“About the murder,” I repeated. “I
see.”
Since, as far as I remembered, Rose
Noir hadn’t been anywhere near the barn on Saturday, I had a hard
time imagining that she could know anything useful. Had she
overheard something? Perhaps two cops chatting about the case while
waiting in line for Sno-Cones? Seemed unlikely. Still, you never
knew.
“I should have warned everyone
yesterday morning that something bad would happen,” she said. “I
heard an owl hoot Friday night.”
“We have a whole nest of them in the
barn,” I said.
“An owl’s hoot is always a dire
omen.”
“What happened to the sacred owl,
beloved of Athena, protector of warriors?” I asked.
“And it all goes back to feng shui,”
she continued, ignoring what I thought was a very reasonable
question. “I know in the long run your yard sale should have a very
positive effect on the feng shui of your house. Though all those
years of being packed with unwanted clutter probably
left a lot of negative energy behind. I should probably do a house
cleansing before you move in.”
“Mmm,” I said, noncommittally, while I
tried to think of a tactful way of asking if a house cleansing
merely involved waving around a lot of incense or if it included
any actual scrubbing, and if the latter, whether she did
windows.
“But, of course, in the short term
having a yard sale, especially one so huge, means that you’ve
gathered an immense amount of unwanted clutter here in one spot.
Think of the incredible amount of negative energy that’s
created!”
“You think this had something to do
with the murder?”
“Of course,” she said. “You not only
have acres of clutter, but you have all the greed and
acquisitiveness that the yard sale has stirred up in the people who
come here. It’s absolutely toxic!”
“Sort of a psychic cesspool,” I said,
nodding. And rather like my notion of the evil Army of Clutter
laying siege to the house. Of course, seeing eye to eye with Rose
Noir on anything worried me. “I understand what you mean, but I’m
not sure you could convince the police that it’s a factor in the
murder.”
“Yes, but it is,” she said. “I’m sure
of it. I think you should think very seriously before agreeing to
hold another yard sale.”
“You know, you’re right,” I said. “I
don’t need to think about it at all. You’ve convinced me. No more
yard sales for us!”
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed, clapping
her hands.
“Now, if I could convince you to change
your mind about selling me the lavender stuff.”
Her face hardened, and I gave up.
Probably not the time to approach her about interrogating Darlene,
either.
Time to do something useful, anyway. Like finding someone else to
question.
The Hummel lady, for example. I was
peering around, trying to spot her, when I ran into
Dad.
“Looking for someone?” he asked. “An
elusive suspect?”
“Just the Hummel lady,” I said. “Have
you seen her?
“Why?”
“I happened to overhear Chief Burke
questioning her,” I said. “She’s the last person who admits to
seeing Gordon alive, and she claims that she saw Giles entering the
barn as she left.”
“Aha!” Dad said. “Then she’s the prime
suspect!”
“Not necessarily.”
“The last person to see the deceased
alive should always be the prime suspect!” Dad said. He read far
too many mystery books, and was fond of making such
pronouncements.
“I thought the prime suspect was always
the person who found the body,” I said.
“Well yes, them, too,” Dad said.
“Sometimes you have multiple prime suspects. And, of course, you
can’t overlook the deceased’s spouse. You’d be amazed at how many
people are killed by their spouses.”
“I’m sure Mother appreciates your
self-restraint,” I said. “But for now, I just need the Hummel
lady.”
“Right,” Dad said. “There she
is.”
He pointed, and I spotted the Hummel
lady standing at one edge of the fenced-in area, studying the yard
sale interior with a pair of opera glasses. She wore the same
clothes she’d had on yesterday, including the strange hat with its
bobbling flowers, so I deduced it was a costume of some
sort.
Time to tackle the first prime suspect.
I strolled over to the Hummel lady.
“Back again, I see,” I said. “Looking
for anything in particular?”
The Hummel lady fixed me with an evil
look. Then her expression changed. I imagined that I could see the
thoughts passing through her mind—the angry impulse to be rude to
me replaced by the sudden, surprised realization that I might be
useful, and a fleeting look of cunning before she arranged her face
into a smile that I might have thought authentically sweet and
friendly if I hadn’t seen the whole sequence of expressions leading
up to it.
“Oh, you know me,” she said, as if we
were old friends. “Just an old yard sale hound. I have to say,
though, I do think it’s much nicer when you don’t have those nasty
old professionals.”
“Like Gordon, you mean?”
She blinked in surprise at the name,
and then rearranged her expression into one of profound
sadness.
“That poor man,” she said, shaking her
head. “Such a tragedy. But, yes, I do think that those antique
dealers and pickers lower the whole tone of a yard sale, don’t you
think? Instead of a fun event it becomes something crass and
commercial.”
I stifled the smart aleck impulse to
say that so far our yard sale hadn’t proved nearly crass and
commercial enough for me. For one thing, it wasn’t true. I didn’t
care whether the sale was crass or classy; whether we made a huge
profit or didn’t even cover expenses, as long as we got rid of a
few tons of stuff. And for another, I didn’t think it would help me
get her talking.
So I also refrained from saying that I
thought the genuinely professional dealers and pickers improved the
tone. With a few exceptions, like Gordon, they were a lot less
trouble than the amateur bargain hunters. They showed up on time
rather than early and went through the
sale quickly and efficiently, gathering up large quantities of
merchandise without trying to nickel-and-dime the sellers to death.
I’d have been happy to have nothing but dealers and pickers if not
for the large amount of junk we wanted to sell that no
self-respecting picker would touch.
To her, of course, they were
competitors who might snatch up some rare bit of Hummel before she
could.
“Sorry you feel that way,” I said. “Do
you think that’s why Gordon was killed—that someone resented him
lowering the whole tone of the yard sale?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” she
said.
She paused, briefly, and then asked in
an overly casual tone:
“What’s going to happen to the stuff he
was buying? Or had he already bought it when he was
killed?”
“He collected a great heap of stuff,
but he hadn’t paid me a dime,” I said. “So as far as I know, as
soon as the police release it, we’ll have to find someone else to
buy it all.”
“I see,” she said. “If someone were
interested in something that he might have gathered—”
“I’m afraid the trunk’s already spoken
for,” I said. “A pity—the buyer will probably get a ton of money
for it on eBay, but my conscience wouldn’t let me keep
it.”
I deduced from her expression that she
found the juxtaposition of “money” and “conscience” odd, if not
downright unnatural.
“I see,” she said. “If you happen to
come across any little bits of china …”
“You can have any Hummel we have at a
dollar the lot on one condition,” I said.
“Yes?” she said, leaning forward
eagerly.
“I want to know the truth about what
went on when you were in the barn,” I said. “Not the pack of lies
you told Chief Burke.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said, drawing
herself up with
apparent indignation. “Are you suggesting that I … would
lie?”
“I happen to know more than Chief Burke
about what went on in the barn yesterday,” I said. Which wasn’t
exactly a lie. I was sure Chief Burke knew nothing about the
fledgling owls, for example.
“Were you spying on me?” she
asked.
“What makes you think that?” I asked,
trying to strike the right note of nonchalance to convince her that
the answer was yes. And then something struck me—she’d said “spying
on me” not “spying on us.” I decided to take a chance.
“Why did you make up a whole
conversation with him when you never even saw Gordon?” I
asked.
Her shoulders fell.
“If I’d known someone was watching, I’d
have admitted that I never found him,” she said. “I was afraid
someone would think I’d killed him. I didn’t know I had a witness
who could clear me. You could have said something.”
“I’ve told the chief everything I saw,”
I said. “Just what did you think you were going to accomplish,
anyway?”
“I was searching. For any little bits
of … Hummel,” she said, forcing the last word out as if she were
convinced that saying it aloud would jinx her quest.
“And you looked everywhere,” I
said.
“Except in the locked trunk, of
course,” she said. “I thought that must be where he’d put them. I
even tried to force the lock open, but I couldn’t. And then I heard
someone coming in, and I thought I should leave.”
I pondered. Okay, I wasn’t surprised
that she hadn’t seen Gordon—I knew he had to be already dead and
locked in the trunk when Giles entered the barn for the second
time. But I was surprised that she’d admitted it so
readily.
Unless she found admitting a lie easier
than confessing
to murder. For all I knew, she’d killed Gordon before searching the
barn, and was barely restraining her panic until she could find out
exactly how much I’d seen.
She didn’t look as if she was barely
restraining panic. An urge to climb the deer-proof fence and scour
the yard sale for Hummel, perhaps, but not panic.
“So if you didn’t do him in and stuff
him in the trunk, who did?” I asked.
“I have no idea!”
“Did you see anyone else in the
barn?”
“Well—not in the
barn.”
“Then where?”
“I did see someone leaving just before
I went in. But I have no idea who.”
“Can you describe the person?” I asked,
trying to keep my tone patient.
“No, not at all.”
“Was it a man or a woman?”
“All I saw was this huge Mexican
hat.”
“Aha!” I said. “Professor Schmidt with
the sombrero in the barn!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Never mind,” I said.
“Thanks.”
“So?” she said. “What about my
reward?”
“Reward?”
“My Hummel!”
“The yard sale’s still a crime scene,”
I said, slowly and carefully. “But as soon as they release it, you
can have every bit of Hummel on the place.”
“For a dollar?”
“For a dollar,” I said. “In fact—what
the hell—gratis. On me.”
“Excellent,” she said, positively
beaming at me. I couldn’t think of anything else to ask her, so I
didn’t object
when she strolled off to study the stuff inside the fence from
another angle.
I felt better already. As long as I
could get her to repeat her story for the chief, it would create
reasonable doubt of Giles’s guilt. Gordon was already dead and
locked in the trunk when Giles came in. Of course, finding the real
murderer would be more satisfactory than creating reasonable doubt,
but still, I’d already made progress.
Of course, now I had to scour the yard
sale for Hummel. And it wouldn’t be pretty if it turned out we had
no Hummel at all. Perhaps I should scrounge up a Hummel or two to
placate her, if it turned out no one at the yard sale was selling
any. Make sure I had something to hold out as a reward for good
behavior. Or would that look like a bribe?
I’d worry about it later.
I pulled out my cell phone and was
about to dial Chief Burke when it occurred to me that so far I only
had the Hummel lady’s word. And she’d already lied once. Should I
tell the chief now, or look for some corroboration
first?
I shoved my cell phone back in my
pocket.
First I had to find Professor
Schmidt.