Shadows at the Fair (18 page)

“Maggie, these prints are perfect. My niece will love them. I’ll mat them in navy, I think, and frame them in gold, and they’ll be elegant. She’s going to have a dark blue kitchen, and prints of coffee and tea plants will be just right, don’t you think?” Lydia was rhapsodizing almost as soon as Maggie turned the corner of the aisle into her booth. “So how much to a dealer? You’ll give me a good price, I know.”

Maggie focused on the prints. “Usually they’d be thirty-eight dollars each. I usually give twenty percent off to dealers. That would be”—she did the math in her head—“that would be sixty dollars and eighty cents. Why don’t I even it a bit and say sixty dollars?”

“That’s fair; that’s fair.” Lydia nodded. “Now, I usually give at least thirty percent off, especially with something like this, where I will have to replace the mats and buy frames, so it isn’t really complete, but”—she looked over at Maggie, who was about to say something she would regret later—“but these are special prints, and I know some of us operate on a tighter margin than others, so I think sixty dollars will be just fine. I’ll write you a check.” She scurried back to her booth.

Maggie shook her head and walked over to see Will. He had just finished selling a bed warmer to a young couple. “Sell anything major for me while I was talking with Vince?”

“Are you going to offer me a commission? One 1914 print of a Pekingese, and the Wilson print you had on the wall.” Will grinned as Maggie turned and looked at the empty spot on her wall in delight.

“You sold the Wilson?” Alexander Wilson, the Scotsman who’d come to America in 1784 and painted the first major portfolio of North American birds twenty years before John James Audubon, had never received the acclaim Audubon had, but was beginning to be valued. Maggie had put a price of $700 on the large folio framed print of eider and ruddy ducks. “That’s wonderful! I should leave you in charge of my booth more often!”

“Please don’t. I was so busy with your sale I almost missed one of mine. So far today I’ve only sold two awls. Oh, and one nice brass trammel and the bed warmer, so it hasn’t been a total loss. How’s the search for the perfect lion coming?”

“Here’s your check, Maggie dear.” Lydia pressed it on her. “Did I hear you were interested in lions?”

“I was admiring the bronze Chinese lions in Susan’s booth.”

“Very nice. I noticed them, too. But a little clumsy for my taste.”

Maggie looked at her. “I didn’t know you were interested in Chinese sculpture.”

“Well, actually not. I mean, they aren’t what I would want in my living room, you know?”

Maggie thought of Lydia’s van and couldn’t help but agree.

“I spoke to Vince about them; he said Susan had gotten them on his Asia tour. He’s using a photograph of one in his advertising brochure for next year’s tour.”

“Susan did show one to me Friday and said she’d bought them recently. She didn’t say where. It’s so sad that she is gone now, isn’t it? But that’s all water under the bridge, as they say.” Lydia beamed at Will and Maggie. “I was just about to pour some energizing tea. A new mixture I’m trying out. Would either of you like to try some?”

“I’m a coffee man, myself.” Will looked down at the top of her head. “But, thank you, Lydia.”

Maggie shook her head. “Cola woman here. You’ll miss having Susan to share your teas.”

“Nothing lasts forever, that’s for sure, Maggie.” Lydia sighed deeply and glanced over at Abe, who was going to have a stiff neck if he woke up suddenly. “Abe has been so upset this weekend. It’s brought it all back…when our poor Danny died, you know. Abe has been quite frantic.”

Abe sighed and let out a low-tremored snore.

“I can see that,” Will said, winking at Maggie. “Well, I’m off for some of that coffee, since both of you ladies are here to watch your own booths, and mine.”

“No problem, Will.” This might not be a banner day for sales, but Maggie’s mind was full of details. She glanced across the aisle to where Lydia was pouring hot water out of a thermos onto a tea ball in a cup.

Maggie looked down at the check in her hand from Silver in Mind. A few more dollars toward the motel cost, in any case. She tucked it into her cash box and took the couple of steps to Gussie’s area. “I’m back. How are you doing?”

“I’d feel a lot more comfortable if the police had at least figured out another serious suspect or two.”

Maggie nodded. “They’re still wandering around the show asking questions, but they don’t seem very focused.”

“The real question is motive. Who would have benefited from Harry’s death?”

Or from both Harry’s and Susan’s, Maggie thought.

“Did your meandering turn up any information?”

“I’m not sure. I think I need to talk to Joe.” Maggie wished she could tell Gussie about Vince’s anger and fear, but she had promised not to tell anyone. There was no reason to share what she was privately classifying as his sexual stupidity. Still, that stupidity meant Vince had a motive to kill Susan: anger, and perhaps revenge. And he was one of the people who had brought Susan food yesterday, so there had been opportunity.

But what about Harry’s death? Vince had had access to the chimera, but so had anyone else walking near the Art-Effects van Friday night. It could have been coincidence. And she might be mistaken about the lion. Maybe it wasn’t the murder weapon. Vince hadn’t wanted the responsibility for Susan that Harry had tried to hand him, but that certainly hadn’t meant he had a motive to kill Harry. So in Harry’s case there had been opportunity, but, so far, no motive that she could discern.

“Joe was closer to both Harry and Susan than anyone else. There might be something else he knows about Vince’s relationship to Harry.”

“Did I hear my name?”

Joe left his cell phone in his booth and walked across the aisle to join them. “I feel as though I’ve lived this whole day in a haze. I don’t even remember helping a customer. I’ve just spent the past two hours trying to reach everyone I know who was a friend of Susan’s or Harry’s. I didn’t want to leave a message about their deaths on an answering machine, so I just keep redialing. Everyone in New York must be sleeping in or away for the long weekend. No one’s picking up the telephone. I hate just leaving a message for people to call me; most of them are not close friends of mine.”

Joe’s skin looked even paler than usual, and his tie was listing to the left. “The police told Susan’s parents. I talked with them just now. They’re going to make most of the arrangements. All they kept saying was they’d never approved of Harry in the first place, and Susan should have never left Bayonne. Actually, they’re lucky. They’re blaming Harry.” He swallowed hard. “I wish I could blame someone else. I just keep thinking there must have been something I could have done. What if I hadn’t gone to look at those books Friday night? What if I’d left the show earlier and found Susan before she’d gone into a coma?”

They were all quiet.

“You did the best you could. We don’t know why this all happened, but no good will come out of wishing.” Gussie shook her head. “I keep thinking, too. Why wasn’t I realistic about my own capabilities—or lack of them? Why did I even attempt to do this show? If I hadn’t done the show, it might not have helped Harry or Susan, but at least Ben wouldn’t have been blamed, because he would have been safely back on Cape Cod, running errands for his mother and me, and jogging in the morning on the high school track. Instead of spending a day in jail being accused of murder.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s not have a pity party. None of us is perfect.” Maggie took a deep breath as she stood with hands on her hips, looking from Joe to Gussie and back again. “And remember, I was the one who gave her the tuna sandwich. Anything could be hidden in tuna fish salad. What if it turns out she died of mercury poisoning?”

Joe smiled feebly.

Maggie checked her watch. “It’s almost two. We have four hours before this show closes, the customers go away poor and happy, and we have to pack up and head back to wherever. And the killer goes, too.”

“That policeman was around a little while ago. He didn’t look as though he had any good leads. He did say they checked out the concession area,” Gussie said, “so I guess they’re investigating your tuna fish. But he said no one else who ate here yesterday had even reported a tummy ache, so they were assuming that if the killer bought food here, he or she added something to it. They’re not investigating the concession stand people.”

Joe smiled weakly. “Well, that rules out about seven people who probably never even met Susan.”

“Joe, I know this is hard, but I’m trying to pull some loose ends together. Do you mind my asking you some more questions? Maybe you know something that would tie this all together.”

He shrugged. “Ask away. At the moment I wouldn’t guarantee my own sanity, but I’ll try.” A tear fell down his cheek and he dabbed at it with a linen handkerchief. “I don’t know what I could know that would help anyone just now.”

“Was there any reason Vince would have wanted Harry dead?”

Joe just looked at Maggie. “Vince?” He shook his head. “I can’t think of any.”

“Did Harry know anything about Vince that he wouldn’t have wanted anyone else to find out?” Other than what I just found out, Maggie added silently to herself.

“He knew Harry was bisexual; they had a lot of the same friends. But lots of people knew Harry was bisexual.”

Maggie had a sudden thought. “Is Vince bi, too?”

“Not as far as I know. He was always with women, and I never saw him come on to any guy.”

“And Harry knew about Susan and Vince.”

Joe nodded. “That had been going on and off for years. This time Susan was taking it a bit more seriously.” He paused and pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up on his nose. “But she’d been taking everything more seriously since she’d been getting more and more ill.”

“Did you ever go on any of Vince’s tours?”

“Nope. I go to London once or twice a year by myself, and I’m not interested in the other places he goes. His tours are more for people looking for general antiques and conviviality; not for specialists like me.” Joe paused. “I think Harry and Susan both went with him to Europe a couple of years ago, though. And did you know Susan went on the Asia trip this spring?”

“She told me.”

“She really held that over Harry, that she was going without him. They’d never been apart for more than a weekend, even if they were both involved with people. And he didn’t want her to go because of her illness.”

“He thought she might get worse?”

“People with AIDS need to avoid germs, and that means avoiding swarms of people, because their immune systems make them so vulnerable to any infection. Not only was she going to expose herself to any number of horrible diseases—that’s what Harry said—traveling would exhaust her and weaken her further. Plus, of course, she’d be far from doctors who knew her.”

“Then why did she go?”

Joe shrugged. “Women! I think she was trying to prove she was independent. And, of course, Vince said he’d look out for her.”

“He knew she had AIDS?”

Joe looked surprised. “Of course. He’d visited her a couple of times when she was in the hospital and once called to recommend a new cure someone he’d met swore by.”

Vince had known! Then what was all the talk and great trauma this morning? “You’re sure he knew?”

“Absolutely.” Joe looked at Maggie as though she hadn’t heard him the first time. “I was with Harry and Susan and Vince just before the Asia trip when they were checking to make sure he knew about all of Susan’s medications, and her doctors’ numbers, should anything happen while they were gone.” Joe thought back a moment. “He seemed to take it all in stride. He didn’t seem worried that there would be any problem, because Susan kept saying she felt fine. Harry was the one who was worried.”

Maggie suddenly thought of something else Vince had said.

“I guess, despite everything, Harry was really devoted to Susan.” Maggie said the words casually, then sipped her diet cola.

“Absolutely.”

“That must have been difficult for you.”

Joe flushed a little. “No, not really. We all got along well. And his love for Susan was different.”

“Different from his love for you?”

Joe nodded. “There was no one like Harry.” His eyes started to fill again.

“Then Harry would never have left either of you.”

As Joe looked at her, the flush on his cheeks paled. “That’s right. He wouldn’t have.”

Gussie looked from one of them to the other. “So, Harry was the perfect husband and the perfect lover. But somebody must not have thought he was so perfect, or he wouldn’t be dead. I’m tired of listening to everyone talk about just how wonderful Harry and Susan were. People who were that wonderful don’t have other people murdering them.”

“Gussie, we’re not saying they were perfect.” Maggie looked down at the angry face of her friend.

“I’m tired of hearing all of it. I’m taking a break. And then I’m going to talk with someone who still has some perspective on this whole horrible situation.”

She motored toward the rest rooms as Joe and Maggie looked after her.

“They weren’t perfect,” Joe said softly.

“Joe, was Harry going on a trip?”