The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  “The side with the hedge,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “We won’t take too long,” Stanley said.

  He strode ahead, and Dr. Ffollett followed him toward the shed.

  The remains of the shed.

  Chapter 5

  As I followed Stanley and Dr. Ffollett into the backyard, I studied the gardens. I suspected that Dad would be beaming with pride if he were with us. Even my less expert eye could tell that Cordelia had been quite a gardener. I spotted more azaleas and daylilies—though I noted with satisfaction that she didn’t have the wide variety of daylilies we did. I could smell a lilac somewhere nearby, though I couldn’t spot it. Perhaps it was hidden behind the enormous pink and purple rhododendrons. I spotted beds of pink, white, red, and yellow peonies and roses, and an extensive herb garden, neatly labeled.

  But the herbs gave me the first clue that not everything was rosy in the garden. The perennials, including multiple varieties of rosemary, sage, thyme, mint, oregano, and lavender, were thriving, but annuals like basil and marjoram were represented by bare spots. Nearby a large space clearly once devoted to vegetables held only a few rows of beans and some tomato plants. In fact, throughout the garden, the perennials were going strong, and the annuals were either few in number or missing entirely. Clearly Cordelia had been the one who loved and slaved over the garden. Annabel and Dr. Ffollett were carrying on as best they could, but their hearts weren’t really in it, and it showed.

  They were keeping up with the bird feeders, though. Another half-dozen were scattered throughout the backyard. Their perches were getting lively traffic from cardinals, chickadees, titmice, goldfinches, bluebirds, and a lot of birds that Dad would probably have identified in an instant as either familiar friends or rare and welcome visitors, but which I just lumped together as “small, nondescript brown birds.”

  “Not much left, is there?” Stanley said.

  I was about to protest that unless your gardening focus was completely on edibles, there was quite a lot left. Then I realized he wasn’t sharing my focus on the landscape.

  He was looking at what remained of the shed.

  My stomach tightened suddenly, and I wondered if this was really such a good idea. I stared at the debris. The shed had probably been about six by eight feet. The charred front wall was partly standing, and the rest of the building had collapsed into a jumbled pile of half-blackened boards and timbers, with bits of glass and shingles mixed in. The charred and now rusting hulk of the generator was clearly visible behind what had been the back wall of the shed. In life, its useful but pedestrian, boxy shape would probably have been hidden entirely by the shed.

  And the whole scene was fenced in with a double row of crime-scene tape.

  “Chief Heedles hasn’t yet taken the crime-scene tape down,” Stanley said. “Maybe we should check with her first.”

  “She hasn’t taken it down because she never put any up,” Dr. Ffollett said. “That was her idea.” He nodded slightly toward the house. “Did you know you can buy that stuff on the Internet now?”

  “Ah,” Stanley said. “Well, then.”

  He lifted up one section of the tape and ducked under.

  I tried to think of a good reason to be somewhere else. Surely there must be more clues to be found in the herb garden. Or a need for someone to walk nonchalantly up and down in front of the house next door, where Annabel’s chief suspect lived, and jot down any suspicious activity. I was almost hoping for a call from Natalie—as long as it wasn’t about something that would kick off another round of stitches.

  Why was I so reluctant to follow Stanley into the ruins of the shed? Cordelia’s body would be long gone. I could easily see Annabel wanting to preserve any gruesome details of the scene, like a tape outline or other visible signs of where the body had been found. On the other hand, the ruins of the shed were uncovered, so time and the elements would have had a chance to soften everything.

  But my grandmother died there. Never mind that I hadn’t known her, and that she, apparently, had been content to keep it that way. She was still my grandmother.

  I glanced up at the house. I spotted Annabel peering out from one of the windows.

  Get over it, I told myself. Cordelia’s body wasn’t here, and I would be damned if I was going to let Annabel think I was squeamish. I stepped forward, lifted up the tape, and followed Stanley—

  Who wasn’t wading into the thick of the rubble, thank goodness. He was circling the ruins at a careful distance, peering closely at everything and snapping photos every few seconds with his digital camera.

  “Where was Mrs. Mason found?” he asked.

  “By the generator.” Dr. Ffollett pointed.

  Stanley began to pick his way around the perimeter toward the remains of the generator. I stayed where I was for now and tried to picture the scene as it must have been six months ago. I remembered that big storm Annabel had mentioned. A foot of heavy, wet snow fell, knocking out all the power, and then temperatures in the twenties set in for the long haul. Not fun for our household, even with plenty of able-bodied family members to shovel and haul firewood. And Cordelia and Annabel were two ladies in their late eighties or thereabouts, living in a house that looked at least as old as ours and was probably just as badly insulated. I half closed my eyes and tried to imagine the scene. Night instead of day—though it would have been bright; I remember how useful it was having a full moon in mid-power-outage. Moonlight over the unbroken snow of the yard—wait.

  “Someone had shoveled a path to the shed, I assume?” I opened my eyes again and turned to Dr. Ffollett.

  “They hired a high school kid to do chores like that,” Dr. Ffollett said. “And to drive the ladies around to their events. Church, garden club, bird-watching society.”

  “Both of them?” I asked.

  “Cordelia, mostly,” he said. “Miss Annabel never went out much, even before the fire. Thor—Thor Larsen, the kid who was working for them for the last year or two—came over and shoveled the paths for them. And the whole area around the generator. He and Cordelia probably had the usual argument over starting the generator.”

  “Usual argument?” Stanley, who had been squatting and examining the generator, stood up and took out his notebook.

  “Thor thought he should be allowed to start it,” Dr. Ffollett said. “He’s quite mechanically minded. Works part time down at his uncle’s car repair shop. Cordelia didn’t want anyone but herself touching it. Lucky, as it turned out; if he’d been the one to start the generator, I think Chief Heedles might have tried to lay the blame on him. Claimed he’d done something wrong. It would have made his life a misery. He’s fond of both of the ladies. Well, is fond of her”—he gestured toward the house—“and was fond of her cousin.”

  Stanley nodded and scribbled.

  I went back to my efforts to imagine that night. Cordelia following Thor’s shoveled path out to the shed, any sound she made drowned out by the steady mechanical throbbing of the generator. She reaches the shed—and then what? Does she disappear from view?

  “How high was the shed?” I asked.

  “The top of the roof was level with the top of the hedge,” Dr. Ffollett said.

  “And set catty-cornered to the property lines.” Stanley traced a rough rectangle in the air to mark the shed’s position. “So the front of the shed faced Cordelia and Annabel’s house, and the generator was in this back corner of the lot, completely concealed from the house and the street.”

  Dr. Ffollett nodded.

  “Cost a pretty penny, I imagine,” Stanley said. “Running the line that far from there to the house.”

  Dr. Ffollett didn’t respond.

  I walked over to where Stanley was. Yes, with an eight-foot shed where the ruins now lay, no one in the house could see the generator. I turned toward the front of the lot. My view of the road was almost completely blocked by several big camellia bushes planted between it and the shed—though fortunately far enough from the she
d that they hadn’t been consumed by the fire. They were evergreen, so they’d have done the same in December. Definitely the place to ambush someone, if you were so inclined.

  And close up, the sound of the generator would have concealed any noise the killer made. Or any screams from his victim—presumably he’d knocked her down, or maybe even out, to ensure that she’d stay put for the explosion he was about to set off. But I knew from experience that a generator would be ample cover. My parents had installed a generator at their farmhouse, and now Mother was campaigning to have it moved farther from the house. The ladies had been wiser when they’d installed theirs. The generator probably hadn’t really sounded all that loud to them, since it was at the far corner of their very large lot, with the shed between it and the house. I made a mental note that if we installed a generator, we should try to put it behind the barn, at the far edge of our property, and screen it with evergreen shrubs.

  And we had no close neighbors to complain no matter where we put our generator. On one side of us were sheep fields belonging to our nearest neighbor, Seth Early. On the other three, more fields belonging to my parents’ farm. But both Seth’s house and my parents’ were at least a mile away.

  Here, I could understand Theo Weaver’s annoyance. His yard, though not miniscule, was much smaller than Cordelia and Annabel’s, and the generator was a lot closer to his house than theirs. I’d have tried to placate him by inviting him in to share the benefits that came with the noise. If they didn’t want to offer him a spare bedroom, would it have been possible to run a line to his house as well? Possible, but no doubt expensive. And presumably the enmity between the two households predated the generator.

  Still, something about the scene bothered me.

  “I see now what Miss Annabel meant by hopping over the fence,” Stanley said, pointing. The eight-foot iron fence ended at either side at what I assumed was the rear boundary line of the property. That rear boundary was delineated with a low wire fence. There was a gate approximately in the middle of the fence, leading into a field beyond.

  “Easy enough for any reasonably agile person to hop over the fence,” Stanley remarked as we gazed at the wire.

  “Yes,” Dr. Ffollett said. “That’s just what she thinks happened. He hopped over the fence, ran through the field, and then hopped over his own fence to get back into his yard. You didn’t really think she meant the iron fence, did you?”

  “What’s the field used for?” I asked.

  “Nothing, at the moment,” Dr. Ffollett said. “Used to be the Lee family’s pasture back when you needed horses for transportation and a cow or two for fresh milk. Cordelia had gotten fired up about the idea of keeping some sheep, and she had the fence fixed up last fall. She was going to start her flock this spring. Guess that won’t be happening now.”

  “What’s beyond the field?” I asked.

  “Woods,” Dr. Ffollett said. “And mountains, eventually, unless you’re heading toward town. Pretty isolated out here.”

  “I know the ladies didn’t get along with Mr. Weaver next door,” Stanley said. “How about the neighbors across the street?”

  “They get along with them fine when they’re here,” Dr. Ffollett said. “But they’re not home now, and wouldn’t have been the night of the explosion. The house on the left belongs to a colonel from the army. Plans to retire here, but right now he’s only here when he’s home on leave. Other house belongs to a retired couple who only spend spring and fall here. Winters they have a condo in Florida, and summers they’re up in Maine. No, Theo Weaver’s the only real neighbor the ladies have, and they wish they could be rid of him. Cordelia always says—said—that having Theo Weaver around was worse than being all alone.”

  “Very isolated,” Stanley said. “Must have been hard on the ladies.”

  “Wasn’t hard on Cordelia, because she was always gadding about,” Dr. Ffollett said. “And Annabel preferred the peace and quiet.”

  “Preferred?” I said. “She doesn’t now?”

  Dr. Ffollett looked startled for a few moments. Then his face fell.

  “I can’t exactly speak for her,” he said. “But I think she’s lonely.”

  Lonely? Maybe. But if Annabel was right about Theo Weaver, now she was practically alone in the woods with her cousin’s killer. Maybe lonely wasn’t the problem. Maybe she was scared.

  I finally put my finger on what had been bothering me.

  “Were there tracks in the snow that night?” I asked. “Showing where someone had gone over the fence?”

  “No way of telling, after all the firemen had finished trampling around,” Dr. Ffollett said.

  Stanley reached inside his jacket and pulled out a pair of gloves and a folded brown paper bag. He put the gloves on, reached into the charred debris, and pulled out something. A bit of metal, blackened and twisted, but still recognizable.

  “The kerosene lantern?” I asked.

  “A kerosene lantern,” Stanley said. “No way of telling if it’s the one Chief Heedles thinks set off the explosion. But even if she’s sure this was a tragic accident, it does seem a little careless, leaving this lying around.”

  We studied the charred lantern for a few moments. Then he tucked it into the brown paper bag, reached into his pocket, and sealed the bag with a large sticker.

  “Just in case there are any questions about this thing,” he said. He fished a pen out of his pocket and scrawled his signature, half on the bag and half on the sticker. “Meg, if you don’t mind?”

  I followed suit, and Dr. Ffollett, after a moment’s hesitation, stepped forward and did the same.

  “I think we’ve done as much as we can reasonably do before talking to Dr. Blake,” Stanley said. “Dr. Ffollett, thank you for your help. Tell Miss Annabel we’ll be in touch.”

  Dr. Ffollett nodded. He escorted us to the gate and stood watching as we drove off. I couldn’t tell if Annabel was watching, too, but I could swear I felt her eyes on us.

  Chapter 6

  “Well, overall I think that went well,” Stanley said. “We got a lot farther than I expected.”

  “So you think there’s something worth investigating?” I certainly did, but I knew I could be biased. “About Cordelia’s death, I mean. You think it’s murder?”

  “I didn’t at first,” he said. “But if Chief Heedles really went in with her mind made up that this was a tragic accident…”

  “And if she really thinks my grandmother was such a doddering old fool that she’d traipse around with a kerosene lantern when she had a perfectly good LED headlight at her bedside.” I realized I sounded cross. “Sorry,” I added. “Not mad at you—just venting.”

  “I think it’s definitely worth investigating,” he said. “Although, even if there was evidence to be found in December, there’s no guarantee it will still be around in June. Still—worth a try. Could you come with me to see your grandfather? I think it will go better.”

  “You think he’s going to be upset to find that Cordelia’s dead?” I asked. “Because, frankly, I doubt it. More likely he’ll be peeved that she inconsiderately managed to get herself knocked off before he got around to hiring you to find her.”

  “I’m not going to argue with that prediction,” he said, with a chuckle. “I wasn’t so much worried about his feelings as strategizing the best way to enlist his support for expanding my investigation. If he’s alone when I tell him, I have a feeling his answer will be thanks, but now he knows what happened to her, and would I like to see his latest litter of some endangered animal he’s breeding in captivity.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “Even down to the animals—which will be either black-footed ferrets or red wolves; he has new litters of both this week.”

  “But if I ask him in front of you, maybe he’ll stop and realize that even if he no longer cares what happened to Cordelia, you do.”

  “Good point.” I took out my cell phone and called Dad.

  “How are the fingers?” he asked, by way
of a greeting.

  “They’re fine.” Actually, they were throbbing like crazy, but if I told him that, Dad would explain that it was perfectly normal, which I already knew, so I thought I’d save us both the trouble. “Gridwell did a nice job. How are the boys?”

  “Fine,” he said. “Your grandfather and Natalie are taking them on a nature walk. Is your terrarium large enough for a few more toads?”

  “It’s not large enough for the toads we already have,” I said. “Please enforce a catch-and-release policy on all reptiles and amphibians. Do you think you can keep Grandfather there till I get back?”

  “I doubt if I could chase him away if I wanted to,” Dad said. “Rose Noire and Natalie are making homemade ice cream, and I’m going to start up the grill before too long. Ribs and corn on the cob for dinner.”

  “May I bring a guest?” I said.

  “You and Michael aren’t guests,” Dad said. “You’re expected. I want to inspect Gridwell’s work. He seems to be shaping up, but I still want to keep an eye on him till I’m sure.”

  “I was thinking of bringing Stanley Denton,” I said. “I’ve been helping him with a case.”

  “A case? Here in Caerphilly? Does he need any more help?” Dad devoured at least half-a-dozen mystery books in a slow week and was always fascinated by the idea of getting involved in real-life investigations. Curious that Grandfather hadn’t told Dad he’d hired Stanley. Or maybe not so curious; maybe Grandfather was trying to ensure that his hired PI wasn’t saddled with too much volunteer help.

  “The case is out of town, but we might need your help.” I could almost hear him beaming. “As long as you have enough ribs and corn for one more, I’ll bring Stanley to supper and you can hear all about it. Just make sure Grandfather’s there.”

  “There’s plenty,” Dad said. “I may have overbought the ribs and corn. See you soon!”

  With that we hung up.

  “So there’s plenty for me?” Stanley asked.

  “If even Dad realizes he overbought, there’s plenty for a small army,” I said. “And this should work even better, Rob will be there, so you can tell Grandfather in front of his son and two out of his three grandchildren. Not to mention three out of eight great-grandchildren. Plenty of family pressure to shame him into continuing the investigation even if he’s not so inclined for his own sake.”