Lord of the Wings (15 page)

I had a plan. Randall was taking care of the brooch, but I could investigate the other objects worth stealing. And first off, I needed to talk to Mrs. Paltroon.

 

Chapter 12

Of course, deciding to talk to Mrs. Paltroon and finding her were two different things. Odds were she also lived in Westlake, like the Griswalds, but I had no idea where. And even once I found her, there was the challenge of getting her to talk to me. I kept on my way toward the heart of town and as soon as I'd parked my car again in the Mutant Wizards parking lot, I called my expert on Caerphilly social matters.

“Mother,” I said. “Do you have any idea where I could find Mrs. Paltroon?”

“Probably,” she said. “Although I have no idea why you'd want to.”

“I don't want to find her,” I said. “But I need to. Goblin Patrol business.”

“Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“You don't have to sound so eager,” I said. “Not that I know of. I just want to talk to her about the painting she lent to Dr. Smoot's museum.”

“That ghastly painting?” I didn't have to see Mother to know that she'd just shuddered. “If our ancestors looked that unprepossessing, I certainly wouldn't put them on display in the Caerphilly Museum.”

“Especially since none of them actually lived here in Caerphilly,” I said. “Then again, I gather Colonel Paltroon didn't either.”

“Oh, is it Colonel Paltroon now?” Mother asked. “Last time I heard he was only a major. And some of the folks who've been attending the local DAR meetings for years tell me they can recall when he was only a captain. I've never seen a man so successful at obtaining posthumous promotions. At this rate, he'll probably make general in time for the Sestercentennial.”

“The what?”

“Sestercentennial,” she repeated. “The two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of independence, which will occur in 2026.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, why stop at general? Mrs. Paltroon should aim for commander-in-chief. George Washington doesn't have any blood descendants around to put up a fight. Habakkuk Paltroon, father of his country. We could all visit the Paltroon Monument when we go up to the city of Paltroon to visit our congresspeople. I look forward to seeing his face on the dollar bill.”

“I don't,” Mother said. “Have you seen his face?”

“In the family portrait,” I said. “Speaking of which—Mrs. Paltroon's whereabouts?”

“She's probably holding court down at the DAR's dried flower sale,” Mother said.

“The Weed Patch?” I said. “Great! Thanks!”

I hung up before Mother could protest my using the sarcastic local nickname for the dried flower sale and turned my steps toward the town square.

I couldn't help thinking that while the town council might have decided to keep the official decorations in the tasteful fall/harvest range, the crowd in the town square was full-bore Halloween. Which made it all the more amusing that the Caerphilly DAR was holding its annual dried flower sale this weekend, in the front yard of the Methodist church, which faced the town square. Odds were that the genteel crowd who usually turned up every year to patronize the Weed Patch had been scared away by the Halloween hordes. And it was hard to imagine that many of the ghouls and witches roaming the square would even venture into the DAR tent, much less emerge with expensive armloads of desiccated vegetation.

Then again, maybe I was wrong. I tended to avoid the tent entirely because the dried stuff always made me sneeze. Possibly a psychosomatic reaction, since Rose Noire's dried herbs and potpourris never bothered me.

I followed the perimeter of the town square until I reached the Methodist Church, and then hiked up the driveway and entered the tent.

The curiously hushed and almost deserted tent. I gazed around and saw nothing but dried plants. Plants lying in sheaves on the tables and standing upright in buckets and baskets. Baby's breath, larkspur, hydrangeas, Japanese lanterns, heather, statice, globeflowers, eucalyptus, flax, tansy, wheat, and heaven knows what else.

I was already fighting the urge to sneeze.

“May I help you?”

A pleasant, if somewhat anxious-looking woman in a Colonial costume had approached me. I recognized her as one of the Weed Ladies—Mrs. Paltroon's loyal troops who labored year-round to collect and preserve local plants for the sale. At least half of the plants in the tent were displayed under huge banners that proclaimed them L
OCALLY
G
ROWN AND
P
RESERVED!
But still not very fragrant.

“I'm looking for Mrs. Paltroon,” I said. “Is she here?”

The woman smiled and gestured toward the back of the tent. A stately figure was slowly making her way down the wide aisles between the flower displays. The woman who had greeted me had been dressed neatly but not extravagantly, in a plain blue gown and a lace-trimmed mob cap. Mrs. Paltroon would not have looked out of place at a court ball. When she was about six feet away from me she stopped, as if unwilling to risk closer contact, and fixed me with a gimlet eye.

“May I help you?” From her, it sounded more like “How dare you sully the purity of our tent with your modern Halloween nonsense?”

“Meg Langslow,” I said. “I'm in charge of the festival's Visitor Relations and Police Liaison Patrol. I wanted to talk to you about your painting.”

“My painting?”

“The portrait of Habakkuk Paltroon that you loaned to Dr. Smoot for display in his museum.”

“Yes,” she said. “That's mine. What of it?”

“Festival management is recommending to the owners of any valuable objects that they remove them from the museum until next week,” I said.

“Are you saying you can't protect my painting?” she said.

“Protecting your painting is Dr. Smoot's responsibility, not ours. However, festival management is concerned that, given the increased crowds visiting the Haunted House and museum this weekend, the presence of valuable objects in the museum will make it harder to maintain crowd control in that part of the festival.”

What was it about this woman that sent me into full formal bureaucratic mode? No doubt my suspicion that she had an expensive attorney on speed dial. With almost anyone else, I'd probably just have said, “Please take your precious family heirloom painting home before some clueless tourist Magic Markers a mustache on one of your ancestors.”

“It's too much of a temptation,” I said. “And were you aware that Dr. Smoot has already had several break-in attempts?” I decided against mentioning the murder, since I didn't know what information the chief had released already, and after all, it wasn't actually at the museum.

“No, I was not aware of any break-ins.” She was frowning now.

I hoped I hadn't just unleashed the wrath of the Paltroons on poor clueless Dr. Smoot.

“They only began very recently,” I said.

“That painting is a valuable artwork as well as a family heirloom,” she began.

“Which is why I'm sure Dr. Smoot will cooperate fully if you decide to take it off exhibit until the museum traffic is down to its normal, manageable level,” I said.

“Yes, but one can't simply wrap it in a blanket and throw it in the backseat of one's car!”

I didn't see why not, but I held my tongue.

“Fortunately, I had already arranged for Dr. Gwinnett Cavendish to pay the museum a visit. The noted art restoration and conservation expert,” she added, when she noticed that Dr. Cavendish's name hadn't elicited glad cries of joy from me. “Dr. Smoot had expressed some concerns about the condition of the painting. After Dr. Cavendish inspects it, I will direct him to have it properly packed and restored to its normal position in my abode.”

“I think that's a wise decision,” I said.

She didn't look as if she much cared what I thought.

“Have you ever had any security concerns about the painting before?” I asked.

“No, of course not.” From her expression, you'd think I'd asked if she were in the habit of breaking wind in public. “Of course, we've always had a state-of-the-art security system.”

“Good,” I said. “Well, I'll be off.”

No one begged me to stay. I did linger at the tent's entrance for a few moments when I realized that a trio of twenty-somethings dressed as vampires were entering the tent and looking around in astonishment.

“Wow,” one young man said. “It's like a mausoleum for dead flowers.”

“Some of these would be very pretty if you sprayed them black,” the young woman at his side said.

The third vampire sneezed vigorously all over a bucket of dried yarrow.

“Young man!” Mrs. Paltroon called out.

I ducked out and managed to get all the way back to the street before giving in to my laughter.

 

Chapter 13

Once I was safely out of the Weed Patch I strolled until I was in front of the Methodist minister's house next door, sat down on the low wall separating it from the street, and flipped through my photos from the museum. I still couldn't see anything else I'd have bothered stealing. I texted Randall, suggesting that when he talked to Dr. Smoot, he remove anything truly valuable, like the vintage dresses, from display. He texted back “Yes'm.” I made a note to drop by later today or maybe tomorrow morning to make sure Dr. Smoot had done something. And with any luck we could persuade the Griswalds and the Paltroons to remove their possessions before tomorrow night, when the final influx of Halloween revelers arrived to make things really crazy for the weekend. Maybe when I dropped by I should talk Dr. Smoot into closing the museum for the weekend, in case one of tomorrow's tasks turned out to be “steal something from the museum.”

I returned to making my rounds. Out at the Haunted House the line to get in was a quarter mile long. All the rides were whirling at the Fun Fair, and the games and concessions were booming.

At the zoo, I was delighted to see the Willner Wildlife Foundation's truck parked in the staff parking lot. The guards at the gate waved me in and I hurried up to Grandfather's office, where he tended to take refuge when the zoo was as crowded as it was now.

I found him at his desk, pecking away on his computer.

“Another scientific article?” I asked.

“Letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “Damn fools want to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list. You need something?”

“Just came by to liaise with Caroline,” I said.

He nodded, stood up from the computer, and strode off. I decided to assume he was taking me to Caroline. He led me down a corridor and out a side door. As he stepped outside he glanced up reflexively, then laughed and shook his head.

“Getting to be a habit,” he said as we walked. “I seem to have shaken the blasted ravens off for now, but they'll show up sooner or later.”

“What is it with all the ravens?” I caught up and matched his pace.

“Part of my costume,” he said. “I liked the notion of a wizard with a raven on his shoulder. In some cultures they're considered good luck, and in others they're sinister omens. In Norse mythology, the god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn—thought and memory. He'd send them out every morning and every evening they'd come back and tell him what was happening in the world. In American folklore—”

“Ravens are cool; I get that part,” I said. “But why so
many
ravens? I should think one would be enough, but you've got a whole flock.”

“An unkindness,” Grandfather said. “The proper collective noun for a group of ravens is an unkindness, not a flock. Although some sources also favor ‘a conspiracy of ravens.' Now that I'm afflicted with them, I find both terms curiously apt.”

“But why did you afflict yourself with so many in the first place?” I asked. “Why not just train one?”

“That was the original idea,” he said. “At the beginning of the summer I set up a large habitat in a temporarily vacant office in the administration building and I picked out a likely looking specimen and established him there. I would go in for an hour or so a day and work on his vocabulary. Nothing fancy. A few dramatic words and phrases. ‘Doom!' and ‘Beware!' and such.”

“And ‘nevermore,'” I added.

“Of course,” he said. “It's traditional. Unfortunately, it turned out that I hadn't chosen a particularly likely subject. In fact, I appeared to have chosen a total slacker. Least intelligent corvid I'd ever studied.”

“Just because he wasn't much of a conversationalist doesn't make him unintelligent,” I said.

“I assigned an intern to spend several hours a day trying to teach him.” Grandfather was warming to his subject, and had begun waving his arms around as he walked. “I made recordings of my voice and had them played in the room for several hours every day. I tried to tempt him with treats. Nothing.”

I wondered if he'd considered the possibility that the raven wasn't unintelligent, merely stubborn. Possibly as stubborn as Grandfather himself.

“So I returned him to the wild.”

“You just let him go? Aren't you always telling me how cruel it is to expect zoo-raised animals to survive in the wild?”

“He was a wild raven to begin with,” Grandfather said. “We have quite a few of them living in our woods. A little out of their normal range—here in Virginia you'd mostly find them near the mountains. But not unheard of. And they hang out at the zoo a lot, because between the animal feed and the junk food we sell the tourists, it's a food-rich environment. Anyway, I let him go where I'd found him—back near our composting facility. And before long I found out he wasn't nearly as stupid as I'd thought.”

“And meanwhile you'd started teaching more ravens?” I guessed.