Lord of the Wings (7 page)

We went over to wish them a good morning and pass along a warning about the scavenger hunt.

“So keep your eyes open,” I said, when I'd explained the situation.

“We will.” Ragnar opened his eyes very wide as if to demonstrate that he understood. I never knew whether he was pulling my leg or not. He had only a faint Norwegian accent, and spoke good and sometimes curiously formal English, but sometimes he seemed to take everything anyone said quite literally. “These tourists are far more weird than I expected,” he added.

I had to suppress a giggle to hear that coming from a man who had redecorated his entire forty-room mansion in what Mother referred to, with a sniff, as a combination of late Gothic and early Halloween.

“At least the problem of people trying to sneak in goes away when the zoo opens,” Osgood said.

“Until eight o'clock tonight, when the zoo closes again,” Ragnar said. “Because if I wanted to sneak in here, I would wait until after dark.”

“True,” Osgood said. “I guess we'll have to keep our eyes out for fake body parts and entomophagy all day.”

“Entomophagy?” I echoed. Not a word I'd have expected to find in Osgood's vocabulary.

“That's what your grandfather calls it,” Osgood said, with a wheezy laugh. “Sounds less disgusting than bug-eating. This Goblin Patrol gig is turning out to be a lot more exciting than I expected. And I can tell you, it's going to get worse before it gets better.”

“Grandfather's calling out his Brigade members to help patrol,” I said. “We should have the first of them by sometime this afternoon.”

“That won't be easy for a bunch of city folks,” Osgood said. “Especially after dark. And some of the terrain on the far side is pretty rugged.”

“The Brigade members aren't all city slickers,” I protested.

“Once the gates open and things quiet down here, I'll make a few calls to some cousins,” Osgood said. “Pretty near every one of them's got one of those portable hunting stands you can set up in a tree, and they're all getting right bored, waiting for the deer season to start. We can probably put most of the perimeter under observation by nightfall.”

The vision of the zoo ringed by a posse of armed Shiffleys perched in the trees was probably more reassuring to Osgood than it was to me.

“And what will they do if they spot an intruder?” I asked. “It's not tourist season, either.”

“Always open season on tourists,” Osgood said with a straight face. “The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries considers them a nuisance species, just like rats, pigeons, and feral hogs.”

“And nutria, I suppose,” I said. “But seriously—”

“Don't worry,” Osgood said. “We spot anyone trying to break in, we'll call 911, and then follow them till a deputy arrives.”

“Sounds good to me, then,” I said. “But clear it with the chief, will you?”

“Will do,” Osgood said. “And don't worry. One look at Ragnar here and the intruders will probably run away.”

Ragnar grinned at that, and hefted his war ax.

“I know I would,” I said. “Thanks again for volunteering,” I added to Ragnar.

“Thank you for taking me.” The subject seemed to depress him. “I was hoping to play a greater role, but…”

He shrugged.

“Yeah, Ragnar tried to offer his house for some of the events,” Osgood said. “Still don't understand why you folks turned him down.”

“Well, I didn't turn him down,” I said. “I didn't even know he'd offered it.”

“It was Miss Lydia,” Ragnar said. “I do not think she likes me.”

“Join the club,” I said. “I don't think she likes me, either.”

“I know she doesn't like me,” Osgood said. “I told her a few plain truths about some of the mistakes she's made running things. I wonder if Randall's figured out what a mistake he made hiring her.”

“I'll mention your offer of the house to Randall,” I said to Ragnar. “Probably too late for this year, but come November first, we'll start planning for next year.”

Ragnar beamed, and he and Osgood went back to the gate.

“Assuming this goes off well enough that we even have a next year,” Michael said in an undertone.

“We will still have to plan for next year,” I said. “Even if the plan is to lock all the doors, hide in our basements, and post signs at the county line saying ‘Keep out! No festival this year!'”

Just then a young woman in a
Xena the Warrior Princess
costume burst out of the woods and looked around wildly. She spotted us and started running again, heading toward Michael and me. Osgood and Ragnar also noticed her and headed back our way.

“This doesn't look good,” Michael muttered.

The young woman wore a Goblin Patrol armband, and I recognized her as one of Randall and Osgood Shiffley's many cousins. I even dredged up her name out of my memory by the time she neared us.

“Ashley, what's wrong?” I called.

“Meg! Thank goodness you're here! Thor and I found a body in the woods!”

 

Chapter 7

“A body?” I echoed.

“I'll call the chief,” Michael said, pulling out his cell phone.

“Are you sure it's a real body?” I asked.

“We thought at first it was another of those fake legs like the first graders found in the alligator pond,” Ashley said. “But then I tried to pick it up and—”

She burst into tears. I put my arms around her and she started crying on my shoulder.

“I'll call her ma.” Osgood pulled out his cell phone.

Ragnar strode over to a bench some ten feet away, picked it up as easily as I could have picked up a folding lawn chair, and set it down gently behind where Ashley was standing. I steered Ashley down onto the bench.

“Chief's on his way,” Michael said.

“Ashley, when the chief gets here, do you think you could lead us to where you found the body?” Her grip on me tightened. “Not all the way—just close enough that we can see it.”

She nodded slightly.

I just let her cry, and she was a lot calmer by the time the chief arrived. And once we set out to lead him to the body, her normally sunny disposition began reasserting itself and she readily answered the chief's questions. No one objected when Michael and I tagged along. Maybe the chief wanted me around in case the tears reappeared.

“One of the deputies asked Thor and me to guard the place where that guy cut a hole in the zoo fence,” Ashley explained as we made our way through the woods just outside the fence. “Until Cousin Randall could get someone down here to fix it. And it was pretty boring just standing around there, so we were patrolling up and down the fence and then Thor spotted a foot sticking out of some bushes. We thought it was a fake foot.”

It was only a few minutes' walk. We passed the hole in the fence, now being repaired by two men in Shiffley Construction Company hats. Thor was standing in a small clearing another twenty feet or so farther along the fence line. He was muffled in a large gray-green cloak but his mop of bright red hair made him easy to spot. He was carrying a bow and arrow. Was he supposed to be an elf or one of Robin Hood's merry men? He didn't look particularly merry at the moment—just glum, and then relieved once he spotted us.

“Hey, Meg,” Thor said. “When I tell your grandmother about this she'll be put out that she didn't come.” Actually, I suspected Grandmother Cordelia could do without encountering another dead body, but I didn't argue with him. I'd met Thor through my grandmother, for whom he worked during semester breaks and summer vacations, and she had recruited him to serve in the Goblin Patrol. I hoped this didn't discourage him from continuing.

Thor pointed at a foot clad in a scruffy black boot, protruding from under the overhanging limb of a hemlock tree. The chief inched slowly forward until he could reach the limb and lifted it up to peer at the rest of the body. Then he frowned.

“I don't recognize him.” He didn't sound happy about it. I could understand why. If the chief didn't recognize him, he was almost certainly not from around here. And therefore probably a tourist. Someone who had come for the Halloween festival. Just damn.

“Meg?” the chief said. “Perhaps one of your out-of-town volunteers?”

I stepped forward and peered past the chief's upraised arm. I had a good view of the dead man, including the curiously neat bullet hole in the center of his forehead. He was in his twenties, or maybe his early thirties. Since he was lying down, it was hard to tell how tall he was, and equally hard to assess his weight since he was dressed entirely in baggy black garments—black pants, shirt, boots, and cloak. His face was thin and sharp-featured; his eyes, though wide open, were still small and beady; and his mouth hung open to reveal prominent buck teeth. If Michael were casting a production of
Cinderella,
he'd probably consider the poor man perfect for the role of the rat turned coachman. And was it thinking ill of the dead to realize that if I'd seen him approaching me in the street, I'd probably have checked to make sure my purse was zipped shut?

“No.” I shook my head. “Don't know him.”

“Well, I won't keep you from your work,” the chief said.

So much more polite than “get lost.” I nodded and stepped back. The chief let the branch fall back.

“Osgood, can you stay here and give me a hand?” the chief asked. “Meg, it would help if you could reassign some of your volunteers to help with crowd control here. And Horace and Dr. Langslow are on their way—can someone lead them back here?”

The rest of us nodded and began making our way out of the clearing with varying degrees of reluctance or eagerness. And then, as luck would have it, I spotted something. At least if the chief asked, I'd call it luck, but the truth was that being banished from the crime scene fired up my curiosity, and I was walking away at a snail's pace, furiously scanning the ground for clues.

Had I found one? A torn bit of paper lying on the ground near the edge of the clearing. I veered closer, and peered down to see what it was.

Only two lines, obviously torn from the bottom of a larger bit of paper. The first line read “t a small fire.” The second: “5. Take a selfie with a black cat.”

“Chief.” I pointed down at the scrap. “Take a look at this.”

He walked over and glanced down at the paper.

“It reminds me of that list we found in Justin Klapcroft's pocket,” I said.

The chief peered at it more closely, both through and over his glasses, before nodding.

“Mr. Larson,” he called. “Ms. Shiffley.”

Thor and Ashley turned and stopped where they were. The chief pulled out his cell phone, took a picture of the scrap, and walked over to them.

“This belong to either of you?” He held up the phone so they could see the picture.

They both shook their heads. Michael, Ragnar, and Osgood also disavowed any knowledge of the scrap.

“It might not have anything to do with the murder,” I said. “Could just be a coincidence that someone dropped it here near the body.”

“I'm not a big believer in coincidences,” the chief said. “Carry on.”

We left him and Osgood standing in the clearing. Osgood was peering around as if hoping to top my find. The chief was talking on his phone.

“Horace,” I heard him ask, “what's your ETA?”

As we strolled back from the crime scene I mentally rearranged my Goblin Patrol duty roster and called to reassign a few more volunteers to the zoo. Thank goodness Grandfather was calling out the Brigade.

By the time we reached the front gate, three more police cars were there, and the first two reassigned Goblin Patrol volunteers were climbing out of a late-model pickup.

After I briefed them, Michael and I stood for a few moments, watching.

“Maybe we didn't just catch a trespasser,” I said. “Maybe we caught a murderer. Two guys, both dressed like stereotypical Goths, both participating in some kind of weird Halloween scavenger hunt, and one of them turns up dead.”

“I wouldn't make too much of the similar clothes,” Michael said. “Half the tourists are dressed like that. But yeah. Maybe Justin Klapcroft could have a lot more reason than we thought to clam up until he gets a lawyer.”

“Here's Horace,” I said. We waved as he got out of his patrol car, and then watched as Ragnar led him off into the woods toward the crime scene.

“Meanwhile, you and I have work to do,” Michael said. “Time to talk to Dr. Smoot.”

“Fun,” I muttered.

“You never know,” Michael said. “The burglary could be related to the murder. After all, how many crimes do we usually have in Caerphilly? You could discover yet another significant clue.”

“I know what you're doing,” I said. “And it's not making me feel any better. You might convince me that talking to Dr. Smoot will be useful; nothing you say will make me like it. Let's go.”

Thanks to everything that had happened here at the zoo, on top of Lydia's interruption, we were going to get to the Haunted House a lot later than planned. I hoped Dr. Smoot had grown calmer in the meantime rather than more agitated.

The early crowds were also gathering around the Haunted House and the Fun Fair, nearly an hour before their scheduled opening time—though at least here there was more for them to watch. In the Fun Fair, the ride operators were starting to get ready—turning on their rides, testing them, doing a few small repairs or safety checks. Delectable odors were already starting to waft from the food tents and concession stands. The game managers were unshuttering their booths, setting up their games, and refreshing their prize displays.

“How did they all get here?” I muttered. Meaning the tourists, of course. The Haunted House was several miles from the edge of town, with the zoo a few miles farther. We'd arranged for a fleet of free shuttles to ferry tourists from the town square to the zoo and all points in between, a combination of buses and horse-drawn wagons. But the shuttles weren't supposed to start running until ten. Had all these people come on the first shuttle?