Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon (16 page)
Read Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon Online
Authors: Donna Andrews
Tags: #Women detectives, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Langslow; Meg (Fictitious character), #Women Sleuths, #Fiction, #Humorous, #Psychotherapists, #Receptionists, #Computer games
I found an empty grocery bag in Mrs. Sprocket's pantry – actually, I found several hundred, but I needed only one – loaded the contents of the secret compartment into it, and stashed it in my trunk.
But after I locked the house back up, I decided to explore the yard a little. The driveway continued behind the house, although I deduced from the three- and four-foot dogwood seedlings in the middle of it that no one had driven that way for several years. I followed the driveway and discovered an enormous weathered barn.
My cell phone rang. Michael.
„So what are you up to?“ he asked.
„I'm not sure,“ I said. „Do you have to be breaking into someone's actual house for it to be burgling? Or would someone's barn count, too?“
„I know I'm going to regret this, but whose barn are you burgling?“
„Ted's. Or his landlord's.“
I wedged the phone between shoulder and ear and explained, briefly, what I'd been doing, while rummaging through my purse for something that would serve as a makeshift screwdriver. The door was secured with a relatively new padlock, but since the screws holding the hasp onto the door were already half-loose, it took only a few minutes to remove the hasp entirely.
„There, I've got it,“ I reported to Michael. „And I bet the police didn't search in here. They couldn't have, unless there's another way in – the padlock was swathed in spiderwebs.“
„You don't think maybe the spiderwebs are a sign that there's nothing worth finding in the barn?“
„Not necessarily,“ I said. „I mean obviously there's no evidence of the murder in here, given the spiderwebs; but there could be something that gives me a clue to why he was killed.“
„Meg, be careful,“ Michael said.
„I will,“ I said. „Stand by, and I'll give you a blow-by-blow description of what I see.“
I began pulling open the barn door. I was wondering if I should fetch the flashlight I kept in my car, when something struck me on the head and I lost consciousness.
Admin
I awoke to find myself gazing into the glassy eyes of a moth-eaten taxidermied moose.
„Meg! Answer me!“ it pleaded in a small, hollow voice.
„Yes?“ I said.
Apparently the moose didn't hear me.
„I'll keep her on the line,“ it said, in the same oddly distant voice. „See if you can get a number for the Caerphilly police department…. What?…
C-A-E-R
– “
The police department? There was something about the police department that I ought to remember. If my head would stop hurting, I might remember.
I glanced around and saw my cell phone lying in the grass beside the moose's cheek.
„Michael,“ I said, grabbing the cell phone. „I'm fine. Don't call the police. Chief Burke would be really angry.“
„Meg! Are you all right? What happened?“
„I'm fine. It was only a moose.“
A brief pause.
„Keep trying to get the Caerphilly police,“ Michael said. Apparently to someone else. „I think she's going to need an ambulance.“
„Michael, I told you, I'm fine,“ I said. „It was only a stuffed moose head.“
„Only a stuffed moose head?“ he repeated. And then, to
whoever else was on the other end. „Get the number but don't call yet. Meg,“ he said, more loudly. „Are you sure you're okay?“
Was I okay? What if our deranged killer was following some land of punning weapons motif, I wondered, as I patted the top of my skull. First strangling Ted with a mouse cord, and now assaulting me with a stuffed moose? I winced – by probing my scalp, I had confirmed that, yes, I had a remarkably large lump on the top of my head, and while it didn't appear to be bleeding, touching it made my headache temporarily worse.
I looked around and realized that the killer probably wasn't responsible for my predicament. I was lying at the edge of a small delta of objects that had erupted out of the barn when I opened the door. In addition to the moose, I spotted a crab pot, a rope hammock, several bicycle tires, a badminton net, a headless garden gnome, half a dozen flowerpots, several croquet mallets, a broken toilet, a large wasp's nest – fortunately, unoccupied – and several dozen other less recognizable bits of junk.
„I'm fine,“ I said. „I was opening the door to the barn, remember? A stuffed moose head fell out and beaned me. I have a lump on my head, but I'm fine.“
„Don't go in the barn,“ Michael said. „It could be dangerous to go into the barn.“
„I'm sure it would be dangerous, and I'm not going in there,“ I said. „I'd need a forklift to clear a path before I could even think of going in there. I'll be lucky if I can put back everything that fell out when I opened the door.“
„That's good,“ Michael said. „Don't try to put things back, just get out of there; obviously it's not safe.“
„Okay, okay,“ I said.
„And get your father to look at your head.“
„Okay, I will,“ I said.
I was lying, of course. I stayed long enough to put back the stuff that had fallen out of the barn, which with only one and a half working hands seemed to take forever. But did Michael really expect me to leave it all spread across the lawn, advertising my snooping in case anyone like Chief Burke came back? I was tempted to just stow it all in the basement, on the theory that the police would be so overwhelmed by the magnitude of Mrs. Sprocket's clutter that they'd overlook the fact that some of it was sneaking around when their backs were turned, but decided it was a bad idea. They might have taken photos.
When I got back to the Cave, I tried to settle down and study Ted's collection of artifacts, but then I just put them aside in favor of half an hour with an ice pack and some aspirin.
I did put the portable black light in my purse. Depending on what time the pizza fest broke up, I might come back here afterward, or I might want to go straight from Luigi's to the office. I changed into jeans and a T-shirt that was presentable enough to wear to the restaurant, yet old enough that I wouldn't mind dirtying it up if my snooping led me into something messy, like the Dumpster.
When my head started feeling better, I realized I still had a little time to kill – I didn't want to be the first one there. On a whim, I turned on my laptop and logged on to the Internet. I searched for information on Anna Floyd, the romance writer, but apart from learning, on Amazon.com, that she had written two more books besides the ones I'd found in Ted's house, I couldn't find anything about her. One of Anna's book covers featured a handsome one-eyed pirate holding the buxom, swooning blond heroine. The pirate looked a -little like Michael, I thought with a sigh. I fingered the cell phone. Should I call Michael? Change my mind about a virtual date? No, I checked my watch – he would probably still be filming, so I decided not to interrupt him. Besides, I was definitely going to go to Luigi's to interrogate the guys, and I wasn't sure how he'd feel about a virtual office party.
So I put the cell phone away. But I still had time before leaving for Luigi's, so I decided to do something useful. I grabbed the paper I'd found in Ted's cache, the one with the numbers I suspected were IP addresses, and carefully typed one of them into the address line of my browser.
My screen went black. Had my battery suddenly given out? No, it was the Web site's background. Suddenly, the words,
hot! horny! xxxxxxxx!!!
began flashing in red on my screen, accompanied by several grainy pictures of women doing things better left undescribed.
„Ick,“ I said, and hit the BACK button to escape.
Instead of taking me back to Amazon, and Anna Floyd's overripe but fully clothed heroine, hitting the BACK button brought me to another black page pocked with pornographic images and leering red captions. I hit the HOME button and sighed with relief, thinking I'd escaped – but within seconds, small windows began popping up all over my screen, like toadstools after a rain, showing suggestive corners of pictures or offering badly spelled links to a bewildering variety of perversions.
I finally had to turn the laptop off to end the barrage, and sat there looking at it, fighting an irrational urge to spray the keys of my laptop with disinfectant before I touched them again. And feeling a familiar anger – the same anger I'd felt when, as a teenager, I'd felt a tap on my shoulder in a movie theater and turned to find a man exposing himself. At least with the flasher I could lash but, breaking his nose with a backhanded punch before dumping a thirty-two-ounce Coke in his lap. What could I do to the distant, anonymous creator of a sleazy Web site?
„Cute, Ted. That was a nasty little piece of work,“ I said aloud. „But what does it mean?“
There were half a dozen more IP addresses on the slip of paper. I shook my head as if to clear it. I'd have to check them out, of course; just because one of them was a porn site didn't mean they all were. But I had a feeling they would be, and I wasn't in the mood to face any more of them now.
I checked my voice mail. A message from Michael, reminding me to have my Dad check my head and promising to call me tomorrow if he didn't hear from me tonight. A message from Dad, reporting that he was having dinner with the ME and would fill me in tomorrow if he learned anything new. A message from Rob, reporting that he was still on the lam and would see me tomorrow, from which I deduced that he was still out of jail and enjoying his status as prime suspect.
Excellent. No one expected to hear from me till tomorrow. I washed my face and hands and grabbed my purse. Time to head over to Luigi's.
Even on a Tuesday night, Luigi's was hopping. I didn't see any of the Mutant Wizard crowd, so I loitered by the front counter till I could flag down one of the waitresses.
„I'm looking for the Mutant Wizards group,“ I said.
„The what?“ the waitress asked.
Apparently there were still a few people in Caerphilly who hadn't heard about us. Possibly a good thing, under the circumstances.
„It's an office get-together,“ I said. „A bunch of people – probably guys, mostly, I really don't know how many.“
„We got a couple groups,“ she said. „You want to walk through the dining rooms, see if you spot them?“
Just then Roger strolled up.
„Roger, hi. Do you know where the – “
„Two,“ Roger said to the waitress.
„Two?“ I echoed.
„Two,“ the waitress said. „Right this way.“
„Hang on,“ I said to the waitress. „Two?“ I repeated, turning to Roger. „I thought you said there was going to be a group having pizza here tonight.“
„No, I asked you to have pizza,“ he said. „Two,“ he added, to the waitress.
She looked back at me.
„Two, my sainted grandmother,“ I said. „You did not say 'Would you like to have a pizza with me.' You said, and I quote, 'We're having pizza tonight. Luigi's, seven-thirty.' That is how you tell someone she's welcome to join a group who already have plans. That is not how you ask someone out on a date.“
„You tell him, hon,“ the waitress said, leaning against the counter and putting her hands on her hips.
„Well, you're here now,“ Roger said. „Why don't we just have some pizza and –?“
„The hell we will!“ I said.
„Is there a problem here?“ said a man. The manager, presumably.
„No,“ Roger said.
„Yes,“ I said.
„The jerk lured her here on false pretenses,“ the waitress said.
„Do you need help, miss?“ the manager asked me.
„No, I'm fine,“ I said. „He's the one who needs help – like some training in basic social skills. In the first place, Roger, that is not how you ask someone out, and in the second place, I'm already seeing someone and not interested in going out with anyone, and in the third place, if I were interested in
going out with someone, you would be only slightly above Ted on my list of prospects and well below George, and in the fourth place – in the fourth place – “
Oops – tactical mistake. I hadn't thought of a fourth place.
„In the fourth place – ,“ I repeated, hoping for inspiration.
„Here we are!“ exclaimed a voice from behind me. „Are we on time?“
Jack. With Luis trailing in his wake.
„What are you doing here?“ Roger said, frowning.
„Meg told me about the pizza party,“ Jack said. „Good thing Luis and I came, huh, or you'd have had a pretty boring time. Guess everyone else was busy. We'll have fun anyway, though, won't we? Four, please,“ he said to the waitress.