No Nest for the Wicket Read online

  “Astonishing that no one told you anything about it before,” Mrs. Burke said.

  Which meant that if Jane Doe’s murder proved related to the outlet-mall project, nobody in town would believe that Michael and I knew nothing about it. Or her.

  The sooner they identified Jane, the better.

  As if on cue, Chief Burke strode in. He paused dramatically in the doorway, expecting his arrival to quell the commotion, but conversation continued until Mother began tapping a spoon on her teacup. I quickly followed suit and we achieved a gratifyingly expectant hush.

  “Thank you good people for coming here,” the chief began. “We appreciate your cooperation.”

  “You’re already gathering the suspects to tell us who done it?” Dad asked. “That was quick.”

  He sounded disappointed.

  “No, of course not,” the chief said, frowning and looking slightly flustered.

  “How could he figure out who done it already?” I said. “We don’t even know yet who’s been done.”

  “You mean you don’t even know her identity?” Dad asked, his good humor restored. “Amazing.”

  The chief had to rap sharply on the table to regain control of his meeting.

  “That’s what I’m hoping one of you can help me with,” he said. “Do any of you know this woman?”

  He held up a photo of Jane Doe.

  He probably hoped someone would gasp out a name, or faint, or jump up to confess. But no one did. Seconds passed, then more seconds. People shifted from foot to foot.

  “No one knows her?” the chief asked.

  Mrs. Pruitt stared at the photo a few more seconds and shook her head. I could imagine her blackballing country club applicants just as coolly.

  Mrs. Briggs’s lips pursed disapprovingly and her shrug suggested that she hadn’t known the deceased and wouldn’t have wanted to. Her husband gave the photo a cursory glance, shook his head, and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder.

  Both Suzies looked at the photo briefly and averted their eyes as if a streaker had crossed the room. Nice people didn’t get murdered. Brought down property values.

  Mrs. Wentworth gawked with obvious relish. She probably slowed to a crawl when passing traffic accidents.

  Lacie Butler put both hands over her mouth and turned her face away slightly, while still peeking out of the corner of her eye. A silly reaction, though I’d seen plenty of women at scary movies doing much the same thing. At least Mrs. Wentworth was honest about her rubbernecking.

  The six Shiffleys exchanged glances and, when they had settled the matter among themselves, crossed their arms or stuck their hands in their belt loops, shook their heads, and looked back at the chief in mute collective denial.

  Dad stared as avidly as Mrs. Wentworth, though he had the excuse of wanting to draw medical conclusions.

  Mrs. Fenniman was probably memorizing every detail, the better to gossip with later.

  Rose Noire shook her head sadly and closed her eyes. I wasn’t sure if she couldn’t bear the violence implied by the photo or if she was performing some divination. Assessing the photo’s aura perhaps. Doubtless we’d hear about it later.

  The students shook their heads and their faces had a curiously familiar expression—one I’d seen often enough on Rob. The look of the habitual offender who didn’t do it but expects to be blamed anyway. They shifted uneasily from foot to foot, and the muted jingling of their shin bells contrasted oddly with the somber mood of the room.

  Rob showed more genuine emotion than anyone.

  “Wow,” he said, breaking the silence. “She was gorgeous. Wish I’d known her.”

  “I assume that means you didn’t,” the chief said. He sounded vexed. Not fair, taking out his disappointment on Rob that way, but Rob should learn to keep his mouth shut.

  “Never even saw her,” Rob said.

  “None of you know her?” the chief asked, turning the frown on the rest of the company.

  Much head shaking and a few murmurs.

  “Someone must know her,” the chief said, frowning.

  “There’re always the fingerprints, Chief,” Sammy said.

  The chief growled softly. Obviously he didn’t think the fingerprints would help. I could understand his point. Having seen Jane Doe, I had a hard time imagining her getting fingerprinted. Manicured, yes, but fingerprinted?

  The big meeting fizzled after that. The chief stomped out, obviously irritated. Sammy tried to make us all look at the photos again, but everybody ignored him. Instead, they all snuffled around the refreshment table, eating the last of the cookies and wearing the vexed expression of dinner guests left too long to forage on the appetizers.

  Except for the college students. I wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or find their directness refreshing.

  “So, what’s for dinner?” one of them asked—the redhead who’d been flirting with me, and who seemed not to notice when I pointedly referred to the tall, dark, and handsome Michael as my fiancé.

  “We thought people could fend for themselves,” I said. “It’s a college town—plenty of affordable places.”

  “Maybe you could recommend one?”

  “Luigi’s,” I said. “Great pizza. Awesome selection of beers, or so I’m told; I’m not a big beer drinker.”

  “We’ll have wine, then,” he said. “My treat.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “My fiancé and I have other plans.”

  “Ah, well,” he said, shrugging. “Another time.”

  I gave him directions, ignoring the fact that he was giving me what my college roommate and I used to call “puppy dog eyes.” I hadn’t liked the whole mournful hangdog act then, and I didn’t like it now. He snapped out of it fast enough when he rejoined his teammates and they all hurried out to their car.

  Was I imagining things, or was their departure not just hasty but downright furtive?

  What if I had misinterpreted their behavior when Chief Burke showed us Jane Doe’s photo? I’d assumed it was the knee-jerk reaction of young men who expect to be blamed for anything that goes wrong when they’re around. What if I’d seen real guilt? After all, none of the deputies knew her, which made it more plausible that none of the locals did, either. But someone knew her well enough to kill her. And the students, like Jane Doe, were strangers. What if—

  “Meg?” asked Rob, standing at my elbow. “You okay? You have a funny look on your face.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. Fine, except that I was starting to think like Dad, who saw everything as a potential clue in a real-life version of his beloved mysteries. The students probably just wanted to flee the company of so many old fogies. Evan Briggs, the developer, had spent the first half of our lunch break haranguing them for their feckless failure to major in business administration, and Mrs. Pruitt used the rest to interrogate them about their family histories and genealogies. Probably wise to vanish—Dad had recently developed a renewed interest in healthy eating, and had already remarked that he didn’t think the students ate enough fiber.

  For another thing, if I had to suspect someone of deception, why not Evan Briggs, who wanted to erect the world’s largest outlet mall in our backyard? Who, after driving his wife to the game, couldn’t possibly have spent every minute of the day watching the players and chatting with Dad. I glanced around to see what the developer was up to.

  Talking with Rose Noire. And not enjoying it, from his expression. Rose Noire’s intense interest in New Age subjects daunted most people. Her sweeping arm gestures suggested that she was telling him about the conversations she’d had this afternoon with the larger oak and poplar trees in Mr. Shiffley’s woods. She’d developed a passionate interest in trees lately. I wondered how she’d react when she found out that Evan Briggs was planning to cut down hundreds of her beloved trees.

  “What’s up?” Dad said, appearing at my elbow. “Any good clues?”

  Chapter Seven

  “No clues,” I said. “A few good motives.” I brought him up to speed
on Mr. Briggs’s plans.

  “Shocking,” Dad said. “That would be an environmental catastrophe. You’re right; he must be the killer.”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “Though he might be a suspect if we find out the dead woman’s connected with Mrs. Pruitt’s campaign against the mall. On the other hand, what if she’s one of his employees and was killed by someone violently opposed to the mall?”

  “Do you really think someone enlightened enough to oppose the mall would resort to violence?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. Dad looked startled—he hadn’t spent as much time as I had with Mrs. Pruitt and the Dames. “You’re right, though; Briggs seems more suspicious.”

  One of Mother’s innumerable cousins dabbled in real estate development, though on a much smaller scale than Mr. Briggs. I knew from Cousin Ralph’s misadventures that by the time developers presented a project to the county board, they’d have already spent a lot of money. Ralph barely escaped bankruptcy two or three times when community opposition shot down one of his projects. And worse, from Ralph’s point of view, than community opposition—

  “What if she’s an environmentalist?” Dad said. “From the Sierra Club or the Fish and Wildlife Service?”

  Cousin Ralph also had an uncanny gift for picking development sites already occupied by one or more endangered species. At parties, after a few too many glasses of punch, he sometimes become morose and said uncharitable things about the Virginia sneezeweed, the southern bog turtle, the Shenandoah salamander, the pink mucket, and the duskytail darter. Mother had forbidden everyone, on pain of banishment from all future family gatherings, to mention Ralph’s particular bete noire, the Virginia fringed mountain snail, which he held personally responsible for his one actual bankruptcy.

  Of course, Ralph was a mild-mannered soul who wouldn’t have harmed the smallest fringe on the most hapless of mountain snails if his life as well as his solvency depended on it. But Briggs …

  I savored the vision of Briggs being led off in handcuffs, his plans for the outlet mall crashing about his ears. Yes, I could live with Briggs as the killer. And much as I disliked her, if Mrs. Pruitt was leading the antimall forces, I hoped she hadn’t done anything as stupid as killing one of the opposition. Surely if she had, we could argue it was the action of one unbalanced mind, and not—

  I was thinking way too much like Dad. We had no idea who Jane Doe was, much less whether she’d had anything to do with the mall project. I decided I should leave detecting to Chief Burke and concentrate on getting through the weekend.

  “Go talk to Mrs. Pruitt,” I told Dad.

  “You suspect her?”

  “I suspect everyone. Engage her in conversation. But be subtle. Don’t bring up the mall unless she does.”

  “Right,” Dad said, hurrying off.

  Not that I expected him to learn anything critical, but as long as he was talking to her, I didn’t have to.

  “We’re taking off now,” someone behind me said.

  One of the Suzie clones. Both of whom were also involved in the outlet-mall project. They seemed less suspicious than Evan Briggs, but that was probably my innate prejudice. Why should a heavyset fiftyish killer in a two-button suit be easier to visualize than a perky thirty-something killer in expensive upscale leisure wear?

  “We’re so sorry,” the other clone said. “Please let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

  “We’ll manage,” I said. Which sounded a bit abrupt, but I couldn’t say much more without giggling. Apparently, they’d decided to treat the murder like any other death in the household. One patted my hand solicitously.

  “We’ll be here with the food at ten-thirty tomorrow,” the first clone said, as if reading my mind.

  “Food?” I repeated. Did they plan to drop by with casseroles, as if we’d had a loss in the family?

  “The picnic lunch for the players,” she said. “You haven’t forgotten that our team’s doing lunch tomorrow?”

  Actually, I had forgotten. Perhaps deliberately. When Mrs. Pruitt had suggested that the three local teams take turns organizing potluck meals for all the players, I’d tried to veto it, but Mother and Mrs. Fenniman overruled me. They were probably still chafing that I’d insisted on limiting the potluck meals to a Saturday lunch by the Realtors and a Sunday brunch by the Dames, with my team providing supplies for people to fix their own breakfasts. I didn’t feel guilty—any sane person knows that a potluck meal always makes three times as much work for the person hosting it as for any of the cooks.

  “Right,” I said. “Though I doubt we’ll play tomorrow.”

  “You’ll still need to feed everyone,” the clone said. “Chief Burke didn’t want anyone leaving town.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Won’t be as large as planned, though—the other four teams won’t be coming.”

  “Then the rest of us will just have to eat twice as much, won’t we?” she said. “Can’t waste all that potato salad!”

  Her clone nodded and they tripped down the steps to their car. The Briggses followed. Mrs. Briggs gave me a characteristically wan, self-effacing smile. Mr. Briggs nodded curtly, as if anticipating what I’d say to him when I knew the outlet mall wasn’t just a nasty rumor.

  Which gave me an idea. I headed for the barn and grabbed my cell phone to call my nephew Kevin, the family cyber whiz.

  “Another problem with your computer?” he asked.

  “Whatever happened to ‘Hello, Aunt Meg, how are you, and is my little brother enjoying his visit?’”

  “If you wanted to be sociable, you’d e-mail or call after dinner,” he said. “It’s okay, Mom; it’s just Aunt Meg with another computer problem.”

  “Not a computer problem, a murder problem,” I said. “Don’t upset your mother; Eric’s fine and he didn’t see anything that would upset him.”

  “She says Eric’s fine,” he repeated. “I need to get on my computer to help her. Save me a piece of pie.”

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner,” I said.

  “I was mostly finished anyway. So what’s with your … problem?”

  I filled Kevin in on the murder, deliberately leaving out any gory details, in the interest of maintaining my reputation as a responsible and trustworthy aunt. He pried them out of me anyway, but luckily the details weren’t all that gory—not for a kid who’d grown up around Dad.

  “So what do you want me to do?” he asked.

  “See what you can find on this outlet-mall project.”

  “You think it’s connected to the murder?”

  “It might be,” I said. “It’s sure as heck connected to our property.”

  “Would it be so bad having a mall nearby?”

  “It’s not just a mall; it’s a contender for the largest mall in the universe.”

  “Even cooler.”

  “Did I mention that they’d be building it where you and your friends played paintball last summer?”

  “Gotcha,” he said. “Definitely a threat to civilization as we know it. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Thanks. About the murder—don’t scare your mother.”

  “Right,” he said, and hung up.

  I felt better. If cyberspace contained any information about the outlet-mall project, Kevin would find it. I’d also accidentally given myself an out if Pam chastised me for not telling her about the murder. I’d said, “Don’t scare your mother”—not “Don’t tell her.” If Kevin chose to interpret that as an order not to tell …

  Yes, I definitely felt better. Then I glanced at my watch and realized Michael would be home soon. I felt a surge of relief so intense, it was almost physical. His return wouldn’t solve anything, and I didn’t plan to dump my troubles on him or let anyone else dump theirs. But having him around made me feel less stressed, more grounded. We’d get through this.

  I reached under the desk mat and pulled out the photo of Jane Doe, mainly to make sure Horace hadn’t seen through my act and confiscated it.
Rob was right: she’d been beautiful. About my age, but she’d been one of those tall, slender blondes who made me feel so insecure about my brunette hair and more normal shape. Although her clothes were disheveled, she’d dressed with more flair than I did. Not that the photo showed much of her clothes, but the edge of the scarf around her neck brought back the whole outfit. Neat, well-fitted khaki pants and a crisp beige blouse. The only hint of color was the scarf, in tones of beige, white, and spring green. She’d even known how to tie the damned thing. My rare attempts to accessorize with scarves always ended badly, looking like a dress rehearsal for suicide by hanging or an attempt to cover up a bulky neck cast. Her scarf looked crisp and chic.

  I might have disliked her, if I’d met her, but the fixed stare of those blue eyes washed away petty dislikes. She’d been alive, and someone had taken that away. I felt a cold wave of anger. I had to do something.

  Which was silly, since I didn’t even know who she was.

  I dropped the photo back on the desk and headed for the house.

  Chapter Eight

  I went the long way around—through the front door—to eavesdrop on Chief Burke, though I didn’t learn much.

  “The area’s not that big, damn it!” I heard him growl.

  “Yes, but we could miss vital evidence in the dark,” Sammy said. “And besides, parts of those woods are dangerous—there could be more old mine shafts around.”

  Now they tell us.

  “True,” the chief said. “I want someone on guard out there—Sammy, set up shifts. We’ll pick up in the morning. At daybreak.”

  A ragged chorus of assents followed, and officers began spilling into the hall. I pretended to be doing something with the boxes of papers that lined one wall—the papers a female professor from UVa should have picked up hours ago. I called Kevin again.

  “Still working on it,” he said. Pam had definitely failed to teach him that something along the lines of “hello” was a more customary way to answer the phone.

  “One more thing. Can you find a photo of someone?”

  “I can try,” he said. In the background, I heard the telltale rattle of a keyboard. “Who?”