Killer Pancake

Booths at A Taste of Furman County were much sought after, although it was hard to figure out why. Great publicity, I guessed. The big beneficiary of the event was Playhouse Southwest. For the hundreds of servings the playhouse auxiliary told the food folks to provide each day, none of us was compensated. Visitors to the fair, though, paid forty bucks a pop to obtain the official bracelets that allowed them into the tent-festooned roof of the mall garage. The open air was necessary for ventilation, and the roof provided views of Denver’s suburban sprawl to the east and the Front Range of the Rockies to the west Once inside the roped-off area, tasters were promised that horror of horrors, all you can eat, which to food people translates as until we run out. There had been so much demand for booths from local restaurateurs, chef’s, and caterers who wanted to offer their wares, the organizers had even split up the serving times into two-hour shifts. I did not know whether potential clients would be likely to shop or eat during my daily slot from ten to noon. I certainly hoped that they’d stop by my booth, be enthralled and enchanted, and whip out their calendars—and checkbooks—to sign me up for all kinds of profitable new bookings. Otherwise, I was going to be very upset. Not to mention out about a thousand bucks’ worth of supplies.

My van sputtered and slowed behind a line of traffic crawling toward the mall garage entrance. After a moment I saw what was once again causing the slowdown. At the side of the parking lot, by the elegant marble entrance to Prince & Grogan, a crowd of animal rights’ demonstrators waved placards that read MIGNON COSMETICS BRING DEATH—DEATH TO MIGNON COSMETICS! Shaman Krill, arms outstretched, hair wild, was leading the crowd in a chant that I couldn’t quite make out. The row of cars stopped. I reached across and gingerly rolled down the passenger-side window.

“Death on your hands! Death on your face!”

A uniformed officer was directing traffic. The van crept forward. As I neared the shouting demonstrators, my hands became clammy on the steering wheel. Three parked sheriff’s department vehicles seemed to indicate that the police weren’t just there to head cars up the ramps.

“Death isn’t pretty! Death’s pretty gritty!”

Maybe there were other cops I couldn’t see who were keeping an eye on the activists. Or perhaps the officers were there as part of the continuing investigation into Claire’s murder. From the small crowd of people pushing through the nearby door to Foley’s department store, it looked as if shoppers were avoiding the protest. This, undoubtedly, was the deterrent the demonstrators wanted, since Mignon was carried exclusively by Prince & Grogan.

“Food fair or shopping?” the policeman asked when my van was finally first in line.

“Food fair.”

He pointed to the far right side of the ramp, where a food service truck was lumbering up to the top level. When I slowly accelerated away from the cop, there was a thud on the side of the van, and then another. Frantically scanning the mirrors, I thought I must have been hit by a car backing up, when Shaman Krill’s face leered at the partly open passenger-side window.

“Hey! Caterer! Going to throw any more food around today? What’re you serving, slaughtered cow?”

I leaned on the horn with one hand and rolled down the driver-side window with the other.

“Help!” I yelled. “Help, help!”

The policeman hustled over. By the time I could tell him one of the demonstrators had harassed me, Shaman Krill had disappeared. Even when I stopped the van and hopped out to look where he’d gone, I couldn’t see the activist’s dark, bobbing head in the crowd. The policeman asked if I wanted to file a report. I said no. I quickly told him that Investigator Tom Schulz was my husband, and that I’d tell him all about it, but that at the moment I was late to set up for the food fair. The officer reluctantly let me go, with the admonition to be careful.

I climbed back in the driver’s seat and pressed firmly on the accelerator. The van whizzed up the ramp of the parking garage. Yellow police ribbons around the place where Claire died came into view. I averted my eyes.