“I’m helping Horace out with something,” I explained, as I grabbed a last segment of clementine and stood.
“You go on, dear,” Mother said. “I’ll keep an eye on things here.”
“And Rose Noire, the chief’s ready for you in the library,” Horace added.
“Go on and get it over with,” Delaney said, patting Rose Noire’s shoulder.
Rose Noire stood, took a deep breath to center herself, and walked out of the kitchen, head held high. Iris looked disappointed. I decided maybe it was a good thing Horace hadn’t mentioned where he and I were going, or we’d have Iris trying to join in the fun. Or at least watching us through her binoculars from her back windows, which Horace might find distracting.
But we managed to escape the kitchen, leaving Merilee picking at a small plate of barbecued chicken and potato salad, while Iris chowed down on a plate piled high with ribs.
“I’d suggest taking separate cars,” Horace said. “In case I get another call while I’m working the scene. But pretty much any call I got, I’d have to go past your house on my way to it.”
“And I could walk home if need be,” I said. “Or call someone for a ride.” The road that led past our house dead-ended at the bank of Caerphilly Creek several miles farther on, with Iris’s house being one of the few houses between us and the creek. Walking to the creek and back was one of the things I sometimes did when something had angered or upset me and I needed to calm down.
I wondered, briefly, if the chief had thought of searching for Norton’s car down by the creek. If I had been planning to sneak through the woods to our house, I’d probably have parked there, behind the Spare Attic, a former textile factory that had been converted into self-storage units. Behind the Spare Attic, or possibly among the cars belonging to the residents of The Haven, a formerly run-down motel that Rob had bought and converted into cheap apartments for many of his junior employees.
But the chief had probably already thought of this. In fact, just after Horace and I pulled into Iris’s driveway, I saw another police cruiser pass by, with Vern Shiffley at the wheel. He and I waved at each other. Horace either didn’t notice or was too busy to wave. He hopped out of the cruiser and was now focused on the contents of its trunk. I could hear him talking to himself, nearly inaudibly, as he rummaged through all his forensic tools and supplies, picking out the precise selection that he’d need for working a crime scene in the woods. Or at least in the “some-trees” part of the yard, I thought, smiling as I remembered Iris’s description.
I stood looking up at the house. It was an attractive white-frame farmhouse. Old, though not as old as our house, and not the least bit run down. I guessed maybe late Victorian, maybe early twentieth century. And big, though again not as big as our house. Two stories, and I could see a few dormer windows indicating that there was an attic, and a set of old-fashioned slanted metal doors that obviously led to the basement. A wide covered porch encircled the building—open along the front and sides of the house and screened in along the back. The mother-in-law suite had been added onto the left side, but they’d done a nice job of making it look as if it belonged to the rest of the house. And the whole thing looked in excellent condition—you couldn’t tell that the addition was new, since the whole house had been recently painted and showed no visible need for repairs. Which was more than I could say for our house when we’d bought it. In fact, the only reason we could say it now was that we practically had the Shiffley Construction Company on retainer to fix all the damage regularly wrought by age, weather, and the comings and goings of a large number of friends and relatives.
Iris had a nice house. If it had been on the market when Michael and I had been house hunting, we’d have jumped at it. And I could see why she was worried about what would happen to it when she no longer occupied it. I had no idea how plausible her fears were that either a developer might build a subdivision on her farmland or a corporation might turn it from an organic family farm into a profitable but pesticide-laden environmental menace. But I could see someone trying to build a golf course here. Or some wealthy outsider buying the property, tearing down the beautifully maintained but old-fashioned farmhouse and replacing it with a honking big mansion. It was way too good for a tear-down, in my opinion, but it wouldn’t pass muster with a buyer who wanted something sleek and modern. A buyer who would almost immediately begin complaining about the proximity of Seth Early’s sheep, our chickens and llamas, and Dad’s heirloom sheep, cows, and goats.
I was starting to sound like one of the old-timers, complaining about people who aren’t from around here.
The place might not be going on the market soon—at least not if Iris had anything to do with it. But would she feel differently if someone she knew and trusted approached her with an offer?
Someone like, for example, Rob and Delaney?
Or would she resent the idea, feeling we were trying to kick her out?
I tucked away the idea for later consideration and focused on what I was here for—helping Horace.
Just then Vern pulled his cruiser up beside Horace’s and got out to join us.
“Hey, Horace. Hey, Meg,” he called out. “Chief sent me to help out. He figured while you were working the scene, I could see if whatever evidence you find makes it possible to follow the intruder’s tracks. See if he really went from here to Meg and Michael’s place. And don’t worry,” he added, seeing Horace’s slight frown. “I know how to hang back and not trample any evidence before you can collect it.”
“That’s fine,” Horace said.
“By the way, Aida located the victim’s car,” Vern said. “Abandoned on a side road not that far from the entrance to the Inn.”
“Interesting,” Horace said. “So maybe Norton came here with his killer.”
“Or the killer used his car to get back to the Inn,” Vern said. “Or maybe Norton was killed elsewhere and dumped here.”
“Pretty sure he was killed where we found him,” Horace said. “Too much blood at the scene.”
“That fits, actually,” Vern said.
“You were headed down toward the creek,” I said. “Did you find anything there?”
“Some tire tracks in that muddy place behind the Spare Attic,” he said. “They’ll probably turn out to be how our murder victim got here. I took some photos of them,” he added to Horace, who had come to attention at the mention of tire tracks. “And I rigged a cover over them, the way you showed me you like, so they’ll still be there waiting for you when we finish up here. Any other season, I’d just assume it was young folks looking for some privacy, but in this weather?” He shook his head.
“We can compare the tire tracks to Norton’s car,” Horace said.
“Yup,” Vern said. “A pity the snow didn’t start last night. That would make tracking pretty darned easy.”
“Did the chief show you the video Mrs. Rafferty took?” Horace asked.
Vern nodded and held up his phone.
“Good,” Horace said. “You can help me figure out exactly where the alleged ninja went, because all I see in the video is trees.”
“That I can do,” Vern said. “There are some pretty distinctive trees in that video.” Trees were one of Vern’s passions.
“If you say so.” Unless they held a clue to a case he was working on, trees were mere scenery to Horace. “Any chance you two could carry some of my gear?”
Vern and I each shouldered one of the two sturdy carrying bags in which Horace had loaded his gear, leaving him freer to work. We began slowly approaching the area he wanted to examine—slowly because both he and Vern were using Iris’s video to figure out exactly where Iris’s ninja had passed through. Actually, it was mainly Vern doing the figuring.
I glanced around to orient myself. On what would be the left side of the house if you looked at it head-on—the side farthest from town—I could see a field where in season Ben Shiffley raised organic vegetables. Now, it was planted with red clover as a cover crop, and around its edges were the tall, dead stalks of the bee balm he planted in summer to attract pollinators. Across the street you could see one of Seth Early’s sheep pastures, though there weren’t any sheep there at the moment. Which was unusual unless—I pulled out my phone and checked the weather app. The chance of snow later today had crept up to sixty percent, which explained why this pasture was empty. Seth liked to keep his flock closer to the barn when there was any chance of snow.
To the right of Iris’s house was a small barn, now serving more as a combined garage and storage shed, neatly painted white to match the house. And behind the house and barn and to the right of the barn the open yard gradually gave way to the woods. Neither the barn nor any other features in the yard, like the picnic table, the bird feeders, or the sad empty chicken coop, appeared on the video. Just trees and the ninja.
“I think we’re getting close,” Horace said. “See that tree that looks as if it’s winking at us?”
“The scarlet oak right beyond the dead tulip tree?” Vern asked.
“The tree that still has a bunch of dead leaves on it,” Horace said, frowning. “And has two knothole things side by side at around eye level, one bigger than the other.”
“Yup,” Vern said. “That’s the scarlet oak.”
“If you say so.”
“And yes, the ninja passed right by it,” Vern added.
“Good. Thanks.” Any annoyance vanished from Horace’s voice. He was focused on the ground.
We progressed slowly through the scattered trees, with Horace in the lead, bent over double, scanning the leaf-scattered ground for anything that might be evidence. Vern followed a few yards behind him, using a pair of binoculars to look ahead and to either side, hoping to find the ninja’s trail. I brought up the rear, laden with Horace’s gear. It occurred to me that if Vern was here, I was no longer needed to watch my cousin’s back while he worked. But I hung around anyway, since my curiosity was roused. If anyone objected to my presence, I could always point out that I was still useful, since Vern could get called away at any time on some other bit of police business, leaving Horace vulnerable to the evil intentions of any lurking ninjas.
Was ninjas correct? Or was the plural of ninja still ninja? At any other time, I’d look it up. But what if Horace or Vern noticed me using my phone and asked what I was looking up? Wouldn’t it sound frivolous? Then again—
“Man-made object to your left,” Vern said. He pulled something out of his pocket and aimed it at a spot in the leaves. The red dot of a laser pointer appeared on the leaves—and on something small and silvery.
“Excellent,” Horace said. “Let’s check it out.”