“I’ve mentioned it to him a couple of times, but I got the feeling pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to get any straight answers.” Duncan seemed resigned to his fate. “He’s been pretty fuzzy about the whole thing from the beginning, but he says he’s talking to a chain-saw company that’s interested in sponsoring one of us—sort of an official spokesperson type of thing. You know, we’d use their products and wear ballcaps with their logos on them, that sort of thing. Apparently they’re getting ready to make a lucrative offer, and they’ve asked Preston for his recommendation. He still hasn’t said who’s involved or how much we’re talking about, but he let us know that he will be finalizing his decision any day now.”
“How come I haven’t heard anything about this before?” Candy asked. “Was there an official announcement?”
Duncan shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask Preston about that.”
Candy pursed her lips and made a note. “Maybe I will.”
“A bunch of us have been talking,” Duncan continued as he watched her scribble down a few quick lines, “and we’re all pretty much in agreement that whatever’s going on, Liam probably has the inside track on it. Either him or Victor. Those two are the most competitive of the group, though some of the women do a pretty good job keeping up with them.” Casually he nodded toward Felicia Gaspar and Gina Templeton.
Candy didn’t disagree with him. She’d talked to both of them, as well as to Liam. Gina in particular had seemed driven, yet at the same time distracted and even evasive, when Candy had spoken to her and asked about her husband, Victor.
“I’ve heard he’s pulled out of the event,” Candy had said casually to Gina, who was covered in ice crystals at the time and chipping away at the face of a young female figure, who was beginning to emerge from a block of ice.
“I’d prefer not to talk about that,” Gina had replied, barely looking at Candy, her gaze affixed on the frozen visage before her. “It’s a private matter.”
“Are you going to continue to participate in the exhibition yourself? According to the schedule, you and Victor are supposed to be giving an ice-carving demonstration tomorrow morning. Are you still participating?”
A look of genuine surprise crossed Gina’s face, as if she’d completely forgotten about the event, though she quickly moved to force her emotions below the surface. “Well, um, yes, of course. I’ll be there!”
These last few words sounded forced to Candy, but she let it go, suspecting there was more Gina wasn’t telling her, but guessing it had something to do with Gina’s marital relations with her husband. And perhaps she was right—it probably
As Gina went back to carving, practically attacking the ice, Candy backed off and finally turned away. But as she did so, she noticed Gina glance first at Liam and then at Felicia, before returning to her task with renewed effort.
Her conversations with Felicia and Liam hadn’t gone much better. To Candy, they all seemed strangely driven yet disconnected, like they were trying to reach an unknown destination without a map. Pedal to the metal with no idea where they were going. Only Baxter Bryant and his wife, Bernadette, seemed truly to be having a good time today. Baxter in particular always had a crowd around him as he worked, as he frequently took the time to talk about what he was doing and show off some of his techniques. He was definitely popular.
And so was Colin Trevor Jones. Candy had talked to the young chef as well, and his enthusiasm and love for his craft, as well as his skill in shaping the ice, gave her a new appreciation of him, and made him a favorite with the crowd.
Candy thanked Duncan for taking the time to talk to her and started flipping back through the pages of her notebook as she walked away. Several of the folks she’d just interviewed, including Liam and Baxter, also had mentioned this spokesperson thing to her, though they all seemed reluctant to talk about it. Perhaps they were afraid of some sort of repercussion or backlash, though from whom she couldn’t imagine. Preston Smith? Could he possibly have that much power? she wondered as she made her way back to the dry cleaner’s.
Preston was a bit of an odd fellow, yes, but he seemed relatively harmless. Still, on the two occasions she’d met up with him, he’d exhibited some strange behavior too. He seemed to have a way of ducking in and out of conversations, and now that she thought about it, he had a knack for avoiding certain people, like Ben. What was that all about?
She reminded herself to check for a response to the e-mail she’d sent off to Preston’s assistant the night before, as soon as she had the chance. Maybe that would provide some answers, or at least verify his credentials. But for now, she had a parade to catch.
As she made her way up the street, she looked around as casually as possible.
She spotted him almost at once.
Officer McCroy was back on her trail.
He trudged up the street in the midst of the crowd, perhaps twenty feet behind her, wearing the same police-issue coat and hat with a solemn expression on his face, as if he was running down Al Capone.
“Well, that’s just great,” Candy said to herself. And resigned to the fact that she’d probably have a shadow for the rest of the weekend, she turned halfway around and gave him a casual salute.
He nodded back, the look on his face growing more stern, as if to say, “I have you in my sights. You won’t get away from me again that easily, Ms. Holliday.”
Candy hesitated a moment. Perhaps, she thought, she could use this situation to her advantage.
With a shrug, she turned fully around and started toward him, threading her way through the tourists crowding the sidewalk.
When he saw her coming, he stepped aside, waiting, obviously wondering what she was up to.
He must have thought she was going to confront him again, but she had a different idea in mind this time.
She approached more slowly, in a nonthreatening manner, and even pulled a hand out of her pocket and waved tentatively.
“Hi… ah, Officer Jody. If I may call you that?”
“It’s Officer McCroy, ma’am,” he corrected in a stoic manner.
“Yes, well, Officer McCroy, I wonder if I can ask you a question.”
He gave her a scrutinizing look. “I’ve already told you, ma’am. You have to talk to Chief Durr about that.”
Candy shook her head and waved a hand. “No, it’s… it’s not about that. It’s about”—she couldn’t help glancing around and lowering her voice just slightly—“Preston Smith.”
He gave her a confused look. “Who?”
“Preston Smith. You know, the”—she pointed uncertainly toward Town Park—“the I.C.I.C.L.E. guy.”
He looked at her as if she were speaking a different language. “Ms. Holliday, I have no idea who you’re talking about. My assignment is to keep an eye on you in case—”
“I know, I know,” Candy said, interrupting him. Flipping her head around, she started back up the street. “You’re waiting for me to lead you to Solomon Hatch.”
“It’s for your own protection, ma’am,” Officer McCroy called after her.
She didn’t respond. Part of her chafed at the surveillance by the young police officer, but another part of her was grateful for it. She’d found herself in serious trouble on at least two occasions before when solving mysteries around town. Maybe operating under the watchful eye of the authorities wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
And, as she walked back up the street, she felt some satisfaction, as she had uncovered another small piece of the puzzle. Officer McCroy had confirmed what she had already guessed about Preston—that he was trying to avoid certain people, the police included.
She couldn’t decide if that was significant or not.
Maggie was just locking up the store when Candy arrived yet again at the dry cleaner’s. Pulling her quickly into the back room, Maggie said, “Here, we need to get dressed up for the parade,” and she dug into a shopping bag full of colorful clothing she said she’d brought from home. “I promise all this stuff is mine,” Maggie said in response to Candy’s inquisitive expression.
If Maggie had supplemented the clothes with a few unclaimed items she’d found lying around the store, she wasn’t saying.
Within ten minutes she’d outfitted both Candy and herself. Maggie wore a red jacket trimmed in white faux fur, a bright green scarf, a multicolored, multispiked jesterlike hat with bells at the tips of the cloth spikes, and
