Lord of the Wings (24 page)

“Remember we found that scarecrow on the steps of the town hall yesterday morning with stage blood dripping down a dozen or more steps,” Randall said. “Damn stuff stained the marble—going to take a lot of work to get it off.”

“And who knows,” I said. “Maybe the third list includes ‘steal something from the museum.' Which could have been what our murder victim was doing.”

“Or ‘set something on fire,'” Randall suggested.

“Not something they're going to be able to do today or tomorrow, stealing from the museum,” the chief said. “I've sent over a couple of deputies with our patrol wagon and orders to confiscate pretty much everything. We'll be locking up the lot in our evidence room.”

“Maybe we should publicize that,” Randall suggested.

“And turn the station into another target?” the chief said. “I'd rather not. We have to keep an eye on the Haunted House anyway. Not just to keep people out of our crime scene, but if we catch anyone committing any of these pranks, we've got a fifty-fifty chance of getting that third list we think is out there. And now I'm going to turn over Mr. Klapcroft's phone to your brother's forensic computer specialist, and maybe he can start tracking down this GameMaster person. And if either of you hear from Ms. Van Meter, let me know. And don't tip her off that we're looking for her.”

“Hey, one good thing,” Randall said. “I guess this means our cyber-savvy con artist wasn't the GameMaster.”

“Why is that good?” The chief was frowning. “If he was, maybe the confounded game would be over.”

“Never thought of that,” Randall said. “Well, I'm going to make my rounds.”

“I'll send out new orders to the Goblin Patrol as soon as I get back to my computer,” I said.

I was walking out the door when a thought struck me.

“Chief,” I said. “Rob has had his people combing social media—Facebook, Twitter and all that—for anyone who's talking about coming here to the festival. It's possible they might have seen the dead guy. The latest dead guy.”

“Good idea,” he said. “I'll see if they can ID him. Thanks.”

I headed down the corridor. When I reached the front desk, I found Jabba the Hutt arguing with a tall fortyish man in a suit that looked at least as nice as Festus's. The man glanced at me as I approached the desk and then flicked his eyes back to Jabba—dismissing me, apparently, as uninteresting. I had the feeling I'd seen him before somewhere. He was almost handsome, in a gaunt, high-cheekboned way, but the most interesting thing about him was his eyes, which were so pale a gray that they seemed almost colorless.

“How much longer are you going to keep me waiting?” the man said.

I'd be the first to admit that I'm nosy, so I paused as if waiting my turn to talk to Jabba while I tried to figure out where I'd seen the man before.

“The chief is in the middle of a murder investigation,” Jabba began. “I'm sure if you—”

“Do you know who I am?” the tall man demanded.

Jabba the Hutt had given up trying to reason with the tall man and was talking on the intercom.

“Chief,” he said. “There's a Mr. Brimstone here to see you.”

“Brim
field,
” the tall man snapped.

“Brim
field,
” Jabba repeated. “Something about the museum.”

“Send him back,” came the chief's voice, tinny over the intercom.

“First door on the right,” Jabba said.

I watched as Mr. Brimfield strode down the corridor and disappeared into the chief's office. If he was Dr. Smoot's main hope for museum funding, odds were it would be a long while before those store mannequins would be replaced by real wax figures.

I couldn't see Jabba's face, and his costume didn't let me pick up much body language, but somehow I sensed that he wasn't entirely thrilled with Mr. Brimfield.

“Don't you hate people who say that?” I asked. “‘Do you know who I am?'”

Jabba made a noise that probably would have sounded more like a raspberry if his costume hadn't muffled it.

“Wish I could see the chief take care of him,” he added.

“What does he want with the chief, anyway?” I asked.

“He seems to think poor Dr. Smoot has stolen something of his,” Jabba said.

“Dr. Smoot?” I exclaimed. “Seems unlikely. Stolen what?”

“Something in the museum,” Jabba said. “‘I do not care to have my family name connected with that travesty of a museum,'” he said, in what I deduced was an imitation of Mr. Brimfield's voice. “‘And I demand the return of my family's property.'”

“Well, a lot of us aren't that thrilled with the museum,” I said. “But however peculiar the results, I'm sure Dr. Smoot is trying his best to put together a proper museum, and I can't imagine him stealing anything for it.”

“Yeah,” Jabba said. “It'd be pretty stupid to steal something and then put it on display for the whole world to see. Well, the chief will take him down a peg. Wish I dared listen in through the intercom.”

I smiled at the thought.

“Especially since I know he's going to complain to the chief about my costume,” Jabba added. “Even though I explained that I'm a civilian volunteer helping out so the police can put as many boots on the ground as possible for the festival. And that got him started ragging on the festival. He had no idea it was happening till he hit the traffic coming into town, and to hear him talk, you'd think we'd organized it for the sole purpose of making his life more difficult. I think he'd still be going on about that if I hadn't finally said that no matter how silly he thought it was, the festival made the town a whole lot of money. That seemed to shut him up. Guess he's one of those jerks who only respects the power of the almighty dollar and thinks he can get his way anytime he wants if he throws enough money around.”

Just then the front door of the station opened and a uniformed state trooper entered.

“Sorry to vent at you,” Jabba said quickly. “But some people just have a knack for getting under your skin, don't they?”

“They do indeed,” I said. “You have a good afternoon.”

I left Jabba to see what the state trooper wanted and left the station. If I hadn't been so exhausted I'd have been tempted to hang around to see how Mr. Brimfield looked when he'd finished his meeting with the chief. And then a sad thought struck me. Mr. Brimfield was not only unlikely to be the big donor the museum needed, he also seemed perfectly capable of harassing Dr. Smoot on his sickbed.

As I approached my car I pulled out my phone and called Dad.

“What's up?” he asked.

“Is there someone watching Dr. Smoot constantly?” I asked.

“Of course,” Dad said. “Medically, he's still not out of the woods, so we have him in the ICU and heavily monitored. And I've asked the chief if there's any possibility that he can spare a deputy to guard him—after all, there's a murderer out there who could still be after Smoot.”

“That's good,” I said. “Tell the nurses to keep their eyes open for a guy named Brimfield, who thinks he owns something that's in the museum and came to town for the sole purpose of badgering Dr. Smoot about it.” I described Brimfield in as much detail as possible as I opened my car and collapsed into the driver's seat.

“We'll keep an eye out for him,” Dad said. “And if I catch him even trying to harass my patient … well, we'll see about that!”

I hung up. I felt a sudden wave of tiredness. I'd been fine when I was running on adrenaline, but now I was starting to crash, and getting a sleep-deprivation headache. I was glad that all I had to do was get home, send out my e-mail to the Goblin Patrol, and crash.

And then I had a brilliant idea. Why not stop by the library to send my e-mail from one of the computers there? I could get the word out faster. And while I was there, I could ask Ms. Ellie if she could fill in for Dr. Smoot at the Haunted House.

The library parking lot was crowded—had I missed an announcement of some special event? No, but even so, it wasn't business as usual here at the library. Most of the rooms were filled with costumed young people, occupying every seat at every table, every reading chair, and every computer.

I saw Ms. Ellie standing behind the circulation desk, surveying the crowd with a bemused expression.

“You're quite the popular favorite today,” I said. “And here I was dropping in to see if I could use one of the computers.”

“Come back to the office and use mine,” she said. “And I'll show you what I've found so far.”

She didn't say anything else until we'd passed through the door from the public area into the private. Then she stopped, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Good Lord, give me strength,” she said. “It all started yesterday afternoon. They figured out we had heat, bathrooms, comfy chairs, and free Wi-Fi. I've notified Randall and the library board that we're going to close early today and stay closed until Sunday afternoon.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. “It's not as if any of them seem interested in the books. And that would free you up for a project I wanted to recruit you for.”

“And that would be?”

“Filling in for Dr. Smoot at the Haunted House.”

Her face fell.

“How is he?” she asked. “The rumors make it sound pretty dire.”

“The rumors aren't all wrong, but Dad thinks he'll make it.”

“Good,” she said. “And if you need me, I'll be happy to fill in at the Haunted House—as long as someone can give me a ride there and back if it's after dark. I'm not fond of driving after dark these days. You know, by now I'm probably better equipped to give tours of the museum than Dr. Smoot. You should see what I've been finding.”

“Let me use your computer to send an e-mail to the Goblin Patrol, and then I'll be all ears.”

She waited impatiently as I composed and dispatched my e-mail. Then I stood up and gave her back her computer.

“Just let me call it up,” she said. “By the way, thank you for bringing all that material to me. It's all very interesting, and one photo in particular is proving quite intriguing.”

“You're welcome,” I said. “Do you think this has something to do with the problems Dr. Smoot has been having at his museum? Or the murders?”

“I have no idea,” she said. “Not sure how it possibly could. But you never know. And it is a fascinating historical puzzle.”

I was tempted to suggest that if it was a historical puzzle—and presumably one that was decades old—then perhaps its solution could wait a few more days, until the Halloween Festival was over. But she seemed so enthusiastic that I bit back the words. And after all, it wasn't as if I had anything else to do at the moment. I was eager to get home and nap, but I could spend a few minutes to hear her out. And better now than later on, when the town had flipped over into the Night Side. I knew once that happened, I'd begrudge every minute I wasn't out in the festival as a minute in which something could be going wrong. So I smiled and tried to look more interested than I was.

“Okay,” she said. “I blew up the photo so we could see it better. Gets a little fuzzy, but still pretty easy to make out the details.”

She displayed the enlargement on her monitor and I studied it more closely than I had before. Two young men in uniform, standing in what I deduced was a World War I trench. They were up to their ankles in water, and the mud spattered on their trousers suggested they'd been through even deeper puddles. The trench's walls were slightly higher than their heads, and it was only just wide enough for the two of them to pass. They had pushed back their basin helmets to show their faces, thrown their arms over each other's shoulder, and were beaming at the unseen photographer. They were both handsome young men and there was a family resemblance between the two, including unusually pale eyes, though the one on the left looked older and thinner—perhaps only a sign that he'd been in the trenches longer. And they were clearly delighted to be together, and I had the sinking feeling that Ms. Ellie was about to tell me that one or both had never come home from those trenches.

They looked curiously familiar, and after a moment I realized why—Mr. Brimfield, the chief's indignant visitor, had the same uncanny pale eyes, and very similar handsome if gaunt features.

“The one on the left is William Henry Harrison Brimfield,” Ms. Ellie said. “On the right is his younger brother, John Tyler Brimfield.”

“Did the Brimfields also produce a James K. Polk Brimfield and a Zachary Taylor Brimfield?” I asked. I was rather proud of myself for being able to call to mind the next two presidents in order.

“Zachary Taylor Brimfield, yes, but not Polk,” she said. “Good heavens, no. Harrison, Tyler, and Taylor—and presumably the Brimfields—were Whigs. Polk was a Democrat, so they skipped him altogether, and after Zachary Taylor Brimfield they produced Millard Fillmore Brimfield before quitting. Fillmore was another Whig.”

Should I tell Ms. Ellie about the present-day Brimfield? Maybe later, when I was less exhausted.

“This is all very fascinating,” I began.

“You'll notice that the brothers are wearing different uniforms,” she went on.

“Actually, I hadn't,” I admitted. I peered closer. “Military couture isn't exactly one of my specialties. Is there some significance to the differences?”

“America stayed out of World War One at first, you know. But a lot of young men wanted to get into the fight—especially those with close family connections in Great Britain. Apparently William Brimfield was one of those. He joined the Canadian Army.”

“They let people do that?”

“They did then,” she said. “Over thirty thousand Americans fought in the Canadian Armed Forces. You'll recall that we didn't enter the war until April 1917, and very few U.S. troops arrived in Europe before 1918. So for any American who wanted to enlist, the Canadians were the best option. John Tyler waited until America joined the war and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Zachary and Millard were too young to serve, thank goodness.”