Six Geese A-Slaying

by Donna Andrews

  “In the luggage compartment.”

  I settled Rob in the back of the Subaru. It already contained several cardboard boxes filled, as far as I could tell, with paper. To fit Rob in, I had to move one box out completely and put it in the back seat. Werzel stood about fifteen feet away, probably to make sure he had time to shoot me if I emerged from his trunk waving some kind of weapon.

  Alas, I could see no sign of anything that would make a good weapon—no wrenches or tire irons. There was a tarp, which I tucked in around Rob to keep him warm. I checked his pulse, which was still steady. As I did, I noticed that there was also a metal can of kerosene at the very back of the trunk.

  “My head hurts,” Rob said suddenly. Relief flooded my mind—surely it was a good sign if he was well enough to speak. I glanced over my shoulder and found that Werzel didn’t seem to have noticed.

  “Shh,” I whispered. “Don’t talk.”

  “But my head hurts.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m going to get help as soon as I can. For now, the less you talk, the less your head will hurt.”

  “Okay,” Rob said.

  He closed his eyes again. I breathed a sigh of relief. The less Rob talked, the less likely it was that Werzel would decide to whack him again. And if Rob stayed conscious, there was a slim chance he could help me engineer our escape.

  Not a chance I could count on, though.

  “Hurry up,” Werzel said. “Get in and drive.”

  I got in, hoping it wasn’t a mistake. The keys were in the ignition. Werzel slid into the back seat. I started the car and felt immediately and irrationally better. Werzel still had that nasty little gun pointed at me, but I had over a ton of lethal metal under my control. Surely I could find a way to turn the tables on Werzel. Newscasters were always proclaiming that cars were more deadly than guns.

  “Where are we going?” I asked aloud.

  “Shut up and drive.”

  Chapter 31

  Easier said than done. The Shiffleys had more than enough to do keeping the streets clear. They had no reason to plow the alley behind a building that, except for tonight’s performance, would be closed for the rest of the holiday season.

  But unfortunately there wasn’t quite enough snow to stop the Subaru. Just enough to slow us down. I took as much advantage of the delay as I could, all the while keeping my eyes open for someone—anyone—on the streets.

  The Christmas decorations that had seemed so festive when I’d walked past them earlier now seemed to mock me with their cheerfulness. And where had all the hardy pedestrians gone? Clearly the shopping rush was over, and if anyone was planning to brave the snow for Michael’s show, they hadn’t ventured out yet. We didn’t even see any of the snowplows.

  “Take the next left.”

  The next left would be the country road that led out to our house, and eventually to the Spare Attic and Whispering Pines. Not where I wanted us to be going at all. I wanted us to stay in town, where there was at least a fighting chance of encountering someone. And where we were closer to the hospital I’d be rushing Rob to if—no, make that when, dammit!—I turned the tables on Werzel.

  “Left?” I said. I tried to sound surprised and maybe even cheerful. “Onto our road? But it’s a d . . .”

  I let my voice trail off.

  “Yeah, it’s a dead end,” he said. Then he laughed. “A real dead end.”

  “If I were you,” I said, “I’d be heading away from Caerphilly. I mean really away, not just out into the countryside.”

  “I will be soon,” he said. “Need to do a few things first.”

  I didn’t like the sound of it. Not “We will be soon” but “I.” I wanted my stint as his unwilling chauffeur to end on my terms, not his.

  Relief washed over me when we got to the turnoff. Clearly the Shiffleys were rethinking their attempts to keep every road in the county plowed. Where the turnoff should have been was only a solid bank of snow they’d ploughed off the highway.

  “Don’t shoot the messenger,” I said, as I slowed to a halt. “But I don’t think we can take that turnoff.”

  “Don’t argue with me! Keep driving!”

  “I’m not arguing,” I said. “I’m perfectly happy to keep driving, but I doubt if even your Subaru can get through that. Want me to go ahead and bury us in the snow?”

  Werzel studied the snow bank for a while.

  “Damn,” he said, finally. “This really screws up my plans.”

  “If I were you, I’d just leave town,” I said. “While the police are still busy with Norris Pruitt.”

  “What do you mean, busy with him? They didn’t find him, did they?”

  “A few hours ago.”

  “Lucky for me you mentioned that,” he said. “That changes my plans completely.”

  “Just what are—were your plans?” I asked. “I realize you might not want to tell me, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t ask.”

  After I said it, I worried that my sarcasm would anger him. But he didn’t even answer for a few moments. I could see in the rear view mirror that he was frowning at the box on the seat beside him.

  “Well,” he said finally. “I was going to make it look as if Norris Pruitt had killed you and your brother while trying to retrieve whatever Doleson was using to blackmail him.”

  “Which building were you going to torch, the Spare Attic or the Whispering Pines?”

  He gave me a startled look, then relaxed.

  “You saw the kerosene, right? I hadn’t really decided. Maybe both. But if Pruitt’s already been arrested . . . of course, I could rig something to look like a delayed fuse. You say he was only arrested a few hours ago?”

  I nodded. I didn’t like the way this was going.

  “Do you know where?”

  I was trying to think of a suitable lie—one that wouldn’t result in him dragging Rob and me off to some deserted corner of town where he could carry out his revised plan without interference. But bright ideas weren’t happening.

  “I said where!” he said, waving the gun. I suddenly realized the truth was better than any lie I could think of.

  “The stables,” I said.

  “What stables?”

  “The college stables. That’s where we’re keeping the animals from the parade until the storm’s past and we can get them home. Norris was looking after them.”

  “Probably filled with nice, flammable hay,” he said. “That’ll do. Let’s go.”

  I tried not to let him see how relieved I was. Short of convincing him to pull up in front of the police station and drop me off, the stables were the best possible destination. Deputy Sammy would be dropping by to see to the animals. Dropping by more frequently than needed, thanks to my hint that Rose Noire might be checking on them. For that matter, Rose Noire might well drop by to soothe the ruffled fur and feathers of the barn’s inhabitants. And I was positive Clarence would look in if he was out of jail. And if Dad and Dr. Blake were in town, surely they’d check on the animals’ welfare before heading over to the drama department for Michael’s show. I could think of any number of people who might drop by and could help, or at least provide a distraction.

  “It’s close to the edge of town,” I said. He’d be suspicious if I didn’t put up some kind of argument. “They may not be plowing over there, either. Could be rough going.”

  “We’ll just have to go and see. Move it.”

  I eased the Subaru into motion and began lumbering slowly toward the stables. Keeping my eye out for passing vehicles, of course. No need for a showdown at the stables if I could pretend to lose control of the car and spin us into the path of a patrol car or one of the Shiffleys’ snowplows.

  I glanced in the rear view mirror again. Werzel was staring out the window, apparently lost in thought. I didn’t want him thinking. I wanted him off balance.

  “So did you kill Emerson Drood?” I asked.

  “Kill him? No! Absolutely not!”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “Tha
t’s what Doleson had on you, isn’t it—that you killed Drood?”

  “I didn’t kill him,” Werzel said. “He was already dead when I got there, so if someone killed him, it wasn’t me.”

  “If he was already dead when you got there—then the big interview was a fake. That’s what Doleson was blackmailing you about.”

  Silence in the back seat for a while.

  “Yeah,” Werzel said at last. “Far as I know, it was a suicide, but if they’ve decided it wasn’t, they should look at Doleson. He took pictures of the body—hoping to sell them to the tabloids. And then I came along and gave him a better idea. There’s a limit to how much the tabloids would pay for a shot of a small-town politico who’d hanged himself in a cheap motel room, but he knew he could milk me forever.”

  “He had Polaroids, right?”

  “Yeah. Pictures of me going into the room, and running out, and then more pictures of the body after I’d left. And then he just sat on them.”

  “Until after you wrote your bogus interview.”

  In the rearview mirror, I could see Werzel shrug.

  “The early reports said it was suicide, so I figured, what the hell. I told my editor I’d done this interview, but I wasn’t sure it was tasteful, now that the guy was dead. And he fell for it. Everyone did. Got me an award—did you know that?”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Of course, by that time, Doleson had his hooks into me,” Werzel said. He was tapping the gun against his hand as if he wanted to smack something with it. “Everybody forgot about the award in a few weeks, but I still had Doleson popping up like clockwork for his payoffs.”

  “So what made you finally kill him?” I asked. “Did you come down planning to do it, or was that a spur-of-the-moment decision?”

  No answer for a few moments, and then he chuckled.

  “Bit of both, actually,” he said. “I only intended this as a scouting trip. When he found out I’d gone to work for the Trib, he started asking for more money. ‘You’re getting paid more, so I should get paid more,’ was how he put it. I couldn’t get him to understand that when you factored in the higher cost of living in D.C., I was earning a lot less.”

  I wondered if he realized how odd it sounded, the idea of discussing the cost of living with your blackmailer. As if the problem were merely the amount he was charging, not the blackmail itself.

  “So you just used the parade as an excuse to come down here,” I said. “You didn’t know Doleson was involved.”

  “Not until I saw him booting your mutt out of that shed,” Werzel said. “I didn’t know if he’d spotted me, so I went in to talk to him and as luck would have it, I found someone had left that sharp stick lying just outside the door—well, I realized it was the perfect opportunity.”

  “Your idea of perfect opportunity must be a lot different from mine,” I said. “I’d have thought sometime when there was no one else around to see you would be a lot more perfect. Like late at night out at the Pines.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “A place like that is never completely deserted, and if you’re spotted there, you’re done for. But at your parade—that’s an opportunity! Hundreds of people milling all around, and knowing Doleson, a few dozen of them were bound to have it in for him. And I’m not local, so no one would have any reason to suspect I had a grudge against the guy, and I had a perfectly legit reason for being there. So I knew as long as I could engineer getting out of the shed without being seen, I’d be home free!”

  “Home free, once you got rid of a few bits of evidence,” I said. “Whatever possessed you to take his picture just before you killed him?”

  “I wasn’t really taking his picture,” Werzel said. “I knew the flash would blind him just long enough for me to get the drop on him. Of course, I didn’t count on misplacing the camera before I got a chance to delete the picture. That was a problem. All fixed now, though.”

  He smiled and patted the pocket where he’d stashed the camera.

  “Now all you need to do is get rid of the original evidence Doleson had on you,” I said. “That’s what’s in all those boxes, right?”

  “He didn’t have that much on me,” Werzel said. “Just this.”

  He held up a nine-by-twelve-inch manila envelope with “Werzel, Ainsley,” written neatly along one edge. Clearly Ralph Doleson had been an organized blackmailer.

  “I wasn’t his only victim, you know,” Werzel was saying. “He had three boxes full of envelopes. I’m keeping a few that might be useful, and the rest are going into the bonfire.”

  “Useful how?” I asked. “Are you planning on writing exposés, or picking up where Doleson left off?”

  “That depends on the Trib,” he said. “They’re setting me up to fire me—I can tell. Sending me on nothing assignments and then complaining when I don’t get a scoop. And then when I do get a scoop on Doleson’s murder, they take away my byline. Well, they’ll see.”

  I wondered briefly if the Trib’s editorial staff were next on his hit list. But before I could ask, we reached the barn. The parking lot outside was empty, except for Michael’s truck, now covered with at least six inches of snow.

  “Don’t pull in very far,” Werzel cautioned as I turned into the parking lot. “That’s far enough. In fact, turn around so I don’t have to do it when I’m ready to leave.”

  I backed and turned until I had the car facing the exit. I did angle it to maximize the chances that he’d steer into the ditch that flanked the entrance, now visible only as a pair of slight indentations on either side of the rough track leading into the parking lot. Murderers shouldn’t expect their intended victims to make it easy for them.

  “Inside,” Werzel said.

  With Werzel keeping the gun aimed at me from a safe distance, there wasn’t much I could do, so I opened the back of the Subaru, shouldered Rob again, and staggered toward the barn door. The air was so numbingly cold that even the short walk from the car to the barn set my teeth chattering. I breathed a sigh of relief when I felt the warm, welcoming air inside. Various animals stuck their heads over stall doors and I heard soft moos, baas, and whatever you call the humming noise llamas make.

  Werzel looked around and shuddered as if he’d walked into a cage of hungry hyenas.

  “Damn, this place reeks,” he exclaimed.

  Reeks? It smelled of dung and hay and the wet-wool odor of damp sheep. Maybe I was getting more used to the country than I thought. To me, the smell seemed familiar and almost pleasant.

  “What a typical urban reaction to the normal, healthy smells of nature,” came a voice from one of the stalls. Caroline Will-ner, echoing my own thoughts.

  “Who the hell’s there?” Werzel asked. He scuttled so he could put me and Rob between him and the voice.

  “Who the hell wants to know?” Dr. Blake. Coming from the same stall.

  “Meg?” Dad poked his head out of the stall in question. “Why aren’t you over at the drama department? And what’s wrong with Rob?”

  “Come out with your hands up!” Werzel shouted.

  “What the devil?” I could hear Dr. Blake mutter.

  The stall door opened, and Dad hurried out. He stopped short and threw his hands up when he saw Werzel waving the gun, and was almost bowled over when Dr. Blake and Caroline Willner rushed out and collided with him. I waited, hoping someone else would emerge—Clarence, for example, or Sammy, or Seth Early. I’d have settled for almost anyone not already eligible for Social Security. No such luck.

  “Back in the cell, all of you!” Werzel snapped.

  “Cell?” Dad echoed. “It’s a stall.”

  “Come out, go in—you could make up your mind,” Caroline Willner grumbled.

  “This is unacceptable,” Dr. Blake said.

  “Look, can I put Rob down?” I asked.

  “Shut up, all of you!” Werzel shouted. “Into the cell—stall—now! No, wait—what’s that?”

  He pointed to a door at the far end of the
barn that was slightly ajar.

  “The feed room,” Dad said. “That’s where—”

  “Great,” Werzel said. “Better than the stall—it’s got walls all the way up to the ceiling and a nice sturdy door. Into the feed room, everyone.”

  “Why is this man holding us at gunpoint?” Caroline asked.

  “Because he’s the killer,” Rob said, startling all of us.

  “Rob! You’re all right!” Dr. Blake exclaimed.

  “No, I’m not,” Rob said. “My head hurts, and Meg’s holding me upside down.”

  “It’s the only way I can carry you,” I said. “Despite being my brother, you’re extremely heavy.”

  “Ha, ha,” he mumbled.

  “Into the feed room,” Werzel said again. “Now!”

  To emphasize the “now” part, he fired the gun into the air. Or, more accurately, toward the rafters. We all flinched, and a flock of chickens who had been roosting on the overhead beams scattered in all directions. Including down, which was alarming to witness, since none of them were particularly skilled at flying. Several of them made interim stops on the walls or doors of the stalls—presumably the reverse of how they’d gotten up onto the rafters in the first place. One made a temporary landing on Dad’s head before hopping down to the floor, and Caroline had to catch another plummeting hen. But apparently Werzel had missed them all. None seemed hurt, though you’d have a hard time convincing them of that—they were all running around the rafters or the barn floor squawking as if the sky were indeed falling.

  “You idiot,” Dr. Blake roared. “You could have killed one of those poor birds.”

  “He’s planning to kill us,” I said, as I dodged another downward fluttering hen. “Why would he worry about a few chickens?”

  “Into the feed room,” Werzel said. “I don’t need all of you as hostages. I could make my life a whole lot easier if I finished off a few of you right now. Don’t tempt me.”

  “Come on, Monty,” Caroline said. “Let’s not get ourselves shot by this lunatic.”

  She marched into the feed room, taking off her cardigan as she went, as if she planned to settle in and make herself at home. Dr. Blake and Dad followed more slowly, and I trudged in last and set Rob down on the floor as gently as I could.