“So did you see anyone watching her?” Christopher asked. “Anyone who was paying her too much attention, or seemed to be following her?”
“Like I said, I was doing a demo,” the blacksmith said. “If you want to find anything like that, you’ll probably have to check the security footage from the restaurant. They try to hide the cameras because it looks too ‘modern,’ but they’re there.”
Paige nodded. Christopher had already spotted a few of the cameras, and they would definitely need to check them for any sign of someone watching Meredith too closely in her workplace. That might point them at anyone who was stalking her.
Before they did that, though, she had a couple more questions. She called up an image of the fleur-de-lis ornament on her phone, holding it out for the blacksmith to look at.
“Have you seen something like this around here? Have you made something like this?”
The blacksmith shook his head, though.
“No. The fleur-de-lis is a pretty common symbol, though. It was used in France all the way back to its earliest Frankish kings. But around here, someone might just be using it because they think it’s a nice symbol. Historical accuracy counts for nothing around here, but I don’t think it’s specifically anything to do with the Ren-Faire.”
Paige had hoped that it would be something that it might be traced back here, but it seemed that the ubiquity of the symbol was too much. She should have known it wouldn’t be that simple. There was one other thing she wanted to ask, though.
“You have a lot of different weapons around here,” she said. “Have you ever heard of a dagger or a knife with a square sided blade, like a fire poker?”
She saw the blacksmith frown, as if that rang a faint bell for him.
“Maybe. I mean, I could do some research, try to find anything that fits that.”
Paige gave him her number.
“Please call me if you think of anything,” Paige said.
She’d been hoping that they might find more, but at least there was still a chance of getting information that might help.
For now, though, there was still a chance of getting something from the Renaissance Faire’s security footage.
CHAPTER FIVE
Paige walked up to the restaurant. It was large and clad in fake stone, with battlements running along the line of the roof and windows that were leaded and stained, although the stained glass showed scenes that seemed more like something out of fantasy than anything that might have come up in real life, with images of knights and dragons running along most of the front.
Paige went inside with Christopher, and the whole place was still busy, with customers in every corner of the restaurant. There were families in booths and seated around large, rustic tables that looked like they’d been put together from roughhewn tree trunks, deliberately rough edged and not looking machine finished at all.
The walls were wood paneled, and there were elaborate weapons crossed on them behind shields whose designs seemed to have less to do with heraldry than simply the whims of whichever artist had worked on them. There were shields with whole painted landscapes and portraits, rather than just standard symbols. Each table had one huge, heavily carved, throne-like chair at its head so that someone in each group could play at being a king or queen, while all the glasses consisted of goblets and tankards. Even the lighting was arranged to look like old fashioned lanterns and burning torches on the walls. Wooden beams arched above them, along with tapestries that seemed to have been designed to depict fantastical battles.
“Hey!” a young woman serving as the greeter said. “Welcome, tired travelers, to our humble inn. The best in the kingdom. I’m Jessica. Can I show you to a table?”
She was short, only around Paige’s height, with blonde hair and a heart shaped face. She was probably twenty-five, and was currently wearing a pale linen dress cinched at the waist by a dark corset, in what appeared to be an interpretation of medieval clothing filtered through years of Hollywood costumery.
Her greeting was bright enough, but Paige could see the strain on her face and the redness around her eyes, like she’d been crying recently. It was obvious that the news of Meredith’s death had been affecting her.
“We’re with the FBI,” Paige said, showing her badge. “We’re here about Meredith.”
“Oh.” That got a look of shock and worry, as if Jessica couldn’t really work out how to respond to that.
Christopher intervened, obviously used to dealing with people still in shock after a death.
“Can we talk somewhere more private?” Christopher asked. “Maybe a back office?”
Jessica nodded hurriedly. “Yes, sorry, just this way.”
She led the way past a door that had been painted to look as though there was a portcullis hanging over it, and which had a sign on it saying Servants of the Kingdom Only.
A surprisingly large and modern office space sat behind it, complete with several lockers that Paige guessed were for the staff to put any belongings in that didn’t fit with the general medieval atmosphere of the place. The computer screen on a desk in the corner definitely didn’t fit, and nor did the refrigerator that was presumably a place for the staff to put their own food. There were a couple of chairs there too, and Paige went with Christopher as he guided Jessica over to them.
“It’s been… it’s hard to believe that Meredith is actually gone,” Jessica said. “Have you caught anyone yet?”
“Not yet,” Christopher said, in a sympathetic tone, “but we won’t stop looking. Were you here yesterday, Jessica?”
She shook her head in response. “I only cover the restaurant occasionally, when someone is sick. Normally, I work over in the soft play castle, for the younger kids.”
“But you knew Meredith?” Paige asked. Given Jessica’s reactions, it seemed impossible that she didn’t. The two of them had obviously been friends.
“Everyone knew Meredith,” Jessica said. “Everyone liked her. She was like the nicest person here.”
“Did everyone share that opinion?” Paige asked. “Did anyone disagree with Meredith over anything?”
“No, of course not,” Jessica said, as if she couldn’t even conceive of the possibility of someone hating the dead woman. Paige had noticed that often seemed to be people’s reaction to death, so that even if there was some part of someone’s life that might have resulted in arguments, they ignored it.
In this case, though, it fit with what Paige had heard from other people. It seemed that she really was well loved around the Renaissance Faire, to a degree that made it impossible for people to believe that anyone might want to kill Meredith. Which meant that either there was something hidden deeper that had gotten her killed, or they really were dealing with a serial killer for whom some linking factor between the victims was all he needed to spark him into killing.
That possibility was in some ways the most terrifying because it would mean that there was nothing in Meredith or Gisele’s lives that Paige could link back to the killer. There would be no way to find him just by looking closer at them. It also meant that other women might find themselves killed for almost no reason at all.
That was if it was that kind of serial killer. It was still more than possible that this was someone who simply had a well-hidden reason to hate both Meredith and Gisele. Finding that out meant looking closer, trying to find any link between the two victims and hoping that they would be able to follow that link all the way back to the killer’s door.