Lord of the Wings (11 page)

“Of course, that's assuming Justin's the killer,” I said. “If he's not—”

“Precisely,” the chief said. “There could still be a killer out there, and even if there isn't, these players are potential witnesses in a homicide, and I want to talk to them ASAP. Get the word out to your Goblin Patrol members about these lists. If I had unlimited personnel, I'd have officers watching all the town cemeteries to watch for people doing grave rubbings, and more officers patrolling the perimeter of the zoo, to catch intruders. And have them keep their eyes open for people eating insects and stealing pumpkins, and if any more fake body parts turn up to frighten the tourists, I definitely want to hear about it.”

“Already on my list,” I said. “And just so you know, Grandfather's sending out an urgent call to the members of Blake's Brigade. He's going to put them to work patrolling the zoo.”

“Good,” the chief said. “How many of them does he expect?”

“With the Brigade, you don't always know till they show up,” I said. “They're all volunteers. But his friend Caroline Willner has already said that she can come to help out, so if the turnout is light, she'll start twisting arms and drumming up participation.”

“Excellent,” the chief said. “Maybe you can have them concentrate on the zoo, and leave your Goblin Patrol for the town proper.”

“And the Haunted House,” I suggested. “It's connected somehow.”

“Blamed if I know how,” the chief said. “None of the tasks seem to have anything to do with the Haunted House.”

“None of today's tasks,” I said. “But we only have part of that second list. What if it starts out with ‘steal something from the Haunted House'?”

The chief nodded.

“You know,” I mused. “If everyone playing the game is supposed to break into the zoo today, after the first few who get caught, it gets increasingly difficult. They'll be tripping over each other.”

“Although that could be part of the game,” the chief replied.

“It could,” I said. “But it's also possible that different players have different tasks. We know Justin's task number five was to steal a pumpkin, but the murder victim was supposed to take a selfie with a bat. Was that an older list, or a different list? What if some other players' assignments for today included covering their entire bodies with temporary tattoos and walking around in the town square with no clothes on?”

The chief's eyes narrowed at this.

“We don't know that the people Vern's arresting are wearing temporary tattoos,” he said.

“But we don't yet know that they aren't,” I said.

The chief brooded on this for a few moments.

“That makes sense,” he said at last. “It'd be a good way to organize this thing. Make up one list for each day it lasts. Say three days, for today, tomorrow, and Halloween itself, since most of the trouble started after midnight last night. And assign the players to three groups, so they're not all doing the same crazy things on the same day.”

“But they all have to do the same crazy things to win,” I said. “That sounds fair. So we not only have to watch out for people doing the crazy things we already know about from Justin's list and the scrap I spotted, we also have to watch out for people doing other, similar crazy things from the rest of the murder victim's list, plus who knows how many other lists we haven't yet seen.”

“Blast!” the chief exclaimed. Since that was about as bad as his language ever got these days, I assumed that he was definitely not amused.

“I'll also tell my Goblin Patrol to be alert for people who appear to be consulting lists,” I said. “And to try to get their hands on the lists if they see one.”

“And I'm going to make a few calls for reinforcements,” the chief said. “Several local jurisdictions have agreed to send a few extra officers to deal with the crowds. Though none of them can spare many—they all know they could have problems of their own this weekend.”

“But let's hope we're the only one with a murder,” I said. The chief winced and nodded at that.

It occurred to me that having Halloween fall on a Saturday was potentially a boon for the Halloween Festival, since it could significantly increase attendance. But for law enforcement, the increased crowds could mean an exponential increase in the amount of crime and trouble they had to deal with.

“And then I'll have to make another round of calls to all those lawyers,” the chief muttered. “At least the ones who haven't already told me they've left town till the craziness is over.”

“Could I make one more suggestion?” I asked.

The chief nodded.

“Let's call Rob about this.”

Chief Burke looked pained.

“Meg,” he began. “I know that technically your brother is an attorney, but, while I don't want to cast any aspersions—”

“Oh, I didn't mean you should call him about representing Justin,” I said. “Because yeah, he is only technically an attorney and he'd be the first to admit that he's barely ever practiced. No, I meant about this game.”

“You think he might know something about it?”

“Unlikely,” I said. “Because I think even Rob would have the common sense to realize that this could be a very bad thing for the festival.” At least I hoped he did. “He's very keen on the festival—he's even working as part of the Goblin Patrol. I think if he knew people were planning this, he'd have warned them, and if they went ahead, he'd have asked me what to do. But just because he might not know about it now doesn't mean he can't find out about it. After all, he owns a computer game company. Which means that over at the Mutant Wizards office he has dozens of people who do nothing but think about games.”

“Their own games,” the chief said. “Doesn't mean they know about this one.”

“They might,” I said. “It's called competitive intelligence. If someone invents a game, they all want to know about it, so they can invent one that's bigger and better and sells more copies.”

“So maybe someone on his staff has heard of this game?”

“Right. And even if none of them has, they have years of experience finding out about competitors' games. Let's use that.”

“They always say ‘set a thief to catch a thief,'” the chief said. “So ‘set a gamer to catch a gamer'?”

“What do we have to lose?”

“Okay,” he said. “Worth trying. Especially since our department has only limited cybercrime resources. In fact, our cybercrime resources are Horace and Aida, and they're going to be pretty busy with other parts of the homicide investigation. But if Rob's people find out anything, they do not wade in like vigilantes. They come and tell me and let me figure out how to proceed.”

“Absolutely,” I said. By which I meant that I absolutely understood. Conveying these marching orders to the Mutant Wizards and getting them to follow them was going to be a challenge.

“Keep me posted.” He picked up his phone, and I deduced that I was dismissed.

I pulled out my own cell phone as soon as I reached the parking lot.

“Junior Goblin Rob here,” my brother answered. “What is your will, O mighty queen of the Goblin Tribe?”

“Rob, can you meet me over at the Mutant Wizards office ASAP?” I asked.

“What's wrong?” Who knew Rob could suddenly turn so businesslike?

“Nothing's wrong at your office,” I said. “But I have a special Goblin Patrol assignment for you, and it involves Mutant Wizards. How soon can you be there? And is there any chance you can arrange to have an all-staff meeting so once I've cleared it with you I can tell everyone about it?”

“On my way. Goblin Rob, over and out!”

 

Chapter 10

I headed over to the Mutant Wizards office. Fortunately, it wasn't quite in the tourist-filled center of town. Rob had originally rented the top floor of a ramshackle two-story office building from the 1930s. Eventually he'd taken over the ground floor as well, and about the time his staff had completely outgrown that, the Pruitts, the family that had been running Caerphilly since shortly after the Civil War, went bankrupt and Rob had been able to buy the building that had housed their once-great financial empire.

I pulled up in front of what had at one time been a dignified if somewhat conventional six-story building. Clearly Rob and his employees liked decorating for Halloween. The trees and shrubs surrounding the building were draped with orange fairy lights as well as strings of skeleton lights. Most of the lawn was covered with what was undoubtedly the town's largest collection of fake tombstones. All of the windows bore decorations—silhouettes of black cats, pumpkins, witches, or skeletons. Two realistic-looking skeletons clung to the door frames on either side of the double front doors, which had been painted black for the occasion.

I pushed open one of the doors and a bloodcurdling scream rang out in the reception room.

“Welcome to our dungeon,” the receptionist intoned. She was dressed in a long black Morticia Addams-style gown, and was somehow managing to work her computer keyboard in spite of six-inch blood-red nails.

The vast two-story reception area was completely redecorated in orange and black. The enormous crystal chandelier that had once hung from the ceiling had been replaced by an equally enormous light fixture made of black wrought iron and faux human bones, draped with spiderwebs and strings of red crystals. The double stairway that swept up each side of the room to the mezzanine level was also decorated with fake bones, and several lifelike skeletons posed on it, including one apparently about to take a header over the railing of the mezzanine and one sitting near the bottom of the right-hand stairs with his skull resting on one bony hand in a pose that echoed Rodin's “The Thinker.”

A bit over the top, but not inappropriate for a computer game company, and I had to admit that I liked it all better than the rather pretentious and overwrought Pruitt décor it had replaced.

“Is Rob here yet?” I asked.

“Hi, Meg,” the receptionist said. “He told me to convene an all-staff meeting as soon as you arrived. Shall I give the signal?”

I had figured Rob would want to hear what I had in mind before committing his staff to work on the project, but apparently he trusted me.

“Go for it,” I said.

She reached down and pressed a button, and the room filled with fiendish laughter. Vincent Price's laughter, I suspected. The building erupted into activity. Doors slammed. People in costume began popping out of doors and swarming down the stairway. The elevators began dinging and disgorging more people.

I made my way against the tide up to the mezzanine level. I'd seen Rob hold all-staff meetings before, and he usually chose to address the troops from just about where the skeleton was attempting to end it all.

Sure enough, within a few minutes, just about the time the flood of witches, wizards, zombies, vampires, mummies, and other unearthly creatures slowed down to a trickle, Rob stepped out of the elevator and joined me.

“You want me to fill you in on what this is all about?” I asked.

“Nah.” Rob waived his hand in a nonchalant way. “Let's just go for it. Attention, everyone!” he called out loudly.

The almost deafening clamor of conversation in the room rapidly faded into silence.

“Most of you know my sister, Meg,” Rob said. “She's got something to tell us. Meg?”

They didn't stand much on formality here.

“Chief Burke and I want to ask your help on something that could affect the success of this year's Halloween Festival.”

A murmur of interest rippled through the crowd and then died down.

“This morning, we apprehended an intruder at the Caerphilly Zoo,” I began. “He apparently threw a fake foot into the alligator habitat just before a class of first graders was about to tour it.”

Disapproving mutters.

“We think he was doing this as part of some kind of game—although he called it a quest or adventure. We found a piece of paper in his pocket that apparently listed the tasks he was supposed to complete today as part of this game. Let me read it to you.”

I read out the task list, studying the faces below as I did—at least those whose faces were visible rather than obscured by some kind of mask, makeup, or headgear. Some of the Mutant Wizards looked puzzled. But a lot more looked interested.

“Chief Burke is worried about this game. He wants to find out who's behind it. Shut it down if possible.”

I could tell from the faces that many of the Wizards were inclined to side with the gamers.

“Because shortly after we caught the guy who was terrifying the kids, we found the body of someone who the chief believes may also have been playing the game.”

I could tell they were taken aback, but still not ready to side against the game's organizers.

“You know,” Rob piped up. “The idea of a giant scavenger hunt sounds kind of cool.”

Murmurs of agreement from the audience. Did Rob not get the point?

“But you know what's not cool? They come to our town—our turf. And they're running a game here. Without even including us. I don't like that!”

Noisy agreement from the troops.

“And then, to top it off, they kill a gamer!” Rob shouted. “A
gamer
! Let's get 'em!”

The bony chandelier shook from the resulting cheers.

“By which Rob means we need to collect competitive intelligence on this scavenger hunt,” I put in. “We need to find out who's organizing this game. Who's playing it. And what other pranks they intend to pull.”

“And then maybe we can prank them back, big time!” Rob added.

We'd see about that.

“I figure there's a slight chance one of you might have heard something about this game,” I said. “Because I know all of you are passionate about studying anything that might possibly turn into an exciting new game. If anyone does have any information, please let Rob or me know. And if no one knows anything—is there any team in the world better able to find out!”