Toucan Keep a Secret

by Donna Andrews

  Fortunately Jan, Minerva, and I had already foreseen not only the arrival of Friday but also the probability that the Four Horsemen, as we called the boys, would want to celebrate it together. We confirmed that the boys were happy with the plans we’d already made—that after their baseball game, the herd would go home for a Friday night sleepover with Mason, and then sometime around noonish Saturday, Jan would deliver them to Michael and me for baseball coaching with my grandmother and a Saturday night sleepover.

  With their weekend arranged to their liking, all four boys boarded the appropriate cars and began loudly pointing out to their wayward adults that we needed to take off now so they could eat and change for the game.

  The next two hours passed in a blur. The enormous bag of food Mrs. Wilson had given me disappeared with unnerving speed. The boys went out to the barn with a handful of blueberries as an appetizer for Nimitz, while Rose Noire, before departing for the yoga class she was teaching, prepared a large bowl of organic fruit for his main meal. Despite their disappointment over his inability to talk, the boys had fun feeding the toucan.

  Although apparently they still had hopes of turning Nimitz into the world’s first talking toucan. I overheard them working on the project. Though they couldn’t quite agree on what his first phrase should be. Jamie favored “Go Eagles!” while Josh was working hard on “Here, Spike!”

  I gave up trying to convince them that their efforts were in vain. Teaching them to feed him properly was enough of a job.

  “Josh, the fact that he throws the chickpeas across the room probably means that he doesn’t like them,” I explained. “Just tell Rose Noire not to include them next time.”

  “But I think he enjoys throwing them,” Josh protested.

  “And are you going to enjoy picking them up?”

  “Wow, look!” Jamie said. “His poop is coming out blue!”

  “That’s because of all the blueberries you fed him.”

  “But that was only a couple of minutes ago. He can’t possibly have digested them already.” Both boys were peering at Nimitz with concern.

  “It was fifteen or twenty minutes ago. Toucans have a very short digestive tract so they process whatever they eat pretty quickly.” I said this with great authority, although I owed most of my newfound expertise in toucans to lectures from Dad and Grandfather.

  “This could be really interesting on Fourth of July,” Josh mused.

  “Or Christmas,” Jamie added.

  I reminded myself that with any luck, the bird would be out of our barn before the boys could engineer seasonally themed toucan poop. And changed the subject.

  We spent a little less time than usual turning the house upside down looking for their baseball garb, and thank goodness their equipment bags were already in the Twinmobile. I packed overnight backpacks for each of them. After making sure that my own bag contained chewing gum, bug spray, and sunscreen, I herded them into the Twinmobile and set off for the baseball field.

  Michael, who was the Eagles’ assistant coach, had come straight from class and was already there. So were all the rest of the team, meaning that once again, even though we lived only two miles from the field, the boys were the last ones to arrive.

  I watched as the boys scampered out onto the field to join their teammates. Tory Davis, the head coach, waved Josh and Jamie over to where she was working with two of the team’s pitchers—Manuel Espinoza and Danny Takahashi. Michael was taking the majority of the team through a fielding drill—yes, including Adam Burke. This early in the season, the boys’ uniforms were still pristine, and the red shirts and white pants were vivid against the background of fresh spring grass.

  I glanced around and saw the chief standing just outside the chain-link fence on the far side of the home dugout, watching as his grandson practiced. I strolled over to join him.

  “Team’s shaping up,” I said.

  “It is indeed. Frank would be so proud.”

  I nodded. Frank Robinson Burke had been an outstanding college baseball player. His untimely death a few years ago, in a car crash that had also killed his wife, had made the chief and his wife custodial grandparents of Frank Robinson Burke Jr., Calvin Ripken Burke, and Adam Jones Burke, my boys’ buddy. The chief still tended to get a little choked up occasionally at how much Adam favored his father.

  Probably a good thing if I distracted him.

  “So tell me to get lost if you like,” I said. “But do you have any more next of kin available for me to visit?”

  “Unfortunately no,” he said. “I confess that I have not had the opportunity to interview anyone other than Mrs. Washington. Other things have claimed the lion’s share of my time.”

  “Other things?” I echoed. “You mean things unrelated to Mr. Hagley’s murder?”

  “Unrelated to anything a sane and reasonable person would— Sorry. I should have said that remains to be seen. Do you know Mr. Scott Sedlak?”

  “Alas, yes.” And now I understood his outburst—sane and reasonable were the last adjectives I’d have used to describe Mr. Sedlak. “Goes to Trinity. Currently serving on the vestry. The surviving half of the dynamic duo Mother and I refer to as the Muttering Misogynists. Why?” I suddenly wondered if anything had happened to Mr. Sedlak.

  “Mr. Sedlak has been filling me in on his theory of the crime,” the chief said.

  “And probably doing so at great length, if he’s in his usual form,” I said.

  “He seems to feel that Mr. Hagley was terminated—his word, not mine—because of his involvement in Trinity’s vestry. And that he—Mr. Sedlak—is destined to be the killer’s next victim.”

  “Who does he think is going to … terminate him?”

  “Radical elements who have seized power within the church,” the chief said. “I never knew Trinity was such a hotbed of intrigue. Or could he be talking about the Episcopal Church at the national level?”

  “He’s probably referring to the vestry,” I said. “He’s not fond of the Council of Presiding Bishops, but I don’t think he feels personally threatened by them. Trinity’s vestry used to be all male until an embarrassingly recent date. Clearly Mr. Sedlak isn’t happy with the change.”

  “Yes,” the chief said. “He seems to find your mother particularly … intimidating.”

  “He does have some common sense, then,” I said. “He should be intimidated by Mother. Of course, he’s crazy if he thinks Mother would need to kill him—or Mr. Hagley—to free the vestry from their noxious influence. She already had everything in place for a peaceful change of regime.”

  “In what way?”

  “She recruited several very nice people to run for the vestry,” I explained. “Much nicer than either of the misogynists, though I suppose it’s terrible of me to speak ill of the dead in Mr. Hagley’s case.”

  “So they’d be running against Mr. Sedlak and Mr. Hagley, if he had not been killed.”

  “You know, I don’t know,” I said. “Usually the problem is to get enough people to run for the seats in the first place. I can’t recall a contested election since I’ve been there. I don’t know if they would try to talk the misogynists out of running, or put them on the ballot and hope common sense prevails and they lose. Mother would know. Although wait a sec—come to think of it, once you serve your three-year term you have to be off for at least a year, so it’s not a case of defeating them this time so much as making sure there’s no chance of them sneaking back in a year or two from now.”

  “How did your misogynists get elected in the first place?”

  “Mr. Hagley was elected right after his wife died,” I said. “He was a lot … calmer then. And I suppose people thought, ‘oh, good, serving on the vestry will help take his mind off his loss, poor thing.’ Took him a few months to show his true colors. Mr. Sedlak, now…”

  I thought about it for a bit.

  “No clue, really,” I said. “From what I hear, he’s spent the last thirty years criticizing everything the previous vestries and
pastors have done, even when it was entirely men doing the running. No idea why he decided to stand for election, but I guess people must have thought it would do him good to find out what it was like to be on the receiving end of the criticism for a change. Inside the tent peering out, as it were.”

  “And how has that gone?”

  “Badly,” I said. “Dad and I have to calm Mother down after every vestry meeting. Mr. Sedlak and Mr. Hagley are the only men on the vestry at the moment, so they think they should do most of the talking. A lot of mansplaining going on.”

  “I can imagine how your mother would react to that.” The chief was repressing a smile.

  “Yes—as I said, badly! But not homicidally. She says ‘bless his heart,’ a lot in that steely tone that makes it mean just the opposite. So if Mr. Sedlak has gotten the impression that the rest of the vestry members don’t like him, he’s absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean any of them killed Mr. Hagley or want to kill him.”

  “His fears did seem a little overblown,” the chief said.

  “And even if Mother wanted to kill him or Mr. Hagley, do you really think she’d do it on the church grounds? Shedding blood on holy ground—sacrilege! And with a crowbar? A stiletto, maybe, or a tiny little vintage pearl-handled revolver, or an obscure untraceable poison that causes the victim no pain. But a crowbar?”

  “Not quite in character, I admit.” The chief had given up the battle to keep from chuckling.

  “And the same goes for any of the other ladies of the vestry, for that matter. Even if they wanted to off somebody, they’d pick a secular scene of the crime. I’m sure some of them are already saying we should schedule doing the Restoring of Things Profaned. Which is kind of like an exorcism, only less drastic, and done for buildings and things instead of people.”

  “Sounds like a sensible thing to do,” the chief remarked. “But you’ll have to wait till the crypt’s no longer a crime scene.”

  “We’ll probably also have to wait until Robyn’s on her feet,” I said. “I suppose we could have the supply priest do it, but I don’t think people would find it as comforting if it came from anyone but Robyn.”

  “Supply priest?” The chief looked puzzled.

  “Ecclesiastical equivalent of a substitute teacher,” I said. “Another bone of contention for the misogynists. We’re a small parish, so we only have the one priest. Any time Robyn isn’t available for services, we either have to get the diocese to send a supply priest—which isn’t free—or we can’t have the whole enchilada with communion and all—just a morning prayer service led by one of the deacons. Mr. Hagley and Mr. Sedlak were mutinous about how much money the parish is having to spend on supply priests with Robyn out on enforced bed rest.”

  “Wouldn’t that also be the case if a male priest were out on extended sick leave?” the chief asked. “I seem to remember Dr. Womble was on bed rest for several months after his heart surgery.”

  “Ah, but that’s different,” I said. “Don’t ask me how, but it is, at least according to the misogynists. The real problem is that they disapprove of the church’s decision to ordain women, and loathe the fact that Trinity now has a woman priest. But since their side already lost that battle, all they can really do is criticize everything we women accomplish.”

  “So in your opinion, while Mr. Sedlak is not well liked, it’s unlikely that the vestry members have designs on his person, either individually or collectively.”

  “Highly unlikely.”

  “Was he speaking figuratively, do you think, when he asserted that some of the women were practicing witchcraft against him?”

  “Damn. I hope so,” I said. “But he could be that paranoid. I haven’t seen anyone sticking pins into voodoo dolls, if that’s what you mean.”

  “The word ‘paranoid’ did spring to my mind unbidden several times during our discussions. And do you have any idea what the Philadelphia Eleven is? I gather it was some ghastly crime committed against the church. He referred to it several times as if he assumed I would be familiar with it but— Is that funny?”

  I had burst out laughing.

  Chapter 16

  “I’m sorry,” I said when I could speak again. “Are you sure he said the Philadelphia Eleven?”

  “Yes.” The chief was frowning. “I’d rather assumed it was something rather sinister, from his tone of voice.”

  That set me to giggling again.

  “I’m sure Mr. Sedlak finds the Philadelphia Eleven sinister,” I managed to get out. “Before the 1970s, the Episcopal Church didn’t ordain women as priests. In 1974, a few renegade bishops ordained eleven women without going through all the usual procedures. Big scandal; everyone got very worked up, and the upshot was that the General Convention approved the ordination of women two years later. I have no idea if the Philadelphia Eleven helped bring it about or if it would have happened anyway. But of course Mr. Sedlak would loathe them, individually and collectively.”

  “Difficult to see how church politics nearly half a century gone by could have anything to do with a present-day murder,” the chief said.

  “Not so difficult,” I said. “As long as people like Mr. Hagley and Mr. Sedlak are around, trying to turn back the clock. Did the Thirteenth Amendment put an end to racism?”

  “Good point,” he said. “Still, I don’t think the ladies of the vestry are going to be high on my suspect list. How did Mr. Hagley and Mr. Sedlak get along?”

  “I like the way you think.” I thought about it for a few moments. “Mother might know better than I do,” I said finally. “I doubt if they were buddies, but I also doubt if Mr. Sedlak would want to do away with Mr. Hagley. He’d have one less ally against the insidious creeping forces of modernism.”

  “Makes sense,” the chief said. “I don’t know whether to thank you for explaining all this to me, or be exasperated to find out that I’ve wasted nearly two hours of my day talking to a loon in the grip of a conspiracy theory.”

  “Oh, dear,” I murmured.

  “Although it wasn’t completely useless,” he said. “I did learn one interesting fact. Apparently Mr. Hagley was in the habit of giving Mr. Sedlak a ride home. Mr. Hagley begged off last night. Said he had to go somewhere else in a hurry.”

  “At ten fifteen at night?” I asked. “Because that’s when the vestry meeting broke up.”

  “Mr. Sedlak also found this improbable, which I suppose was why he mentioned it. He ended up scrounging a ride from your mother.”

  “She and Mrs. Willis must have loved that. He lives all the way on the other side of town.”

  “On the plus side, it means your mother and Mrs. Willis are very well alibied for the time of the murder.”

  “And Mr. Sedlak, too, I assume.”

  “Not necessarily,” the chief said. “By my calculations, Mr. Sedlak would have had just enough time after they dropped him off to drive back and attack Mr. Hagley. I don’t think he did it, mind, but it’s possible. Your mother and Mrs. Willis, though, alibi each other until shortly after you called 911.”

  “That’s good,” I said. “Not that I suspect Mother, but maybe if Mr. Sedlak knows she’s alibied, he’ll calm down a bit.”

  “I’m not optimistic,” the chief said. “He even finds it suspicious that she gave him a ride without asking for gas money—apparently Mr. Hagley expected it. At any rate, if Mr. Sedlak shows up in my office again, I will seriously consider charging him for obstructing justice.”

  I made a mental note to tell Mother. Even if the chief didn’t do anything of the sort, the very idea would please her enormously.

  “On a more practical note,” he went on, “I’m meeting with Chuck Hagley, Mr. and Mrs. Hagley’s son, tomorrow at eight. After I finish with him, he’s all yours. He’ll be staying at his parents’ house. I can give you his cell phone number.”

  I pulled out my notebook and jotted down Chuck’s contact info.

  “I also heard from the Blair family,” the chief said. “The mother’s dead, but
there’s a sister who still lives in Middleburg.”

  “Is she coming down here?”

  “No.” He grimaced slightly. “She wants nothing to do with him. Says that his going to prison broke their mother’s heart, and his suicide finished her.”

  “It was suicide, then?”

  “Officially, accidental death,” the chief said. “But nothing I saw in the files looked the least bit accidental. What a waste.”

  We both fell silent for a moment. I remembered the dates on Blair’s plaque. Only thirty-four years old.

  “The sister did give us the name of one of Blair’s friends and said he can make any decisions that need to be made. A professor James Donovan. Law school faculty.” He handed me a slip of paper with Donovan’s name, phone number, and office address. “Anyone you know?”

  “Not that I know of.” I shook my head. “Possibly someone I’ve met in passing at faculty events.”

  “I’m meeting him at nine tomorrow. You’re welcome to contact him after I finish. And I’d appreciate it if you could fill me in after you talk to him.”

  “Fill you in on what? What he wants us to do with Blair’s ashes?”

  “And any other information or insights you might gain from the meeting,” he said. “I didn’t get the impression that he was particularly pleased at the notion of talking to the police about his old friend. I wouldn’t exactly call his attitude truculent, or even unfriendly, just … rather cool. But maybe he’ll warm up a little if you can convince him that I have no intention of raking up old scandals or blackening his friend’s name all over again—that I’m just trying to solve a murder.”

  “Then again, he’s not just a lawyer but a law professor,” I said.

  “Of criminal law, according to the faculty directory,” the chief said. “So it’s entirely possible he might be more forthcoming with you than with someone official like me.”

  He might be right.

  “So I play the faculty wife card and see if he unbends.”

  The chief nodded.

  “On the positive side, so far I haven’t had to deal with any distraught family members,” I said. “Mrs. Washington just wants us to tuck her husband’s ashes back where they belong.”