Cutwork Read Free

one shaped like a dragon was being sailed skillfully higher and higher in the clearing sky. JR would love it if his dad brought one of these home. But not right now.
    Mike turned his attention away from the kites to focus on the tent at the end of the row.
    Three men whose shoulder patches said they were from Shorewood were keeping a crowd back, a crowd that had been small when Mike first spotted it, but was growing fast now the rain had stopped. Mike edged his way through and started to say something to one of the uniformed officers, but heard another already on his radio asking for yet more help. Thank God for the agreement that all the little departments in the towns around Minnetonka would come to one another’s aid.
    Mike went to the tent for a look. There were three men in civilian clothes standing with their backs to the tent, forming a screen of sorts. They were carrying the cases of equipment necessary for collecting evidence. Mike recognized one as an investigator from the state crime team, so probably the others were, too. Inside, a man with a video camera was recording the interior. The video operator moved aside and Malloy leaned way forward and got his first glimpse of the victim, sprawled on the floor in a big red—
    Malloy immediately turned away, wiping his face with one hand. Jesus! Jill’s description of “um, messy” was, um, right. He squeezed his eyes shut, blew gently, and saw Sergeant Jill Cross looking at him. She was all crisp and calm, like this was something you ran across every day. She nodded at him and came over.
    “What happened here?” he asked.
    “A knifing. This is the victim’s booth.” Sergeant Cross was a tall woman, a natural ash blond, not at all skinny but somehow not fat, either. She had a face that went with her voice, cool and showing nothing of her thoughts. She wasn’t an investigator but a supervisor, and so was in uniform. Mike had gone from not liking her when she signed on as a patrol officer—he disliked female cops in general—to an uneasy admiration. She rarely put a foot wrong and had all but aced the sergeant’s exam a few months ago. On the other hand, she and his nemesis were good friends, and his nemesis was an interfering civilian, old enough to know better.
    “Any idea who the victim is?” Mike asked.
    “Robert McFey. He was a wood carver, and it seems his throat was cut with one of his own knives.” Jill glanced sideways at the tent, which had shelves in it with carvings of animals on them, and a couple more on a long table set like a counter across the open front.
    “Any idea who might’ve done this?” he asked.
    “Not yet. The weapon appears to be the small knife beside the body. There’s an overturned cash box in there that seems to be empty.”
    “And Irene Potter saw it happen?”
    “No, she found the body. She’s here selling her needle art, she’s got a booth just up the way. She came over for a look at his work and went off like the noon siren.”
    “How long ago?”
    “Just before ten, the fair was about to start.” Mike checked his watch. Ten-fifty. “You want to talk to her?” Cross asked. “She walked off a while ago, but she’s back.”
    Mike sighed. “Okay, I’ll start with her.”
    “You want me to stay?”
    “No, no, just bring her over and then go back to crowd control or whatever you were doing.”
    “Yessir,” she said coolly. Had he put that clumsily? Mike had never felt comfortable around Cross. He didn’t want a sexual harassment suit, which in his opinion every female cop in the country was spring-loaded to bring. He looked at her, ready to give a friendly smile, but she was already walking away.
    Irene Potter was the same skinny little woman with shiny dark eyes and very curly dark hair he remembered. She wore a light brown dress and pink Keds. Her earrings were shaped like tiny scissors; they glittered in the fresh sunlight. Like her eyes.
    “Hello, Sergeant Malloy,” she said cheerily. “Isn’t