No Nest for the Wicket

by Donna Andrews

  Actually, I hoped our renovation project wouldn’t be quite that invasive. I was depressing myself just talking about it.

  “Why don’t you let me talk to Rose Noire and Dad?” I said. “I’ll explain about the construction, and how enthusiastic you both are about digging the garden when the time is right. I’ll let you know what we come up with.”

  They both brightened at that. Why not? After all, this way they’d get credit with Rose Noire for the digging without doing any more actual backbreaking work. “We could have had it all dug by now,” they could say, “if Meg hadn’t stopped us.”

  They both ambled off—not precisely side by side, which would have implied some degree of togtherness. Instead, they were on parallel courses to where they thought they could find Rose Noire.

  I strolled out toward the main part of the lawn and stopped in surprise. Perhaps I should have guessed from the chaos in the kitchen that today’s lunch had mutated from a simple picnic for the competitors into something else.

  “Good grief,” I muttered. “Who are all these people and what are they doing here?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Once I’d recovered from the initial shock and taken a look around, I realized that I could answer my own question. Of the hundred or so people milling about the lawn, about a third were Mother’s relatives, whom I didn’t remember inviting. Another third orbited Mrs. Pruitt the way my family orbited Mother, so I deduced they were members of the Caerphilly Historical Society or the Caerphilly Garden Club—or both. The membership was overlapping and possibly inbred: Most of the members drew their last or middle names from the same two dozen WASP surnames you saw on generations of tombstones in the cemeteries behind the town’s Episcopal and Presbyterian churches. I also didn’t remember inviting any but the three croquet-playing Dames, as the Historical Society crew called themselves.

  The rest of the guests were probably Shiffleys. I deduced this from the way they and the Historical Society crowd avoided one another. Mrs. Pruitt and her minions had occupied the end of the lawn near the house, while the Shiffleys were entrenched down by the barn. Between them lay a no-man’s-land that would have been blatantly unoccupied if not for my family, who milled about, seemingly oblivious of the social conflict around them. I felt a sudden surge of affection for my family, who couldn’t tell a Pruitt from a Shiffley and wouldn’t care anyway.

  And who had assumed they were coming to a potluck lunch. As had the Dames and the Shiffleys, of course. The tables we’d set out were completely covered with plates and bowls of food, and people were wandering around with covered dishes in their hands, looking for table space.

  “We’ll need more tables,” Michael said.

  “See if the Shiffleys can contribute their sawhorses and a few sheets of plywood,” I suggested.

  Michael nodded and strode off.

  I looked around and shook my head. If this many people showed up for a picnic in March, I didn’t want to think about what would happen come summer.

  I noticed Minerva Burke chatting with Mother. Was she here socially, or did her presence mean the chief was still around? No doubt I’d find out soon enough.

  Mrs. Briggs and the clones had arrived. So had Mr. Briggs. He didn’t look particularly cheerful or relaxed. Perhaps coming was his wife’s idea. I read Briggs as a driven entrepreneur who didn’t see much use in social gatherings. Why bother to make friends in a town you were diligently trying to bulldoze down and pave over?

  Odd how much he’d been around recently. He’d driven his wife out yesterday, and hung around the whole day while she played croquet. We were only ten miles outside Caerphilly. Easy enough for him to drop her off and come back later. Why was he hanging around yesterday and again today?

  I spotted Dad getting a head start on the dessert table and strolled over to talk to him.

  “Dad, did you see Mr. Briggs yesterday?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said through a mouthful of brownie.

  “When?”

  “Well, he was here for breakfast,” Dad said. “Drove his wife out. We talked at lunch, too, so I assume he stayed to see her play. He was here when Chief Burke gathered us all to identify the victim, so he must have been here all day.”

  “Did you see him, apart from mealtimes?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t, you know,” Dad said. “I didn’t get to see the games, of course, since I stayed up here to keep an eye on the construction.”

  The construction and the duck pond.

  “You didn’t miss all that much,” I said. “It’s not much of a spectator sport.”

  Dad glanced around to make sure no one was nearby.

  “Do you suspect him?” he asked in a stage whisper.

  “I suspect everyone,” I said. “Just checking. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Ah,” Dad said.

  But perhaps I suspected Mr. Briggs more than most. Unlike the boggy cow pasture, the hilly sheep pasture that formed our other eXtreme croquet field wasn’t wooded. Friday morning, when our team had played Mrs. Briggs and the clones, I could see most of the other players most of the time. I remembered seeing Mr. Briggs from time to time, leaning over the fence at the end of the field closest to the house, but I couldn’t swear he was there the whole time. I’d have had no chance to see him in the afternoon—he’d have gone back to Mr. Early’s sheep pasture, where his wife was playing, not down to the bog with my team and the Dames.

  But why had he been hanging around all day? Had he really been that interested in watching his wife play croquet? Or had he been gloating over his coming triumph?

  Or maybe bumping off Lindsay Tyler?

  For all I knew, he could have gotten bored and taken off during the afternoon game. Gone back to his office to do some business that would give him an alibi for the time of Lindsay’s death. But he’d returned by the time the police arrived.

  I made a note to keep my eyes open for a chance to talk to Mr. Briggs. Perhaps later in the picnic. At the moment, despite the fact that I hadn’t invited three-fourths of the people thronging our lawn, Mother would expect me to make some effort to play the gracious hostess.

  Not to mention playing shepherdess before too long. I could see a couple of Mr. Early’s sheep mingling with the crowd. When we’d first moved into the house, we’d been responsible, in Mr. Early’s eyes, for damaging the fence around his pasture and allowing several hundred of his sheep to escape. Since then, we’d learned that the Great Sheep Escape, although dramatic, had not been unprecedented. Mr. Early’s fences leaked sheep all the time at a slow but fairly constant rate. Most of the locals cast aspersions on Mr. Early’s fence-mending ability, but now that I’d come to know his sheep rather better than I liked, I blamed the sheep. Mr. Early’s sheep were not only larger and woollier than your average sheep, they were also more agile and enterprising. In addition to rounding them up regularly from our yard and shooing them out of the downstairs rooms, we’d found stray sheep lying against the outside of our bedroom door on a cold morning—to take advantage of the warmth from our space heater leaking out under the door—frolicking in the wading pool we set up for some visiting junior relatives, and, to Michael’s dismay, giving birth in the passenger seat of his convertible.

  At least today’s sheep were on their best behavior.

  I noticed that Mrs. Burke and several of the chief’s deputies were circulating through the crowd in what they thought was a subtle fashion. If they wanted to overhear gossip about the murder, they were doomed to disappointment. Most of the guests were talking about eXtreme croquet, not murder.

  Mrs. Pruitt and Mrs. Fenniman were already bickering over the logistics of restarting the tournament.

  “Easier just to start the game over,” Rob suggested.

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Pruitt said. “I’m sure we all remember where we were when the police notified us. We can just pick up from there.”

  From which I deduced that she thought her team had been ahead when Chief Burke interrupted the game
and she didn’t want to risk losing that advantage.

  “Let me consult the rules on that,” Mrs. Fenniman said. Which suggested that she wasn’t entirely sure who’d been ahead and wanted time to figure it out before deciding whether to agree to resume the previous game or dig in her heels and insist on a “do-over.”

  “There’s the issue of poor Meg’s ball,” Mrs. Pruitt said, bestowing a suspiciously genial smile on me.

  “What about my ball?” I asked.

  “It hasn’t been found, has it?” Mrs. Pruitt said.

  “Yes, it has,” Sammy piped up. “We found it last night.”

  “Where is it, then?” Mrs. Fenniman snapped. “You haven’t gone and lost it, have you?”

  “Of course not,” Sammy said. “We took it to the crime lab with the mallets.”

  “Down in Richmond? Dear me!” Mrs. Pruitt said, shaking her head with a sadness that was almost believable. “You’ll need a few strokes to get back on course from there, won’t you?”

  She wasn’t really suggesting that I resume playing the ball from the crime lab, was she?

  “I think we can call that an out-of-bounds ball,” Mrs. Fenniman said.

  “Are we sure?” Mrs. Pruitt asked.

  “I’ll check with the board of regents,” Mrs. Fenniman said, as if that settled it. Which it probably did; the eXtreme croquet board of regents generally backed Mrs. Fenniman’s interpretation of the rules. I had no idea whether that was because they agreed with her or because they’d guessed her capacity for making their lives miserable by phone and e-mail if they contradicted her.

  “What if one of the players turns out to be the killer?” Mrs. Pruitt asked. “I don’t suppose that’s covered under the rules?”

  “Already asked them about that last night,” Mrs. Fenniman replied. “They recommend that the affected team be allowed to field a substitute. Unless murders during our games happen frequently, in which case local custom should prevail.”

  Mrs. Fenniman was particularly fond of the line about local custom prevailing, since she considered herself, as the pioneer who’d introduced eXtreme croquet to Caerphilly, entitled to decide what was and wasn’t local custom.

  “It would be different if the victim had been a player,” Mrs. Fenniman said. “Grounds for immediate expulsion.”

  “But spectators are fair game, naturally,” I added.

  “Hmph,” Mrs. Pruitt said, but she didn’t argue—only sailed off with her head held higher than usual.

  “So when you start the tournament up again, which field will you use?” Tony, the redheaded student, was asking Mrs. Fenniman.

  “The cow pasture, of course,” Mrs. Fenniman said.

  “If Chief Burke lets us,” I added.

  “Oh, I hope he does,” Rose Noire said, frowning in distress. “The cow pasture’s a much better field.”

  “Much more interesting terrain,” Mrs. Fenniman agreed nodding.

  “I prefer cows to sheep,” Rose Noire said. “The sheep are impossible to hit.”

  “To hit?” I echoed, my mouth open. Here I’d been carefully concealing my accidental ricochet off the cow from her, because I thought she’d be appalled—and she was using the sheep for target practice?

  “As walking wickets,” she said. “Most of them have wool so long, it drags on the ground. No way to get a ball through their legs. With the cows, it’s almost too easy.”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Fenniman said. “If someone sheared them, the sheep would be much more interesting than cows. Doable, but not too easy.”

  “You’re right!” Rose Noire exclaimed. “Let’s talk to Mr. Early!”

  They hurried off.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I noticed that Tony, like me, was watching Rose Noire and Mrs. Fenniman with openmouthed astonishment.

  “So how long have you been playing eXtreme croquet?” I asked.

  “About a month now,” he said.

  “Oh, really? For some reason, I thought it was longer. How did you get interested?”

  “Bill saw a notice somewhere about your tournament and thought it would be a gas to get up a team,” he said. “Before that, we just mostly did the Morris dancing.”

  Interesting. Bill, who of the three students seemed least interested in the game. Or, for that matter, in food, drink, and their beloved Morris dancing.

  “Is he okay?” I asked. “He seems a little … quiet.”

  “He’s been moody lately,” Tony said. “For the last week or so.”

  A week. Which meant we couldn’t take his moodiness as a sign of guilt. Unless he’d been premeditating the murder for a week. Seemed farfetched, but I filed it away for later consideration.

  Not that I couldn’t keep an eye on the moody Bill in the meantime, so I took my plate and sat down at the students’ table, opposite him and Graham. Tony followed me, and, thank goodness, Michael.

  “So how is everyone this morning?” I asked.

  “Brilliant,” Graham said, beaming at me.

  “You have a very comfortable barn,” Tony said.

  Bill glanced up and made an inarticulate noise before returning to the fascinating chore of rearranging the food on his plate.

  “Chief Burke’s happier today,” Michael said. “Though I don’t think it has anything to do with the case.”

  “Nothing to do with the case,” I said. “I suspect Dad gave him something for the itching.”

  “Perhaps we ought to talk to him,” Tony said to Graham. “Meg’s father, I mean.”

  “Perhaps we ought,” Graham said, squirming in his seat and reaching down to scratch his shin. “It’s not getting any better.”

  “What’s not getting any better?” I asked. “Show me.”

  Graham pulled down his long white sock to reveal a large patch of irritated red skin with a few telltale white blisters forming in the center.

  “Yuck,” I said, fighting the impulse to draw back in revulsion. After all, the stuff wasn’t contagious, and I’d had worse-looking cases myself. “Yes, you’ve got poison ivy all right. Did you take a shower last night?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I took one this morning, but we’ve done quite a bit of rehearsing this morning. Morris dancing gets rather vigorous and—”

  “I’m not complaining about how you smell,” I said. “I’m trying to find out if you’re still walking around with urushiol all over your shins, or, worse, on your hands.”

  “Urushiol?” Graham repeated.

  “It’s an oil contained in poison ivy, which is almost certainly what caused your rash,” I said.

  “Poison ivy?” Tony said. “Oh, man, I get that stuff bad.”

  “What should we do?” Graham said. “It’s not, uh, potentially fatal, is it?”

  “No,” I said. “You’ll only wish it was.”

  Tony was inspecting his shins now, which looked worse than Graham’s.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?” Graham asked.

  I closed my eyes. I was perfectly capable of explaining all about poison ivy—how to identify it, how to make sure you washed the urushiol off if you thought you’d touched it, and the limited ways to treat the rash that resulted if you didn’t wash well or soon enough. The idea made me tired.

  Besides, why deprive Dad of the chance? He’d actually enjoy it.

  “Go see my dad,” I said, pointing to the buffet table, where Dad was explaining something to Lacie Butler—something that required much gesticulating. “Do everything he tells you. In the meantime, don’t touch the rash.”

  They raced off. Correction: Tony raced. Graham walked slowly and carefully, as if afraid his legs would break off if he ran.

  “What about you?” I said to Bill, the quiet one.

  “Stuff doesn’t bother me,” he said with a shrug.

  “Lucky you. If you want to keep it that way, try not to bother it. Immunity to poison ivy can wear off at any time.”

  He shrugged again. I wasn’t sure whether he didn’t believe me or just d
idn’t care.

  As we ate, we watched the drama on the other side of the yard. Dad shooed Tony and Graham into the barn—for long showers with plenty of Fels-Naptha soap. Dad reappeared with plastic garbage bags protecting his hands, carrying all their clothes into the house for washing. Eventually, Tony and Graham emerged, wrapped in bath sheets, awaiting the arrival of clean, urushiol-free clothes as Dad applied cold Domeboro compresses to their shins and scrutinized the remaining visible skin for signs of inflammation.

  Rose Noire’s herbal studies must have uncovered a remedy for poison ivy, for, as we watched, she appeared and handed Tony and Graham steaming mugs of something. Something unusually nasty-tasting, from the expressions on their faces when they sipped. Unfortunately, while my cousin’s herbal concoctions often seemed remarkably effective, she had no idea how to make them palatable. No idea or perhaps no intention—was it a New Age concept or an old wives’ tale, that anything really good for you ought to taste slightly foul?

  “Quite a production,” Bill said after a while.

  “Dr. Langslow has extensive experience with poison ivy,” Michael told him.

  “Especially since my brother, Rob, comes down with a case every year in spite of all Dad’s lessons on how to identify the stuff,” I added.

  “Langslow?” Bill repeated.

  “That’s our last name, yes,” I said.

  “Your brother’s Rob Langslow? The Rob Langslow?”

  “You must be a computer gamer,” I said. “Yes, he’s the CEO of Mutant Wizards.”

  “Wow,” Bill said. “That’s awesome!”

  I wondered how awesome he’d find it if I revealed how little Rob knew about either business or computer programming—so little that his senior staff encouraged him to do anything he liked as long as it didn’t involve showing up at the office until summoned. Things ran better that way. They knew that if they needed him to sign checks, impress clients, or participate in a brainstorming session, they could always track him down with a phone call. Unfortunately, given Rob’s incompetence with cell phones, they’d gotten into the habit of making that call to me.

  I knew better than to say anything like that. Besides, it was heartening to see some actual enthusiasm from the previously morose Bill. He even did his Morris dancing with a grim, deadpan face, as if under duress—which was the only way you could get me to participate in Morris dancing, but he was supposed to be an enthusiast.