The door to the butter building was, as always, closed to keep the refrigerated air inside. She opened it and went inside to see if she could get any last-minute info from the artists. Right away, she noticed the smell of the straw that covered the floor. She hadn’t been especially aware of it before, but since Elsa had declared herself allergic to it, she couldn’t help but notice. The straw may have also harbored an aroma of all the stale butter that had been dropped into it.
She strolled past the completed sculptures. The judging would be at eleven, in a little over two hours.
The one carved by the Minskys hadn’t improved, in Chase’s opinion. It was still an abstract mess. She did notice one on the other side of the room that was also an abstract, but much more attractive. There were no recognizable objects in the Minsky sculpture, but the other one, as Chase neared, proved to contain a number of Minnesota symbols. A stylized gopher held a North Star, and ripples, here and there, probably represented the lakes. There might have been a pair of ox horns and an axe to indicate Paul Bunyan and his companion.
The woman who had done the North Star had done a spectacular job, and the gopher Chase had noticed on the first day was almost lifelike. Other pieces represented the state’s teams, the Vikings and the Twins. The only artist present was the woman who had done the huge star.
Chase approached her and complimented her work. “I would never think a five-pointed star could look so good,” she said. It held a map of the Mississippi, beginning with Lake Itasca at the top left, tumbling past St. Paul and Minneapolis in the center, and flowing on to form the Iowa-Wisconsin border near the bottom right. The river was carved deep into the butter, making a path through the star that was edged with figures of birds, ducks, and geese. Little clusters of buildings jutted up, indicating some of the towns.
“Thank you,” the woman said. She was short and plump, with curly brown hair and twinkling eyes. “I’ve been working on this design for nearly a year.”
“It shows. What do you think your chances of winning are, now that Larry Oake isn’t competing?”
Chase watched her reaction closely. She looked genuinely distressed.
“Oh, isn’t that horrible? I still can’t believe what happened. Right here in this room. I don’t know who will win, but Larry should have. I wouldn’t mind if they awarded the prize money to his family.”
She didn’t seem a likely suspect. She had so hoped to find a really good one here. Someone who was obviously the killer. How disappointing.
TWENTY-FOUR
Chase left the butter building. Her side trip had been a bust as far as finding a great suspect. Carefully sipping her coffee, which had no cover and was cooling rapidly, she headed toward the Bar None. The coffee vendor had only two sizes of cups left and no lids. She feared she and Anna might run out of paper bags for the individual sales. They made a lot more of those here than in the Dinkytown shop.
Madame Divine was standing in front of her own booth. Fewer people than usual were strolling the midway right then. She was probably trying to attract customers.
Patrice said hello to Chase. “I hope business picks up,” she said, adjusting her gold turban. Her earlier tears were gone and she looked serene.
“Who knows? It’s the last day. Shouldn’t we be swamped?”
“I don’t know. They have all the contests and the butter sculpture judging today. People might not be that interested in the booths.”
“Have you done this fair before?”
“Oh yes, plenty of times. The last day is sometimes good, sometimes not. It’s a toss-up. I have a feeling today won’t be that good.” She poked at her turban again.
It struck Chase that a small diamond-studded cat collar could easily be concealed in that headdress.
Two giggling teenage girls walked past, zigzagging their way down the midway. One of them jostled Chase’s arm, and her coffee sloshed onto the hem of Patrice’s purple caftan.
“Hey!” Patrice snatched her robe and stepped back, giving Chase an alarmed look. “Look what you did.”
The two teens were long gone. “I’m sorry, Patrice. One of them jiggled my arm.” She nodded her head in the girls’ direction.
Patrice bent over to inspect her garment. Her gold turban tumbled off her head, onto the dirty walkway. “And now look what you’ve done!” She grabbed the turban and swished into her booth.
There had been no jeweled collar inside the turban. But there was plenty of room for one.
The coffee was mostly gone, so Chase pitched it in a barrel and continued past the travel agency booth. The short redhead was arranging pamphlets on the table at the front of her booth. She kept glancing anxiously up and down the midway.
“Are you looking for someone?” Chase asked.
“Oh yes, my partner isn’t here yet.”
“Sally, right? I’ve met her.”
“Yes, I can’t imagine what’s happened to her.”
“My name is Chase. I’m in the booth next door.”
“Oh yes, sorry. I haven’t ever introduced myself. Holly Molden.” She took Chase’s hand. “I’m terribly worried about Sally. I can’t get her on the phone, and she’s not answering my texts. I hope nothing’s happened to her. She said she would be in extra early this morning.” She stuck her forefinger between her teeth and Chase saw that her hand was trembling.
“Has she been here at all?”
“It doesn’t look like it.” She lifted a new box of pamphlets, slammed it onto the table, and dug some out. “It’s not like her at all to be late and not call.” Her hands continued to shake, and she was blinking back tears. Some fell past her lashes and spilled down among the freckles on her cheeks.
“I hope so, too. Let us know when she turns up,” Chase said as she went toward her own booth, wishing she had some more hot coffee.
Holly seemed overly dramatic, going to pieces because her booth mate was a little late. Still, the blonde wore a lot of bling. Maybe all of it wasn’t fake. Maybe she’d been mugged for her jewelry. Chase had the idea in the back of her mind that, if the woman loved diamonds, she might have been tempted to steal a diamond collar. At any rate, Chase hoped nothing terrible had happened to Sally.
She peeked in at Harper’s Toys. The curmudgeon was putting his finger puppets into a box.
“Leaving early?” she asked.
He squinted at her and screwed up his mouth. She backed up a step, afraid he was about to spit. He refrained, however, and shook his head. “What business is it of yours?”
“None. Sorry. Just wondering.” She fled to her own booth next door.
The day did start slow. Patrice may have been right, Chase reflected.
Soon, a crowd began to gather in front of the butter building. Eventually, some fair security personnel came along and organized them into a line. Chase watched the proceedings, wondering if she and Anna should take time off to see the judging.
“I’m not interested,” Anna said when Chase asked her. “You go ahead if you want to see it. You could look in at the exhibit hall, too. That’s where Inger said she’d be, right?”
“Right, but I didn’t see her there when I peeked in just now.”
“We ought to try to keep track of her.”
Chase considered that. “Inger’s a big girl. She might object if she knows we’re trying to babysit her. I guess I don’t need to see the actual butter judging. It will all be on display for the rest of the day.”
She heard a familiar voice next door, at Harper’s toy booth. Detective Olson was there. He kept his tone low, and she couldn’t make out his words.
Soon, though, he walked into the Bar None booth. He was followed by two uniformed policemen. “We’re doing one last search for the missing artifact,” he said, sounding strict and official.