Murder at the Book Fair Read Free Page A

many pennies
without being taken to the hospital afterward. Instead I tossed two one hundred
dollar bills on the counter.
    "How much more are you taking
me for, Mrs. E?"
    It'll be another thousand if you
want the victim returned unharmed."
    "Lou, you pay the rest. You
always did like her better than I did."
    We shared a few more laughs with
Mrs. E., thanked her for letting us know about the Kentucky Book Fair, and
asked her where the wheelbarrow was, so we could cart out our books. She told
us it was in the same place we had left it on our last visit, but I suspected
that Lou and I weren't the only customers of the Scene of the Crime who read a
lot.
     
     
4
     
     
    Two weeks passed quickly. I had
some good books to read, and the weather sucked enough that Lou and I got to
rest our cornhole arms. We had read and discussed three of the books we got
from Mrs. E., and it was time to head off to Frankfort to see how many books we would cart home.
    Lou and I had changed in some ways
since we retired, but one of the ways I hadn't changed was I still was in no
mood to wake up the rooster. From what I knew about the Kentucky Book Fair they
weren't giving away books to the first so many people to arrive. And Mrs. E.
assured me that we could visit with all of the authors in far less than a day.
Besides, I didn't want to visit with all of them. I had no reason to check out
the children's books, and I was sure that I would walk by some of the other
authors without stopping. I hoped that none of them would take it personally.
    On Friday night, before we left
for Frankfort on Saturday morning just after
breakfast, Lou called and surprised me.
    "Cy, would you like for me to
drive tomorrow?"
    Lou didn't sound like he had been
drinking. And I'd never known Lou to drink an alcoholic beverage. But neither
had I known him to volunteer to drive anytime except when we double-dated. And
he only volunteered then because we didn't want to subject our girlfriends to
my less than cavernous yellow VW bug, affectionately known as Lightning, as in
lightning bug. Instead, we rode in his immaculately clean red-and-white 1957
Chevy that he had failed to name, because he lacked my imagination. I tried to
remember if Lou had ever driven his car out of town. We had rented a van when
we took the girls to Gatlinburg, but had we ever taken Lou's pride and joy out
of town? I couldn't remember it if we had.
    When I regained my composure after
receiving Lou's surprising offer, I told him that would be fine. We agreed to
eat breakfast at home, since Lou is picky about someone dropping crumbs in his
car. And so, at 9:27 the next morning Lou pulled up
into my driveway.
    I walked out smiling, walked
around the car, and started to get in the backseat, where I always sat with
Jennifer.
    "Not this time, Buddy Boy.
I'm not your chauffeur, and we aren't going on a date."
    "I'm glad you're not thinking
about our outing as a date. That makes me feel so much better. And I'm sure
Jennifer will appreciate that, too."
    Lou backed out of the driveway and
headed out of town. We wouldn't see the interstate until we got to Lexington . We would be traveling in an
old-fashioned car the old-fashioned way. On country roads.
    There's one thing about a classic
automobile. Everyone notices it. There aren't a lot of '57 Chevys on the road,
unless there's a car show nearby. By the time we got to Frankfort several people had honked their
horns and waved at us, and more than one car carrying two or more women had
flirted with us. Walking a dog isn't the only way to pick up a woman. A nice
looking car can do the same thing. We had offers from everyone, from college
girls to women much our senior, but our hearts were with the women we had left
behind in Hilldale.
    The Convention Center in Frankfort isn't that hard to find, and Mrs.
E. had told us there was plenty of free parking. But I was with Lou. In Lou's
car. It took him a little longer to find a parking place with no other cars
within miles.