No Nest for the Wicket(9)

“Sammy,” the chief said, gesturing toward the lawn. “Get the rest of these people into the house so we can question them.”

Sammy scurried off. Horace, who was plumper than Sammy, arrived at the top of the hill slightly winded.

“You’ve got the photographs of Jane?” the chief asked.

Horace nodded.

“Oh, splendid!” I said. “You’ve identified her!”

“Jane as in Doe,” the chief said.

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry.”

“How soon can you get copies printed out?” the chief asked Horace. “I want to show them to the witnesses and see if any of them know her. The sooner we get her identified, the better, but I don’t want to drag every single person out here past the body.”

“I could run down to your station and make some copies there,” Horace said, sounding slightly breathless and not at all enthusiastic about the prospect of running anywhere. “But that would take a good forty-five minutes.”

The chief growled again.

“If Meg has a color printer—” Horace added.

“It’s in the barn,” I said. “I’ll show you.”

“Just herd everybody into the living room and have them keep their mouths shut,” I heard the chief say to one of his deputies as I accompanied Horace to the barn. “Don’t want them contaminating one another’s stories any more than they already have.”

Fortunately, the barn’s roof had been in decent shape when we bought the property, needing only new shingles. We’d waited until the worst of the winter cold had passed before starting major work on the house, since we planned to camp in the barn till the house was habitable again. We’d put a futon in a large stall to serve as a bedroom and turned the former tack room into an office, since we could padlock the door and keep the computers safe.

“Nice setup,” Horace commented. “You should just make this your office permanently.”

“Yes, apart from the lack of heat or air conditioning, it’s perfect,” I said.

I hovered while Horace loaded the pictures into my computer and printed them. I offered to do the printing, but he refused, so I suspected the chief had told him not to let any of the photos out of his hands. A precaution probably aimed more at the press than at me, but I found myself wanting to circumvent it anyway. I found my chance when the toner ran out midway through printing.

“New cartridges in here,” I said, opening the supply cabinet’s door. “Which one’s out, color or—yow! Damn it!”





Chapter Five

Horace leaped to my rescue, which wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t in danger, just slightly hurt and seriously annoyed. Duck, Eric’s imaginatively named pet duck, was sitting in the box that held the toner cartridges, and when I’d reached in, she’d bitten me. Luckily, since ducks have no teeth, she hadn’t drawn blood, but her beak was hard and her bite remarkably forceful. I’d have a bruise.

“Stupid duck!” I exclaimed, shaking my hand. “Can you help me get her outside?”

Most of my family knew how to carry Duck safely, though not all of them had the nerve to do it. Luckily, Horace was a veteran duck wrangler and had no difficulty seizing her with one hand while holding her bill with the other. While he carried her out of the barn, I tossed her egg out the window, so she’d have no reason to linger if she did sneak back into our temporary office.

Then I hid one of the completed printouts of Jane Doe underneath the desk mat. Not that I had anything in particular I wanted to do with it, but you never knew.

Horace deleted the files from my hard drive after he’d printed his copies and shredded the several washed-out copies that had printed while the toner was running low.

“Okay,” he said, when he’d emptied the computer’s recycle folder. “Let’s take these to the chief.”

Back at the house, the deputies had herded the croquet players, the Shiffleys, and assorted members of my family into the living room. A few of them sat on folding lawn chairs dragged in from the yard, but most were milling about under the watchful eyes of the deputies, sipping cups of tea and coffee. Apparently Mother, as usual, was determined to turn the occasion into a social gathering.

Periodically, Sammy escorted someone into the living room, consulted a piece of paper, and led someone else out—to be interviewed by the chief, I deduced. Short interviews—apparently most of them knew nothing of interest to the chief.

The third time Sammy reappeared, he spotted Horace and his face lighted up. He abandoned his list and headed our way.

“Chief’s been asking every five minutes where you were with the photos,” he said, motioning to the archway.