Father Knows Death Part 1

Father Knows Death.

Jeffrey Allen.

MR. MYSTERY.

"I'm not sure what I know but I heard another crazy story that might somehow matter."

"Nothing is ever too crazy for this asylum you call a town," Victor said. "Spill it."

I told him what Susan told me about Matilda Biggs and Spellman.

A smirk emerged on Victor's face. "Now we're getting somewhere."

I smashed a mosquito lurking by my ankle, ready to strike. "Hey, I'm telling you, this Susan woman might be just as nuts as the rest of them. She could've made it up on the spot for all I know," I said.

"Easy enough to find out," he said, pushing himself off the steps and adjusting his hat. "I'll talk to Mama Biggs and work out the financials. She wants to ante up, we can visit this little meeting tomorrow night and see what shakes out."

I glanced up at the window, then back at him. "I promised Julianne I'd stay out of this one."

"You mean like every other case we take?"

I paused. "Yes."

He grinned as his little legs took him to his car. "So figure out a way to start apologizing to her."

1.

George Spellman's lifeless face gazed at me amid the packages of frozen bratwursts.

I stared at him for a moment and then closed the freezer door. Not because I was shocked or horrified at finding a dead body. I closed it because I realized I wasn't fazed by finding a dead man stuffed inside a freezer. I wondered if I should just stop opening things.

It was late April and I was working the grill at the Carriveau County Fair. Rose Petal was in the heart of Carriveau County and our fair was an anomaly. Because Texas summers were so hot, our fair was held every April. All of the towns in the county shut down, schools were closed, and everyone spent the entire week at the fair. It was like an extra week of spring break, but with carnival rides, farm animals, and lots of fried food. Monday and Tuesday were spent setting up, cleaning out the barns, getting the animals delivered and letting the ride operators get their rides set up. Wednesday, everyone rolled in. It had been that way, on that schedule, for as long as anyone could remember.

Carly had joined our local 4-H chapter last year because she liked the furry little animals, and one of their big fund-raisers was working the food stand during the fair. The summer temperatures had moved in early this year, however, and there was nothing quite like working an outdoor grill in hundred-degree heat. So much for avoiding the heat.

"I think we're gonna need some more burgers and dogs for the grill, Deuce," Pete Boodle said, wiping his brow with a red bandanna. "Some brats, too. Lunch rush is gonna be any minute."

The large grill was littered with thin hamburger patties, hot dogs, and a few bratwursts. They were probably seasoned with a bit of Pete's sweat.

"There's a big freezer in the back," he said, pointing toward the kitchen. "We use it for extra storage. Should be a bunch in there."

"How many should I grab?" I asked.

"As many as you can carry," he said, chuckling. "It's gonna be a madhouse in about five minutes."

We'd been working nonstop since our four-hour shift began and I found it hard to believe it could get any busier. I could think of about fifty other things I would've rather been doing on a Wednesday afternoon than basting myself over a dirty grill at our county fair. But there's one thing you learn as a parent: when your kid signs up for something, you're signing up for it, too.

"All right," I told Pete. "Be back in a minute."

"Grab us some drinks, too." He flipped the already overdone patties again. "So we don't die out here."

I waved at him and stepped into the food stand kitchen, which was nothing more than a saunalike shack that disguised itself as a fast-food restaurant for one week a year. There was a covered eating area for about a hundred people, front and back counters, a giant indoor grill and fryer, some sinks, and a bunch of refrigerators.

Oh, and about fifty people squeezed into the kitchen trying to serve the fairgoers.

Voices screamed and yelled about cheese and drinks and burgers and buns as people who had no business serving and preparing food attempted to do just that.

A pink-faced Carly squeezed by me, carrying two bottles of water. "Hey, Daddy."

"What's up, kid?"

"I'm getting water," she shouted. "For some people!"

Her oversize green 4-H shirt hung nearly to her knees and her hair was hidden beneath a bright yellow bandanna. She was nearly six years old and starting to a.s.sert her independence already.

"Good for you, kiddo."

She scurried past me and snaked her way through the group of workers out to the front counter to deliver her water.

Julianne was perched on a tall stool, her gloved hands submerged in a deep sink, washing orange and green plastic trays.

I walked over and kissed her sweaty cheek. "You should probably be at home."

She spun on the stool to look at me. Her green T-shirt was riding up over her enormous stomach.

"Why?" she asked, setting down a tray. "Because its seven hundred degrees in here and I'm like fourteen months pregnant?"

"Yes. Exactly."

"I'm tough."

I touched her very round belly. "I know that. I'm just hoping the new kid likes the heat."

"They won't have a choice. We live in Texas, Deuce."

"Doesn't mean you need to boil them in your stomach."

"I'm hoping that will encourage it to get the h.e.l.l out of my body," she said.

Julianne was a week past her due date and looked ready to pop. Because I enjoyed my health, I didn't say that out loud. But she'd been carrying around a baby for ten months now and she was ready to bond with it in person. We all were.

"I'm going to get meat" I said.

"Oh, great. I'll just stay here and wash trays and be enormous."

"And beautiful."

"Ha. Good one, Sausage Boy."

I kissed her again. "I love you."

"And I want this kid out of me and I swear to G.o.d, I'll have it right in this disgusting kitchen if I need to," she said, spinning back on the stool. "Oh, and I love you, too."

Pregnant women are funny.

I wound my way through the back of the kitchen, my thoughts focused on babies instead of sausages. I was excited that the baby was going to be here any day. Carly was, too. We were all ready to meet the newest member of the Winters family. We had no idea whether it was a boy or a girl. Julianne insisted on not knowing. I'd protested greatly. And it didn't matter even a little, though it was still a bit weird to keep calling the baby "it."

"Babies should be a surprise," she'd said. "Like presents on Christmas. Plus, it's in my uterus so I get to decide."

Which was a hard point to argue with.

I liked seeing her pregnant. I didn't like seeing her miserable, though, and with the early heat, I knew she had to be pretty uncomfortable. But I did have this fear that her water was going to break right in the middle of the dinner rush and that would be some sort of health code violation.

And so I was thinking about babies and having to rush to the hospital when I opened the freezer and saw George Spellman's dead face amongst the bratwursts.

And after thinking that I needed to stop opening things, my next thought was that a dead body in the freezer was probably a far worse health code violation than having a baby in the kitchen.

2.

"Well, this isn't good," Matilda Biggs said, shaking her head.

The technicians were loading the body into the back of the ambulance and the police had formed a barricade around the back of the food stand. Matilda, a member of the fair board, was concerned. More than concerned. Mortified.

"No, it isn't," I agreed.

She swallowed hard. "This is awful. Awful." Tears glistened in her eyes. "This is really going to reflect poorly on the fair," she said. "Could drive down revenue."

"Uh, yeah," I said. I was less concerned about revenue than I was for George's family and friends.

She paced back and forth, wringing her hands. "I mean, Rusty Cow plays tonight," she said, staring at me. "We're expecting a big crowd. Huge. It wouldn't be good if we had to cancel that."

It felt like there was something more that she was worried about, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I wasn't really buying that her main concern was attendance at a concert for a c.r.a.ppy local band. I didn't know Matilda well, but I knew of her. She was hard not to know of because she was hard to miss.

She weighed nearly four hundred pounds.

And that wasn't one of those exaggerated statements about someone carrying a few extra pounds. She was one of the biggest women I'd ever seen. She was just short of six feet and seemingly almost as wide, with rolls of fat billowing from every part of her body. I'd only ever seen her wearing black sweats and some sort of stretched-out T-shirt, as I a.s.sumed she wasn't able to find anything else to fit her enormous body. Her stringy black hair was thinning on top and stuck to the sides of her head with sweat. She was never more than a few feet away from her golf cart, as that was the only way she was able to make it around the fairgrounds.

She wiped at her eyes, pulled a walkie-talkie from her hip, and punched a b.u.t.ton. "Mama, this is Matilda. You copy? Over."

Five seconds later, the walkie-talkie crackled.

"This is Mama. Roger that, I copy. Over."

Mama was not code for some motherly figure in Matilda's life. Mama was Mama. Matilda's mother. Who worked right alongside her on the fair board. I didn't know the specifics, but I was pretty sure the entire fair board was somehow related to each other.

"We're gonna need a new freezer," Matilda said. "The police are telling me we can't use this one, on account of Deuce Winters finding George Spellman in it. George is gone." She paused. "Over."

The Rose Petal police had, in fact, cordoned off the large freezer with yellow crime scene tape.

"Roger. I'm already on it," Mama said through the walkie-talkie. "I've got another one on the way. Should be there in about fifteen minutes. Over."

Matilda nodded. "Ten-four." She stuck the radio back on her hip. "I gotta make some calls." She glanced at the back of the ambulance for a long moment. "Make sure we got more sausages coming."

She waddled over to the golf cart, wedged herself in behind the steering wheel, and took off, spraying dirt and weeds behind her.

Carly and Julianne made their way around the food stand building to me. Carly surveyed the scene, trying to take everything in. I resisted the urge to pull down the bandanna from her hair to cover her eyes.

Julianne just raised her eyebrows. "Well, this is interesting. You already talk to the police?"

"Yeah. Took all of five minutes. I didn't do anything other than open the freezer door."

"Maybe this time you won't be a suspect."

I narrowed my eyes. "Very funny."

She shrugged. "You sort of have a way of falling into these things."

It was hard to deny that, as much as I might've liked to. My part-time private investigating gig only existed because I kept finding myself embroiled in the criminal activity in Rose Petal. Julianne had made several subtle suggestions that, with a new baby on the way, maybe I might want to curtail my activity in that arena. I didn't disagree.

But it seemed that trouble was still finding me, no matter how much I tried to avoid it.

As I contemplated that, Susan Blamunski hustled our way.

"Oh, good Lord," Julianne whispered. "Red alert. Crazy woman dead ahead."

Susan's face was a mask of concern.

And of heavy eye makeup.

Her large mane of dark hair was teased up and hair-sprayed to death, so much so that I was sure it would've taken a missile to penetrate its exterior. Her 4-H T-shirt was expertly tied at the hip, just above her denim capris. Her sparkly silver sandals seemed a poor choice for a day at the fair, but she'd probably chosen them to match the sparkly silver polish on her toes.

"Deuce," she said, grabbing me by the elbow. "What is going on?"

I tried to casually shake free from the grasp of our local 4-H leader, but failed. "I'm not completely sure."