Die Like an Eagle (5 page)

“Where's the baseball?” Biff shouted. “I know you're doing it, so where the hell is it?”

“Language, please!” Mother snapped. “There are impressionable children around, to say nothing of adults who prefer not to hear such language.” She turned to me. “Meg, dear, this … person seems to think you're playing baseball here. Can you enlighten him?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Brown,” I said. “As far as I know, no one's playing baseball at the moment.” I was pretty sure this was the truth, thanks to the Biff alert. “There was some talk of having a pickup game later,” I went on. “But at this point I doubt if they'll get that organized before it's too dark to play. Why don't you let the ladies fix you a nice plate to take with you when you leave?”

“You can't fool me,” Biff said. “Your team's having a practice. Against the rules.”

“No, we're not having a practice,” I said. “Although even if we were, what's your problem? We'd be improving the kids' baseball skills and promoting greater fitness, which last time I looked were among the Summerball organization's official goals for the league.”

“You can't have a practice outside your official assigned practice times,” Biff said.

“Show me the rule,” I said. “It's not in the official Summerball rule book, and you know it. And you have no right to come barging in here, uninvited, and try to tell any of us what we can do on our own time and our own property.”

“You're going to regret this,” Biff said.

No, I thought, you're the one who's going to regret it. But before I could say anything, Mother spoke up.

“Meg, dear, if Mr. Brown wasn't invited, perhaps we should ask one of your cousins to help him find his way back to his car.”

Ranged behind her were three exceedingly large young male cousins with excited looks on their faces, as if eager to show off their prowess as bouncers in front of Mother and the assembled family. Biff had seemed untroubled by Mother's glare—more fool him—but now he looked a little uneasy.

“No, actually it would be helpful if he stayed for a little bit,” I said. “I need to talk to him, and I've had no luck reaching him over the past few weeks.”

“Trying to get in touch with me?” Biff looked as if he was bouncing back. In fact, he was starting to look smug. “Sorry, Mrs. Waterston, but I think you're mistaken.”

“Professionally, I go by my maiden name,” I said. “Meg Langslow. Executive assistant to Mayor Shiffley. Since you're here, let's talk about your progress on the town square renovation contract.”

Biff's jaw dropped, and he took several steps back.

“I'm not in my office right now,” he said. “So I can't possibly give you an update on any particular project—we have so many going on. Call my secretary on Monday.”

“I did, this Monday,” I said. “And last Monday, and the Monday before that. Also the last few Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. You could probably paper a wall with all the While You Were Out slips your secretary has written for me. Assuming she's actually writing them. Either you have an incompetent secretary, or you need to stop dodging customers who want to talk to you.”

“Can't talk now—I have to be somewhere else,” Biff said. Anywhere else, his face said. “At the ball field. A lot to do to get it ready for Opening Day tomorrow.”

“That's great,” I said. “Because it needs a lot of work. What's happening with that kid from one of the other teams, the one who sprained his ankle tripping over that big rock in the outfield at practice last week—are his parents really planning to sue?”

Biff backpedaled some more.

Caroline Willner strode forward with a tall paper cup in her hands.

“Here; you could use some lemonade,” she said. She shoved it forward with one hand while patting him on the shoulder with the other. I'd have been mildly annoyed with the interruption if Biff hadn't reacted to the lemonade as if she'd tried to hand him a cup of poison.

“No, no,” he said. “Not necessary. I'm not staying.”

“I put it in a paper cup so you could take it with you,” she said. “It's warm for this time of year—you need to keep hydrated.”

Biff reluctantly allowed her to shove the cup into his hands and flinched slightly as she patted him on the shoulder again.

“So how about if I drop by to see you?” I went on. “Say, Monday morning at ten.”

“I'll get back to you on that,” Biff said over his shoulder as he strode—almost sprinted—away from me.

“Let's make sure he actually leaves,” Caroline said. She took my arm, and we began strolling in Biff's wake.

“I was about to pin him down to an appointment time, you know,” I said.

“And if you had, do you really think he'd have been there when you showed up?” she said. “I figured getting rid of him as soon as possible was the best thing.”

“He could always come back,” I said. “Or sneak back.”

“We'll have a warning if he does,” she said. “I tagged him.”

 

Chapter 4

“Tagged him? You mean Biff?” Surely I hadn't heard Caroline properly. “And tagged him with what?”

“Your grandfather and I are testing a bunch of new geolocator tags for birds and small mammals.” She held up a little lumpy metal gadget about the size of a nickel. “Miniature GPS device. The weasels have been regularly escaping from their habitat. We've attached these to the little devils, so the next time they pull a Houdini, we can not only find them faster, we can also figure out where they're escaping from. Should work for human weasels, too, so I dropped one in the jerk's pocket.”

“Like belling the cat,” I said. “But how do we keep track of him?”

Caroline pulled out her cell phone and punched in some numbers.

“Willner here. Two new tracking devices activated.” She rattled off two long strings of numbers and letters. “That's right. Special short-term instructions on these two. Can you read my present position?… Excellent! Right now those two new devices should be near my position but headed away. If either of them comes within, say, two miles of our position, send an alert to my number and the following number.” She recited a familiar string of digits—my own cell phone number—before thanking whoever was on the other end and hanging up.

“They'll call or text you if Biff comes anywhere near your house,” she said.

“Biff and who else?” I asked. “You said two new devices.”

“Well, I wasn't sure I'd manage to slip one in his jacket,” she said. “And I almost didn't—had to try a second time. And there's a good possibility he'll find it eventually and toss it away, because it just looks like a little bit of junk. So I had one of your cousins attach one to his car. That'll stay put for a while, and its battery should last a couple months. I suppose it was wasteful, putting the one in his jacket—it's not as if he looks like the kind of guy who'd park his car a few miles away and try to hike across a couple of miles of farmland to sneak up on us from behind, but you never know.”

“Awesome,” I said. “But isn't it illegal?”

“Probably,” Caroline said. “I'm sure any data we got from the trackers wouldn't be admissible in court as evidence. But we're not trying to sue him—we just want a little early warning if he tries to barge in again. Brilliant if you ask me. Here—call this number any time you want an update on his whereabouts.”

She held out her phone and waited while I entered the number into my contact list. Then she strolled off, still chuckling at her own cleverness.

I still wasn't sure it was a good idea. But it was too late to stop her, and I doubted there was any way we could retrieve the devices without Biff catching on to what she'd done.

And since it was still part of my job for Caerphilly to track him down and extract an update on the progress (or lack thereof) on the town square renovations …

I called the number Caroline had given me.

“Zoo Security,” a cheerful female voice answered. “How can I help you?”

“This is Meg Langslow,” I said. “Can you give me a current location on those last two tracking devices Caroline activated?”

“Absolutely! Just give me a moment … both devices are in the same location. On our maps, it's something called Percy Pruitt Park.”

I thanked her and hung up. Percy Pruitt Park was still the official name of what we locals usually called the county ball field. Nobody had fond memories of the Pruitts, who had arrived in Caerphilly just after the Civil War and pretty much run the town as their personal fiefdom until a few years ago, when we'd finally figured out how to get rid of them and elected Randall Shiffley as the new reform mayor. No one had complained when one of the Brown Construction trucks had knocked down the park's signpost some time ago. Maybe it was time to propose a name change.

I scribbled an item in my notebook to that effect and then returned to the party.

“Biff gone?” Michael asked.

“Unfortunately,” I said. “Before I had the chance to bug him about the renovations to the town square.”

“Well, maybe you can catch him tomorrow,” Michael said. “At the game.”

“Yes, he'll probably be there for the opening ceremonies,” I said.

“And the whole game,” Michael said. “We're playing his team, you know.”

With that, he dashed back to where the boys were resuming their practice.

“Great,” I muttered. I didn't much like the notion of ruining my enjoyment of the boys' first game by trying to tackle Biff at the ballpark. But was he going to continue dodging me indefinitely?

An idea came to me. I strolled into the barn where it was a little quieter, sat on a hay bale, pulled out my cell phone, and called the town clerk's office. To my surprise, I got a live voice.

“Caerphilly Town Clerk's Office, Phineas T. Throckmorton speaking.”

“Phinny, what are you doing there this late? What happened to that vow to start working sane hours?”

“Oh, don't worry,” Phinny said. “Because I'm not working—I'm hosting a role-playing game. Call of Cthulhu—it's like Dungeons & Dragons, only based on H.P. Lovecraft.”

“Yes, I know what it is,” I said. “My brother's a game lord, remember?”

“Yes, we're hoping he can join us later tonight. I should get back to the game—was there a reason you called?”

“I was planning to leave you a voice mail asking you to do something for me when you're back at work next week,” I said.

“Is it important? Urgent? I could do it now.”

“Important, but not urgent.” After all, I'd been trying to reach Biff for weeks now. A few more days wouldn't matter. “Any chance you could give me a list of recent construction permits issued to Brown Construction?”

“Those wretches who have yet to do a lick of work on the square? Absolutely! Will this help you get us out of the contract with them?”

“At the moment I just want to talk to other people who've used them,” I said. “Maybe get some tips on the best way to work on them. And if it comes to getting out of the contract—well, the more information we have, the better.” I was also thinking that if I knew what other jobs he had going, I could show up to badger him at his work sites, but I'd keep that idea to myself.

“Not a problem,” Phinny said. “I probably won't have time to do it tonight—oh, splendid, the pizza just arrived—but I'll get it to you as soon as possible. I've got to go before Dr. Smoot collars all of the bacon and anchovy.”

“Not on your own time,” I said. “Next week will be soon enough.” But he'd already hung up.

Pizza and role-playing games in the basement of the courthouse. It might sound tame to some, but for Phinny it represented a massive expansion of his social life. And the basement's ancient stone corridors probably made a pretty cool atmosphere for gaming.

I scribbled a reminder in my notebook to check with Phinny if I hadn't heard back from him in a few days. And then I closed my notebook, took a deep breath, and tried to banish Biff from my thoughts. I often teased my cousin Rose Noire that she'd never met a New Age concept she didn't like. Her latest one for dealing with stresses and worries was the mental eraser.

“Picture the source of your stress,” she'd said. “Now pick up an imaginary eraser and rub whatever's stressing you out of the picture.”

Of course, all the examples she used were inanimate objects, like bills and malfunctioning appliances. Was it quite ethical to imagine erasing a human being?

I tried it anyway. I pictured Biff, leaning on the outfield fence. Then I pulled out my mental eraser and gently but thoroughly removed him from the scene, leaving only the chain-link fence, the exuberant green of the woods behind it, and the Stars and Stripes rippling in the breeze against a perfect blue sky.

“I feel better already,” I said.

I was searching for the best possible image of Biff in our backyard, to repeat the erasure exercise, when bright light suddenly spilled through the gap where I'd left the barn door open. Bright light accompanied by cheering outside.

“Have they set something on fire?” I muttered, as I hurried over to the barn door. Even for my family, cheering on a conflagration seemed a little strange, but you never knew.

I stepped outside to find Mother beaming with approval at the backyard, where a brilliant if slightly harsh light was illuminating the buffet table and the Xtreme Croquet game. I spotted a portable light tower, the sort construction companies used when they had to work into the night.

“Wasn't it nice of Randall to bring the lights over?” Mother said, as I stepped to her side.

“Very nice.” I had to shade my eyes against the brightness. “Although we usually manage with a scattering of luminarias.”