Crime (and Lager) (A European Voyage Cozy Mystery—Book 3)

by Blake Pierce

  “Engtschuldingung,” she said politely to the chicken—“Pardon me.”

  But as she tried to step past the chicken, the creature stepped right in front of her and blocked her way.

  London stepped the other way, and the same thing happened again.

  And then the chicken spoke to her in English.

  “We’ve got to talk.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  London stared up into the face of the giant chicken that blocked her way. A small jagged red comb and red wattles were nestled into fluffy white feathers that completely covered the head of whoever was wearing the costume. The large round eyes were glassy and obviously artificial. The giant yellow beak was open, and actually looked rather threatening.

  She could see no sign of a human being inside that headdress.

  Taking a few steps backward, London saw that the body of the costume was made of white fabric, printed to look like feathers. The sleeves were decorated with fake feathers to resemble wings.

  She was about to ask the chicken to get out of her way when the creature spoke again.

  “We’ve got to talk, London.”

  London’s mouth dropped open when she heard the chicken speak her name. Then she recognized that strident voice.

  “Audrey?”

  “Shhh,” Audrey replied, her voice muffled by the mask. “I don’t want anyone to know.”

  The chicken moved closer again, and now London spotted the two eyeholes at the base of the huge yellow beak. That was where Audrey was looking out. And she was doubtless breathing and speaking through the open beak.

  “You don’t want anyone to know what?” London asked.

  “That it’s me. That I’m out and around.”

  With a soft woof, Sir Reggie squirmed in London’s arms, then dropped down to the ground. He began to sniff curiously around the chicken’s big yellow feet.

  Then the chicken looked down and noticed Sir Reggie.

  “Oh, hello, little doggie!” she said, reaching to pet him with a feathery hand. “It’s nice to see you again!”

  What on earth …? London wondered.

  She remembered a couple of days ago, when Audrey had called Sir Reggie a

  “horrid little beast.”

  Is this really the same person?

  London waved her arms with agitation, but she managed to keep her voice down.

  “You’re right about one thing, we’ve got to talk! What are you doing out and around, and dressed like … like this?”

  “I’m incognito. “

  London glared at the big chicken in exasperation.

  “I told you yesterday that the head detective would want to speak with you and me this morning. He came to the ship and questioned me. The man is obviously suspicious of both of us, and it didn’t help that we couldn’t find you in your room.”

  “Oh,” Audrey said. “I must have forgotten all about that.”

  London found that hard to believe.

  She shook her head and said, “I even phoned you, but I only got your voice mail.”

  “Of course I set my phone on silent,” Audrey replied curtly. “I didn’t want to be distracted from my mission.”

  London sighed. “Everything you did just made Detektiv Erlich certain that you have something to hide. He even said so. ‘Our suspect has given us the slip,’ he said.”

  This time the chicken made no response, although London thought she heard an actual giggle from within the mask.

  Annoyed, she kept trying to make Audrey understand what was going on.

  “I promised Captain Hays that I would find you so Erlich could talk to you. You’ve got to come back to the ship with me right away.”

  “Oh, no,” Audrey said. “I’m not ready to do that. I’m conducting my own investigation.”

  “Your own what?”

  “I’m going to find out who really killed the monocle guy. That’s why I wanted to talk with you.”

  London stifled a groan of despair. Sometimes it seemed like everybody wanted to be a detective—or at least everyone except London herself. And yet for some reason, she always seemed to get stuck with the job.

  “Your ‘investigation’ can wait,” she replied firmly. “We’ve really got to get back to the ship. Captain Hays is expecting me to bring you back so you can talk to Detektiv Erlich. And if you don’t come back right now, we’ll both be in real trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “The kind of trouble I don’t want to be in. And believe me, you don’t either. Erlich is eager to arrest somebody.”

  “Why would he arrest me?” Audrey protested. “I didn’t kill that awful man. I might have wanted to, but I’m actually not a hostile person.”

  London just stared at her, remembering the distinct hostility of her earlier encounters with Audrey Bolton. Nothing on the Nachtmusik had satisfied this woman, and she had always been extremely condescending to London.

  And now she had to wonder why Audrey was suddenly interested in investigating the crime. Could this helpful-hen behavior just be an act?

  London quickly decided that those questions really didn’t matter. She had to get this woman back to the boat.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing the chicken by one wing and starting to escort her through the crowd. Audrey issued a rather hen-like squawk, but at first she didn’t resist being tugged along with London. As they headed in the direction of the ship, Sir Reggie trotted along beside them, gazing up at the feathered creature with fascination.

  When Audrey seemed to be moving along willingly enough, London let go of the wing. She took out her cell phone and called the captain.

  “I’ve found her,” she told him. “I’ve found Audrey Bolton.”

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Captain Hays said, sounding as if he was trying to keep his voice low. “I’ve just about run out of means of detaining Detektiv Erlich in the Habsburg Restaurant. He’s been eating everything on the menu. I’ll try to get him to finish up this latest course, and I’ll take him back to my stateroom.”

  “Audrey and I will meet you there,” London said, ending the call.

  As they continued on their way, London looked up at the beaked face and said, “Audrey, would you please take that headdress off?”

  “Why do you want me to do that?”

  London couldn’t help rolling her eyes.

  “Well, like you said, we’ve got to talk. And I’m not going to try having a conversation with a gigantic chicken.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t do that. After all that trouble yesterday, I don’t want anybody to know it’s me. When I came into town, I found one of those stalls that sell festival costumes. I picked out this one.”

  She chuckled through the mask.

  “Appropriate choice, eh? That awful monocle man—may he rest in peace—called me Frau Huhn, ‘Mrs. Chicken.’ It seemed like a suitable disguise—kind of ironic, if you know what I mean. Almost poetic, when you stop to think about it.”

  Poetic? London thought.

  Again, the change in Audrey struck London.

  Poetic? Ironic?

  Still chuckling, Audrey said, “I figured this disguise was the best way not to draw attention to myself.”

  London almost guffawed at the absurdity of the statement. But now it even sounded like Audrey might actually have a sense of humor.

  She even likes dogs now!

  Where had this version of their cranky passenger been hiding?

  Besides, she realized—in a weird way, there was actually some truth to Audrey’s rationale. If she hadn’t been in costume, at least some people in the crowd might have recognized the unusually tall American with wild curly hair. And some of those people probably suspected the humiliated woman of being involved in Forstmann’s death.

  But in the midst of a festival filled with people wearing all kinds of costumes, a gigantic chicken was likely to go unnoticed.

  London suddenly wished she had at least put on a mask herself. Ever since she’d a
rrived at the Maximiliensplatz today, she’d realized that some people were giving her odd looks. She knew that many of them must have seen her up on that huge beer vat when the curtains opened and the spotlights fell directly on her. They would remember seeing her plunge into the vat. They could even have been in the crowd watching when Oberhauser had all but accused London of being Forstmann’s killer.

  Suddenly feeling terribly self-conscious, London started to move along faster, heading out of Maximiliensplatz into a street where the crowds were less dense. But she only got a few steps along when the chicken walking beside her came to a halt.

  Planting the big yellow feet firmly in place, Audrey said, “London, I’m sorry, but I’m not going back to the ship.”

  “What?” London said.

  “I’ve gone to a lot of trouble to go on this mission.”

  “You certainly are going back.”

  “No, I’m not. I won’t stop what I’m doing on account of some German policeman.”

  Impatiently, London grabbed the chicken’s wing again.

  When Audrey gave a loud squawk, Sir Reggie barked back at her.

  London was horrified to see that all the people nearby had turned to stare at them.

  Was she about to have a public altercation with a gigantic chicken?

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  It seemed to London that everything froze in place for a long moment. She knew that she was part of a weird spectacle—standing in a stone-paved street in a historic German town, hanging onto one wing of a large chicken while her little dog yapped and a lot of strangers stood staring at them.

  She couldn’t help breaking into a laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation.

  When she did, she was relieved to see that the people watching them relaxed and went on their ways, apparently satisfied that whatever London and Audrey were doing was par for the course during the Hoffmann Fest.

  London pleaded with the chicken, “Audrey, please take off the mask.”

  “But—”

  “Trust me. It’s really not helping.”

  Audrey reached up and pulled off the headdress, then shook her hair loose as she tucked the object under her arm. She was sweating from the heat inside the costume, and she actually looked a bit relieved as she took a deep breath.

  For some reason, London felt able to breathe more easily as well.

  “Maybe we should start over,” she told Audrey. “Will you please explain to me why you came ashore?”

  “Like I said, I was trying to investigate.”

  “Why not leave it to the police?”

  “That’s kind of hard to explain.”

  “Just try.”

  Audrey looked down at the ground as she shambled along in her yellow claw-shaped boots and didn’t reply for a couple of moments.

  “My therapist says I have issues,” she finally said.

  London felt a flash of sympathy. She was hardly surprised, of course. Audrey’s therapist was obviously right.

  It can’t be easy being Audrey, she realized.

  But even so, London had no idea what those issues could possibly have to do with her onshore excursion.

  Audrey added with a sigh, “I guess you’ve noticed, I’m not exactly a people person.”

  Yes, I’ve noticed, London thought.

  Audrey continued, “My therapist says it’s because I have trouble with gratitude. I don’t know how to appreciate things. And people. I know he’s right, of course. And it’s not like I don’t have things in my life to be grateful for. True, I don’t exactly have any friends, and nobody in my family can stand to be around me. But hey, I’ve got a good job and a place to live, and there are three or four TV shows I like, and I read a good book now and then, and there are even some kinds of food I enjoy. I’ve got to admit, life is good.”

  London was starting to feel sad for Audrey now.

  “I’m really sorry to hear that,” she said. “What does your therapist think you should do about it?”

  “He keeps telling me I need to learn to feel gratitude. And it’s like I keep telling him, that’s great advice, but how do I do it? I mean, how do I decide to feel something? I mean, either you feel something or you don’t, right? You can’t decide to fall in love with somebody or really like broccoli, can you? It’s something that happens or it doesn’t. So what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “Yeah, I can understand your problem,” London said.

  She was feeling more and more sympathy with Audrey. She was also feeling more and more anxious for her to get to the point—if she actually had one.

  “Well, yesterday, something happened,” Audrey said. “It started when you came over to take my side against that awful man—and like I keep saying, may he rest in peace, but he really was an awful man. You really stood up for me, and you told him off, and you wound up getting splashed with beer on account of me, and then the man was killed and now you’re in trouble with the law because you tried to help me …”

  We’re both in trouble with the law, London thought, but she didn’t want to interrupt Audrey’s tortuous flow of thoughts. She clung to a shred of hope that Audrey would finally say what she needed to say.

  “And the truth is, I haven’t been very nice to you, have I? I’ve been complaining about everything nonstop and blaming you for things that aren’t your fault.”

  “It’s OK,” London said, and she actually meant it. After all, it was her job to deal with customer complaints, even when they didn’t make much sense—because “the customer is always the customer.”

  “No, it’s not OK,” Audrey said. “And last night, alone in my room, I started feeling kind of bad about that, and I was even thinking about giving you a call, but then I started feeling something else …”

  Audrey gulped audibly, and her voice grew tighter.

  “It was kind of like bubbles inside, all light and airy, and it was a nice feeling, but strange. And so I called my therapist in the U.S. without really thinking what a crazy hour of the morning it was there at the time, and I asked him what I was feeling, and he told me …”

  Audrey inhaled sharply.

  “He said, ‘It’s gratitude, you idiot. Go act on it. And let me get back to sleep.’”

  London felt an unexpected lump of emotion in her throat. It suddenly seemed brave and kind of Audrey to share her feelings like this.

  “So you’ve really helped me, London,” Audrey said, wiping her eye with the feathery tip of a wing. “You helped me feel something really important. And I’m grateful.”

  London fell silent as Audrey’s words sank in.

  “That’s a very nice thing to say, Audrey,” she said.

  “Is it?” Audrey said with a surprised-sounding laugh. “It hadn’t occurred to me. I guess I’m not used to saying nice things.”

  “Well, that was a nice thing.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. You know, it actually feels good to say nice things. I could learn to like it. Meanwhile, I really owe you for it. So I decided I’d do whatever I could to help you. I came into town this morning to try to clear your name—well, and my name too, I guess, since we’re pretty much in this together.”

  London felt truly touched to have had such a positive impact an Audrey, however inadvertently.

  And yet at the same time, her mind was reeling

  All this does sound pretty crazy.

  Still, she couldn’t help feeling there was some method to Audrey’s craziness.

  “So Audrey, tell me,” London asked cautiously, “have you had any luck in your, uh, investigation?”

  Audrey laughed again.

  “Well, you’d be surprised the stuff I’ve overheard people saying. Being dressed like a gigantic chicken is sort of like being the proverbial fly on the wall. People forget you’re human, I guess. So they just talk away to each other as if you weren’t there. It tells you something about human nature, doesn’t it?”

  “Like what?” London asked.

  “I don’t know
yet. I’m working on it. Anyway, I picked up on some interesting stuff while going incognito. For example, I’ve noticed that nobody seems to be all broken up about the awful monocle man’s death—may he rest in peace.”

  “Yes, I’ve noticed that too,” London said.

  “The brewers and vendors all hated his guts,” Audrey continued. “And it’s hardly any wonder. After each year’s festival, he trashed just about all of them in his newspaper column—and pretty much the whole town of Bamberg, for that matter.”

  Yes, I know that already, London thought.

  She kept listening in hope that Audrey might say something she didn’t know.

  Audrey went on, “And every year he got drunk, and the brewers had to decide whether to cut him off, or keep giving him beer in hopes that he wouldn’t write anything too terrible about them. He got especially bad this year. Yesterday one of the vendors almost came to blows with him. I’ll bet you can’t guess which vendor that was.”

  London felt a sharp intuitive tingle.

  “Rolf Schilder!” she said.

  “That’s right—the guy in the cat suit. The awful monocle guy—”

  “His name was Sigmund Forstmann,” London put in.

  “That’s right, Herr Forstmann, may he rest in peace. He was completely plastered by the time he got to Herr Schilder’s stall. Schilder refused to serve him any beer. Then Forstmann started saying awful things about Schilder’s beer—I mean really gross and disgusting things, referring to body functions and such.”

  From what she’d heard about Forstmann’s beer, London wasn’t surprised to hear this.

  Audrey continued, “Then Schilder came out from behind the counter of his stall and tried to act threatening, raising his fist and all. But people say Schilder always looks ridiculous whenever he tries to act tough like that. So Forstmann laughed at him, and so did everybody else watching. Schilder snuck back behind his counter, and Forstmann lurched and staggered away to find other people to annoy. Do you think it means anything? Isn’t it possible that Schilder is the killer?”

  London’s brain clicked away trying to process what she was hearing. She found it easy to imagine getting angry enough at Forstmann to want to kill him.