Lord of the Wings (26 page)

A problem I needed to solve, but not one I had the brainpower to tackle today. By the time I'd finished getting all the andirons and candlesticks out of the way, Josh was explaining his robot costume requirements to Dad and two of the Mutant Wizards, while Michael's mother and the rest of the team were brainstorming ideas with Jamie. Mostly ideas under discussion seemed to involve electronics, so I deduced that Rob had dispatched a hardware team.

“And we also need costumes for the dogs,” Josh said, as he followed the costume crew into the barn.

“Excellent,” Michael's mother murmured as she stood beside me in the barn door, watching the costume crew settling in. “With luck, we can keep them distracted until bedtime.”

“Thank goodness you're here to provide adult supervision,” I replied. And then, for the boys' benefit, I went on, more loudly. “Grammy, you're in charge. Call me if the boys need anything for their costumes.”

As I headed for my car, I realized that the boys were gradually solving the problem of how to address Michael's mother. Michael and I had been married long enough that “Mrs. Waterston” seemed too formal, but I wasn't comfortable using “Dahlia,” her given name, or calling her “Mom,” as Michael did. I'd even toyed with “Mother Waterston” and dismissed it as too much of a mouthful, so mostly I just referred to her as “Michael's mother” and avoided any form of direct address. But “Grammy” was starting to feel comfortable—even in the boys' absence I could use it in a sort of half-ironic tribute to her status as a proud grandmother. Maybe I'd work my way up to “Mom” after all, but in the meantime, “Grammy” worked just fine.

On my way into town, I could see that the expected Friday night crowds were definitely gathering. The farmer who'd set up his pasture as a no-frills campsite had a
NO VACANCY
sign up, and his neighbor across the way had opened up his pasture for the overflow. Starting a mile outside town, cars were parked up and down the road in every place where the shoulder was even close to wide enough, and you had to watch out for costumed revelers walking two and three abreast in the road, oblivious to the fact that cars and trucks might also want to use it. I was relieved when I got to the outskirts of town where the sidewalks began.

I picked my way through the residential streets until I reached the police station. On my way I tried to think of a good reason to drop by. I didn't think “I'm dying to find out what's been happening while I napped” would go over very well—especially if the chief was still running on very little sleep. Looking for Randall. That was the ticket. Looking for Randall, and someone said he was heading over to the station.

But when I walked into the police station, Jabba the Hutt merely nodded and waved me back toward the chief's office.

He and Randall were deep in conversation when I stuck my head in.

“There you are,” Randall said. “Hope you got some sleep. We're expecting a bumpy night.”

“We were always expecting a bumpy Friday night,” I said. “Is there any reason to think it's going to be even worse than we expected?”

“The scavenger hunt, of course,” Randall said.

“Devil's Night,” the chief said. “That's what some people call the night before Halloween. Also Mischief Night. A time for pranks and minor vandalism and, in some benighted communities, waves of arson.”

“That's never been part of our local tradition,” Randall said, shaking his head.

“But who knows how many of the tourists come from places where it is?” the chief said. “Incidentally, Meg, there have been some developments while you were resting.”

“Yes, Michael told me that you'd caught another scavenger hunt participant,” I said.

“Alleged participant,” the chief said. “We arrested him for trespassing at the zoo—he climbed over the fence and was attempting to gain entry to the Creatures of the Night exhibit. Several members of Blake's Brigade accosted him and managed to detain him until we could arrive to take custody.”

“But the zoo's still open,” I said. “I thought the task was to sneak in after hours.”

“Our theory is that he was planning to hide there until the zoo closed,” the chief said. “We confiscated another list from him.”

The chief handed me a piece of paper. I glanced down to see that it was a printout of an e-mail from GameMaster, addressed to Tyler Rasmussen, giving him his Friday task list:

1. Find a scarecrow and put it someplace more amusing

2. Steal something from the museum

3. Do something with bones

4. Start a small fire

5. Take a selfie with a black cat

“He's definitely playing the game,” I said. “That's probably the full text of the partial list we found at the first murder site. And numbers two and four could account for what happened at the museum.”

“Yes,” the chief said. “I've alerted Chief Featherstone to the possibility of arson—he'd already noticed an uptick, but had attributed it to Halloween mischief.”

“Fulfilling item number two will be a lot harder now,” Randall said. “The chief has confiscated nearly all of the contents of the museum and stored them in the police evidence room for safekeeping.”

“Nearly all?” I said. “Then there still are some things people could steal?”

“And a few things that may already have been stolen.” The chief picked up a piece of paper from his desk and looked over his glasses at it. “We're missing three framed photos—reproductions, not originals, according to the
Clarion
—the fake ruby ring you pointed out, and a pen once used by Virginia Governor Elbert Lee Trinkle to sign some piece of legislation back in 1925. We only confiscated the two department store dummies that were wearing authentic historical costumes, we didn't bother taking the furniture, and there's a brass spittoon that no one wanted to touch because it looked as if it hadn't ever been washed.”

“Ick,” I said. “I don't blame them.”

“Getting back to Mr. Rasmussen—for all we know, he could be the person who broke into the museum this morning.”

“Which would make him the killer?” I asked.

“Or a potential witness,” the chief said. “Either way, he's refused to talk without an attorney.”

“Festus not around?”

“We offered him Festus, but he seems to prefer waiting until his father can arrange representation,” the chief said. “If his father can find an attorney willing to make the trip to Caerphilly on a Friday afternoon—soon to be Friday evening—more power to him. Here—” He handed me a sheet of paper. “Does he look familiar?”

I looked down to see a printout of what I deduced was an arrest form. Tyler Rasmussen was a nondescript young man of twenty or so, with disheveled medium-brown hair, beady red-rimmed eyes, and a black t-shirt.

“Not particularly,” I said.

Just then the intercom crackled.

“Chief? Mr. Rasmussen again. Do you want to take it?”

The chief clenched his jaw.

“I suppose I'd better.”

“Line one.”

“Our prisoner's father,” the chief said to me. He took a deep breath, picked up the receiver of his phone, and punched a button.

“Yes, Mr. Rasmussen?”

In the silence that followed—silence for Randall and me, but probably rather noisy for the chief—I stood up and pointed to the door, to suggest that I'd be happy to leave if needed. The chief shook his head and pointed back to the chair I'd just vacated, so I sat down again.

“I understand, Mr. Rasmussen,” the chief said into the phone. “However, while at the moment we're only charging your son with trespassing and destruction of property, we have evidence to indicate that he is either a suspect in or in possession of material information related to this morning's arson as well as two homicides, so with all due respect, yes, we can continue to hold him … I look forward to meeting your attorney. Do you have any idea when he or she will be arriving?”

I suspected from the way the chief pulled the phone away from his head and frowned at it in disapproval that Mr. Rasmussen had resorted to a loud tone and unseemly language to express his feelings about having his son locked up in jail.

“Mr. Rasmussen?” the chief said into the phone. Then he put the receiver back on the cradle, ever so gently, as if slamming it down were a dangerous temptation.

“The senior Mr. Rasmussen is displeased with his son's incarceration,” he said. “He seems to think he can resolve the situation by flying here himself.”

“Is he an attorney, then?” I asked.

“I think he would have mentioned it if he was,” the chief said, with a grimace. “They usually do. But he clearly considers himself important—he's already asked me if I know who he is, and didn't seem pleased with my answer. But in the meantime, we have a young man in the jail who could help us if he so chose. Frustrating.”

“That reminds me,” I asked. “Speaking of people who seem to think their legends precede them, what did Mr. Brimfield want?”

“He wanted me to arrest Dr. Smoot,” the chief said. “He claims that some of the photos Dr. Smoot has in the museum belong to him.”

“I thought Dr. Smoot got them all from the
Caerphilly Clarion,
” I said. “At least that's what it says on the labels he has beside the photos—or had, before the fire hoses knocked them off.”

“Mr. Brimfield claims his family owns the copyright,” the chief said. “Which, if true, could mean that regardless of who owns the physical print that was in the museum, Dr. Smoot couldn't display it without their permission. But that's a matter for the courts to decide if he chooses to take it that far. And in the meantime, the photo is evidence in my murder case, and no, I'm not giving it to him. Not to Dr. Smoot, either.”

“You should have seen his face when the chief asked him where he was last night,” Randall said, with a chuckle. “Don't think he gets asked for an alibi very often.”

“And did he have an alibi?” I asked.

“Up in D.C.,” the chief said. “Dining with his congressman and enjoying the luxuries of the historic Willard Hotel. I'm having it checked out, but I'm not listing him as a major suspect just yet.”

“More likely a major nuisance,” Randall said. “When he found out Smoot was in the hospital, he wanted to dash over there to confront him. To hear Brimfield talk, you'd think Smoot had put himself into a coma out of spite.”

“I suggested that he go back to D.C.,” the chief said. “And offered to advise him when Dr. Smoot was conscious again. He would prefer to stay here, and seemed to think he'd have no trouble checking into the Caerphilly Inn.”

“Good luck with that,” Randall said. “They've been booked solid since the week after we announced the festival. That's why Festus was staying with Meg's parents. If Festus couldn't get in—well, I've never known the Inn to be impressed by people who ask ‘do you know who I am?'”

“Chief?” It was the intercom again. The chief rolled his eyes and punched the button.

“If it's Mr. Rasmussen again—” he began.

“No, it's Rob Langslow. Says he has important evidence for you. Shall I send him back?”

“Please do.”

A few moments later, Rob popped into the chief's office, waving a sheaf of papers.

“I have your victim!” he said. He took the top piece of paper and placed it in front of the chief. I leaned over to see.

“Wayne Smith,” the chief read. “Yes, that's him.”

“He's a student at Christopher Newport University,” Rob said. Then his face fell slightly. “Was, that is. The guys found out his parents' name and address. We figured you probably want to do a notification.”

He slid another piece of paper across the desk to the chief.

“Yes,” the chief said. “Thank you.”

“And we've discovered something he had in common with Justin Klapcroft,” Rob said, regaining some of his cheerfulness.

“Something in common?” The chief looked thunderous. “Mr. Klapcroft claimed not to know Mr. Smith.”

“He probably didn't,” Rob said. “They didn't have any friends in common on Facebook or anything. But both of them liked the Facebook page Lydia put up about the festival. And both of them posted on their own pages about planning to come to the festival. Both of them play a lot of computer games—including
Vampire Colonies
. And—this is important—both of them have their real e-mail addresses up on Facebook for the whole world to see.”

“So this supports your staff's theory,” I said. “That GameMaster, whoever he is, could have been watching Facebook for people who like computer games and are coming to the festival. And recruited them for his game.”

“You got it!” Rob said. “Awesome, isn't it?”

I wasn't sure if he meant GameMaster's method of finding game players or the Mutant Wizards' skill in unraveling it. The chief merely frowned.

“Can you have your staff check to see if this young man meets the same criteria?” He held out a sheet of paper. Rob typed something into his phone, peering back and forth between the paper and the screen. Then he took a picture of something on the paper—probably the mug shot of Mr. Rasmussen the younger—and typed a little more.

“They're on it,” he said, after a few moments.

“Aida is supervising Mr. Klapcroft as he completes the last of his day's tasks,” the chief said, turning to me. “I've asked her to bring him in to see if he recognizes Mr. Rasmussen, after which we'll be returning him to protective custody. Meanwhile, I should fill you in on what we've learned about Ms. Van Meter.”

Rob's phone dinged.

“They found him,” Rob said. “The Rasmussen kid. He also meets all the criteria. Liked the festival page, bragged that he was going to come up for the whole weekend, has his e-mail viewable, and doesn't have any friends in common with either of the other two.”