Revenge of the Wrought-Iron Flamingos

by Donna Andrews

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, I thought, as I slipped through the silent lanes, starting at shadows. The party noise seemed far behind now. Even the intermittent boom of the artillery sounded subdued, and the crackle of my footsteps on the straw-covered lane seemed deafening. And then, as I neared the town square—

  “Help!” came a cry. “Can anyone hear me? Help!”

  I quickened my steps and got a good grip on my haversack, so I could use it as a weapon if need be, all the while telling myself I was an idiot for not going in search of help. The bag wasn’t much of a weapon, and if I actually had to cosh someone with it, I’d probably break my cell phone.

  When I reached the square, I stepped on something. A hand. I peered down, and saw Tony-the-louse lying facedown on the gravel.

  “Tony!” I exclaimed. I bent down and touched the hand. Still warm. I was about to check for a pulse when a loud snore reassured me that Tony wasn’t dead. Only dead drunk.

  “Meg? Is that you?”

  Wesley’s voice. I recognized it now.

  “Wesley?” I called. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

  “Over here.”

  “Over where? In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a little dark out here.”

  “Over here in the stocks.”

  I ventured further into the square, until I could see the stocks. I could also see Wesley’s back, rump, and legs. He was wiggling, trying either to escape from the stocks or to turn and look at me, but his head and arms were pinioned too tightly for either.

  I strolled around to the front of the stocks. Wesley, still trying to break free, rattled the padlock that secured the stocks.

  “There you are!” he said.

  I checked the padlock. It wasn’t just for show. Someone had locked it. And the spare key wasn’t hanging on the hook beneath the platform where we left it in case of accidents.

  “Don’t just stand there, get me out,” Wesley said.

  “I’d be happy to if I knew where the key was.”

  “That idiot Tony has it, of course.”

  “You might have mentioned that before I walked all the way over here,” I said, turning back to where Tony lay snoring.

  But Tony didn’t have the key—not in his hand or any of his pockets, and I didn’t find it lying on the ground around him.

  “He must have dropped it while he was capering around,” Wesley said, when I reported my failure.

  “Capering around?”

  “After he locked me up, he was running up and down the square, taunting me until he passed out,” Wesley said. “You’ll need to search around some more.”

  “Fat chance,” I said. “See you.”

  “You can’t abandon me here!” Wesley shrieked.

  “I’m not abandoning you. I’m going in search of help,” I said. “I’m sure one of the other watchmen has the key, and if I can’t find one, I’ll use Horace’s wrench and unbolt the hinge on the other side.”

  “Hurry up,” Wesley grumbled.

  I felt a little less nervous as I left the square for the lane leading to my booth. And, I had to admit, also a lot less out-of-sorts. Seeing Wesley in the stocks had improved my mood, and taking refuge on the familiar ground of my booth—not to mention taking possession of my laptop and my cash box—would complete the recovery, I was sure. Illogical, of course, since the ground my booth stood on was no more familiar than a hundred other small squares of land on which Eileen and I had set it up over the last few years. Still, the booth was, however temporarily, my turf. But instead of feeling safe, I felt my anxiety soar when I stepped into the booth and looked around.

  It was a shambles. Half the ironwork on the table had been tipped over, and the rest had been knocked off to join the jumbled heap on the ground.

  A strong wind? No, Eileen’s pottery was completely undisturbed. Even the spray of dried heather gracing one delicate vase barely stirred in the still, humid air. Someone had vandalized my side of the booth.

  “Tony, you snake,” I muttered, as I reached down to set a candelabrum upright.

  Which probably wasn’t fair; I could think of a few other people who might have it in for me. But for some reason I was sure Tony had done this.

  Even if I hadn’t known about the time he’d done the same thing to Faulk’s booth, I’d have guessed; it was just his style.

  Crude. Mindless. And ultimately ineffective, since he’d at least had the decency to leave Eileen’s stuff alone, and he’d have had to work a lot harder—and use better tools—to cause any permanent damage to my stuff.

  Unless he’d gone after my laptop, I thought, suddenly. Or unless someone had cleverly faked the kind of damage Tony would do as a cover-up for a raid on my cash box.

  I put down the andirons I’d been picking up, rushed to the back of the booth, and swept the curtain open. I was expecting to find a similar scene of shambles—the storage case jimmied open, fragments of my laptop strewn around, my cash box overturned and empty, save for a few small coins.

  I wasn’t expecting to find a body.

  Chapter 15

  “Well, at least he’s in period,” I muttered, as I looked down at the body. Whoever he was—his face was hidden by an inexpensive tricorn hat—he was wearing one of Mrs. Waterston’s ubiquitous blue colonial coats. With my falcon dagger buried to the hilt in the middle of the back.

  I backed away, fumbled in my haversack, and managed to locate my cell phone. Thank heaven for anachronisms. It took me two tries to hit the ON button, and I was so rattled that I got directory assistance instead of 911 the first time I dialed.

  “I do hope you’re somebody I used to like,” I said to the body as I stood looking down at it and waiting for the police to arrive. “Not a lot, of course; but if you’re someone I didn’t like, the sheriff will probably arrest me on the spot.” At least that was the way it always happened in the mystery books my dad constantly read and recommended to me—the cops loved to suspect whoever found the body. Owning the murder weapon and the scene of the crime probably weren’t too cool either. I found myself resenting the deceased, whoever he was, for managing to involve me so thoroughly in his murder.

  And of course, by that time, I couldn’t stand not knowing who he was. I picked up a pair of iron firewood tongs, stepped a little closer to the body again, and used the tongs to lift up the edge of the tricorn hat, just enough to see his face.

  Roger Benson.

  “Damn,” I said, letting the tricorn hat fall back into place. I could feel my headache kick in again, just at the sight of him, even before I started to consider all the complications his murder could cause.

  “So, what’s the problem here?” came a familiar voice from behind me.

  “Someone’s been murdered, Sheriff,” I said

  “Murdered!” the sheriff exclaimed. “Oh, dear.”

  He stepped forward, rather hesitantly, and peered at the body.

  “He’s in costume,” he said.

  “Most of us are,” I said. Including, of course, the sheriff himself, who had changed out of his tomato-spattered blue colonial coat into another one in an astonishingly vile shade of greenish mustard.

  “Yes, but is there any chance this could be one of those living-history reenactment things?”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “Sir?” the sheriff called. “Sir? Excuse me, but if you’re doing a reenactment, could you kind of give us a clue? So we don’t have to get all the squad cars and ambulances and such out here and spoil the period ambiance? Sir?”

  No response from the corpse—and unlike the sheriff, I wasn’t holding my breath, waiting for one.

  “Who is he?” the sheriff asked. “Do you know?”

  I held out the fireplace tongs. The sheriff looked at them as if he had no idea what I was suggesting, so I reached out again myself and lifted the tricorn hat enough for us to get another glimpse of Roger Benson’s face.

  “Oh dear,” the sheriff said again. “I hope Monty gets here soon.
r />   “Monty?”

  I let the hat fall down again.

  “My new deputy,” the sheriff said. “He’s got big-city police experience.”

  “Really? What city?”

  “Cleveland?” the sheriff said. “Or is it Columbus? Someplace in Ohio.”

  “Cincinnati, maybe?” I asked.

  “Could be. Someplace like that. You can ask him when he gets here.”

  I nodded. Not that it mattered, but it gave us something to babble about while we both stood staring fixedly at the late Mr. Benson.

  “He does all our homicides,” the sheriff went on.

  “You’ve had a lot since he got here?” I asked. Yorktown wasn’t exactly a hotbed of crime.

  “Oh, no,” the sheriff said. “Actually, I can’t remember that we’ve had one since he got here, come to think of it. But if we had, he’d have been the one to handle it. He had a lot of experience back there in Cincinnati.”

  “Or Cleveland.”

  “Wherever,” the sheriff agreed.

  “So what do we have here?” boomed a flat midwestern voice.

  I turned to see a tall beanpole of a man in a deputy’s uniform, standing at the entrance to my booth with his hands on his hips.

  “Murder,” I said, as the sheriff and I walked over to meet the newcomer. A little brass nametag on his chest said “R. B. MONTGOMERY,” so I assumed he was the homicidally experienced Monty.

  “I see,” Monty said. He took a small notebook out of his pocket, checked his watch, scribbled something in the notebook, then looked back up at me. “Want to tell us about it?”

  “Nothing much to tell,” I said, rubbing my forehead. The headache was getting worse.

  “What happened, he try to stiff you for your fee?” Monty said. “Or are you going to claim you changed your mind at the last minute and had to defend yourself?”

  My mouth fell open in astonishment, and I stifled the impulse to giggle. I was willing to bet he’d started to inspect me from head to toe and gotten stalled just below shoulder level.

  “Monty!” the sheriff exclaimed. “This is my cousin, Meg Langslow. She was attending a costume party when she found this body.”

  “Costume party?” Monty said, looking around the deserted booth.

  “The party’s at the Moore House,” I said. “I was leaving the party to go back to my tent, and I stopped by my booth on the way to pick up my cash box. I found the booth ransacked” —I indicated the fallen ironwork—“and a body in my storage area, behind those curtains.”

  “I see,” Monty said. He was still studying my costume with overmuch interest.

  “Look, Monty,” I said. “I don’t know how the hell they do these things in Columbus—”

  “Cincinnati,” the sheriff corrected.

  “Actually, I came here from Canton,” Monty said, frowning.

  “But here in Yorktown, we expect our law-enforcement officials to do something when they arrive at a crime scene. Something more than leer at the witnesses.”

  “Witnesses, sure,” Monty said, with an insulting chuckle.

  “Aren’t you going to check the body, Monty?” the sheriff asked.

  “I don’t want to contaminate the scene any more than it’s already been contaminated by you two,” Monty said. “I’m waiting for the crime-scene technician; I’ve sent a patrol officer out to find him.”

  “We have a crime-scene technician?” the sheriff asked. “When did that happen?”

  “You remember, that file clerk who turned out to have a chemistry degree,” Monty said, with exasperation. “You signed off last month on sending him up to Richmond for the training courses.

  “Oh, Horace,” the sheriff said. “That’s right. How’s he doing, anyway?”

  “Well, we’ll find out when he gets here, won’t we?” Monty said, looking at his watch.

  Just then Cousin Horace, looking more mouselike than ever, stuck his head around the corner of my booth.

  “Jimmy said you wanted me here,” he said. “What’s the—Oh, hi, Meg.”

  “You know this man?” Monty demanded.

  “It’s a small town, Monty,” the sheriff said. “Everybody knows everybody; I keep telling you that.”

  “I’m Meg’s cousin,” Horace said, rather timidly, as if he still wasn’t sure of his welcome.

  “I thought he was your cousin,” Monty said to the sheriff.

  “Yes, he’s my cousin, too,” the sheriff said.

  “We’re all cousins,” Horace said.

  “Nearly everybody in town is cousins,” I said. “You’ve got to make allowances for inbreeding, Monty. We’re actually not that bad. You should see some of the cousins we hide in the attics.”

  I suppose it would have been different if I’d said that in front of someone who’d find it funny. But Cousin Horace and the sheriff had grown used to just nodding and smiling whenever I said anything they didn’t understand, and their reactions probably gave Monty the idea I was serious. I sighed.

  “Why don’t you let Horace do his crime-scene thing?” I said. “If you don’t want to listen to my story now, I’d like to go someplace where I can lie down. I’m getting a headache.”

  “Oh, I want to hear your story all right,” Monty said. “And you’re not going anywhere until you take off that dress.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need it for evidence,” Monty said.

  “Evidence?” the sheriff echoed.

  “She says she found the body, but how do we know that?” Monty explained. “We need to test the dress for blood spatters.”

  Horace, the sheriff, and I looked down at my dress—which, except for the faint damp spot where Benson had spilled his gin and tonic, looked perfectly spotless.

  “Minute blood spatters, okay?” Monty said.

  just then, I saw Michael and Dad coming down the lane.

  “Meg! What’s going on?” Michael called. “They came and got your cousin Horace and—”

  “Stand back!” Monty snapped. “This is a crime scene!”

  “Michael, could you go to the tent and get some clothes for me to change into?” I asked. “Jeans, please. I think the masquerade’s over for the evening.”

  Michael looked around, decided that I was safe enough with Dad, Horace, and the sheriff at my side, then nodded and took off.

  “Meg, what’s happened?” Dad asked.

  “Someone killed Mr. Benson in my booth,” I said.

  “Killed?” Dad said. “Do you think it’s murder, then? How exciting!”

  “Who’s this?” Monty asked. “Another cousin?”

  “Well, yes,” the sheriff said. “By marriage, anyway. This is Meg’s dad.”

  “Would you like me to examine the body?” Dad asked.

  Monty looked alarmed and stepped protectively between Dad and the body.

  “He’s a doctor,” I explained. “A medical doctor. He’s … uh, he’s had some experience with crime scenes.” I didn’t mention that his experience consisted largely of horning in on any homicide investigation that happened in his vicinity; I didn’t think that would do much to allay Deputy Monty’s obvious distrust. Dad beamed at me.

  “I think we’d rather have the coroner for that,” Monty said.

  “He might still be at the party,” Dad said, looking at his watch. “Want me to go and see? This’ll go a lot faster if we catch him before he starts for home.”

  The fact that it might also give Dad a chance to talk the coroner into letting Dad help him was, of course, irrelevant.

  “I’d appreciate it, James,” the sheriff said. “And maybe one of the female officers, if you see any? To supervise when Meg … um …”

  “Right,” Dad said.

  Oh, great, I thought. I had to wait for a suitable audience to change out of my dress. I hoped Dad would hurry. The air was getting cool, which wouldn’t have bothered me if I’d been fully dressed.

  “And I’ll look for someone to rescue Wesley while I’m at it,” Dad said
.

  “Oh, my God,” I said. “I forgot all about Wesley!”

  “That nosy reporter? What’s wrong with him?” Monty asked, his hand hovering over his gun.

  I explained Wesley’s plight, and they all had to troop out to the town square to take a look, leaving me and Horace at the crime scene.

  I watched, interested in spite of myself, as Horace donned a pair of latex gloves and began collecting evidence. This was a new side of Horace, I realized. He examined things, photographed things, put things in plastic bags, and dusted everything in sight for fingerprints. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he exuded confidence or anything hokey like that, but he didn’t drop or break anything the whole time, which had to be a first for Horace.

  The others returned, and we all stood around watching and listening to the occasional distant whine of complaint from Wesley. Eventually Dad arrived with the coroner. Who, to no one’s surprise, pronounced Roger Benson dead, and scuttled away to let Horace do his forensic chores on and around the body. I watched with fascination as the previously squeamish and mild-mannered Horace fingerprinted the deceased as if he’d been hobnobbing with corpses all his life. Okay, if Monty had even accidentally helped bring about this transformation in Horace, maybe he wasn’t all bad.

  Dad, prevented from joining in the forensic fun, went off to continue searching for someone with a key to the padlock on the stocks. And the coroner was characteristically cagey about the time of death.

  “I can’t give you a range of less than three of four hours until I do the postmortem,” he said. “And maybe not then.”

  “We can estimate closer than that even without the postmortem,” I said. “I left the party at about ten, and I was talking to Benson about fifteen or twenty minutes before I left. Allowing about five minutes for the walk, he couldn’t have gotten here much earlier than nine forty-five. And I’m sure you know what time I called 911.”

  “Ten thirty-five,” the sheriff said. “Ricky paged me as soon as he got the call.”

  “See? That narrows it down to about forty-five minutes, from nine forty-five to ten thirty.”