Murder of a Smart Cookie: A Scumble River Mystery (10 page)

Skye stood on the sidelines as the crowd was allowed through the barricade and onto the rest of Maryland Street. After the majority of the horde had spread out among the sale tables, Skye got into her own golf cart and started to make the rounds. The Lemonade ShakeUp stand was already doing a brisk business and she waved to Justin, who was manning the window.

People were three-deep at most of the tables, and the vendors were working frantically to both sell to and keep an eye on the buyers. Skye noticed that Cookie’s table was mobbed and she was working it alone.

Everything seemed to be running smoothly downtown, so Skye headed over to the bridge to check out the west side of the sale. Her godfather, Charlie Patukas, had allowed the Boy Scouts to use the front part of his motor court parking lot for their booth. Across the road and down a little,
Skye’s brother, Vince, had set up a table in front of Great Expectations, his styling salon, and was selling hair care products.

So far, so good. Skye turned the cart around to go back through town and examine the other side of the sale—the many booths and stands outside the cordoned-off area that were spread from Scumble River Road to Kinsman Street. Included in that group were both the Dooziers’ Petting Zoo and Skye’s own family’s Denison/Leofanti Farm Stand.

The Dooziers were like a pair of children’s scissors—eye-catching and colorful but not too sharp. When one added Skye’s own family to the mix, many of whom were a beer short of a six-pack, it was clear why she had dubbed this the Wild West, even though geographically it lay east of town. As she crossed the barrier, she felt as if she should strap on a six-shooter and grab her rifle before venturing into such untamed territory. In her head she could hear an ancient warning: Beware! Past this point there be monsters.

S
kye felt herself relax. Everything seemed fine as she rode through the sale. The fields on either side of the road were full of sellers, and people wandered from table to table, browsing through the merchandise. Many vendors were locals, peddling crafts, homemade and homegrown goodies, and the contents of their barns and attics, but an equal number were professional dealers who had rented space from the landowners.

Cars were inching forward, many pulling small trailers intended to haul the loot they purchased back home. The yard sale organizers had hoped to attract ten thousand people; if today was any indication, they might double their goal.

Skye tensed up again as she steered her golf cart around the big curve. On her right was the Doozier Petting Zoo. She knew that family would be up to something. The question was what?

She squinted, not believing her eyes. Where was the chaos? Where was the commotion?

Earl Doozier sat at the card table calmly taking money for admission. He was dressed in a respectable pair of shorts and his shirt actually had a collar. He had even combed his hair, although the part was crooked and he had enough hair grease on it to lubricate a semi.

Everything was in order. This couldn’t be right. But it was. The people coming out of the attraction seemed as happy as those going in. Skye listened intently; there was no screaming or yelling—the scene was almost … bucolic. She frowned. Should she stop and check things out more closely? No. Why press her luck? She waved at Earl and kept going.

She had just taken a gulp from her water bottle when she approached the Denison/Leofanti Farm Stand. The liquid spewed out of her mouth and down the front of her T-shirt as she saw her mother smash an entire blueberry pie into Faith Easton’s face.

For an instant Faith froze, blueberries oozing down her cheeks and onto her white silk blouse. Then she wiped the fruit and crust out of her eyes, flinging the mess into the spectators who had crowded around to watch the excitement. There were screams, and people jumped back as if the TV star had hurled acid into their faces.

Uttering a high-pitched war cry, Faith grabbed a pitcher of iced tea and emptied it over May’s head.

May’s hair clung to her like a rubber swim cap, and her white tank top was now transparent. She pulled the soaked cotton fabric away from her breasts and turned from side to side, looking for a weapon of mass destruction.

Skye stomped on the golf cart’s brake and was off and running before the vehicle had come to a complete halt. As she raced toward the food fight, she looked frantically for reinforcements. Someone else from the family should be manning the stand along with May. Her relatives had agreed to work in pairs.

Skye spotted one of her cousins backed as far away from the fracas as possible. At first she wasn’t sure which identical twin it was, but since Gillian had just had a baby in the spring and still carried a little extra weight, Skye was pretty sure the coward deserting May in her time of need was Ginger.

Just before she reached the melee, someone grabbed her arm and said, “Hold on there. You don’t want to mess up our shot, do you?”

For the first time, Skye noticed that the TV crew was taping the scuffle. Nick Jarvis, Faith’s producer/director, gave her a half-smile.

“Yes, I do,” she stated, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. “If you show this on TV, my family will—”

“Sue us? Just try.”

She gave him a mocking look. “City people sue. Here in Scumble River we like our revenge a little more personal. Every man has a shotgun and knows where all the abandoned mine shafts are. We won’t sue you, we’ll just make you disappear.”

Nick dropped her arm as if it had turned into a python and backed away, yelling, “Cut!” to the cameraman.

By the time Skye had elbowed her way to the table, the two women had come to a standoff. Each held her chosen missile, a coconut cream pie for May and a double fudge rum cake for Faith. Skye knew she had to say something quickly before the desserts became airborne.

She yelled, “Put down your weapons and no one will get hurt.” Neither combatant paid the least attention to her. She tried again. “Come on, now. You don’t want to do this.” Not a flicker of an eyelash from either warrior. Skye played her trump card. “Faith, you do realize that your crew is taping this and you look absolutely ridiculous?”

The TV star risked a glance to her side, and when she saw the camera she shrieked, “I’m going to murder that swine!”

Faith lowered the cake and May followed suit, but Skye felt it would still be a good idea to separate the two. She had just stepped between them when May said, “I don’t see how she ever got on TV. She’s about as bright as a twenty-watt lightbulb and as pretty as a dust bunny.”

Faith glared. “Is that right? Well, you people seem to think that the four major food groups consist of beer, chips, sugar, and Jell-O salad with marshmallows.”

Skye closed her eyes. Trust her mother to snatch controversy from the jaws of compromise. Suddenly she realized her own ill-advised position and her eyes flew open, but it was too late. The desserts had already been launched and Skye became a casualty of friendly fire as her mother’s pie hit her full in the face.

After Faith’s entourage finally pulled the TV star away, Skye turned to her mother and demanded, “What in God’s green earth were you thinking? Do you realize they were filming you? You’re lucky if you don’t end up on
America’s Funniest Home Videos.
”

May paused in scooping ice out of her cleavage. “That woman has been bugging the crap out of me since she got here.”

Skye raised an eyebrow. “She’s only been here for one day. When did you see her?”

“She was here yesterday morning while we were setting up the booth. She kept trying to buy things before we could even get the stuff on the tables. She wrestled a marble-topped table right out of your Uncle Wiley’s hands. For a tiny little thing she’s strong as an ox.”

“Oh.” Skye had thought Faith had arrived in Scumble River in the afternoon. Now she wondered when exactly the TV star had entered the town.

“And she was trying to cheat us.” May finished de-icing her chest and started to towel-dry her hair. “I looked all the really old stuff up, just like you told me to, and made a list of what it should sell for. She offered us five dollars for all those silk pillow shams your grandpa got in World War II, and according to that
Antiques Roadshow
book, they’re worth from fifty to a hundred bucks a piece.”

Skye soothed. “I warned you that everyone’s going to try and get a bargain.”

May’s expression was mulish. “Well, we told her no and then I found her here nosing around this morning before the yard sale even opened up. She was trying to convince your cousin Ginger to let her have a whole box of salt and pepper shakers for ten dollars, and I know each pair is worth more than that.”

“Mmm.” Skye knew May would never get mad enough to throw baked goods over mere money. “What did she really do to tick you off?”

“She said my piecrust wasn’t flaky.” May’s lower lip thrust out. “And she said it in front of everyone.”

Skye nodded. She should have guessed. There were only two things that would make her mother lose her temper to that extreme. One was to insult her culinary skills. Still, she thought there had to be something more for May to waste good food. “What else?”

May suddenly found the area she had began to sweep fascinating. She answered without lifting her gaze from the broom. “She called you fat.”

Ah, the second thing that would cause May to lose her temper—an insult to one of her children.

Skye put her arm around her mother and teased, “Then she has to die. Shall I take care of it or will you?”

May shook with giggles. “I think that’s a mother-daughter activity. We’ll do it together.”

It took Skye a good hour to calm her mother, help clean up and restock the booth, and then stop at her parents’ house to wash and change clothes. It was nearly eleven a.m. by the time she returned to the sale.

She still had not spoken to either Wally or Cookie about Mrs. Griggs. Her walkie-talkie was connected only to Dante and the high school kids she had hired for toilet paper patrol, so she couldn’t contact Wally by that method. She decided to head back downtown, make a quick stop at the police department, and then go on to the Cookie’s Collectibles table.

Wally was not at the station, but the dispatcher agreed to radio him to meet Skye at the Lemonade ShakeUp. That way she could check up on the school newspaper’s stand at the same time, and as an added bonus it was directly across the street from Cookie’s.

Skye enjoyed zipping around on a golf cart rather than having to maneuver her bulky Bel Air. As she rolled around the corner onto Maryland, she waved to a flock of teenagers who stood in a blankly staring row, too cool to wave back. It was always interesting to see if anyone would acknowledge her presence. No luck today. None of them so much as twitched a muscle or flicked a lash.

She was shaking her head at the thought that these were all kids who had snuck into her office to talk to her at one time or another but who wouldn’t admit her existence outside of school, when she heard the first howl. It sounded like it was coming from farther down the street. She stepped on the accelerator, and the little cart shot forward.

The noise grew as she neared the end of the block. There, once again, in the middle of a free-for-all, was Faith. She had changed clothes after the food fight and now, dressed in a fresh suit, stood in front of a table constructed from saw-horses and pieces of plywood.

It was clearly a makeshift stand where a local was selling items from his attic or basement. There was no rhyme or reason to the stuff being offered—bedpans were stacked next to strings of Christmas lights, and old doorknobs filled beer steins.

Faith and a woman wearing a Harry Potter T-shirt, green polka-dot shorts, and laceless tennis shoes, and sporting a fluffy red bow in her hair, were in a tug-of-war over what looked like a life-size plastic statue of Dennis the Menace.

People had chosen sides and were cheering for their favorite. Faith had the numbers behind her, but Miss Red Bow’s supporters were more vocal. One of that faction screamed, “Give it up, TV star. Ain’t you got enough stuff? Let one of the little people have something.”

Faith never lost focus, and with one mighty tug she pulled the prize from her opponent’s hand. In doing so she landed on her derrière in the dirty street, but she quickly hopped up, dug a roll of money from her pocket, and shoved a five-dollar bill at the awestruck seller. Yelling “Keep the change” over her shoulder as she hurried away.

Skye could see the price tag clearly marked “$3”. She could also see the huge dirt stain on the seat of Faith’s expensive lilac skirt. Now Skye understood why the celebrity traveled with so much luggage; she obviously went through an outfit an hour.

No one appeared to be hurt, and Miss Red Bow’s followers were consoling her, so Skye ran after Faith. When she caught up with her, the TV star was stashing the treasure in the back of the Land Rover, one of the few vehicles allowed on the closed-off street.

“What was that all about?” Sky asked.

Faith’s tone was cool. “It’s nothing. A misunderstanding.”

“Wrestling someone for a plastic doll is nothing?”