Meg Langslow 17 - The Good, the Bad, and the Emus

by Donna Andrews

  I noticed she was wearing a name tag with a big smiley face on it that read HI! MY NAME IS SHERRY S. SMITH! If she tried to enforce the wearing of cute name tags with superfluous exclamation points, she was going to have a rebellion on her hands.

  “You can turn your forms in at the information desk,” she said. “Center of the camp, right in front of Dr. Blake’s trailer.”

  After saying that, she strode off. I noticed, enviously, that her hair was arranged in a perfect French braid, something I had never in my life achieved without professional help. I resolved to make an effort not to hold that against her. I stowed the forms on the passenger seat of the Twinmobile for safekeeping and began to pick my way through the camp toward the gate that led into Annabel’s backyard.

  The camp wasn’t really as huge as I’d first thought. Not yet, anyway—only fifteen or twenty tents, trailers, or RVs apart from Grandfather’s little headquarters cluster. But every time I looked, someone else was arriving.

  Luckily, the campers were settling in precisely where I would have tried to put them—mostly in the part of the field that backed up to Theo Weaver’s house. The part immediately in back of Annabel’s yard was vacant, and several volunteers were setting up fence posts in a line that would divide it off from the other half of the field.

  “Setting up a holding pen for the birds,” one explained, when I stopped to watch for a few moments.

  “Good idea,” I said, and moved on.

  A rather substantial holding pen. I found myself suddenly wondering if anyone had recently confirmed the continued existence of the emus and ostriches. What if the emu Stanley had seen was the last of his kind, the rest having succumbed to the rigors of the recent unusually harsh winter?

  Not my problem. My job was to charm Annabel.

  In addition to the wire fence that outlined the pasture, a weathered split-rail fence ran along the back of Theo Weaver’s lot. And inside his fence were a lot of overgrown bushes. Mostly prickly hollies and thorny pyracanthas, in an almost unbroken line, as if twenty years ago Mr. Weaver had anticipated the need for a substantial barrier between his yard and Camp Emu.

  Someone was watching us over the two fences: a tall, though slightly stooped figure in a battered fishing hat. Presumably the infamous neighbor himself.

  I smiled and waved at him, and he started slightly, as if surprised that he could be seen. I paused, and wondered if now would be a good time to go over and introduce myself to him. As good a time as any. I headed his way.

  But when I was about ten feet from Weaver, he turned and stumped away toward his house.

  “Mr. Weaver!” I called over the back of his fence. “May I speak to you for a moment?”

  He ignored me, at least until he reached his back stoop, when he turned around to glare venomously at me before going inside and slamming the door behind him.

  “So much for our welcome to the neighborhood,” I muttered.

  I changed direction again, heading back toward the gate that led to Annabel’s yard. I was lost in thought, and almost fell flat on my face when my foot hit something more solid than the tall grass and weeds I’d been walking through. I glanced down to see something black and silver in the grass.

  I bent down to look at it.

  It was an LED headlight. Even if I hadn’t recognized the black and silver metal shape of the lamp itself, the elastic head strap had LED HEADLIGHT woven into its design in white letters on a black background.

  I reached down to pick it up and then stopped myself. Was I disturbing evidence at a crime scene? Should I leave the headlight in place?

  I looked around to see if I could spot anything to mark where it was. Nothing in sight, just tall grass. And I almost couldn’t find the headlight again when I looked back down, even though I hadn’t moved. Probably not a good idea to leave it. I’d never find it again. And after all, this wasn’t a fresh crime scene.

  I pulled out my phone and took some pictures of the headlight in place. And I found some small sticks and made a triangle in the place where I’d found it. I didn’t have gloves, but I did manage to find a couple of large yellowed tulip poplar leaves. I picked the headlight up, careful not to touch it except with the leaves, and continued toward the house.

  I was planning to go around to the front door and ring the doorbell, in case Annabel was a stickler for formalities, but I was only ten feet into the yard when the back door opened and Annabel stuck her head out.

  “Over here,” she stage whispered. “Hurry.”

  I veered toward the back door and soon found myself in a comfortable, if old-fashioned, kitchen. It was a big, airy room with white cabinets and countertops and a huge, well-worn oak table in the middle. Along one wall was a display of art pottery in tones of blue and turquoise, and on the table was a matching vase containing a huge bouquet of white hydrangea blossoms.

  Although blacksmithing was my craft, I knew a lot of potters, and liked to think I’d developed a pretty good eye for a nicely made pot. These were very nice indeed. They had an Arts and Crafts feel to them—the sort of thing you’d find in a Frank Lloyd Wright house. But were they antiques or a modern reinterpretation? My fingers itched to pick up one of the pieces to see who’d made it, but I mentally swatted my hand away. Probably not the best way to ingratiate myself with my new cousin, mauling her crockery collection.

  “Hope it’s okay that I came through the backyard,” I said.

  “What’s that you’re carrying?” she asked.

  “Good question,” I said. “You tell me.”

  I set the LED headlight down on her kitchen table and tucked my makeshift leaf pot holders into my pocket. Annabel bent down and looked over her reading glasses at it. She made a move to pick it up and then stopped herself.

  “Ah,” she said. “I see why you were being careful not to touch it. It’s her headlight.”

  “A headlight,” I said.

  “It’s just like the one she’d have been wearing that night,” Annabel said. She yanked open a drawer beside the sink, pulled out another little LED headlight, and set it down on the table beside the one I’d found. Mine had mud caked on it and showed signs of rust and corrosion. But apart from that, they were identical.

  We both stared down at the two headlights for a few moments. I had no idea what Annabel was thinking. For my part, I was pondering an apology. Maybe there was more than I thought to her theory about Cordelia’s murder.

  “We should call that detective of yours,” she said finally.

  “And the police, surely.”

  “What good would that do? I told them to look for her headlight. They claimed they did a good search, but they didn’t find this. You’re here half an hour and you find it. Hmph.”

  “I stumbled over it,” I said. “Quite literally and very much by accident.”

  “In the field, near the fence? Precisely where Weaver would have dropped it on his way back to his house?”

  “No, it was a good fifteen or twenty feet back from the fence,” I said.

  “Even better.” Annabel nodded. “He was running back to his house and he chucked it out into the field, as far as it would go.”

  “But why would he have taken away Cordelia’s headlight and then chucked it away?” I asked.

  “For the same reason he left that old kerosene lantern there,” she said. “To make it look as if Cordelia herself had started the fire by being careless with an open flame. It’s obvious.”

  Not that obvious to me, but I didn’t want to argue with her.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed Stanley’s number. He didn’t answer, so I left a voice mail.

  “It’s Meg,” I said. “I found what Miss Annabel thinks could be Cordelia’s discarded headlight. Want to take a look at it before I turn it over to the local cops?”

  “Of course he does,” Annabel muttered as I was hanging up.

  “May I use your phone book?” I asked.

  Annabel pointed to the counter where it lay, and I looked up the no
nemergency number for the Riverton police and scribbled it down in my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe. I could call them later, when Annabel wasn’t around to be annoyed.

  “Do you have a paper bag we can put the headlight in?” I asked. “Preferably one that’s never been used.”

  “What about a plastic sandwich bag?” Annabel asked.

  “No, it’s damp. Dew, most likely. Wet evidence should go in paper, to keep it from deteriorating.”

  “I thought you were a blacksmith, not a cop.” She stepped into the pantry and I could hear little scuffling noises as she rummaged through the shelves. “Would a lunch bag work?”

  “A lunch bag would be perfect. My cousin Horace is a forensic crime-scene expert,” I explained. “You pick up a few things. Oh, and may I keep this, too, for the time being?” I held up the newer headlight. “So we have another one for comparison?”

  “Fine with me,” she said. “We buy them by the dozen. Well, I do, now. Keep them all over the house. I have a horror of stumbling during a blackout and breaking my neck. I assume you’ll need two bags.”

  “Please,” I said.

  She emerged from the pantry carrying a package of brown paper lunch bags, a tape dispenser, and a box containing a pair of brand-new, lime-green kitchen gloves. I put a glove on my uninjured hand and I tucked the rusty headlight into a brown paper bag. Then we taped it shut and scribbled our initials over the tape and the bag, as Stanley had done the day before with the bag in which he’d stowed the kerosene lamp. I dumped the other headlight into its own bag without all the formalities.

  “Thanks.” I took off the glove and its mate and held them out.

  “No, keep them,” she said. “You might come across more evidence. And take the bags, too. I’ve got more. I buy them in bulk for when I pack bag lunches for the shelter.”

  “Good idea.” I tucked the gloves into my pocket. “I’d better get back to Camp Emu and help Michael set up our tent.”

  “You’re camping out with the rest of Blake’s Brigade?” she asked.

  “We are,” I said. Blake’s Brigade was the nickname used on and off camera for the paid and volunteer crew Grandfather brought to his projects. I was a little surprised Annabel knew it. Perhaps the cousins were keeping a closer eye on Grandfather than I’d imagined. “I confess, I’m not sure I see the necessity for camping here when an hour’s drive would see us safely in our own beds. But the boys love the idea of camping.”

  “Makes for better television,” Annabel said. “If he let you all go home to your own beds, you wouldn’t have all that footage of the volunteers crawling out of their sleeping bags before dawn and singing ‘Kumbayah’ around the campfire after a hard day’s work. Yes, I’ve watched some of the shows. I expect Cordelia snuck a peek occasionally, too. And thanked her lucky stars nobody expected her to tag along. Probably a good thing if you stay here with the brigade,” she added. “From what I’ve seen, Blake’s expeditions are long on book learning and theatrics and short on common sense.”

  “That settles it,” I said, with a laugh. “You must have met Grandfather at some time in his life.”

  Her face stiffened.

  “Only through Cordelia’s memories,” she said. “Which you can understand were not entirely cordial.”

  “I was kidding,” I said. “Sorry. I just meant that you had his style pegged.”

  “Male foolishness can be much of a muchness,” she said. “And I have no patience for it. Which, in case you’re wondering, is probably why I stayed single all these years. Let me know what the PI says about the headlight.”

  I could recognize a dismissal when I heard it, so I wished her a good morning and headed for the back door. I had to smile when I noticed a pair of binoculars lying on the counter beside the sink. Was Miss Annabel bird-watching this morning? Or was she, perhaps, keeping an eye on what was happening in camp?

  “One thing before you go.”

  I turned to find Miss Annabel holding out a sheet of paper. I took it and glanced down. It was a formal letter granting permission to use the field to me and anyone else I cared to invite.

  “No idea if it has any legal worth, of course,” she said. “But it’ll give you something to wave in the air if Chief Heedles comes and tries to claim you’re trespassing.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I reached into my pocket for my notebook, tucked the paper between its pages, and headed back for Camp Emu.

  Chapter 9

  The construction crew had made progress. They’d outlined an area of about half an acre with tall fence posts and were starting to enclose it with six-foot-tall chain-link.

  “I gather a few strands of wire won’t stop a charging emu,” I said, as I stopped to watch.

  “This might not even stop a really determined emu,” said a man who appeared to be the foreman. “But we don’t intend to keep them here too long. The truck from the wildlife sanctuary’s already here. We’ll haul them down in batches as soon as we catch them. By the way, I’m Jim Williams. Relatively new recruit.”

  He held out his hand. He was tall and lean, with a tanned, craggy face.

  “Meg Langslow,” I said, as I shook the proffered hand. A good handshake, I thought, firm and no-nonsense. Nothing like Grandfather’s bone-crushing style. “Haven’t we met at one or two previous events?”

  “Yes, and I hope you’ll be seeing a little more of me now that I’m retired. Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  “Well, since you offered,” I said. “If you have any leftover fencing, can we borrow some? The boys insisted on bringing our dogs camping, but I don’t think taking them to the woods with us is a good idea. If we had some fencing we could put up a temporary dog run.”

  “We can do that for you,” Williams said. “No, it’s no bother,” he added, before I could even open my mouth to protest. “We’ll just enclose that corner of the pen for them. Right there in the shade. They can help guard the emus.”

  Actually, the two of them together probably could. Tinkerbell wouldn’t hurt the proverbial fly, but a hundred-pound Irish wolfhound is every burglar’s nightmare. Spike, in spite of his purse-dog appearance, had more than once repelled intruders from our house, although unfortunately, most of them were repairmen and other people we actually wanted to keep.

  “That would be perfect,” I said. “Thanks.”

  I set out again toward the main body of the camp. Which had grown, even in my brief absence. Amazing how many people were showing up on less than a day’s notice, and most of them were probably veterans of more than one of Grandfather’s projects. I overheard two people swapping tales of past expeditions. Bird and animal cleanups in the wake of various oil spills. Roundups of abandoned animals after hurricanes. Raids on dogfighting rings and puppy mills. Interventions with animal hoarders. Quests to save endangered species from extinction. Battles to stop greedy companies from building strip mines and golf courses in irreplaceable green spaces.

  And getting lots of volunteers was probably easier now that Grandfather was doing more of his events close to home, in Virginia or the neighboring states. If anyone pointed this out, he’d claim he wanted to spend more time with his newly discovered family. And I’m sure he did. But I suspected he was also relieved to have a plausible reason for slowing down just a little now that he’d reached his nineties. Trips to Riverton and the Dismal Swamp were a lot less taxing than safaris to Africa and China.

  I dropped by the family tent and grabbed a canvas tote bag to carry the two headlights, the lime-green gloves, and the unused lunch bags. I figured I’d show them to Stanley and then—

  “Is this thing on?” Grandfather’s voice, amplified and distorted by feedback. I followed the squawking sounds and found myself in the mess tent, which also doubled as the general gathering space.

  “That’s better.” Grandfather nodded his thanks to the techies who had fixed the portable sound system. I found a place at the very back of the tent wher
e I could slip out if the meeting went on too long.

  “Let’s go over what we’re up against here,” Grandfather said.

  Clearly the expedition’s work had begun. Or at least the filming. A camera was pointed at Grandfather, who stood on a small raised platform at the front end of the tent, while another was panning the audience for reactions. Grandfather was wearing his expedition outfit. Olive-green cargo pants already stained with mud—or perhaps unwashed since their last outing. Muddy hiking boots. His tan shirt appeared to be clean, but it was hard to tell, since it was almost precisely the same color as the mud on his pants and boots. Over it, he wore a khaki fishing vest whose dozen or so pockets, like those of the cargo pants, bulged with unidentified objects. At least he wasn’t yet wearing his pith helmet—though it was sitting nearby on a table—so he hadn’t yet acquired his usual dramatic case of hat hair.

  I noticed Sherry, the blond Valkyrie, standing by clutching her clipboard to her chest, obviously intent on Grandfather’s every word. And she’d added a khaki fishing vest to her white shirt and khaki shorts. Was it entirely an accident that her outfit looked like the feminine version of his standard expedition garb?

  “Now here’s the location of the defunct ostrich and emu ranch,” he was saying. He was tapping the map with his well-worn hickory hiking stick. “And this is the approximate location where my operatives spotted an emu yesterday.”

  His operatives. The phrase conjured up visions of an army of professional emu trackers beating the bushes, instead of one startled PI and his unobservant passenger.

  I heard a brief, quickly smothered chuckle and traced it to Stanley Denton, who was sitting in the audience with his hand covering his mouth and his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.

  “Our scouts will start at the ranch and spread out from there,” Grandfather said.

  “Will the emus be in a herd?” someone asked. “Or scattered around?”

  “Unknown,” Grandfather boomed. “In their native habitat, they tend to travel in mated pairs. But here? We have no idea what to expect. Solo birds, pairs, flocks—who knows?”