Six Geese A-Slaying (7 page)

“Right,” Dr. Smoot said. “Get on with it. You need to work the scene.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help,” Dad said. He sounded so wistful.

“The more eyes the merrier,” Dr. Smoot said. He reinserted his fangs and ducked back into the shed.

“Excellent!” Dad said, following him.

Okay, Dr. Smoot was an absolute loon, but he’d just made Dad’s day—possibly his whole year—so he was all right in my book.

The chief didn’t even protest when I sidled up to stand beside him and peer through the open door of the shed. I almost wished
I hadn’t. Thanks to the several powerful lights that Horace had rigged up to illuminate the scene, I noticed something I hadn’t
seen before. A long brown feather sticking out of the pool of blood that had collected on the floor.

I pointed it out to Chief Burke.

“Is that significant?” he asked, frowning over his glasses at the feather.

“We’ll collect it, in any case,” Horace said. “But you’d expect to see a few feathers in a chicken coop.”

“Yes, but this shed isn’t a chicken coop—never was,” I said. “It’s a pig shed. And I cleaned it pretty thoroughly before I
dragged the sleigh in here to dry. I didn’t want any leaves or feathers or other stuff to land on the fresh paint. I think
I’d have noticed an enormous feather like that floating around.”

The others looked at the feather with new interest.

“Dr. Langslow, you’re the birder,” the chief said. “Any thoughts on the feather?”

“Hmm. . . .” Dad said. He whipped out his magnifying glass again and began studying the feather. Horace turned his flashlight
so Dad would have more light, and I stuck my head inside the door, so I could watch. I winced when I realized what I was seeing.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you too much,” Dad said. “It’s not a native species, I can tell you that. Some kind of commercial
feather, I suspect.”

“I know what it is,” I said, closing my eyes with exasperation. “It’s a goose’s tail feather.”

Chapter 9

Horace held up the tail feather and peered at it.

“No, no,” Dad said. “I don’t see how this could come from a goose. It’s—”

“Not a real goose,” I said. “One of the six geese a-laying. The SPOOR members. They’re all dressed up in Canada goose costumes,
complete with tail feathers that look a lot like that.”

“Oh, dear,” Dad said, shaking his head. “You’re right—it could be part of their costumes. But I’m sure no one in SPOOR would
commit murder.”

“I’m not,” I said. “Some of them are total loons.”

“They’re very passionate about birds and the environment,” Dad said. “But I can’t imagine . . . oh, dear.”

As president of SPOOR, he clearly wasn’t happy about the fact that his fellow environmental activists had just become prime
suspects.

The chief, on the other hand, brightened.

“So this tail feather belongs to one of the six people dressed up as geese?” he asked. Clearly he thought his life had just
gotten a lot easier.

“Not exactly. Only six of them are marching in the parade in costume. But a few more than that showed up in costume and had
to be dissuaded from joining in.”

“How many more?” the chief asked, with something closer to his usual mid-case scowl.

“Thirty-seven in all,” I said.

“Thirty-eight, counting Mrs. Markland,” Dad put in.

“Yes, but Mrs. Markland was here in spirit only, last time I heard. She wasn’t here in costume, shaking her tail feathers
all over the yard.”

“In other words,” the chief said, “there are thirty-odd people running around in costumes that could have shed this feather.”

“Odd’s definitely the word for them,” I said. “And they’ve been running around, practicing their high kicks and line dancing
all morning. And shedding feathers like crazy, I imagine. So if someone wanted to cast suspicion on SPOOR . . .”

“Oh, good point!” Dad exclaimed.

The chief didn’t seem as charmed by my analysis.

“So as evidence, it might be pretty darn useless,” he said, scowling down as if it was the poor feather’s fault.

“I’m sure many people have it in for SPOOR!” Dad proclaimed. “In our quest to preserve the natural habitat we have no doubt
angered many vested interests.”

The chief made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a growl and stepped back out of the shed,

Horace bagged the offending feather and whisked it out of sight.

“You don’t really think one of the SPOOR members could possibly have done it, do you?” Dad asked.

He sounded so forlorn that I hesitated to say what I really thought—that yes, it was not only possible but probable that the
killer was a SPOOR member—or if not, SPOOR could easily collect a quorum to elect the killer to honorary membership.

Dad must have read my answer on my face.

“Well, if it was someone from SPOOR who did it, I’m sure they meant well,” he said.

“Where’s Meg?” I heard someone outside say. I reluctantly pulled my head out of the shed.

“Right here,” I said.

Minerva Burke was standing beside her husband, which meant that either the chief’s officers hadn’t completely secured the
perimeter of the crime scene yet or they weren’t suicidal enough to try and keep Minerva out.

“People are starting to ask what’s wrong. And quite a few of them have questions for you.”

I glanced at my watch, and flinched when I saw how close to parade time we were.

“Chief?” I asked.

He looked up with a slight frown of preoccupation.

“I hate to bother you when I know you’re swamped but—well, you’re swamped. Would I be correct in assuming that I should start
looking for another wise man to take your place in the parade?”

For a second, his face lit up with relief and utter joy. Then he quickly rearranged it into an expression of apologetic regret.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I know it puts you in a bind, and I really was very flattered to be asked, but under the circum-stances—”

“Henry!” Minerva Burke exclaimed. “You don’t mean you’re going to leave her high and dry without a wise man?”

“No, I’m not going to leave her high and dry,” the chief snapped back. “I’m going to give her back the costume, and she’s
going to recruit a new wise man from the hundreds of suspects milling around here trying to mess up my crime scene.”

“She can’t get just any old person to play a wise man!” Minerva exclaimed. “For one thing, ninety percent of the people here
are scared witless of those fool camels. Much too scared to even get up on one,” she added, which meant she’d figured out
that her husband wasn’t deliriously happy about climbing back in the camel saddle.

From the look on the chief’s face, I could tell he thought scared witless was a sensible attitude toward dromedaries.

“And it needs to be a person of substance,” she went on. “Someone with standing in the community. Someone . . .”

“Preferably someone black,” I said. “Sorry if that sounds blunt, but in spite of that medieval tradition I mentioned to the
reporter, I did some research and found out that Caerphilly’s never had a black wise man in the parade before. And some of
the Town Council members put up a surprising number of objections. Of course, they pretended it was because you’ve only been
in town seven years but . . .”

I shrugged and let the sentence trail off. The chief’s eyes narrowed, and he gave me a tight nod, as if to say he wasn’t all
that surprised and he knew exactly which council members I was talking about.

“Of course, I pointed out that I’d been in town even less time than you had,” I added. “And I told them since they’d made
me Mistress of the Revels in spite of being such a newcomer, I didn’t see the problem in the chief being a wise man.”

“I heard you’d threatened to resign if they didn’t approve Henry,” Minerva said. “We appreciate that.”

I shrugged. I’d threatened to resign at least a dozen times, usually over far more trivial matters, and wouldn’t have been
all that broken up if the council had accepted any of my resignations.

“So, about that replacement wise man,” the chief said. “How about Lucas Hawes?”

“No way you’re going to take away our only half-decent baritone who’s not down sick with the flu,” Minerva countered. “What
about your cousin John?”

“He’s all involved in the Kwanzaa float,” the chief said. “What about Reverend Pratt?”

I left the two of them to argue it out. I had no doubt that Minerva Burke would find an acceptable substitute wise man for
me.

I saw a bigger problem headed my way. Eric and Cal Burke were peering around the corner of a nearby shed. I hurried over to
head them off.

Chapter 10

“You guys shouldn’t be here,” I said. “It’s a crime scene. And you know how stern Cal’s grandfather is about letting anyone
near his crime scenes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eric said.

“Eric, dear,” my mother said. She appeared behind the boys, trailed by one of Chief Burke’s officers. The crime scene perimeter
was starting to resemble a sieve.

“Sorry, Grandma,” Eric said. “I know we were supposed to wait by the float. It’s just that Cal was worried. About Santa.”

I glanced down to see that Cal was gazing up at me with huge brown eyes that looked perilously close to brimming over with
tears. Mother put one hand on Eric’s shoulder and one on Cal’s. Cal just kept staring up at me.

“I heard on Deputy Shiffley’s radio that someone killed Santa,” Cal asked. “Is it true?”

“Well,” I began. I wished Chief Burke or Minerva were in sight. I didn’t know the official Burke family party line on Santa
Claus. And I couldn’t count on Mother for help. When kids asked the difficult questions, like where babies came from and was
there really a Santa, Mother usually managed to have someone else answer.

Cal assumed my hesitation meant the worst.

“It’s true, then,” he said. His lip was quivering slightly, and a tear started rolling down his left cheek. “Someone killed
Santa Claus!”

“No, of course not!” I exclaimed. “Someone killed Mr. Dole-son. He was just pretending to be Santa, for the parade.”

“Why?” Cal asked.

Was he asking, like his grandfather, why someone had killed Mr. Doleson? Or only why Santa had picked such an unpleasant deputy?

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m sure your grandfather will. You can ask him, later, when he’s not so busy working on the
case.”

“My grandpa’s helping, too,” Eric put in.

“Yes, isn’t it nice that Cal’s grandfather is letting your grandfather help with the murder,” Mother said. “I’m sure this
will be the most exciting Christmas Grandpa’s ever had.”

“How remiss of us not to have arranged a Yuletide homicide long before now,” I said.

Mother pretended not to hear.

“Now come along, both of you,” she said.

Before turning to go, she gave me an approving smile, so I deduced I’d handled the Santa issue to her satisfaction. But that
reminded me that I had another Santa problem.

I turned to see Chief Burke striding toward me, still dressed in his wise man’s robes and turban, and with one side of his
flowing headcovering pulled over his mouth, as if he were fighting his way through a desert sandstorm. All I could see was
a small patch of brown skin and a pair of dark eyes.

“Very dashing, ch—Minerva?”

Minerva Burke pulled the cloth away from her face and chuckled.

“If I fooled you at ten yards, odds are I can carry it off on top of a camel,” she said.

“But aren’t you needed in the choir?” I asked. “Not that I object to you being a wise man—person—but I don’t want to sabotage
the music.”

“Lord, child, we’ve got four other altos in the choir as good as me, and we’re a little short on menfolk with enough gumption
to tackle the camel.”

“The camel doesn’t bother you, I take it?”

“I’ve survived Henry for thirty years, and raised those two mule-headed sons of his,” she said. “I don’t see that the camel
will be that much of a problem.”

With that, she headed for the camel pasture.

Moe wouldn’t know what hit him. For that matter, neither would Dr. Blake.

Before I had time to savor the notion, Ainsley Werzel reappeared.

“Have you seen my camera?” he asked.

“Not recently,” I said. “Where did you leave it?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”

I took a breath, discarded the first half dozen things I wanted to say as being too rude, and tried again.

“Sorry, what I should have said was where do you last remember having it? Do you recall the last thing you took a picture
of?”

“No! If I—”

“Meg, where’s the cleanup crew?” someone called. “We need them over by the elephant pen.”

“Meg, the bagpipers have been playing ‘Away in a Manger’ for half an hour. Can you make them play something else?”

“Meg, we need—”

“Sorry,” I said to Werzel. “Things are a little chaotic right now. I’m sure your camera will turn up sooner or later. Why
don’t you tell me what make and model it is and—”

“But I can’t cover the rest of the parade without a camera!”

“See that guy over there with the antlers on his head,” I said, pointing to Jorge. Why was Jorge wearing antlers and a sweatshirt
with “Blitzen” stenciled on it? Had the programmers from Mutant Wizards organized some kind of reindeer-themed float they’d
forgotten to tell me about? I pushed the questions out of my mind.

“You think he’s got my camera?”

“No, but if anyone can round up a digital camera for you to borrow, he can.”

“But I need my own camera!”

“Fine,” I said. “If I find it, I’ll let you know.”

“But—”

I turned away to deal with some of the other problems. Suddenly, rebel bagpipers and elephant manure didn’t seem so bad.

But time was moving on, so I tried to deal as efficiently as possible with the several dozen participants who surrounded me,
all shouting their questions, problems, requests, and complaints. I’d have been more sympathetic if most of them weren’t asking
questions I’d already answered, reporting problems someone had already solved, complaining about things I couldn’t do anything
about, or making requests they should have thought of six weeks ago.

“No, you can’t use your loudspeakers to play ‘Let It Snow’ the whole time you’re marching,” I told the people from the Ski
Club float. “The Caerphilly High School Band is marching right behind you, and you’ll drown them out. But I’ll ask them to
go heavy on the snow-themed songs.”

“Meg, can’t we be closer to Santa Claus?” one of the Caer-philly Morris Dancers asked. “We’ve worked out this great routine
to ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town.’ It’s so perfect—the bells make it really sound like a sleigh!”

“It’s a great idea, but we really need you toward the front of the parade,” I said. “We’re a little weak on pizzazz up there
and—would you excuse me?”

“But—”

“Bathroom,” I said. “Right back!”

I turned and ran toward the house, growling, “Bathroom!” at anyone who tried to waylay me. Once I got to the house, I ran
into the bathroom off the kitchen—not to use it, but because even my family don’t usually follow people into the bathroom.
I took a few deep breaths. Then I took out my notebook and flipped to the section on the parade. Just looking at it made me
feel a little better. I crossed off a few items that I’d done or that had taken care of themselves, took a deep breath, and
was just writing another item when I heard a knock on the door.

“Meg?” It was Michael. “You okay?”

I stuck the notebook and pen back in my pocket, opened the door, and walked out. He, Rob, and Dad were standing in a circle
around the bathroom door, worried looks on their faces.

“I’m fine,” I said. “The parade isn’t. We don’t have a Santa.”

“We can find someone,” Michael said.

“Someone who fits the costume?” Rob countered. “Not too many people around here who can fit into a costume that short—where
did they get it, anyway, the kid’s section of the Costume Shack?”

“Irrelevant,” I said. “Since the costume has a great bloody hole in the center of the chest—no one would want to wear it even
if Horace hadn’t already packed it up in an evidence bag.”

“Meg,” Dad said. “I could do it. I already have my own Santa suit, remember?”

I remembered very well. When we were children, Rob and I had been firm believers in Santa Claus long after most kids our age
had become cynical Santagnostics, in part because we had such dramatic proof of Santa’s existence. I still cherished the Polaroid
Cousin Alice had taken, showing a blurred figure in a red and white suit, standing in the middle of our familiar living room,
placing a present beneath the tree I’d helped decorate. Later on, I’d helped to create blurred Polaroids myself, or more recently
blurred digital shots, to thrill my nieces and nephews.

Between the Polaroids and Dad’s practice of getting up in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve to stomp around on the
roof, shaking a string of sleigh bells—wearing the suit, of course, in case any of the grandkids woke up in time to peek—Dad
had a lot of practice at Santa.

He was certainly a lot closer to my idea of what the jolly old elf should look like than Mr. Doleson had been.

“Okay, Dad’s Santa,” I said. “But we don’t have a sleigh for him to ride in—the sleigh’s part of the crime scene, remember?”

“Can’t we just have him ride in a car?” Michael suggested. “We could use my convertible, so he could wave and smile at everyone.”

“Yeah, but it lacks that certain something,” Rob said. “No offense, Michael—love your new car, but convertibles are pretty
humdrum in a parade.”

For once I agreed with Rob.

“I have it,” Dad said. “I have an inspiration! One that will make this Santa’s most dramatic arrival in the history of the
parade.”

“This doesn’t involve the boom lift, does it?” I asked.

“The boom lift? I hadn’t thought of that,” Dad said.

“Then don’t start.”

“If we could rig up something that looked like a chimney that would ride along beneath the boom lift,” he said. “And I could
tie a rope to myself and—”

“Don’t even think of it,” I said. “We already lost one Santa. We’re not going for a double header. Can you imagine how traumatic
it would be to the children of Caerphilly, seeing Santa take a forty-foot fall from a boom lift? Go back to whatever idea
you were having when I made the mistake of mentioning the boom lift. What was that, anyway?”

“Have you seen Clarence’s new motorcycle?” Dad asked.

Maybe I’d been too quick to reject the boom lift.

“It’s not a bad idea,” Michael said. “If we try to rig up a makeshift sleigh, it’s bound to look just that—makeshift. But
this—well, once they find out what happened, everyone will understand that we had to do something, and meanwhile, it’s bold,
it’s new, it’s in keeping with your goal of not having a boring, old-fashioned Christmas parade. Holiday parade,” he corrected
himself.

Yes, and was he forgetting how much certain members of the town council hated some of my non-traditional ideas for the parade?
If I sent Santa down the road on a motorcycle, they’d freak. They’d never let me hear the end of it. They’d—

They’d never, ever put me in charge of the parade again, not if Michael and I lived here in Caerphilly for the next fifty
years.

“You’re on,” I said. “Biker Santa it is. Rebel with a Claus.”

“I’ll run over to the farmhouse to get my suit,” Dad said.

“I’ll find Clarence,” Michael said.

“I’m going to find my camera,” Rob announced. “This is going to be awesome.”

They all scattered. I pulled out my notebook and flipped it open to the page where, a few minutes before, in the bathroom,
I had written. “Find Santa.” I pulled out my pen to cross it off, and instead of relief, I felt a wave of anger.

Someone had deliberately knocked off Santa at my parade. Someone who hadn’t cared that the dead body could be—and was—found
by two innocent children. Someone who hadn’t cared that Ralph Doleson was about to do the one genuinely worthwhile thing he
did all year. Someone who couldn’t just wait until the parade was over and Mr. Doleson had gone back to his daily routine.
Okay, the murderer hadn’t done it to inconvenience me, but he—or she—did it on my watch. I had to do something.

Instead of crossing off “Find Santa,” I changed it to “Find Santa’s killer.”