How the Finch Stole Christmas!

by Donna Andrews

  “Good plan,” Dad said.

  “And I think I’ll call this fellow Laurencio.”

  Grandfather wasn’t looking my way, but I gave his idea a thumbs-up anyway.

  Time for me to get back to the theater. Rehearsal would have started. And although I could contribute little or nothing to what was actually happening onstage, the closer we came to opening night the more little practical problems arose offstage to distract Michael. Those I could deal with just as well as he could. Often better. Time to leave crime solving to the chief.

  I was halfway to the theater when my phone rang. I glanced over at the seat where I’d tossed it. Ekaterina. I was tempted to let it go to voice mail and call her when I got to the theater. But if something dire was happening, I wanted to know.

  I grabbed the phone and answered it as I steered my car into the nearest place where the snowplows had created a little bit of a shoulder.

  “In the last few days I think I’ve talked to you more than to my husband,” I said. “What’s up?”

  “Meg, do you know if there was a reason for the police to confiscate the bird?”

  “Bird?” My brain drew a blank for a moment. “You mean Haver’s finch? Not that I know of. Is it missing?”

  “Yes. Mrs. Frost is hysterical.”

  “Mrs. Frost?” Something didn’t add up. “Why would she be upset? For that matter, why would she even know it was missing?”

  “Apologies,” Ekaterina said, “I omitted to give you the necessary context. You recall that I put Mrs. Frost in the same hallway as Mr. Haver and Mr. O’Manion.”

  “The better to keep an eye on all three,” I said. “I remember. Go on.”

  “Apparently while passing Mr. Haver’s door, Mrs. Frost heard the finch singing, and became agitated for the bird’s welfare. She said she was fond of all the pretty birds. So I instructed Lupe, the housekeeping associate who cleans that hallway, to notify me when she was ready to clean Mr. Haver’s room. My plan was to collect the old lady and take her in to see that the bird was in fine shape. And she was in fine shape—I did a video consult with Dr. Rutledge over the phone this morning, and he was very satisfied with her condition, and promised to come by to inspect her in person tomorrow.”

  Poor Clarence. On top of everything else he’d been dealing with since this morning’s raid, he was having to make house calls at the Inn.

  “But that was this morning,” Ekaterina said. “Just now, when I went in to display the bird to Mrs. Frost, she was gone.”

  “Just the bird, or was the cage gone, too.”

  “The cage, too. And to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Haver is still at rehearsal. I have not yet checked with every single staff member, but so far no one I have spoken to has seen Mr. Haver, and no one admitted anyone else to the room.”

  “Then why would you think the police had confiscated the finch? They couldn’t have gotten in without one of your staff.”

  “They are the police. They have resources we ordinary civilians do not.”

  Actually, I suspected the chief would be envious of some of Ekaterina’s resources.

  “I think they’d clear it with you first,” I said aloud. “They know you’ve been helping us on this.”

  “If it is not the police, then perhaps Mrs. Frost is right,” she said. “Perhaps the finch smugglers infiltrated the hotel to reclaim the bird.”

  “Mrs. Frost said that?”

  “Actually, what she said was that the man must have taken the finch. And when I asked what man, she said, ‘The man who comes to take the animals.’ She was very agitated. It took two frozen daiquiris to restore her to a state of calmness.”

  The man who comes to take the animals. That did sound rather ominous.

  “I think you need to tell this to the chief,” I said.

  “What if he does not approve? Of our searching Mr. Haver’s room?”

  “You don’t have to mention the searching,” I said “You could just let him assume housekeeping noticed the absence of the bird when they went in to clean.”

  “Perhaps you could tell him?”

  Was it a generic Russian thing, this disinclination to talk to the police? Or a daughter of a self-proclaimed Russian spy thing?

  “Let’s make sure the bird’s really missing,” I said. “I’m on my way over to the theater. Haver should be there, rehearsing. I’ll ask him about the finch. Or maybe I won’t need to ask. It’s always possible Haver decided to take the bird over there.”

  “If Mrs. Frost becomes agitated again, I will suggest as much. I will let you know if we discover anything.”

  “Likewise.”

  I pulled back onto the road. And quickly realized I was driving much too fast. I forced myself to slow down to a little under the speed limit. I checked the clock on my dash. Three o’clock. Theoretically, the second run-through should start any minute, although who knows what Haver’s arrival had done to the schedule.

  I’d find out soon enough.

  Chapter 32

  I was relieved to see that the parking lot was full. Good! They needed all the rehearsal time they could get.

  Although when I peered into the theater, I found Michael and most of the cast sitting in the first row of seats or on the edge of the stage, devouring pizza while Michael told them what they’d done right or wrong during the act they’d been rehearsing when the pizza had arrived. This, I’d learned, was called “giving notes.”

  “Grab a slice,” Michael said, waving at the boxes from Luigi’s that were lined up along the apron—the front part of the stage that curved out into the audience.

  I wasn’t waiting for permission. A few minutes earlier, if anyone had asked whether I was hungry, I might have shrugged and said “not really.” But my stomach growled at the smell of the pizza, and I tried to remember the last time I’d eaten. I’d had a doughnut at the police station before this morning’s raid, and nothing since.

  I grabbed two slices. Luigi’s pepperoni and sausage was my favorite at any time, but now—ambrosia.

  As I ate, I scanned the assembled cast and crew, looking for Haver. And not spotting him.

  “Okay, at the beginning of the Fezziwig scene,” Michael said, looking at his notebook. “No, never mind; that’s for Malcolm.”

  I sidled over to the nearest crew member—who happened to be Jake, the set designer.

  “Haver’s not here?” I asked in an undertone.

  “His fan club took him to lunch.” Seeing my puzzled look, he elaborated. “Haver said his stomach couldn’t handle pizza this close to opening night, especially after the local police gave him the third degree, and I gather they also took away his car keys. So the fan lady offered to take him someplace where he could get whatever he wants instead.”

  “I bet she was excited.”

  “Over the moon.” He grinned and shook his head. “No idea what she sees in him, but if she’s willing to chauffeur him around and stroke his ego, it makes it much more pleasant for the rest of us.”

  Not to mention the fact that she was well aware of the importance of keeping Haver sober.

  And, at least by the sound of it, they’d run through the first two acts before breaking for lunch. Given Michael’s good mood, I suspected Haver had been reasonably well behaved and cooperative. So although I was still mildly annoyed that I’d have to wait to ask him about the missing finch, more important things were going right.

  Things in the theater seemed to be under control, so I decided to see what else needed doing.

  Jamie and Josh were sitting with their fellow juvenile cast mates and seemed reasonably attentive to Michael’s notes. So I waved at them and at Rose Noire, who was sitting in the back row, clearly enjoying her look at what went on behind the scenes as much as the play itself.

  Then I quietly slipped out of the theater and into the busy world of backstage.

  Prop shop, costume shop, scenery shop—I had errands in all three. But I decided that first, while Haver was out, I’d glove up and
give his dressing room a quick search. Not the kind of exhaustive search I’d done when I’d found the gun—just a quick check to see if the finch was there, and maybe a peek into the places where he’d been in the habit of hiding bottles.

  And it occurred to me that the space above the ceiling tiles was plenty large enough to hold a bottle. Maybe that could explain the couple of times when, even though I hadn’t found a bottle, Haver had still gotten progressively more inebriated as the rehearsal wore on. So I climbed up and checked that space, too.

  My hand met something.

  The gun was back.

  “Deja vu all over again,” I muttered. “And this time I am not putting it back.” Hadn’t the chief himself said he wished I’d confiscated it last time?

  I grabbed a clean hand towel, wrapped the gun in it, and stuck it in the bottom of my tote.

  I was about to retreat to someplace more private so I could call the chief when a crazy thought hit me. I stuck my head out of the dressing room and checked to make sure no one was in sight. Then I dashed down the hall to the closet where the janitorial supplies were kept, in search of the equipment I’d need to lay a snare for Haver.

  I didn’t find quite enough mousetraps to make a complete ring around the opening in the tile, so I alternated the mousetraps with sheets of flypaper. And then I carefully eased the tile in place with the tips of my fingers to make sure all the mousetraps and flypaper sheets stayed in place, so no matter which direction Haver groped after pushing away the tile he’d encounter something he wouldn’t enjoy.

  Then I ran down to my car and called the station.

  “Meg, what’s wrong?” Debbie Ann said. “You sound out of breath.”

  “I just ran all the way to my car,” I puffed.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, something’s right,” I said. “I found Haver’s gun.”

  “Let me get the chief.”

  It didn’t take long.

  “You found the gun? Where?”

  “Same place I found it before,” I said.

  “Did he reload it?”

  “I didn’t check.” The thought that I might have been running around the theater with a loaded gun rattling around in the bottom of my tote shook me a little. I put my gloves back on, unwrapped the gun, and toggled the switch to open the magazine.

  Empty. I let out the breath I’d been holding.

  “No, it’s still unloaded,” I said. “I thought it felt light.”

  Actually, it had never occurred to me to wonder if he’d loaded it again, but I wasn’t about to admit that.

  “I realize that you probably aren’t as interested in it now that you’ve got the phony Agent Ruiz,” I began. “But I would still like to get it out of the theater, so is there any chance you could confiscate it anyway?”

  “Actually, I’m still very interested in examining Mr. Haver’s gun,” the chief said. “I’m a little shorthanded right now, so it could take a while to send someone over there.”

  “Want me to bring it in?”

  “That would be very kind of you.”

  “Kind, nothing,” I said. “I don’t care if this thing is unloaded—I will still feel a lot better when it’s out of my hands.”

  We signed off, and I started the car. I was already starting to feel a sense of relief. Within minutes, Haver’s gun would be safely locked up in the police department’s property room. And knowing the chief, I was sure he’d find a way to keep it there until Haver left town. And while in theory he could buy another gun—well, any time now, Cousin Maximilian would be arriving to take up his sober companion responsibilities. Mother and I could make it part of his job description to see that Haver stayed not only sober but disarmed.

  As I threaded my way through the downtown tourist traffic to the police station—even my shortcuts were jammed today—I found myself thinking that if I were elected Queen of the Known Universe, I would issue a decree that made it possible to declare certain people in need of constant adult supervision. Haver, for example, would arguably be a happier, healthier, and more successful human being if he had someone looking after him. Not just a sober companion but a sanity companion.

  “And most of you would benefit as well,” I said, under my breath, as I watched a party of tourists stop dead in the middle of the street to consult their map. But I smiled as I said it. I didn’t want anything to upset them and distract them from spending their money in the brightly lit and tinsel-laden stores. As Randall was fond of saying, “Be nice to the tourists—they’re keeping your taxes down.”

  There were a couple of unfamiliar cars in the parking lot of the police station. I spotted a sedan with the ATF logo on its door, and two Clay County police cruisers. And since you didn’t often see Crown Victorias in civilian use, I suspected at least one other law enforcement agency had arrived in Caerphilly.

  Interesting. It had only been about twenty-four hours since the chief had sent in the fingerprints Horace took from the man we now knew was Laurencio Ruiz. Given the speed with which these various interested agencies were showing up, whatever the fake Ruiz had been involved in must be something pretty big.

  I parked at the far end of the lot and bustled into the station—the temperature was still hovering in the single digits.

  Inside, I found Kayla sitting at the desk. She started and looked guilty when I came in, and I noticed her surreptitiously pressing a button on her phone. I’d probably caught her using the intercom to eavesdrop on something in the chief’s office.

  “I brought Haver’s gun,” I said, putting my tote down on the desktop and pretending not to notice what she’d been up to.

  “The chief will be glad to get that.” She looked around to make sure no one else had snuck into the room, and then stage-whispered to me. “Mr. Brickelhouse has an alibi.”

  “Brickelhouse?” I repeated. “Is that the guy who was pretending to be a Fish and Wildlife agent?”

  She nodded.

  “How good’s his alibi?”

  “About as good as it gets,” she said. “He was in police custody in Rockingham County last night. The Rockingham County Sheriff and the FBI were questioning him about the disappearance of the real Fish and Wildlife agent. They let him go eventually—I guess they had to because they didn’t have a body or anything. But now they know where the body is, so I bet he’ll be staying behind bars. Maybe not here, though.”

  “Is that why the Clay County folks are over here?”

  “Yes—they’re being complete jerks, by the way. Trying to assert jurisdiction. You’d think they’d be glad to be rid of a John Doe that was taking up space in their morgue. But the point is—Mr. Brickelhouse couldn’t have killed Mr. Willimer. And by the time they arrested Mr. Brickelhouse, Horace had already gone over to process Mr. Haver’s room, and luckily the chief figured it would be just as well to let him finish, just in case. And he found something.”

  “Something incriminating?”

  She nodded, and then her face took on a look of faux innocence.

  “Chief, Meg’s here with Mr. Haver’s gun,” she said over my shoulder.

  Chapter 33

  I turned to see the chief. He didn’t seem as cheerful as he had sounded when I’d called to tell him of the phony Ruiz’s arrest.

  “I suppose Kayla told you that Mr. Brickelhouse—your fake Fish and Wildlife agent—couldn’t have killed Mr. Willimer.”

  “Sorry, chief,” Kayla murmured.

  “So you really do want Haver’s gun,” I said. “I thought you were just humoring my desire to keep it out of the theater.”

  “It’s entirely possible that Mr. Willimer’s murder will turn out to be the handiwork of one of Mr. Brickelhouse’s criminal associates,” the chief said. “But in the meantime, Mr. Haver remains very much a suspect. So yes.”

  I reached into my tote, pulled out the towel-wrapped gun, and handed it to the chief.

  “Did you touch it?” he asked.

  “Because if I did, you’ll need
my fingerprints for comparison,” I said, nodding.

  “Actually, now that you’re a town and county employee, I think your fingerprints are on file,” he said with a smile. “Just wondering if we’ll need to access them.”

  “I only touched it with gloves on,” I said. “Given the state of Haver’s dressing room, gloves probably aren’t enough—I’m wondering if I should escalate to a hazmat suit.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “That you wore gloves, that is. Sorry about the need for a hazmat suit.”

  “I suppose you’ll be sending it down to the crime lab in Richmond for testing,” I said.

  “Actually, as soon as Horace gets back from the Inn, I’ll have him fire a couple of rounds so he can do his own test,” the chief said. “And then we’ll send it down to the crime lab. Horace’s word is good enough for me, but juries and defense attorneys are always much more impressed with the state crime lab folks.”

  “By the way,” I said. “Did Ekaterina call you? I mean, lately—within the last couple of hours.”

  “No.” He smiled slightly. “She still doesn’t quite believe that we are rather different from the KGB.”

  “She was under the impression you’d confiscated Haver’s finch,” I said.

  “Is it missing?”

  I nodded, and relayed what I remembered of Mrs. Frost’s comments.

  “‘The man who comes to take the animals away.’” The chief frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. Thank you. I will consult the ever-growing collection of colleagues fighting over the guest chairs in my office and see if any of them will own up to nabbing the finch.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “From the look of the parking lot, I figured you must have your hands full with the visiting law enforcement.”

  “Not as full as they will be.” He cast a baleful glance at the corridor that led to his office. “But it’s in a good cause.” He sounded as if he were reminding himself. He nodded to me, and headed back to his office.

  “And I’d better get back to the theater.” I waved good-bye to Kayla, wrapped myself up, and strode out into the bitter cold.