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I had a bad feeling about this.
“It was Clay,” she said. “I found out he’d overheard me telling a friend about joining the online dating site. He figured out what my user name was and he pretended to be that nice, widowed doctor. I told him things I’d never told anyone—not even my late husband. And then he sat there in that restaurant, for an hour and a half, watching me wait.”
“What a horrible thing to do!”
“So, ever since then—as I said, a very small community. No way I could keep from ru
She shook her head and blew her nose vigorously.
“And I’m sure everyone else knows all about it, and someone must have told the chief,” she said, more briskly. “And he’s right to suspect me of knocking off Clay. I didn’t do it, but I half want to thank whoever did. I just wish I had some kind of an alibi.”
“What were you doing instead of being alibied?” I asked.
“At home, watching TV and using the computer,” she said. “All by my lonesome, so I can’t prove a thing. So maybe the chief should just come and put the cuffs on now.”
“Because you hated Clay?” I said. “Take a number.”
She laughed a little at that.
“And besides,” I went on. “Maybe you can prove you were home. Were you doing anything online with your computer?
“Why?” She suddenly looked wary again.
“Because creepy and Big Brotherish as it sounds, these days they might be able to trace what you were doing online, and where you were doing it from.”
“Really?” She didn’t look upset at the idea. More hopeful.
“Really. Mutant Wizards, the computer game company my brother owns, had a problem last year with confidential information getting leaked, and they were able to figure out that someone was logging into the company’s computers from the house of an employee of his biggest competitor. They shut down the leak and I think the DA filed criminal charges against the data thief. So if you were doing something online…”
“I was.” She looked embarrassed. And just when I thought she wasn’t going to say anything else, she blurted out, “I reactivated my online dating profile. I’ve been talking to two guys, for a month or two now. Neither one of them seems quite as perfect for me as that nice, widowed doctor Clay pretended to be. But that could be because they’re real people. At least so far I think they are. Could be a while before I get up enough nerve to meet either of them in the real world to be sure. You think there’s any chance one of them might alibi me?”
“They would have no idea where you were chatting from,” I said. “But whatever company you get Internet from might be able to tell that you were online, and where, and for how long. I don’t know for sure, but it’s worth a try,” I said.
“How do I go about finding out?”
“Tell the chief. He’s got excellent consultants he can use. And I know that for sure, because they work for my brother. After that data theft problem, he realized there was a big market for cutting-edge forensic data analysis, so he started a division to do it. If anyone can prove your alibi, Mutant Wizards can. Just tell the chief.”
“Thanks.” She stood up and squared her shoulders. “I will.”
“If you like, I can tell him what you just told me,” I said. “So you don’t have to explain it all over again. I don’t even have to tell him about what Clay did. Just that you were chatting online with friends, and had no idea that could be traced.”
“Oh, would you?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Thank you.” She sat down again, and began stringing her garland again, but she wasn’t quite so slumped, and she seemed to have more energy.
I decided not to call to tell the chief. Linda had already suffered enough from people overhearing her business. I typed out a detailed e-mail on my phone.
By around five, most of the workmen and decorators had left. Mother was still rearranging ornaments on her Christmas tree, and Ivy was painting away above her head, but the rest of the house was peaceful. And it was getting cold outside, so I moved my base of operations back into the foyer.
“Meg! It’s lovely!”
My old friend Caroline Willner popped through the front door and begin shedding her scarf, gloves, hat, and coat. “Your mother invited me to come and get a sneak preview.”
“Is this going to take long?” Grandfather came stumping in behind her. From his expression I suspected he’d have considered wrestling alligators preferable to inspecting interior design. But he and Caroline were good friends—she often accompanied him on his trips to rescue abused animals and endangered species—so I assumed he was returning the favor by coming along to keep her company.
“We won’t be long,” Mother said, giving Grandfather a kiss on the cheek. “Why don’t you talk to Meg while we do our tour.”
She and Caroline sailed off, and from the amount of time they were taking in the first room—Sarah’s study—I could tell that her definition of “not long” would probably differ significantly from Grandfather’s.
“So, is this where you had one of them bumped off?” he asked.
“Not here,” I said. “Upstairs. And all I did was find him.”
“Show me.”
Chapter 12
I led Grandfather upstairs to the master suite, but since the workmen had done a good job of cleaning up and repairing it, there wasn’t that much to see. But while he was poking around—hoping, perhaps, to find a stray blood spatter the workmen had overlooked—I went out into the hall to see how Ivy was coming along.
Her “Nightingale” mural was splendid. The Emperor of China, clad in cloth of gold, sat in the center, surrounded by courtiers, all staring at a tiny bejeweled clockwork bird. Up in the top left corner of the wall lurked a small bird whose muted gray-brown color echoed Ivy’s soft, drab garments.
Grandfather ambled along the hall and studied the glittering court with little interest. Then he spotted the bird.
“So what’s this?” Grandfather said. “Ah! Luscinia megarhynchos!”
“The common nightingale,” I translated. Grandfather rarely stopped to consider the feelings of people who, not being professional zoologists, hadn’t memorized the Latin names of every species in creation.
“Not bad.” Grandfather was on his tiptoes, inspecting the nightingale at close quarters. “Not bad at all. What’s all the rest of this?”
“You know Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the nightingale, don’t you?” Ivy asked.
“Not much for fairy tales,” Grandfather said.
“The Emperor of China had a wonderful palace,” Ivy began, not looking up from her work. “It was built entirely of porcelain, and in the garden all the flowers had tiny bells tied to them that tinkled gently with the slightest breeze.”
“Hmph.” Grandfather’s snort seemed to suggest that he found this a silly kind of place, but he didn’t actually interrupt Ivy.
“But the emperor heard that the nightingale’s song was more beautiful than anything in his palace,” Ivy went on.
Grandfather nodded approvingly at this note of natural history.
“So he sent for the bird to sing at his court. And everyone loved the bird’s song so much that the emperor decreed that she should live at his court in a golden cage and sing for them every night. And she was only allowed to fly outside the cage with twelve courtiers holding on to her with silken ribbons.”
I was relieved to see that Grandfather refrained from denouncing this shocking example of animal abuse, contenting himself with frowning thunderously.
“And then the Emperor of Japan, the Chinese emperor’s arch rival, sent him another nightingale—a clockwork one, encrusted with gold and jewels. And even though it always sang the same song, the golden nightingale was so ingenious, and so beautiful compared to the plain brown nightingale—”