t have to wait on the girls as long this
time, because we had stopped and talked to Bill for a few minutes, but we did
get to sit for a few minutes. We took a seat on the closest bench that was
opposite the row of booths of our next conquest, because I wanted to get a look
at what those closest to us had to offer. The first booth was actually a double
booth, like our friend Bill had, and it was filled with women of all ages. I
noticed the crowd of women before I noticed whose booth it was, and what she
was selling. The name above the booth said Melissa Spaulding, Fairy Bow Mother,
Winchester, Kentucky.

“Lou, did you have any idea that women buy that many
hair bows? Look at that! There are four women lined up just to give that woman
money.”

“Wonder what they do with them?”

Before I could give my shrug of an answer one woman
knelt down to place a bow on her dog, while a grandmother-type took the hand of
a little girl who was already wearing a hair bow. I could tell that some women
were buying several bows. Since it wasn’t a guy thing, I wasn’t sure if that
meant she was buying for several girls or that it would be a sin for a girl to
wear the same hair bow twice, or at least twice in a row.

The crowd drawn by the Fairy Bow Mother almost kept me
from seeing the man next to her, another author, Tim Callahan, from Middletown,
Ohio. I sat there and watched Callahan operate in such a quiet manner. People
were gravitating toward him. I got up and walked over close enough to hear what
he was saying that enticed so many people to come over and to leave with an
armload of his books. I wondered if he was offering free books, or if someone
like George had paid for books for all these people. Instead, all he said was,
“Can I tell you about my books?” and then he went into a description of the
books he had for sale. Curious no longer, I went back to the bench and watched
him operate. Person after person left his tent with three to six books, signed
by the author. It was at that point I told Lou that we should skip the first
two booths. For one thing, neither of us needed any hair bows. And for another,
if no one else could resist Callahan’s salesmanship, I doubted if I could,
either. I couldn’t believe his voice, quiet, not boisterous. I wondered if
maybe he was able to hypnotize these people into buying those books. After all,
hypnotists don’t shout.

I was still thinking about him when Jennifer and
Thelma Lou walked up. We talked for a few minutes, agreed that Lou and I would
take all of the purchases to the car, and that the four of us would visit
Booths 46-60 before taking a break for lunch.

Chapter
Nine

The trek to the car and back made me smile. No, I
wasn’t happy that I had to walk instead of ride on a Hoveround, but I knew that
in the olden days walking preceded Wiiing for shedding a few pounds. I was shedding
the old-fashioned way.

We returned, and it didn’t take Lou and me long to
catch up with the girls. Jennifer and Thelma Lou had stopped in a colorful
booth. As I neared the booth, I looked up to see what all of that colorfulness
was. The sign said, Nell Demaree, Fobs, Purses, and Books. The books were being
sold by some old guy seated at a table, and from the looks of things, he hadn’t
done much else with his time except write. He had more different titles than
the other two authors we had encountered. If the woman taking the money was
Nell Demaree, and Nell Demaree was his wife, he didn’t waste all of his words
on his books. At some point he must have fed that good-looking woman a line to
get her to marry him. Of course, he probably looked better when he was younger.

Jennifer had learned that Nell was known as the Fob
Queen, because at over four hundred choices she offered more fob possibilities
than any of the other women who made fobs. Jennifer was right. I saw fobs for
schools, animals of every kind, cartoon characters, fobs with every letter of
the alphabet, fobs that looked feminine, and fobs that looked masculine. And
Jennifer told me that sometimes a fob behind another was a different design
because there was only so much room in one booth. She was so busy showing me
all the fobs she was buying for every person she had ever met that I didn’t see
what dangled at the end of her other arm, until she sat the two bags down.
Then, I saw the bags, noticed their bright blue color, and realized that Jennifer
too had succumbed to the charm of author Tim Callahan. From the looks of the
two bags at Jennifer’s feet, Callahan might soon be out of books. I wondered if
one event was enough to catapult someone onto the New York Times bestseller
list. I turned to the author seated behind me, who had just finished signing a
couple of books for someone, and glanced at his titles. I saw no reason
Callahan should have all the book sales that day, so I turned back to the
author, glanced down at his T-shirt, and laughed. It said, “Careful…or you’ll
end up in my novel.” Any author who would wear a shirt like that deserved more
sales, so I purchased three of his titles for my collection. Lou did likewise.
While the author signed books for me, Jennifer continued to deprive his wife of
her merchandise. A couple minutes later, I clutched a purple bag containing two
stand-alone mysteries,
A Gated Community
and
Photo Finish
, and,
Lexington
& Me,
the story of the author’s life growing up in Lexington in the
1950s and 1960s and what the town was like back then
.
Lou followed me,
told the author “I’ll have what he’s having,” and soon he too had a purple bag
with three books. The more I looked at the author, the more he reminded me of
someone. At first I wasn’t sure, but then I thought, maybe it’s me, or Lou. But
he was a lot older than I, and not nearly as handsome. But then, Lou wasn’t as
handsome and charming as I was. Maybe that was it. Maybe I thought he looked
something like Lou. They looked to be about the same size, but it was hard to
tell with the author seated. I wondered if the author Wiied. I continued to
stand there, daydreaming, until a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said,
“Excuse me.” Evidently I wasn’t the only one willing to purchase some of the
author’s books. Not wanting to return to the car so soon and figuring that Lou
wouldn’t volunteer to go on his own, the two of us bid the two girls adieu and
trudged off ahead of them.

I motioned for Lou to step out into the middle, away
from the crowds descending upon each booth.

“Does that guy remind you of someone, Lou?”

“What guy you talking about? In case you haven’t
noticed, there are tons of guys here.”

“I haven’t noticed. I’ve only noticed the women.”

“I’ll tell Jennifer.”

“That was the woman I noticed.”

“Evidently you noticed some guy, too. What guy?”

“That author.”

“It’s funny you should ask. I was thinking he looked
something like you. Of course, he’s a year or two older.”

“A year or two. More like ten to fifteen. And I
thought he reminded me of you.”

“That’s funny.  I didn’t think of him as handsome.”

“I don’t either.”

“I beg your pardon. Hold on. I’ll call Thelma Lou
over, so we can have a second opinion.”

I looked up and noticed that Jennifer had grabbed all
the fobs she could carry or drag away, and had turned to look at the purses. I
figured that sometime within the next hour she might walk out of that booth,
and we needed to get a move on in order to stay ahead of the girls.

A couple of booths later, we ran into another vendor
selling jewelry. The sign said Sandy (Zera) Hensley and, according to the card
tacked above her booth, she and her husband lived in Shelbyville, Kentucky. She
too had fine jewelry, but not a carbon copy of what Lou and I saw at the other
booth. The two of us talked to her husband, Robert, and explained that we were
looking for something for our girlfriends. He refrained from asking us if we
planned to get our wives something, too.

We continued down the row, looking at crafters who
made wreaths, pottery, wind chimes, soaps, and more wood-crafted items, until
we came to our fourth author, Russell Vassallo, from Liberty, Kentucky. His
wife, Virginia, was with him, and she had knitted shawls and scarves. I was
impressed with the vibrant colors of her creations, and selected a scarf for
Jennifer that went with her hair color and brought out the color in her eyes.
Vassallo talked about his books, which were written on a variety of subjects,
and Lou and I were fascinated by a book he wrote about the Mafia. The author
told us he grew up around the Mafia in New Jersey, actually knew guys who
belonged to the Mafia. While Lou and I usually read only mysteries, both of us
were fascinated by his book about the Mafia. Both Lou and I purchased one of
his Mafia books. If we liked it, he had another book that seemed interesting to
me. I would get it next time, provided Jennifer and Thelma Lou hauled us back
to the art and craft fair next year.

As we were leaving the fourth author’s booth, I
glanced over at the next booth and did a double take. Most of the vendors I’d
seen were crusty veterans. The petite blonde in the next booth looked like
someone’s babysitter. I wondered if she was babysitting someone’s booth. Then,
I noticed her name, Amy Casey, and saw that she was from Stanton, Kentucky. Amy
sounded like a young person’s name. I was curious, so I asked her if she was
Amy. Her voice and her smile matched her looks. Any guy between sixteen and
twenty-five would either hang out in Amy’s booth, or go home and dream about
her. Showing no tact I asked her her age and found out that she was twenty, and
engaged to be married. Evidently one guy hung out in her booth more than the
others. I was tempted to buy a hair bow, just because she was so sweet, but
refrained, and walked off after wishing her good luck. While she was younger,
she reminded me of Heather Ambrose.

A couple of booths down I saw a woman who had two of
my weaknesses, murder mysteries and honey. Abigail Keam, Lexington, Kentucky.
The woman reminded me of the fairy godmother in
Cinderella.
The
mysteries were a series about a beekeeper. I paid for some honey and a mystery.
Lou did likewise. As we were leaving her booth, I noticed that she was
distracted. I followed her eyes and saw her looking at another vendor of honey
across the way. She looked competitive, as if she wanted to make sure she sold
more honey than the man did. I decided to try some of his honey too, but I
didn’t walk directly over to his booth. I remembered she wrote murder
mysteries, and forgot for a minute that I was a cop. I waited until she got
another customer, then walked over and purchased some honey from Nick Nickels,
also from Lexington. He looked so contented as he sat there, much like a
grandfather enjoying his grandchildren.

There was only one row of thirty vendors left, and
even if Lou and I didn’t run into any more authors on that stretch we felt we
still had enough books to read for a while. If it turned out we were wrong, we
could always go back to the Scene of the Crime, although the books we buy there
are not autographed. We ended the second of three rows of crafters by checking
out some hand-made furniture that took up three spaces. One booth housed items
made out of cedar, another walnut, and a third, cherry. I saw some nice things
I would have loved to have purchased, but there wasn’t room in Lou’s car, and
loading down Lightning was out of the question. Maybe I could find George and
lift his credit card, and I could pay extra to have the furniture delivered.

Jennifer and Thelma Lou came sauntering toward us as
if neither had a care in the world. Books, fobs, a couple of purses, and who
knows what else provided Jennifer with ballast, but I’m not sure if it
stabilized her or she was just gutting it out with a smile on her face. I
smiled back as I gazed upon her finely proportioned body with no excess weight,
but I groaned as I envisioned a second trip to Lou’s car and looked around to
see if I spotted a U-Haul for hire. I saw none, and began to wonder if I could
find someone to take our purchases. Jennifer was not among the people I
considered paying to make the trip. I looked around to see if I could find
George. He owed me one. I didn’t see him. I was sure I could find someone to
take our purchases, but if I did, I would have to show them my badge and take
their picture, otherwise our purchases might end up somewhere other than in
Lou’s car. I could see the girls were tired and needed a break from all their
shopping, even if neither of them had a clue that they were tired, so I patted
the bench next to me and Jennifer crumbled onto it.

“What happened to ‘tell me what you want me to buy
you?’” I asked.

“Well, Cy, you bought some things, too.”

“But not as much as you. What say you and Thelma Lou
rest your weary bones while Lou and I find a camel driver to take these to
Lou’s car? Then, we can enjoy some lunch before tackling this last row of
thirty booths. That is, unless you’re ready to leave.”

The look she gave me told me that I was off to find
the camel driver. No woman would ever leave a craft fair when there were other
booths to conquer. She wouldn’t be able to sleep at night wondering whether or
not she had passed up a bargain.

“Say, Cy, I’ve got a question. Did that guy remind you
of anyone? The author, I mean. The one with the woman who had all the fobs.”

“Now that you mention it, Jennifer, I thought he
looked a little like Lou.”

“Lou. I was thinking he looked like you a little bit.
Didn’t you notice how handsome he was? About your age, too, I’d guess. Anyway,
he’s definitely better looking than Lou.”

I checked to make sure Lou didn’t hear what she said,
then replied to her comment.

“I can’t see any resemblance to myself, and I
certainly wouldn’t call him handsome, but I thought his daughter looked pretty
good.”

“Cy, you know that was his wife.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. There are a lot of guys robbing
the cradle these days.”

“Yeah, and I’m glad you did.”

+++

Lou’s car groaned when we lightened our load. Lou
locked it and we turned away to return to the women in our lives, while at the
same time thanking God that Hilldale had only one such event a year. My body
and checking account couldn’t stand it if it were a weekly event. I wondered if
I would have already keeled over if I’d tried this before I began my exercise
regimen. I dismissed that thought and focused on lunch.

Luckily, the food vendors were on the same end of the
park where we had rested our carcasses, so we sat down with the girls and all
of us turned to check out our lunch possibilities, and they were many. While
most women think they need to peruse all of the craft vendors, most women don’t
think they need to check out each food vendor and all of their culinary
possibilities. That’s most women. Jennifer and Thelma Lou, on the other hand,
wanted to read the small print on the menu boards, so they went off to check
out the lunch possibilities, and returned in a few minutes to share their
discoveries with Lou and me. We made a decision and the girls commandeered a
picnic table while Lou and I headed off to find lunch. While we had eaten a
large breakfast, sixty craft vendors and two trips back to Lou’s car have a way
of making middle-aged men hungry. Middle-aged women, too, although I would
never call Jennifer middle-aged to her face. Besides, Jennifer was right. She
is a few years my junior. I ended up eating more food than I would have eaten
if I had been resting at home devouring a murder mystery. I enjoyed a Gyro, and
split a large container of thick-cut fries with the others. I wasn’t sure what
the girls liked to dip their fries in, so I returned with cups of ketchup, cheese
sauce, and gravy. The gravy was for me. For one day at least, I was reverting
to the old Cy. I had no idea what Jennifer normally ate when she attended an
event such as this, but on that day, after all of her perusing, she had me
bring her back a cheeseburger.