“Mikhos, keep me safe.” It was the prayer he whispered every time he answered a call.
A woman stepped into view, looking agitated. Curly brown hair, a pleasant enough face, and a build he would describe as stocky if she had been a man. He couldn’t tell more than that from this distance, so Officer Wayne Grimshaw got out of the cruiser and went to see Ms. Victoria DeVine about a body.
CHAPTER 3
Vicki
Moonsday, Juin 12
“But I can’t!” Aggie wailed, sprouting more feathers when I told her she would have to talk to the police.
The additional black feathers in her hair were less distressing than the ones that suddenly appeared on her face and forearms.
“You have to,” I replied, striving to remain calm. I placed a saucer over the bowl with the eyeball. “You’re the only one who knows where to find the body. You’ll need to show the police when they get here.”
“But I’ll get in trouble!”
My breath caught and my heart thudded. Aggie was petite and had a small-boned physique—and my purse probably weighed more than she did. But being one of those Crows, she could be a lot stronger than she looked.
“Aggie, you didn’t . . . ?” What would I do if she admitted that she had killed a man in order to eat his eyeball? I imagined myself being strong and brave and performing some kick-ass self-defense moves despite not actually knowing how to do them. Then I imagined myself smiling weakly right before I ran away.
I liked the idea of running away. Much more sensible.
“I didn’t kill him!” Aggie sounded insulted. “He was already dead when I found him and only had the one eyeball.”
“What happened to the other one?”
“Dunno. Probably got eaten.”
Since I liked Aggie, I really didn’t want to ask more questions. I grabbed the bowl with the eyeball and went outside to wait for the police. Aggie followed me out the front door but started edging toward the trees.
“Aggie . . .” Hearing tires on gravel, I turned to watch the police car as it drove up within sight of the house and stopped at a spot that blocked the access road. When I turned back, a pile of clothes lay under a tree and Aggie was gone. So I stood there, alone, holding the bowl while I waited for the police officer to get out of the car.
You know those cartoon heroes with the strong lower jaws, sparkly teeth, broad shoulders, and tiny waists? The man who stepped out of the police car could have been the model for the caricature, but he was correctly proportioned and looked really official with all the doodads on his belt. He was wearing sunglasses, so I couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t tell if the expression in them was a warm “Can I help you, ma’am?” or a cold “You’re being a pain in my ass, so talk fast.”
If he had stopped to help when I was stranded on a dark, lonely road, I would have been happy to see him. But that presence was less reassuring when I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t be labeled the villain.
“Are you the lady who called about a suspicious death?” he asked, approaching warily.
He was a big man and had a big voice. Not that he was yelling at me or anything, but it was the kind of voice that could hammer a person—the kind of voice that, when used with a threatening tone, could trigger a panic attack.
He stopped and studied the claw marks on a tree—marks that were high enough that I hadn’t noticed them because they weren’t in my usual line of sight.
Something to think about on a hot summer night when I’m trying to convince myself that it’s safe to leave the windows open to get some air. Safe from thieves maybe, since I have nothing to steal. Safe from the mysterious Clawman?
I’d read somewhere that an ordinary bear could hook its claws in a car door and rip the door off the hinges in order to get to the snacks someone foolishly left inside. Odds were good that whatever prowled around in The Jumble’s woods didn’t qualify as ordinary, although, to be fair, Aggie was the only terra indigene I had seen—“seen” being the qualifying word. If one of the crows hanging around The Jumble was Crowgard, how many others were more than they seemed?
“My lodger found a body near the farm track that is the boundary between my property and the Milfords’ orchards,” I replied, trying for matter-of-fact helpful. I held out the bowl. “Here. This is evidence.”
He took the bowl, lifted the saucer, and stared at the eyeball. At least, I assumed he stared at the eyeball. Since he was wearing those mirrored sunglasses, he could have been staring at me—and it suddenly occurred to me that if he asked to look in my refrigerator, I had no idea what he might find.
“Wait there.” He walked back to his car and opened the trunk. He returned in a minute without the eyeball. It didn’t look like he was going to return my bowl and saucer either. “I’ll need to speak to your lodger.”
“She’s a little shy about talking to the police.”
He removed the sunglasses. The look in his blue-gray eyes said my lodger better get un-shy in a hurry. Or maybe I was projecting from past experience with men. Man. The one who used to leave me feeling that something was my fault even when I couldn’t have controlled someone else’s actions or thoughts or opinions.
“Did she tell you the location? Can you show me the alleged body?”
I had just given him an eyeball. How alleged could the body be? “I—”
“Caw.”
I looked at the crow—or Crow—perched in a tree a couple of yards down one of the bridle paths, of which The Jumble has many.
“Yes, I can.” I set off down the path and hoped really hard that I was following Aggie and not someone else.
The second time I tripped and would have landed face-first in the dirt if the officer hadn’t grabbed my arm and kept me upright, he grumbled, “You might do better watching where you’re walking than looking at the trees.”
Sound advice. I wished I could take it, but I didn’t want to explain that our guide was in the trees, because that would require explaining the nature of our guide.
“Stop,” he said after we had been walking awhile. It felt like forever, and since I hadn’t gone back inside the house to get my wristwatch before we headed out, time was measured by how it felt. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”
“Of course I do, Officer . . .” I realized he hadn’t told me his name. Maybe that wasn’t required?
“Grimshaw.”
“Really?” So not the correct response, especially from someone named Vicki DeVine. “The Milfords’ place is the land between The Jumble and the road that leads to Sproing. The body was found near the farm track between the Milfords’ land and mine.”
“So we should be heading east?”
I was about to agree but the affirmative words stuck in my throat. Were we supposed to be heading east? Was this a trick question? Couldn’t be heading west. The lake was to the west of the main house—could, in fact, be seen from the back of the main house. But that left two other directions unaccounted for.
“Ms. DeVine?” Officer Grimshaw was not a happy camper.
“Um . . .”
“Caw.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “This way.”
Suddenly there were three crows on the same branch, making me think of the shell game where you have to figure out which shell is hiding the pea.
Three black birds were sitting in a tree. Which one was A-G-G-I-E?
“Caw.”
Only one took off, so I followed, hoping it was a Crow, and Officer Grimshaw followed me. Big mistake. I probably should have admitted to being geographically challenged before I led him into the woods.