Beastly Bones (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

C
harlie tethered Maryanne to Brisbee's hitching post, and I slid down to solid ground. As we rounded the side of the farmhouse, I could see that Jackaby was only halfway up the rugged hillside. He had paused, leaning against a rocky outcrop to watch an angry scene unfold before him. I could hear Owen Horner farther up the hill. “This is absurd,” he was arguing. “You have no right—”

“Gentlemen, if you please,” Hugo Brisbee's voice chimed in.

“On the contrary,” came a third voice. “I have every right, and a legally binding contract as well.”

Charlie and I hastened up the path and joined Jackaby on the hill. Brisbee and Horner were on their way down, keeping pace with a stuffy-looking middle-aged man in a slate-gray suit and a Panama hat. The stranger held a slim briefcase, waggling it meaningfully at Brisbee, but he did not slow his pace toward the house.

“That miscreant should never have been allowed near the discovery,” groused the man. “It is sadly unsurprising that he has already absconded with priceless artifacts.”

“How dare you—I was the one who reported the stolen fossil!” Horner threw up his hands in exasperation.

The man ignored him and went on. “I have communicated with the police in Gadston that Mr. Horner is not to be permitted within a hundred yards of my property. I've been assured I have the full support of the department—ah, and I see they've sent someone out already.” The procession had come to us, and the gray man drew to a halt in front of Charlie.

Charlie stepped forward. “I'm afraid I've heard nothing of the order, Mr.—?”

“Lamb. Professor Lewis Lamb. I spoke with Commander Bell in person.”

“I'm sure you did. It's possible that word from the commander has been delayed. In the meantime, I believe we can all behave ourselves.”

“Behave? Have you met Mr. Horner? Should he trespass again, see that he is incarcerated immediately. From this point on, the site of this excavation is to be considered private property and kept free of any outside interference.”

“Even if he's coming up there as my personal guest?” Brisbee asked.

“I don't think you understand, Mr. Brisbee.” Lamb turned to face the farmer directly. “We appreciate your efforts thus far, but now that I have arrived, there is no need for you to be directly involved in the excavation. The site is to be restricted exclusively to my employees and to me.”

“What? I don't understand.”

“He's kicking you out, too,” Horner informed the farmer with a grunt.

“You can't do that—this is still my land!”

“Actually I can, Mr. Brisbee, according to the very explicit parameters of the contract you signed. Amateurs will not jeopardize the integrity of this discovery. Speaking of which, who are all these people?” Lamb finally seemed to notice us, surveying Jackaby and me with suspicion.

“Oh, um, good morning, folks.” Brisbee raised his battered old hat in a polite greeting. “This is Lewis Lamb. He's here to . . . um . . . He's here about the fossils. He arrived first thing this morning. Lamb, this is Mr. Jackaby and Miss Abigail Rook. They're the ones I mentioned earlier. You'll be interested to know Miss Rook is the daughter of another dinosaur fellow. Daniel Rook, was it?” I nodded. “She was a big help yesterday with the bones, and Mr. Jackaby is a first-rate private detective, too. He's been in the papers. I'm sure if you'd just rethink this nonsense, you'd find there are a great many people here ready to help.”

I gave Lamb a smile and extended my hand. “Delighted to meet you, sir.”

Lamb looked as though he had tasted something foul and was deciding whether to swallow and be done with it or spit it out. “This is precisely the sort of unprofessional mismanagement I am here to prevent,” he said, and carried on walking past me.

I let my hand drop and exchanged a glance with Owen Horner. He rolled his eyes.

“The site is no longer open to every semiliterate rube with a shovel and every doe-eyed pair of pigtails that wanders up. Mr. Brisbee, in the interest of maintaining a professional working relationship, I will overlook the amount of time Mr. Horner and these amateur hobbyists have already been permitted to traipse about my excavation site—but I trust that, from this point onward, you will honor the agreement laid out between us to the letter. I have a team of exceptional lawyers. I should hate to see you lose this farm outright should they find you in breach of contract.”

Brisbee's face fell, and his hands flopped to his sides. Lamb stalked toward a carriage parked in the shade of the barn and rapped sharply on the door. “Wake up, you laggards,” he called. “It's time to start earning your keep!” The carriage rocked, and out climbed a pair of bleary-eyed men. The first was a tall, thin man with mahogany-brown skin and black hair, who yawned and stretched as he moved to the back of the cab. The second man was pink faced and pudgy, like an overripe peach, topped with a splash of beet-red freckles and a mess of orange hair. He rubbed his eyes and strapped a bulky burlap satchel to his back. Clambering to hold on to a bundle of long aluminum poles, he dropped several of them before finding his grip, and they clanged loudly against the cart.

Lamb groaned in annoyance and started off again up the hill without issuing any further instruction. The redheaded man collected his things and wordlessly shuffled past us, following Lamb back toward the foothills behind the farmhouse. The other man hefted a collection of pickaxes and hammers over his shoulder and moved to join his colleagues. He paused on his way and shrugged apologetically. “The professor doesn't make a great first impression, but you get used to him.”

“Does he make a great second impression?” Horner asked skeptically.

“Mr. Bradley! Now!” Lamb yelled from halfway up the hill.

Mr. Bradley took a deep breath and shifted the tools on his shoulder. “You get used to him,” he repeated, and hurried away.

Brisbee turned from the departing procession and back to us, his mouth opening and closing “What just—?” he managed at last.

“You backed the wrong horse,” said Horner. “I told you you should've signed the site over to me.”

The farmer looked as if he might cry.

“Well,” I said, “nobody is bleeding or pressing charges—at least not yet—so I suppose that actually went better than I might have hoped. I noticed that you didn't throw rocks at anybody, Mr. Horner. I do appreciate your restraint.”

“Least I could do, beautiful.” Horner gave a halfhearted wink, and then looked back up at the foothills moodily. “But the day is still young.”

Brisbee brewed a pot of bitter American coffee, and we watched from the back porch of the farmhouse as a wide canvas wall gradually rose to shroud the entire dig site. From a distance, all that was visible of our evening's hard work were a few piles of loose sod around the perimeter.

“I wish I hadn't sent that telegram yesterday,” the farmer said glumly, taking a swig of the black brew. “Seems a shame to have that nice reporter come out all this way for nothing. Won't be much of a story for her to report now that Lamb's sealed everything up.”

Horner was nursing his own mug, glaring moodily at the dirt. I knew how he felt. Brisbee took notice and looked more wretched still. “I'm sorry it turned out like this for you, Mr. Horner. You did so much good work. Will you be leaving right away?”

Horner breathed in deeply and straightened up. “I don't think so. As you say, it would be a shame to come all this way for nothing. I might just take in a bit of the countryside for a day or two, if you don't mind the company. After all, I would hate to repay your kindness by leaving you alone with that killjoy.”

Brisbee nodded and looked slightly buoyed.

“Don't go doing anything foolish,” I said. “Remember, you assured me you would play nice, however it turned out.”

“Did I say that?” Horner chuckled. “That doesn't sound like me. All right, all right—you have my word. Nothing foolish. Don't count me out entirely, though. I am remarkably charming.” He gave me a cheeky grin, as if to illustrate his point. “That stuffy old Lewis Lamb may warm up to me yet.”

“Be careful,” Charlie told him. “I would hate to be the one called to take you to lockup. Professor Lamb did not sound very open-minded.”

“What about you, Miss Rook?” Horner said. “You've lost the site as much as I have.”

“On the contrary,” Jackaby answered for me, sounding jarringly cheerful. He leaned on the railing and looked genially out across the countryside. “We've lost nothing. Now that your little side-project up the hill is out of the question, we can focus our attention on the real reason we're out here.”

“The real reason we're out here?” I said, glancing warily to my employer. With a reporter having been summoned just that morning, now was the wrong time for Jackaby to forget about his promise to keep our investigation of the murders discreet. “The real reason we are here is to investigate the bones behind that barrier, isn't it, sir?”

“In point of fact, Miss Rook, the reason we're here” — Jackaby raised his eyebrows in my direction—“is to investigate the one that isn't.”

“He's right,” Charlie said. “There is still a fossil missing, even if its rightful owner has changed. It is time we directed our attention to pursuing the culprit.”

“Maybe it was just a wolf or some other creature?” Brisbee suggested.

Jackaby scowled. “Yes. It is a distinct possibility that our perpetrator was not human at all. Trust me, we are considering that scenario very seriously.”

“Your reporter will love that,” Horner put in cynically. “The crime was plenty to spice up the story. She'll paper the Eastern Seaboard if you hand her a big bad wolf to go with it.” Charlie kept his face stoically blank.

“I don't think it's worth bringing up wolves,” I said. “The prospect is doubtful, anyway. Fossils wouldn't generally attract scavengers.”

“Of course they would,” Jackaby said. “Especially the sort of scavengers who read newspapers. I think it is high time we got to know the rest of the neighborhood.”

Neighborhood
was not the right word for the environs of Gad's Valley. Charlie, Jackaby, and I had to walk half a mile before we reached the nearest farm.

The front walk was unpaved and the house was modest, just a bit smaller than Brisbee's by the look of it, and its paint had faded to a peeling beige. Charlie and I stepped up to the door, but Jackaby sauntered around toward the back of the house.

“Sir? What are you doing?” I asked.

“Investigating,” Jackaby replied flatly.

“Well, you can't just walk into someone's yard unannounced. Besides, doesn't investigating usually involve questioning people?”

“I've nothing against people as a general rule, but people don't tend to have the sort of answers I'm looking for.” The fence post just above Jackaby's head exploded in a spray of splinters with a resonating
BLAM!
A woman stood in the open doorway across from him, a plain white apron tied around her waist and a fat-barreled rifle in her hands. “Of course, people do have a way of surprising you from time to time,” my employer added.

The woman held her chin up high and stared down the barrel at Jackaby. It was not the most intimidating glare, but her rifle more than compensated. “You're on my property,” she said.

“I am indeed,” Jackaby replied. “And you noticed. Well done.”

From inside the house came the sound of excited barking. The woman held the rifle steady as a black-and-white sheepdog bounded past her and into the yard, circling my employer repeatedly and sniffing him in all of the customary awkward places before rolling over and awaiting a scratch on the tummy.

The woman sighed and shook her head. “If you've come to steal the world's least intimidating guard dog, I'm real close to just letting you have him.”

The dog flopped his head back to look at his mistress upside down.

“Nobody's impressed, Toby.”

“Please lower your weapon, Mrs. Pendleton,” said Charlie, hurrying forward and holding out his badge. “The gentleman is with me.”

Mrs. Pendleton nodded to the policeman and let the rifle down gently.

“You know this woman?” Jackaby asked.

“We met recently,” said Charlie.

“That's right,” Mrs. Pendleton said. “Just last week. Mr. Barker here put my Abe in lockup overnight. My old man can get a little goofy when he's had a few too many.”

Charlie nodded. “Mr. Pendleton was heavily intoxicated, singing loudly and brandishing a firearm in the middle of Gadston's Goods and Grocery.”

“He was celebrating,” she explained with a hint of a smile. “It was our anniversary.”

“Which does account for his choice in love songs,” Charlie said. “He has a fine tenor voice.”

“Doesn't he just?” Mrs. Pendleton loosened and leaned on the door frame. “I know he can be a handful, but he's a good man underneath. Oh, did his pants ever turn up?”

“You will be the first to know. Mrs. Pendleton, please allow me to introduce my associates, Detective Jackaby and his assistant, Miss Rook.”

Mrs. Pendleton nodded toward Jackaby. “Detective, huh? What's that thing on his head?”

I suppressed a giggle. Jackaby's cap looked a bit like a child's wobbly sketch of a hat—the sort of sketch you might accidentally mistake for a lumpy elephant or perhaps a floret of broccoli, if you weren't holding it the right way up. At best, it was yarn trying very hard to be a hat.

“What?” Jackaby scowled. “Honestly, woman, this hat is a priceless rarity! It was knit from—”

“Not really the time for that, sir,” I said. “Please, ma'am, we're in the middle of an investigation. I'm afraid that's why my employer—erm—inadvertently crossed your property line. He's looking for something unusual.”