Six Geese A-Slaying (9 page)

The chief narrowed his eyes. The Camcops were probably already fuming with resentment that the crime had taken place so far
off campus that there was no conceivable reason they could use for barging into the chief’s investigation. Though that didn’t
mean they wouldn’t try.

“Oh, yes,” Ms. Ellie said. “Such a good idea for promoting interdepartmental cooperation. You know how important that is to
the town council.”

“And the college administration,” I added.

The chief had to struggle not to scowl at that. He was all for interdepartmental cooperation as long as it took the form of
the Camcops accepting that their role was to give out parking tickets on campus, ride herd on fraternity parties, and stay
out of his department’s way when any real crime occurred. Unfortunately, the Camcops wanted to claim jurisdiction over any
crime committed on campus or in which any of the victims, perpetrators, or witnesses were students, faculty, or employees
of the college. Their notion of interdepartmental cooperation was that eventually they’d get around to telling the chief what
they were up to.

“Of course, it’s a long march,” Ms. Ellie said. “Do you think the Camcops are up to it?”

A sudden smile lit the chief’s face.

“Yes, that’s an excellent idea,” he said. Clearly he liked the notion that by asking the Camcops to guard the geese, he was
dooming them to a tedious, footsore day. “Sammy, see if you can arrange that.”

With that, he disappeared into my office, with Horace and Dad close behind him.

I handed Sammy my key to the farmhouse and he dispatched a deputy to fetch the spare goose suits.

“Now take off the costumes,” he ordered. “All of you.”

Some of the geese obeyed immediately, but others seemed strangely reluctant to shed their feathered suits. As Sammy and the
other officers continued to chivvy them, the reason became clear. The suits were made of heavy polar fleece and covered with
a thick layer of feathers. Despite the cold weather, the geese who emerged from their costumes were sweating profusely, and
it quickly became evident that the recalcitrant geese were wearing little or nothing under their thick downy suits.

Someone should organize this, I thought. We could borrow a few garments temporarily from the bins where people had been leaving
their donations for the clothing drive. Set up separate dressing rooms for the geese and ganders. Guard the exits so none
of the geese would attempt to flee. Someone should—

Someone should mind her own business and get back to the parade she’s already organizing, I told myself.

But the least I could do was make my suggestions to the chief.

Chapter 12

I popped into the chief’s temporary office and found that he, Dad, and Dr. Smoot were studying the murder weapon that Horace
had placed on my desk—on a piece of plastic, thank goodness.

Horace was frowning.

“I’ve seen sticks like that before,” he said.

“On
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, they normally use something shorter and a bit more elegant,” Dr. Smoot said. “And in
Dracula
—”

“I mean I’ve seen sticks like that in real life,” Horace said. “Not being used as a stake, either,” he added, quickly, as
if afraid Dr. Smoot might have real-life observations of vampire-slaying stakes to share.

“Holly’s a very common wood around here,” Dad said. “There must be hundreds and hundreds of small holly trees in those woods.”
He waved his hand in a sweeping gesture at the window. The chief contemplated the woods with a frown, as if assessing an entirely
new roster of suspects.

“Are you suggesting the killer went out into the woods, whittled himself a stake, and then came back to kill Mr. Doleson?”
he asked.

“No, no,” Dad said. “The holly stake’s not fresh. It’s had some time to season. A few months at least.”

“So we’re back to premeditation,” the chief said. “Someone knew Ralph Doleson would be here, prepared a stake several months
ago, and smuggled it in here today to kill him with.”

“Seems like a lot of trouble when you’d have so many promising weapons already here,” Dad said. “Here in the barn alone you
have shovels, pitchforks, hoes, crowbars, axes—”

“And a whole bunch of other weapons that the killer turned up his nose at,” the chief said. “But I don’t think Meg was keeping
a bunch of sharpened stakes in her barn, so unless you can show me someone who was—”

“The Boy Scouts!” Horace exclaimed. “They did it!”

We all stared at him.

“You think the Boy Scouts killed Santa Claus?” the chief asked, finally.

“No, but they made the stake! Meg and Michael let the troop camp out here last night, you know. And some of them are doing
this whole project where they make their own tents from deerskin, and tent ropes from deer sinew, and so on. They’ve been
whittling tent pegs just like this!”

We all looked down at the two-foot-long stake.

“Well, almost like this,” Horace said. “Except a little shorter. But if one of them was sharpening one end of a holly stick
to make another tent peg and just hadn’t cut it down to the right length yet, it would look a lot like this.”

The chief considered this for a few moments, with his head cocked to one side. Then he turned to me.

“You still have these Boy Scouts on the premises?”

“As far as I know,” I said. “They were going to spend another night in our field and help with the post-parade cleanup.”

“Show me.”

I led the way to the campground. It was fairly neat and tidy. Probably a lot tidier than the same boys’ rooms were at home.
Some of the tents were ordinary modern tents made of faded canvas in various shades of green and khaki. But there were also
three teepees made of leather—presumably deerskin. They were painted in reds, blues, and greens in what I gather were supposed
to be authentic Native American designs of eagles, deer, buffalo, and other animals. I couldn’t help noticing that several
of the buffalo looked remarkably like Homer Simpson. The Christmas wreaths over the tent flaps were a nice touch, but I wondered
if I should tell their scoutmaster about the accompanying mistletoe.

“I find it hard to believe that the Boy Scouts had anything to do with this,” the chief muttered.

“Me, too,” I said. “I mean, I know the Boy Scouts have it in for the Easter Bunny, but as far as I know they’ve always been
on good terms with Santa.”

The chief just ignored me.

We followed Horace around as he methodically inspected all the tents. The modern ones mostly had mass-produced tent pegs,
but the deerskin tents did have hand-made pegs.

“See, they’re larger than the commercial tent pegs,” Horace said.

“But still a good deal shorter than our murder weapon,” the chief said, leaning over to inspect the peg.

“I’ll get it,” Horace said. He put on his gloves and pulled one up, causing the tent with the Simpson buffalo on it to sag
alarmingly.

“Hey, watch it!” came a voice from inside the tent. We all started, and turned to see the round deerskin tent-flap flip open.
A scruffy shepherd began to crawl out.

“If I catch one more person messing with my stakes—” the shepherd began. Then he caught sight of us and stopped not only in
mid-sentence but in mid-crawl, with one leg still inside the tent.

“See!” Dr. Smoot exclaimed. “They even call them stakes!”

“Who are you?” the chief said, training his frown on the shepherd.

“Rufus Shiffley, sir,” the shepherd said.

“Wilfred’s youngest?” the chief asked.

Rufus nodded, and the chief’s frown faded.

“Come on out, son,” he said.

Caerphilly was still the sort of small town where you carried your family tree around with you, for good or bad. All I knew
from their exchange was that Rufus was part of the vast Shiffley clan who lived in the more rural parts of Caerphilly County
and neighboring Clay County. Clearly the chief had pegged Rufus, and not unfavorably.

Rufus crawled out, and we could see that he had a cast on one foot. That answered my next question—why Rufus was here sulking
in his tent instead of cleaning up after the elephants like the rest of the troop.

“You said ‘If I catch one more person messing with my stakes,’ ” the chief said. “Have other people been around here pulling
up these tent stakes, or pegs, or whatever you call them?”

Rufus nodded.

“Yes, sir, “ he said. “All night long. It was the guys sleeping in the modern tents. They can lose a peg or two and it’s not
that big a problem, but with this thing, if you don’t get all the stakes in the right way, it sags and leaks.”

“Has anyone stolen any of your stakes?” the chief said. “Not just pulled them out but taken them away completely?”

“No, sir.” Rufus shook his head. “They’re all there, see. Well, they were until just now,” he added, frowning at Horace.

“Sorry,” Horace said.

“You don’t have any spares?” the chief asked.

“No, sir,” he said. “It’s not something you lose that easily, unless someone’s playing a joke. I don’t know about the guys
in the other tents.”

“You mind if we borrow the rest of the handmade stakes for a while?” the chief asked. “I realize that will inconvenience you,
but we’d be glad to move your gear to one of the other tents.”

“Yes, sir,” Rufus said.

“Chief?” It was Sammy. “The geese are rebelling.”

“Rebelling how?”

“They’re all saying that if six of them are allowed to march in the parade, the rest of them are marching, too,”

“Not in costumes, they aren’t,” I put in.

“How soon will the damned bus get here?” the chief asked, with an annoyed glance at me.

“Well, that’s part of the problem, sir,” Sammy said. “We’re having trouble rounding up a driver, and it’s going to be a bear
getting it through the crowds until after the parade, so if we just let the geese march themselves to town . . .”

The chief strode off, with Sammy trailing behind him.

“Let’s get Rufus moved,” Horace said. “And let the chief deal with the geese.”

“Right,” I said. “Unless—Rufus, would you like to come inside where it’s warm? You’re welcome to stay in the house.”

Rufus looked wistful.

“I’d appreciate that, ma’am,” he said. “But I’m sort of supposed to be guarding everyone else’s stuff.”

Horace and I helped him relocate not only his stuff but the stuff the other scouts had left behind in the two deerskin tents.
Then we trudged back up to the house. Horace peeled off at the barn. I looked around and realized that I’d left my clipboard,
the outward and visible sign of my office, in Eric’s hands.

I pushed through the crowd, looking for Eric. Fragments of carols, hymns, and spirituals echoed from every corner of the yard,
as the various choirs, bands, and strolling musicians rehearsed.

I walked past one of Mother’s brainstorms—what I called Charity Alley. It had been my idea to invite a handful of charity
and social service organizations to set up temporary stands here at the staging ground, but having them on either side of
the path everyone had to take to get to the Porta Potties was definitely Mother’s idea. From the looks of it, a fairly successful
one.

Some people, though, could resist even the most heartwarming of causes. I saw Ainsley Werzel dashing down Charity Alley as
if it were lined with piranhas and saber-toothed tigers instead of harmless souls like the uniformed Marine staffing the Toys
for Tots booth and the cheerful Salvation Army women with their bells. He spotted me and hurried over as if seeking protection.

“So what’s with all this charity stuff?” he asked. “You’ve got the Salvation Army, Goodwill, Toys for Tots, America’s Second
Harvest, Kiva, Oxfam—what gives, anyway?”

“ ‘At this festive season of the year, it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the
poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time,’ ” I quoted.

“The town doesn’t look that bad off,” he said. “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve got a lot of poor people here in Caer-philly?”

“No,” I said. “I’m trying to quote Dickens. We just thought it would be nice to give people a chance to remember the true
meaning of Christmas.”

“Nice?” Werzel said. “Every time I turn around, someone’s got their hand out. Anyway, I’ve been looking for someone who can
answer a few questions.”

“Glad to answer anything I can,” I said, though I don’t think I managed to feign much enthusiasm.

“So how come it’s the town police chief who’s doing all this investigating?” he asked. “I thought Virginia counties had sheriffs.”

“We do,” I said. “But Sheriff Price is getting along—I think he must be ninety by now. He can’t do as much as he used to,
so when the town hired Chief Burke, the sheriff appointed him assistant sheriff. The police officers and the deputies all
report to him. In fact, it’s really all one force, so they all get to choose whether they’d rather be called ‘deputy’ or ‘officer.’
”

“So this is just a temporary situation, then?” he asked.

“No, it’s been going on for five years.”

“Five years? Isn’t the sheriff an elected official? You haven’t had elections in five years?”

“We had them, yes,” I said. “And reelected Sheriff Price.”

“You reelected a guy who doesn’t do anything?”

“A lot of voters do that,” I said. “At least we know we’re doing it. And he doesn’t do anything wrong, which is more than
most places can say about their elected officials.”

Werzel shook his head.

“I’m guessing he ran unopposed.”

“No,” I said. “There were two other candidates. But everyone liked Sheriff Price’s campaign platform better.”

“And just what was his campaign platform?”

“That if elected he’d reappoint Chief Burke as assistant sheriff and stay out of his way,” I said. “About the only people
who had a problem with that were the felons the chief has put away, and they don’t get a say anymore. It was a landslide.”

Werzel shook his head and walked away, scribbling in his notebook. I could tell he didn’t quite believe me. Clearly he’d been
in the big city too long. And he wasn’t just avoiding the Salvation Army kettle—he was giving it an ostentatiously wide berth.

A pity we already had someone playing Ebeneezer Scrooge on the Dickens float.

Floats. I checked my watch, and realized that the time had flown faster than I realized. I only had thirty minutes until parade
time.

I fought back a moment of panic. I’d spent hours rearranging the cards that represented the various floats, bands, and other
participants into the optimal order and then negotiating with everyone to keep as much of that structure intact as possible.
But with half an hour to go, I suddenly realized that however useful all that planning had been—if for no other reason than
to keep my own sanity intact—it was time to let go of my vision of the perfect parade and let the real thing happen. As long
as the Twelve Days of Christmas appeared in the proper order at the beginning of the parade and Santa brought up the rear,
no one else would know or care if the rest of the participants weren’t all neatly arranged in the agreed-upon order.

I headed for what I’d come to think of as the starting line. My nephew, Eric, intercepted me before I’d gone more than a dozen
steps.

“There you are,” I said, reaching out to take the clipboard he was carrying.

“Aunt Meg,” Eric said. “Can you do something about Cousin?”

I was about to say “Cousin who?” and was already looking around for a familiar Hollingsworth face when I remembered that Cousin
was the name of the donkey Rose Noire had recently adopted. We’d originally named him after a particular cousin whose obstinate
personality resembled a donkey’s, but Mother had protested strenuously, and we’d compromised by just calling him Cousin.

I turned to see that Rob was trying to coax Cousin up the ramp onto the truck for the live nativity scene. Mary, Joseph, and
assorted shepherds were standing around looking impatient, waiting for their turn to mount the ramp. What in the world . .
. ?

I strolled over.

“Why don’t you give it up?” I said to Rob. “Clearly Cousin isn’t interested in being on the float, and I can’t imagine anyone
really wants to ride all the way to Caerphilly with an unhappy donkey.”

“But we have to have a donkey!” Rob said, continuing to tug at Cousin’s lead. “Like all the carols say. ‘The friendly beasts
around him stood’ and ‘the ox and ass kept time’ and all that.”

The elderly ox was already lying down and chewing his cud in a faux rustic pen atop the float, along with two of Seth Early’s
spare sheep.

“Don’t you think you could just let him follow on behind the float?” I asked. “A century ago, Cousin would have had to pull
the float, so I’m sure he’d be perfectly happy to walk behind.”