The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(72)

Clearly Caroline wasn’t a big Sherry fan, either. Well, their next conversation could be the deciding moment. If Sherry didn’t lose it upon discovering that two members of the brigade were impersonating officers from the starship Enterprise, she could probably handle anything. And if she went away in a huff, maybe it was a good thing.

Stanley wasn’t in his trailer. Thor had left the mess tent and was nowhere to be found. I hoped he’d found a ride home. Grandfather and some of the film crew were gathered around a laptop watching some of the day’s footage. Nearly all of the volunteers had been drooping over dinner and had disappeared soon after. The catering trucks had departed for the night. All was once more quiet in Camp Emu.

I strolled over to the emu holding pen and scanned it to see what Edward Everett Horton was up to. I finally spotted him just as I was about to send up an alarm that he’d escaped. He was lying on the ground with his legs tucked under his body, his long neck stretched out straight in front of him, and his head lying flat on the ground. I couldn’t help thinking of some of the odd, uncomfortable-looking poses in which Jamie and Josh sometimes fell asleep, and made a mental note to ask Grandfather if Edward Everett Horton was the smallest of the emus because he wasn’t full grown. And—

A slight flicker of light in the corner of my eye caught my attention. It appeared to be coming from the bushes between the emu pen and Miss Annabel’s yard.

There it was again, a faint glowing light. A familiar, rather ghostly rectangular glow.

It was the glow from the screen of a cell phone.

I began to work my way around the perimeter of the pen, staying turned toward the emu, as if my attention was on him. When I was within ten feet of where I’d seen the cell phone light, I fished into my pocket for the tiny flashlight I kept there and aimed it at where I’d seen the glow.

“Thor,” I said. “I thought you’d gone home. If you’re actually getting a signal on that thing, can you let me use it for a few minutes?”

“Don’t let anyone know I’m here!” he said. He was crouched in the middle of a thicket of thorny shrubs. His face was cross-hatched with scratches and dotted with fresh mosquito bites. “And I wasn’t making a call. Just checking the time.”

I turned the flashlight off and walked closer.

“And just why are you here?” I asked. “Lurking around the emu pen. Are you worried about Edward Everett Horton?”

“I’m not really lurking around the emu pen,” he said. “I mean I am, but only because it’s right behind Miss Annabel’s house. I’m worried about her.”

“Worried? Why?”

I sat down on the ground just outside his thicket and pretended to be gazing at the emus.

“Last fall everyone was stirred up about the emus and then Ms. Delia was killed,” he said. “And now everyone’s stirred up again and there was that poisoning—” He shrugged. “You probably think it’s stupid.”

“Not stupid at all,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better, the private investigator who came with us is worried, too. He suggested that Miss Annabel get a security system installed, and I talked her into doing it.”

“Good,” he said. “And I can keep watch until she gets it.”

“It could be days.”

He hunched slightly as if to demonstrate his determination to stay put.

“Do your parents know where you are?” I asked.

“They know I’m out here at the camp,” he said. “I told them that I wanted to be here to help out first thing tomorrow morning, and sort of implied that someone would lend me a cot.”

The parent in me wanted to shoo him home. Better yet, to grab him by the scruff of the neck and frog-march him over to my car, like one of the emus, and drive him home.

But he wasn’t a preschooler, like Josh and Jamie. He had to be seventeen or eighteen. He was going to college in a few months. And maybe if his instincts were correct—

“If you see something suspicious, do not rush in like an idiot,” I said. “You make a lot of noise and run over to get help from the camp.”

He nodded.

“And for heaven’s sake, bring some mosquito repellant next time. Use some of this for now.” I reached into my pocket and tossed him a little tin of Rose Noire’s homemade organic bug repellent, chock full of citronella, lemon eucalyptus, cinnamon, cedar oil, and half a dozen other ingredients. “Drop by the first aid tent tomorrow and Dad can give you something for the itching.”

“Thanks,” he said.

“At the first hint of trouble,” I intoned, shaking my finger at him.