On the other hand, I wasn’t sure where they were.
“Miss Vicki?” Eddie stood in the doorway. He was dressed in his uniform of white shirt, black trousers, and black vest. He looked wan, but the only indication of stress that I could see were the feathers sticking out of his hair. “Chief Grimshaw wants you on the phone in your office. He has something to tell Aggie and he wants you to listen too.”
“The wastebaskets need to be emptied,” I said. “Can you do that?”
He nodded, so I went to my office by way of the laundry room and dropped off the towels before bracing myself for another chat with Grimshaw, who didn’t waste time on unnecessary words.
“I’ll be by later to talk to you and your employees, especially the Crowgard,” Grimshaw said. “For now, I’d like everyone to do a quick check on friends and see if anyone has left the Lake Silence area for any reason.”
I heard Aggie, who was on the kitchen extension, suck in a breath. “You found a body.”
A beat of silence. “We did.”
“Were the eyeballs squooshy?”
“No.”
Missing eyeballs didn’t squoosh, but I wasn’t going to say that, and I hoped the thought didn’t occur to Aggie since Grimshaw wanted a roll call. The Crows and I had watched enough cop and crime shows to know what that meant.
“Did you give Julian the message?” I asked.
“Not yet, but I will,” he replied. “And I’ll be wanting to talk to the person who gave you that message.”
“I’ll tell him. If you want to talk to all the guests, you’ll have to hurry. The Cornleys are doing an early checkout.”
“No, they’re not. You’re going to park your car across the access road to make sure nobody leaves before I get there.”
“But . . . Chief.”
“Aiden is already helping the academics staying at the Mill Creek Cabins understand why they need to assist the police in this inquiry. Should I ask him to send a friend to The Jumble to provide the same kind of assistance?”
Hey, I know a threat when I hear one, and I really didn’t want to know whom Fire considered a friend. Aiden and I were friendly, but we weren’t friends. Humans just weren’t important to the Elementals’ view of the world. “I’ll block the access road as soon as I hang up. I promise.”
“Ilya Sanguinati and I will be up to talk to your guests as soon as we can.” He hung up.
“You can hang up now, Aggie.” I waited until I heard the click, then called the bookstore.
“Lettuce Reed.”
It wasn’t Julian’s voice, but I recognized it. “Natasha? Is Julian there?”
“One moment.” It was more than a moment, and when I heard his voice, I wondered what he’d been doing. “Bad day?”
“You could say that.” He tried to rally and couldn’t quite get there.
I repeated the message about duplicity being at The Jumble last night but not this morning. And I told him about Kira somehow being connected with a honey trap.
“Okay, thanks,” he said. “I have to go.” He hesitated. “Vicki? Be careful, all right?”
“Sure.”
“Really. Be careful.”
It wasn’t a no-confidence vote like it might have been from someone else. This was Julian trying, not too successfully, to hide that he was scared. “Could I talk to Natasha again?”
“We used the Murder board for clues about what is happening,” Natasha said. “Mr. Farrow is still recovering. I will stay with him and liaise with the Bristol police.”
“Can a CPA do that?” I wondered what they would want to ask her.
“Right now, I represent Silence Lodge while Ilya is assisting Chief Grimshaw.”
I was busy doing my own kind of addition. “There’s something besides the body Ineke found.”
“Yes. That is why you need to be careful. All of you. Please tell the Sanguinati youngsters that they are to stay with you until we fetch them. They are not to leave on their own.”
We talked about her bringing the next handful of books about the Wolf Team when she returned to fetch the youngsters. The Wolf Team always bested the baddies, and right now we all needed to feel that we could win.
I hung up, took my car keys out of the middle desk drawer, and went out to block the access road before the Cornleys had a chance to scamper off.
I was so not going to get a glowing review from them.
CHAPTER 21
Grimshaw
Thaisday, Novembros 1
Because something about the academics staying in the Mill Creek Cabins made his cop instincts itch, Grimshaw chose to interview the people staying at The Jumble first. He also wanted to hear the Crowgard’s version of the Crowbones legend before he heard the human version.
He didn’t recognize the naked earth native who unhooked the chain that ran across the access road, but he knew it was a Coyote in a between form that blended human and Coyote well enough not to be too disturbing.
“I don’t believe he . . . associates . . . with humans except to attend Victoria’s story times,” Ilya said quietly as they watched the Coyote drag the chain to one side of the road.
Vicki DeVine was the Reader, an important position in any terra indigene settlement because it gave all the residents access to stories, both human and Other, that had been written down. Each form of terra indigene had its own teaching stories and oral tales, but it wasn’t that long ago that stories written by Others were first published and could be read by anyone.
Grimshaw lowered his window and gave the Coyote a friendly smile. “Thanks. Anything Mr. Sanguinati and I should know before we go up to the main house?”
The Coyote cocked his head and took his time pondering the question—or attempting to adjust his vocal cords to accommodate human speech.
“The mated pair are screeching at the Reader,” Coyote said. “Cougar doesn’t like it. The young fanged shadows are talking to humans. Some of the shadows are pleased. Some are . . .” He made an angry sound.
“We’ll take care of it.” As he drove up the access road, Grimshaw looked in the rearview mirror and saw the blindingly quick shift from partly human to all Coyote seconds before he heard the yipping howl.
Then he heard answering howls—and not all of those howls came from another Coyote.
“Are we riding to the rescue?” Ilya asked dryly.
“Yes, but who are we rescuing?” He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t get one.