“It appears to be the product information insert from a package of sublingual nitroglycerin spray,” Horace said, no doubt as much for our benefit as the chief’s. “I’ll check it against the bottle we found in the ballroom, but I’m pretty sure it’s a match.”
“Meg,” the chief said. “Unless I’m mistaken, I saw several tote bags just like this down in the ballroom.”
“Every conference attendee got one,” I said. “We put the conference program in it, and their badges, and a few other goodies Grandfather convinced various organizations to donate—coupons and flyers from places like the Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the National Wildlife Federation. A copy of the Cornell Ornithology Lab’s bird-watching calendar for the coming year. Some of them carry it around and use it to stash handouts and water bottles, and whatever other gear they might not want to run back to their rooms for. Others just leave it in their rooms once they check in.”
“And idea which camp Lindquist would have fallen into?”
“No idea—you might be able to tell from the contents.”
Horace picked up the bag’s contents from the table where he’d placed them and began sorting through them.
“Here’s the calendar Meg mentioned,” he said. “Discount on Audubon membership—wouldn’t they all already belong? National Wildlife Federation pamphlet. Caerphilly Inn notepad and pen.”
“May I take a look?” I asked. “I know exactly what we packed in those bags.”
Horace brought over the tote bag’s contents and showed them to me, item by item.
“Original contents,” I said when he’d finished. “Nothing added, nothing missing.”
“Except for this.” Horace held up the package insert.
“In other words,” the chief said, “while Dr. Lindquist will almost certainly claim that someone else planted the insert in his tote bag, it appears that he brought the bag to his room and left it here untouched.”
“Of course, he hasn’t done anything to personalize his bag,” I pointed out. “There’s a slot on one side that could hold a business card—do you think any of them ever use it? No, they all run around picking up each other’s identical bags.”
“So even though it’s almost certainly his, his lawyer will try to cast all kinds of doubt on it.” The chief sighed. “We’ll keep looking.”
“Maybe it will have fingerprints.” Horace tucked the folded paper into an evidence bag.
“Let’s finish inventorying his medicines and move on,” the chief said.
The next search was uneventful. It turned out that the three lost lambs were sharing a room—only Belasco, the junior professor, was registered, but Smith’s and Whitmore’s gear was definitely there. I wasn’t sure how Ekaterina would take this. She’d never have thrown them out in the storm and probably wouldn’t even have charged Belasco any extra fees, but still …
“Wasn’t it nice of Dr. Belasco to take those poor students in when they figured out they were going to get stranded here?” I said. “And I do hope they were able to get their deposit back from the bed-and-breakfast they’d originally planned to stay in.”
I was relieved to see that she took the discovery of the two stowaways calmly. It probably helped that she’d have been hard pressed to find another room for them. And the search of their room was unproductive. Later, perhaps, I’d suggest to the lambs the wisdom of being seen spending money freely in the Mount Vernon Grill. And point out to Ekaterina what while Smith and Whitmore might be stowaways, at least they didn’t appear to be homicidal ones.
The search of Dr. Czerny’s room was also unproductive. And a little depressing. The entire top of the dresser was taken up with stacks of handouts for Dr. Frogmore’s presentations and bundles of Dr. Frogmore’s academic papers and reprints from professional journals, only a couple of them including Czerny himself as a junior author. On the desk were the galleys of a lengthy and highly technical article—again by Dr. Frogmore, although it looked as if Dr. Czerny had been doing the Herculean task of proofreading it. Apart from a few items of clothing hung in the closet and a handful of toiletries on the counter in the bathroom, he didn’t seem to have unpacked—his suitcase was still half full of socks, underwear, and whatever else he’d brought.
We locked the laundry cart in the Command Post before searching the cottages, though I was still allowed to come along, in case they needed help carrying the evidence bags.
Apparently my parents had taken in Melissa McKendrick, who was sharing the study in the Washington Cottage with Rose Noire. I had a feeling Melissa had packed in a hurry when she’d realized she was likely to be snowbound. Everything she’d brought fit neatly in one drawer. Although I doubted she and Rose Noire had had quite as much fun with the Murphy beds as the boys, they’d clearly taken advantage of the library. Melissa appeared to be in the middle of A Wrinkle in Time.
And while we found a lot of really interesting things at Grandfather’s cottage—a large collection of owl pellets and a taxidermied wombat for starters—none of them appeared related to the case. Which was a good thing, actually—so many people had been coming and going from the cottage that tying anything found there to any one of the chief’s suspects would have been next to impossible.
When we’d finished with the cottage, the chief thanked me and Ekaterina for our assistance and he and Horace headed back to the Command Post. Ekaterina dashed off to see about preparations for the upcoming Hanukkah dinner. I had long since regretted having nothing to eat since the croissant that had constituted my breakfast. I was hovering between dashing off to see if there was anything left from the buffet and retreating to our own cottage to see if there was anything in the refrigerator there when my walkie-talkie sputtered to life.
“Meg?” Grandfather’s voice. “Meg? I need you to do something.”
Of course. I glanced at my phone. Well, the buffet was probably out anyway. The lunch hour was past, and we were ten minutes into the next panel session. I hoped whatever Grandfather had in mind could wait until after I’d grabbed a bite of lunch.
“What do you need?” I asked.
“Percival. We’re canceling the pesticide panel—it was Frogmore’s show anyway. I’m substituting a session with Percival. I’m not quite as knowledgeable as Clarence, but I think with your dad’s help I can give a pretty good presentation on his case. We need someone to bring him to the conference area. I’m filling in on a panel now, or I’d do it.”
And that someone would probably have to be me, I realized with a sigh. The attitude of the hotel staff toward Percival ranged from wary to downright terrified, and besides, Grandfather took a dim view of allowing just anyone to take charge of his owl. And knowing Grandfather, I’d be better off fetching the owl and then eating. He wouldn’t leave me in peace until Percival was at his side.
“Remember, I don’t do mice,” I said.
“That’s fine,” he said. “I’ll want to feed him during the presentation, so skip the crickets, too.”
If Michael and the boys were available—but no, they were shoveling snow.
Never mind. I could do this. I’d taken him down there, hadn’t I? His cage was huge and bulky, but not heavy, and I’d managed to get it onto the dolly before with no problem.
I made sure I had the right key card in my pocket and began the long trek down to the storage room.
Percival seemed moderately glad to see me, probably because he was expecting more crickets.
“Sorry, pal.” I was putting on the heavy leather gloves we kept there for anyone who might be putting their digits within reach of the owl’s formidable beak and talons, as I’d have to do when I lifted the cage onto the dolly.
But Percival remained well-behaved—probably because before tackling his cage I’d stashed the mice and crickets on the front end of the dolly, thus galvanizing his attention on them. I rolled the dolly over to one end of the cage and heaved that end up until it was resting on the edge of the dolly’s platform.
Percival ruffled his feathers slightly and fixed his attention on me rather than the mice, making me glad I had the gloves. He looked annoyed, but then he always did. It occurred to me that “resting owl face” would make a nice gender-neutral replacement for “resting bitch face.” Or would I be accused of speciesism for suggesting it? I filed away the thought as I lifted up the other end of the cage and gently shoved it onto the dolly.
“Hope you’re ready for your star turn,” I told Percival.
I set my tote on top of the mice and cricket cages and began turning the dolly so I could pull it out the door. The otherwise narrow corridor widened into a little antechamber that gave just enough room to get the dolly out and turn it so you could steer it down the hallway. I propped the storeroom door open and began pulling it out into the corridor. Percival gave a harsh shriek and flapped his wings as we got going.
And then something swooped down, cutting out the light and wrapping my arms. I struggled, but my arms were completely enveloped in whatever had fallen on me.
Make that whatever someone had thrown over me. I could feel someone fishing in my pockets, removing everything in them—my phone. My key card. A used tissue that I hoped the sneak thief would find sufficiently disgusting. Then he pulled me away from the dolly, opened a door, and shoved me through it. I heard the door slam closed behind me.
I was outside. In the snow. With no coat.