Owls Well That Ends Well (26 page)

“Rob!” I called. “Get Sammy to give you the bullhorn and walk around announcing that we’re opening at noon.”

“Roger,” he said, looking quite cheerful, as he usually did when he drew a job that required no strenuous exertion.

“And tell everyone who has a table to get in here ASAP, and everyone else to stay the hell away from the gate until noon,” I added.

“Though not necessarily in those precise words,” Michael suggested. “Any jobs for me?”

“Could you secure the barn?” I asked. “We don’t want hundreds of people tramping through and trying to take pictures of the murder scene.”

“Can do,” he said.

With most of the friends and family on site helping and the rest quickly learning to make themselves scarce, we staffed the tables and set up the checkout by noon. I gave Sammy a nod and he and Cousin Horace opened the gates.

My last thought, as the shopping hordes descended, was that perhaps by the time I could think again, the chief would have solved the murder, and poor Giles would be free.

I thought, with a twinge of guilt, he might have an easier time of it if I’d had the chance to tell him about Schmidt and Endicott.

The next two hours lasted at least ten years. Each. But eventually Michael and Dad convinced everyone that nothing they could say or do would gain them admission to the barn. After that, the mere sightseers left in a huff; the media retreated to various corners of the yard, trying to look inconspicuous, in the hope that we’d forget they were there and leave the barn unguarded; and the rest of the crowd settled in to do what they were there for: to shop till they dropped. Only a few of them did it literally, due to overexertion in the sun, and Dad was there to revive them. But many more were staggering under the sheer weight of their purchases, and my teenaged nephews and their friends found a lucrative new business opportunity: carrying boxes to people’s cars and trucks.

I could see all sorts of small family dramas shaping up. Did Aunt Cleo’s sons know she was selling their paintball guns? And did Mother know that Dad was buying them for Eric and his brothers?

Why was Aunt Verbena, who lived in a high-rise condominium with her seven cats, buying several birdhouses and bird feeders? Was this some scheme to cut her cat food bill and, if so, should I report her to the Audubon Society?

And why was Michael spending so much time in Cousin Ginnie’s booth? I knew he’d volunteered to talk to Morris, and I could see that he might need to talk to Ginnie as well in the process of patching things up between them, but why would talking to Ginnie involve so much inspection of her merchandise? That looked like shopping. Had I failed to make my feelings about secondhand lingerie clear?

I tried to push these worries out of my mind and think positive thoughts. Stuff was leaving. Someone actually bought Edwina’s entire wire coat hanger crop, the results of nearly a century of uncontrolled breeding. And the same person walked off with the wallpaper collection—full and partial rolls of every wallpaper ever used in the house, any one of which would be a strong contender in a “world’s ugliest wallpaper” contest. If only unloading the unused wallpaper would be my last sight of them—I had a feeling some of those ghastly patterns would haunt my dreams for weeks once we began stripping down the walls. But—positive thoughts. The rolls were leaving.

And the clock hands were moving, however slowly. Though the end of the yard sale didn’t mean I could rest. There was still the murder. I heard people talking about it, but none of them mentioned any exciting new information on the case. So, since Chief Burke wasn’t using the information I’d given him, I was impatient to use it myself.

“You should take a break,” Michael said to me, not for the first time.

“I will in a few minutes,” I said.

“I’m serious,” he said. “You look beat.”

“I am, and I’m going to rest. Just not yet. Not until I check three more people out.”

Michael glanced down the line.

“Is the third guy someone particular?” he asked, in an undertone.

“Gordon-you-thief’s ex-partner,” I murmured back. “I want to talk to him.”

“Gotcha,” he said. “I’ll shuffle about getting ready to take your place until you’re finished with him.”

The next two people took forever, but then Ralph Endicott stepped in front of me.

Checking him out took quite some time, too. Which surprised me. I didn’t remember that he’d been carrying around all that much stuff before the murder, but now he had two full boxes.

Had Gordon’s death freed him from the worries and problems that had kept him from opening his new shop? And if so, was that a sufficient motive for murder?

Still, checking him out gave me time to study him before I tried to talk to him.

“Let me help you carry that to your car,” I said, when he’d paid for his purchases and Michael had taken my seat.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “If you’re leaving anyway.”

“Taking a much-needed break,” I said.

We walked along for a few minutes without speaking, though not exactly in silence, since the entire choir of the New Life Baptist Church, more than a hundred voices strong, was belting out “There Is a Balm in Gilead” from on and around the front porch stage.

We passed my cousins Basil and Cyril, who were blocking one lane of the road as they tried to load a small truck’s worth of stuff into the trunk and nearly nonexistent back seat of a Miata. At least one twin was loading stuff, while the other tried to prevent Cousin Deirdre from splashing their twin moose heads with paint.

We walked nearly a quarter of a mile toward Endicott’s car before I felt our surroundings were quiet enough for him to hear me and private enough for me to say what I wanted to say.

Of course, there was still plenty of time. No wonder he’d accepted my offer of help—he’d parked more than half a mile from our house. I spent a few moments trying to devise a subtle, diplomatic way to open up the subject, but I finally decided that I was too tired and hungry to be subtle, not to mention cranky because he had stuck me with the heavier of the two boxes, so I just dived right in.

“Look,” I said. “I know what you did in the barn.”

His head whipped around to look at me, and he dropped the box he was carrying. It landed with a rich and varied medley of crashing and tinkling noises that went on for several seconds after impact.

Endicott didn’t even notice.

Chapter 33

“I beg your pardon,” Endicott said, in a shaky voice.

“I said I know what you did in the barn. Not everything, of course,” I added. “But enough to know that you lied to the cops.”

I felt a twinge of guilt as I said this, since my conscience reminded me that I hadn’t exactly told the cops everything either. But, at least, I was only committing sins of omission. Not even omission, really—delay. I hadn’t told the chief any bald-faced whoppers under direct questioning.

Endicott finally appeared to notice the fallen box, and squatted down beside it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his eyes fixed on the box flaps and his hands poised over them, as if he were trying to get up enough nerve to open the box and view the damage within.

“Come on,” I said. “I know what you told the chief—you were snooping in the stuff Gordon had dragged into the barn—his stash, I think you called it. And he caught you, and had a good laugh at your expense, and you left. Only we both know that’s not exactly how it went.”

“I didn’t kill him,” he said. “If you saw what I did, you’d know that.”

“Then what the hell were you doing?”

“I was just hiding the body,” he said. He abandoned the idea of examining the breakage, picked up the box, and began walking, briskly. But not so briskly that I couldn’t keep up, despite the weight of my box.

“Hiding the body?” I repeated.

“He was already dead when I found him,” he said, over his shoulder. “I walked in and found him lying there, dead, in the middle of the barn floor, and I knew if anyone else walked in and saw us there, they’d think I killed him. Everyone knew how much I hated him. So I thought if I could only hide the body—to make sure it wasn’t found right after I left the barn …”

“So you hid it,” I said. “Where?”

“Farther back in the barn,” he said. “Right beside the ladder to the loft.”

I nodded. That tallied with what Professor Schmidt had said.

“And then you just strolled out and pretended nothing had happened. And lied to the police.”

“I was in shock!” he said, with a shudder. “I get queasy at estate sales, just thinking about the possibility that someone might have died in the house—I’d never even seen a dead body before, much less touched one.”

“And why should I believe you?” I said. “You lied about talking to him, and let an innocent man get arrested.”

“Well, I’m innocent, too, and if I told the truth, I’d have been arrested,” he said. “I figured with all those forensic things they can do nowadays, they’d find the real killer soon enough.”

“Oh, and a town like Caerphilly has a big budget for forensics, right?” I said. “And with all the murders they have here, they probably have some really experienced, top-notch evidence technicians, too.”

As I said it, I apologized mentally to Cousin Horace, who was a pretty decent evidence technician. But Endicott didn’t know that. And it was true about the budget. I’d been to Caerphilly County Board meetings, so I knew how miniscule the chief’s budget was, and thanks to Dad’s passion for anything connected with crime, I had a fair idea how far into the hole the forensic part of the weekend’s investigation had probably put the county, to say nothing of the overtime costs. Maybe that was why the chief was so eager to arrest Giles.

Just as Endicott was visibly eager to get away from me. He kept walking faster, no doubt hoping to lose me, and by now we were traveling at a brisk jog, our boxes clinking rhythmically as we ran.

“I’m sorry,” Endicott gasped out, finally. “It’s not as if I had a lot of time to think it through.”

“And you had a good reason to want him dead,” I said. “He was costing you money—and threatening to cost you more, wasn’t he?”

“Not enough to kill him,” Endicott said, in a shocked tone. “Only a few thousand dollars. I could well afford that. How do you think I’ve managed without a shop for nearly two years? I deal in antiques—well, not as a hobby; I try to keep things very businesslike. But I don’t need to make a living at it. I don’t need the money; I inherited enough money to live quite comfortably.”

“And enough money to hire a top-notch defense attorney if you need one,” I said. I was starting to worry about all the running we were doing. I was getting seriously winded, and I had about twenty years’ advantage on Endicott.

“If it comes to hiring a lawyer, yes,” he said. “Though I hope it doesn’t. Think of the scandal.”

“What about his keys?” I asked. “And his wallet?”

“I beg your pardon?” he said, glancing back.

“His keys and wallet were missing,” I said. “Did you take them?”

“Good heavens, no,” he said. “What do you take me for, a petty thief?”

He sounded more offended than when he thought I was accusing him of murder.

“Besides, only an idiot would steal Gordon’s wallet,” he said. “‘Who steals my purse steals trash,’ and all that.”

“He didn’t carry a lot of money?”

“If they outlawed plastic Gordon would starve,” Endicott said.

“The keys are a different matter,” I said. “He had some valuable stuff in the shop. I know; I’ve been there.”

“Well, yes,” Endicott said. “I suppose if you’re after the stuff in the shop, his keys would be worth stealing. But not to me. I still had my own key to the shop, though I doubt if Gordon remembered that.”

“Wouldn’t he have changed the locks when you sold him your part of the shop?” I said.

“Any normal person would have. Not Gordon,” Endicott said. His words were starting to come out in short, staccato bursts. “Too cheap and too lazy. I hung onto the key just after the sale. In case he ever tried anything really devious. Like trying to fake my signature on something. And I never got rid of it—the key.”

We were both slowing down now. Endicott stopped suddenly, put the box down, and squatted by it, panting. I dumped my box on the ground beside his. What had he bought, anyway? I didn’t recall selling him anything this heavy. Had he shoplifted Rob’s discarded barbell set while I wasn’t looking?

He was still avoiding my eyes. I studied his face, what I could see of it, and tried to decide if he was telling the truth. I had thought he was only resting, but after panting for a few minutes, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and stood up, bracing himself against the side of a parked SUV.

“Lend it to me,” I said, holding out my hand.

He glanced up, startled, and clutched his key ring to his stomach.

“Just the shop key,” I said. “I’ll bring it back in a few days.”

“But—I haven’t got it right now,” he said.

Light dawned.

“No, you gave it to Arnold Schmidt, didn’t you. To keep him from telling Chief Burke that he saw you coming out of the barn just before he found Gordon dead,” I said.

“How did you know that?” Endicott asked, looking genuinely puzzled, and perhaps slightly fearful.

“So if you didn’t kill Gordon and take his keys and wallet, who did? If you can tell me something useful, maybe I won’t have to tell Chief Burke all about this.”

He looked as if he was thinking, hard. But his face didn’t have the look of someone desperately trying to invent something that would save him. More the look of someone who was trying to convince himself he had to do something he didn’t really want to do.

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” he began.

“You already have,” I said. “Tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know anything for sure,” he said. “It’s only a vague suspicion.”

“I’ll take a vague suspicion if that’s all you’ve got,” I said.

“Well … when I came in, I saw Carol leaving.”

“Gordon’s wife?”

“They were separated,” Endicott said. “And if Carol had had her way, they’d have been divorced a year or two ago.”