“I think we already gave them all the documents we had,” I said. “Wasn’t Mr. Throckmorton quite busy scanning and faxing and stuffing papers through the barricade all winter?”
“True,” Randall said. “So maybe it’s something he only just figured out was relevant. I don’t rightly know why, but Festus was asking about the archives.”
“He could go over to the courthouse,” I said.
Randall nodded.
“I get the idea he’s not keen on it,” he said. “I did offer to lend him some overalls so he wouldn’t sully that fancy white suit of his on the trip over.”
Cousin Festus invariably dressed in retro-styled three-piece suits. At this time of year they would, of course, be white linen. He always beamed with delight when people said that he reminded them of Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. I tried to imagine him in a pair of Randall’s overalls and failed miserably.
The chief, who, like me, had been working away steadily on the Cobb salad, wiped his mouth and spoke up.
“I presume that since Festus is contemplating making the trip through the tunnel, he thinks it’s tenable for us to keep Mr. Throckmorton in place for the time being,” he said. “Although keeping him under guard is putting a severe strain on our resources.”
“Can’t be helped,” Randall said. “By the way—we’re a little worried about getting the trapdoor done during the Fourth of July orchestra concert. Apparently this 1812 Overture isn’t all that long.”
“Fifteen or sixteen minutes, I should think,” Caroline said.
“Which should be enough time for the really noisy bits, but you know how construction is. So the boys and I are going to make a start during tonight’s rock concert.”
“Good idea,” I said. “It certainly should be noisy enough.”
“Oh, it will be,” he said. “My cousin Vern’s son Orvis is the drummer. Vern won’t even let them practice in his barn anymore.”
“So they’re loud and underrehearsed,” I said. “Great.”
“They get plenty of practice over in Granddaddy’s barn,” Randall said. “Being deaf as a post tends to enhance your appreciation of Orvis’s musical abilities. But they’ll be good cover. And if we finish off tonight, we can kick back and enjoy the fireworks tomorrow. One more thing—”
“Chief?” Sammy stuck his head in the tent door. “There’s some kind of commotion over in the food tent area. Deputy Morris says maybe you might want to see what’s going on.”
The chief set down his empty salad container and took off at a fast trot. Randall, Caroline, and I followed in his wake.
I came around the corner of the ice cream stand and almost bumped into the chief. Randall did bump into me.
“Good Lord,” the chief said. “What’s that fool thing doing there?”
We all turned to see what he was pointing at and saw a vulture perched on the roof of Hamish Pruitt’s hamburger stand.
“You mean, apart from sending a very negative message to all our tourists?” Randall said. “Beats me.”
“I hereby take back any doubts I had about turkey vultures’ ability to find carrion,” I said. “Nearly twenty food concessions, not to mention several dozen sun-ripened trash cans throughout the square, and he heads unerringly to Hamish’s booth. The only question is whether it’s Nekhbet, or a freelance vulture.”
“Nekhbet?” the chief echoed.
“What a lovely name!” Rose Noire exclaimed. And then seeing my unspoken question, she added, “Michael’s on duty at the tent.”
I explained, as well as I could, the demonstration Mr. Doane was giving to Grandfather.
“I see,” the chief said. “You think you could call your grandfather or Mr. Doane and ask them to come and collect their vulture?”
“He doesn’t have a cell phone,” I said. “He hates them, so he just borrows them from whoever he’s with and gripes about them. And I don’t know Mr. Doane’s number. But if this is their vulture, they should be showing up shortly to see what she’s found. They were going to put a GPS anklet on her.”
As we watched, the vulture scuttled sideways slightly until she was on the very edge of the roof. Then she stooped and leaned down, trying to see what was inside the booth.
“Wish we didn’t have that ordinance against shooting off firearms within the town limits,” Randall remarked.
“Even if we didn’t, I can’t believe you’d shoot a harmless turkey vulture,” Rose Noire said. “They’re such an important part of the ecosystem.”
“And besides,” I said, “it probably is Mr. Doane’s tame vulture. I think I see the GPS device on her leg.”
“I wouldn’t shoot her,” Randall said. “But I’d love to fire a few warning shots to scare her off. Chief, couldn’t one of your men oblige? Fire a shot or two in the air?”
“Don’t you think the shots might spook the tourists even more than the vulture?” the chief asked.
“Don’t think of the tourists,” Rose Noire said. “Think of that poor vulture. What if she eats something from Hamish’s booth? He’s very careless about refrigerating his supplies. I’m pretty sure he’s responsible for those cases of food poisoning that keep turning up.”
“She’s a vulture,” I said. “She’s looking for carrion.”
“I’m sure even vultures can’t eat everything,” she replied.
“I’ll put Deputy Shiffley in charge of ensuring that the vulture relocates to a safer environment,” the chief said. “With or without Dr. Blake’s assistance.” He had pulled out his phone and was peering over his glasses at it. “And I’m going to sic the county health inspector on Hamish.”
“Good plan,” Randall said.
Just then I spotted Mr. Doane and Grandfather pushing their way through the crowd. I pointed them out to the chief.
“I’m going back to the tent,” I said. “Call me if there really is a body in Hamish’s booth.”
Chapter 32
Back at the bandstand, the bagpiper appeared to be performing a medley of “Flight of the Bumblebee” and The William Tell Overture. Backstage in the tent, everyone was counting the minutes until his time was up and he’d have to cede the stage to Henrico Taiko, a Richmond-based troupe of Japanese drummers.
Michael, clipboard in hand, was supervising. Rob was napping in one of the folding recliners, which astonished me until I noticed the bits of cotton sticking out of his ears. Caroline was sitting in one of the lawn chairs. She was also festooned with cotton tufts and smiling blissfully.
The boys were in the pen, happily mauling Spike and Tinkerbell. Eric was sitting nearby with an anxious expression on his face, as if he still didn’t quite trust Spike’s doting canine uncle act.
Michael strolled over to greet me.
“I thought they’d enjoy the drumming,” Michael said. “I hope this stuff doesn’t give them bad dreams.”
The bagpiper finished at last, and left the stage to more applause than I’d have expected. Of course, perhaps the audience were applauding not his performance but his departure.
Michael turned to Caroline and mimed pulling something out of his ears. Caroline removed her cotton and joined us.
“Your grandfather and I are on after the drummers,” she said. “Assuming he can tear himself away from chasing vultures long enough to show up.”
“He’ll be here,” I said. “You know how he loves an audience.”
“What’s after us?”
Michael handed her the clipboard and she studied the afternoon and evening’s schedule. She looked up after a few moments.
“What the dickens is Rancid Dread?” she asked.
Michael shrugged and looked at me.
“It’s a heavy metal band,” I said. “That’s kind of like—”
“Heavy metal? Puh-lease!”
I looked around to see the diminutive, black-leather-clad figure of Rancid Dread’s drummer, sixteen-year-old Orvis Shiffley. He was rolling his eyes and wearing the long-suffering expressi
on teenagers so often adopted when adults said or did something particularly lame. I’d seen a milder version of that expression earlier, on Eric, but Orvis was treating me to a full-strength blast of withering adolescent scorn.
“Well, then what do you play?” I asked.
“Like we started out playing some heavy metal,” Orvis said. “But we pretty much moved into retro thrash metal right away, and then into sort of a combination of metalcore and melodic death. Now we’re kind of working our way into dark medieval ambient. And some other stuff that really hasn’t got a name yet. You’ll all probably hate it.”
He strolled off, head high, looking remarkably triumphant at the prospect of our collective hatred.
“You were expecting maybe easy listening?” Michael asked.
“I think I’ll plan on an early night,” Caroline said.
Rob snickered. Apparently he’d awakened and removed his earplugs in time for Orvis’s tirade.
“Eric would like to see Rancid Dread,” Michael said. “And Rob’s going to keep an eye on him and bring him home after the concert. So once Josh and Jamie start to fade, I’ll take them home. Come on, boys. Let’s watch the drummers.”
He and Eric grabbed the boys and took them outside. I picked up the clipboard and returned to wrangling the talent.
Caroline and Grandfather were a hit with their wild animal presentation. So was the old-fashioned barbershop quartet that followed, although they were a little too quiet to be of much use if we’d had to open the trapdoor. Shortly after the Irish step dancers took the stage, producing an impressive amount of staccato noise, assorted Shiffleys began showing up making deliveries of musical instruments and enormous wooden crates with RANCID DREAD stenciled on them. Some of the Shiffleys disappeared into the crawl space, with or without crates, so I assumed they were taking advantage of the Irish decibels.
“What are all these crates?” I asked the Shiffley who delivered the eleventh and twelfth ones.
“Sound equipment,” he said.
I looked around to see if Caroline was still there, so I could ask her where she’d found the cotton earplugs.
The afternoon wore on. Irish step dancing gave way to yodeling. Then the polka band from Goochland County went onstage for an encore performance. They’d been rather miffed at the small number of listeners the day before, but now, without competition from a real live murder investigation, they had a much larger audience and received a warm welcome.
While they were performing, the members of Rancid Dread began slithering into the tent, and now all five were hanging about backstage, sweating heavily in their black leather and black denim stage garb. Since Orvis was not only the oldest, at sixteen, but also the tallest, at five foot six, their collective presence was not quite as menacing as they probably intended. In fact, they looked rather like a party of kids going for one last trick-or-treat before they became too old, and more than a little sheepish about the whole thing. I hoped, for their sake, that they got through the evening without hearing those words, so dreaded by tiny Darth Vaders and miniature Freddie Krugers: “Aren’t they cute?”
It didn’t help that they were all eating Popsicles that stained their mouths bright blue and added another layer of sticky grime to outfits that had already been worn too often without cleaning.
“A penny for them,” Michael said, seeing me frowning at the band members.
“Is it too late to take away those toy drums and ukuleles we gave the boys?” I asked.
“I’ll whisk the boys away before the polka players finish,” he said. “And tomorrow we can look into some toy accordions.”
I said good night to Michael and the boys.
“Your parents are coming over to see the boys, and bringing dinner,” Michael said.
“They must have a surplus of something in the Episcopal tent,” I said. “Don’t let Dad talk about the autopsy with the boys around.”
“Why don’t you try to get off and join us?” he suggested.
I tried, but the only trustworthy substitute I could find was Rose Noire, and my attempts to enlist her to fill in for me fell flat.
“Oh, no,” she said. “I don’t think I could possibly stay here for a heavy metal concert.”
“Dark medieval ambient,” I corrected her.
“It’s the same thing,” she said. “So much raw, dark, hostile energy! It’s all about death and violence and primitive emotions. I’m going to go home and beam some positive vibes to dispel some of the toxic energy they generate.”
“It’s only Orvis Shiffley and some of his friends going through an adolescent phase,” I said. “I don’t think it’s about death and violence as much as hormones and trying to be cool. But do what you need to do.”
“I think I’ll do a cleansing on the bandstand tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’ll gather the herbs tonight, and do it at dawn.”
“Lovely,” I said. I’d long ago learned better than to argue with Rose Noire about subjects like toxic energy. And except for the occasional foul-tasting herbal concoction, all her cleansings and energy beamings seemed, at worst, harmless, and more often than not curiously comforting.
Molly in Chains, the Morris dancers in black leather, turned out to be twelve very shapely and athletic young women, and while their act was just as strange as I expected, it was definitely entertaining. The Rancid Dread musicians spent the entire performance outside gawking. The show almost didn’t go on after the dancers finished their final number, bowed to the applause, and hurried offstage. Most of them pulled off their towering stilettos and iced down their aching feet. The prospect that they might follow this up by removing their sprayed-on leather garb so distracted the Rancid Dreads that they almost forgot they were due onstage. Luckily, they weren’t trying to double as their own roadies. Half a dozen adult Shiffley men began hauling instruments, microphones, and many of the enormous speakers out onto the bandstand. By the time they finished their setup, I’d managed to pry the band’s eyes off the dancers and shoo them out into the tiny offstage area.
We still had at least half of the equipment in the tent, but apparently the adult Shiffleys had decided they had enough amplification onstage. Probably a wise decision, since the only way they could fit any more of the speakers onstage would be to dispense with a musician or two. The volunteer roadies ambled off the stage and the crowd, realizing that the last and presumably biggest act of the day was about to begin, shushed each other until silence reigned.
Rancid Dread exploded onto the stage, all pumping both fists in the air as if to acknowledge the frenzied cheers of their fans. Unfortunately their audience was a mix of indulgently smiling locals, who had known the musicians since they were in diapers, and the tourists, who were perfectly happy to applaud politely for almost any act that walked onstage.
The fist-pumping petered out as the five Dreads took their places. Orvis scurried over to his drums and crouched behind them, peeking out from time to time as if surprised that no one was throwing anything at him. The vocalist clung to the microphone stand as if in need of support, while the guitar, bass, and keyboard players stumbled around onstage, peering at all the available instruments as if unsure which they’d been assigned. Finally the vocalist turned around and stage whispered, “One! Two! Three! Four!” All three instrumentalists quickly grabbed an instrument and began to play.
My initial thought was that they’d also failed to reach agreement on what their first number would be. The guitar player and the keyboardist were playing something that resembled a reggae version of Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild,” while the bass player and Orvis launched into the rhythm of “Louie Louie.” I cringed, expecting that after a few bars they’d stop and regroup, or perhaps one side or the other would give in gracefully and switch. But either they were all incredibly stubborn or the mishmash they were playing was exactly what they had in mind.
After a few bars more, the vocalist joined in with an earsplitting wail, sort of a cross between chalk on a blackboard and the f
eedback our sound crew had become so adept at producing. The band responded by turning up the volume—a feat I wouldn’t have dreamed possible—and the first few ashen-faced tourists began stumbling toward safety.
I decided to put the tent between me and Rancid Dread, so I ducked inside.
Randall and a posse of Shiffleys had arrived and were springing into action. The reason for the surplus sound equipment became evident—the extra speakers were not actually speakers but cleverly camouflaged cases holding tools, lumber, and other construction supplies.
“We’re going to do some prep work for the trapdoor,” Randall shouted to me. “We’re hauling a bunch of tools and equipment over to the courthouse basement, and then we’re going to work inside the tunnel shaft for a while. So once we get in there, I’d appreciate it if you could close the trapdoor and keep watch.”
“Do you really think anyone will come near the bandstand while this is going on?” I bellowed back.
“Never hurts to be cautious,” he replied. “Specially since one of the band members is a Pruitt. Bass player. He’s the mayor’s second cousin once removed. According to Orvis, he hates his whole family, and maybe that’s true, but…”
“Better safe than sorry, then,” I said. “So he’s not in on the secret of the trapdoor and we want to keep him that way.”
Randall nodded.
We hauled the trapdoor open during one of the vocalist’s glass-shattering screeches. I watched the Shiffleys lug tools and equipment down into the tunnel. I helped them arrange the big faux speakers in a rough circle around the trapdoor, as if we were using the crawl space as an overflow sound equipment area. They even strung a few cables from the fake speakers up into the tangle of real wires overhead. I had to admit—it was impressive camouflage.
“We should keep this stuff around indefinitely,” I said. “No one would ever guess the tunnel was there. You can probably keep the trapdoor open if you like.”
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