The Good, the Bad, and the Emus Read online

  “Pretty,” I said. I was about to leave her to her mineralogical studies when suddenly a whole scenario flashed into my mind—what if Cordelia had been murdered because of that pretty little stone in Rose Noire’s hands, that stone and all its brothers and sisters up on Biscuit Mountain? What if someone had discovered that you could mine kyanite stones on the former emu ranch, and had murdered Cordelia to thwart her plan to turn the ranch into a sanctuary? And what if that same someone was afraid Grandfather’s expedition would discover the kyanite and block their plans, and had tried to poison him and Annabel in an attempt to frighten us all away?

  Of course, this was only a plausible motive for murder if the stuff was valuable. I’d never heard of kyanite, but then I’d never heard of musgravite and grandidierite until a few months ago when I’d seen an article someplace about precious stones more rare and expensive than diamonds. So if this kyanite was another little known treasure—

  “Is it valuable?” I asked aloud.

  “It’s almost unique!” she said. “It’s so hard that unlike most other crystals it doesn’t absorb negative energy, so it never needs cleansing. And it’s a very peaceful, calming, healthy stone. It would be a great thing to keep in your room, or even better, in the boys’ rooms. And blue like this is very good for the throat chakra. It doesn’t just heal throat ailments, it also helps communication and self-expression.”

  I knew better than to say that I’d been asking about commercial value rather than spiritual—I was in no mood for another lecture on crass materialism. So I tried another tack.

  “I’ll keep my eyes out for more bits of it, then,” I said. “Or maybe if it’s so beneficial, we could just buy some for the boys’ rooms from some ethical, fair-trade crystal seller. Would it cost much?”

  “I don’t think the world has recognized its value,” Rose Noire said. “I’m sure you could buy them for a few dollars.”

  So much for my grandiose murder scenario. Actually, I decided I liked kyanite all the better for not being fabulously expensive.

  “I’ll keep my eye open for it when I go up to the ranch,” I said.

  “Do,” she said. “And I might go up there and hunt for some more, if your grandfather can spare me from helping locate the emus.”

  Since she had already suggested using a dowsing rod to locate the emus—a suggestion Grandfather, with unusual politeness, had ignored rather than ridiculing—I suspected he’d be glad to see her otherwise occupied.

  “I’m sure he won’t mind,” I said. “In fact, he might approve of your mineralogical quest.”

  “Do you think he’s asleep?” Rose Noire asked. “I wanted to smudge a protective circle around his Airstream before I go to bed. But I didn’t want to alarm him.”

  Actually, having her circling his trailer, chanting and waving burning herbs, was more apt to annoy than alarm him. But what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

  “There are two volunteers guarding his door,” I said. “Why don’t you ask them to let you know when they can hear him snoring? And you can do it then.”

  “Good idea,” she murmured. “If you see any crystals that look like this, only moss green, be sure to get them, too. They could be green kyanite. Very useful for balancing us with nature.”

  I left her to her studies.

  The boys were fast asleep when Caroline’s caravan finally pulled into its space. I was pleased to see that one of her staffers had stayed up to tend the horse, since I had no doubt that spending the day in the company of Josh and Jamie would have exhausted Caroline.

  The boys never woke up as Michael and I carried them to our tent. I was afraid we’d have to carry Natalie as well, but she managed to mumble goodnight and stumble the few feet into her own small tent—which I noted, with amusement, was now draped with a black tarp, the better to fit into her chosen color scheme.

  “So, tomorrow we get up at dawn to watch them round up emus?” Michael asked through yawns.

  “Tomorrow we get up at dawn to watch them look for emus,” I said. “Which might not be nearly as much fun for the boys as a roundup. Do we have a backup plan?”

  “I’m working on one,” he said.

  He fell asleep a few minutes later. Ah, well. Rose Noire was fond of suggesting that if we needed a solution to a knotty problem, we should think about it just before going to sleep and let our subconscious minds solve it. I would leave Michael’s subconscious mind to its work.

  If only I could follow his example. But with every passing minute I grew more restless.

  After what seemed like several centuries, I gave up. No sense tossing and turning and waking up the rest of the family. I slipped my shoes back on and crept quietly out of the tent to see what was happening.

  Not much at the moment. It was only midnight, but no doubt everyone else, like Michael and the boys, was full of enthusiasm for tomorrow’s first day of real work and had gone to bed early. Maybe some of them were even planning to join the early morning owl-watching expedition, which meant they’d have to be up in about four hours. I could still see lights on in some trailers and tents, but no one sitting around the group campfires strumming guitars and singing. No one having a late night snack in the mess tent. No campers lounging in lawn chairs outside their RVs. And several of the lights winked out as I passed them.

  Apart from Grandfather’s guards, I was probably the only person in camp still awake. I was glad the soft grass and weeds underfoot muffled my footsteps.

  Still, I felt relieved when I finally passed the last few tents and trailers and stepped out into the open pasture. I stopped when I came to the tall chain-link fence defining the emu holding pen and turned to face Miss Annabel’s house. It was slightly uphill from the pasture—only slightly, but with its tall lines and gleaming white Victorian fretwork it looked even farther above me, like an ornate wedding cake sitting on top of the hill.

  There were lights on in two rooms on the ground floor. I couldn’t see anything, because all the shades were drawn. Was Dr. Ffollett still there, watching over Miss Annabel? Or had he lied about her being sedated and asleep? Should I have arranged for guards for her, too? I made a mental note to broach the subject tomorrow.

  A couple of times I saw a shadow flicker across the blinds, but it was a useless and rather uneventful vigil I was keeping.

  Or a very peaceful one, depending on how you looked at it. The noises from the camp had pretty much died down, so I heard only the bugs and frogs and the occasional distant peal of thunder. I glanced back and forth between the house on the hill and the camp down here in the pasture, with an occasional side glance at Theo Weaver’s house, which had been and remained completely dark. Eventually one of the lights in Annabel’s house blinked out. A light upstairs came on—then another. I heard the sound of a car starting and then driving away. Presumably Dr. Ffollett leaving. The remaining downstairs room went dark. The reclusive Miss Annabel, secure in her lair, was moving upstairs to retire for the night.

  I had a sudden, unexpected vision of a dragon settling down for a nap on its treasure hoard, folding its wings and coiling its scaly tail, knocking a jeweled goblet off the pile of gleaming objects and sending a small avalanche of glittering gold coins falling down.

  “Curious what the subconscious sends up when you’re overtired,” I murmured.

  But yes, the image of Annabel as a dragon wasn’t off base. There she was, sitting on who knows how rich a hoard of family history. Pictures, letters, journals, and her own memories of my grandmother. The house was less a wedding cake than a castle hiding a treasure chest inside, with dragon Annabel guarding the gate. And it wasn’t our job to slay the dragon but to charm it. To win it over by completing the quest it had set. To—

  I suddenly realized that for the last several minutes—maybe longer—I had been feeling the uneasy prickling that we humans feel—or think we feel—when we are being watched.

  Chapter 13

  I had to fight the urge to whirl around, darting glances in all dire
ctions, trying to spot whoever was watching me. Instead, I took a slow survey, moving only my eyes.

  Who could possibly have any reason for watching me? I suspected Annabel had been keeping an eye on the camp earlier, with those binoculars I’d seen on her kitchen counter. But even if she was still peering out of those now-darkened windows, I was in shadow. She couldn’t see much from this distance. The idea of her watching didn’t creep me out. And I was definitely feeling creeped out.

  But if not Annabel, who? Was it only my imagination? Had I spooked myself with the image of the now-slumbering dragon? Or was it the thought of someone sneaking around with more potentially lethal purple-and-green packages that was making me nervous?

  Then I spotted him. Him or her, I couldn’t tell which, only that someone was watching from the bushes behind Theo Weaver’s house, right on the border with Annabel’s lot, at the foot of the eight-foot iron fence. Was it Weaver himself?

  I stood there for a while, pretending to be watching Annabel’s house, but keeping my eye on Weaver or whoever was lurking in Weaver’s yard. Was he watching me or the camp?

  Standing here by the emu pen wasn’t going to get me any answers. I took one long, last, obvious look at Miss Annabel’s house, heaved my shoulders in a sigh, and ambled off in the general direction of the tents. But I took care to veer a little to my right, so I could pass as close as possible to Weaver’s yard. I stared up at the sky while I walked, as if fascinated by the stars—or, more likely, assessing whether the predicted thunderstorm was about to break—and let myself drift even farther to the right.

  Suddenly I saw a flurry of motion in the distance. I heard a faint rustling of leaves as a shadowy figure extracted itself from the shrubbery along Weaver’s fence. Then I saw the figure, half running, half tiptoeing, across the lawn to the back door of Weaver’s house. The door opened and closed slowly, as if someone was trying to minimize the noise it made.

  I drifted over to the fence and loitered there for several long minutes. No lights came on in the house.

  Then I heard a slight rustling farther down the fence. Had I only imagined him going inside?

  I set out again, paralleling the fence, pretending to be merely strolling along, enjoying the evening. And meanwhile I fished in my pocket with my healthy hand until I found the tiny flashlight I was keeping there for midnight bathroom trips. When I got level with the place where I’d heard the latest rustling, I whipped out the flashlight and turned it on.

  “Shut that thing off!” Stanley Denton snapped.

  I obeyed. Probably not as quickly as Stanley would have liked, but the bandages prevented me from helping with my other hand.

  “Sorry,” I said, while fumbling over it. “I thought you were Weaver.”

  “He went inside.”

  Stanley extracted himself from the shrubbery in which he’d been hiding and came over to join me.

  “So I saw,” I said. “But what’s to keep him from sneaking back out again? He could have gone in the back door, out the front, and snuck around the back of the house again.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Stanley said. “But I’m not going to spend another hour and a half watching him crouch furtively in the shrubbery staring at the camp.”

  “Sorry I scared him off,” I said.

  “Don’t be.” He stretched and then rolled his shoulders, and I gathered he’d been crouching there motionless for an uncomfortable length of time. “I was looking for an excuse to stop watching him.”

  “Happy to oblige, then.”

  “Look,” he said. “I’m pretty sure you and I and Theo Weaver are the only ones skulking about here tonight, but just in case I’m wrong, let’s go someplace where we can talk in peace.”

  “I think Riverton rolled up the sidewalks hours ago,” I said. “And Camp Emu isn’t exactly awash with privacy.”

  “My trailer’s over there,” he said, pointing to a shape a little apart from the main encampment.

  “Then let’s—what’s that?”

  Stanley whirled to see where I was pointing, but the slight shadow I’d seen was already gone.

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Someone in the bushes? Someone else, I mean.”

  We spent a few minutes searching up and down the edge of the field, peering into all the bushes in both Miss Annabel’s backyard and Weaver’s, but found nothing. Unless you counted the place where the shrubbery had been slightly broken or trampled, but it could easily have been done by one of the three deer we’d startled during our search.

  We hopped the fence into Miss Annabel’s yard and circled the house, making sure nothing looked amiss. No signs that anyone was awake.

  “No sinister packages outside any of the doors,” I muttered.

  “Were you expecting any?”

  “Someone left a box of chocolates for Annabel,” I said. “Wrapped in the same paper and ribbon as Grandfather’s decanter. In case it comes up, pretend I told you earlier today, before Chief Heedles asked me to keep it quiet. But I thought you should know.”

  “Right,” he said. “I think we’ve done all we can here.”

  We headed for Stanley’s trailer. I stood by while he unlocked his door. It was an old Shasta trailer—I guessed 1960s vintage—and small, but well maintained and neatly organized. Just inside the door was a built-in table with banquette seating on either side. The sink and stove were on the wall across from the door, the refrigerator and a closet opposite, and built-in drawers and cabinets ran from floor to ceiling on either side. A curtain at the far end probably concealed the built-in bed. Not an inch was wasted, and hardly a single unnecessary item was visible.

  “Used to belong to my parents,” he said, noting my appraising look. “We took family vacations in it when I was a kid, and the first ten years after Dad retired they dragged this thing all over the country. Useful sometimes, when I’m on a case someplace remote.”

  I sat at the banquette on one side of the dinette table while Stanley opened the small refrigerator.

  “I’d offer you coffee,” he said over his shoulder. “But I don’t think either of us needs the caffeine at this time of night. Decaf iced tea or lemonade?”

  “Whatever’s easiest,” I said.

  We heard another distant rumble of thunder.

  “That’s getting closer,” I said.

  “Big front coming through,” Stanley said. “Thunderstorms sometime between now and dawn, according to the local weather.”

  He brought a large pitcher of iced tea and two glasses to the table, poured us each a glass, and sat down on the banquette opposite me. In fact, he almost collapsed.

  “Long day?” I asked.

  He nodded and sipped.

  “So why were you capping off a long day by skulking behind Theo Weaver’s house?” I asked. “Do you actually think there might be something to Miss Annabel’s theory about Weaver?”

  He was silent for a few moments.

  “Could be,” he said finally. “When she told us, I thought no. At least ten to one against. I figured it was the grief talking. Grief does peculiar things to people sometimes.”

  “Not just grief,” I said. “Add in the fact that she believes her cousin died in a stupid accident that might have been her own fault. Cordelia’s own fault, I mean, although maybe Annabel also blames herself for letting Cordelia do all the generator-tending. Even if Cordelia didn’t have a kerosene lantern with her, maybe she unwisely tinkered with the generator. And maybe Annabel finds it a lot more satisfactory to think Weaver could be responsible.”

  “Precisely,” Stanley said. “But dismissing her notion out of hand wasn’t going to get us anywhere—to say nothing of the possibility, however small, that she was right. So I decided to start my investigation by checking out Mr. Weaver.”

  “Any interesting findings?”

  “Not really.” He reached onto the seat beside him, picked up a manila folder with perhaps half an inch of paper in it, and handed it to me
.

  “I can summarize it if you like. He’s retired from some kind of investment banking firm. He was an assistant vice president, which sounds impressive, unless you do a little poking around their annual report and figure out that AVP was actually pretty low on the totem pole there. The place currently has about a hundred employees, and at least half of them are assistant vice presidents, associate vice presidents, senior vice presidents, executive vice presidents, or just plain vice presidents.”

  “Impresses the client, no doubt,” I suggested.

  “I suppose. He retired from that five years ago. Still serves on the boards of a couple of small companies.”

  I nodded. I was looking at the list of Mr. Weaver’s directorships. A Richmond real estate firm. First Undermountain Bank, a tiny Riverton-based institution that had somehow managed to escape being gobbled up by one of the big fish. A mutual fund I’d never heard of. A mining company.

  “Smedlock Mining,” I said. “What is smedlock, and where do you mine it?”

  “Smedlock’s the founder,” Stanley said, with a chuckle. “A hundred years ago he was quite the robber baron, but while his children inherited his fondness for high living they didn’t get his business acumen. They lost their West Virginia coal fields and these days the company only has a couple of small mines producing quartz and amazonite and a few other decorative minerals. Rumor has it that the current generation of Smedlocks would be delirious if some big company mounted a takeover bid, but no one has, because they don’t really have anything worth taking over. Rather the same with the bank whose board Weaver serves on. So small that it would have been gobbled up by now if it weren’t one step above worthless. I’m told they dabbled too deeply in real estate derivatives, whatever that is.”

  “So these directorships are small potatoes,” I said. “Meaning he’s not a major mover and shaker in the Virginia business community.”