The Blue Bonnet Parade started as a joke. Back when the Cedar River Bluebonnet Festival was just getting started, hosting any gathering was enough to draw in crowds from surrounding towns. Then, as other festivals started to spring up—no pun intended—Cedar River had to up our game to stay relevant. We added more food vendors and carnival rides, but could never compete with the enormous fairs that got tens of thousands of visitors. Our little festival was destined for obscurity when someone came up with the brilliant idea to add a parade.
Anyone could join in, as long as they wore a blue hat. The parade evolved over the years until the Blue Bonnet Parade became the Met Gala of hats. Not even the Kentucky Derby or Easter Sunday could hold a candle to our over-the-top headwear, at least not in my opinion.
The rules were simple. The hat had to be made and decorated by hand. Store-bought or reused hats could be worn in the parade, but were ineligible for a prize. The hat had to stand on its own—the wearer could support it with a hand as they walked, but must be able to balance it for at least thirty seconds during judging. And most importantly, the hat must be blue.
I took my seat at the judges’ table as the Cedar River High School Marching Band kicked off the festivities, in their signature blue and white uniforms led by our mascot, Arty the Armadillo. “I was afraid you’d be late,” Maggie said as she handed me an official clipboard to record my scores.
“Of course not. Wouldn’t miss this for the world,” I assured her. Granted, I’d been having so much fun I’d almost forgotten about the Blue Bonnet Parade entirely. Thank goodness I’d set an alarm. The only way I would ever prove to my family that I was a responsible adult was by consistently acting like one.
Officer Jayden Holt, out of uniform for the occasion, was seated to my right. “How’d they rope you into this?” I asked her.
“Have you ever tried telling your sister ‘No?’” she asked in return.
I grinned. “Maggie has a way with people. Runs in the family. That’s how I know that Tansy would never need to hurt a fly. If either of my sisters had a problem with someone, they could take care of it without slipping anything into their coffee.”
“Look, about yesterday, I was just doing my job, okay?”
“Yup.” I nodded. “And taking care of my family is my job. For the record, I’m not concerned that you interrogated my sister, just that you and Beau tricked me so you could ambush her.”
Jayden lifted a finger and pointed it at me. “I needed to judge your sister’s initial reaction for myself, and I couldn’t have done that if you’d warned her ahead of time. And for the record, it wasn’t my idea.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “It’s not my fault that you—and apparently every other woman within a hundred miles—turns to putty when Beau ratchets up the charm.”
Whether or not I wanted to admit it, she had a point. “And what? You’re miraculously immune?”
“He’s not my type,” she replied.
“Ladies, if you’re done gossiping, we have a job to do,” the other judge said as she approached. Leanna Lydell-Waite took her seat on my left.
“Acting Mayor Lydell-Waite,” Jayden said formally.
“Officer Holt,” she replied with a polite but terse nod.
I looked back and forth between the two of them. There was bad blood there, I’d bet on it. Jayden was fairly new to town, but as a member of the local police force, she was afforded a pass on the “outsider until three generations” rule. Besides, even if she wasn’t from Cedar River originally, she was a native Texan.
Jayden crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “I’m surprised to see that the town found the money to host the festival this year, seeing as how the budget is so tight that cuts are necessary. Isn’t that how you put it?”
“Officer Holt, this isn’t the time to rehash that,” Leanna replied.
“Leanna, that was a very nice speech you made this morning,” I told her, trying to steer the subject into more neutral territory.
“Why thank you for saying so, Juni. I know I’m not the most popular person in Cedar River right now.” She turned and glared pointedly at Jayden. “Of course, filling Mayor Bob’s shoes is an enormous responsibility. But someone has to step up, and as chair of the town council, that someone is me. Which means that until we elect a replacement, I’m in charge of the town budget.”
Jayden opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, I jumped in, continuing to play peacemaker. “And I’m sure you’ll do a fantastic job.” The marching band passed and the sound system—presumably DJ’d by Tansy—took over, effectively cutting off any more attempts at conversation. The loud, lively music had the parade participants and the crowd dancing.
Plenty of people joined that Blue Bonnet Parade for the fun of it, wearing everything from top hats covered in blue craft-store-bought silk flowers to the baseball caps with bluebonnets on springs that were sold at the official Cedar River booth, but the real stars of the parade were the contestants. The first one stopped in front of our table and struck a pose. Her hat was made entirely out of LEGO blocks in the shape of a bluebonnet. Maggie ran out, measured it, and made a note on her own clipboard.
The next hat was a wide sombrero shape made entirely of blue feathers. The contestant left a cloud of feathers behind her as she walked, and I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the parade her hat was plucked bare.
There were hats that lit up and hats that blew soap bubbles. There was an enormous hat made of balloons that reminded me of the grape Fruit of the Loom guy. There were knitted caps, bonnets made of crepe paper, and several oversize blue cowboy hats constructed from Styrofoam. There was even a hat with lit sparklers on it.
A group of children trooped past with pipe-cleaner gardens glued to their hats, followed by an air-filled, whacky, wiggly-wavy-arm guy balanced on someone’s head. One woman had constructed an enormous bluebonnet piñata hat, and was tossing candy to the eager crowd.
Just when I thought I’d seen everything, a stout woman pushed her way through the crowd on the other side of the street, flanked by angry people who had staked out their spots along the parade route far in advance. Despite protests all around her, she shoved the temporary barricades separating the parade from the spectators aside and marched into the street, knocking down a man wearing a towering hat made of what looked like blue whipped cream.
Without pausing to see if he was okay—he wasn’t; his hat splattered all across the pavement—she marched forward, coming to a stop in front of the judging table. It was hard to tell her age, but I guessed she was in her late sixties. The white woman was wearing a bright yellow shirt with white capri pants. Her hair was steel gray and she had on thick makeup topped with garish red lipstick. She dragged a large wheeled suitcase behind her, which was causing a parade traffic jam. She was yelling, but I couldn’t hear her over the music. Then there was brief moment of silence between albums, and I heard, “What in heaven’s name were you thinking?”
“Mrs. Bobbert?” Leanna asked, standing and scurrying around the table. That was when I recognized Faye Bobbert, Mayor Bob’s widow, as the woman with the suitcase.
“Here, let me take your bag,” Leanna offered. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
“You are the last person I want to talk to, young lady,” she snapped. Her chin trembled. “What were you thinking? You could have at least tried to contact me!”
Leanna looked around for support, before seeming to realize that she was the one in charge now. “I left you several voicemails.”
“I was on a cruise,” Faye Bobbert said, like she was speaking down to a child. “I didn’t exactly have phone service.”
Unaware of the drama playing out, the music picked up again. This time, a jaunty version of “If You’re Happy and You Know It” blasted out of the speakers. I didn’t know if the text would go through or not, but I dashed off a message to Tansy telling her to kill the music. I saw Maggie reaching for her phone, too. Next year, we should include radios if we hadn’t solved the poor cell-phone reception problem.
“Our office tried to contact the ship, too,” Jayden said.
“Next time, maybe try a little harder, Officer.” Faye let out a huff of frustration. “Do any of you have any idea what it’s like to get off a nine-hour flight with two layovers and hear on the radio that your husband of fifty years is dead?” She seemed to collapse in slow motion, catching herself on her suitcase. The music died abruptly as she began to wail, “Oh Bob! My Bob!”
Leanna led her away. The remainder of the parade dispersed quietly, leaving the street littered with ribbons, feathers, and shed glitter. “What do we do now?” I asked Maggie.
“We carry on, of course.” She referred to her clipboard. “It appears that all of the contestants have already come by and posed for the judges. Faye’s timing was spot-on. If she’d waited five more minutes, the parade would have been over.”
Jayden handed her clipboard to Maggie. “I should join them,” she said, then hurried after Leanna and Faye, texting as she walked. I assumed she was alerting the rest of the police force that Faye Bobbert was back in town.
I gathered up Leanna’s abandoned scoresheet and handed it, along with my own, to my sister. Each contestant could win points on size, complexity, and originality. Awards were given out to the tallest hat and the most creative headpiece. The hat with the highest total score would win the Best Bonnet. “Need me to help tally?”
“Nope,” Maggie told me. “I’ve got this. Do you mind relieving Tansy? She’s been alone in the booth most of the morning.”
Even with Faye Bobbert cutting the parade short, I was curious about which hats won. I knew my favorites, but it was possible that Jayden or Leanna didn’t score them as highly as I had. But it wasn’t fair for Tansy to work the booth by herself all day long. “Sure thing,” I agreed.
Rather than dealing with the crowds, I skirted the edge of the park on the way back to the main stage. I passed the kid’s pony rides, where the ponies were being led in circles in a pen. Beyond that was one of the many photo op stations.
One thing Texans loved was posing in the bluebonnets year after year. It was particularly popular with new couples or families with young children. I wondered if Daffy would pose with me and my sisters in the bluebonnet fields, but then I remember the garter snake biting Beau yesterday and decided I’d better not risk it.
Each time the Bluebonnet Festival came around, the festival committee picked an official place for photos to limit the number of bluebonnets that got needlessly trampled. This year, the backdrop was a grove of ancient oak trees. I stopped long enough to watch a family pose with their puppy and get their picture taken by a professional photographer. It would make a nice souvenir for them.
The photographer, a woman in her forties with an expensive-looking camera set up on a tripod, saw me watching and waved at me. “Hey Juni, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good,” I replied. “How are you doing on coupons?”
My sisters and I were willing to try anything to make Sip & Spin Records a success, including hosting Arts & Crafts Nights. Instead of selling old, damaged records for a few pennies to local artists to transform into strange and creative artwork, we held our own classes and charged people to help them turn records into unique works of art. This month, to celebrate the festival, we were creating picture frames out of vinyl. I’d printed up a stack of flyers to leave with the photographer. Last I checked, we had a full house.
“People love the idea,” the photographer said. Then she turned to help pose the next set of customers.
Past the photogenic field was the First Aid tent. It was fortunately empty of guests. However, I recognized Kitty in her paramedic’s uniform chatting with someone wearing scrubs. I stepped inside. It wasn’t hot today, not by Texas standards at least, but it was much more comfortable in the shade.
“You’re looking a little pink there,” Kitty said, grabbing a tube of sunscreen. “Looks like you might have forgotten the sunscreen this morning.”
“Come to think of it, I did,” I admitted. I held my hand out. She squirted some cream into it. I removed my glasses and rubbed the sunblock over my face. I’d been living in Oregon so long that I’d forgotten how important sunscreen was in Texas. My face was warm underneath my fingers. If I wasn’t careful, I’d end up covered in freckles by the end of summer. “Got any rubber bands while I’m here?” I asked. I’d rushed out of the house this morning without so much as a ponytail holder, and I was regretting it now.
Kitty pulled a colorful hair band off her wrist and gave it to me. “I was a Girl Scout,” she said. “Always prepared.”
“Believe it or not, I was too,” I admitted as I pulled my hair back into a ponytail. I loved having long hair, but it was a lot on a warm day. “Wait a second, that’s not the Girl Scout motto.”
Kitty laughed. “You caught me. I was never a Scout. How’s it going out there? Find any dead bodies today?”
The other medic she’d been talking to looked startled.
“Not yet, but the day’s still young,” I told her. Then I lowered my voice so we couldn’t be easily overheard. “Speaking of which, I was talking with Beau this morning and he confirmed that Mayor Bob didn’t die of natural causes.”
Kitty raised an eyebrow in surprise. “He told you that?”
I nodded. “Apparently he hasn’t gotten the test results back, but it looked like murder.”
“No way did he tell you that. I’ve seen him twice today, and both times, he practically forbade me from speaking to you about the M.E.’s findings.”
“I don’t think he meant to tell me anything,” I admitted. “It just kinda came out.”
“Uh-huh. Likely story.”
I held out my hands as if to protest my innocence. “He said, and I quote, he was waiting to see if my coffee cup was the murder weapon.”
Kitty nodded. “As far as I know, we’re still waiting.”
I felt a lump form in my throat. Fearing Mayor Bob might have been killed by our coffee was bad enough. Getting confirmation that the police believed it, too, was devastating. When this got out—and it would, considering how fast gossip spread around Cedar River—we were ruined.
“Don’t look so glum,” she told me. “It’s just a theory.”
“Oof,” I said.
“Hey, look, if I hear anything, I’ll tell you right away.”
“I really appreciate that,” I said. “I ought to be going. I promised I’d help my sister at the DJ booth. But call me when you know your schedule so we can go out next week?”
“You betcha,” she said.
By the time I reached the main stage, I was in a better mood. Despite Kitty’s confirmation that our coffee was under the microscope, the smell of greasy fair food, the good music, and the happy crowds lifted my spirits.
“How was the parade?” Tansy asked as soon as I was settled behind our table.
“It was great until Faye Bobbert showed up. Apparently, she’d come straight from the airport and wanted a pound of flesh from Leanna Lydell-Waite. She was in shock and grieving, and it’s understandable that she would lash out, but why lash out at Leanna?”
“Juni, you can’t possibly be that naïve,” Tansy said.
“Why? What did I say?”
“Mayor Bob dies under strange circumstances. The next day Leanna declares herself the new mayor? Very sus.”
“Oh please. Just because you don’t like Leanna doesn’t mean that she’s a killer,” I argued.
“It doesn’t mean that she’s not, either,” Tansy said. “You don’t know her like I do. Every time I turn around, there she is. At the market. At the gym. She was even in my photography class last week, and she ‘accidentally’ opened the darkroom door while I was winding my film into the developer tank. Ruined the whole roll. She’s incredibly driven and will do anything it takes to get what she wants.”
“Sounds like a certain older sister of mine,” I said.
“I am nothing at all like Leanna Lydell-Waite,” she insisted.
“Tansy, I love you with all my heart. But maybe the reason that you and Leanna don’t get along is because you’re so much alike? I mean, you are the most competitive person I know.”
“I’m not nearly as competitive as Leanna,” she insisted.
I pursed my lips. “Do you even hear yourself? All you’re doing is proving my point.”
“Fine,” Tansy said. “I can prove she killed Mayor Bob. Tomorrow, we’ll visit Leanna at Town Hall and get her to confess.”
The last thing I wanted was to ever step foot in the town hall again, but if Tansy was going to confront Leanna, I couldn’t let her do it alone. “Okay. I’ll come. Just promise you won’t do anything to get us in trouble.”
Tansy grinned at me. “Don’t worry, Juni. I’m not you.”