Some Like It Hawk(57)

“I’ll see what I can find out about their management in the public records,” Ms. Ellie said. “It would be interesting to know if there’s any history of suspicious deaths at other properties where they’ve been working.”

“It’s all kind of futile, isn’t it?” Horace said.

We all turned to look at him. Normally the prospect of a day spent microscopically examining a crime scene would have cheered Horace up, but he looked tired and discouraged.

“Futile in what way?” I asked.

“What can we really do?” he asked. “It’s pretty obvious the killer’s either a Flying Monkey or someone else who works for the Evil Lender—and we don’t have any inside knowledge about them. In fact, just the opposite—we’ve been trying to avoid all contact with them, and they with us. It’s like … like … like expecting the Montagues to know what the Capulets are up to.”

“Hey, it’s not that bad,” Rob said. “Montagues and Capulets really isn’t a good metaphor. It’s more like…”

“Like the American colonists against the occupying Redcoats,” I suggested.

“Precisely,” Ms. Ellie said. “We outnumber them. And we may have been trying to avoid them, but let’s not pretend we haven’t been keeping an eye on everything they’ve done since the minute they arrived here.”

“And they’re not from around here,” Randall put in. “That puts them at a disadvantage. We know the lay of the land—they don’t.”

“We know the character of the locals—they don’t,” Ms. Ellie added.

“And most of them are doing this because it’s their job,” I added. “We’re doing this to protect our homes.”

Horace looked surprised.

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. “It doesn’t sound as discouraging when you put it like that.”

“Way cool,” Rob said. “I’m getting chills. Makes me want to go and throw a truckload of tea into Caerphilly Creek.”

We all chuckled, and wished each other good night. But my own good humor evaporated as I made my way up the dimly lit staircase. In spite of my brave words, I was feeling discouraged. Almost defeated. The tunnel crawling, on top of my blacksmithing, had made every bone in my body ache, and I kept seeing visions of Mr. Throckmorton and the chief led away in handcuffs, the Evil Lender triumphing in court, and the county board sadly telling me and Michael, “We’re sorry. We don’t want to seize your land. But we’re dead broke and we owe the lender so much money and there’s nothing else we can do.”

As I trudged upstairs, I could see the light spilling down from the third floor, where Festus’s staff was apparently still hard at it. Since our enormous old Victorian house was much larger than we needed, Michael and I had been happy to offer Festus the third floor for his support staff. Most of the time I found it comforting to know they were all up there working so hard for our benefit. But lately we hardly saw them. Most of them had taken to sleeping up there on cots and sleeping bags, and subsisted entirely on pizza, Chinese carryout, and care packages from the church food tents. Was it only the long hours that made them look so anxious? Or did they know something about the case that we didn’t?

I was still in my gloomy mood when I peeked in again on the boys, both still sleeping peacefully. Jamie was clutching a stuffed boa constrictor longer than he was—a cherished Christmas present from my grandfather.

The sight filled me with a fierce determination to do anything necessary to make sure that the boys would be spending their next Christmas right here. Next Christmas and every Christmas after it, until Michael and I were little gray-haired senior citizens wrapping up stuffed boa constrictors for our own great-grandchildren.

Michael hardly stirred when I slipped into bed, or even when I slipped out again to remove the sippy cup that had gotten shoved down near the foot of the bed and brush the scattered Cheerios off the sheets.





Chapter 22




As usual, the boys woke us up long before I’d have gotten out of bed on my own. Michael put them in their high chairs with small helpings of whole-grain Cheerios. I gathered a selection of fruits and vegetables from the refrigerator and set them by the cutting board where Michael would be readying them for the boys, in accordance with our longstanding policy on keeping me away from sharp implements before 9 A.M.

As I was rinsing out the coffeemaker and making a resolution, for the hundredth time, to do a better job of cleaning up the kitchen at bedtime, the doorbell rang.