Authors: Donna Andrews
“They’re all down there in the safekeeping of our official county clerk,” Randall said. He tipped his chair back on two legs and folded his arms, appearing to study Hamish. “I grant you, it might be more convenient if Mr. Throckmorton had moved them out of the courthouse along with everything else, but we’re making do.”
“But we have to get them out of there,” Hamish said.
I felt a sudden twinge of anxiety. Why was Hamish so stubbornly demanding that Randall do something that was clearly impossible—unless he’d found out about the tunnel and knew it wasn’t impossible after all?
“We’re getting along just fine,” Randall said. “We really need something, we call him up, and he sends us a copy—he’s got his little fax machine down there, you know. Or he scans and e-mails things to us. We’ve gone electronic. Joined the twenty-first century.”
“But—but—that’s preposterous! You can’t run a town like that.”
“So far we seem to be running the town and the county just fine,” Randall said. “Better than it’s been run in years, if you ask me. And even if I agreed with you that we ought to get the documents out, just how do you suggest we do it? Fold ’em all up small enough to fit through the chinks in the barricade? That’d take a while, and I don’t think we’d want to do that to all those valuable historical papers.”
“We could send them out by carrier pigeon,” I suggested. “No wait—we could have, before the Evil Lender brought in that falconer to kill all the pigeons. Now I don’t think that will work too well.”
Randall chuckled and leaned farther back in his chair.
“You could negotiate having FPF withdraw from the basement,” Hamish said. “And Mr. Throckmorton could take his barricades down long enough to move all the boxes into the anteroom, and then put them up again.”
“We could,” Randall said. “Except I’m not sure Mr. Throckmorton would trust FPF not to storm the basement while the barricades were down. Not for five minutes, much less as long as it would take to empty the basement. Especially after what happened today. I know I wouldn’t.”
“Maybe we should storm the basement,” Hamish said. “It’s intolerable having that man there. And besides—”
“Mr. Pruitt,” I said. “Just why does this bother you so much? You’re not the town attorney any longer. He’s not making your job harder. I’m sure you’d be devastated if anything happened to the town archives—we all would. But they’ve been just fine for over a year. Why is this suddenly such a big issue?”
“It’s always been a big issue,” he said. “It’s always bothered me. But … but … before, I just thought Throckmorton was a nut case. It’s different now that we know he’s a cold-blooded killer!”
“We don’t know that, Mr. Pruitt,” Randall said softly. “We just know someone is. Innocent until proven guilty.”
Hamish opened his mouth as if to continue the argument, then changed his mind, shut it so abruptly I could swear I heard his teeth click, and stormed back out again.
“What’s gotten into him?” I asked.
“Must be the heat,” Randall said. “Or maybe he ate his own cooking and got Mad Cow disease or something. The archives have been just fine down there for a year, and suddenly Hamish gets a bee in his bonnet that we should get them out.”
“No idea why?”
“Something he left in his office, I reckon,” Randall said. “He was one of the few government employees who didn’t pack up and move out when the lender took over the courthouse, you know. So when we did our inspection, about three a.m. the morning of the takeover, Vern and I ended up packing all his papers. Took forever, sorting out the personal stuff from the county stuff. From the look of it, he did more personal than county business out of that office.”
“Sounds like Hamish.”
“And Phinny came by just as we were finishing, and said he was taking charge of any official government documents that were in danger of being left behind. I thought he meant he’d haul them away—never dawned on me that he was dragging as much paper into his lair as he could before he put up the barricade.”
Randall shook his head, but he was smiling indulgently. I wondered, not for the first time, if Randall really had been completely unaware of Mr. Throckmorton’s plans. Had the diminutive county clerk really dragged those heavy timbers down into the basement and erected the barricade all by himself?
“Anyway,” Randall went on. “Hamish made a big fuss the next day, but no one had much time to bother with him, and within the week, his own cousin fired him, so if you ask me, the archives are no more his business than any other citizen’s, and most of the citizens are just fine with the way things are.”
“Imagine the job we’d have, trying to move them out,” I said. “And where on earth would we put them?”
“And how would we find anything afterward?” Randall said. “We need something, I call Phinny, and I get a copy faxed or e-mailed within the hour.” I heard a faint ding, and Randall reached to pull out his cell phone. “If we move all that stuff,” he went on, “I guarantee you, no one, not even Phinny, will know where all of it is for the next decade. I say we leave well enough alone. Oh, damn. Not again.”
The last words appeared to be addressed to his cell phone.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My predecessor just sent me another snarky e-mail,” Randall said. “He does that from time to time. Wonder if the news has hit the national media, or if one of his cousins who’s still in town called to tell him.”
“Is he still spending his ill-gotten gains in Cancún?”
“Let’s see. Yes, apparently. He closes by saying he’ll hoist a piña colada in my honor.”
“Jerk.” I was tempted to say harsher things about ex-mayor Pruitt, but the boys were on the verge of learning to talk, and I’d expunged from my active vocabulary any words that could possibly do George Pruitt justice.
“He is that. Which reminds me.” He fumbled through the papers on his desk and then found the one he wanted. “I got a letter of complaint today. Someone threatening to sue Caerphilly Days for discriminating against her in our selection of entertainers.”
“Discrimination?” I exclaimed. “Good grief, we let nearly anyone perform who can walk, crawl, or roll onstage, and if they’re at all noisy, we ask them back. And we go out of our way to be multicultural. I can see the audiences suing us for harassment over some of the acts but the entertainers? Who is it?”
“Lady named Heterodoxia Jones,” Randall said. “Name ring a bell?”
“Oh, God,” I said. “The mime.”
Randall winced.
“Yeah, here it is,” he said. “We’re guilty of holding a disparaging attitude toward the ancient and honorable profession of the mime, and also restricting her right to self-expression. And she wants a hundred thousand dollars in compensation or she’ll sue us for a cool million.”
“Let her sue,” I said. “Last time I heard, mimes were not a protected class under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Or would they fall under the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission?”
“Whatever,” Randall said. “Wouldn’t hurt to let her perform. Not that I’m eager to see another mime on our stage, mind you. Just between you and me, I don’t consider shooing mimes away discrimination—more like pest control. But that’s my personal taste. Speaking as mayor of Caerphilly, I’d like to think we’re a mime-friendly town.”
“Save the mime, apple pie, and motherhood speech for the voters,” I said. “We’re as mime-friendly as the next town. What Ms. Jones doesn’t mention is that in addition to being a mime, she’s also an ecdysiast.”
Randall’s brows furrowed.
“A stripper,” I explained. “And while I’m more than a little curious to see what a combination of mime and striptease looks like, I thought we were trying to keep our entertainment at least PG rated.”
“I agree,” Randall said. “Okay, I’ll figure out how to get rid of the naked mime. Keep up the good work.”
Chapter 16
Back at the bandstand, an actor was delivering Winston Churchill’s “We Shall Fight on the Beaches” speech in a remarkably good imitation of the prime minister’s marvelous voice while the stage crew put on a montage of wartime scenes that included short scraps of film, strobe lights, canned sound effects, bits of martial music, small but real explosions, and occasional small parties of live actors in assorted military uniforms storming or retreating across the stage with famous battle sites rear-projected behind them. As a dramatic piece, it was short on plot and long on noise, but as cover for opening and closing the trapdoor, it was a resounding success. In fact, the whole pageant was. I resolved to speak to Michael about arranging an encore as part of the July Fourth program.
I spent the remaining sixty or seventy years of American history on the phone, making sure our entertainment lineup for the next few days was solid. We were already expecting good crowds for the Fourth of July, and I had a feeling news of the murder would attract more people than it scared away.
The Caerphilly Cloggers. The Clay County Marching Band. A chainsaw sculptor who claimed he took audience requests. Bollywood Live. A troupe of performing house cats.
“I could do that,” Rose Noire said, peering over my shoulder while I was busy with the clipboard and my cell phone.
“What, training house cats?” I asked. “Yes, by now I should think we’re both experts.”
“Doing all that calling,” she said.
“Help yourself,” I said, handing her the clipboard. “I’ve marked the ones I’ve confirmed. If you can’t confirm any of the others, I’m sure some of the ones who have confirmed would be thrilled to do two shows.”
“And there’s always the bagpiper,” she said.
“There is that,” I said. “And if you don’t mind, I do plan to leave you in charge tomorrow.”
“Taking a day off to spend with the boys?”
“I wish. Caroline Willner’s bringing up some animals from her wildlife sanctuary.”
“Noisy animals?”
“As noisy as possible,” I said. “And she says not to bother with her, she’ll entertain herself while she’s here, but you know someone’s going to end up chauffeuring her around, and I could use a break from this place. If the weather’s nice, maybe I’ll take the boys with me to the zoo.”
“It’s supposed to be even hotter tomorrow,” she said.
“Not a good zoo day, then,” I said. “Better to keep them here where we at least have fans.”
“And I can keep an eye on them and Eric while you take care of Caroline,” she said.
“Just one question.” I pointed to the next item on the call list. “Precisely what is Molly in Chains?”
She peered at the paper for a second.
“Oh, that. New group from the college. They do Morris dancing in red stiletto heels and skintight black-leather bodysuits decorated with a lot of chains and spikes.”
“Well, that should be unique,” I said. “But do we really want them doing it at two p.m.?”
“No, probably not,” she said, with a sigh. “I suspect they actually requested two a.m., but that’s not happening. Don’t worry. We’ve got that heavy metal band on at nine. I’ll put the Morris dancers on just before them. Anyone who’s staying for heavy metal can probably handle the Mollies.”
“One quick question—they don’t take the black leather off, do they?”
“I hardly think so,” she said. “If the photos on their Web site are anything to go by, their costumes are probably sewed or glued on and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes them at least an hour to pry themselves out.”
“Just checking.”
Right outside the tent was a small roped-off area we called the outdoor green room—really just a place for anyone on duty at the tent who wanted to see one of the shows. Eric and the boys were there. He and Josh were watching the students take their bows and clapping with great enthusiasm. Jamie was fast asleep nearby in the Pack ’n Play.
“Got a future historian here,” Eric said. “Josh loved the whole thing.”
“He just likes noise,” I said, as Josh scrambled to stand on my lap.
“So what’s next?” Eric asked.
“Couple of jugglers, and then the New Life Baptist Choir,” I said.
“They should love the jugglers,” Eric said. “But what about the choir?” From his expression, I gathered he was hoping I’d say no.
“They’d love it,” I said. “Josh would dance to the fast numbers, and Jamie would sing along with the whole concert—except there’s no way they should stay up that late. In fact, we should probably take them home and put them to bed now—it’ll be their bedtime by the time we get them there.”
“Yeah, I figured as much.” From his tone, I gathered he was beginning to feel like a child care expert. Then he looked around and dropped his voice. “You don’t need to drive me unless you want to. Uncle Rob just e-mailed. He’s on his way. He’s helping Horace over. He wanted to know if I could pick up some food, and then he could take me and the boys back to your house.”
“Going to play-test his new game?”
“After we put the boys to bed,” Eric said, putting on what he probably assumed was a diligent, responsible look. And then his expression changed to sheepish. “If I can stay awake for it. Not even six and I’m yawning. Remind me to apologize to Nat. I’ve been giving her a hard time all summer about having such a cushy job. This is work!”
I couldn’t hide my smile.
“If you like, I can pick up the food,” I said. “What did Rob say he wanted?”
“He said a church smorgasbord, whatever that is. I figured I’d ask you where to get it.”
“He means a little bit of everything,” I said. “Let’s watch the juggling, and then I’ll fetch the food after that.”
Both boys adored the juggling. In fact, all three boys. I foresaw a plague of flying objects around the house for the next few days, unless something even more exciting drove juggling out of their minds.
I used my cell phone to take a picture of them tossing about twigs, acorns, and bits of gravel and e-mailed it to all three grandparents. Then I went to fetch provisions.
A quick visit to the church tents produced enough food to satisfy even Rob and Eric. And to my delight, the Episcopal tent had implemented one of Mother’s suggestions, and I bought a chicken Caesar salad for myself.
On my way back to the tent, I spotted an addition to the town square: the Flying Monkeys’ new headquarters. They’d erected a twelve-foot-square olive-green tent in one of the few empty spaces along the town hall side of the square—a space everyone else had left empty so the tour guides would have plenty of space to rally their parties. The sides of the tent were rolled up to take advantage of any stray breeze, and from the number of black chests, army green footlockers, and other bits of gear that filled the tent, I assumed they were planning on a prolonged stay. Well, better there than in our courthouse. A uniformed Flying Monkey stood at parade rest at the front entrance, while inside we could see Lieutenant Wilt seated at a portable desk, reading papers with a self-important look on his face.