I strolled on back to my booth. The police presence had shrunk to Monty and two other officers, and both were listening to Mrs. Waterston. Michael was there, too, with Mel from the artillery camp.
'Are you sure there's no way she could have shook you off?' Monty said, turning to Mel.
Without changing his expression, Mel reached inside his coat, took out his wallet, and held it out. Monty tilted his head to inspect it, but I noticed that he didn't take his hands out of his pockets. And he reacted as if a skunk had lifted its tail at him.
'So you're a damned bounty hunter,' he said.
'I'm a private investigator,' Mel said. 'And yes, I'm presently working for a bail bondsman. It's legal, and I'm damned good at it. So I can guarantee you, she didn't shake me off.'
Michael beamed at me as if I were personally responsible for putting his mother under surveillance by a genuine private investigator for the duration of the murder inquiry. Mrs. Waterston looked less enchanted with the whole thing.
'You down here to haul some lowlife back to Richmond?' Monty asked.
'I'm down here for the reenactment,' Mel said. 'It's my hobby.'
I didn't like the way they were glaring at each other, so I decided to distract them.
'Look, you're not doing much with my booth right now, other than interrogating people in it,' I said. 'Any chance you could find a more private place to do that so I can actually start doing some work here?'
'I was just going to send for you,' Monty said, with a scowl. 'Now that we've cleared up the disappearance of the cash box, we're finished here.'
He went off, taking Mrs. Waterston, Mel, and the rest of the police with him.
I looked around my booth. If I were a deputy whose job probably depended on my boss getting reelected, I'd be a little more careful how I treated voters' relatives. Obviously, at some point, the police had stopped considering my booth an active crime scene and started using it just as a place to hang out, judging from the number of coffee cups and doughnut boxes stashed in the corners.
'I'll get rid of these,' Michael said, grabbing a stack of the rubbish. 'And I think I saw Eileen down the lane; I'll let her know you're opening up.Anything I should bring back?'
'Some customers would be nice,' I said.
'I meant to help with the cleanup,' he called over his shoulder.
'I take it back,' Amanda said from across the lane. 'He cleans; he's a keeper.'
With Michael pitching in to help, the booth was ready for business far sooner than I'd expected. And to my astonishment, Cousin Horace even showed up with my laptop a few minutes after the police had gone.
'No real need for us to keep this around, and I thought you could use it,' he said, and disappeared before I could thank him.
'That was nice,' Michael said.
'I hope he had permission to give it back,' I fretted. 'Not that I'm going to ask Monty, of course. But at least now, when things are quiet, I can check those CDs.'
'I could do it now,' he said, 'if you don't mind. We've pretty much finished the cleanup.'
'Go right ahead,' I said. 'Just let me know if you find anything juicy.'
'Grisly as it sounds, I should probably take this anachronism behind the curtain,' he said.
'Be my guest,' I said. 'But no practical jokes. No dying elephant screams, no clanking chains, no blank shots.'
'I'll be a perfect lamb,' he said, and disappeared behind the curtain with my laptop.
Nothing like a homicide on the premises to draw in customers. People began swarming in even before we finished the cleanup. Okay, they spent a lot of time staring at the curtain behind which, as everyone had heard, I'd found the body, and starting whenever Michael made the slightest noise. Some even asked me to tell them about what had happened. But after milling around taking up space for a while, enough of them would feel sufficiently guilty to buy something. I began to hope I'd make up for lost time after all.
If I'd had a chance, I'd have tried to dust the fingerprint powder off every surface of the booth before letting people in, but I quickly realized that the lingering signs of the investigation proved more of a selling point than a tidy booth.
'Looks like you're catching up,' Amanda said, popping across the lane during one of the few quiet moments we both had.
'Hope so,' I said.
'I've been wanting to ask – where did you get that outfit you wore last night?'
'Michael had Mrs. Tranh make it,' I said. 'Why – do you want one?'
'I think I might look pretty good in a dress like that, with a set of those stays,' she said, looking faintly sheepish. 'And heck, if I'm going to do any more of these costumed fairs, I think I should get the right outfit.'
'To tell you the truth, yesterday I'd have said you were crazy, but today – I feel kind of frumpy in this dress,' I said, shaking my head in surprise. 'By the way – you live in Richmond, right?'
'All my life,' she said. 'Even went to college there. Why?'
'Ever heard of a company called Cooper and Anthony?'
'Yeah, heard too much about it,' she said. 'Why?'
'What is it?'
'What was it, you mean,' she said. 'Small, family-owned business outside of Richmond. Started out making paper after the Civil War, then expanded into other stuff. Managed to expand themselves out of business about seven years ago.'
'I heard they had help going out of business,' I said.
'I've heard that, too,' she said. 'Mostly from men who lost their jobs when the place closed down. I always figured, they were so bitter, maybe it made them feel a little better to blame outsiders for their problems.'
'I just talked to someone who lost money investing in Cooper and Anthony, and those bitter men just may be right.'
'Damn, does that mean I have to go back home and apologize to Daddy and my uncles for thinking all these years that they were paranoid?'
'Oh, no; please don't tell me it's your family we're talking about.'
'Not just my family; must have been six or seven hundred people lost their jobs when the place finally shut down.'
'Any of them still bitter enough after all these years to do something about it?'
'We're talking about Benson, aren't we? He had something to do with the shutdown?'
'Engineered it, according to Mrs. Fenniman.'
'This'll make Daddy's day, hearing the man responsible for him losing his job has passed over.'
'Make mine; tell me you have an alibi for the time of the murder.'
'Oh, don't you worry,' Amanda said. 'I have a real good alibi, and if Monty looks at me the way he was looking at you, my alibi damn well better punch his lights out if he wants to alibi me again tonight. I just hope that bunch of sorry old men up in Richmond were playing their usual Friday night poker game last night, or the cops'll be looking real hard at them. Couple of them caused some trouble already, back when the plant shut down.'
'That's too bad,' I said.
'Keep an eye on my booth, will you?' she said. 'I think I'll wander over and tell Deputy Monty all about Cooper and Anthony.'
'No problem,' I said. 'I'm sure Monty will be thrilled to know all about his six or seven hundred new suspects.'
Of course, Monty might decide that the demise of Cooper and Anthony was too long ago to be relevant, but just imagining those hundreds of people up in Richmond, only an hour's drive away, lusting for Benson's blood, made me feel a little less anxious about our local suspects.
'That's not accurate,' someone said behind me.
