Cutwork Read Free Page A

this just dreadful?”
    Mike pulled his notebook from a back pocket and slipped the ballpoint pen clipped to its creased cover off. He opened the notebook to a blank page, noted the time, date, and Irene’s name. He said, “How did you come to find the body?”
    “I believe I was summoned by a Greater Power,” she chirped, and he repressed a sigh. She continued, “I was arranging my pieces in my booth when all of a sudden I had this . . . urge, a powerful urge, to go look at Mr. McFey’s work, even though it was raining hard. I took my umbrella and . . .” She gestured awe by raising both hands. “So beautiful! Such energy! I wanted to ask him how long he’d been doing his art. At first, I thought he had stepped out. But he hadn’t. Because then I . . . I saw him . I think I screamed, but I don’t know for sure, except my throat is sore, and it wasn’t sore before. So I really think I must have screamed.” She put one slim hand to her throat and smiled like a school-child with the right answer.
    Mike didn’t write any of this down. “Did you notice anyone hanging around his tent before you got this urge?”
    “No, I was busy with my own arranging. It’s so important to get everything just right, so the eye travels naturally from piece to piece until it reaches the one that pleases the eye, that one must buy .” Her eyes had gone dreamy and her hands moved upward again, this time arranging invisible works on an invisible wall.
    “Yeah, okay, you weren’t looking,” said Mike. “I understand. But you got your stuff arranged and came over to look at this man’s wood carvings and you saw him. What time was this?”
    “It was just a few minutes before the fair opened, though there were customers already starting to come through. It was raining simply buckets, but I had my umbrella, so I wasn’t afraid to go out of my booth. The fair opened at ten.” Mike kept looking at her, and she blinked and said gently, as to an obtuse person, “It was about five minutes before ten that I went to talk to him.”
    He nodded and wrote that down. “Did you go in to see if he was still alive?”
    She looked horrified. “No, of course not! He looked dead—he was dead. There was so much blood, he must have been dead. But I must’ve screamed because two people came running. I think one of them went in. I felt—ill, so I went back to my booth and sat down.” She nodded at his notebook to encourage him to write. He made a brief note to find those two people who came when Irene must have screamed. Satisfied, she went on, “And someone must have called 911, because pretty soon there was a police car, and an ambulance, and the fire truck came, too; it had been on the grounds, it’s the new pumper. Or maybe the fire truck came first, I don’t remember. And I wasn’t looking, I’d gone back to my booth to sit down, and my heart was going at a terrific pace, quite frightening. A squad car came, then Jill, and last those people who are taking pictures. And now you. I wonder why Betsy Devonshire is not here. I mean, she’s here, she was working in the information booth earlier this morning. But she’s not here. ”
    Mike said firmly, “Ms. Devonshire has no business at the scene of a crime.”
    Irene stared at him. “But she can help you, I’m sure she can. She’s so very clever about murder. You know that, Sergeant Malloy.”
    Mike found a patient smile somewhere. “How about you let the professionals have a go at it first, okay? Then if we need to talk to her, we will. Now, did you see anyone running away from this tent?”
    “No. All I saw was the body. And the blood. There seems to be a great deal of blood, doesn’t there?” She wrinkled her nose.
    “Yes,” said Mike, trying not to grimace back. “That’s all I have to ask you right now, but would you mind waiting here for a while, in case I have more questions later?”
    “I can’t, I have to go back to my booth. People are moving around again, with