Gone Gull

by Donna Andrews

  “Lesley? You still up at the house?”

  Officer Keech’s answer sounded like static to me, but evidently the chief understood it.

  “Good. Find Ms. Marks, the pottery instructor, and detain her until I get back to the house.”

  She turned back to me.

  “Any particular reason you were poking about here in the Dumpster?” she asked.

  I explained about our plan to spread out bait for the missing gulls. Pointed out the slats sticking out of the top of the Dumpster. Horace pulled out his camera and his forensic gear and set to work. Photos of the canvas. Photos of the slats in the Dumpster. The plastic bag I’d found the painting in went into an evidence bag. So did the slats, and my gloves. Horace took swabs of the reddish-brown stains on the painting and the slats.

  And then he stood staring up at the Dumpster.

  “There could be more evidence in there,” he murmured.

  “Seems unlikely.” The chief also studied the Dumpster with a pained look on her face.

  “Unlikely, but possible.” Horace wore a glum expression.

  “Work everything but the inside of the Dumpster for now,” the chief said finally. “I’ll arrange to have an empty one hauled up, and when it gets here you can process the contents of this one into the new one.”

  Horace nodded.

  “Getting dark soon.” He took a visible deep breath as he stared at the Dumpster. “I’ll need some lights.”

  “I’ll arrange that,” the chief said. “And I’ll get one of my officers to help you.”

  Just then her radio crackled and she toggled it on, eyes still on the Dumpster.

  “Yes?” she said.

  More static-laden words. The chief frowned.

  “Have dispatch put out a BOLO. Include the neighboring counties and the State Highway Patrol.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, as she hung her radio back on her belt.

  “Ms. Marks is in the wind. Most of her stuff’s still in her room, but her car’s missing, and no one’s seen her for the last hour or two. Horace, you may have to work this scene by yourself for a while. My officers will be a little busy looking for the fugitive.”

  Horace nodded absently. Actually, I suspected he was just as happy to work the crime scene on his own. Give him half an hour or so and he’d be so far into his zone he wouldn’t even notice the smell.

  “Blasted inconvenient timing.” The chief was frowning at her watch. “I’m due down in Charlottesville in a little over an hour.”

  “Visiting Jazz Hands?” I asked. “Sorry—none of my business, actually.”

  “Not a state secret.” She chuckled softly. “Meeting with a detective from the Charlottesville PD, and then he’s going to help me pin down Mr. Whiffletree, the owner of Jazz Hands. Even if Ms. Marks turns out to have committed both murders and Jazz Hands had nothing to do with them, there’s still the matter of the vandalism.”

  “You’ve got good people here,” I said. “And a lot more of them than usual, remember? Go tackle Whiffletree. They’ll call you if anything interesting happens.”

  “That’s true.” She gave me a sharp look. “While I’m gone, try to keep Rose Noire from doing any more smudging. Turns out Sergeant Hampton is allergic to sage. Had to use his epinephrine injector last night.”

  “Oh, dear.” I’d been dreading something of the sort. “I’ll do what I can.”

  She nodded, returned to her car, and drove off.

  I stuffed my equipment back in the Twinmobile and silently apologized to Grandfather. Operation Gull Quest would have to wait until after Horace had processed the scene.

  I drove back up the mountain and parked the Twinmobile in the center’s main parking lot. I tucked the spare gloves and the plastic bags in my tote and left the rest of my gear in the back. Then it occurred to me that I didn’t have to disappoint Grandfather after all. I could probably score some compost in the kitchen if I asked nicely. Or maybe just liberate some from the holding bins outside the kitchen door.

  Of course, either option meant dealing with Marty. I took several of the deep, calming breaths Rose Noire would have recommended, squared my shoulders, picked up my gear again, and marched down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Marty was beginning breakfast prep while keeping an eye on his underlings as they frantically raced through the post-dinner cleanup. It had been about this time last week that the previous brace of underlings had given notice. This week’s set didn’t look much happier. Marty glared at me as I entered.

  “Just passing through on my way to the trash bins.” I felt his eyes on me all the way across the kitchen and out the back door.

  I had just donned my rubber gloves and was starting to load my garbage bags when Marty stuck his head out the door. He watched me for a few moments.

  “She’ll pitch a fit if she finds any more garbage on her land,” he said eventually.

  “I’m going to take it way off into the mountains.”

  “Fine, but you’re not dragging that mess through my kitchen.”

  “Okay.” I glanced up at the steep path that led along the side of the building. At least if I hurried, I’d be climbing it in daylight. It was the darkness as much as the slope that had tripped up Rose Noire’s smudgers.

  I’d keep telling myself that.

  “Save yourself a lot of trouble if you’d just go down to the trash yard and fill your bags there,” Marty said. “Almost as fresh, and you can just shove it in the back of your car.”

  “The trash yard’s a crime scene at the moment.”

  “Crime scene? What do you mean? There can’t possibly have been another murder.”

  It occurred to me that this was how crazy rumors started. I put a last few bits of garbage in my first bag and stood up to ease my back.

  “No new crimes whatsoever, as far as I know,” I said. “But I was down at the trash yard, getting ready to fill these bags—because yes, I did realize that would be the easiest place to acquire a supply of garbage—and I found something that could be evidence in one of our existing crimes. Not sure the chief would want me to say any more.”

  I bent over to fill the other garbage bag. Marty just stood there—although when I glanced over my shoulder I saw, to my relief, that he wasn’t still scowling at me. He was staring down at the ground looking lost in thought.

  Then he glanced up and scowled, but it was a pretty tame and pro forma scowl compared to his usual menacing version.

  “Did this have anything to do with the cops turning the whole place inside out looking for Gillian Marks?”

  I shrugged. I tried to convey, with my expression, that it wasn’t so much an “I don’t know” shrug as an “I really shouldn’t be talking about it” one.

  “They’re crazy, then. Couldn’t hurt a fly, that one. Whatever evidence you think you found, I bet it will turn out to have some perfectly innocent explanation.”

  “I hope so,” I said. “I like Gillian.”

  “You shouldn’t have done that to her.”

  I wanted to protest that I hadn’t done anything to Gillian, that I had called the cops before I’d realized this could be embarrassing to her, but he’d already gone back inside, slamming the door behind him.

  I finished filling my second black plastic garbage bag, and then I hiked around the outside of the building until I arrived at the front, out of breath and covered with scratches from all the thorny shrubs lining the vestigial path.

  My original plan was to go up tonight and strew the garbage, but finding the painting at the trash yard had eaten up a lot of daylight. I could go do it tomorrow. If recent mornings were anything to go by, I’d be awake at the crack of dawn anyway. I’d have plenty of time for a quick run up into the mountains.

  I hauled my trash out to the barn, tied the mouths of the bags securely with the drawstrings, and locked them in the storage room. Then I headed back to the main building.

  The kids—minus Jamie and Josh, of course—were still in the theater watching
Toy Story. Rose Noire’s meditation class was in full swing in the library. The bridge players were out on the terrace, three tables strong with several kibitzers. One of the harried-looking kitchen staffers was pulling a cart full of s’mores supplies off the dumbwaiter.

  I found I wasn’t the least in the mood for s’mores without Michael and the boys. But I probably should go, at least for a while, if only to see whether anyone took an undue interest in their absence.

  In the meantime, I was going to do my usual pre-bedtime check of the studios. And then, after a short appearance at the campfire, I was going to guilt-trip one of my relatives or friends into letting me borrow her bathtub for a long, hot soaking bath.

  Nothing out of place until I came to my own studio. When I opened the door, a piece of paper went skittering across the floor. No, not a piece of paper—a pale blue envelope. Someone had probably slipped it under the door. Or maybe someone had left it on the counter to the right of the door and then the draft when I opened the door had knocked it off.

  I closed and locked the door. I took a picture of the envelope both close up and from a distance, so it would be clear where I found it.

  “Obviously Dad and Horace are rubbing off on me,” I said to myself.

  I went over to the corner where there was a small sink for end-of-class cleanup. I kept a pair of kitchen gloves there for when I had to scrub the sink. I put them on, and then picked up the envelope.

  The outside said To Meg in an elegant flowing handwriting. I opened it and found two sheets of pale blue stationery covered with longhand in purple ink.

  Chapter 29

  Dear Meg, the letter began. Please accept my apologies.

  I suspected I knew who it was from but I flipped to the end to make sure. Gillian. I turned back to the first page and paused. I felt curiously reluctant to read the letter. Was it because I didn’t want to learn what Gillian had to say? Or was I merely feeling a resistance to reading two pages of cursive writing—who in the world read or wrote that much in longhand these days?

  I braced myself and read on.

  Dear Meg. Please accept my apologies. If you’re reading this, I’ll be gone, and the police will be looking for me. I’m sure they think I killed Edward Prine. I didn’t.

  We had a brief affair, many years ago, just after my divorce. It ended badly, and if I’d known he was teaching here at Biscuit Mountain, I’d never have come. He brought along one of the paintings he did of me during our relationship. He was making inappropriate demands and threatening to hang it in his studio where everyone could see it if I didn’t comply.

  Inappropriate demands? From what I knew of Prine, I suspected I could guess what those demands were. I shook my head and read on.

  I decided I had to do something, so last Saturday, when so many people were leaving and everything was in chaos, I borrowed your grandmother’s spare keys and made copies of the ones I needed. I planned to go to Edward’s studio, steal the picture of me, and burn it. But when I went to his studio Monday night, just after midnight, I found him lying dead on the floor.

  I was afraid the police would suspect me if I reported the murder, or if they found the painting, so I dragged it out of the studio, cut the canvas off its frame, and hid the dismantled frame and the rolled-up canvas in the crawl space under the terrace. The next night I was planning to take it out into the woods and burn it, but I was interrupted by the hue and cry after your discovery of Mr. Winter’s body and only just managed to hide it in the trash collection area. I’m going to try again tonight, but if you’re reading this, I’ve probably failed.

  I didn’t kill Edward. I didn’t kill Mr. Winter. And I’m not the vandal. I don’t think the police will believe me. But maybe they’ll believe you. Make them keep investigating. Or do what you can to solve the murders yourself. Please help me!

  The letter ended with her large, looping, elegant signature. I stared at it for a while, then folded the pages together again and stuck them back in the envelope.

  I had no idea whether to believe her.

  Neither did the chief when I called her and read it to her.

  “This doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know,” she said. “Or could have surmised.”

  “True.”

  There was a long pause. I could hear the faint sounds of traffic. She was probably getting close to Charlottesville.

  “But it’s interesting,” she said. “Can you turn it over to Horace?”

  “I’ll call him as soon as we hang up. Good luck with Mr. Whiffletree.”

  Horace, when he arrived, was dubious that the letter would provide any useful forensic clues, although he was properly appreciative of my efforts to preserve any evidence it might contain.

  “Wish more people carried gloves around for occasions like this.” He carefully placed the letter and envelope in evidence bags.

  “If people did, it would mostly be the criminals who used them, you know,” I pointed out. “So I guess things look pretty bleak for Gillian. That’s a statement, not a question.” He was giving me that mournful, disapproving look he always had when people tried to get him to talk about his cases.

  “She seems like a nice lady,” he said.

  “She’s a very nice lady. I hope she doesn’t turn out to be the killer.”

  He nodded and left, bearing his evidence bags.

  I finished inspecting my studio, locked up, and decided to skip campfire after all. Instead, I went in search of someone who wasn’t presently using her bathtub.

  I ended up in the bathroom attached to the room Cordelia and Mother were sharing, soaking in a tub full of Rose Noire’s best rose and lavender bath salts, while in the bedroom the two of them caught up on news. It made me happy to know that they got on so well, although sometimes it worried me how much they saw eye-to-eye on things. It also made me happy to know that Mother was making plans for coaxing several recipes out of Marty, including the spectacular crème brûlée one—though I hoped it wasn’t too difficult, since I knew the odds were I’d be the one making it, not Mother. And because the two of them had been known to stay up chattering until dawn, it made me supremely happy to know that I had some place to sleep other than their floor. After my bath and a little family bonding with the two of them, I could go out to the caravan for a night of peace and quiet.

  “Don’t worry.” Cordelia looked up and smiled at me when I emerged from the bathroom. “We won’t stay up much longer. I know you need your rest.”

  “You need to bring in your sleeping bag, dear.” Mother was tucked up in Cordelia’s reading chair and looking around with approval at the elegantly decorated room. “We’ve cleared a nice space for you.”

  “Grateful as I am for the offer, I will be sleeping elsewhere,” I said.

  “Where?” Cordelia asked.

  “Not out in that wretched tent, I hope.” Mother shuddered at the thought. Of course, she usually did at the mention of sleeping in tents. “Even if Michael weren’t out in the woods I don’t think that would be a good idea at the moment.”

  “No, I don’t fancy the tent by myself. Especially since it sounds as if the heavens are going to open sometime later tonight. Several people have offered me places on their floors, but given all the insomnia I’ve been having lately I’m not really sure I want to share with anyone.”

  “Why not set up your sleeping bag in your studio?” Cordelia suggested.

  “I thought of that,” I said. “But even if I didn’t suspect that the vandal might have managed to make a copy of our master key—”

  “Oh, my. I hadn’t thought of that,” Mother murmured.

  “The studio’s got those enormous windows, and no curtains,” I went on. “I like a little more privacy, thank you. I’m taking the caravan.”

  “What a good idea.” Cordelia nodded her approval. “And you can take Spike with you. Let’s go get him now.”

  “Spike?” The idea didn’t enchant me, but I followed her out of the room anyway.

  �
��We originally penned him in the barn,” Cordelia said over her shoulder as we descended the main stairs. “But we have some of the visiting police officers bunking there, and he just keeps barking at them obsessively. Rose Noire made a bed in his traveling crate, down in the great room, but I’m afraid that’s not going to work out, either.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “It’s a perfectly good crate. If he’s not used to sleeping in it, he needs to learn.”

  We heard growling, followed by a shriek. One of the pottery students came running up the stairs.

  “Why is that vicious dog loose in the house?” she wailed.

  “He’s not loose,” Cordelia said. “He’s crated.”

  “Are you sure the crate can hold him?”

  “Of course, and anyway we’re about to relocate him.” Cordelia turned back to me. “He’s used to sleeping in the caravan. And—”

  “Okay.” I knew when to stop fighting. “I’ll take him.”

  “Just one thing.” Cordelia frowned at me. “Please promise me you’re not turning down all those places on people’s floors because you plan to go snooping around again before everyone else is up. Because I think that’s a bad idea. Finding two bodies is enough.”

  “Finding one body was more than enough,” I said. “No matter who finds them. No, now that we’ve got plenty of police officers to patrol the house and grounds, I’m a reformed snoop. I don’t plan to poke my nose out of the caravan before morning. And if anyone tries to poke his nose in, I’ll have the Small Evil One.” I didn’t mention my plan to stay awake and observe whatever events were happening outdoors. She probably wouldn’t trust me not to go out if I saw anything interesting. For that matter, I didn’t altogether trust myself, but if the temptation arose, I planned to combat it by remembering exactly how Edward Prine and Victor Winter had looked when I’d found their dead bodies.

  Cordelia studied me for a few moments. Then she nodded and strode off.

  I stopped by the nearest bathroom one last time. The covered bucket Eric had found for the twins’ use was probably still in the caravan, but I hoped I could avoid using it. Then I made my way back to the great room, grabbed Spike’s leash, and managed to get him out of the crate and attach the leash to him without getting bitten. I wasn’t sure whether he was hoping I’d lead him to Josh and Jamie or whether he was just delighted to be out of the crate.