A Murder of Crows (23 page)

“Was it something I said?”

Tillie appeared on the porch a moment later.

“Are you going to be joining us for a nice lunch, Bob? Boo says that Noah’s coming over, and I could heat up some ham. It wouldn’t be any trouble,” she added.

Easy for her to say.

After Boo’s implosion in my car, I wasn’t sure who he was angrier at—me for suggesting that Noah was a murderer, or Noah for possibly committing a murder. Regardless, the idea of sitting down at the table with both of them sure sounded like trouble to me.

“Thanks, but I don’t know that Boo wants my company right now,” I excused myself. “I think he’s got a bone to pick with Noah.”

“Oh, he’s just in a little snit,” she said, dismissing her son’s anger with a wave of her hand. “He gets like that sometimes. He’ll be fine once he has some lunch in him. He and Noah have their own way of working out their differences.”

For some reason, that didn’t give me a lot of confidence. I really doubted that Boo just needed a slice of ham to calm his fury. When he’d slammed out of my car, he looked like he was ready to kill someone.

And I’d really rather it wasn’t me.

Especially on my day off.

On the other hand, if it was Noah that Boo wanted to murder, I should probably stick around as a witness. For once in my life, I wouldn’t have to figure out who the murderer was.

“That sounds great, Tillie,” I accepted. “I’d love to have lunch.”

Boo’s mother smiled happily and then pointed at the small barn where Vern and Sara had disappeared.

“And what about that young lady I saw my husband take into his museum? Would you go ask her if she’d like some lunch, too? That is, if she can stand to be around Vern any longer after getting the tour of his collection,” she added. “Those war relics are his passion, but I’m afraid they put our visitors to sleep, nine times out of ten.”

I looked in the direction of the small structure beyond the house. As an avid birder, I was familiar with the passion that could transform a hobby into a life-long love affair. I’d been birding for three decades, and I still got just as excited—maybe even more—about seeing a new bird as I had back when I was six years old. If birding—my passion—made me feel like that now, I could only imagine how Vern must have felt every time he stepped into that little barn and surrounded himself with his collection.

I bet it felt like heaven.

“It’s a museum?” I asked Tillie.

She nodded. “All the memorabilia you’d ever want to see,” she said. “I told Vern that as long as he keeps it out of the house, he could collect as much as he wanted. At the rate he finds things, though, I think he’s going to have to expand that museum of his pretty soon. He’s got all kinds of stuff in there.”

“Does he, by chance, have any body armor?” I asked.

Not that I expected to take any blows myself during the confrontation I was sure was coming, but considering how big Boo and Noah were, and how small the dining room would feel with both of them in it, I decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to dress a bit more pro-actively for lunch.

It never hurt to be prepared, right?

“I don’t know what all he’s got,” Tillie said. “He might have a couple of those spiked helmets. Just be sure you yell out before you walk into the museum so he knows you’re coming, or you might get hit with an antique grenade.”

Grenade?

Tillie caught my look of concern and laughed. “They’re all duds, Bob.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the barn.

Tillie’s voice followed me. “So far, that is.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Heeding Tillie’s instructions, I loudly announced myself before I opened the door to Vern’s private museum.

Not getting any answer, I took my life in my hands, grabbed the door handle and pulled it wide.

“I’m a friend!” I yelled, bracing for any impending impact.

Vern and Sara looked up from a glass display case in the middle of the room.

“Tillie told you I had grenades, didn’t she?” Vern asked.

I nodded sheepishly. “Yes, she did.”

“That woman is such a tease,” he said. He nudged Sara with his elbow and winked at her. “It’s why I married her, you know. She was quite the catch.”

Sara smiled back at the old man. “I bet you were, too. Women love fireworks,” she said with just the right hint of flirtatious innuendo.

They both burst into laughter.

I stood rooted to the spot.

Sara Schiller had a sense of humor?

When had that happened?

Not only that, but it was clear she was enjoying Vern’s company. I didn’t know if I should be glad … or worry. Sara could only benefit from having the influence of a good man in her life, but if she started skipping school to drive to Spinit to spend time around Vern, I was going to have more than her teachers waiting by my office door.

I would have the pleasure of Sara attending—sort of—Savage High School for more than four years.

Perish the thought.

“You’ve got to look at this stuff, Mr. White,” Sara said, tapping her finger on the glass case. “They’re pictures of the decoy tanks and airfields that England used in World War II to fool German bombers and keep them away from their real targets. They painted big pieces of canvas to look like hangars, and then laid them down on the ground, so it would look like a real airfield from the air. Sometimes they put old jeeps, and fake fuel stores, and dummy aircraft around it, too.”

I walked over to the display while Sara continued to enthusiastically report on the case’s contents.

“Vern’s even got a rubber tube that was used to hold up a dummy tank. Look at this!”

I peered down into the case that stretched a good eight feet across the top of a sturdy wooden stand. Inside it were black-and-white photos of fake bunkers and aircraft mockups, along with uniformed men posing beside the structures. A piece of aged painted canvas sat next to a wooden slat that had been part of a “tank” made of wood. Beside a photo of what looked like a Sherman tank was a rubber tube that had been a section of the inflatable dummy tank’s skeleton. Leaning against the fake tank were two very dashing soldiers dressed in World War II battle fatigues. The big grins on their faces made it plain that they were tickled by the successful results of their campaign of deception.

“And get this, Mr. White,” Sara said. “A lot of the guys who designed and built these decoys were actually from a film studio in England. They knew how to make fake stuff look real with lights and props for movies, so the government asked them to make decoys as part of their war strategy to trick the enemy into bombing the wrong things. They even faked burning buildings and explosions! These guys started out making movies, and ended up saving people’s lives because of the decoys.”

She paused to take a breath, and I glanced at Vern, who was grinning ear-to-ear. He’d clearly found a great audience in Sara, not to mention someone who shared his enthusiasm for explosives. My problem child virtually glowed with joy.

Funny, my grad school instructors never mentioned ordnance training as an effective approach to dealing with truants.

“Having trouble with keeping kids in class? Give ’em grenades, and you’ll be thrilled with the results.”

Oh, well. The good news was that I’d know who to start looking for if anything blew up at the high school next week.

“So these film guys were really good at using decoys, Mr. White!” She glanced at Vern to make sure she was getting her facts right.

“In fact, you could say they were,” she paused for effect, “masters of deception.”

She tapped her chest with her two index fingers.

“I could do that! You’re always saying I’m your Mistress of Deception, so I would be really good at this stuff,” Sara insisted. “I could make fake explosions for movies, or do it for real in the army!”

“You sure could,” Vern jumped in before I could pick my jaw up off the floor.

A terrifying picture formed in my head: Sara Schiller, demolitions expert. I had the sinking feeling I’d just discovered the one thing that could frighten me more than creepy scarecrows at Halloween.

Where was my kindergarten teacher when I really needed her?

“Of course, you have to do well in your classes at high school,” Vern advised Sara, “A good ordnance officer has to take responsibility and be accountable. No whining or crying when things don’t go your way.”

“And no driving to Wisconsin, either,” I tossed in.

Sara threw me a dirty look, but I could tell she was sucking up Vern’s every word. In fact, from where I stood, I would have banked on the persuasiveness of Boo’s dad over the hypnotic talents of even the illfated Amazing Mr. Wist any day. Vern’s hold on Sara’s attention—and imagination—was nothing short of miraculous.

“And it might be a really good idea to take some basic physics classes,” Vern finished lecturing her, “because it doesn’t hurt to understand some of the principles behind weaponry. You ever shoot off a bottle rocket in class?”

Sara shook her head.

“You need to take a class from my son, young lady. He’s an ace rocket-launcher.”

Sara’s eyes lit up, but I wasn’t sure if the source of her excitement was the idea of bottle rockets or the prospect of sitting in a class staring at Boo’s biceps for a semester. Her newfound interest in explosions seemed genuine, but knowing the tenacity of teenage female hormones, I doubted that Sara’s interest in males had suddenly vanished.

Memo to me: remind Boo to keep wearing those loose-fitting dress shirts to work and leave the snug tee-shirts at home.

“I’m sure if you set your mind to it, Sara, you could be a whiz-bang explosives expert,” Vern encouraged her. “Pardon my pun,” he added for my benefit.

“You think so?” Sara asked Vern, her voice filled with hope.

“Absolutely,” he assured her. “You just take all that fire and passion inside you, and put it to work, young lady. You’ll be amazed at what you can do.”

Sara smiled again, and Vern threw me a wink.

I gave him a little salute in gratitude.

Vern Metternick was one heck of a motivator, I had to admit, and not too shabby at off-the-cuff counseling, either. I had a graduate degree and years of experience in a high school student services office, but I’d gotten nowhere with Sara Schiller for the last few years. Given less than an hour, though, this World War II veteran and ordnance officer had clearly succeeded where I had repeatedly failed: Vern had made an impression on Sara.

No wonder he and his cronies were honored as the Greatest Generation.

They got the job done.

“Mission accomplished,” I said to Vern.

“What mission?” Sara asked, her eyes shifting from Vern to me and then back again to Vern.

“Lunch time,” I brightly announced to Sara. “Mrs. Metternick is setting a place at the table for you.”

She turned to Vern. “You guys eat at the table? At our house, we usually just eat at the kitchen counter. And we never eat at the same time, either.”

I noticed Vern wince, even as he quickly covered it with a big smile.

“Then you’re in for a treat,” he promised her. “Lunch at the Metternicks’ place is a real event.”

Vern got that right, although I doubted he knew just how much of an event it might turn out to be today, with his son and Noah facing off across Tillie’s fine china and her hot ham platter. For an awful second, I imagined food flying along with accusations. I made a mental note to myself to be sure I got enough to eat the first time the dishes were passed around.

Shoot.

I might have to break up a food fight, and I wasn’t even at work.

I followed Vern and Sara out the door of the museum just in time to see a freshly-washed pink pickup truck pull up in front of the Metternick home.

Noah hopped out of the driver’s side and came around the car to open the passenger door. Arlene Weebler—missing the green facial mask and ugly salon apron—stepped out.

“Arlene,” Vern called to her. “Your folks know you’re out here consorting with the enemy?”

Arlene put her hands on her hips and shot him an insolent glare.

“As a matter of fact, I have come out here to bury the hatchet, Vern,” she informed him. “The wind farm development group told my parents just this morning that they are putting a hold on the whole project until they have a proper site evaluation completed by a survey team from the university in Morris.”

“Well, hallelujah,” Vern replied. “It’s about time they figured out they ought to call in the experts who are specially trained to make those kinds of decisions. My tax dollars have been funding that wind turbine operating at the Morris campus for how many years now? Those professors and researchers ought to have this wind energy thing boiled down to an exact science by now.”

“It’ll never be by-the-numbers, Vern,” Noah answered. “Every site for a wind farm is different. The developers need to match the particular landscape with a system’s array design based on meteorological factors, for one.”

“What is he talking about?” Sara asked me. “You can’t farm wind.”

“Yes, you can,” Arlene corrected, turning her evil eye on Sara. “Who are you?”

Vern threw his arm around Sara’s shoulders. “She’s a friend of mine, Arlene. I’m going to teach her to defuse a bomb with her eyes closed.”

Arlene laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“Really?” Sara’s eyes were fixed on Vern’s face.

“You bet,” he said. “You’ve got to work up to it, of course, but when you’re ready, I’m going to teach you. If you want to learn how, that is.”

“How do you know about wind farms?” I asked Noah. “I’m Bob White, by the way. I work with Boo at Savage High School.”

And I’m the poor sap who found Sonny Delite dead at the Arb, I wanted to add. Does the name ring a bell?

“Pleased to meet you,” Noah replied, extending his hand to shake mine. “I’m Noah Knorsen. You must know my sister.”

I was acutely aware of Sara Schiller standing next to me. Feeling obligated as her counselor to set a good example for her, I reluctantly shook the man’s hand. How to handle an introduction to a murderer in polite society wasn’t something I’d covered with her yet. Come to think of it, no one had covered that with me yet, either.