No Nest for the Wicket(45)

“I have no idea,” I said. “But I intend to keep my eye on him. He’s up to something.”

“Speaking of up to something, here come the sheep again,” Michael said, pointing.

Someone had profited from Dad’s lessons. Two sheep—possibly the two Dad had been using as teaching tools—were scurrying back into the yard, with Duck in hot pursuit, snapping at their heels with her beak and quacking loudly as she came. She chased them to the far side of the yard and down the hill toward the cow pasture, then halted almost precisely at our property line before marching back in the direction she’d come—toward Mr. Early’s pasture.

“Shouldn’t she chase them the other way?” I asked. “Wonder if this has anything to do with Mr. Early’s missing sheep?”

“Do you suppose she’s nesting up in his pasture now?” Michael asked.

“We can take a look tomorrow,” I said. “I have another project in mind for tonight.”

“A project. Dare I hope it’s one that involves champagne, caviar, and perhaps a hot tub?”

“The boxes,” I said. “Let’s go look at them.”

Michael followed me out to the shed. Spike leaped up, growling fiercely, when I reached to open the gate of his temporary pen. When he recognized us, he retreated to his corner to sulk at being deprived of a chance to bite someone. Not that he wouldn’t have bitten us as willingly as an intruder, but he knew we were already wise to most of his tricks.

“It’s getting dark,” I said. “We should take him inside with us before the owls come out.”

Once he finished the treat we used to lure him in, Spike curled up in one corner of the shed with his back to us and we turned to the boxes.

“Still there, all twenty-three of them,” Michael said.

“How can you count that fast?” I asked.

“I don’t have to count,” he said. “I can see that there are still four stacks of five boxes each, plus the three extras.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. “Higher math. I’m impressed. Yes, still there, all twenty-three of them. We’d better get started going through them.”

“Whatever for?”

“For more information on this.”

I reached into my purse and pulled out the sheaf of photocopies and microfiche copies I’d made at the library.

“Wonderful,” he said as he began leafing through them. “We can use this to help stop the outlet mall.”

“Exactly. But it would be better if we had the original source material, which isn’t in the library.”

“You’re thinking it might be here?”

“Could be,” I said. “Or maybe we’ll find something related. So we’re going to look through these boxes and see what’s here.”

“You didn’t look through them when you packed them?”

“Not really,” I said. “Whenever I found any old papers or photos, I put them in a copier box for the Sprockets. I didn’t inventory them or anything. It was last summer, when I had no idea we’d need to document how critical the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge was to the outcome of the Civil War.”

“Right,” he said. “You also think these might have something to do with Lindsay’s murder.”

“It’s possible.”

“And that’s why we have to do it tonight.”

“Before Chief Burke figures out the same thing and appropriates them,” I said. “Why, was there something else you’d rather do?”

Just then, we heard fiddle music start up, accompanied, after a few seconds, by the jingling of bells. We both cocked our heads to listen.

“Are the bells getting louder, or am I just getting really tired of hearing them?” Michael said after a few moments.

I peeked out the shed door.

“Not louder,” I said. “More numerous.”

Outside, the Morris Mallet Men had recovered sufficiently from their poison ivy to give lessons. Apparently, they’d brought plenty of extra bells—enough to equip most of my visiting relatives and the Shiffleys, too.

“Maybe if we fake a power outage,” Michael suggested. He was rubbing his temples as if his head hurt. “I could creep into the basement and flip all the circuits. Shut down their CD or tape player or whatever.”

“No, let them have their fun,” I said. “Besides, I don’t think cutting the power would do any good.”

“The music’s battery-powered?”

“Shiffley-powered. Remember, they were playing all afternoon.”

“That’s right,” Michael said. “Just when I was getting to like them.”