It was a long walk back to Shady Hollow. Vera was stumbling with exhaustion by the time she reached her den, and even Lenore was winded from the hours of low-level flying.
“Get some sleep,” the raven advised. “You’re no good to anyone if you can’t think! See you later.”
Vera slept like the dead. When she awoke, it was after noon. She hurried to the newspaper office to write up another column. BW was pacing madly on his desk, shouting at everyone to get to work.
Vera sweated over her notes. What did she have? Nothing she felt she could print. Only Ruby’s comments about the affair, and that fancy paper she’d traced back to the von Beaverpelt mansion. She had gone over her conversation at the cemetery with Ruby again and again. Yet she simply could not write an article featuring Ruby’s accusations against Edith, not even with the threatening note or the interview she’d had with Edith that ended so awkwardly. It wasn’t enough. The newspaper dealt in facts, and the dedicated reporter was having a hard time figuring which of her many facts were the important ones. Something was not quite right.
Despite BW’s urgings to stay and write, Vera left for her den. “I can’t think in here, BW, and it’s close to quitting time anyway.”
“You’re a reporter, Vixen! You need to think in a place like this! The clackity noise is key!”
“See you tomorrow, BW,” she called.
When she arrived home, Vera found Professor Heidegger waiting for her.
“I found something that may interest you,” he said.
Vera invited him inside, and they sat at the table after she made some peppermint tea.
“As you guessed, the toad wrote his personal diaries in a combination of languages, with a fairly common cryptic code pattern thrown in for good measure,” the owl explained. “Fortunately, I have made a study of such things.”
Professor Heidegger was certain that Otto did this more to amuse himself than to hide the content. The first of the two journals was not terribly interesting, mainly a list of what the toad had to eat every day and his plans for the evenings, which consisted mostly of drinking wine and grousing about the state of the world.
The owl tossed that journal aside in favor of the other one. “This journal is far more intriguing. It’s full of Otto’s dealings with his neighbors in Shady Hollow. Arguments with von Beaverpelt over use of the millpond, suspicions of Sun Li and what he actually puts in his vegetable stir-fry, and a dispute with Lenore over the condition of some used novels. The toad seemed to have a bone to pick with everyone.”
“Well, that’s no secret,” Vera said. “I don’t suppose you found anything about Mrs. von Beaverpelt?”
“Not directly,” Professor Heidegger said. “Otto Sumpf and Ruby Ewing were friends, better friends than she’s ever let on. Otto detailed in his diary how Ruby often came to visit him and talk about her problems. The unlikely pair both felt like outcasts in the town, although for very different reasons. Otto was exactly the sort of contrarian who would associate with Ruby just for the notoriety. The toad would complain about the latest grievance committed against him by a neighbor, and Ruby would share how she had been snubbed by the proprietor of the grocery store.”
Professor Heidegger was skimming through the pages that chronicled Otto and Ruby’s friendship. “Here,” he said. “The name of Reginald von Beaverpelt. It seems Ruby confided in Otto about her affaires de coeur. As we know from the wake, Ruby had been having an affair with Reginald von Beaverpelt, and she suspected Mrs. von Beaverpelt was aware of it.”
“Yes, she confirmed that to me later, at the cemetery. Go on.”
“According to Otto’s jottings, Ruby was deeply in love with the married beaver, and she wanted them to run away together. When von Beaverpelt refused and broke things off with her, she retaliated by blackmailing him. She threatened to expose their affair not only to Edith and her daughters but to the entire town of Shady Hollow.”
Vera nodded slowly. “That fits! Chitters knew money was going missing at the sawmill, paid to a B. S.: Blackmailing Sheep! Von Beaverpelt would lose his position of respect in the town, so he had to pay her off. But then he grew angry and resentful. No matter what Ruby thought, he would never leave Edith. She was the one in the marriage with all the money, and she controlled the purse strings. So she had a stake in keeping things quiet, too.”
The owl continued sipping tea. “This journal is evidence. It proves that Ruby Ewing was blackmailing von Beaverpelt.”
“How does that help prove murder?” Vera asked. “Blackmailers tend to not want to murder their victims. If they do, the money dries up. Even if we have a blackmailer, the murderer gets away.”
“Perhaps there’s another clue you can use.” Not normally one for strong emotion, the professor was fluffing his feathers and hopping around Vera’s living room in agitation. “Here’s the passage in which Ruby tells Otto she has an insurance policy hidden in the woods, in a hollow log. She told Otto, ‘It’s so me,’ but he doesn’t explain what that means. There must be a clue there. Orville might be able to investigate.”
Not Orville! Vera thought. She would discover the link.
“Thank you for bringing these over. I’ll take it to the police,” Vera said, keeping her thoughts to herself.
Heidegger left and Vera paced. It’s so me. That phrase was familiar. Where had she heard it before? What was the truth? Did Edith find out about the affair and kill Reginald in anger, as Ruby claimed? And what insurance policy could the sheep have? She didn’t make much money at Goody Crow’s…Vera stopped short.
Of course. The blackmail money. It was too much money for one creature to hide, unless it was converted into something small and valuable. Something that might fit in a hollow log.
“It’s so me,” she breathed. “Rubies!”
What else could it be? Ruby must have hired Lefty to conduct the shady business of buying up rubies with her blackmail payments. He was known to steal and fence jewels, and he’d said he’d been doing that kind of gig. But as soon as Lefty became a suspect in two murders, he’d disappeared, too scared to deal with the police. Now Vera might be the only creature in town besides Ruby who knew where the secret stash from von Beaverpelt’s blackmail money could be. With it, Vera could force Ruby to tell her what she knew about the affair and maybe discover the evidence that would finally prove Edith guilty of murder.
Vera peeked outside. Deep billowing clouds had amassed on the western horizon, stealing the very last light of day from the sky. A storm was coming. If Vera was quick, she might find the evidence before she got drenched.
She ran into the woods, toward the hollow log mentioned in the diary. She knew which log it was. For a reporter like Vera, it was important to know all the interesting places around the forest. She reached the clearing. In the fading light, she saw the distinctive hollow birch log that could be hiding the evidence. She bent down and put a paw carefully inside, feeling for any foreign object.
Behind her, a twig snapped.
“Always sticking your pretty snout where it doesn’t belong. So you didn’t heed my note after all. Turn around, fox.”
Vera turned around slowly to face the voice. The voice of the murderer.
The voice of Ruby Ewing.