Owls Well That Ends Well

by Donna Andrews

“You didn’t have to tell her it was for me,” I said. “In fact, didn’t I warn you not on any account to let her find out?”

  “I didn’t tell her, but she suspected you were trying to pull a fast one.”

  “Good grief, Dad,” I said. “It’s not as if I was disobeying doctor’s orders, or faking a prescription. It’s only her opinion.”

  “She feels very strongly about it, though,” he said. “I don’t think you can change her mind.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “Sometimes I think this family has cornered the market on pigheadedness, and she certainly has her full share.”

  “Hmmm,” Dad said. I suspected he was thinking that Rosemary wasn’t the only one with a good share of the family pigheadedness.

  “I’ll just tell her that the cosmetic and soap shop in the mall carries plenty of lavender- and rose-scented stuff,” I said. “And they don’t have any qualms about selling it to me.”

  “But Rosemary is so proud of her bath oils, and she uses only the best-quality, all-natural materials!” he exclaimed. “Here. She gave me this. She says it’s you.”

  He handed me a small brown bottle. I opened it and took a whiff. Mistake; the intense smell of eucalyptus and menthol made my eyes water so badly that I had to fumble blindly to replace the cap, but even so they couldn’t disguise the strong undertone of heavy musk.

  “Yuck,” I said. “What does she think I am? A civet with a bad head cold?”

  But Dad had disappeared. I made sure the bottle was screwed tightly shut and stuck it in my pocket. I’d deal with Rose Noir later.

  Some of my younger cousins, while taking rides over the crowd in the boom lift, were amusing themselves by pouring their lemonades into their popcorn buckets, and then dumping the resulting soggy mess down on the crowd while making barfing noises. I told them to cut it out, and when they didn’t listen to me, I had Rob deposit them at the feet of an irritated state police officer who still had patches of soggy popcorn clinging to his uniform and perched on the wide brim of his Smokey the Bear hat.

  And I still hadn’t found Schmidt.

  “Bother,” I said.

  “What’s wrong, dear?” Mother asked.

  “As far as I can tell, everyone in Caerphilly is out here, except for the one person I need to talk to,” I said. “I’ll have to go into town to look for him.”

  “I don’t suppose there’s anything I could do to help, dear,” Mother said.

  “Actually, there is,” I said. “Find me some Hummel.”

  “Hummel?”

  “You know, those little china figurines? Little girls with rosy cheeks, little boys in lederhosen, puppies, lambs, kittens—”

  “Yes, dear, I know what Hummel is,” Mother said, with a touch of asperity. “I just didn’t know you liked it. And it doesn’t really go with that Shaker/Japanese décor your house has been requesting, does it, dear?”

  “I don’t like it,” I said, hastily. “Loathe the stuff, and so does the house. Couldn’t pay either of us to keep it around. But, at the moment, I need some. To bribe an informant.”

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “An informant with a certain amount of taste.”

  “Well, not my taste, but to each his own,” I said. “So do you think you could get hold of some Hummel?”

  “Ye-es,” Mother said, nodding slowly. “I remember several shops in town that might have quite a lot of it.”

  “I don’t need quite a lot of it,” I said. “Just a couple of pieces. Maybe three, if you get a real bargain on them. Preferably not brand new. They don’t have to be in perfect condition, either, as long as they’re Hummel.”

  “Leave it to me, dear,” Mother said, and turned to leave. Then she paused and remained staring thoughtfully at something.

  At Rose Noir’s booth. I winced. The booth décor suited Rosemary’s business splendidly. Lots of ethereal flowers and little lace frou-frous, and great swaths of pink and lavender tulle hanging overhead. A nice environment for buying prettily scented cosmetics, but I couldn’t see anyone living in it day in, day out, and I had the sinking feeling Mother could.

  “Rosemary’s new name,” she said finally—and cryptically.

  “What about it?”

  “Shouldn’t noir be noir?”

  “Is that an existential question?” I said. “If so, ask me later. I’m in a very mundane, literal mode today.”

  “Sorry, what I meant was, shouldn’t the word ‘noir’ have an ‘e’ on the end?” she said. “‘Noire,’ with an ‘e.’ Because, grammatically speaking, ‘rose’ is feminine in French.”

  “You expect correct French grammar from someone who renames herself more often than she cuts her hair?” I asked.

  “True,” she said. “But someone should enlighten her.”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I can’t even get her to sell me the cosmetics I want. She doesn’t think I’m a rose or lavender sort of person.”

  Mother studied me thoughtfully.

  “No, dear,” she said. “But you try.”

  I didn’t even want to figure that one out.

  “I’m going to town,” she announced, as she strode away.

  “So am I,” I said. “Want a ride?”

  “No, dear,” she called back over her shoulder. “I think I’m better on my own. Or perhaps Michael can take me; he’s not as busy as you are.”

  And also not as immune to your charm, I thought with a sigh, but I let her go. I strolled over to Rose Noir’s booth to see if I could enlist her to help poor Horace.

  “I have a favor to ask you,” I said. “It’s about Darlene.”

  “She went home,” Rose Noir said, shaking her head. “She’s still upset about the owl in her bedroom last night. I don’t want to sound judgmental, but …”

  Her voice trailed off as she shook her head, apparently despairing of saying anything non-judgmental about Darlene.

  “But she’s an idiot and Horace is better off without her,” I said.

  “Poor Horace,” Rose Noir said, from which I deduced that she didn’t exactly disagree.

  “Poor Horace, indeed,” I said. “A pity Darlene left. I was hoping you could ask her who she sold his gorilla suit to—after last night, I doubt if she’d tell me.”

  “Oh, I don’t need to ask her,” Rose Noir said, her face growing cheerful again. “I bought it.”

  “You? Why?”

  “To give it back to Horace,” she said. “I think it’s terrible, trying to make someone give up a profound and meaningful part of his inner self.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure how wearing a few yards of faded fake fur could be a profound and meaningful part of Horace’s inner self, but I could remember when several of my prissier aunts had tried to convince me that the blacksmithing I loved wasn’t a respectable career for a woman.

  “Do you want to give it back to him?” Rose Noir asked, reaching under her table and pulling out a large shopping bag.

  “I wouldn’t want to deprive you of the pleasure,” I said.

  I would defend Horace’s right to his inner simian self to the death if need be, but I’d rather not have the aunts who sided with Darlene think I was the one responsible for returning his suit.

  I went off to find my car and continue the search for Professor Schmidt.

  Chapter 28

  I had to wait while Cousin Sidney towed the three SUVs and one pickup truck that blocked the entrance to our driveway and put down some orange cones to save my space.

  With any luck, Professor Schmidt would be in his office, and if he wasn’t, I could cruise by Michael’s office, borrow his copy of the departmental faculty directory, and get Schmidt’s home address and phone number.

  Caerphilly was quiet. Unusually quiet, even for a Sunday. Almost unnaturally quiet—probably because nearly everyone in town was out at our yard sale-turned-carnival. Normally I had to cruise for fifteen minutes to find a parking space within ten blocks of Dunsany Hall, where the English department had its offices, but to
day I had my choice of a dozen spaces by the front door.

  I walked through the silent halls, sticking out my tongue and making faces at the closed doors of the Great Stone Faces, as Michael and I called the department chairman and all his stuffy cronies—all the diehards putting such intense pressure on Michael’s tenure committee to turn him out in the cold.

  Not a very mature thing to do, of course, but it helped me stay polite when I had to encounter them in person. And probably a lot safer to do today than during the week. The assistant dean had once dashed into the hall when I was sticking out my tongue at his door, and as part of my effort to convince him that I was doing wrinklepreventing yoga facial exercises, I’d ended up standing on my head in the faculty lounge for nearly half an hour. One of those days when I went home wondering if perhaps the best thing I could do for Michael’s career was not to overcome my commitment phobia and make an honest man of him but to disappear completely from his life.

  Though even my absence probably wouldn’t help him snag an office here in the oldest, most prestigious part of the building. Professor Schmidt, of course, had a prime space, only three doors down from the beastly department chairman.

  “Professor Schmidt!” I called, and knocked loudly before turning the knob. Which didn’t budge. I frowned at the door for a few seconds, and then, as I turned to leave, my eye fell on a framed enlargement of a photo of Mrs. Pruitt that hung beside his door, as if to remind passersby of the importance of the poet on whom he was the world’s foremost expert.

  Fashions in photography had certainly changed over the years. The picture was a full-length portrait of Mrs. Pruitt sitting in a chair, with an elaborately swagged drapery and a potted palm behind her. Although sitting wasn’t quite the word—she was perched rather precariously, as if she had only briefly alighted for the photographer’s benefit, and would be off on another flight of poetic fancy in a few seconds. I kept expecting the chair to fall or break. And she should have just looked at the camera, smiled or frowned, and have done with it. Let the viewer see what she looked like without hamming it up. Instead, she was holding a slim book in one hand while she gazed soulfully at the ceiling, her other hand raised to place a single finger to her lips in a gesture clearly designed to suggest deep thought while slightly obscuring several of her chins.

  Perhaps in its time it was considered a splendid likeness, and inspired droves of people to buy her books, but now it just looked silly. I could see why Professor Schmidt had to keep busy erasing the mustaches and sarcastic comments that each succeeding class of English students felt inspired to draw on the glass covering the photo. I hadn’t bothered to study it before, and wouldn’t today if not for the possibility that there might be some tenuous connection between Mrs. Pruitt and Gordon’s murder.

  But whatever the connection was, I wouldn’t learn it from Ginevra’s primly pursed lips, so I shrugged and moved on to the less exalted wing of the building where Michael had his office.

  Also locked, though this was uncharacteristic. Of course, he’d probably started locking it since he’d begun keeping an ever-increasing amount of stuff in it, stuff that we’d moved out of our old basement apartment but couldn’t yet take to the house.

  Help was at hand, though. I glanced down the hall and saw that Giles’s door was open. With any luck, he’d have a copy of the faculty directory.

  When I reached his doorway, I saw Giles hard at work on a large stack of official Caerphilly College forms. I recognized the distinctive pale blue paper the administration liked to use—Michael swore it was so passing bureaucrats could tell at a glance if a faculty member was allowing the forms to pile up on his desk.

  “Giles, Giles,” I said. “You’re hopeless.”

  He started at my voice, and then looked slightly relieved to see it was only me.

  “Hopeless?” he repeated.

  “Here we go to all the trouble of implicating you in the most shocking crime Caerphilly has seen in generations, all for the sake of enhancing your public image as an edgy, hip kind of guy,” I said. “And you go and ruin it all by spending your Sunday chained to a desk doing paperwork?”

  “Oh, is that what all this is in aid of?” Giles said, with an expression that I’m sure he intended as a smile, though it came off as more of a grimace. “If it’s all the same, I’d just as soon return to my old image as a boring fuddy-duddy.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “Speaking of which, may I borrow your faculty directory? I need to track down a suspect.”

  “By all means,” Giles said, astonishing me by pulling the directory out of a pile of stuff without much hunting. “Looking for anyone in particular?”

  I was opening my mouth to explain when the phone rang.

  “Sorry,” he said, gesturing to the phone. “It’s the department chairman. I really ought to …”

  “Want me to leave?” I asked, reaching for my purse.

  “No, no,” he said, with his hand over the mouthpiece. “Please don’t; I want to ask you something, and he’s probably just calling about tomorrow’s faculty meeting. Dr. Snyder,” he said, into the phone. “How are you?”

  Unfortunately, Giles was wrong. For the next fifteen minutes, I heard his side of what was obviously a chewing-out by his department head. Not fair, really; it wasn’t Giles’s fault that the police unjustly suspected him of murder. Still, I felt bad, being present to witness his embarrassment. I made a motion to leave at first, but Giles waved me back into my seat. I pretended to be absorbed in the faculty directory for ten times as long as it took me to find and copy down Professor Schmidt’s address, and when I grew tired of rereading the names of the stuffed shirts who had it in for Michael, I turned to the nearest bookshelf and feigned an intense interest in its contents.

  Though once I made the effort to focus on the titles of the books, I found they were rather interesting. I deduced from the few authors’ names I recognized—E.C. Bentley, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and S.S. Van Dyne—that I was seated next to Giles’s collection of Golden Age mystery writers. I scanned the shelves for R. Austin Freeman and found him right at my elbow.

  I’d seen these books before, of course, at least a dozen times when I’d visited Giles’s office. But without the added interest of being associated with a murder, they hadn’t particularly attracted my attention. Like most of the books in that section of the shelves, they were rather nondescript. So many faded linen bindings in muted shades of blue, brown, green, and red, with the occasional battered dust jacket, and now and then an empty space where a book was in use. The gentle patina of dust over everything further softened the colors. The whole effect was oddly soothing, rather like the bookshelves of some of my elderly relatives—except that many of Giles’s books were neatly wrapped in plastic Brodart covers to protect them, while my relatives’ vintage libraries were allowed to fade au naturel. I counted forty-eight volumes by Freeman, though some of them seemed to be different editions of the same title. The English and American editions, I suspected. I’d have opened a few to check, but I wasn’t sure how Giles felt about people handling his treasures. Maybe I was overreacting to the protective plastic covers, but they did seem calculated to repel casual inspection.

  I found myself wondering if he read them or just collected them, and also how much he treasured them for their own sake and how much for what he thought they said about him—that despite his rather mild and pedantic manner, he wasn’t a stuffy old dinosaur like so many of the department’s faculty. That he was, in fact, hip and cool, though in a low-key, bookish manner.

  It worked for me. I liked Giles’s office almost as much as his study. Apart from the familiar, comforting presence of the books, I liked the bits of academic clutter he had scattered about. Here a Civil War vintage sword—the English Civil War, of course—there a Tudor coin, or a battered piece of pottery that Julius Caesar might have held. Whenever I grew impatient with Giles, I reminded myself that underneath the slightly stiff exterior was the man with the wit
and erudition to create this office.

  Perhaps I appreciated his office all the more today because usually an even layer of dust covered everything, and today, the dust had clearly been heaved around by the police search. I saw clear spots and spots where the dust had been piled up like a snowdrift by moving objects around. Nearly every knickknack stood near but not precisely on the clear spot where it had been resting for months or years before the police arrived. Strangely enough, this added to the room’s charm.

  Okay, it was clutter, but there’s clutter and clutter. Not all clutter was created equal. Even with the signs of the police search, I liked Giles’s clutter. Classy, academic clutter. No more useful than any other clutter, perhaps, but I still had a hard time condemning it.

  When I had the time—after the yard sale was over and Giles cleared of murder charges—I’d have to do some long hard thinking about my definition of clutter. And probably talk the subject over with Michael. I didn’t want the house to be a place to keep our stuff while we went out to get more stuff, or however George Carlin had defined it. And I needed to make sure Michael felt the same way. If he didn’t—

  “Sorry about that,” Giles said, when he was finally able to hang up. “Apparently I’m not Dean Snyder’s favorite underling today.”

  “Here’s hoping we can change that, and quickly,” I said. “Have you seen Professor Schmidt today?”

  “Arnold Schmidt? Not that I recall,” Giles said. “Dare I hope that you’re about to pin the guilt on him instead of me?”

  “It’s a possibility,” I said. “Remember the woman in the flowered hat who identified you to Chief Burke as the person who was entering the barn as she left?”

  “The dame who fingered me?” he said, in a bad imitation of an American gangster’s accent. “You bet I remember her.”

  “She lied,” I said. “Not about seeing you, but about talking to Gordon. I suspect he was already dead and locked in the trunk when she went into the barn.”

  “Good show!” Giles exclaimed. “If you can prove that, perhaps Chief Burke will start looking for the real killer!”