Lord of the Wings

by Donna Andrews

  And then I had a brilliant idea. Why not stop by the library to send my e-mail from one of the computers there? I could get the word out faster. And while I was there, I could ask Ms. Ellie if she could fill in for Dr. Smoot at the Haunted House.

  The library parking lot was crowded—had I missed an announcement of some special event? No, but even so, it wasn’t business as usual here at the library. Most of the rooms were filled with costumed young people, occupying every seat at every table, every reading chair, and every computer.

  I saw Ms. Ellie standing behind the circulation desk, surveying the crowd with a bemused expression.

  “You’re quite the popular favorite today,” I said. “And here I was dropping in to see if I could use one of the computers.”

  “Come back to the office and use mine,” she said. “And I’ll show you what I’ve found so far.”

  She didn’t say anything else until we’d passed through the door from the public area into the private. Then she stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “Good Lord, give me strength,” she said. “It all started yesterday afternoon. They figured out we had heat, bathrooms, comfy chairs, and free Wi-Fi. I’ve notified Randall and the library board that we’re going to close early today and stay closed until Sunday afternoon.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “It’s not as if any of them seem interested in the books. And that would free you up for a project I wanted to recruit you for.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Filling in for Dr. Smoot at the Haunted House.”

  Her face fell.

  “How is he?” she asked. “The rumors make it sound pretty dire.”

  “The rumors aren’t all wrong, but Dad thinks he’ll make it.”

  “Good,” she said. “And if you need me, I’ll be happy to fill in at the Haunted House—as long as someone can give me a ride there and back if it’s after dark. I’m not fond of driving after dark these days. You know, by now I’m probably better equipped to give tours of the museum than Dr. Smoot. You should see what I’ve been finding.”

  “Let me use your computer to send an e-mail to the Goblin Patrol, and then I’ll be all ears.”

  She waited impatiently as I composed and dispatched my e-mail. Then I stood up and gave her back her computer.

  “Just let me call it up,” she said. “By the way, thank you for bringing all that material to me. It’s all very interesting, and one photo in particular is proving quite intriguing.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “Do you think this has something to do with the problems Dr. Smoot has been having at his museum? Or the murders?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “Not sure how it possibly could. But you never know. And it is a fascinating historical puzzle.”

  I was tempted to suggest that if it was a historical puzzle—and presumably one that was decades old—then perhaps its solution could wait a few more days, until the Halloween Festival was over. But she seemed so enthusiastic that I bit back the words. And after all, it wasn’t as if I had anything else to do at the moment. I was eager to get home and nap, but I could spend a few minutes to hear her out. And better now than later on, when the town had flipped over into the Night Side. I knew once that happened, I’d begrudge every minute I wasn’t out in the festival as a minute in which something could be going wrong. So I smiled and tried to look more interested than I was.

  “Okay,” she said. “I blew up the photo so we could see it better. Gets a little fuzzy, but still pretty easy to make out the details.”

  She displayed the enlargement on her monitor and I studied it more closely than I had before. Two young men in uniform, standing in what I deduced was a World War I trench. They were up to their ankles in water, and the mud spattered on their trousers suggested they’d been through even deeper puddles. The trench’s walls were slightly higher than their heads, and it was only just wide enough for the two of them to pass. They had pushed back their basin helmets to show their faces, thrown their arms over each other’s shoulder, and were beaming at the unseen photographer. They were both handsome young men and there was a family resemblance between the two, including unusually pale eyes, though the one on the left looked older and thinner—perhaps only a sign that he’d been in the trenches longer. And they were clearly delighted to be together, and I had the sinking feeling that Ms. Ellie was about to tell me that one or both had never come home from those trenches.

  They looked curiously familiar, and after a moment I realized why—Mr. Brimfield, the chief’s indignant visitor, had the same uncanny pale eyes, and very similar handsome if gaunt features.

  “The one on the left is William Henry Harrison Brimfield,” Ms. Ellie said. “On the right is his younger brother, John Tyler Brimfield.”

  “Did the Brimfields also produce a James K. Polk Brimfield and a Zachary Taylor Brimfield?” I asked. I was rather proud of myself for being able to call to mind the next two presidents in order.

  “Zachary Taylor Brimfield, yes, but not Polk,” she said. “Good heavens, no. Harrison, Tyler, and Taylor—and presumably the Brimfields—were Whigs. Polk was a Democrat, so they skipped him altogether, and after Zachary Taylor Brimfield they produced Millard Fillmore Brimfield before quitting. Fillmore was another Whig.”

  Should I tell Ms. Ellie about the present-day Brimfield? Maybe later, when I was less exhausted.

  “This is all very fascinating,” I began.

  “You’ll notice that the brothers are wearing different uniforms,” she went on.

  “Actually, I hadn’t,” I admitted. I peered closer. “Military couture isn’t exactly one of my specialties. Is there some significance to the differences?”

  “America stayed out of World War One at first, you know. But a lot of young men wanted to get into the fight—especially those with close family connections in Great Britain. Apparently William Brimfield was one of those. He joined the Canadian Army.”

  “They let people do that?”

  “They did then,” she said. “Over thirty thousand Americans fought in the Canadian Armed Forces. You’ll recall that we didn’t enter the war until April 1917, and very few U.S. troops arrived in Europe before 1918. So for any American who wanted to enlist, the Canadians were the best option. John Tyler waited until America joined the war and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Zachary and Millard were too young to serve, thank goodness.”

  “Why thank goodness?” I asked. “Does that mean that at least one of those two in the photo didn’t make it home?”

  “Neither of them did,” she said, with a sigh. “Such a waste.”

  “Definitely,” I said. And I agreed with her, and at any other time I’d have been completely in tune with her melancholy fascination with the Brimfield brothers. But for now, I kept thinking that however sad it was, it was nearly a hundred years ago. Out there in present day Caerphilly, things could be happening. And back home, my pillow was calling. “At least before they perished, the two brothers were reunited in the trenches in France,” I said aloud.

  “So it seems,” she said. “And that shouldn’t have happened.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “The Canadians were our allies—what’s wrong with William and John Tyler having a little family reunion.”

  “According to the records, William Brimfield perished in the Battle of the Somme,” she said. “On October 11, 1916. Which is at least six months before any American troops landed in France, and a year or so before they had arrived in any kind of numbers.”

  “Maybe John Tyler got sent over early on some kind of special mission?”

  “He was still in high school,” she said. “The Caerphilly Clarion listed him in their article on young men who enlisted as soon as Congress passed the declaration of war. In April 1917.”

  “Maybe this isn’t William Brimfield?”

  She searched her desk and came up with a photocopy of a page from an issue of the Clario
n from 1915. It contained an article announcing William Henry Harrison Brimfield’s enlistment in the Canadian Army. She held it up beside the picture from the trenches. The young man in the trench photo was visibly thinner and dirtier than the one in the Clarion, but either it was the same young man or a dead ringer. Same strong high-cheekboned face, devil-may-care grin, and pale, pale eyes.

  “They must have gotten the date wrong, then,” I said.

  “They must have,” she said. “And also the name of the battle.”

  She showed me another photograph, a close-up of part of the engraving on the Caerphilly Cenotaph, a fifteen-foot obelisk honoring the county’s war dead, which stood in a tiny park on the other side of the courthouse from the town square. It read “William Henry Harrison Brimfield. October 11, 1916.”

  “The Brimfields moved out of town a few years after the war ended,” she said. “So maybe they weren’t around to notice the error. Perhaps it was really October 11, 1918. That would be the end of the Battle of Cambrai. A lot of Canadian involvement in that.”

  She looked up and then cocked her head to one side, like a bird, and studied me with an eagle eye.

  “And you’re thinking all of this is fascinating, no doubt, but what does it have to do with anything that’s going on right now?”

  I had to laugh at that.

  “Guilty,” I said. “It does sound like a fascinating puzzle, and perhaps when the festival is over and I’m sane again, I will check back with you to see if you’ve solved it.”

  “It will probably turn out to be merely a typo on the part of the stonecutter,” she said. “But it should be fun to try to solve it, and maybe in a year or two I can present a paper to the Caerphilly Historical Society, and begin the process of petitioning to have the inscription on the monument corrected.”

  “And I’ll come and hear your paper and sign your petition and make a donation toward the cost of the correction,” I said.

  “I just thought you might like to know in case it does end up being related to the pranks,” she said. “Or in case any of your graveyard watchers spot a ghostly figure in a doughboy helmet drifting through the tombstones.”

  “Are William and John Tyler buried in one of the graveyards?” I asked.

  “No, they’d have been buried in France,” she said. “They weren’t much for shipping bodies home in those days.”

  “Then why would their ghosts haunt any of the graveyards?” I asked. “More likely they’d haunt the house where they lived.”

  “I should look up where that is,” she said.

  “Have you found out anything interesting about Arabella Shiffley Pratherton?” I asked.

  “No.” She tilted her head in a birdlike gesture. “Should I?”

  “The dead guy had an article about her in his pocket,” I said. “The first dead guy. The chief has no idea why. And he was a petty thief and con artist. The museum contains a portrait worth a hundred grand, a brooch worth half a million, and family photos that a wealthy curmudgeon wants to take away from Dr. Smoot, and the thief’s carrying around an article about Arabella? There must be something interesting there.”

  “I’ll see what I can dig up,” she said. “Now you go get some rest. Any chance we could plan to open the Haunted House at dusk? If we’re closing the library at five, and staying closed tomorrow; I’ll be completely free to help starting at dusk tonight.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” I said. “The Haunted House isn’t much of a kids’ attraction anyway.”

  “And maybe when things get slow, I can peek into the museum and see some of the artifacts firsthand,” she added.

  Should I tell her about all the artifacts being locked up in the evidence room? No need. The basement would be blocked off as a crime scene. And it wasn’t as if things were ever going to be slow at the Haunted House tonight or tomorrow. So I just wished her a Happy Halloween and left.

  As I let myself into my car, I realized that my short visit with Ms. Ellie had lifted my spirits. With her in charge, the Haunted House would be in good hands, and if Randall recruited Judge Jane, even better. And it was good to be reminded that, by Monday, we would return to the normal peaceful life of a small town, where a meeting of the local historical society was a highlight in our month, and the debate over whether or not a date carved in the war memorial cenotaph was correct could be the hottest topic in town.

  Of course, by Monday, the chief might still have two unsolved murders on his hands, with most of his suspects and witnesses scattering to the four winds, but at least, one way or another, the scavenger hunt would be over.

  And just in case we were wrong and the motives for the murders lay in the contents of the museum, rather than the scavenger hunt, Ms. Ellie was on the case.

  I managed not to fall asleep behind the wheel on my way home. It was almost eleven. I wondered if Michael had been able to get much of a nap before taking off for his first class.

  As I pulled up, I saw Michael’s mother carrying her luggage into the house. Rather a lot of luggage. I wondered how long a stay she was planning.

  “Meg, are you all right?” she asked.

  Did I look that bad? Or was it the fact that I’d stumbled twice on the cobblestones of our front walk.

  “Only two or three hours of sleep last night,” I said, giving her a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “Would you mind horribly if I celebrated your arrival with a nap?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “And I can pick the boys up at school, so nap as long as you like.”

  Okay, with that kind of an attitude, she could stay as long as she liked. I mumbled my thanks, dragged myself upstairs, crawled out of my costume, and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

  Chapter 19

  I may have fallen asleep quickly, but it wasn’t a sound or untroubled sleep. I kept waking up out of unpleasant dreams. Enormous alligators loomed up out of murky waters and threatened to devour me—or, worse, the boys. Menacing black-cloaked figures chased me down endless dark alleys. Worst of all, Dr. Smoot kept turning up, apparently unharmed, until he smiled to reveal fangs that definitely owed nothing to the dentist’s art.

  “Why no,” he kept saying. “I’m not dead. But I’m not alive, either.”

  Ridiculous. The boys had made it safely home from the zoo. There were hardly any alleys in Caerphilly. And even if I believed in vampires, I wouldn’t be frightened of Dr. Smoot if he became one.

  Of course, better to dream of things that looked silly in the light of day than of things that did scare me—like the fact that a murderer had struck at the zoo and the Haunted House and was probably still prowling the increasingly crowded streets of Caerphilly.

  I woke up to peals of childish laughter—the sort of merry, innocent sounds that all too often signaled that the boys were up to something unusually dangerous or destructive. But before I could leap out of bed to check on them, I heard Michael’s mother’s voice and relaxed again.

  On a normal day, I’d have been tempted to go back to sleep for another hour or two. But I realized that if the boys were home, it must be past three o’clock. I checked the clock. Three thirty. Even allowing for the sleep I’d lost to my nightmares, I should be rested enough to handle tonight’s patrol. I dragged myself out of bed and donned my costume again. Time to get back to town. I suddenly felt intensely guilty for having spent so much time asleep. Guilty, and worried that something dire might have happened while I was fleeing from dream phantoms.

  On my way downstairs, I ran into Michael coming upstairs.

  “You look as bad as I felt a few hours ago,” I said.

  “Nap time,” he said. “Or I won’t be able to patrol tonight. By the way, I ran into Randall on my way to the parking lot just now. He tells me they caught another scavenger hunt participant.”

  “Where?” I asked. “And what was he doing?”

  “Randall didn’t say,” he said with a yawn. “He was headed down to the police station to check it out.”

  �
�Anything else?”

  “That’s all I heard.”

  I was reassured. If anything really bad had happened, Michael would have heard. And Michael had also helped me decide what to do first—I’d check in at the police station to catch up on the news.

  “I’ll call you when I wake up,” he said. “And you can tell me where to meet you.”

  I followed Michael back upstairs, helped him out of his general’s uniform, and tucked him into bed. He fell asleep as fast as I had. I stayed long enough to brush off his costume and lay it out so he’d have an easy time getting into it when he woke up.

  Then I checked on the boys. Michael’s mother had them on the back porch drawing faces on pumpkins with black felt-tipped markers. Nice that she not only understood the wisdom of keeping them away from sharp knives but also remembered how dangerous it was to turn them loose indoors with markers.

  “Mommy, look!” Josh cried. “Mine’s the scariest.”

  “Mine’s the nicest,” Jamie countered.

  “We’re going to take the pumpkins to the library later,” Michael’s mother said. “Apparently some of Ms. Ellie’s pumpkins were stolen.”

  Which meant the scavenger hunt was continuing. I shoved that thought to the back of my mind as I gave the boys hugs and admired all the pumpkins. They returned to their decorating with renewed zeal.

  “I was going to take them into town to see the decorations this afternoon or maybe tonight,” Michael’s mother said. “But your father seemed to think it was a bad idea.”

  “I’d drive them around instead of walking,” I said. “And this afternoon would be better, or just after dark. And avoid the town square—plenty of decorations to see in the residential areas. Though really, they’ll get a chance to see the decorations when they’re trick-or-treating, and that might be enough for this year.”

  “Then there is something going on,” she said. “Your father said something about a murder, but knowing how much he loves his mystery books, I thought maybe he was just being … dramatic.”