Six Geese A-Slaying (8 page)

Chapter 11

As I strode outdoors again, I flinched slightly as the cold air hit me, and then forgot abut it as I dived back into parade
preparations. I felt more like my usual self again. Better than usual. As I stalked through the yard, I dispatched problems,
answered questions, settled arguments, and calmed attacks of stage fright, almost without thinking. I was looking for a particular
person. I headed toward the barn, where I’d last seen the six geese a-laying and all the surplus geese.

There were at least two dozen SPOOR members still wearing forbidden goose suits, which meant I had to keep my eye on them.
It occurred to me that if they organized themselves in groups of six and each group slipped into the parade at a different
point, it would take me a while before I could tell for sure that I wasn’t seeing the same six geese bumbling into the wrong
part of the parade by mistake.

Then I realized that Chief Burke would solve that particular problem for me. He’d undoubtedly confiscate all the goose costumes
so he could figure out which one had shed the tail feather found at the crime scene. If he didn’t, I’d do it myself, and tell
SPOOR I was doing it on his orders.

I smiled slightly as I scanned the geese, who were happily milling around, unaware of how close they were to being plucked.
From a distance, they all looked alike, but when you got a little closer, you could see subtle differences in their forms.
Some were taller or shorter, fatter or thinner, neatly groomed or covered with haphazard, flyaway tufts of feathers. Slightly
apart from the rest I spotted a goose that was taller and more angular than most. Its costume seemed more professional—the
feathers all lying neatly and elegantly as they should. Including, I couldn’t help noticing, a seemingly complete set of tail
feathers.

When I got a couple of steps closer, I could see that this particular goose was reading a paperback book.

“Ms. Ellie?” I called. “Is that you?”

The goose turned, and took its head off. I was right. It was Ms. Ellie Draper, the town librarian.

“Good guess,” she said, tucking the headpiece under her arm. I tilted my own head, almost instinctively, to see what she was
reading. I was startled to see that the book’s cover art was of a skeleton wearing a Santa suit.

“
Rest You Merry
,” she said. “Charlotte MacLeod. It’s a lot of fun—I must remember to thank your father for recommending it.”

I nodded. I hoped the chief wouldn’t find out that Dad was recommending Christmas-themed murder mysteries. In the chief’s
current frame of mind, he’d find it highly suspicious, forgetting that Dad was always recommending seasonally, geographically,
or professionally appropriate mysteries to anyone who would listen.

“Anything wrong?” Ms. Ellie asked.

“That depends,” I said. “What can you tell me about SPOOR and Ralph Doleson?”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “They’re not threatening to boycott the parade again, are they?”

Again? I’d heard threats of protests, but this was the first I’d heard of a SPOOR boycott.

“Not that I’ve heard,” I said aloud. “But it’s important anyway.”

“Or is Ralph Doleson complaining about us again?”

“Not that I’ve heard,” I repeated. “But why would he? Spill. Please.”

“Why do I think someone’s been making trouble?” she said. “Okay, this happened while you and Michael were in—where was it
you went this summer?”

“Nice try,” I said. “But Michael and I still aren’t telling anyone where we went on our honeymoon. Something happened in June,
then.”

“We heard that a pair of bald eagles had built a nest in a large oak tree down by Caerphilly Creek. You can imagine how excited
we were!”

I didn’t have to imagine—when Pam, Rob, and I were children, Dad dragged us to view any number of nests belonging to rare
or interesting birds. To us, of course, this usually meant spending an hour or so gazing at lumpsof twigs at the top of trees,
in the forlorn hope that the nest’s elusive maker would put in an appearance.

“Down by Caerphilly Creek,” I said. “Let me guess: the oak tree was on Ralph Doleson’s property. By the Whispering Pines.”

“Near there,” she said. “But much closer to the Spare Attic. That off-site storage facility—did you know he owns that, too?”

“Yes,” I said. “Michael and I still have a bin there.”

“Why in the world would you need off-site storage with this place?” she asked, glancing up at our three-story house.

“We don’t,” I said. “We needed it before we moved, though, and Doleson wouldn’t rent month-to-month. Our final yearlong lease
doesn’t run out till March.”

“That man is greed personified,” she said, shaking her head.

“ ‘Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone,’ ” I quoted
.
“ ‘A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner!’ ”

“
A Christmas Carol
?” she said.

I nodded.

“I’ve been helping Michael rehearse.”

“Very apt,” she said. “I can’t help but think Ralph Doleson would be better cast as Scrooge than as Santa. Can you suggest
that for next year?”

“Get back to the bald eagles,” I said. “They were nesting near the Spare Attic and . . .”

“We were going to put up an eagle cam,” she said. “You know—a web-based camera so people could watch the parent birds incubate
the eggs, and then eventually observe the hatchlings. We had the camera, and some of those nice young men at your brother’s
company did all the technical work to connect it to our Web site. But when we asked Ralph Doleson for permission to mount
the camera on the roof of his building, he refused.”

“Did he give any reason?” I asked.

“No. It was just pure meanness,” she said. “It’s not that it was the only possible place to put it, but it was the only place
we could get it installed without special equipment.”

“I can see how that would annoy SPOOR,” I said. “But isn’t all this talk of a boycott a little extreme?”

“If it had been just his refusal, yes,” she said. “We tried to explain the importance to him, and he refused again, so we
made other arrangements.”

“What other arrangements?”

“It was your father’s idea,” she said.

I winced. I could picture Dad leading a contingent of SPOOR members on a daring midnight raid to install the webcam by stealth.

“He arranged to borrow Mr. Shiffley’s boom lift,” she said. “So we could put the camera in another nearby tree. But when we
went out to do the installation, we found that someone had destroyed the nest.”

“Oh, no.”

“Including the two eggs.”

“Oh, dear,” I murmured. “That’s a pity.”

“It’s also a crime,” she said.

“I thought bald eagles were off the endangered species list?”

“They went from endangered to threatened in 1995, and were delisted entirely in 2007,” she said. “But they’re still covered
by the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.”

“Did you report him?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t prove it was Doleson,” she said. “We all knew it had to be, but we didn’t have any witnesses.
So he’s going to get off scot free. There’s a lot of bad feeling about it among the membership. And then to hear he’d been
chosen as Santa!”

“He wasn’t chosen, he was a legacy,” I said. “If I’d known about the eagles, I’d have vetoed him, but since no one told me
anything about this before today . . .”

“I’ll tell everyone,” she said. “I think it will make a difference. I don’t think
you
have to worry about a boycott—I’ve pointed out that you weren’t around when the eagle slaying occurred and might not have
known how unsuitable Ralph Dole-son was. But next year—”

“I don’t think you need to worry about next year,” I said. I saw Chief Burke standing nearby, frowning at the large number
of costumed geese cavorting in the area. Since Minerva had taken his costume, he was back in his usual suit.

Ms. Ellie followed my eyes.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it?” I nodded.

“Was there a reason you were asking about Ralph Doleson? Is he—?

“Dead.”

“Oh, dear,” she repeated. “That’s terrible.”

“I thought you didn’t like him,” I said. I got the patented librarian stern look.

“I didn’t like him, but I didn’t wish him dead,” she said. “Just elsewhere. Is there some reason the chief’s paying particular
attention to SPOOR? Apart from the fact that he knows very well how hard we tried to get Doleson arrested and how mad we were
that we couldn’t?”

“Yes,” I said. “And he’d never forgive me if I jumped the gun and told you.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, shaking her head. “I do hope none of them do anything tasteless when they hear the news. Feelings have
been running rather high all summer.”

“I’m sure the chief will remember that,” I said.

“Yes, and I hope he also remembers that the SPOOR members weren’t the only ones at odds with Mr. Doleson. I think the Shif-fleys
were rather worked up, too.”

“The Shiffleys?” I asked. “I didn’t realize any of the Shiffleys had become bird-watchers.”

“They’re not,” she said. “But they do—”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” the chief said. He had his battery powered megaphone. “May I have your attention please!”

The crowd gradually settled down. It consisted by this time not only of the costumed SPOOR members but also an ever-increasing
number of spectators who’d figured out this was where the best pre-parade entertainment could be found.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the chief began again.

“Geese and ganders!” one goose exclaimed. A wave of laughter rolled through the crowd, and the chief waited it out.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he repeated. “I regret to inform you that we’ve had a crime here at the parade. And I’d like to ask
your help in solving it. Will all the SPOOR members please accompany me to the barn?”

A buzz of conversation erupted, and not all of it sounded happy.

“Oh, dear,” Ms. Ellie murmured. “Some of our members don’t look as if they feel like cooperating. I’ll have to see if I can
help.”

She strolled over to where the chief was standing and said a few quiet words to him. The chief bowed slightly and gestured
toward the barn. Seeing Ms. Ellie and the chief strolling along, chatting amiably, most of the SPOOR members fell into step
behind them. The few would-be rebels made a big show of dragging their heels and making it clear with their body language
that they were only going to the barn out of curiosity, not because anyone had the right to order them around.

Deputy Sammy came over to talk to me.

“The chief wants to know if you have any trash bags we can borrow,” he asked. “We don’t have any evidence bags large enough
to hold the goose suits.”

“There’s a whole case of them right inside the barn,” I said. “The Boy Scouts were going to use them in their post-parade
cleanup.”

“Thanks,” he said.

And speaking of the Boy Scouts, if Chief Burke was going to confiscate all the goose suits and perhaps detain all the SPOOR
members for questioning, perhaps I should find them and see if they really were prepared enough to fill in as the six geese
a-laying.

Though why should they have to? An idea occurred to me, and I followed Sammy out to the barn.

“The trash bags are over there,” I said, pointing to the corner where they were stored. Rather unnecessarily, since Sammy
had already spotted the giant box with TRASH BAGS printed on it in two-inch letters.

“A school bus will be fine,” the chief was saying into his cell phone. “How soon can you get it here?”

“A school bus?” I echoed.

“He’s taking us to town to be interrogated,” Ms. Ellie said.

“Interviewed,” the chief said. “Okay, we have thirty-seven SPOOR members here. Is that all of you?”

“Thirty-eight counting Mrs. Markland,” several geese chimed in. The chief scowled at his officers.

“And where is this Mrs. Markland?” he asked.

“Since I wasn’t her pastor, I couldn’t tell you,” Ms. Ellie said. “But I can assure you she wasn’t here murdering Mr. Doleson.”

The chief blinked.

“That’s the late Mrs. Markland,” I put in.

“She’s dead, then?” the chief asked.

“As a doornail,” Ms. Ellie said.

“ ‘I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade,’ ” I quoted.

The chief and Ms. Ellie both turned to frown at me.

“Sorry, total Dickens immersion,” I said. “Just ignore it.”

“We’ve found the trash bags, thank you,” the chief said. “I’ll let you know if we need anything else.”

Coming from him, it was a relatively subtle dismissal.

“Great,” I said. “But I need something from you.”

“What?”

“Six geese,” I said.

“The geese are all—”

“Only six,” I said. “Look, you can’t possibly talk to all thirty-seven at once. Why not take thirty-one of them to town in
your school bus, and let the remaining six take themselves there by marching in the parade?”

“The costumes are evidence.”

“We’ve got more costumes,” one of the geese said.

“More?” The chief turned to frown at the speaker. “Where?”

“Not here,” the goose said, backing off slightly. “But they’re over at Dr. Langslow’s farm. They don’t look the same. They’re
left over from another event. We could send someone for them.”

“You mean the white duck costumes?” a second goose asked.

“They always looked more like geese than ducks anyway,” the first goose said. “They’re still better than anything the Boy
Scouts could whip up on this short notice.”

“I’ve got a key to the farmhouse,” I said. “I’ll send someone to fetch six of the white goose costumes. If it’s okay with
you.”

The chief frowned. He didn’t like the idea, but he also knew how important the parade was to most of the town.

“And you could have some officers march right behind them to make sure they get to town,” I suggested.

“My officers are rather busy.”

“You could deputize someone. How about asking some of the campus police? I’m sure they’d be happy to help out.”