Hitched and Tied (The Morelville Mysteries, #4)

Chapter 4 – It’s all About the Fair-3

I proceeded down the right berm of I-70, lights flashing, alongside the single lane of slow moving eastbound traffic. The Stiers crew was working in the same area as yesterday but on the left lane today instead of the right.

I was in search of Sterling Moon. He and I were going to have a ‘come to Jesus’ meeting as soon as I ran him down.

When I saw the foreman standing next to a pavement stripping truck up ahead in the median I signaled, hit my siren a couple of times and then crossed the traffic in the right lane and weaved through the cones into the not yet touched left lane. I pulled off onto the left berm and then backed up about 80 yards to be even with the stripping truck.

Recognition lit the foreman’s face and he stepped right over to me. “Something wrong Sheriff?”

“I talked to one of your men, Sterling Moon yesterday. I need to speak with him again.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you there. He’s a no call, no show today. I don’t know where he is.”

My stomach dropped, and a feeling of foreboding overcame me. I knew I should have gone after him last night!

I nodded at the foreman and thanked him then drove on until I could turn and head back toward Zanesville on the westbound side. After pulling my notebook out of my shirt pocket, I flipped to the page I’d written Moon’s address and contact info on. If he’d given me the correct address, then he really did live in an apartment near Ray’s bar but that was a good half hour or more from where I was.

I radioed dispatch to run the address for me. It came back as Moon’s. I had them send a unit his way to roust him and hold him there until I got there.

Less than 30 minutes later I joined two of my deputies at Moon’s residence in a single-story apartment complex but there was no Moon. My men had arrived to find his door ajar and, on inspection, most of his clothing and personal items missing. He was on the run.

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Friday Afternoon, August 8th, 2014

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The thing that I dread most about the annual county fair is the effort to get everyone, every animal and everything that everyone and every animal requires for the week there in one piece. That’s typically coupled with a very hot August sun that makes everything that much more of a strain.

I led our little parade in my pick-up, towing my camper behind me. It would be home to me, Dana and the kids – when they didn’t choose to stay in the barns with their animals – for the next week. Dad was behind me in his truck pulling his camper. My mom and Kris would stay in that camper for the week. Dad had the farm to run so he rarely stayed overnight on the grounds. He’d appear early, after finishing his own morning chores most days, and leave before lunch. He’d only stay or come back to the fair if Beth and Cole had afternoon or evening competitions. Dana followed us in her car and Kris in hers. It was nice to have the cars when we needed to run about quickly since parking on the fairgrounds was always tight. It’s also nice to have them when we just wanted to get off the fairgrounds for a couple of hours...

I’d convinced dad to bring his John Deere Gator two-seater this year by telling him it was for Dana. The fairgrounds are flat and easy to walk but I’m concerned about his health. On show day and sale day he’ll be back and forth on the grounds all day, if my observations over multiple years of Kris and I showing animals and now her kids showing them hold true.

The Gator was loaded in the bed of dad’s truck. He grumbled a little bit about the room it took up but I let Dana in on my little act of deception and she exaggerated her pain a little bit to appease him even though she’s been doing much better since taking a bullet in her left leg on her last major assignment with the Customs Service.

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Getting onto the grounds, getting campers in place and setting up camp took up the better part of two hours. Dana sank into a bag chair, clearly exhausted from what little she was able to help with. I’d assigned her mostly outside tasks like helping to set up canopies because I’d completely forgotten that she’d have to navigate stairs each time she wanted in and out of the camper. It was only two, but I didn’t want her to do any at all. My plan was to rig her up a little ramp to take care of that problem.

She looked at me and smiled. “I’m glad we’re done. I’m whipped. I thought I was doing great but this heat...”

“Done? Who says we’re done,” my mother Faye inquired as she stepped out of her camper.

Dana tilted her head and looked up at me, “We’re not done?”

Before mom could answer herself, I shook my head no. “We have to set up the barns. Animal move in is tomorrow morning. We can’t move them into a stall with no straw, no feed, no nothing now, can we?”

“I suppose not. I guess I assumed that the animal stuff got done by the people who run the fair.”

Mom guffawed loudly and proclaimed, “That’s what you get for assuming!”

I shot a hard look at her and then turned to Dana, “It’s all part of the learning experience for the kids who participate. The problem is, our kids are a little young yet to do it all on their own.” Or, what I can’t say out loud in front of my mother, a little immature to, in Cole’s case.

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