Stork Raving Mad

by Donna Andrews

  “I’ve been calling to demand the money that’s due to me,” Randall said. “Is that what you call abusive?”

  “That check was sent weeks ago—” Blanco began.

  “And never got to me, so just cancel the damned thing—” Randall shouted back. Apparently it was his turn to stand chin to nose with Blanco. I glanced at the chief. He was simply listening quietly. I decided to follow suit.

  “And the college is not paying you another dime until you deal with the heating plant!” Blanco snapped back. He was probably aiming to appear stern and fierce, but only looked as if he had indigestion.

  “Deal with it? Deal with it? I’ve been trying, you miserable cheat!”

  I winced as the two kept shouting at each other. No, Randall was shouting. Blanco was merely speaking a little louder than usual. And he was leaning slightly away from Randall, shoulders hunched defensively, looking more like a turtle than ever.

  But if Randall thought he could beat a bureaucrat solely with decibels, he was naïve. Even if he won the current battle by shouting, Blanco could retire to his office, issue a few memoranda, and win the war. I knew that Caerphilly College was a major source of revenue for the Shiffley Construction Company, as it was for all the contractors in the county. Did Randall really mean to antagonize someone who probably had the ear of the college president, and thus a lot of influence on which vendors were chosen?

  Was he calm enough even to think that way?

  And why was the chief letting this go on? Didn’t he have better things to do? Like investigate the murder?

  “Quiet!” I shouted. They both stopped talking immediately and looked at me. Randall looked calm and expectant. Blanco, the ingrate, looked as if he resented the interruption.

  “This is of no concern of yours,” he said, and pursed his lips again.

  “It damn well is if it’s about to make you come to blows in our house,” I said. “Not to mention the fact that you’re upsetting my unborn kids.”

  “I think it’s very much Meg’s business,” Randall said. “Since, like most of the good people in this town, she’s dealing with the consequences. Blanco’s been going around blaming us for the problems with the college heating plant.”

  He pronounced it Blank-o, with a flat, American “A.” Why did I suspect it was deliberate?

  “I hardly think it’s unreasonable to blame you, since your company has failed to complete the repairs for weeks now,” Blanco said.

  “We’d be happy to complete it anytime you like,” Randall said. “But either the college has to order the part, or you have to pay some of our back invoices so we can afford to order it.”

  “Parts and materials are to be supplied by the vendor,” Blanco said. His tone was mechanical, as if parroting an often-quoted sentence from a contract.

  “And the customer’s supposed to pay the vendors on time,” Randall said. “Some of our invoices are six months past due.”

  “I explained the problem we were having in accounts payable,” Blanco began.

  “Stupid problem to have,” Randall said. “If a woman’s going out on maternity leave, you can usually spot that problem far enough in advance to arrange for someone else to take over.”

  “The unfortunate logjam has been resolved,” Blanco said. “And your check has been mailed.”

  “The check’s in the mail,” Randall said. “Been hearing that for six weeks. Meanwhile, I’m getting hounded by my suppliers for what I owe them on parts and materials we used on your jobs eight or nine months ago. I’ve got payroll, I’ve got overhead—I can’t afford to keep carrying this.”

  “You have to—” Blanco began.

  “Hold it,” the chief said. “Is this why there’s no heat at the college?”

  Blanco pursed his lips. Randall nodded.

  “Blanko’s right about one thing,” Randall said. “The main boiler’s been in pieces on the floor for weeks now. What he doesn’t ever mention is that the reason it’s been in pieces is that we can’t afford to fix it. College owes us nigh onto half a million dollars in back invoices.”

  “Which you’ll have as soon as you find the check we sent you,” Blanco repeated.

  Randall shot him an angry glance and continued.

  “I can’t fix the boiler without a piece that costs nearly a hundred grand, and thanks to Blanko there, I’m so far in the hole I can’t afford to buy a hammer at the hardware store. If I don’t get what’s due me soon, I’m going to go under.”

  “The check has been issued,” Blanco repeated.

  “And it hasn’t been received, so cancel it and issue another one,” Randall said. “People do it all the time. You don’t know how, the bank can walk you through it. And if you give me a call, I’ll pick it up myself and save you the postage.”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” Blanco said. “There’s a lot of paperwork involved in canceling a check, and a fee, and if you’d only—”

  “Damn the fee!” Randall shouted.

  “I agree,” I said. “You mean the heat has been off for a month now because you’re too cheap to pay a stop-check fee? How much is it? I’d be happy to donate that much to the cause.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Blanco said. “But I’ll look into it.”

  He scuttled down the hall. Sammy followed, presumably to see that he went to the kitchen as instructed.

  “Not that simple?” I repeated. “Is the man an idiot?”

  “Just incompetent,” Randall said.

  “Interesting,” the chief said.

  “I’ve been hearing that sniveling liar make excuses for six months,” Randall said. “You know what I’m starting to think? Maybe the college is having a cash-flow problem. Maybe they’re not paying me because they can’t.”

  My stomach churned at the thought. Cash-flow problems at the college? Right now, with me unable to work at my blacksmithing because of my pregnancy, Michael’s paycheck from the college was our only reliable source of income. I had a brief, melodramatic mental image of myself like a character out of Dickens, wearing rags, struggling through snowdrifts, carrying a swaddled infant in each arm, begging for alms.

  Hormones again. I took a deep breath, banished the image, and focused on Randall’s problem.

  “You need a lawyer,” I said. I reached into my pocket for my notebook, pulled it out, and tore out a blank page. Then I flipped to the section in the back where I kept names and addresses and wrote down the names of two attorneys.

  “Here,” I said. “Cousins of mine. Call one of them, say I sent you, and they should do a good job for you.”

  “Thanks,” Randall said. He was about to put the sheet of paper in his pocket, then seemed to change his mind and pulled out his cell phone. “You recommend one over another?”

  “Victor’s nicer,” I said. “Hermione’s a shark.”

  “I want Hermione then,” he said. “Thanks.”

  He strolled away, already dialing.

  I winced slightly. I wouldn’t have minded siccing my cousin Hermione on someone I didn’t like. The late Dr. Wright, for example. But Blanco? He might be spineless and ineffectual, but I suddenly began to feel sorry for him.

  “That was interesting,” the chief said.

  “Do you think it has anything to do with the murder?” I asked. “Oh, never mind. I should know better than to ask that.”

  “Could Dr. Wright have had something to do with Randall’s problem?” he asked.

  “Seems unlikely,” I said. “Blanco’s in administrative services—they deal with facilities. But Wright’s a dean in the English department. I can’t imagine what she could have to do with the boiler.”

  “We’ll look into it,” the chief said. “Meanwhile, Sammy?”

  “Yes, sir,” the deputy replied. He was still lurking cautiously at the other end of the hall.

  “Guard the door to my crime scene,” the chief said. “When Horace Hollingsworth gets here, let him in. No one else.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sammy sai
d. He began striding toward the library door. His gangly frame and awkward, jerky way of walking made you overlook the fact that he could move quite rapidly when he wanted to.

  “Chief?” Randall again, sticking his head around the corner at the far end of the hall. “About that delivery . . .”

  “Can we have them put it in the barn for now?” I suggested. “Whatever it is.”

  The chief nodded. Randall disappeared.

  “Now, Ms. Langslow, if you don’t mind.”

  I led the chief into Michael’s office.

  “I’m taking the desk chair for now,” I said, as I plopped down in Michael’s huge leather chair. “You can have it when I leave, but right now, I’m sitting for three.”

  “That’s fine,” he said.

  “And you might not want to sit there,” I said, as he pulled up one of Michael’s four guest chairs.

  “Why not?” he asked, glancing down at the chair as if expecting to find something dangerous in the seat.

  “They may look comfy—in fact, for the first five minutes, they aren’t too bad. But they’re next to impossible to get out of,” I said. “I’ve seen able-bodied people take two or three tries, and for anyone with weak knees or low upper-body strength, forget it.”

  “I’ll save them for any witnesses I want to be sure of holding onto,” the chief said. He pulled up a nearby book box and sat on that instead. “Now tell me what the devil’s been happening around here.”

  I took a deep breath and dived in.

  I’d gotten as far as telling the chief about the confrontation between Ramon Soto and the prunes when someone knocked on the door.

  “Who is it?” the chief snapped, in a tone of voice clearly intended to make casual curiosity seekers flee.

  Sammy stuck his head in.

  “We appear to have found the murder weapon,” he said.

  He held up the pregnant hippopotamus statue in one gloved hand.

  Chapter 12

  “What the hell is that?” the chief asked.

  “She’s the Egyptian goddess of pregnancy and childbirth,” I said.

  The chief studied the statue with a look of vague distaste on his face.

  “This thing belongs to you?” he asked.

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “It was a present.”

  “Who the dickens would give a pregnant woman a thing like that?”

  “Rose Noire. It’s supposed to protect me and the kids from demons. And if you want to know how I felt about it—well, there’s a reason I exiled it to the library.”

  The chief shook his head.

  “There seems to be hair on the hippo,” Sammy said. “Human hair, I mean. And if you ask me, the dent in the victim’s skull matches the hippo’s snout.”

  “We’ll have Horace look at the hair when he gets here,” the chief said.

  “He’s already here,” Sammy said. “He wouldn’t let me bring this to show you till he took about a million photos of it lying there on the floor.”

  “Good,” the chief said. “Give that nasty thing back to him. I’m sure he and the medical examiner will want to do some tests to confirm the match to the wound. But from the look of things, I expect you’re right.”

  “Does this mean you’ll have to confiscate the statue?” I asked. I tried not to sound too cheerful.

  “I’m sorry,” the chief said. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I said. “I’d be absolutely thrilled if you ended up having to keep it indefinitely.”

  “That shouldn’t be necessary,” the chief said. He turned back to Sammy. “Where did you find this?”

  “Lying there right by the body,” Sammy said. “Like whoever did it just hit her and dropped the hippo right away.”

  “Show me,” the chief said. “If you don’t mind,” he added to me.

  “I’m not going anywhere until Starsky and Hutch decide to show up,” I said. The chief looked blank for a moment, so I patted my stomach.

  “You’re not having labor pains, are you?” he asked, looking anxious. “If you think you’re going to need to go to the hospital soon, we could finish our interview now.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “If the shock of finding a dead body didn’t send me into labor, I think I can manage to hold off a few minutes while Sammy shows you where he found the murder weapon. But there’s just one thing,” I said to his back.

  He turned around and frowned.

  “You might want to tell Horace that where he found it may not be precisely where the killer left it,” I said. “I remember stumbling over the thing as I was backing away from the body. Sorry,” I added, seeing the slight frown on his face.

  “Not exactly your fault,” he said. “Did you pick it up?”

  “No.” I shook my head vigorously. “I knew better. I left it where it landed. I don’t think it moved much, if that helps.”

  He nodded and disappeared.

  I leaned back, closed my eyes, and hoped he took a good long time examining the scene.

  “Meg, dear.”

  I winced involuntarily, then opened my eyes to see my mother standing in the open doorway of the office.

  “Meg, would you like to see the plans for the nursery?”

  I was opening my mouth to shriek, “Not now, Mother.” But I stifled the urge and counted to ten before saying anything.

  “Maybe later,” I said finally. “Has Michael seen them?”

  “He thinks they’re fine,” she said. “But I would feel better if you saw them before we get started, and we need to do that soon if—”

  “Right now, I’m not sure Chief Burke will even let you do any decorating,” I said. “He might consider the whole house part of the crime scene.”

  “Crime scene?” Mother asked. Her hand flew to her throat in a characteristic gesture of genteel astonishment. I sighed. I’d forgotten that the rest of the household might not have heard about Dr. Wright. Mother, for example, had probably been too busy with her decorating plans to notice.

  “We’ve had a suspicious death,” I said. “Probably no one you know,” I added, to quell the growing alarm on her face. “A Dr. Wright from the English department.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mother said. “The English department? Is this apt to have any unfortunate effect on, well, circumstances?”

  “You mean on Michael’s tenure prospects?” I’ve never been noted for subtlety. “If anything, this should improve them, since it would be hard to find anyone in the English department who hated him more than Dr. Wright.”

  “I see,” Mother said. I could tell she disapproved of my bluntness at the same time as she appreciated the information. And I hoped she wasn’t about to say anything about a silver lining.

  “Of course, this means Michael is a suspect,” I said. “We all are.”

  “I’m sure that the chief will sort everything out,” Mother said. “Such a nice man. Where is he? I’ll just make sure he’s comfortable with our continuing the work on the nursery.”

  “He’s in the library,” I said. “With the body.”

  She sailed off. I wondered if Mother’s current positive opinion of the chief would survive if he vetoed her plan to redecorate the nursery, or worse, blasted her for interrupting his investigation.

  Not my problem.

  I heard them talking out in the hall for a few minutes. I felt curiously indifferent to the outcome of their conversation. If I’d known this morning that Mother was planning a kamikaze decorating raid, I’d have reacted with angst and anger. But now? I found it hard to care.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” the chief said. I opened my eyes to see him seating himself in one of Michael’s guest chairs. Had he forgotten my warning, or did he think I was exaggerating? He’d find out. “Now, let’s—hang on a second.”

  Something beeped, and he reached in his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He flipped it open and frowned at the screen.

  “Text message,” he said. “I hate text messages.” He peered over his g
lasses at the phone, tentatively punched a few keys, and then frowned more deeply and continued staring at his cell phone as if expecting it to turn into an adder and bite him.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “I called Dr. Smoot,” the chief said. “And I left a message for him to call me back ASAP on police business. Does that seem unreasonable?”

  “No,” I said. “You’ve got a murder. You need the medical examiner.”

  “Acting medical examiner,” the chief corrected. There was no love lost between the two at the best of times. “And he texted me back—is that a verb, texted?”

  “If it isn’t, it will be eventually,” I said. “What did he text—er, say?”

  “That he couldn’t because he was in no this week. What does he mean, ‘in no’? Is that some kind of flippant refusal? Like get lost?”

  “Probably just a typo,” I said. “Maybe he was typing something that began with n-o and hit send before he finished.”

  “Well if that’s the case, he should have sent a follow-up message to explain,” the chief grumbled. “And he was pretty emphatic. Not just no but NO, in caps.”

  “Oh, he means New Orleans,” I said.

  “Well, how the dickens am I supposed to know that?” the chief said. “And what the devil is he doing there?”

  “Taking that tour of the famous vampire hangouts in New Orleans,” I said. “He’s been talking about doing that for ages. Fictional vampire hangouts, of course,” I added, seeing the chief’s reaction. Chief Burke had little sympathy with his acting medical examiner’s passion for the supernatural.

  “Fine way for a grown man to spend his time,” the chief said. “Not to mention the fact that he’s not around when I need him.”

  “Next time I plan a murder, I’ll make sure he’s on the invitation list,” I murmured.

  “I’ll have to call the mayor and get him to deputize someone again,” he said. “Might as well be your father, if you think he’d be willing.”

  “I’m sure he’d be ecstatic,” I said. “As long as you don’t consider him a suspect.”

  The chief sighed. “No, he’s well alibied,” he said. “We’ve been together down at the vet’s office for most of the last two hours.”