Owls Well That Ends Well (13 page)

“That woman who wanted to buy it, like as not.”

“She says not,” Horace said. “Not that I necessarily believe her. But I’m thinking the killer wiped it clean after stuffing the body inside. If Professor Rathbone was the killer, isn’t it odd that he’d be so careful about wiping the trunk clean and not do anything about the bookends?”

“Not really,” the chief said. “Typical of these professors, from what I’ve seen. All brains and not one lick of common sense.”

“Or maybe he’s more devious than you think,” Sammy put in. “Maybe he realized that people had seen him carrying the bookends and thought it would look suspicious if his prints weren’t on them.”

“Hmm,” the chief said. “Sammy, what’s that racket going on outside?”

“They’re looking for Meg Langslow,” Sammy said. “Some problem only she can handle, apparently.”

Chapter 15

Damn! Just my luck that someone would start looking for me now. And not just looking for me, but kicking up enough fuss that the chief heard about it.

I needed to see what the problem was. Perhaps if I moved the dumbwaiter very slowly …

“Could be the fingerprint technician,” Horace said. “We need to take her fingerprints, for elimination purposes, and no one’s seen her for over an hour.”

The chief made a noise that sounded surprisingly like a growl.

“I’ll go help them find her,” Horace said, hastily. Under cover of the squeaks he made getting to the door, I began pulling up the dumbwaiter.

“Make sure she’s not in the barn,” the chief called after him. I paused to find out why the barn was so interesting.

“The barn?” Sammy repeated.

“We’ve had to chase her father out of the barn twice already,” the chief grumbled. “He won’t say what he’s looking for—just gives some cock and bull story about an owl’s nest in the barn, and wanting to check on the fledgling owls.”

“Cock and bull story?” Sammy said. “Why wouldn’t he just be telling the truth about wanting to check on the owlets?”

“And here I thought you were a birdwatcher, Sammy. It’s October, remember? Everyone knows that birds nest in the spring. So even if they did have an owl’s nest in the barn, the baby owls would have flown away by now, right?”

“Not necessarily, chief,” Sammy said. “Barn owls can breed any time of year. In fact, if conditions are favorable, they may produce two broods a year.”

“You don’t say,” the chief said.

Perhaps Sammy didn’t notice the note of impatience in the chief’s voice.

“It’s primarily a question of food supply,” Sammy said, warming to his topic. “You see, a grown barn owl eats five or six voles a night, and the fledglings can eat twice that much, so you need a fair number of voles to keep a family of barn owls going. Course it doesn’t necessarily have to be voles. Mice, rats, shrews, moles, frogs, lizards, bats, baby rabbits, other birds, insects—they’re pretty omnivorous. I dissected an owl pellet once that contained—”

“Sammy, do you belong to that SPOOR group of Dr. Langslow’s?”

“Yes, sir,” Sammy said. “Except Mrs. Sprocket founded it, you know; we only just elected Dr. Langslow as our new president last month. He—”

“Whatever,” the chief said. “Seeing as how you’re a SPOOR member and all—”

“I assure you sir, that I will in no way allow my membership in SPOOR to interfere with the proper performance of my duties as a police officer,” Sammy said, in his most earnest voice.

“I’m sure you won’t,” the chief said. “Do you suppose you could convince Dr. Langslow to let you inspect the fledgling owls in his place? Seeing as how you’re a SPOOR member in good standing as well as a police officer? Then maybe we could get him out of our hair and let him go bother the coroner the way he usually does.”

“Yes, sir,” Sammy said. “Want me to go do it now?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Right, sir.”

“I’ll take a break while you’re out doing it,” the chief said. “On your way out, tell Fred to give me five minutes and then send up the next witness.”

Perhaps I was in luck. If I could sneak out while Sammy was inspecting the owls and the chief was on his break, I wouldn’t have to haul myself back up to the bedroom.

I waited impatiently for the door squeak that would tell me they were safely out of the room, and then reached out to open the latch.

With no luck. Sammy must have done a better job of wedging it shut than I usually did. I could see the wooden latch crossing the crack between the dumbwaiter door and the surrounding frame, and if I’d had something long and flat, like a nail file, I could easily have knocked it free. Unfortunately, lock picking hadn’t been in my plans when I crawled into the dumbwaiter.

Ah well. At least I could take advantage of the chief’s absence to haul the dumbwaiter up to the bedroom. With luck, his break wouldn’t take him someplace where he’d hear the pulley squeaking.

I arrived safely at the bedroom level, and was reaching out to open the dumbwaiter door when I heard voices.

“Hold the other end right next to the wall, dear,” Mother was saying. “That’s eight feet, three and a half inches. I was thinking about chintz.”

Mother often did. And she was wielding her perennial tape measure. Always a danger sign, that tape measure. She’d offered to help us decorate, a dozen times or more, but so far we’d put her off with one excuse or another. I hoped she wasn’t planning to surprise us by redecorating the bedroom. I’d long ago figured out that while Mother had wonderful taste, it wasn’t my taste or Michael’s. So just why was Mother taking measurements in our bedroom?

“What next?” Michael asked.

And why was Michael helping her?

“I want the distance between the ceiling and the top of the window frame,” Mother said.

“Right,” Michael said. “I could ask Meg about that, if you like.”

Did he think I’d memorized every detail about the house?

“About the chintz? No, I don’t think it’s a very good idea to bother her just now.”

I thought it was a great idea, actually. At least if they were talking about something they planned for the house in which they expected me to live.

“Twelve and a quarter inches,” Michael said.

“I think it would be better if we just surprised her,” Mother said. “Now give me the distance between the window frame and the corner.”

“It’s just that I don’t know what chintz is,” Michael said.

I did. I didn’t like it.

“It’s a sort of flowered fabric, with a shiny finish,” Mother said.

“Doesn’t really sound like something Meg would like,” Michael said.

Good call.

“Wait until you see it,” Mother said. “It’s the overall effect that matters. How do you feel about Louis Quatorze?”

“Is that another kind of fabric?” Michael asked.

I wanted to shriek “No!” but I held my tongue. Apparently Mother had some plan to decorate parts of the house without my permission or even knowledge. Right now, I had an edge, because she didn’t know that I’d overheard her plans. If I confronted her, she’d apologize and promise never to do it again, and then come up with an even sneakier plan.

And why was Michael aiding and abetting her?

Of course, perhaps I was overreacting. Perhaps he was only humoring her. After all, some days, humoring Mother felt like a full-time job, and we both knew that Michael was better at it than I was.

I’d wait to see if he mentioned anything about her plans.

Meanwhile, I needed to go before they realized I’d overheard them.

“That’s odd,” Michael said. “They’re yelling for Meg outside—I wonder where she’s gone.”

“She and her father are probably somewhere, playing detective,” Mother said.

“No, Dr. Langslow is outside,” Michael said. “One of the television people is interviewing him.”

I winced. Chief Burke would be furious if Dad said anything outrageous on television about the murder. Definitely time to get moving. I began slowly lowering the dumbwaiter.

Chapter 16

I paused at the dining room level long enough to confirm that Chief Burke was back and see who he was interrogating.

“So, Ms. Mason,” he was saying.

“Just Maggie, please.”

I recognized the voice of the bookseller who’d told me about her negative experiences with Gordon. Was she a suspect, too? Good! Not that I had anything against her, but the more other suspects the chief had, the better for Giles. I decided to eavesdrop for just a few more minutes.

“You say this book wasn’t all that valuable?”

“It’s hard to tell from what’s left,” she said. “But as far as I can see, no. Even with the scorching, you can see that it wasn’t in very good condition to begin with. See that discoloration on the pages? Dampstaining; that was there before the fire. The binding—what’s left of it—is in lousy shape. And a bookplate on the inside cover; that lowers the value. No dust jacket. Not signed.”

“So it’s not worth anything?” the chief asked.

“Now? No,” she said. “Not much of a market for half-burned books.”

“Before it was burned,” the chief said, sounding testy. “Was it worth something then?”

“Probably—it’s a pretty rare title. Maybe forty or fifty dollars, even in that condition. The pre-burned condition, anyway.”

“I see,” the chief said.

He sounded disappointed. I could see why. The less valuable
The Uttermost Farthing
was, the less convincing a jury would find it as a motive for Giles to murder Gordon.

“Don’t just take my word for it,” Maggie said. “I can give you the names of some experts. Ask them.”

I left her reciting rare book experts’ names, addresses, and e-mails to the chief. I squeaked my way as gently as possible down to the basement. Just as I was about to fling open the door, I heard voices, and froze.

“Are you okay?” My brother Rob.

“I’m fine.” Cousin Horace. Sounding very far from fine.

“Yeah, right,” Rob said. Evidently he agreed with my diagnosis. “Come on, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Darlene,” Horace said.

“Your girlfriend?”

“Not anymore,” he said.

“Bummer,” Rob said. “When did she dump you?”

“She didn’t dump me,” Horace said, somewhat indignantly. “I dumped her. She sold my suit!”

“Your gorilla suit?”

No answer, but I assumed Horace had nodded because Rob let out a long breath and then said, “Man, that stinks.”

Although they couldn’t see me, I nodded. No one in the family quite understood why Horace insisted on wearing his battered gorilla suit on every possible occasion, but we all knew how important it was to him. Recently, he’d discovered that he wasn’t the only person in the world with this hobby, and had begun attending occasional conventions of people dressed in animal costumes. I had no idea what else they did at these conventions, but they made Horace happy, which was more than I could say for Darlene. Unfortunately, he had met Darlene at a Fraternal Order of Police social, not one of his furry conventions.

“I took it off because I was working,” Horace went on, “and gave it to Darlene for safekeeping, and she sold it.”

“Well, ask her who she sold it to.”

“I did,” he said. “She won’t tell me.”

I closed my eyes and sighed. Much as I disliked Darlene, I understood how she felt. And the idea of never having to look at Horace’s threadbare old gorilla suit again was appealing. But dammit, that wasn’t her decision or mine to make.

And how had she sold it so fast, with the yard sale still closed?

“Damn,” Rob said. Then, after a pause, he added. “I bet Meg could get her to tell.”

“You think so?” Horace asked.

I was torn between wanting to kick Rob for putting something else on my plate and agreeing that yes, Darlene would tell me. And I might even enjoy making her do it.

Of course, if I was going to interrogate Darlene, I had to get out of the basement one of these years.

I left Rob to commiserate with Horace and began slowly hauling myself up again. Back to the bedroom. I’d lose the advantage of surprise in my battle against Mother’s unilateral decoration schemes, but at least I wouldn’t embarrass Horace or get in trouble with Chief Burke.

All this hauling up and down was getting exhausting. Maybe we should put in an electric motor for the dumbwaiter.

But then, perhaps mechanization was overkill. After all, I wouldn’t normally be using the thing for transportation, and a couple of well-placed locks would prevent any visiting urchins from doing the same. If only Michael weren’t so charmed by it, I could see removing the dumbwaiter and turning the shaft into a laundry chute.

Luckily, by the time I hauled myself up two stories, Mother and Michael had vanished. Though Mother had probably gone off to buy chintz, I thought gloomily.

“Hey, Meg!”

I looked out the window and saw Cousin Everett peering in. Standing on the platform of his boom lift, presumably.

“Come on,” he said. “They’ve all been looking for you outside.”

As busy as Everett had been, I figured this might be my only chance for a ride in the boom lift, so I crawled out the window onto the platform.

“Hang on,” Everett said. I grabbed the railings and looked down. And then I started when I saw Eric down on the ground, standing beside the boom lift controls.

“You’re not letting Eric drive this thing,” I gasped.

“Of course not,” Everett said. “I’m running it—see?”

I looked over and saw that the platform did contain a complete duplicate control panel.

“Oh,” I said, as we began moving. “I didn’t know you could drive it from up here.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Uh … yeah,” I said. Instead of merely lowering me to the ground in the front yard, Everett lifted the platform up to its full forty-foot height, then rotated it ninety degrees so we were facing the backyard before lowering it again. The crowds on the ground looked like ants, and even relatives mending the roof looked doll-sized. Very cool, unless you happened to be slightly afraid of heights, which I hadn’t realized I was until we hit the thirty-foot level.

“Thanks a million,” I said, when Everett finally deposited me just outside the yard sale entrance.