Some Like It Hawk(3)

“I haven’t told him,” Rose Noire said. “And evidently Natalie is very good at keeping a secret.”

“But he’s a resident now, at least for the time being,” I said. “Eric, do you swear you won’t tell a single soul what I am about to reveal?”

“Yes,” he said. “I mean, I swear by … um…”

“Cross your heart and hope to die?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Okay. Then it’s time we told you Caerphilly’s sinister secret.”





Chapter 2




“Sinister secret?” Eric repeated. I could tell I’d captured his attention.

“There’s nothing sinister about it,” Rose Noire said.

“It’s a little sinister,” I said. “And besides, I like the alliteration. So Eric, you heard about what happened with all the town buildings?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Mayor Pruitt mortgaged them and stole the money.”

“We don’t know for sure about the stealing part,” Rose Noire said. “It hasn’t been proven in court.”

“I know you’re reluctant to think ill of any other sentient being, even a Pruitt,” I said. “But if you want to make a bet on what the verdict will be if they finally manage to try the mayor for embezzlement…”

“Ex-mayor,” she said. “And no. But I still think we should be careful to say ‘alleged.’”

“If it makes you happy,” I said. “I’m sure our alleged horse thief of an ex-mayor will appreciate the consideration. Getting back to the secret—Eric, did you hear about Phineas K. Throckmorton?”

“You mean the crazy guy who refused to get out when the lender repossessed the town buildings? The one who barricaded himself in the courthouse basement?”

“Eric…” Rose Noire began.

“The allegedly crazy guy who allegedly barricaded himself,” Eric said quickly.

“Not crazy, just eccentric,” I said. “Reclusive. And there’s nothing alleged about the barricading. He’s been down there since April of last year.”

“Wow,” Eric said. “Over a year in the courthouse basement?”

I could see him turning the idea over in his mind. I wondered if he’d guess Mr. Throckmorton’s secret—for that matter, the town’s secret.

“He must reek by now,” Eric said finally. “I stink if I go a day without a shower. And—does he even have a toilet?”

“There’s a bathroom in the basement,” Rose Noire said.

“You mean like an outhouse?”

“A real bathroom,” I said. “Shower. Sink. Toilet. Running water. Installed in the forties, so it’s old, but quite functional.”

“And how fortunate that the town water system’s idiosyncratic,” Rose Noire said. “So that shutting down his water supply would mean shutting off the fire hydrants all around the town square.”

“And that the phone and Internet cables come in through the basement,” I said. “So they can’t cut his communications off without cutting off their own—not to mention excavating the courthouse lawn.”

“Still—he must be going stir-crazy there all by himself,” Eric said. “And in a tiny, cramped basement?”

“It’s not tiny,” I said. “He’s got the whole courthouse basement, except for the twenty-by-thirty-foot antechamber where the stairways come out. He barricaded the door from the antechamber into the main part of the basement where the archives are. I suppose you might call the archive area cramped—it’s certainly a maze of paper-filled rooms and corridors. But it covers a whole city block.”

“Okay, but what does he eat?” Eric went on. “ He can’t possibly have stashed away enough food to last all this time. What happens when he runs out?”

“He won’t,” I said. “Any more than he’s going to go stir-crazy from being by himself. That’s the town secret. Or rather, this is.”

I hoisted Josh onto my shoulder and walked to the back of the tent. I stopped just before I stepped from the children’s pen into the smaller pen containing Spike, our small and temperamental furball of a dog. Spike scrambled up as I approached, scampered to the front of the pen, and stood looking up expectantly.

“Bite me and you sleep in the barn for a week,” I said. “Maybe a month. And no play time with the twins.”

With Spike formally on notice, I stepped into his pen. Spike, wisely, stood aside. Eric, carrying Jamie, followed, clearly more anxious than me about the state of his ankles.

I strode to the back of the pen. It was flush with the side of the tent, just at the part where it backed up to the bandstand. I leaned down and, with a dramatic flourish, flipped up a low flap.