Meg Langslow 17 - The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “Get up,” she said, kicking me in the ribs by way of emphasis.

  I moaned slightly, trying to suggest that I didn’t know if I could get up.

  “You can whine on your feet or die on the floor,” Sherry said. “Take your pick.”

  It occurred to me that Sherry probably wanted to avoid shooting me—odds were that a gunshot would bring someone over from camp to investigate. But that didn’t mean she’d have any qualms about killing me in some other, quieter way. Hitting me on the head with the gun, for example. Or with whatever blunt instrument she could find. Neither Annabel nor Theo Weaver had been shot.

  I struggled to my feet. It wasn’t easy, and I made sure it looked even harder than it was. And that it took as long as possible. I figured delay was on our side.

  “Get going,” she said. “Both of you.”

  She herded us into the hallway. According to the grandfather clock ticking away there it was nearing 2:00 A.M. Not a time when anyone was likely to be passing by the house, unfortunately. Sherry opened the door and then stood well back as we exited. Then she turned out the lights behind us and closed—but did not lock—the front door.

  I had a bad feeling about this. My head still throbbed. My lacerated hand was throbbing in time with it. My shoulders were aching from the awkward way in which Sherry had pulled my hands behind my back. I felt more than slightly queasy. And with every step we took, we drew closer to Weaver’s house, where Sherry was planning to do away with us, and I hadn’t yet figured out a plan for getting us out.

  I should try to make a break for it, I decided. And before we left Cordelia’s yard, because her backyard only had the wire fence between it and Camp Emu. Mr. Weaver’s yard also had all that overgrown thorny shrubbery that would make it even harder either to get over the fence or attract any attention from this side of it.

  We were getting close to the gate. I needed to make my break soon.

  I glanced over at Cordelia. She didn’t look frightened. She looked calm and focused and mad as the proverbial wet hornet. And suddenly I didn’t feel nearly so bad. I wasn’t in this alone. I had Cordelia. My grandmother. I might still be a little mad at her, but I already knew how much she thought like me. If I made a move, she’d figure out what I was up to before Sherry did, and she’d do what she could to help.

  I think she smiled at me—it was hard to tell underneath the duct tape. Her eyes flicked to the right slightly. There was a large camellia bush there. Maybe a good place to make my move. Our move. If I could lurch into Sherry and shove her into the bush …

  We were about five feet away from the bush and I was tensing to leap when someone stepped out of the shrubbery.

  “Hey! What’s going on?” It was Thor. “Why are you—Ms. Delia?”

  At the unexpected sight of Cordelia’s face, Thor froze. Just for a moment, but that was all it took. Sherry kicked him in the groin and Thor doubled over like an abandoned rag doll.

  If Thor had been a vicious thug, I’d have applauded Sherry’s quick thinking and capable execution of a highly effective self-defense measure. But since Thor was our would-be rescuer, our now-disabled knight in shining armor, I couldn’t help but deplore her underhanded tactics.

  “Take that, you creep!” she hissed. She kicked him in the stomach, hard. I could hear a slight oof! as the air went out of him. She aimed another kick at Thor’s face.

  The kick never landed. Cordelia head-butted Sherry, sending her staggering toward me. I deliberately hurled myself toward Sherry’s oncoming form. We collided hard and fell in a tangled heap of thrashing limbs.

  For a few seconds, I kicked Sherry as hard as I could and tried to roll on top of her to keep her down, while she struggled to heave me away. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Thor curled in a fetal position under the camellia bush and Cordelia staggering toward the backyard. Good; the backyard was our goal. The backyard, and the wire fence, and beyond it Camp Emu, where dozens of potential rescuers lay sleeping.

  “Get off of me!” Sherry hissed. She scrambled to her feet, aimed a kick at my still-throbbing head—ow!—and turned to see where Cordelia had gone.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thud-thud-thud! Thump! Thump! Thump!

  Cordelia hadn’t reached the wire fence, but she had reached her house’s old-fashioned flat metal cellar door and had begun jumping up and down on it, thumping out an SOS in Morse code. The sound was surprisingly loud in the peaceful, generator-free night air, but would it be enough to rouse the camp? And would anyone in camp recognize Morse code when they heard it?

  “Stop that!” Sherry hissed. She ran toward Cordelia. I staggered to my feet and took off toward the back fence.

  Thump! Thump! Thump! Thud-thud-thud! Thump! Thump!—

  I could hear the sounds of a scuffle as I ran past, but I didn’t stop to see what was happening. I had my head down and was charging toward the fence. If I could get over it before Sherry stopped me …

  Behind me, I could hear more hissed orders from Sherry. I didn’t waste energy trying to figure out what she was saying or whether she was hissing at me or Cordelia. Always the possibility she’d finally lose patience and shoot me in the back, but I could only hope she was still trying to avoid shattering the silent night with gunfire. And she’d have to be an awfully good shot to hit me with both of us running. And every second I ran was another second for Thor to get his breath back or Cordelia to recover from whatever Sherry had just done to her. Or for someone to spot us. Where was Stanley? He’d agreed to stand guard. He was probably doing it from the across the fence, but surely he’d have noticed something by now.

  “Stop right now or I’ll shoot!” Sherry hissed, from alarmingly close behind me.

  I didn’t stop. I was approaching the back fence.

  Suddenly I spotted something lying on the ground near the fence. Not something—someone, trussed up and gagged. The silver duct tape gleamed slightly in the moonlight.

  It was Stanley. Evidently, he had been on guard, and had become Sherry’s first captive. As I approached, I saw him squirm closer to the fence and hunch his back oddly.

  He was making himself into a step to help me over the fence. He probably figured helping me escape was his best chance for survival.

  I had a few seconds to figure out what to do. I should probably avoid his back. And his neck. I jumped up onto his rear end and from there I managed to vault over the fence.

  I landed with a thud. Across the fence, I heard rustling noises, and cursing. Evidently Stanley had managed to wriggle into Sherry’s path and trip her.

  I staggered back to my feet and looked around, trying to orient myself.

  Sherry sailed over the fence, slammed into me, and knocked me back to the ground.

  “You’re ruining everything!” She was flailing at me—not very effectively, but some of her blows hit home. And I’d landed painfully on my lacerated hand.

  Barking erupted from somewhere nearby. The dogs! We were near the emu pen. Lad, Tinkerbell, and Spike were in there with the flock. I silently promised them a pound or two of treats if they barked loud enough to raise the camp.

  Sherry was on top of me, still pounding and cursing as I wriggled frantically, trying to get into a position where I could kick her. I realized that she wasn’t just pounding with her fists. She still had the gun in one of them, which hurt a hell of a lot more than her fist. And at any moment she could realize she’d lost the battle for silence and use the gun to silence me permanently. I struggled harder.

  Suddenly something big landed on us. Sherry was so startled she screamed—yay! And then she kept screaming as the something—more than one something, actually—trampled over us, pounding heavily like a herd of elephants.

  No, like a flock of startled emus. Evidently the emus had surged against a section of chain-link, knocking it over on top of us, which allowed the emus to escape by scrambling across the downed portion of the fence. Luckily the fence protected us from their claws. Then they thundered off—away from camp, where
sounds showed that at least a few people had been roused and were on their way. The emus were running toward Cordelia’s backyard. Good. Yesterday’s emus would probably have headed in another direction, but these emus, who had never been cornered by Cordelia’s fence, didn’t know they were making a tactical mistake. And even better, I could see Lad trotting purposefully after them.

  I should stop worrying about the emus. I wasn’t out of the woods yet. Sherry heaved herself up, lifting the section of chain-link fence. With both hands, I noted. So where was the gun?

  I spotted it at the same moment Sherry did. And I was closer to it. Which might have done me some good if my hands weren’t still tied behind my back. I scrambled, crablike, to get my feet in position to kick her when she reached for it.

  “Aha!” she exclaimed. I noted with dismay that she didn’t make much of an effort to say it quietly. She reached down and—

  “Aaiiiii!” Sherry screamed again, and I flinched, expecting to be trampled by another wave of emus. Then I realized that Sherry was waving her hand around with something attached to it.

  Spike! His familiar irritable growling was somewhat muffled by the large portion of Sherry’s hand in his mouth, but he hung on for dear life and kept growling until Sherry finally did something that caused him to squeal and let go. She kicked him off into the night. I didn’t hear a thud or squeal—was that a good thing or a bad thing? He’d probably landed on grass, right?

  I’d have to worry about Spike later. If I got to have a later. Sherry, still cursing softly and massaging her Spike bite, was bending down again to pick up the gun. A large flying shape appeared out of the darkness and knocked her down.

  “Oof!”

  “Grrrrrr.” Tinkerbell’s soft bass growl made it very clear how she felt about any struggles Sherry might be trying to make. Tink was probably also drooling on the back of Sherry’s neck, not because she was particularly bloodthirsty, but because Rob had trained her to expect a liver treat whenever she knocked down potential burglars and prowlers. Halloween visits to our house could be a little overstimulating for children who didn’t already know and love Tinkerbell.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Who let the emus loose?”

  “Meg? What happened?”

  People were approaching. They’d have to wait for an answer until someone arrived and removed the tape from my mouth. I lay back to wait.

  And then a small form appeared out of the darkness. Spike. I was relieved to see that he wasn’t limping. He seemed fine.

  But definitely in a bad mood. He stopped a few feet from Sherry. He growled at her. And then he darted forward and sank his teeth into her right wrist.

  Sherry screamed, and started to shake her hand. Tinkerbell growled and put one paw on Sherry’s arm. She froze. The three of them remained in the same pose, motionless, until the first of my human rescuers arrived.

  Chapter 29

  “I’m fine,” I said, as I fed another liver treat to Tinkerbell. I was sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs on Cordelia’s front porch, watching the sun come up over Biscuit Mountain. Trying to watch it, anyway.

  “You still could have a concussion,” Dad said. Not for the first time. “How many fingers?”

  “Two,” I said. “And don’t worry. As soon as Michael gets the boys ready, we’ll head down to Caerphilly so Dr. Gridwell and your neurologist friend can check my head out. Let’s just enjoy the view for a few minutes.”

  The view of the mountain really was spectacular, or would be if Dad would stop waving fingers in front of my face to make sure I wasn’t developing double vision.

  He had been one of the first to arrive on the scene. He had helped truss Sherry up with her own duct tape and then he’d helped untie me, Cordelia, and Stanley—apparently Sherry had ambushed and tied him up on her way over from Camp Emu to Cordelia’s house. Had she been planning to drag him inside to die with Cordelia and me? And how was she planning to blame killing not one but two able-boded adults on a single elderly woman? Clearly Sherry wasn’t much of a criminal genius. At any rate, by the time the first Riverton police officer had arrived, Dad had bandaged all our wounds—even Sherry’s—and was fussing over my head while Clarence checked out both dogs.

  Cordelia didn’t seem to have been injured—at least she’d looked spry enough when she fled inside as soon as someone untied her. And she’d given me no clue whether I was allowed to reveal her identity to anyone other than Dad. So I decided not to tell him until there were no other prying ears around.

  I’d been waiting for several hours now.

  But things were quieting down. The emu rescuers had taken the birds back to their pen and had gone to camp to celebrate over breakfast. Michael was packing up the boys and enough books and toys to ensure that we could turn our anticipated long wait in the Caerphilly Hospital ER into a nice stretch of quality time as a family. Stanley had already taken off for the ER under the care of a brigade member with EMT training. Sherry was headed to jail in the back of a patrol car. Chief Heedles was inside, interviewing Cordelia.

  And only Clarence Rutledge stood in the way of my telling Dad Cordelia’s secret. It would be nice to get that done before Michael whisked me away. But Clarence was just sitting nearby, holding Spike in his lap, and stuffing the Small Evil One with bacon-flavored treats. Perhaps Dad had enlisted him to help keep watch over me. Clearly he wasn’t going to leave on his own.

  “Why don’t you take the dogs back to camp?” I said to him. “And you can check on what’s keeping Michael.”

  “Good idea.” Clarence stood up, still holding Spike. “Come on, Tink.”

  He waved a bacon treat suggestively as he went down the steps. I held up my hands to show that they were empty of liver treats and Tink went loping after him.

  “How many fingers?” Dad asked. He held up his right hand as if taking the Boy Scout oath.

  “One hundred and forty-seven,” I said. “That’s the total number of fingers you’ve held up since you got here. I’ve been counting.”

  “We need to make sure—”

  “Never mind the fingers!” I snapped. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What?” He looked worried. “Are you feeling queasy? That could be a sign of—”

  “You know, there’s another patient you haven’t checked out yet.” I jerked my thumb toward the house behind us.

  “I wasn’t sure Miss Annabel would want me to,” he said. “Given that she’s a hermit. I assumed someone would fetch her regular physician. Of course if you think she would want me to—”

  “Yeah, I think she would,” I said. “Because she’s not Annabel. She’s Cordelia.”

  His mouth fell open and he stared at me for a few moments.

  “No,” he whispered. “It can’t be.”

  “I only figured it out last night, a few minutes before Sherry attacked me,” I said. “And she and I had just agreed that we’d tell you first thing in the morning. And only you, which is why I’ve been waiting until everyone else finally cleared out. She’s Cordelia, not Annabel. Go in and talk to her.”

  Dad just sat there, staring at me.

  “Dad?” I was a little worried. Was he going into shock?

  “You’re sure?”

  “Well, we only have her word for it. We can do what Grandfather did when he first discovered us and get a DNA test. But her handwriting’s a dead ringer for yours and she has a notebook-that-tells-her-when-to-breathe. I’m betting she’s the real thing.”

  “I hadn’t entirely given up hope.” He was blinking away tears. “And then we got the news she’d been murdered.”

  “Annabel was murdered. But Cordelia knew she was the intended victim. And figured the killer would try again if she turned up alive. So she’s been pretending to be her cousin all this time.”

  Dad just blinked and stared at me.

  “Why don’t you go on in and meet her?”

  What was wrong with him? He didn’t seem to be showing any
signs of the anger I’d been feeling. But he also didn’t look all that happy to have one of his lifelong dreams coming true.

  Of course, he hadn’t gotten to know Cordelia as I had. Maybe he was worried that he wouldn’t like her. Or more likely, that she wouldn’t like him.

  “She’s with Chief Heedles,” he said finally.

  “Who’s also in the know by now,” I said. “And I’m sure would understand the reason for your interruption.”

  “Oh, my.” He scrambled up to his feet, looking first at the front door and then down at himself. He was wearing Crocs, a faded Blake’s Brigade T-shirt, and blue-and-white striped pajama bottoms that might have been quite snazzy in their prime but were now faded and stained with Sherry’s blood and quite a bit of red clay.

  “I look a mess,” he said.

  “You look fine,” I said. Actually, he did look a little scruffy, but no more than usual. Was he really worried that his mother would care about his appearance? Or was he using this as an excuse?

  “I should go back to camp and clean up,” he said. “I don’t want her to think I’m a slob.”

  “Dad, she—”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  I watched as he scurried around the side of the house.

  “Well, that didn’t go the way I thought it would,” I said, to no one in particular.

  After thinking about it for a moment, I pulled out my cell phone. To my delight, I had a signal, so I called Mother.

  I got her voice mail, of course. At this hour, Mother would still be fast asleep with her cell phone muted and a sleep mask over her eyes to prevent the light from waking her before she was good and ready.

  “I think Dad needs you,” I said after the beep. “We just found out that his mother is alive after all, and even though that’s good news, it’s also a pretty big shock. Call me when you can.”

  I hung up and began trying to think who I could call to go over and wake her up. Nearly everyone I would normally ask to do it was up here. Maybe I could send Rob down to fetch her.