Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos ml-3

by Donna Andrews

  Although we gave Dad the gist of what Tony had said, so he knew that we were almost certain to find the buckle on a man's shoe, he kept getting carried away. After the third time he managed to get slapped or swatted for trying to twitch up some poor woman's skirts, we invented an important job for him – keeping a list of who had already passed inspection, which kept his hands busy scribbling and prevented him from being hauled away on some kind of morals charge.

  The list was already lengthy when we left the fair grounds and moved over to the encampment, roaming up and down the ad hoc streets, peering and scribbling.

  By the time we'd been at this for an hour, everyone had figured out something was going on. Dad invented a cover story that Tony and I were trying to find a buckle that we both wanted to use as a model for our own work, which was pretty flimsy, but after that we were stuck with it. Most of the crafters we met thought Michael and I were inflicting some obscure penance on Tony for his well-known plagiarism of my best designs, and the reenactors had gotten so used to strange behavior from the locals that they didn't really seem curious.

  Of course it was only a matter of time before Monty found out what we were up to, jumped to the unfortunately accurate conclusion that it had something to do with the murder, and sent out a couple of officers to bring us back to the operations tent where he'd set up his on-site headquarters.

  He wasn't in a good mood.

  "Give me one reason why I shouldn't arrest you for withholding evidence and obstructing justice," Monty said.

  I decided to assume this was a rhetorical question and changed the subject.

  "We've found an important new piece of evidence for you,"

  I said.

  "Yes, and you've been running all over the fair, looking at people's belt buckles, and concealing this evidence from the police for how long?" Monty demanded.

  "Shoe buckles," Dad corrected him.

  "We wanted to bring you complete information," I said.

  "Wanted the glory of solving this yourself, you mean," he said.

  I bit back my quick answer, which would have been that, no, I just didn't want to give the information to someone I feared would misuse it to build a stronger case against one of my friends – especially since I wasn't quite sure I trusted Monty. So I sat, trying not to interrupt, as Monty took Tony through the same catechism I had been through. No, he didn't remember any more about what the shoes looked like. And, no, he hadn't seen the odd buckle anywhere around the fair.

  "So you don't remember anything else?" Monty asked.

  "Not about the shoes, no," Tony said.

  "Do you remember anything that's not about the shoes?" Monty asked.

  Tony thought.

  "I remember the socks a little," he said. "I think it was the socks, anyway."

  We all sat upright.

  "What about the socks?" Monty demanded.

  Tony thought again. Or maybe just paused, for effect.

  "Red plaid," he said, finally.

  "He was wearing red plaid socks?" Monty said.

  Tony nodded.

  "You didn't see any pants cuffs?"

  "No, just a glimpse of red plaid," Tony said.

  "You idiot," I exploded. "You dragged us all over the fair looking for slightly dented buckles, and didn't think to mention that the guy was wearing red plaid socks! We could have searched people's tents for the socks!"

  Tony looked at me and smirked.

  "You didn't ask about his socks," he said. "Just his shoes."

  "I think that just about settles it," Monty said. "And don't be too hard on Tony here," he added, turning to me. "We'd have figured it out sooner or later anyway."

  "Figured out what?" I asked, although I had a sinking feeling I knew.

  "Well, there were a lot of interesting costumes at that shindig," Monty said, looking at me with one eyebrow raised, as if to imply that he'd found my costume particularly interesting. "But I only remember one red plaid costume, and by an odd coincidence, the person wearing it was the person I was planning to arrest anyway. So don't be too mad at Tony here, Ms. Langslow. His evidence was just one more nail in the coffin. Ah, here we are."

  Faulk walked in, followed by two of the deputies. He glanced at the rest of us, then looked at Monty.

  "You wanted to see me?" he said.

  "Oh, no," I murmured.

  "I certainly did," Monty said. "Read him his rights, Fred."

  "He was the one in the kilts," Tony said.

  "And red plaid socks," Monty said. "Which you saw."

  "Yeah, or it could even have been part of the kilt," Tony said. "I was looking through this really small hole."

  "You're arresting me for wearing a kilt?" Faulk said, pretending a lightness I could tell he didn't feel. "May I call the Celtic Antidefamation League now?"

  "No, actually we're arresting you because your fingerprints are on the murder weapon," Monty said.

  "The flamingo," Faulk said.

  "Aha!" Monty said.

  "Aha, yourself," I said. "It's all over the fair that the flamingo was the murder weapon. Even the tourists are talking about it."

  "But none of the tourists managed to leave their fingerprints all over die flamingo in question," Monty said. "Bloody fingerprints."

  "Well, of course my fingerprints are all over it," Faulk said. "I handled it."

  "Aha!" Monty said again. Irritating habit.

  "It had nothing to do with the murder," Faulk said. "I waited till he was away from his booth and I went over and snooped around, after that dustup with Benson. So I guess I did have some blood on my hands. And I found the flamingo."

  "Why didn't you tell me?" I exclaimed. "If you saw the flamingo and knew he was copying it – "

  "Dammit, I'm asking the questions here," Monty said. "Why were you snooping around, anyway? What business was it of yours?"

  Faulk sighed and rubbed his face with his hands, the way people do when they're too exhausted to think.

  "I wanted to see what he was making. He's been copying his stuff from me, and Meg and – oh, I don't know how many other blacksmiths. The man doesn't have a creative bone in his body. I wanted to see what he was ripping off."

  "What, are you suing him or something?"

  "Well, maybe," he said, glancing at me. "Meg and I have been talking about it. But mainly I wanted to see who was going to try to dismember the little weasel. I've had to pull other blacksmiths off him the last four or five shows we've been at together, to keep them from beating him to a pulp. I wanted to see who was going to try to k – hurt him this time. That's why I didn't tell you," he said, turning to me. "I know you'd only get ticked off."

  "I think I had a right to know," I said.

  "Yeah," he said. "You did. And I was going to tell you after the fair. I figured you'd be upset at first, but if he wasn't around, it would be okay. I mean, you hated making the flamingos so much; I figured once you got past your first reaction, it would be okay. You wouldn't mind as much."

  "No," I said. "I hated making them, but they were my flamingos. I'd have minded."

  Faulk nodded.

  "Minded enough to go after him?" Monty interrupted.

  "Me?" I spluttered.

  "No," Faulk said, smiling faintly. "I can't imagine Meg going in for physical violence when she can do a lot more painful damage with that tongue of hers."

  "Gee, thanks," I muttered.

  "And, of course, you've never gone after him yourself, have you?" Monty said.

  "No," Faulk said, keeping his voice even.

  "Yeah, I figured you'd say that," Monty went on. "Everyone around here says you don't fly off the handle easily, but when you do lose your temper – watch out. So who knows? My information says you were about to go bankrupt, supporting your little friend's lawsuit against Benson. Then again, maybe you mistook this Benson fellow for Tony here, who was ripping you off. He's about the same size and build, and like that reporter keeps saying, everyone looks alike in these damned blue uniforms. I
don't really care which one you had it in for. You had reasons to hate 'em both; I'll let the DA sort it out which one you thought you were killing. Fred, read him his rights and slap a pair of cuffs on him."

  A craft fair's like a small town whoncvcr something interesting happens, everyone seems to find out all at once, as if by telepathy or jungle drums. So I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to find quite a few people lurking in the vicinity of the operations tent when we came out to watch Faulk being led off to the squad car. And since Faulk was generally well liked, I could hear shocked and resentful murmurs running through the crowd.

  "Meg – break it to Tad, will you?" Faulk said, over his shoulder. "And see if you can convince him that now is not the time to be stiff-necked, and he should call my parents about finding a lawyer. They might even offer to pay; God knows I'm going to have a hard time doing it."

  I nodded.

  "Uh… can I help?" Rob said, stepping out of his place in the watching crowd. "I mean, you at least need an attorney with you for the arraignment. Or I could go get one of the uncles if you'd rather."

  "No, you'll do fine, Rob," Faulk said. "And maybe you can figure out how to arrange bail, so I don't have to spend the rest of the weekend in durance vile."

  "I don't think our durances are all that vile," I said. "It's a pretty new jail."

  "Yeah, right," Faulk said, as the police went through the ritual of holding his head so he didn't strike it on the doorframe while getting into the car. "See you, sword lady."

  "I can't believe you're stupid enough to think Faulk is the killer," I blurted out to Monty as he was getting into the front seat of the car.

  "Yeah, well, I was thinking it was your friend with the braids until his alibi came forward," Monty said.

  "Alibi," Faulk echoed, from inside the car. "Tad was off by himself, playing Doom on his laptop when the murder happened."

  "Yeah, well, I guess he would say something like that," Monty said, with a sly smirk. "But the guy he was with came in a couple of hours ago and alibied him. Hey, there's another possible motive," he said, turning to me. "Mr. Cates here found out his boyfriend was two-timing him and killed the next person he met in a jealous rage."

  With that, he ducked into the car and slammed the door, just in time to save me from a charge of assaulting a police officer when I impulsively hurled my haversack at his head. It bounced harmlessly off the car instead.

  "Well, that was stupid," I muttered, as I bent to pick it up and check the contents for breakage.

  "I'm sorry, Meg," Michael said. "I know Faulk's your friend."

  "And he's not a killer, no matter what that idiot Monty thinks," I replied. "And I don't believe Tad did that to him, although now Faulk has gone off to jail .thinking he has, and – oh, damn!"

  "I believe you," Michael said. "Look, tomorrow we can – "

  "Michael, I have a copy of our battle orders," said another French soldier, coming up and handing him a paper.

  "Sorry," Michael said. "This'll just take a minute."

  He joined a group of white-clad Gatinois chasseurs. Apparently something about the battle orders upset some and made others laugh, but you could tell that overall they were getting excited about the coming skirmish.

  Mrs. Waterston hove into sight, flanked by a man in an officer's uniform who was carrying a quill pen, a bottle of ink, and a flat board that seemed to be a colonial-style version of a clipboard.

  "Does anyone else want to fight in the skirmish?" Mrs. Waterston called. "Last chance; come forward if you want to fight in the skirmish!"

  I watched as she signed up a number of men, including Cousin Horace, and told them to report to Mrs. Tranh to be outfitted with their uniforms.

  What the hell, I thought. Make an effort to share Michael's interests.

  I strolled over to where Mrs. Waterston stood.

  "If you need bodies, I'd be happy to pitch in," I said.

  "Oh – Meg," Mrs. Waterston said, as if she wasn't quite sure she recognized me. "I'm terribly sorry, but you know, women didn't go into combat in those days. I'm afraid we can't allow it."

  She smiled and looked past me, searching the crowd for more male volunteers.

  I was about to point out that there were a few other women already fighting, regular members of various units. But then it occurred to me that perhaps Mrs. Waterston hadn't detected this, and would go and insist that they be kicked out. I didn't want to cause anyone any trouble.

  "You can watch from the sidelines, you know," Mrs. Waterston said, noticing that I was still there. "With all the other camp followers."

  Camp followers?

  She's Michael's mother, I told myself, as I forced my hands to unclench, bit back several stinging replies, and walked away.

  You don't want to get in an argument with Michael's mother.

  And however seductive it might seem right now, killing her would be a bad idea. The police were still swarming all around, and Michael would be upset. I glanced over to where Michael was standing with his unit. He hadn't heard what she said. Maybe she hadn't meant it as an insult. Michael saw me looking at him, said something to his comrades, and headed my way.

  "Meg, are you okay?" he asked, as he rejoined me.

  "Thank goodness the police have finally arrested the murderer," I heard Mrs. Waterston say to the officer at her side.

  "Not as far as I'm concerned," I muttered.

  "She doesn't mean it that way," he said. "She's so focused on her festival; it's not as if she's even thought about whether Faulk's guilty or not."

  "I know," I said. "Look, I've got to get back to my booth; you have to go rehearse. I'll see you at the skirmish."

  "Meg, are you sure – "

  "Michael!" Mrs. Waterston called. "Why aren't you with your regiment? We're getting ready for the rehearsal skirmish."

  "You're right, I've got to run," Michael said. "We'll figure out what to do later."

  I nodded and moped off, back to my booth.

  The craft fair was open for another hour, and I got through it on autopilot, fending off questions from people who wanted to know more about Faulk's arrest with the not inaccurate claim that I was too busy to talk. On the bright side, I realized I wasn't going to go broke from the weekend's adventures. Eileen and Amanda had taken care of the booth in my absence, and had done well. I could gauge how tired I was by the fact that I couldn't instantly calculate in my head exactly how well, but I suspected I'd have a record weekend, even if I sold nothing on Sunday – not that there was much left to sell. And I'd taken a slew of orders for special commissions, which meant future income during the normally slow winter season. Of course, the bad news was that most of the commissions were for wrought-iron flamingos. I decided to get depressed about that later, so I could concentrate, for the moment, on feeling depressed about Faulk's arrest.

  When the fair closed for the day, I headed over toward my parents' house for a short visit. I'd probably miss the beginning of the rehearsal skirmish, but I didn't think anyone would miss me, and I needed a break.

  A break from portapotties. A break from the questions everyone had been throwing at me. And a break from the close proximity of the cannon, which had been booming quite vigorously ever since having to give Mrs. Waterston an alibi had revealed the crew's ploy with the speakers. Even at this distance, I thought, the cannon was giving me a headache. Or was it just stress? And I was very much afraid that our deal for some peace and quiet at night would be off.

  I ran into my nephew Eric as I walked down the driveway.

  "Meg!" he said, his face lighting up. Nice to know someone was glad to see me, although he looked uncharacteristically anxious.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "Duck's brooding again," he said. "Can you help?"

  "Brooding?" I asked. Weren't we all? But then, Eric's pet duck was a cheerful, gregarious creature who followed him around like a pet dog. What could she possibly be brooding about, and what was I supposed to do about it – quack knock-
knock jokes?

  "Brooding," Eric repeated. "Sitting on her eggs. Can you help?"

  Oh. Of course.

  "Why does Duck need my help with that?" I asked.

  He sighed.

  "She keeps laying them in all the wron places, and people break the eggs accidentally, or they have to chase her away. I thought maybe if we moved the eggs just right, she would go on sitting on them in the new place."

  "Okay," I said. "We can give it a try."

  I could see what he meant about all the wrong places. Duck was sitting on the hood of Dad's car. Evidently Dad hadn't driven it for the past day – no, two days. I could see two eggs under Duck. And Dad might not get around to driving his car until after the festival was over, but even a bird-lover like Dad was unlikely to give up driving for however many days it took duck eggs to hatch. Assuming they ever did hatch, which was unlikely, since Duck was, as far as we knew, the only duck for miles around.

  I sent Eric in to get a bit of deviled egg, Duck's favorite food, and studied the situation. I had been struck by what seemed like an inspiration, and I was testing it to see if it had any cracks.

  When Eric returned with the food, we managed to lure Duck off the car hood long enough for me to grab the pair of eggs she was sitting on. She didn't like it much, though; she began quacking and making little dashes at me with lowered beak. But she didn't seem to mind Eric holding them.

  "Eric," I said. "How far do you think you can lead Duck?"

  "She'll follow me anywhere," he boasted. "At least when she's not sitting on her eggs, that is."

  "Good," I said. "You know those guys who are firing the cannon out on the battlefield?"

  I watched as Eric went down the driveway, carefully holding the eggs, with Duck following behind. With any luck, if Eric could find a moment to deposit the eggs on top of the cannon, we'd have another night's reprieve from the cannon fire.

  And the cannon crew would, I knew, take good care of Duck.

  Probably overfeed her, but then, so did Dad and Eric.