Jess Lourey - September Fair

About the Author

Jess Lourey spent her formative years in Paynesville, Minnesota, a small town not unlike the Murder-by-Month series Battle Lake. She teaches English and sociology full time at a two-year college. When not raising her wonderful kids, teaching, or writing, you can find her gardening and navigating the niceties and meanities of small-town life. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Loft, and Lake Superior Writers.

Acknowledgements

You know how when you were a kid, youd collect rocks because they were so interesting? And then youd put them in the polisher in your basement for a week, listening to the horrible racket of tumbling, grinding stone, and when they came out, theyd morphed from rocks to treasure? Thats what Jessica Morrell does for my books. Shes the polisher, my manuscripts are the stones, and the grinding sound is me complaining because its irritating to get your rocks glossed. Yet I keep going back to her, hiring her to edit every one of my mysteries, some more than once. Shes challenged me and taught me how to be a better writer every step of the way. Thanks, Jessica.

Special thanks to Greg Schraufnagel and Karen Hipple for letting me use their names and their artery-atrophying recipes. Who needs to make this stuff up? When you live in the Midwest, the weird food is real. Thank you also to Michael Jacobson for patiently answering my questions about the operation of small-town newspapers; all mistakes in that regard are my own. And, oh yeahLana Sorensen? Thanks for threatening to do me bodily harm if I didnt use your name in this book. Hope it turned out like you wanted.

Victoria Skurnick is the newest member of my writing team, and I dont know what good deed in a past life earned me such an incredible agent in this one, but Im thankful for her faith in me, her copious agenting skills, and her raucous sense of humor. Connie Hill, I always appreciate your editorial guidance. Friends and family, thank you for putting up with me. Big love to you all!

September Fair: A Murder-By-Month Mystery 2009 by Jess Lourey.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738725482

Book design and format by Donna Burch

Cover design by Ellen Dahl

Cover illustration 2009 Carl Mazer

Editing by Connie Hill

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Dedication

To Sparky DonDon, who has bought more copies
of my books than any other person; youve earned
your godmother stripes and then some.

Why did police chiefs always have meaty hands? Id be more inclined to cooperate with them if their mitts were regularly proportioned. Im sorry, officer. I thought my partner went back here.

He checked my press pass, which clearly identified me as a reporter for the Battle Lake Recall , and then raised his eyebrows to indicate I had one chance to revise my story for plausibility.

Not my partner, exactly. Chaz Linder, with the Pioneer Press ? Hes the one who asked you the embezzlement question.

I know. This close, he smelled like Old Spice. The gray of his beetling eyebrows intensified his brown eyes, eyes that had seen lots of liars in their time.

I wanted to ask him about the embezzlement because today was the first Id heard of it, and I thought I saw him come back here. Is there anything you can tell me about that case? To be a good liar, you have to have an innate sense of when youve gone too far. As the chief cocked his head, I realized I had passed that point when I first opened my mouth, and I waited to see what the consequences would be.

He sighed, brushing aside my question about embezzling and getting to the heart of the matter. Im sorry for the loss your town must be feeling, but youre not going to help by getting in our way. The police department knows what its doing. Let us find out who killed Ms. Pederson, and I promise well contact your paper when we know anything for sure. Deal?

He could have made life difficult for me, but instead was letting me off the hook. Strangely, his kindness made my eyes go blurry with unshed tears. It must be the stress of the last twenty-four hours. I pretended to brush hair from my face to cover the fact that I was wiping my eyes. Sure. Thanks. Can I go?

He nodded and pointed toward the front door. I tromped outside, past the memorial of flowers and stuffed toys, past at least three television crews sharing the news of the tragic Princess Poisoning (Ashley would not be happy with the demotion, but alliteration is its own force), and across the street to the Cattle Barn to check out the dormitories. I owed Ron a story, and I still didnt have much. I was hoping to flesh it out by interviewing Lana.

Inside the barn, the cows looked as happy as ever. Maybe unconcerned was a better word. Or regal. Was I getting obsessed with cows now? I usually saved that type of focus for Chief Wenonga, the hot, twenty-three-foot fiberglass statue Id left behind in Battle Lake. That man, well, that fake giant with a six-pack as tall and wide as a refrigerator, was a hottie. Hed kept me mental company since Id arrived in Battle Lake. Strong and silent, just like I liked em. Probably, someone needed to stage an intervention for me.

But back to the cows. They lowed and ate and pooped, and I walked past them on my way to the dormitory to see if the remaining princesses were around. When I spotted the police officers at the base of the dorm stairs, however, my plan and I did an about face. One run-in with an officer a day was my quota. I wasnt ready to return to the stinky steambath of the trailer to write my article, so I decided to stroll the fair to organize my thoughts.

My favorite place so far was the International Bazaar, a huge tented area that was laid out like a world market. Food booths rimmed the outside of the Bazaar, and inside tiny shops were arranged in rows, separated by narrow aisles with musicians sprinkled here and there. I could hear easy Jamaican reggae played live near the hot sauce booth and walk ten feet to sample spicy olives from Greece while listening to dizzying Egyptian drumbeats coming from the booth one over with the mummy out front. The air was redolent with curries, vinegars, and the smell of sweet rice, and people bargained and hollered for my dollars and rearranged their shiny silks and cheap Austrian crystal jewelry to catch my attention when I strode by. It was anonymous chaos, and I loved it.