Cutwork Read Free Page B

more arriving now the rain’s stopped. Shopping. Shop lifting. I’m across the row, up three booths, easy to find. Number forty-nine.” She nodded her head toward a tent up the way and started off.
    “Wait! Do you know, uh . . .” He checked his notebook. “Deb Hart?”
    A voice behind him said, “I’m Deb Hart.”
    Mike turned around to see a sturdy woman with her hair pulled back tightly from her face, which was innocent of makeup and carefully blank of expression. She was wearing a loose-fitting blue denim dress under a clear plastic raincoat whose snap fastenings were all undone. “Are you in charge of this shindig?” Mike asked.
    “Yes. Unfortunately.” Her blue eyes were intelligent and steady. “Mr. McFey was a very talented artist, and it is a terrible thing that he should be murdered here.”
    “Did you know him personally?”
    “No. Well, I talked with him yesterday after he was set up, but only briefly. He hadn’t been to many of these fairs, and this was his first time here. He won an award from us for his work, but I wasn’t his judge.” She looked around toward the tent, and Mike saw her dark blond hair was in a very long braid down her back.
    “But you’re sure the body in there is his. McFey’s.”
    Her head came back. “Yes.”
    “Do you know where he’s from?”
    “He’s from around here, Golden Valley or Hopkins, I can’t remember. Or Minnetonka?” She frowned, a little disturbed that she couldn’t remember.
    “Do you know how to spell ‘McFey’?”
    “Yes,” she said and did so.
    “Is there next of kin to be notified?”
    “Yes, a wife. He gave a separate phone number and address for her, out in Maple Grove, so maybe they’re divorced; but he listed her as the person to be notified in case of accident. I haven’t made the call yet.”
    “That’s all right, we’ll take care of it.”
    “Thank you.” Ms. Hart was relieved about that.
    “Have you had a problem with stealing here?”
    “Once in a while. Someone will take a piece, something small enough to fit in a purse or pocket, or up a sleeve, and walk away.”
    “I was thinking of the money. Stealing from the cash boxes.”
    “Oh. Well, no, not for several years. The fair is pretty well attended so it’s hard to do something like that and not be seen. Artists tend to put the cash box somewhere hard to reach, so other customers notice when someone tries to get at it. Is that what happened here? A robbery?”
    “We don’t know yet. I understand there’s an emptied cash box in the tent.”
    “Booth.”
    “What?”
    “Booth. These aren’t tents, they’re booths.”
    “That’s right, that’s what Sergeant Cross called it, too.” He nodded and repeated, “Booth, then. There’s an empty cash box in there.”
    “Oh. No one told me that. Interesting.” Ms. Hart looked thoughtful. “And stupid, really.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because nobody brings cash boxes in with yesterday’s receipts still in them, of course. And the fair was just getting under way today when this happened. There would have only been starting-up money in Mr. McFey’s box, just what he needed to make change.”
    “How much would that be?”
    “Not more than forty or fifty dollars, I’d say. How incredibly, incredibly stupid if a very fine artist is dead because somebody needed to steal fifty dollars.”
    Mike wrote some of that down while she waited, but at last she said, “I—I’d like to go back to my other duties now, if that’s all right.” She wasn’t looking at him anymore, but he could see that was because she was trying not to show how sad and angry she was.
    “Yes, all right. How can I get back in touch with you, if I have more questions?”
    “Look for my staff, people carrying walkie-talkies, I’ve got one, too.” She touched a big pocket on the skirt of her dress that was bulging heavily. “And I’m carrying a cell phone as well.” She gave him the number, then turned and walked away, her sandals