I was turning to follow him and sort this out when my phone rang.
“Ms. Langslow?” It was the chief. “Any chance you could drop by the fair office for a couple of minutes?”
I heard Horace’s voice in the background.
“It’s impossible!” he was shouting. “I’m through with it.”
At least I thought it was Horace. But I couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually lost his temper.
“Is this about the information I just gave you?” I asked. “About Paul Morot?”
“No, something else entirely,” the chief said. “We could use some help dealing with a situation.”
I was opening my mouth to recite the long list of other things I ought to be doing when I noticed a stirring in the crowd. Mr. and Mrs. Bonneville were back, still wearing their lugubrious black clothing. And they seemed to have picked up another reporter.
“I’m already on my way,” I said. “Let’s talk more about chickens later,” I added to Michael. “Don’t let the boys steal any of those chicks. And be careful next door—there are some equally adorable ducklings.”
As I approached the fair office, I noticed with approval that Randall’s workmen had already installed the new gate to the Midway, about thirty feet farther down the split rail. All view of the old gate was blocked by a giant billboard that proclaimed MIDWAY! with a big arrow pointing toward the new gate. The pathway to the new gate cut through the field where we’d been keeping the cantankerous guard goats. They still occupied the far half of the field, behind a new stretch of fence, but in the near half I could see that Randall had arranged some exhibits for the tourists to look at on their way to the Midway. The American Jack Donkeys now occupied one part of the field. A stately trio of American Cream draft horses grazed in the middle part. And the workmen had nearly finished setting up the llama demonstration tent in the last part. I could see the spinning wheel and the loom where some of the llama owners demonstrated the use of llama wool, and two of the llamas were already in the pen behind the tent, peering over the fence to watch the workmen.
I made a mental note to compliment Randall on his ideas, and stepped into the fair office.
Inside, Vern was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and an anxious expression on his face, watching Horace pace up and down the narrow open space in the center of the trailer, at a clip that would have given him a good chance of winning a walking race. The chief was sitting at my desk, frowning slightly.
Both of them looked relieved at my arrival.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I can’t work with that man around!” Horace’s normally genial round face was scowling.
“Why? What’s Vern done?” I suspected it wasn’t Vern he was mad at, but decided to play dumb.
“Not Vern,” Horace snapped. “Plunkett.”
“Glad you’re not mad at Vern or the chief,” I said.
“Actually, I’m afraid he is,” the chief said.
“Yeah,” Vern said. “’Cause we just told him he had to work with Plunkett. On account of our agreement with Sheriff Dingle.”
“Can’t we complain to the sheriff?” Horace asked.
The chief shook his head wearily.
“I wouldn’t,” Vern said.
“He needs to know his deputy is a complete idiot,” Horace went on. “How in the world did he get his job?”
“Nepotism,” Vern said. “His mother was a Dingle, and the sheriff is his second cousin, once removed. So there’s no use complaining about him. Just work around him, and try to keep him from doing too much damage.”
“How?” Horace asked. “I must have given him a dozen pairs of gloves, and he keeps taking them off and losing them. Which wouldn’t matter if he could keep his hands to himself, but every time I turn around he’s picked something up bare-handed and started wandering around with it. I’m not sure I have a single bit of evidence he hasn’t contaminated. We’ll be lucky if any of it makes it into a trial.”
“Yeah, he’s an idiot,” Vern said. “What do you expect from Clay County? But maybe that’s a blessing in disguise.”
“A blessing?” Horace spluttered.
“Yeah.” Vern glanced over at me. “’Cause it’s sure looking pretty grim for the widow. Time was she’d have walked on killing a low-down cheating skunk like him.”
“Time was,” the chief said. “But these days ‘he needed killing’ isn’t a valid defense.”
“Pity,” Vern said. “But that’s what I mean by a blessing. Maybe, annoying as he is, Plunkett is accidentally doing us a service.”