Let It Crow! Let It Crow! Let It Crow!, page 23
“Yeah, right.” Horace frowned. “We could call Ragnar. Maybe he could send someone up with another horse.”
“I’m not getting on one of those things,” Rodney warned, taking a half step away from Carmilla and Barnabas.
“If Rodney came here by motorcycle, he probably knows the way back to a road and civilization,” I pointed out. “If we can find a gate to get the horses on the other side of the fence, maybe we could lead the horses and wheel the motorcycle along with us.”
“Not seeing any gates,” Horace said.
“Haven’t run into one myself,” Rodney said.
“Well, then let’s start walking back to the castle,” I said. “And I’ll call Ragnar to see if he can meet us partway with some kind of transportation.”
“Do you actually know the way back?” Horace asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “But I saved the location of the castle in my phone before we set out.”
“Sweet,” Horace said.
Just then Rodney took off running. He made use of the fallen logs to vault over the fence, back to the side the horses were on, then veered left and kept on going—which meant he was getting farther and farther from his motorcycle. Still, he was making good time and was probably hoping to circle back and reclaim his transportation.
The crows took flight and began flying around over Rodney’s head, as if trying to make sure we knew where he was going.
Horace groaned and pulled out his phone.
“Aren’t you going to chase him?” I asked.
“Dude made all-state back when he was on the Clay County High School cross-country team,” Horace said. “And from the look of it, he can still run like a cheetah. I know my limits. Calling it in. We can put out a BOLO for him and— Hey, Debbie Ann. Got a situation here.”
“We can do better than that.” While Horace briefed Debbie Ann, I went over the fence, untied Carmilla, climbed aboard, and set off in pursuit of Rodney. Horace was right—Rodney was fast. But not fast enough to outrun a horse. Especially once the horse decided what we were doing was a lot of fun. We caught up with Rodney and fell in beside him, alternating between a trot and a canter.
Rodney pretended not to notice us. But I could tell Carmilla made him nervous. He flinched every time she snorted.
I wondered, briefly, if chasing Rodney was wise. What if he pulled a gun? But Horace wasn’t shouting at me to stop, come back, and stay away from him. And Horace had relaxed when he recognized Rodney, rather than becoming tense and warier. I was probably okay.
“You might want to rethink this,” I said. “Cops get annoyed when you run away from them. Why not go back and let Horace take you to talk to the chief? Get it over with.”
Rodney kept running. He’d slowed down quite a bit, though, exchanging his first frenzied sprint for a steady ground-eating pace. He’d probably run some longer distances in high school.
But he hadn’t done it recently. His pace was slowing and his breathing was getting heavier.
We’d been traveling parallel to the barbed wire fence. Suddenly Rodney put on a burst of speed and veered sharply left, heading for the fence.
Carmilla accepted the challenge and gave chase. And while the Friesians were usually docile and obedient, she paid no attention to my tugging on the reins. She was running straight at the fence.
Evidently, I was about to find out if my horse could jump the fence. No, actually, I had no doubt she could. The burning question was whether I could stay in the saddle while she did it.
Rodney sailed over the wire fence with ease and fairly impressive form—Horace should have mentioned that he’d also done hurdles in high school. Carmilla’s stride changed as she gathered her legs beneath her and sprang into the air. I felt a mix of exhilaration and sheer terror. But I kept my seat and breathed a sigh of relief when we landed. Carmilla didn’t resist my efforts to steer her in a wide circle back to the fence, where Rodney was struggling to free the back of his pants from the strand of barbed wire on which it had snagged.
I decided not to help. Rodney was still flailing around when Horace trotted up.
“Freeze.” Horace pulled out his gun and held it at the ready. “Put your hands on your head.”
Rodney obeyed. A few seconds later, we heard a loud ripping sound as the fabric of his pants gave way and he landed on the ground with a gaping hole over his backside. Luckily he was wearing underwear—although I was surprised to learn that they made Spider-Man briefs in adult men’s sizes.
I suppressed the laughter this inspired. I didn’t think either of the men found the situation amusing.
“Vern’s found himself an ATV,” Horace said, through clenched teeth. “He’s on his way.”
I wondered if this meant that Duncan’s catch-up time was finished or if he was still hammering away in the production tent. Then I shoved the thought aside. I’d find out later.
“Good,” I said. “You can go with Vern and Rodney in the ATV. I can lead Barnabas back.”
As I expected, the thought of parting with Barnabas considerably improved Horace’s mood.
“Of course, we have to figure out how to get Carmilla back on the other side of the fence,” I said.
“You could ride her over the fence again,” Horace suggested. “Now that you know she can jump it.”
“Once was enough,” I said. “But I have an idea. Let’s head back to where Barnabas is.”
“Let me handcuff our prisoner first.”
“Prisoner? Me?” Rodney’s tone held a note of gentle reproach. “Horace, you know me.”
“I know you just tried to run away,” Horace said, as he fastened the handcuffs around Rodney’s wrists.
Rodney sighed as if deeply disappointed by Horace’s lack of trust.
When we returned to the big oak tree, I looped Carmilla’s reins over the saddle and used the logs to climb over the fence. I fished a couple of apple slices out of the saddlebags and fed one to Barnabas.
Carmilla was definitely paying attention. So were the crows, but I wasn’t sure I had apples enough for all of them.
I walked along the fence until I was about ten feet away from Barnabas and held up the apple slice.
Carmilla’s ears swiveled forward.
It took a few tries, first feeding her a couple of apple slices over the fence, and gradually moving farther away from it, so she had to stretch out her neck. Finally, when the hand holding out the apple chunk was definitely out of reach, she got the hint and jumped over the fence with neat efficiency.
“Good girl!” I exclaimed. I gave her another bit of apple, and then scattered a handful for the crows.
“Vern says he’s about ten minutes away,” Horace said.
Suddenly the sound of a laughing hyena startled us. All of us, especially the horses.
“What’s that?” Horace snapped.
“Just my phone,” Rodney said.
The hyena laugh sounded again.
“You want us to answer it for you?” I asked.
“Nah. Won’t be anything important,” Rodney said. “I’ll just let it go to voicemail.”
The hyena laugh repeated two more times. The horses seemed a lot happier when it stopped.
An idea struck me. I pulled out my phone and thought back to the two phone numbers the chief had shown me. While scanning the cast and crew directory to see if it matched any of the numbers there I’d recited the second number—the one that wasn’t Sam’s—multiple times. Could I remember it accurately? I closed my eyes and tried to put myself back in the moment. The number—at least what I thought was the number—sprang to mind. I dialed it.
The hyena laugh rang out again.
“You’re popular today,” Horace said to Rodney.
“That’s me, actually,” I said. “Calling that phone number the chief wanted to identify.”
Horace looked at Rodney with new interest.
A few minutes later Vern showed up in the ATV.
“Now that I’ve got you for backup, let’s pat him down,” Horace said.
“You already had Meg for backup,” Vern said. “No need to wait for me.”
“I don’t give you permission to search me,” Rodney said.
“So noted,” Vern said. “But you know as well as we do that we’re not going to get in a vehicle with you until we’re sure you’re unarmed.”
Rodney submitted to the pat down with the same sullen, uncooperative air my sons would have displayed if I was trying to make them look presentable after a good wallow in a mud puddle. Then Vern and Horace loaded both Rodney and his motorcycle in the ATV and took off.
After flying back and forth between the ATV and me for a few minutes, the crows decided to join forces with me.
I plugged the coordinates for the castle into my phone’s GPS app. Then I untied the horses, climbed back into Carmilla’s saddle with Barnabas’s reins in my hand, and headed for the castle. After a while, the horses got the message that we were heading back to their barn, and I could sit back and let them do the navigating.
Unfortunately, that left me plenty of time for thinking. I alternated between worrying about how Duncan was doing with his broadsword and trying to sort out how Rodney fit into the picture.
Rodney had seemed genuinely surprised when Horace had told him Brody was dead. But what if he was merely a very good actor? Had Brody been on his way to a rendezvous with Rodney when he was killed? That would account for where he’d been killed. We’d detoured around the crime scene on the way here. Someone walking this way would probably have cut straight through it. But if Rodney were the killer, why would he come back to—well, not exactly the scene of the crime. That was a couple of miles away. But back to Ragnar’s property. Back to a place where he’d probably spent some time waiting last night. Presumably waiting for Brody.
I puzzled over this new piece of the case all the way back to the castle, without coming to any brilliant conclusions. When we arrived at the stables—even Barnabas managed a brisk trot for the last stretch—Lucifer helped me dismount. He didn’t say anything about the fact that we’d returned one rider short, but when I left the barn he was examining the horses, inch by inch, as if trying to reassure himself that they’d come to no harm while in my care.
I stopped by the production tent to check on how Duncan was doing. His forge was empty—well, empty of Duncan. He’d left rather a lot of stuff lying around on the floor and on his worktable. I didn’t leave my forge that messy in normal times, much less when I knew it would be on camera. Was he just a slob? Or had he, perhaps, stormed off the set in a temper when Roxanne told him his time was up?
I’d ask Roxanne later. For now, I headed for the castle. On top of my long day of blacksmithing, my ride on Carmilla had called on muscles I didn’t often use. Maybe I could commandeer the bathroom and take a long, hot, soaking bath before dinner started.
Though a long, hot, soaking bath would be incomplete without some kind of soothing bath oil. Preferably one of Rose Noire’s organic lavender concoctions.
I texted her.
“Did you bring any bath oil with you?”
“Of course!” she texted back. “Come down to the kitchen.”
So I went in through a side door that let me into the house on the basement level, not far from the kitchen. Much as I enjoyed Ragnar’s social events, I didn’t want to get sucked into this evening’s event just yet. Or, more likely, into preparations for this evening’s event.
Down in the kitchens, Alice and her team—which now seemed to include Jasmyn as a gung ho participant—were baking gingerbread. Gingerbread persons, gingerbread animals, and sheets and sheets of flat gingerbread pieces that could be assembled into gingerbread houses.
Alice looked uncharacteristically frazzled.
“We’re already running late with the gingerbread houses,” she fretted. “And with such crowds to cook for, I have no idea how we’re going to get them all assembled and decorated.”
“Use the crowds,” I suggested. “Instead of making the gingerbread houses another major project on top of all the others you have to do, turn them into a fun, family-friendly Christmas activity. Set up all the materials in the dining hall and announce that everyone is invited to help decorate gingerbread houses after dinner.”
“Meg! That’s perfect!” Alice exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because you’ve been working too hard.” I claimed a small gingerbread person as my reward for coming up with a good idea and strolled over to where Rose Noire was cutting out cookies.
“So, can I hit you up for some bath oil?” I asked.
“Of course.” She looked around at the dozen or so people dashing around the kitchen. Then she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “This way.”
She led me out of the kitchen and down the hall. We ended up in what Ragnar referred to as the pantry—actually a cavernous storage room in which he kept all the non-refrigerated foods and other household supplies. Someone—Alice? Rose Noire herself?—had brought in an aging red velvet sofa and half a dozen black and purple yoga mats, making a small lounging area in one of the far corners.
A good choice for a private conversation. I was reasonably sure that, unlike the library, it didn’t contain any secret rooms or passages.
“Is there a reason we’re doing a clandestine handoff of the bath oil?” I asked.
“Of course not.” She reached into her purse and pulled out several small bottles. “Do you want rose or lavender?”
“Yes,” I said. “You know I’m a sucker for both.”
“I know.” She smiled as she handed me the bottles. “I wanted to ask you something without everyone listening in. It’s about Jasmyn.” She took a seat on a box of commercial-size cans of tomato sauce. “I’m worried.”
Chapter 29
“Worried? Why?” I was tempted to say, “What now?”—but that would have been rude. After a wistful glance at the sofa, I pulled up a nearby rolling step stool and sat across from her.
“Remember what I told you yesterday?” Rose Noire clasped her hands as if keeping them still helped her stay calm.
“That Jasmyn seemed haunted by something,” I said. “And seemed to be clinging to you as if for protection. Has it gotten worse?”
“No.” She pursed her lips as if trying to keep something in. “She’s fine today.”
“Well, that’s good. Right?”
“It’s as if whatever was worrying her or threatening her or haunting her is … gone.”
Uh-oh.
“She seems quite calm,” Rose Noire continued. “Almost happy.”
“Obviously she’s heard the news that Brody was killed,” I said. “And however sad she might be at the violent, untimely death of another human being, she probably feels safer now.”
“Ye-es.”
There was more. I waited as patiently as I could.
But patience was never my strong suit.
“You’re not suggesting she did it, are you?”
“Not exactly. But … should I worry that she doesn’t have an alibi?”
“A lot of us don’t.”
“You do,” she said. “You have Michael and the boys. And I do. Alice and I brought a TV into the kitchen and stayed up much too late, baking and watching movies. We watched The Bishop’s Wife, and Love Actually, and The Shop Around the Corner, and Miracle on 34th Street, and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I think that was all. No, we also watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”
“You must have been up all night.”
“Pretty much.” She chuckled. “After a while, we decided to pull an all-nighter, take a break from baking to fix breakfast, and then take naps. Which is what we did. At least I did—I hope Alice was able to. Anyway, I told Jasmyn what we were planning, and I thought she sounded interested, but when I knocked on her door, she didn’t answer. Of course, she was tired. Maybe she was already asleep.”
Exactly what I had been opening my mouth to suggest.
“But I tried at around seven, when we were getting started, and again at about ten, when we took a break, and then again just before midnight. Of course, I knocked very softly that time.”
“She probably was asleep,” I said. “She’s been putting in some really long days.”
“But they’re going to suspect her.” Rose Noire looked almost tearful. “Everyone knows Brody was harassing her.”
“She wasn’t the only one Brody was harassing,” I pointed out. “And remember, it’s usually the people who are up to something who try to arrange alibis for themselves. Ask Dad.” There might be mystery books on the planet that Dad hadn’t read, but he was working hard to fix that. “And I don’t think this is a case that will be solved on alibis,” I added.
“I just wish I understood why she seems so calm. And happy.”
Her voice held a note of doubt. I suspected she’d be studying Jasmyn’s aura with a new intensity, trying to figure out if she’d been fooled before.
“And maybe this is a little odd, but she’s been showing an interest in the show again,” she added.
“Does she want her job back?”
“Oh, no.” Rose Noire shook her head vigorously. “She’s happy to be done with that. But she has been talking about how it would be nice to see some of the people.”
“They’ll all be here in the castle tonight.”
“Yes—I reminded her of that.” She frowned slightly. “She seemed excited. I think she might be … interested in someone. One of the competitors, I think.”
“Do you know which?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t think she trusts me well enough to confide in me just yet.”
Even Rose Noire couldn’t always work her empathetic magic overnight. I tried to remember if I’d seen Jasmyn interacting with any of my fellow competitors. Andy and John had seemed concerned when she’d fled the production tent, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. And I could see someone finding any one of the four attractive. Even Duncan, annoying as I found him.
“Just keep an eye on her,” I said.
“In case she does anything suspicious?”
