Murder Under the Covered Bridge by Elizabeth Perona Page A

worse. He hated lines of any sort, especially traffic. Plus, he’d said to her more than once that the whole concept of the Covered Bridge Festival had been corrupted in favor of the American public’s worst indulgences—purchasing junk and eating junk food.
    It was hard for her to argue against that as Joy quickly parked and they got out in front of a pork rinds shack, which was next to a three-booth display of handmade clothing made exclusively for dressing wooden goose statues parked on geese fanciers’ front porches. The three booths were divided into themes like Halloween, Christmas, and sportswear. A sign hanging at the entrance to the shop read, If your goose is nude, I’m your dude.
    The women had to walk two blocks to the Rockville courthouse grounds. Marcy made her apologies but said she needed to go work with another client. This surprised Francine, but when she thought about it, Marcy had never promised to help Mary Ruth. She was only there that morning because of Joy.
    Francine had to keep Charlotte on task and prevent her from wandering into shops like the Beef Jerky Emporium, but they made it to the corner of Ohio and Jefferson. Mary Ruth’s Fabulous Sweet Shoppe was at the far corner from them. There was a huge line that went all the way up Jefferson Street past a tent full of vendors, but the crowd didn’t appear to be purchasing from the vendors. They were in line for something else. Francine and Charlotte went up Ohio and turned on Market Street.
    The courthouse square was packed with people. A female duo near the stairs of the courthouse played guitar and sang country-
western songs with a Carrie Underwood feel. Groups with political ties sought to influence voters for the upcoming November election. Tour bus promoters hawked trolley tours of varying lengths covering the most popular of the bridges of Parke County, several “leaving from the square in just ten minutes!”
    Despite Jonathan’s raw assessment of the festival, Francine loved the sights and smells of the Covered Bridge Festival vendor areas. It was eleven o’clock and she could smell the sweet smoke of the pulled pork vendor tending to his meats, see the steam rising from the huge pots of ham and beans cooked over outdoor wood fires by the local Presbyterian church, and hear the chugging of the popcorn vendor’s vat as it turned freshly popped popcorn into kettle corn. But the pi è ce de r é sistance was the heavenly scent of Mary Ruth’s latest creation: fried corn fritter donuts with honey-cinnamon glaze. Francine discovered her booth was the source of the line that wrapped itself down High Street and along Jefferson.
    The pink food truck gleamed in the sunshine. Mary Ruth had “tricked out” her catering truck and made it more functional by replacing the warming equipment with a stove, fryer, and refrigerator. She’d had to lose some of the shelf space, but it needed to become a small, fully functional kitchen. The “booth” part was something the Festival had built for her in front of the door of the truck. It was a small shack that had a large window for handling money and selling the baked goods. The window also had room for a bakery-style display case of Mary Ruth’s offerings: the corn fritter donuts, gooey iced cinnamon rolls, five kinds of cookies, three types of scones, and her signature flourless chocolate cake.
    Alice was heating up cinnamon rolls and icing them, Mary Ruth was frying the corn fritters to order and glazing them before handing them up to Toby, who was their front man, collecting the cash and distributing the product.
    â€œIt’s funny to see people’s reactions when Toby hands them their food,” Charlotte said. “There’s this hesitation, like, ‘Do I want to eat something from this big, rough-looking tattooed guy?’ but then they can’t resist and gobble it right up.”
    â€œIt helped that Mary Ruth