'Anyone around here?' I said. 'Anyone who might be holding a grudge?'
'No idea,' she said. 'Made a bigger stink up in Richmond than it did down here, and anyway, that was seven or eight years ago. Anyone going to do anything, I think they'd have gone and done it by now.'
'I think you're underestimating how long most people can hold a grudge,' I said. 'But speaking of 'gone and done it' – do you have an alibi for the time of the murder?'
'Not a bit of one,' she said, cackling. 'I had a long day of campaigning, so I left early and went home to bed. So I can't prove I didn't do him in.'
'You're not going to try to get arrested for this, are you?' I asked.
'Hell, no,' she said. 'I might have done it if I'd thought of it, but I didn't; and I'd hate to take the glory away from whomever actually had the gumption.'
'That's good,' I said. 'I'm not sure getting arrested would be a good campaign tactic.'
'Actually, it might be, under the circumstances,' Mrs. Fenniman said. 'Good thinking, Meg. I'll have to consider that.'
She strolled off, looking thoughtful.
'Oh, dear,' I said. 'I hope she isn't going to start badgering Monty about her lack of alibi,' I said. 'Dad's already driving him crazy enough.'
'Yeah, I noticed,' Michael said. 'That's why I was trying to keep your dad distracted, instead of coming to look for you.'
'Thanks,' I said. 'Oh, damn, there's Wesley again.'
'Relax,' Michael said. 'He doesn't seem to be looking for you.'
'No,' I said. 'But he's certainly looking for something.'
As we watched, Wesley stumbled along, his eyes on the ground. When he got to a booth, he'd walk in, ignoring customers and crafters alike, scanning the floor and every horizontal surface. Then he'd walk out, stumble on toward the next booth, and repeat the whole routine.
'He's been doing that all morning,' Michael said. 'Well not quite that; he was a little less frantic earlier. He came into your dad's tent and looked high and low, badgering us all the while about whether we'd found something of his.'
'Found what?'
'He wouldn't say. We figured maybe he was snooping around everywhere the cops have been, but from the way he's acting, I think maybe he really has lost something.'
'And I bet I know what it is,' I said, fishing in my bag, and turning my back to Wesley.
'CD-ROMs?' Michael said. 'He's lost three CD-ROMs?'
'I bet he's lost one,' I said. 'He was waving one at me when he said that he could swing the election. I bet he dropped it in my booth, and I picked it up without thinking.'
'I think I'd notice if I picked up a stray CD-ROM; they're not exactly something I use every day.'
'I would notice, normally, but everybody was handing me CD-ROMs yesterday – Tad brought by a CraftWorks patch, and Rob gave me his CD-ROM of the game to keep. I probably thought I'd dropped one of those and put it in my haversack.'
'Or maybe I shoveled it into your haversack along with all the rest of the contents when I kicked it over.'
'That's right, you did,' I said.
'So should we give it back?'
'Later,' I said. 'When we get my laptop back and can figure out which one is Wesley's.'
'I suppose we'll have to inspect the contents pretty thoroughly to do that.'
'Naturally,' I said. 'Wesley will just have to suffer a little longer.'
'Okay,' he said. 'Where to next?'
'Well, I thought – '
'Meg!' Mrs. Waterston said, from behind us.
'Morning, Mom,' Michael said.
'Good morning,' she said, rather perfunctorily. 'Meg, that sheriff's a relative of yours, isn't he?'
'A distant relative, yes,' I said, wondering what she was going to complain about. I knew, from experience, that no one ever asked if people were relatives of mine if they were going to pay them extravagant compliments.
'Then can't you get him to do something? That is how you get things done in this… town, isn't it?'
I wondered, briefly, what adjective she'd swallowed. 'Crazy,' maybe? 'Backwards?'
'Godforsaken?' I'd heard them all; sometimes even said them myself, but she knew better than to say them aloud. And I knew better than to ask.
'What is it you want him to do, anyway?' I asked instead.
'I want him to finish this investigation,' she said, 'before it ruins the festival.'
'Ruins the festival?' I echoed.
'Look how many tourists there are today!' she exclaimed, with a sweeping gesture. 'Hundreds! And what are they seeing? Are they seeing an authentic colonial encampment? A thriving market full of period crafts? A little slice of Yorktown's history? No! All they see is dozens of modern police running all over everywhere.'
'Actually, I think most of the tourists are rather enjoying the excitement,' Michael remarked.
'Well, that's not what I brought them here to enjoy,' Mrs. Waterston said. 'What are the police doing, anyway?'
'Trying to solve a murder, I suspect,' I said. 'Questioning suspects and searching tents and booths.'
'Well, they could question people out of sight of the tourists, couldn't they?' Mrs. Waterston demanded. 'And what are they searching for? They have the murder weapon, don't they?'
'Well, yes,' I said. 'But they still haven't found my cash box.'
'Your cash box?' Mrs. Waterston said, in a surprisingly faint voice.
'Yes, my cash box. It seems to have disappeared from my booth between the time I left for the party and the time I found the body, and while our local police may not have the extensive experience with homicides you get in a big city, they can put two and two together. They think it's pretty obvious that whoever killed Benson also took my cash box.'
'But… but… that's impossible,' Mrs. Waterston stammered.
'And just why is that?'
'Because I took your cash box,' Mrs. Waterston said. 'And I assure you, I'm certainly not the murderer.'
Michael recovered first.
'Mom, why on Earth would you steal Meg's cash box?'
'I didn't steal it,' she snapped. 'I just took it for safekeeping. I thought she needed to learn a lesson about carelessly leaving her cash box lying around, in plain sight, in an unlocked booth.'
'Gee, thanks,' I said. 'But for your information, I didn't just leave it lying around. I left it locked in one of my metal storage cases.'
'Well, when I came by your booth, it was just sitting there on the table.'
'And when was that?'
'I left the party for a little while about nine thirty or ten,' she said. 'I hadn't seen Spike all day, so I was going to bring him back with me. Your… brother was supposed to have dropped him off at my house and fed him. Which he hadn't done properly, of course; he must have let Spike slip out when he left the house, and I found the poor little thing cowering in the yard, trembling with hunger. I fed him, and I was heading back to the party with him. But on the way he managed to slip his leash and ran off into the craft-fair site. I thought perhaps he'd detected a prowler.'
'More likely a prowling cat,' I said.
'So I followed him,' she said.
'Even though you thought there might be a prowler about?'
'I thought some of the Town Watch would be about, too, instead of carousing themselves into a stupor at the party,' she said, in something closer to her usual tone. 'But never mind; we won't see that happening
