“I think we’ve established that we need to intervene out there on humane grounds, and that we have ample legal justification for doing so,” the chief said. “We can sort out the legal issues when we have more information. But this is going to take a bit of organizing. Dr. Blake, can you get me the contact information for the appropriate person I should notify at Fish and Wildlife?”
“I can take care of it myself if you’d like.” Grandfather squared his shoulders as if he’d just offered to carry the flag up San Juan Hill.
“If you have good contacts there, that would be excellent,” the chief said. “I confess, I’m feeling rather annoyed with them at the moment. Someone identifying himself as a Fish and Wildlife agent was snooping around town about a week or so ago, asking a lot of peculiar questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Grandfather asked.
“Asking the pet store if they could procure a three-toed sloth for him,” the chief said. “Asking Mr. Wu at the House of Mandarin if they served shark-fin soup.”
“Two staples of the wildlife trafficking racket,” Grandfather said, nodding.
I found it hard to believe that three-toed sloths were a staple of anything, but I kept my mouth shut.
“That is exactly the sort of thing Fish and Wildlife is trying to get a handle on,” Grandfather went on.
“Yes, but I gather this particular agent was unnecessarily persistent,” the chief said. “Became verbally abusive when they told him they couldn’t help him. Told Mr. Wu he’d look into having him deported.”
“Well, that’s a crock,” Randall said. “Not only was Danny Wu born here in Caerphilly, I think three of his four grandparents were. And one of them a Shiffley.”
“A baseless threat, but still alarming to Mr. Wu,” the chief said. “And I am not pleased with the fact that the agent in question didn’t even have the courtesy to notify me that he was investigating something in my jurisdiction. In fact, I wouldn’t even have known he was from Fish and Wildlife if he hadn’t lost his temper when the Caerphilly Inn couldn’t accommodate him with a room. According to Ms. Voro—Ms. Voro—Miss Ekaterina, he slammed his fist down on the registration desk and told her she couldn’t treat Fish and Wildlife this way.” He surprised us all by chuckling at this. “She told him that she was sorry, she did not have a room, even for Fish and Wildlife, but perhaps he could find accommodations at the local zoo. When she started giving him directions there, he stormed out, and that was the last anyone saw of him.”
“Typical bureaucratic behavior,” Grandfather said. “Especially from some of the new lot that have been coming in lately. I hope you complained to his management.”
“I called both the state and national offices of Fish and Wildlife, got transferred a dozen times, left messages, and haven’t heard a thing. And if they’re so all-fired busy investigating a giant smuggling ring, they’d probably consider our problem here pretty small potatoes. So if you have good contacts there, have at it. Just keep me in the loop.”
Grandfather nodded.
“Clarence,” the chief went on. “Can you organize the logistics of our raid? Keeping in mind that we won’t know exactly what we’re facing till we get in there. Meg’s photos are helpful, but they don’t show the whole interior of the barn.”
“They only show about two-thirds of it,” I said. “If that much. There could be a lot more animals.”
“But however many animals we find, we need to be prepared to seize any or all of them if their welfare requires it.” The chief’s voice was solemn.
Clarence was looking anxious, but at the chief’s last words he lifted his chin and nodded.
“And I’m sure those of us here represent only a small portion of the local citizens who will be willing to help,” the chief added.
“Of course!” Dad wiggled his sock-clad toes vigorously as if to underscore his own readiness.
“I’ll bring as many zoo personnel as possible,” Grandfather said. “And I’ll put the word out to the Brigade.”
“We probably do need them,” the chief said with a slight sigh. Clearly he had mixed feelings about Blake’s Brigade, the loosely organized cadre of volunteers Grandfather called on whenever he was organizing an animal rescue or a protest. I could understand the chief’s misgivings. The Brigade members were almost universally good-hearted and well-meaning, but they often displayed more enthusiasm than common sense. For my part, I always wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and take a long nap when the Brigade left town.
“So I’ll leave it to you to organize the crates and cages and the transport,” the chief said. “Dr. Blake, can we safely house the exotic animals at your zoo, at least for the short term?”
“No problem. Depending on how many we find, we might need to transfer some to the Willner Wildlife Sanctuary in the longer term. But we can talk that over with Caroline when she gets back from that silly cruise of hers.”
Did Grandfather actually miss Caroline, his usual co-conspirator, or was he only annoyed that she wasn’t on hand to help?
“And Clarence,” the chief continued. “I assume you can tap your network of foster families to handle the rest.”
“There are an awful lot of animals,” Clarence said. “But with a little help from the Brigade, we’ll manage.”
“I’ll strong-arm a few cousins if you fall short,” Randall said.
“Mother could probably do the same with our family,” I suggested. Dad beamed at the idea.
“So how soon can we make this raid?” the chief asked.
“Immediately!” Grandfather roared, leaping out of his chair. “While we sit here talking, animals are suffering!”
“And if we rush in without proper preparation, we could add to their suffering rather than alleviating it.” The chief extended both hands, palms down, and gently patted the air in front of him. Grandfather took the hint and sat down.
“But quickly,” Grandfather said. “Today.”
“It will take us a few hours to round up the necessary supplies, transport, and personnel,” Clarence said. “And the statute prohibits a search after sunset unless specifically authorized for cause by the proper authority.”
“Well, either I’m the proper authority or I’m sure Judge Jane Shiffley would do,” the chief said. “But is there cause?”
Clarence considered.
“Cold is the biggest thing to worry about in the short term,” he said. “Assuming Meg’s right about the barn being unheated. Still, snow’s a pretty good insulator, and the temperatures aren’t going to get more than a degree or two below freezing tonight. The animals should be okay for that long. But I hear there’s an arctic air mass headed our way by tomorrow night. Record cold temperatures. I wouldn’t want to leave them out there for that. So I think we should go in tomorrow.”
“But in the meantime, the animals could be suffering!” Grandfather exclaimed. “Why not go now?”
“Call me a worrywart,” I said. “But we’re talking about going into an unfamiliar place, looking for an unknown number of animals, some of them potentially quite dangerous, and with no idea whether or not the human occupants are armed. Do we really want to be dealing with all those unknowns in the dark?”
“And in the middle of a snowstorm.” The chief nodded. “My thinking exactly. Can we all be ready by dawn tomorrow?”
One by one they all nodded.
“Dawn’s at seven fifteen,” the chief said. “Rendezvous here at six thirty. I’ll work out all the legal issues—Randall, I hope you didn’t have anything else for the county attorney to work on today.”
“Nothing that can’t wait.”
The chief looked at me.
“Meg, I know it’s an imposition, but I’d like you to go along if possible. You’re the only one who’s had eyes on the place—we may need your knowledge. If we had more lead time I’d find a way to get one of my officers to scout the place, but I don’t want to risk spooking the occupants this close to our search.”
“Count
me in,” I said.
Chapter 11
“Till tomorrow, then, everyone,” the chief said. “Meg, if you could stay behind for a few minutes we’ll take care of that formal complaint.”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Oh, just one more thing before everyone runs off.”
But Dad and Grandfather already had. Still, Randall and Clarence paused in the doorway and the chief froze in place at his desk, all of them with tense, earnest expressions on their faces, as if expecting me to unleash some final bit of news that would complicate our project even more.
“Completely unrelated and probably not urgent,” I said. “But I did promise the Reverend Robyn I’d ask: Do any of you know what Weaseltide is?”
They all blinked and looked at each other as if they thought it was a trick question.
“Someone wants to hold a Weaseltide celebration at Trinity Episcopal,” I explained. “And Robyn was too polite to ask what the heck that was.”
“Nothing I’ve ever heard of,” Clarence said. “And I have a keener interest in weasels than most folks.”
He pulled up his sleeves to display the long, slender, furry creatures tattooed on both forearms.
“I always thought those were ferrets,” I said.
“Which are a subspecies of weasel,” Clarence said. “Mustela putorius furo. Thought to have been domesticated from the European polecat. But I’ve never heard of this Weaseltide thing. I could ask a few fellow Mustelid fanciers if you like.”
“That would be great. Unless either of you know anything?” I turned to Randall and the chief. “Some local thing, perhaps?”
“Not that I know of,” Randall said. “Though I admit, from the name it does sound like the kind of peculiar thing some of my family would get up to. I’ll ask some of the old-timers.”
“Not familiar to me, either,” the chief said. “Did Robyn get the impression that it was some kind of sinister or illicit gathering?”
“A pretty tame one if they wanted to hold it in a church,” I pointed out.
“True.”
“I think she’s just worried that it might be something unsuitable.”
“Some kind of pagan fertility festival, maybe?” Randall chuckled at the idea. “Like that time your cousin Rose Noire invited those nudists to camp out in your back pasture?”
“In her defense, she didn’t know they were nudists,” I protested. “They described themselves as ‘nature lovers.’ She was expecting tree-hugging vegetarians, not people running about in the altogether. But yes, that’s exactly the sort of mix-up Robyn wants to avoid.”
“I’m on a discussion list for sheriffs and chiefs of police,” the chief said. “Covers most of Virginia and parts of West Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland. I can ask if any of them have ever run into this Weaseltide thing. But you might want to check with your brother. See if it could be something from one of those computer games of his.”
“A good idea.” There had been a time when I’d have known whether or not something was from one of Rob’s games without asking—in the early days of Mutant Wizards, Michael and I had pitched in to play-test most of the company’s new games. But in the past ten years, Rob’s company had grown to nearly a hundred times its original size and put out a dizzying array of game titles every year—and ten-year-old Josh and Jamie now took up most of the time I’d once spent in Rob’s cyber worlds.
“Yeah, could be a game thing,” Randall remarked. “Remember that time we went on high alert, thinking a big Caribbean drug kingpin was coming to town, and it turned out that a bunch of tourists had freaked out after overhearing a couple of Rob’s programmers working on a scenario for DEA: You’re Busted!”
“I will definitely ask Rob,” I said. “In fact, I’m going to text him now.”
“Good,” the chief said. “You can do that while I get the paperwork going for your complaint.”
“Oh, by the way,” Randall said, pausing in the doorway. “The bicycles arrived.”
“Is the town getting official bicycles?” The chief sounded puzzled.
“The boys are, for Christmas,” I explained. “And since they’ve become expert at sniffing out presents, Randall kindly agreed to let me have them shipped to him.”
“I assume you want me to keep them until closer to Christmas,” Randall said.
“If they’re not in your way, that would be great.”
“Heck, I can drop them by whenever you want. Christmas Eve, after the boys are in bed, if you like.”
“Unfortunately, the bikes will need assembly, so we’ll need to take them off your hands a little earlier than that. We don’t want to be up all night with wrenches.”
“I could have my cousin Cephas do that if you’d like,” Randall offered.
“If you think he wouldn’t mind,” I said.
“It’d be like giving him a present.” Randall chuckled. “Only thing he likes better than putting things together is taking them apart again, and I can stop him before he gets to that point. And then I can deliver them all assembled on Christmas Eve, so all you have to do is stick a bow on them.”
“That would be wonderful,” I said. “And tell Cephas his next pizza is on me.”
“Will do.” Randall gave a mock salute and ambled out the door.
And I breathed a sigh of relief. No one had uttered the words I had been expecting to hear: “And, of course, if we don’t have enough foster homes for all of them, we can always keep them in Meg’s barn.”
There was no way I wanted a single one of those adorable golden retriever puppies near my highly susceptible twin sons.
Or my equally susceptible brother, who sometimes appeared to be at about the same emotional age as my sons. Lately Rob had been dropping hints about the possibility of adding another dog to the household. He needed our agreement, however grudging, because he still occupied a third-floor bedroom in the huge Victorian farmhouse Michael and I called home. As I had repeatedly pointed out, not only did Rob already have a dog, but since Tinkerbell was on the large side even for an Irish wolfhound, he had several times more dog than most people considered reasonable. So far I hadn’t brought Rob around to this point of view.
“Please let him be too busy to even hear about the puppies,” I muttered as my fingers typed out the text to him:
“Do you know what Weaseltide is?”
I was about to put the phone away when an answer popped up.
“No, should I?”
“No idea. Can you ask around? Small but real reward to the person who can tell me what it is.”
“Roger.”
I was tucking my phone away when the chief came back and we dived into the legalese of my sworn complaint.
“You realize, of course, that the occupants of the farm may seek to have you charged with trespassing,” the chief pointed out.
“Well, technically I was,” I said.
“Not necessarily.” He lifted his eyes up from the complaint document and looked at me over his reading glasses. “Under the Virginia Code your presence on someone else’s property isn’t enough for a trespassing conviction—you have to have had notice that you weren’t allowed there. Oral or written notice—did you see any ‘no trespassing’ signs?”
“I don’t remember any,” I said. “And even if there were any, they might have been covered up by snow—it was coming down pretty steadily by that time. I brushed at least an inch and a half off my car when I got back to it.”
“Good. I plan to check tomorrow on whether there are any reasonably prominent ‘no trespassing’ signs, but even if there are, the snow does raise the question of visibility.”
“Doesn’t the fact that I was trying to protect Haver count for anything? For all I knew, he could have been planning to get drunk on the spot and then head out on the already slippery roads. Isn’t there something that lets you barge in when there’s imminent danger?”
“Exigent circumstances.” The chief was suppressing a smile. “It only covers law enforcement officers bar
ging in without a search warrant. But don’t worry—in the unlikely event that the occupants mount a credible charge of trespassing, we can ask them to drop it in return for a reduction in some of the charges against them.”
“Not if it lets them get off scot-free,” I said.
“Not a chance.” He turned his attention back to the paper. “We won’t need to bargain away more than a few, and there will be plenty of charges.”
In the middle of our work on the complaint, Horace stuck his head in the open door.
“Chief? Your copy of the report on that body in Clay County.”
He laid a folder on the chief’s desk and turned to leave.
“Horace?” the chief said. “Don’t let it get you down.”
“Don’t let what get him down?” I asked.
“Those idiots over in Clay County.” Horace turned back, and I saw his fists were clenched in anger. “I was only able to get a couple of partials. It may not be enough to identify the guy. Maybe if they’d called me in sooner I could have gotten more.”
“It may still be enough,” the chief said.
“If they ever send them in to AFIS,” Horace said. “Apparently they weren’t too impressed with a couple of partials. And besides, Floyd Dingle’s the only person over there who has the slightest idea how to use the AFIS system, and he broke his leg and a couple of ribs bungee jumping over the weekend and there’s no telling how long he’ll be out on medical leave.”
The chief pondered for a few moments.
“Then I’ll send them,” he said.
“But it’s their case.”
“If they give us any difficulties, I’ll say I thought that given Floyd’s illness we were supposed to send them. That’s why you gave me the file, isn’t it? So I could send them to AFIS?”
The chief smiled, and Horace gradually did, too.
“Thanks, Chief.”
“And I know you’ve been working long hours lately, but I could really use you for the animal welfare operation tomorrow,” the chief went on. “So take a couple of hours off this afternoon, get to bed early, and I’ll see you here at six thirty.”
Horace smiled and left.
How the Finch Stole Christmas! Page 8