A Festival of Murder (27 page)

He
turned for the door but froze, suddenly afraid of looking back. “What you said
earlier . . . did you mean it?”

The
air grew warmer. She had stepped closer to him. “Yes, Nicholas. I would love to
go on a date with you. Let’s just keep you out of jail so it will be possible.”

~~~~~

Nicholas
hadn’t installed a phone at Alien Artifacts because talking to customers in
person was bad enough; there was no point inviting them to call him as well.
Since cell phone reception was intermittent in the Rockies, it meant picking
the twins’ brains would require a drive back to the shop.

Nicholas
ushered Phoebe out of his cabin, hoping that by moving quickly to and from
their destinations they would remain one step ahead of Detective Canberry. This
plan was thwarted in its infancy when he was hailed by a yell that floated
across the yard.

“Mr.
Trilby! Mr. Trilby!”

It
was Toby, his little legs flailing behind him as he ran across the soft, thick
snow of Kevin’s yard. His overstuffed bright yellow parka and matching snow
pants made him look like a giant toy ball rolling toward them. Up close,
Nicholas noticed that Toby’s upper lip hosted a thick, frozen waterfall of snot
and his chubby cheeks were mottled red from the cold and his apparent
excitement.

“Toby,
what’s all the hubbub?” Nicholas asked him.

Toby
jumped the remaining feet to Nicholas’s yard, hurtling an invisible pit of
vipers or some such, and grinned up at Nicholas. “The aliens visited
Winchester!”

Nicholas
groaned. “Not this nonsense again.”

“Winchester
is popular with them, is he?” Phoebe asked Toby while sending Nicholas a
chiding look. “I’m not surprised the aliens keep coming to see him. He’s a
charming and very handsome animal. Aliens seem to be attracted to that sort.”

A
blush heated Nicholas ears and neck. “Did Winchester enjoy his encounter?” he
forced himself to ask with feigned interest.

Toby
swiped his tongue across his upper lip, oblivious of Nicholas’s reactionary
shudder. “Uh huh. Winchester likes the aliens. He wants them to come closer so
he can talk to them but they always stay in the trees. Daddy bought me Optimus
Prime— wanna see it?”

Thrown
by the topic change, Nicholas stood blinking like a penguin just uncrated in
Africa.

Phoebe
came to the rescue. “He’s the best Transformer for sure, but I think I have a
soft spot for Bumblebee.”

“I
like Bumblebee, too!”

“I
can see why. You look just like him.”

Toby
giggled when Phoebe poked the belly of his yellow parka. He twisted his body,
swinging his arms back and forth, as he asked, “Wanna see the aliens?”

“What
happened to Optimus Prime?” Nicholas asked.

Toby
perked. “He’s in my toilet. I was making him swim. Wanna see?”

As
Nicholas stared at him, Phoebe coughed into her fist. “Maybe another time,
Toby. Mr. Trilby and I have some work to do.”

“Let’s
go see the aliens!” Toby hopped up and down.

“Toby,
we really—”

“No,
by all means let’s go see the aliens,” Nicholas cut in, smirking when Phoebe’s
look changed to
what do you think you’re doing?
If she wanted him to
play nice with children, he would go all out and play the ultimate indulging
uncle. “Give me your hand, Toby, and show us where they are. Winchester can’t
have all the fun, now can he? Alien encounters are for sharing.”

“Nicholas
Trilby, you are the worst.”

“So
I keep trying to tell everyone but no one bothers to listen.”

Toby,
leaning forward as if against an imaginary headwind, tugged Nicholas around the
side of his cabin with Phoebe following. The snow was deeper here since
typically only Kevin, and apparently Toby, came this way to visit Winchester.
The alpaca was inside the pen, standing there staring at nothing, which
Nicholas was fairly certain was his hobby for 80 percent of the day. Winchester
turned his head toward his visitors with only the vaguest suggestions of
interest. The promised aliens were also conspicuously absent.

“They
pop up over there,” Toby said, pointing to a thicker hedge of six trees thirty
feet or so beyond the back fence. “Winchester told me not to go to them. He
said they’ll come closer when they’re ready for us to go with them.”

Nicholas
nodded but the boy’s wording made him uncomfortable. In fact, it sent a ripple
of dread through his body. What if Toby wasn’t wrong? What if the aliens hadn’t
given up on Nicholas when they released him? What if, like a tagged animal in
the wild, he was continually being monitored by alien scientists, giving them
insight as to whether and when to abduct other victims? What if Horace Grant’s
warning about a waiting armada was true?

“Toby,”
he said gravely, taking the boy’s hand and passing it to Phoebe’s. “Stay here
with Miss James. I’m going to investigate.”

“Nicholas,
you don’t honestly think there’s anything out there.” Phoebe’s scowl wavered. “Do
you?”

He
wasn’t proud to reply, “I’ve learned that there isn’t much in this world or any
other that I should dismiss out of hand. Anything, unfortunately, is possible.”
He handed her the album. “Keep that safe, and if for whatever reason—”

“Don’t
be ridiculous,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She snatched the album from
him. “Just go.”

Winchester’s
odd-shaped head followed Nicholas as he stepped carefully around the perimeter
of the fence. The aliens hadn’t touched the beast as far as Nicholas was aware,
but perhaps they had changed their minds and wanted to learn more about the
unusual animal. Winchester would undoubtedly be an interesting specimen to
them, as goofy-looking as he was.

Winchester
made a soft clucking sound when Nicholas reached the bunched grouping of trees
that Toby had pointed out. Nicholas stood silently just beside the copse,
trying to use all five of his senses, plus the backup ESP, to check for the
presence of aliens.

Gradually,
he noticed something he wouldn’t have expected to find within the vicinity of
his cabin: the smoky, sharp tang of gunpowder. He dropped his gaze to the snow
and with his head down, began a careful examination of the area within the
trees.

“Nicholas,”
Phoebe called, “did you find something?”

“Not
yet,” he replied, but his heart had begun to race. He reached out and traced a
foot-long streak of black that wound around one of the thinner trees like a
ribbon. The black rubbed off on his gloved fingertips. The surface of the bark
beneath it was unscarred.

A
few more moments of searching yielded the first strand of silver and red cord.
First, because Nicholas soon found four more cords, two of which were black
with blue stripes. All were wound around the trees in various patterns as
though someone had tried to knit the trees together. Had there been cords like
this amid Captain Sam’s pile of loose wires?

He
decided to look up, and that’s when he found something new. As he gaped up
between the high tree limbs, the long awaited epiphany struck him like a beam
of cosmic energy.

“Phoebe,”
he called out, “I think it’s time our neighbors in Hightop made contact with
the aliens.”

“What
in the world are you talking about?”

“I’m
going to finally give them what they want.”

Phoebe
looked about to ask another question when all three of them heard the sound of
approaching snowmobiles. Phoebe gasped. “It’s the police!”

Nicholas
swallowed hard against panic and despair. He needed time, just a little bit
more time. For a wild moment he considered running pell-mell into the forest,
and hiding out with a pack of coyotes to avoid Detective Canberry. That fantasy
melted as quickly as the snowflakes settling on his cheeks.

The
police were here, and it was time to face the music.

“I
don’t believe in aliens,” Detective Canberry said for the third time.

“I’m
not asking you to,” Nicholas said, also for the third time. He checked his
watch. “I’m asking you to hold off on taking me in for further questioning so
you can witness a spectacle I promise you will be highly illuminating.”

“Right.
An alien visitation. I thought I just told you I don’t believe in them.”

Nicholas
gripped equanimity with all of his fingers and toes. He knew he was lucky to
have convinced the detective to hang around for what was to come, but for a man
who dedicated his career to imagining and considering all possibilities,
Canberry was irritatingly closed-minded when it came to the subject of
extraterrestrials.

“What
you are about to see is linked to Rocky Johnson’s murder,” Nicholas said. Though
they were outside in the snow he was sweating. In the back of his mind pulsed
the knowledge that if this didn’t work as planned, he would soon be visiting
the Estes Park police station, and not as a guest.

“Right
now maybe you should concentrate on clearing your own name before you begin
pointing fingers at your neighbors,” Canberry said. “You have quite a history,
Mr. Trilby. You ran, but not far enough. Not for the likes of a reporter like
Johnson. Or an investigator like me.”

Nicholas
breathed deeply. “My past has nothing to do with this. And I can think of no
better way of clearing my name than by handing you the killer.”

“That
would be convenient except we’re currently out here alone. Unless you intend to
dig up your killer the way you miraculously dug up Mr. Johnson’s watch, you
haven’t proved anything.”

Nicholas
carefully sidestepped that landmine. “A few more minutes, Detective. Please.”

“You’ve
got miles to go to convince me, Mr. Trilby.” Canberry’s tie tack glared
accusingly.

“Hopefully,
light years will do the trick.”

Kevin
slogged frantically across the snow from the neighboring property, Toby
balanced on one hip, robot toys clutched in both of the boy’s hands. Kevin wore
the expression of a man about to ward off an oncoming train. “Nicholas, I came
to warn you! I heard the Great Greeting has been moved to your yard. All of the
visitors are heading up here!”

Canberry
raised an eyebrow. “Great Greeting?”

“Thank
you for the heads up, Kevin.” Nicholas nodded as the sounds of car doors
slamming reached their ears. “I’m aware of the impending doom heading our way.”

“Do
you know who’s responsible for telling people it’s now out here?” Kevin asked.

Nicholas
smirked. “I’m the one who told them. Well, I told Emma, who is the gossip
equivalent of Ebola. I imagine it took all of twenty minutes for word to spread
to everyone who was conscious at the time.”

Kevin
looked poleaxed. “But why would you do such a thing? You can’t stand the Great
Greeting. And having it moved to your own property . . . that’s
not like you.”

“Be
patient, Kevin.” Nicholas’s attempt at a reassuring smile felt as comfortable
sitting on his face as would a tarantula. “We’re laying out the cheese.”

The
answer did little to clear his neighbor’s expression. But Nicholas had other
concerns on his mind.

His
heart rate accelerated from a mixture of dread and anticipation as he watched
the first arrival jog around the corner of his home. It was Phoebe, looking
focused and ready to wrestle a moose with her bare hands. That she felt so
seriously about something directly affecting him lifted Nicholas’s spirits,
though the fear did not abate. If he had guessed wrong, if he had drawn the
wrong conclusions with the clues he’d found, all of this would be a waste of
time and hope.

Charles
was next around the corner. His rosy cheeks and look of confusion made him
resemble a giant child, and Nicholas was stabbed with guilt for assuming the
absolute worst of the man. After him came the twins, Emma and Bea, hobbling as
quickly as they could through the widening snow path beside his cabin. Emma was
chatting nonstop about something while Bea listened and nodded, her
crochet-covered flask clutched in one gloved hand, the screw top already
dangling open. More sounds of car doors slamming shut. The tourists were here.
Everyone, he hoped, was here.

“You’ve
got your audience,” Detective Canberry said as he studied the growing crowd
with wary watchfulness. He pinned Nicholas with a laser sharp gaze. “Now what
are we waiting for?”

Nicholas
caught Phoebe’s eye where she stood with Kevin, Charles and the twins. She gave
him a firm nod.

“Now,”
Nicholas said to Canberry, “we shall do what Hightop does best. We bring down
the aliens.”

He
ignored the detective’s pained look to address the visitors who had come to
Hightop from all parts of the country. He was more familiar with them now, and
very nearly felt a connection with many of them. He couldn’t help being
surprised by himself and wondering if he were going soft in his advancing age.

“I’m
sure most of you are aware of who I am,” he began, fighting the instinct to run
into the woods or better yet, his cabin, and hunker down until everyone left
the property again. Being the focus of attention made his stomach turn. “Tonight
marks the culmination of our Annual Alien Fest, an event which my neighbors
apparently commit considerable time and effort preparing for you.” Nicholas had
no idea. He stayed well bunkered and was often drunk at this point of the
festival. “The festival is traditionally brought to a close with the Great
Greeting. However, tonight I’ve asked my friends—” the word didn’t stick in his
throat as he thought it would, “— to bring you here, to my home, because
incredibly enough, appropriately enough, the aliens have already initiated
their own greeting to us.”