The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “You’re a lifesaver,” she said. “Dwight! Chow’s on.”

  As she and Dr. Ffollett dug into the contents of the takeout boxes, I told them everything I knew. Including the suspicion that had suddenly fallen on Jim Williams.

  “A mining engineer!” Annabel exclaimed. “Now that’s highly suspicious.”

  “We don’t know that he’s a mining engineer,” I said. “Only that he used to work for a mining company. He could have been a bookkeeper in their accounting department for all we know.”

  “Still—a mining company.”

  “You’ve got something against mining companies?” I asked. “They’re not all environmental menaces hell-bent on pillaging the countryside.”

  “No, but the bad ones do exist,” Annabel said. “And it only takes one bad one to ruin things for everyone here. And it worries me that someone from a mining company has been sniffing around up at Biscuit Mountain.”

  “Sniffing around for what—do you have any idea? Like kyanite, maybe?” I remembered that the blue crystal Rose Noire loved was found on Biscuit Mountain.

  “Kyanite and kaolin,” she said. “They’re related minerals. Not as valuable as gold or diamonds, but they have their industrial uses.”

  “Kaolin’s what you make porcelain with, right?” I asked. “I remember reading that the Biscuit Mountain Art Pottery Works dug its own china clay.”

  “Yes, so it’s valuable for that,” she said. “And also there’s something called mullite, which is pretty hot these days in the ceramics industry. Only occurs naturally on the island of Mull, in Scotland, but you can refine either kyanite or kaolin to make it. And there were small deposits of both up there. Still are, actually.”

  “So there is a reason for mining companies to be snooping around on Biscuit Mountain,” I said. “Something more than just speculative exploration.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “The vein of kaolin the Biscuit Mountain Works used was pretty much depleted. That’s part of what drove it out of business—not just having to buy their clay all of a sudden, but the money they spent trying to find a new vein. And they never did find one. Not one that was worth the cost of digging. Just piddly little deposits.”

  “That was nearly a hundred years ago,” I said. “Technology’s come a long way. What if someone thought those piddly little deposits were worth mining?? Or at least worth checking out?”

  “We did check it out about five years ago,” Annabel said. “I looked into buying the land back and trying to do something with it. Maybe start up the pottery works again. Or mine the minerals. The town could use some industry. So I got a mining geologist out here. He seemed to think the kaolin and kyanite were exploitable—his word. But he didn’t think the profit margin would be big enough for any reputable company to be interested. To get at them in sufficient quantities, you’d pretty much have to take the top off the mountain. A great big open-pit mine all up and down the side of Biscuit Mountain. The side the town can see, because the other side is in the National Park. Not a legacy I want to leave to the town.”

  “But if there’s no profit in it,” I began.

  “Not enough profit to be worthwhile for a legitimate operation,” Annabel said. “He warned me that it might be pretty tempting to some kind of fly-by-night outfit that would try to weasel out of every environmental and safety regulation on the books.”

  “So you were worried that a mining company might try to buy it,” I said.

  “The wrong mining company,” she said. “A company that wouldn’t have to live with the visual blight or the rest of the environmental impact. Mining kaolin generates a lot of dust, and refining it uses—and dirties—a lot of water. The stuff’s even got its own disease—kaolinosis. A lot like asbestosis.”

  “Other people in town might not care,” Dr. Ffollett said. “Not many jobs here. If a mine brought in jobs, people might not care about how the mountain looks or whether it kills them in the long run.”

  “Okay,” I said. “The kaolin and kyanite might be sufficient motive for someone from a mining company to be sniffing around Biscuit Mountain. But are they motive for murder?”

  We all looked at each other for a few moments.

  “Sounds plausible to me,” Annabel said. “Not hard for some scummy company to figure out we’d fight them tooth and nail and maybe cost them so much they couldn’t turn a profit.”

  “Yes, Cordelia would have led the charge against any attempt to start an open-pit mine up at Biscuit Mountain,” Dr. Ffollett said. “But she can’t now.”

  “That was another reason we tried to buy the place,” Annabel said. “Not just for the emus, although that was important. We were going to work on getting it declared a historical site. Maybe look into deeding it to the National Park Service when we went. Make sure the land—and the town—were protected.”

  “And frankly, that was one reason Cordelia had Annabel write to Dr. Blake,” Dr. Ffollett said. “She thought if we got him up here to take care of the emus, he’d also see how beautiful and unspoiled the area was, and then if necessary we could enlist him to fight against developing the property.”

  “But when you tried to buy the ranch, the bank turned you down,” I said.

  “Probably because Theo Weaver was on their board of directors.” Annabel’s hands were clenched into fists. “What do you want to bet they were in league with some mining company?”

  “Possibly the Smedlock Mining Company,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Dr. Ffollett asked.

  “Weaver was also on their board,” I said. “You didn’t know he was connected to a mining company?”

  “No,” Dr. Ffollett said.

  “I didn’t until you told me last night,” Annabel said.

  “Yes,” I said. “When I was asking if you could think of any connection between Cordelia and mining. Was there a reason you didn’t mention your fears that a mining company might buy Biscuit Mountain last night?”

  “You said any connection between Cordelia and Smedlock Mining,” Annabel corrected. “And there wasn’t. I’d never heard of Smedlock before, and I try to keep tabs on who’s sniffing around our mountain.”

  “I gather the mining engineer you hired wasn’t from Smedlock,” I said. “Are you sure he wasn’t with one of its subsidiaries?”

  “He was an independent consulting engineer who’s done a lot of work for environmental groups,” she said. “Because I wanted a hard, cold look at the real environmental consequences of mining up on Biscuit Mountain. What about this Williams person? Is he retired from Smedlock?”

  “No idea,” I said. “Chief Heedles will find out, I’m sure.”

  Or I could hunt down Stanley and ask him. Probably better not to mention that possibility to Miss Annabel, who was definitely fired up by this conversation, pacing up and down the kitchen with her fists clenched, eyes blazing as if about to lead a charge.

  “This might give someone a motive for killing off Cordelia,” I said. “Assuming they wanted to mine the kyanite on Biscuit Mountain and knew she’d do anything she could to stop them. They might figure even if she couldn’t stop them, she could cause them so much trouble that their profit margin would disappear. But what about Mr. Weaver? In this scenario he’s one of the bad guys. Why would they kill him?”

  “Thieves fall out,” Annabel suggested. “Maybe he killed Cordelia, and his accomplices were afraid he was about to get caught and spill the rest of their plan.”

  “Only I thought our new theory was that the same person killed Cordelia and Weaver,” I reminded her.

  “Then perhaps the killer was someone Weaver knew,” Dr. Ffollett suggested. “Someone who was afraid of being identified.”

  “What if you did see Mr. Weaver running away the night of Cordelia’s death—” I began.

  “No ‘what if’ about it,” Annabel snapped.

  “—but instead of being the killer,” I went on, “he was the inconvenient eyewitness who could identify the killer. And the killer, tired
of feeling threatened by him—”

  “Or possibly tired of being blackmailed by him,” Annabel put in.

  “—decided to eliminate the danger of discovery by eliminating Mr. Weaver.”

  “I like it,” Annabel said. “It covers all the facts. And Weaver makes a perfectly plausible blackmailer.”

  “It doesn’t much matter what we like,” Dr. Ffollett said. “What matters is what Chief Heedles thinks.”

  “And what she can prove,” Annabel said. “And thanks to Meg, at least she’s actually doing something now. Meg got her moving, where I failed.”

  “No thanks to me,” I said. “It was Mr. Weaver’s murder that got her moving.”

  “But is she moving enough?” Annabel said. “Why isn’t she doing more next door? I expected to see CSI people swarming all over Weaver’s house.”

  “Oh, so Riverton has CSIs?” I asked. “I thought Chief Heedles only had half a dozen officers.”

  “Don’t the State Police have CSIs?” Annabel asked.

  “Yes, but someone has to get them involved,” I said. “Preferably the chief. And she might not be all that keen on having them butt in.”

  We all fell silent. Dr. Ffollett picked at a slice of toast on his plate. Annabel helped herself to seconds—or was it thirds?—of the bacon, eggs, and hash browns.

  “Luckily it’s Chief Heedles’s job to figure all that out,” I said finally. “She wants to see you sometime later today.”

  Miss Annabel stopped in the act of spearing a slice of bacon.

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “I’m not sure I can bear it.”

  “I told you so,” Dr. Ffollett muttered.

  “If it would help, I can plan to be here when she comes,” I said. “For moral support.”

  “That would be nice,” Annabel said. “And I suppose I can wear my veil. I’d hardly have to look at her, now, would I? It would be almost like talking to her on the telephone. In fact, why don’t you suggest that she just call me once the phones are back,” she added. “It would be so much more convenient for her.”

  “She won’t go for that,” Dr. Ffollett asked. “Not even if your phone were already working. You’ll have to face this.”

  “Don’t you have someplace else you need to be?” Annabel snapped at him. “Seeing a patient or something?”

  “With no power in town?” Ffollett said. “I thought I was being useful here.”

  The two glared at each other for a few seconds. Then Annabel sighed.

  “Sorry,” she said. “You are. I’m just on edge at the thought of having to talk to the chief. But I’ll do it if I have to.”

  “Be as cooperative as you can,” I suggested. “I don’t know that she’s entirely abandoned the idea that you might have killed Weaver out of revenge.”

  I was surprised at how agitated Annabel looked. She’d taken to me so easily that I’d temporarily forgotten about her reclusiveness. Or, perhaps, forgotten that I was wearing a face so familiar that it outweighed her naturally reclusive nature.

  She looked so anxious that I relented.

  “But I’ll tell the chief how little you saw,” I added. “And you never know. Maybe before she finds the time to interview you she’ll catch the culprit and won’t even need to talk to you.”

  Actually, I didn’t think it all that likely, but Miss Annabel brightened so much that I was glad I’d said it.

  “That would be so nice,” she said. “And it’s not as if I saw anything. After things calmed down over there in your camp, I went upstairs and read in bed for a while. I guess I fell asleep with the lantern on, and the next thing I knew, your car was honking up a storm in front of the house. That’s all I can tell her.”

  “I’ll let the chief know that,” I said. “By the way, did you find Cordelia’s emu records? It would help to know if the eight Grandfather has caught are the whole herd or just a drop in the bucket.”

  She chuckled.

  “A good start,” she said. “But only a start. I seem to recall there were thirty-four of them last fall. More if any of them succeeded in hatching eggs this winter, but the young wouldn’t be full grown yet, and would tend to stay with their father and siblings until the next mating season. I’ve copied out the relevant records—that’s why I was up so late last night.”

  She handed me a list, printed in neat, elegant, almost calligraphic letters that reminded me of Dad’s printing.

  “Great,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I went out Miss Annabel’s back door and headed back to camp, feeling guilty every step of the way. After this second murder, shouldn’t someone be guarding Miss Annabel? Someone other than the devoted but hardly robust Dr. Ffollett? And yet I knew if I suggested it, she’d probably bite my head off.

  Both murders had taken place in the middle of the night. So given that, plus the level of activity around the camp, she was probably safe until dark. That gave me all day to figure out some way to make her safe.

  And all day for Chief Heedles to identify and arrest the killer.

  Not that I was counting on that.

  I sped up my pace and headed for the mess tent, which was usually information central. I spotted Stanley sitting there.

  Chapter 25

  “Morning,” I said. “Has the chief made any progress?”

  “Not that I’ve heard,” he said. “But there’s nothing wrong with her methodology.”

  “What do you have on for today?” I asked, taking a seat beside him.

  “Not quite sure,” he said. “Most of the lines of inquiry I’ve been following are now very definitely on Chief Heedles’s radar. Not a good idea to get in her way, now that she’s moving on the case again.”

  “Is she moving on Cordelia’s murder, or just on Weaver’s?” I asked.

  “That’s the big question,” he said. “Don’t know yet, and until I do, I think I should lie low and stay out of her way. So I was planning to get out of town. Find someplace with power and a working photocopy machine, make duplicates of all my paperwork on the case, and then come back and hand everything over to Chief Heedles. In a day or so we should know a lot more. Or at least we can see if she has any viable suspects.”

  “I may just have given her one,” I said.

  “If you mean Thor, I don’t think I’d call him a viable suspect,” Stanley said, through a mouthful of toast. “He may have been hanging around keeping an eye on Miss Annabel, and he may have mouthed off a couple of times about Weaver. But I don’t see him as a killer.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Thor,” I said. “Does Heedles really suspect him?”

  “She spent a hell of a lot of time interrogating him this morning,” Stanley said. “And sent him away in a police car. Who were you thinking of?”

  “Jim Williams.”

  “Just because he used to work for a mining company?” Stanley sounded skeptical.

  “Because he used to work for a mining company and was photographed snooping around a place with known mineral deposits a week before the main local opponent to any attempt to exploit those deposits was probably murdered,” I said. “And Thor’s the one who did the photographing, so I’m hoping that’s what Heedles is interrogating him about.”

  “I hope so, too,” Stanley said. “Because Thor seems like a nice kid, and I thought Heedles was definitely barking up the wrong tree there. If nothing else, I think a kid with his mechanical and technical skills could have rigged up a much more efficient way of setting a fire to cover his tracks.”

  “Did Williams happen to work with Smedlock Mining?” I asked. “Or one of its subsidiaries?”

  Stanley shook his head.

  “That’s good.”

  “I’d have mentioned it if he did,” Stanley said. “In fact, that was going to be one of my lines of inquiry. Seeing if there was any connection whatsoever between Smedlock and any of the places he worked.”

  “Do you remember the names of any of the places where he worked?” I asked.

  Stanley pulled out his
pocket notebook and read me five company names. None of them rang a bell, but I wrote them down in my notebook, just in case.

  “Of course,” Stanley went on, as he tucked his notebook away. “If the chief’s looking at him as a suspect, I’d better hold off on that. I might just go home to Caerphilly to do my copying—I heard from Muriel that the power’s back on and the diner’s open again. I could do my laundry and get some home cooking while I’m there.”

  I had to smile at that. No one in Caerphilly had yet figured out whether Stanley was romantically interested in Muriel, owner of the local diner, or if he just appreciated her cooking. Either way, he would clearly enjoy the trip home.

  “Sounds like a good idea then,” I said. “Though, could I make a suggestion? Could you come back before nightfall and keep an eye on Miss Annabel’s house? Maybe I’m being paranoid—”

  “Or maybe you’re being sensible,” he said. “She could be a target. I’ll plan to get back tonight, then.”

  “And I’ll keep you posted on anything that happens while you’re gone.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  But as the day wore on, I grew less and less confident that I’d have anything to report. Chief Heedles and her officers spent an hour or so searching one of the tents and a nearby silver van—presumably both belonging to Williams. They hauled off the contents of van and tent in a pickup truck.

  Sherry, the Valkyrie, found this highly unsatisfactory.

  “Why didn’t they take the tent as well?” she asked. “And his van’s still here. What are we supposed to do with them?”

  “Not our problem,” I suggested.

  “And why are they interrogating him?”

  “He was in town around the time of Cordelia Mason’s death,” I said. “And he used to work for a mining company.”

  “A mining company!” She looked ashen. “Which one?”

  “He’s worked for several,” I said. “I don’t remember the names offhand.” I didn’t mention the fact that I had them in my notebook. What if in her fury against the mining companies Sherry did something to complicate Stanley’s—or Chief Heedles’s—investigation. “Does it matter which ones?”