Foul Play at the Fair Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bright pennants flapped in the early-morning wind. Somewhere a flute was playing an Irish tune.
    Liv and Ted stood on the town hall steps, Ted holding her clipboard while Liv cupped her latte in both hands to warm her stiff fingers.
    “Don’t worry. It will warm up as soon as the sun gets over the mountains, and all will be right with the world.”
    “At least there have been no new reports of Peeping Toms,” Liv said.
    “No, but there was a brawl last night at Soapy’s Roadside Grill out on the county road.”
    “I’m not counting that as a Harvest by the Bay incident.”
    “I wonder who it was?”
    “The fight?”
    “The Peeping Tom. I don’t recall ever having one of them before.” He chuckled.
    “There’s something amusing about some pervert staring in your window?”
    “No, but I was just thinking.…”
    “About what?” Liv coaxed. Ted knew everything about everyone, but he made you work for it.
    “It’s kind of a strange coincidence that it was Dolly’s window he chose to peep through.”
    “Why?”
    “Back when Dolly was in high school, the boys used to sneak up to her bedroom window and watch her. And don’t you dare tell her I told you.”
    “Dolly?”
    Ted nodded. “I know it’s hard to look at her and think anything but jolly grandmother, but she was a looker in her day, the first girl to have”—he made a gesture with his hands—“padding in all the right places.”
    Liv smiled. “Ted, I’m shocked. Were you one of those boys?”
    “Heavens, no. I was too mature for that. Plus I was a few years older than that crowd. Now, Joss Waterbury. He and his younger brother, Pete, had more than one fistfight over her. They both had it bad for Dolly.”
    “You’re kidding. I don’t think I’ve met Joss’s brother.”
    “He ran off right after high school. Or should I say right after Dolly disappointed everyone by marrying Fred Hunnicutt. Never came back. Good riddance to bad trash.” He looked thoughtful, then smiled. “Now you know the real story of Dolores Vanderboek Hunnicutt.”
    “I’ll never look at Dolly the same way again.”
    “Come on, let’s go check out the fruits of our labor.” They walked across the street and into the green where booths lined both sides of the walkways. They passed a trio of strolling troubadours and sampled local honey on little squares of homemade whole wheat bread.
    Liv stopped to watch two ladies from A Stitch in Time Fabric and Quilting who were sewing a colorful patchwork quilt stretched taut on a large rectangular frame.
    “The pattern is called Holiday Harvest,” said one of the ladies.
    These people sure knew how to carry out a theme, thought Liv as she admired the tiny stitches delineating leaves and acorns. “It’s beautiful,” she said.
    They moved on to an apple-saucing demonstration, then a table set up for pumpkin painting and a bobbing-for-apples station with four huge half barrels filled with water and apples. Liv tried not to think of the sanitation rules that were being broken. It was a take-your-chances situation, and plenty of kids and some adults were having a blast leaningover the barrels, their hands behind them, chasing the floating apples around the surface.
    There were homemade jams, pickled watermelon rinds, pies and cakes. A caricaturist. A man who played tunes on half-filled beer bottles. A magician and an Uncle Sam on stilts.
    “Recycled from the Fourth of July,” Ted told her.
    Carts of cotton candy, candy apples, roasted peanuts, and funnel cakes dotted the pathways. The smoke from cooking sausages, frankfurters, hamburgers, and corn dogs thickened the air and tempted the nose.
    At the fork in the sidewalk, the Zoldosky brothers had set up a colorful plywood proscenium. The brother with the disfigured face sat off to the side blowing up balloons from an air canister. Anton was tossing bowling pins to one of the other brothers. They were both dressed like Heidi’s grandfather, complete with Tyrolean hats.