Lord of the Wings (19 page)

The remaining firefighter hurried over to where Vern and the Chief were standing. He pushed back his helmet and I could see that it was Michael. I drifted closer so I could hear what was going on.

“Who was that?” the chief asked.

“Dr. Smoot,” Michael said. “Good thing Meg's dad showed up. Smoot's only slightly burned, but it looks as if someone hit him over the head before the fire started. At least he's alive.”

Something about the way he emphasized “he” worried me.

“Do you mean someone else isn't?” I asked.

Michael nodded slightly.

“Who?” the chief asked.

“None of us could recognize him,” Michael said. “And no, I don't mean that he was badly burned. He's hardly burned at all. Someone shot him.”

The chief nodded and set his jaw.

“A tourist?” I asked.

“Young man in his twenties wearing a zombie costume,” Michael said. “So yeah, probably a tourist.” He turned to Chief Burke. “Chief Featherstone says he'll be releasing the scene to you any minute now.”

“Good. Horace here?”

“Over there.” Vern pointed to one of the cars, and I recognized the familiar figure of my cousin Horace standing beside it. He was holding a small suitcase—his forensic kit. Horace usually loved the occasional cases that called for him to use his crime scene training. But if it really was murder—the second in as many days … poor Horace.

I glanced over toward the house and saw a figure approaching us. He was only a silhouette against the floodlights, but I had no trouble recognizing Jim Featherstone, Caerphilly's fire chief. His barrel chest and pipe cleaner legs were unmistakable.

“It's a nasty one,” he said when he reached us. “Pretty sure it's arson, so I'll be working closely with you. Though it's also possible that was only a stupid accident. Someone on the scene was carrying an ordinary candle. That seems to have been the ignition source.”

“Let's take a look,” Chief Burke said.

They set out toward a spotlighted area. Horace scurried over to follow them. Michael and I looked at each other briefly, and then fell into step behind them.

When we reached the house, I fell back. Michael went to help some of the other firefighters, who were packing up their gear. The two chiefs disappeared through a break in the hedge that ran all along the back of the house, about two or three feet from the foundation. I remembered seeing that hedge from the stairwell—was it only yesterday?

The chiefs' heads descended about a foot and then stopped, so I could still see them above the hedge. They stood in silence for at least a minute before Chief Burke spoke.

“Looks as if someone shot him in the back of the head while he was on his way out. Your people find a gun?”

“No.” Chief Featherstone shook his head.

“Let's go take a look on the inside,” Chief Burke said. “Horace, you can get started here. We'll go in the other way, to avoid disturbing the body.”

The chiefs emerged from the stairwell and Horace slipped through the gap in the hedge and disappeared.

“I should get Aida Butler down here,” the chief said. “She inspected the basement yesterday. She might have some idea what's been disturbed.”

“Chief,” I said.

They both looked up.

“Chiefs,” I amended. “I was also down there in the basement yesterday. Chief Burke, you may remember that Dr. Smoot complained of an intruder.”

“That's what Aida was checking out,” Chief Burke said to Chief Featherstone. “We don't doubt that someone was sneaking around, and maybe trying to get in, but she could find no evidence of anything amiss in the basement.”

“Neither could I,” I said. “But remember that I was going to go back and take a lot of pictures in the Haunted House? So we could tell if anyone left any new fake body parts there? I included the museum in my picture taking. In fact, I probably took more there—especially in the end where the fire was—than anywhere else.” I held up my phone.

“Any particular reason?” Chief Featherstone sounded puzzled, but not displeased.

“That end of the room was where Dr. Smoot kept finding the intruders,” I said, pointing to the smoke-wreathed right side of the house. “And I figured it was probably because they were getting in through the door to the outside, but then again it was always possible that they were going after something at that end of the museum. So I took pictures, intending to study them later and see if I spotted anything of interest.”

“And did you?” Chief Featherstone asked. “Spot anything, that is.”

“Haven't had time to study them yet,” I said. “But those photos make up a pretty detailed picture of what that end of the basement looked like yesterday morning. I e-mailed them to Chief Burke yesterday.”

“E-mail them to Chief Featherstone when you get a chance,” Chief Burke said. “And since you're here—come with us.”

“Chiefs,” Michael said. “Unless either of you needs me, I'm going to head home so at least one of us is there when the boys wake up. And then take them to school.”

“Good idea,” said Chief Featherstone.

“And I'll try not to keep Meg any longer than I have to,” Chief Burke said.

Michael headed off, while I followed the chiefs around to the front of the house, through the remnants of the entrance door, and down the steep, winding stairs to the basement.

“Notice anything different?” Chief Burke asked when we were all standing at the bottom of the stairs.

“It was a lot dryer yesterday,” I said, stepping out of the puddle in which I'd landed.

“Sorry about that,” Chief Featherstone said. “We did have a pretty serious fire to put out.”

“Not a complaint, just an observation,” I said. “The outside door was closed yesterday, and hidden behind those black curtains.” I pointed to the waterlogged remnants of the curtains, which had been partially dragged down from their rods. “There were a lot of pictures hanging on the walls—probably knocked off by the fire hoses. And that case at the end wasn't smashed,” I added. “It was full of jewelry.”

“Valuable jewelry?” Chief Burke sounded slightly incredulous. Looking around at the rest of the museum I could see why.

“Only one piece that's actually valuable,” I said.

I pulled out my phone and clicked through the pictures until I'd reached the one of the jewelry case. The chiefs inspected it, and then we made our way carefully to the other end of the room. Between the broken glass and the stuff that had been knocked off the walls and shelves by the force of the fire hose, there were a lot of obstacles underfoot.

“Try not to touch anything if you can help it,” the chief reminded us. “Horace is still processing the outside. Normally I'd be keeping all of us out until he'd finished in here, but the crime scene's already pretty compromised by the firefighters' efforts. Unavoidably, of course,” he added, with a nod to Chief Featherstone.

We reached the case, and I held out my phone again so we could all compare the photo with the real thing.

“Aha!” Chief Featherstone said. “That huge ruby ring is missing.”

“Appears to be the only thing missing,” the chief said, flicking his eyes back and forth between the picture and the case.

“Then whoever took it wasn't a very savvy jewel thief,” I said. “The ruby ring's a fake.”

“Then which is the valuable piece?” Chief Burke asked.

“Wait,” Chief Featherstone said. “Let me guess. That black sparkly thing.” He pointed to a black necklace. “Henry, what's your guess?”

“I wouldn't begin to know,” the chief said. “Maybe that crown?”

“The black sparkling thing is a piece of Victorian mourning jewelry,” I said. “The sparkly black stones are jet, which is not all that valuable. And the crown is the one they used to use to crown Miss Caerphilly County back in the fifties and sixties. Rhinestones.”

“And you know this how?” Chief Burke asked. “I don't see any information tags.”

“There were yesterday,” I said. “And I read them. And also I can zoom in on the pictures on my phone, so I don't need to worry about the tags that probably got washed away by the fire hoses.”

“The tags are here.” Chief Featherstone was peering into the case. “They're just not waterproof. So which one is the valuable piece?”

“The cat,” I said.

They both stared at it.

“That thing?” Chief Featherstone said. “Looks like a piece of yard-sale bargain-box crap.”

“The gems are real,” I said. “It was specially made for the Duchess of Windsor.”

Chief Burke was peering over his glasses at it.

“No accounting for taste, is there?” he remarked. “I'd have taken it for a cheap dime-store trinket.”

“And evidently so did our intruder,” I said. “So the good news is that we don't have a brilliant, successful international jewel thief plying his trade in Caerphilly.”

“And the bad news is that someone may have killed one person and seriously injured another to gain possession of something that actually is a dime-store trinket,” Chief Featherstone said.

“I doubt that the ring was the actual motive for the break-in,” Chief Burke said. “More likely the perpetrator snatched it in the hope of distracting us from his real motive.”

“Which was?” Chief Featherstone asked.

“Well, if I knew that, I'd be making an arrest right now,” the chief said. “Instead of scouring this blasted basement for any clue to what could possibly be worth burning down a building, killing one human being, and trying to kill another. To say nothing of the possibility that it's all related to yesterday morning's murder.”

“Sorry,” Chief Featherstone said.

“No, I'm sorry.” Chief Burke sighed and massaged his forehead for a moment. “Sorry to both of you. I woke up with a headache and it's not getting any better. But there's no use taking my mood out on the people who are trying to help. Jim, anything you can tell me about the origin of this fire could help solve the murder. And Meg—apart from the worthless ring, can you spot anything missing?”

Chief Featherstone handed me his large flashlight and I began to run it over the jumbled contents of the museum.

At first we had a couple of flurries of excitement as I spotted things in my photos that were missing from the museum. A Civil War–era spittoon that had been displayed on a side table. A pen once used by someone-or-other to sign some kind of important document. Nearly the entire collection of photos of Caerphilly soldiers from past wars. But as we continued to study the wreckage—study it, not sift through it, because we were still waiting for Horace to do his official forensic sifting—we managed to spot the spittoon, the pen, and several of the missing photos. They weren't missing at all, just blown out of place by the fire hoses. Odds were Horace would find the rest when he processed the scene.

“We've probably done as much as we can for now,” the chief said. “Jim, you want to stay here and work with Vern and Horace?”

Chief Featherstone nodded.

“I've got to get back to the station,” Chief Burke said. “See if news of this second murder makes Mr. Klapcroft rethink his decision to talk to me.”

“I wouldn't bet on it,” I said. “He'll probably be terrified that you'll suspect him of being involved and be more determined than ever to wait for an attorney.”

The chief sighed.

“She's right, Henry,” Chief Featherstone said. “At least if I were the wayward young rapscallion I was at his age, that's how I'd be thinking.”

“Well, then maybe one of those forty-'leven local lawyers I called yesterday will have returned my call by the time I get back to the station,” Chief Burke said. “We should be getting out of Horace's way.”

I assumed that by “we” he meant mostly me, so I began picking my way back to the stairs.

“Don't take off just yet,” the chief said. “I want to ask you something, but I want a word with Horace first.”

“I'll wait in the foyer,” I said.

 

Chapter 16

Of course, I have always been constitutionally incapable of merely waiting, so I passed the time by strolling up and down the foyer, peeking into the adjoining rooms to see how much damage had been done. Not much, actually, which probably meant that we could open the Haunted House again shortly after the chief released it. Assuming he did release it before the rapidly approaching end of the festival. And also assuming that news of a second murder didn't send the tourists fleeing.

I was peering down the cellar stairs—okay, I was trying to eavesdrop on what the chief and Horace might be saying—when I was startled by a voice behind me.

“Oh, dear. Dr. Smoot didn't tell me there had been a fire.”

I turned to see an odd figure standing in the doorway—a man who would probably have been close to seven feet tall if he stood up straight, but with such a pronounced stoop that he could probably have looked Michael straight in the eye—and Michael was six foot four.

Our visitor was elderly. He had taken off his hat upon entering the Haunted House, and I could see that he had a neat, closely cropped fringe of gray hair around the perimeter of his otherwise bald head. He was holding his hat in fingers so unusually long as to look positively freakish. Under his tent-sized dark gray raincoat I could see gray flannel trousers and galoshes.

“May I help you?” I asked.

“I'm Dr. Cavendish,” he said. “I have a seven o'clock appointment with Dr. Smoot.”

“I'm sorry,” I began. “Dr. Smoot isn't available.”

“He was expecting me.” Dr. Cavendish hunched his shoulders defensively, which had the unfortunate effect of increasing his resemblance to an oversized vulture.

“I'm sure he was,” I said. “Unfortunately, Dr. Smoot isn't here right now. He's in the hospital. Can you tell me what he was expecting you for?”