EQMM, February 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "Where are the rest of them?” I asked.

  "Keith and Elsie are feeding the birds and Charles is up in the tower guiding his pigeons back from Phoenix."

  We went out back to visit Eddy, who seemed to be adjusting well to all these strange noisy birds. Presently Cromwell came to join us, sandwich in hand. “I guess the road is clear. The police just drove up. Rosie sent me to tell you."

  "Thanks,” I said. “Your pigeons all get back safely?"

  "Every one. They made good time."

  We followed him inside to meet Sergeant Menos, who wore a cowboy hat and a sport shirt with his badge pinned to the breast pocket. “You people all work here?” he asked. I explained that Ives and I were couriers employed to deliver a cockatoo to the sanctuary. He shoved the hat back a few inches on his balding head. “You mean those New Yorkers got that much money to throw around?"

  "Some of them do,” Ives told him. “The woman wanted to be sure Eddy had a good life after she was gone."

  "Eddy?"

  "The cockatoo."

  "Oh.” He shook his head and turned to Rosie. “You in charge here?"

  "I guess you could say that. I founded the place and I keep things running."

  "Let's see the body."

  Elsie Beach had reappeared with Naco and by unspoken agreement she led the way into the bedroom. “His name's Miles Beach,” she told the detective. “He was my husband."

  "How'd he get all wrapped up in plastic?"

  I explained that we'd done it because of the heat. “We didn't know how long it would take you to get here."

  He instructed the two detectives who'd accompanied him to carefully remove the plastic. When they started their routine of photographing and crime scene investigation, Menos ordered us from the room. “I'll be questioning you individually, but first I want to hear where everyone was last night, starting with you, Mrs. Beach."

  We'd gone out to the common room adjoining the refectory and grouped around in a haphazard semicircle while Sergeant Menos asked his questions. He led off with a question for Elsie: “Did you spend the night with your husband, Mrs. Beach?"

  "I ... no, I hadn't slept with him for more than two weeks. I'd been sleeping in our guest room. Since we had unexpected guests last night,” she glanced at Ives and me, “I slept on a cot down here."

  "I didn't know we were taking your bed,” I said by way of apology.

  "Why weren't you sleeping with him?” the detective asked, making some notes.

  "You might want to ask Rosie that question. It's hard to fit three in a bed."

  The detective turned to Rosie Spain. “Did you spend the night with the victim?"

  "No,” she answered simply, avoiding Elsie's gaze. “I was alone."

  Menos turned to the two men. “What about you two?"

  "I was alone,” Cromwell told him, “and I heard nothing."

  "The dogs were restless,” Naco said. “I figured there might be a bobcat nearby."

  "Were you sleeping alone?"

  "Of course!"

  Then Sergeant Menos turned his attention to us. “You two were together all night?"

  "Yes,” I replied.

  "Married?"

  "Engaged,” I told him, and felt Ives drill me with her eyes.

  At that moment the chattering of the outside birds seemed to increase and the dogs started barking. “They've got something,” Rosie said, rising to go look.

  "Maybe one of my men. I told him to take a look around the grounds."

  We headed for the aviary out back and found one of the sergeant's uniformed men tussling with an obvious border-crosser, a young Mexican who spoke virtually no English. “I found him hiding in this shed,” the officer told Menos.

  The detective spoke quickly in Spanish to his prisoner. When the young man was slow to answer, Menos poked him none too gently in the stomach and asked more questions. Finally the frightened youth began to talk and Menos translated for us. “His name in Garcia Ortega. He's from Mexico City and he crossed over near Sasabe three nights ago. He was starving and when he heard the birds he sneaked in here to kill one and eat it, but the dogs chased him into your supply shed."

  Rosie smiled. “Nothing but bird food in there. Come on, I'll feed him before you take him back."

  "Maybe he got into the house and killed my husband,” Elsie Beach suggested.

  "If he'd done that he certainly would have grabbed something to eat,” Ives argued with some logic. One of the nearby parrots cackled something in Spanish, mimicking Menos and his prisoner.

  I glanced into the shed, searching for something that might have been used as a weapon, but found nothing. The shelves were lined with carefully labeled sacks of bird food and treats, some marked “macaws, cockatoos, and parrots,” others marked “pigeons only,” still others “roosters and geese.” There were even some of the ceramic eggs Cromwell had mentioned at dinner.

  "Look at this,” Ives said as we passed one of the mission's atriums. She stooped down and pulled a metal spike from the ground. It was the sort used to anchor netting for the aviaries, but its pointed tip could easily double as a murder weapon.

  "Bring it along. They might be able to match it to the shape of the wound."

  We gave it to Menos and he said since we were outsiders here and unlikely to have a motive for the killing we were free to go. When I phoned the airline about our missed flight I was told there was nothing else available to New York until the following afternoon. “You mean we're stuck here for another twenty-four hours?” Ives said with a bit of a groan.

  "Looks like it. We'll have more time to bond with Eddy."

  "Rosie says we shouldn't socialize too much with the birds. She wants them to have bird friends for their old age, not people."

  "Miles Beach would have been better off with bird friends, too."

  "If we put our minds to this, Stanton, we could probably wrap it up before we have to leave."

  "Maybe,” I acknowledged.

  We asked Rosie if we could remain one more night rather than get a hotel room in Tucson and she readily agreed. It was bad enough we had to pay for the unoccupied room the night before. “Perhaps your courier company would like to make a donation to our sanctuary,” she suggested.

  "I'll talk to the boss about it when we get back."

  The illegal, Garcia Ortega, had been taken away by the police, along with the body, but I don't think any of them believed that was the end of it. Our evening meal was tense, made worse by the fact that Naco had placed seven chairs around the table, forgetting for a moment that Miles Beach wouldn't be joining us. “Do you want help with the funeral arrangements, Elsie?” Cromwell asked as they were finishing dinner.

  "I don't even want to think about that. It was so good here at first. The birds made it seem like paradise. Then something happened.” No one had to say what it was. Rosie got up and started clearing away the dishes.

  * * * *

  Ives and I were up early, packing our small bags for a quick escape. We had breakfast with Rosie and Keith Naco at eight, while Cromwell was on the roof launching his pigeons on their daily flight. “Where's Elsie?” Ives asked.

  "She'll be down,” Naco replied. “She's leaving today, too. She told me she can't stay here any longer."

  Rosie Spain was silent for a moment, then said, “I hope she doesn't blame me. I had nothing to do with his death.” It had been Miles's turn to cook the meals, but Rosie had worked a second day rather than ask anyone else.

  Naco was already out feeding the birds when Cromwell came down to help him. He'd fed the dozen or so homing pigeons already, before they took off for Phoenix on their daily run. “How'd they end up here?” Ives asked when we'd joined them outside. “They're hardly tropical birds."

  "Their owner died and the flock was going to be split up. I knew about Rosie's place so I brought them here last winter. They were young enough to train for new routes, using more experienced birds, and when Rosie offered me a job I took it."

&n
bsp; Each of them had their own chores and for a time we walked with Elsie. If her husband's death upset her, she wasn't showing it. “This is the last time I'll be feeding the birds. I guess I'll miss them, but Miles was the one who brought us here. He loved all birds and never wanted to see them mistreated. Sometimes he talked about starting a place like this back East.” We'd stopped at the macaws’ cages and she filled their feeders with seed, then poured fresh water into their dishes. A green and red parrot pecked at Elsie's finger when it got the chance. “They like to peck you with those big beaks,” she said, quickly withdrawing her finger.

  We left her and drifted over to Eddy's cage, the same one in which we'd delivered him. Rosie hadn't yet paired him with a bird companion. Ives was wearing high heels in preparation for our return flight to New York, and one heel sank into the loose gravel nearby. She bent to free it and said, “Stanton, look at this!"

  "What is it?"

  "Looks like birdseed to me."

  "Someone must have spilled it."

  She dug a bit with her hand. “But there's lots of it, several inches. And it was covered over by a couple inches of sand. If someone spilled it, they could have shoveled up most of it and used it."

  "It does seem odd,” I admitted. Very odd, and I couldn't quite come up with an explanation. It wasn't till noon, when we'd brought our bags down to the car, that everything suddenly fell into place.

  * * * *

  "I think we should take Eddy to the top of the tower before we leave, so he can get a bird's-eye view,” I told Ives.

  "A bird's-eye view? He's a bird, Stanton!"

  "Come on. It'll only take a few minutes.” We went around the back and Ives picked up his cage. Then I led the way up the steps to the mission tower.

  Charles Cromwell was standing there, as I knew he would be, scanning the southern horizon with a pair of binoculars. “Hello. I thought you people would be gone by now."

  "We wanted to give Eddy a bird's-eye view,” I told him. “You watching for your pigeons?"

  "Yeah."

  I smiled at him. “I thought Phoenix was in the other direction, but then my geography's always been bad."

  "Sometimes the birds circle around before they land."

  "My geography's always been bad, but my math is damned good. Phoenix is a hundred and twenty miles away and the homing pigeons fly about thirty miles an hour. That means four hours up and four hours back, but they returned at noon yesterday and you're expecting them at noon today. That's only four hours round trip, about as far as Mexico and back."

  Right on cue, the flock appeared from the south, heading straight for the tower. Cromwell seemed to try waving them away, but it was too late. “What do you want?” he asked me.

  "The truth. I found this tube in Beach's mouth. He must have hidden it there when you started attacking him."

  "What is it?"

  "You should know. Every one of those homing pigeons has one taped to its leg. They're tubes for carrying messages, but with the ends taped shut they're a perfect method for transporting narcotics across the border. Only an ounce or two per bird, but with a dozen birds flying every day it adds up. What is it, heroin?"

  Cromwell grabbed the first pigeon to land and removed the tube from its leg. “Whatever brings the best price. Sometimes it's pills."

  "Miles Beach became suspicious of your short flights, found one of the tubes, and threatened to turn you in. He couldn't stand to see you using birds for drug smuggling. That's why you killed him."

  "You expect anyone will believe that?” he asked with a grin.

  "They will when they find your stash of drugs. You emptied a sack of pigeon feed and buried it, so you could use the sack to store the daily shipments till you had enough to sell. It'll be in one of those sacks of pigeon feed, because the pigeons are your responsibility."

  Cromwell was still smiling as he pulled the metal spike from his pocket and lunged at me. He might have reached me if Eddy hadn't landed on his arm and pecked at his hand with his powerful beak.

  "I let him out of his cage,” Ives said later. “I hope that was all right."

  (c)2006 by Edward D. Hoch

  THE GOLDEN FOOL by Margaret Lawrence

  Margaret Lawrence has a doctorate in medieval English drama and has taught at several colleges in the Midwest. She is also a playwright whose plays have been performed at the New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theatre. In 1996, her novel “Hearts and Bones” launched a mystery series set in Revolutionary War-era Maine and earned nominations for four awards. Most of her mysteries and historical, like this one starring Eleanor of Aquitane.

  But I must see it again, ma dame!" cried Eleanor, who would one day be Duchess of Aquitaine, and queen of France and of England. “This time I shall pin it on! Yes?"

  Duke William's eldest daugh-ter had reached her twelfth year in February of 1134, and the older she got, the more she expected to command. “Jehane,” she ordered her grandmother's grey-haired maid, “fetch me le Fou d'Or. At once!"

  "Yes, quick, quick! The Gol-den Fool!” simpered her little sister, Petronille, who was not quite eleven. If Eleanor wanted a favor, she demanded it or took it. Petronille, who would never be Duchess, simpered and begged, and grew sly.

  The two girls, like a pair of bright, noisy parrots, surged round their grandmother's elegant circular parlor in the great Maubergeonne Tower of the palace at Poitiers. Perched in the embrasure of the window overlooking the River Clain, the lady Coustance and the lady Marielle, the old countess's prune-faced waiting women, exchanged knowing glances. The Golden Fool might be worth thousands of deniers, but it was notoriously obscene in its design, and it was highly indiscreet of the old woman to let Lady Eleanor handle it, or even see it. Though she was now of marriageable age, the girl was, after all, still a maiden.

  The ladies made their prim excuses and hurried out, all but overturning a harp and an embroidery frame in their haste to report to Duke William. “Spies,” the countess hissed under her breath, and shattered a priceless rock-crystal vase with her walking stick.

  Her name was Dangereuse and she lived up to it, even in the matter of ornament. The great brooch called the Golden Fool had a history as scandalous as her own, and for that very reason it was dear to her. Many years ago, she had tempted Eleanor's grandsire, the old Duke, away from his boring wife, and he had come in the night and stolen Dangereuse from her own boring husband, riding off with her clasped in his arms. When they reached Poitiers, he had given her a golden cloak pin shaped like a tumbling fool and set with rubies and pearls in the most voluptuous places.

  So long as he lived, they had never ceased to be lovers—excommunications, slanders, annulments, angry children, and all. But now William the Younger was Duke, and Dangereuse was love's fool, left alone in her tower and surrounded by spies. An old fool, at that, who could hardly walk without her stick.

  She raised it again, and the embroidery frame toppled.

  The girls, as usual, paid no attention. "Le Fou d'Or!" Eleanor cried again, and her small feet in their soft kidskin slippers stamped up and down beneath the trailing skirt of her bliaut. Bright crimson, the gown was, with a blue-and-purple embroidered sash worn low about the hips. Dangereuse suppressed a smile. Not what you could really call hips, and her breasts still flat as a boy's. But already Eleanor had style and wits and passion, and far more courage than was good for her.

  "May I not wear the Fool to dinner tonight, ma dame?" the girl coaxed. “Please, on my blue velvet pellice? There will be dancing, and Joscelin will be there."

  "No,” Dangereuse said sharply. “I won't have you preening and prancing for Ventadour's spawn! And if you don't stop bothering me, I shall throw it into the river, and you may go and fish for it!"

  Eleanor stamped her foot and her long earrings rattled defiantly. “You wouldn't dare!"

  "Hah!” cried Dangereuse. “Jehane! Bring my jewel casket! And open the casement! At once!"

  "Pardon, ma dame," Eleanor said, making a deep rev
erence. “I was too importunate."

  Dangereuse merely stared at her. “Beg, then,” she demanded. “On your knees and beg. Or out the window it goes!"

  The lady Eleanor knelt, her small hands clenched into fists. “I ask your forgiveness,” she said coldly.

  "Call that begging? You are a mule. Mules need beating."

  The girl looked up at her grandmother. “If I beg,” she said calmly, “you will despise me. I had rather be beaten. If that is the price of your love."

  For a long moment the old woman was silent, her ringed hand gripping her stick. “Very well, Jehane,” she told her maid quietly. “Bring my jewels. Let her have her Golden Fool, and much good may it do her."

  The servant hesitated. “The bell has already rung for terce, my lady. Mes demoiselles will be late for Mass, and—and—"

  "Stop your stammering and go fetch it, blast you."

  "Yes, ma dame," Jehane murmured, and disappeared into the countess's bedchamber.

  Now that Eleanor had triumphed, she was free to be a child again, leaping around the room, almost tripping over the long pointed sleeves of her gown. “Oh, do hurry, Jehane,” she cried. “What's taking you so long?"

  "Yes, please hurry,” echoed Petronille halfheartedly. She went to the bowl of honeyed almonds at her grandmother's elbow and began stuffing herself as she always did when she was nervous.

  The maid, her face as pale as her wimple, returned with the familiar rosewood box set with cabochons of moonstone and amber. “Your hand trembles, woman,” said the old countess angrily. “Everything is a matter of will. You must learn to control it."

  Jehane merely bent her head in reply. She took her mistress's keys from a chain at her waist—for Dangereuse trusted her in everything—and unlocked the jewel casket. Then she stepped back, silent as always in her grey peasant gown.

  Almost before the lid of the box fell open, Eleanor had plunged her small, greedy hands into the tangle of gold chains, pearls, garnet and amber and ivory beads, and jewelled brooches and earrings.

  "Well?” said her grandmother. “Don't be all day about it. Pin the thing on, and let me see you."