“Is it just because of the fair?” I asked.
“‘Just because of the fair,’” he echoed. “You people have no idea what you’ve done, have you? You killed our chances of putting on our own fair, and then threw us the Midway as a bone.”
“The sales tax revenue from the Midway—” I began.
“Yeah, the sales tax money’s nice. Helps a bit with the county budget. It’d help a lot more if we got the lion’s share of the revenue.”
“You are getting the lion’s share of the revenue.”
“Yeah, right,” he said. “I’ve seen the attendance numbers. And I know what a ticket costs. You’re taking in a pretty penny at the gate. Not to mention the competition entry fees.”
“Yeah, Caerphilly’s getting the admission fees,” I said. “But we’re still paying for the construction. We have water bills. Power bills. Portapotty bills. And maybe even huge legal fees if those people whose chickens you stole decide to sue us. Take me back to the fair office and I can show you the figures. We might not even break even.”
“On paper,” he said. “We all know the big money’s in the kickbacks.”
“Kickbacks?”
“Keep it down.” He prodded me with the gun. “Yeah, kickbacks. I know how these things work.”
“In Clay County, maybe,” I said.
“You have no idea how things work over in Clay County.” Plunkett suddenly sounded furious, and the gun was digging into my back. “We’re dying by inches over there. Did you know they’re laying off almost our whole sheriff’s department at the end of the month? All except Sheriff Dingle’s son and two of the mayor’s nephews. They’re only gonna patrol from eight to five. The rest of us are out on our ears, and I’m betting we never see our final paychecks. They’re already six weeks behind. I’m already driving a piece of junk since the bank repo’d my pickup, and the mortgage company is breathing down my neck something fierce. So I decided to do something.”
“I’m not sure how killing Brett Riordan solves the Clay County budget problem,” I said.
“Maybe it doesn’t.” To my relief, he sounded calmer. “But I figure it brought down two rival fairs with one bullet. Gives us a much better chance at floating our event again. And even if that doesn’t work out, it should solve my personal budget problem. Like I said, I haven’t decided who should take the heat for killing you, but when I figure out and bring him in, I figure I’m a shoo-in for a job as a Caerphilly County deputy.”
Either the chief was much better at hiding his feelings than even I imagined, or Plunkett was terrible at reading people’s reactions to him. Possibly both.
“Hey, maybe I should frame Vern Shiffley,” Plunkett said. “Create a vacancy in the ranks and prove myself the best man to fill it, with the same bullet. Pretty efficient, don’t you think?”
There was that annoying psycho chuckle again. We were through the gate now, and he seemed more relaxed now that he was back on home ground. The end of the gun barrel wobbled a little as he laughed.
I ducked my head and stomped on his foot, hard, while turning to grab for the gun. I succeeded in getting loose without being shot, and I even managed to knock the gun out of his hand, but it skittered off to his left. I was on his right. I didn’t fancy my chances of beating him to it. In fact, his hand was already on it.
So I kicked him in the face to distract him and slow him down, and then I took off at a run. I managed to put a row of Midway booths between me and him. I hid in the shadows of a booth until my breathing slowed. Then I started out again, keeping my footsteps as quiet as possible and slipping from one set of shadows to another, trying to put as much distance as I could between us.
I heard him swearing quietly as he tried to figure out which way I’d gone. For now, I’d eluded him. Should I scream for help?
No. If I screamed, he could find me. And then he could just shoot me, and claim he’d spotted a suspicious person prowling around the Midway.
I decided my first instinct was right. I should keep going farther into the Midway. Maybe I could make him think I was going to take off through the woods and then circle back to the barns.
Or maybe I should take off through the woods for real?
No. Plunkett would know these woods. He’d found Brett’s car in them. Maybe he’d even parked it there.
Of course, he knew the Midway, too. But at least thanks to my wandering around this afternoon and evening, so did I.
I called up my mental map of the Midway. And took a few moments to push away all the irrelevant information I’d stored there about which vendors seemed willing to talk about Plunkett’s extortion so I could focus on the bare geography. I was in the first of the three lanes of booths that led in a rough diagonal from the merry-go-round, near the gate, to the Ferris wheel at the far end. I was about a third to a half of the way along toward the Ferris wheel. To get back to safety, or at least to the Caerphilly side of the fence, I needed to go to my left, past the merry-go-round to the gate.