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Beth Groundwater's first forays into fiction writing were her adventure stories about a boy named Freddie stories written in fifth and sixth grade. As an adult, she has published seven short stories and her first mystery novel, A Real Basket Case, will be released by Five Star Publishing in March, 2007. It is already garnering good reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and other publications. Beth has loved to read since she was a child and reads at least two novels a month. She savors those monthly meetings with her Book Club, and not just for the gossip and wine! Visit her website at bethgroundwater.com and her blog at www.bethgroundwater.blogspot.com.

Flamingo Fatality by Beth Groundwater

Finding the pale-pink corpse drove the final nail into the coffin of an already lousy day. I was PMSing, and after stacking squashes all morning at the Westside Market in Manhattan, Kansas, I'd had enough of pumpkins, butternuts, acorns, and all other varieties of the starchy––and heavy––vegetable. In fact, I was fighting a distinct urge to fling the more flaccid samples, too soft to sell but perfectly ripe for a hefty splat, out on Fort Riley Boulevard in some pre-Halloween pagan ritual.

Before the Bacchanal spirits of the season overwhelmed me, I shouted to boss-lady, "I'm taking my lunch break."

I grabbed a bottle of apple cider and my hummus sandwich and marched down the Linear Trail. My head swam with visions of menacing pumpkins soaring through the air like the Wicked Witch's evil monkey horde in the Wizard of Oz. The booms of artillery practice at nearby Fort Riley provided the percussive beat for the ominous musical theme in my mind as the monkeys, no pumpkins, arced toward me. Ack. I needed to focus on something else––lunch.

I swigged some cider and bit into my sandwich. Being a vegetarian in the middle of Kansas beef country was like a minnow trying to wriggle downstream during salmon spawning season. The tide of public opinion definitely swam against me, though the folks at Westside Market and its sister Eastside Market were all for people eating more vegetables––alongside their hunk of seared cow flesh.

While I chewed and hiked, I sucked in deep breaths of crisp fall air to clear my head. I'd just succeeded in pushing the pre-menstrual grumblies out of my psyche when I spied a swollen lump of pink feathers lying in the ditch between the trail and the parking lot of the Seth Childs 12 Theatres. A dead flamingo.

Not one of those plastic jobbies everyone in town––including me––was decorating for the upcoming Flamingo Festival contest, but a real live, make that formerly live, flamingo. What was it doing here, so far from its flock mates at Sunset Zoo?

I stepped off the trail and tripped on an exposed root. Arms windmilling, I lost my lunch, or at least the uneaten half in my hand. The sandwich landed in the dirt, and I stepped on it as I lurched to right myself. Dang. I got a closer look at the white mass on the dead bird's chest that I first thought was feathers. It turned out to be a writhing ball of maggots.

I promptly lost the other half of my lunch. Double dang. Hummus tastes a lot better going down than coming up, though it looks about the same.

Not being one to carry a cell phone on my person––I despise the pesky things––I looked around for somewhere to make a call. The sun glinted off the metal siding of trailers behind the trees across the trail. Ah. I hoofed it to the nearest intersection and ventured into Rosebud Estates Mobile Home Community. No one answered at the first two trailers I knocked on, but the door cracked open at the third. Under a headful of pink curlers, a pair of wrinkled, suspicious eyes studied me. "Who're you and what d'ya want?"

I stood straighter, trying to look respectable in my jeans and squash-scuffed flannel shirt. "I need to make a call, to the police, I think. I found a dead bird on the Linear Trail."

"Police ain't interested in no dead bird." The woman started to close the door.

"But this is a flamingo."

"A flamingo?" She flung the door wide, exposing her fuzzy bunny slippers and faded housecoat splashed with orange and yellow flowers, and peered toward the trail. "This I gotta see."

"You can't see it from here."

She stepped out on the stoop. "Let's go, then."

"Um, can I make the call first?"

She puffed her sunken cheeks and blew out a sigh of exasperation. "I suppose. But only if you show me the flamingo after."

"It's kinda gross."

She grinned. "Even better."

She led me to her cramped kitchen, shoved aside a Cheerios box and pointed to the phone.

After locating a phone book, I found the non-emergency police number and called it. I had to repeat my story to three different people, and swore I heard muffled laughter in the background, but they finally agreed to send someone to meet me on the trail.

When I hung up, the old lady held out her wizened hand. "I'm Eleanor."

"Diane." We shook. "Nice to meet you. Well, I better go meet the cop."

"I'm going with you."

I didn't want to take this septuagenarian to ogle a large decomposing bird. "I don't have time to wait for you to change. The Law Enforcement Center's just a couple of blocks away."

"Who said anything about changing?" She snatched a moth-eaten baggy sweater off a hook by the door, threw it on, and opened the door. "C'mon."

I led her, fuzzy bunny slippers and all, to the trail, then stopped a few yards away from the dead flamingo.

"Where is it?" She glanced around, spotted the pink mound in the ditch, and moved toward it. "Aha."

Oh, lord. I followed, prepared to catch her when she fainted.

Instead, she leaned over the ditch with hands on her knees, and studied the corpse. "Yep, that there's a dead flamingo. Been dead at least a day, I'd say, from the maggots. Takes maggots a day to hatch."

My assessment of Eleanor shifted far out to left field, and I took a step back.

She stood, a determined set to her chin. "We need to figure out how this bird got here and how it died. The leg band shows it's from the zoo. Someone must've let it out of the aviary or brought it here. But why?"

Open-mouthed, I stared at her. Before I could figure out how to respond, a car door thumped and a patrolman started walking down the trail toward us. I waved him over, then looked him over. Not bad. About six feet, dark hair, blue eyes, well-muscled arms.

As he neared, Eleanor peered at his nameplate. "Mike Johnson. Ben Johnson's son?"

"Why yes, ma'am. How'd you know?"

She stuck out her hand again. This woman was a real shaker. "I worked dispatch when your daddy was on patrol. Name's Eleanor."

A wide grin split his handsome face. "Dad's talked about you. So you called in the report?"

"No, this young lady did. Mike, meet Diane." Eleanor's gaze flitted between us, doing a left-hand check. "You single?"

Mike and I answered in unison. "Yes."

I blushed and waved at the corpse. "The flamingo's over there."

Officer Mike examined the flamingo and the area around the ditch, took our statements, then called the zoo to come fetch the bird. Apparently one went missing night before last, and they'd been searching the grounds for it.

My lunch break long over, I announced I needed to get back to work. Eleanor extracted a promise from Mike to call me once he knew what killed the bird and a promise from me to call her. Was she matchmaking, just plain curious or both?

***

The next morning, the dead flamingo story blazed across the front page of the Manhattan Mercury. The reporter made the sympathy tie-in to the upcoming festival and had interviewed the zookeeper, who ID'ed the bird as "Feisty Fred." I wondered if every flamingo in the flock had an F-name. The article said Fred's body was taken across town to the necropsy laboratory at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine to determine cause of death.

Figuring that was that, I tossed the paper aside and resumed staring at my plastic flamingo, praying for the muse to smack me upside the head with a theme for Westside Market's entry in the decorated flamingo contest. Sally at the Eastside Market called, chortling, to say she'd hit on "Jack-o-flamingo." She would paint her bird orange, carve a scary face in its side, insert a candle and fashion a collar of green leaves. When she asked what my theme was, I said it was a secret. And it was––even to me.

By the next day, theories about the cause of Fred's demise ran rampant among the market customers. A gang of hooligan K-State fraternity boys broke into the aviary, clubbed the bird in an initiation ritual and tried to hide the evidence in the ditch. Or Fred escaped when the zookeeper's back was turned, then wandered around and died of exposure. Or a terrorist was out to sabotage the good old Americanism of the Flamingo Festival. Just wait, next we'd see a video of another kidnapped flamingo with a knife poised at its throat. Demands would be made.

I wasn't too sure about the person who devised that last theory.

I had to hear every blasted theory because the paper reported I'd discovered the dead bird. And I had to commiserate with everyone who adored the pretty pink birds and felt so awful one had died. I got darn tired of telling my story over and over.

Finally Eleanor called me at the market. "I got antsy and contacted our boy Mike. He said a vet professor at K-State wants to review the preliminary autopsy results with him and the zookeeper this afternoon. I asked if we could come along, and he said he couldn't see why not. He's picking us up here in thirty minutes. See you then." She hung up.

What an uppity woman. I presumed she milked the family connection to wrangle a ride with Mike. I was curious, though, how Fred had died, so I asked boss-lady if I could take off early. She agreed, in exchange for a full report. With dollar signs in her eyes, she whispered to some regulars that we'd have the inside scoop on the dead flamingo when they came to buy their squashes tomorrow.

Officer Mike drove up to Eleanor's trailer in his patrol car as I was walking up her steps. She barged out, knocking the screen door against my nose, and hustled down the stairs to say how-do to Mike. I followed, rubbing my nose.

Mike handed Eleanor into the car, then faced me. "How's the nose?"

"Painful, but not bleeding." I lowered my hand. As he peered at my nose––his warm breath against my cheek––a flush worked its way down from my cheekbones, past my nether regions, to my suddenly wobbly knees.

He gently ran his thumb and forefinger along the sides of my throbbing sniffer. "Not broken, but you'll have a bruise tomorrow." Then he seemed to notice the rest of my face. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, just fine. Let's go, shall we?" I slid into the backseat next to Eleanor, whose pleased-as-punch grin threatened to split her face. Did she whack me on purpose?

At the research animal lab in one of the hulking white limestone buildings on K-State's campus, Mike presented us to a thin, dour-faced man with wispy graying hair––Professor Locksmith, doctor of veterinary medicine and the zoo's bird vet. Locksmith introduced his graduate assistant, Thaddeus, whose main purpose seemed to be to helicopter reverentially around the professor and jump to do his bidding. His expression frozen in browbeaten worry, the young man alternated between wringing his hands and thrusting them in the deep pockets of his white lab coat.

"Have you determined cause of death?" Mike asked Locksmith.

"Not yet," the professor replied. "I haven't found any injuries on the corpse that would've been fatal. I tested for West Nile virus, too, though the flamingoes are vaccinated against it. No signs of that virus or any other common avian diseases."

He rubbed his chin. "It's a puzzle. Frankly, it's the first case that's piqued my interest since my wife died."

Eleanor whispered in my ear, "Breast cancer, poor thing."

"I'm sure you'll think of something else to test for." Thaddeus's tone was hopeful.

"Maybe the bird ingested a toxic substance," Locksmith said, "some kind of poison. I'll send a blood sample to toxicology."

A young woman with a long blond ponytail strode in and introduced herself as Karen, the flamingo zookeeper at Sunset Zoo. Her gaze bore down on Locksmith. "Did you say Fred was poisoned?"

"No. Just that we've ruled out a fatal injury, West Nile, and other common avian diseases. I'm speculating another possibility may be some kind of toxin. If we only knew where the bird was before it died, or what it ate or drank. I didn't find much in its GI tract."

"As far as I recall, Fred's only been in the aviary and just ate our standard flamingo chow and water––same as all the other birds." Karen flounced into a chair, slapping the armrests. "With all the questions I'm getting from patrons and the press, I'm lucky I can remember anything. I've never been so popular."

The woman's bright eyes and puffed-out chest indicated she enjoyed her newfound status immensely.

"Do you know how the flamingo got out of the aviary?" Mike asked her.

She shook her head. "We’ve been going over and over that at the zoo. We checked every inch of the aviary structure and found no damage, holes or cuts. I don't know how someone got in there and stole Fred."

"Could you have left the door open?" Mike folded his arms across his chest. "Maybe when you fed them?"

Karen balled her fists in her lap. "No way. I'm very careful about going in and out. Besides, I feed them at four every afternoon, then check on them when the zoo closes at five. I count heads. All twelve flamingoes were there that evening."

Mike nodded. "When did you first notice the flamingo was missing?"

"The next morning. I notified the head zookeeper, and we spent a day and a half looking for Fred––until we heard his body'd been found." Looking annoyed, she studied her fingernails. "Since then, I've been besieged with questions."

"Is the aviary locked?"

"Yes. Only Dr. Locksmith and the head zookeeper and I have keys. And before you ask, neither of the zoo's keys are missing." She fished a Sunset Zoo logo keychain out of her pocket. "Here's mine."

Mike turned to Locksmith, who opened his desk drawer and pawed through it. He pulled out a large key ring, examined labels on keys, then showed one to Mike. "Here's the aviary key. Still on my ring."

"You lock your desk?"

"No, but I lock the lab at night."

Mike blew a breath out of pursed lips. "When will you know if the bird's been poisoned?"

Locksmith shrugged. "Maybe a couple of days. Maybe never. Not much more I can do at this point."

Thaddeus looked worried.

***

The next evening, I shopped for dinner at the deli section of Dillons grocery, the popular hangout for post-college Manhattan singles shopping for someone to dine with as well. The male pickings were better by the fried chicken and barbecue, but I was working my way through the nearby salad bar, the best in town.

Karen stopped by and eyed the local wildlife at the deli meat counter. "So, did you hear Fred was poisoned with arsenic?"

My hand stopped in midair, clutching a scoopful of marinated artichoke hearts. "No. Could it have been accidental?"

She shook her head. "Arsenic's no longer used in pesticides, and though it's sometimes mixed in pig feed, there're no hog farms near here. The news'll be in the paper tomorrow. I just got off the phone with a reporter. Thought I'd give you the inside scoop, too."

She shot me a thumbs-up and sauntered toward the meat eaters to give them the inside scoop, too. No doubt with details to follow at her place.

Thaddeus broke away from the group and strode out the glass doors to the bike rack. He clipped his takeout bag onto the back of a yellow bicycle with bungee cords, took a last look at Karen through the door and shook his head, then rode off. My sentiments exactly.

While I finished building my salad pile, I wondered who could want to poison one of Sunset Zoo's flamingoes, so revered by Manhattanites. I sensed someone standing next to me and gave a little start.

"Didn't mean to startle you." Officer Mike flashed me a grin over his plate of lettuce and tomatoes.

"I'm surprised you're not over there with the other carnivores." I pointed my chin at Karen's entourage. "Karen's found a way to use the public outcry over the dead flamingo to her advantage."

Mike gnawed on a carrot stick. "That outcry's caused nothing but trouble for me. The station's gotten more calls than on our last two human murders combined. Solving this dumb bird's death is now my number one priority. Can you believe that?"

"You have my deepest sympathy." I laid my hand mockingly on my chest. "You a herbivore like me or are you pairing that salad with a steak?"

"Fish. Gotta keep in shape." Mike patted his flat stomach.

The man had nothing to worry about––he filled out his uniform in all the right ways in all the right places. To get my mind off that dangerous track, I asked, "You hear about the arsenic?"

He nodded. "We're looking for possible sources now. So far, all we've come up with is the animal husbandry department at K-State."

"They do research on pig feeds?"

Mike looked at me funny.

"Karen told me arsenic's used in pig feeds."

He watched her leave the store, hand draped on the arm of a lanky, thirtyish, prime man-on-the-hoof toting a bag of fried chicken. "Interesting," Mike said. "Very interesting."

***

The next day was K-State game day, and the whole town was decked out in purple. Before tackling my duties at the Westside Market, I took a head-clearing walk along the Linear Trail––wearing my purple K-State sweatshirt, of course. On game day, the purple clothed, hatted, and bejeweled customers expected the market employees to support the team, too. Wearing any other color could result in missed sales, which boss-lady wouldn't stand for.

Sunbeams lit the traitorous orange and yellow treetops but hadn't yet reached the dark recesses of the lower trail meandering toward Wildcat Creek. The cool breeze rustled the cottonwood leaves and encouraged me to keep my legs pumping and my brain focused on who could've killed Fred and dumped him along the trail. I shuddered as I stepped off the metal bridge over the creek and headed toward where I'd discovered Fred's body.

A muffled splash made me turn around. I couldn't see the bridge from where I stood and wondered what could've fallen into the creek. A bicyclist emerged from the shadows along the trail, pedaling at high speed, with head down and covered by a purple K-State hoodie sweatshirt. Bicyclists are a common sight in college towns, but my gut didn't like this one.

The image of Dorothy's witchy neighbor pedaling her bicycle in the whirling Kansas tornado burst into my mind, along with that eerie theme music. Instinct made me step off the trail and stand behind a cottonwood trunk as the cloaked bicyclist spun past, breath puffing out in wispy clouds and a loose backpack bumping against his or her back.

I hurried to the bridge, the hairs on the back of my neck tingling. Peering into the dark creek bed, I made out a faint pinkish lump. Oh, no.

I scrambled down the muddy embankment. Yep, another dead flamingo. This corpse looked fresher than Fred––no maggots. My stomach lurched nonetheless. It lurched again when I heard a thump on the bridge overhead and the distinct rattle of a bicycle chain.

A figure whose face was hidden in the dark shadow of a K-State sweatshirt hood peered down.

The killer must have spotted me on the trail and returned to eliminate the witness. Crazy enough to murder two flamingoes, who's to say he or she wouldn't graduate to a more advanced species?

And why're ruby slippers never around when you need them?

Heart clattering against my ribcage, I tore through the prickly bushes along the creek as fast as my quaking legs could carry me. I was too afraid to look back and check if the cyclist followed. Branches scratched my arms and face, and I slipped into the creek, drenching my right leg.

While scrambling up the bank, I saw metal glinting above me––a trailer! I'd reached the outskirts of Rosebud Estates. I clawed my way to the top of the creek bed, then darted through short streets until I saw Eleanor's trailer. I ran up the stairs and pounded on her door.

When she opened it, I pushed past her and slammed the door behind me. "Quick, call the police."

Smart retired dispatcher that she was, she didn't ask any questions of the dripping apparition before her, but dialed 9-1-1 and handed the headset to me. Between gasps for breath, I told my story to the operator, while Eleanor locked her door and peeked out the windows from behind ruffled curtains.

"Did you say the flamingo killer's after you?" The woman's tone was laced with derision.

I covered the headset and hissed to Eleanor, "She thinks I'm crazy."

Eleanor grabbed the headset, identified herself, chastised the operator––one I gathered she'd trained before retiring, then asked if Mike Johnson was on duty. "Send him over now. This is a breaking development on a case he's working."

After she hung up, Eleanor looked me over, then led me into her kitchen. "Mud's not your color, girl. Wash your face and hands here."

By the time I finished my ablutions, I was shivering, partly from my soaked pants leg and partly from shock.

Eleanor sat me at her kitchen table, discreetly dropped a kitchen towel on the floor to catch my drips and draped a fleece throw over my shoulders. A hot cup of tea appeared at my elbow. "Drink this," she said.

Officer Mike walked in minutes later. I'd never felt so glad to see someone. Then I realized I must have looked frightful. Dang.

With an expression of polite concern, he asked me to describe what happened. The only description of the bicyclist that I could offer was a K-State purple hoodie, jeans and scuffed athletic shoes.

Mike glanced at my mud-stained purple sweatshirt. "You've just described a fourth of Manhattan's population today. Can you give me any specifics? Like whether the person was male or female?"

Dejected, I shook my head.

"Suppose I should call the zoo." Mike used Eleanor's phone to contact Karen, who must have just discovered she was missing a flamingo, from Mike's side of the conversation. Then he started listening intently, and while he did, he scanned my wet clothes and shoes.

"Scratches, too, huh?" He eyed the scratches on my hands and face.

I raised an eyebrow at Eleanor, but all I got back was a shrug.

Mike hung up, crossed his arms and stared at me.

"What?" I blurted out.

Rubbing his chin, he said, "Karen thought of a way someone without a key could've gotten into the aviary. A recirculating stream between the main pool and the feeding pool starts at a pumping station outside the aviary. There's a foot-high gap between the aviary fence and the bottom of the stream trough––enough room for someone thin to squeeze through, but they'd get wet. Also, the fence bottom isn't squared off, so wires stick out that would scratch whoever squirmed through."

"C'mon. I told you I fell in the creek. You can't think I would . . ." I realized that's exactly what he thought, and my stomach cramped up and crawled behind my intestines to mope. It hurt not just that I was a suspect, but that he thought I was.

"You mentioned Karen liked the attention," Mike said. "Maybe you do, too. It's highly unusual that you discovered both dead birds."

Oh, God. All I could do was stare at him and shake my head.

"What would the charges be?" Eleanor asked.

Mike flipped back a few pages in his notebook. "Felony theft, burglary and trespass, cruelty to animals, littering and endangering the public health by dumping the corpses near the trail. With arsenic involved, there'll be drug charges, too. The Director of the Riley County Police will get real creative with the charges because of the public sentiment."

Eleanor put her arm around me. "You can't believe Diane would do this, Mike."

He pursed his lips. "It's hard to believe, but you know not all criminals act like criminals, Eleanor. Until I come up with a better suspect, what can I do?"

Eleanor's hand clutched my shoulder. "Let's go back to the creek. You have to collect the corpse anyway. Maybe returning to the scene will help Diane remember something about that bicyclist."

"If there was one––" Mike raised his hands to deflect the daggers Eleanor and I shot his way with our outraged stares. "––he or she may have left tracks or some other evidence behind."

As we trudged back to the creek bed, I worried that the killer may have taken the evidence away, but the corpse still lay there, stiff head lolling in the gurgling waters. Mike arranged for the bird to go to Locksmith's lab, then poked around, looking for shoe prints or bike tracks, I suppose. Trouble is, the Linear Trail is covered with both.

Eleanor sat next to me on the bridge. "Can you picture the bike in your mind?"

I closed my eyes and hummed the Wizard of Oz villain theme to take me back to that moment of fear.

When Mike asked, "What is she doing?" Eleanor shushed him.

The picture popped into my head. "It was an old bike with a rack over the back tire. It had white pedals, a yellow frame, and white handlebars."

I opened my eyes. "How's that?"

Eleanor clapped her hands. "Perfect. Now we just need to find that bike."

Another image appeared in my mind. "I know where to look."

***

By the time the three of us reached the K-State animal necropsy lab, my pants were almost blown-dry from the cranked-up heater in Mike's patrol car. We rounded up Dr. Locksmith, then went in search of Thaddeus.

Locksmith found his assistant staring into a microscope in a side room. "Thaddeus?"

The young man's head jerked up. "Did they find another dead flamingo?"

"Yes," Mike said. "And we need to take a look at your bicycle."

Thaddeus's eyes narrowed as he gazed at my mud-encrusted clothes. "It was you," he whispered. He bolted out of his chair and ran for the door.

Obviously anticipating this move, Mike tackled Thaddeus and sent the two of them sprawling. Before the rest of us could react, Mike handcuffed the lab assistant's hands behind his back.

I like a man who moves fast.

Locksmith wheeled a yellow-framed bicycle out from behind the door––with white handlebars and pedals. A flattened backpack lay bungee-corded to the rack.

"What have we here?" Mike took the backpack off the bike and unzipped it. A pink feather floated out and landed on the floor.

"Why did you kill those lovely birds, Thaddeus?" Locksmith asked.

"For you." Thaddeus mumbled into the floor.

"I don't understand."

Thaddeus turned his head to direct a gaze full of admiration, maybe even love, at Locksmith. "You've been so depressed since your wife died. I thought an interesting case might bring you out of it. And it did! You've been busy, animated. You even laughed when you discovered the arsenic. You're good, professor. I thought it would take much longer."

"But why two?"

Thaddeus's smile was sad. "Different poison the second time, a harder one to trace, to give you more of a challenge."

Locksmith sank into a chair, shaking his head. "Oh, dear."

Eleanor patted his shoulder. She was good at that.

Mike lifted Thaddeus and read him his rights. After ensuring that Locksmith could drive Eleanor and myself back home, Mike escorted the prisoner to his patrol car.

As I watched them drive off, I thought well, that's that.

***

The next afternoon after finally figuring out a theme for my flamingo, I was rushing to finish decorating the plastic bird before the entries were due on the zoo grounds. Boss-lady had been very understanding about why I was late to work the day before and was enjoying telling the story to our customers. I was glad for an excuse to closet myself in the workroom where I could mull over what might have been with Officer Mike. And like the professor, I had a project to drown my grief in. I stood back with glue gun in hand to survey my handiwork.

"That's one snazzy flamingo." Mike leaned against the doorjamb with arms crossed and a tooth-flashing smile on his face.

"I thought I'd never see you again. After all, you thought I was a bird killer." I turned my back to him.

He came up behind me and massaged my shoulders, sending delicious tingles down my spine. "I was under tremendous pressure to find someone, anyone, to charge with the crime. Deep down I knew suspecting you was wrong. Dead wrong. I'm sorry."

He rotated me to face him. "Can I beg your forgiveness over a tofurky dinner or something?"

What the hell. A sucker for a free meal and a thoughtful man, I looked up at him through my lashes. "If you help me install my flamingo first."

He glanced at the spindly-legged bird, a pile of bananas and other fruits wrapped with a gaudy purple scarf on its head. "What's it supposed to be?"

"A winner, I hope." I turned the sign around its neck toward him. It read, "Carmen Miranda-mingo."

THE END