A Geek Girl's Guide to Arsenic (8 page)

He shrugged. “You want me to run a background check on him?”

“Like I can’t do that on my own?” I glared into his pompous face. “You have such a hero complex. Are you so desperate to rescue someone today that you’d resort to internet research to get the job done?”

He matched my hostile stare. “Are you so determined to not need help that you’d yell at people who try?”

“Yes,” Bree butted in. “That. All day. That.”

I glared.

She and Tom stepped away, whispering heatedly.

Adam looked in our direction. “Hi, Mia.”

I walked the other way. “Tell Grandma I’ll be back in a few minutes, Bree. I’m introducing Jake to some regulars first.” I grabbed his hand and pulled. “Come on.”

He shook me off when we hit the dusty path along storefronts. “Hey, I wanted to see you meet Adam.”

“Mia! Jake! Wait up.” Nate’s voice carried over lively minstrel music in the courtyard where merry maids and men bowed and bobbed. He handed a brown cloak to Jake. “I believe this is for you.”

“Thanks. I think.” Jake buttoned the cloak around his neck. “You’re meeting the girl from Surly Wench for coffee?”

Nate glanced my way. “Yeah. Why?”

Jake clapped him on the back. “I think I’ll join you. Nate can take me from here, Mia. No need to keep your family or Adam waiting.”

Nate stared. Conflict rumpled his forehead. “Uh. Umm. I don’t know. It was kind of a date. Not really a three-person sort of occasion.”

Jake pushed Nate forward, steering his too-tall frame away from me. “Feel free to report back to your captain later, but this isn’t my first rodeo, and I know exactly what the two of you are up to, so let’s get moving. You can introduce me around the Faire when we’re done with Kenna.”

Nate submitted with a helpless look over one shoulder.

I hiked my skirt off the ground and headed back to my family.

Dismissed like a peasant.

Chapter Ten

I marched to Grandma’s checkout table and hooked a basket of product samples over one arm. Who asked for someone’s help, then dumped them before they started helping? I took a few steps before a new idea hit me.

Jake wanted to play games with me? Well, I had news for him. I wasn’t having it. He had a shiny badge and questionable attitude. I had chutzpah.

I freed my cell phone from my pocket and texted Nate. “Who, by the way,” I informed the phone, “is
my
accomplice, not Jake’s.”
Try
to
record
the
conversation
so
we
can
analyze
it
later.

I sent the message and looked up in time to see Grandma materialize in front of me. “Ah!” I stopped on one foot. “Hey! I almost tripped over you.”

Grandma glared while I fumbled for a reason.

“You wouldn’t even be the first person I fell on today. Ask Bernie.”

Grandma stretched and curled thin wrinkled fingers. “Hand it over.”

I dropped my cell phone into her waiting palm. “Fine.”

The phone crowed.

“Wait!”

She whirled away. “After we’re finished here.”

Dang it. “How are sales today?” I asked her retreating figure.

She turned her head in the direction of charred grass where our booth had stood yesterday. “We need a recovery plan. Fast.”

I lifted my chin and put on a happy face. “On it like a bonnet.” I’d work on the murder investigation while drumming up business. I could mentally multi-task like no one else. Obsessive overthinking and a lifetime of painful introversion were occasionally useful. “I put a call in to Petal this morning.”

She spun to look at me. “And?”

“She was in meetings all day.” Though her assistant may have lied about that.
Uh-oh.
This could be worse than I’d thought.
“I’ll try her again first thing tomorrow.”

A pair of tree faeries peeked around a wide oak and waved. Their faces were painted in shades of green and blue, like leaves and the sky. Body shimmer coated every inch of exposed skin which, considering the weather, was extensive. Their iridescent wings reminded me of Tinker Bell. I waved back. I’d always admired the faeries, unafraid of showing their figures like that. Even if I was a size zero in a training bra, I wouldn’t be caught dead in body paint and a few strategically placed leaves. Inhibitions were the building blocks of my life.

Mom hated the faeries on principle. She thought they lurked and ought to put some clothes on.

I made a circuit through the Faire, offering samples and planning my next move on the case.

“No,” shoppers said as I extended the free products they’d gobbled up twenty-four hours before. Every answer was the same. “Uh-uh. No thanks. Get away from me with that!” They shook wide-eyed faces. Waved their palms in big “Don’t even come over here” warnings when I made eye contact. Their whispers crawled over my skin as I passed by like the town leper. My stomach knotted at the implication.

Our company was going down if I didn’t get the newswoman to re-cover the story with facts. First, I needed facts. Otherwise I’d look like someone trying to cover up her crime. Negative public opinions spread like wildfire.

Nate better have a ton of information to share. I didn’t see his big ginger head anywhere.

Across the common, Bree rushed from the brothel carrying a bright orange flower.

I pointed at her. “If you stick that in your cleavage, I will pull it out.”

She stopped a foot away and locked both palms in the curves of her waist. Her black satin corset and boots were topped off with a red ruffled miniskirt that opened in the front. The giant scarlet plume in her hair danced happily in the breeze. “It’s for you.”

“Oh?” I accepted the pretty rose. “It’s gorgeous. Why orange?”

“Coral.” Her sudden cat-that-ate-the-canary look tamped my enthusiasm.

I’d said something wrong, or right, depending on which side of the mirror you were standing. I waved the flower at her. “Why are you giving me a coral rose? Be specific.”

“It’s a secret message.” She rocked her hips, as if she was an actual showgirl.

“Why are you doing that?”

“Don’t you want to know the secret?”

“Can you stop shaking your ass first?”

Her perfectly sculpted brows rammed together. “This is a message in the language of flowers. A coral rose means desire. Adam sent it.”

I leaned around her for a look into the building she’d bounced out of. Inside, Adam waved.

Bree added a tiny toe tap to her bouncing hip. “Isn’t it romantic?”

“No. It’s weird and a little forward.” Desire? Really? “I haven’t even met him.” I followed Adam’s gaze across the dusty path to Bree. “Oh. Yeah. He’s staring at you.” Typical. Basically my life story.

“What are you talking about?” She turned in a circle. “You met him last year when I did. I’m almost certain I introduced you. I’ve told him all about you, and he wants to get to know you, but you’re being a pill.”

“Adam is inside the brothel watching you shake your assets out here in that teeny tiny outfit. This is high school all over again.” I handed her the creepy rose and headed away.

“Wait!” She caught my arm. “I think you’re wrong, but we can talk about it later. Come to the magic show today. Please?” She used her giant eyes on me. False lashes dusted her brows. “You won’t regret it. Mom and Dad are going. It’ll pick up everyone’s spirits after a dismal day of sales.”

“Maybe. First, I have to get people to trust we won’t kill them with hand cream and ask around about John’s death. I may also have to rescue Nate from Jake’s evil clutches.”

She bobbled her head. “Great. Bring them too, but come, okay? Promise.”

“I’ll try.”

“If you come, I won’t try to hook you up with any man for the rest of the month.”

“Fine. I’ll stop by the show, but I can’t promise Jake or Nate will join me.”

She bounced on her toes and wiggled her way back to the brothel.

A month? Either that was a bold-faced lie or the magic show was going to be phenomenal. I went back to the wagons and exchanged samples in the basket. Maybe they’d go for the full-sized lip balms we gave away at conventions. “I’m making another round.”

Grandma drew a curved line in the air above her mouth. “Smile.”

I smiled my way along the path outside shops and vendor booths, ignoring the charred rectangle where our booth had stood. A few looky lous snapped photos of the wreckage with their phones.

Adam’s lust rose circled my brain. Who couldn’t appreciate a message in the language of flowers? It was a cute gesture for our setting. Too bad his effort had nothing to do with me.

I stopped outside the Tilted Tulip florist. A painted sign announced half-price roses.

Cheapo.

I went inside and leaned on the counter. Tilted Tulip had a regular retail setup and rented the spot all year around, weather permitting.

“Good even, milady. May I be of some assistance to ye?” A burly man with a handlebar mustache and pointy beard sat on a stool arranging asters and Russian sage. His name badge said Duff.

“Hi. I’m Mia Connors. I’m also Queen Guinevere at my family’s booth, Guinevere’s Golden Beauty. Did you hear about what happened yesterday?”

He stopped working and gave his crowded shop a cursory scan. “Aye. I saw your booth on the news.”

“I meant what happened to John Francis.”

“The reporter said it was poison.” His cartoonish red facial hair and over-the-top Scottish accent were a bit much. Like interviewing a pirate living abroad.

“That’s probably right. I wish I knew who would want to hurt him. Did you know John?”

He scooted back on his stool, suddenly playing it cool. “I might’ve seen him around.”

According to Jake, Mr. Flick thought he was seeing more than one woman. Maybe he sent them flowers. “Did he ever shop here? Did he order flowers?” If I had the names of women John courted, I’d have an instant suspect pool.

“Nay. He never ordered anything from me.”

“Does anyone else work here? Are there records of purchases I can see? Maybe you could check the last month for me and let me know if John was here.”

Duff crossed stubborn arms over his chest. “Nay.”

A couple with heart eyes and armloads of wildflowers joined me at the counter.

I patted the edge and excused myself. “Okay. Thanks for your help.”

I offered lip balm samples to shoppers as I moved along the path toward the back of the fairgrounds. No one accepted.

Maybe John wasn’t a flower-sender, but he was definitely a flirt, and Duff seemed like he was hiding something.

A couple stumbled away from the privies with red cheeks and unkempt hair.

“Bingo.”

The privies were always busy. Aside from patrons in need of a restroom, Faire regulars and workers used the area behind the port-a-potty trailers as a place to get out of character, have a smoke and drop the Elizabethan speech.

“Hi, Larry.” I leaned against the fence where Larry the privy keeper spent his days.

“What’s up, Queenie?” Larry had heavy eyelids and spoke like a stoner. His brown shirt and vest hung on his skinny frame; both needed a good washing. His pant legs dragged the ground.

“I wondered if you’ve seen John Francis back here with anyone lately.”

A knowing smile crept across Larry’s narrow face. “A jealous queen.”

“No. I was his friend, and I’m trying to figure out what happened to him.”

“Right.” He nodded. “Sure. Well, this place ain’t the most romantic, so it’s a hard sell when you’ve got a picky woman, you know? Probably why I never see you back here. Royal tastes and all.”

“Yeah, that’s probably why. Did he come here with a woman or not?”

“Mostly the blacksmith’s daughter, but sometimes others, not too often. John was a classy guy.”

“Apparently.”

Larry produced a cigarette from his pocket that looked suspiciously like marijuana. “You got a few minutes?” He lifted it toward me.

“Sorry. I have to get back to work.”

I shook off the heebie-jeebies and headed back to the wagons.

Nate locked eyes with me from a few yards away. He stood with Jake, who was yacking on his cell phone. Jake raised his eyes in my direction.

There was no one I wanted to see less than Jake, and I surely didn’t want him asking why I was talking to Larry. I dashed back to the privy trailers and tried every door. Locked.

Larry fired up his questionable smoke. “I thought you were headed back to work?”

Desperate, I climbed onto the set of crates by the back fence and hoisted one leg over. “I was, but now I’m avoiding the Deputy US Marshal headed this way.”

Larry’s mouth fell open, the little white cigarette stuck to his bottom lip.

I flung myself over the fence the way Nate had snuck in the day before. A large Dumpster positioned opposite the crate pile made the process ridiculously simple, even for a shorty like me in twenty pounds of crushed velvet.

I trudged around the periphery of the fence, back to where I started, and prayed the ticket takers didn’t give me a hard time about arriving twice in an hour.

The merry maidens at the gate gave me a look. The taller one curtsied. “Did ye leave by this pass, milady?”

“Yes.” I inclined my head and hustled back through the gate, sample basket swinging. I had a long walk ahead of me.

* * *

The blacksmith shop was at the top of the hill, opposite the front gates, strategically positioned beside the stables where jousters tended their stallions and local farmers sold everything from chickens to alpaca wool. A sign on the front door said the shop was
Closed until noonday on the morrow
.

My thighs burned from the hasty climb. I pressed the back of one hand to my nose as the wind changed and stink from the barn overwhelmed my panting senses. “Marry!”

A steady clanging of iron called me inside the dark shop and guided me through the narrow halls where foreboding sharpened the air. The continuous pounding of iron on an anvil slowed my pace and increased my heart rate. Dark walls groaned with the weight of horseshoes, weapons and chainmail on display. A shiny sign hung overhead, forged, no doubt, from the same deadly material as the product it protected.
Touch ye not
,
lest ye be bludgeoned.

My tummy knotted. What if the blacksmith was the killer? Or his daughter?

What if I was alone in a closed shop with a killer and surrounded by weaponry I wasn’t allowed to touch?

“Hello?” My voice cracked.

The clanging stopped.

Signs be damned. I grabbed the nearest thing I could and clutched it to my chest. “Hello?” I gave my weapon a quick look. The crooked broom was made from a sturdy limb and broomcorn. I angled it out in front of me like a sword.

“Closed!” a woman snarled.

The clanging resumed.

Curiosity forced my feet forward, dragging my scared body along.

Inside the next doorway, a curvy woman with sweat on her temples and grief on her face stood over an anvil.

I cleared my throat to announce my presence. “Hi there. I’m Mia Connors, I’m Queen Guinevere from Guinevere’s Golden Beauty.” Did I always have a baby voice or was that new?

The woman’s sculpted arms made mine thankful for long sleeves. Her green-and-black corset and skirt were simple and marked with soot. The blade on her anvil glowed red with heat. “I’m Adele Nash, daughter of Eli. What do you want, Guinevere, Queen of Camelot?”

“I’d like to ask you about John Francis. I was with him when he died.”

She bared her teeth. “You, too? Did the man ever sleep?” Her voice roared through the building. “John was a filthy man-whore, and I hope you get syphilis.”

“Hey!” I snapped. “I never touched him. My family got to know John over the summer at the Ren Faire. I wasn’t
with
him when he died. He was speaking to my dad and me at our booth before he collapsed.”

“Oh.” She gave me a long look. “Sorry. I don’t hope you get syphilis.”

“Thanks.” I pulled the broom back to my chest. “I want to know what really happened to him. I thought you might want to know, too.”