bring a bargain home today! Dashing through the aisles, A coupon in my hand …
As Trixie masterfully whips through the refrain, Shanelle and I clap to the beat. A photog from the Winona Post captures the moment for posterity. I catch my breath and Pop’s eye. Like everybody else in the crowd he’s bundled in his winter coat. I note that both his and Maggie’s Christmas tree hats are now unlit. Ingrid probably made them turn them off so they wouldn’t draw attention from her speech. Pop winks at me like he’s done a million times before as I stood on one Ohio stage or another competing in some rinky-dink pageant. He’s been such a good dad. I just wish he and Mom were still together. Their divorce is this year’s lousiest development. Heck, I’d give back my Ms. America title to see them reunited. Trixie sings the chorus one last time, giving the final phrase “bargain home today” a special flourish. Shanelle and I cheer along with the crowd and then our trio relocates to the back of the dais, right in front of the Christmas tree. No surprise, Ingrid kicks off the proceedings. “Happy holidays, fellow citizens of Winona!” she brays. “I’m so glad you could join us this evening to celebrate the opening of the Giant W in our fair city! Of course as soon as I heard— ” As Shanelle predicted, Ingrid takes credit for luring Giant W to Winona. There are two men on the dais with her—the mayor and a store executive—but it takes forever for her to cede the mic and retreat to the rear of the dais to stand in front of the sleigh. The suit kicks off with a lame joke about a reindeer in a bar before detailing the Giant W’s many charms. Finally the mayor takes control. “What do you say we light the Christmas tree?” he calls, and as the crowd roars its approval the overhead fluorescents switch off and the Giant W is plunged into darkness. Indeed it is a dramatic moment, and as Ingrid ordained I remain as silent as Santa creeping down a chimney. I keep expecting the tree’s lights to blaze on—I know from this morning’s run-through it’s decorated with about a thousand strings of multicolored W’s—but they never do. In the distance a train’s lonely horn pierces the evening quiet. The crowd inside the Giant W begins to shuffle and murmur. Then several feet to my right, where Ingrid is standing, I hear a sharp popping sound. I gasp. Trixie clutches my arm. “What in the world is that?” she whimpers. I’m afraid I know but I don’t dare say it aloud. A few screams rise to the ceiling while I hear a thump, like a heavy sack dropping. Then the sleigh noisily whirrs into life. “Turn on the lights!” the mayor hollers and none too soon we are once again bathed in their fluorescent glow. Now it’s Shanelle grabbing me. “Where the heck is Ingrid?” She’s not on the dais with us anymore. The mayor and the suit still are, but not her. Overhead, near the furthest cash registers, the fast-moving sleigh jerks to one of its famous stops. To my astonishment I see that it’s not empty. Nor does its cargo remain inside. Ingrid Svendsen, snazzy red holiday dress and all, pitches headfirst from the sleigh like a duffel bag being tossed onto an airplane’s conveyor belt. I thought I heard a gunshot and now I know I did, because there’s no mistaking the bloody wound on Ingrid’s chest. The crowd shrieks in horror. We all watch in morbid fascination as the hostess of the evening’s festivities belly flops onto the linoleum floor of Winona’s brand-new Giant W, narrowly missing a register and upending a display of Christmas sweater wine-bottle covers. On cranks the P.A. system one last time. “Ceremony’s over! Clean-up at register five!”
CHAPTER TWO
We beauty queens know life is full of challenges and it is best to meet each one head-on with optimism and good cheer. But I must say that the sight of Ingrid’s ladylike corpse, now splayed amid a widening pool of blood, does not