Lord of the Wings (13 page)

“Oh, her.” He grimaced slightly. “Family's not too proud of her. In fact, they disowned her. Struck her name out of the family Bible and everything.”

“Because she married a bootlegger?”

“Shoot, no.” He chuckled and shook his head. “We were bootleggers ourselves back then. No one would have minded if she married another bootlegger, as long as she picked an honest, plain-dealing one. But she had to pick Billy Pratherton. We couldn't sit still for that.”

I found it amusing that he said “we,” as if he were one of the Shiffleys who had disowned the wayward Arabella. Mother was the same, talking about things the Hollingsworth family had done in World War II, the Great War, or even the Civil War as if she'd been there to witness them.

“What was wrong with Billy?” I asked.

“The Shiffleys were honest moonshiners,” Randall said. “We made a good, clean product. Potent as hell—you drank more than a sip and you might find yourself howling at the moon, and God help you when you woke up the next morning. But our moonshine wouldn't kill you or blind you.”

“And Billy's did?”

“Yes.” Randall scowled and nodded. “Even after they passed the Prohibition, the Feds couldn't stop people from making alcohol—too many industrial uses for it. So they tried to stop people from drinking industrial alcohol by adding in chemicals that would make you sick or even kill you. Kerosene, gasoline, benzene, iodine, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, acetone, and especially methyl alcohol. You name it. If it was poison, someone probably tried adding it to industrial alcohol between 1920 and 1933. And then the gangsters would steal the industrial alcohol. The smart ones would hire chemists to redistill it to get the poisons out. But that cost money. The stupid, careless ones like Billy just sold it the way it came.”

Clearly Randall had spent some time studying this era of his family's history.

“Why would people buy from Billy, then?” I asked.

“They didn't always know that's who they were buying from,” Randall said. “He had a lot of middlemen who actually sold the stuff. Billy kept his own hands clean. And not all his stuff was poisonous. He was always raiding our stills and warehouses, so some of his stuff was as good as ours—because it was ours.”

“I can see why your family weren't thrilled about Arabella's marriage.”

“Yeah, it was pretty much Hatfields and McCoys between us and Billy's mob,” Randall said. “And they didn't get married right away—for a good ten years, she was just a gangster's moll. There's people in my grandfather's generation who not only wouldn't say her name, if someone else said it they'd spit on the ground. And then when Prohibition ended, Billy and Arabella decided to turn respectable. They got married, bought a big house with all those ill-gotten gains, and tried to bust their way in society.”

“Tried?” I echoed.

“Turns out all the Caerphilly bigwigs were happy to buy booze from Billy during Prohibition, but they didn't want to share a dinner table with him after the Repeal. Billy and Arabella knocked their heads against that brick wall for a few years and then they moved away somewhere, and that's the last we ever heard of them.”

“So I guess Dr. Smoot didn't go through your family to find Arabella's descendants and get her dress for his museum.”

“Her dress?”

“He's got a nifty little 1920s flapper dress that's supposed to be the one she was wearing when the Feds tried to do a Bonnie and Clyde on Arabella and Billy.”

“News to me,” Randall said. “And not just the dress but the shoot-out. Then again, the old people don't talk about Arabella much.”

“Any of them dislike her enough to try to sabotage Dr. Smoot's exhibit about her?”

“Seems unlikely.” He frowned as he said it as if this was a new and not particularly welcome idea. “But not impossible. I can look into it if you think it's important.”

“It could be,” I said. “The only thing the police found in the dead guy's pockets was an article from the
Clarion
about how Arabella's modern-day namesake was killed in a hit-and-run accident a few months ago.”

“I'll look into it,” he said.

“Well,” I said. “Unless you have any more marching orders, I'd better go follow up on those nonresponsive goblins. After I've listened to Lydia's voice mails, of course.”

I pushed the buttons to call my voice mail. And then I pushed my phone's speaker button. If Lydia's messages were particularly annoying or condescending, it might not be a bad thing for Randall to hear them.

“Hi, Meg,” she said in her usual breezy tone. “Could you call the Griswalds about their cat? Thanks.”

“Why is the Griswalds' cat my problem?” I asked. “Is Animal Control closed for the festival? And does she think I'm psychic and can guess the Griswalds' number?”

Randall just shook his head.

I pushed the button to listen to her second message.

“Meg, the Griswalds are driving me crazy!” She sounded less cheerful this time. “Can you
please
go over and calm them down? And if possible get their cat back from Dr. Smoot and take it back to them.”

“Go over and calm them down,” I repeated. “Again, why is this my problem and where are the Griswalds? Mrs. Griswald's technically a member of Trinity Episcopal—I've seen her name when I helped Robyn with some church paperwork—but she must not go often, because I don't recall meeting her and we're certainly not on visiting terms.”

“Lydia seems to think we all know each other and spend all day sipping iced tea on each other's porches,” Randall said. “And since when has Dr. Smoot taken up catnapping in addition to all his other peculiarities?”

Enlightenment struck.

“Oh, good grief,” I muttered. I opened up the photo album in my phone and clicked through it till I found the shot I thought I'd remembered. “Aha! That's why I already heard the Griswalds' name today. Dr. Smoot hasn't stolen their cat. He borrowed a jeweled cat-shaped brooch from them to exhibit in his museum. Borrowed in what sounded like a completely businesslike and aboveboard way.”

“I'm guessing they heard about the security problems at the Haunted House and have maybe changed their minds about the loan. I gather the thing is valuable.”

I showed Randall my picture of the brooch.

“I repeat my question—is that eyesore actually valuable? Because if it were mine, I'd be over the moon if someone stole it.”

“All the sparkly stones are real,” I said. “No matter how ugly it is, it's worth a mint, so I can understand how the Griswalds might be a little worried about it. As soon as I find out where they are, I will happily go over and talk to them.”

“They live in Westlake,” Randall said. “I've got the address here in my phone. I've been over there a time or two for committee meetings.”

Randall read me the address, and I entered it into my own phone for safekeeping.

“You take care of the Griswalds,” he said. “I'll make your report on the Haunted House to Lydia. And then I'll go figure out if any of the old folks in my family are still worked up about Arabella.”

“Or if they know anything that could explain her obituary being found in the pocket of a murder victim,” I suggested.

“That too.” He squared his shoulders and marched into the courthouse.

I hurried down the steps and back to the Mutant Wizards parking lot.

“Of course it would be Westlake,” I murmured as I made my slow way through the crowds. Westlake was where Caerphilly's truly rich people lived. At least the ones who wanted to make sure you knew they were rich. Grandfather could probably have afforded a house there if he wanted one, but he considered that entire section of town a hideous example of rampant environmental unsustainability. Come to think of it, given how profitable Mutant Wizards had become, Rob could probably also afford a house there. But he made fun of Westlake as pretentious and seemed as content with his room on our third floor as Grandfather was with his pied-à-terre at Mother and Dad's farm.

Maybe if one of them had moved to Westlake I'd feel less like an intruder on the rare occasions when I had to go there. Most of the houses there were built in the faux Tudor style that was popular throughout much of the town, but in Westlake the houses looked more like medieval manors than quaint cottages, and a mere two acres was considered a tiny lot. Most of the houses were set back so far from the road that they could barely be seen, and a few were probably large enough to qualify for their own zip codes if they wanted them.

And clearly Westlake wasn't nearly as keen on Halloween as the rest of the town. I didn't spot a single fake tombstone or skeleton. Not a single witch had collided with any of the residents' numerous and well-tended trees. No fake bats anywhere. Where there were decorations, they were definitely of the low-key, tasteful fall/harvest school. Some of the front porches bore small, carefully arranged collections of gourds in muted earth tones—nothing so gaudy as a pumpkin. Some doors displayed wreaths of dried flowers or arrangements of two or three ears of Indian corn. Clearly Halloween was not nearly as much of an occasion here as it was in the livelier parts of town.

I wondered if this was how they decorated every year, or if their militant avoidance of Halloween trappings had anything to do with the Westlake neighborhood's bitter opposition to the festival plan. An opposition I suspected was largely due to the fact that a Shiffley was promoting the plan.

When I found the Griswalds' house, I stopped by the curb for a few moments to assess it. By Westlake standards it looked about average. It was set back fairly far from the street on top of a gentle hill. From the street it gave the impression of being one of the neighborhood's rare normal-sized houses—a sprawling ranch at the large end of normal, but nothing you might not see in a nice suburban neighborhood.

But once I turned into the driveway and made my way slowly up the hill, I revised my assessment. The higher I went, the more house I saw. It didn't just sprawl along the top of the hill, it also wandered all the way down the other side in a confusing mass of wings, terraces, gables, decks, covered walks, and outbuildings. Far from being modest, the Griswalds' home was toward the upper end of the range here in Westlake.

I was expecting a butler, or at least a uniformed maid, but a small, nondescript man in a brown suit met me at the door.

“It's not Halloween yet,” he said, eyeing my swordwoman's costume with distaste.

“And Halloween can't be over soon enough for me,” I said. “Lydia Van Meter asked me to come and see you. I'm Meg Langslow, head of the Visitor Relations and Police Liaison Patrol. Hence the costume.” He didn't look like someone who'd be amused by the Goblin Patrol name. In fact, he looked like someone who disapproved of trick-or-treating but couldn't be bothered with the custom of turning out your front lights as a signal that you weren't giving out candy. Then again, only the most naïve trick-or-treaters would climb all the way up his driveway with no more encouragement than a single, tasteful sheaf of dried grass on the door.

“I see.” He waited a few moments, then sighed and beckoned me in.

Without another word he led me across half an acre of foyer, our footsteps echoing on slate tiles that were bare except for a small and hideously expensive-looking oriental rug right in the center of the room. Above it hung a crystal chandelier that would have looked over-the-top in Versailles.

“My wife is in the great room,” he said as he opened a set of double doors at the far side of the foyer and gestured for me to walk in.

The great room had size going for it, and very little else. The cathedral ceiling dwarfed the furniture, which was formal and uninviting. It was a prime example of what Mother called “decorating only for the camera and the magazine editors.” Not that she didn't enjoy all the photography in her rags, as she called them—every month she read
Architectural Digest, Elle Decor, Elle Decoration
(its English cousin),
House Beautiful, Martha Stewart Living, Traditional Home, Veranda, World of Interiors,
and probably others whose names I was blotting out of my mind. But she didn't read them uncritically. And she saved the worst of her scorn for the houses that, as she put it, were just decorated to look good in a magazine feature rather than to be lived in. The Griswalds' living room struck me as a textbook example. I wished I could pull out my phone and take some photos, to see if she agreed with my assessment.

And on top of the rather chilly, minimalist décor, no fire burned in a fireplace that was almost as large as the one I remembered from the mansion in
Citizen Kane
. A pity, since the one thing the Griswalds weren't extravagant with was heat.

I had plenty of time to study my surroundings as we made our way across what seemed like several square miles of carpet so deep it was like walking through mud, to a distant pair of sofas upholstered in white brocade. But when we finally reached the sofas, Mrs. Griswald, who was sitting in a corner of one of them, came as a pleasant surprise.

“Meg Langslow! How nice of you to come!”

I recognized her as the sweet and bubbly woman who was a regular at Grace Episcopal Church's Sunday services, though she declined with seemingly genuine regret when invited to various social and volunteer activities. “I'm afraid Harry doesn't approve of my gadding about too much,” she had said, more than once. If this was Harry, I now understood. And of course, I knew her as Becky, not as Mrs. Griswald—I couldn't remember ever hearing her last name.

“Ms. Langhorn has come about the cat,” Mr. Griswald announced.

“Langslow, dear,” Mrs. Griswald said. “And Harris, we don't really need to bother her about that now. She has such a lot to do for the festival. I'm sure the brooch will be fine.”