When I got back to the tent with my food, I called the chief. He sounded harried.
“I’m only calling because if you found out later I knew this and didn’t tell you, you’d be mad,” I said. Once I’d relayed what I’d learned from Shannon—well, he didn’t sound any less harried, but he did sound a little more cheerful.
I did more blacksmithing at two. When I showed up at the tent at three, Randall looked jubilant.
“We’re making great progress,” he said. “We’re going to take a break during all this quiet stuff, and then pick up again during the high school band concert. We might even finish while the history pageant is on.”
I glanced at the program to remind myself what the “quiet stuff” was.
“Oh, right—the politicians.” Randall had extended an open invitation to all our state and national representatives to speak during today’s festivities, and to my surprise, most of them had accepted. So the next two hours would be devoted to what Randall called “the speechifying.”
“Probably the only time on record I’ve complained about politicians being too quiet,” he said. “Plenty of hot air, but not nearly enough noise. And after that there’s the ballet.”
“Don’t discount the ballet,” I said. “They’re doing Appalachian Spring, An American in Paris, and Stars and Stripes. None of them are that quiet, and the last one’s to music by Sousa.”
“Really?” he said. “Then I’ll tell the crew to be back for that.”
When the politicians went onstage, Michael decided to flee.
“I’m taking the boys and the llamas home,” he said. “I’ll bring them back in plenty of time for the fireworks, but they won’t enjoy it unless they get a nap.”
“I doubt if the llamas would enjoy the fireworks under any circumstance,” I said. “You don’t think it will be too scary for the boys?”
“They’ve been hearing small fireworks go off all day and loving it,” Michael said. “Eric and Rob have already trained them to shout ‘boom!’ whenever a firework goes off. Or, for that matter, whenever they would like a firework to go off, which is pretty much all the time. Could take a while to settle them down.”
I kissed the boys and waved bye-bye to them, hoping that either they’d forget about “boom!” during their nap or that it would grow old while they were still in Eric’s charge.
I was relishing the ensuing peace and quiet—okay, I was napping myself in the folding recliner—when my cell phone rang. It was the chief.
“You still willing to babysit that PI on his trip to the courthouse?”
Chapter 37
“I thought I dodged that bullet,” I muttered. But I made sure Rose Noire knew I was going.
“It could be worse,” she said. “You could be going back through that horrible tunnel!”
When I got to the mayor’s tent, the chief looked harried and maybe a little cranky. Apparently my experience of the day as a relatively quiet and peaceful one was not shared by the Caerphilly police. And he was laying down the law to Denton.
“And if you find anything, I want to hear about it immediately,” he said. “Not a few days from now when you’ve had a chance to play with it yourself.”
“Absolutely,” Denton said. “Here she is now.”
“You’re in charge,” the chief said, turning to me.
“Yes, sir.”
He stormed out.
“What’s gone wrong?” I asked Denton.
“What hasn’t?” He was gathering things and stuffing them into Horace’s bag. “Let’s see—skinny dippers in the college fountain. Seventeen lost kids—only three of them still unclaimed. Semi full of eggs overturned on Stone Street. Third vanload of drunk and disorderly just left for the Clay County jail. Five ambulance runs—three heat prostration, one suspected heart attack, and a woman from Winchester whose baby your father delivered in the ER a few minutes after they got to the hospital. Oh, and your grandfather’s missing a snake. Keep your eyes open—something called an emerald tree boa.”
“That should be easy to spot,” I said. “It really is emerald green, and dry as it’s been all summer, there’s not a lot of green grass for it to hide in. If you’re ready, put your head on.”
Denton pulled on the gorilla head, grabbed Horace’s forensic bag, and led the way out of the tent.
I glanced over at the Flying Monkeys’ tent. Only Lieutenant Wilt and one other guard were there. I wondered, briefly, where the others were.