The Hen of the Baskervilles (33 page)

I finally reached the Ferris wheel and took shelter behind the controls. I took a few deep breaths, then reached over to pull the switch that would set the wheel in motion.

Nothing happened.

Probably because the operator had turned off the power when he left. And padlocked the controls.

Fortunately, I'd been around when my father had decided to learn how to pick locks—just for the fun of it, because he'd been reading too many Donald Westlake caper novels. Since he'd never been particularly good at opening locks even when he had the proper keys, the project would have been a complete failure if he hadn't realized that I was succeeding where he'd failed. Not the sort of thing you want to put on your résumé—“Ability to pick simple locks if given unlimited time”—but it sometimes came in handy.

After what seemed like a small eternity but was probably only five minutes, I heard a satisfying click from the padlock.

By this time, I had no idea how close Plunkett was. Time for decisive action. I flipped the big switch on the wheel's power grid.

A motor chugged into life, and the Ferris wheel lit up the sky.

Also the immediate surroundings. I couldn't see Plunkett nearby, but I knew this would bring him running.

I flipped the switch that turned on the music, and then the one that set the wheel into motion. Then I sprinted to the shadows of the nearest booth.

I didn't have to worry about my footsteps, or my breathing—they were drowned out by the strident, overamplified opening chords of Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the U.S.A.”

I started working my way along the far side of the last row, keeping careful watch through the gaps between the booths, until I spotted Plunkett running toward the Ferris wheel, gun in hand. Not running very fast, I was pleased to note. He was panting, and clutching slightly at his side. Probably lucky for me that Sheriff Dingle apparently didn't make his officers pass the kind of annual physical fitness qualifications Chief Burke required of the Caerphilly deputies.

I set off jogging in the opposite direction, toward the merry-go-round. I kept hoping someone from the main part of the fair would come over to investigate the Ferris wheel suddenly coming to life.

“Patience,” I muttered to myself. “It's only been on a minute or two.”

And then suddenly the Ferris wheel was off. No light, no motion, no deafening guitar riffs. Damn.

Would someone still come to investigate? Or would they turn over and go back to sleep, planning to investigate in the morning?

I was nearing the merry-go-round. Should I keep sprinting toward the gate? Or would Plunkett figure out that was my destination?

Maybe I should send up another beacon.

The merry-go-round, I found, wasn't even locked. Again I flipped all the switches. Power, lights, music at full volume, and then the merry-go-round spinning into motion. I nodded with pleasure when “The Carousel Waltz” boomed out.

Much more satisfactory than the Ferris wheel. And a lot closer to the barns. Though I'd feel a lot better if I were even closer to the barns. But I didn't head for the gate—Plunkett would be expecting that. I jogged toward the fence, aiming for somewhere between the new gate and the old.

I was halfway there when I heard Plunkett's footsteps closing in behind me. The idea that at any second a bullet might come whizzing toward me did wonders for my speed.

But Plunkett didn't want to shoot me here. He might hope to get away with it by claiming he'd fired at a prowler, but he'd much rather avoid that. The real danger wasn't a bullet in the back of my head—it was being tackled, knocked unconscious, and dragged out into the woods, where even if anyone heard the shot they'd just think someone was shooting at a squirrel or a grouse or whatever was in season in September. So the longer I could keep running—

I hit the fence before Plunkett, but he caught up while I was trying to scramble over. He tried to pull me back, but I lunged over the fence and managed to bring the top rail crashing down. We landed in a heap on the other side.

I was opening my mouth to scream when I felt a huge hand clapped over it.

“Shut up,” he hissed. “Or I'll— AAAAHHHHH!”

He suddenly let me go and began scuttling away from me. I looked up and saw a set of enormous yellow teeth emerging from a huge, hairy mouth.

“HEEEEEEEEEEE-HAW!”

“Jim-Bob!” I shouted. “Good donkey!”

Jim-Bob trotted past me and began kicking Plunkett and trying to bite him in between loud heehaws. I wasn't sure whether Jim-Bob was on my side or whether he was avenging some past cruelty Plunkett had performed on him. And I had no idea if he was capable of killing Plunkett or if it was safe to try to intervene or if I even wanted to intervene. I was tired of making decisions.

I jogged to the other end of Jim-Bob's pen, scrambled over the fence, and headed for the nearest barn.

Halfway there I ran into Vern and my brother, Rob.

“What the dickens is going on over in the Midway?” Vern asked.

“Deputy Plunkett is the killer,” I said. “And he tried to kill me.”

“Where is he now?” Vern asked.

“Over there in the donkey pen.” I pointed. “Be careful. Jim-Bob's trying to kick him to death.”

“Awesome!” Rob said.

He began trotting toward Jim Bob's pen.

“Who's Jim-Bob?” Vern asked.

“Rob, he has a gun,” I called.

“Jim-Bob?” Vern asked.

“Jim-Bob's a donkey,” I said. “A four-legged donkey. Plunkett has the gun.”

“Roger,” he said. I saw him draw his own weapon as he loped after Rob.

Luckily, by the time Rob and Vern got to the pen, Jim-Bob had stopped kicking and was merely standing over Plunkett, heehawing whenever the deputy twitched a muscle. Plunkett was curled up in a ball, whimpering, and his gun had landed safely in a heap of donkey dung at the other side of the pen.

The merry-go-round had moved on to “The Blue Danube.”

“Can we get someone to turn that damned thing off?” Apparently Vern wasn't a fan of the waltz.

“I'll do it,” I said. “In just a minute. Does either of you have a flashlight?”

Rob handed me his. I jogged over to the fair office and searched around outside the door till I found my cell phone. Then I returned to the donkey pen and took several pictures of Plunkett cowering away from Jim-Bob.

“For the fair Web site,” I said aloud, to anyone who cared.

Then I strolled over and shut off the merry-go-round.

“The Blue Danube” disappeared in mid-bar, leaving behind blissful silence.

Well, not quite silence. I could hear sirens in the distance. And shouts from over toward the barns. I could see quite a few lights over in the barns as well.

I realized, suddenly, that my legs had started shaking, and I wasn't sure I trusted them to get me back to the donkey pen.

No reason I had to go back there right now. It was going to be a long night. Or maybe a long morning would be more accurate.

I sat down on the edge of the merry-go-round, against a pole that held a curveting Palomino.

I pulled out my phone and texted Michael. “I'm fine. Back soon. Love you.” Just in case he woke and got worried. I turned my phone off and then back on again, so I could look at the screen saver—a laughing photo of Michael and the boys. Then I sat back on the edge of the merry-go-round and took deep breaths and waited for my legs to settle down.

 

Chapter 36

“I'm fine,” I said. “Really.”

I tried not to sound cranky, but I'd been telling people I was fine on and off for hours now. Even the chief, although intent on having me tell him every detail of my encounter with Plunkett, had interrupted his interrogation a time or two to ask if I was sure I was all right.

Maybe he didn't believe me. Maybe he was letting me sit here in the fair office, eavesdropping as he wrapped up his investigation, because he thought my knees would buckle again if I tried to leave. Or maybe he approved of my desire to avoid talking to any reporters.

“Are you sure you're all right, dear?” Mother actually touched her hand to my forehead, as if concerned that my frantic middle-of-the-night struggle with a cold-blooded killer might have given me a temperature.

“Dad thinks so,” I said. “He gave me a clean bill of health hours ago. About the only thing wrong with me is lack of sleep, but I'm running on adrenaline now, and I don't want to go home until this whole thing is wrapped up.”

“You mean it's not wrapped up?” Mother turned to the chief with a slight frown. “I thought you'd already apprehended the perpetrator.”

“We have,” the chief said. “Perpetrators, actually. It appears likely that in addition to Plunkett, who pulled the trigger, Sheriff Dingle will be charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and Plunkett's cousin, the one who pretended to be the mother of Brett Riordan's child, will be an accessory after the fact.”

“‘Appears likely'? You have yet to arrest them?” Mother asked.

“I think the state police will have done that by now,” the chief said. “Given the jurisdictional complexities of the case, they're assuming primary responsibility. We're just tying up a few loose ends to assist them. Meg is free to leave any time she wants.”

“And I don't want to just yet,” I said. “I want to be the first to see those loose ends tied up, not the last.”

“As long as you don't overtax yourself.” Mother patted my shoulder. “And when you're free, the entire population of the wine pavilion wants you to know that we have some sparkling wine on ice, ready to toast your service to the industry. We'll be standing by to pop the corks whenever you're ready. If you don't feel up to it till tomorrow, that's also fine.”

“Tell them thanks,” I said. “And I'll see how it goes.”

Mother nodded, and sailed out.

“Thank you,” I heard her say outside, presumably to someone who was holding the door for her.

The someone came in—Stanley Denton, our Caerphilly-based private investigator.

“Good morning, all,” he said. “I came to make my report.”

“Report?” I echoed.

“I assumed you were serious when you asked me to check up on Ms. Sedgewick.”

“I was,” I said. “But—”

“If you were investigating her in connection with the murder—” the chief began.

“I asked him to do it before the murder even took place,” I said.

“Day before yesterday, as a matter of fact,” Denton added.

“And it was about chicken thefts she was alleged to have committed before she came to Caerphilly,” I added. “In someone else's county. I needed to know if she was a danger to the fair.”

“All right, all right,” the chief said. I was relieved to see that he seemed more amused than annoyed. He indicated one of the folding metal chairs.

Denton sat down and pulled out his notebook.

“Meg called me to ask if I could find out whether Ms. Sedgewick owned any property other than her winery,” he said. “Apparently some of the exhibitors suspected that she was stealing their valuable birds and stashing them someplace where no one would think to look for them.”

He paused there as if waiting for a reaction. Apparently the chief and I were both equally impatient.

“So, did you find anything?” we asked, almost in unison.

“I did indeed,” he said. “Ms. Sedgewick owns a farm outside of Ashville, North Carolina, under her maiden name of Janet Hickenlooper. We found livestock there. And a very disgruntled caretaker. People who have secrets to keep shouldn't treat their staff like dirt.”

“Did he spill the beans about the stolen chickens?” I asked.

“The caretaker didn't know anything about stolen chickens,” Denton said. “He doesn't like chickens, so he resents that she keeps bringing new batches down to the farm and ordering him to build coops and pens for them. What he really had a lot to say about was Genette's winemaking operations. Apparently she's not doing too well at growing grapes on her farm.”

“I hear everyone had a bad year or two lately,” I said.

“She hasn't had a good year since she bought her place,” Denton said. “She's been regularly buying up grapes and tanks of grape juice from out of state and having them shipped to the Ashville farm. Then the caretaker has to paint over anything that would identify where they really came from and deliver them to her Virginia farm in the middle of the night. He says he's pretty sure about ninety percent of the grapes she used to make her wine came from out of state. He also hints that her wine's so bad when she wants to enter a contest, she fills up one of her bottles with somebody else's wine.”

“We need to tell someone about this,” I said.

“I already did.” Denton smiled as if he'd enjoyed doing it. “The Virginia Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, whose rule about what kind of grapes you can use in a Virginia wine she seems to have completely ignored.”

“And that is not an agency you want to trifle with,” the chief said, with satisfaction.

“I also dropped by the wine pavilion here at the fair just now and had a few words with a couple of people who are active in the Virginia Winemakers Association. I figured they'd have a vested interest in notifying anyone who gave her a medal that it might not have been fairly won.”

“I suspect it won't take them too long to do the notifying,” I said. “Even with pirated wines she hasn't been doing too well in wine competitions.”

“So I gathered,” Denton said. “And she's not too popular with her colleagues, is she? Before I'd even finished telling them the news, they all started popping corks, pouring me glasses of wine, and toasting me. And you, incidentally, for siccing me on the case.”

“Well, that solves one mystery,” I said.

“They were also toasting to the return of Fickle Wind—any idea what that is.”