Lark! the Herald Angels Sing

by Donna Andrews

  “Is that who was in the box?” I exclaimed. “Relentless Stalker Desiree, as we call her in the family?”

  “Yeah.” She giggled slightly. “I guess he really didn’t look so happy to see her.”

  “So Rob was acting weird, or weirder than usual, and when you were blindsided by the idea he might have cheated on you, you overreacted,” I said. “But now you’ve cooled off—why not call him?”

  “I’ve tried—he’s not answering his phone. I figured maybe he’d gotten mad at me for doubting him.”

  “More likely he ran down the battery trying to call you and forgot to plug it in.” I took out my phone and punched my shortcut to call Rob.

  “Goes to voice mail immediately,” I said. “Either it’s off or out of power. In either case, last time I talked to him, he hadn’t gotten any of your calls and may not even know you’ve been trying to reach him.”

  “We have to find him!” She jumped to her feet as if ready to run out.

  “I’ll help you look,” I said. “But first, can you do me a favor and take Lark back to her mother?” I brought her up to speed on why Janet had left Lark at the church, and why she was now hiding out at the Caerphilly Inn. I figured if Delaney had any lingering doubts, Janet’s story would dispel them. “And in the meantime I’ll get everyone I know looking for Rob.”

  She brightened slightly, and looked much more cheerful when she took off with Lark in tow.

  I made a few phone calls. At Mutant Wizards, Paton answered the phone again.

  “What are you doing still on duty?”

  “Some of the guards went home for the holidays,” he said. “So I’m pulling a double shift. Voluntarily—the holiday overtime pay’s awesome. Do you know where Rob is?”

  “Damn,” I said. “I was going to ask you that. Why are you looking for him?”

  “I’m kind of worried,” Paton said. “He left around nine, and then when I made my rounds, I saw that he left his phone in his office. That’s not like him. I mean, usually it’s like he’s surgically attached to it.”

  “True,” I said. “And it explains a lot. Can you bring his phone down to the front desk? If I figure out where he is I may pick it up and take it to him. Or if I reach him before you do, I’ll tell him you have it.”

  “Roger.”

  Of course, without his phone, finding Rob wouldn’t be easy. I strolled over to where Aida was helping the last few shelter residents carry their suitcases.

  “Any chance you could talk the chief into putting out a BOLO on Rob?” I said. “He’s wandered off without his phone, and that’s not like him.”

  “Will see what I can do,” she said. “And I’ll definitely keep my eyes peeled, and tell everyone I run into to do the same.”

  “And if the chief balks at doing the BOLO, remind him how Delaney heard about the paternity accusation against Rob.”

  She chuckled and nodded.

  The chief would probably do it, I thought. But the shelter would keep most of his officers busy for a while. Was there anyone else I could enlist to find Rob?

  I called Fred Shiffley.

  “You guys still on the roof?” I asked.

  “For the time being.” Fred sounded glum. “Maybe through New Year’s, the way things are going. Randall’s pretty ticked off. Is it our fault we didn’t spot those clowns going into the shelter?”

  “I’ll talk to him,” I said. “Meanwhile, if you want to redeem yourselves, keep an eye open for Rob. He’s wandered off without his phone and I need to talk to him.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  At the other end of the room, the EMTs had returned and were lifting Pistol Guy onto the stretcher. I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Once he was out of the way, I’d head over to the police station. I thought of pulling out my notebook. Perusing its contents usually cheered me up, especially if it involved checking off items I’d already accomplished. But for once I wasn’t in the mood.

  “You broke his hand.” I probably started slightly when the small voice came from my right side. It was the girl, the slightly older one who had had her doubts about Santa. She was leaning against the wall beside me and staring at the front hall.

  “I was afraid he was going to hurt someone,” I explained.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Is the guy Josefina hit going to die?”

  “Probably not.” I’d have said, “Absolutely not,” but I decided anyone who was old enough to grapple with doubts about Santa wouldn’t take kindly to grownups trying to sugarcoat the truth.

  “Mom says now that those bad guys found it, we all have to leave the shelter.”

  “Not really,” I said. “The shelter’s just going to move someplace else for a little while, and you’ll move with it. Someplace nearby. And then once Reverend Robyn’s sure this place is safe again, the shelter will come back here.”

  “Will Josefina still be at the new place?” she asked.

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “And will the doctor come?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “And the lady who came last night to give us computer lessons?”

  “Absolutely.” Delaney was passionate about getting girls to love math, science, and especially computing.

  “What about those guys?” She nodded in the direction of Pistol Guy. “What if they find the new shelter, too?”

  “Odds are they’re going to prison for a long, long time,” I said. “Chief Burke is determined to make that happen.”

  She nodded as if that reassured her.

  “And if the shelter is going where I think it’s going, it’s a nice place. Out in the country. Very quiet.” I’d have added “very safe,” but up until an hour ago I’d have thought the shelter here in Caerphilly was pretty darn safe.

  On impulse, I put an arm around her shoulder. She stiffened slightly, then relaxed and leaned against me. We stood there, side by side, leaning comfortingly against each other, until her mother came to collect her for the ride to the new shelter. Or possibly some temporary refuge, if Robyn needed more time to organize a stealth transport to Riverton, where my grandmother lived.

  Pistol Guy was gone now. No one here but Horace, who was slowly and meticulously doing his crime scene routine, and Aida, who seemed to have been assigned to guard the shelter for the time being. Or maybe she was there to watch Horace’s back in case more Dingles showed up. I strolled over to her.

  “Chief’s gone to the station,” Aida said. “He said to ask you to stop by if you can.”

  I nodded and headed outside. I found Randall Shiffley standing in the front yard, surveying the damage Pistol Guy and Shotgun Dude had done to the fence and the front door.

  “Helluva thing,” he said. “I heard you did good.”

  “They were stupid and I got lucky,” I said.

  Behind Randall, Fred and several of the other Shiffleys who’d been perched on the roof were marching in with tools.

  “We’ll be fixing everything up so the place is in tip-top condition,” Fred said. “As a donation, on account of us not being able to stop those creeps before they got here. I want those ladies to come back to perfection. But don’t worry—we left Austin on the roof to keep an eye out for your brother.”

  “And if Robyn figures out it’s not safe for the shelter residents to come back?” I didn’t want to dampen their enthusiasm, but I was feeling pessimistic about the prospect.

  “Then we’ll have this fixed up so nice that Robyn can sell it for enough money to afford an even nicer replacement,” Randall said. “Or if whatever replacement she finds is in bad shape, we’ll do a renovation there. Is the chief here?”

  “He went down to the station. Which is where I’m heading myself. Just trying to decide if I should walk or drive. My car’s almost as far away as the station, and in the wrong direction.”

  “Drive,” he said. “Then if you need to go anywhere in a hurry, you’ll have your car.”

  “Excellent point.”

  “Also
, you can give me a lift.”

  On the way over, Randall was busy craning right and left, checking to see that the carolers and musicians had started their performances, that the shops and refreshment stands were open, that no stray patches of ice or snow were lingering to trip the unwary, and most important, that the tourists were starting to show up in suitably large numbers, looking happy—and thus, presumably, unaware of the exciting events that had been happening a few blocks away.

  We arrived at the police station to find it bustling. Most of the shelter residents were there, digging into a stack of pizzas from Luigi’s, everyone’s favorite local Italian restaurant. Some of the women still looked a little shell-shocked, but the kids were having a blast. And since the station—like nearly every other building in town—was decorated to the hilt, I was hoping the grownups would recover some of the holiday spirit they’d had the last time we’d seen them. We could even bring Santa back for an encore if need be. He never minded a chance to hang out at the police station—especially in the holiday season, when he could play with all the miniature handcuffs and revolvers and other themed decorations on the small blue-and-silver tree that graced the front desk.

  “Chief can see you.” Kayla, my friend Aida’s daughter, was home from music school and filling in here at the station.

  “What’s the plan for getting them to their temporary quarters?” I asked, nodding at the shelter refugees.

  “Soon as we round up Deputy Shiffley to take over from Mom, she and Deputy Crowder can drive them to the new place.” Kayla didn’t have to explain that Deputy Crowder was one of the department’s other female deputies.

  “Good. In the meantime, did Luigi donate the pizzas? Because if he didn’t—”

  “He did, and Muriel’s going to bring over some food from the diner for them to take with them, and if you want to contribute to paying for any of it, you’re about number twelve or thirteen in line, so I don’t think they’ll be here long enough for us to need you, but if we do, I’ll let you know. And Merry Christmas!”

  I should have expected as much. Randall and I went down the hallway to the chief’s office. His door was open, and as we drew near we could see he was on his phone. Then as we walked in—

  “Damnation!” The chief slammed down his phone.

  Randall and I both stood and stared. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard the chief say anything stronger than “blast it!” or “tarnation.”

  The chief looked up and winced.

  Chapter 24

  “Sorry,” he said. “Dealing with the federal bureaucracy has me at the end of my rope. That officious son of a biscuit eater just had the nerve to tell me that I’m overreacting to a mere case of domestic violence. Mere! Domestic violence being second only to auto accidents as a cause of death for women under fifty, I take exception to the word ‘mere’—but that’s beside the point anyway. Where does the idiot get off, calling what happened here domestic violence?”

  “Seriously?” Randall exclaimed. “Thugs from Clay County invade our women’s shelter looking to kidnap an inconvenient witness, and those clowns think it’s domestic violence?”

  “Just the one clown so far,” the chief said. “A Fed by the name of Inman, in the ATF’s Office of Interagency Coordination. Whatever that is—apparently a recent addition to their org chart, and not at all the useful find I first thought it was. But unfortunately he also seems to be the clown who has the clout to get us the federal help we need.”

  “Are your prisoners claiming it was a domestic incident?” This sounded suspicious to me.

  “Apparently.” The chief scowled. “At the moment, they’ve clammed up and asked for a lawyer. But before they did, one of them claimed that he thought his girlfriend was there. And the other chimed in that yes, they were looking for the girlfriend. Someone named Ellie Peebles.”

  “That’s nonsense,” I said. “I heard them asking where Janet Caverly was.”

  “As did Ms. McKenna and Mrs. Diaz.” The chief shook his head. “Of course, when the matter comes to trial, it won’t matter if they were looking for Mrs. Caverly or this Ellie Peebles, if she even exists. I’m sure our town attorney will have no difficulty proving breaking and entering. But that doesn’t help us now.”

  “What’s the penalty for breaking and entering?” I asked.

  “Since they were carrying firearms when they did it, twenty to life.” The chief smiled grimly. “There’s also the fact that both Mr. Peebles and Mr. Dingle have done time on a string of larceny charges, which means an additional one to five years, unless they’ve successfully petitioned to have their firearm privileges restored, which strikes me as improbable. And then there’s that sawed-off shotgun Mr. Dingle was carrying—another twenty to life, since he was carrying it during the commission of a violent felony. All of which I expect will come as a nasty surprise to those two clowns. I might be able to use that to pry some information out of them—assuming that their lawyer, when he finally gets here, isn’t bought and paid for by the Dingles. But again—doesn’t help us right now.”

  “Maybe it’s just me,” I said. “But something strikes me as weird. You got this bureaucrat sitting in Washington or wherever—”

  “Richmond, actually.”

  “And only a couple of hours after what went down here he already knows it’s a ‘mere’ domestic violence incident.”

  The chief nodded almost imperceptibly.

  “Which just happens to tally precisely with the story our two thugs are telling.” I paused, then forged ahead. “I know you probably don’t want to think badly of a fellow law enforcement officer—”

  “Inman’s not law enforcement.” The chief waved his hand dismissively. “Just a jumped-up bureaucrat with an inflated sense of his own importance. Probably a political appointee, or owes his job to one. You’re not saying anything I haven’t started thinking myself.”

  “He’s the guy with the clout to get you the federal help you need,” I said. “And also the guy with the clout to sabotage it?”

  The chief nodded.

  “Holy cow,” Randall said. “You mean the Feds are bent?”

  “Only one Fed,” the chief said. “One damned clever son of a gun. I thought I’d struck pay dirt when I first talked to him. Someone who took seriously what I was telling him about Clay County, instead of making Dogpatch jokes. And now it’s looking as if he was playing me all the time.”

  “Weird question,” I said. “Remember those phone numbers I sent you? The ones on the slip of paper I found in Janet’s pocket? One of them was marked with an R and belonged to Rachel Plunket, and I thought other wasn’t marked, but there was this kind of random line beside it—”

  “Apparently not a random line but a carelessly written letter I,” the chief said. “Yes, Janet had Inman’s number. If he was her contact—and Mark’s—maybe it’s not surprising that nothing’s been done to rescue him. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Can you think of anyone you do trust absolutely?” I asked. “In that agency or elsewhere?”

  “Yes. Several people. That’s my next step. But it’s going to be a little difficult, getting hold of any of them on short notice this close to Christmas. And what if Inman’s managed to poison the well—convince his colleagues that I’m overreacting. Or worse, that I’m dirty.”

  Hard to believe that anyone would suspect that of the chief. But then maybe to someone sitting in Richmond or Washington it was hard to see the difference between Clay County and Caerphilly.

  “We need to get the goods on Inman,” I said.

  “Takes time.” The chief sounded despairing.

  “Building an airtight case you can present in court takes time,” I said. “Finding just enough dirt to convince a savvy federal law enforcement agent that a petty bureaucrat might not be entirely trustworthy? That might not take so much time.”

  “Please tell me you’re not planning to go down to Richmond and burgle the ATF office.”

  “Of course not.” Althoug
h if it had been closer than Richmond, I might have given the idea some consideration.

  “Then what are you suggesting?”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Delaney.

  “Any news?” she said in lieu of “hello.”

  “I’ve got people looking for Rob.” I glanced at the chief, who nodded. “Including the police. Meanwhile, can you do me a favor? The chief needs some help.”

  “Will it help us find Rob?”

  “Not directly,” I said. “But it could go a long way toward getting things around here back to normal, which I think will help both Rob and you in the long run.”

  “Okay.” She sounded resigned. “What do you need?”

  “I want to borrow some hackers.”

  “What for?”

  She sounded cautious.

  “Aren’t you supposed to say, ‘I am shocked—shocked—to find that hacking is going on around here!’ or something?”

  “Shocked—shocked, I tell you,” she said flatly. “Yeah, I could probably find you some white hat hackers if I tried. What do you want to do with them?”

  “I want to help the chief get the goods on a crooked Federal agent,” I said.

  The chief raised an eyebrow and leaned a little closer.

  “Sounds worthwhile.” Delaney was also starting to show some enthusiasm.

  “Would it make a difference if I told you that this guy was connected with the armed invasion of the women’s shelter earlier today?”

  “That son of a— Okay, how many hackers do you need?” she said. “And do you need them down at the police station or can they work remotely?”

  “Let me turn you over to the chief.”

  “I have my reservations about encouraging these young people to do something that could be illegal,” the chief said, as I held out my phone.

  “Then tell them to stick to legally available information until we can get them some warrants,” I said. “I can call the town attorney.”

  “I’ll call Aunt Jane,” Randall added. Yes, Judge Jane Shiffley would be a help.

  Within half an hour, the town attorney was on her way to Judge Jane’s farm to get the first set of warrants approved.