For Whom the Bluebell Tolls (15 page)

“She’s gone! Someone took her!” Kathleen Randolph spat out the words, then scanned the faces of the people milling around the Ashbury restaurant as if she were reading everyone’s minds and narrowing in on a suspect.

Bixby was across the room in a shot, Lafferty trailing behind him.

“Who’s gone?” Bixby said. “Who’s missing?”

“Beth. Beth is gone!”

“Who in the world is Beth?” Bixby asked. “And you’re sure she’s missing.”

“Yes, just . . . here. Come see for yourself.” Kathleen turned and ran back out the door.

“Wait!” Bixby pulled his gun from his holster and checked his clip before following her outside. A buzz went up around the room, people asking if anyone knew who Beth was.

I had an idea, but I needed to confirm it with Kathleen. I rushed to the door to follow them, but Lafferty stopped me. I craned my neck to see a number of loose white feathers in the grass, and I suspected I was right. I waited for a few minutes until they returned, Bixby a little red-faced.

“Kathleen, I’m so sorry.” I placed what I hoped was a comforting hand on her upper arm. “Isn’t Beth the name of one of your chickens?”

“Only my prize laying hen!” she said. The fish in the ponds might have been named after famous classic comedians, but the chickens—well, the first four were Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth. Kathleen called them her “Little Women” and had been known to feed them leftover bagels and cream cheese from the dining room. Some say that’s why the eggs at the Ashbury were so creamy.

I pulled her into a hug. I might not understand it, but Kathleen was attached to the bird.

Bixby wasn’t as sympathetic. He placed his gun back in its holster. “Seriously? A chicken?” As peeved as he looked, I wondered if he was allergic to feathers, too.

Lafferty rocked on his heels, a smile teasing the corner of his lips.

Don’t say it, I thought. Please don’t say it.

“I guess it’s a case of
fowl
play,” he said.

Apparently Lafferty never got my telepathic warning.

“Some joke.” Kathleen turned on her heels, stormed back to the registration desk, and started slamming things.

Bixby shot Lafferty a disgusted look. “Can I trust you to go out back and collect the evidence?”

“You mean the
chicken feathers
?” Lafferty cast him an incredulous look, as if he was being sent to the local KFC.

“Yeah, the feathers. And look around the area to see if you can find anything else relevant. Footprints. Dropped articles. Any idea of which direction the . . . uh . . . assailant came from. Take pictures before you move anything.”

“Of the
feathers
 . . . ?”

“Yes, of the feathers. And while you’re out there, poke around in the woods a little. See if you can find that bird. Look, I don’t know if this has squat to do with the murder, but it’s possibly theft.” He lowered his voice. “And maybe cruelty to animals, if someone used the chicken’s blood in the vandalism. It’s an active crime scene. Now, go.”

Lafferty hightailed it out the door. Bixby paused for a few moments, then strode over to the registration desk. I followed.

“Miss Bloom, I’d like to talk to Mrs. Randolph, if you don’t mind.”

“She stays,” Kathleen said. “Anything you want to say to me you can say in front of Audrey.”

“Fine.” Only Bixby’s inflection indicated he considered it anything but fine. “Any chance that the chicken could have simply escaped and wandered off? Or maybe a wild animal . . . ?”

“Beth’s never gotten out before. If it were Amy—well, Amy’s a little slippery. I could see her doing that. But not Beth.”

“Could one of your kitchen staff have killed the chicken?”

“My kitchen staff knows the difference between a laying hen and a table bird.” Kathleen was wringing her hands. “None of them would have killed that bird. You think that might be her blood on the dresses?”

Bixby didn’t answer. “And when was the last time you saw your chicken?”

“Last night. I went out to feed them a few leftovers. Beth was there then. And are you humoring me, or are you going to find out who did this?”

“I’m going to try,” Bixby said.

“Only because it might have something to do with the murder.” Kathleen huffed. “I should have never booked that show here. Been nothing but trouble since they arrived. Can’t you just make them go away?”

Bixby shook his head. “I can’t do that. I can’t even prove that this incident had anything to do with the murder.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You have something to add, Miss Bloom?”

“Someone takes Kathleen’s hen, then possibly douses the wedding dresses with its blood, and you don’t think they’re connected?”

“I didn’t say that I didn’t
think
the . . . act . . . had something to do with the murder. I said I couldn’t
prove
it. First we need to find out if it’s really blood on the dresses and on the note. If it is, I suppose we’ll have to send the dresses and the feathers to confirm that the blood on the dresses came from that chicken. We can send the chicken if Lafferty finds it . . . Oh, the state lab is going to love me.”

I could almost have pity on the man. Police work seemed to involve so much more tedium than ferreting out the murderer. No assumptions were allowed, at least on his part. I, on the other hand, was pretty sure the blood came from the chicken. And the only question was, who could have done it?

Who wanted the show stopped badly enough to kill Gary and send such an elaborate—but effective—threat?

At that point, I noticed Bixby squinting at the area behind me. I turned around to see Brad coming down the stairs.

I whisked him away before Bixby could.

“Have you heard?” I asked.

“About the dresses? Yes.”

“Not just about the dresses. About the chicken.” I clued him in on Kathleen’s missing hen.

“At least it wasn’t a person.”

“But it’s clearly someone wanting to stop the show. Tell me, who in the cast and crew would want that? Who was unhappy? Might someone have wanted out of their contract?”

“Audrey, that’s . . . I don’t have time to talk about this. Apparently it’s now my job to help Easton recover and try to salvage the filming schedule.”

“Who, Brad? Who would benefit most from getting out from under the terms of their contract?”

Brad looked up to the ceiling beams before gesturing toward an unoccupied table. We sat and he picked at a scratch in the wood with his fingernail.

“Brad, if you’re in such a hurry, why are you stalling?”

“Well, that’s just it. People in this business spend half their time trying to get a contract, and the other half trying to get out of it. When you’re not working, it seems like it’s almost impossible to break in. But once people know you . . . opportunities arise, and . . .”

“Who, Brad?”

“Frankly, me.” He looked up at me through those long lashes of his, probably trying to gauge my reaction before he went on. “See, before I got the job on
Fix My Wedding
, I’d submitted a proposal to the network.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“It was a long shot, so I didn’t mention it to anybody. And like I thought, squat, zippo, bubkes. Not even so much as a ‘Go away, kid. You bother me.’”

“And then?”

“And then I’m working on
Fix My Wedding
not more than a couple of months and all of a sudden, they answer me. Could I produce the pilot? So I dig out my contract, and there’s this lovely non-compete clause.”

“What was the show about?”

“See, that’s the thing. It’s not exactly in direct competition with
Fix My Wedding
. You know that medieval encampment they have every year out in the hills?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Well they’re growing. Not only that, but there’s a bit of a conflict between the serious recreationists and the Renaissance fairs all over the country. And conflict is good.”

“In reality television,” I said. “Personally, I could use a little less conflict.”

“I know.” He patted my hand. “Trust me. I know. But anyway, the idea was to focus on the crazy world of medieval re-creations. I was going to call it
Mid-Evil
. Get it?”

I groaned.

“Well, it was only a working title. But it didn’t matter. I was informed that I have an airtight contract. I’m afraid that means I probably had more motive than anybody.”

“Did you tell this to Bixby?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Brad—”

“A few others on the crew knew about it, too. I thought it would be better if he heard it from me.”

So Bixby had yet another reason to be suspicious of Brad.

I looked up as a uniformed officer walked in the front door carrying a plastic bag. I wondered if he’d been recruited for the great chicken hunt, but then I noticed that the patch on his shirt said he was from two towns over. Had Bixby called in reinforcements?

He looked around at the bedlam the restaurant had become. Cast and crew assembled, some still in their pajamas. The three older ladies had resumed their card game. Kathleen was sobbing. Nevena, the seamstress, sat at her corner table, arms crossed, sending an angry glare in Easton’s direction. Easton was off the gurney and glued to his phone. The paramedic who had attended him was eating a scone.

“Is there a Chief Bixby around?” the officer asked.

Bixby walked over and shook the man’s hand. “Thanks, you’re saving my life, man. Well, possibly my job. Over here.” And the officer followed him into the next room.

Yes, I’m not ashamed to admit it. I got up and followed. I watched from the doorway as Bixby led the visiting officer over to the bar where one of the wedding dresses was draped on top, covered with bright red spots.

Even from my distant vantage point, something didn’t seem right. Blood oxidizes. Considering how much time had passed, those spots should have been brown.

“Are you sure that’s even blood?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re about to find out,” the officer said.

I watched from the doorway as he pulled on latex gloves and drew a couple of small tubes from the plastic bag, shook them up, then dabbed a bit of the liquid inside onto a spot on the dress. He shook his head. Then ran a similar test on the note. “Not blood.”

Bixby blew out a relieved sigh, and I let out the breath I was holding. “Can I see the spots?” I asked.

“Don’t touch,” Bixby said, as he let me get nearer to the dress and the note.

He turned to talk to the officer. “Thanks for bringing the test kits. I would have felt like a fool asking for a DNA test on something that’s not even blood.”

I leaned down over the note and sniffed.

“Audrey!” Bixby whirled and grabbed my arm. Hard, I might add.

“I didn’t touch it!”

“Well, don’t go sniffing it. We don’t know what that is. It could be toxic.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I think what you’re going to be looking for is an empty ketchup bottle. Kathleen cans her own. Lots of cinnamon. I’m pretty sure this is hers.”

A commotion in the other room drew our attention. Lafferty had Dennis Pinkleman’s arm twisted behind him. The rookie officer pushed the obsessed fan into the restaurant, pressed his head down until the young man was bent over a table—which I’m happy to report, did not collapse—and then handcuffed him.

“But I didn’t do anything.” Dennis’s eyes were panicked and sweat rushed down his red face.

Lafferty beamed with pride. “Found him camping in the woods out back.”

“There’s no law against camping,” he said.

Lafferty pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket. “And these were nearby.”

The bag contained two broken eggshells. Not supermarket eggs, but the brown and speckled kind that Kathleen’s hens produced.

“It’s just a couple of eggs. I was hungry. What’s the big deal?”

“Killer!” Kathleen lunged at Pinkleman. Bixby grabbed at her waist and swung her back.

“No,” Lafferty said. “The chicken’s out there, too. Alive. Partway up the slope.” He held up his hands, which were bleeding. “I would have brought her back in, too, but she pecked me half to death.”

Anger drained from Kathleen’s face, then relief flooded in its place. She ran out the side door calling to her beloved Beth.

*   *   *

“That guy doesn’t know how to stay out of trouble,” I told Nick, as I happened to score the last scone on the plate. After looking to make sure Henry Easton wasn’t around to comment on my size.

“You don’t think Pinkleman could be the killer?” Nick whisked out a full box of scones. He started stacking them on the empty plate using gloved hands.

I poured myself a cup of coffee to go with the scone. “What would his motive be?”

“Obsession,” he said. “Makes people do crazy things. I looked him up on the
Fix My Wedding
message board.”

“And?”

“Some crazy stuff there.”

“From Pinkleman?”

Nick rolled his eyes. “From all of them. But Pinkleman is involved in all of it. Every thread, every inane topic, every controversy, he’s there expressing his opinion. Posts from all hours of the day and night. Some in all caps with multiple exclamation points.”

“So, we know he’s an excitable guy. Nothing illegal in that.”