SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21
Mother was opening her Christmas present from me. For some strange reason I couldn’t remember what I’d gotten for her, so I was looking forward to finding out. And she was taking forever at the whole unwrapping part—carefully untying the wide red ribbon and smoothing out all the wrinkles, slowly teasing every bit of tape off, to avoid damaging the elegant gold-embossed paisley wrapping paper. She finally finished flattening the paper and began easing the lid off the box within. She lifted up the lid—
And began screaming! Her face distorted by terror, she leaped out of her chair and—
I woke up. Mother and the elaborately wrapped present were all part of a dream.
The screaming wasn’t. It was real.
“What’s wrong?” Michael mumbled, sitting up and scrubbing at his eyes.
“It’s coming from the backyard.” I was already out of bed and running to look out the window. Dawn had begun, but only just. In the room it was barely bright enough for me to keep from tripping—but outside there was enough light to see the figure running toward the back door from the direction of the barn. And to recognize the voluminous lavender wool cape that swirled around her.
“It’s Rose Noire.” I grabbed my bathrobe from where I’d tossed it, at the foot of the bed, and struggled into it as I headed downstairs with Michael on my heels.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs the door to the dining room opened and Rob peered out owlishly.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“No idea yet,” I said. I raced through the hall and into the kitchen, where the screaming was now coming from. Michael and Rob followed me.
In the kitchen, Rose Noire had collapsed in the middle of the floor, holding her cell phone in a hand shaking so badly she was in danger of dropping it. If she was trying to make a call—
“Are you all right?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”
“It was terrible!” She launched herself at me, dropping her phone and almost knocking me over. “I found a dead body behind the barn. A dead body in a pool of blood.”
“A dead body?” I echoed, putting my arms around her and patting her back. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “No one I’ve ever seen before. And he was all bloody and horrible.”
“Someone call nine-one-one,” I said, glancing around. Rose Noire’s phone had disappeared. She was probably sitting on it. “My phone’s upstairs.”
“I’ll go get mine,” Rob said, after patting where his right pants pocket would have been if his red flannel Grinch pajamas actually had pockets. “I could use Rose Noire’s if—”
“Use the landline,” Michael said, gesturing to where our wall phone hung. “Let me get my coat and I’ll check out what she found.”
He ran out of the kitchen. Rob nodded and strode across to the landline.
“What’s wrong?” Delaney appeared in the doorway.
“There’s a dead body behind the barn,” Rose Noire said. “I went out to scatter some grain and let the chickens out, and I saw him.”
“We don’t know yet,” Rob was saying into the phone. “I think Michael’s going to go out and see.”
“Michael and I,” I corrected. I was already putting on the boots I kept by the back door.
“Honey, you should be in bed,” Rob said. “Sorry. Debbie Ann, I was talking to Delaney,” he added, talking into the phone again. “She’s—wait, Delaney, you should—”
“I’m sitting, I’m sitting.” Delaney sat down heavily in a kitchen chair, close enough that she could pat Rose Noire on the shoulder. “Let me stay here and help take care of Rose Noire.”
“Oh, no,” Rose Noire moaned. “I should be taking care of you! Are you—”
Michael ran back in.
“Coat and phone,” he said, handing both to me.
“Rob, you stay here and take care of Rose Noire and Delaney,” I said, as I struggled into my coat. “Fix them some tea.”
I stood, lifting up Rose Noire with me, and steered her into another kitchen chair, shoving it against Delaney’s chair as I did. Delaney reached out and caught Rose Noire in a bear hug. Rob, still talking on the phone to Debbie Ann, the dispatcher, stretched the cord to its limit so he could turn the burner on under the teakettle Rose Noire always kept filled and ready to go.
“Debbie Ann says if you’re going out to check on what Rose Noire saw—” Rob began.
“It was a body,” Rose Noire muttered, as if she thought we were doubting her. “It was.”
“Of course,” Delaney said. “You should know. Who was it?”
“I don’t know,” Rose Noire said. “Not anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Debbie Ann thinks maybe I should hang up and you should call her on your cell phone,” Rob went on. “So you can give her firsthand information. She has deputies and an ambulance on the way.”
“Good idea,” I said, as I followed Michael out the back door.
We both stopped on the back stoop, just for a few seconds, absorbing the shock of how cold it was. I had my cell phone in my hand, and I took a moment to check the temperature—nineteen degrees Fahrenheit—before calling 911.
“Meg, what’s going on?” Debbie Ann asked.
“No idea yet,” I said, as I followed Michael down the steps. “We’re going to check out where Rose Noire reported finding the body.”
“Be careful,” she said. “Vern will be there in ten minutes.”
I noticed that she didn’t warn me not to go out to see the body. I had an answer ready if she did—we didn’t yet know that the bloody body Rose Noire had seen was actually dead. What if it was an injured person who needed first aid?
She had probably already thought of that. Or maybe she just knew me well enough to know nothing she said would keep me from going out to see what was happening.
“The ambulance is on the way,” she said. “In case whoever Rose Noire found isn’t actually dead. Of course, if it really is a dead body, the chief will want to know. And your dad.”
“We’re almost at the barn,” I said. “Rose Noire said it was behind the barn. I’ll let you know what we—”
I rounded the corner of the barn, almost running into Michael, who had stopped stock still. I stepped sideways so I could see what he saw, and couldn’t help gasping.
“Meg? What’s wrong?”
“There’s definitely a dead body. Call Dad and the chief.”
The Gadfly was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. I didn’t see any wounds, but his eyes were open and staring, and I wasn’t sure how anyone could survive after losing that much blood. But he’d probably lost all he was going to lose—the pool wasn’t spreading. In fact, were the edges of it starting to freeze? I took one more long, horrified look and then turned slightly so I could stop looking.
“Meg? Who is it?” I could hear keys rattling in the background, indicating she was sending out messages over the computer system. “Are you sure they’re dead? Can you check for a pulse?”
“I can check his pulse if you like,” I said. “But—”
“Let me do it,” Michael said, moving toward the body.
“Michael’s checking,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”
Michael circled around the body until he found a place where he could reach Norton’s outflung left arm without stepping into the blood. He reached down, applied his fingers to the wrist, and grimaced slightly.
“No pulse,” Michael reported. “And he’s pretty cold.”
“No pulse, and he’s already cold,” I relayed to Debbie Ann. “And it’s the Gadfly. A guy who was attending Cordelia’s conference out at the Inn. He blogs under the name of Godfrey Norton, but that’s not his real name.”
“That explains why Rose Noire didn’t recognize him,” Michael murmured.
“An alias?” Debbie Ann asked.
“More like a pseudonym,” I said. “His real name’s something longer and more complicated. Gustave something. Hang on, let me see if I can remember it.”
“Vern can check his ID when he gets there,” Debbie Ann said. “Or we can check with the Inn.”
“Yes,” I said. “But I should be able to remember it.”
I closed my eyes and searched my memory. Cordelia sternly telling the Gadfly to leave the Inn. She’d called him by his real name. Same initials as Godfrey Norton.
“Niedernstatter,” I said finally. “Gustave Niedernstatter. But don’t ask me how to spell it.”
“And he is—was—staying at the Inn.”
“Not any longer,” I said. “Ekaterina kicked him out for bad behavior, around lunchtime yesterday. I had no idea he was still in town. Or why he was out here at our house.”
“Vern’s nearly there.”
I nodded, then realized she couldn’t see that.
“Right,” I said. “I can see his lights.”
Vern had his cruiser’s flashing lights going, but no siren. I wondered if they did that out of consideration for the people who were still sleeping, or just to minimize the odds of nosy onlookers showing up to complicate the crime scene.
“The chief’s on the way, too,” Debbie Ann said. “And your dad. And Horace. But stay on the line with me until Vern’s there to secure the crime scene.”
“Will do,” I said.
“When Vern gets here, maybe you should go back inside,” Michael said. “Check on Rose Noire and Delaney.”
“Probably more useful if I stay out here, at least for a little while,” I said. “Not that going back inside where it’s warm doesn’t sound heavenly, but at least I can tell Vern a little bit about who he is. And who might have had it in for him.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But as soon as Vern gets here, I’m going back in to get your hat and gloves. And maybe a sweater to layer in under the coat.”
“Great idea,” I said. “And as soon as I’ve briefed Vern, I’m going back in to get dressed in something warmer.” At least my coat had a hood, and nice, deep pockets into which I could shove my hands, but however cozy my flannel Christmas pajamas might be when I was tucked up in bed, they weren’t warm enough for tonight’s sub-freezing air.
Vern’s cruiser had parked by the road, and it was light enough that we could see him striding rapidly across the yard toward us. And not that far behind him was the chief. Vern stopped in the middle of the yard and waited for the chief to catch up with him before continuing on to where Michael and I stood.
I realized, with relief, that I wouldn’t need to brief the chief on who Norton was. I could go inside that much sooner.
Vern and the chief both nodded a silent greeting as they came up to stand beside us and gaze at the body.
“Poor soul,” the chief said. “Any idea what happened?”
“No idea,” Michael replied.
“Me neither,” I added. “Rose Noire found him. She came out to open the doors to the chicken coops and scatter feed for the hens. But she didn’t say a lot about what happened. She’s pretty upset.”
“Practically hysterical,” Michael said. “Which isn’t like her.”
He sounded puzzled. I was puzzled myself. Not that the gory sight in front of us wasn’t shocking enough to upset anyone. I was deliberately not looking at the Gadfly and not letting myself think too much about what I’d seen when I had looked. And Rose Noire hadn’t had as much exposure as I had to Dad’s enthusiasm for sharing the sometimes unsavory details of illnesses, crimes, and autopsies.
But she was nothing if not mellow and philosophical. And capable of any amount of empathy, not only for the victims of a crime but also for the perpetrator. Her usual reaction to a brutal crime was to say, somewhat tearfully, that a person had to have been hurt very badly to even think of doing something so cruel. Why did this upset her so badly?
I shoved the question out of my mind for now.
“You both look as if you’re going to freeze to death,” the chief said. “Why don’t you go back inside, now that Vern and I have secured the scene. And we’ve got reinforcements on the way. As soon as your dad has pronounced and Horace gets started working the scene, I’ll come in and interview you. And Rose Noire.”
“Thanks,” Michael said, through chattering teeth.
“Not going to argue with that,” I said.
We walked briskly back toward the house.
In the kitchen, Rose Noire and Delaney were sipping steaming cups of tea. Delaney was rubbing Rose Noire’s back with one hand. Rob was hovering nearby, looking anxious and awkward. He glanced up when Michael and I entered, and relief flooded his face. Rob was never any good at dealing with tears or tearful people.
“I’m going up to get dressed,” Michael said. “Something tells me things will be a little busy around here for a while.”
“I’ll stay here with Rose Noire until the chief comes in,” I said.
As I sat down at the kitchen table, across from Rose Noire and Delaney, I realized that Cordelia was here, rummaging in the refrigerator.
“If there’s any of your fake vegetarian bacon in here, I can’t find it,” she said over her shoulder—talking, I assumed, to Rose Noire. “How about a nice hot bowl of good old-fashioned oatmeal?”
“That sounds wonderful,” Delaney said.
I blinked in surprise. I’d never known Delaney to be a fan of oatmeal.
“I couldn’t eat,” Rose Noire said in a thin voice.
“I’m sure you don’t want to,” Cordelia said. “But you need to. You’ve had a shock. Tea helps, but you need solid food.”
I wasn’t sure oatmeal was what Dad would prescribe for shock. But Cordelia made it sound so logical and matter-of-fact that I wasn’t the only one in the room nodding my agreement.
And Rose Noire did look better. Still trembling, but not sobbing hysterically. She looked up at me and tried to smile. She didn’t quite succeed, but the effort reassured me.
“Meg, who is he?” she asked. “Who was he, I mean? And why did someone kill him in our backyard?”
“It’s a guy named Gustave Niedernstatter,” I said.
Cordelia froze, and turned around from the stove, a wooden spoon in one hand and a box of raisins in the other.