Fowl Prey (17 page)

“Let me clarify,” said Judith as the wind whipped through her hair and made her slacks flap at her legs. “Bob-o had pictures of everybody, or so it seemed. It's possible that he excluded Desiree, because she married Alabama, and thus took Helen's place. But somehow I don't think that's so. In fact, I don't know why, but in the back of my mind, I have this feeling that…” She faltered, shaking her head. “It's weird, I wish I could think of what's making me think this way.”

“Me, too,” said Renie, scooting along beside Judith. They were at the curb, waiting for a pizza deliveryman to pass. Across Empress Drive, the horse chestnuts along the Esplanade swayed in the wind. Whitecaps ruffled the bay's inky waters, while a stately freighter moved slowly toward the mouth of the inner harbor.

Keeping her head down against the rain and wind, Judith forged onward, toward the alley that ran behind the Tudor Arms. Renie squeaked in protest at her cousin:

“We'll never get into Bob-o's apartment! It's padlocked! The turkey skewers are useless!”

“I don't want to get in,” responded Judith as they entered the darkened alley. The footing was slippery, and Judith slowed her pace. Just before they reached the dumpster, she peered about, looking for the Siamese cat. He was nowhere to be seen. “Give me a hand,” said Judith, grappling with the heavy lid of the dumpster.

“Oh, great, now we're scavengers!” moaned Renie. “I'll ruin my clothes!”

“You get more garbage on them when you eat than you will here,” retorted Judith. “Lift, coz! My arms are killing me!”

With a mighty heave, the cousins pushed up the dumpster's lid. Renie was too short to look inside, but Judith took out her little flashlight and shined it over the jumbled contents. The wind was even sharper in the alley than it had been on the street, the narrow space between the buildings creating the effect of a funnel. Renie edged closer to the apartment house, trying to avoid the rain.

“Find anything?” she asked in a feeble voice as her cousin rummaged selectively through the trash.

Judith didn't answer. A horn honked out on Prince Albert Street. Upstairs in the Tudor Arms, someone was playing rock music with the volume up. An old newspaper blew through the alley, sticking to a discarded tricycle. Judith kept searching.

“You'll get a disease,” Renie announced ominously. “And I'll get pneumonia. Who then will fix the turkey dressing?”

“Mother,” said Judith, and immediately let out a little cry of triumph. “Here it is!” Carefully, she plucked a mangled glossy photograph from the dumpster. “Look,” urged Judith, focusing the flashlight on the picture, “it's Desiree!”

It was, a typical studio glamour pose from at least fifteen years earlier, all masses of hair and pouty lips and exaggerated eyes. There was no inscription.

“Congratulations,” said Renie. “Let's go back. I'm soaked, frozen, and possibly dead.”

Judith was ready to comply, but not until she had pocketed the flashlight, put the photo inside her purse, and replaced the dumpster lid. The cousins were just turning around to head out of the alley when they saw a tall figure outlined against the night. They stopped abruptly, instinct bringing them close together. A passing car on Prince Albert Street highlighted the man just enough so that the cousins could see he was holding something. It was a gun, and it was pointed straight at Judith and Renie.

T
HE COUSINS GRIPPED
each other by the arms. Judith heard her heart thudding; Renie felt her knees turn to water. Neither could speak, let alone scream. The figure advanced at a leisurely pace. The cousins each thought of flight, but knew it was futile. Their teeth were chattering when they saw the gun being lowered, and heard the familiar voice call out:

“I warned you not to meddle. Do you want to get yourselves killed?” It was Angus MacKenzie, without his hat.

Or, Judith noted as relief swept over her, at least he wasn't wearing it. Instead, he held the battered head-gear in the hand that didn't cradle the gun. “My hat blew off,” he said, apologetic as ever. “I chased it for almost a block.” With resolution, he jammed it back on his head, then carefully put the gun inside his coat.

“All right,” he continued on a note of resignation, “what in the name of all that's crazy are you two doing here tonight?”

Judith was the first to recover her voice. “Uh—going
through the dumpster because room service didn't deliver? Um—looking for the Siamese cat?” She saw no change of expression on MacKenzie's stolid face. “How about collecting Canadian souvenirs?”

MacKenzie let out a heavy sigh. “Come along, I was just on my way to see you. Then my hat blew off. I thought you were a couple of burglars.” He was moving at a much brisker pace than usual, one hand holding his hat fast to his head. “Though God knows, even burglars have more sense than to come out on a night like this,” he added in a vexed voice.

“Do you always pull your weapon so fast?” demanded Renie, her temper regained along with her nerve. “You could get yourself into a lot of trouble doing that down home.”

MacKenzie gave her a dour look as they crossed the street. “Except for practicing at the range, that's the first time I've drawn my gun in four years. But I'm not usually the only policeman in the vicinity. And, as you may recall, we had a homicide here last night. There's a murderer lurking about somewhere.”

They were approaching the entrance to the Clovia. The lights in the lobby had grown dim. Renie peered at her watch. “It's after ten o'clock. We'll have to let ourselves in.”

But Brian was heading for the door, his grin fading a bit at the sight of MacKenzie. “Hey, man, what's going down?”

“We're going up,” MacKenzie replied with nonchalance. “You don't shut off the elevators after ten, do you?” He kept moving, with Judith and Renie trailing behind. Brian exchanged puzzled looks with Doris, who was locking up the cash drawer at the desk.

The trio made the ascent to the eighth floor in silence. Both cousins still needed some time to recuperate after their fright in the alley. It wasn't until they were inside Suite 804, had removed their coats, and sat down that MacKenzie asked why Judith had called him.

“Because of this,” she said, reaching for the Outback shop's sack. It all but danced out of her grasp. “Damn!” she cried. “It's gone!”

“What's gone?” MacKenzie was as stoic as ever.

Judith and Renie were looking at each other with dismay. “The gun,” Judith finally replied, waving the empty shopping bag at the policeman. “We found a .38 caliber LadySmith outside Birdwell's window. It was caught in the ivy.”

A flicker of incredulity passed over MacKenzie's long face. “I am…amazed. I think.” He spoke very slowly. Cradling his battered hat in his lap, he smoothed his moustache and stared up at the ceiling. “Let me see…You were somehow in Mr. de Smoot's room, and for some reason, you were mucking about in the ivy on the hotel's outer wall, and you happened to find a gun.” The ceiling seemed to fascinate him. “Yes, that's amazing.”

“It probably sounds kind of goofy,” Renie allowed, “but it really wasn't. We can explain…”

At last, MacKenzie broke off his contemplation of the hotel ceiling, and shifted his gaze first to Judith, then to Renie. “Go right ahead. I can't wait to hear it.”

Renie seemed to be appealing to Judith to bail her out. Judith tried to ignore her cousin, but finally capitulated. “It started with the Heat Pixies,” she said. “They were giving me a headache.”

MacKenzie tipped his head to one side. “Really? The Heat Pixies, eh? Well, now! Go on.” He wore the expression of an Oxford don who had inadvertently wandered into a kindergarten classroom. Or a lunatic asylum.

Judith pushed forward. “The Heat Pixies are what we call the horrible noises the radiators make,” she explained in her most reasonable voice. “Renie had a theory—actually, it's her husband's—about banging on a pipe that runs down the back side of the hotel. We went into Birdwell's room to see if we could find it, and found the gun instead.” She lifted up both her palms, as if she'd just outlined the simplest of incidents.

To MacKenzie's credit—or perhaps Judith's—he looked thoughtful, rather than skeptical. “It would probably be best for me not to ask how you got into Mr. de Smoot's room. I'm assuming, of course, that he wasn't there, having seen him return with Miss Grimm just as I pulled up a few minutes ago. For the moment, we shall let that part pass. Would you tell me again what kind of gun you found?”

Judith repeated what she'd already said, along with a description of the weapon. She was on the verge of telling MacKenzie that Mildred Grimm owned such a handgun, but decided against it. The revelation would certainly get Mildred in trouble, while not necessarily advancing the investigation. And to be honest, Judith told herself, she wasn't absolutely positive that the revolver they had found was the same one which had been stolen from Mildred.

“I don't suppose,” said MacKenzie gloomily, “that you took down the gun's serial number?”

“I don't suppose we saw it,” confessed Judith. Renie started to open her mouth, caught Judith's warning glance, and shed her shoes instead.

“Don't move,” MacKenzie commanded, cautiously getting up from the armchair. He started with the carpet, moved on to the furniture, and then went into each of the bedrooms. “It looks about the same as when I was here earlier,” he observed upon his return to the sitting room. “The carpet and the shopping bag would be the give-aways. I wonder if I can get a man up here to check for footprints or fingerprints.” His soulful gaze rested on the phone.

Miraculously, there was an evidence specialist on duty, having been called in to assist with a grisly killing at the harbor. “Drunks,” said MacKenzie in disgust. “Why couldn't they have waited until the strike was over?”

His remark spurred Judith into unloading the story of Helen O'Rourke Brookes Smith. This time, MacKenzie listened with rapt attention. Indeed, when Judith had finished, he beamed his approval. “Now that's very good,
Mrs. McMonigle. Hold it, don't move, you might ruin the evidence. I'm afraid you'll both have to just sit there until my man arrives.” MacKenzie himself was being very careful not to disturb anything in the room, his big feet set close together, his shambling body held upright in the armchair like an icon on a throne. “That's the kind of thing we're missing from this case. We simply don't have the resources to get information out of Scotland Yard. Tomorrow, maybe. We'll contact London and see what we can find out. I must say, this is very promising.”

Judith and Renie both felt partially exonerated, even a little exhilarated. The mood was broken only by the arrival of Jasper Jarwoski, a fussy young man with blond hair that curled over his collar and fell in his eyes. He brought along several plastic sacks and a little machine that worked like a vacuum cleaner. Through rimless glasses, he scanned the sitting room.

“Thick pile in the carpet.” Jarwoski gave a dejected shake of his head. “The shopping bag won't give good prints.” He made a disapproving face. “Too much upholstery,” he continued in a disheartened manner, “and not enough smooth surfaces. I don't like this much at all.” Despite the complaints, Jarwoski went to work. In less than fifteen minutes, he was done.

“I'll have the results in a couple of hours,” he told MacKenzie. “I should be home in bed, you know.
Sir
.”

“So should we all,” responded MacKenzie in his indolent manner. “Any preliminary conclusions?”

Jarwoski glanced around. “Only the obvious. Whoever came in here wiped his or her feet off very carefully first. Otherwise, there would be more than three sets of damp patches on the carpet.”

MacKenzie nodded. “Good point. Carry on.”

The harried Jarwoski nodded in salute at his superior, mumbled something to Judith and Renie, and was gone. “You can move now,” said the detective, getting up to stretch. “By the way, you've never explained what you
were doing in the alley.” His eyes narrowed slightly at the cousins.

“Oh, that.” Judith gave him her idea about Desiree's picture, her theory no less garbled than when she had presented it for Renie's consideration. Delving into her purse, she produced the photograph. “As I told Renie, I'm not so concerned about the picture itself, but about why it bothered me. I can even understand how it ended up in the dumpster.”

“You can, eh?” MacKenzie was skeptical.

“Sure,” replied Judith. “Desiree didn't want to be connected with Bob-o. So she, or Alabama, pitched the photo in the garbage.”

MacKenzie digested her idea. “That's fine as far as it goes. But when?”

“When?” Judith went blank. “Oh! I see—was the picture removed before or after Bob-o was killed. Hmmm.” She put her chin on her fist and thought hard. “I'm sure we didn't see it when we were there in the afternoon,” she said at last. She frowned, then turned a disturbed face to the detective. “This was all very cleverly planned, wasn't it?”

“It seems so,” said MacKenzie.

Judith thought some more, and suddenly gave a little jump. “The crescent! That's it! Or part of it,” she added on a more subdued note.

MacKenzie, as well as Renie, was looking mystified. “What crescent?” he inquired.

Judith turned to Renie. “Do you remember yesterday afternoon when we were coming back from Bob-o's, I picked a bit of glitter in the shape of a little moon off my slacks?” Not waiting for Renie's response, she hurried on: “I'll bet you anything, it got stuck there at Bob-o's. And I think I know where it came from—originally. What about you, coz?”

Renie looked as if she were trying to figure it out, but failed to come up with an answer. Judith rushed to her rescue. “Desiree's closet. All those fancy costumes with
spangles and bangles and shining stars and silver moons. Well?”

Renie might not have figured out what Judith had meant at first, but she wasn't buying the theory wholesale. “Are you trying to tell us that Desiree runs around Port Royal dressed like Glinda from
The Wizard of Oz
and nobody notices? Come on!”

Judith felt the air go out of her balloon. “Oh.” She slumped against the back of the sofa. “Okay,” she said, a trifle defensively, “so I got carried away. But I still like the basic concept.”

MacKenzie was ambling toward the door. “You've done very well. I commend you. As a reward, I'll have your statements ready to sign in the morning.” He gave them his uneven smile. “You'll be free to go then.”

Renie grinned from ear to ear. Judith, to her own surprise as well as that of her cousin and the detective, didn't react with jubilation. “That's great,” she said in a flat voice. Aware of the two puzzled sets of eyes resting on her, she forced a happy face. “I'm glad. Honest.”

“I expected you would be,” said MacKenzie, looking unconvinced. “I'll admit, I'd rather everyone stayed around for a few days, but officially, we can't stop any of you. For the last time, please don't take any more chances.” He pointed to the dead-bolt lock. “Use this tonight. Don't forget,” the detective added in warning, “somebody has a key to this room. Whoever it is now also has a gun.”

MacKenzie's warning had a sobering effect on Judith and Renie. After his departure, the cousins sat down on the sofa, mulling over the evening's events. The wind had died down, and the rain had dwindled to a drizzle. It appeared that the storm was moving inland, toward the mountains.

“Why,” asked Renie, “did you refuse to rat on Mildred?”

“Why,” countered Judith, “could you find her mother's handgun registration when the police couldn't?”

Renie pondered. “You think they did find it, and MacKenzie's not saying?”

“Could be. The point is, it was there for the finding. Plus, we can't swear in court that the gun we found belongs to Mildred.” Judith felt her eyelids beginning to droop, along with her brain. “The real question is, how did anyone know we found the blasted gun? Unless somebody was doing a random search of our room and came across it.”

“I don't know why the Clovia didn't put us all up dormitory-style,” said Renie through a yawn. “It would have been a lot easier than sneaking in and out of each other's suites like a bunch of cat burglars.”

“We know Mildred has a master key,” said Judith. “You've got one, too. How many are there?”

Renie shook her head. “I don't remember. I think there was one more left. But the police already had one.”

“That is a question we can't ask Doris, given our own guilt,” lamented Judith with a rueful expression.

“I'm beat,” Renie announced. “I'm going to take a bath and go to bed. You must be worn out, too. You sure didn't seem very excited about going home.”

Judith evaded her cousin's gaze. “Of course I am. I was just surprised that MacKenzie planned on having those statements ready by morning.” She glanced at the time. “I'm going to watch the eleven o'clock news. We missed it last night.”

Renie raised a hand in a feeble wave, then trundled off into her bedroom. Judith turned on the television set, making sure she tuned in a Canadian rather than an American station. The hundred and twenty miles between the two major cities allowed viewers on both sides of the border to watch the local and national news broadcasts of their choice.