The Penguin Who Knew Too Much

by Donna Andrews

  “That's not a very nice thing to say, is it?”

  “You want nice, then stop pointing that crossbow at me. Just my luck. I wouldn’t be the second victim of that warped mastermind, the uncatchable crossbow killer. Oh, no. I’d be the unlucky victim of a criminal so dense they’d write him up in a News of the Weird feature about the stupidest crooks of the year.”

  “You’ve got a mouth on you,” Hamlin said.

  “You want to explain the nice neat solution you’re planning on giving the chief?” I said. “How Charlie Shiffley and I both just happened to fall into the trench with an injured bobcat? Or did we jump in—and he with his hands duct-taped behind his back, just to make things more interesting? And even though he’d just shot me with a crossbow, I jumped in to help him?”

  “Well, they won’t find the duct tape, of course,” Hamlin said. “I’ll take that off before I leave.”

  “Even without the duct tape, it's a pretty odd scenario.”

  “Not odd at all,” he said. “Not for around here, anyway. You heard a noise—you came out to find Charlie here had wounded the bobcat with his crossbow. He shot you to keep you quiet— but then he succumbed to the injuries you inflicted on him during the struggle.”

  “He had a crossbow pointed at me and I was stupid enough to struggle and lucky enough to inflict wounds?” I said. “Already I’m not buying this.”

  “Maybe with a rock,” he said. “You got any big rocks in your garden?”

  “You expect me to help with this plan? Which is not only stupid but incredibly bad for my health? Find your own damned rock.”

  “There's no need to snap at me,” Hamlin said. His head disappeared. I heard him whistling a rather monotonous tune as he presumably searched the yard for rocks. Or perhaps the tune was fine and he was simply a rotten whistler.

  I made sure the flashlight, which would make a far better weapon for his scenario, was well hidden under Charlie's body.

  And then a thought occurred to me. Hamlin's plan called for shooting me—probably from the safety of the edge of the trench—and then, when he’d gotten me out of commission, bashing Charlie's head in with a rock. Shooting Charlie definitely didn’t fit into his scenario. So if I could pull Charlie on top of me to shield all the major body areas where a crossbow shot would be fatal, I’d mess up his plan. He couldn’t shoot me without hitting Charlie, and he didn’t dare shoot Charlie. And if I could then convince him that I’d passed out, and lure him into coming down into the trench...

  It didn’t do my leg much good, but I dragged Charlie on top of me. Too bad he wasn’t stockier. I liked his height, which meant I could get my head and body under his torso, but he was slender enough that Hamlin could probably still shoot me in the rear, and my arms and legs stuck out. But my head and trunk were covered. That was the critical part.

  And even better, maybe I could remove the duct tape from Charlie's wrists. Even if I did, there was no guarantee he’d regain consciousness in time to be much use, but at least it gave him a chance. But I hadn’t finished pulling the last few layers of tape off when the tuneless whistling stopped. I lay still, hoping the throbbing pain in my leg would subside, and tried to concentrate on what was going on at the surface. I could see a little bit, through the space between Charlie's body and his right arm. Eventually, Hamlin's head appeared.

  “What the hell?” he exclaimed.

  There was a pause as he studied the tableau in the bottom of the trench. I continued to play possum. “It won’t do you any good, you know.” I didn’t answer. “I can wait,” he said.

  Waiting was fine with me. If he waited long enough Michael

  would come back from fetching his mother, or someone would come back from the party.

  “Don’t make me come down there!”

  I didn’t answer. His face appeared and disappeared from my limited field of vision—apparently he was pacing up and down the bank. Then he stopped.

  “Look here,” he said. “We can do this one of two ways. Either—”

  “Mwa-ha-ha!”

  A figure in a black cape suddenly loomed up behind Hamlin, its hands raised with melodramatic menace. Hamlin yelped with surprise, and his finger must have hit the crossbow's trigger—I heard a sharpfwap! and saw the bolt sail off into the darkness. Hamlin swore, lost his footing, and regained it a little too close to the edge. The dirt crumbled beneath him and he slid in, landing near Lola—near, not on, since she only hissed and growled, instead of squealing in pain. He made a little noise as if the fall had knocked the breath out of him. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see if his eyes were open. I heaved Charlie Shiffley off me and picked up my flashlight.

  “Oh, dear.”

  I glanced up to see Dr. Smoot looking down at us.

  “Help!” I shouted. “He's trying to kill us.”

  “I’m not sure I can,” he said, pulling his black cloak more tightly around him. “It's so narrow down there—I’m not sure I can make myself go into such a tight little space.”

  “I don’t want you to come down here,” I said. “The trench is getting crowded enough as it is. Call 911!”

  I was half crawling toward Hamlin, dragging my broken leg behind me, with my trusty Maglite raised to strike.

  “I could just go get a ladder.”

  “Call 911! Bring the cops! He killed Patrick Lanahan, and now he's trying to kill Charlie and Lola and me!” “Oh!” Dr. Smoot said, and disappeared.

  Then I reached Hamlin. I was tempted to cosh him over the head, but reason prevailed. Instead, I stuck the narrow end of the flashlight in the small of his back, as if it were a gun.

  “Don’t move or I’ll use this,” I said.

  Lola made a noise, half whine and half growl, as if asserting her prior claim to vengeance.

  After a couple of minutes, we heard the sirens—distant, but growing louder every second. Hamlin stirred slightly, as if thinking of making a break for it. I heard a slight noise from overhead.

  “You can sit back down now,” Randall Shiffley said. “I’ve got him in my sights. One false move and I’ll blow his rotten lying head off.”

  I sat down and passed out.

  Chapter 42

  “The party's going simply splendidly!” Dad said as he dashed into my hospital room carrying two more huge floral arrangements festooned with get-well cards. “Everyone's looking forward to seeing you—has Dr. Waldron told you when you can go home?”

  “I’m supposed to talk to her this afternoon,” I said. Actually I’d already talked to my doctor, gotten her okay on flying with my broken leg, and sworn her to secrecy about when I was being released. A little later, she was supposed to storm in, shoo out my visitors, and inform Dad that she needed to keep me for a second night, to run more tests. And once the coast was clear...

  Where was Dr. Waldron? I hoped she wasn’t waiting for my stream of visitors to die down, because that wasn’t happening anytime soon. As if to make up for my having to miss the beginning of the day's festivities, my entire family and half the town of Caerphilly had been trooping through my hospital room in shifts, congratulating me. Michael was hovering nearby, trying not to show how impatient he was for all of them to leave.

  At least it gave me a chance to find out what had been going on while I was unconscious. Tie up a few loose ends before Michael and I fled for wherever.

  At the moment, I was entertaining a delegation of Shiffleys.

  “We’re much obliged,” Vern was saying, for about the seventeenth time. I was running out of things to say—”It's nothing” didn’t seem tactful, since they were convinced I’d saved Charlie's life. Worse, I suspected they felt the need to express their gratitude in some tangible way. Ms. Ellie, the last person I knew who had earned the undying gratitude of the Shiffleys, was still finding haunches of venison on her porch every other week during hunting season. And that was five years after she’d done something to earn their gratitude—something probably a lot smaller than saving a life.

 
“You look a mess,” I said to Charlie, in an effort to change the subject. “I hope none of it's serious enough to keep you off the football field.”

  “I’ll be fine by September,” he said. “And hey, it was great, you making sure the reporters knew I was trying to save Lola. Really helped with the college people.”

  “No problem,” I said. “It was mainly the chief who talked to the reporters.”

  “Do they know if Lola's going to be all right?” Charlie asked. “That wound didn’t look good.”

  “Clarence says she’ll be fine,” Dad said. Clarence was Dr. Rutledge, Spike's vet. I wasn’t surprised that they’d taken Lola to him—a wounded bobcat would present no great challenge to a vet who could give Spike his annual shots. “No permanent damage, and she's resting comfortably. And isn’t it lucky that she's had her rabies shots?”

  “How can they be sure?” I asked. “I thought Lanahan kept lousy records and Ray Hamlin burned them.”

  “Oh, yes, but Clarence keeps meticulous records of the animals he treats,” Dad said. “He's the zoo's regular veterinarian, you know. Why didn’t one of us think to ask him about the animals?”

  “I can’t imagine,” I muttered.

  “And Hamlin keeps detailed financial records on all his businesses, even the illegal ones,” Dad went on.

  “He even had a legal contract with old man Bromley for the hunting rights to his land,” Randall Shiffley said. “He just never told Bromley what kind of hunts he was running out there.”

  The Shiffleys all smiled, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I’d bet anything that they’d already made a deal with Mr. Bromley for the hunting rights Ray Hamlin would no longer be at liberty to exercise—which meant they’d probably stop trying to get the hunting rights to Mother and Dad's farm.

  “So between Clarence's records and Hamlin's own,” Dad was saying, “Chief Burke should have ample evidence to convict him of violating any number of animal-welfare and game laws.”

  “And murder, I hope,” I said. “Murder and attempted murder and kidnapping and—”

  “I’ve got a long list of crimes for Mr. Ray Hamlin to answer to,” the chief said, walking through the door with Dr. Blake at his side.

  “What about the Sprockets?” I asked.

  “Threw a whole bunch of charges at them, too,” the chief said. “Gets my goat, having people complicate my life when I’m trying to solve a murder.”

  I winced, hoping the chief didn’t consider my confrontation with Ray Hamlin one of those complications.

  “Like Shea Bailey with his trick of letting all the animals loose?” I said aloud.

  “Irresponsible,” the chief said, shaking his head, as he pulled over a chair for Dr. Blake. “We caught up with him, too. Looks like he won’t be leading the SOBs anymore. Seems his dedication to the cause of animal welfare was just an excuse for milking the organization for as much cash as possible. The SOBs are poorer but wiser today.”

  “Actually, I think they’ve all voted to disband and join Rose Noire's animal-welfare group,” Dad said.

  “Splendid,” I said. Perhaps Rose would have more than enough people for her animal-massage class and wouldn’t need to recruit me.

  “And as their first project, they’re all going to come out and help take care of the zoo animals until we can get their future sorted out.”

  “And how long will that be?” I asked.

  “Tuesday,” Blake said. “Maybe sooner. I’ve got a couple of my staff down at Virginia Beach, hunting down that fellow from the bank to see if we can wrap it up tonight. But by Tuesday, at the latest, we’ll have that zoo back open or I’ll know the reason why.”

  “And I gather you’ll be staying around for a while, overseeing the transition.”

  “Possibly,” Blake said. “Why?”

  I hesitated. After all, Blake wasn’t the killer. Did the suspicious things he’d done still matter?

  Yes. After all, he was going to be hanging around, helping take care of our animals.

  Now I was doing it too. Not our animals. The zoo's animals. Who would probably all be back in the zoo by the time Michael and I returned from wherever. But either way, it mattered. If he wasn’t completely on the up-and-up, we didn’t want him anywhere near anyone's animals.

  “If you’re going to be hanging around, I want a straight answer on something,” I said. “In fact, several somethings.”

  “Now, Meg,” Dad said. “We have the killer, remember?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t explain the photo I saw of Dr. Blake holding a rifle with one foot on a dead lion. Can you explain it, Dr. Blake?”

  “Probably a fake someone Photoshopped to discredit me,” Blake said. “Where did you see it?”

  “You have it as part of the screen saver on your laptop.”

  Blake frowned slightly, and then his face cleared and he chuckled.

  “I know the one you’re talking about. The lion wasn’t dead— that's a tranquilizer gun I’m holding, not a rifle. Keen eyes though. I can see why you suspected me.”

  “Not to mention the fact that last night I saw you bagging up the wineglasses Rob and Dad and I were using, as if they were evidence. I figured you were the killer, and planning to frame one of us if you got the chance.”

  “You did?” Blake exclaimed. “That's rich!” He threw back his head and laughed vigorously.

  “But now I figure you were snooping around, too,” I went on. “You were trying to solve the murder and collecting DNA from your suspects. Is that it?”

  “Not exactly,” Blake said. “I wasn’t worried about the murder investigation. I figured it was in good hands.”

  “Thank you,” Chief Burke said. Blake glanced at him with mild surprise, as if he’d forgotten the chief was there.

  “But you’re right,” Blake went on. “I did want your DNA. I want to compare it with mine.”

  We all stared at him in astonishment. I was the first to get my tongue back.

  “You think we’re related?”

  “I think you’re my granddaughter. And my son,” he said, turning to Dad.

  Dad took a step back.

  “I’m a foundling,” he said. “No one knows who my parents were.”

  “Found in the fiction section of the Charlottesville library,” Blake said. “That's what the local paper said, am I right?” “That's right,” Dad said. “Just where my poor Cordelia left you.” “Your poor Cordelia?” I echoed.

  “I was...um, engaged to one of the librarians there.”

  “ ‘Um, engaged’?” I echoed again. “Had you asked her to marry you, or is that just a euphemism for something else?”

  “A beautiful young woman,” Blake said. “I was planning to ask her to marry me as soon as I was able. But I was a poor graduate student. And I got a chance to go on my first zoological expedition. A six-month trip to the Galapagos. I explained how important it was to my career. I thought she understood.”

  “And you came back and she’d vanished.”

  He nodded.

  “I assumed she’d grown tired of waiting—the trip went on a little longer than planned.” “How much longer?” “It was only a year and a half,” he said.

  “Smart woman,” I said. “I’d have sent the Dear Montgomery letter after seven months.”

  “Very smart,” he said. “And very beautiful.”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out an old photo in a plastic protector. He looked at it, then handed it to me.

  It was like seeing myself in costume from the Roaring Twenties. Like me, Cordelia was a little too busty to carry off the flapper look, but she had a certain panache. I might have liked her if I’d known her, growing up. I wasn’t sure I approved of her taste in men, though.

  “How old was she, anyway?” I said. She looked about sixteen.

  “It's the only picture I have,” he said. “Her high school graduation photo. She was a few years older when I met her.”

  I handed the photo to Dad.

 
“I came to town to see Lanahan,” Blake was saying. “Just a courtesy. Wasn’t going to bother with his little zoo, but then I happened to see your picture in the Caerphilly Clarion. Did some research on you. Learned that your father was abandoned as an infant in the same library where Cordelia and I used to meet on my trips to Charlottesville.”

  He and Dad gazed at each other. Blake looked triumphant and happy. Dad looked as if he was beginning, too late, to appreciate the joys of being an orphan.

  “Yippee,” I said. “So instead of coming up and telling us this, you hung around spying on us.”

  “I had to figure out if you were people I even wanted to know, much less claim as family.”

  So if he didn’t approve of us, he was just going to sneak off again? I wasn’t sure I trusted a paternal—or grandpaternal— feeling that kicked in only after Blake had made sure we met his standards.

  “And you decided to claim us after the events of the last few days?” I said aloud. “I’m surprised you didn’t run away screaming.”

  “You lead entertaining lives,” Blake said. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and smiled, as if awaiting the next installment of entertainment.

  I stared at him, baffled. I had no idea how I felt about this. I needed time to think it through. I had a sudden frustrating vision of Michael and me, strolling along that romantic beach, Parisian street, vineyard trail, or whatever, talking about Montgomery Blake instead of us.

  Not if I could help it.

  “Of course, the DNA test's not in yet,” I said. “With any luck, the resemblance will turn out to be nothing but a coincidence, and you can go back to saving animals in more exotic climes.”

  And until the DNA test was in, I resolved, I would shove the whole thing out of my mind.

  “We’ll see,” Blake said. He heaved himself up from the chair. “Got to be going—I want to make sure those crazy in-laws of ours aren’t upsetting the animals.”

  Where did he think he was going? He couldn’t just drop a bombshell like that and leave.