Owls Well That Ends Well Part 9

From the size of the crowd I suspected some of the people milling around our yard had only arrived after news of the murder spread through the county. Especially the ones wielding cameras and binoculars. The cousins who'd been running the concession stand inside the fence had scrounged up more grills and food, and were doing a brisk business. The occasional squeal of feedback emanated from the side yard, where the as-yet-unnamed band formed by one of Eric's older brothers was tuning up and preparing to satisfy their largely unfulfilled pa.s.sion for playing to a live audience. Apparently the medical examiner had departed without allowing Dad to accompany him, and Dad had consoled himself by organizing an owl pellet dissection project. Several dozen children and teenagers and even a few bemused adults were diligently hacking and sawing on owl pellets with disposable plastic knives borrowed from the concession stand. Mother, by contrast, was circulating like the hostess at a floundering party, apologizing for the disruption and urging people to have some lemonade while they waited for the yard sale to reopen.

The press had arrived in force. I recognized the reporter from the Caerphilly Clarion, and the crews from the local TV and college radio stations stood out in the crowd because of all the equipment they were lugging. I had to chase several of the television trucks out of the side yard, though not before they had destroyed what little resemblance it had to a gra.s.sy lawn.

"Ah, well," Michael said, when he saw me staring at the impressive new ruts. "We probably needed to rototill that part of the lawn anyway. By the way, is that one of the uncles who shouldn't be wandering around by himself?"

"Uncle Ned? Not that I know of," I said, looking over at the uncle in question. "Why, what's he been doing?"

"Coming up and spouting gibberish at me," Michael said.

"Oh, that's not gibberish," I said. "Farsi, Arabic, and I think I heard he'd taken up Mandarin. He's testing to see if you react. Always on the lookout for foreign spies, Uncle Ned."

"Probably not a good time to practice my French or Vietnamese, then," he said.

"No, and probably just as well to keep him away from Giles," I said. "Uncle Ned still hasn't forgiven the British for burning the White House in the War of 1812."

"Right," he said, nodding. "Should those people be climbing on the fence?"

Dozens of people were spread-eagled against the deer fencing, like bugs on a windshield, as if pressing every square inch of their bodies as close as possible to the barrier would get them inside faster. We'd had a cat once who did that with screen doors when she wanted to come inside. She'd even leap up to plaster herself as high on the door as possible, the better to be seen, which hadn't done a whole lot for the condition of our screen door. Sure enough, one of the onlookers started to do much the same thing, but the deer fencing began to collapse under his weight, and Michael went over to help the uniformed officers remove him from the fence.

Cousin Everett was doing a brisk business with the boom lift, sending small groups of people up on the platform and then waving them gently over the yard sale area. Hard to tell, at this distance, whether they were reporters, avid bargain hunters scoping out the merchandise, or just thrill-seekers, but he had dozens of people waiting in line for their turns.

Everett had apparently found time, before he began giving rides, to deposit a party of volunteer roofers on top of the house. As I watched, several of my uncles rolled back one of the tarps, ready for another attempt to patch the last of the roof leaks. I suspected we'd eventually have to break down and replace the entire roof. But the longer we postponed that, the better we would be able to afford it. In the meantime, the uncles were having fun; they'd found a productive use for all the leftover shingles everyone had in their garages and sheds, and I had decided that the random mixture of shingle colors gave the house a festive patchwork look.

But none of this chaos was bringing us any closer to getting rid of our mountains of stuff, I thought, with a sigh.

"Meg?"

I turned to see Cousin Horace and a uniformed officer standing behind me.

Chapter 12.

"Horace," I said. "How's the forensic examination going?"

"Now, Meg," he said. "You know I can't reveal confidential information."

"I wasn't asking for confidential information," I said. Not yet, anyway. "I just asked how it was going. If you want to cheer me up, tell me you're almost finished and we can restart the yard sale soon."

"You don't want me to lie to you, do you?"

I sighed.

"We're supposed to get some reinforcements from Richmond," he said. "More technicians to help us process the crime scene. But even when they get here, it'll go a lot faster if we aren't interrupted by all those people hanging on the fence and knocking it down. Not to mention trying to sneak under it."

"Fat chance doing that," I said. "Did you see the length of the pegs Dad used to tack the bottom down? We'll be lucky if we ever get some of them up; we'll probably have to cut the d.a.m.ned fence away."

"Yeah, we expect when they figure out they can't pull it up, they'll start trying to cut it," Horace said. "We were wondering if you could help us keep them away."

"Me?"

"Well, you did it before the yard sale started," Horace said.

"Wasn't me," I said. "But I'll go get Spike. Find a bullhorn or something and tell the crowd to step behind the outer fence, or I won't be responsible for the consequences."

Spike was exiled to his pen beside the barn, though they'd shut the doggie door we'd installed in the barn wall, which would have let him go inside to spy on the crime scene. He seemed bored, and almost glad to see me. At least he only bit me once while I was snapping the leash onto his collar, and even that was rather perfunctory. The Doberman and the pit bull, who'd been cowering at the far side of the pen, looked quite relieved to see him go.

"Attention, ladies and gentlemen," came Horace's amplified voice. "We'd like you to step back behind the short outer fence. Please step behind the outer fence, or Meg won't be responsible for the consequences."

t.i.tters ran through the crowd, and rose to a crescendo when I appeared, half-pulled by the eager Spike. When we'd opened up the sale, we'd simply moved part of the outer fence aside. I made sure the ends were closed off so Spike couldn't escape, leaving a long crescent-shaped area for him to run in. I lifted him inside and let him have the full length of the leash. He lunged toward the nearest people who'd ignored Horace's command, barking and snarling in his best Exorcist fashion. Only my weight at the other end of the leash slowed him enough to keep the first few malingerers from being bitten, and after that, people got the message. As Spike hurtled along, the path cleared magically before us. Well, before him. A few people stepped back in after we pa.s.sed, but when we got to the far end of the run, I undid the leash and declared open season on anyone who ignored Horace's very reasonable request. Spike quickly cleared the open s.p.a.ce and then trotted up and down inside, defending his territory against invaders.

"That should work," Horace said. "See, I told you Meg would know what to do," he added to the other officer, as they headed back to the gate.

"Just give us our yard sale back as soon as possible," I huffed after them.

Michael spotted me, and came over to talk through the fence.

"Great idea," he said. "And I promise, I won't tell Mom what you're doing with her dog."

"She said he needed more exercise," I said, still panting. "Best exercise in the world, running. Look how lean and fit greyhounds are. You seem to have everything under control."

"We should be finished with the customers in half an hour," he said. "Then I thought I'd take your mother into town to keep her entertained-want to come?"

"Keep her entertained how?" I asked. Call me suspicious, but I had a hard time imagining what entertainment Mother could find in Caerphilly. The town didn't have that many elegant shops and restaurants to begin with, and she'd already exhausted the charms of those in the past week while staying with us.

"She has some new ideas for decorating the house," he began.

I winced.

"I'm not in the mood to talk about decorating with Mother," I said, trying to keep my tone light. "If you want to take her, that's fine; just please don't bring back any stuff right now. I'm not sure I could take adding any more clutter before we get rid of all the junk that's already here for the yard sale."

"She was talking about paint colors," he said. "I don't think that's apt to involve much clutter."

"Paint's fine," I said. "I like paint. We could decorate entirely with paint. If we painted the various rooms with really beautiful colors, we wouldn't even need all that much furniture. Just elegant, uninterrupted expanses of color."

"Uh ... right," Michael said. "I'll tell her to suggest some nice self-sufficient colors. If you're not interested in going, maybe I can just drop her off and pick her up later."

"She should be used to that," I said. "It's what Dad always does. And I really think someone should stay here to keep an eye on things."

"And snoop," Michael said, nodding.

"I'm not snooping," I said, in as dignified a manner as I could manage.

"Well, maybe you should start," he said. "I like Chief Burke, but I have this sinking feeling he'll take the path of least resistance and arrest Giles, and even if the attorney gets him off, it won't help his career any."

"Or yours," I said.

"True," Michael said. "Though my career's not as important as clearing Giles."

"Maybe not," I said. "But it all amounts to the same thing, so I plan to provide the police with whatever unofficial a.s.sistance I can."

"Good," he said. "Happy snooping. I'll be back as soon as I can."

With that, he returned to inventorying the departing customers' junk collections and I headed back to the house.

I found Barrymore Sprocket and several of my relatives sitting around the makeshift kitchen table, eating hamburgers and mountains of potato salad while Rob doled out Popsicles to Superman and Darth Vader.

"This interruption won't help the yard sale," Barrymore said, through a mouthful of burger. "Weeks of preparation and advertising, all at great expense, and now this!"

"Yes, I'm so sorry," I said. "If I'd been thinking, I would have scheduled the murder for some other weekend."

"Rescheduling the yard sale will double the expenses," Sprocket grumbled. And diminish the Sprocket pirates' haul, since they took their ten percent of the net profits.

"Actually, this will probably help the yard sale," Rob said, as he unwrapped a grape Popsicle for himself. "No amount of advertising could possibly match the publicity value of a really juicy murder."

He'd been saying that a lot recently-repeating something I'd said to him, some months before, when a murder had occurred on the premises of his computer game company. He'd become convinced that the notoriety of the murder had contributed significantly to the success of Lawyers from h.e.l.l II, the game they'd released shortly thereafter. I made a mental note to drop by his office and see if his muttering about the publicity value of homicide was making any of his employees nervous.

For now, I let Barrymore Sprocket ponder Rob's words while I headed for the stairs. With all those people sitting around the kitchen, I'd probably need to snag the dumbwaiter at the top of its route, in the master bedroom. Even my family might start asking questions if I disappeared into the bas.e.m.e.nt for several hours.

As I pa.s.sed the dining room, I could hear the chief talking to someone, but the old plaster walls were thick and reasonably sound-resistant. In the living room I saw a random collection of witnesses and suspects, some in costume and others in civilian clothes. About half of them were sprawled on the floor, while the other half stood, leaned, or paced up and down the room, all under the watchful eye of a police officer.

Upstairs, I slipped into the master bedroom, closed the door, and tiptoed over to open the dumbwaiter door. I'd hoped that the sound would travel up the shaft. It did, but not well enough for me to hear more than one word in ten. The intermittent hammering from the roof didn't help, either. Ah, well-I hadn't expected it to be that easy.

When we'd found the dumbwaiter, during one of our tours of the house before buying, I'd considered it a useless though harmless toy. But Michael had been enchanted, and now I was glad he'd spent an entire afternoon replacing its frayed ropes-one of the few actual repairs the house had received so far.

When I tried tugging the rope, I did find myself wishing Michael had oiled the pulley at the top while he was at it. But the pulley was way up in the attic, and I hoped if Chief Burke heard its squeak, he'd just mistake it for part of the hubbub outside. Or, more likely, a.s.sume we had bats in our belfry literally as well as figuratively.

I pulled the dumbwaiter up, slowly, so it wouldn't bang around in the shaft. On the third try, I found a way to fit myself in the dumbwaiter and still leave my arms free to reach outside and tug on the ropes. Luckily for me it was an oversized dumbwaiter. I wondered if in some bygone era the Sprockets had been legendary for the size and splendor of their dinner parties-I had a hard time imagining even a restaurant needing a dumbwaiter quite so large.

I lowered the dumbwaiter, hand over hand, until its top was only a foot above the bottom of the door, which gave me as little distance as possible to cover if I had to get out of sight quickly. I could still hear fine. And while the doors that opened from the shaft into the dining room were closed, they didn't fit all that well, and the right panel had a number of cracks and splits, so I could even see out, though at the moment the only thing in my field of vision was the chief's leather coat, slung over the back of one of the folding chairs.

Apparently I arrived in the middle of an interesting interrogation.

"And you expect us to believe that!" the chief exclaimed.

Chapter 13.

Believe what? I wanted to shout. But whoever Chief Burke was questioning didn't answer, and the chief's favorite interrogation technique was to sit and stare reproachfully at his subjects until they threw up their hands and talked. Which worked a lot of the time, but wasn't very amusing for anyone trying to eavesdrop.

Or perhaps he was interrogating someone with a hearing problem. Perhaps, even now, penetrating questions, harsh accusations, and frantic denials were flying back and forth at breakneck speed in sign language. Just as I began to imagine the killer blurting out a halting confession with trembling, exhausted fingers, a voice broke the silence.

"I don't know what else you want," an unknown man said. "When I realized I was wasting my time, I told him to call me when he was serious about doing business, and I left. That's it."

"And Mr. McCoy was still alive when you left."

"Alive and well."

The other man's voice sounded vaguely familiar, but I couldn't put a name or a face to it. I peered out, and saw the crisp black shoulder of the chief's shirt. Then the shoulder shifted, and I caught a glimpse of the giant sombrero I'd seen one of Gordon's barn visitors wearing.

"These papers he wanted to sell you-were they valuable enough that someone else would kill him for them?"

"Since I never got to see them, I have no idea," Sombrero said. "I can't imagine that they would be. Where would Gordon have gotten something that valuable?"

The voice was precise, dry, and slightly pedantic; it teased my memory.

"And there's no one who had a reason to kill him?" the chief asked.

"From what little contact I had with him, I can imagine there might be all sorts of people with ample reason to kill him," Sombrero said, sounding slightly testy. "But I'm afraid I have no idea who could have done it."

"And there's nothing else you can think of that might help us?"

Silence. I a.s.sume Sombrero must have shaken his head, or perhaps shrugged.

Chief Burke sighed.

"Thank you, Professor Schmidt," he said.

Professor Schmidt. I remembered him now. One of Michael's colleagues at the English department. One of the stuffier ones he avoided. Okay, I could probably find a way to run into Professor Schmidt again if I wanted to find out more.

"Is that all?" Schmidt asked.

"I'll call you if we think of anything else. Show him out, Sammy."

I heard the folding chair sc.r.a.pe across the floor and a depressing number of boards that squeaked as Sammy and Professor Schmidt walked over them. I wished I had room to take out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. I needed to make a note to find out how to fix squeaking floorboards.

"He could have done it," a slightly hoa.r.s.e tenor voice said. "He clearly hated the victim."

"Sammy, Sammy," the chief chided, softly, in his musical baritone. "Everyone hated him. We wouldn't have standing room in the jail if we arrested everyone who hated him. But this isn't an Agatha Christie novel. They didn't all gang up and stuff him in that blasted trunk. Bring in that ex-partner of his."

More squeaking. Squeaking door hinges, too, as Sammy ushered the ex-partner in.

"Ralph Endicott," the partner said, introducing himself to the chief. Again I wished I could scribble in my notebook, as Endicott rattled off his address and phone number. Never mind. Caerphilly was a small town. If he wasn't in the book, someone I know would know where to find him.

"Tell us what you were doing here today," the chief said. "And how you happened to be in the barn with the deceased."