Owl Be Home for Christmas Page 2

  The central part of the Inn’s conference space was what the Inn called the Gathering Area. To my left was another glass wall, not quite as large as the one in the lobby. I’d had the hotel staff draw the draperies so the conference attendees wouldn’t be reminded of the blizzard quite as often. Straight ahead was a wall lined with tables for the exhibits and handouts and containing two sets of double doors leading to the Hamilton Room, the larger of our two conference rooms. On the wall above it, a huge banner with a picture of Grandfather proclaimed “J. MONTGOMERY BLAKE AND THE BLAKE FOUNDATION WELCOME YOU TO OWL FEST 2019!” Across the Gathering Area on the right were more tables along another wall, the doors to the Lafayette Room, and the entrance to the wide hallway leading to the Dolley Madison Ballroom. Immediately to my right were the coffee, tea, and water service and the registration/information desk—now staffed by Rose Noire. She looked up, waved to me, then closed her eyes and went back to what I assumed was some kind of meditation. If she was still trying to beam harmonious and cordial vibes into the conference attendees, I hoped it was working.

  The middle of the Gathering Area contained half a dozen white tablecloth-covered tables, each seating five or six people. A man and a woman sat at one, engaged in an intense discussion of a large collection of papers spread out between them. Both of their badges were decorated with the blue ribbon that designated a speaker. I deduced they were probably ironing out the logistics for a presentation they were about to make.

  Evergreen and tinsel festooned the walls, poinsettias and Christmas cactuses sat on every table, and the speakers played Christmas carols at an almost subliminal level. But in spite of all that, the mood was light-years from the seasonal cheer of the lobby.

  I eased open the door to the Hamilton Room, where a relatively young professor with a charming Australian accent was talking about owl courtship and reproductive behavior.

  “Here’s an excellent example of courtship feeding,” the speaker was saying. “Note that the male powerful owl is offering his mate a rainbow lorikeet.” The screen at the front of the room showed a rather dramatic picture of two gray-brown and white owls—the powerful owl, I’d already figured out, was the name of an actual Australian owl species. The owl on the left—presumably the male since he was the smaller—had what looked like a tuft of blue, green, yellow, and orange feathers dangling from his beak; fortunately that was all you could see of the lorikeet. The other, slightly larger owl was staring at the lorikeet with rapt attention. “Copulation usually follows the acceptance of the food offering,” the professor went on, with almost perky enthusiasm. I decided I’d seen enough.

  I eased the door closed and went over to see what was happening in the Lafayette Room. It was supposed to contain a roundtable discussion on something or other. I’d grown wary of the roundtable sessions, which were intended to be free-form—though moderated—discussions of topics of interest. From what I’d seen on Friday, the lion’s share of the arguments seemed to arise in the roundtables. Especially if my least favorite attendee, Dr. Oliver Frogmore, was in attendance.

  But for the moment, the Lafayette Room contained only two morose scientists wearing blue speaker ribbons on their badges. They looked up so hopefully when I opened the door that I felt a brief pang of guilt that I wasn’t actually planning to join them. I waved and gave them an encouraging thumbs-up, and they slumped back into dejection. Obviously the owl porn in the other room was the bigger attraction in this time slot.

  At least for the time being, things were quiet. Maybe Rose Noire’s efforts to beam calm and harmony were working after all. Maybe I had time to do some of the things I ought to have done already, like making the changes Grandfather wanted to the program for tonight’s banquet, and—

  “Ms. Langslow!”

  Or maybe not. I turned to find one of the scientists bearing down on me. Dr. Edward Czerny, who currently held second place in the running for the Most Annoying Conference Participant Award I was going to give out, if only in my own imagination, when Owl Fest was finally over.

  “What can I do for you, Dr. Czerny?”

  “Dr. Frogmore’s next panel begins at eleven and we have no copies of his handouts!”

  Deep breath.

  “That’s because Dr. Frogmore never sent us any handouts to be copied,” I said. “I finally gave up and assumed he wasn’t using any handouts.”

  “This is incredible,” Czerny moaned. “Why didn’t you ask for them?”

  “I did,” I said. “I emailed him at least three times about handouts. Possibly more.”

  “Why didn’t you email me! I always take care of his conference logistics.”

  “Because neither you nor Dr. Frogmore told me that.” I could only just refrain from adding that I wasn’t a mind reader. “I don’t suppose he bothered to forward you any of the multiple emails I sent.” Dr. Frogmore was the uncontested leader in the Most Annoying Conference Participant competition. Czerny was a very distant second, and no one else was even close—not even, for a wonder, Grandfather. And I had the feeling at least half of Czerny’s annoyingness arose out of his frantic attempts to keep Dr. Frogmore happy.

  “We need copies of these made ASAP!” Czerny whined, thrusting a manila folder at me. “If Dr. Frogmore doesn’t have his handouts—”

  “No problem.” I ignored the proffered folder. “I’ll show you the way to the business center.”

  I turned on my heel and began striding briskly toward the business center. After a few seconds Czerny followed.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said when he caught up with me. “Who has time to stand over a copier in the middle of a conference?”

  “Not me.” I kept my tone cheerful. “Right in there.” I held open the door to the business center. “You can use your room key card to run the copier and submit a copy of your bill with the charges for reimbursement. Any other questions?”

  I smiled rather insincerely at him. He was blinking back at me with an anxious expression on his face. There was nothing wrong with his features. Or his teeth, as far as I could see. If he ever managed a smile, he might be reasonably attractive. But every time I’d seen him here at the conference, he was either whining or blustering. Someone needed to take him aside and tell him to smile more. If I were doing a makeover on him, I’d also work on his terrible buzzard-like posture, which took at least three inches off his height—standing straight he might almost be eye-to-eye with me at five ten.

  He sighed heavily. For any other scientist at the conference, I might have relented and run the copies. Not for a man I’d overheard agreeing so enthusiastically when, right in the middle of a presentation by one of the female scientists, Dr. Frogmore had said, very audibly, “But what can you expect? Women have no head for statistics.”

  Still, I did feel a little sorry for Czerny. I glanced at the time on my phone, and then at my much-used conference program.

  “Dr. Frogmore’s presentation isn’t for nearly an hour,” I said. “You have plenty of time.”

  As I walked back down the hall toward the conference area, I had the prickly feeling you get when someone is watching you. I didn’t turn around. If Czerny wanted to waste two or three minutes of his photocopying time glaring at me, that was his problem. At least while he was in the business center he wouldn’t be interrupting panels, complaining noisily about the food and the accommodations, or dragging me aside to explain the many ways in which they did things so much better at the conferences Dr. Frogmore organized at Buckthorn College, the small but reasonably prestigious private Oregon college where they both taught.

  We still had years before Josh and Jamie, our twins, were ready for college, but I’d already made a mental note to veto Buckthorn if either of them showed an interest in it.

  Back in the conference area I answered several attendees’ questions about the weather, put in a request to the hotel staff for more coffee, and apologized, for the third or fourth time, for the program book’s unfortunate misspelling of Dr. Chwalibog Fijalkowski-
Bartosiewicz’s name. I was just beginning to relax a little when—

  “Where’s Blake?” I winced at the loud, grating voice that had become all too familiar over the last two days. Then I braced myself and made sure my face wore a polite, helpful expression before turning around.

  “Sorry, Dr. Frogmore,” I said. “He went off to prepare for his next talk. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  Oliver Frogmore scowled at me. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be a scowl. Several of my aunts were fond of telling children “If you keep making a face like that it might get stuck.” Perhaps that had happened to him—his face had gotten stuck just at the moment when he’d noticed a really bad smell and was about to explode with complaints about it. Could you call it “resting bitch face” when a man was wearing it? The phenomenon needed a gender-neutral term.

  “I prefer to talk to Blake.” Dr. Frogmore spoke without bothering to look at me—his eyes were scanning our surroundings. “Where is he? In his room?”

  I stifled a sigh and took a seat on the edge of a nearby table. I’d noticed conversations with Dr. Frogmore went better when he didn’t have to look up at the person he was talking to, and at five foot ten I was a good four inches taller than he was, in spite of the height added by his well-polished shoes. Though I had to admit, as lifts went, his were subtle. He cut a dapper figure—his well-tailored tweed suit emphasized the vertical and managed to downplay his no-longer-flat stomach, his monogrammed shirts probably impressed people who cared enough to notice that sort of thing, and his red silk bow tie finished off the erudite professorial look. I wondered, not for the first time, if the gleaming silver-white of his wavy hair and neat goatee were natural or if he did whatever people do to combat the yellow tint that afflicts so many when they start graying.

  “I don’t actually know where he is,” I said aloud. “I doubt if he’s in his room—he said he needed to concentrate, and there’s a rehearsal going on there. He put me in charge of conference logistics, you know—is there anything I can help you with?”

  “I doubt it.” Frogmore actually met my eyes, now that they were on the same level as his.

  “If it’s about your handouts, Dr. Czerny is off taking care of that,” I said.

  “The hell with the damned handouts,” Frogmore roared. “Where’s Blake? Have him paged.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “May I tell him what it’s about?”

  “Hmph.” He raised his eyes with a “give me patience” expression and stomped off down the hallway, elbowing aside the occasional person who wasn’t quick enough to get out of his way.

  “Don’t let him get to you.”

  I turned to see a tall, angular woman in khakis and a teal blue Blake Foundation sweatshirt, her graying hair pulled back into a rough French braid. Dr. Vera Craine, another of Grandfather’s distinguished attendees.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Remember, I’m used to putting up with Dr. Blake. Frogmore’s annoying, but as a curmudgeon, he’s bush league compared to Grandfather.”

  “Ha!” Her laugh was loud and staccato, and accompanied with a sharp slap to her thigh. “I like your style. I’m heading for the bar—are you going there?”

  “Do I look as if I need to?”

  “You look as if you could use a few minutes off your feet,” she said. “I know you’re busy, but I can probably tell you what Frogmore’s on about now, and then you can warn your grandfather.”

  With that she turned and exited the conference area for the lobby, where the entrance to the Mount Vernon Grill, the hotel’s bar and restaurant, could be found.

  I texted Grandfather that Dr. Frogmore wanted to see him. I was torn—I should probably hang around to take care of any problems. And I did have to put in all those changes to the banquet program. But I didn’t want to pass up the chance to hear what Dr. Craine had to say about Frogmore. And for that matter, I wouldn’t mind the chance to learn a little bit more about her. Grandfather thought very highly of her, but since she’d been one of the few completely cooperative and undemanding panelists at Owl Fest, I’d had no chance to talk to her. So I left the conference area and crossed the lobby to the Mount Vernon Grill. I joined Dr. Craine at a table just inside the door. Eduardo, the duty bartender, spotted us and hurried over.

  “How is the conference going?” His face looked worried, and his voice was solicitous.

  “About the same,” I said.

  “I’m so sorry.” He shook his head. “But courage! It will improve. Your usual?”

  “Please.”

  “And you, madam?” He turned to Dr. Craine.

  “I’m not sure whether I should be impressed or worried that you have a ‘usual,’” she said to me. “Mind if I ask what it is?”

  “An Arnold Palmer,” I said. “At least that’s my usual when I’m working the conference and need to keep my wits about me.”

  “Very wise.” She smiled up at Eduardo. “Make that my usual, too.”

  Eduardo bowed and hurried away.

  “So why does Dr. Frogmore want to talk to my grandfather?”

  “That’s easy.” Dr. Craine leaned back in her chair and fixed me with a steady gaze, as if assessing me. “He knows Monty’s preparing for a presentation, and he wants to interrupt him. Annoy him. He’s under the delusion he can throw your grandfather off his stride and make him screw up his presentation.”

  “As if,” I said.

  “Exactly. The man’s an idiot. Of course, even Ollie the Frog has to have some plausible excuse for badgering Monty. Pretty sure he’s going to make a big fuss about wanting to have his minion added to tomorrow’s panel on pesticides.”

  “His minion?”

  “Ned Czerny. Junior member of Frogmore’s department at Buckthorn.”

  “Oh. Him.”

  “Indeed.”

  I flipped through the program to find the panel in question: Measuring the effects of insect- and rodent-control pesticides on the Strigiform food chain. Sounded like a real snooze fest. “Is Dr. Czerny an expert on the topic?”

  “He’s not an expert on anything other than sucking up to Frogmore,” Dr. Craine said. “Which is why your grandfather didn’t put him on any panels. But if you have to give him a panel somewhere—which Frogmore seems to think is necessary—the pesticide one’s probably the closest to something he can talk about without looking like a total idiot. And Frogmore’s on that panel, so it’s not as if anyone else will have much of a chance to say anything.”

  “I’ll warn Grandfather.” I pulled out my walkie-talkie and hit what I hoped was the right set of buttons to reach him.

  “What now? I’m busy.” Even through the static there was no mistaking his voice. Or his state of mind.

  “And Dr. Frogmore is trying to hunt you down,” I said. “Probably to badger you about adding Dr. Czerny to his panel tomorrow.”

  “It’s his wretched panel.” I could almost hear his shrug. “If he wants to add Czerny, fine by me. That should make sure no one shows up for it. Just keep him out of my hair. I’m hiding out in your parents’ cottage. Over and out.”

  Dr. Craine had been silently laughing during my conversation with Grandfather. Eduardo set down our Arnold Palmers and she took a long pull on hers.

  “I gather you’re not a fan of Dr. Frogmore, either,” I said when I’d taken a swig of mine.

  She snorted.

  “No, not a fan. Not surprising, given our history.”

  Chapter 3

  “Given your history—you have a history with Dr. Frogmore?”

  “Eww.” Her grimace was eloquent. “When you put it that way, it sounds as if we were romantically involved. What a revolting thought. Our history, if you want to call it that, is purely academic. I gather your grandfather hasn’t filled you in on that.”

  “He’s more apt to gossip about the lives of owls and meerkats than mere human goings-on,” I said.

  “I should fill you in, then.” She leaned back in her chair and fingered the condens
ation on the outside of her glass. “So when I say something about Frogmore you’ll know how many pounds of salt to take it with. I started my academic career at Buckthorn College.”

  “Under Dr. Frogmore?”

  “No, he’d only just achieved tenure then. A mere rank-and-file professor when I got there. Unfortunately, he was already starting his meteoric rise to power. By the time I was up for tenure, he had enough clout to derail anyone he didn’t want around.”

  “He kept you from getting tenure?” I could feel myself getting angry on her behalf. I remembered how tense it had been when Michael had been up for tenure at Caerphilly College. He’d had a rocky time, mainly because back then Drama had been an unloved subsection of the English department, whose senior professors had looked down their noses at anyone, however brilliant, whose résumé included stints on a soap opera and a cult-hit fantasy TV show. Michael’s tenure battle had had a happy ending, and he was now the heir apparent to the chair of the recently liberated drama department, but to this day, I had to make a conscious effort to be polite to a few of the dinosaurs, as we called them. “Since I’m a faculty spouse, I can imagine how you feel about him,” I said aloud.

  “Yes.” She nodded slightly. “And believe me, I was not a marginal tenure candidate. I had more publications—and more prestigious publications—than any of the other hopefuls. My student evaluations were solid. I’d done twice as much committee and volunteer work as anyone else in the department. Your grandfather mentioned that, when not running conferences for him, you’re a blacksmith, so I’m betting you know what it’s like to be a woman in a male-dominated field. You have to work twice as hard just to get taken seriously. I’d done that. I was well-respected in my department and in my field. But Frogmore didn’t want a tenured woman in his department—he was already referring to it as his, even though it took him another five years to backstab his way into the chairmanship. He didn’t want any women, and for sure not one whose academic record rivaled his. So he started a smear campaign. Accusations that I’d fudged my research or stolen other people’s data. Rumors that passages in my dissertation were oddly similar to various other researchers’ papers. Rumors that I’d slept with the editors of a couple of the journals that published me. He even got a handful of students to file complaints about me. I’m not sure anyone on my tenure committee believed all of it. But there was so much of it.”