Dwight rushed over and I followed.

There among the prizes hung the body of a woman with bright red hair.

Polly Viscardi.

CHAPTER 15

MONDAY NIGHT

It was a repeat of Friday night, only this time it was me, not Sylvia Clayton, that Dwight was telling he’d see the next day. Unlike Sylvia, though, I didn’t split right away.

The carnival was immediately closed down, of course, much to Paul Archdale’s dismay. As soon as the announcement came over the loudspeakers asking people to please clear the lot, he marched straight up to me and demanded his prize.

“Prize?” I was outraged. “Paul, someone’s just been killed here.”

“Yeah, and I’m real sorry about that,” he said stubbornly, “but I dropped thirty-seven dollars on this game and I’m not leaving without my prize.”

“How many chips you got, Mister?” Tally said from inside the Dozer. “Four? Okay, here you go.”

From the prize rack over her head, she unclipped a bubble pack that held a bright yellow-and-black submersible flashlight that looked like a knockoff of a name brand.

As he walked away somewhat mollified, I muttered, “And may he use it to illuminate a place where the sun don’t shine.”

Tally shot me a startled glance and gave an involuntary giggle. “And here I thought you were from the high-class side of the family.”

“Don’t make any snap calls till you meet the rest of them,” I said, and went around to the front to start folding down the sides for her.

All around us, the other game stands were being closed down, too, as uniforms took over the lot again, canvassing all the operators, asking if anyone had seen anything before Polly’s body was discovered. Patrol cars with flashing red and blue lights had converged on the midway till the EMS truck could barely squeeze past. Instead of loudspeakers with music and handheld mikes with pitches, the night air crackled with radioed dispatches.

Down at the gate, a news van with a mobile transmitter had appeared and I saw someone from the Dobbs Ledger. I suspected that the media would be taking a second carnival death more seriously than the first time around.

The man from the Bowler Roller had finished shutting up quickly, and when he came over to help tie down the tent flaps, Tally introduced us. “Deborah, this is Windy Raines. Believe it or not, Windy, she’s my aunt.”

“Really? Now, how come I don’t have any aunts like you?” he said, leering rakishly, a leer spoiled by the fact that he was missing a couple of teeth and was probably nearing sixty.

“Behave yourself,” Tally warned. “Her boyfriend’s that deputy sheriff over there.”

I started to say Dwight wasn’t my boyfriend, then remembered that well, yes, he was. It was going to take some getting used to.

Across the way, the crimescene van was back. Yellow tape looped around the Plate Pitch and floodlights lit up the interior till the stacks of glassware blazed in the glare. Beyond the hood of a patrol car, I saw Dwight in the center of a knot of men, both uniforms and civilians. I recognized Arnold Ames, Dennis Koffer, Skee Matusik, and a couple of prominent men who were on the county’s festival committee. A moment later, they were joined by an unfamiliar heavyset man who listened silently as Ames and Koffer appeared to be bringing him up to speed.