Authors: Lorena McCourtney
It wasn’t the St. Louis Hilton, where Harley and I had spent one extravagantly expensive night when we went to a pharmaceutical convention. But neither was it as uncomfortable as, say, a cardboard box or a park bench.
Although I had to wonder if Nancy Drew, Miss Marple, or even that tough V. I. Warshawski ever had to sleep scrunched in the backseat of a car, with what sounded like a dog leaving his mark on one of the tires.
But I had much to be thankful for, I reminded myself, and I gathered my thanks to give them to the Lord as I did every night. I had arrived here safely. I was comfortably full of barbecued chicken and three-bean salad. And I had a promising lead on a friend of the real Kendra’s.
I lay awake for quite a while, but at some point things quieted down—or I was just too tired to let noises or lights bother me any longer—and I slept peacefully.
I woke once in the night and peered out to watch a handful of shooting stars pass over in the now clear sky, followed by a celestial explosion that was almost like fireworks. Maybe shooting stars really were more spectacular in Clancy.
I woke to a pink predawn sky, scent of coffee brewing nearby, and an unexpected surge of anticipation. I was going to learn something important here in Clancy! I could feel it in my bones.
I could also, I realized as I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair, feel a few other things in my bones. Like stiffness, creaky joints, and odd poppings.
I staggered down to the portable restrooms, early enough that no line had formed yet. Back at the car, I washed up again, blessing the time I’d stuffed Handi Wipes in my purse. I combed my hair with the help of the rearview mirror. I felt sticky and grimy, furry-toothed, much in need of a shower, change of clothes, and a brisk session with my electric toothbrush. I reminded myself that women in covered wagons had managed for months without such niceties.
I also made a pleasant discovery. Polyester may get a bad rap for style, but if you’re going to sleep in your clothes it can’t be beat. Scarcely a wrinkle in blue pants or lavender blouse.
“Hey, want a cup of coffee?” my next-door neighbor called.
“Why, yes, that would be very nice.”
“It’s strong,” the woman warned. “I need industrial strength to face three days of camping with three kids. But we wouldn’t miss the Daze. We come every year.”
If she was curious about a lone LOL sleeping in an old Thunderbird, she didn’t show it. I sipped my coffee from the Styrofoam cup. Yes, indeed, strong enough to lubricate creaky joints . . . and probably dissolve meteorites as well. I decided I didn’t feel any worse than when I’d spent a night at the cemetery.
Although I had to admit I had hopes for better things for the coming night. Maybe I could find out all I needed to know this morning and head home by noon.
* * *
I ate breakfast at a Lion’s Club stand, then looked up lawyer Marlow’s office. Yes, Beth Bigelow worked there. No, she wasn’t working today, wouldn’t be in until Monday. By that time the parade had started, and everything else came to a halt.
Yet the parade was so much fun I couldn’t complain. The Queen of Meteor Daze was a ninety-eight-year-old woman, gilt crown perched on white hair as she rode in a horse-drawn carriage with the mayor, hand waving in regal Princess Diana style. There were fire trucks and horse-mounted square dancers, floats and bands and high-strutting majorettes, antique cars and 4-H groups. A clown flung candy kisses, and I gleefully snatched one up under the very nose of a teenage boy whose hands were already filled with more than his share.
I’d left my car back at the industrial park and ridden into main street on the open wagon pulled by a tractor that the town provided RVers for transportation. But after standing for an hour and a half to watch the parade, my feet felt like a couple of corn dogs right out of the fryer. I threaded my way through the crowd to the carnival grounds, which was also Clancy’s city park, bought a sno-cone, and plopped down on a patch of grass.
After a half hour of people watching and sno-cone slurping I decided I was reinvigorated enough to hoof it over to 11th Street and try the Alexanders again. On the way I paused to watch a carnival ride I hadn’t seen before, a little train going round and round inside a vertical circle. Except, almost at the top the train would stop, slip backwards a few feet, and then just hang there. I had to crane my neck to look upwards, and I felt as if all the blood were rushing to my own head as I watched all those people dangling upside down and squealing.
A tap on my shoulder. “Want to take a ride?”
I jumped and whirled so fast that the liquid remains of my sno-cone sloshed all over the arm of the stocky man smiling at me. An arm with the tattoo of a blue motorcycle. I peered at him doubtfully. He looked like . . . No, I must be mistaken. Why would he be here?
The little train whooshed downward in the circle. No, no mistake. It really was Mac MacPherson. In blue shorts, knobby knees and all, with a camera dangling from his shoulder.
“I thought I saw you at the parade,” he said. He wiped his splattered arm on his shorts. “Although I wasn’t sure. We were on opposite sides of the street, and then you disappeared.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Covering the Meteor Daze for a travel magazine article.” Of course. That was what Mac did. “You . . . uh . . . have family here?” he added, obviously puzzled by my presence in Clancy.
We moved out of the flow of people milling around the rides.
“No. I’m . . .” I stumbled to a halt, not quite comfortable with an explanation of myself as an elderly Nancy Drew.
He looked around. “You’re . . . uh . . . with someone?”
All these peculiar pauses in his conversation. And there was a hint of something significant in the question, though I wasn’t sure what.
“No, I’m here alone.”
“For the . . . uh . . . Meteor Daze?”
I was tempted to smile brightly and say “Yes, I’m here for Meteor Daze.” At the moment, viewing all this as Mac undoubtedly would if he knew the facts, I felt foolish. LOL on a wild-goose-chase murder investigation. But my inevitable squeamishness with untruths got in the way.
So we just stood there looking at each other awkwardly until Mac finally said, “My motor home is over at the industrial park.” He jerked a thumb in that direction. “You’re . . . ?”
“I’m at the industrial park too.” I was suddenly very much aware of my unshowered condition and squelched an unladylike urge to sniff my underarms. Bag lady in an old Thunderbird. “The motels were all filled up.”
“So . . . ?”
“So I slept in my car.”
“I see,” he said. Which he obviously didn’t.
Okay, he was a really nice guy, and after the way I’d run out on him at Magnolia’s barbecue, maybe I owed him an explanation now even if I did come off looking nosy and foolish.
“Look, I was just on my way over to see some people. If you want to come along, we can talk.”
“Sounds good.”
We looped our way through people, clanging rides, squeals, merry-go-round music, scents of greasy hamburgers and hot dogs, and sounds of tin targets falling in a shooting gallery, and came out of the city park near a street sign saying 5th Street.
We walked and I talked, telling him about the Kendra Alexander I knew and her murder and the surprising discovery that she wasn’t really Kendra Alexander. And how I was here with the photos hoping to find out more. I waited for a comment like, “Are you out of your mind, Ivy Malone?” which seemed appropriate.
Instead, Mac, apparently accepting my involvement as if it were a perfectly reasonable situation, said, “It would seem as if your Kendra quite likely knew the real Kendra.”
“Yes! Exactly.”
We’d reached the brick house by then. Again no answer to the doorbell. I stood there undecided as to what to do next.
“Do Magnolia and Geoff know you’re here?” Mac asked.
“Yes.” Although I hadn’t told Dix, which made me feel a bit guilty. I hoped he wouldn’t try to call me, and worry. “Geoff didn’t say anything . . . he usually doesn’t, you know. Magnolia was horrified at first, but after thinking it over she just told me to be careful.”
“You came here to investigate a murder on your own. You spent the night sleeping in your car.” Mac looked at me and shook his head. “Ivy Malone, you are a mysterious and remarkable woman.”
Hearing a hint of admiration rather than censure, I decided I’d quit while I was ahead and not mention my midnight stakeouts in the cemetery. They were irrelevant anyway.
“Someone told me Mrs. Alexander might be at the quilt show. Maybe that would be a good place to try next.”
“Lead the way.”
Which I couldn’t, of course, since I had no idea where the quilt show was. So we asked a strolling chicken. Why a chicken costume? No matter. It seemed appropriate, and the chicken was very helpful. She directed us to the crafts building at the fairgrounds, several blocks beyond the city park. The hike proved fruitless, however, because Marcy Alexander had gone somewhere to pick up a quilt.
But while at the fairgrounds we were educated about Beef Boogie Bingo. It consisted of a nervous cow turned into an arena with limestone-lined squares, the bingo winner being the owner of the square in which said cow made her first plop.
A cheer went up when it came. Mac and I looked at each other. American culture? No wonder foreigners thought we were peculiar. Then we laughed and cheered too, and he took my hand as we walked on.
We caught the wagon going back to the industrial park, where traffic was raising dust again. We picked up the Thunderbird, and I drove it on to the motor home section where Mac was parked.
Inside, Mac waved a hand to invite me on a tour of his on-the-road dwelling. The motor home had a compact bedroom in the rear, bathroom split into two sections on either side of the center aisle, tiny kitchen with stove, refrigerator, and microwave, a compact dinette, a sofa and small chair, and two seats for driver and passenger up front. They swiveled to provide additional seating for the little living room.
“Just right for a man alone,” Mac said. “Not much housework.”
Mac fixed ham sandwiches, chips, and iced tea for lunch, and we sat at the dinette to eat.
He cleared his throat. “About tonight,” he said.
“If you’ve never tried it, sleeping in a car isn’t as bad as you might think. I was actually quite comfy.”
“I’d like you to stay here tonight.”
“Here?” Okay, I came across as old-fashioned horrified. Let’s face it. I am of a generation that is still old-fashioned about an unmarried man and woman sharing close quarters, no matter the ages of the persons involved.
“You can have the bedroom. It’s quite private. There’s a folding door . . . see?” He jumped up and demonstrated by sliding the divider back and forth. “And the sofa makes into a good bed. I’ll be quite comfortable there.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think—”
“Ivy, I have spent a night sleeping in a car, several nights, in fact, and I don’t like the idea of you doing it.”
“I was fine last night. I’ll be fine tonight. And if anything should come up, I have my whistle. See?” I pulled out the ever-present silver whistle hanging on a cord around my neck.
His brows scrunched in frustration. “You have backbone, Ivy Malone. But—”
“Not much in the brains department?”
“No, I think your brains are fine too. Stubborn is the problem.”
Stubborn. Well, better than that other S word, I decided, even though he sounded frustrated.
Then a crafty look settled on his tanned face. “You could use my shower.”
Shower
. I almost groaned. A truly lovely S word. Mac MacPherson knew the right button to push. The thought of hot water and being clean again gave me a longing shiver of anticipation. But still . . .
“Well, you give it some thought,” Mac suggested diplomatically.
We took the wagon back to the fairgrounds, and this time when I asked for Marcy Alexander, a girl pointed me to a slender, fiftyish woman hanging a beautiful quilt of interlocking rings over a wooden rack. Someone came up to talk to her before we reached her, so we strolled around looking at the displays. There was a crazy-quilt design of angular shaped pieces stitched together with what looked like delicate bird tracks, one labeled “Flower Garden” with tiny appliquéd pieces forming colorful flowers, another with signatures embroidered on each square.
Could I do this?
I wondered, thinking of those hours when I felt guilty because my hands weren’t busy.
Finally Mrs. Alexander was free, and we headed that way. She smiled pleasantly. “I hope you’re enjoying our show. We have a number of prize-winning quilts here.”
I assured her we were enjoying both the show and the Daze, then told her my name and where I was from. She was still smiling, but she also looked a little puzzled now. I pulled out my pictures.
“I wonder if you know this young woman.” I handed her the photo.
She frowned at it. “This is the same photo the police showed me. I told them, I don’t know her. You aren’t with the police, are you?”
“No, but this young woman was a friend of mine. She’s been murdered, and so far the authorities haven’t been able to find out who did it. Or even who she is.”