Hen of the Baskervilles

by Donna Andrews

  “What’s wrong with the flashlight?” the chief asked.

  “Nothing,” Vern said. “But we thought it might be a good idea to look as if we stopped here for a reason. Here you go, Fred.”

  He handed the flashlight back to Fred, who pointed it at his shoe and flicked the beam on and off again, very quickly.

  Vern, meanwhile, was pointing at a campsite occupied by a dark van and a small tent. It was the last occupied campsite in row fifteen, and not far from the fence surrounding the camp. I wondered if Molly had arrived later than most of the campers or if her frame of mind had made her choose an isolated spot.

  “That’s her van, and the tent seems to be with it,” he said quietly. “No idea if she’s in there.”

  “Meg,” the chief said. “You want to knock and see if she’s there?”

  I nodded and stepped over to the tent. The front flap was zipped, though there was a mesh ventilation window. I tried to peer inside, but it was too dark to see anything. And how does one knock on a tent, anyway? I tapped on the tent pole and spoke as softly as I could.

  “Molly?” I called. “It’s Meg. Are you there?”

  After a few moments, I heard the sound of a zipper and the tent flap opened. Molly peered out.

  “Meg? What’s wrong?”

  She looked anxious, but so would I if someone awakened me at 2:00 A.M. in a strange place.

  “There’s bad news,” I said. “I came to help the police find you so they could tell you.”

  “Bad news?” Molly tugged the zipper all the way open and glanced beyond me to where the police and the two deputies were standing.

  I turned and looked back at the chief. He walked over to stand beside me at the tent.

  “It’s about your husband,” he said. “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  Chapter 19

  Molly blinked as if she didn’t quite understand.

  “Dead?” she repeated. “Did he wreck his car again? That’s it, isn’t it? He’s had two DUIs in the last year but nothing seems to—”

  “Molly.” I didn’t say it very loudly, but it got through to her. She fell silent and looked up at the chief, waiting.

  “Your husband was murdered,” the chief said.

  “Brett?” Molly looked genuinely baffled. “Who would want to kill Brett?”

  “That’s what we’d like to find out,” the chief said. “I’d like to talk to you. Can you come down to the fair office with me?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Just let me find my shoes and— Wait.”

  She suddenly looked completely awake for the first time since she’d opened the tent flap.

  “You think I did it, don’t you?” she said. “I’m the obvious suspect. The abandoned wife. But you’re wrong. I couldn’t kill Brett. I couldn’t even kick him out. He finally left on his own.”

  “Should she have an attorney?” I asked the chief. I was already pulling out my notebook.

  “If she wants to have an attorney present—” the chief began.

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t do it and I have nothing to hide.”

  “Here,” I handed her a sheet of paper from my notebook. What did it say about my friends and family that I’d memorized the name and phone number of a local defense attorney?

  “May we search your tent and your van?” the chief asked. “It’s routine in a murder investigation.”

  “Murder?” Molly repeated. “How did he—how was he killed?”

  “He was shot,” the chief said.

  Molly flinched at his words.

  “Oh.” She closed her eyes and remained perfectly still for a few seconds. Then she opened them up again and set her jaw.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s get this over with. Search all you like.”

  She reached behind her, pulled out a pair of canvas shoes, slipped them on, picked up a small purse, then walked off with the chief.

  I glanced over at the two deputies, who were putting on plastic gloves. Plunkett, the Clay County deputy watched them for a few minutes, then shook his head and chuckled.

  “You got a spare pair of them things?” he asked.

  Vern rolled his eyes, but Fred pulled another pair of gloves out of his pocket.

  “I’ll go back to the fairgrounds with the chief,” I said, and then hurried to catch up to the chief and Molly. It didn’t feel like a good night for wandering around alone. The chief didn’t say anything when I joined them. In fact, neither of them said anything until we drew near the fair office. We could see that activity was still ongoing over at the site of the murder, and someone had set up a couple of portable floodlights to illuminate the area.

  Molly stumbled, and I glanced over to see that she was staring fixedly at the circle of light.

  “Is that where…?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Let me open the trailer for you,” I said to the chief.

  I unlocked the office, stepped in, and flicked on the light switch. We were in luck—the power was working tonight. The overhead fluorescents made the trailer seem stark, industrial, and almost grim. Or maybe that last part was my mood.

  “You might want to use my desk,” I said.

  The chief glanced at the two desks. Mine wasn’t exactly empty, but the papers were in neat stacks and the assorted desk tools were grouped in square wooden baskets. Of course, in the few weeks since we’d set up the fair office, I’d actually spent quite some time working here, while Randall seemed to use his desk only as a place to store stuff.

  “I make sure it’s easy to clear away so we can use it as a table when we have meetings.” I was clearing away as I spoke. The papers went into more baskets, and then all the baskets went onto a series of shelves on the wall behind the desk. In a few minutes, the desk was empty except for a desk lamp and a well-filled pencil holder.

  The chief nodded his approval and held a chair for Molly.

  “Want me to start the coffee machine before I go?” I asked.

  “Please,” the chief said. “And thank you for your help.”

  I turned on the machine, threw a packet of coffee in, and added the water.

  “All yours,” I said as I exited the trailer.

  I glanced at my watch. A little past two. My patrol shift was over. Technically, I could go to bed, but I wasn’t sure I could sleep.

  I pulled out my cell phone and called Michael.

  “Over here by the crime scene,” he said, without my even asking. “Standing by to help with crowd control if needed. Was that you going into the fair office?”

  “Letting the chief in so he can question Molly.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah.”

  We fell silent. If I glanced over toward the spotlighted crime scene, I could make out his silhouette. That was strangely comforting. As was the thought that the boys were across the fairgrounds from all of this.

  “Early patrols are all off duty,” he said after a while. “Couple of them are still hanging around here, trying to rubberneck. The graveyard shift patrols are all making their rounds. Though it’s a good thing they’re not armed. Or at least I hope they aren’t. Most of them are jittery as hell.”

  “I told them if I caught anyone with a weapon I’d have him arrested,” I said. “No guarantee they listened.” In fact, I knew at least one of the Shiffleys hadn’t, but he’d been discreet, and I wasn’t planning to cause trouble for him. Maybe he’d been a better judge of the dangers of his post than I’d been. “Look,” I said aloud. “I’m going to stay here for a little while. If the chief lets Molly go, she’s going to need someone.”

  “And if he doesn’t let her go?”

  “No idea.” With that we hung up.

  Randall and I had put a small bench just outside the door of the fair office. I took a seat. If the chief came out, I could tell him I was watching the door for him. And I could keep an eye on what was happening at the crime scene without being close enough to see the details. I’d already seen way more of the crime scene than
I wanted, and didn’t plan to go near the gate again until the EMTs took away Brett’s body. I wondered how soon that would be.

  And how soon would the chief release the scene? Did I need to talk to Randall about rounding up some workmen to arrange a detour—another gate through the fence to let people into the Midway?

  I pulled out my notebook and scribbled it on my to-do list.

  After I put the notebook away, I thought of another task. I’d need to make sure someone cleaned up the area around the gate. Bad enough that people would be gawking at it once they heard what had happened there. No way I’d let anyone near it until there was nothing to see but an ordinary wooden gate in an ordinary split-rail fence.

  I didn’t pull out my notebook to write that down, though. No danger at all I’d forget it.

  Maybe a little danger that I’d fall asleep before I got a chance to do anything about it. I suddenly yawned, and realized that I was tired enough to fall asleep sitting up.

  I was still awake, though barely, when the two deputies, Vern and Plunkett, came striding toward me.

  “Chief in there?” Vern asked.

  “With Molly,” I said.

  “He’ll want to see this,” Plunkett crowed. “Show her the gun, Vern.”

  “Gun?”

  Vern frowned, but Plunkett didn’t seem to notice.

  “Found it in the killer’s van,” Plunkett said.

  “Suspect’s van,” Vern corrected. He was on his phone. “Chief? We found a gun in the back of Ms. Riordan’s van.… Okay.”

  Plunkett reached for the door, but Vern caught his arm.

  “Chief says wait,” Vern said. “He’ll be a few minutes.”

  “Okay,” Plunkett looked around, and spotted the activity over at the gate. “Give a yell when he’s ready for us. Can’t wait to see his face when he sees what we found.”

  He ambled off toward the floodlights.

  “‘What we found.’” Vern didn’t sound his normal, easygoing self. “I know we’re supposed to make nice, keep peace between the counties, but you want to know what really happened?”

  I nodded.

  “We were both searching the van. I started at the front end, Plunkett took the back, while Fred worked on the tent. I was still doing the glove compartment when Plunkett announced that he was going to go have a smoke. Didn’t seem like he’d had time to do more than glance into the back, so I just worked my way through the whole thing from front to back. Found the gun under the floor mat in the back.”

  He shook his head in disgust.

  “’Course now he claims he wasn’t finished searching—just taking a smoke break. Tried to get up in my face about trespassing in his part of the van. Wouldn’t shut up until I promised I wouldn’t tell who found the gun—just that we found it.”

  “A promise you’re already breaking, apparently.”

  “Actually, he only made me promise not to tell the chief.” Vern rolled his eyes. “Didn’t say anything about not telling anyone else. Including someone who might happen to let the truth slip to the chief.”

  “So you actually want me to pass the word along.” I was puzzled. Vern and the chief seemed to have a good working relationship.

  “I did promise not to tell him,” Vern said. “But I think he needs to know. ’Cause I think Plunkett has an ulterior motive here. I know this probably sounds crazy, but I think he wants a job in our department.”

  “I didn’t know you were hiring.” In fact, given the county’s troubled financial state, I’d thought the sheriff’s department, like every other department, was tightening its belt and postponing any new hires.

  “We will be after the first of the year,” Vern said. “Bill’s retiring, and Jamal’s going back to college full time to get his MBA. Even in these times, that’s more downsizing than we need. We’ll be hiring.”

  “Cool,” I said. “But if I were looking to get hired by the chief, I think I’d work a little harder on not ticking him off.”

  “I don’t think Plunkett sees it that way. I bet he thinks he’s impressing the chief with his initiative. And that if the chief thinks he was the one smart enough to find the murder weapon, he’s a shoo-in.”

  “So you think the gun you found is the murder weapon?”

  “It’s a twenty-two,” he said. “We won’t know for certain till they do all the forensics, but I saw the wound, and I’d be surprised if anything bigger than a twenty-two made it. And the gun’s been fired recently. I can tell that all by myself, from the smell. Maybe it’s a good thing I did find it. It’s hard enough to get fingerprints from a gun to begin with, and if Plunkett had found it, he’d have covered up any we could find with his own.”

  “And fired it, once or twice, just to see if it works,” I suggested.

  “Don’t laugh; he probably would have,” Vern said. “Where do they find clowns like him?”

  Just then I spotted an ambulance lurching slowly up the dirt road. No flashing lights or siren, but the headlights alone would wake a few people in the barns. Vern followed my glance and shook his head when he saw the ambulance.

  “Poor guy,” Vern said. “I feel bad.”

  I looked up, startled. For a moment I thought was saying that he was ill and needed an ambulance, too. But he wasn’t clutching his heart or anything, just frowning slightly.

  “Bad about what?” I asked.

  “The poor guy’s lying there dead and we were squabbling over his body like … like … I don’t know what. It was shameful. A man’s dead; he should have some dignity.”

  “We couldn’t just let them take over,” I said.

  “No.” Vern’s jaw was set hard. “No, you did good, keeping that from happening. They’re real slick over there in Clay County at catching poachers and running petty crooks out of town, but they can’t solve this. And if your friend didn’t do it, I don’t want her framed because they’re too stupid to investigate. And if she did do it, I don’t want her to get off because they screwed up the investigation.”

  “Understood,” I said. “I feel the same way.”

  We sat in silence for a few moments.

  “Maybe it will turn out to be a simple robbery,” I suggested.

  “Not likely.” Vern shook his head. “His wallet was there. With a couple hundred in it, not to mention a whole deck of credit cards. Might be car theft. We didn’t find his keys. And the chief put out an APB on his car—a Mazda MX-5 convertible. Bright red. Expensive taste in cars.”

  I wondered if Genette had bought it for him or if he’d used money that could have gone to help with Molly’s farm.

  We sat in silence for a few more moments, then Vern stood up as if coming to a sudden decision.

  “Tell the chief I went over to help the EMTs,” he said. “Have him call me to let me know if he wants to see the gun or just have me turn it over to Horace.”

  With that he strode off.

  I settled back more comfortably on the bench. After all, I had been entrusted with an official message for the chief. I wasn’t just hanging around being nosy. I was being useful.

  I’d been asleep for at least half an hour when the chief gently shook me awake.

  “Your friend has a request,” he said.

  Molly was standing beside him. And Deputy Aida.

  “Thanks for the lawyer’s name,” Molly said. “She’s meeting me down at the jail. Any chance you could do something about my booth? I don’t know when I’ll be back to deal with it.”

  “I can find someone trustworthy to do sales,” I said.

  “You think anyone will actually want to buy cheese from a murder suspect?” Molly was shaking her head as if she thought she knew the answer. “I was thinking more of just packing it up.”

  “On the contrary, the notoriety should send sales through the roof,” I said. “I’m thinking we should raise prices before the word gets out.”

  “Yeah, right.” Evidently Molly thought I was kidding. “I’ll leave it to you, then.” She turned to Aida. “I’m
ready.”

  The chief and I watched as they trudged off toward the front gate.

  “You should get some sleep,” he said.

  “So should you,” I replied. “Or Minerva will have your head.”

  He grimaced and nodded.

  “I want to stay nearby in case something comes up,” he said. “I noticed a cot here in the closet. I thought I’d bunk down on that tonight, if that’s okay with you and Randall.”

  “It’s fine with me, and Randall’s not here to object,” I said. “Be my guest. Vern said to tell you he’ll be over there at the crime scene with the gun he found. I’ll be in the sheep barn if anyone needs me.”

  Chapter 20

  Morning arrived too soon. Actually, since I’d already seen three hours of morning before going to bed, what arrived too soon was my adorable and way-too-energetic sons.

  “Mommy, wake up! Look at the sheeps!” Jamie was crowing.

  Josh contented himself with leaning over me, tugging on my shoulder with one hand while eating a particularly juicy mango with the other. Little bits of mango and dollops of the mango juice and mango-flavored drool were raining on my face.

  “Josh, can you eat your mango someplace else?” I said, as I sat up and reached for something to wipe my face with. “No, don’t lean over Daddy’s face while you eat it.”

  “It’s okay.” Michael sat up, a little baggy eyed from lack of sleep, but as always just as cheerful with the boys as if he’d gotten his full eight hours. “Josh, can you give Daddy a bite?”

  “Look at all the sheeps!” Jamie repeated.

  “Just sheep,” I said. “Look at all the sheep.”

  “Yeah!” Jamie said. “Millions and millions of sheeps!”

  “I’m sorry.” Rose Noire was standing just outside our bedroom pen, with half a dozen bags and totes over her shoulders. “I thought you’d be up by now. It’s eight o’clock, and we open at nine today.”

  “We were up very late,” I said.