I checked the weather app on my phone. Alas, it wasn’t going to get above freezing today. But on the positive side, the chance of precipitation had changed from 0 to 30 percent. And any precipitation that fell today would almost certainly be snow. Maybe a white Christmas was possible after all.
On my way into town I tried to appreciate the surrounding holiday decorations and let them coax me into a holiday mood. So far it wasn’t working all that well, but still, I would keep trying. Deliberately make myself notice everything that would cheer me up.
Nice to see that the tourists seemed to enjoy the Dickensian theme of Christmas in Caerphilly. In fact, more and more of them were showing up dressed in Victorian finery of their own. I made a mental note to suggest to Randall that a costume shop might be a revenue generator if someone wanted to open one.
I took a slight detour to cruise by a yard that always featured some of my favorite decorations. It belonged to a couple who were so enamored of Halloween that they repurposed their over-the-top Halloween decorations into a Christmas display, thanks to strategic use of Santa hats, tinsel, and strings of Christmas lights. A skeleton Santa rode in a rickety sleigh pulled by eight skeleton reindeer. A wreath made of bones festooned their front door. All the bony arms coming out of the ground now held bits of mistletoe or shiny glass balls. And this year the skeletal friendly beasts approaching the bony Holy Family included a flock of bats wired to look as if they were coming in for a landing.
“‘Still through the cloven skies they come,’” I quoted. “‘With peaceful wings unfurled.’”
That was one thing about living in a town that celebrated an over-the-top Christmas festival every year—by now I knew all the words to all the verses of even the most obscure Christmas carol. Unfortunately, there was no one around to be impressed with the fact that I knew the opening to the second verse of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.” If I tried I could probably even dredge up most of the lyrics to “Whence Comes This Rush of Wings.” Maybe I’d work on that before I drove some of our visitors past what most locals had taken to calling The Nightmare Before Christmas yard.
I was still humming and retrieving words when I pulled up at the gate of the Methodist parking lot. Luckily, a volunteer from the congregation was minding the phone in the office, which meant I gained admission to the parking lot with a lot less hassle than if Mrs. Dahlgren had answered. I pulled on my work gloves, grabbed the paper bag of cat bait Clarence had given me, and began making the rounds of the humane traps.
The first trap showed no signs of being disturbed, except that the little food trails leading to it had disappeared. I laid new trails and moved on.
The second trap contained an annoyed squirrel who chittered angrily and flicked his tail at me when I peered inside. I opened the door of the trap and he ran off, still looking vexed.
“You’re lucky I’m not fond of Brunswick stew,” I told him. He ignored me, so I focused on rebaiting the trap and laying nice trails to it.
The third trap was missing. I could see a faint imprint where it had rested, and also a few places where something had scarfed up all the little bits of bait in the trails. But no trap.
The fourth trap was undisturbed. After I refreshed its bait trails, I went back to where the third had been. I searched the nearby bushes, since it occurred to me that someone—Mrs. Dahlgren, most likely—might have thought it was a little too visible and moved it to a more discreet location. No luck.
Mrs. Dahlgren had returned while I was working, so I should probably go inside to ask if she’d seen anything.
“The things I’m doing for you, little mother cat,” I muttered.
Mrs. Dahlgren was there in the church office, casting stern glances at a trio of women who were stuffing envelopes with frantic speed. Over at Trinity Episcopal this activity would be done at a much slower pace and accompanied with much gossip and laughter, but Mrs. Dahlgren’s presence probably cast a pall over things. The three women glanced up, gave me quick smiles, and then put their heads down over their work.
“Good morning,” I said to Mrs. Dahlgren. “My grandmother and I helped Clarence Rutledge set out some traps yesterday, to remove the feral cat that’s been hanging around your grounds. One of the traps is gone—do you have any idea what happened to it?”
“I assumed you had already caught the stray,” she said. “And that was why you carried the one trap away this morning. Does this mean you’re not here to remove the other traps?”
“Carried the trap away?” I echoed. “I haven’t been here since yesterday. What—”
“I didn’t mean you personally, of course.” Mrs. Dahlgren frowned slightly. “One of your other cat people.”
I suppressed a smile at the image this conjured up, of slinking around with a group of fellow feral rescuers, all of us dressed in furry polyester jumpsuits like refugees from a low-budget production of Cats.
“If the cat’s been caught, I haven’t heard about it,” I said. “What time did this happen? The people removing the trap, I mean.”
“At ten fourteen.” Her precision was reassuring.
“Did you see who took the trap? Was it anyone you knew?”
“I only saw their backs,” she said. “Two people in coats and hats.”
Since only a lunatic would be out in subfreezing weather without wraps, this wasn’t particularly helpful. So much for precision.
“I’ll ask around,” I said. “And if the cat’s been caught, I’ll come over right away to remove the rest of the traps.”
Mrs. Dahlgren nodded, and her face said “Of course you will.”
I made my way back to my car. After thinking about it for a second or two, I called the Caerphilly Veterinary Hospital and got Clarence’s assistant.
“Morning, Lucas,” I said. “Did anyone bring in that pregnant feral cat this morning?”
“Not yet,” he said. “I checked the traps when I came in this morning, around seven, but I’ve been too busy to get over there since. Can you—”
“I’m there,” I said. “I rebaited three of the traps, but Mrs. Dahlgren saw someone hauling away the fourth at ten fourteen.”
“You sure she didn’t just chuck it in their Dumpster?” he asked.
Evidently he had also met Mrs. Dahlgren.
“I’ll check before I leave, but I doubt it,” I said. “I can see her doing that, but why would she stop at one? Besides, she wouldn’t lie about it afterward. She’d have some rationale for throwing them away that would make it seem totally justified. Look, I’m worried about this. If anyone brings the cat in—a very pregnant yellow tabby—can you let me know?”
“Sure thing.”
I got out of my car and checked the Dumpster. Luckily it didn’t have that much in it, so I could tell without digging into the contents that the humane trap couldn’t possibly be there.
“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty,” I called into the Dumpster. And then I repeated it a couple of times nearby. Not that I really expected to find the cat there—but I didn’t want Mrs. Dahlgren to make a fuss in case she was watching me and wondering why I was snooping in the Methodist Dumpster.
Back in my car I called Cordelia.
“Feeling better after your nap?” she asked.
“Much better,” I said. “But I’m worried—you haven’t been by to check the cat traps, have you?”
“I was planning to drop by this afternoon,” she said. “Your mother and I are over at Trinity helping Robyn wrap all the toys donated to the Christmas drive, but we should be finished soon.”
“No need,” I said. “I came over to check and rebait the traps. And someone stole one of them.”
“With or without the pregnant cat?”
“No idea.”
“Worrisome. Of course, it could be some kindhearted person who saw that the trap was full and didn’t want to leave the poor creature out in the cold.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But then why didn’t they haul it over to have Clarence check it out? Because that’s the first thing any local animal lover would do. Look, if you’re still over at Trinity, tell Robyn to put the word out on the parish grapevine to keep an eye out for the cat.”
“Will do. By the way, your mother wants to know if you can come to Mutant Wizards at two for a board meeting.”
I glanced at the corner of my phone that displayed the time. Nearly noon. I should be able to do the grocery shopping and drag it home by two. Especially since I could delegate putting things away to Rose Noire and Nora.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
After I exited the Methodist parking lot I was momentarily distracted by spotting a familiar-looking car in my rearview mirror. A dark blue Ford Taurus. Was it the same Taurus Katherine Anne Koenigslutter’s lawyer had been driving? Was Sloan following me?
More likely he was scouring the town in search of his client, and if he was doing that, the odds were good that we’d cross paths sooner or later. Though if I were him, I’d try lying in wait near Mutant Wizards. If Ms. Koenigslutter had found out that Ian was staying at our house, she had to know he was working at Mutant Wizards. Maybe I should call Sloan and suggest it.
Then again, he hadn’t been particularly receptive to my suggestions earlier. Maybe I should save my advice till I was asked.
I headed over to the Caerphilly Market. Normally I’d have tried to take the boys with me to handle the hauling, but they wouldn’t be out of school for a few more hours, and I wanted to get the shopping over with as soon as possible. I had no intention of impeding whatever culinary wonders Nora had planned for this evening.
But it took me longer than planned, so I decided the groceries would have to wait in the car while I attended the board meeting. Instead of heading home I wound my way through the throngs of tourists to the Mutant Wizards building.
And as I passed near the town square, I noticed something odd was afoot. A number of women appeared to be looking frantically for something. Some of them were dressed in the Victorian finery Randall encouraged us all to wear if we were wandering about downtown—to add to the festive Dickensian atmosphere of Christmas in Caerphilly. Some were dressed more suitably for the arctic temperature. Most of them I recognized as members of St. Clotilda’s Guild, Trinity Episcopal’s main women’s organization for carrying out good works. And all of them were looking under shrubbery and into trash cans and generally giving the impression that they’d lost something important.
A lost child, probably. Which would certainly be an emergency in this weather. I pulled over to where one lady I knew from church was searching an overgrown hedge and rolled down my window to ask what was going on and how I could help. I was about to call out to get her attention when—
“Here, kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty!” the woman called, thrusting her head into the hedge again. She was waving a chunk of sardine—even at a distance of six feet I could smell the oily, fishy odor of it.
They were looking for the cat.
The woman extricated herself from the hedge, spotted me, and strode over to my car.
“Robyn’s got us looking for a missing cat,” she said. “Have you seen one? She’s—”
“A yellow striped tabby,” I said. “Very small and very pregnant. And no, I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”
“A pity,” she said. “But never mind. We’ll find the poor thing, never fear!” She shook the chunk of sardine fiercely, and I winced as a few drops of oil landed on my face.
“Good work,” I said, and left her to continue peering into the hedge.
Maybe I’d come back later to help. Then again, if Robyn had enlisted the entire Guild, maybe they didn’t need my help.
No, they definitely didn’t need my help, I decided, as I spotted two members of the New Life Baptist Choir waving sardines at a hedgerow. If Robyn enlisted the choir on top of the Guild, half the town would soon be searching for the cat.
I arrived at Mutant Wizards at one forty and parked near the front door. As soon as I stepped out of my car into the icy air, any worry I might have had about the groceries spoiling vanished. Things might freeze, but they certainly wouldn’t spoil. I did a quick mental inventory to reassure myself that my grocery haul didn’t include anything I needed to bring inside to keep warm.
When I stepped inside I took a moment to appreciate the very modern holiday decorations Mother had come up with for the great open space of the Mutant Wizards lobby. Holiday, rather than Christmas, since the staff was pretty multicultural. Rather than work in references to the dozen or so holidays various staff members would be celebrating, Mother picked a favorite color scheme of purple and gold and decked the halls with garlands, ribbons, and banners in one or both of those colors. Employee reactions were mixed—some people missed the usual evergreen and Christmas colors. But every time I stepped inside I could almost imagine a team of trumpets performing a joyous fanfare.
On my way past the reception desk, I stopped to greet Kristyn. She handed me the envelope containing the torn subpoenas with an air of utter nonchalance.
“Mr. Meredith is here,” she said. “Senior. Ian’s father.”
“So soon?”
“He was already in Washington when they reached him,” she said. “He rented a car and headed down as soon as he heard. He’s in with the chief now.”
She nodded toward a small glass-fronted conference room off the lobby. The chief’s back was to me, so I could see Mr. Meredith. I was relieved to see that he didn’t look like an older version of Ian—I think that would have shaken me. He was a small, neat man with a carefully trimmed mustache and thinning gray hair. Older than I’d expected. Or did he just look that way because he was in grief and shock over his son?
“That’s why we’ve gone old-school on the music,” Kristyn said, pointing up at the speaker over her head. The soft notes of an orchestral version of “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” emerged from it. The usual holiday fare here at Mutant Wizards ran more to rock or hip-hop, with the occasional addition of “Run, Rudolph, Run” “Jingle Bell Rock,” and Bruce Springsteen’s version of “Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town” as a nod to the season.
“Thoughtful,” I said.
“I just hope we don’t have to postpone the big holiday taco feast,” Kristyn said. “That’s still on for the day after tomorrow, but I’m worried.”
“I’ll talk to my mother,” I said. “If Mr. Meredith is still in town by then, she and I can figure out a plan to keep him away from the office while the feast is going on.”
“Great.” Kristyn looked relieved.
“I’m going to head up to the conference room,” I said.
“Rob’s already up there,” she said. “And Caroline Willner. I’ll page Delaney and send up the others as soon as they get here.”
I found Rob in the vast employee lounge indulging in a desultory game of billiards on the black-and-purple pool table.
“Ready for the meeting?” I asked.
“You’re breaking the rule, you know.” He jerked his head toward the wall where a large sign said EMPLOYEE LOUNGE: NO SHOP TALK!
“Sorry,” I said. “I was going to ask you if Delaney filled you in on all the dirt we found out about Ian, but I don’t want to flout corporate policy.”
“He really turned into a jerk, didn’t he?”
“I think he always was one,” I said. “He just stopped pretending.”
He nodded and returned to his game. I watched him miss two relatively easy shots in a row—clearly he was troubled.
“See you in the board meeting,” I said.
I was about to head for the conference room when I noticed a man and a woman standing by the glass back wall of the room, staring out through binoculars, while another woman was frowning as she flipped through a book. Mutant Wizards employees, I realized, and if I worked at it I might be able to remember their names. I strolled over to see what they were watching.
“I give up,” the woman with the book said. “There are just too many nondescript-looking birds.”
Her book was a copy of Dad’s favorite birding manual. Of course his was battered, well-thumbed, and water-stained while hers was pristine and still had the tip of a sales receipt from the Caerphilly Bookstore sticking up out of its pages like a bookmark.
“Don’t worry about the nondescript birds if you’re just getting started at bird-watching,” I said. “Enjoy the decorative birds like cardinals and blue jays and woodpeckers, and let all the little nondescript brown birds take care of themselves.”
“We’ve got nothing but nondescript birds at the moment,” the man said. “Only these aren’t brown—they’re gray and white.”
“You could—wait. Gray and white? May I take a look?”
The man handed me his binoculars. I pointed them at the feeder, adjusted the focus, and suddenly I was looking at the beady black eye of a bird. A bird with a dark gray body and a white belly.
“That,” I said, “is a junco. A dark-eyed, slate-colored junco. I will not inflict its Latin name on you.” And I hoped they didn’t ask, because I couldn’t quite recall it. I pulled the binoculars away from my eyes so I could get a broader view of the back garden. The half dozen feeders were swarming with juncos. Dozens of them. “This is good news. Very good news.”
“Are they, like, extinct or something?” the woman with the bird book asked.
“No, but the old-timers consider them harbingers of snow,” I said. “Our odds of having a white Christmas just got better.”
The two with the binoculars began wielding them again with greater enthusiasm. I showed their companion where to find juncos in her manual. She began reading out its description to the others. I left them to it.
As I turned to go to the conference room, I caught sight of a couple of familiar faces—Maeve and Angela. They entered the lounge, then froze, exchanged a few words, and retreated, looking back over their shoulders with anxious expressions.
Odd. Were they hoping to find the lounge empty? Surely they’d been here at Mutant Wizards long enough to know better. More likely, they had spotted someone they wanted to avoid. And at the moment, that would be Rob, the three bird-watchers, or me.
I should definitely check them out more carefully. Search their rooms or interrogate them or maybe ask Kevin to see what he could find.
But that would have to wait until later. I headed for the conference room.
When I entered I found that Caroline had already arrived and was seated at the conference table doing something on her laptop.
“Blast the man,” she exclaimed. She looked irritated, and just a little frazzled. She smiled when she saw me, but then went back to frowning and staring at her computer screen.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Your grandfather can be so irritating sometimes.”
“No argument,” I said. “What’s wrong now?”
“Is there a bowling alley in town?”
“A bowling alley?” I echoed. “Actually, there is as of last year. Two of Randall Shiffley’s cousins opened one. Does that question have something to do with Grandfather?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” she said. “It appears he will be competing in a bowling tournament, if we can organize one.”
“Is he an expert bowler?” I asked.
“He doesn’t recall ever bowling in his life.” She rolled her eyes. “But—and this is a direct quote—‘how hard can it be?’”
“Should be interesting,” I said. “How did this all come about?”
“He tried to post something on the Facebook page for Blake’s Brigade,” she said.
I nodded. Blake’s Brigade was the informally organized group of nature and environmental enthusiasts who regularly volunteered to help Grandfather whenever he went out to rescue an endangered species, tackle an animal welfare issue, or confront corporate polluters. I hadn’t realized they’d set up a Facebook page for themselves, but it wasn’t surprising.
“Your grandfather should not be allowed on social media,” Caroline went on. “He just did a quick and dirty post asking if anyone wanted to go owling with him, and never noticed that autocorrect changed ‘owling’ to ‘bowling.’ And before I noticed it and posted a correction, several dozen people signed up.”
“Good grief,” I muttered.
“And once I corrected it, we started hearing from any number of people saying how deeply disappointed they were about our canceling the bowling—as if you could cancel something that wasn’t even scheduled in the first place. So he told me to go ahead and organize some kind of bowling event. Open to anyone in the Brigade, no cost, but donation to one of the Blake Foundation’s environmental projects suggested. Brigade members love events like that. We’re sure to get way more donations than it costs to rent a few bowling lanes. Now I just need to figure out how to deal with his other typo, which won’t be quite as easy.”
“Why?” I asked. “What was the other typo?”
“He intended to say that we’d wrap up the event by singing around a campfire,” Caroline said. “I have no idea why autocorrect changed ‘campfire’ to ‘vampire.’ Or why anyone would suppose he’d be planning to serenade one. Am I really expected to provide a vampire on top of the bowling?”
“We could see if Dr. Smoot is in town,” I suggested. “Remember, he was the local medical examiner before Dad.”
“The one who used to show up at crime scenes in fangs and a cape?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to oblige. And Dr. Smoot is passionate about bats. How about if you made it an event to benefit rescuing endangered bats? Assuming there are any.”
“Plenty of them.” Caroline brightened. “Including several species right here in Virginia—the gray bat, the Indiana bat, and of course the Virginia big-eared bat. Your grandfather’s particularly fond of the big-eared bat. What a good idea. Can you find this Dr. Smoot?”
“I’ll call him today,” I said. “And if he’s not in town—he spends a lot of time in Transylvania these days—I’m sure I can find you a substitute vampire. One of Kevin’s Dungeons & Dragons players. Or one of Michael’s drama students. Or all of the above—the more the merrier. I’m sure we can provide as many vampires as you need.”
“Do, please,” she said. “A platoon of vampires would annoy your grandfather no end, but he’ll shut up and play along if it’s to benefit his beloved Corynorhinus townsendii virginianus.”
“Can you write that down for me, please?” I said as I pulled out my phone to call Dr. Smoot. “It’s always easier to calm Grandfather down if you start by throwing a few Latin names at him.”
“Of course.” She pulled over one of the Mutant Wizards notepads from the middle of the table and scribbled down the name.
Just then the rest of the board members walked in. Mother led the way, followed by Minerva Burke and Uncle Tut. Then Rob scurried in, followed by Delaney. Festus brought up the rear. I scribbled a quick item in my notebook to call Dr. Smoot later and focused on what I hoped would be a typically quick and congenial board meeting.