“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.
“Caw!”
Open ground. Daylight. The dirt road, aka the farm track. And the body.
“Ew.” That wasn’t a professional response, but I wasn’t a professional and I sincerely hoped I never met this man again. Either man.
“Stay there,” Grimshaw said as he moved closer to the body.
Like I was going to get closer when my knees already felt rubbery and my stomach felt swoopy.
“This body has been disturbed.”
“I’d be disturbed too if I was suddenly dead,” I replied.
He twisted around enough to look at me and must have decided I wasn’t trying to be a smart-ass; I just wasn’t quite in control of what I was saying anymore. Since I had dealt with the eyeball pretty well, the only explanation was that my brain had decided that, with someone else here to handle the problem, it no longer had to be fully functional during this stage of the crisis and could enjoy a mini anxiety attack.
“Not a lot of predation,” Grimshaw said, studying the body. “I don’t think he’s been here long.”
“Aggie said his eyeball was squooshy. That’s why she wanted to warm it up in the wave-cooker. Wouldn’t it take a while for the eyeball to get squooshy?”
I watched him put his sunglasses back on before he turned to face me.
“Aggie is your lodger?” Arctic Voice.
I nodded, glad I couldn’t see his eyes because my insides were quivering as I braced for Arctic Voice to become Hammer Voice.
“I really need to talk to her.”
My quivering insides translated his Officially Polite Voice as more encouraging than scary, so I pointed at the branch above me. “Go ahead.”
His head moved, so I assumed he was looking up. Then, as he turned away, I heard him say, “Crap.” It wasn’t so much spoken as a breath shaped into sound.
Aggie lifted her wings in what might have been an apologetic shrug and let out a timid caw.
Grimshaw pulled out his mobile phone and made a call. The next couple of minutes sounded like a TV show with all the “officer needs assistance” and requests for the medical examiner and transport of the remains.
He hadn’t gotten very far into explaining the situation when seven birds winged toward the body. They landed close and moved closer, despite Grimshaw waving an arm to keep them away.
“Friends of yours?” I asked, looking up at Aggie.
“Caw.”
“Officer . . .”
“I heard.”
Yeah. Regular crows would have been enough of a problem if you wanted to avoid having more body bits and pieces being taken away for someone’s dinner. But dealing with the Crowgard? That made this a potential PR fiasco for the police department—and every other human service that could be affected by the terra indigene’s taking exception to someone keeping them away from the buffet.
Or was it the body that was so intriguing? I saw a glint of gold. A wristwatch. It looked like someone had been trying to pull it off and had been interrupted. By our arrival?
“I have to stay with the body until the Crime Investigation Unit gets here,” Grimshaw said. “Can you find your way back to the house?”
“Sure.”
“Can you find your way back?”
Could we call that a no-confidence vote for the geographically challenged?
“Caw.” At least Aggie was confident of getting us back to the main house.
So there, Officer Smarty-Pants.
I headed back up the path, fairly sure that I could get out of sight before getting lost.
“Ms. DeVine?”
Grimshaw’s voice stopped me but I didn’t turn around. “Yes, Officer?”
“I’ll still need to talk to you and your lodger. Don’t go anywhere.”
Like I could with his big official vehicle blocking the access road that led up to the main house. Somehow I couldn’t see myself taking off on my bicycle in order to escape the law. Besides, all I did was report finding a body. How much trouble could I get into for doing that?
CHAPTER 4
Them
Moonsday, Juin 12
He studied the three men he had summoned for this late-night meeting. Two of them were top-tier members of the club, men who knew how to put together a deal and hold it together until it paid off. They were friends of long standing, and he had worked with them on several highly successful and lucrative projects. The third man came from money and a solid family name, but he was a third-rate schemer who thought he was a big shot—and could talk a good enough game to make other people believe he was as good as he believed himself to be, at least until a person started looking at the actual deals he’d made. Then it became clear that his success depended on his being the big fish in a very small pond.
Normally a man like that wouldn’t be included in a deal this size, but the fool was the one who held the papers for the asset they wanted—an asset the man’s family hadn’t bothered to utilize for decades. Except the damn fool didn’t hold the papers anymore, a detail he had “forgotten” to mention until the other men had shaken on the deal and couldn’t exclude him without staining their reputations with the rest of the members of the club.
But that forgotten detail was the reason they were looking at trouble now.
“Franklin Cartwright is dead,” he said, his voice full of harsh anger.
“Murdered?” the fool asked, sounding hopeful.
“Killed. My sources have confirmed nothing human could have done it.”
“Did Cartwright get the papers we need before getting killed?” the oldest man asked. He had gray hair and a hefty build and was a decade older than the rest of the men involved in this deal.
“No, but another source is going to make sure those papers aren’t available to anyone who might need them.”
The oldest man nodded. “If the bitch can’t prove she owns the asset . . .”