September Fair by Jess Lourey

listened to farmers in a friendly game of one-upmanship, trying to out-story each other. An old guy in a red plaid shirt had been coming to the State Fair for longer than anyone here—over forty years—so he swept that round, but his friend in the jean jacket had grown the largest pumpkin in fair history three summers ago. He’d snagged a grand prize ribbon and bragging rights for eternity. There was much laughing, hearty slaps on the back, and the dark coffee kept flowing.
    By the time I left it was nine a.m., and I was feeling almost normal. I wanted to fall in love with Johnny, but it just wasn’t in my cards. Better to avoid it all together than suffer the inevitable pain. I had more important things to focus on anyhow, most notably doing my job for the newspaper and helping Mrs. Pederson find out what had happened to her daughter, though that was turning into a bunch of dead ends.
    Before then, I had a wider obligation to the Battle Lake Recall . I needed to cover the launch party of Henry Sunder, a Battle Lake legend whose third book was being released today in the building, as the regulars called it. It was a bit of an odd location, as all his books were on hunting and trapping, but Henry was a peculiar man. A loner who resided in the woods south of town, he lived off the grid. He was known around town as a hermit until about five years ago, when he discovered the Internet and iUniverse while visiting the library. Since then, he wrote books espousing his life philosophies, including the need to live off the land and generally keep your nose clean. He’d arranged for iUniverse to publish his tomes on demand, and sold them to people all over the world by advertising on a modest website, www.earthwarriorbooks.com.
    This venture brought him in the library regularly to use the computers, which is how I knew him. About three years ago, he’d met a woman online, a fan of his books, and they’d gotten married. She had produced fraternal twins from the union: a boy named Hunter and a girl named Gatherer. They called her Gathy. Henry was a nice enough guy if you overlooked a few peculiarities. Specifically, he didn’t brush his teeth because he thought fluoride was poisonous, he sewed all his own clothes by hand and so always looked like he was going to a casting call for a Neanderthal movie, and although he washed and brushed his hair, he’d never cut it in his adult life. It hung halfway down his back, ending as a buttocks curtain. Years ago the hairs must have given up any idea of working as a unit, and the ends split every which way.
    The book he was releasing today was called, Entrails, Ears, and Bones, Oh My! How to Use the Whole Animal. He must have a friend in high places at the State Fair because when I entered the Ag-Hort building, I found him dead center in the round floor plan, right next to the Information booth. He was surrounded by his books and wore a peaceful smile.
    “Hey, Henry. How’s business?”
    He stood to greet me. “Mira! Thanks for coming. I just got here myself.”
    “Well then, welcome to the fair. I’ve been here since Thursday. It’s been quite a wild ride.”
    His face sobered. “Terrible thing about that Pederson girl. They know what happened?”
    “Poisoning, they think.”
    “How’d she get her hands on poison?”
    I shrugged, laying my hands out. “Someone probably slipped it to her, but no one knows how. They can’t even be sure what kind of poison it was until the toxicology reports are complete, and that could take weeks.”
    “I feel so bad for the parents. If anything ever happened to Hunter and Gathy …” he shook his head. “Lisa’s home with the kids. They’re helping me to put together a care package for the Pedersons. A community’s got to come together when tragedy strikes.”
    I tipped my head, wondering what would be in a Sunder care package. A soft purse made from the skin of a bear’s nose? Water bottles crafted from dried pig bladders? It didn’t