Murder at the Mini-Fest: A Victoria Cross
Mystery
Murder at the Mini-Fest: A Victoria Cross
Mystery
Victoria looked down at the man sleeping next to her and clutched the knitting needle until her knuckles turned white. He deserved to die, she thought. It was justifiable homicide, no doubt about it. Only there were so many witnesses. She looked about the crowded plane. Definitely not the way to end her first promotional tour.
She'd had misgivings about him from the moment she took her seat. His crewcut, the line of miniature bottles on his folding tray, his shaking hands all spelled trouble. He turned out to be that rarity of rarities, a quiet drunk. Vicki sighed with relief, took out her knitting, and started to plan her next novel.
Then he had done the unthinkable. He reached into his carry-on luggage and pulled out a book while Vicki sat knitting and observing the clouds. Suddenly she felt something hit her foot and she heard the sound of loud snoring. She looked down and stared at her own prim profile on a paperback book jacket. She read the familiar blurb: Victoria Cross is a twisted Mary Poppins, telling tales to keep the children awake.
A Dead Letter Day! The schmuck had fallen asleep while reading A Dead Letter Day, the best novel in her Albert Hall mystery series.
Vicki had received almost universal adulation for her stories of Albert Hall, the millionaire stamp collector/detective and his wily girlfriend Penelope ("Penny") Black, whose search for first day covers led them into a maelstrom of international intrigue. Why this very moment she was heading to Washington DC to do an interview with Diane Rehm and this slob had Z'd out before he'd reached page 3! Oooh it was provoking! She tried to do her breathing exercises. She tried to visualize a triumphal interview with Diane Rehm. She tried to think about tomorrow's brunch at the Tabard Inn with her old college friend Molly Bolt. Try as she might, she could not unclench her hands from the knitting needles.
"The perfect murder at 20,000 feet." Vicki mused, "How could I do it?"
In no time at all, Vicki had roughed out the plot of her next Albert Hall Mystery, Carry-On Carnage: a Mysterious Murder in Mid-Air, in which an airline passenger is done to death in crowded plane. Frustrated with the lack of witnesses or a murder weapon or a passenger with a motive, the police call in Albert Hall.
"Damn!" thought Vicki, "He'll solve the crime. This schmuck doesn't deserve it. I know, it'll be like Murder on the Orient Express. Albert will find overwhelming evidence that this jerk deserved exactly what he got and he'll let the killer go."
Vicki scribbled happily for the rest of the flight. The Rehm interview was a piece of cake, and Albert Hall himself could not have found more quaintly English accommodations than the Tabard Inn.
The next morning found Vicki rested and refreshed as she sat down to brunch with her old schoolmate, Molly Bolt.
Molly was a forceful redhead with a take-charge personality. At grad school, Molly had been a Marxist firebrand. She had changed her name to Molly Bolt to demonstrate her determination to be useful, to bring things together. Her academic career ended abruptly, however, when her thesis on William Morris was panned because of her bourgeois obsession with intelligible prose and her failure to place Morris in his proper context as a dead white male. This setback caused Molly to reassess her life. She dropped out of grad school. Inspired by the song Bread and Roses, she combined her interests in Marxism and interior design to found a wildly successful home renovation business, SuperStructures.
As Vicki had expected, Molly had planned their day down to the last detail.
"After brunch," Molly said, "we'll go to the Takoma Park Mini-Fest."
"What's that?"
"It's a small folk festival that's put on in the winter to raise funds for the big Takoma Park Folk Festival in the summer. I know you like listening to folk music and observing eccentrics. This should give you a glut of both. This year should be especially good since they're departing from their policy of only booking local acts and are featuring some world class performers."
