Owls Well That Ends Well (16 page)

“At the moment, I don’t know what we want,” I said. “I’m waiting for the house to tell us.”

“The house?” Mother said, after a pause. “You’re waiting for it to talk to you?”

“Not literally,” I said. “I mean, I don’t expect a voice to emerge from the mantel chanting ‘Art Deco’ or ‘lime green’ or anything. But I think you have to live with a place for a while before you can figure out what kind of décor would suit it.”

“Living with it’s going to be uncomfortable without furniture,” she said. “Are you sure you’re not beginning to get some idea what’s on the house’s mind?”

“At the moment, it’s very focused on all the repairs and renovations it needs,” I said. “And it’s been so full of so much clutter for so long that I think it finds emptiness very restful.” Also silence, but I decided I’d better not go that far.

“I see.” Mother said. Her expression bore a strong resemblance to the look she used to get when one of her children—usually Rob, of course—claimed to have a stomachache on a school day.

“I suspect if we force it to give us design ideas right now, it would want something very spare and minimalist,” I said. “Like those elegant Japanese rooms with nothing in them but a tatami mat and a single flower in a simple vase. Or Shaker décor. Did you know that after every meal they’d pick up the kitchen chairs and hang them from hooks on the wall, so they’d have as few things as possible to interfere with sweeping the floor? Doesn’t that sound nice?”

“If you say so, dear,” Mother said. “You’ll let me know when the house comes up with any less extreme decorating ideas?”

“Of course,” I said, but she was already sailing off. Was she admitting defeat, or just regrouping for another attack?

Regrouping, definitely. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

The next interruption to my breathing was more welcome. A pair of strong hands began massaging precisely the area between my shoulders where the muscles had knotted up from tension.

“You can relax,” Michael said. “Rob’s putting up your signs.”

“Thanks,” I said, leaning into the back rub. “Of course, that doesn’t mean anyone’s paying the slightest attention to them.”

“No, but people do seem to be leaving, now that it’s getting dark and there’s not a lot to see.”

“Good,” I said.

“I broke up another fistfight. None of your family were involved this time.”

“You sound surprised.”

“I was,” he said. “Not about your family. I just didn’t expect two very dignified faculty members to come to blows over ownership of a Weed Whacker. And a nonworking Weed Whacker at that.”

Rose Noir could probably have said something eloquent on the insidious effects of clutter and materialism on the human character, but all I could muster was a tired head shake.

“I was thinking maybe we could go pick up Giles when they release him,” Michael said after a moment. “They have to release him before long, right? We could be there to bring him back to his car.”

“Okay,” I said. “Ready when you are.”

“Hang on while I pack a few things we’ll need,” Michael said.

The hands disappeared, alas, but I had to admit that my shoulders already felt better.

I wondered if the police really would release Giles soon or if he’d have trouble getting bail on a weekend. But I didn’t want to depress Michael. Especially since he was packing a picnic supper to take with us. Even if he was thinking of Giles’s missed meal more than ours, he was definitely packing enough for all three of us, and then some.

“Signs up,” Rob said, wandering back in. “Maybe we should threaten to turn Spike loose on anyone who isn’t gone by six.”

“Where is Spike, anyway?” I asked.

“Um … the cops had me put him in his pen when the crowds started dying down,” Rob said. “I guess he’s still out there.”

“Rob! You know he’s supposed to come in before dark!”

I hurried outside.

We’d had to placate Michael’s mother, Spike’s absentee owner, when she’d first heard about the pen, and explain that no, Spike wasn’t living in the barn. But since I’d spent so much time there getting ready for the yard sale and would spend just as much after we moved in, working in my forge, Dad and Michael thought it would be a good idea to have Spike there with me.

“You can keep each other company,” Dad had said.

“Some company,” I’d said, frowning at Spike, and from the expression on his face, I suspected Spike felt the same. A pity he couldn’t talk, or he’d set them straight by explaining that he could care less about human company as long as his food bowl was full.

“Besides, he can warn you of trespassers,” Michael had said. “It’s pretty isolated out here.”

So far, the one time we’d had a trespasser—a rather shabby character who tried to enter the house through an unlocked window—Spike slept through the whole thing, including my chasing the would-be thief away with a large (though unsharpened) broadsword. But even if Spike had barked when the guy began trying doors and windows, I’d probably have ignored the noise, since I’d long since gotten used to him barking at every legitimate visitor who turned into our driveway, every car or truck that passed by on the road, every mouse or squirrel that showed its nose in the barn, the owls every time they came or went, and the occasional shadow of a cloud or hawk passing overhead.

Still, I had to admit that Spike enjoyed his pen. A Spikesized doggie door let him go at will from the large, outside area, which we’d nicknamed the barking lot, to a small inside enclosure along one wall of the barn, where we kept his spare bed and a set of bowls. The main problem was that we couldn’t leave him out at night, to howl at the moon or mourn its absence, for fear of owls getting him.

“The barn owls probably wouldn’t try it,” Dad had said, eyeing Spike judiciously. “Unless they were really starving, and clearly they aren’t, if they’ve had a second brood. But a great horned owl wouldn’t hesitate to attack Spike.”

“It would if it knew him the way we do,” I’d said, out of loyalty. But I had to admit, Dad had a point. Spike’s craving for outdoor nightlife would have to remain unfulfilled.

I only hoped the police on duty would let me in to whisk him away before the owls did.

Chapter 20

Outside, I spotted Dad and Eric talking to Sammy, the young uniformed officer, at the gate of the yard sale area.

“Meg!” Dad called. “Do you want to come with us?”

“That depends on where you’re going,” I said. “I need to get to the barn to fetch Spike.”

“Then come along,” Dad said. “We’re checking on Sophie.”

“Sophie?” I spent a few minutes racking my brain to remember who Sophie was and how she fit into the murder investigation or the family tree. Or had someone once again made the mistake of thinking that Spike needed feminine companionship? If so, this time I’d send the vet bills to the idiot responsible.

“I give up,” I said, finally. “Who’s Sophie?”

“One of your owls,” Dad said, in a reproachful tone. “The female of the nesting pair in the barn.”

“Oh,” I said. “I don’t think we were ever formally introduced. But isn’t the barn still off-limits?”

“Not as long as Sammy’s escorting us. I thought you might like to see the barn. Since Sophie’s there,” he added, with a look of such perfect innocence that I knew he was up to something.

“Ah,” I said. “Yes, just for a minute.”

“Come with me,” Sammy said. “But remember, don’t touch anything.”

I started guiltily when he said that. He’d probably noticed me scrutinizing the various boxes and piles lined along the fence. I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to explain that I was only wishing for someone to steal the hideous orange and purple lamp shade from Mother’s stash, not actually planning to do it myself.

“Have you heard anything more about that great horned owl sighting?” Dad asked Sammy.

“No, but I’ve asked the night shift to keep their eyes open,” Sammy said.

“For an owl?” I asked.

“Night time is when you find them out, owls,” Sammy said.

“Not just an owl,” Dad added. “A great horned owl!”

“Cool!” Eric said.

“Is this a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.

“Depends on your point of view,” Dad said. “It’s a fascinating species, of course, and like the barn owl, endangered, so in theory it’s a good thing, spotting one. But not so close to the barn.”

“It could eat Sophie’s fledglings,” Sammy said.

“It could eat Sophie!” Dad exclaimed. “They’re two to four times the size of full-grown barn owls.”

“Can someone take Spike inside now?” I asked.

“Poor Sophie!” Eric exclaimed, looking very worried. “We have to do something!”

I deduced from Dad’s silence and the solemn look on his face that there wasn’t much we could do to save Sophie from becoming some larger owl’s dinner if she were unlucky enough to encounter one.

Inside the barn, I was relieved to see that Spike was fine. Dad, Eric, and Sammy hurried over to the far corner, where the owls had their nest high up in the rafters, while I followed more slowly, studying my surroundings. The barn was going to be my forge—my workspace. I felt possessive about it. I felt a stab of guilt when I realized that I harbored some resentment toward Gordon. Okay, I could blame him for trespassing, but it wasn’t his fault he’d gotten murdered in the barn. And was it selfish to hope that his murder wouldn’t affect my ability to work here?

But looking around, I felt reassured. I probably couldn’t get past what had happened here until the chief had arrested someone for Gordon’s murder—arrested the real killer, that is, not poor hapless Giles. But the barn already felt like home again. More so than the house, I realized, with a pang of guilt. In fact, while my decluttering labors had dimmed my appreciation for the house, they hadn’t touched my love of the barn.

Perhaps because the barn didn’t need much more work. No one expects a blacksmith’s forge to look like a
House Beautiful
photo shoot. All I had to do was move my tools and equipment into the least ramshackle end of the barn and I was set. The odd falling board or shingle wouldn’t hurt my iron and tools. They’d survive if the whole barn fell down on them, which two expensive structural engineers had separately warranted wouldn’t happen.

I’d planned to set up my forge Monday, as soon as I packed off the unsold yard sale debris to charity or the dump. Maybe I should still do that, even though we might not be finished with the yard sale. I’d be a lot easier to live with after a few hours of pounding on things with my hammer.

I stood with my eyes half closed, appreciating the barn, while the owl fanciers, having reassured themselves that Sophie hadn’t fallen victim to a hulking feathered bully, began searching the barn floor beneath the nest. For pellets, I assumed.

I suspected Dad was prolonging our stay in the barn so I could examine the place for clues, but I wasn’t sure there were any to find. I saw all the stuff Gordon had accumulated, neatly arranged along one wall, much of it still dusted with fingerprint powder. We’d have to clean the powder off before we put the stuff back on sale. If they even let us sell it.

And if the police dusted the entire two-acre collection for prints, maybe I should just call Goodwill now.

“Sammy, they’re not dusting everything for fingerprints, are they?”

“No, mostly just the stuff in here,” he said.

“That’s good,” I said. “So why aren’t Horace and the rest still working on the stuff outside?”

“They will be tomorrow,” Sammy said. “Right now, they’re searching the suspect’s house.”

“For what?” I asked. “They have the murder weapon.”

“Yes, but they haven’t found the victim’s keys and wallet.”

Aha! So they were the mysterious missing items I’d overheard Horace mention.

“And they won’t find them at Giles’s house, I can tell you that,” I said.

Sammy shrugged.

“They have to search, anyway,” he said. “You’ve got to be thorough in a murder investigation.”

I decided to suppress my honest opinion of the investigation so far. Instead, I drifted to the corner where they were searching and looked up toward the owls’ nest.

Sophie sat on a rafter, gazing down at us. Her face, with its heart-shaped ruff of white feathers and long, flat beak, looked deceptively mild. I was relieved to see that she wasn’t bobbing her head. I’d seen her do it once, when I was up in the hay loft clearing things out some weeks before, and thought it rather cute how closely she resembled one of those bobble head dolls. Only later did Dad break the news to me that I’d probably gotten closer to her nest than she liked, and that the head bobbing was a sign that she was getting ready to attack.

She wasn’t bobbing tonight. She only stared down at me and blinked, in slow motion, as if asking me what I was doing here. Good question.

“Dad, can you keep an eye on things here while Michael and I go into town to see Giles?” I said, still watching Sophie.

“Don’t tell me the jail has visiting hours this late,” Dad said.

“Not until morning,” Sammy said.

“Actually, we hope the lawyer will get him bailed out soon, and we can take him home,” I said.

“Can’t the lawyer do that?” Dad asked.

“The lawyer could,” I said. “But Michael thinks Giles would appreciate seeing a few familiar faces, and I want to hear Giles’s side of the story.”

“Ah,” Dad said, nodding. “Get him off his guard and interrogate him. Good plan.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “We’re on his side, remember?”

“That’s right,” Dad said. “But I have to admit, in a way, it’s a pity. Giles would make such a perfect defendant.”

“That’s not fair,” I said. “Just because he’s a bit stiff and pompous—”

“I didn’t mean that at all,” Dad said. “Do you really think he’s pompous? I thought he was a friend of yours.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions about what you meant. It’s just that I’ve noticed that people who don’t know him get that impression.”

Including me, when I first met him.

“I just meant that he would be a very distinguished defendant,” Dad said. “Cultured, well-spoken, and … well, handsome doesn’t apply, I suppose, but he’s …”