Stork Raving Mad

by Donna Andrews

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Come in so I can shut the door. You’re letting all the heat out.”

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked as she followed my orders. “I could come back later if this is a bad time.”

  “It’s a horrible time, and don’t you dare leave,” I said. “Abe needs you. We’ve had a murder.”

  “A murder!” Her hands flew to her face in a dramatic gesture of alarm. “Who?”

  “Dr. Wright,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, in a much less agitated tone. “That’s terrible,” she added, about a second too late.

  “You think so? Nobody else does.”

  “Just because none of us likes her doesn’t mean it’s okay for some nut to knock her off,” she said, as she shed her coat, revealing a tight-fitting black knit garment that she probably thought of as a dress. I would have called it a tunic. “Besides, you know this is only going to cause trouble for all of us on the drama side of the divide. The police are bound to suspect us. Hell, I suspect us.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Here’s hoping we all have alibis for the time of death.”

  “Oh, God,” she said, her face suddenly falling. “I probably don’t. Assuming it happened between the time you called me and now, that is. And it’s all The Face’s fault.”

  The Face was what most people called the president of Caerphilly College. He was a kindhearted man of great charm and personal dignity and arguably not a single brain cell. He owed his position to his inexplicable ability to extract large amounts of money from wealthy people and institutions. As long as he stuck to doing that and left running the college to people with some kind of administrative skills, things went smoothly. But Kathy Borgstrom wasn’t a wealthy potential benefactor, so the fact that she’d even encountered The Face was unsettling news.

  “What did he want?” I asked.

  “I have no idea,” Kathy said. “I mean, who ever does? He kept asking to see Abe, and I must have explained about fifteen times that Abe was out of the office but that I’d track him down as soon as possible. I didn’t want to tell him where Abe was—the last thing you need is him showing up on your doorstep. And he kept wandering around, picking up papers and putting them down in the wrong places, reading stuff on the bulletin board, and asking questions about whether I was happy and did I think that the building needed painting and had I taken enough of a vacation this year. It was . . . unnerving.”

  Studying her face I could see that she really was rattled. Which was odd. Normally an encounter with The Face produced monumental irritation, not anxiety.

  “What does he care how happy I am?” she was asking. “I mean, do you suppose that’s what he asks people before he fires them?”

  “He doesn’t fire people,” I said in my most reassuring voice.

  “No, he leaves that to his minions,” she said. “Like Dr. Blanco. The most obsequious toady ever to slime his way into administrative services, and considering some of his predecessors, that’s really saying something. Anyway, the whole conversation with him was so creepy that I drove halfway out here before I realized that I’d left behind the files I was supposed to bring. I locked them in my desk drawer as soon as The Face showed up, of course, so it’s not as if they fell into the wrong hands or anything. But he was there a half an hour—maybe more—and then all that time driving around on top of the time I spent dealing with him, and only my word for it that any of it happened. And it’s not as if The Face would remember that he was talking to me if you asked him five minutes after he left my office, much less hours later. And—”

  “Calm down,” I said, in my most soothing tones. “So you don’t have an alibi. Hardly anyone here has an alibi. You’ll fit in perfectly. Take a few deep breaths.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Look, what should I do?”

  “Go around to the barn,” I said. “Abe’s probably still out there, and you can identify yourself to the deputies and explain that you only just arrived. Don’t go volunteering the fact that you don’t have an alibi unless they ask you.”

  “Okay.” She retrieved her coat and tried to struggle into it while opening the front door, a maneuver that ended up costing time instead of saving it. “Will do. Why don’t you get some rest? You really look done in.”

  “That’s just what I plan to do,” I said as I shut the door behind her.

  The second she was out of sight, something struck me: She hadn’t asked how Dr. Wright was killed. If I were arriving at a house where a murder had just taken place, I think I’d be full of questions about how it happened—especially if I knew the murderer was still on the loose. Kathy hadn’t asked a single thing. Her first reaction to hearing about the murder had been to worry that she didn’t have an alibi. Did she have a reason to worry?

  I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time: 1:30. Art and Abe had arrived around noon. Michael had called her a few minutes after he called them, and even considering that she probably had to walk from the drama building to wherever she parked her car, it shouldn’t have taken her more than twenty minutes to get here. Had she really lost over an hour entertaining The Face and returning to get the files?

  I peered out the window and saw that she was near the hedge at the front of our lawn, talking to a uniformed deputy. The deputy was probably there to keep people from just wandering up to the front door during the chief’s investigation—so how had Kathy slipped past him?

  I sighed. I hated to admit it, but Kathy was a suspect.

  I couldn’t see her as the murderer. She’d have been a lot more plausible for that role back when I thought Dr. Wright had been killed by a blow to the head. Kathy had been to our house dozens of times in the last several years, so she’d had plenty of chances to notice that the sunporch at the back of the library could be used by someone who wanted to get into the library without coming through the rest of the house. And given Kathy’s fierce devotion to Abe Sass and the department, I could even imagine her trying to take some action on her own. Sneaking in to confront Dr. Wright, for example. And Kathy had a temper. I could see her long-standing grudge with Dr. Wright erupting into sudden intolerable rage, impelling her to grab the nearest weapon.

  But poisoning? There my vision of Kathy as the killer fell apart. Unlike the students, who were here most of the time when not actually in classes and had vast piles of their worldly belongings close at hand, she’d either have had to find a poison on the spur of the moment—unlikely—or come already armed with it, on the off chance she’d get a chance to use it—equally unlikely. Even if she were planning to kill Dr. Wright and had brought poison for the purpose, someone surely would have noticed and greeted her when she showed up in the kitchen. And she was too smart to believe she could sneak away and not have someone mention she’d been hanging around the kitchen. Not a very promising plan.

  Devising a flimsy plan would be completely out of character for Kathy. My family praised how organized and efficient I was, but I was nothing compared to Kathy. Her incredible organizational skills made her invaluable to the drama faculty and students—so many of them highly creative right-brain types who couldn’t organize their way out of a wet tissue. If Kathy came up with a plan, you could be certain she’d researched it thoroughly, had worked out contingency plans for any possible snags it might hit, and would execute it flawlessly. Wandering into the library in the hope that she’d get a chance to poison her potential victim was not something Kathy would do.

  But marching into the library to confront Dr. Wright—that I could see Kathy doing. And if, once there, she saw Dr. Wright apparently asleep and calculated that there was no serious obstacle to getting away with murder?

  Maybe. And if Kathy thought she’d killed Dr. Wright or realized she’d just attempted to kill somebody who was already dead, that could account for her unusually agitated state. She’d been almost babbling, and that was completely unlike Kathy. Unless Kathy, like me, was cool and calm in action and sometimes got the shakes afterward. I could see that, too.
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  I should probably mention all this to the chief.

  Later. I was way overdue for my nap. But by now I couldn’t even bear to look at the stairs. I went into the living room instead. It was a cluttered mess, since about fifteen students were sleeping there—though at least it was empty, since the students were all out in the barn, nervously awaiting their turn to be questioned. Or possibly singing “Ding, dong, the witch is dead!” and coordinating their alibis.

  Their sleeping bags and air mattresses were still there, along with their other belongings. The few organized ones had stuffed their possessions in cardboard boxes or plastic bins. The rest just surrounded their beds with huge deltas of clothes, books, cosmetics, and other paraphernalia.

  The students’ belongings! Surely some of them had food stashed away that I could eat. I’d replace it later. Tenfold.

  I searched the students’ belongings until I found a couple of unopened packages of cheese crackers and an orange soda. Both items from what Michael and I referred to as the neon-orange food group, processed as hell and not normally to my taste. Rose Noire would slap my hands if she saw me reach for them. But she was out in the barn, waiting her turn for interrogation. I pounced.

  I picked my way through the debris to the far corner, where a quirk in the architecture made a nook that Michael and I had filled with a particularly comfy couch with its back to the room, making a lovely, private little niche. Assuming the students hadn’t moved it. . . .

  No, it was still there, under only a moderate layer of pizza boxes and laundry. I cleared it with a few quick shoves and settled down for my rest.

  I had to rearrange my position three times before I found one that Castor, Pollux, and I all liked. Then I opened the orange soda and took a long swig. Ambrosia. And where had I gotten the idea that packaged cheese crackers were junk food? I’d had artisan cheeses that hadn’t tasted this good.

  I ate and drank until I could hold no more—which took less than ever these days, with the kids squishing my stomach to miniscule proportions. Then I pulled an afghan over me and curled up for a well-deserved nap.

  Chapter 14

  “Are you sure you don’t want a nice cup of tea?” Rose Noire kept asking me. “Just one cup of tea?”

  She was holding out a teacup. Toxic fumes billowed out of it and bubbles rose to the oily surface and popped, as if some small but sinister aquatic monster lurked and breathed in the depths of the cup. She began lifting it to my mouth as if to help me drink.

  I woke up and saw with relief that I was still alone in the alcove. Nobody was bending over me proffering glasses of herbal swill or dainty cups of poisoned tea.

  “Tell me what you put in her tea,” a woman’s voice said out in the main part of the room.

  I glanced down. No tea on the floor beside my sofa, only the empty orange soda can.

  “Forget it.”

  I recognized Ramon’s voice.

  “Danny saw you.” Bronwyn. “From the basement door. I made him promise not to tell the police until I talked to you.”

  “Yeah, right. He’s probably already gone running to the cops.”

  “No, he’ll do anything for me. So tell me.”

  I held my breath. Danny would do anything for Bronwyn? Was Ramon reluctant to speak or was he, like me, pondering how Bronwyn had managed to win that kind of loyalty?

  “Some of my sleeping medicine,” Ramon said finally. “Just a couple of pills. I didn’t want to hurt her. I just wanted to buy some time until I could figure out what to do.”

  “How many pills?” Bronwyn asked. I almost nodded in approval.

  “Three,” he said. “The stuff’s not very strong—I usually have to take two of them myself to get any effect. I’ve taken three on a bad night. It couldn’t have killed her.”

  “No,” Bronwyn said. “From what I heard, she was hit over the head with that horrible hippopotamus statue. Of course, they don’t yet know why she just sat there and let someone whack her on the head with the hippo. She didn’t strike me as the type to just take a nap when she was in the middle of screwing with someone’s life. So there must be some reason she was snoozing.”

  “My sleeping pills?” Ramon asked. Bronwyn must have nodded. He groaned.

  “Don’t tell anyone,” Bronwyn said. “I’ll get Danny to keep quiet. It’s not your fault what the killer did, and with luck they’ll never figure out about the sleeping pills.”

  “Thanks,” Ramon said.

  I heard a few soft murmurs and giggles—Bronwyn and Ramon kissing and making up, probably. I tuned them out and thought about what I’d heard. Was Ramon telling the truth about the pills? Or had he slipped something deadly into Dr. Wright’s tea? If he was the poisoner, was the rumor that she’d been hit over the head reassuring him or making him more wary?

  “Come on,” Bronwyn said. “Nearly time for rehearsal.”

  “How can we have a rehearsal with the police camped in the library?” Ramon asked.

  “Professor Waterston said we could use the barn.”

  “You really think Blanco will let us do the show?” Their voices were beginning to fade as they walked toward the other end of the living room.

  “Blanco? He’s not going to give us any problems,” Bronwyn said. “Without Dr. Wright to give him a backbone, I bet he doesn’t have the guts to stop the show.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then maybe the killer will come back and bash him, too.”

  “Bron, that’s horrible.”

  “I’m only saying what we’re all thinking,” she said. “Come on—we should start the rehearsal on time.”

  I heard their footsteps disappear in the distance.

  Apparently, while I was asleep, the chief had made progress in his interviews, if Bronwyn and Ramon were at large and even thinking about starting a rehearsal. And maybe it was a good thing they were moving the rehearsals to the barn before they began using the real zucchini.

  How long had I been asleep? I glanced at the clock on the mantel, which said a quarter past twelve, as it had for the last month—it was an antique clock Mother had given us that required winding weekly, which no one had bothered to do since the students moved in. Probably not a practical clock for the busy family we were about to become, and absolutely no help at the moment.

  I pulled out my cell phone and checked the time on that—2:40 p.m. Which meant I’d been sleeping for over an hour. I didn’t feel particularly rested, but then I rarely did these days.

  I began to pick my way through the debris to the doorway.

  Halfway there a thought stopped me. If memory served, Ramon was one of the students sleeping here in the living room. With everyone else either being interrogated or attending a rehearsal, now might be a good time to see if his sleeping pills were still findable—before it occurred to him to dispose of them.

  I poked around the room until I figured out where Ramon’s stuff was. They’d put together a ring with everyone’s mailbox keys on it, and apparently someone had just made a mail run to the dorms and thrown small bundles of letters and flyers on some of the sleeping bags and air mattresses. I scanned the addresses until I found a pale pink envelope addressed to Ramon lying on one of the sleeping bags. The return address was a Mrs. Angelica Soto in San Antonio.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Still no one around. If the living room had a door I’d have closed and locked it, but there was only the huge open archway. I felt incredibly exposed as I rummaged through the heaps of stuff around Ramon’s sleeping bag.

  Eventually I found a pill bottle tucked under his pillow. Diazepam, two mg to be taken at bedtime.

  I pulled a tissue out of my pocket, picked the bottle up with it, then heaved myself back to my feet and studied it.

  Diazepam? Wasn’t that the generic name for Valium? If Ramon’s sleeping pills had been some kind of barbiturates, dosing Dr. Wright with three of them might well have had serious ill effects. But I seemed to recall Dad saying that one benefit of Valium was
that overdoses, though serious, were rarely fatal. So if Ramon really had used only three of these, then unless his doctor had prescribed a particularly high dose, they weren’t likely to have been the cause of Dr. Wright’s death. Was two mg a high or low dose?

  A question for Dad—Dad, and of course, the chief, who would doubtless like to see the bottle. I wrapped the tissue around it and tucked it away in my pocket.

  As I passed through the foyer I heard noises coming from the coat closet. It sounded as if things were falling off the shelves. I strode over and pulled the door open.

  Dr. Blanco was lying on the closet floor on a pile of boots and shoes. Scattered around his head were several Frisbees, half a dozen flashlights, a softball glove, a tennis racket, and the bag containing Rob’s bowling ball.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “That thing could have killed me!” he exclaimed.

  “The bowling ball?” I said. “Yes, I imagine it could if it landed right on your head. But then, as bowling balls go, it’s pretty mild mannered. Most of the time it just stays up there on the shelf where we put it. I’ve never known it to lie in wait and pounce on an innocent bystander before.”

  Of course, storing the bowling ball on an upper shelf wasn’t a particularly clever idea, but I’d discuss that with Rob later.

  “I hope I don’t have a concussion,” Blanco said.

  “Then again, bowling balls can be pretty territorial,” I went on. “I can’t answer for what it would do if it caught someone ransacking its closet. Just why were you ransacking the closet?”

  “I wasn’t ransacking,” Blanco said. “I was gesticulating. I must have bumped the shelf.”

  “Gesticulating,” I repeated. “And you normally hide in closets to practice your gesticulating?”

  “I was having a conversation. An animated conversation. On my cell phone.” His tone was petulant rather than guilty, so perhaps he was telling the truth. “Since there doesn’t seem to be a single room in this entire house not filled with dozens of boisterous, inquisitive people, I was attempting to use your coat closet to obtain some small measure of privacy.”