The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “I expect his former employer arranged the directorships,” Stanley said. “It’s the sort of small perk that probably would get handed out to a loyal if minor retiree. The directors usually get paid for attending meetings, so it’s a little extra something on top of your pension.”

  “Is that all he does?” I asked. “He sits on boards?”

  “And meddles in town affairs,” Stanley said. “He’s on the town council. And squabbles with the ladies—at least he did when Cordelia was alive. Haven’t been many fireworks between him and Miss Annabel over the last six months, if you don’t count her repeated letters to the editor calling for him to be arrested for Cordelia’s murder. And to everyone’s surprise, he’s taking her campaign quite philosophically. Seems out of character.”

  “Maybe not if it was Cordelia, rather than both ladies, leading the charge against him,” I said. “Maybe he knows that no matter how much Miss Annabel hates and suspects him, she can’t cause him much trouble if she won’t poke her nose outside her own front door. So if that’s all you’ve found, why do you seem to be coming around to Miss Annabel’s point of view?”

  He frowned and leaned back in his seat as if the question required some thought.

  “Not sure yet,” he said, after a few moments.

  “Hunch?” I suggested. “Or gut feeling, if you prefer that term.”

  “Try taking that into court,” he said, with a grimace.

  “My cousin, Rose Noire, says that a hunch is a deduction your subconscious has made from evidence you don’t yet know you have,” I said. “And all you need to do is bring the evidence up into your conscious mind.”

  “I agree with her, but that’s easier said than done,” he said. “So far the only thing my conscious mind has found is that there is bad blood between the two households, going way back. I’ve been reading the letters to the editor in the local rag. Can’t do too much at a time without coming down with a killer eyestrain headache, so I’m only five years into it, but some of Weaver’s letters are downright scary. And these are the letters the paper printed.”

  “His letters,” I repeated. “What about Cordelia’s side of the quarrel?”

  “She comes off well, if you ask me,” he said. “She doesn’t mince words, but she’s logical, articulate, credible. Rational, even when angry. She’s wielding a rapier. Weaver’s just spewing bile and lava. The venom pulses off the page. I’m thinking of running the texts by a shrink I know. Because the man who wrote those letters—I can see him committing murder.”

  “He seemed pretty normal when I talked to him this afternoon,” I said. “Grouchy but rational.”

  “The same with his letters to the editor in the last six months,” Stanley said. “A changed man. Clearly her death removed a major stressor from his life.”

  “So is he merely feeling mellow because he outlived his worst enemy,” I asked. “Or is he also smug because he’s gotten away with murder?”

  “Gotten away with it so far.” Stanley frowned and shook his head. “But what if he’s starting to worry?”

  “Because of our arrival, you mean?” I asked. “You’re worried that having us here—and more particularly you—might make him decide he needs to get rid of Annabel, too.”

  “The thought had crossed my mind,” he said. “That’s the reason I was lurking there behind the houses. Well, that and the mysterious, possibly lethal present someone left for your grandfather. I thought it might be a good idea to keep an eye on things. But I can’t do that full time, even if I didn’t have the murder case to pursue. Maybe Weaver is just worried that some of the campers will trespass on his lawn, and maybe it was only a deer you spotted after he went inside—but you never know. Can you talk to Miss Annabel? I’d feel a lot better if I knew she had a good security system installed in the house.”

  He rummaged for a few moments in the tall but tidy stack of papers that sat beside him on the banquette and held out a business card.

  “Friend of mine who does stuff like that,” he said. “Mention my name and he’ll give her fast service and a rock-bottom rate.”

  I nodded as I took out my notebook and tucked the card safely in the front pocket.

  “Weaver’s behavior is another reason I’m taking Annabel’s theory a little more seriously,” Stanley said.

  “The way he was lurking around tonight, you mean?” I was scribbling a note on my task list to remind me to talk to Annabel about the security issue.

  “It’s not just the lurking tonight,” Stanley said. “He’s behaving furtively. Like a man with something to hide. Spent a lot of time weeding his flower beds today, all on the side closest to Miss Annabel’s house, and if he pulled more than a dozen weeds I’d be astonished. Then he didn’t answer the doorbell when I went over to interview him this afternoon.”

  “Are you sure he was home?”

  “I did an hour or so of surveillance before ringing the doorbell. That’s how I know he was pretending to weed. He was there all right. And ignored fifteen minutes of doorbell ringing. Then, about half an hour after I disappeared from his doorstep, he dashed out his front door and drove away as if en route to a fire. Of course, there’s no law against behaving furtively. And no law requiring anyone to talk to a private eye who shows up on your doorstep. But still…”

  “And no law against keeping an eye on our camp, but I think it’s creepy of him to turn out the lights, sneak to the back of his property, and gawk at us from the shrubbery.”

  “With binoculars,” Stanley added, nodding.

  “Binoculars? You’re sure?”

  “I was using night-vision goggles,” he said, pulling them out of his pocket and placing them on the table. “And a camera designed for taking pictures in darkness. I got some nice shots of his Peeping Tom act.”

  “You private eyes have all the fun,” I said. “And all the cool toys.”

  He smiled and sipped his tea. I pulled out my notebook and added a few tasks. Including finding out where to get night-vision goggles. The boys would adore them.

  “Did you see Weaver over at camp at any time today?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “But I wasn’t really there a whole lot. You’re thinking maybe he snuck out the back door while you were watching the front and left the present for Grandfather?”

  “Crossed my mind,” he said. “Seems unlikely. The candy might have been a last-minute improvisation, but someone went to a bit of trouble beforehand to pick out that wolf decanter for your grandfather. I’m betting someone had that thing all ready to go a while ago and took advantage of the chaotic first day of camp to sneak it into his trailer.”

  I nodded.

  “What are you planning for tomorrow?” he asked, after watching me scribble for a few moments.

  “Grandfather and the troops are going up to the defunct emu ranch first thing in the morning,” I said. “All the zoologists and volunteers will be looking for traces of the birds, and the film crew will be tagging along, capturing everything that might be useful for the eventual television special. I think their working title is something like In Search of the Feral Emu.

  “That’s what Dr. Blake is up to,” he said. “What about you?”

  “I’m going to tag along long enough to satisfy my curiosity about the emu ranch,” I said. “And then I plan to leave Michael and the boys to enjoy the roundup and come back here. Talk Miss Annabel into hiring your friend for home security. Probably take a nap while the tent is quiet.”

  “Any chance you could spend some more time at the library?” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “What do you want me to look up?”

  “If I knew that, I’d go down and do it myself,” he said with a sigh. “Follow your nose. We know about Weaver’s feud with the ladies, but what if Cordelia had other enemies that Annabel didn’t think were important? The more we know about this town, the better our chances of solving this. And see what you can do to befriend some of the townspeople. Use that familiar face of yours and see if you
can get some of them to open up. And while you’re at it—if you get a chance to talk to Chief Heedles, see what you can find out.”

  “You want me to tackle her instead of you?” I asked. “Play the fellow-woman-in-a-male-dominated-profession card?”

  “Only if you see a chance to do it naturally,” he said. “But yes, I have a feeling she’d talk more readily to you than to me. Funny—not the first time I’ve felt a little resentment from a law enforcement officer, but I always attributed it to testosterone, not turf.”

  I nodded and scribbled a few more lines in my notebook. And then I glanced down the page and sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Stanley asked.

  “My to-do list is growing like a kudzu vine and I don’t see an end in sight,” I said. “And half the new items have something to do with Cordelia, and I’m starting to wonder why I’m spending so much time trying to find out about her.”

  “She’s your grandmother.”

  “A grandmother who never bothered to get in touch with us while she was alive,” I said.

  “Think what it must have been like for her,” Stanley replied. “She was barely eighteen, and pregnant, and remember what a stigma that would have been seventy-some years ago.”

  “Yes, but times have changed.”

  “Times have, but maybe she never did,” he said. “You never know. Maybe if she’d met you she would have.”

  “Or maybe not,” I said. “Maybe it’s a good thing Grandfather didn’t start looking for her while she was still alive. I’m having a hard time dealing with the rejection as it is. Can you imagine how bad it would have been if we’d shown up and she had slammed the door in our faces? And however bad I feel about it, I know it’s much, much worse for Dad.”

  We fell silent. Not for the first time, I tried to imagine how Dad must be feeling about all this. At times in my life—especially in my teens—I’d been very critical of Mother. She hadn’t always lived up to my vision of an ideal mother, which wasn’t surprising, considering that my idea had been shaped by Little Women, Little House on the Prairie, and The Waltons.

  But she’d always been there. Giving me dangly earrings for Christmas instead of the welding set I’d asked for. Critiquing my posture instead of praising my grades. But there, always.

  Dad had grown up knowing only his own history, knowing his adopted mother loved him dearly, but with nothing but a big question mark in place of his biological mother. And now to learn that she’d been so close and never bothered to contact us?

  A sudden not-so-distant rumble of thunder interrupted my thoughts and made us both glance over at the windows.

  “I should head back to my tent,” I said. “Before that breaks. May I borrow this?”

  I held up the file on Weaver.

  “Be my guest,” he said. “And if you can add to it tomorrow, all the better.”

  When I arrived back at the tent, Michael and the boys were still sound asleep. They didn’t even wake up when the big storm hit, a few minutes later, which was lucky, because both boys were a little afraid of thunder and lightning.

  Chapter 14

  “Mommy! Pancakes!” Josh.

  “Ssshhh! Mommy’s sleeping.” Jamie. I’d have called him the considerate one, except that his rebuke was at least twice as loud as his twin’s original remark. I glanced up to see the two of them peeking through the tent flap.

  “Mommy will be out in a few minutes,” I said. Both tousled little heads vanished, and I lay back for a moment, trying to remember if I’d packed a comb, and wondering what was it about being a parent that made people start talking about themselves in the third person.

  I pulled on the first clothes I could find and stumbled out of the tent.

  Dawn. Not ever my favorite time of day, and even less welcome today, given how late I’d been up keeping watch over Annabel, worrying about Grandfather, strategizing with Stanley, and riding out the thunderstorm. I was glad Michael seemed well rested. I planned to let him take the wheel for the drive up to the abandoned emu ranch. My lacerations were throbbing. I’d probably overdone it yesterday, in my efforts to prove I was too tough to let a minor injury slow me down.

  Thanks to the high winds that had accompanied the previous night’s thunderstorms, our departure couldn’t take place until a volunteer crew with chain saws removed the several large trees that were blocking the dirt road out of camp.

  As I strolled round the camp, checking to see if the storm had caused any other damage, I noticed with dismay that Rose Noire’s beautiful hand-painted tent had collapsed overnight. I hoped she’d find a way to get the mud out without washing out all the decoration. She had festooned it with so many banners, flags, amulets, crystals, and tokens that you’d think even a thunderstorm would take notice and tiptoe around it, instead of flattening it in the wee small hours, forcing her to take refuge in Caroline’s nearby caravan.

  Seth Early and two other volunteers were trying to get the tent back in working order, a little hampered by the fact that one of the tent poles had broken and some other part of the tent that they considered essential had never been installed in the first place.

  “We need to find a sporting goods store,” Seth was saying. The other two occasionally stopped what they were doing to wave their cell phones in the air.

  “Still no signal,” one of them said, after one such break.

  “You think anyone’s got a good, old-fashioned paper copy of the Yellow Pages so we could look up the address of the nearest one?” the other man asked.

  Undaunted by her ailing tent, Rose Noire was spending the interval before our departure reorganizing the camp along proper feng shui lines, and getting a surprising degree of cooperation. I’d have expected people to balk at taking camping advice from someone whose first night’s efforts had left her homeless and looking like a drowned rat, but I soon realized that the people who signed on for Blake’s Brigade were remarkably tolerant and kindhearted, and thus willing to re-stake their tents two or three times and arrange their campfires and folding chairs into the sometimes odd and inconvenient configurations Rose Noire felt they needed to be in to cure the camp’s chi.

  Or maybe they were all glad to have something to do while the chain saws were at work.

  A pity we weren’t getting the early start we’d planned. I couldn’t call up a weather report on my cell phone—in fact, I couldn’t get a signal at all, which probably meant that the cell towers were out because of the storm. And the air was already warm and muggy.

  The boys were busy making mud pies, mud cookies, and mud pancakes with rainwater for syrup. I decided to while away the time until the convoy left with a visit to Miss Annabel. Make sure she was all right. Maybe bask in her air conditioning a while if she had any. And if she wasn’t up, I could leave her a note with the security company’s business card.

  But I had barely tapped on her front door before it flew open.

  “I see you all survived the storm,” she said. “Come in.”

  She waved me into the living room. She was dressed for the heat, in a loose caftanlike garment and sandals. And she was wearing a little headlight on her head—turned off, but ready whenever she needed it. Clearly she didn’t in the high-ceilinged living room. The Venetian blinds were down, but slanted to let in maximum sunlight while keeping out prying eyes.

  “Want some lemonade?” she asked. “Lukewarm, but we should drink it up before it spoils completely.”

  “That would be nice,” I said. “I gather the power’s out?”

  “You gather right.”

  She made a beckoning gesture and I followed her into the kitchen.

  “Cooler back here,” she said, as she took two vintage glasses from an overhead cabinet and poured out the lemonade. “Times like these, I really miss the generator. Good thing I don’t keep much in the refrigerator and freezer these days. I’m not much for cooking. Not anymore,” she added after a moment. “Hard to see the point, cooking for one.”

  “Have you consider
ed getting another generator?” I asked. “Or has losing your cousin to the generator explosion made you not want one around anymore?”

  “Oh, I want one all right,” she said. “I just didn’t want to get it installed until Chief Heedles had finished with the crime scene. And here it is, six months later, and if you ask me, she hasn’t even started with the crime scene.”

  “Maybe you could install the new generator in the other back corner of the yard,” I suggested. “Then you could preserve the crime scene as long as you liked. Of course, the down side is that the new generator wouldn’t be quite as close to Mr. Weaver’s yard, so it wouldn’t annoy him quite as much. But right now, you’re hardly annoying him at all, so anything would be an improvement, right?”

  She looked at me in surprise for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “I like the way you think!” she exclaimed. “I’m calling the generator company as soon as I get my phone back.”

  “Think about calling this guy, too.” I pulled out the business card Stanley had given me. “Friend of Stanley’s. Installs security systems.”

  “You think I need a security system?” She cocked her head, birdlike.

  “If I were living this far from town with only three houses for miles and one of those occupied by someone I believed to be a cold-blooded killer, with both power and cell phone service this prone to interruption, and someone leaving possibly poisoned gifts on my front step, I’d want a security system.”

  “You forgot ‘at your age,’” Annabel said, with a chuckle. “Everyone always has an idea what I should do at my age.”

  “And at my age, too,” I said. “I’d get one. I’d get the generator first, and then I’d make sure my security system was hooked up to it.”

  She nodded.

  “In fact, odds are I’ll find a working phone before you do,” I added. “Want me to call both contractors and have them come to give you an estimate? I copied down the security company’s number in case I needed one.”

  She appeared to be studying me for a few moments. Then she nodded briskly.