It Takes Two to Strangle Read Online Free Page B

her.
    “Now how in the world do you know about that?” she asked.
    “Mrs. Chenworth was telling anyone who would care to listen that you were making yourself even prettier than usual at Cynthia’s earlier today.”
    “Well it’s no secret,” she said. “Charles Swickley took me to a steakhouse in Georgetown.”
    “Charles Swickley? He must be pushing eighty!”
    “Seventy-two and so what? It was nice to dress up and go out on the town for once.”
    “Mother, there are countless men who would take you out. And it’s not as if they ever stop asking you. What made you say yes to Swickley?”
    “Do you really want to know?” she asked demurely.
    “I do.”
    “I thought I could have a nice dinner out without having to worry about him trying to get into my pants at the end of the night.”
    Damon groaned.
    “Well,” she said. “Don’t you want to know if he tried?”

    The county fair opened for business the following evening. Walking through the entryway marked by a pair of poles dressed in colorful flags, Damon was hit by an avalanche of carnival scents. The combination of funnel cakes, cotton candy and corn dogs sent his olfactory glands into overdrive. A row of vendor trucks—the original “food trucks”— staffed by fresh faced youths lined the front right side of the grounds. To the left of the entrance stood the exhibition pavilion. Directly in front of him stretched a vast labyrinth of carnival games and rides flanked on its outer edges by a pig-racing course on one side and an outdoor amphitheatre on the other. The amphitheatre would host puppet shows and magicians during the day, live auctions in the early evening and local bands at night.
    Damon meandered through a warren of skee-ball, whack-a-mole, and pop-a-shot games. He saw a father curse under his breath at the giant claw as a stuffed dolphin slipped out of its grasp and a four-year-old girl shrieked in dismay. Emerging from the flashing lights and crush of carnival workers touting the glory of balloon dart and shoot-the-star winners, Damon rested his eyeon the largest of the rides. The Matterhorn, Gravitron and Zipper might look small in a commercial amusement park, but here, at the fairgrounds, they loomed like giants.
    He cut through a line forming for the derelict “haunted house” and spotted Bethany Krims nibbling the hardened exterior of a cherry-dipped ice cream cone. Wavy chestnut hair bobbed at her shoulders. She was alone, but scanning the crowd. Damon took a deep breath and approached.
    “Hi, Bethany. How’s the ice cream?”
    “Oh, hi, Damon. It’s pretty good.”
    “I might have to get one myself pretty soon. No weather forecast tonight?”
    “Thankfully I get Wednesdays off,” she replied, swatting at a fly that made a beeline for her cone. She bent her head to lick a bit of vanilla that had run down the backside.
    “Do you want to take a ride on the Matterhorn?” Damon asked nervously.
    She held up her cone. “Sorry.” The mild gesture made Damon feel as if he had just been eliminated in the first round of a grade school spelling contest.
    Before he could stammer out a reply, she waved excitedly past him and a gangling woman with heavy eyebrows rushed forward. The two women gushed over each other for a few moments. Bethany quickly introduced Damon to her cousin Laura and the two women walked off arm-in-arm toward the exhibition pavilion.
    Victor McElroy’s voice boomed through a megaphone over the crowd, announcing the upcoming pig races. Damon purchased a greasy cardboard cup of waffle fries and headed over to the racing stands.
    From a makeshift press box, Victor shouted out the names of the entrants in the first heat, along with a colorful commentary of each pig’s racing prowess. The lines were well scripted for comedic value, stock-in-trade verbiage repeated by pig racing announcers across the country, but Victor’s delivery lacked enthusiasm.
    Making his way up the pre-fabricated metal stands, Damon saw