Mike looked around with a critical eye. The parking was ample for the few hundred people they expected to show up. With no big rides and no alcoholic beverages for sale, they didn’t expect huge crowds.

She saw the vans marked Security with muscular men armed with Tasers standing around drinking coffee. She’d met all of them earlier.

It was Adam who’d insisted on hiring them, and he’d paid for them. “Vera has been enraging people for forty years,” he said. “I don’t want to risk any problems.” He looked at Kelly when he said it, remembering the drunken man who’d once attacked her at a dance.

Mike waved to the guards as she went to the entryway. Adam had had the whole area fenced off.

Four local women were setting up tables, cash boxes and sunshades. People who showed proof that they’d ever lived in Mason got free admission and a purple armband that gave them half price for everything. Any profits from the carnival went to the Mason town council, to be given out to the fire department, police, schools, wherever it was needed.

Mike greeted everyone.

“Excited about your mother coming home to stay?” Mrs. Chandless asked. Her husband’s grandfather had been the Baptist preacher back in the seventies. Her husband taught high school science.

“Very much,” Mike replied. “A friend of mine, Hayes Lancaster, will be here soon, so let him in for free.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Sanders asked. “How will we recognize him?”

Forey had told her that years ago Mrs. Sanders had stolen her husband from Sue Terrance and that was why Sue had been married four times. “Nothing to do with her bad temper?” Mike had asked.

Mike knew she was being teased, and they were all watching her. She gave Mrs. Sanders a smile. “I’m sure you’ve seen him. Six-two, blond, blue eyes. Probably wearing a sports jacket.”

The women at the table smiled. “Oh, yes. The Brookside young man,” Mrs. Miller said.

The first place she went was to the food lane, which had been organized by Forey. She knew who in Mason could cook and what they were good at. “That woman can’t bake anything,” Forey said about Mrs. Dunham. “The last time she made biscuits they were so salty people’s tongues curled up. But give her a deep fryer and she’s in heaven.”

Mike walked along the line of booths. The first one was barbecue and the smell was divine. Corn on the cob on a grill was next to ice cream, a pie stand, then homemade bread with freshly churned butter.

The next booth was more barbecue. It was manned by the Mason Fire Department and “manned” was the key word. They had on fire pants, boots and aprons. No shirts.

Mike stopped to admire them.