Lord of the Wings

by Donna Andrews

  “No, I was not aware of any break-ins.” She was frowning now.

  I hoped I hadn’t just unleashed the wrath of the Paltroons on poor clueless Dr. Smoot.

  “They only began very recently,” I said.

  “That painting is a valuable artwork as well as a family heirloom,” she began.

  “Which is why I’m sure Dr. Smoot will cooperate fully if you decide to take it off exhibit until the museum traffic is down to its normal, manageable level,” I said.

  “Yes, but one can’t simply wrap it in a blanket and throw it in the backseat of one’s car!”

  I didn’t see why not, but I held my tongue.

  “Fortunately, I had already arranged for Dr. Gwinnett Cavendish to pay the museum a visit. The noted art restoration and conservation expert,” she added, when she noticed that Dr. Cavendish’s name hadn’t elicited glad cries of joy from me. “Dr. Smoot had expressed some concerns about the condition of the painting. After Dr. Cavendish inspects it, I will direct him to have it properly packed and restored to its normal position in my abode.”

  “I think that’s a wise decision,” I said.

  She didn’t look as if she much cared what I thought.

  “Have you ever had any security concerns about the painting before?” I asked.

  “No, of course not.” From her expression, you’d think I’d asked if she were in the habit of breaking wind in public. “Of course, we’ve always had a state-of-the-art security system.”

  “Good,” I said. “Well, I’ll be off.”

  No one begged me to stay. I did linger at the tent’s entrance for a few moments when I realized that a trio of twenty-somethings dressed as vampires were entering the tent and looking around in astonishment.

  “Wow,” one young man said. “It’s like a mausoleum for dead flowers.”

  “Some of these would be very pretty if you sprayed them black,” the young woman at his side said.

  The third vampire sneezed vigorously all over a bucket of dried yarrow.

  “Young man!” Mrs. Paltroon called out.

  I ducked out and managed to get all the way back to the street before giving in to my laughter.

  Chapter 13

  Once I was safely out of the Weed Patch I strolled until I was in front of the Methodist minister’s house next door, sat down on the low wall separating it from the street, and flipped through my photos from the museum. I still couldn’t see anything else I’d have bothered stealing. I texted Randall, suggesting that when he talked to Dr. Smoot, he remove anything truly valuable, like the vintage dresses, from display. He texted back “Yes’m.” I made a note to drop by later today or maybe tomorrow morning to make sure Dr. Smoot had done something. And with any luck we could persuade the Griswalds and the Paltroons to remove their possessions before tomorrow night, when the final influx of Halloween revelers arrived to make things really crazy for the weekend. Maybe when I dropped by I should talk Dr. Smoot into closing the museum for the weekend, in case one of tomorrow’s tasks turned out to be “steal something from the museum.”

  I returned to making my rounds. Out at the Haunted House the line to get in was a quarter mile long. All the rides were whirling at the Fun Fair, and the games and concessions were booming.

  At the zoo, I was delighted to see the Willner Wildlife Foundation’s truck parked in the staff parking lot. The guards at the gate waved me in and I hurried up to Grandfather’s office, where he tended to take refuge when the zoo was as crowded as it was now.

  I found him at his desk, pecking away on his computer.

  “Another scientific article?” I asked.

  “Letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,” he said. “Damn fools want to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list. You need something?”

  “Just came by to liaise with Caroline,” I said.

  He nodded, stood up from the computer, and strode off. I decided to assume he was taking me to Caroline. He led me down a corridor and out a side door. As he stepped outside he glanced up reflexively, then laughed and shook his head.

  “Getting to be a habit,” he said as we walked. “I seem to have shaken the blasted ravens off for now, but they’ll show up sooner or later.”

  “What is it with all the ravens?” I caught up and matched his pace.

  “Part of my costume,” he said. “I liked the notion of a wizard with a raven on his shoulder. In some cultures they’re considered good luck, and in others they’re sinister omens. In Norse mythology, the god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn—thought and memory. He’d send them out every morning and every evening they’d come back and tell him what was happening in the world. In American folklore—”

  “Ravens are cool; I get that part,” I said. “But why so many ravens? I should think one would be enough, but you’ve got a whole flock.”

  “An unkindness,” Grandfather said. “The proper collective noun for a group of ravens is an unkindness, not a flock. Although some sources also favor ‘a conspiracy of ravens.’ Now that I’m afflicted with them, I find both terms curiously apt.”

  “But why did you afflict yourself with so many in the first place?” I asked. “Why not just train one?”

  “That was the original idea,” he said. “At the beginning of the summer I set up a large habitat in a temporarily vacant office in the administration building and I picked out a likely looking specimen and established him there. I would go in for an hour or so a day and work on his vocabulary. Nothing fancy. A few dramatic words and phrases. ‘Doom!’ and ‘Beware!’ and such.”

  “And ‘nevermore,’” I added.

  “Of course,” he said. “It’s traditional. Unfortunately, it turned out that I hadn’t chosen a particularly likely subject. In fact, I appeared to have chosen a total slacker. Least intelligent corvid I’d ever studied.”

  “Just because he wasn’t much of a conversationalist doesn’t make him unintelligent,” I said.

  “I assigned an intern to spend several hours a day trying to teach him.” Grandfather was warming to his subject, and had begun waving his arms around as he walked. “I made recordings of my voice and had them played in the room for several hours every day. I tried to tempt him with treats. Nothing.”

  I wondered if he’d considered the possibility that the raven wasn’t unintelligent, merely stubborn. Possibly as stubborn as Grandfather himself.

  “So I returned him to the wild.”

  “You just let him go? Aren’t you always telling me how cruel it is to expect zoo-raised animals to survive in the wild?”

  “He was a wild raven to begin with,” Grandfather said. “We have quite a few of them living in our woods. A little out of their normal range—here in Virginia you’d mostly find them near the mountains. But not unheard of. And they hang out at the zoo a lot, because between the animal feed and the junk food we sell the tourists, it’s a food-rich environment. Anyway, I let him go where I’d found him—back near our composting facility. And before long I found out he wasn’t nearly as stupid as I’d thought.”

  “And meanwhile you’d started teaching more ravens?” I guessed.

  “No,” he said. “It seems my slacker raven started vocalizing like crazy when he got home. Ravens started showing up here at the zoo croaking ‘Beware!’ and ‘Doom!’ and ‘Nevermore!’ So I thought, fine. I’ll train a couple of them to sit on my shoulder for treats.”

  “And now you have the entire conspiracy on your hands,” I said. “Or rather, on your head and shoulders.”

  Just then a raven appeared overhead and began circling. Grandfather looked up without enthusiasm.

  “They’re very intelligent birds,” he said. “Especially when it comes to acquiring food. But once I stop feeding them, they should lose interest in me.”

  I nodded.

  The raven landed on his shoulder, folded its wings, and looked at Grandfather expectantly.

  “Stupid bird!” it croaked. “Go away!”

  Grandfather sighe
d.

  “Yes, eventually they should lose interest,” he said. “Unfortunately they’re pretty stubborn birds. Caroline’s in here.”

  We had arrived at a small door in the side of the Creatures of the Night building. Grandfather shooed away his current raven passengers, waved his security badge at a small pad, then opened the door and led me inside into a small corridor.

  “This would be the supersecret zookeepers-only part of the building?” I asked, as I followed him down the corridor.

  Instead of answering he opened a door along the left side of the corridor and strode in. I followed, and found myself in a large, brightly lit room. Several young people in purple overalls were doing things with cables, hard drives, monitors, and other electronic devices.

  “We were going to use this space for a special veterinary facility for the nocturnal animals,” Grandfather said. “But for now it’s electronics central.”

  “Meg!” A small figure clad in a gray hooded robe jumped up and ran toward me.

  “Hello, Caroline,” I said, returning her hug. “Just what are you organizing?”

  “Damned technology,” Grandfather said.

  “We’re setting up a state-of-the-art security center,” Caroline said. “And when I say we, I mostly mean the technicians from the Security Wizards branch of your brother’s company.”

  “Overdue,” I said.

  Grandfather growled. Caroline had probably been bossing him around. She was carrying a staff with a large crystal on top. Clearly she was also supposed to be a wizard, although I hoped she had not also saddled herself with ravens. Her plump, cheerful face made her a slightly incongruous wizard.

  “Long overdue.” Caroline walked over to a bank of screens mounted on the wall, three high and five wide. “Especially considering his own grandson owns one of the top security companies on the East Coast.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know that?” Grandfather demanded. “I just thought his company made silly games?”

  “He’s set up all kinds of subsidiaries to do other stuff involving computers,” I said. “You’d know that if you ever listened to the conversation around the family dinner table on Sundays.”

  “Oh, he does,” Caroline said. “But only when he’s the one doing the talking. Move a couple more feet to the right.”

  I was starting to follow orders when I realized she was talking into her cell phone. The picture on one of the screens wobbled, and then lurched a bit before settling down.

  “We’re ringing the perimeter with security cameras,” Caroline said. “Of course, that will take some time, even with all these brilliant young people working on it, so we’re also organizing patrols and posting sentries. That’s perfect,” she added into the phone. “Let me know when you’re ready to work on the next one.”

  We conferred for a few moments, and I was reassured that she and the Brigade would be able to handle security at the zoo. I was relieved—this would let me pull the half-dozen goblins I had patrolling the zoo and reassign them to areas where our numbers were reduced when I’d assigned guards to all the cemeteries. I made a few phone calls to give the troops their new marching orders and headed back to town.

  Assigning the cemetery guards turned out to be a good idea. Mr. Dandridge’s vigil in the Baptist cemetery proved uneventful for the rest of the afternoon, but the watcher in the Catholic cemetery spotted one would-be tombstone rubber, dressed as a zombie. His counterpart in the Congregational cemetery, which was the oldest in town, spotted two—a vampire and a grim reaper, complete with scythe. Unfortunately, all three costumes were ones that made it hard to identify their wearers, and all three wearers were fleet of foot—fleeter than the pursuing goblins, at least—so all we could do was report the incidents and share with the police what photos they’d been able to take before the intruders fled.

  “Do you know how many vampires we have in town at the moment?” the chief asked, when I showed him the latest tombstone rubbing photo capture.

  “I know.” I’d caught up with him on the steps of the town hall, and from our vantage point, halfway up, we could see at least fifty vampires scattered through the crowd. “It would be different if they all had wildly different notions of how a vampire should dress. But most of them—including our tombstone rubber—look as if they bought their costumes at Vampires R Us.”

  “Is there such a place?” The chief looked alarmed at the notion.

  “Not that I know of,” I said. “I thought I was making a joke. But seeing how many of them there are, who knows? Dr. Smoot would know—shall I ask him?”

  “Let’s not,” the chief said. “He might think it sounds like a brilliant business proposition.”

  “If you want me to stop sending the photos of tombstone rubbers and other pranksters, just let me know,” I said.

  “No, keep sending them,” he said. “You never know. The next shot could capture some detail that will let us identify the perpetrator. And if nothing else, it gives us an idea of the scope of the phenomenon.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “At least a dozen, but thank goodness not hundreds.”

  “The day is young,” he said. “And some of the participants may be planning to make their graveyard visits under cover of darkness.”

  So I continued arranging for an evening shift at each of the town cemeteries. And then I took a few hours off, so I’d have the stamina to stay out late on patrol myself. I picked the boys up from school and decided to take them to the library for a new book fix before going home to root through the pantry in search of something I could serve for dinner. Normally on days when both Michael and I were working long hours we could count on Rose Noire to take care of the cooking, but I knew she’d be putting in long hours of her own down at her organic herb tent in the town square.

  “Mommy,” Josh said, as I was buckling in. “We need to figure out costumes for Spike and Tinkerbell.” His tone suggested that he was being deliberately and commendably calm in the face of a massive oversight on the part of his unfortunate parents.

  “Well, dogs don’t have to have costumes, you know,” I began.

  “Mom-my,” Josh moaned.

  “Noah’s cat is going to be a unicorn,” Jamie said. “And Mason’s dog is going to be an Ewok.”

  Well, that answered the question of where the pet costume idea came from.

  “We have to think of something even better for Tink and Spike,” Josh said.

  “I’ll think of something,” I said.

  Maybe they’d forget about the dogs’ costumes by the time we got home. I didn’t much mind the idea of trying to put a costume on Tinkerbell, Rob’s enormous Irish wolfhound, who was a mellow soul and would put up with almost any kind of human nonsense as long as there was hope of a treat afterward. But Spike, our eight-and-a-half-pound furball, had not acquired the nickname “the Small Evil One” for nothing. I shuddered at the idea of putting a costume on him.

  Then again, Spike was besotted with the twins and had never once bitten either of them in spite of what even I, their doting mother, recognized as extreme provocation. Maybe if the boys put it on him?

  I’d worry about that later. It would make a nice change from worrying about murder and burglary. I followed the boys as they scampered toward the library door.

  The walk leading up to the library was lined with what I thought of as middle-of-the-road pumpkins—not too scary looking to pass muster in the daytime, but not so cutesy that they’d be out of place when Caerphilly flipped into the Night Side. Inside, every room was festooned with black and orange crepe paper garlands, smiling pumpkins, happy ghosts, and fierce black cats. And displays of Halloween-themed books were everywhere. Collections of ghost stories, for children and adults. Nonfiction books on haunted houses. A major infestation of vampires and zombies in the young adult section. Manuals on pumpkin carving and Halloween party decorations. Halloween-themed mysteries in the mystery fiction section—who knew so many authors had chosen to set murders in the spooky season? An exhibit
on Ray Bradbury in the science fiction and fantasy section, featuring October Country, The Halloween Tree, and A Graveyard for Lunatics.

  We had arrived just in time for a special Halloween story hour, and the boys happily scampered to take their seats. I waved to the reader—one of Michael’s grad students who was planning a career in children’s theater—and left the boys in her charge while I roamed around the library, snapping pictures of some of the books on display with my cell phone, as a reminder to come back and check them out when I actually had some free time to read them.

  Well, when the festival was over, and my free time was back to its normal, not-quite-nonexistent level.

  I spotted Ms. Ellie Draper, the head librarian, carrying a stepladder down one of the aisles, and followed to see if she needed help. Or, rather, if I could offer to do something that a woman in her seventies might be better off not attempting to do atop a stepladder. She spotted me as she was setting it up.

  “You’re a bit taller than me,” she said. “Can you reattach that?” She handed me a small two-sided adhesive patch and gestured up toward a poster that had come undone at one corner and was flapping down and in danger of falling.

  I climbed up and performed the repair, revealing a poster printed in bright orange and black that proclaimed LIVE DANGEROUSLY! READ A BANNED BOOK! followed by the titles of fifteen famous books that had suffered banning.

  “Banned book week was last month.” Ms. Ellie nodded with approval of my handiwork, so I climbed down. “But I left it up because it fits the color scheme.”

  “Nice,” I said.

  And then it occurred to me that Ms. Ellie, both as a librarian and as a longtime resident, was something of an authority on town history. If the murder had anything to do with the contents of the museum …

  “By the way,” I asked aloud. “Have you been to see Dr. Smoot’s new town museum?”