Hard Cheese Read online

  “C’mon, we have to keep moving,” I said.

  We went back and into the rotunda in the center of the building. It was quieter here, the noises and smells of the fair more of a background than a nearby presence. I looked at a map on the wall and noted the sky train terminus at the northeast side of the building. Another new wrinkle since the last time I did the Fair. I confessed to Catherine that I wasn’t really sure what I hoped to find, but the image of the fleeing killer still floated in my head. I knew that if the stars were aligned, I might stumble onto something or someone. Coincidental things happen to me all the time.

  At the sides of the rotunda, between the spokes that are the different halls are platforms where gadget hawkers set up shop. They sell all sorts of things from super sharp knives to odd scissors to food choppers to special-appearing vacuums. There was even a guy demonstrating a high-pressure water pump, to the giggling hilarity of nearby urchins. I scanned the area and noticed a man standing idly, hands in pockets, gazing at one such booth where a restless man wearing a harness for his microphone was pacing about his space jabbering and demonstrating a set of kitchen knives. They were the ultimate in sharpness, he said. He held up a piece of what looked like tissue paper and letting go, neatly executed a figure eight with the short knife in his hand, slicing twice through the fluttering sheet of paper. Impressive.

  The man nearest me with his hands in his pockets half-turned toward me and I realized that I’d seen him before. But where?

  ‘Where’ was in the audience of the small tent in Heritage Square. He was the man listening to the now dead guy with the boat neck striped shirt, the one who’d muttered “hard cheese innit.”

  I started toward him. “Now my friends,” cried the knife hawker, “this blade is so constructed that it will easily slice paper as you just saw, but can be used to cut almost anything you find in the kitchen. From soft butter, of course, to dense and even hard cheese.” He held up a small yellow round of cheese from which the label had been removed. Then he thumped it on his cutting board.

  When I looked again at the man in the audience I saw he had been joined by a slender short woman. She had short brown hair chopped at ear-level. She was dressed all in unadorned black except for a wide leather belt heavily studded with silver nail heads of some sort. I looked down to see black running shoes on her feet. They stood close together, jawing intently at each other. When she turned away from the restraining hand of the man, I flashed on the fleeting image I’d seen disappearing around the corner in the Horse Barn. It was the same person.

  I flinched and started toward the pair. My sudden movement alerted the couple and the woman turned her head and stared at me for an instant. I saw recognition rise in her eyes.

  Just as I reached out to take her arm, she reacted, pulling away. She shouted, looked me in the eye and twisted to run. I lunged for her. We were pretty evenly matched for size but I had the advantage of momentum. After two running strides, I slammed into her side. She swung her right elbow and I ducked. Her forearm grazed my head and when she kicked out, I wrapped my right hand around her ankle and yanked it toward me. We both went down to the hard tiled floor in a tangle of bodies and skidded into the scattering crowd. One guy didn’t move quick enough so the woman and I slid into him. As he fell, the woman swung her right hand around, trying to break her fall. She was holding a small white paper sack. It hit the floor with a thud. I reached out and smacked her shoulders to the floor. Hard.

  Stunned, the fight went out of her. I heard a couple of men muttering about attacking women and a cop showed up along with Catherine while I sat there on the woman’s legs to keep her in hand. I explained between gulps of air why I’d jumped her. I took the paper sack from her unresisting fingers and opened it. The chunk of cheese had broken when it hit the floor. It was mostly hollow and there was a plastic baggie inside. The powder in the baggie looked to me like heroin or cocaine.

  More cops arrived. Crowd control was established. Harsh conversations on radios crackled over the murmuring crowd while Catherine and I explained the circumstances again to newly arriving uniformed officers. A plainclothes detective I knew from Roseville showed up and shook his head at me.

  “I mighta known you’d be involved somehow,” Ray Connolly snorted.

  I gazed over his shoulder. Where was the knife hawker? He had skedaddled. No big surprise. I explained to Detective Connolly what my day had been like, emphasizing the places I had seen the murdered man and his presumed companions. At Heritage Square, and in the Horse Barn.

  “Kind of coincidental, don’t you think?”

  “Not particularly,” I responded. “Only twice, and I came here based on instinct and experience. The guy had said “hard cheese” in my hearing. When he left Heritage Square, he was carrying a small round of cheese, although I confess I didn’t recognize it as such at the time.

  “But after he was murdered, for no obvious reason, I thought about it and said to Ms Mckerney here that the scribble on the ticket might have a connection. So we went to the Dairy Building first.”

  “Why the Dairy Building?” Connolly interposed.

  “Dairy? Cheese?” responded Catherine, squinting at him. “You know, that guy who was selling knives has disappeared. Did you see?” she said, pointing.

  “Yes,” both Connolly and I said almost in unison. Then we looked at each other.

  “You know something else about all this, am I correct?” I queried.

  Connolly nodded. “We’ve been watching several people during the Fair. Bits of intelligence. The girl in black, and the guy with her. Also the knife seller. They’re part of a drug distribution ring out of Plano, Texas. We never had enough proof to bust them until now.” He showed us the sack with the demolished round of yellow cheese and the small plastic bag it had concealed.

  “So why’d she stick the guy in the horse barn,” I queried.

  “Stealing from his buds? Skimming the whey? Too soon to know. We aren’t even sure of the identities of these people.” His radio squawked and Connolly turned away. He nodded a couple of times at his radio and muttered at it. Then he turned back to us with a look of satisfaction.

  “The knife hawker has been picked up. Seems instead of boogying straight out the nearest gate, he went for his car in one of the parking lots. He had a load of cheese in the trunk.”

  “Are we done here?” I asked.

  “Sure are, for now. But as you know, we’ll be in touch,” Detective Connolly and I shook and we headed for an exit.

  “Had enough for today?”

  Catherine glanced down at me. “Wel-l-l, if your bruises from slipping in horse droppings and collaring a killer aren’t too painful, I’d like to walk over to Machinery Hill.”

  “There isn’t one any more , you know, just a few scattered exhibitors of big machines.”

  “I know,” she smiled, “but those enormous machines make me hot.”

  -end-

  CARL BROOKINS

  Before he became a mystery writer and reviewer, Brookins was a freelance photographer, a Public Television program director, a Cable TV administrator, and a counselor and faculty member at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He has reviewed mystery fiction for the Saint Paul Pioneer Press and for Mystery Scene Magazine. His reviews appear at Barnes & Noble and Amazon Internet sites and on his own blog; also at “Books n' Bytes” and on “DorothyL.” Brookins is an avid recreational sailor. With his wife and friends he has sailed in many locations across the world. He is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and Private Eye Writers of America. He can often be found touring bookstores and libraries with his companions-in-crime, The Minnesota Crime Wave.

  He is represented by P.J. Nunn at Breakthrough Promotions.

  Brookins writes the sailing adventure series featuring Michael Tanner and Mary Whitney, the Sean NMI Sean, private investigator detective series, and the Jack Marston academic series. He has ten novels in print along with a number of short storie
s and several E-books. He received a liberal arts degree from the University of Minnesota and studied for a Masters degree in Communications at Michigan State University. He is married with two grown daughters and lives with his wife Jean, a retired publisher and editor, in Roseville, Minnesota.

  CRIME STORIES BY CARL BROOKINS

  Novels

  Tanner/Whitney Sailing Series

  Inner Passages

  Old Silver

  A Superior Mystery

  Devils Island

  Red Sky

  Sean Sean Private Investigator Series

  The Case of the Greedy Lawyers

  The Case of the Deceiving Don

  The Case of the Great Train Robbery

  The Case of the Stolen Case

  Jack Marston academic mystery series

  Bloody Halls

  Reunion

  Short Stories

  “A Winter’s Tale” Silence of the Loons anthology

  “A Fish Story” Resort to Murder anthology

  “Fire Storm” Writes of Spring anthology

  “Hard Cheese”

  “The Day I lost My Innocence”

  “Daddy’s Little Girl”