I turned to see the chief. He didn’t seem as cheerful as he had sounded when I’d called to tell him of the phony Ruiz’s arrest.
“I suppose Kayla told you that Mr. Brickelhouse—your fake Fish and Wildlife agent—couldn’t have killed Mr. Willimer.”
“Sorry, chief,” Kayla murmured.
“So you really do want Haver’s gun,” I said. “I thought you were just humoring my desire to keep it out of the theater.”
“It’s entirely possible that Mr. Willimer’s murder will turn out to be the handiwork of one of Mr. Brickelhouse’s criminal associates,” the chief said. “But in the meantime, Mr. Haver remains very much a suspect. So yes.”
I reached into my tote, pulled out the towel-wrapped gun, and handed it to the chief.
“Did you touch it?” he asked.
“Because if I did, you’ll need my fingerprints for comparison,” I said, nodding.
“Actually, now that you’re a town and county employee, I think your fingerprints are on file,” he said with a smile. “Just wondering if we’ll need to access them.”
“I only touched it with gloves on,” I said. “Given the state of Haver’s dressing room, gloves probably aren’t enough—I’m wondering if I should escalate to a hazmat suit.”
“That’s good,” he said. “That you wore gloves, that is. Sorry about the need for a hazmat suit.”
“I suppose you’ll be sending it down to the crime lab in Richmond for testing,” I said.
“Actually, as soon as Horace gets back from the Inn, I’ll have him fire a couple of rounds so he can do his own test,” the chief said. “And then we’ll send it down to the crime lab. Horace’s word is good enough for me, but juries and defense attorneys are always much more impressed with the state crime lab folks.”
“By the way,” I said. “Did Ekaterina call you? I mean, lately—within the last couple of hours.”
“No.” He smiled slightly. “She still doesn’t quite believe that we are rather different from the KGB.”
“She was under the impression you’d confiscated Haver’s finch,” I said.
“Is it missing?”
I nodded, and relayed what I remembered of Mrs. Frost’s comments.
“‘The man who comes to take the animals away.’” The chief frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. Thank you. I will consult the ever-growing collection of colleagues fighting over the guest chairs in my office and see if any of them will own up to nabbing the finch.”
“Yeah,” I said. “From the look of the parking lot, I figured you must have your hands full with the visiting law enforcement.”
“Not as full as they will be.” He cast a baleful glance at the corridor that led to his office. “But it’s in a good cause.” He sounded as if he were reminding himself. He nodded to me, and headed back to his office.
“And I’d better get back to the theater.” I waved good-bye to Kayla, wrapped myself up, and strode out into the bitter cold.
On the way out I passed a brace of state troopers coming in. Poor Chief Burke.
And a vehicle was just pulling into the handicapped space. A very unusual-looking vehicle. A pickup truck whose front end looked huge, almost inflated, and dwarfed the tiny cab, with a modest cargo area bringing up the rear. It appeared to have started life as a black truck, but had received a right rear fender transplant from a sea-foam green sibling, and its owner had not bothered to paint over the many places where dents or rust spots had been repaired and painted with reddish primer. Definitely not a modern pickup truck—I suspected it was older than I was. In fact …
I did a quick search on my phone and confirmed that the truck could very well be a 1956 Ford pickup.
The owner—an elderly man in a bright green John Deere cap—was hanging a well-worn handicapped parking tag from his rearview mirror. He saw me looking at him and rolled down the window.
“Is Henry Burke in there?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Tell him to come out here.”
“Wouldn’t you rather come in?” I asked. “It’s below freezing out here and—”
“I know how cold it is, girlie! I can’t come in—I have a sick sheep in the back and I need to get her home to the farm.”
“I’ll go and ask him to come out,” I said. “May I tell him who’s calling on him?”
“Mort Gormley.”
As I suspected. I walked inside, where the chief was standing at Kayla’s desk, talking to her.
“And I’m sorry,” he was saying. “I know it makes more work for you but—”
“Chief,” I interrupted. “Mort Gormley wants to talk to you. I invited him to come inside, but says he can’t leave his sick sheep alone in the truck.”
“What the Dickens,” he muttered. But he strode over to the rack just inside the door, put on his heavy coat, and went outside. I followed.
“Mr. Gormley—” the chief began, as he approached the truck.
“Where the blue blazes do you get off, siccing the state troopers on me!” Gormley bellowed. “Like to give me a heart attack when they pulled me over.”
“I didn’t sic the state troopers on you,” the chief said. “When one of my officers went over to your farm this morning, we couldn’t find you, and no one had any idea of your whereabouts. We were concerned.”
“Concerned that I’d bumped off my next-door neighbor and fled the jurisdiction, eh?” Gormley erupted with wheezy laughter. “Well, I’m here. And I didn’t kill John Willimer. Took one of the Cotswolds down to Blacksburg to see a specialist at Virginia Tech. You want to waste your time checking my alibi, I can give you the name of the vet techs who stayed up all night with us.”
He fumbled inside his coat and eventually pulled out a sheet of paper. The chief stepped closer to the truck to take it.
“Thank you,” he said. “You ever see anything strange going on over at the Willimers?”
“Nope.” Mr. Gormley shook his head. “I keep myself to myself. And after your Deputy Shiffley spoke to Willimer about those dogs of his, he did the same. Been meaning to say I appreciated that.”
The chief nodded.
“What about the old lady?” Gormley asked. “She need anything?”
“She’s staying here in town for the time being,” the chief said. “We’re hoping she’ll turn out to have some kinfolk. Is your sheep going to be all right?” He nodded to the bed of the truck, where the placid white face of a sheep emerged from a small mountain of ratty blankets and tattered old quilts.
“She should be now.” Gormley’s voice softened slightly. “Not doing her any good sitting around out here, though. I’d like to get her home and bedded down, if it’s all the same to you.”
“I appreciate your dropping by,” the chief said. “Drive carefully.”
Gormley pulled the handicapped placard off his rearview mirror and stowed it in the glove compartment. Then he looked back at the chief.
“Did you really think I might be your killer?” he asked.
“Mort,” the chief said. “To tell you the truth, yes—I was worried that Willimer might have given you some new provocation. And I know how angry I’d feel toward someone I thought was responsible for the death of a helpless animal in my care. But when we couldn’t find you, I was even more worried that the killer might have gotten you, too.”
“I may be old, but I’m ornery,” Gormley said. “Take a lot to kill me. And I’m right partial to my sheep, but I wouldn’t kill a man over them. You can believe that or not—makes no never mind to me.”
“I believe you, Mort,” the chief said. “Drive carefully.”
Gormley looked at the chief for a few moments, then nodded. The chief and I stood watching as he backed, inch by inch, out of the parking space, slowly pulled out of the lot, and disappeared, gradually, into the distance.
“Blast,” the chief said. “I’m relieved to see he’s not another victim, but I was hoping he’d have noticed something. Not a whole lot more potential witnesses out in that part of the county. But I shouldn’t complain. The case is moving rapidly.”
“Unlike Mr. Gormley.”
“Yes.” He chuckled softly. “Hard to believe we only found Willimer this morning.”
“I know,” I said. “Seems like at least a week.”
“At least,” he agreed. “Meg, I hope you’re right about Michael being ready to step into Mr. Haver’s part on a moment’s notice.”
“You’re going to arrest him?”
“I’m going to bring him in for more questioning. I might end up detaining him.”
“I thought the latest theory was that the killer would turn out to be someone from the smuggling ring.”
“That was before Horace processed Mr. Haver’s room. Vern’s on his way over to the theater to collect Mr. Haver.”
“Damn,” I said. “I’d probably better get over there to help Michael deal with the fallout.”
But when I slipped into the theater and found a vantage point backstage, I could see Michael onstage, where Haver should have been—standing beside the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, eavesdropping on the two actors who played Scrooge’s fellow businessmen. That meant they were in the third act. I checked my watch. Three forty-five. Good—they were only running an hour or so late on the first run-through.
“When did he die?”
“Last night, I believe.”
“Why, what was the matter with him? I thought he’d never die.”
“God knows.”
“What has he done with his money?”
“I haven’t heard. He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know. Bye, bye!”
Had Vern come and gone already, taking Haver with him? I know the play must go on, but … so quickly? Maybe Michael was just … showing Haver how he wanted him to do something?
I couldn’t see much without barging out onstage and interrupting the rehearsal. So I ducked back into the hallway, followed it out to the lobby, and went in the main doors. I could see not only the stage but also the whole house.
Some of the actors who weren’t on in this act were sitting in the first few rows. I saw Rose Noire sitting just behind the small clump of child actors, including Josh and Jamie.
No sign of Haver.
“Meg?”
I started, and turned to find Vern Shiffley standing beside me.
“Do you happen to know when this Haver fellow goes on?” he asked.
“He should be on now,” I said. “The part Michael’s playing—that’s his part.”
“Then where is he?”
“I’d like to know myself.” I led the way backstage. Haver wasn’t in his dressing room. Or the costume shop. Or the bathroom. Or in the wings. Several of the actors onstage spotted us when we were poking about backstage and their concentration suffered.
“Let’s take a break, people,” Michael said. “Meg, is something wrong?”
“Haver’s not here?” I asked.
“Never came back from lunch. So I finally said the hell with it.” He looked as if he wanted to say more than that, but after a glance at the section where the child actors were sitting, he just set his jaw.
“So he’s flown the coop,” Vern said.