Death & Honey Page 7
Yes. Saxby is doubtless wearing boots, so the elemental cannot feel him directly, but he’s disturbing plants and animals, being seen and smelled, that sort of thing. We might be able to get a read on his general location without having to follow his scent. I’d normally never try this, but he’s probably the only human around here besides us.
Not if that’s going to lead us into traps. We might be able to come at him from a different direction and avoid those. Move faster. Ah, yes. Tasmania says he’s to the southwest, but this trail is heading west. At some point ahead, he turns. We can skip that and move in a straight line in his direction. Sniff around here a bit and then veer off to the left, all right?
We trotted in the direction he indicated and Atticus said, “This way,” to the constables, and soon they were all following us, except we had no whiff of Saxby in our noses anymore. There were plenty of other smells, and we enjoyed that—plants and lots of animal musk, that sort of thing. Atticus just told us to adjust our course every so often according to whatever directions he got from the elemental, and he said it would take a couple of hours at the very least to catch up to Saxby.
A couple is two, I know that much, and an hour is equivalent to sixty months, I think, which is either equal to ten weeks or five decades. So, two of those would be, uh…well, it was a long hike. We climbed some hills and crossed two more streams in between them, pausing at the second one to get a drink and to have a little bit of something to eat. The constables were wheezing a little bit and complimented Atticus on his stamina.
“Thanks,” he said. “I’m out hiking all the time, though.”
“Do you think we’re getting close?” Sergeant Naseer said.
“No way of telling,” Atticus said with a shrug. But privately he said to me and Starbuck, He’s probably only fifteen minutes away, near the top of the next hill.
“Okay.” She held up her phone, which looked a bit clunky compared to many I’ve seen. “I’ve been updating Inspector Badgely on this sat phone. She’s coming in to catch up, and I’m letting her know our coordinates. Do you mind if we wait here for her?”
“Not at all,” Atticus replied. “We can take a quick nap. Or the hounds can, anyway.”
Yes, Oberon. I’d like him to start down the other side of the hill at least. Right now, he has the high ground and that’s not ideal.
If he heard us moving, perhaps. I doubt he’s seen or smelled us. As long as no one yells or you don’t bark, he’ll probably remain unaware. Go ahead, take a rest.
“Go ahead, Oberon,” Atticus said out loud. “Go lie down.”
I curled up next to Starbuck, and soon, lulled by the chuckling of the waters, I dreamt of bangers and mash in Melbourne and a mysterious poodle named Belladonna.
Hark! The Herald Wolfhound Sings
BELLADONNA BOUNDED AWAY all too soon; her poufy tail went poof! as I woke up to the sound of happy human voices. Inspector Badgely had arrived with another constable. Both had packs on, and they shrugged them off as they came to the stream and greeted the other constables. The inspector smiled widely at Atticus and asked how he was.
“Happy to be here. This wilderness is wonderful.”
“Wonderful, is it? Well, yes. That is a word that we could use.”
“I hope this remains a wilderness. There’s so much valuable life in here. You haven’t heard of anyone trying to remove its status and develop it, have you?”
“No, but I’m not usually attuned to such matters. What’s so special about it?”
“Well, this is where most of your leatherwoods are. Did you notice on the hike in?”
“No, I was mostly trying to get to the coordinates as fast as possible. The leatherwoods are important why?”
“They’re the basis of your world-famous honey industry. And they support your pollinators, which in turn support your crops. They’re what William Howe got murdered for—indirectly, anyway. And they’re only growing scarcer.”
“Surely, we can plant more?”
“Absolutely. I’d recommend it. But it takes seventy years for them to produce nectar, and they don’t regenerate in burns. Deforestation is therefore long-term damage.”
“You know quite a bit about Tasmanian ecology.”
Atticus shrugged. “Part of my job with the Gaia Stewardship,” he said.
“Right, right. Well, I’ve done my job too. Turns out Mr. Saxby had a significant motive to kill William Howe after all.”
“He did?”
“William Howe and Evelyn Bickford-Hicks weren’t just in business together: they were engaged.”
“Oh, wow. How’d you find out about that?”
“A wedding invitation at Saxby’s house. Plus, once we got Evelyn’s phone in evidence, it became clear in her other texts with William that they were a couple.”
“Wild. So obviously he knew the victim. Was Evelyn in on it? Why would she keep that from us?”
“Precisely what I asked her! I called her back in. She claimed to be scared by television, because in so many of the mystery shows, it’s always the girlfriend or significant other who did it. I told her that’s often the way it is in real life, too; people are rarely murdered by perfect strangers. Then she admitted that she’s often shy about admitting the relationship, since she was older than Mr. Howe. Said people tended to judge her about it and insinuate that Mr. Howe was a gold digger.”
“A gold digger?”
Inspector Badgely nodded. “Ms. Bickford-Hicks inherited $3.4 million from her father’s death a few months ago. Royston Saxby’s uncle.”
“Ah, and Saxby was no doubt one of those who insinuated William was after her money.”
“Indeed he was, while nakedly pursuing it himself. He wanted her to invest the money with his firm. Ms. Bickford-Hicks admitted to me that she probably would have, with William out of the picture. So there’s your motive. But William himself wasn’t that sort; he had no idea her father was rich, and he proposed to her before she inherited anything. He wanted to open a honey business before the inheritance, and after the inheritance, his plans were unchanged.”
“So they had a genuine shot at happiness together, however unconventional it may have seemed, and Saxby ruined it.”
“That’s about the size of it. She didn’t want to believe her own cousin would do that to her, or else she might have thought of it earlier. So, Mr. Molloy. We have a solid case now but no criminal in custody. Are your hounds ready to continue?”
“Yes. Did you want to press on or rest for a while?”
“Oh, let’s press on. I don’t know if we can catch him before the sun sets, but that would be ideal.”
“All right. Oberon! Starbuck! Let’s go! Find the man.”
He’s moved a bit, but we should be able to catch up in a half hour or so. Cross the stream and head up the hill, please, pretending you have his scent in your nose.
We forded the stream and started smelling stuff as we went uphill. Caterpillars smell like vegetable pudding, in case you were wondering. Not my favorite thing. Yuck!
I noticed when I looked back that Inspector Badgely was walking next to Atticus and both of them were smiling. Maybe it was a preliminary human mating ritual and maybe it was just talking, but proximity had to be good, I figured. Though I’m not very clear on that. Apparently, there are mating rituals now that involve texting and emojis. For some reason, eggplants are significant. Humans are strange.
Near the top of the hill we actually caught Royston Saxby’s scent again.
What?
Okay, I want yo
u to stop right there, turn around, and bark quietly at me, a single woof.
We didn’t understand why but did as he said, and Atticus used our barks to tell the police we’d found something.
“He must be close by,” Atticus said, and after excusing himself from Inspector Badgely, he hurried to catch up to us, speaking to us mentally as he came.
Same as before, be extra wary of traps now. He’s only about ten minutes away—he must have been resting while we were, or setting a trap—and he has to be armed. I don’t want either of you to get hurt. Once we find him, we can let the police capture him. But I might cast camouflage on you when you get near; he’s a very good shot and I don’t want him to be able to take aim. In fact…let’s purposely flank him and not follow that scent again. I really don’t trust him, and following him will force us to slow down instead of catch up. He may have heard us in the valley and prepared something nasty. So, go uphill but not in his tracks; I’ll go with you and send you ahead to spot him when we get close.
We continued straight up, but this time, Atticus was right behind us instead of like a thousand miles behind. The police lagged, discovering that Atticus had just been being polite before. We were moving fast the way a Druid and his hounds can.
Once we topped the hill and went a little way down the other side, out of sight of the police, Atticus told us to hold up while he communed with the elemental.
The undergrowth in the wilderness was thicker than in the east, lots of ferns and broad-leafed bushes, but it wasn’t full-on choking jungle, either. I could see pretty well, and Starbuck perhaps less so due to his shorter stature. Atticus said the best that the elemental could tell, Royston Saxby was still on the same hillside as us but near the bottom. If he crossed over and got to high ground before we got there, that would be bad.
There were far too many trees and bushes in the way for me to see anything, but Starbuck cocked his head and his bat-like ears went straight up, then rotated a tiny bit as he tried to zero in on something downhill.
Okay. Let’s head down and try to spot him. Then we’ll get the police involved.
Atticus cast camouflage on us, and my fur and skin tingled like always. Starbuck and Atticus melted from my vision. It was the endgame.
Straight down; I think he’s off to the right, Atticus said, and we plunged into the underbrush, Atticus following close behind.
We were making plenty of noise on our own; we were sacrificing stealth for speed. I heard Starbuck’s little paws hitting the ground behind me and his cute little panting breaths, but he heard more than that.
He’s arming himself. He’s got his bow.
A twang and whap reached my ears right before a searing line of pain cut across my chest. I yelped, because that’s what you do when something startles you with pain.
Oberon! What happened? Atticus said, but the answer was clear as a thunk followed and a shaft quivered in a leatherwood tree trunk. Saxby had fired an arrow at the noise we were making and had nearly got me.
Okay. Stay very low to the ground and keep making as much noise as possible. It will distract him while we flank him.
I started howling. Or yodeling, maybe. Just making a bunch of racket, trying to sing like a human, unable to remember lyrics under stress, so I did my best imitation of Michael Jackson’s hoots and grunts. Atticus and Starbuck swung away to the right under cover of that noise while I continued to creep downhill and tried to ignore the stinging in my chest. Looking right, a gap in the underbrush allowed me to actually see Saxby standing flush against the trunk of a tree on his uphill side. He had another arrow nocked and was beginning to pull it back, aiming directly at me—or maybe a bit over my head. But my howls abruptly had some competition: Behind us, I heard the police shouting. My distress had summoned the proverbial cavalry.
Saxby snarled, peeked around the tree trunk, and swung his aim uphill, to my horror. Where were Atticus and Starbuck? I pivoted and started barking instead of howling to try to scare Saxby at the last second, but he let fly with his shot anyway, and a cry uphill told me he’d hit someone. It sounded a bit like Constable Fosse. I barked again, really mad, putting some growls in between each one, and Saxby drew another arrow from his quiver, his eyes searching for me. As he straightened his left arm, pointing the bow in my direction and nocking the arrow, a blur from uphill interrupted him. His left arm swung down with a sudden weight hung onto it, and he grunted in surprise and dropped both bow and arrow.
Starbuck, run! Get out of there!
Saxby came up with a handgun, one of those modern kinds with lots of bullets, not a six-shooter. He began shooting at the blurred form making noise, cursing all the while.
“Thank you, Mr. Molloy,” the inspector said, keeping her gun trained on Saxby as the sergeant holstered her weapon and got out her handcuffs.
“My pleasure. Is Constable Fosse all right?”
“He’ll live, but he took an arrow to the knee.”
I am never playing video games with you again, he said.
“So you popped him in the knee in return?” Atticus asked.
The inspector shook her head the tiniest bit. “The sergeant did that.”
“Justice for Fosse and justice for William Howe,” she said, and then formally arrested a moaning and bleeding Royston Saxby and put the handcuffs on him.
All Will Bee Well
ATTICUS TOLD ME and Starbuck what incredibly good hounds we were and promised us an extraordinary meal once we got back to Launceston. He also spent some time healing up my scratch and making sure it wasn’t infected.
Are you feeling dizzy at all? he asked. Light-headed?
When did you meet her?
Atticus volunteered to help field-dress both Constable Fosse and Saxby’s wounds because he claimed to have some medical training, and the police had brought along some first aid kits. It was really just an excuse to lay his hands on them and perform just enough magical healing to make sure they wouldn’t bleed to death or get their wounds infected. Then they had to rig up two of these things that Atticus called a travois so that we could haul the wounded men out of the wilderness. One was going to be pulled by me; of course I wanted to help Constable Fosse get to a hospital! Inspector Badgely came over and gave me lots of pets and scratches and made those really adorable high-pitched noises of joy as she thanked me for my help.
Atticus and some of the other constables took turns hauling Saxby out. It wasn’t a comfortable hike for anyone, and if everyone had been okay, we would have camped for the night, but since Constable Fo
sse needed medical attention, that was a priority, and we pushed on past sundown. We were all dang tired when we got back to the vehicles, and there were a couple of ambulances waiting there for Constable Fosse and Saxby. They were taken to North West Regional Hospital in Burnie and we followed behind in the inspector’s car.
“I can’t thank you enough for your help on this case, Mr. Molloy.”
“You can call me Connor.”
“Not yet. Until Mr. Saxby is sentenced, I need to remain completely formal. You’re a witness and will need to testify and so on.”
“Oh! Right. Yes, I understand completely.”
“I’d be pleased to call you Connor after that.”
She took her eyes off the road for a moment to smile at Atticus, and he smiled back.
“And would I be able to call you Rose?”
“Yes. I hope you will. You’d better.”
“It’s a deal, then, Inspector Badgely.”
They didn’t say anything for a while after that, but they were both grinning an awful lot.
I do believe it was, Oberon. I’ll be able to ask Rose out and she’ll be able to say yes after the case is officially over. Your wish is granted.
I do; you’re right. While we were hiking out of there, I was thinking about Evelyn Bickford-Hicks and how she saw a chance to be happy and went after it in spite of what her family and friends might think of her or William, and I thought maybe I’ve been letting my responsibilities discourage me from accepting joy where I find it.
Do you mean Hamilton, the founding father who was not throwing away his shot?
Fair enough. It’s good advice. If I have a shot at some happiness here, then I should take it. What are you going to call this case, anyway?
That works. We’ll have to see if we can find some great food in Burnie.