The Penguin Who Knew Too Much(82)

“Don’t make me come down there!”

I didn’t answer. His face appeared and disappeared from my limited field of vision—apparently he was pacing up and down the bank. Then he stopped.

“Look here,” he said. “We can do this one of two ways. Either—”

“Mwa-ha-ha!”

A figure in a black cape suddenly loomed up behind Hamlin, its hands raised with melodramatic menace. Hamlin yelped with surprise, and his finger must have hit the crossbow's trigger—I heard a sharpfwap! and saw the bolt sail off into the darkness. Hamlin swore, lost his footing, and regained it a little too close to the edge. The dirt crumbled beneath him and he slid in, landing near Lola—near, not on, since she only hissed and growled, instead of squealing in pain. He made a little noise as if the fall had knocked the breath out of him. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see if his eyes were open. I heaved Charlie Shiffley off me and picked up my flashlight.

“Oh, dear.”

I glanced up to see Dr. Smoot looking down at us.

“Help!” I shouted. “He's trying to kill us.”

“I’m not sure I can,” he said, pulling his black cloak more tightly around him. “It's so narrow down there—I’m not sure I can make myself go into such a tight little space.”

“I don’t want you to come down here,” I said. “The trench is getting crowded enough as it is. Call 911!”

I was half crawling toward Hamlin, dragging my broken leg behind me, with my trusty Maglite raised to strike.

“I could just go get a ladder.”

“Call 911! Bring the cops! He killed Patrick Lanahan, and now he's trying to kill Charlie and Lola and me!” “Oh!” Dr. Smoot said, and disappeared.

Then I reached Hamlin. I was tempted to cosh him over the head, but reason prevailed. Instead, I stuck the narrow end of the flashlight in the small of his back, as if it were a gun.

“Don’t move or I’ll use this,” I said.

Lola made a noise, half whine and half growl, as if asserting her prior claim to vengeance.

After a couple of minutes, we heard the sirens—distant, but growing louder every second. Hamlin stirred slightly, as if thinking of making a break for it. I heard a slight noise from overhead.

“You can sit back down now,” Randall Shiffley said. “I’ve got him in my sights. One false move and I’ll blow his rotten lying head off.”

I sat down and passed out.





Chapter 42

“The party's going simply splendidly!” Dad said as he dashed into my hospital room carrying two more huge floral arrangements festooned with get-well cards. “Everyone's looking forward to seeing you—has Dr. Waldron told you when you can go home?”

“I’m supposed to talk to her this afternoon,” I said. Actually I’d already talked to my doctor, gotten her okay on flying with my broken leg, and sworn her to secrecy about when I was being released. A little later, she was supposed to storm in, shoo out my visitors, and inform Dad that she needed to keep me for a second night, to run more tests. And once the coast was clear...

Where was Dr. Waldron? I hoped she wasn’t waiting for my stream of visitors to die down, because that wasn’t happening anytime soon. As if to make up for my having to miss the beginning of the day's festivities, my entire family and half the town of Caerphilly had been trooping through my hospital room in shifts, congratulating me. Michael was hovering nearby, trying not to show how impatient he was for all of them to leave.

At least it gave me a chance to find out what had been going on while I was unconscious. Tie up a few loose ends before Michael and I fled for wherever.

At the moment, I was entertaining a delegation of Shiffleys.

“We’re much obliged,” Vern was saying, for about the seventeenth time. I was running out of things to say—”It's nothing” didn’t seem tactful, since they were convinced I’d saved Charlie's life. Worse, I suspected they felt the need to express their gratitude in some tangible way. Ms. Ellie, the last person I knew who had earned the undying gratitude of the Shiffleys, was still finding haunches of venison on her porch every other week during hunting season. And that was five years after she’d done something to earn their gratitude—something probably a lot smaller than saving a life.

“You look a mess,” I said to Charlie, in an effort to change the subject. “I hope none of it's serious enough to keep you off the football field.”

“I’ll be fine by September,” he said. “And hey, it was great, you making sure the reporters knew I was trying to save Lola. Really helped with the college people.”