Authors: Donna Andrews
But I’d had fried chicken on Wednesday, barbecue Thursday, catfish Friday, more fried chicken Saturday, and leftover fried chicken yesterday, when Rose Noire had tried to spring her Tofu Surprise on me. I wanted to start the new week out with something different.
Preferably something that didn’t require waiting for an hour. As usual, the only food concession without a killer line was the newest one—a hamburger stand run by Hamish Pruitt, Caerphilly’s disgraced former town attorney. Even the hungriest and most footsore tourist would take one look at the small size and inflated prices of Hamish’s patties and go elsewhere. The stained, flyspecked, and generally seedy look of his stand didn’t help either. Though perhaps the biggest barrier to sales was Hamish himself, who seemed unable to banish from his sagging, ruddy face the scowl he had so often used to intimidate opponents in court and over a bargaining table. I wasn’t the only local who suspected Hamish had opened his stand not to make money but in the hope of finding out how Mr. Throckmorton was getting his supplies. Hamish’s spot at the very edge of the food area was perfect for keeping an eye on comings and goings from the courthouse.
Then again, maybe the Hamishburger stand really was an attempt to make ends meet by flipping patties. It wasn’t as if his law practice was going great guns. Most of the locals distrusted him because of his long history of favoring the Pruitts at the expense of Caerphilly, and now the rest of his own family was furious with him for failing to stop the recall vote that kicked his uncle George out of the mayor’s office. I actually felt sorry for Hamish.
But nowhere near sorry enough to eat one of his burgers.
I noticed that the surly teenager minding Hamish’s booth this morning was nibbling, under the counter, on what I recognized as a Baptist fried chicken leg.
“Oooh! Look!”
I glanced over and saw several tourists pointing up at the sky. I followed their glances and saw a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead.
“Isn’t he beautiful!” someone said.
He was actually a she, and while she might be beautiful, she was also deadly if you happened to be a smaller bird. I turned and raced back to the tent.
Rose Noire was sitting in her rocking chair by Spike’s pen, sewing. Probably making another batch of hand-sewed, organically grown aromatherapy sachets to sell at this week’s farmer’s market. She looked up as I came in and cringed slightly.
“No, he hasn’t come out yet. You’ve only been gone five minutes. I don’t know what you expect me to do if—Meg? What’s wrong?”
I was ignoring her to race over to the left side of the tent where a large square birdcage sat on the ground. My abrupt arrival startled the racing pigeons inside, who began fluttering around wildly.
“Help me count them,” I said. “There are supposed to be eleven.”
“I thought there were supposed to be twelve,” she said.
“Yes, there were supposed to be twelve, until that damned hawk got one last week,” I said. “Mr. Throckmorton is still inconsolable. That’s why they’re here instead of happily flying in and out of the courthouse basement. We’re supposed to be keeping them safe, but if someone was careless or stupid enough to let one out and the hawk got it—damn! Why don’t the silly things sit still long enough to be counted?”
“You’re scaring them,” she said. “Just sit over there and let me count them.”
I put some distance between myself and the pigeons and fidgeted while Rose Noire cooed softly to them. After a minute or so, the pigeons had settled down and were seated on the rods that ran across the width of the cage, preening their feathers and cooing along with her.
“Eleven,” she said softly. “All safe. I gather that nasty guard is flying his you-know-what?”
“His hawk, yes.”
Rose Noire flinched, and the pigeons reacted as if startled, growing more restless and in a couple of cases, fluttering once or twice around the periphery of the cage before settling down again.
“See,” she said. “Even the word upsets them.”
“They wouldn’t react if you didn’t.” I strolled over to the door of the tent and peered out. Out and up. The hawk was circling overhead, riding an updraft. Now that I knew all the pigeons were safe, I could appreciate how beautiful she was.
Just then she dived, almost too fast to see. I could hear exclamations on several sides and glanced around to see that other people had also been watching the hawk.
“I hear that’s how the hermit is getting his meals,” one tourist said. “By carrier pigeon. And the guards brought in a squadron of hawks to shut down his supply line.”
“Poor man,” the woman beside him said. “I guess he’ll go hungry tonight, then.”
No, actually Mr. Throckmorton would probably be dining well tonight. Rob was supposed to have taken in a care package full of Episcopal pulled pork and Baptist mashed potatoes. And the tunnel was so small that even Rob would have a hard time misplacing the package on the way.
They were wrong about the purpose of the pigeons. They weren’t carrying food, or even messages. After all, Mr. Throckmorton had a phone and a computer with Internet access. He just liked raising and flying pigeons, and for the first year of his self-enforced captivity, a tiny ventilation window near the ceiling at one end of the courthouse basement had let him continue doing so.
But slaying the pigeons was definitely the reason the guards had brought in the hawk. They’d probably call it psychological warfare—yet another tactic aimed at driving Mr. Throckmorton out of the basement. I called it pure meanness. I found myself hoping the hawk had caught a wild pigeon, or a starling—a bird that belonged to an invasive species, or at least one that wasn’t endangered. And wasn’t anyone’s pet.
After all, it wasn’t the hawk’s fault that her handler worked for the bad guys.
I ducked back into my tent, pulled out my cell phone, and turned on the camera function. I moved it around until I had a good, clear shot of the cage from an angle that would let anyone who was so inclined count its occupants. Then I snapped a photo and e-mailed it to Mr. Throckmorton.
“Make sure they stay there,” I said to Rose Noire, as I headed back out.
“I will,” she said. “Trolls! Last week they burgle Mr. Throckmorton’s house, and now this.”
“Vandalized, not burgled,” I said. “Sammy and the other deputies couldn’t find anything missing, remember? Lots of damage, but nothing actually missing.”
“It’s not as if Mr. Throckmorton has had a chance to inspect it himself,” she said. “And anyway, vandalism is just as bad. Maybe worse.”
I nodded my agreement as I left the tent.
Halfway across the town square, I heard the little ding that meant I had an e-mail. Mr. Throckmorton saying “Thanks.”
The lines at the food concessions had grown longer. I could even see two people standing in front of the hamburger stand, trying to get the attention of Hamish’s bored teenaged clerk. Maybe the teenager wasn’t a slacker. Maybe he was trying to be a good Samaritan.
My stomach rumbled so loudly I was sure the nearby tourists could hear it, so I turned and headed for Muriel’s.
Chapter 4
Even as hungry as I was, I knew better than to dash carelessly across Main Street. I had to wait until three tour buses and half a dozen cars full of gawking tourists had passed. Then I crossed to the other side, which contained a small block of businesses. In the center of the block was Muriel’s Diner, a local institution since the fifties. In spite of Muriel’s attempts to make it look like the sort of dive where you risked ptomaine poisoning just by touching the menus, word was getting out, and now on most days the tourists outnumbered the locals.
Locals still got a warmer welcome, though. Muriel beamed when she saw me walk in.
“Hi, Meg!” she called as she stepped out from behind the counter. “You all by yourself?”
“Michael’s taking the munchkins on a hay ride,” I said. “I was craving some of your chili.”
“Great!” she exclaimed. “You want a booth or a seat at the counter?”
I had actually planned to do carryout, since I’d assumed that Muriel’s would be packed, as it usually was during the noon hour. But there was a line of three vacant stools near the far end of the counter, and the last two booths were empty.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. And then I spotted the problem: the man sitting on the last stool, surrounded by a buffer zone of empty seats. He was middle-aged, balding, and utterly nondescript. Not someone who would normally draw a second glance. Except right now—
I lowered my voice. “Is that the private investigator the Evil Lender sent in?”
“My new regular,” Muriel said, also in an undertone. “You’d think after two weeks he’d have figured out that no one in this town is going to tell him the first thing about Mr. Throckmorton.” She glowered at the PI’s back. Just then he turned around, holding his coffee cup up with the look, half hopeful, half apologetic, of someone seeking a refill. Normally Muriel would have refilled a customer’s cup before he even noticed it was getting low. Her scowl didn’t change.
“Likes to linger over his dessert,” she grumbled. “You think people would understand if I started charging for refills? Just for the time being, till he gets the message that he’s not welcome?”
“You think he hasn’t already gotten the message from those empty seats?” I asked. “And he’s on an expense account—he doesn’t care if his employer has to pay for his refills.”
“Hmph. Chili and fries for you, then?” I nodded. Muriel sauntered over to the window and called my order back to Sam in the kitchen. Then she picked up the coffeepot and sashayed to the far end of the counter, where Seth Early, the farmer who lived across the road from Michael and me, was finishing off a burger and reading a copy of
The Banner Sheep Magazine
.
As she refilled his cup, I overheard her ask Seth about Lad, his border collie. Everyone in town knew that was good for half an hour. Clearly anyone who wanted a refill in a hurry was out of luck.
I strolled over to the counter and took the middle one of the three empty seats. The PI looked up and nodded at me. I nodded back. Then I reached into my purse to pull out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe, as I called the small but fat binder that held my epic to-do list. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Sam, the cook, sliding a glass of water next to me.
“I’m just visiting Caerphilly,” the PI said.
I glanced up. He was looking at me.
“We seem to be very popular these days,” I said. “Hope you enjoy your stay.”
I went back to my notebook. I had crossed off a few items and added one more when I heard the PI’s voice again.
“So is there anyone in town who doesn’t know who I am?” he asked.
I glanced up again. He had turned around sideways, the better to talk to me. Or maybe the better to study my fellow townspeople. I glanced over my shoulder and saw that everyone else in the diner was ostentatiously not looking our way. I pondered several possible answers and decided on the truth.
“You mean, is there anyone who doesn’t know you’re the private investigator hired by the Evil Lender?”
His face fell a little, but he nodded.
“Nobody really bought the story that you were a freelance reporter,” I said. “We’ve seen quite a few of those over the last year, and we all know the kind of questions they ask, and yours just didn’t ring true.”
“So everybody had me pegged from day one?”
I shrugged.
“I don’t expect the younger tots at the Wee Kinder Day Care have figured it out yet,” I said. He winced slightly. “And there’s an old guy over at the Caerphilly Nursing Home who’s convinced that you’re an advance scout for Ulysses S. Grant’s army. But for the most part, yeah, everyone knows who you are and why you’re here.”
He nodded again and picked up his empty coffee cup. After a rueful glance inside, he put it down again, and reached for his water glass. It was nearly empty, too, but he finished off the last half inch of water and began crunching some ice cubes.
“Here,” I said, shoving my water over to him. “I haven’t touched this yet.”
“Thanks,” he said. “A pity it’s bad business to say ‘I told you so’ to a client. Because I did warn them. Small town like this, situation like this, and someone nobody’s ever seen before shows up and hangs around asking peculiar questions…”
He shrugged and sipped his new water.
“You’re good,” I said. “The whole rueful, self-deprecating manner. Bet most of the time it works pretty well.”
He started to laugh and snorted out a bit of the water.
“Sorry.” He was patting his shirtfront and the counter dry with his napkin. He looked up and grinned at me. “Yeah, normally it does.”
Nondescript looking but definitely charming. I was almost tempted to suggest that a PI who was the right age to be a student at Caerphilly College might have had a better chance of slipping under our radar.
Almost tempted.
“And you’re right,” he was saying. “The Evil Lender, as everyone around here likes to call my client, hired me to find out how Mr. Throckmorton is getting his supplies. At first they just thought he stocked up for a siege before they took possession of the building, but every week that’s getting harder to buy. They’re wondering what’s going on.”
“A lot of people are wondering the same thing,” I said. Which wasn’t a lie. A lot of people were wondering, just not a lot of people in town.
Except, of course, for the Pruitts, who had brought the Evil Lender down on us in the first place.
“I really thought my cover was pretty good,” he said. “I mean, why wouldn’t people want to talk to a freelance writer trying to do a sympathetic story on the Siege of Caerphilly?”
“Last I heard, they were talking to you,” I said. “They just weren’t telling you what you obviously want to know. Because if anyone’s sneaking supplies into the courthouse basement, they’re not going to admit it. And if they know that someone’s doing it and how, they’re not going to rat their neighbors out. Not to a reporter any more than a PI. Not to anyone who’s not from around here. I mean, tell the press and you might as well just march up and tell the Flying Monkeys.”