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Sandra took her coffee outside. The Sunday morning mayhem of her house was getting to her more than it usually did, and she needed a minute to collect her thoughts. She had spent most of the night tossing and turning, worried that Chip and Slaughter had arrested the wrong man. She wasn’t the president of the Richard Barney fan club, but neither did she think that he was a murderer. She drained the last drop of her creamy java and was reluctantly returning to the circus tent when she noticed a man standing a few feet from her bird bath.
It was Bob, of course. He wasn’t looking at her, but was staring at a bird with such intensity Sandra wondered if he was reading its thoughts. She approached slowly, trying to be quiet, even though it didn’t require much effort; her slippers sliding through dewy grass didn’t make much noise.
“Good morning,” he said.
Angel ears at their finest.
“Good morning. Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
He finally looked at her. “Interrupt what?”
She pointed her chin at the chickadee. “Whatever interaction you’re having with your fellow winged creature.” She figured this was as good a time as any. “Do you have wings, Bob?”
Before she could finish the question, he returned his gaze to the bird. “We weren’t chatting. I was just admiring her feathers.”
She waited for him to answer her question. “So, is the other thing proprietary?” She grinned, trying to cover up how much she really wanted to know whether he had wings and if so, where were they?
“They arrested Richard Barney.”
“Yes, I know.” She was never going to know, this side of heaven anyway, if Bob could fly.
“And you don’t think they’ve got the right man?”
She paused. “How do you know that?”
He shrugged, still staring at the chickadee.
She stepped closer, and of course, the bird took off, but Bob continued to stare at the small waves traveling through the water, the only evidence that the bird had ever been there.
“I can see it on your face. You are distraught about something. So, either you’re worried about being late for church”—he glanced at her and looked her up and down—“and I doubt that’s the case given your outfit, or you’re thinking about the case. And you don’t look relieved that the murderer has been caught. You are unsettled. So, if not Richard Barney, then who? Who did it?”
She pulled her worn bathrobe tighter around her, feeling self-conscious. “I have no idea. It could be him. I don’t think he’s a particularly nice man, although his son seems far crueler.” She took a deep breath, really wishing her coffee mug wasn’t empty. Was it too much to ask Bob to miraculously refill it? And with that Cumberland Farms coffee from down the street? She could go back inside and fill in with non-miraculous Folgers, but Bob had a habit of disappearing if she didn’t keep him completely engaged. She decided to go without. “But it’s not that I think he’s innocent so much as that I think their version of the crime doesn’t make sense.”
He turned toward her and gave her a broad smile. “You’re really starting to sound like a detective.”
“Speaking of detectives, can’t you just go eavesdrop on Chip and Slaughter? Maybe they know stuff we don’t know?”
He chuckled. “First of all, do you know how weird it is that you call him by his first name and her by her last? And second, I’ve told you before that I can’t just go eavesdropping. There are rules, guidelines ...” He acted as if he wanted to say more.
She wished he would. This whole angel thing was so mysterious. She’d spent all this time with him and she hardly knew any more than when she first met him in the grocery store parking lot. He never added to his sentence, and the pause grew long and uncomfortable.
“I feel like I know Chip, even though I really don’t, and so I think of him on a first name basis. As for Slaughter, well, her last name just sort of fits her.” As she discussed the topic aloud, it further developed in her mind. “And they’re sort of like a unit. So they get a first name and a last. Collectively, they are Chip Slaughter.”
He laughed again. “That doesn’t make any sense, but if it works for you ... so, what do you think Chip Slaughter has wrong?”
She hesitated, wanting to sound smart. “All of it. First of all, Richard Barney is loaded, thanks to his cat vacuum thing—”
Bob’s face jerked back in alarm. “Cat vacuum? Someone is vacuuming up cats?”
She laughed and shook her head quickly, wanting to comfort him. A new chickadee landed in the bath. Or maybe it was the same one. But this one looked chubbier. Bob returned part of his attention to the bird bath. “No, silly.” She stepped closer, and the new bird flew off. She was happy to see it go, finding herself a tad jealous of Bob’s attention. “It’s a small box that you put your cat in, and it sucks out all the extra hair, so they don’t shed all over your house.”
The alarm returned to Bob’s face. “That’s barbaric!”
She laughed again, this time with her belly, and slapped a hand over her mouth to try to keep the noise down. She didn’t need her neighbors wondering why she was laughing hysterically at an empty bird bath. “It doesn’t hurt them. It’s supposed to be gentle.” She shrugged and turned her own gaze to the empty bird bath. Now that she had his full attention, it was too much to handle. “Anyway, so he’s loaded. Why would he need to kill a recovering drug addict from Lewiston? And if he did, would he really be stupid enough to do it in his church’s backyard? I don’t like the man, but I doubt the inventor of the Cat Vac is stupid. But let’s say that he is, that he’s not smart enough to hire someone else to kill the man—”
“It might not be a matter of intelligence. The more people one involves in a crime, the more chance there is of being caught.”
This insight surprised her. “You’re sounding more like a detective too. What? You think he did it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She rocked on her feet. She was getting tired of standing, and she needed more coffee.
“Continue.” He twirled an impatient finger at her.
It took her a second to remember where she was. “Oh yeah, and so, let’s say he did do it. You really think he’d be stupid enough to return the bloody murder weapon to the bat bag?”
Bob blinked. “You’re right. That part doesn’t make any sense. Why not just wipe the prints off it and leave it with the body? Then the whole softball team is under suspicion.”
“Right! And he wasn’t smart enough to wipe his prints off? Seriously? What criminal doesn’t know enough not to wipe their prints off the murder weapon? Don’t people watch television?”
Bob snorted. “I think people watch more than enough television. I would say that a person who was drinking, or using drugs, or overwhelmed by emotion or panic—those people don’t remember the finer points of police procedural dramas.”
“What?” She hadn’t meant to snap, but he wasn’t making any sense.
“Those people don’t stop to think about how things work on television. Those people make bad decisions.”
“Are you saying Richard was drunk or high or emotionally overwhelmed?”
“Maybe.” Bob dragged the word out as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to say it.
She couldn’t picture Richard being any of these things. “Still. I think it sounds more like a frame job. Like someone else put the weapon back, to make sure that we found it. Of course, I have no idea how they got Richard’s prints on the bat. I didn’t think he would stoop low enough to touch the old thing.”
“I know how his prints got on the bat,” a small voice spoke from behind them.
Sandra almost shrieked in surprise. “Peter! What are you doing sneaking up on us?” She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer, already wondering how annoyed he’d be if she asked him to go get her more coffee.
“I didn’t sneak. You were just talking a lot.” He looked around, raising his voice a little as he said, “And since I know you don’t talk to birds, I figured Bob was here ... somewhere.”
She shushed him and pointed to her right.
Peter’s eyes widened, and she knew that he could now see Bob.
“Hi, Peter.”
“Bob!” Peter stepped out from under Sandra’s arm and flung his spindly limbs around Bob’s waist with such force that Bob staggered back a step.
“Peter!” she whispered. “The neighbors!”
Peter made it clear he didn’t care what the neighbors saw or thought. He stepped back still beaming.
“So?” she cried. “How did his prints get on the bat?”
Peter rolled his shoulders back and raised his chin. “At the game before the murder, Mr. Barney, the younger, was making fun of the team bats. He handed a bat to the old Mr. Barney, and said, ‘Just try to swing it! It weighs a ton!’ They both swung a couple of the bats, laughing and being mean.”
“Then what?” she pushed.
He scrunched his face up. “Then nothing, I guess. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
Bob ruffled Peter’s hair. “Good job, buddy.” He looked at Sandra. “Sounds like maybe Brendan is the framer.”
Her breath caught. “And Richard is the framed.”
A male chickadee landed on the edge of the bath and sang out fee-bee! like an eerie endorsement of their new theory.
They all stood there silently staring at the bird, but it went mute.
“You should go get more coffee and then get to church.”
She frowned. “How do you know I need more coffee?”
“You keep staring at the empty cup in your hand.”
She glanced down at it again. “If you can read people so well, why can’t you pick out killers?”
“I probably could if I knew whom to look at it and spent enough time at it.” He jumped a little. “So, that’s what we’re going to do! If Brendan is in church, study his every move. I’ll go too and do the same.”
“Won’t that get you into trouble with Mannaziah?” She was sure she’d pronounced that wrong.
He shrugged. “We’ll find out.” And he was gone.