The sheriff blinked. I’d only met him a few times before, but I’d figured out rather easily that he hadn’t gotten his job with his brains, his charm, or his knowledge of law enforcement techniques. But he was street smart enough to realize I was serious, and afraid I had the power to do it.
“I’m sure once Chief Burke gets here he’ll agree with me on this situation,” he said, finally.
“We’ll ask the chief when he gets here,” I said.
“Ask me what?”
We all turned to see Chief Burke standing behind us. For all I knew, he could have been standing there for a while.
“Sheriff here wants to haul the body away,” Vern said.
The chief squatted down near the body.
“Has a doctor certified the death?” he asked.
“‘Certified’?” the sheriff said. “No need to certify—it’s obvious he’s stone-cold dead.”
Chief Burke ignored him.
“No, sir,” Vern said.
“Has either county’s medical examiner inspected the body to give us a preliminary cause of death?” the chief asked.
Vern shook his head.
“Has a forensic team examined the crime scene?”
Vern shook his head again.
“Then moving the body is premature, don’t you agree, Sheriff Dingle?”
“We need to get him out of here before a whole lot of people show up to gawk,” the sheriff protested.
“I think our officers can handle crowd control,” the chief said. “At least I know mine can. If we each deploy a few officers to set up a perimeter on our respective sides of the fence, we should have no interference from gawkers.”
“Fine,” the sheriff said. “Go take care of that, Billy.”
“Yes, sir.” Plunkett answered briskly enough, but he continued to stand at his boss’s side.
“And then once you’ve done all your newfangled things, I’ll have my officers take him down to the Clay County Morgue,” the sheriff went on.
I stood by for a few minutes, fuming, as Chief Burke and the sheriff carried on the same argument Vern and Plunkett had. And the chief wasn’t making any more headway than Vern had. I finally got fed up. Should I play the Midway card again? Actually, I had a better idea.
“Chief,” I said, “may I talk to you for just a moment?”
The look he gave me was pure frustration, and I could tell he was counting to ten before telling me, as politely as possible, to stay out of this. Then I saw his expression soften a little. I hoped that meant he realized I was trying to help.
“Yes?” he said. He took a couple of steps away from the sheriff. I walked over to his side. I glanced at the sheriff and plucked the chief by the sleeve to pull him another step or two away.
“Let them have it, Chief,” I said in a stage whisper, as if trying not to let anyone else hear.
“I beg your pardon?” He was also stage-whispering. And I could tell he was about a hair’s breadth away from a furious bellow.
“The investigation. Let them have it. Remember what happened last time?”
“Last time?” he repeated. He was frowning again, but sounded more puzzled than angry.
“The last time we had a homicide case.”
Now he looked purely puzzled.
“The expense!” I said, out of the corner of my mouth. “You know what it did to the county budget. All those expensive tests the state crime lab insisted on running—on our tab. And then the trial! How much did that set the county back? We’re still digging ourselves out of that hole.”
I shook my head as if still appalled at the price of justice.
“What’s this now?” the sheriff asked.
I saw the chief’s mouth quirk into a quick smile, and he took a few seconds to put a serious look back on his face before turning to answer the sheriff.
“Ms. Langslow is pointing out that a high-profile murder case can be a substantial drain on a county’s resources,” the chief said.
“We’ve had a few murders in our time, little lady,” the Sheriff said. “Didn’t cost that much.”
“Were they local murders?” I said. “Or murders of wealthy, well-known people from outside the county? Did they take place during an event already crawling with reporters? Did you have a trial that lasted weeks and weeks?”
I hoped he wouldn’t realize that I was exaggerating both Brett’s reputation and the level of press coverage the fair had achieved so far. He blinked a couple of times. Then the deputy whispered something in his ear. The two of them took a few steps away, turned their back on us, and held a truly whispered conversation. Unlike me, they weren’t trying to be overheard. Then they turned back to us with wide mud-eating grins on their faces.
“I think we can work this out, Chief,” the sheriff said. “Seeing as how Caerphilly is the larger county—not to mention the more effluent—I could see my way clear to letting you take the lead on this investigation. On one condition.”
“And that would be?” The chief didn’t look like a man willing to grant conditions, but just the fact that he answered was progress.
“I’d want you to include a representative from Clay County on your investigationary team,” the sheriff said. “I’ll assign Deputy Plunkett here to do that.”
“Not to interfere, of course.” Plunkett gave us an oily smile. “Just to keep what lawyers would call a ‘watching brief.’”
The chief hesitated for a few moments, studying Plunkett. I could tell he didn’t like the idea. I suspected Plunkett was the sheriff’s right-hand man—maybe even the brains of the department. I wouldn’t want to bet on him sticking to a watching brief if he saw a way to put one over on Caerphilly. But I decided if it were my case, I’d probably want Plunkett where I could keep an eye on him, not running around by himself. I could almost see the moment when the chief decided the same thing.
“That would be acceptable,” he said. “Provided the deputy is willing to stick to being an observer, without interfering in any way with the conduct of our case.”
He didn’t emphasize the “our,” but it was there.
“Long as Plunkett can report back to me about anything he observes that he thinks I’d like to know about.” The sheriff looked pleased with himself.
The chief nodded tightly.
“Then we have ourselves a deal,” the sheriff said. “If y’all aren’t letting me work the case, I’m going to go back to my bed.” He turned to Plunkett. “He needs some manpower from us, you help him out, now, you hear?”
Plunkett nodded.
The sheriff turned and ambled away with more speed and less noise than you’d have expected from someone of his age and size.
Chief Burke watched him as the sheriff slowly disappeared into the fog. He didn’t look as happy as I thought he would.
Chapter 18
When Sheriff Dingle was completely out of sight, the chief appeared to rouse himself from thought and turned briskly back to the rest of us.
“Vern,” he said. “Get that perimeter going. Coordinate with Deputy Plunkett on the other side of the fence.”
“Yes, sir.” Vern glanced at Plunkett, then stepped a few paces away and took out his cell phone. Plunkett smirked a bit, but pulled out his cell phone.
“Meg, Michael’s gone to fetch your father. Is there any chance that your cousin Horace is in town for the fair?” the chief asked.
“How come her family all get called to the crime scene?” Plunkett asked.
“Dr. Langslow is the local medical examiner.” The chief’s tone was so even that an outsider like Plunkett probably had no idea how ticked off he was. “And Horace Hollingsworth is a highly experienced crime scene examiner who does forensic work for us under a longstanding arrangement with the York County Sheriff’s Department. We are fortunate that his family ties to some of our citizens give us access to a forensic investigator of his caliber.”
Plunkett shrugged elaborately and turned back to his cell phone.
“Horace
is in town.” I was already pulling out my phone. “I’ll round him up.”
The chief nodded.
“Debbie Ann,” he said into his phone. “Call everyone back on duty. With my apologies, but we’ve got a murder here.”
I had reached Horace’s voice mail and left a message to call me back as soon as possible.
“I understand the deceased was one of the exhibitors?”
“Yes and no,” I said. “His soon-to-be-ex-wife is an exhibitor. Molly Riordan of Leaping Goat Farm in the vendors’ barn. And his new girlfriend, Genette Sedgewick, has a booth in the wine pavilion.”
“Lordy,” he said. “Any idea where either of them would be?”
“Not really,” I said. “If I were looking for Genette, I’d start with the Caerphilly Inn. It might be up to her standards.”
The chief blinked slightly. The Caerphilly Inn was a five-star hotel, with prices to match.
Just then my cell phone rang.
“Do you realize what time it is?” Horace said, when I answered. Evidently he hadn’t really listened to my message.
“Yes, it’s one thirty-seven a.m.,” I said. “The murder took place sometime between one fourteen and one nineteen.”
“Oh,” he said. “Where?”
“In the gate between the Midway and the rest of the fair.”
“On my way.”
I hung up.
“You’re sure of that time window?” Evidently the chief had been eavesdropping.
I explained about looking at my watch when we’d heard the fox—if it was a fox—and then Michael announcing the time after we’d found the body. And then the chief took me through an account of the entire evening, which didn’t take long, since the sum total of what we’d done was to walk up and down the fence for several hours until we’d heard the shriek.
By the time he’d finished with me, Dad and Horace had arrived and were doing forensic things to Brett’s body and the surrounding area. Plunkett returned, presumably from setting up his perimeter guards, and leaned against the fence to watch. The chief turned back to me.
“We need to talk to Mrs. Riordan,” the chief said.
“Yeah, you don’t have to look far for the culprit on this one,” Plunkett said.
“I can’t imagine Molly killing anyone,” I said.
“Not even her no-good, womanizing, hound dog of a husband?” Plunkett asked.
I winced. Molly would hate it that her marital problems had become such common knowledge.
“If you ask me she has good reason to get rid of him,” Plunkett went on.
“And she was getting rid of him, the only sane way,” I said. “They’re separated and were getting a divorce.”
I wanted to keep going and say that she had nothing to gain and everything to lose by killing him, but I had no idea if it was true. Would Brett’s death help or hurt Molly’s efforts to save her farm? That would depend on who inherited Brett’s share.
If he hadn’t made a will—and he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who thought about messy things like dying—wouldn’t Molly inherit his half of the farm? In which case her financial problems would be solved. As long as she could prove she hadn’t killed him.
Then again, they hadn’t been getting along well for some time. What if Brett, since the separation or even earlier, when things began going wrong, had made a will with someone other than Molly as his beneficiary? Like his mother, who had never approved of Molly. Or the Brett pack, as Molly called her husband’s four brothers, whose ongoing skirmishes with the law and an ever increasing number of debt collectors made it obvious that Brett was, God help us, the responsible one in his family.
Or maybe even the new girlfriend? Genette would probably define herself as Brett’s fiancée, but I found myself agreeing with Mother’s refusal to apply that term to someone who was dating a married man. But Mother’s disapproval wouldn’t prevent Genette from causing trouble if she was in Brett’s will.
I looked up and saw the chief looking at me with a sympathetic expression, as if he’d read my thoughts and understood how painful they were.
“Right now, we just need to talk to Ms. Riordan.” The chief’s voice was gentle. “And for that matter, if they’re still legally married, we need to notify her of his death. Do you know where she is?”
“Probably in the exhibitors’ campground,” I said. “I doubt if she has the money to spend on a hotel room, even if there were plenty available.” The chief nodded. Caerphilly had only two hotels—the expensive five-star Caerphilly Inn, and the Whispering Pines Cabins, which was still trying to overcome its lurid past as a hot-sheets motel. Both of them, plus every B and B and boardinghouse and spare bedroom in the county, had been booked for this week for months. That was why we’d set up the campgrounds. “But I have no idea if she has an RV or a tent or if she’s just sleeping in her car,” I added.
“I’ve got the info from the DMV.” Vern pulled out his radio and spoke into it. “Fred? Aida? I want you to check the parking lot for a vehicle. A 1997 Dodge Caravan. Maroon.” He rattled off a license number, listened for a moment, then looked up. “Chief? What should they do when they find it?”
“I want to interview her myself,” the chief said.
“Take no action,” Vern said into the phone. “Advise me and the chief of your location and sit on the vehicle and its owner.”
Vern strode off in the general direction of the campgrounds, presumably to help with the search. Plunkett looked back and forth between him and the chief a few times, then scurried off after Vern.
“Mind if I use your fair office as my temporary headquarters?” the chief asked. “It’s pretty close to my crime scene.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “And I can’t imagine Randall would mind. Look—may I go with you when you notify Molly? She’ll be terrified if a stranger shows up at her tent or van in the middle of the night. It might help if someone she knows is there.”
The chief studied me with narrowed eyes for a few moments. Then he nodded.
“You will be there solely to help us avoid startling Ms. Riordan and to reassure her that we really are the police,” he said.
I nodded.
“Okay, then.”
We waited a minute or two until another Caerphilly deputy showed up. Then the chief tasked her with supervising the crime scene and we set out for the other end of the fair. We strode in silence, except for the occasional static-filled burst of chatter from the police radio on his belt. I hoped Caerphilly’s small but lively criminal community didn’t have police radios, because it was pretty clear from the radio traffic that the whole department, plus all the borrowed officers from nearby counties, were converging on the fairgrounds, leaving the sleeping town woefully unprotected.
We arrived at the edge of the informal campground—it had been a cow pasture until Randall began working on the fair project—and stood for a few minutes, gazing over the sea of cars, pickups, vans, RVs, trailers, and tents.
“Whoever did it could just have slipped back here,” I said, in an undertone. “If anyone spotted him, he could just say he was on his way back from the bathroom.”
I indicated the line of blue plastic portapotties along the edge of the field closest to the fair.
“In fact,” I went on. “If I were the killer, I’d make a beeline for the portapotties. As soon as I’m anywhere near them, I have a legitimate reason for being out and about in the night. And maybe a nice place to dump anything I wouldn’t want to be caught with. Like a recently fired handgun.”
“Good Lord,” the chief said. We both studied the portapotties in silence for a while.
“Horace might still find it at the crime scene,” he said. He didn’t sound optimistic.
“Maybe you could assign searching the portapotties to some of the borrowed deputies,” I suggested.
The chief frowned.
“Like maybe the Clay County ones. Plunkett could supervise.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
He didn’t actually smile, but his frown had disappeared.
The chief’s phone beeped.
“Yes?” He listened for a few moments. “On my way. Do you know your way around this campground?” he asked me.
“Pretty well.”
“Vern says they’re at location Fifteen R,” he said. “Can you find that?”
I nodded, and pointed up at the sign above us, which told us we were at location 1-A. Then I set off down the edge of the campground toward row fifteen.
I’d originally suggested having separate sections of the campgrounds—a motorized section for trailers, RVs, and people sleeping in their vans, and another for tents only. Apparently I was the only one who saw any merit to this idea, and the exhibitors had camped according to how far they wanted to be from the road, the bathrooms, or the fair itself, and who they wanted to camp next to, and what space was still left when they showed up. Each aisle we passed was a motley mixture of everything from pup tents to RVs the size of an aircraft carrier. But I had insisted that we put up location signs, to help people find their way back to their campsites.
I craned my neck when we past the third row, where Rose Noire had camped, but as far down as I could see, the tents and campers were all dark. Good. I hoped she and the boys would sleep through all of this.
We set out down the end of the rows. The chief followed a step or two behind me.
“This is Fifteen,” I said, as I turned into the row.
Now we were walking by campsites. Thank goodness it was past 2:00 A.M., and most of the exhibitors were presumably fast asleep. Once we waved as we passed some people sitting around the remnants of a campfire. A little farther along, I heard a noise and a flashlight beam suddenly blinded me. Then it snapped off as suddenly as it appeared.
“Sorry, Meg,” a woman’s voice murmured. “Just being careful.”
“No problem,” I murmured back. “Good night.”
Probably a good thing she had spotted me, not the chief. People were expecting to see patrols, but I didn’t think people would find the sight of the chief reassuring. Especially not if he was glowering the way he usually glowered when in pursuit of someone who dared break the peace in his county.
The Hen of the Baskervilles Page 12