Owl Be Home for Christmas

by Donna Andrews

  “Instead of ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly,’ you mean.” He glanced at the index card. “You think he put the spider in Green’s room?”

  “It’s possible. They seem to be friends, in a weird Odd Couple kind of way. Lindquist appears to enjoy teasing Green, who doesn’t seem to mind.”

  “I’m not sure he even notices,” Horace said. “He’s very … earnest. And literal. And considering it’s me saying that, he’s pretty bad.”

  I nodded. Yes, if you were describing Horace, earnest and literal might be two of your adjectives. I’d have gone with doggedly precise, myself, and I could think of worse things to call a forensic specialist.

  “So he sneaks the black widow spider into Green’s room as a prank,” I said aloud.

  “Knowing that his friend could get bitten? Sounds more like attempted murder than a prank.”

  “Not really—their bites are not as dangerous as the popular myths make it seem,” I said. “I mean, yeah, it’s serious, but it’s unlikely to kill a guy Green’s size. You should know that, as often as Grandfather has lectured us on how black widow spiders get a bad rap.”

  “Your grandfather also thinks crocodiles, wolverines, and rattlesnakes get a bad rap,” Horace replied.

  “And besides,” I went on, “Green’s a biologist—Lindquist might have reason to assume he’d recognize a black widow spider and know how to deal with it.”

  “So maybe just a prank, but also maybe he had it in for Green,” Horace said. “You’re thinking the Friday evening access to Green’s room is when someone—possibly Lindquist—put the black widow in the bathroom?”

  “The timing fits. The spider arrives Friday night, but Green doesn’t find it until he’s using the bathroom when he’s wide awake on Saturday morning.”

  “Okay, weird idea,” Horace said. “But could someone have been trying to put the spider in Frogmore’s room? It’s right next door. I’ll have to check, but I think the common wall between the two is where the bathroom is. Maybe Frogmore was in his room, so they didn’t want to go in, but they took the spider into the bathroom and turned it loose right next to where the pipes go through the wall.”

  “Seems farfetched,” I said. “They’d have no way of being sure the spider would go where they wanted it to go. Better just to come back later and put it right where they want it.”

  “You’re right. Stupid idea.”

  “Of course, if the spider was meant for Frogmore, it could still have ended up in Green’s room. What if the bringer of spiders got the room number wrong? The most distinguished guests are all there in a row on the fifth floor, where the fanciest rooms are.”

  “I like that theory.” He looked cheerful again. “I should call the chief and brief him.”

  Something struck me.

  “Good grief,” I said. “Dr. Green was right between Dr. Frogmore and the Vosses. Ekaterina had her staff spray all three rooms with whatever the hotel uses to kill and repel spiders. What if that poisoned him?”

  “And had no effect on Dr. Green and Dr. and Mrs. Voss?”

  “Maybe it affected them to a lesser degree.”

  “And doesn’t the Inn brag about how they only use the most environmentally friendly cleaning products?” Horace asked.

  “Environmentally friendly doesn’t necessary mean Frogmore friendly,” I said. “What if whatever the Inn uses is something he’s allergic to? Or maybe it affected Frogmore only because it combined with something he drank or ate. I don’t know. Even if it’s a completely stupid theory, if I can think of it, so can the defense attorney who’s representing whoever you eventually arrest for this.”

  “So I’ll need to find out what’s in the spray the hotel uses,” Horace said. “And find out—”

  Someone knocked on the door. Horace and I looked up to see the door open, revealing Dr. Czerny.

  Chapter 20

  “Can I talk to you?” Czerny’s posture seemed to have improved a little—I supposed he no longer had to crouch to appease Dr. Frogmore.

  “Of course,” Horace said. “What can I do for you…”

  It occurred to me that Horace was trying, unsuccessfully, to remember our visitor’s name. Not surprising—he’d interviewed a lot of people in the last twelve hours.

  “How are you doing, Dr. Czerny,” I said. “I know you’ve had a terrible shock.”

  “I have confidential information.” Dr. Czerny glared at me, doubtless to suggest that his information was for Horace’s ears only.

  “I see.” Horace slid a chair over toward Dr. Czerny. “Meg, why don’t you shut the door so no one can eavesdrop. And take your notes in shorthand. More confidential,” he added, beaming at Dr. Czerny. “Meg’s the mayor’s executive assistant—we were lucky to have her available to provide administrative support for our investigation.”

  I deduced that, for whatever reason, Horace wanted company for his talk with Czerny. I sat down, took out my notebook and pencil, and tried to look official.

  Our visitor didn’t look happy, but he didn’t protest.

  “I have a lead for you.” He ignored me and focused on Horace.

  “Want to tell me about it?” You probably had to know Horace pretty well to figure out that he was thinking, “Please, no; not another wannabe sleuth.”

  Dr. Czerny leaned forward and fixed his eyes on Horace’s.

  “Those three strange men who were at Dr. Frogmore’s table.” Having said that, he sat up and looked triumphant.

  “Ye-es?” Horace said, in an encouraging tone.

  “They’re the ones?”

  “All three of them?”

  “Quite possibly. Or one of them.”

  Horace glanced at me. I shrugged almost invisibly, to indicate that no, I didn’t get it, either.

  “Who are these men?” Horace asked. “And—”

  “Exactly!” Dr. Czerny exclaimed. “I don’t know them. Dr. Frogmore didn’t know them. If Drs. Green or Lindquist know them they’re not admitting to it. Who are they?”

  “Two of them are grad students,” I said. “Smith and Whitmore, if memory serves. And the third, Belasco, is an assistant professor—I can’t remember where. Northwestern maybe? Or University of Chicago. Someplace in Illinois, anyway. But Horace already interviewed them, so I’m sure he has everything about them in his notes.”

  Horace nodded.

  “And what were two graduate students and a very junior professor doing at the head table—at Dr. Frogmore’s table? Can you answer that?”

  I could, obviously, but I wasn’t sure Dr. Czerny would like the answer.

  Horace spoke up.

  “They all said there was no place else to sit. They came in late, and Dr. Frogmore’s table was the only one that still had seats.”

  “Ridiculous!” Dr. Czerny glared at us.

  “I think the problem was that most of the other attendees were too intimidated to sit with Dr. Frogmore,” I said. “After all, it was the head table! And you have to admit that Dr. Frogmore is—was—pretty imposing.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” he said. “But I still don’t buy it. They engineered it. They must have chased everyone else away somehow. Told them the seats were taken, I suppose. But it was all part of their plot to insinuate themselves into Dr. Frogmore’s presence so they could assassinate him!”

  Horace and I exchanged a glance.

  “Do you have any idea why they would want to, er, do away with Dr. Frogmore?” Horace asked.

  “How do I know? That’s your job, isn’t it? They were at the table, and they shouldn’t have been. Isn’t that enough? Although if you want more—they’ve been behaving very strangely. Acting nervous and edgy. Easily startled. Constantly trying to sneak away. I’ve been keeping my eye on them, and I can assure you—they’re definitely behaving strangely.”

  Behaving strangely? What Czerny had just described sounded like exactly how I’d behave if I noticed that he was following me around the conference and glaring accusingly at me.

  I scri
bbled madly in my notebook, mainly so I’d have a reason not to keep looking at Czerny’s face, with its fierce, predatory expression.

  Horace glanced over to see what I was writing and almost lost it when he saw that I was writing, over and over again, “I must not tell Dr. Czerny what an idiot he is. I must not tell Dr. Czerny what an idiot he is.” He turned away suddenly, overtaken by a sudden coughing fit, and didn’t turn around again until he had his face back under control. And then his mouth twitched again and he looked at me for help.

  “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Dr. Czerny,” I said, in the most solemn tone I could muster. “I can assure you that these three men are very definitely on Horace’s suspect list.” Horace nodded, and emitted a few more gentle coughs. “We can’t say any more than that about the progress of an ongoing investigation, you understand.”

  I reached into my purse, pulled out a box of cough lozenges I’d tucked in there in case any of the speakers needed them, and handed one to Horace.

  “Well.” Dr. Czerny stood. He still didn’t look entirely content. “As long as you’re taking this seriously.”

  “Very seriously,” I said. “And before you go—be careful. We’re aware of these men now. Don’t put yourself at risk. Remember, we’re looking for someone who committed a brutal, cold-blooded murder. Don’t follow these men, or keep watch on them, or give them any reason to suspect that you’re on to them. In fact, you should probably avoid them entirely. Right, Horace?”

  Horace, sucking ostentatiously on the cough lozenge, nodded briskly. Then he opened his mouth and, after a brief introductory cough, croaked out the words, “Stay safe!”

  Dr. Czerny nodded, and turned to leave in what I’m sure he thought was a dignified manner. He paused in the doorway and turned back to us.

  “And I don’t believe the rumors going around about Dr. Blake,” he said. “I can’t imagine him doing anything like that. I’m sure he’s completely gotten over his disappointment about the medal.”

  “Medal?” Horace asked.

  “The Frogmore Medal for Excellence in Ornithology.” Dr. Czerny’s tone suggested that next to this the Nobel Prize was small potatoes. “Named after Dr. Frogmore, of course, who was its first recipient. I’m sure they’ll get around to honoring Dr. Blake sooner or later.”

  As he turned to go, I could tell from his smile that he thought he’d handed us the solution to the case.

  I followed him to the door and shut it carefully behind him.

  “Oh, Lord,” Horace said, his voice normal, though interspersed with chuckles. “Those poor guys. Sorry to drag you into it, but I’d already noticed that the guy’s a little unbalanced over losing his boss—I didn’t want to talk to him without backup.”

  “No problem.”

  “And what he had to say explains a lot. I’ll have to tell the chief.”

  “Explains what?” Surely Horace wasn’t taking the Frogmore medal thing seriously.

  “I interviewed all three of them this morning,” he said. “With the chief on the radio. And all three of them came across as … well … twitchy.”

  “I’d be twitchy, too, if Dr. Czerny were following me around.”

  “Exactly. Just talking to him makes me twitchy,” Horace grumbled. “And what is this about a medal that Dr. Blake is supposed to be put out about not getting?”

  “Beats me,” I said. “I never heard of it. And do you really think Grandfather would care that much about a medal named after Dr. Frogmore?”

  “Good point,” he said. “Enough of Dr. Czerny. Any chance you could bring Dr. Lindquist here? I’m going to brief the chief—about all this, including the bug spray theory—and then we can tackle Lindquist about the key card.”

  “Can do,” I said.

  I stepped outside and looked around to make sure no one was nearby. Then I called Ekaterina.

  “How is the investigation going?” she asked.

  “I think they’re making progress,” I said. “Horace needs something. Can you bring him a container of whatever you had sprayed to kill the spiders?”

  There was a pause.

  “Meg, that spray is environmentally correct! Because we have no desire to poison guests! Is made with essential oils and—”

  “I assumed it would be.” In fact, I knew she’d consulted several environmentalists, including Grandfather, about her choice of cleaning supplies and pesticides. “And I can’t imagine that the bug spray had any effect on him—but we need Horace and Dad to examine the spray and confirm that. So if anyone tries to start a nasty rumor and blame the hotel, we can all say that no, our forensic and medical experts say that was not a factor.”

  “That would be helpful,” she said. “I will bring samples of the spray to the Command Post.” With that, she hung up. I headed for the restaurant to look for Dr. Lindquist. Who had finished his breakfast fifteen minutes earlier, according to Eduardo. I found him in the Gathering Area, talking with two other scientists.

  Actually, when I got closer I realized he was telling them owl jokes.

  “I give up,” an angular woman in jeans was saying. “Why did the owl invite all his friends over?”

  “He didn’t want to be owl by himself!” Dr. Lindquist roared with laughter. The other two scientists’ appreciation was more subdued.

  “Okay, here’s another,” Lindquist said. “What kind of books do owls like to read?”

  “Hoo-dunnets,” I said.

  “You already heard it?” Dr. Lindquist looked crushed.

  “From my middle-school twin boys,” I said.

  Dr. Lindquist’s audience seemed to find this funnier than the joke.

  “Dr. Lindquist, Deputy Hollingsworth wants to pick your brain about something,” I said. “Could you drop by and see him sometime soon—whenever you’re free.”

  “I’m free now.” He looked at his watch. “And I’d just as soon get it over before the first panel starts. Catch you later,” he said to the other two.

  He strode toward the door to the lobby and I followed along behind, in the hope that Horace would let me kibitz on his interview. After all, I was the one who brought the possibility of Dr. Lindquist as the card thief to his attention.

  When I entered the office, I heard Horace talking—presumably to the chief.

  “Oh, good,” he said. “Meg just brought in Dr. Lindquist. I expect he can help us with this.”

  Dr. Lindquist took one of the guest chairs. I sat in the corner and tried to look official, while not making any noise, in case the chief hadn’t intended for me to stay.

  “Dr. Lindquist. Thank you for dropping by.” The chief’s voice sounded very genial. He was probably trying to lull Lindquist into a sense of complacency. I tried to make my expression neutral and reassuring.

  “Meg said you had a few more questions? Happy to help.”

  He didn’t look anxious. Did that mean he wasn’t guilty of killing Frogmore? Or only that he was confident that he’d gotten away with it?

  “Yes, there is one thing we’d like to clear up. On Saturday morning, Dr. Benjamin Green found a black widow spider in the bathroom of his hotel room.”

  The grin that crossed Lindquist’s face convinced me that yes, he was the one who’d planted the spider.

  “That must have been quite a shock for him,” he said.

  “Yes.” The chief paused for a moment. “So would you like to tell us how you obtained the housekeeping key card you used to plant the spider? And also what else you did with the key card while you had it?”

  Lindquist’s grin vanished.

  “How do you—? Wait a minute. I didn’t do anything else. What are you accusing me of?”

  “Why don’t you tell us precisely what happened?”

  Lindquist nodded and glanced at me and Horace before continuing.

  “Okay, so Ben and I like to play pranks on each other. Well, it’s mostly me playing pranks on him, but he seems to get a kick out of it.”

  Maybe he did. Green was defi
nitely an odd bird. Of course, so was Lindquist.

  “The night before I took off to come here, I found the spider in my carport, and I thought it would be a great gag to plant it somewhere and let Ben find it. See how sincere he was about the whole deal of respecting even the smallest of life-forms? I figured I could find someone on the housekeeping staff to let me into his room to put it there—I hadn’t decided whether to pretend it was my room or say I had a surprise gift for him. And as it turned out, I didn’t need to. I was so busy Friday that I didn’t even get away from the conference until after dinner, and halfway up to my room I realized that the housekeeping staff would almost certainly have gone home. Or gone to wherever in the hotel they were staying, I guess, given the weather. But I remembered seeing this room at the end of the hall where they stash the cleaning carts when they go off duty. I stuck my head in, just in case one of the housekeeping staff might be hanging out there, and saw one of them had left her key card lying on top of her cart.” He sat back as if he’d just explained everything.

  “So you stole it.” The chief’s stern tone seemed to rattle Lindquist.

  “No, I only borrowed it,” he protested, “For maybe ten minutes. The spider was in my room, just down the hall, so I grabbed it, took it to Ben’s room, and let it loose under the sink. Then I took the card right back and left it just where I’d found it.”

  “On the housekeeper’s cart.”

  Lindquist nodded.

  “That would be a yes,” Horace said for the chief’s benefit.

  “Did anyone spot you?” I asked.

  “The staff had gone off duty.”

  “Any other guests passing by?” Horace asked.

  “Not that I remember. But I’m not sure I even noticed, so there could have been.” Dr. Lindquist seemed to find that thought reassuring. “Anyone else could have done the same thing. And someone else must have if any mischief was done with it.”

  “About what time was it when you stole the card?” the chief asked.

  “I didn’t— I don’t know precisely when I borrowed the card. It was during Dr. Blake’s after-dinner party Friday night. I noticed that he and Ben were deep in conversation about something, so I figured it was a good time to plant the spider. The party ran from eight to nine, and this would have been closer to the beginning than the end. Maybe eight fifteen. No later than eight thirty.”