No Nest for the Wicket

by Donna Andrews

  “There’s some of us think Briggs is trying to pull a fast one, so we keep an eye on the bastard. When his car pulled out, Vern said, ‘I bet he’s going over to see Uncle Fred.’ So we watched where he was going and, sure enough, when he got down the road a piece, he turned into Fred’s lane.”

  He jerked his head in the direction of the tiny, distant farmhouse. Yes, if you knew where the road was, and happened to want to keep an eye on Evan Briggs, you could track him pretty well from up here.

  “He stayed there the whole time?”

  Randall nodded.

  “Damn long time,” he said, leaning to spit over the side of the roof, as if the idea of spending prolonged time in Evan Briggs’s company left a bad taste in his mouth. “Some of us were for going over there and seeing what was up, but about the time Vern and I were getting ready to do it, we saw Briggs’s car head back.”

  “No chance he could have come back and walked down to the murder scene in time to be the killer?” I asked.

  “No,” Randall said. “It was just about then your dad came up to give us the news that someone had been killed. He didn’t tell us who, though, and I remember Duane saying, kind of hopeful like, that maybe Briggs had finally killed himself, driving around with one hand on his cell phone and the other on his Palm Pilot. Couple minutes later, Briggs drove up.”

  “Thus cruelly dashing your hopes,” I said. “Damn.”

  Not to mention my own hopes. Frustrating that my efforts to track Briggs’s whereabouts on the day of the murder had succeeded not in implicating him but in giving him a reasonably good alibi.

  Randall nodded as if he understood.

  “So if Briggs didn’t do it, who did?” I said, just to see what he’d say.

  Randall frowned.

  “I couldn’t say,” he said. “If I were Chief Burke, I’d take a lot closer look at people who think they can get away with anything in this town.”

  He turned and began to climb down the ladder.

  “By the way,” I said.

  He stopped and looked back up at me.

  “The name Toad Bottom mean anything to you?”

  “Toad Bottom? Why? Where’d you hear that name?”

  I pondered the expression on his face. Not guilt or anxiety. More like keen interest, with a hint of amusement.

  “I heard someone call Caerphilly that,” I said. “Wondered why.”

  “It’s someone who knows his history, then,” Randall said. “That’s what the town used to be called. Before the Pruitts waltzed in and took over. Wasn’t fancy enough for them, so they got the town council to change the name.”

  “Many people know about it?”

  “Not unless they’ve been digging pretty far back in the town history,” Randall said.

  Or talking to the Shiffleys. Which I was beginning to think might not be all that different. Was there a way to tap the Shiffleys’ historical knowledge without letting them know I was doing it to fight the mall project? I’d have to work on that. Maybe sic Joss on them.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Randall nodded and climbed down. I followed, much more slowly, though. Randall was nice enough to steady the ladder for me. Although midway down, I suddenly felt a twinge of anxiety. If Randall was the murderer, what a perfect way to get rid of someone who was inconveniently nosy.

  Nonsense, I told myself. He wouldn’t try to commit a murder here in plain sight of everyone down in the yard, would he?

  Not if he were sensible. Still, I breathed a lot more easily when my feet were back on a solid floor.

  “You sure you want that widow’s walk?” Randall asked. “You really don’t seem to like heights.”

  “A weakness I’m trying to overcome,” I said before scurrying toward the stairs. I wanted to feel solid ground again.

  Of course, the first person I saw when I got outside was Evan Briggs. If Chief Burke was making an arrest, presumably it wasn’t him, damn it.

  Still something fishy going on, I thought, remembering how he’d lost his temper while talking to Mother and me the night before. So I decided to rescue him—he was talking to Rose Noire.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I strolled over and feigned pleasant surprise when I spotted them.

  “Oh, there you are,” I said to Rose Noire. “Could you go help Mother with something?”

  “Right away,” she said. “We’ll talk again later,” she said to Mr. Briggs as she scurried off.

  Mother hadn’t asked for Rose Noire’s help, but she was never short of little tasks for representatives of my generation to perform when they fell into her clutches.

  Mr. Briggs’s smile looked strained. He didn’t seem all that happy at being rescued from Rose Noire.

  “You wanted to talk to me about something?” he asked a little brusquely. Obviously, our earlier conversation hadn’t endeared me to him.

  “I thought perhaps you needed a break,” I said. “Rose Noire can be overwhelming if you’re not used to her.”

  “Overwhelming,” he said. “Yes, that’s one word for it. She told me she was a druid in a past life.”

  “A druid?” I repeated “Are you sure?”

  “Reasonably so.”

  “That’s a relief, then,” I said. “When she told me, I thought sure she’d said a dryad.”

  “Dryad?” Briggs repeated.

  “You know, a tree spirit,” I said. “I have to admit, that’s slightly weird. A druid’s a lot more … normal, don’t you think?”

  “I think that would depend on one’s definition of normal.”

  “Your definition of normal probably includes a lot more concrete and steel than anything to do with trees anyway,” I said.

  He made a noncommittal noise, as if he wasn’t sure he liked the direction our conversation was taking.

  “Or historical battle sites, for that matter.”

  I could see his jaw clench. Bracing himself for another tirade from another tree-hugger, no doubt.

  I decided tackling him head-on was as good as any tactic.

  “Look, I’m not trying to blackmail you, but I know Lindsay Tyler was,” I said. “So what was she offering, anyway? Her expertise to discredit the historical significance of the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge?”

  His mouth fell open again.

  “What makes you think—” he began. Then he changed gears. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ms. Tyler had nothing to do with this project; we’d never even met.”

  “Only talked on the phone, then?” I said. “I saw her cell-phone records, you know.”

  I would have had no way of recognizing Evan Briggs’s phone number—I’d barely recognized my own on Chief Burke’s printout—but he didn’t have to know that.

  Briggs glared at me. I smiled back as sweetly as I could but said nothing. It worked for Chief Burke. He just sat there staring at people and they started talking. Eventually, it worked on Briggs.

  “Do you really want to tarnish Ms. Tyler’s memory with the details of her bizarre—and, need I say, unsuccessful—attempt to extract money from me in return for her help in discrediting Mrs. Pruitt’s account of the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge?” he said. “She’d look like a common blackmailer.”

  “I don’t really give a damn about her memory,” I said. “Neither do you. But I assume that even if we have quite different ideas about what to do with that land over there, we both want to see her killer brought to justice, even if only because it will clear those of us who aren’t guilty.”

  “I fail to see what her blackmail attempt has to do with the murder,” he said. “I told her I didn’t give a damn what information she thought she had. Didn’t matter to me. I haven’t done anything illegal and I’m not planning to.”

  “It never occurred to you that she might have tried blackmail again with someone else? Someone who didn’t take it as lightly?”

  “Oh, I see,” he said. Some of the hostility left his face. “Of course, since I don’t know what information she
wanted to sell, I have no idea who else might be a potential customer.”

  “Not even a guess?”

  “She didn’t tell me much, you know,” he said. “That’s the problem with selling information—you let the customer test-drive the merchandise, you blow the sale.”

  “No guesses?” I asked. “She didn’t even drop a hint?”

  He thought about it briefly.

  “A couple of times she referred to the so-called Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge,” he said. “As if it didn’t really deserve to be called a battle.”

  “Only a small skirmish, you mean?”

  “Yeah, or maybe it was just a drunken brawl they pretended was a battle so they wouldn’t look like fools. Maybe histories got the sequence mixed up, and the raid on the Shiffley distillery was what kicked everything off. Who knows?”

  Or maybe she had proof that the Pruitts made the whole thing up. Not that I’d mention that to Briggs just yet. Interesting that he knew more about the battle than most of the people in town.

  He had pursed his lips and was looking at me as if making a decision. Then he shook his head and spoke again.

  “Even if it happened just the way the history books said, who cares?” he said. “Outside of Henrietta Pruitt and a few other stuck-up bi—biddies at the Caerphilly Historical Society. So something happened here once upon a time—people still need places to live and work. Life moves on.”

  “So you didn’t need Lindsay’s information,” I said. “Who did?”

  “No one.”

  “Come on, even I can think of someone else,” I said. “If she had something that made the Pruitts look stupid, you think she wouldn’t blackmail Mrs. Pruitt with it?

  “Yes,” he said with considerable heat. “And Lady Pruitt would definitely do anything to keep her damned family escutcheon unblotted.”

  “Who else?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “She’s the main problem,” he said. “If it weren’t for her, the rest of them would lose steam pretty quickly.”

  I hoped he was underestimating the depth of the local opposition to the outlet mall, but I decided not to say so. He must have guessed my reaction from my face.

  “Oh, they’d still be against the mall, but they’d be fighting it on sensible grounds, instead of this whole historical landmark baloney. Besides—”

  Just then, we heard a shriek from near the buffet table. We both glanced up.

  “Oh, damn,” Briggs exclaimed. All the color drained from his face and he ran toward the buffet.

  Odd, I thought as I loped along behind him. It was Lacie Butler shrieking. Why would Briggs care—

  But it wasn’t Lacie Butler Mr. Briggs was running toward. Mrs. Briggs had fallen to the ground and was having convulsions.

  Chapter Thirty

  “She’s poisoned!” Lacie shrieked.

  “Nonsense,” Dad said. “It looks like an ordinary epileptic seizure. Briggs, has she ever had one before?”

  “Yes, but we thought the medication was working. Until—Shouldn’t we take her to the hospital?”

  “Right now, let’s just make sure she doesn’t injure herself,” Dad said. “Michael, could you get a pillow?”

  “Right,” Michael said, and ran for the barn.

  “If you’d all give us some room—she needs air,” Dad said, glancing up at the rest of the crowd. “Air and a little quiet.”

  He was frowning at Lacie, who stood with her eyes wide and her hands pressed over her mouth, making noises ranging from loud whimpers to the occasional shriek—not something likely to hasten Mrs. Briggs’s recovery. It was starting to get to me.

  “Lacie,” I said. “Lacie!”

  She didn’t react. I considered administering a brisk slap to the face—a bad idea, since my ironwork makes me stronger than most women. Before I had the chance, Mother grabbed Lacie’s arm.

  “Lacie, dear,” she said in an icy tone that had the same effect my slap would have. “Let’s get out of the way and let Dr. Langslow deal with this, shall we? Rob, help her, will you?”

  Mother and Rob literally dragged Lacie to the other side of the yard, her feet leaving small ruts in the ground as they went.

  Everyone else took Dad’s hint—even Eric, who ran to Dad’s car to fetch his medical bag. Michael delivered the pillow. Dad extracted the name of Mrs. Briggs’s doctor from her husband, and I found his number, gave his weekend emergency service a message, and left Dad’s cell-phone number. Then I rejoined the rest of the guests.

  “Will she be all right?” one of the Suzies asked.

  “Dad’s taking care of her. I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I told her.

  “He was afraid this would happen,” the other Suzy said.

  “Yes,” the first Suzy chimed in. “That’s why he had us keep an eye on her during the game.”

  “Had you keep an eye on her?”

  “Not during the morning game,” she said. “He stayed for that—she can’t drive, you know, so someone has to take her anywhere she wants to go. Since her seizures started up again, he mostly takes her himself. But he had an appointment in the afternoon—he had to leave before lunch ended. He made us promise never to let her out of our sight.”

  “And we didn’t,” the second said.

  “Didn’t help our game much,” the first added. “Not that we had much of a chance of winning to begin with.”

  “Helping May was more important,” Suzy two said with a firm nod.

  “Do you know where he went?”

  The Suzies shook their heads.

  “It must have been important if he left May to do it,” one of them said.

  Important to him. I glanced across the yard again. An honor guard of Shiffleys was carrying Mrs. Briggs toward the driveway, with Mr. Briggs hovering anxiously over her and Dad scrambling along behind, his oversized headband/bandage askew. If the ER got much more business from our parties, they’d send the county health department over to shut us down as a public menace.

  “We should go down and see if they need anything,” one of the Suzies said.

  The other one nodded.

  “We’ll see you later,” the first one said. I watched as the two of them meticulously deposited their trash and recyclables in the appropriate containers before bustling off on their errand of mercy.

  “You look glum,” Michael said as he joined me. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, I just like it better when people stay in their pigeonholes. Mr. Briggs was a lot easier to hate when he was merely a despoiler of the countryside and not also the caring husband of a sick wife. And the clones. They’re reasonably nice people. I should make an effort to learn their names or something. Even though we’re destined to end up squared off on opposite sides of the mall battle.”

  “Life’s messy,” Michael said. “Come have some brunch. The Shiffleys are pretty good cooks.”

  Everyone was subdued after the Briggses’ sudden departure. Except for Dad, who was busy reassuring everyone that Mrs. Briggs would be fine—I deduced as much from the fact that he hadn’t gone to the hospital with her—and relating anecdotes about epilepsy and other seizure disorders, which was bound to give us a lively afternoon if any of my more impressionable hypochondriac relatives were listening.

  When the inevitable stray sheep showed up, we found that Spike had learned something from Dad’s sheep-herding lessons after all. Not something we wanted him learning, unfortunately. He’d figured out that if you sneaked up behind the sheep and nipped their heels just right, they’d leap into the air in a fair imitation of Morris dancers before kicking at him. Unfortunately, he’d also discovered that people, currently more plentiful than sheep, reacted just as amusingly and didn’t kick with such gusto. I exiled him to his pen and left a message on the answering machine of yet another dog trainer who’d been recommended to us.

  Even more unsettling, Mother was up to something. She’d been sitting for an hour, talking to Lacie. If anyone came near, she lowered her voice and g
estured imperiously for privacy. The one scrap of conversation I overheard wasn’t encouraging.

  “Your loyalty is admirable, Lacie dear, but you have yourself to consider … .”

  That was all I’d caught, but it was enough. Mother was trying to drive a wedge between Mrs. Pruitt and her minions. Foment rebellion in the lower ranks of the Caerphilly Historical Society. I was slightly relieved when, after getting a call on her cell phone, Lacie scurried out to her car and drove off, but the damage was probably already done.

  I was so busy worrying about what Mother was up to that I was caught off guard by a shift in the direction of Dad’s attention.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  “Meg,” Dad said, “what are we going to do about the Shiffleys?”

  “Why? What do we need to do about them?” I asked, sitting down beside him at one of the picnic tables. “Are they causing a problem?”

  “No,” Dad said. “But they’re here.”

  Which counted as a problem in my book, though I didn’t want to say it. Not where any of the Shiffleys might hear me, and that could be almost anywhere. Most of them were still harmlessly occupied with their grills, fixing bacon, eggs, and grits for all comers, but earlier I’d had to break up an argument between two of them over some aspect of the suspended roof repairs. I wouldn’t have bothered, no matter how loud they got or how wildly they gesticulated, if they hadn’t chosen to stage their argument three stories over my head, on the framework of two-by-fours that would eventually support the new roof. Fortunately, they’d kept their balance better than their tempers.

  “They don’t have to be here,” I said aloud. “I suppose Chief Burke told them not to leave town, or something of the sort, but I’m sure he didn’t mean that they had to stay here camped in our backyard. Not that they’re not welcome to camp here if they want to,” I added, for the benefit of any lurking Shiffleys. “But they don’t have to be, so I don’t see why we need to entertain them or anything like that.”

  “I wasn’t talking about entertaining them,” Dad said. “But even though they can’t work on the house until the chief okays it, we must have plenty of things we could have them do.”