The Penguin Who Knew Too Much(9)

“Bunch of damn fool people who had no idea what they were talking about were giving him all sorts of wrong advice,” Randall added. “Hope he didn’t listen to them, or he’ll have the whole house down around your ears before you know it.”

Considering how much we’d already paid the Shiffley Construction Company to restore our three-story Victorian white elephant to reasonably sound condition, I hoped he was exaggerating.

I resolved to focus on the positive side of what he’d said.

“Lot of people down at the feed store last night?” I asked.

“Packed,” Randall said, with disgust. “They’re open late Fridays, you know. All the damned city folks were out, getting ready for the long weekend.”

“We wouldn’t have gone down there at all on a Friday, but we had a job that came up suddenly, and we needed some supplies,” Vern added.

I’d noticed that the Shiffleys, like most long-term residents, often experienced the sudden, inconvenient need to visit the feed store at the very times when it was overrun by the dreaded city folks. If I found something that annoying, I’d rearrange my schedule to avoid it, but the Shiffleys seemed to find a perverse pleasure in being annoyed by the city folks.

Flugleman's Feed Store had been in business for about 120 years, supplying generations of local farmers. In the last several decades, the number of working farms in Caerphilly had declined—though only slightly, unlike some parts of the state, where whole counties of farmland had been built up and paved over. The Flugleman family had responded by expanding its business to include lawn and garden supplies and rechristened it Flugleman's Farm and Garden Emporium.

Flugleman's was also a major stop on the local grapevine. If Dad had been down at Flugleman's, loudly talking about his plans for the penguin pond and seeking advice from anyone and everyone there, within hours the whole county would have known that our basement contained a hole that was already far too deep for Dad's needs—a hole that he would probably have to begin partially filling in this morning before he proceeded with his pond construction.

A hole that would look like a godsend to anyone who happened to have an unwanted dead body lying around in need of disposal. Or, for that matter, anyone who wanted to commit a homicide while such a convenient burying place was available.

Chief Burke wouldn’t like it much, but I felt relieved to know that my family wouldn’t be the only suspects.

“Don’t worry,” Randall said, patting me on the shoulder. “Everyone knows the Sprockets have always been pretty strange. It’ll probably turn out to be some craziness one of them got up to.”

“Thanks,” I said. I decided not to tell them that the body was at least a year and a half too fresh to blame on the house's previous owners.

“Where’d you get those things from, anyway?” Vern asked, pointing at the penguins.

“You know Patrick Lanahan?”

“The lunatic who runs the Caerphilly Zoo?” Randall said. I got the feeling he wasn’t all that keen on Lanahan.

“Is he here?” Vern asked. “Because we really need to talk to him, too.”

“Sorry,” I said. “If he was here, you’d be welcome to talk to him, as soon as I gave him a piece of my mind about dumping the penguins on Dad.”

“The damned scoundrel,” Vern muttered. Apparently he took a dim view of Lanahan's foisting stray penguins off on innocent bystanders.

“If he drops by to visit his penguins, could you give us a call?” Randall asked. “We need to speak to him about something. Been trying to track him down for over a week.”

“Will do,” I said.

“Meanwhile, those things aren’t going to be happy for long in that little pen,” Vern said, indicating the penguins.

“Unfortunately, I think Chief Burke will put Dad's plans for a basement penguin habitat on hold,” I said.

“Why not fence off part of your father's cow pond for them?” Randall asked. “Works for the ducks. And we could run down to Flugleman's for a couple rolls of chicken wire and some posts. Have it up in an hour or so.”

I glanced over at the penguins. They were a little crowded in the duck pen. And the fishy odor of penguin poop was already starting to permeate the yard. The pond was out of sight, and even more important, downwind. Moving the penguins to the pond sounded like a great idea.

Of course, the Shiffleys weren’t donating their services. And I suspected that a few rolls of chicken wire and some posts would cost far more than seemed reasonable—like everything else we’d bought for the house. Could our depleted bank balance cover the penguin fence?