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next blacksmithing demonstration. I called up Michael and learned that the boys were enjoying the hay ride. I reminded him to take some pictures for the grandparents. Then I decided to check out what was going on in the world before heading back to the tent. After all, chances were when I got back to the tent, I’d find that Rob had still not made his escape, and I wanted to postpone as long as possible the moment when I gave in to the temptation to chew him out. Especially since I’d probably have to do it by texting, which was not nearly as satisfactory as a phone call.
    The food concession area was teeming with happy tourists. The teenager behind the counter at Hamish’s Hamburgers had wisely scorned his own cooking and was openly scarfing up a huge plate of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. The calypso band members were taking their bows, and the Caerphilly Country Cloggers were waiting to take their place.
    “Hey, Meg. Got a minute?”

 
    Chapter 5
    I’d long ago learned that “got a minute” usually meant that someone was planning to take up a few hours of my time. But when I turned to see who had designs on my afternoon, I saw Randall Shiffley standing in front of one of the larger tents—the one with a neat O FFICE OF THE M AYOR sign in front.
    “Good morning, Mayor Shiffley,” I said.
    Randall preened a little, as he usually did when we called him that. I didn’t begrudge him his pride. He was the first elected mayor of Caerphilly in over a century who wasn’t either a Pruitt or a Pruitt puppet.
    “Want to come along with me to the courthouse?” he asked. “I’m going over to reason with Mr. Throckmorton. Implore him to come out. I could use a concerned citizen or two in my delegation.”
    From the way he worded it, I deduced the presence of the reporters before I spotted them.
    “Glad to help,” I said.
    “Meg Langslow is a blacksmith—one of the craftspeople participating in Caerphilly Days,” he said to a thin, pretty, but earnest young woman standing beside him. The woman glanced at me and scribbled something in her notebook. “Meg’s husband, Professor Waterston, is in the drama department over at the college.”
    A short, stocky man standing nearby lifted the camera that was slung around his neck, studied me through its lens for a few moments, then let it fall to his chest again, as if I wasn’t worth bothering with.
    “Ms. Blake is with the Star-Tribune ,” Randall said.
    “The Washington Star-Tribune ,” Ms. Blake added, with a slight frown, as if she felt it important to avert the grave danger of my thinking she’d come from some other, lesser known Star-Tribune . “Call me Kate.”
    “Let’s get this show on the road,” Randall said. He strode off toward the courthouse. Kate scampered after him. The photographer and I followed at our own speeds and ended up falling in shoulder to shoulder.
    “Do you think you’ll finally be able to convince Mr. Throckmorton to come out?” Kate asked, when she caught up with Randall.
    “Don’t get your hopes up,” Randall said. “Hasn’t worked the last fifty or sixty times I tried it.”
    “So this is just for show, then?” she asked.
    “Not a bit,” Randall said, without missing a beat. He didn’t sound the least bit winded, even though we were climbing the tall marble stairs that stretched the full width of the courthouse façade. I thought it was rather courteous of him not to bolt up them two at a time in his usual fashion. They didn’t bother me, but Kate-from-the- Star-Trib was panting a little, and the photographer had stopped after ten or twelve steps to wheeze and clutch his side.
    “I’d be falling down on the job if I didn’t do everything I could to fix this whole mess,” Randall was saying. “And make sure Phinny—Mr. Throckmorton—is fully aware of all the legal complications he’s bringing on himself.”
    “You don’t agree with his actions, then?” Kate asked.
    “We’re after the same thing,”