I realized that Chief Burke was frowning at me.
“How well did you know Lanahan?” he asked. He was holding his little notebook. And unlike my notebook, in which I tried to capture everything in the world I needed to remember, the chief scribbled in his notebook only when someone said something that might turn out to be evidence.
“Not at all,” I said. “I’ve met him, but I can’t say I know him. Though I had every reason for wanting to keep him alive.”
“Why is that?” the chief asked.
“With him gone, who knows how long we’ll be stuck with the penguins and llamas?”
“Llamas?” Dad said. “How exciting!”
He scurried toward the backyard, presumably to commune with the llamas.
“And camels,” I called after him.
“Send Smoot down when he gets here,” the Chief said again, and disappeared back into the house.
A minute later, just as I was lifting my pen to scribble in the notebook, Michael drove up in our truck. I could see my twelve-year-old nephew Eric in the passenger seat, holding Spike, our furball of a dog. A small clutch of cousins sat in the truck bed. Cousin Horace leaped out before Michael had completely stopped, and sprinted for the house.
“You think the chief can use me?” he shouted. “Probably. Down in the basement.” He waved and continued on into the house. Michael was close on his heels, but instead of dashing into the house, he enveloped me in a reassuring hug. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “More exasperated than anything else. The chief hasn’t said we need to stop the move.”
“But odds are he will, as soon as he thinks about it.”
The other three cousins who’d been helping load the truck followed him.
“Anything useful we can do?” one asked.
“Not at the moment,” I said.
“You okay?” another asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Maybe you could go in and see about Mother and Dad, though.”
“Roger.” They all hastened inside. No doubt they realized that Dad could tell them all about the body, and that if Mother was around, she’d have coerced someone into fixing refreshments.
“So just how did your father find this body?” Michael asked, taking a seat beside me.
“He was digging a hole in the basement—the dirt floor part under the future library. To put in a pond for the penguins.”
“Why was he putting the penguins in our basement?”
“Beats me,” I said. “He was—wait. You knew about the penguins?”
“I knew he had them over at the farm,” Michael said, looking slightly sheepish.
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t think it was all that important. Especially since I told him there was absolutely no way we could take care of any animals. What with the move and all.”
“He seems to have forgotten that part. People are starting to drop by and leave animals here.”
“Perhaps he misinterpreted me,” Michael said with a sigh, “and assumed that as soon as we’d moved in, we’d be happy to have animals.”
“Even so, he's jumping the gun, letting people bring them today,” I said. “And already—where's Eric?” “Putting Spike in his pen.”
“He can’t do that!” I said, jumping up and racing toward the backyard. “It's full of llamas.”
I could hear Spike barking somewhere in the backyard as I ran, and I feared the worst. Fortunately, when I turned the corner, I saw that Eric was still gazing at the llamas in rapture while Spike, predictably, was straining at the end of the leash in his attempt to attack them. Dad, of course, had disappeared.
The llamas were humming. It was a curiously soothing sound, but not being a llama expert, I had no idea if they found Spike's antics cute, or if the humming was a battle cry that indicated they planned to knock down the fence and trample him.
“Why don’t you take Spike into the barn,” I suggested. “He can stay there until we move the llamas into the pasture.”
“Cool,” Eric said. He began tugging Spike toward the barn, still looking back at the llamas.
“Fascinating,” Michael said. He, too, was staring at the llamas.
“They’d be just as fascinating and a lot happier if someone took them to the pasture,” I suggested.
“Okay,” Michael said. Still staring. Damn.
“The Shiffleys are checking the fence to make sure there are no holes in it, but I can’t imagine it's gotten too bad. It's only been a few weeks since their uncle Fred moved his cattle out.”
“I’ll get your dad to help.”