The Good, the Bad, and the Emus(86)

“Maybe not,” she said. “But I bet Chief Heedles will. And why don’t you see me as a suspect? You don’t think I’m spry enough?”

“I think you’d have done a better job of it,” I said. “The killer rigged up a clumsy device intended to start a fire after he was gone. I’m not sure if it would have worked even if I hadn’t come along. If he’d done a better job, Chief Heedles would be dismissing this as a tragic accident. And for that matter, however clumsy the device was, it would have had a lot better chance of working if the killer had bothered to shut the door behind him.”

“That door’s always been tricky,” Annabel said. “Unless you pull it tightly shut and wiggle the knob a bit to make sure the latch engages, it will drift open eventually. Could be five seconds later, or five hours, but eventually. And in case you’re wondering how I know, Cordelia lived there for the first decade of her life. We used to spend as much time over there as here. I know that door as well as my own.”

“And Mr. Weaver never had it fixed?”

“He may have tried,” she said. “A lot of people have tried, but the fix never lasts. The old folks used to say there was a ghost doing it, but I don’t hold with that. Sit down. Would you like some lemonade? Or I could heat some water for tea—I’ve got a little propane stove.”

“Don’t go to all that trouble,” I said. “Lemonade will be fine.”

I sat down in one of the white wicker porch chairs and stared out over the lawn. I could see a pale shape near the road that was Rob’s white shirt, and the occasional firefly. The faint sounds of a few people singing over in Camp Emu were almost drowned out by the frogs and crickets.

“Here.” Miss Annabel handed me a glass. “It’s lukewarm, but at least it’s wet.”

We were still sipping in silence when I caught the first sounds of a siren approaching.

“I’d better get over there,” I said.

A police cruiser pulled up in front of Mr. Weaver’s house, closely followed by a blue sedan. A uniformed officer got out of the cruiser and began talking to Rob. I strolled over to where Chief Heedles was getting out of the sedan.

“Meg can tell you,” Rob was saying as I reached them.

The chief turned to me.

“What happened here?” she asked.

“I was driving by on my way back to camp,” I said. “And I noticed that Mr. Weaver’s door was hanging open. And I was a little worried about him. He’s elderly.”

She stood there, poker-faced, while I told my story. She looked without apparent interest at the photos I’d taken on my phone and nodded absently when I offered to send them to her. Actually, I did see the ghost of a smile when I explained about using my car’s emergency button to summon help without leaving Mr. Weaver’s door unguarded. But when I’d finished, she sighed.

“So you think someone whacked Mr. Weaver over the head with this missing chunk of kryptonite and rigged up this complicated booby trap for some reason.”

“Kyanite, not kryptonite,” I said. “I wasn’t really thinking of it as a possible murder weapon—I doubt if it’s big enough to do much damage. I just noticed it was gone. And as for why they rigged up the candle, obviously they were hoping to make it look like an accident. Poor Mr. Weaver, finding out the hard way just why fire departments keep telling us to use battery-powered flashlights and lanterns instead of open flames in a power outage.”

The chief glanced over at Miss Annabel’s house. Annabel had gone back inside but there were lights on downstairs. Probably several of her little LED lanterns.

I could hear more sirens approaching.

“Miss Annabel’s up?” she said.

“She is now,” I said. “I’m afraid I probably woke the whole camp when I sounded the alarm. I think she was upstairs getting ready for bed when I arrived. There was only one small light on in her house, upstairs.”

Chief Heedles nodded.

As we watched, Miss Annabel’s downstairs light went out. The chief sighed.

“I’ll need to talk to her eventually,” she said. “But it can wait till tomorrow.”

Two fire engines pulled up in front of Theo Weaver’s house.

“I’d appreciate it if you stayed around for a bit,” Chief Heedles said. She didn’t wait to see me nod—just strode over to meet the firemen.

I glanced around. Rob was standing on the sidewalk, near the border between Annabel’s house and Mr. Weaver’s, with a couple of other people. I decided that I could use the company. As I approached, I realized that one of the others was Stanley Denton.