'Yes,' I said. 'That and the fact that she thinks the incumbent sheriff is an incompetent fool and it's time for a change.'
'Well, she may have a point there,' Michael said. 'But does Mrs. Fenniman have any relevant experience?'
'According to her, after raising two children and keeping her no-good rascal of a husband in line for forty-five years, policing the county should be a piece of cake.'
'And what do the county voters think about that?'
'The sheriff's running scared,' I said. 'His campaign platform seems to be that he's hired a new deputy with big-city police experience and we don't need a new sheriff.'
'So who's your mother's family supporting?' Michael said, showing his keen grasp of the realities of small town politics.
'Undecided, so far, since they're both relatives,' I said. 'Which is why they're both campaigning so hard. See, there's the sheriff now.'
We were passing the town square. where the sheriff was just easing himself into the stocks and Cousin Horace was placing a board across two ramshackle sawhorses to make a crude table. As the sheriff settled in, shifting his arms and head in the holes to find a comfortable spot, Horace made a big show out of locking him in with an enormous reproduction padlock Mrs. Waterston had commissioned Faulk to make. Only a show, of course, since the padlock was the old-fashioned kind that needed a key to lock or unlock it, as Wesley had found out to his surprise the night before, when, during his tour of the fair, he'd tried to lock me in the stocks as a joke and I'd easily shaken the padlock open and then off the hasp. For that matter, I could probably have shaken the stocks themselves to pieces in time. They were never designed to be moved fourteen times to suit Mrs. Waterson's evolving notions of how the fair should be arranged, and I hoped Horace had remembered to bring a wrench to tighten the bolts periodically. Still, it looked impressive, and a crowd had already started to gather by the time Horace put out a sign saying, TEN PENCE A THROW and began carefully unloading a bushel basket of rotten tomatoes onto the table.
'Interesting method of campaigning,' Michael remarked.
'Meg?'
I looked down to see my nephew Eric tugging at my dress.
'Can I have a dime? Huh?'
'I can probably find a few dimes to fund Eric's participation in the electoral process,' Michael said. 'We can finish this later.'
Preferably after the craft fair is over, I thought, but I smiled and waved as Eric tugged Michael down the lane.
'Damn that man!'
Mrs. Fenniman stood beside me, frowning at the crowd that was starting to gather around the sheriff.
'Who the hell do you think gave him that idea?' she muttered. 'Know damn well he didn't think of it himself.'
She fixed me with her sternest glance.
'I need something to top that,' she said. 'Think of something, will you? And don't just stand there; pass the damned flyers out.'
With that, she turned on her heels and strode off, passing out flyers with such force that she nearly knocked one poor woman down.
'Mrs. Fenniman a good friend of yours?' came a voice at my elbow.
Wesley.
'She's a good friend of Mother's,' I said, handing him a flyer as I headed back toward my booth. 'And a relative, of course.'
'Yeah,' he said, trotting to keep up with me. 'Kind of tough, having two of our relatives running against each other for sheriff, isn't it?'
'Very tough,' I said. 'I was so hoping someone sane would join the race, but no such luck.'
Wesley laughed as if he thought I was joking. Obviously he'd been out of touch with the rest of the family for quite some time. I walked on, shoving flyers into the hands of startled tourists along the way.
As I reached my booth, I heard a cheer go up from the town square. Wesley snickered.
'I could swing that election,' he boasted.
'Yes, isn't the power of the press a wonderful thing?'
'I could,' he said. 'I've got the dirt right here.'
He was holding up something. Deja vu all over again – yet another shiny CD in a paper envelope, although characteristically Wesley had managed to mar his envelope with a number of grease stains and what looked like a smear of ketchup.
'Put it away before the Town Watch see it,' I said, wishing he'd leave. Two women were examining a candelabrum on the outer edge of my booth. I was trying to overhear their conversation without looking too obvious.
'Don't you want to see it?' Wesley said.
'Why should I care?' I asked. 'I don't live here anymore. Why should I care which of our crazy relatives gets elected sheriff?'
'You'll never guess what's on it,' Wesley said.
'No, I won't even try,' I said.
'But if you knew what was on here – '
'Then you wouldn't have a secret to tantalize me with, now would you? You're welcome to come back later and wave your anachronism around to torture me some more, Wesley; right now I'm a little busy. Here, go and pass these out,' I said, shoving the rest of the flyers into his hands.
'Your mother said you were going to help me with my story,' he complained as he slouched out.
'Later,' I muttered, and strolled a little nearer to the customers who were examining a fireplace set – a new design that I was particularly proud of, with a delicate metal vine motif that had been fiendishly difficult to do. I'd been working on getting it just right for over a year, and only in the last couple of months had I produced pieces I thought were good enough to sell. I drifted a little closer, in the hope of overhearing what they said about it.
'Yes,' I heard one say. 'It's very nice. But much too expensive.'
I gritted my teeth and ignored them, pretending to straighten something on the table. I hoped they wouldn't come and tell me to my face that my fireplace set was too expensive. I'd have a hard time saying something polite and noncommittal. And if they tried to bargain the price down – well, did they know how much work it took to make it? How few blacksmiths could have done something that delicate looking and yet that sturdy?
'The other blacksmith had something just like it, and the price was much more reasonable,' her friend said. 'Let's go back there.'
Other blacksmith?
'Eileen,' I said, as the two left the booth. 'Can you hold things down here? I'll be back in a few minutes.'
'Of course,' she said.
'Meg, do you have any change?' Michael said, reappearing in my booth. 'Your cousin Horace is – what's the matter?'
'A sneak thief,' I said, slipping into the lane to follow the two women.
Michael ran after me.
'Who?' he asked. 'Those two women?'
'Keep your voice down,' I said. 'They're not thieves, but I think they're leading me to one.'
'Right,' Michael said. 'Here, take my arm. We'll try to look inconspicuous, as if we're just out for a stroll.'
Of course, in his white-and-gold uniform, Michael had never looked less inconspicuous in his Me, but we fit in. Every few steps Michael would salute a squad of soldiers or we'd exchange good morrows with some costumed civilians, but luckily we didn't run into anyone who wanted us to stop and talk. And, as I suspected, the two women headed straight for the far end of the fair, where I'd assigned the less-accomplished craftspeople.
'Bingo,' I muttered, as they entered a blacksmith's booth in the last aisle.
