No Nest for the Wicket (16 page)
Read No Nest for the Wicket Online
Authors: Donna Andrews
I managed not to shriek, but I started and clutched the rafters more tightly with both hands. Randall Shiffley had appeared beside me.
“Checking out the view,” I said. “Glorious view.”
Randall flicked a dubious glance down at my white knuckles.
“Well, it would be glorious if I had a solid floor beneath my feet. And walls or a railing around me. I was wondering if there’s still time to change the renovation plans. Build a cupola up here. Or a widow’s walk.”
“Plenty of time,” Randall said, leaning back against a rafter and crossing his arms. “Cost money, though.”
A familiar answer.
“True,” I said. “Maybe Michael and I should wait to decide on any changes to the plan till we find out what’s happening there.”
I pried one hand off the rafters to gesture, with as casual an air as I could muster, toward Fred Shiffley’s
farm. Then I placed my hand back on the rafter, rather than grabbing it. At least I think I did.
farm. Then I placed my hand back on the rafter, rather than grabbing it. At least I think I did.
“What’s happening?” Randall repeated.
“Well, right now it’s a spectacular view, but who’d want a widow’s walk with a spectacular view of an outlet mall? For that matter, maybe we should put a hold on all the renovations until we see what happens next door.”
Randall frowned but didn’t say anything.
“You think the Planning Board will approve it?” I asked after a few moments.
“No telling, with that Briggs fellow involved,” he said.
That Briggs fellow.
He made no effort to hide the loathing in his voice.
He made no effort to hide the loathing in his voice.
“You don’t like him?”
Randall shrugged slightly.
“I should think he’d be pretty popular in your branch of the family.”
Randall looked at me as if I’d said something spectacularly stupid.
“Won’t the outlet mall make your uncle Fred pretty rich?”
“Damn fool notion,” Randall said. “We all understand that the farm has to go someday—times change. But not like that.”
Interesting—dissention in the normally uniform ranks of the Shiffleys?
“I suppose you’ve tried reasoning with him?”
“Some of us have,” Randall said. “All his brothers have been yelling their damned heads off at him
ever since they found out. Couple of ’em took a swing at him once or twice. Hasn’t worked.”
ever since they found out. Couple of ’em took a swing at him once or twice. Hasn’t worked.”
Yelling and throwing punches. Not exactly what I’d call reasoning, but given my relatives’ quirks, who was I to question the Shiffley family’s interpersonal dynamics?
“He’s pretty strong-minded,” I said instead.
“Stubborn as a mule, you mean. Worse than most of us. I could have told the old goats that. All they’ve accomplished is getting him so riled up, he’s threatening to leave his money outside the family.”
“To whom?” I asked. Not that Fred Shiffley changing his will had any obvious relevance to Lindsay’s murder, but you never knew.
“Farm Aid and the ASPCA,” Randall said.
“Good causes.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like he doesn’t have family could use the money,” Randall said. “Stubborn old goat. If they’ll just leave him alone till he cools down …”
He shrugged his shoulders, as if he wasn’t making any bets about his father’s and uncles’ ability to let well enough alone.
“So Evan Briggs isn’t exactly a hero to the Shiffley family right now,” I mused aloud.
“If he was the one who bought it Friday, I’d worry about what my dad and his brothers were up to,” Randall said. “None of us had anything against that Tyler woman, though.”
“If Evan Briggs turns out to be the killer, none of you will mind much, I imagine.”
“Hard to see how it could be him,” Randall said. His tone sounded casual, but I detected a faint note of eager curiosity, as if he’d love to know what dirt I had on Evan Briggs but would rather chew off an arm than ask.
“He was seen leaving here shortly after the afternoon croquet games began,” I said. “Drove off somewhere. What if he parked somewhere nearby, hoofed it over to your uncle Fred’s pasture, and killed Ms. Tyler?”
Randall shook his head.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “I happen to know where he went.”
“Where?”
He frowned slightly and studied a knothole in a nearby board with intense interest.
“Well, if it’s a guilty family secret,” I said.
He snorted slightly.
“There’s some of us think Briggs is trying to pull a fast one, so we keep an eye on the bastard. When his car pulled out, Vern said, ‘I bet he’s going over to see Uncle Fred.’ So we watched where he was going and, sure enough, when he got down the road a piece, he turned into Fred’s lane.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the tiny, distant farmhouse. Yes, if you knew where the road was, and happened to want to keep an eye on Evan Briggs, you could track him pretty well from up here.
“He stayed there the whole time?”
Randall nodded.
“Damn long time,” he said, leaning to spit over the side of the roof, as if the idea of spending prolonged
time in Evan Briggs’s company left a bad taste in his mouth. “Some of us were for going over there and seeing what was up, but about the time Vern and I were getting ready to do it, we saw Briggs’s car head back.”
time in Evan Briggs’s company left a bad taste in his mouth. “Some of us were for going over there and seeing what was up, but about the time Vern and I were getting ready to do it, we saw Briggs’s car head back.”
“No chance he could have come back and walked down to the murder scene in time to be the killer?” I asked.
“No,” Randall said. “It was just about then your dad came up to give us the news that someone had been killed. He didn’t tell us who, though, and I remember Duane saying, kind of hopeful like, that maybe Briggs had finally killed himself, driving around with one hand on his cell phone and the other on his Palm Pilot. Couple minutes later, Briggs drove up.”
“Thus cruelly dashing your hopes,” I said. “Damn.”
Not to mention my own hopes. Frustrating that my efforts to track Briggs’s whereabouts on the day of the murder had succeeded not in implicating him but in giving him a reasonably good alibi.
Randall nodded as if he understood.
“So if Briggs didn’t do it, who did?” I said, just to see what he’d say.
Randall frowned.
“I couldn’t say,” he said. “If I were Chief Burke, I’d take a lot closer look at people who think they can get away with anything in this town.”
He turned and began to climb down the ladder.
“By the way,” I said.
He stopped and looked back up at me.
“The name Toad Bottom mean anything to you?”
“Toad Bottom? Why? Where’d you hear that name?”
I pondered the expression on his face. Not guilt or anxiety. More like keen interest, with a hint of amusement.
“I heard someone call Caerphilly that,” I said. “Wondered why.”
“It’s someone who knows his history, then,” Randall said. “That’s what the town used to be called. Before the Pruitts waltzed in and took over. Wasn’t fancy enough for them, so they got the town council to change the name.”
“Many people know about it?”
“Not unless they’ve been digging pretty far back in the town history,” Randall said.
Or talking to the Shiffleys. Which I was beginning to think might not be all that different. Was there a way to tap the Shiffleys’ historical knowledge without letting them know I was doing it to fight the mall project? I’d have to work on that. Maybe sic Joss on them.
“Thanks,” I said.
Randall nodded and climbed down. I followed, much more slowly, though. Randall was nice enough to steady the ladder for me. Although midway down, I suddenly felt a twinge of anxiety. If Randall was the murderer, what a perfect way to get rid of someone who was inconveniently nosy.
Nonsense, I told myself. He wouldn’t try to commit a murder here in plain sight of everyone down in the yard, would he?
Not if he were sensible. Still, I breathed a lot more easily when my feet were back on a solid floor.
“You sure you want that widow’s walk?” Randall asked. “You really don’t seem to like heights.”
“A weakness I’m trying to overcome,” I said before scurrying toward the stairs. I wanted to feel solid ground again.
Of course, the first person I saw when I got outside was Evan Briggs. If Chief Burke was making an arrest, presumably it wasn’t him, damn it.
Still something fishy going on, I thought, remembering how he’d lost his temper while talking to Mother and me the night before. So I decided to rescue him—he was talking to Rose Noire.
I strolled over and feigned pleasant surprise when I spotted them.
“Oh, there you are,” I said to Rose Noire. “Could you go help Mother with something?”
“Right away,” she said. “We’ll talk again later,” she said to Mr. Briggs as she scurried off.
Mother hadn’t asked for Rose Noire’s help, but she was never short of little tasks for representatives of my generation to perform when they fell into her clutches.
Mr. Briggs’s smile looked strained. He didn’t seem all that happy at being rescued from Rose Noire.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” he asked a little brusquely. Obviously, our earlier conversation hadn’t endeared me to him.
“I thought perhaps you needed a break,” I said. “Rose Noire can be overwhelming if you’re not used to her.”
“Overwhelming,” he said. “Yes, that’s one word for it. She told me she was a druid in a past life.”
“A druid?” I repeated “Are you sure?”
“Reasonably so.”
“That’s a relief, then,” I said. “When she told me, I thought sure she’d said a dryad.”
“Dryad?” Briggs repeated.
“You know, a tree spirit,” I said. “I have to admit, that’s slightly weird. A druid’s a lot more … normal, don’t you think?”
“I think that would depend on one’s definition of normal.”
“Your definition of normal probably includes a lot more concrete and steel than anything to do with trees anyway,” I said.
He made a noncommittal noise, as if he wasn’t sure he liked the direction our conversation was taking.
“Or historical battle sites, for that matter.”
I could see his jaw clench. Bracing himself for another tirade from another tree-hugger, no doubt.
I decided tackling him head-on was as good as any tactic.
“Look, I’m not trying to blackmail you, but I know Lindsay Tyler was,” I said. “So what was she offering, anyway? Her expertise to discredit the historical significance of the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge?”
His mouth fell open again.
“What makes you think—” he began. Then he changed gears. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Ms. Tyler had nothing to do with this project; we’d never even met.”
“Only talked on the phone, then?” I said. “I saw her cell-phone records, you know.”
I would have had no way of recognizing Evan
Briggs’s phone number—I’d barely recognized my own on Chief Burke’s printout—but he didn’t have to know that.
Briggs’s phone number—I’d barely recognized my own on Chief Burke’s printout—but he didn’t have to know that.
Briggs glared at me. I smiled back as sweetly as I could but said nothing. It worked for Chief Burke. He just sat there staring at people and they started talking. Eventually, it worked on Briggs.
“Do you really want to tarnish Ms. Tyler’s memory with the details of her bizarre—and, need I say, unsuccessful—attempt to extract money from me in return for her help in discrediting Mrs. Pruitt’s account of the Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge?” he said. “She’d look like a common blackmailer.”
“I don’t really give a damn about her memory,” I said. “Neither do you. But I assume that even if we have quite different ideas about what to do with that land over there, we both want to see her killer brought to justice, even if only because it will clear those of us who aren’t guilty.”
“I fail to see what her blackmail attempt has to do with the murder,” he said. “I told her I didn’t give a damn what information she thought she had. Didn’t matter to me. I haven’t done anything illegal and I’m not planning to.”
“It never occurred to you that she might have tried blackmail again with someone else? Someone who didn’t take it as lightly?”
“Oh, I see,” he said. Some of the hostility left his face. “Of course, since I don’t know what information she wanted to sell, I have no idea who else might be a potential customer.”
“Not even a guess?”
“She didn’t tell me much, you know,” he said. “That’s the problem with selling information—you let the customer test-drive the merchandise, you blow the sale.”
“No guesses?” I asked. “She didn’t even drop a hint?”
He thought about it briefly.
“A couple of times she referred to the so-called Battle of Pruitt’s Ridge,” he said. “As if it didn’t really deserve to be called a battle.”
“Only a small skirmish, you mean?”
“Yeah, or maybe it was just a drunken brawl they pretended was a battle so they wouldn’t look like fools. Maybe histories got the sequence mixed up, and the raid on the Shiffley distillery was what kicked everything off. Who knows?”
Or maybe she had proof that the Pruitts made the whole thing up. Not that I’d mention that to Briggs just yet. Interesting that he knew more about the battle than most of the people in town.
He had pursed his lips and was looking at me as if making a decision. Then he shook his head and spoke again.
“Even if it happened just the way the history books said, who cares?” he said. “Outside of Henrietta Pruitt and a few other stuck-up bi—biddies at the Caerphilly Historical Society. So something happened here once upon a time—people still need places to live and work. Life moves on.”
“So you didn’t need Lindsay’s information,” I said. “Who did?”
“No one.”
“Come on, even I can think of someone else,” I said. “If she had something that made the Pruitts look stupid, you think she wouldn’t blackmail Mrs. Pruitt with it?
“Yes,” he said with considerable heat. “And Lady Pruitt would definitely do anything to keep her damned family escutcheon unblotted.”
“Who else?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“She’s the main problem,” he said. “If it weren’t for her, the rest of them would lose steam pretty quickly.”
I hoped he was underestimating the depth of the local opposition to the outlet mall, but I decided not to say so. He must have guessed my reaction from my face.
“Oh, they’d still be against the mall, but they’d be fighting it on sensible grounds, instead of this whole historical landmark baloney. Besides—”
Just then, we heard a shriek from near the buffet table. We both glanced up.
“Oh, damn,” Briggs exclaimed. All the color drained from his face and he ran toward the buffet.
Odd, I thought as I loped along behind him. It was Lacie Butler shrieking. Why would Briggs care—
But it wasn’t Lacie Butler Mr. Briggs was running toward. Mrs. Briggs had fallen to the ground and was having convulsions.
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