The Hen of the Baskervilles(85)

“Both, actually. I’ll fill you in on the way there.”

By the time we reached the Italian sausage booth, Michael was just as outraged at Deputy Plunkett as I was. Just as outraged, but a lot less sanguine about our chances of bringing him to justice.

“You can’t solve everyone’s problems, you know,” he said, as we strolled along, trying not to wolf down our sausages.

“Right now, it feels as if I can’t solve anyone’s problems.”

“You’ve helped Molly.”

“I’ve helped her find a divorce attorney and a defense attorney,” I said. “I wish I could find a way to help her that wasn’t going to cost her a lot of money. I can’t track down the missing chickens. Chief Burke would have my head if I tried to barge into his murder investigation. But this I might be able to do something about.”

So we strolled up and down, chatting up the vendors as we bought food and played games. Michael won a stuffed penguin. We spent way too much money trying to win a matching one before giving up and deciding to give it to Rose Noire, who was fond of penguins.

We didn’t find any carnies ready to give evidence against Plunkett and the other rogue Clay County deputies, but we did find a few people who said they’d think about it. We got a lesson from a friendly barker on which games were least stacked against the customer, and a tutorial on running the Ferris wheel from the carny in charge of it. I took dozens of dramatic shots of the nighttime Midway—especially the Ferris wheel and the merry-go-round—for possible use on the fair Web site. At about eleven or so, we both hit the wall.

“I think that’s as far as we’ll get tonight,” Michael said. “And I just had a horrible thought—are we going on patrol after this?”

“No,” I said. “I gave us the night off. After all, we were up most of last night.”

“Not to mention how you’ve been running yourself ragged all day.” Michael stifled a yawn. “But who’s going to supervise the patrols?”

“Vern,” I said. “Who is also off duty tonight, but doesn’t mind having an excuse for hanging around.”

“Good man. Want to split a funnel cake before we head back to the barn?”

“You’re on,” I said. “But you’re going the wrong way—funnel cake’s this way.”

“Are you sure?”

I was. And I was right. By now, I had a pretty good mental map of the Midway in my mind. It was actually pretty small: three rough lanes lined with booths and rides, anchored at one end by the merry-go-round and on the other—the end farthest from the fence—by the Ferris wheel. Either by accident or design, the lanes were crooked enough that you couldn’t see all the way up or down any of them. The little zigs and zags meant you were constantly turning the corner to see new vistas, and gave the impression the place was a lot bigger.

Michael was impressed that I led him unerringly to the funnel cake concession. I thought it was a lot more impressive that I could, if asked, tell you exactly what, if anything, we’d learned from every carny we’d talked to and where they stood on the question of testifying against Plunkett. Ringtoss? Played dumb. Taco stand? Mad as hell but afraid of talking. Funnel cake? Thinking about it.

I’d figured out that some of the booths were owned by the company we’d hired and staffed by their employees, while others were independent contractors. The independents seemed more willing to consider speaking up—probably because they could choose not to come back to an event in Clay County, while the employees might have no way to refuse an assignment if they wanted to keep their jobs. Would it help if I contacted the company and let them know what I suspected? I decided to talk it over with Randall first.

Michael and I saved a small bit of funnel cake in case the boys spotted the telltale splashes of powdered sugar and demanded their share. When we arrived back at the barn, we found that Rob had already tucked them in bed in our stall. We let them nibble their bits of funnel cake as a bedtime snack, and after a quick toothbrushing, they drifted off to sleep, with Spike and Tinkerbell curled up beside them and the llamas leaning over the fence to watch.

Then we tried to settle down ourselves. As usual, Michael dropped off to sleep almost immediately. I lay there, listening to his not-quite-snores and the quiet breathing of the boys, the dogs, the llamas, and the countless sheep in the stalls surrounding us. My eyelids were so heavy I couldn’t keep them up. My body ached with tiredness. My brain was foggy from lack of sleep.

Why couldn’t I sleep?

I tried to toss and turn quietly, to avoid waking all the sleepers around me. I lay there, thinking about the events of the day. No, not thinking: fretting.