Owl Be Home for Christmas

by Donna Andrews

  “A genius for riling people up,” I repeated. “Sounds a little like my grandfather.”

  “Nope,” he said through a mouthful of home fries. “Blake riles people up, yeah, but he usually does it for a reason. And he’s a realist. Knows when he has the ammo to stand his ground and when he needs to compromise. And he’s a sharp dealmaker when he has to be. Frogmore—if he was trying to cut a deal and got ninety-nine percent of what he wanted, he’d let the deal die over that one percent.”

  “So not someone you’d want on your side when you’re fighting for an important issue.”

  “Not anyone you’d want anywhere near the battle. Too many people got hurt by friendly fire when Frogmore was around, if you don’t mind my running the military metaphor into the ground. If it really was friendly fire. A lot of people suspected Frogmore’s motives. Me included, frankly.”

  “His motives for what?” I asked.

  “You have to wonder—could he really have been as misguided and off base as he seemed?” Lindquist had stabbed a couple of small home fries and was gesticulating with the fork. “Back in the nineties some people weren’t sure where his loyalties really lay. He had this positive gift for taking an environmentally sound position and then exaggerating it until it sounded like some kind of wildly impractical scheme dreamed up by a bunch of superannuated brain-damaged hippies. You had to wonder—was he really that crazy? Or was he actually on the other side? In the spotted owl issue, for example, that would mean on the side of the lumber industries.”

  He popped the home fries into his mouth and chewed slowly.

  “Wait—people actually suspected he was on the lumber industry’s side in the spotted owl issue?”

  “Not just on their side—in their pay. He lived pretty comfortably—always had. More comfortably than you’d expect on a professor’s salary. Me, I figure he probably had family money. But there are people who’d swear up and down that the lumber companies bought him off.”

  I digested this for a while as I watched Dr. Lindquist methodically apply butter and strawberry jam to another slice of toast.

  “So it’s not just his personality that made him … less than popular at gatherings like this.”

  “If you’re looking for someone with a motive to knock him off, there’s a whole lot of us,” Lindquist said. “Some of us hold grudges over stuff he’d pulled in the past. Some of us think he was up to no good now. And when you add in all the academic backstabbing he’s done over the years … well, it’s a good thing we bird brains are generally a mild-mannered bunch.”

  “That’s a relief,” I said. “I think. So you know this crowd. If you had to bet on who knocked off Frogmore, who would you pick?”

  “Interesting question.” He took a bite of toast and chewed it thoughtfully, as if giving due consideration. “A very interesting question. As I said, a whole lot of people with a motive, but now that I think about it, not a lot of them actually here at the conference. Maybe it’s the East Coast location. Or maybe people found out Frogmore was coming and canceled out.”

  “We did have rather a lot of cancellations at the last minute,” I said. “I thought it was people freaking because of the weather.”

  “That could be. But if it happened right after you sent out the lists of panels and presentations—hell, I kicked the wall a couple of times when I saw Frogmore’s name on it. And then I said ‘what the hell’ and came anyway. But I bet I could name some people who bailed.”

  “Under ordinary circumstances, the police would probably be checking on them anyway,” I said. “In case any of them came here in disguise to knock him off. But I think someone would have noticed if someone with a known grudge against Frogmore came skiing in during the storm. So, of the people who are here, who do you like for it?”

  “Good question.” He grinned. “If you ask me, given the interviews the police have been doing, you’ve already got the likely candidates pegged. Me, Ben Green, Vera Craine, and that black grad student, Melissa something.”

  “McKendrick,” I said.

  “Right. And I suppose you have to include Czerny, of course, but I don’t figure that’s very likely unless it happened on the spur of the moment. I can see him losing his temper and lashing out, but in the cold hard light of day, he knows better than to kill the goose laying his golden eggs. He won’t last long at Buckthorn without Frogmore’s protection. And I don’t see Vera doing it, either. Pretty sure she’s into living well as the best revenge. She’s going to miss seeing Frogmore squirm whenever someone rubs his nose in her vastly superior curriculum vitae.”

  “And the rest of you?”

  “Probably not Melissa,” he said. “She has a pretty low opinion of him, but it’s not like he’s the only entitled over-the-hill white jerk who’s ever tried to hold her back. She made a good impression here—asked some intelligent questions in a couple of panels. She’s on track. And she’s sharp enough to realize that Frogmore accidentally did her the biggest possible favor—I mean, would you have wanted to work with him or with Dr. Blake? Strong women don’t bother Blake, and he’s the closest thing to color-blind I’ve ever seen, which is all the more unusual, given his age. No, Melissa’s in a good situation now, and I don’t see her spoiling it, risking everything she’s earned by murdering an old fart who doesn’t have any power over her anymore.”

  “And Dr. Green?”

  “Ben doesn’t hate Frogmore.” Lindquist shook his head with vigor and chuckled slightly. “He’s deeply, deeply disappointed in Frogmore. And under the delusion that if he had just kept the communications channels open, got a dialogue going, eventually he could have resolved their differences. And besides, he’s completely opposed to violence of any kind. Wouldn’t hurt a spider.”

  Interesting. Most people would have said “wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Chapter 19

  I filed away Dr. Lindquist’s curious turn of phrase to think about later. And to share with Horace and the chief.

  “That covers all the suspects,” I said aloud. “So … wait. There’s still you.”

  “I was hoping you’d forget about me.” He laughed. “Well, I know I didn’t do it, but I can’t expect you to take my word for it. And I won’t even pretend that his death isn’t going to make things a whole lot easier, not just for me, but for everyone on both sides of the barred owl issue.”

  I waited while he seemed to be thinking over what to say.

  “I was this close to getting him.” He held up his thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “I’ve been nosing around, trying to get proof of my theory that he was in bed with the lumber industry back in the eighties. And that he’s not all that hostile to them now. I wanted to see him publicly humiliated—revealed as the slimy, backstabbing crook that he is. That he was.” His face fell. “What’s the use now? He won’t pay for what he’s done. If I made public what I’ve found out, I’d be trashing the reputation of a guy who’s not around to defend himself anymore. At best, Buckthorn College would go ‘Eek! If we’d known that we’d have fired him!’ And then turn around and take another big donation from some conglomerate that needs a tame biology department to do its dirty work. Nothing would change.”

  “So not you, either?” I said. “If none of his enemies would have done him in, why isn’t he still running up and down the halls bellowing insults at everyone?”

  “Beats me. You got any lumberjacks staying here? I hear they don’t like him much. Maybe one of them did him in.”

  “No lumberjacks,” I said. “And I thought you said he was on their side.”

  “Lumberjacks wouldn’t know he was in the pay of the timber barons. They’d just blame him if they’d ever been laid off. And the timber barons might knock him off if they were afraid he’d spill the beans about some of the dirty tricks they were up to, but I doubt if they’re here, either. Both of his ex-wives would probably knock him off in a heartbeat, but if either of them is here she’s well disguised. Not a lot of women here I don’t know as colle
agues or colleague’s wives. Maybe he offed himself to drive us crazy. Do they know what he died of? Some kind of poison, I assume.”

  “They don’t really know yet.” It wasn’t really a lie. No matter how confident I was that Dad and Horace had it figured out. “They won’t know for sure until they can do the autopsy. And a tox screen.”

  “So meanwhile we’re in limbo.”

  I nodded.

  “Ah, well. Make sure the police don’t lose sight of the suicide angle.”

  “You really think he would?”

  “Not under ordinary circumstances. But what if he just found out he’s got something terminal, and decides to off himself while casting suspicion on a whole bunch of people he hated.”

  “Revenge by suicide?”

  “You never know.”

  I deduced from his expression that we’d pretty much exhausted his interest in Dr. Frogmore’s death, and that he wouldn’t protest if I let him get back to the book he’d started glancing down at: Moult, Ageing and Sexing of Finnish Owls. With text, I could see, in both English and Finnish.

  “I’ll let you get back to your book.” I’d noticed Eduardo leaving the restaurant with a loaded tray. Probably a good thing to make sure Horace actually ate the breakfast I’d sent, instead of losing himself in that mountain of paper.

  “No problem.” He looked down at his book and then back up at me.

  “They don’t really think it’s Dr. Blake, do they?” he asked.

  “Why would they think that?”

  “Rumor has it that they talked to him more than twice as long as they did to anyone else,” he said. “And he quarreled with Frogmore yesterday. Pretty badly.”

  “If Grandfather bumped off everyone he ever had a shouting match with he’d have run out of family, friends, and colleagues by now,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “If you say so.” Lindquist went back to his book, but his face suggested that he was still worried.

  Maybe I should ask around to find out exactly what the rumor mill was saying.

  As I crossed the lobby, the familiar choral version of “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was nearing its conclusion. Next would be the equally familiar instrumental rendition of “We Three Kings.” Followed, as always, by an overly lush vocal version of “O Holy Night” that I hadn’t even liked the first time I’d heard it. And I could only imagine how Sami and the other employees felt about the Inn’s carefully selected but all-too-limited Christmas carol playlist.

  Not the moment to tackle Ekaterina about the issue, though. We had other, more important problems. But later …

  “Thanks,” Horace said through a mouthful of something when I reentered the Command Post. “I should have thought of this.”

  “You’ve had other things on your mind,” I said. “What have you discovered?”

  “I looked through all the audits to find all the times the stolen card was used,” he said. “And it was only used four times.”

  He pointed to a five-by-eight index card he’d taped up on the wall above the desk. It contained four lines:

  506-Green-Friday, 8:11 p.m.

  Door to loading dock and freight elevator-Saturday, 1:15 a.m.

  524-Lindquist-Saturday, 5:39 p.m.

  Jefferson Cottage-Dr. Blake-Saturday 5:47 p.m.

  “Curious,” I said. “No sign that it was used on Dr. Frogmore’s room?”

  “Which would be 504, and no.” He frowned at the list, clearly finding it as unsatisfactory as I did. “Which means it couldn’t have been used to plant the Viagra in Frogmore’s room.”

  “Where did you find the Viagra, anyway?”

  “In the drawer of one of the bedside tables. Only thing in the drawer, apart from the hotel-issued Bible.”

  “So it could have been there for a while without being noticed,” I mused.

  “If you’re suggesting that some previous guest left it behind and the staff never noticed—”

  “No, that’s pretty unlikely. The housekeepers are really thorough about their post-checkout cleanup. They know Ekaterina does a lot of random inspections. But I was thinking that if someone planted the Viagra, they could have done so at any time between when he checked in on Thursday and when you searched his room.”

  “But not with the stolen key card.” Horace looked glum. “So who knows if the key card has anything to do with the murder?”

  “What’s the story on the three stray sheep?” Seeing Horace’s puzzled look, I elaborated. “The three guys who had the bad luck to sit at Frogmore’s table and ended up with a front-row seat for his demise. Remember, I sent them in last night.”

  “They don’t seem to have any connection to Frogmore,” Horace said. “All from the East Coast. Only knew him by reputation before coming to the conference. Didn’t seem to enjoy being at his table. Oh, and they confirmed what you said about Frogmore taking something for a headache near the end of the meal. Not that we doubted you, but they gave us a lot more detail.” He glanced down at his notebook, flipped a couple of pages, and continued. “Frogmore asked Czerny if he had anything for a headache. Czerny didn’t, so Frogmore made the request again to the whole table. Lindquist said he had some Tylenol in his pocket, but Green intervened and started what sounded as if it was going to be a long lecture on the dangers of combining acetaminophen and alcohol.”

  “Dad will be pleased,” I said. “To know that someone else is looking out for the endangered livers of the world.”

  “So then Lindquist interrupted to say, ‘Just give him an aspirin, then, if you have one,’” Horace went on. “And Dr. Green did, and Dr. Frogmore took it and went back to his monologue. Without even thanking Dr. Green according to more than one witness.”

  “Are we sure it was aspirin?”

  “Not yet.” Horace sighed. “They were in one of those little individual-dose sealed packets that are easy to slip in your pocket. Dr. Green originally had two on him. I confiscated the one he had left, and I bagged the empty packet as evidence. Odds are it will be only aspirin. I suppose you could make an authentic-looking fake aspirin packet with poison in it, and carry it around in your pocket on the chance that someone you want to kill will come down with a headache at the right moment, but it seems a little far-fetched.”

  “Yes.” I nodded my agreement. “Of course, if you wanted to kill someone with something that could be mistaken for aspirin, you could carry it around in your pocket, along with a legitimate individual-dose sealed packet from which you’d already removed the aspirin—”

  “I hate you sometimes,” Horace said, in a tone free of any real animosity.

  “But I think that’s equally far-fetched,” I went on. “And I can’t really see Dr. Green doing something that sneaky. Or that organized. I’ve been wondering if whatever college he teaches in assigns him a keeper.”

  “He struck me that way, too,” Horace said. “So who stole the key card? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Along with, what were they up to in those four places, and does it have anything to do with the murder?”

  “Why use it on the Jefferson Cottage at all?” I wondered aloud. “Grandfather was making it available to attendees who wanted to hold small meetings or prep for their sessions, which means that anyone at the conference could probably find an excuse for traipsing through there sometime on Saturday.”

  “So now I’m trying to see if I can eliminate anyone,” Horace said. “For example, Dr. Czerny used his own key card to go into his room at five forty p.m. Saturday night. He’s in room B212.”

  “Oooh,” I said. “He didn’t rate one of the nicer rooms in the South Wing, then.” Actually, even the worst rooms at the Inn were pretty darn nice, but Ekaterina liked to reserve the larger rooms in the South Wing for her most distinguished guests—which was why most of the more prominent ornithologists at the conference were all along the same corridor. “And I see what you mean,” I went on aloud. “No way he could make it from Lindquist’s room on the fifth floor to his own room in
one minute.”

  “So that eliminates him,” Horace said.

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “What if he and, say, Melissa McKendrick were in cahoots? He could have used it Friday night to hit Green’s room and the freight elevator, and then given it to her to enter Lindquist’s room and the cottage.”

  “Did I mention that I hate you sometimes?” He looked crestfallen. “I should have thought of that. Yes, it could be two people in cahoots.”

  “Or maybe whoever used it Friday night lost it or threw it away after doing whatever they wanted to do,” I said. “And someone else found it, figured out what it was, and used it for their own purposes.”

  He nodded.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Back to the drawing board?”

  “Not really. So far I was just noting instances where someone was using their card at about the same time as the stolen card was being used someplace else. I hadn’t gotten around to eliminating people altogether because I haven’t yet timed the distances involved. And as far as why anyone would want to break into those four places, your guess is as good as mine. Possibly better—you know these people better than I do.”

  Maybe now was the right moment to bring up the odd thing Dr. Lindquist had said—that Dr. Green wouldn’t hurt a spider.

  “Look—this may having nothing to do with the stolen key card,” I said. “But did you hear about the black widow spider Dr. Green found in his room Saturday morning?”

  “I heard about it.” Horace’s tone was careful. “Your grandfather told us all about it last night when we questioned him, but neither he nor your father thought it could account for Frogmore’s symptoms, so I’m not sure what it could possibly have to do with the murder.”

  “Maybe nothing,” I said. “But what if it has something to do with the stolen key card? I was talking to Dr. Lindquist just now—asking him what he thought of some of the suspects. He said that Ben Green wouldn’t hurt a spider.”