Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona Read Free Page A

produce in me a fierce determination to pinpoint her killer.
    It just makes me tired.
    Trixie grabs my arm. “Let’s secure the crime scene! Make sure nobody leaves the building! Keep everybody away from the body! Hey, you!” she cries and makes a beeline for the Winona Post photographer, who’s next to Ingrid’s prostrate form preparing to snap his first shot. Not if Trixie has anything to say about it.
    As the mayor barks orders to corral the fractious crowd, I hear the Giant W executive on his cell phone calling 911. I admit I’m relieved: for this murder at least I don’t have to be the grownup taking charge.
    I shoulder my way through the pulsing mob at the front of the store to find Pop, who’s moved from where he was standing. He finds me before I find him and grabs me in a hug. His face is red and he’s breathing hard. “You all right, my beauty?”
    “I’m okay, Pop. You don’t look too good, though.” Which surprises me. My father retired from police work a few years back. He never made it to homicide detective but he saw a murder or two in his time.
    “I don’t know where Maggie is!” He sounds panicked. I realize he’s clutching both Christmas tree hats in his hand. “She was right next to me and then she was gone!”
    “She can’t have gone—” I start to say when he cranes his neck to look behind me.
    “Maggie!” He barrels in her direction and wraps his arms around her. I see she’s wearing a stunned expression.
    It hits me like a stiletto heel in the gut. Poor Maggie! It was her sister who was murdered. For a moment it takes my breath away, the fragility of life. Minutes ago Ingrid was holding court on the dais. Then in a flash her work on this earth was done. I’m stepping away to grant Maggie some privacy when Shanelle takes my arm.
    “You all right?” she asks.
    “I cannot believe this is happening again, Shanelle!”
    “Believe it, girl. Murder follows you like you got it on a leash.”
    “I just don’t know if I’m up to another one of these. The last one took every brain cell I’ve got.”
    “How do you know you’re gonna have to solve this one? Winona may not be as big as Vegas or Miami but for all we know it’s got a crack police force. After all, look how fast those black-and-whites got here.”
    Through the store’s front windows I see cop cars rolling into the parking lot, sirens wailing and lights flashing. Cops with guns drawn soon stream into the Giant W, bringing with them frigid night air.
    “You’re right.” After all Sheriff Andy Taylor solved every crime that came his way and Mayberry was a lot smaller than Winona. I watch one of the cops stop Trixie from swatting at the photographer with her elf cap.
    “We can do something to help out, though.” Shanelle pulls me toward a knot of teenagers, the youngest Giant W staff, clutching one another in a teary, trembling huddle. I remember how scared Rachel got when Peppi Lopez Famosa was murdered in Miami, and Rachel wasn’t even in the theater when it happened.
    The P.A. system teen, a petite redhead, is among the group. “I don’t know what to do!” she wails as we join them. “I’m supposed to make announcements but—”
    I rub her back. “You’ve made enough announcements for one day. Let’s just sit tight until the cops give us instructions.”
    A lanky dark-haired boy named Kevin pipes up. “They’ll want to talk to me for sure. I just hope they don’t take my twenty bucks.”
    “Why would the cops want your money?” Shanelle asks. “Hey, weren’t you working the lights? Why didn’t the Christmas tree light up?”
    “How do you think I got the twenty bucks?” His tone is snarky. “The note said to keep all the lights off for at least a minute. That I’d get another twenty if I did it right.” He looks away and kicks at the floor. “Now I’m thinking maybe I shouldn’t have done it.”
    Shanelle and I exchange a look. And, I confess, this first clue in the murder of Ingrid