Case of the Ragin' Cajun Read online

  “I have, yes. Cork, in County Cork, and Dublin. Have you?”

  The woman shook her head. “Oh, no, I haven’t, but I would love to someday.”

  “Well, if you do, I would recommend visiting Cork. There’s a shop there called Blarney Woollen Mills. They have a fantastic selection of Waterford crystal. Be prepared to drop some bucks if you go. Trust me, you’ll love it.”

  “Next question is for Mr. Anderson.”

  I looked over at the second podium that had been set up. There was a college-age guy standing there, holding the microphone, and looking as though he was dared to be there.

  “So, um, like, you said you’ve been to Ireland. Have you ever kissed the Blarney Stone?”

  A round of laughter erupted.

  I shook my head. “No. I can tell you I had every opportunity to, but when it came down to it, no. I wasn’t about to be held upside-down and kiss the same area everyone else and their uncle have kissed. Didn’t seem very sanitary, if you ask me. Did it give me bad luck? Not that I can tell.”

  On and on it went. For nearly an hour, my fellow panelists and I answered question after question. Do we ever experience writer’s block? How would we go about getting an agent? Is there any value to self-publishing a book?

  Finally, near the end of the Q & A session, someone actually asked a decent question, and one that I was surprised hadn’t come up until now.

  “Mr. Anderson, what was your inspiration for Heart of Éire? How did it come to be?”

  I leaned forward to rest my elbows on the table. “That is a fantastic question. To best answer it, I think I need to ask a few people to join me up here.”

  Even though they were at least twenty feet away, I heard Vance groan.

  “Come on, guys. Help me persuade my friend Vance and his lovely wife up here. They’re the reason Heart of Éire was written.”

  Tori popped up so fast that she resembled a prairie dog poking its head out of its burrow. She hastily pulled Vance to his feet and hurried to the stage.

  “Ladies and gents,” I began, “can we please welcome Vance and Tori Samuelson, only can we do it softly?”

  There was muted laughter.

  “You just had to pull me into this, didn’t you?” my friend grumbled, as two chairs were hastily placed on my left. “What in the Sam Hill am I doing up here?”

  I held my arm out to the crowd and grinned at them. “I think they’d like to hear the story.”

  “What story?” Vance asked. He refused to look out at the sea of faces staring back at him.

  “My pal here,” I began, as I slapped a friendly hand on Vance’s back, “comes up to me one day and says he’d like to do something special for his and his wife’s anniversary. He knew Tori … say hi, Tori.”

  “Hello!” Tori all but shouted, waving like she was about ready to board a ride at Disneyland.

  “Tori is a fan of my books, so Vance thought it’d be a novel way to … pardon the pun, by the way… Vance thought it’d be a novel way to appeal to Tori, namely having a character in one of my books based on her. Appearance, personality, etc. I one-upped that and suggested writing a story with her as the main character. Since Tori is Irish, and loves anything to do with Ireland, I set the book in Cork. Vance loved the idea, so right there, sitting on the patio outside in our hometown, we had lunch and I plotted out the events of Heart of Éire. And, in case anyone is wondering, I’m sharing the proceeds of the book with him, fifty-fifty. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  “Mr. Samuelson?” the moderator announced.

  Vance sat up straight in his chair. “Yes?”

  “You sure are lucky to have such a good, kind, and generous a friend as Mr. Anderson, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, well … yeah, I guess so.”

  I held up a hand. “I know some of you are filming this, so to whomever has a copy of that particular video, with that particular observation, could I get you to send me a copy?”

  Vance sighed. “Hardy har har, pal.”

  “Any other questions?” Marjorie asked the audience.

  One girl raised her hand. I could see she had to be young, probably in her late teens. She approached the podium, took the microphone from the staff member, and slowly faced me.

  “Er, hi, Mr. Anderson. My name is Melody Ashford.”

  I smiled at the teenager. “Hello there, Melody. What’s your question?”

  “All right, here’s my question. You live in Oregon, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  “Have you noticed how often Ireland and Oregon have been mentioned in the news recently?”

  Interested, I perked up. “What do you mean, Melody?”

  “Take the Irish Crown Jewels. They were missing for over a hundred years, but recently, they were found and returned. The news report also said that the jewels were found in Oregon, but you knew that, didn’t you?”

  “Believe it or not, I’m aware of it,” I said, suppressing a chuckle.

  “Rumor has it,” the teen continued, “that you had something to do with that.”

  “Imagine that,” I said, in a sing-song voice. “And why would you think that?”

  “I’m a huge fan of the British royal family. I read everything I can on them, so imagine my surprise when I see a reference to the missing Irish Crown Jewels, and the person who found them is an author who happens to own a couple of corgis …”

  “I happen to know Stephen King has a corgi,” I interrupted.

  “… named Sherlock or Watson?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Ah. That’d be harder to play off, wouldn’t it?”

  “Was that you, Mr. Anderson? Did you find the Irish Crown Jewels?”

  “That was me,” I admitted.

  There was a collective gasp from the audience.

  “Why didn’t you say that from the start?” the teen asked, bewildered. “I would think you’d want everyone to know about that!”

  “Because,” I answered, “I don’t like making a big deal out of it. Yes, I found the jewels and yes, they were returned to their rightful owners.”

  “Any final questions before we …”

  The moderator trailed off as a loud rumbling started. To us, in our cordoned off section of the exposition center, we couldn’t see anything, but I can tell you it sure sounded like a pack of elephants was stampeding. Then the shouting began.

  “What the blazes is going on?” Vance whispered to me. “Is that supposed to happen at one of these expos?”

  “No,” I said, growing alarmed. “Marjorie? Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

  “Stay calm, people,” Marjorie ordered. I can only assume our moderator either worked in a prison, or a school at some time because everyone settled down. “Everyone? Please stay where you are. Jack? Thomas? Ryan? Would you go see what the problem is, please?”

  Three uniformed staff members nodded and quickly hurried off. Before they could make it back, though, we all heard what was probably the worst thing anyone wanted to hear in a large gathering of people such as this: calls for a doctor.

  One of the staff members was back and he didn’t look happy. “We have a problem with the food court, ma’am! There are sick people everywhere! And, I think … I think someone has been killed!”

  TWO

  “Stay here,” Vance ordered, as he hurriedly rose to his feet. “Tori? Stay with Zack. I need to go see if there’s anything I can do.”

  “What’s going on?” Tori whispered to me. “Do you really think someone has been killed?”

  I hooked a thumb at the people rushing by, intent on reaching the exits just as fast as humanly possible.

  “They certainly think so. Wow. Had I known there was this much excitement at the big book expos, then I would have signed up long ago.”

  Movement attracted my attention. Jillian had decided to abandon her place at the front of the audience and join us at our table up on stage. I quickly added a few chairs to the other side of the table, ju
st in case anyone else wanted to join us up here.

  “You sure know how to host an event,” Jillian teased, as she pulled out the chair on the opposite side of mine and sat down. Both corgis watched us for a little bit before they lowered themselves into down positions and were content to watch the people hurrying by. “What should we do now? Should we leave? And where did Vance go?”

  “He left to see about giving the staff a hand,” Tori answered. “I’m just hoping he doesn’t have to use his police training.”

  “I just hope no one has died,” Jillian said. Tori nodded in agreement. “Nothing is worth losing their life over.”

  A few uniformed staff members stopped long enough to see that there were still quite a few people in our room.

  “We’re asking everyone to calmly leave the building. There’s nothing to fear. Please follow us.”

  Calm and orderly it was not. The one thing I will say is that panic will very effectively clear a room in no time flat. That was about the time we heard a siren start up in the distance. Then another started wailing. And another. I checked my watch. It was less than ten minutes from the time we heard the first panicked screams, followed almost immediately by the stampede. That’s when the second stampede occurred, although this time, it was a good thing.

  A steady stream of incoming traffic rolled through the open doors. Teams of paramedics, fire-fighters, policemen, and small groups of what looked like high-ranking officials. The paramedics, each of them carrying orange trauma kits, hurried by. Several of the fire-fighters caught sight of our little group still at the table and paused.

  “Is everyone all right?” one of the firemen asked. “No one is hurt?”

  “We’re good,” I assured the emergency personnel. “All the ruckus came from that way. Follow the paramedics.”

  The fireman gave me a thumbs up and rushed around the corner. Vance reappeared right about then. He saw the three of us seated at the panelist table and veered our way.

  “How bad is it?” Jillian asked the moment Vance sat down.

  “It’s bad,” Vance admitted. “I can sadly confirm that one person is dead.” He tapped his chest. “There’s a small wound right about here. It’s too small to be a knife wound, so I’m not sure what caused it.”

  “And has anyone been poisoned?” I asked.

  Vance nodded. “Everywhere I looked, there were people keeled over. Zack? You’re definitely gonna want to avoid that area at all costs.”

  I looked up. “Why?”

  “I’m surprised you can’t smell it yet. I’m sure you will, soon.”

  My face paled. Oh. My friend could only be referring to my aversion to vomit. Or, more specifically, the sour, acrid stench associated with it. I was what’s known as a sympathetic puker. That meant if I saw it, smelled it, or even heard it, then I would more than likely get sick myself.

  Vance eyed the bottles of water on the table. Several had been opened, and a few of them were empty.

  “Has anyone had anything to eat or drink?”

  Thankfully, we all shook our heads no.

  “I was about to,” I admitted. “My mouth was going dry, and I was reaching for my bottle of water. But, that’s about when everything took a turn for the worse. Here it is. See my bottle? It’s unopened.”

  “What about you, Tor?” Vance asked his wife. “Tell me you didn’t touch yours, either.”

  “I didn’t,” Tori confirmed. “Do you think someone slipped something into the refreshments?”

  “I do. Think about it. If someone was stupid enough to release an aerosol-based bug into the air, then everyone would be affected. In this case, no, only people who were in the food court seemed to be affected.”

  “Heads up,” I softly announced. “I think we’re about to be interrogated.”

  We all turned to watch two men approach our table. The man in the lead looked older than me, maybe in his mid-fifties. He had brown hair, balding, and was exceedingly thin, as though he didn’t take good enough care of himself. I also noticed how short this fellow was. He had to be no taller than five-foot-four. He had a hooked nose, wore a pair of wire glasses, and had a frown on his face.

  My first impression of the guy screamed bachelor to me.

  Looking at the second man, I saw that he was younger than his partner, and probably younger than me. He was blond, his skin was fair, and he had high cheekbones. Perhaps he had some Scandinavian blood in him? At any rate, he was taller than his companion, by at least five inches, and was impeccably dressed, as though he was trying to impress his boss. Black slacks, a red Polo shirt, and black sneakers completed the image.

  “Good afternoon, folks,” the first man said, as the two of them arrived at our table. “I’m Detective Kristofer Martins. This is my consultant, Gregory Plinth. We’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s okay with you.”

  We all nodded.

  “We figured you would,” Vance said. He pointed at two nearby chairs. “Pull up a seat and join us.”

  Once the detective and his assistant were seated, Detective Martins pulled out a small notebook and began to write. The consultant had placed his leather bag down and was rifling through it.

  “All right. Could I get your names, please?”

  We each took turns announcing our names and then spelling them out, just for the record. For those of you who remember, there was a certain someone with us at the moment who did not like being left out of introductions. Keeping an eye on Sherlock, I could see that he was waiting for his turn to be acknowledged. When it didn’t happen, I saw him growing increasingly anxious. Knowing what was coming, I jammed a finger in each ear. Noticing my actions, and the fact that my three companions had mirrored my movements, the detective cocked his head and stared at me, as though I had sprouted horns.

  “What are you …?”

  “Wait for it,” I interrupted, shaking my head.

  A loud, piercing bark sounded from the floor. Surprised, and with their mouths open, both men leaned back and to the side so as to give themselves a better view of the ground. There, staring angrily up at them, was Sherlock.

  “By the way,” I nonchalantly said, “we have a couple of dogs with us who aren’t fans of being ignored. Are your ears bleeding yet? I think mine are. That’s all on you, detective.”

  “Who’s this?” Detective Martins asked.

  “The one with the black is Sherlock,” I said, pointing him out. “The other one is Watson.”

  “Sherlock and Watson,” the detective repeated, smiling. “Cute names. Are they friendly?”

  I held a hand out and waited for Sherlock to lick it.

  “Incredibly so.”

  Once all the introductions had been made, Detective Martins looked at me.

  “Were you sitting here when the ruckus happened next door?”

  “Three of us were,” I said, nodding. “Myself, Tori, and Vance.”

  “Did you happen to see anything?” the consultant asked. “I was told you were the one talking when everything went to hell.”

  “If you knew I was one of the panelists, then why ask if I was sitting up here?”

  Martins shrugged and then pointed at the name card in front of my seat. “I would say it’s because I didn’t notice that. Were you all panelists here?”

  I raised a hand. “Actually, it was just me. But, I did drag these two on stage when questions about the book I wrote surfaced. And, before you can ask, I wrote it because of these two. So, yeah, the three of us were up here. Jillian, my fiancée, was sitting over there, in that cordoned-off section. She was holding Sherlock and Watson’s leashes. And, for the record, no, I’m sorry. I’m not much of a public speaker, so my eyes were on the table in front of me.” When the two men fell silent as they stared at me, I figured I should throw in some context. “It’s my coping mechanism. If I don’t make eye contact with anyone, then I won’t hyperventilate and pass out.”

  Vance chuckled when he heard this.

  “Is he serious?” I heard
Tori whisper to Jillian.

  “No, of course not. Er, at least, I don’t think he is.”

  “No one noticed anything,” Detective Martins said to himself, as he scribbled in his notebook.

  The assistant nudged his companion on the arm. “I think you’ll find that one of them did see something. Ma’am? Am I right in thinking you saw something of interest?”

  We all turned to Jillian, who was nodding. “As a matter of fact, I did. How did you know that, Mr. Plinth?”

  “You started fidgeting in your chair,” Gregory responded. “And call me Greg. It’s easier.”

  Jillian nodded. “Thank you, Greg. I will.”

  “What did you see?” Detective Martins asked, his pen poised over his notebook.

  “Just someone who looked awfully suspicious,” Jillian said, as she sat back in her chair.

  “What was suspicious about them?” Greg wanted to know.

  “From our vantage point here,” Jillian began, “we can see the main row of entry doors. That means we can see people coming and going. Now, since this event was in full swing, there was hardly anyone going.”

  “People were still arriving,” Detective Martins said, nodding. He scribbled in his notebook.

  Jillian pointed at the bend in the hallway where most of the paying customers to the book show had been headed. “This man in question first appeared there, and headed straight to the front door. You could tell he was in a hurry.”

  “You said guy,” Detective Martins observed. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes. He was wearing a yellow tee shirt, dark jeans, and had one of those things wrapped around his head. Umm, what’s it called?”

  “A bandana?” I guessed.

  Jillian beamed me a smile. “Yes, exactly! He was wearing a black and gray bandana. I believe he also had on some type of coat. A jacket, maybe?”

  “Can you describe him?” Detective Martins hopefully asked. “Height? Weight? Skin color?”

  “He looked short,” Jillian recalled. “Shorter than me, and I’m five-foot-five. Maybe five-four? He was also lean, but not in a gym-obsessed type of way. Does that make sense?”

  Both detective and consultant nodded.