“Big toe,” I said through a mouthful of ice cream. Dad beamed at me. “Good guess,” Blake said.
“Wasn’t a guess,” I said. “Dad taught us all about possums. We had plenty of them around the house when I was growing up.”
“It's illegal for private citizens to keep them!” Blake said, in the booming tones of a fire-and-brimstone preacher denouncing fornication.
“Not if you’re a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, which Dad is,” I said. “It's perfectly legal.” I was tired, but I restrained myself from sticking out my tongue and saying, “So there!”
“Well, that's all right then,” Blake said. Rather grudgingly, I thought. “Anyway, the interesting thing—”
“Hey, Meg!” My brother Rob came in, carrying an empty icecream bowl. “There are a couple of Sprockets here to see you.”
“That's all we need,” I muttered.
“What's a Sprocket?” Blake asked.
“The people we bought the house from,” I explained, scraping up a last bit of ice cream. “Edwina Sprocket, the former owner, left equal shares in her estate to all her nieces and nephews, or to their children if they were already dead, which meant that before we could buy the place, we had to get each and every one of them to approve the terms. Over a hundred in all.”
“That must have been difficult,” Blake said.
“Difficult? It would have been difficult if they were reasonable people,” I said. “And they’re not. It was well-nigh impossible. But I thought we’d finally finished with the Sprockets. Did they say why they were here?”
“Um... not really,” Rob said. “They just asked for you.”
“Figures,” I said. “I’ll go see what they want.”
The two Sprockets were typical—short, pale, and rather mousy, with peeved expressions on their largely chinless faces. They looked for all the world like large white rats who’d temporarily taken human form. I was half inclined to ready a cage for them, between the hyenas and the acouchis. They’d have made perfect casting for Cinderella's coachman and footman.
“Rutherford Sprocket,” one of them said. “And this is my brother Barchester.”
“How do you do?” I said. “Can I help you?”
“We came about the body,” Barchester said.
Chapter 16
“What about the body?” I asked. “We’ve come to identify it.” “He's already been identified,” I said.
“Oh,” Rutherford said. “That seems highly irregular. But I suppose we can claim it for burial.”
“You’ll have to ask Chief Burke,” I said. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize Dr. Lanahan was a relative of yours.”
Though it would certainly explain Lanahan's feckless behavior with the zoo.
“Dr. who?” Barchester said.
“Lanahan. Patrick Lanahan. That's who the body is.”
“I don’t see how that could be possible,” Rutherford said. “Who is this Lanahan person, and how did he come to be buried in our great-uncle's cellar?”
“He is—or was—the owner of the Caerphilly Zoo, and I have no idea how he came to be buried in the cellar. And it's our cellar now, so unless Dr. Lanahan's a friend or relative, I think it's really our problem.”
“But it wasn’t your cellar when he was buried there,” Barch-ester said. “Twelve years ago, it was Uncle Plantagenet's cellar.”
“And last night, when someone buried a body in it, it was our cellar,” I said. “Look, I think we must be talking about two completely different dead bodies here.”
Rutherford sighed the impatient sigh of a man trying to explain an elementary concept to someone who is proving unaccountably dense.
“We came about the body of our great-uncle, Dr. Plantagenet Sprocket,” he said. “We heard that you had unearthed a body in the basement, and we assumed that the remains of our unfortunate relative had finally come to light. Are you telling us that someone else has already claimed the deceased?”
“I don’t know about claiming, but someone else has already identified the body,” I said. “This Plantagenet Sprocket— you said he was your great-uncle, right? Married to Edwina Sprocket?”
“Yes,” Rutherford said. “The shameless hussy!”
“We never trusted her,” Barchester said, shaking his head. “Not from the minute he brought her home.” Which was pushing things a little—neither of them looked over forty, and Ed-wina Sprocket had been in her nineties when she died. Still, presumably he was using the word “we” out of solidarity with the distrustful Sprockets of generations gone by.
“How old was he?”
“When he met his untimely end—,” Barchester began.
“When he disappeared,” Rutherford corrected.
“Are you disputing that he met an untimely end?” Barchester said, turning to scowl at his brother.
“No, but it isn’t proven in a court of law,” Rutherford said.
“As you like,” Barchester said, through gritted teeth. “At the time when he allegedly disappeared and met his untimely end.”
“He didn’t allegedly disappear,” Rutherford snapped. “We know damn well that he disappeared. It's the untimely end that's alleged.”
“Was he in his thirties?” I put in, to cut short this typical Sprocketish bickering.
Both Sprockets turned to glare at me.
“Of course not! He was over eighty when he disappeared!”
“Sorry,” I said. “Our stiff's too young to be your uncle. In his thirties, according to the chief. And as I said, they’ve identified him already as someone else.”
“They’ve found the wrong body,” Rutherford said, shaking his head.
“It was the only body there to be found,” I said. “Now if there's nothing else you wanted... “ I gripped the doorknob, to suggest that perhaps it was time for them to leave.
“Where's Chief Burke?” Barchester said. “I think we need to talk to him about this.”
“Be my guest,” I said. “He's in the dining room.”
If I were a nicer person, I’d have warned them that the chief was trying to wrap up what had already been a long day and probably wasn’t in a good mood. They probably wouldn’t have paid any attention though. They marched over to knock on the dining-room door and were admitted by a yawning Sammy.
“I’m going to bed,” I announced to no one in particular.
I stumbled upstairs and down the hall to the master bedroom. After a look of longing at the still-disassembled king-sized bed leaning in pieces against the wall, I topped off the air in the inflatable camping mattress and strolled into the bathroom. Technically, the brightly colored snake in the bathtub wasn’t in my way, but odds were I’d have forgotten about it overnight, and I didn’t want to run into it when I stepped in to shower in the morning, so I relocated it to the tub in the hall bath. One of the guests would probably find it, but most of them hadn’t been invited to arrive this early anyway, so I didn’t see that they had much room to complain. Then I brushed my teeth and collapsed onto the air mattress.
I heard Michael come in and do the same thing. So much for a romantic first night in our newly renovated home.
I was almost asleep when a bloodcurdling scream jolted me wide awake.
“What the hell was that?” Michael asked.
“I think someone found the snake I put in the hall bath,” I said. “Why did you—never mind. That came from the backyard, not the house.”
The screaming had subsided into muted wails, and I could also hear voices, and someone laughing. I stumbled over to the window overlooking the backyard. Rob, wearing a black cape and a smear of stage blood around his mouth, was sprawled on the ground just outside the cellar doors, laughing hysterically. The wailing appeared to be coming from a small cherry tree. Dad, Horace, and Rose Noire were standing beneath the tree, saying soothing things to it.
The Adirondack chair was empty.
“Ah,” I said. “Rob was helping Dr. Smoot relive childhood memories.”
“Serv
es him right for telling everyone about his damned trauma all day,” Michael muttered.
Rob's laughter died down—not that he’d stopped, but he’d reached the point where he only had the breath to utter an occasional, barely audible squeak. But just about then, the hyenas kicked in, more than making up for his silence. Chief Burke burst out of the back door, strode over to the cherry tree, and stood looking up at it with his hands on his hips.
“Get a grip on it, man!” he bellowed.
I heard another scream at closer range.
“Now that was definitely the snake in the hall bath,” I said.
Michael groaned, and pulled a pillow over his head.
I followed his example.
Chapter 17
Normally I manage to ignore dawn. But most of our guests, two- and four-legged alike, seemed intent on greeting it with loud, enthusiastic cries of one kind or another. I could hear the hyenas chuckling in the barn, the penguins honking in their pen, Spike barking furiously from somewhere inside the house.
I strolled over to the window and glanced out. Several sheep were grazing in the backyard, accompanied by a stray llama. Apparently Mrs. Fenniman was trying to clear the sheep out of the yard—she was prodding one in the rump with her enormous black umbrella, but the sheep seemed oblivious.
The lemurs were on top of the penguin coop, sitting on their haunches, their front paws on their knees, eyes closed, heads tipped back, apparently basking in the morning air.
It almost looked as if they were doing yoga. Down on the lawn Dr. Smoot had assumed much the same pose. I deduced that at some point someone had coaxed him down from the cherry tree, and he’d spent the rest of the night in the Adirondack chair.
Sheila Flugleman popped out of the penguin coop, carrying her trusty buckets toward the front of the house. Nice to see someone was on the job. The penguins occupied a cage with wheels on the bottom, rather like a small, bare-bones version of a circus wagon. The cage looked brand-new, and reassuringly sturdy. Dad had probably enlisted the Shiffleys to build it. As I watched, Dad clucked to the donkey hitched to the front of it, and the wagon rolled slowly off toward the pasture.
Was the donkey from Lanahan's petting zoo? Or had Dad used the penguins’ transportation needs as an excuse to acquire more livestock?
The sheep suddenly raised their heads and trotted briskly off to my right. The llama followed them, though not with-out a few glances over its shoulder. A few moments after the sheep vanished, four wolves appeared. On leashes, luckily—apparently Rose Noire and Horace were taking them for a walk. And talking to them, nonstop. I couldn’t hear what Rose Noire was saying. Probably trying to convert them to a mindful vegetarian lifestyle. Judging from how eagerly they strained against their leashes, I didn’t think she’d have much luck.
I glanced over to see that Michael was still fast asleep. He’d probably succeeded better than I had in tuning out the hyenas during the night. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my notebook, and headed downstairs.
Before I even hit the stairs, I heard bustling below. I peeked over the banister and saw several pieces of furniture milling indecisively around in the hallway. Our dining table, and all of its chairs. I leaned a little farther out and saw that they weren’t moving under their own steam but on the backs of a squad of my larger cousins and nephews. Mother's voice rang out.
“Well, if the chief is going to be difficult, we’ll just have to put them in the living room till he's finished,” she said.
The table and chairs obediently turned and trooped through the archway from the hallway into the living room. I ventured down the stairs. Mother was standing in the archway frowning.
“Meg, dear, do see if you can convince the chief to be reasonable,” she said when she spotted me. “He won’t let me take any of the furniture into the dining room.”
“He does have a murder to investigate,” I pointed out.
“But it's not as if the rest of the world can come to a grinding halt while he does it,” Mother said. “I don’t see the problem with letting us into the dining room for half an hour to set up the furniture. Now I can’t arrange the living room, either.”
I could see why the chief was balking. With Mother in charge, half an hour would be more like three—she’d insist on rearranging everything five times. It would drive the chief bananas. I wasn’t looking forward to witnessing or participating in it myself. Perhaps I could find an excuse to spend much of the day somewhere else, doing something indisputably important.
“And we have hundreds of people coming on Monday,” she said.
“They know we’ve just moved in,” I said. “They won’t expect us to have everything perfect.”
“They’ll expect us to make an effort,” she said, with a withering look.
“I’ll talk to the chief.” And I would—though probably not about reclaiming the dining room just yet.
“Thank you, dear,” Mother said, smiling. She glided into the living room, ready to goad her crew into action again.
“And see what you can do about getting rid of all these animals,” Mrs. Fenniman said, following Mother into the living room.
“Easier said than done,” I muttered, but not loudly enough that they could hear.
Something hit me on the head. Something soft, wet, and sticky. I grimaced, and carefully scraped whatever it was off the top of my hand.
A chunk of mushy yellow fruit.
I glanced up to see a sloth, hanging from the chandelier. It appeared to have fallen asleep in the middle of eating an overripe peach.
“That's it,” I said. “I’m out of here.”
“Not permanently, I hope,” Michael said, looking down over the banister.
“No,” I said. “But I’m going to hunt down Dad and make him tell me exactly what animals the damned zoo has. So we’ll know what to expect, and can start finding new homes for them.”
“Good idea,” Michael said. “Meanwhile, rumor has it the multitudes are clamoring for breakfast, so I think I’ll get cracking.”
I set off to find Dad.
As I passed through the kitchen, I found Montgomery Blake there, stirring an odd-smelling concoction he was cooking on the stovetop. A treat for one of the animals, no doubt. I reminded myself to cut him some slack. After all, he really did seem to love animals. I waved at him as I went by.
Out in the yard, Rose Noire had pulled up a picnic bench beside Dr. Smoot's chair and was talking to him with an earnest expression. Dr. Smoot looked anxious. Which was good—anxious was a reassuringly normal reaction to one of Rose Noire's little chats.
“I can understand what a traumatic experience that was,” she was saying. “But I think you need to find a way to free yourself from the shackles of your unhappy past and move on.”
For my part, I would be happy if Dr. Smoot could free himself from our Adirondack chair and move on back to town, and I wasn’t sure how anything Rose Noire might have planned could possibly do any good. But in the interest of family harmony, I kept my face neutral.
I needn’t have bothered. Smoot's face expressed every bit of doubt I felt, and more.
“You think I haven’t tried?” he said.
“Yes, but you haven’t really had any help, have you?”
Smoot's face suggested that maybe he didn’t really want help. Especially not help that came accompanied by the kind of ghastly herbal teas Rose Noire was always trying to foist off on people. Dr. Smoot was holding a half-full mug of one of her brews, and from the little puddle in the dirt beneath the chair, I suspected only the first sip of it had gone down his throat.
“Now here's what we’re going to do,” she went on. I left them to get on with it. Maybe if Rose Noire came up with a sufficiently bizarre plan of action, Dr. Smoot's claustrophobia would ease up just enough to let him get into his car and leave. I made a mental note to ask her where she’d put the wolves before I found out by accident, and continued my search for Dad.
No sign of him in the barn, but just as I
was about to leave, I heard a scuffling noise at the far end. With so many animals on the premises—not to mention a murderer still at large—I didn’t think unexplained noises should be left unexplained, so I went over to check it out.
Chapter 18
I breathed a sigh of relief when all I found was Rob, crouched by one wall, behind some half-empty boxes.
“Avoiding Mother's work detail, I see,” I said.
“I was just reading,” he said, assuming an air of virtue that wouldn’t have fooled Eric.
I glanced down. He didn’t seem to be holding a book, or even a graphic novel.
“Reading what?”
“This,” he said, indicating the closest box. “You’re reading one of the moving boxes?” “It's not technically a moving box.”
“No, technically it's the box our air purifier came in,” I said. “And you’re reading the side that's written in French.” “Purificateur d’air HEPA ultra silencieux,”he said. “Yes.” “I didn’t know you read French,” I said. “I took it in high school,” he said. “Yes, but I didn’t realize it took.”
“I’m beginning to realize what I’ve been missing,” he said. “The romance of the Gallic language.”
“Have you met a French girl?” I asked. “Or just been watching too many Truffaut films?”
“I mean, some of the words are just the same as English,” he said. “Eliminer is ‘eliminate,’ for example. And ‘pollen’ is lepollen. Bo-ring! But just when you think it hasn’t got any mystique—listen to this: it also eliminates ‘laJumee, la poussiere, les spores de moisissures, et les squames de chats.’ Doesn’t that just sing to you? Squames de chats!”
“No, probably because I know what it says,” I said. “Smoke, dust, mold spores, and cat dander.”
“Cat dander? Squames de chats is cat dander? You see—it loses all the glamour when you translate something out of French. I’m so disillusioned.”
“Je suis desolee to have been the cause of your disillusionment,” I said. “If you’re going to brood about it, why not go outside and look useful while you’re doing so. Keep Mother happy.”
The Penguin Who Knew Too Much Page 8
