The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “I thought you were going to the hospital,” she said.

  “I am,” I said. “As soon as Michael gets here to take me. How did your interview with Cordelia go?”

  “Lord.” She rolled her eyes, then closed them and sighed. “Ms. Cordelia and I have agreed that neither of us really has a right to say ‘I told you so.’ She was right that it was murder, and right that Mr. Weaver was up to no good, but dead wrong about who the killer was.”

  “Sorry if I complicated things by steering you to Mr. Williams,” I said.

  “He looked suspicious to me, too.” She shrugged. “And you did figure out the mining connection. I confess, that was all news to me. Speak of the devil—here’s Mr. Williams now. Although I don’t know why my officers are bringing him here instead of taking him back to camp. I’ll see you later.”

  She strode down the walk to the road, where Jim Williams was getting out of the police cruiser. I watched through half-closed eyes as they talked briefly. Then they shook hands. The chief got into her car and drove off. Williams came up the walk and stopped at the bottom of the steps.

  “I heard about last night’s excitement,” he said. “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “Are you okay? I hear you had to spend the night in jail, and it’s all my fault.”

  “No problem.” He shrugged. “It’s a comfortable little jail, and they have a generator, so I had a hot shower while I was there. It made an interesting change. No need to apologize.”

  “Yeah, there is,” I said. “I jumped to conclusions. I shouldn’t just apologize, I should grovel a bit, but my head’s still not back to normal, so will you take a rain check on the groveling?”

  “No need to grovel at all.” He laughed, and I was relieved that he clearly didn’t hold a grudge. “I can’t blame you for suspecting me.”

  “Suspecting you just because you used to work for a mining company.” I shook my head. “Thereby demonstrating exactly why you chose not to tell everyone in the brigade about your background. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “I was flying under false colors in the midst of a murder investigation. And as it happens, you were right. There was a mining company behind the murders. Just not my old company, which even your grandfather acknowledges is one of the good guys in the industry. Unlike Smedlock Mining, which has such a low reputation that my most rapacious, laissez-faire former colleagues would be embarrassed to have anything to do with it. And evidently Oberführer Sherry was working for them.”

  “Actually, it turns out she is them,” I said. “Smedlock is her maiden name.”

  “I knew I never liked that woman.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “And it’s such a relief to be able to say so.”

  “Instead of nodding cheerfully whenever someone said how efficient she was,” Williams said.

  “Just out of curiosity, what were you doing up here in December?” I asked.

  “Checking out the kyanite and kaolin deposits,” he said. “Some company wanted to partner with my old company in developing them. I recommended against it. The mineral veins weren’t rich enough to offset the cost. Not if you went about it the right way, with proper environmental controls and a budget for restoration of the site after the veins were exhausted. Of course, you could make a packet if you did it the cheap, sleazy way, which is doubtless what the Smedlocks had in mind.”

  “Any chance the company who wanted to partner with yours was Smedlock?”

  “They didn’t tell me who it was,” he said. “But I bet it was Smedlock. I plan to find out. And I’m afraid I may have helped trigger Sherry’s attack on Miss Annabel. One of the major points in my report was that anyone trying to mine Biscuit Mountain could expect protracted and potentially expensive opposition from the local citizens. Not hard to figure out who’d be organizing that opposition.”

  “Not your fault,” I said. “You didn’t recommend killing off the opposition. And I think Mr. Weaver already knew she’d be a problem.”

  “No doubt,” he said. “Anyway, the reason I had them drop me off here is that I wanted to talk for a moment to the lady of the house, if she’ll see me.”

  I wasn’t surprised when the door opened a few seconds after he said that.

  “Mr. Williams.” Cordelia strode out and offered her hand. “I’m Cordelia Mason. I’m pleased to see that you’re no longer suspected of killing me.”

  “My condolences on the death of your cousin,” he said. “And may I say that I’m very glad you survived to carry on your work.”

  “My work?” Cordelia tilted her head slightly as if puzzled.

  “Protecting the emus,” he said. “And preserving Biscuit Mountain.” He nodded slightly toward where we could see the mountain looming up in the distance, still clad in a few wisps of early morning fog, “If Smedlock Mining—or anyone else—tries to start a mine that would ruin that, I’d be grateful if you’d call on me to help you stop them. I’ve had some experience in that area.”

  He handed her a business card.

  She took it, studied it for a moment, and then tucked it in her pocket.

  “Have you got another one of those?” she asked. “I’m slowing down a bit. Sooner or later I’ll need to pass the torch along to the new generation. Let’s make sure my granddaughter also knows how to reach you.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it with a surprisingly strong grip.

  So she’d decided in favor of full disclosure about her connection to Dad—and me. I couldn’t help smiling with delight.

  Williams blinked slightly. He’d heard the story of how Grandfather had discovered his long-lost son. I could see him putting the pieces together.

  “Of course.” He actually only paused for a few seconds before reaching into his pocket, taking out his wallet, and handing me another of his cards.

  “And now if you’ll excuse me,” he said. “I’m told the mess tent is serving a special celebratory brunch this morning. The Riverton jail may be comfortable, but the cooking can’t hold a candle to Camp Emu.”

  He nodded, then strode down the steps and headed for the backyard.

  “Of course, I’m hoping we can resolve the question of the mountain pretty amicably.” Cordelia let go of my shoulder. I heard the creak of the old-fashioned screen door as she went inside. A few moments later another creak announced her return. I cracked an eye open to see her setting a tray with a white china teapot and several matching cups and saucers on the table beside me.

  “There’s hot tea if you want it,” she said. “I had a little talk this morning with the president of the First Undermountain Bank.”

  “This morning?” I eyed the teapot and decided to let it steep a bit. “It’s not even six.”

  “I wasn’t feeling very patient,” she said. “I asked him if he thought maybe his board would reconsider my offer to buy the Biscuit Mountain farm, now that the other potential buyers have been revealed as homicidal maniacs who will probably end up doing hard time and are definitely not people he wants to appear to be in cahoots with.”

  “You think he’ll see the light?” I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

  “I think he already has.” I heard a creaking noise and suspected she was following my example. “I have a feeling he’ll be burning up the phone lines this morning, contacting all the other board members. I’ll call my lawyer a little later today and get him to go down and start negotiating with them.”

  “What will you do with it?” I asked. “Set up the emu sanctuary?”

  “No,” she said. “I think the emus will be just fine at the Willner Wildlife Sanctuary. Contrary to popular opinion, I’m not some kind of crazy emu fancier. Just didn’t think the poor things should be abandoned that way. No, I have other plans.”

  “Like reopening the Biscuit Mountain Art Pottery Works?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe an arts and crafts center. Plenty of room up there for a lot of studios and kilns and forges
. Invite skilled craftspeople to come and do residencies. Teach their craft. And a shop where the artist gets the lion’s share of the sales. I might try my hand at pottery myself. Or maybe blacksmithing, if you’ve a mind to teach me.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. “By the way, what was in the bottom drawer? Whatever you were about to show me when Sherry whacked me?”

  “A picture of me holding your father,” she said. “At his christening. I was a godmother, you know. But I don’t suppose his adoptive parents would have mentioned it.”

  We fell silent. I could hear noises drifting over from the camp. Maybe I should call Michael and ask him to bring me a breakfast doggy bag. He was probably making sure the boys were well fed before our drive. That was fine with me. I heard a car stop in front of the house. I opened my eyes to see Thor hopping out of a dark blue sedan. He headed up the walk. The sedan drove off. Toward camp, I noticed, rather than back to town. I’d seen that car somewhere before.

  “Ms. Delia?” Thor was standing at the foot of the porch steps.

  “Good morning, Thor,” Cordelia said. “I trust you’re not suffering any ill effects from this morning’s adventure?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said. “I just wanted to say how sorry I was about Miss Annabel. And how glad I am that the killer didn’t get you, too.”

  “Thanks in part to your help,” Cordelia said.

  “Some help I was,” he muttered.

  “If you hadn’t distracted Sherry, we might not be here,” I said. “So I guess I have to thank you for disobeying my orders and lurking out here to guard your friend.”

  “Just lucky.” His pale redhead’s complexion turned scarlet. “Oh, and Ms. Delia—I know you won’t need to be feeding the emus anymore once Dr. Blake has rounded them up, but if you need me for anything else, just call.”

  “How about tomorrow morning?” she said. “I’ve been cooped up here too long. Got a lot of friends I need to catch up with. You can drive me. Eight a.m.”

  “Great! I’ll see you then!”

  Thor dashed away, grinning from ear to ear. And headed around the side of the house—no doubt he was also looking forward to the celebratory breakfast.

  “Well,” Cordelia said. “I can go ahead and replace the generator now. On the old spot. Just as well—it cost a lot of money to install the underground propane tank and lay such a long line to the house.”

  “Good idea,” I murmured.

  “Then again, I’m not sure I’ll need the generator as much. I’m thinking of taking myself off the grid.”

  “Off the grid?” Surely she wasn’t thinking of living indefinitely with ice chests and LED lanterns.

  “Going solar,” she said. “Plenty of room on my roof for a solar array. In fact, I could install enough solar panels in the pasture to power the town. Start my own little power company. It’s the wave of the future, solar.”

  “Awesome,” I said.

  We sat in silence for another minute or two. Cordelia was probably plotting her takeover of the local energy market. I had something else on my mind.

  “You know,” I said aloud. “I just realized that we’ve been going about this completely backward.”

  “Going about what?” Cordelia asked.

  “Rounding up the emus. We shouldn’t be chasing them all over Pudding Mountain.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “What’s your idea?”

  “We should take some of that fencing and build a big pen around the emu feeding station,” I said. “With a lot of gates. And as soon as you get a bunch of emus in the pen, you shut the gates.”

  “Should work,” she said. “I bet someone could build a remote control device for the gates, so you could shut them without having any humans so near that they’d scare the emus.”

  “Someone like Thor.”

  “My thoughts exactly. So are you going to tell them now, before I get a chance to see all of Monty’s shenanigans?”

  “There’s plenty of video you can watch,” I said. “I think it would be better for the emus if I told them now.”

  “Good point.”

  We both fell silent and I pondered, idly, whether I wanted the hot tea enough to sit up and reach for it.

  “Meg, dear?”

  I looked up to see Mother standing at the foot of the steps.

  “What in the world are you doing here?” I sat up and rubbed my eyes, to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. It was too soon for her to have gotten my message and driven here.

  “What kind of welcome is that?” Mother asked. I was relieved that she sounded amused and indulgent rather than offended.

  “I didn’t mean to be unwelcoming,” I said. “I’m just surprised to see you here. You do realize that we’re all camping over there. And eating in a mess tent. And using port-a-potties.”

  “Yes, dear.” Mother shuddered slightly. “I’m not staying overnight. But your father called at five a.m. to tell me what happened, and I came up to make sure you were all right.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “And since you’re here, perhaps I should make the introductions.” I glanced at Cordelia. I should probably start calling her Grandmother. I’d have to work on that.

  “This is my mother, Margaret Hollingsworth Langslow,” I said to her. “Mother, this is Cordelia Lee Mason, your mother-in-law.”

  Mother was obviously taken by surprise, but only hesitated for a moment.

  “How delightful!” She swept up the steps and leaned down to take both of Cordelia’s hands in hers. “You can’t imagine how long I’ve been wanting to meet you!”

  “And I you,” Cordelia said.

  The two of them stayed there for a moment, hands clasped, quite frankly studying each other. I realized, with relief, that they both seemed to like what they saw.

  “Let me pour you some tea,” Cordelia said, after a few moments.

  “I’d love some,” Mother said. “What lovely Haviland!”

  “Thank you,” Cordelia said. “It was my mother’s.”

  “Where on Earth is your father?” Mother turned to me with a slight frown, as if it were my fault Dad was late to the party.

  “I think he went back to camp to clean up,” I said. “He wants to make a good first impression.”

  I heard a car pull up and, sure that it would be the Twinmobile, I started to stand up. But no—it was the dark blue sedan again. The driver got out and I realized where I’d seen it before: the library parking lot. Anne Murphy was scurrying up the walk.

  “Ms. Delia!” she exclaimed. She ran up onto the porch and hugged Cordelia. I suspected from my grandmother’s expression that she wasn’t much of a hugger, but willing to put up with it under the circumstances.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive,” Anne exclaimed. “So sorry about Miss Annabel, of course. But I’m glad that horrible woman didn’t get you as well.”

  “So am I,” Cordelia said. “And I’m looking forward to rejoining the book club again.”

  Another figure had gotten out of the car and was trotting down the walk. Caroline Willner.

  “Lovely!” Anne beamed. “The book group needs you—ever since you left, it’s been just one tear-jerker after another. I’m hoping you can talk them into doing mysteries again. And oh! You can be the first to know—we’re having a special meeting of the book group tomorrow night, with a live author. Dr. Montgomery Blake is coming to talk about his books!”

  Caroline, who had reached the bottom of the porch steps, snorted at that.

  “Maybe I won’t be rejoining quite that soon,” Cordelia said. “I’ve heard Monty talk before.”

  “And here I was going to offer to introduce you,” Anne said. “And invite you to come to breakfast with him and Caroline Willner and me. But I gather you’ve met Dr. Blake before?”

  “You could say that,” Cordelia said. “I’m Meg’s long-lost grandmother.”

  “Oh, my!” Anne’s mouth fell open and she seemed at a loss for words.

  Caroline marched up the steps and
held out her hand to Cordelia.

  “Caroline Willner,” she said. “I’m the one who’s taking the emus.”

  “And I’m delighted that you are,” Cordelia said, taking the hand and shaking it warmly. The two were clearly studying each other, and I was relieved to see that, as with Mother and Cordelia, both seemed pleased with what they saw.

  “You can come up to visit them any time you want,” Caroline said. “And I can give you the grand tour of the sanctuary.”

  “I’d like that,” Cordelia said. “Although I suspect Monty won’t.”

  “I’ll make sure he’s not around if you’d rather not run into him,” Caroline said. “Do you know what he asked me this morning? If I thought people would expect him to make an honest woman of you.”

  We all burst into laughter at the notion—even Anne, who seemed to be recovering from her surprise.

  “Tell him thanks for the thought,” Cordelia said, shaking her head and still chuckling. “But he’s about seventy years too late. I’ve been doing just fine on my own.”

  I glanced down the driveway and saw that my grandfather had gotten out of the car and was standing outside the gate, peering in.

  “Monty, you old goat!” Caroline called out. “Stop lurking! Come here and be polite for once in your life.”

  I glanced over at Cordelia to see if the idea of coming face-to-face with Grandfather upset her. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she was clearly having a hard time not laughing at his sheepish expression.

  “Not his fault, actually.” She was looking at Anne. Was the poor librarian shocked by the revelation? Disappointed to find that her idol had clay feet?

  “We lost touch at just the wrong time,” Cordelia went on. “Blame the Ecuadorian postal service.”

  Anne looked puzzled at that. I’d explain later about the Galapagos Island connection. For now, I realized that something was about to happen. Grandfather finally stopped peering in through the gate, straightened his shoulders, and began coming up the walk. I’d seen him face wounded wolves and angry mother bears with a more cheerful air. And yet I had to give him credit—he was marching steadfastly toward us, in spite of the calm, steady, and not entirely approving scrutiny from the five women gathered on the porch. Pretty formidable women—well, four of them were. I didn’t consider myself particularly formidable. Although with such good models, I had hopes of achieving it.