Her gray hair was disheveled and she looked exasperated, but she smiled as she drew level with us. “Hello, Kathleen, Marcus,” she said. She made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “Welcome to the circus.”
I knew she didn’t mean the tent.
“Problems?” Marcus asked.
“Nothing that can’t be fixed,” she said, her gaze flicking over to where Mike Glazer was standing by the river wall. “Oh, and I’m probably going to drop-kick that boy’s backside between those two light poles before we’re done here,” she said. “Just so you know.”
2
“Should I go get my handcuffs?” Marcus asked. I could tell by the gleam in his eye that he wasn’t serious.
Mary folded her arms over her chest. “Teaching that young man some manners would be a public service, not a crime,” she said tartly. “But, no, I promise I’ll behave.” She gave me a cheeky grin. “Not that I couldn’t take him on if I wanted to.”
“I have no doubt about that,” I said. And I didn’t. I’d seen Mary compete. I’d also seen her dancing onstage in a feathered mask and corset to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name” during amateur night at the Brick, a club out on the highway, last winter, but I was trying to get that image out of my head.
“I need to go light a fire under Burtis,” Mary said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kathleen.” She gave Marcus a little wave. “Good night, Detective.”
“She wasn’t serious, was she?” Marcus said, as Mary disappeared inside the tent.
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. But trust me; Mary would be perfectly capable of drop-kicking Mike Glazer between those two light posts”—I pointed at the streetlights along the boardwalk—“if she felt like it. Just like a football through the middle of the uprights.”
He opened his mouth as though he were going to say something, then closed it again and gave a little shake of his head.
“What?” I asked.
“I was just thinking that you know a lot of interesting people,” he said, a hint of a smile on his face.
I was saved from having to answer because Maggie was cutting across the grass to us. Years of yoga and tai chi had given her excellent posture, and she moved with a smooth gracefulness, not unlike my cats.
“Hi, guys,” she said. She looked from Marcus to me and she was almost grinning. “What
are you two doing down here?” She was wearing the T-shirt I’d brought her back from
Boston—I
“We just came to see if the tents were up,” I said.
She blew out a long breath. “We’re getting there. Mike isn’t sure this is the correct type of tent. He’s been discussing it with Burtis.”
That was probably the conversation Marcus and I had caught the end of.
“What about the art show?” Marcus asked. “Is it going to be in one of the tents?”
Maggie shook her head. “No. They’re both for food. We’re in the community center.” She gestured over her shoulder to the building across the street. “There’s more space and more light. Not to mention a roof. Liam thought it was a better idea. People can come back and forth.”
Liam was Liam Stone, part-time bartender and full-time grad student in psychology. He was also the main organizer of the group that had put together the pitch to Legacy Tours. Maggie and I had met Liam the previous winter, when we’d been cruising the bars up on the highway, looking for information about who had run down former school principal Agatha Shepherd. (It was the same night I’d seen more of Mary than I had ever wanted to.)
Maggie had charmed Liam to the point that for a moment he’d struggled to make words into sentences. They’d been going out casually for months. She insisted it was nothing serious.
“Where is Liam?” I asked. I didn’t see him anywhere. He was well over six feet tall, so he was hard to miss.
“He’s just gone over to River Arts to get some backdrops to use with a few of the booths. Mike didn’t think the ones Burtis brought were ‘classy’ enough.” Maggie hunched her shoulders and stifled a yawn with one hand. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m tired and I haven’t had supper.” She looked inquiringly at Marcus. “Have you two eaten yet?”
Maggie wasn’t usually much for subtlety—getting or using—but I knew by the gleam in
her green eyes that her question was a fishing expedition. She was trying to find
out if Marcus and I had had dinner together. Maybe she’d picked up some sneakiness
from Owen. The cat’s adoration for Maggie rivaled hers for Matt Lauer. I got a mental
picture of Owen in an I
“Yes,” I said, sending her a slit-eyed glare. “And so has Marcus.”
“I’ll walk back to Eric’s and get you something,” he said. “What would you like?”
“You don’t have to do that,” Maggie said, running a hand through her curls.
“I want to.” He smiled at us, and for a second I forgot what we were talking about. “Tea, right?” he asked. “And maybe some kind of sandwich?”
“Okay,” Maggie agreed.
“I won’t be very long,” he said. He turned and headed back the way we’d come.
I watched him for a moment and turned back to Maggie. She smirked at me. “He’s just as cute as a bug’s ear,” she said.
“‘I haven’t had supper. Have you two eaten yet?’” I said, mimicking her voice. “That was very creative of you.”
“Thank you,” she said, the smirk still firmly in place. “And don’t think I don’t know that the two of you had dinner together.”
“Yes, we had dinner together. And yes, before you ask, it was fun. But don’t push it. We’re taking things very slowly.”
She gave a snort of laughter. “Slowly? Fossils form faster than you two move, Kathleen.”
I made a face. “I’m changing the subject now. Tell me how things are going here.”
She sighed. “Remember when I called Mike a festering boil?”
I nodded.
Maggie glanced back over her shoulder for a moment. “I was too nice. I know that’s mean, but he doesn’t like the backdrops. He doesn’t like the tents. He doesn’t like the art show being across the street in the community center. He’s even picking at who the vendors are for the food tasting.” She took a step closer to me and lowered her voice. “Mike and Liam got into a shouting match a little while ago. They were standing over there by the wall, so I don’t know what it was about. And then Mike started in on Burtis, and for a minute I thought Burtis was going to let him have it with a sledgehammer.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know how much Liam wants this to work.”
Maggie rubbed her hands on the front of her gray yoga pants. “If this all works out, it could bring a lot of money here every fall. Assuming somebody doesn’t lose it with Mike. You know what I heard Burtis say when Mike was yelling at Liam?”