Lord of the Wings (25 page)

“Why thank goodness?” I asked. “Does that mean that at least one of those two in the photo didn't make it home?”

“Neither of them did,” she said, with a sigh. “Such a waste.”

“Definitely,” I said. And I agreed with her, and at any other time I'd have been completely in tune with her melancholy fascination with the Brimfield brothers. But for now, I kept thinking that however sad it was, it was nearly a hundred years ago. Out there in present day Caerphilly, things could be happening. And back home, my pillow was calling. “At least before they perished, the two brothers were reunited in the trenches in France,” I said aloud.

“So it seems,” she said. “And that shouldn't have happened.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “The Canadians were our allies—what's wrong with William and John Tyler having a little family reunion.”

“According to the records, William Brimfield perished in the Battle of the Somme,” she said. “On October 11, 1916. Which is at least six months before any American troops landed in France, and a year or so before they had arrived in any kind of numbers.”

“Maybe John Tyler got sent over early on some kind of special mission?”

“He was still in high school,” she said. “The
Caerphilly Clarion
listed him in their article on young men who enlisted as soon as Congress passed the declaration of war. In April 1917.”

“Maybe this isn't William Brimfield?”

She searched her desk and came up with a photocopy of a page from an issue of the
Clarion
from 1915. It contained an article announcing William Henry Harrison Brimfield's enlistment in the Canadian Army. She held it up beside the picture from the trenches. The young man in the trench photo was visibly thinner and dirtier than the one in the
Clarion,
but either it was the same young man or a dead ringer. Same strong high-cheekboned face, devil-may-care grin, and pale, pale eyes.

“They must have gotten the date wrong, then,” I said.

“They must have,” she said. “And also the name of the battle.”

She showed me another photograph, a close-up of part of the engraving on the Caerphilly Cenotaph, a fifteen-foot obelisk honoring the county's war dead, which stood in a tiny park on the other side of the courthouse from the town square. It read “William Henry Harrison Brimfield. October 11, 1916.”

“The Brimfields moved out of town a few years after the war ended,” she said. “So maybe they weren't around to notice the error. Perhaps it was really October 11, 1918. That would be the end of the Battle of Cambrai. A lot of Canadian involvement in that.”

She looked up and then cocked her head to one side, like a bird, and studied me with an eagle eye.

“And you're thinking all of this is fascinating, no doubt, but what does it have to do with anything that's going on right now?”

I had to laugh at that.

“Guilty,” I said. “It does sound like a fascinating puzzle, and perhaps when the festival is over and I'm sane again, I will check back with you to see if you've solved it.”

“It will probably turn out to be merely a typo on the part of the stonecutter,” she said. “But it should be fun to try to solve it, and maybe in a year or two I can present a paper to the Caerphilly Historical Society, and begin the process of petitioning to have the inscription on the monument corrected.”

“And I'll come and hear your paper and sign your petition and make a donation toward the cost of the correction,” I said.

“I just thought you might like to know in case it does end up being related to the pranks,” she said. “Or in case any of your graveyard watchers spot a ghostly figure in a doughboy helmet drifting through the tombstones.”

“Are William and John Tyler buried in one of the graveyards?” I asked.

“No, they'd have been buried in France,” she said. “They weren't much for shipping bodies home in those days.”

“Then why would their ghosts haunt any of the graveyards?” I asked. “More likely they'd haunt the house where they lived.”

“I should look up where that is,” she said.

“Have you found out anything interesting about Arabella Shiffley Pratherton?” I asked.

“No.” She tilted her head in a birdlike gesture. “Should I?”

“The dead guy had an article about her in his pocket,” I said. “The first dead guy. The chief has no idea why. And he was a petty thief and con artist. The museum contains a portrait worth a hundred grand, a brooch worth half a million, and family photos that a wealthy curmudgeon wants to take away from Dr. Smoot, and the thief's carrying around an article about Arabella? There must be something interesting there.”

“I'll see what I can dig up,” she said. “Now you go get some rest. Any chance we could plan to open the Haunted House at dusk? If we're closing the library at five, and staying closed tomorrow; I'll be completely free to help starting at dusk tonight.”

“Sounds fine to me,” I said. “The Haunted House isn't much of a kids' attraction anyway.”

“And maybe when things get slow, I can peek into the museum and see some of the artifacts firsthand,” she added.

Should I tell her about all the artifacts being locked up in the evidence room? No need. The basement would be blocked off as a crime scene. And it wasn't as if things were ever going to be slow at the Haunted House tonight or tomorrow. So I just wished her a Happy Halloween and left.

As I let myself into my car, I realized that my short visit with Ms. Ellie had lifted my spirits. With her in charge, the Haunted House would be in good hands, and if Randall recruited Judge Jane, even better. And it was good to be reminded that, by Monday, we would return to the normal peaceful life of a small town, where a meeting of the local historical society was a highlight in our month, and the debate over whether or not a date carved in the war memorial cenotaph was correct could be the hottest topic in town.

Of course, by Monday, the chief might still have two unsolved murders on his hands, with most of his suspects and witnesses scattering to the four winds, but at least, one way or another, the scavenger hunt would be over.

And just in case we were wrong and the motives for the murders lay in the contents of the museum, rather than the scavenger hunt, Ms. Ellie was on the case.

I managed not to fall asleep behind the wheel on my way home. It was almost eleven. I wondered if Michael had been able to get much of a nap before taking off for his first class.

As I pulled up, I saw Michael's mother carrying her luggage into the house. Rather a lot of luggage. I wondered how long a stay she was planning.

“Meg, are you all right?” she asked.

Did I look that bad? Or was it the fact that I'd stumbled twice on the cobblestones of our front walk.

“Only two or three hours of sleep last night,” I said, giving her a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “Would you mind horribly if I celebrated your arrival with a nap?”

“Of course not,” she said. “And I can pick the boys up at school, so nap as long as you like.”

Okay, with that kind of an attitude, she could stay as long as she liked. I mumbled my thanks, dragged myself upstairs, crawled out of my costume, and fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.

 

Chapter 19

I may have fallen asleep quickly, but it wasn't a sound or untroubled sleep. I kept waking up out of unpleasant dreams. Enormous alligators loomed up out of murky waters and threatened to devour me—or, worse, the boys. Menacing black-cloaked figures chased me down endless dark alleys. Worst of all, Dr. Smoot kept turning up, apparently unharmed, until he smiled to reveal fangs that definitely owed nothing to the dentist's art.

“Why no,” he kept saying. “I'm not dead. But I'm not alive, either.”

Ridiculous. The boys had made it safely home from the zoo. There were hardly any alleys in Caerphilly. And even if I believed in vampires, I wouldn't be frightened of Dr. Smoot if he became one.

Of course, better to dream of things that looked silly in the light of day than of things that did scare me—like the fact that a murderer had struck at the zoo and the Haunted House and was probably still prowling the increasingly crowded streets of Caerphilly.

I woke up to peals of childish laughter—the sort of merry, innocent sounds that all too often signaled that the boys were up to something unusually dangerous or destructive. But before I could leap out of bed to check on them, I heard Michael's mother's voice and relaxed again.

On a normal day, I'd have been tempted to go back to sleep for another hour or two. But I realized that if the boys were home, it must be past three o'clock. I checked the clock. Three thirty. Even allowing for the sleep I'd lost to my nightmares, I should be rested enough to handle tonight's patrol. I dragged myself out of bed and donned my costume again. Time to get back to town. I suddenly felt intensely guilty for having spent so much time asleep. Guilty, and worried that something dire might have happened while I was fleeing from dream phantoms.

On my way downstairs, I ran into Michael coming upstairs.

“You look as bad as I felt a few hours ago,” I said.

“Nap time,” he said. “Or I won't be able to patrol tonight. By the way, I ran into Randall on my way to the parking lot just now. He tells me they caught another scavenger hunt participant.”

“Where?” I asked. “And what was he doing?”

“Randall didn't say,” he said with a yawn. “He was headed down to the police station to check it out.”

“Anything else?”

“That's all I heard.”

I was reassured. If anything really bad had happened, Michael would have heard. And Michael had also helped me decide what to do first—I'd check in at the police station to catch up on the news.

“I'll call you when I wake up,” he said. “And you can tell me where to meet you.”

I followed Michael back upstairs, helped him out of his general's uniform, and tucked him into bed. He fell asleep as fast as I had. I stayed long enough to brush off his costume and lay it out so he'd have an easy time getting into it when he woke up.

Then I checked on the boys. Michael's mother had them on the back porch drawing faces on pumpkins with black felt-tipped markers. Nice that she not only understood the wisdom of keeping them away from sharp knives but also remembered how dangerous it was to turn them loose indoors with markers.

“Mommy, look!” Josh cried. “Mine's the scariest.”

“Mine's the nicest,” Jamie countered.

“We're going to take the pumpkins to the library later,” Michael's mother said. “Apparently some of Ms. Ellie's pumpkins were stolen.”

Which meant the scavenger hunt was continuing. I shoved that thought to the back of my mind as I gave the boys hugs and admired all the pumpkins. They returned to their decorating with renewed zeal.

“I was going to take them into town to see the decorations this afternoon or maybe tonight,” Michael's mother said. “But your father seemed to think it was a bad idea.”

“I'd drive them around instead of walking,” I said. “And this afternoon would be better, or just after dark. And avoid the town square—plenty of decorations to see in the residential areas. Though really, they'll get a chance to see the decorations when they're trick-or-treating, and that might be enough for this year.”

“Then there is something going on,” she said. “Your father said something about a murder, but knowing how much he loves his mystery books, I thought maybe he was just being … dramatic.”

“No, there's a murder all right. Two of them.” I pulled her a little farther away, to make sure the boys couldn't hear us, and gave her a quick update on everything that had happened.

“Goodness,” she said. “No wonder you're not keen on having me take them to town. How are we going to handle the trick-or-treating tomorrow night?”

“Strength in numbers,” I said. “Michael and I are both taking time off from patrolling to escort the boys, and you're welcome to come, too, and we're sticking to them like superglue.”

“A good plan,” she said. “And now I understand why your father came up with his plan to amuse the boys here this afternoon.”

“What plan?” I hated to sound suspicious, but Dad's plans all too often were the sort of thing that delighted small boys and appalled their parents.

“Well, he suggested—oh, there he is now.” She smiled and waved at something behind my back. “I'll let him explain.”

I turned to see Dad bouncing into the backyard, followed by three young men and a young woman, all wearing purple Mutant Wizards t-shirts.

“Grandpa!” Both boys abandoned their pumpkins, leaving their grandmother to cap their markers, and ran to hug Dad.

“Meg!” Dad exclaimed. “Just the person I was looking for. Rob lent me a few of his staff for the project. Is it okay if we use your workshop?”

“What kind of project?” As the words came out of my mouth, I could hear Mother saying them, back in my childhood. And I could see my younger self awaiting her verdict with the same eager, anxious expression the boys now wore as they watched my face.

“We're going to help Josh and Jamie build truly awesome Halloween costumes for tomorrow night,” Dad said.

“Mommy, please,” Josh said.

“Pretty please with strawberries on top,” Jamie added.

“I'll unlock the barn for you,” I said. “And make sure there's nothing breakable in the way.”

Dad, the boys, and the four Mutant Wizards cheered excitedly as I went back into the house to fetch the key. If I were a glassblower or a potter, I might have been less willing to turn over my workshop, but my wrought iron, my hammers, and my anvil were pretty impervious to damage, even from small boys.

I'd forgotten how much finished iron work I had out there, waiting until I had enough time to take it to a craft fair to sell. As I'd hoped, with the boys in school I had a lot more time to spend at my anvil. But my plan to resume my active blacksmithing career had hit another snag. Going to craft fairs to sell my work required spending weekends away from home—weekends that I now cherished as my main opportunity for spending time with Michael and the boys. Maybe the solution was to find a lot of craft shops willing to buy my work for resale or take it on consignment. Managing that could be just as time-consuming as attending craft fairs, but at least I could do it while they were in school. Not that I'd managed so far.