Hen of the Baskervilles

by Donna Andrews

  “And how do you plan to explain away my death?” I asked. “Genette’s in custody. And if you were planning on framing Molly again—well, never mind.”

  I was trying to give the impression that I knew Molly was alibied. I probably just gave the impression that I was getting frantic.

  “I figure I’ll just wait and see who your chief seems to be suspecting and plant the gun in some useful place,” Plunkett said. “Worked just fine with Riordan.”

  “Is that the way you do things over in Clay County?” I asked.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I have to give you credit for nerves of steel.” I tried to make my tone sound like grudging admiration. “You had the murder weapon in your pocket the whole time, didn’t you? At the crime scene, I mean.”

  “Yup.” There was that annoying chuckle again. “And straight-arrow Vern never even suspected I planted it.”

  So now I knew, just in case I had any doubts, that I was right about who killed Brett. Of course, now I also knew he had no intention of letting me stay alive to share that information.

  Every step took us farther away from the barns, the most likely source of help. And I figured that once we got through the gate into the Midway, my odds of successfully getting away from him got much worse.

  But he realized that, too. The closer we got to the gate, the more alert he seemed to every bit of rough ground, every misstep.

  Was he just a little on edge at passing so close to the place where he’d killed Brett?

  No, I decided. He was on edge because we were getting close to the gate. He thought he was home free once we were through the gate, and he was expecting me to make a break for it on the Caerphilly side. I could use that. I hoped.

  “Is it just because of the fair?” I asked.

  “‘Just because of the fair,’” he echoed. “You people have no idea what you’ve done, have you? You killed our chances of putting on our own fair, and then threw us the Midway as a bone.”

  “The sales tax revenue from the Midway—” I began.

  “Yeah, the sales tax money’s nice. Helps a bit with the county budget. It’d help a lot more if we got the lion’s share of the revenue.”

  “You are getting the lion’s share of the revenue.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. “I’ve seen the attendance numbers. And I know what a ticket costs. You’re taking in a pretty penny at the gate. Not to mention the competition entry fees.”

  “Yeah, Caerphilly’s getting the admission fees,” I said. “But we’re still paying for the construction. We have water bills. Power bills. Portapotty bills. And maybe even huge legal fees if those people whose chickens you stole decide to sue us. Take me back to the fair office and I can show you the figures. We might not even break even.”

  “On paper,” he said. “We all know the big money’s in the kickbacks.”

  “Kickbacks?”

  “Keep it down.” He prodded me with the gun. “Yeah, kickbacks. I know how these things work.”

  “In Clay County, maybe,” I said.

  “You have no idea how things work over in Clay County.” Plunkett suddenly sounded furious, and the gun was digging into my back. “We’re dying by inches over there. Did you know they’re laying off almost our whole sheriff’s department at the end of the month? All except Sheriff Dingle’s son and two of the mayor’s nephews. They’re only gonna patrol from eight to five. The rest of us are out on our ears, and I’m betting we never see our final paychecks. They’re already six weeks behind. I’m already driving a piece of junk since the bank repo’d my pickup, and the mortgage company is breathing down my neck something fierce. So I decided to do something.”

  “I’m not sure how killing Brett Riordan solves the Clay County budget problem,” I said.

  “Maybe it doesn’t.” To my relief, he sounded calmer. “But I figure it brought down two rival fairs with one bullet. Gives us a much better chance at floating our event again. And even if that doesn’t work out, it should solve my personal budget problem. Like I said, I haven’t decided who should take the heat for killing you, but when I figure out and bring him in, I figure I’m a shoo-in for a job as a Caerphilly County deputy.”

  Either the chief was much better at hiding his feelings than even I imagined, or Plunkett was terrible at reading people’s reactions to him. Possibly both.

  “Hey, maybe I should frame Vern Shiffley,” Plunkett said. “Create a vacancy in the ranks and prove myself the best man to fill it, with the same bullet. Pretty efficient, don’t you think?”

  There was that annoying psycho chuckle again. We were through the gate now, and he seemed more relaxed now that he was back on home ground. The end of the gun barrel wobbled a little as he laughed.

  I ducked my head and stomped on his foot, hard, while turning to grab for the gun. I succeeded in getting loose without being shot, and I even managed to knock the gun out of his hand, but it skittered off to his left. I was on his right. I didn’t fancy my chances of beating him to it. In fact, his hand was already on it.

  So I kicked him in the face to distract him and slow him down, and then I took off at a run. I managed to put a row of Midway booths between me and him. I hid in the shadows of a booth until my breathing slowed. Then I started out again, keeping my footsteps as quiet as possible and slipping from one set of shadows to another, trying to put as much distance as I could between us.

  I heard him swearing quietly as he tried to figure out which way I’d gone. For now, I’d eluded him. Should I scream for help?

  No. If I screamed, he could find me. And then he could just shoot me, and claim he’d spotted a suspicious person prowling around the Midway.

  I decided my first instinct was right. I should keep going farther into the Midway. Maybe I could make him think I was going to take off through the woods and then circle back to the barns.

  Or maybe I should take off through the woods for real?

  No. Plunkett would know these woods. He’d found Brett’s car in them. Maybe he’d even parked it there.

  Of course, he knew the Midway, too. But at least thanks to my wandering around this afternoon and evening, so did I.

  I called up my mental map of the Midway. And took a few moments to push away all the irrelevant information I’d stored there about which vendors seemed willing to talk about Plunkett’s extortion so I could focus on the bare geography. I was in the first of the three lanes of booths that led in a rough diagonal from the merry-go-round, near the gate, to the Ferris wheel at the far end. I was about a third to a half of the way along toward the Ferris wheel. To get back to safety, or at least to the Caerphilly side of the fence, I needed to go to my left, past the merry-go-round to the gate.

  But Plunkett knew that. He’d be watching for me. So maybe the safest thing would be to go the long way round. Turn right and keep going down the lanes until I reached the Ferris wheel, then sneak back around on the far side.

  I tried to flatten myself against the booth beside me to keep as low a profile as possible while I peered out. I nearly fell into the booth. I realized that it was made of canvas—a canvas skirt around the bottom half, and canvas flaps that rolled down to close off the top. Could I squeeze under the canvas skirt?

  It worked. Inside, I breathed a little more easily. Plunkett couldn’t spot me for the moment.

  I tiptoed over to peer through a slit in the canvas on the gate side of the booth. I couldn’t see anything at first. Then I spotted movement. A flashlight flicked on, and I could see that Plunkett was peering into another canvas-sided booth a couple of doors down. Not just peering in, but poking into every corner of the booth with something. A stick. No, from the clang it made when it hit something metal, a crowbar.

  “Nowhere to hide, little lady.” His voice was low—designed to reach me if I was still nearby, but not to carry beyond the deserted Midway.

  The flashlight flicked off.

  Okay, it wasn’t as if I’d planned to stay in the booth forever. I waited
until his flashlight flicked on again, now one booth closer. Then I slipped out the other side of the booth I was in and under the canvas into the next booth.

  I managed to traverse three booths this way, but as I was about to duck under the third one, my head met solid wood. Luckily I managed to stop myself with only a muffled thud. I slipped back into the shadow of the next to last booth and peered out.

  Thank goodness for the slightly curving layout of the lanes. I could only see about three booths down. Unless Plunkett was doing only the most cursory searches of the booths he came to, I would have gained on him. Had I gained enough to slip across the lane?

  No answer to that unless I tried. I took a deep breath and dashed. Could he hear my footsteps? They sounded like thunder to me. As did my breathing. I reached what I hoped was the safety of a booth on the other side of the lane and hid in the shadows.

  “It’s no use, little lady.”

  I had to stifle a gasp—he sounded so close. But when I peered out, I saw that he was still several booths away, starting to search another booth—the first booth I’d hidden in.

  I waited till he began thrashing about with his crowbar then slipped toward the rear of the booth beside me. Another booth backed up to it. I kept on past that, and then across the second lane. I didn’t stop to get my bearings until I was in the farthest lane, between the last row of booths and the lesser rides that lay on the outskirts of the Midway. The rides didn’t offer as much cover, so I stuck to the inner, booth side of that lane.

  I ducked under the canvas of a ringtoss booth and tried to come up with a plan. “Escape from Plunkett” had brought me this far, but it wasn’t really what you’d call a full-fledged plan. More like an aspiration. And I had a feeling “keep dodging around from booth to booth until dawn arrives or someone comes along to rescue me” wasn’t going to work too well. I could get tired. I could get unlucky. Or Plunkett could call in some of his less savory cousins to help him.

  I decided to work my way to the Ferris wheel and see if I could do something to make Plunkett think I’d taken off beyond it toward the woods. Plant something, maybe, pretending I’d lost it. Although the only thing I could think of that I might plausibly lose was a shoe. Not a good idea.

  I set out toward the Ferris wheel anyway. A pity you could only run it from the ground. I fantasized, for a moment, about having a remote control for the wheel, and whisking myself up to the top, where I could hide behind the iron walls of the passenger cars and laugh down at Plunkett.

  Although come to think of it, the cars were probably made of wood, not bulletproof steel.

  Then I realized there was something else I could use the Ferris wheel for. A distraction for Plunkett—and maybe a beacon to call for help. If the Ferris wheel started running in the middle of the night, someone would come to check on it, wouldn’t they?

  First I had to get there. I kept going, slipping from shadow to shadow, flattening myself against the nearest booth if I heard a sound. Once, when I was passing through a gap in the lane, I flattened myself against the ground, and realized, too late, that I’d landed in a sticky puddle of something. Melted snow cone, I hoped.

  I finally reached the Ferris wheel and took shelter behind the controls. I took a few deep breaths, then reached over to pull the switch that would set the wheel in motion.

  Nothing happened.

  Probably because the operator had turned off the power when he left. And padlocked the controls.

  Fortunately, I’d been around when my father had decided to learn how to pick locks—just for the fun of it, because he’d been reading too many Donald Westlake caper novels. Since he’d never been particularly good at opening locks even when he had the proper keys, the project would have been a complete failure if he hadn’t realized that I was succeeding where he’d failed. Not the sort of thing you want to put on your résumé—“Ability to pick simple locks if given unlimited time”—but it sometimes came in handy.

  After what seemed like a small eternity but was probably only five minutes, I heard a satisfying click from the padlock.

  By this time, I had no idea how close Plunkett was. Time for decisive action. I flipped the big switch on the wheel’s power grid.

  A motor chugged into life, and the Ferris wheel lit up the sky.

  Also the immediate surroundings. I couldn’t see Plunkett nearby, but I knew this would bring him running.

  I flipped the switch that turned on the music, and then the one that set the wheel into motion. Then I sprinted to the shadows of the nearest booth.

  I didn’t have to worry about my footsteps, or my breathing—they were drowned out by the strident, overamplified opening chords of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.”

  I started working my way along the far side of the last row, keeping careful watch through the gaps between the booths, until I spotted Plunkett running toward the Ferris wheel, gun in hand. Not running very fast, I was pleased to note. He was panting, and clutching slightly at his side. Probably lucky for me that Sheriff Dingle apparently didn’t make his officers pass the kind of annual physical fitness qualifications Chief Burke required of the Caerphilly deputies.

  I set off jogging in the opposite direction, toward the merry-go-round. I kept hoping someone from the main part of the fair would come over to investigate the Ferris wheel suddenly coming to life.

  “Patience,” I muttered to myself. “It’s only been on a minute or two.”

  And then suddenly the Ferris wheel was off. No light, no motion, no deafening guitar riffs. Damn.

  Would someone still come to investigate? Or would they turn over and go back to sleep, planning to investigate in the morning?

  I was nearing the merry-go-round. Should I keep sprinting toward the gate? Or would Plunkett figure out that was my destination?

  Maybe I should send up another beacon.

  The merry-go-round, I found, wasn’t even locked. Again I flipped all the switches. Power, lights, music at full volume, and then the merry-go-round spinning into motion. I nodded with pleasure when “The Carousel Waltz” boomed out.

  Much more satisfactory than the Ferris wheel. And a lot closer to the barns. Though I’d feel a lot better if I were even closer to the barns. But I didn’t head for the gate—Plunkett would be expecting that. I jogged toward the fence, aiming for somewhere between the new gate and the old.

  I was halfway there when I heard Plunkett’s footsteps closing in behind me. The idea that at any second a bullet might come whizzing toward me did wonders for my speed.

  But Plunkett didn’t want to shoot me here. He might hope to get away with it by claiming he’d fired at a prowler, but he’d much rather avoid that. The real danger wasn’t a bullet in the back of my head—it was being tackled, knocked unconscious, and dragged out into the woods, where even if anyone heard the shot they’d just think someone was shooting at a squirrel or a grouse or whatever was in season in September. So the longer I could keep running—

  I hit the fence before Plunkett, but he caught up while I was trying to scramble over. He tried to pull me back, but I lunged over the fence and managed to bring the top rail crashing down. We landed in a heap on the other side.

  I was opening my mouth to scream when I felt a huge hand clapped over it.

  “Shut up,” he hissed. “Or I’ll— AAAAHHHHH!”

  He suddenly let me go and began scuttling away from me. I looked up and saw a set of enormous yellow teeth emerging from a huge, hairy mouth.

  “HEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!”

  “Jim-Bob!” I shouted. “Good donkey!”

  Jim-Bob trotted past me and began kicking Plunkett and trying to bite him in between loud heehaws. I wasn’t sure whether Jim-Bob was on my side or whether he was avenging some past cruelty Plunkett had performed on him. And I had no idea if he was capable of killing Plunkett or if it was safe to try to intervene or if I even wanted to intervene. I was tired of making decisions.

  I jogged to the other end of Jim-Bob’s pen, scrambl
ed over the fence, and headed for the nearest barn.

  Halfway there I ran into Vern and my brother, Rob.

  “What the dickens is going on over in the Midway?” Vern asked.

  “Deputy Plunkett is the killer,” I said. “And he tried to kill me.”

  “Where is he now?” Vern asked.

  “Over there in the donkey pen.” I pointed. “Be careful. Jim-Bob’s trying to kick him to death.”

  “Awesome!” Rob said.

  He began trotting toward Jim Bob’s pen.

  “Who’s Jim-Bob?” Vern asked.

  “Rob, he has a gun,” I called.

  “Jim-Bob?” Vern asked.

  “Jim-Bob’s a donkey,” I said. “A four-legged donkey. Plunkett has the gun.”

  “Roger,” he said. I saw him draw his own weapon as he loped after Rob.

  Luckily, by the time Rob and Vern got to the pen, Jim-Bob had stopped kicking and was merely standing over Plunkett, heehawing whenever the deputy twitched a muscle. Plunkett was curled up in a ball, whimpering, and his gun had landed safely in a heap of donkey dung at the other side of the pen.

  The merry-go-round had moved on to “The Blue Danube.”

  “Can we get someone to turn that damned thing off?” Apparently Vern wasn’t a fan of the waltz.

  “I’ll do it,” I said. “In just a minute. Does either of you have a flashlight?”

  Rob handed me his. I jogged over to the fair office and searched around outside the door till I found my cell phone. Then I returned to the donkey pen and took several pictures of Plunkett cowering away from Jim-Bob.

  “For the fair Web site,” I said aloud, to anyone who cared.

  Then I strolled over and shut off the merry-go-round.

  “The Blue Danube” disappeared in mid-bar, leaving behind blissful silence.

  Well, not quite silence. I could hear sirens in the distance. And shouts from over toward the barns. I could see quite a few lights over in the barns as well.

  I realized, suddenly, that my legs had started shaking, and I wasn’t sure I trusted them to get me back to the donkey pen.