Gone Gull

by Donna Andrews

  “Not as far as I know,” I said. “I suppose he’ll be one of your suspects, of course; I’m sure all of us up here will. Maybe Grandfather more than most, because he had a couple of arguments with Prine yesterday. But actually, he would have had a very strong reason for wanting to keep Prine alive. I’ll fill you in when you get here.”

  “On my way.”

  I ended the call and looked at the time. Good grief, not even six thirty. I hated to wake up Dad so early. But better me than the sirens that would soon be arriving.

  He didn’t pick up until the fourth ring.

  “Meg? What’s the emergency? Should I bring my medical bag? It’s not one of the boys, is it?”

  “The boys are fine and still asleep,” I said. “You should definitely bring your bag—we have a dead body in one of the craft studios. Edward Prine,” I added before he could ask. “And in case you were wondering, yes, I think it’s murder. Chief Heedles is already on her way.”

  “Oh, dear. Yes, I’ll be right there.”

  I took a good look around, and just for good measure, I took a bunch of shots of Prine and his surroundings, using the camera in my phone. Not that I was nosy or anything, but what if something happened to disturb the crime scene in the time it took for the first Riverton police officer to get here? Of course, anyone who wanted to disturb it would have to get past me first, but I was taking no chances. And keeping busy helped.

  Then I dialed Cordelia.

  “Sorry to wake you,” I said.

  “Don’t be sorry.” She sounded pretty awake already. “I assume you’re up and calling me because the vandal has struck again. How bad is it?”

  “It’s not vandalism this time,” I said. “It’s murder.”

  She didn’t say anything for a few moments, and I could picture her, closing her eyes and flinching as if from a physical blow.

  “Edward Prine,” I said, because I knew that would be her next question. “I’m guarding the door to his studio. Dad’s on his way here. Can you get someone to make sure Prine’s bedroom is locked and stand guard there? And we’ll need to head off the painting students—in fact, I’m not sure how much of the studio wing Chief Heedles will cordon off and for how long. Head off all the students.”

  “So we’ll need to come up with a way to have classes go on as normally as possible in some other space,” she said. “You handle the police—I’ll work with the teachers to come up with a plan. I suppose it’s crass of me to think about that at a time like this.”

  “Not really,” I said. “We have dozens of people who have to be fed and kept safe and entertained, or at least out of the police’s way.” And a business to keep afloat. Neither of us said it, but I suspect we were both thinking it. “We have a lot to do.”

  “So I guess we’d better get cracking.”

  She hung up. Not for the first time, I was struck by how seamlessly we worked together. It was like having another me who could take on half of the tasks in my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. I wondered if she felt the same way.

  I’d ponder that another time. I had more calls to make.

  Michael answered his phone with a yawn.

  “Even the boys have only just begun to stir,” he said. “I assume you’re up keeping your grandfather and the seagull painter from coming to blows.”

  “Actually, I’m guarding a crime scene. Someone killed Edward Prine last night, and I’m hoping no one jumps to the conclusion that it’s Grandfather.”

  A short pause.

  “You’re sure?” he asked.

  “Am I sure it wasn’t Grandfather?” I said. “Obviously I can’t prove that he didn’t sneak back downstairs after we left, to confront Prine again, but yeah, I’m sure it’s not him. I can’t see Grandfather stabbing anyone in the back.”

  “I meant were you sure Prine is dead,” he said. “But yeah, you’re right about your grandfather. Whacking someone over the head with his cane, or any conveniently handy blunt object, maybe, if he lost his temper. But I can’t imagine your grandfather stabbing anyone in the back. He’d meet the enemy head-on.”

  “Let’s hope Chief Heedles shares our point of view,” I said. “Meanwhile, we have a lot to do, and since I’m the one who found the body, I’ll probably be tied up with the police for a while.”

  “What can I do to help out?”

  “Keep the boys away from all this,” I said. “Keep your class going so everything’s as normal as possible.”

  “Speaking of classes, do you have a plan for who’s going to take over Prine’s class?”

  “I haven’t even thought that far,” I said.

  “Then let me take care of it,” he said. “After all, the show must go on. And I probably already know someone who can fill in.”

  “Good,” I said. “Look, I just told you to keep the boys away from all this—do we need to rethink whether it’s safe having them here?”

  A short silence.

  “Let’s see how it goes,” he said. “If the victim had been some poor inoffensive soul without an enemy in the world, I’d worry more. But Prine—well, it’s not as if he’s short on enemies. It will probably turn out to be someone who had it in for Prine and isn’t a danger to the boys—or any of the kids.”

  “Okay,” I said. “And speaking of Prine’s enemies, can you find Grandfather and make sure— Damn. Never mind, here he comes. Just what I need.”

  “I’ll send Caroline down to help you deal with him,” he said. “And before you even ask, I won’t let the boys out of my sight.”

  “Where is the rascal?” Grandfather was striding down the hall toward me.

  “Stop right there!” I barked. To my surprise—and, I suspect, his—he followed my orders and stopped short.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “The good news is that I’ve found Prine.”

  “Well, I assumed you could,” he said. “Where are my gulls?”

  “The bad news is that we’ll have to find your gulls on our own.”

  “If he won’t tell us where he took that picture—” he began.

  “He can’t tell us where he took that picture,” I said. “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” He frowned slightly. “A pity. He wasn’t as clueless a painter as I originally thought.”

  Coming from Grandfather, that was almost fulsome praise.

  “And now I suppose I’ll never find my gulls,” he went on, reverting to his usual curmudgeonly self.

  “Your gulls aren’t exactly the top priority here,” I said. “We’re talking about a human life.”

  “And I’m talking about an entire species.”

  “A species that seems to have survived just fine on its own for the last century without any help from you and your fellow naturalists. But I think I know how we can find your gulls—just cool your jets for a while and cooperate with Chief Heedles when she gets here.”

  “Chief Heedles?” he repeated. “What do we need her for?”

  “Because Prine didn’t just die,” I said. “He was murdered. And for all I know you’re going to be one of her chief suspects, so try behaving yourself for the time being.”

  “Nonsense! Why would I want to kill the blighter? He had my gulls.”

  I could hear a siren in the distance.

  “You had several noisy quarrels with Prine yesterday,” I said. “And you were running around late last night, banging on his door and calling him and generally making a ruckus in your attempts to find him. Yes, you’re a suspect.”

  “Well, if she thinks I wanted to kill him, she’s a fool. If I’d known he was in danger, I’d have tried to protect him.”

  He lifted his chin and stuck out his chest, and for a moment the idea of a man in his nineties protecting a burly artist half his age from a knife-wielding killer didn’t seem the least bit silly.

  To my relief, the door at the far end of the hallway opened and Caroline came trotting in. Her short, round form was disheveled, as if she’d thrown on her clothes while st
ill half asleep. But she was awake enough now. And I was relieved to see her, because the siren was rapidly getting closer.

  “Monty, you old fool,” she called out. “What are you doing here bothering Meg when she has a murder on her hands?”

  “How was I supposed to know we’d had a murder?” he said. “And what kind of dangerous place is Cordelia running here, anyway? Teachers getting knocked off right and left—I should probably get myself some bodyguards.”

  “We can talk about that later.” Caroline linked her arm in his and began tugging him back toward the great room. “Let’s have breakfast, and then we can figure out what to do about today’s classes.”

  “What to do about them? We teach them. Unless someone knocked off Baptiste, too.”

  “Baptiste’s fine.” Caroline clearly had more patience than I did at the moment. “But when the police get here, they could declare the whole studio wing off limits for who knows how long. We need to have a plan.”

  “We’ll take them on a nature walk,” Grandfather said. “Maybe they can find my blasted gulls.”

  They disappeared into the great room.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t want Grandfather underfoot, complaining about Prine’s failure to disclose the whereabouts of the Ord’s gulls, while Chief Heedles made her first inspection of the crime scene.

  Chapter 8

  The sirens were right outside, and I took a few steps into Prine’s studio so I could see out his windows. One police car had parked right in front of the building and turned off its siren, although the lights were still flashing. The other car pulled up right behind it and followed suit. Blissful, sirenless silence ensued. A tall uniformed officer stepped out of the first car and turned to scan the crowd that was gathering at the edge of the campground. Chief Heedles stepped out of the second car and looked up at the main building.

  Every time I saw Mo Heedles I found myself thinking that she’d missed her calling by not going into undercover work. She was of average height and weight, with features so regular that they somehow didn’t stick in your mind when you left her presence. But she was a capable chief of police and a good friend of Cordelia’s.

  I stepped back out into the hallway and waited. In a couple of minutes, she was striding down the corridor toward me, followed by the young officer.

  “And here I was hoping your vandal had gone home so I could stop traipsing up here every day.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” I said. “We didn’t even call you about it until Thursday last week, so you’ve only traipsed three or four times.”

  “Around here, that’s a crime wave.” She nodded at the doorway. “In there?”

  “In there,” I echoed.

  She took a few steps into the room and took a long, slow, level look around. Then she stepped back out.

  “Get an ETA on Keech,” she told the officer. He nodded and walked down the hallway a ways.

  “I have one officer with some crime scene training,” she said to me. “When she gets here, we’ll do what we can on the room. I’ve already put in a call to Richmond for additional resources, but apparently they’re having a crime wave of their own down there.”

  “Don’t take this as interfering, but remember my cousin Horace? He’s also had some crime scene training.”

  “A lot more than Officer Keech,” the chief said. “But since she’s who I have available and your cousin’s an hour’s drive away in Caerphilly, Officer Keech will have to do for the time being.”

  “Horace happens to be here,” I said. “Rose Noire talked him into taking some time off and coming up to help us catch the vandal. He arrived late last night. I’m sure if you cleared it with his boss, he’d be happy to help out with the murder as well.”

  “Thanks—that’s a good idea. Meanwhile—isn’t our victim the same guy whose studio was splashed with red paint last week?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Edward Prine.”

  “You found him?”

  I nodded.

  “Any particular reason you were here at this hour of the morning?” she asked. “It would have been barely light when you found him.”

  “Insomnia,” I said. “Of the waking-up-early-and-not-able-to-get-back-to-sleep variety. So I thought I’d get started checking to see if the vandal had struck again. I’ve been doing it every morning, since Thursday of last week, though not usually this early.”

  “I thought you were going to tell the crafters to lock up after themselves?”

  “We are telling them—repeatedly, because getting creative people to do anything practical is practically the textbook definition of herding cats,” I said. “And because I know some of them will still ignore the instructions, I go around every night after dinner and check all the studios. I did it around eight p.m. last night. Closed and locked any unlocked windows, locked all the doors again, and saw no signs of vandalism. And then I did a mini patrol around midnight—I hadn’t brought my keys so I didn’t go inside any of the studios, but they were all still locked.”

  “When did you last see the deceased?” she asked.

  “At dinner.” I explained, as succinctly as I could, about Grandfather’s quarrel with Prine over the authenticity of his gull painting, Prine’s triumphant delivery of the photos he thought would prove his case, and Grandfather’s belated discovery that the photos proved the survival of the Ord’s gull. “Which is why you’re going to hear that Grandfather was running around yelling and waking people up last night around midnight. He wanted Prine to tell him where the photos were taken so he could locate the gull.”

  “In other words, your grandfather’s going to be one of my suspects.” She was smiling slightly. I had no idea if that was a good sign or a bad one.

  “Yes, he’s going to be one of your suspects,” I said. “Which is ironic, because he just might be the only person here even a little upset by Prine’s death. Not that he’s any fonder of the man than the rest of us, but with Prine gone, he’s going to have a much harder time finding those gulls.”

  Just then the door from the great room flew open. Dad trotted in, followed by a tall, slender black woman in a Riverton PD uniform. Dad was carrying his black medical bag, and the officer was carrying a similar satchel, so I deduced that she was Officer Keech of the forensic training.

  “And now you’d probably like me to get out of your way,” I said. “I’m sure I stepped in some of the blood—shall I leave my shoes here for Horace?”

  “Please. And don’t go far.” Her focus had already shifted to Dad and Officer Keech.

  “I’ll be in the great room,” I said. “Or possibly the dining room, if Marty’s got breakfast going.”

  To my relief, breakfast was in progress, and considering the early hour, an unusual number of people were partaking of it. Normally the last half hour before classes began was the busiest time for breakfast. But here it was, barely 7:00 A.M., and the crowd was overflowing into the adjoining game room and onto the terrace.

  Though from the way they kept staring at the door I’d just come through, I suspected rubbernecking was at least as much of a draw as the food.

  Amanda and Caroline sat at the table closest to the door, and when they spotted me, they waved me over.

  “You can help us guard the doors,” Caroline said as I sat down at their table. “Chief Heedles’s orders—if anyone tries to go into the studio wing, we repel them.”

  “So just what is going on?” Amanda asked. “Rumor has it that someone finally bashed Annoying Eddie’s head in.”

  “Rumor only has it partly correct,” I said. “He wasn’t bashed—he was stabbed. In the back.”

  “Wasn’t that a tactical mistake on the part of the killer?” Amanda mused. “I mean, bashing someone’s head in, you could always plead self-defense or heat of the moment or some such thing. But stabbing someone in the back—hard to pass that off as anything but homicide.”

  “A very good point,” I said. “Should I feel compelled to add to this week’s body co
unt—which seems much less likely with Eddie no longer around—I will be careful to tackle my victim face-to-face.”

  “I gather you didn’t like him,” Caroline said. “And I’m noticing a distinct lack of distress on the part of the folk hereabouts. No one’s popping champagne or setting off fireworks or anything, and everyone’s doing their best to look somber and thoughtful, but…”

  She let her voice trail off and shook her head.

  “He was a first-class jerk,” Amanda said. “I’m sure somewhere he has family and friends who will mourn him, but I don’t think he’s won many friends around here.”

  “No, you won’t see sorrow dimming anyone’s appetite,” I said. “So I think I’ll make my way through the buffet line before they run out of bacon, if they haven’t already.”

  I grabbed a tray and got in line behind a couple of women I recognized as students from Prine’s painting class. We wished each other good morning, and they went back to a conversation they’d been having in low tones. When I realized they were talking about Prine, I pulled out my phone and studied its screen, to make it less obvious that I was eavesdropping.

  “Anyway, she said if they can’t get a substitute or we’re not satisfied with the quality of instruction by the substitute, she’ll give us a refund. On the tuition, of course. Not the room and board.”

  “The room and board would be worth it even if the class was totally useless.”

  “Yeah—and if you ask me, anyone she gets would be an improvement on him. It’s not that I haven’t learned anything—I have. But I’ve been getting a little tired of his snotty, superior attitude.”

  “No, he’s not a people person. And you were here last week, too—and you came back for more?”

  “Well, I did learn a lot, and I’ve got a pretty thick skin. I did have a talk with Cordelia, and we agreed that if I got to the point that I was about to strangle Prine, she’d switch me into any other class of my choice. I still might do that if I don’t like the replacement. I hear good things about the nature photography class—”

  By this time, we’d all filled our trays. The painting students headed for a table near the terrace. I headed back to Caroline and Amanda’s table. My grandmother had joined them.