Shadows at the Fair (14 page)

“I just keep thinking there’s a piece of the puzzle I haven’t found yet. Unless…” Maggie hesitated.

“Yes? What?” Gussie leaned back in her scooter. “Out with it, Maggie. What?”

“The only person who seems to have both motive and opportunity is Susan.”

“Do you really think she could have killed Harry?”

“I can’t seem to come up with any other suspects.”

Gussie shook her head. “Much as I’d like someone to be responsible other than Ben, I can’t believe it’s Susan. She just isn’t that strong a person—mentally, or even physically. She looks as though she could hardly lift a pocketbook, much less something that would crush the skull of the man she says she loved.”

“She certainly looks weak. But yesterday she was carrying a pedestal that looked pretty heavy.”

“The one in her booth?”

Maggie nodded.

“I’d bet it’s at least partially hollow. She didn’t pick it up, lift it over her head, and hit someone with it.”

“No, Gussie, I don’t think she did. Although that would have been some blunt object!”

They both smiled slightly.

“Ben saw Harry last night. Susan talked with Harry. Vince talked with Harry. Joe did not talk with Harry. Who else was around?”

“Lydia and Abe; she saw Harry. Will. Me. Lots of other dealers, too, but I think we can rule them out as murder suspects; they didn’t even know who Harry was when the police arrived. Harry wasn’t as well known on the antiques show circuit as he was in other circles.”

“Maybe it wasn’t someone he knew. Harry was hit on the back of the head, right? Doesn’t sound as though he was having a serious discussion with anyone at that precise moment.”

“Well, it certainly turned serious enough.”

They both thought for a few seconds.

“There were people in the south field while that was happening; you and Will and Ben were there, and so were at least a couple of dozen other dealers.”

“Right.”

“I know several people identified Ben as someone who was running around just after nine-thirty looking disheveled and scared.”

Maggie nodded. “No doubt that he was. Now if just one person remembers seeing Harry talking with someone who might have killed him…” She paused. “I still think we’re missing something. But my mind isn’t coming up with anything right now.”

Gussie glanced at her watch and started closing her cash box. “Right now we’ve all got too much information on our minds and too much exhaustion on our bodies.”

The public address system broke the silence as Vince’s voice filled the four exhibit buildings. “Good evening, dealers and customers of the Rensselaer County Spring Antiques Fair. The show is closing for the evening. Please conclude your purchases. If you wish to return to the antiques fair tomorrow, please get a readmission ticket as you exit. Dealers, please close your booths. The show will be open to dealers at ten-thirty Sunday morning and will open to the public at eleven. Please drive carefully, and have a relaxing evening.”

Maggie gave the nearest speaker in the ceiling an ironic glance. “Just like last night, Vince? A nice, relaxing evening.”

“Well, I’m heading back to the Kabins.” Gussie fit her cash box and receipts into a wide canvas bag imprinted with a lighthouse and
VISIT THE CAPE
! “I’m going to join the family for a celebration dinner.” She hesitated as she turned her scooter toward the door. “Want to come?”

Maggie shook her head. “Thanks, but no. Family time is important.” She threw a large sheet over her tables and pulled a chair across the entrance, adding a red-and-white
BOOTH CLOSED
sign. “And, if I have the energy, I have a date.” She gestured toward Will’s booth, which was already empty.

“Fast work!” Gussie smiled. “Have a great time. And remember all the good details for tomorrow.”

“Only if you do the same.” Maggie hoisted the bag holding her cash box and her pocketbook to her shoulder. “I’m too exhausted for an X rating; I definitely predict a PG-rated evening.”

“Well, at least try for an R,” Gussie said, grinning, as she turned and waved on her way to the side door.

Joe had also finished putting chairs in front of his booth. “Thanks again for helping Susan this afternoon, Maggie.”

“No problem. I really hope she’s been able to get some rest.”

“I’m going to drop my stuff at my van and then go and check on her. There may be some calls I can help her with, or at least maybe I can get her to go out and have something to eat.”

Maggie nodded. “If there’s anything I can do to help, I’ll be across the street. Will and I are going to have dinner somewhere, but we won’t be late.”

“I’m sure Susan will be fine.” Joe shifted one of the canvas bags he was carrying to his other hand. “She’s been through rough times before. She’s stronger than she sometimes appears.”

“I think most of us are,” said Maggie. “No one is ever prepared for what life delivers…but, somehow, we get through it.”

Joe nodded and started up the aisle. As Maggie started to follow him toward the parking lot, he turned toward her. “At least nothing can be worse than last night. And we all got through that.”

“You’re right,” Maggie said. “Nothing could be that bad.”

Maggie turned her room radio loud enough so she could hear the local news (Harry’s death wasn’t mentioned) while she was in the shower. It was loud enough so she didn’t hear the red-and-white ambulance screaming up to the Rensselaer County Fairgrounds for the second time in under twenty-four hours. It moved rapidly around the last few customers’ cars leaving the parking lots, heading toward the same section of dealers’ vehicles it had visited the night before. Within minutes it was on its way back to Rensselaer Hospital.

This time the lights and siren were still on as it left the fairgrounds.

Maggie dressed carefully, putting on a skirt and silk sleeveless blouse she’d packed as extras, in case the temperatures soared, as they sometimes did at the end of May. It had been a long time since she’d dressed for a dinner with someone she hardly knew. Although, she thought ironically, I’ve already spent one night with Will. The new order in relationships: spend the night, then have dinner. She spent more time than usual on her makeup, using foundation, which she rarely bothered with, along with her usual blush and gray eye shadow.

She considered herself in the mirror, then decided not to wear her hair down. Instead, she braided it and pinned it up, circling her head in an old-fashioned crown that suited her and added a little to her five feet five inches. No jewelry tonight, she decided, after looking over the few pieces she’d brought for the weekend. Somehow life was too complicated right now; she wanted to feel uncomplicated and look undesigned. And she shouldn’t make so much of this dinner, which was an informal, spur-of-the-moment occasion.

She was ready ten minutes before Will knocked on her door.

As soon as she saw him, she knew something was wrong. Very wrong.

He put up his hand. “Maggie, I don’t know how bad it is. But Susan’s in the hospital.”

Maggie’s mind ran in a spiderweb of directions. But before she could say anything, Will reached out to her, and the tweed on his jacket felt familiar and safe against her cheek.

“Joe found her. The guy in the ambulance said she’s in a coma.”

They decided to go ahead and have dinner since they could do nothing for Susan that the hospital wasn’t already doing, but the relaxation spiced by touches of sexual tension that they had both anticipated was gone, despite the dusky candlelit country inn Will had found. Will ordered a steak, rare, and Maggie decided on chicken breast in white wine with herbs.

“What could have happened?” Maggie hesitated as she put down her glass of chablis. “She said she was exhausted and light-headed when I left her, but she seemed all right.”

“She was pale when you helped her out to her van,” Will agreed. “Pale, but certainly not unconscious.” He waited a moment. “I spoke to Joe briefly; he said he knocked on the door of her van and then went in, thinking Susan was asleep. She must have thrown up, choked, and then passed out. When he couldn’t wake her, he called the ambulance on his cell phone.” Will put down his knife and fork. “Joe said she’d been ill for a long time, but he didn’t realize she was that weak.”

“Vince told me she’d fainted several times on his Asia tour last month.” Maggie thought for a moment. “He didn’t say why.”

“Whatever her medical problem is, the stress of having your husband killed—even your almost divorced husband—certainly would make it worse. Plus, Susan didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Maggie pushed some chicken around on the plate in front of her. “But stress and lack of sleep don’t put someone in a coma, Will.”

“Maybe she took the wrong combination of pills or the wrong pill. She had a little cooler under her table, and every hour or two she’d take a bottle out and swallow a pill.”

“That must be the cooler I carried back to the van for her. She said she had to have it with her.”

“It went to the hospital with her, too. Joe seemed to know about it and said the doctors would want to know what she’d been taking. What she had in her stomach.”

“That makes sense. But she’d been eating a little, too. Joe got her some eggs for breakfast.”

“And you got her a tuna sandwich for lunch. I don’t know how much of it she ate, but I know she took a few bites. She complained it had too much mayonnaise on it.”

Maggie took another sip of wine. “The last twenty-four hours seem like a surrealistic nightmare. The show went on; some customers bought. And at the same time, Harry was killed, Ben was held for questioning, and now Susan is in a coma.”

“How is Ben taking everything?”

“Surprisingly well, according to Gussie. He’s with his family now, so that’s a tremendous relief. I was hoping that when the police questioned Susan again, she would have been able to provide some more insights into who might have killed Harry.”

“She may be fine, Maggie; some comas are very brief.”

“You’re right; I’m just feeling a bit morbid.”

“What about some dessert? They say chocolate is a tranquilizer and has minor aphrodisiac qualities.”

Maggie gave him a serious look. “Under the circumstances, perhaps some apple pie would be more in order?”

“Each to his own. But I’m going for the chocolate cheesecake. With strawberries.”

“A man after my own stomach,” Maggie responded with a groan. “I’m sticking with the pie.”

“And a little cognac?”

“Not tonight, Will. There’s too much happening.”

He sighed. “You’re a tough lady, Maggie Summer. But I can handle it.” He gestured to the waitress. “One decaf, an apple pie, and a chocolate cheesecake with strawberries.”

She nodded and headed toward the kitchen.

“It’s been a long day.” As Will looked at Maggie, she felt his eyes seeing more than she was sure she wanted him to see.

“I really appreciate all the help you’ve been during the past two days.”

“I hate to say it, because the situation is obviously an awful one, but I’m glad it gave me an opportunity to get to know you.”

“Most antiques dealers are good people.” Maggie steered the conversation into safer waters. She couldn’t help liking Will, but, after all, he had been at the Westchester show last weekend when John Smithson was murdered and had even taken Smithson’s place at this show. It was probably a coincidence, but it was a curious one. How many other people had been at both shows?

“I really am glad to get to know you.” Will reached over and put his large hand over hers. “You’re a very special lady, Maggie Summer.”

“Here’s the decaf and the desserts,” said the waitress.

Maggie withdrew her hand and made room for the plates. She smiled back. “I’m glad, too, Will. But too much is happening for me to think about it.”

“You don’t have to think about it. You just have to enjoy it.”

“I’d like to be your friend. Right now I can’t cope with anything else.”

“I don’t expect anything else right now. Except a lovely evening with a lovely lady.” He picked up his fork. “And, of course, a totally evil piece of cheesecake.”

Maggie toasted him with her water glass. “To a memorable evening.”

“To a memorable evening.”

It was almost ten-thirty when Will drove Maggie up to her Kosy Kabins unit. The high lights illuminating the motel’s driveway shone directly on a dark van parked in front of her door. There was no mistaking the van; the
J
.
COUSINS
,
BOOKSELLER
logo on the side was clear. They both jumped out of Will’s RV and walked over to the van, peering inside.

Joe was slumped over the wheel.